Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the adequacy of polyunsaturated fatty acid intake by rural Bangladeshi children 24 to 48 months old in relation to their breast-feeding status. Materials and Methods: Multistage sampling was used to select a representative sample of children 24 to 48 months of age from 2 rural districts in Bangladesh (n = 479). Two nonconsecutive 24-hour periods of dietary data were collected via 12-hour daytime in-home observations and recall. Breast milk intake was estimated using test weighing. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) method for episodically consumed foods was used to estimate distributions of usual food and nutrient intakes. Results: Based on the estimated intake distributions, >95% of the children had usual fat intakes <30% of total energy. Among 24- to 35-month-old (younger) and 36- to 48-month-old (older) children, respectively, 4% and 16% of breast-feeding children and 31% and 41% of non–breast-feeding children were estimated to consume <10% of total energy from fat. An estimated 80% of all of the children consumed <4% of total energy as linoleic acid, and 99% consumed <1% of energy as α-linolenic acid. Younger breast-feeding children had higher estimated average docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) intakes (0.04 g DHA/day) than their non–breast-feeding counterparts (0.01 g DHA/day; P = 0.0005). Both breast-feeding and non–breast-feeding older children had estimated mean DHA intakes of 0.02 g/day (P = 0.74). Conclusions: Rural Bangladeshi children 24 to 48 months old, and especially those who have discontinued breast-feeding, may benefit from increased fat consumption.


Extracted from text ...UNDERSTANDING THE NEED FOR ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION IN SOUTH AFRICA Tameshnie Deane (University of South Africa) 1 Background To understand a country's present situation there is a need to look at that country's past, since much of what has happened in the past forms the basis for action taken in the present. South Africa was a country that was ruled under a political system called apartheid. Apartheid was based on the policy of the segregation of races through legislation. Racial discrimination was one of the defining features of apartheid in South Africa and was entrenched in a range of ..


The bacteria Shigella flexneri causes dysentery as a consequence of its infection of colonic epithelial cells. Arbibe et al. show that the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase MEK1 was activated (phosphorylated) in HeKa cells infected with Shigella; however, activation (phosphorylation) of the downstream MEK target extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) did not occur. Inactive, dephosphorylated ERK accumulated in the nucleus in shigella-infected cells, which suggests that shigella may trigger ERK dephosphorylation. Shigella delivers bacterial proteins to the infected cell using a type III secretion system. Bacterial supernatants were assayed for an ERK2 dephosphorylating activity, and OspF was determined to have such an activity. Purified OspF was a dual-specificity phosphatase that dephosphorylated ERK2 at both threonine and tyrosine residues. Infection of Caco-2 cells (a human intestinal epithelial cell line) with wild-type or an ospF mutant strain showed that in the absence of active OspF, shigella infection stimulated ERK and p38 phosphorylation. Microarray analysis of infected cells showed that 46 genes were specifically up-regulated in response to infection with the ospF mutant. These included mitogen-activated protein kinase target genes, immediate early genes, and a subset of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB)-regulated genes. Because interleukin 8 (IL-8) is a critical chemoattractant signal for polymorphonuclear leukocytes that clear shigella infection and is also regulated by NF-κB, the authors focused on the gene encoding this chemokine, which was up-regulated in cells infected with the ospF mutant compared with those infected with wild-type shigella. Wild-type and the ospF mutant both activated NF-κB to the same extent; however, only in the ospF mutant-infected cells was there a transient increase in the phosphorylation of histone H3 at Ser10, a site known to be involved in increasing the accessibility of the promoter to NF-κB. Analysis of the IL8 promoter by chromatin immunoprecipitation showed that when OspF was inactivated, there was substantial phosphorylation of H3 at Ser10 and recruitment of NF-κB upon shigella infection, whereas cells infected with wild-type shigella did not exhibit this response. The importance of OspF in vivo was assessed in a rabbit model of infection and showed that the ospF strain caused more extensive lesions and massive recruitment of polymorphonuclear leukocytes into the intestinal lumen. Thus, by dephosphorylating nuclear ERK, shigella fine-tunes the host gene expression profile to dampen the immune response and promote infection (see Grassl and Finlay for discussion). L. Arbibe, D. W. Kim, E. Batsche, T. Pedron, B. Mateescu, C. Muchardt, C. Parsot, P. J. Sansonetti, An injected bacterial effector targets chromatin access for transcription factor NF-κB to alter transcription of host genes involved in immune responses. Nat. Immunol. 8, 47-56 (2007). [PubMed] G. A. Grassl, B. B. Finlay, Shigella rewrites host transcriptional responses. Nat. Immunol. 8, 15-16 (2007). [PubMed]


Rhyolitic pyroclastic deposits, mostly ignimbrites (ash-and-pumice flow deposits) from plinian eruptions belonging to the early activity (> 2.5 Ma) of the Plio-Quaternary Monts Dore volcanic field (Massif central, France) are documented in order to provide lithofacies and compositional data that could serve as a rational basis for ignimbrite discrimination and tephrostratigraphic correlations. We define or redefine six major pyroclastic units (five ignimbrites and one pumice fallout deposit), based mainly on pumice texture and mineral assemblage. Pumices and quartz-hosted glass inclusions are rather uniform compositionally, being high-silica rhyolites with very low CaO, MgO and FeO contents. Juvenile mineral assemblages are K-feldspar ± quartz ± plagioclase, with rare biotite ± amphibole + accessory phases (mostly sphene, zircon, oxides, apatite). The feldspars, biotite and amphibole compositions of all units strongly overlap and poorly constrain ignimbrite discrimination. These data provide clues to some volcanological issues under debate in the Monts Dore volcanic field. The major rhyolitic pyroclastics found on the Monts Dore margins, e.g. the conspicuous « Grande Nappe » unit of previous authors, are here interpreted as stratigraphical units beneath those exposed in proximal areas, and concealed in the central structural depression (caldera) suggested by previous gravimetric studies. The poorly constrained caldera geometry should be envisioned as a compound, polygenic structure related to several ignimbrite eruptions spanning at least 350 ky, whose vent locations may have shifted with time. The very scarce Fe-Mg silicate phases, biotite and amphibole found in the pumices and ignimbrite matrices show complex compositional populations which can be explained only partly by xenocrystic contamination and require further petrological investigations.


Motion capture (MoCap) is an increasingly important technique to create realistic human motion for animation. However MoCap data are noisy, the resulting animation is often inaccurate and unrealistic without elaborate manual processing of the data. In this paper, we will discuss practical issues for MoCap driven character animation, particularly when using commercial toolkits. We highlight open topics in this field for future research. MoCap animations created in this project will be demonstrated at the conference.


ABSTRACT Phase change materials (PCMs) can be used to enhance the thermal energy storage capacity of a building element to improve indoor thermal comfort conditions and decrease energy usage, yet these effects need to be carefully analysed to achieve the desired benefits. This paper proposes an evaluation methodology for building envelopes: first, a numerical computational fluid dynamics model is validated by experimental work; then, time-dependent simulations are used to analyse monthly energy requirements and heat flux. A sample flat roof is evaluated in terms of required cooling load with and without PCM in Turkey's climate zones. Graphical phase change representations and heat flux results were used to evaluate the cooling load reduction in addition to the effects of PCM type and PCM amount and the necessity for night cooling. In conclusion, the methodology is flexible and can be utilized to evaluate the building element for various parameters.


Over the last two decades, a number of factors have converged to produce a major rethink about the field of Industrial Relations. Globalization, the decline of trade unions, the spread of high performance work systems and the emergence of a more feminized, flexible work-force have opened new avenues of inquiry. The SAGE Handbook of Industrial Relations charts these changes and analyzes them. It provides a systematic, comprehensive survey of the field.

The book is organized into four interrelated sections:

" Theorizing Industrial Relations

" The changing institutions that shape employment practice

" The processes used by governments, employers and unions

" Income inequality, employee wellbeing, business performance and national comparative advantages

The result is a work of unprecedented scope and unparalleled ambition. It offers a compete guide to the central debates, new developments and emerging themes in the field. It will quickly be recognized as the indispensable reference for Teachers, Students and Researchers. It is relevant to economists, lawyers, sociologists, business and management researchers and Industrial Relations specialists.


Many startups have embraced formal experimentation — i.e., A/B testing — to improve the performance of their products and services. Experimentation, some have argued, should democratize innovation inside organizations by creating a platform to rigorously test new ideas, regardless of origin. In this article, we argue that experimentation's promise hinges on having the right organizational decision-making process — one that encourages innovation but without the added risk of unanticipated failures. We study this question by developing a model of experimentation inside organizations where decisions to implement are either centralized or decentralized — a tension identified by practitioners and scholars alike. We find that startups with centralized mechanisms that rely too much on the input of other teams benefit least from experimentation, as do ones with completely decentralized ones. In contrast, startups with mostly decentralized decisions, with a single authority that sets consistent thresholds for implementation, achieve growth but with less downside risk. Thus, without considering the politics that guide organizational decision-making, the benefits of experimentation may be limited.


Commonly used sequential decision making tasks such as the games in the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE) provide rich observation spaces suitable for deep reinforcement learning. However, they consist mostly of low-level control tasks which are of limited use for the development of explainable artificial intelligence(XAI) due to the fine temporal resolution of the tasks. Many of these domains also lack built-in high level abstractions and symbols. Existing tasks that provide for both strategic decision-making and rich observation spaces are either difficult to simulate or are intractable. We provide a set of new strategic decision-making tasks specialized for the development and evaluation of explainable AI methods, built as constrained mini-games within the StarCraft II Learning Environment.


Abstract:Democracy in Indonesia is under attack from within. Despite high levels of democratic commitment from voters and elites, President Joko Widodo has sidelined democracy for the sake of economic development, his avowed main priority. Under his tenure, free elections have been threatened, civil liberties have declined, corruption fighters and legislative checks weakened, and the armed forces' role in civilian affairs has grown. Elected local officials whose terms end before the 2024 elections will be replaced by Jokowi's appointees. The large number of offices contested in those elections will unnecessarily and dangerously burden election officials.


The U.S. Congress charged the National Academies with conducting a review of the Internal Revenue Code to identify the types of and specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate the magnitude of those effects. To address such a broad charge, the National Academies appointed a committee composed of experts in tax policy, energy and environmental modeling, economics, environmental law, climate science, and related areas. For scientific background to produce Effects of U.S. Tax Policy on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the committee relied on the earlier findings and studies by the National Academies, the U.S. government, and other research organizations. The committee has relied on earlier reports and studies to set the boundaries of the economic, environmental, and regulatory assumptions for the present study. The major economic and environmental assumptions are those developed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its annual reports and modeling. Additionally, the committee has relied upon publicly available data provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which inventories greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from different sources in the United States. The tax system affects emissions primarily through changes in the prices of inputs and outputs or goods and services. Most of the tax provisions considered in this report relate directly to the production or consumption of different energy sources. However, there is a substantial set of tax expenditures called "broad-based" that favor certain categories of consumption-among them, employer-provided health care, owner-occupied housing, and purchase of new plants and equipment. Effects of U.S. Tax Policy on Greenhouse Gas Emissions examines both tax expenditures and excise taxes that could have a significant impact on GHG emissions.


Abstract:  Melatonin is an important natural oncostatic agent. At present there are no data available as to its possible influence on tumor angiogenesis, which is a major biological mechanism responsible for tumor growth and dissemination. It is well known that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is crucial to a solid tumor's higher vascularization and development. To investigate the possible influence of melatonin on angiogenesis, we studied the effect of melatonin on endogenous VEGF expression in three human cancer cell lines (PANC‐1, HeLa and A549 cells). In this study, we report that physiologic concentrations of melatonin have no obvious impact on the VEGF expression, whereas pharmacologic concentrations of melatonin suppress the VEGF mRNA and protein levels induced by hypoxia mimetic cobalt chloride (CoCl2). Melatonin also decreases hypoxia‐inducible factor (HIF)‐1α protein levels, suggesting a role for transcription factor HIF‐1 in the suppression of VEGF expression. The effect of pharmacologic concentrations of melatonin on VEGF and HIF‐1α under normoxia is uncertain, which indicates that the regulatory mechanisms of VEGF in the absence or presence of CoCl2 are different and other or additional transcription factors may be involved. Taken together, our data show that melatonin in high concentrations markedly reduces the expression of endogenous VEGF and HIF‐1α induced by CoCl2 in cultured cancer cells.


A qualitative as well as quantitative investigation is made of the conditions for avoiding wave breaking during pulse propagation in optical fibers. In particular, it is shown that pulses having a parabolic intensity variation are approximate wave-breaking-free solutions of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation in the high-intensity limit. A simple expression for the compression factor of a fiber-grating compressor based on parabolic pulses is also derived.


A simple electrospinning technique is employed for the preparation of high-performance V2O5 nanofibers. The fibers thus prepared are subjected to heat treatment under the optimized conditions at 400 °C in air to achieve a single phase. The powder X-ray diffraction pattern confirms the formation of an orthorhombic structure with Pmmn space group. Morphological studies conducted by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), clearly reveal the presence of a highly interconnected network of fibers with the diameter ranging from approximately 500–800 nm. After the heat treatment, translation of smooth fibrous morphology into porous fibers with embedded nanocrystals of V2O5 is noticed from the SEM measurements. The sintered V2O5 nanofibers are used to fabricate a hybrid electrochemical capacitor (HEC) and it is coupled with a substrate-free single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) network (called "Bucky paper") in a conventional organic electrolyte solution. Supercapacitive behavior of HEC is studied in both potentiostatic and galvanostatic modes at room temperature. The HEC demonstrated very stable and excellent cycling behavior during 3500 cycles of galvanostatic charge and discharge tests. This hybrid system is also well established during the rate capability studies from the applied current density of 30 to 210 mA g−1 and delivered maximum energy and power densities of 18 Wh kg−1 and 315 W kg−1, respectively.


ABSTRACT Stressful conditions affect communities at different levels and may involve occupational groups not normally associated with issues of crisis and security. Teachers in the compulsory school system are members of such a group. The purpose of this study is to examine teachers' view of their own role as crisis management actors in a female-dominated occupation. A Grounded Theory approach applying a gender perspective was used as an analytical tool for data processing. In total, 16 informants from four different schools in two different municipalities in Sweden were interviewed. The analysis of these interviews shows that teachers' perceptions of risk, crisis, and security are influenced and characterized by social and emotional regulation aimed at (a) reducing vulnerability, (b) increasing the sense of security, and (c) regaining or restoring a sense of order and control. These strategies have been discussed from a gender perspective as teachers do not regard themselves as legitimate crisis management actors.


This paper assesses whether the Indonesia Early Childhood Education and Development project had an impact on early achievement gaps as measured by an array of child development outcomes and enrollment. The analysis is based on longitudinal data collected in 2009 and 2010 on approximately 3,000 four-year-old children residing in 310 villages located in nine districts across Indonesia. The study begins by documenting the intent-to-treat impact of the project. It then compares the achievement gaps between richer and poorer children living in project villages with those of richer and poorer children living in non-project villages. There is clear evidence that in project villages, the achievement gap between richer and poorer children decreased on many dimensions. By contrast, in non-project villages, this gap either increased or stayed constant. Given Indonesia's interest in increasing access to early childhood services for all children, and the need to ensure more efficient spending on education, the paper discusses how three existing policies and programs could be leveraged to ensure that Indonesia's vision for holistic, integrated early childhood services becomes a reality. The lessons from Indonesia's experience apply more broadly to countries seeking to reduce early achievement gaps and expand access to pre-primary education.


A consensus now exists that central banks, which possess a monopoly over the creation of fiat money (the monetary base), control trend inflation. But how do they exercise this control, especially given that their use of the interest rate as the policy instrument renders money endogenous (determined by market forces)? This paper considers two alternatives. First, central banks control inflation through the way that they manipulate the unemployment rate (subject to a trade-off between changes in inflation and the amount of excess unemployment as summarized in a Phillips curve). Second, and alternatively, central banks control inflation by following consistent procedures that combine two characteristics. Through their consistency, these procedures provide for a nominal anchor by causing the public to expect low trend inflation that is stable in the sense of being unaffected by inflation and recession shocks. Also, they allow the price system to work in the sense of allowing market forces to determine real variables such as the unemployment rate.


The discovery of a transient kilonova following the gravitational-wave (GW) event GW170817 highlighted the critical need for coordinated rapid and wide-field observations, inference, and follow-up across the electromagnetic spectrum. In the southern hemisphere, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4 m telescope is well suited to this task, as it is able to cover wide fields quickly while still achieving the depths required to find kilonovae like the one accompanying GW170817 to ∼500 Mpc, the binary neutron star (NS) horizon distance for current generation of LIGO/Virgo collaboration (LVC) interferometers. Here, as part of the multi-facility follow-up by the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen collaboration, we describe the observations and automated data movement, data reduction, candidate discovery, and vetting pipeline of our target-of-opportunity DECam observations of S190426c, the first possible NS–black hole merger detected in GWs. Starting 7.5 hr after S190426c, over 11.28 hr of observations, we imaged an area of 525 deg2 (r band) and 437 deg2 (z band); this was 16.3% of the total original localization probability, and nearly all of the probability visible from the southern hemisphere. The machine-learning-based pipeline was optimized for fast turnaround, delivering transients for human vetting within 17 minutes, on average, of shutter closure. We reported nine promising counterpart candidates 2.5 hr before the end of our observations. One hour after our data-taking ended (roughly 20 hr after the announcement of S190426c), LVC released a refined skymap that reduced the probability coverage of our observations to 8.0%, demonstrating a critical need for localization updates on shorter (∼hour) timescales. Our observations yielded no detection of a bona fide counterpart to mz = 21.7 and mr = 22.2 at the 5σ level of significance, consistent with the refined LVC positioning. We view these observations and rapid inferencing as an important real-world test for this novel end-to-end wide-field pipeline.


Abstract Data visualizations can serve as an integral component of online climate change research dissemination strategies, as they are effective and efficient ways for attracting diverse public audiences and delivering research information in a timely fashion. However, these visualizations can be highly varied in terms of form and ways of interaction, and this raises questions about the particular qualities of such media that influence their ability to connect with and inform diverse audiences. This study addresses these questions by building visualizations of secondary energy production and consumption trends in Canada and evaluating their impact through focus group methodology. Two visualizations were built that held contrasting features: an abstract, static visualization built in the form of a time-series graph and a dynamic, interactive visualization with a 'picturesque' design. The results indicate that the interactive visualization held higher potential for drawing in and maintaining audience interests, whereas the static visualization was more useful for users wishing to gain a more detailed understanding of the data. These findings suggest that both types of visualizations have complementary strengths, and collaboration between trans-disciplinary research teams and graphic artists can lead to visualizations that attract diverse audiences and facilitate different information needs and access.


Family law has long been intensely interested in certain adult intimate relationships, namely marriage and marriage-like relationships, and silent about other adult intimate relationships, namely friendship. This Article examines the effects of that focus, illustrating how it frustrates one of the goals embraced by most family law scholars over the past forty years: the achievement of gender equality, within the family and without. Part I examines the current scope of family law doctrine and scholarship, highlighting the ways that the home is still the organizing structure for family. Despite calls for increased legal recognition of diverse families, few scholars have considered whether family law should recognize care provided outside of the home, and no scholar has considered whether family law should recognize the care provided and received by friends. Part II turns to friendship, considering the practices of people who self-identify as friends and the ways that such practices are already influenced by the law's maintenance of a divide between friendship and family. That divide amounts to state support of the types of domestic caregiving that traditionally played vital roles in maintaining state-supported patriarchy and that still largely follow gendered patterns today. Family law thereby reinforces traditional gender role expectations rather than alleviating them. Part III then explores how simultaneous legal recognition of friendship and family could lead to greater opportunities to structure life free from state-supported gender role expectations. By supporting more pluralistic personal relationships and conceptions of care, family law could transform not just friendship and marriage, but gender itself.


2013 Fossil apes are known from several late Miocene localities in Yunnan Province, southwestern China, principally from Shihuiba (Lufeng) and the Yuanmou Basin, and represent three species of Lufengpithecus. They mostly comprise large samples of isolated teeth, but there are also several partial or complete adult crania from Shihuiba and a single juvenile cranium from Yuanmou. Here we describe a new, relatively complete and largely undistorted juvenile cranium from the terminal Miocene locality of Shuitangba, also in Yunnan. It is only the second ape juvenile cranium recovered from the Miocene of Eurasia and it is provisionally assigned to the species present at Shihuiba, Lufengpithecus lufengensis . Lufengpithecus has most often been linked to the extant orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus , but recent studies of the crania from Shihuiba and Yuanmou have demonstrated that this is unlikely. The new cranium reinforces the view that Lufengpithecus represents a distinct, late surviving lineage of large apes in the late Miocene of East Asia that does not appear to be closely affiliated with any extant ape lineage. It substantially increases knowledge of cranial morphology in Lufengpithecus and demonstrates that species of this genus represent a morphologically diverse radiation of apes, which is consistent with the dynamic tectonic and biotic milieu of southwestern China in the late


Over the past two decades, headwater streams of the northern hemisphere have shown increased amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), coinciding with decreased acid deposition. The exact nature of the mechanistic link between precipitation composition and stream water DOC is still widely debated in the literature. We hypothesize that soil aggregates are the main source of stream water DOC and that DOC release is greater in organic rich, riparian soils versus hillslope soils. To test these hypotheses, we collected soils from two main landscape positions (hillslope and riparian zones) from the acid-impacted Sleepers River Research Watershed in northeastern Vermont. We performed aqueous soil extracts with solutions of different ionic strength (IS) and composition to simulate changes in soil solution. We monitored dynamic changes in soil particle size, aggregate architecture and composition, leachate DOC concentrations, dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics with fluorescence spectroscopy and trends in bioavailability. In low IS solutions, extractable DOC concentrations were significantly higher, particle size (by laser diffraction) was significantly smaller and organic material was separated from mineral particles in scanning electron microscope observations. Furthermore, higher DOC concentrations were found in Na+ compared to Ca2+ solutions of the same IS. These effects are attributed to aggregate dispersion due to expanding diffuse double layers in decreased IS solutions and to decreased bridging by divalent cations. Landscape position impacted quality but not quantity of released DOC. Overall, these results indicate that soil aggregates might be one important link between Critical Zone inputs (i.e. precipitation) and exports in streams.


Due to uncertainties regarding quality in terms of both product and seller, information asymmetry is a significant problem for consumers in the online marketplace. Online sellers are keen to improve their sales by highlighting quality signals such as price, reputation, and e-WOM. In traditional offline markets, place of origin (POO) as an extrinsic cue is an effective indicator through which consumers can evaluate product quality and make consumption decisions. However, its effect on consumers' purchase decisions in the online marketplace has not been closely examined. In this study, we analyze the impact of POO and its interactive effects with other existing quality signals based on a transaction panel dataset from one of the biggest online marketplaces in the word. Our results demonstrate that POO signal has a significant and positive effect on online retailers' sales. Furthermore, when multiple quality signals coexist in the online marketplace, the positive effect of POO is attenuated by both word of mouth (WOM) valence and seller's reputation. Our results highlight the importance of POO in the competitive online market and have implications both for academic research and for online retailing practice.


Muysken argues for four general "strategies" that characterize language contact phenomena across several levels of description. These strategies are (A) maximize structural coherence of the first language (L1); (B) maximize structural coherence of the second language (L2); (C) match between L1 and L2 patterns where possible; and (D) use universal language processing principles. These strategies are seen as choices that bilingual speakers make, individually and collectively, and that are influenced by multiple social, individual, and linguistic factors. This account has the clear advantage of unifying a seemingly very diverse set of language contact phenomena using a limited set of principles. One such phenomenon is cross-linguistic structural priming, the tendency of bilingual speakers to copy grammatical structures from a language recently used to another language (e.g., Hartsuiker, Pickering & Veltkamp, 2004), which Muysken considers an example of "bilingual interference". In this domain, I will explore how these strategies can be realized in terms of a psycholinguistic processing model, and whether these strategies can be reduced to even more basic principles.


Internet is a suitable, highly available and low cost publishing medium. Therefore a significant data is hosted and published using websites. In this domain some amount of data is directly present for common people and some of data is not publically distributed. Such kinds of data are utilizable by service providers and administrators for business intelligence and other similar applications. In this presented work the web data analysis or mining is the key area of investigation and experimental study. The web data mining can be dividing in three major classes i.e. web content mining, web structure mining and web usages mining. In this work the web content mining and web usages mining is taken into consideration. First of all the web content mining is explored thus a system is developed for making comparative performance study of different content feature selection techniques. In this experiment the GINI index, Information Gain, DFS and Odd Ratio is compared using a real world collection of web pages. In order to classify the extracted features from the web contents the SVM (Support Vector Machine) is applied. The comparative study demonstrates the IG and GI is the suitable feature selection techniques that work well with the SVM classifier.


OBJECTIVE:Craniocerebral aspergillosis of sinonasal origin has been reported mainly in immunocompromised patients with high mortality, and it has been described very infrequently in immunocompetent hosts. This retrospective study focuses on clinical outcome in relation to anatomic locations of invasive aspergillosis of sinonasal origin in immunocompetent patients with emphasis on our preliminary experience with use of preoperative orally administered itraconazole. METHODS:Medical records of patients treated in two tertiary care hospitals from 1991 to 2003 were reviewed retrospectively. All patients had radiological evidence of disease in the paranasal sinuses with or without intracranial extension. The study cohort was divided into three types on the basis of area of involvement revealed by computed tomographic or magnetic resonance imaging scans of brain. All patients underwent surgical intervention and treatment with antifungal therapy. Preoperative orally administered itraconazole therapy was used in four patients on the basis of neuroradiological features. Clinical outcome was assessed with the Glasgow Outcome Scale, and univariate analysis of prognostic factors was performed with 95% confidence interval (P = 0.05). RESULTS:Mean patient age was 36.5 years (range, 14–74 yr) with a male preponderance (male-to-female ratio, 23:2). Nasal stuffiness (n = 13), headaches (n = 10), proptosis (n = 9), and nasal discharges (n = 7) were major presenting clinical features. Radiological data were obtained by computed tomographic (n = 25) and magnetic resonance imaging (n = 20) scans of the brain, and diagnoses were established by histopathological analysis (n = 20) or/and fungal cultures (n = 15). Preoperative orally administered itraconazole was given in four patients with intracerebral aspergillosis. Overall mortality was 28% and was highest in patients with Type 1 aspergillosis (66.7%). Type 3 aspergillosis and use of preoperative itraconazole remained statistically significant prognostic factors. CONCLUSION:Craniocerebral aspergillosis in immunocompetent hosts has three patterns of presentation that seem to correlate with clinical outcomes. Intracerebral aspergillosis (Type 1) is associated with the worst clinical outcome. Patients with orbital and cranial base aspergillosis (Type 3) had good recovery. Intracranial extradural aspergillosis (Type 2) remained intermediate on the Glasgow Outcome Scale. Preoperative orally administered itraconazole therapy may improve clinical outcome in patients with intracerebral aspergillosis. Prospective clinical studies are required to make firm clinical therapeutic recommendations.


In 1871, General William Jackson Palmer, a Civil War cavalry hero, dreamed of a Rocky Mountain resort town where sedate, temperate, wealthy folk could enjoy life in tranquil comfort. From its inception as a tiny resort hamlet, Colorado Springs has grown into the second largest city in the Colorado Rockies, with a projected population by 1990 of 400,000. Marshall Sprague tells the remarkable and colorful story of a community that, despite its massive growth, never abandoned its original vision of comfort and gentility. His account, illustrated with rare archival photographs, has been revised and enlarged for the 1990s. In the town's early years, rich easterners and Englishmen came seeking adventure, romance, and gentility. But when gold was discovered at nearby Cripple Creek in 1900, Colorado Springs became an instant boom town. A second major boom came several decades later, when local boosters persuaded the Army to choose Colorado Springs as the site for Fort Carson, a training center for 30,000 troops. Other military projects followed, including Peterson Field, Ent Air Force Base, the underground North American Air Defense Command Combat Operations Center, and in 1954, the U.S. Air Force Academy. More recent projects, discussed in a new final chapter, include the Olympic Training Center and the Olympic Hall of Fame, as well as high-tech industries and advances in culture, education, and recreation. As the city sprawls eastward onto the prairie, it bears little resemblance to General Palmer's 1871 village. Yet the general's dream of a quality town in a quality environment has continued to inspire generations of administrators and boosters who have made Colorado Springs a model of urban prosperity.


In this study, a novel procedure is presented for control and analysis of a group of autonomous agents with point mass dynamics achieving flocking motion by using a fuzzy-logic-based attractive/repulsive function. Two cooperative control laws are proposed for a group of autonomous agents to achieve flocking formations related to two different centers (mass center and geometric center) of the flock. The first one is designed for flocking motion guided at mass center and the other for geometric center. A virtual agent is introduced to represent a group objective for tracking purposes. Smooth graph Laplacian is introduced to overcome the difficulties in theoretical analysis. A new fuzzy-logic-based attractive/repulsive function is proposed for separation and cohesion control among agents. The theoretical results are presented to indicate the stability (separation, collision avoidance and velocity matching) of the control systems. Finally, simulation example is demonstrated to validate the theoretical results.


Background: Despite cerebrovascular diseases having been reported as one of the major causes of death among patients with bipolar disorder, there is scant information on the risk of stroke among this patient population. This study estimated the relative risk of developing stroke among patients with bipolar disorder in 6 years following hospitalization for an acute mood episode compared with patients undergoing appendectomy. Methods: Two study cohorts were identified from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database for the year 1998: patients hospitalized with bipolar disorder, and patients undergoing an appendectomy. Follow-up was undertaken to determine whethersampledpatientshadutilizedemergencymedicalservicesforthemanagementofanytypeofstrokeintheperiod1998–2003. Results: Stroke occurred among 2.97% of patients with bipolar disorder and 1.50% of patients undergoing appendectomy between 1998 and 2003. The adjusted odds ratio of developing stroke, by cohort, shows that after adjusting for demographic characteristics, comorbid medical disorder, and substance or alcohol dependence, patients with bipolar disorder were more likely to develop stroke (OR=2.05; 95% CI=1.73–3.54). Limitations: The validity of diagnoses, lacking of information on smoking, body mass index, and socioeconomic status, and possible selection bias might compromise the findings. Conclusions: During the six-year follow-up period, the likelihood of developing stroke was twice as great amongst patients with bipolar disorder as patients undergoing an appendectomy. A requirement exists for the initiation of research providing an understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of the association between stroke and bipolar disorder.


The Health Systems in Transition (HiT) profiles are country-based reports that provide a detailed description of health systems and of policy initiatives in progress or under development. HiTs examine different approaches to the organization, financing and delivery of health services and the role of the main actors in health systems. They also describe the institutional framework, process, content, and implementation of health and health care policies, highlighting challenges and areas that require more in-depth analysis. Undoubtedly the dominant issue in the Dutch health care system at present is the fundamental reform that came into effect in 2006. With the introduction of a single compulsory health insurance scheme, the dual system of public and private insurance for curative care became history. Managed competition for providers and insurers became a major driver in the health care system. This has meant fundamental changes in the roles of patients, insurers, providers and the government. Insurers now negotiate with providers on price and quality and patients choose the provider they prefer and join a health insurance policy which best fits their situation. To allow patients to make these choices, much effort has been made to make information on price and quality available to the public. The role of the national government has changed from directly steering the system to safeguarding the proper functioning of the health markets. With the introduction of market mechanisms in the health care sector and the privatization of former sickness funds, the Dutch system presents an innovative and unique variant of a social health insurance system. Since the stepwise realization of the blueprint of the system has not yet been completed, the health care system in The Netherlands should be characterized as being in transition. Many measures have been taken to move from the old to the new system as smoothly as possible. Financial measures intended to prevent sudden budgetary shocks and payment mechanisms have been (and are) continuously adjusted and optimized. Organizational measures aimed at creating room for all players to become accustomed to their new role in the regulated market. As the system is still a "work in progress", it is too early to evaluate the effects and the consequences of the new system in terms of accessibility, affordability, efficiency and quality. Dutch primary care, with gatekeeping GPs at its core, is a strong foundation of the health care system. Gatekeeping GPs are a relatively unusual element in social health insurance systems. The strong position of primary care is considered to prevent unnecessary use of more expensive secondary care, and promote consistency and coordination of individual care. It continues to be a policy priority in The Netherlands. The position of the patient in The Netherlands is strongly anchored in several laws concerning their rights, their relation to providers and insurers, access to information, and possibilities to complain in case of maltreatment. In terms of quality and efficiency of the health care system, The Netherlands is, with some notable exceptions (e.g. implementation of innovations such as day surgery and electronic patient records), an average performer when compared to other wealthy countries. It is too early to tell whether efficiency and quality gains will occur as a result of the 2006 reform.


The Causal Set approach to quantum gravity asserts that spacetime, at its smallest length scale, has a discrete structure. This discrete structure takes the form of a locally finite order relation, where the order, corresponding with the macroscopic notion of spacetime causality, is taken to be a fundamental aspect of nature.
After an introduction to the Causal Set approach, this thesis considers a simple toy dynamics for causal sets. Numerical simulations of the model provide evidence for the existence of a continuum limit. While studying this toy dynamics, a picture arises of how the dynamics can be generalized in such a way that the theory could hope to produce more physically realistic causal sets. By thinking in terms of a stochastic growth process, and positing some fundamental principles, we are led almost uniquely to a family of dynamical laws (stochastic processes) parameterized by a countable sequence of coupling constants. This result is quite promising in that we now know how to speak of dynamics for a theory with discrete time. In addition, these dynamics can be expressed in terms of state models of Ising spins living on the relations of the causal set, which indicates how non-gravitational matter may arise from the theory without having to be built in at the fundamental level.
These results are encouraging in that there exists a natural way to transform this classical theory, which is expressed in terms of a probability measure, to a quantum theory, expressed in terms of a quantum measure. A sketch as to how one might proceed in doing this is provided. Thus there is good reason to expect that Causal Sets are close to providing a background independent theory of quantum gravity.


The Twannberg iron meteorite is one out of only six members of the group IIG. The combined noble gas and radionuclide data obtained in this new systematic study indicate that Twannberg with its ~570 recently recovered specimens was a large object with a preatmospheric radius in the range of ~2 m, which corresponds to ~250 × 103 kg. The cosmic‐ray exposure age for Twannberg is 182 ± 45 Ma. The most surprising result is the long terrestrial age of Tterr = 202−34+33 ka, which is unexpected considering the humid conditions in Switzerland. However, this age is in accord with glaciation events, indicating that the less shielded samples from Mt. Sujet were found close to the position of the original strewn field, whereas the samples from Gruebmatt and Twannbach, which are from more shielded positions, were glacially transported to the east–northeast during the second last ice age (185–130 ka ago) from an original position west of Mt. Sujet.


The determination of safe levels of exposure to potentially poisonous substances for humans and the environment is a fundamental goal of toxicology. Adverse effects result from interactions of the chemical with critical receptors in the organism, the extent of which depends on the exposure level but often on exposure time as well. Time-dependent toxicity occurs when the receptor binding is either slowly reversible or irreversible, and cumulative effects may also occur under such conditions [1]. However, dose-time-response studies to demonstrate time-cumulative toxicity are rarely conducted.


At a time when almost any victimless sexual practice has its public advocates and almost every sexual act is fit for the front page, the easiest, least harmful, and most universal one is embarrassing, discomforting, and genuinely radical when openly acknowledged. Masturbation may be the last taboo. But this is not a holdover from a more benighted age. The ancient world cared little about the subject; it was a backwater of Jewish and Christian teaching about sexuality. In fact, solitary sex as a serious moral issue can be dated with a precision rare in cultural history; Laqueur identifies it with the publication of the anonymous tract Onania in about 1722. Masturbation is a creation of the Enlightenment, of some of its most important figures, and of the most profound changes it unleashed. It is modern. It worried at first not conservatives, but progressives. It was the first truly democratic sexuality that could be of ethical interest for women as much as for men, for boys and girls as much as for their elders. The book's range is vast. It begins with the prehistory of solitary sex in the Bible and ends with third-wave feminism, conceptual artists, and the Web. It explains how and why this humble and once obscure means of sexual gratification became the evil twin--or the perfect instance--of the great virtues of modern humanity and commercial society: individual moral autonomy and privacy, creativity and the imagination, abundance and desire.


The aim of this study was to investigate the ameliorative effects of fish oil on hepatic injury in ethanol-fed rats based on the intestinal permeability and microbiota. Rats were assigned to 6 groups and fed either a control diet or an ethanol diet such as C (control), CF25 (control with 25% fish oil), CF57 (control with 57% fish oil), E (ethanol), EF25 (ethanol with 25% fish oil), and EF57 (ethanol with 57% fish oil) groups. Rats were sacrificed at the end of 8 weeks. Plasma aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and aminotransferase (ALT) activities, hepatic cytokines, and plasma endotoxin levels were significantly higher in the E group. In addition, hepatic histopathological analysis scores in the E group were significantly elevated. Rats in the E group also showed increased intestinal permeability and decreased numbers of fecal Bifidobacterium. However, plasma AST and ALT activities and hepatic cytokine levels were significantly lower in the EF25 and EF57 groups. Histological changes and intestinal permeability were also improved in the EF25 and EF57 groups. The fecal Escherichia coli numbers were significantly lower, but fecal Bifidobacterium numbers were significantly higher in the EF25 and EF57 groups.


A protein called Mrp4 blocks the access of the anti-cancer drug topotecan into the brain by transporting this agent back into the bloodstream, thus reducing the ability of this agent to reach tumors. Results from a series of studies by investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital are published in a recent issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB). The St. Jude team, which developed a mouse model lacking the Mrp4 protein, says study results in both mice and tissue cultures suggest that the therapeutic efficacy of drugs targeting central nervous system tumors might be improved by inhibiting this protein, a type of molecule called an ABC-dependent transporter. The study showed that Mrp4 works at two levels: by binding to topotecan and transporting it away from the brain Mrp4 restricts the drug's penetration into the brain from the bloodstream; and it protects brain cells from accumulating toxic levels of topotecan molecules that do escape the bloodstream. "The ability of Mrp4 to protect the brain from toxins can be a liability in people with brain cancer when this protein also blocks therapeutic drugs from reaching CNS tumors," said John Schuetz, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Schuetz is senior author of the article. The investigators discovered that when topotecan was injected into the veins of specially bred mice that lack Mrp4, the drug accumulated to greater than normal levels in the brain tissue and the fluid that surrounds the brain-the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The finding strongly suggests that the natural role of Mrp4 is to block the passage of certain toxic molecules, which chemically resemble topotecan, from leaving the bloodstream and entering the brain. The cells lining the walls of brain capillaries are tightly joined to form a barrier that prevents most substances from leaving the blood. This cellular barrier, called the blood-brain barrier, prevents certain substances from leaving the bloodstream and entering the brain. Mrp4 in the blood-brain barrier also prevents substances from entering the brain by transporting them back into the blood as they pass into the cells of this barrier. Using antibodies against Mrp4 the investigators found that this protein is located in the brain's capillaries as well as in membranes of the choroid plexus-the folds within the brain ventricles that make and release CSF. "This dual location for Mrp4 is unusual for this type of transporter," Schuetz said. "It suggests that Mrp4 blocks specific molecules from leaving the capillaries. And if such molecules slip out of the blood into the choroid plexus, Mrp4 shuttles them back out of the brain and into the blood before they can cause damage." The investigators also showed that isolated cells that were modified to over-express Mrp4 did not accumulate as much topotecan as cells lacking this protein. This is strong evidence that over-expression of Mrp4 in tumors contributes to topotecan resistance in patients. "Our work has important implications for therapies that target brain tumors with specific types of drugs that are transported by Mrp4," Schuetz said. "There is an expanding array of these types of drugs being developed; and unless there is a way to block Mrp4 when giving these agents, the effectiveness of these new agents could be significantly compromised." Other authors of this study are Markos Leggas, Masashi Adachi, Daxi Sun, Guoqing Du, Kelly E. Mercer, Yanli Zhuang, John C. Panetta, Brad Johnston and Clinton F. Stewart (St. Jude); George L. Scheffer and Rik J. Scheper (VU Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands); and Peter Wielinga (The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam). This work was supported in part by NIH, a Cancer Center Support Grant, the Dutch Cancer Society and ALSAC. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures and saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. Founded by late entertainer Danny Thomas and based in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Jude freely shares its discoveries with scientific and medical communities around the world. No family ever pays for treatments not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. St. Jude is financially supported by ALSAC, its fundraising organization.


Automatically inducing high quality knowledge graphs from a given collection of documents still remains a challenging problem in AI. One way to make headway for this problem is through advancements in a related task known as slot filling. In this task, given an entity query in form of [Entity, Slot, ?], a system is asked to 'fill' the slot by generating or extracting the missing value exploiting evidence extracted from relevant passage(s) in the given document collection. The recent works in the field try to solve this task in an end-to-end fashion using retrieval-based language models. In this paper, we present a novel approach to zero-shot slot filling that extends dense passage retrieval with hard negatives and robust training procedures for retrieval augmented generation models. Our model reports large improvements on both T-REx and zsRE slot filling datasets, improving both passage retrieval and slot value generation, and ranking at the top-1 position in the KILT leaderboard. Moreover, we demonstrate the robustness of our system showing its domain adaptation capability on a new variant of the TACRED dataset for slot filling, through a combination of zero/few-shot learning. We release the source code and pre-trained models.


In land cover classification, Hyperspectral image investigation have been used in the field of remote sensing. Hyperspectral means hundreds of bands In this classification of hyperspectral we aim to produce a thematic map is more accurate by combinatorial classification methods. A hyperspectral data is a raw data which was undetermined. The feature representation is based on two learning algorithms (Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN)) were used to perform the combination function. In this work the main aim to produce the thematic map for survey analysis which is easy to the employee can work anywhere at any time. In this method the genetic algorithm(GA) is also used to produce more accuracy in thematic map. Here the dotnet painting tool is used for color representation. Our proposal was able to reduce the time complexity, no need for assigning weights and overcome the difficulties of the usual combination rules.


The rise of graph analytic systems has created a need for new ways to measure and compare the capabilities of graph processing systems. The MIT/Amazon/IEEE Graph Challenge has been developed to provide a well-defined community venue for stimulating research and highlighting innovations in graph analysis software, hardware, algorithms, and systems. GraphChallenge.org provides a wide range of pre-parsed graph data sets, graph generators, mathematically defined graph algorithms, example serial implementations in a variety of languages, and specific metrics for measuring performance. The triangle counting component of GraphChallenge.org tests the performance of graph processing systems to count all the triangles in a graph and exercises key graph operations found in many graph algorithms. In 2017, 2018, and 2019 many triangle counting submissions were received from a wide range of authors and organizations. This paper presents a performance analysis of the best performers of these submissions. These submissions show that their state-of-the-art triangle counting execution time, $T_{tri}$, is a strong function of the number of edges in the graph, $N_{e}$, which improved significantly from 2017 ($T_{tri} \approx (N_{e}/10^{8})4/3)$ to 2018 ($T_{tri}\approx N_{e}/10^{9})$ and remained comparable from 2018 to 2019. Graph Challenge provides a clear picture of current graph analysis systems and underscores the need for new innovations to achieve high performance on very large graphs.


Though the inclusion of multiplicative terms in multiple regression equations is often prescribed as a method for assessing interaction in multivariate relationships, the technique has been criticized for yielding results that are hard to interpret, unreliable (as a result of multicollinearity between the multiplicative term and its constituent variables), and even meaningless. An interpretation of a multiple regression equation with a multiplicative term in conditional terms reveals all these criticisms to be unfounded. In fact, it is better analytic strategy to include a multiplicative term than to exclude one. Complicated as quantitative political analysis may seem to the uninitiated, one of the most telling criticisms made against it is that it often oversimplifies an exceedingly complicated political reality. The penchant for simplicity and generality of explanation is, of course, one of the driving forces of science, and unfortunately, it sometimes drives too far. But oversimplification sometimes also occurs because political researchers do not know about or hesitate to use techniques that would allow them to detect more complicated patterns of relationship in data. A prime example of this is the technique considered in the following pages: the inclusion of multiplicative terms in multiple regression equations. Perhaps the most common simplification in quantitative analysis is the assumption of additivity-the assumption that the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable is always the same, regardless of the level of other variables. The familiar multiple regression equation


For a VLF flat-top antenna much smaller than the radian sphere (a sphere whose radius is one radianlength), the effective height, effective area, and effective volume are defined. The required power factor of radiation proportionately determines the effective volume. For a specified power to be radiated, the effective height inversely determines the current and the effective area inversely determines the voltage. For a limited electric gradient on the overhead wires, the current requires a proportionate area of conductor surface. A corresponding total length of wire in the flat top is adequate if disposed for uniform distribution of charge and if spread out to realize the required effective area. These objectives are obtained more readily by some configurations, such as long parallel wires or concentric circles of wire. This study has been made for the U. S. Navy's high-power transmitter to be located in Maine, the first to radiate 1 megawatt continuously at 15 kc.


Obesity is a worldwide epidemic, which is characterized by the excess accumulation of adipose tissue and to an extent that impairs both the physical and psychosocial health and well-being. There are several weight-loss strategies available, including dietary modification, pharmacotherapy, and bariatric surgery, but many are ineffective or not a long-term solution. Bioactive compounds present in medicinal plants and plant extracts, like polyphenols, constitute the oldest and most extensive form of alternative treatments for the prevention and management of obesity. Their consumption is currently increasing in the population due to the high cost, potential adverse effects, and limited benefits of the currently available pharmaceutical drugs. A great number of studies has explored how dietary polyphenols can interfere with the different mechanisms associated with obesity development. They suggest that these compounds can decrease energy and food intake, lipogenesis, and preadipocyte differentiation and proliferation, while increasing energy expenditure, lipolysis, and fat oxidation. Both quercetin, one of the most common dietary flavonols in the western diet, and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), the most abundant polyphenol in green tea, exhibit antiobesity effects in adipocyte cultures and animal models. However, the extrapolation of these potential benefits to obese humans remains unclear. Although quercetin supplementation does not seem to exert any beneficial effects on body weight, this polyphenol could prevent the obesity-associated mortality by reducing cardiovascular disease risk. An important consideration for the design of further trials is the occurrence of gene polymorphisms in key enzymes involved in flavanol metabolism, which determines a subject's sensitivity to catechins and seems, therefore, crucial for the success of the antiobesity intervention. Although the evidence supporting antiobesity effects is more consistent in EGCG than with quercetin studies, they could still be beneficial by reducing the cardiovascular risk of obese subjects, rather than inducing body weight loss.


Supplementation has many potential advantages over fortification and dietary approaches for improving micronutrient intake. Pregnant and lactating women and infants are most likely to benefit from supplementation. Recent experience with vitamin A supplementation in young children has proved to be remarkably successful. Demonstrated efficacy of vitamin A supplements for improved child survival in many settings and a technical consensus on how to implement interventions were major factors in achieving this success. Bilateral and UN agencies worked together so that in 1999 80 % of children under 5 years of age in the least-developed countries received a vitamin A capsule in the last 6 months. At least one million child lives saved were associated with the increase in coverage in the last 2 years of the 1990s. Experience with Fe-folate supplements has not been as successful. Whilst a technical consensus has been reached on how to implement programmes to control Fe deficiency, the lack of convincing evidence of efficacy of Fe-folate supplements in terms of maternal and child survival outcomes has undoubtedly contributed to the limited pursuit of effective action. A new multiple micronutrient supplement for se amongst women of reproductive age in developing countries has been formulated. UNICEF is employing the supplement in programmes aimed at helping to prevent low birth weight. The new supplement is likely to be more efficacious than Fe-folate supplements for both maternal and child survival and development outcomes. Successful completion of rigorous efficacy trials will be critical for creating the political support needed to achieve universal coverage.


Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, "When I grow up I will go there." . . . But there was one yet - the biggest, the most blank, so to speak - that I had a hankering after. - Charlie Marlow in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1910)(1) I propose that we view the whole of American life as a drama acted out upon the body of a Negro giant who, lying trussed up like Gulliver, forms the stage and scene upon which and within which the action unfolds. If we examine the beginning of the Colonies, the application of this view is not, in its economic connotation at least, too far-fetched or too difficult to see. For then the Negro's body was exploited as amorally as the soil and climate. - Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (1964)(2) Part and parcel of the enduring colonial imagination has been to fathom no territorial limits in its hankering after the unknown and the unconquered, imperially and intellectually. "Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art," organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, ranged across the seductively topical terrain of a neo-colonial fascination and mapping: that of so-called black masculinity. In the exhibition catalog, curator Thelma Golden cites some thoughts by British cultural critic Kobena Mercer that articulate a conceptual premise for the show. Mercer states, extending a metaphor that recalls writer Ralph Ellison's own (above), that "black masculinity is not merely a social identity in crisis. It is also a key site of ideological representation, a site upon which the nation's crisis comes to be dramatized, demonized, and dealt with." The next sentence offers Golden's approbation, "This statement puts us at the heart of 'Black Male's' terrain."(3) She goes on to state, "I wanted to produce a project that would examine the black male as body and political icon" [emphases mine]. In Ellison's metaphor, the personification of a national drama still frames, some 30 years later, the social context within which to speak not only about the objectification of the black male body but also the sensationalized phenomenon that became the "Black Male" exhibition. The exhibition garnered fervent responses, many denunciatory. A core issue stirring this bluster of controversy surrounding the show involved the question of what it means to organize an exhibition on such thematic specificity: on a "racial," gendered subject-type. Given the context of our social climate, including recent media spectacles of black sexuality and excoriation (a "high-tech lynching," in the words of one self-proclaimed victim), the platforms of judiciary proceedings that have served as another theater of public debate; the mounting attacks on affirmative action and other legislation affecting black families, concurrent with the corporate capitalization of black sports icons, and so on - Can a procession of national spectacles be redressed by a sensationalized exhibition that was ipso facto another spectacle? And without "trussed up" implied in the very send-up of the national drama? Without, that is, simulating the drama? Without dissimulating, unwittingly or not, a complicity? Complicity in this case turned out to be systemic, unavoidable. It was engendered in the particular set of demands required of museum exhibitions, on the one hand, and required of the thematically controversial nature of "Black Male," on the other. This combination of demands - to embrace artwork and to regard it critically as representations - negotiated an institutional compromise in "Black Male." An interesting implication in Ellison's metaphor is that there may be a commutability between the situation (or body) of the "benevolent" white explorer, Gulliver, and that of the Negro giant; that the trussings that bind them stem from an arresting, objectifying tendency elicited through both the exploration of the other and self-exploration - and by extension, through both the exploratory museum pursuit and the (presumed) project of self-representation by artist or theme. …


The present study demonstrated that an omega (n)-3 fatty acid, ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid (ethyl-EPA), supplemented diet significantly attenuated the stress/anxiety behavior of rats in the "open field" and elevated plus maze, which was induced by subchronic intracerebroventricular administration of proinflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-1beta. Ethyl-EPA also reduced the rise in serum corticosterone induced by IL-1. The n-6 fatty acid ethyl-gamma-linolenic acid (ethyl-GLA) had little effect on the IL-1-induced changes in behavior and the corticosterone concentration. Following IL-1beta administration, ethyl-EPA reduced the elevated prostaglandin (PG) E2 secretion and increased the secretion of antiinflammatory cytokine IL-10 from whole blood cells. Ethyl-GLA showed a similar antiinflammatory effect to ethyl-EPA. By contrast, n-6 fatty acid arachidonic acid (AA) had no effect on the behavior, immune, and endocrine changes induced by IL-1. AA alone enhanced the basal inflammatory response, raised serum corticosterone concentrations, and induced anxiety behavior in the elevated plus maze. The reduced growth rates of rats following the administration of IL-1 was attenuated by ethyl-EPA, and to a greater extent by ethyl-EPA plus ethyl-GLA, but not by AA alone or in combination with ethyl-EPA. Thus, ethyl-EPA would appear to antagonise the endocrine, immune, and behavioral effects of subchronic IL-1 administration. Ethyl-GLA only antagonised IL-1-induced inflammatory changes, whereas AA caused an increase in the secretion of corticosterone and PGE2, and induced anxiety-like behavior without enhancing the effects of IL-1.


This article gives an overview of previous work on affect variability, discusses the methodological shortcomings of research on affect variability, and presents the results of an empirical study of intraindividual variability in primary emotions across time. The results of a daily assessment study using structural equation modeling and nonlinear regression analyses showed that intraindividual variability in affect is a multidimensional construct that is sufficiently stable to he considered a psychological trait and can be reliably measured by the intraindividual standard deviation. Intraindividual variability showed convergent validity with mean level scores and neuroticism but was sufficiently distinct to be considered a unique trait. This was particularly true of intraindividual variability in positive emotions; only about 10% of t he variance could be accounted for by mean affect levels and the variables of the 5-factor model of personality.


This resarch is held in Serangan Village, Denpasar Selatan District, Denpasar Municipility. Purpose of this researchis to identify the potencies of Serangan Island which could be developed as tourism product such as specialinterest marine tourism and to know the visitors' perceptions to the objects and attractions they visit in order to determine the most favorite tourist attraction in Serangan Village. Data of this research was collected by survey, interview, documentation and library study. The data is analyzed by using quantitative analysis (descriptive statistics) and qualitative analysis (descriptive and comparative analysis). The results showed that there are five potencies of natural attractions identified in Serangan Island which could be developed as tourist objects and special-interest marine tourism. They are the white sand beach, seaweed, clean blue sea, coral garden, and mangrove forest. The special interest-marine tourism are surfing, parasailing, waterski, snorkeling, diving, flying fish, underwater sea walker, banana boat, jetski, donat boat, glass bottom boat, horse riding, fishing, fast boat, turtle conservation and coral transplantation. The biggest market segment of those special marine attractions are 95% Chinese. The foreign visitors that visit Serangan Island about 94.41%, and the domestic visitors are about 5.59%. The most favorite marine attractions in Serangan Village is travelling through the quay by fast boat, it is 311,344 people. Then the second and third favorite are turtle conservation and parasailing, they are 18,040 people and 1,890 people. From the capacity ratio, the most favorite attraction is travelling through the quay by fast boat, it is 276.75, the second and third favorites are flying fish and underwater sea walker with ratio 157.50 and 132.38.


Keywords Disease name Excluded disease Definition Abstract Uhl's anomaly is characterized by absence of the myocardial layer of the right ventricle, with apposition of the endocardium and epicardium. It has often been confused with arrythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia. Uhl's anomaly is rarely familial. It appears to be of congenital origin but is rarely associated with other cardiac malformations. Congestive cardiac failure is the usual mode of presentation, but arrythmias or heart block are sometimes observed. Uhl's anomaly is exceedingly rare and it is not possible to estimate its prevalence. A review in 1993 found only 84 reported cases in the world literature since the beginning of the 20th century. Etiology has not been clearly determined yet. Diagnosis is generally suggested by echocardiography or more sophisticated methods of imaging. Medical management of any congestive heart failure or arrhythmias relies on palliative care but surgery, including cardiac transplantation, offers the only hope of extended survival.


Background: Pregnancy-associated breast cancer (PABC) is breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy or within 1 year of delivery. It is the most frequent malignancy diagnosed during pregnancy or lactation. There is a paucity of information on PABC in our hospital. Aim: The aim of the study is to highlight the clinicopathological features, treatment, and outcome of PABC in the center. Materials and Methods: It was a 6-year prospective study of PABC from January 2007 to December 2012 at our hospital. Information documented included patient's biodata, clinical features, pathological types, receptor status, staging, treatment, and outcome of PABC patients. Results: A total of 1344 patients had breast cancer during the study period. 31 patients (2.3%) had PABC. Age ranged 20–43 years, median 31 years. Common clinical features were: breast lump/mass – 27 (87.1%) patients, skin thickness – 10 (32.3%), nipple retraction – 9 (29.0%), and inflammation – 6 (19.4%). 19 (61.3%) patients were diagnosed in pregnancy: first trimester – 4 (12.9%), second trimester – 7 (22.6%), third trimester – 8 (25.8%), while 12 (38.7%) were within 1 year of delivery. Twenty-two patients (71.0%) had advanced disease. Twenty-four (77.4%) patients had invasive ductal carcinoma. Thirteen (59.1%) patients were ER/PR positive, 6 (27.3%) were triple negative, and 3 (13.6%) were HER2 positive. Twenty-four patients (77.4%) had vaginal delivery. Three patients (9.7%) had spontaneous abortion and 1 patient (3.2%) had still birth. 25 babies (80.6%) were alive and well. 17 patients (54.8%) had modified radical mastectomy (2 patients in second trimester and 15 patients after delivery), 25 (80.6%) had chemotherapy, 14 (45.2%) had radiotherapy, and 1 (3.2%) received trastuzumab. Mortality was 8 (25.8%). Conclusion: PABC constituted 2.3% of all breast cancer patients in our hospital. Majority (71%) presented with advanced disease. 3 out of every 4 were invasive ductal carcinoma, while 1 in 4 were triple negative. The mortality was 25.8%.


The remarkable transformation of this private club overlooking the harbor, takes full advantage of one of the best sites in the historic city of Charleston in South Carolina. The building, originally built as a Shrine Temple in the early 1960's, was transformed into a high- end private club with spacious rooms that include a Ballroom, Informal Dining Room, Lounge and Formal Dining Room with full kitchen amenities and ancillary support spaces. New large exterior windows grace the interior spaces with incomparable views to the city's harbor and historic sites in and around the harbor. The members desired a timeless aesthetic that reflected the rich heritage of the city. Design inspiration drew from two sources: the southern traditional heritage and the rich maritime legacy. Brinton's supplied beautiful wool Axminster carpets for the Ballroom, the Informal Dining Room, Formal Dining Room and the Private Dining Room. Maritime motifs were woven into these rich tapestry designs with forms that resemble rope detailing, mariner's compasses, and other patterns and colors alluding to the maritime theme.


As the third sphere of government, and the one 'closest to the people', local government has been given a mandate of promoting and ensuring community participation in its municipal governance. Both the Municipal Structures Act of 1998 and the Municipal Systems Act of 2000 establish broad principles as well as responsibilities that local government has in promoting a system of participatory governance. The National Youth Policy of 2000 recommended municipalities to establish mechanisms and structures for youth participation in its decision making process. A proposed local youth machinery that municipalities may implement consists of Youth Units/desks, Councillors for the youth, Youth Councils and a support system to ensure effective functioning of the above structures. Other opportunities for youth participation in local government include the IDP and Budget processes and ward committees. Using uMsunduzi Municipality as my case study, the study looked at the extent to which youth structures realised young people's participation in local government and the difference this makes to its decision making processes. A significant finding of the study was that Youth Units are best positioned to facilitate meaningful youth participation and remain the only youth structure with a potential of bringing greater youth involvement in the IDP/Budget process and ward committees. However, for Youth Units to be effective, functional and be able to play their leadership role they need both financial and human resources from the municipality. Without this kind of support they remain irrelevant and useless to the youth in ward committees who continue to remain marginalised. An understaffed Youth Unit without enough money and resources will always struggle to move youth participation from tokenism to meaningful participation in government participatory structures and processes.


Concern over essential fish habitat characterization and conservation has directed attention toward the potential impact of mobile fishing gear on benthic ecosystems. However, previ- ous findings do not necessarily extend to all environments, life stages, and/or gear types. The juve- nile stage of benthic marine fishes is one such life stage that may be sensitive to disturbance. We examined the impact of commercial scallop dredge gear on a recently settled, continental shelf fish within the context of a sand sediment, storm-dominated system, the New York Bight. From June 1999 to July 2000, experimental manipulations with spatially replicated control-impact effects were used to investigate the immediate and longer-term consequences of a dredging event on young-of-the- year (YOY) yellowtail flounder Limanda ferruginea and its benthic nursery habitat. Contrary to expectation, L. ferruginea abundance did not decrease significantly immediately after dredging. Rather, at high-density sites, continued recruitment generated increases of smaller individuals across treatments. A significant decrease of older YOY L. ferruginea and available benthic prey was observed 3 mo later following a series of major natural perturbations (Hurricanes Dennis, Floyd, and Gert). Using concomitant buoy data, we also examined the physical regime of the region as it relates to important benthic settlement windows. Increased levels of natural disturbance during the fall and winter months appeared to play a critical role in shaping inner-mid-shelf seafloor architecture, effec- tively obscuring any longer term dredge-related signals. The results, overall, tend to highlight the vulnerability of New York Bight shelf habitats to multiple forms of disturbance.


The Channel 4 documentary series The Romanians Are Coming generated strong protests within the Romanian community, stressing the unfair depiction of the Romanian immigrants through its disproportionate focus on extreme poverty and the Roma community. This article explores the psychoanalytic dynamics that keep orienting the British gaze toward certain associations of images that recur in this film. It highlights the juxtaposition the film enacts between a desolated Romanian landscape, the UK society of spectacle and festive Romanian homes. Further still, the documentary confronts the viewer with the heterotopic underside of the UK marketplace, namely, a nursing home in the United Kingdom that reveals vulnerable alienated human bodies. In this context, this article argues that the constant return to the Romanian family space, which comes alive through outbursts of spontaneous festivals, is an expression of a nostalgic fetishistic outlook of the British gaze. It further represents an attempt to deal with the traumatic vulnerability experienced in a neoliberal society.


This thesis examines the impact of adoption of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) on two aspects of the operation of capital markets. Firstly, the impact of adoption of IFRS on financial reporting comparability, market liquidity, and cost of capital. Secondly, the impact of adoption of IFRS on seasoned equity offering (SEO) underperformance.  To examine the impact of adoption of IFRS on financial reporting comparability, market liquidity, and cost of capital, the study used meta-analysis of empirical studies published since 2000. Meta-analysis provides an objective view of the empirical results, in contrast to narrative reviews, which offer subjective conclusions. From meta-analysis of 55 empirical studies with 1,259 effect sizes, the study finds that IFRS adoption has increased financial reporting comparability, market liquidity, and reduced cost of equity. For cost of debt, a decrease is observed only for voluntary adoption. The meta-regression analysis shows how the results differ across mandatory and voluntary adoption of IFRS and that the measurement choices, type of control variables, study design, and strength of empirical results explain the variation in the observed effect of adoption of IFRS.  To examine the impact of adoption of IFRS on SEO underperformance the study analyses a large sample of SEOs from 51 countries over the period 1992-2017. Given that the empirical literature on SEOs has established that information asymmetry contributes to SEO underperformance, it is important to assess whether adoption of IFRS has reduced the uncertainties surrounding SEOs and, thus, subsequent underperformance. The study employs a control sample of non-IFRS adoption countries and applies a difference-in-difference (DiD) design to test for the incremental change for IFRS adoption countries over non-IFRS adoption countries. The study finds that SEO underperformance reduces for IFRS adopters relative to non-IFRS adopters in the post-adoption period. The reduction in SEO underperformance is influenced by increased disclosure, increased comparability, and number of accounting changes. The study also finds that the impact of adoption of IFRS on SEO underperformance exists only for firms in countries with strong enforcement, and is conditional on the implementation credibility of countries. The findings are robust to the application of a different measure of SEO underperformance.  Overall, the study suggests that IFRS has had a positive impact on capital markets. However, increased disclosure, comparability, and credible implementation play important roles in realising the benefits of adoption of IFRS. Thus, policymakers of weak enforcement countries are encouraged to strengthen their institutional environment in order to reap the benefits that adoption of IFRS can provide to their capital market.


In this paper, photochemical stability of two thermochromic prints was investigated: vegetable oil based offset and UV curing screen printing ink. The obtained preliminary results can be used for further detailed examination of prints stability. It is well known that thermochromic printing inks are very unstabile when exsposed to UV irradiance and this is why they are mainly used for applications that are not directly exposed to sunlight. The results of the study show the heterogeneous nature of photooxidative degradation of thermochromic prints, and the opposite behaviour of photooxidation can be noticed comparing examined prints. Microcapsules in the UV curable screen print by fixation with polar polymer binder can create a new products stable to photoxidation. For this reason, the areas where the microcapsules and binder are bonded together are stable. Degraded only areas where binder is not related to microcapsules. Microcapsules in offset print do not have the ability to create new stabile forms due to smaller polarity and different chemical composition of the offset oxidized binder. In the offset print, the microcapsules are the least photooxidative stable and also cause lower photooxidative stability of the binder in contact with them. Cavities are formed in the areas where microcapsules are in contact with the binder, while the areas in which the binder is not in contact with microcapsules are not degraded.


This edited textbook will be appropriate for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses and will serve as a comprehensive and timely introduction to the field of adolescent development, providing students with a strong foundation for understanding the biological, cognitive and psychosocial transitions occurring during adolescence. While certain normative biological and cognitive processes are relevant for all youth, development varies dramatically based on a youth's position in society. The volume will focus on contextual factors such as culture, racial identity, socioeconomic position and sociopolitical and historical events, highlighting the impact such factors have on the physiological and psychological processes and treating them as key elements in understanding development during this life stage. The authors will cover the major theoretical positions (both historical and contemporary) about adolescence as well as the relevant research and application. Additionally, modern phenomena - the ever-increasing influence of pop culture (i.e. Hip Hop), mass media and technology (i.e., the internet, gaming) and the evolution of family, education and the church - will be explored in depth. Each chapter will be written by a known expert in the field. * More extensive analysis of cultural, political and socioeconomic factors impacting development than competing texts * Research-to-Practice section covers evidence-based research on practice implementation *The only advanced text with ancillary support and pedagogy--instructor website with test bank and image collection, plus summary box and study questions in each chapter


Analyzing groups such as the Brazilian fans of the television series "Lost" and their independent streaming and subtitling activities, this article discusses the relationships among virtual communities of fans and the implications for distribution, access, and exchange of content produced by cultural industries. It defends the view that the flexibility of a worldwide network of fans, fragmented and disseminated on a global scale, allows their actions to operate not only as catalysts of the discussion around access and distribution of cultural products, but to challenge power levels, compressing hierarchies through as-yet-unimaginable forms of participation. It argues that the activities examined are part of a new design of interdependence of media such as TV and the Internet and that the role of groups such as the "Lost" fans studied are fundamental to the discussion of the flow of media products in a globalized society.


This article focuses on Czech sociologists who left Czechoslovakia immediately after the communist coup in February 1948 and their subsequent academic and personal fates in exile. Attention is devoted principally to Otakar Machotka (1899-1970), a prominent figure in both Czech political life and pre-Marxist Czech sociology with strong personal and methodological ties to the Chicago School; this article's research draws on his correspondence and on other archived sources. Machotka's special circustances worked to his favour in the United States where he was offered excellent academic positions. However, Machotka was opposed to the sociological mainstream(s) of his time and (unsuccessfully) attempted to establish his own school between sociology and social psychology. After that he accepted a tenured position at a marginal non-research university and failed to gain an audience in wider American or international academia. On a personal level, he preferred to focus on his family and social work rather than to take part in the academic game. In this he was perhaps influenced by the bleak fates of two of his colleagues in exile, Frantisek Roucek (1891-1952) and Zdeněk Ullrich (1901-1955), both of whom gave priority to their professional careers, which took them to Africa, where they both met an early death. Members of the youngest cohort of Czech post-February 1948 exiled sociologists, however, enjoyed happier fates, gaining some international academic renown, but only after graduating (anew) from western universities.


SUMMARY. Gastroretentive Delivery Systems are employed to improve the bioavailability of drugs which are absorbed through upper part of GIT, by increasing their retention time. Incorporation of permeability enhancers in the formulations of such drugs can further increase their bioavailability; however their use in the formulations is questionable due to the toxicity exhibited by them. Acyclovir is a class III drug having low oral bioavailability due to improper absorption. Mucoadhesive tablets of acyclovir containing natural permeation enhancers were prepared by direct compression and evaluated for mucoadhesion strength, in-vitro dissolution parameters and in-vitro absorption studies. The formulations containing Aloe vera extract showed increase in the mucoadhesion strength and retarded the drug release. The in-vitro absorption studies revealed that the formulations containing Aloe vera extract (Enhancement Ratio 1.94) and chausath prahar pippal (Enhancement Ratio 1.87) showed significant increase in the permeation of the drug. The studies led to the conclusion that by formulating mucoadhesive tablets of acyclovir containing natural permeation enhancers increased the permeability, thus proving to be the cheaper and easily available alternative to the other permeation enhancers.


Vocational programs are facing educational challenges. Many students leave secondary school in Sweden without graduating, and this is problematic in terms of equivalence, skill segregation, and lifelong learning for the students. This study has tried to see learning through students' eyes, and it has examined learning strategies in six different vocational programs. The research questions have addressed which general learning strategies dominate and which differentiate. The study involved 244 students. The Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) learning styles assessment was used to identify 20 different student traits. Sex groups were compared with descriptive statistics and analyzed by using the F-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The tendencies were low motivation, conformity, a high need for structure and routine, multimodal dominance, and a need for intake and movements. The most productive time of day was in the afternoon. The statistical analysis revealed that six of the 20 elements differed, but there were more similarities than differences. This study highlights the importance of finding a pedagogical model that is suitable for vocational education, expanded educational strategies, and in-depth didactic discussions. The results are valuable for people involved in the planning of vocational education and for the students themselves.


Introduction: Some plants that have good efficacy for treatment is green tea, red ginger and centella. Stimulantia effectiveness the combination of extract was test with natatory exhaustion and continued by the formulation in lozenges. Methods: Have done stimulatia effectiveness test a lozenges containing the active ingridient of green tea, red ginger and centella use a mice with natatory exhaustion method. Results: The lozenges has a good effectiveness of increasing the stamina with the average result of the test 17 minutes 1 second. Conclusion: Based on the activity assay, the use of lozenges that shows result equivalent to the positive control (caffein) is use 3 times a day. Key words: Stimulantia, Lozenges, Green tea, Red ginger, Centella asiatica.


There has been much disagreement about the relationship between civil wars and state economic performance. While civil war is often associated with poor economic performance, some states have managed robust growth despite periods of domestic armed conflict. We find this disagreement results from not accounting for the spatial distribution of conflict within a country. A robust literature in economics stresses the role major cities play in economic growth. We hypothesize that the economic impact of civil conflict is contingent on the conflict's location relative to major urban centers within a state. We use subnational data on the location of conflict relative to urban areas to test the impact of domestic conflict on annual gross domestic product growth. In doing so, we bridge the economic development literature on the importance of cities with extant literature on the effect of armed conflict to provide a novel explanation for the paradox of high macroeconomic growth in conflict-ridden countries.


The third quarter of the twentieth century was a golden age for labor in the advanced industrial countries, characterized by rising incomes, relatively egalitarian wage structures, and reasonable levels of job security. The subsequent quarter-century has seen less positive performance along a number of these dimensions. This period has instead been marked by rapid globalization of economic activity that has brought increased insecurity to workers. The contributors to this volume distinguish four explanations for this historic shift. These include 1) rapid development of new technologies; 2) global competition for both business and labor; 3) deregulation of industry with more reliance on markets; and 4) increased immigration of workers, especially unskilled workers, from developing countries. In addition to analyzing the causes of these trends, the contributors also investigate important consequences, ranging from changes in collective bargaining and employment relations to family formation decisions and incarceration policy.


This paper features a distributed environment and the steps taken to incorporate the Virtual Range model into the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) infrastructure. The VTB is a prototype of a virtual engineering environment to study operations of current and future space vehicles, spaceports, and ranges. The High-Level Architecture (HLA) is the main environment. The VTB/HLA implementation described here represents different systems that interact in the simulation of a Space Shuttle liftoff. An example implementation displays the collaboration of a simplified version of the Space Shuttle Simulation Model and a simulation of the Launch Scrub Evaluation Model.


This paper highlights the quality concerns of inorganic fertilizers on the Ugandan market. The findings reported are based on 170 samples (in 50 kg bags and small 1-2 kg packs) of the commonly used fertilizers on the Ugandan market i.e. Urea, NPK, DAP, MOP and CAN purchased and subjected to a laboratory analysis. Procedures followed in the purchasing of fertilizer samples mimicked a farmer purchasing fertilizers randomly from any input dealer country wide. Analytical results from the fertilizer samples revealed low quality fertilizers with moisture content above acceptable limits of 0.5- 1.5 percent; and untruthfulness in both weight and nutrient content. In some instances, the nutrient content quoted on the labels did not match with the analytical content. This has serious consequences because fertilizer recommendations are based on the nutrient content. If the nutrients are not of the right quality, then the end-user (a farmer) will not attain the intended crop response to fertilizer application. The study reveals that re-packaging fertiliser into small quantities is justifiable to meet the requirements of smallholder farmers, but leads to loss of nutrients (especially nitrogen); and also aggravates the high moisture content problem. Results reveal gaps in the current regulatory system; therefore there is an urgent need for government to approve and operationalize the fertilizer policy, regulations and strategy.


There are two titles in this volume. Tannisho sets out to refute deviations from the True Pure Land school teachings. Written by Yuienbo, a follower of Shinran, the Tannisho has continued to exert a profound influence on Japanese life and thought since it was composed. It falls into two parts. The first part of the book consists of Yuienbo's personal recollections of the words of Shinran himself, as received directly from the Master. The second part gives Yuienbo's own refutation of those deviations of Faith that had arisen after Shinran's death, quoting in support of his argument further sayings of the master. There is also an Appendix giving details of the wrongful punishment and exile of Honen, Shinran, and other followers. Rennyo Shonin Ofumi is a collection of eighty pastoral letters written to True Pure Land school followers. They focus on clarifying the process of entrusting oneself single-heartedly to the Other Power of Amida Buddha.