Greil Marcus, author of "Mystery Train", widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a fascination with the Sex Pistols: that scandalous antimusical group, invented in London in 1975 and dead within two years, which sparked the emergence of the culture called punk. 'I am an antichrist!' shouted singer Johnny Rotten - where in the world of pop music did that come from? Looking for an answer, with a high sense of the drama of the journey, Marcus takes us down the dark paths of counterhistory, a route of blasphemy, adventure, and surprise. This is no mere search for cultural antecedents. Instead, what Marcus so brilliantly shows is that various kinds of angry, absolute demands - demands on society, art, and all the governing structures of everyday life - seem to be coded in phrases, images, and actions passed on invisibly, but inevitably, by people quite unaware of each other. Marcus lets us hear strange yet familiar voices: of such heretics as the Brethren of the Free Spirit in medieval Europe and the Ranters in seventeenth-century England; the dadaists in Zurich in 1916 and Berlin in 1918, wearing death masks, chanting glossolalia; one Michel Mourre, who in 1950 took over Easter Mass at Notre-Dame to proclaim the death of God; the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, small groups of Paris-based artists and writers surrounding Guy Debord, who produced blank-screen films, prophetic graffiti, and perhaps the most provocative social criticism of the 1950s and '60s; the rioting students and workers of May '68, scrawling cryptic slogans on city walls and bringing France to a halt; and, the Sex Pistols in London, recording the savage "Anarchy in the U.K.", and "God Save the Queen". Although the Sex Pistols shape the beginning and the end of the story, "Lipstick Traces" is not a book about music; it is about a common voice, discovered and transmitted in many forms. Working from scores of previously unexamined and untranslated essays, manifestos, and filmscripts, from old photographs, dada sound poetry, punk songs, collages, and classic texts from Marx to Henri Lefebvre, Marcus takes us deep behind the acknowledged events of our era, into a hidden tradition of moments that would seem imaginary except for the fact that they are real: a tradition of shared utopias, solitary refusals, impossible demands, and unexplained disappearances. Written with grace and force, humor and an insistent sense of tragedy and danger, "Lipstick Traces" tells a story as disruptive and compelling as the century itself.


This work focuses on the role of talk and text in the processing of people in public organizations. It is a study of communication between citizens and officials in one such organization, namely, the Swedish social services. The aim of the study is to examine some of the micro-level processes which make up the daily operations and routines of this kind of institution. The work consists of three parts. The first part reports a study of the initial telephone contacts between parents who need day care for their children and the clerks in charge of the 'waiting-list' for municipal day-care services. The data that have been analysed consist of 10 audio-taped telephone conversations between parents and clerks. Theanalyses focus on the local organization of talk and show that the professional dominance is maintained during all the various phases of the call. Starting the conversation with an extensive 'filling-in-the-form phase' turns out to be an effective way of preserving the institutional order. The clerks manage to achieve communicative dominance, while theparents are induced to accept the limited repertoire of bureaucratic expressions as valid descriptions of their own needs and wishes concerning the future day care for their children. The second part is a study of clients who are applying for financial assistance. It is an attempt to scrutinize the mode in which clients present their financial problems in social welfare interviews. The data consist of 25 audio-taped social welfare interviews. The clients' talk about their financial problems has been analysed in detail and this analysis has served as a basis of a typology, which contains the following basic discursive formats: 1) monological narratives, 2) dialogical talk, 3) minimal contributions from the client. The third part, which is published as a separate monograph written in Swedish, deals with the processing of applications for financial assistance. This part includes a detailed documentation of the processing of 25 applications. The study is based on a documentation of the following stages in the handling of the cases: 1) the client's initial telephone cali to the social welfare office; 2) the application form which is supposed to be filled in by the client; 3) the social welfare interview; 4) the decision concerning the client's application. One of the main interests behind this part has been to examine how institutions, such as the social welfare bureaucracy, deal with people's troubles and difficulties; how a private problem is transferred to the language used within a public institution. This work describes how the processing of people relies on standardization of communicative practices where oral discourse is embedded in routines which also comprise the use of texts and other artifacts. The texts are important tools for maintaining the institutional order and they are integral parls in encounters between citizens andofficials in institutional settings. The tools seem to provide for continuity and coherence and to be an important element in the ability of the organization to maintain the 'proper procedures' irrespective of who the individual actor is.


Computational Science has emerged as a third pillar of science along with theory and experiment, where the parallelization for scientific computing is promised by different shared and distributed memory architectures such as, super-computer systems, grid and cluster based systems, multi-core and multiprocessor systems etc. In the recent years the use of GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) for General purpose computing commonly known as GPGPU made it an exciting addition to high performance computing systems (HPC) with respect to price and performance ratio. Current GPUs consist of several hundred computing cores arranged in streaming multi-processors so the degree of parallelism is promising. Moreover with the development of new and easy to use interfacing tools and programming languages such as OpenCL and CUDA made the GPUs suitable for different computation demanding applications such as micromagnetic simulations. In micromagnetic simulations, the study of magnetic behavior at very small time and space scale demands a huge computation time, where the calculation of magnetostatic field with complexity of O(Nlog(N)) using FFT algorithm for discrete convolution is the main contribution towards the whole simulation time, and it is computed many times at each time step interval. This study and observation of magnetization behavior at sub-nanosecond time-scales is crucial to a number of areas such as magnetic sensors, non volatile storage devices and magnetic nanowires etc. Since micromagnetic codes in general are suitable for parallel programming as it can be easily divided into independent parts which can run in parallel, therefore current trend for micromagnetic code concerns shifting the computationally intensive parts to GPUs. My PhD work mainly focuses on the development of highly parallel magnetostatic field solver for micromagnetic simulators on GPUs. I am using OpenCL for GPU implementation, with consideration that it is an open standard for parallel programming of heterogeneous systems for cross platform. The magnetostatic field calculation is dominated by the multidimensional FFTs (Fast Fourier Transform) computation. Therefore i have developed the specialized OpenCL based 3D-FFT library for magnetostatic field calculation which made it possible to fully exploit the zero padded input data with out transposition and symmetries inherent in the field calculation. Moreover it also provides a common interface for different vendors' GPUs. In order to fully utilize the GPUs parallel architecture the code needs to handle many hardware specific technicalities such as coalesced memory access, data transfer overhead between GPU and CPU, GPU global memory utilization, arithmetic computation, batch execution etc. In the second step to further increase the level of parallelism and performance, I have developed a parallel magnetostatic field solver on multiple GPUs. Utilizing multiple GPUs avoids dealing with many of the limitations of GPUs (e.g., on-chip memory resources) by exploiting the combined resources of multiple on board GPUs. The GPU implementation have shown an impressive speedup against equivalent OpenMp based parallel implementation on CPU, which means the micromagnetic simulations which require weeks of computation on CPU now can be performed very fast in hours or even in minutes on GPUs. In parallel I also worked on ordered queue management on GPUs. Ordered queue management is used in many applications including real-time systems, operating systems, and discrete event simulations. In most cases, the efficiency of an application itself depends on usage of a sorting algorithm for priority queues. Lately, the usage of graphic cards for general purpose computing has again revisited sorting algorithms. In this work i have presented the analysis of different sorting algorithms with respect to sorting time, sorting rate and speedup on different GPU and CPU architectures and provided a new sorting technique on GPUs


The timing of hydrocarbon generation relative to the closure of migration pathways and trap formation is key to characterization of the petroleum systems of the Cordillera Oriental and the prolific petroleum provinces of the Llanos and Magdalena. The exceptionally thick and organic rich Cretaceous source rock successions of the Cordillera Oriental had the potential to have generated vast quantities of liquid hydrocarbons. Yet due to unfavorable timing of hydrocarbon maturation vs. regional deformation, only a small portion of this oil may have migrated into traps beyond the limits of the Cordillera Oriental. Maturation modeling based on detailed stratigraphic and structural data for sites in the Cordillera Oriental, Llanos, and the Middle and Upper Magdalena basins reveal the essential temporal features of the petroleum system. Virtually all of the Cretaceous source rock succession was generating liquid hydrocarbons in the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene, long before the development of the main structural traps within and along the foothills belts marginal to the Cordillera Oriental. Only in the northeast quarter and extreme south of the Cordillera Oriental and in the deeper parts of the flanking basins was oil being generated simultaneous with trap formation. The maturation modeling serves as a basis for understandingmore » the known distribution of oil pools and a guide to future discoveries.« less


The current thesis addressed the question of whether an internally generated mental image can elicit a concurrent in grapheme colour synaesthesia; although there is experimental and anecdotal evidence that this is the case, to date this had not been systematically explored. As there are purportedly distinct object-based and spatial-based imagery processes it was necessary to explore the role different imagery processes may play. In Experiment 1 synaesthetes and matched control groups completed a grapheme-based object-imagery task against congruently and incongruently coloured backgrounds. Four synaesthetes, but none of the control groups, showed an effect of colour on task performance. In Experiment 2 and 3 synaesthetes (and matched controls for Experiment 2) completed a grapheme-based spatial-imagery task, with either the stimuli or background colour manipulated as before. In each experiment colour was found to interact with grapheme presentation format for two different synaesthetes. Experiments 1-3 therefore provided support for the idea that an internally generated mental image can elicit a concurrent. Importantly, the results suggested a difference in the way the concurrent generated from object or spatial imagery processes influenced task performance. Consequently Experiments 4 and 5 used a battery of comparable imagery tasks that had either an object or spatial rate-limiting imagery process. Manipulation of the task background colour again showed the variety of effects the concurrent generated with these different imagery processes can have on task performance. Overall the results of these experiments suggest that a concurrent can be elicited from both object and spatial imagery processes; important individual differences were found, and individual performance varied between tasks, suggesting the possible role of strategy effects. Models of synaesthesia need to be able to explain these differences and further studies are needed to address this issue of task approach.


NG2 cells, a fourth glial cell type in the adult mammalian central nervous system, produce oligodendrocytes in the healthy nervous tissue, and display wide differentiation potential under pathological conditions, where they could give rise to reactive astrocytes. The factors that control the differentiation of NG2 cells after focal cerebral ischemia (FCI) are largely unknown. Here, we used transgenic Cspg4‐cre/Esr1/ROSA26Sortm14(CAG‐tdTomato) mice, in which tamoxifen administration triggers the expression of red fluorescent protein (tomato) specifically in NG2 cells and cells derived therefrom. Differentiation potential (in vitro and in vivo) of tomato‐positive NG2 cells from control or postischemic brains was determined using the immunohistochemistry, single cell RT‐qPCR and patch–clamp method. The ischemic injury was induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion, a model of FCI. Using genetic fate‐mapping method, we identified sonic hedgehog (Shh) as an important factor that influences differentiation of NG2 cells into astrocytes in vitro. We also manipulated Shh signaling in the adult mouse brain after FCI. Shh signaling activation significantly increased the number of astrocytes derived from NG2 cells in the glial scar around the ischemic lesion, while Shh signaling inhibition caused the opposite effect. Since Shh signaling modifications did not change the proliferation rate of NG2 cells, we can conclude that Shh has a direct influence on the differentiation of NG2 cells and therefore, on the formation and composition of a glial scar, which consequently affects the degree of the brain damage. GLIA 2016;64:1518–1531


We review the evidence that the erratic dynamics of markets is to a large extent of endogenous origin, i.e. determined by the trading activity itself and not due to the rational processing of exogenous news. In order to understand why and how prices move, the joint fluctuations of order flow and liquidity - and the way these impact prices - become the key ingredients. Impact is necessary for private information to be reflected in prices, but by the same token, random fluctuations in order flow necessarily contribute to the volatility of markets. Our thesis is that the latter contribution is in fact dominant, resulting in a decoupling between prices and fundamental values, at least on short to medium time scales. We argue that markets operate in a regime of vanishing revealed liquidity, but large latent liquidity, which would explain their hyper-sensitivity to fluctuations. More precisely, we identify a dangerous feedback loop between bid-ask spread and volatility that may lead to micro-liquidity crises and price jumps. We discuss several other unstable feedback loops that should be relevant to account for market crises: imitation, unwarranted quantitative models, pro-cyclical regulation, etc.


This study seeks greater understanding of how digital games can be implemented in English teaching, demonstrating the potential of Minecraft as a pedagogical tool to motivate and enhance literacy practices. With less research conducted into girls' gaming in comparison to that of boys, this study investigates Minecraft's capacity to extend girls' literacy practices. Digital games are accepted in gaming research as integral to contemporary youth culture and their use within the classroom continues to be explored, with this research adding weight to Minecraft's value for literacy learning. This small study, using practical action research, suggests that girls find Minecraft appealing for literacy learning in English classrooms. They chose to work collaboratively, while making personal connections with Minecraft's characters and actions, reflecting engagement and active learning. Minecraft allows students to engage in a myriad of literacy practices both as players and external to the game. The girls negotiated design elements, developing awareness of virtual landscape navigation and gaming strategies involving decoding, encoding and problem solving. Girls shared their Minecraft play in Instagram, creating multimodal texts for an authentic audience. I argue that using digital games in English classrooms can productively assist teachers to bridge the divide between students' outside- and inside-school literacy practices. Incorporating Minecraft as curriculum thus validates and draws from youth culture to enhance the formal learning process.


BACKGROUND
Salmonella is a leading cause of foodborne enterocolitis worldwide. Antimicrobial use in food animals is the driving force for antimicrobial resistance among Salmonella particularly in high-income countries. Nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) infections that are multidrug resistant (MDR) (nonsusceptible to ≥1 agent in ≥3 antimicrobial categories) may result in more severe health outcomes, although these effects have not been systematically examined. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine impacts of MDR NTS on disease outcomes in high-income settings.

METHODS
We systematically reviewed the literature from scientific databases, including PubMed, Scopus, and grey literature sources, using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We included peer-reviewed publications of case-control and cohort studies, outbreak investigations, and published theses, imposing no language restriction. We included publications from January 1, 1990 through September 15, 2016 from high-income countries as classified by the World Bank, and extracted data on duration of illness, hospitalization, morbidity and mortality of MDR, and pan-susceptible NTS infections.

RESULTS
After removing duplicates, the initial search revealed 4258 articles. After further screening, 16 eligible studies were identified for the systematic review, but, only 9 of these were included in the meta-analysis. NTS serotypes differed among the reported studies, but serotypes Typhimurium, Enteritidis, Newport, and Heidelberg were the most often reported MDR pathogens. Salmonella infections that were MDR were associated with excess bloodstream infections (odds ratio [OR] 1.73; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.32-2.27), more frequent hospitalizations (OR 2.51; 95% CI 1.38-4.58), and higher mortality (OR 3.54; 95% CI 1.10-11.40) when compared with pan-susceptible isolates.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study suggests that MDR NTS infections have more serious health outcomes compared with pan-susceptible strains. With the emergence of MDR Salmonella strains in high-income countries, it is crucial to reduce the use of antimicrobials in animals and humans, and intervene to prevent foodborne infections.


ABSTRACT Aim: Inmunoregulatory cytokines may play a fundamental role in tumor growth and metastases. Since the control of cytokine production is highly complex and multifactorial, their effects are mediated through multiple regulatory networks. This indicates that the definition and evaluation of a human cytokine profile represents an important future tool to analyze the interaction network of cytokines and thus identify patients' subgroups with different prognosis and also new potential biomarkers in therapeutic strategies particularly in immunotherapy approach.The aim of this study was to assess the clinical usefulness of data mining profile of multiple cytokines in advance Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Methods: We conducted a prospective analysis of 15 inmunoregulatory cytokines plasma levels by ELISA and Cytometric Bead Array Assay of 110 NSCLC patients and 25 control subjects. Cytokine levels as well as data mining profiles were associated with clinical, pathological and prognostic characteristics. Results: NSCLC patients had higher levels of IL6, IL-18, IL-12p70, IL-17A and IFN-g and lower levels of IL-33 and IL-29 compared to controls. Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1b, IL-6 and IL-8 were associated with lower hemoglobin levels, worse performance status (ECOG), fatigue and hyporexia. Anti- inflammatory cytokines such as IL-4, IL-10 y IL-33 was associated with anorexia and lower body mass index. A 10-fold cross-validation EM algorithm found three clusters of patients regarding the plasma levels of cytokines levels without clinical differences between them. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that cytokines profiles may identify patients' subgroups with poor prognosis. Data mining clusters may play a role in the physiopathology of NSCLC and as a potential multiple biomarkers and targeted immunotherapy. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


ABSTRACT At a time when the pace of global change has led to unprecedented shifts in, and unsettling of, identities, Brubaker brings "trans/gender" and "trans/racial" creatively into conversation to theorize the historical location of identity claims and to examine the question of whether identities are optional, self-consciously chosen and subject to political claims rather than biologically pre-given. His main argument is that the distinction between sex and gender allows us to construct gender identity as personal, individual and separate from the (biologically) sexed body. In contrast, other people always have a stake in allowing or challenging identity claims to racial identity. Brubaker's argument is persuasive. However, he treats both race and sex/gender as solipsistic and neglects the wider social context that has produced the conditions of possibility for the entrenched differences he records. An intersectional approach would have deepened his discussion of the place of categories in "trans" arguments.


From a Cold War literary and cultural studies perspective, the Korean War (1950–1953) is a distinctive moment in US cultural history. This essay proposes that there are two broad phases of Korean War literature: the first phase is work written in the 1950s and early 1960s generally by white, male Americans who fought in the war, reported on the war, or had some other ties to the US military. Work of this phase renders the Korean War in terms of the bipolar global imaginary dictated by the Cold War: even as this imaginary is ultimately unsuitable for capturing the complexities of the war, writers of the first phase understand Korea's meaning only in terms of US political imperatives. The second phase, marked by Richard E. Kim's The Martyred (1964) but not gaining traction until the 1980s and 1990s, is work generally written by first- or second-generation Korean Americans who either experienced the war directly or explored the cultural memory of a war that, some scholars have argued, is a precondition of the very idea of Korean Americanness. Work of this phase begins with the premise that the US framing of the Korean War is damaging, and as such is marked by meta-engagements with the Cold War rhetorical frame that shift the meaning of the war away from US claims about it. The category of "Korean War literature" changes how we understand "Cold War literature" and therefore post-1945 American literature and culture.


This paper presents an SPDT switch which is designed to operate at 8-12 GHz frequency range (X-Band), as a sub module of the front end circuit of a phased array radar. The switch distinguishes itself from its counterparts with its larger frequency range and higher isolation that is uniformly distributed over its bandwidth. It is fabricated using 0.25μm SiGe BiCMOS technology of IHP Microelectronics (Germany). As a new technique, shunt inductors are placed next to shunt transistors in order to improve trade-off between insertion loss and isolation. It has isolation higher than 30 dB in entire band, input referred 1dB compression point is 27.6 dBm, insertion loss is between 2.7-4.1 dB, input and output referred return losses are better than 11 dB in the frequency range of 8-12 GHz.


Infection is a major complication of chemotherapy for Acute Leukemia (AL). Two hundred and three patients with newly diagnosed AL were recruited in this study. By analyzing infection incidence (82.8%, 168/203), infection-related mortality (7.1%, 12/168), clinical features, and risk factors, as well as the correlation with efficacy for the patients during induction chemotherapy, we aimed to understand the significance of infection in patients with them, thereby guiding clinical treatment. All of the patients, 168 cases suffered from infection; among of them, there were clear sites of infection accounted for 94.6% (159/168), and the most infection sites were lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and oral cavity. 213 of pathogens were detected, including gram-negative bacilli (39.0%, 83/213), Gram-positive cocci (34.3%, 73/213), fungi (23.5%, 50/213), and virus (3.3%, 7/213). Diagnosis/clinical diagnosis of the patients with invasive fungal disease accounted for 24.6%, and the main pathogen was Candida. Multivariate analysis of the risk factor of infection showed that was neutropenia (P < 0.001, OR = 14.37, 95% CI 2.576 116.518); however, infection did not affect the rate of CR/CRi ( χ 2 =2.564, P = 0.109). Conclusion: During the first induction therapy for newly diagnosed AL patients, the rate of infection and fungal infection was high, Lung is the most common site of infection, Gram-negative bacteria is more common, agranulocytosis increase the chance of infection, it does not affect the complete remission rate. *Corresponding author: Linhua Yang, Department of Hematology, The Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Received Date: December 25, 2016 Accepted Date: February 4, 2017 Published Date: February 14, 2017


Peptide bonds (N-C=O) play a key role in metabolic processes since they link amino acids into peptide chains or proteins. Recently, several molecules containing peptide-like bonds have been detected across multiple environments in the interstellar medium (ISM), growing the need to fully understand their chemistry and their role in forming larger pre-biotic molecules. We present a comprehensive study of the chemistry of three molecules containing peptide-like bonds: HNCO, NH$_2$CHO, and CH$_3$NCO. We also included other CHNO isomers (HCNO, HOCN), and C$_2$H$_3$NO isomers (CH$_3$OCN, CH$_3$CNO) to the study. We have used the \uclchem gas-grain chemical code and included in our chemical network all possible formation/destruction pathways of these peptide-like molecules recently investigated either by theoretical calculations or in laboratory experiments. Our predictions are compared to observations obtained toward the proto-star IRAS16293$-$2422 and the L1544 pre-stellar core. Our results show that some key reactions involving the CHNO and C$_2$H$_3$NO isomers need to be modified to match the observations. Consistently with recent laboratory findings, hydrogenation is unlikely to produce NH$_2$CHO on grain surfaces, while a combination of radical-radical surface reactions and gas-phase reactions is a better alternative. In addition, better results are obtained for NH$_2$CHO when a slightly higher activation energy of 25$\,$K is considered for the gas-phase reaction $\rm NH_2 + H_2CO \rightarrow NH_2CHO + H$. Finally, our modelling shows that the observed correlation between NH$_2$CHO and HNCO in star-forming regions may come from the fact that HNCO and NH$_2$CHO react to temperature in the same manner rather than from a direct chemical link between the two species.


[1] A new method for improving the ground-based pyranometer measurements of solar irradiance has been employed during the East Asian Study of Tropospheric Aerosols and Impact on Regional Climate field experiment, Asian Monsoon Year in China in 2008. Depending on the temperature difference between its detector and domes, a pyranometer's thermal dome effect (TDE) can vary from a few W m−2 at night to over tens of W m−2 during daytime. Yet in traditional calibration procedures only a single calibration constant is determined, and consequently TDE is misrepresented. None of the methods that have been documented in the literature can capture TDE nonintrusively using the same instrument. For example, although adding a temperature sensor to the detector assembly is straightforward, attaching any sensor on a dome is intrusive and will affect its overall optical and physical properties. Furthermore, in response to the solar elevation and atmospheric variables, the dome temperature distribution is both dynamic and uneven, which makes it exceedingly difficult for locating a representative point on the dome for measuring TDE. However, the effective-dome-temperature is proportional to the pressure of the air trapped between the outer and the inner domes; therefore with a minor modification to a pyranometer, we can utilize the ideal gas law to gauge TDE without affecting the domes. Pyranometers can become climate-quality instruments once their TDE are nonintrusively determined.


Abstract Young people constitute a large proportion of - and a particularly vulnerable segment of - Africa's population. 'Youth' constitutes a critical stage in the life course, marked by decreasing household and familial support. Yet as we explore here in the context of Uganda and Tanzania, young Africans are poorly equipped for making the transition to work and financial independence. Consequently, they suffer disproportionately from Africa's key social and economic development challenges. Alongside burgeoning youth populations this makes youth populations an increasingly pressing policy priority across the continent. This chapter explores how BRAC's Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescent Girls programme (ELA) has been designed to respond to the social and economic challenges facing young women in Uganda and Tanzania. It highlights that the impact of integrated programmes can go beyond improved employment outcomes to improve social conditions and health outcomes for beneficiaries and their peers at the community level.


ABSTRACT  The Freedom Hills Forever Wild Tract (FHFWT) is a 13,800 ha property acquired through multiple purchases by Alabama's Forever Wild Land Trust beginning in 2001. The FHFWT is managed by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for habitat conservation, as a wildlife management area, and for outdoor education. An intensive floristic study of this area was conducted from March 2012 through February 2017. A total of 761 taxa (757 species) from 431 genera and 136 families were collected, with 328 taxa representing county records. A total of 104 nonnative taxa were collected during the surveys. Forty-three percent of the total collections were county records and 72 exotic taxa collected during this survey were determined to be county records. Plant collections were deposited at the Alabama Natural Heritage Section Herbarium (ALNHS) with duplicates distributed to Anniston Museum of Natural History (AMAL), Auburn University Herbarium (AUA), Jacksonville State University Herbarium (JSU), and the University of West Alabama Herbarium (UWAL).


The development of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and cardiovascular diseases have been suggested to be influenced more by the quality than the amount of dietary fat. The FA composition of serum lipids may be used as biomarkers of dietary fat quality. FAs can, however, also be endogenously synthesized by lipogenic enzymes such as elongases and desaturases. Three desaturases are important in humans: Stearoyl-CoA-desaturase (SCD), ∆6-desaturase (D6D) and ∆5-desaturase (D5D) and surrogate measures of desaturase activities can be estimated as product-to-precursor FA ratios.In this thesis, we demonstrated that high SCD, D6D and low D5D estimated activities predicted MetS 20 years later, as well as cardiovascular and total mortality during a maximum of 33.7 years. The relation between D5D and MetS was independent of lifestyle and BMI, while the relation between SCD, D6D and MetS was confounded by BMI. Serum proportions of palmitic (16:0), palmitoleic (16:1) and dihomo-γ-linoleic acids were higher and the serum proportion of linoleic acid (LA) lower at baseline in those individuals who developed MetS. Further, LA was inversely related to mortality, while palmitic, palmitoleic and dihomo-γ-linoleic acids were directly associated with mortality. We also demonstrated that a diet rich in saturated fat "induced" a similar serum FA pattern (including estimated desaturase activities) that was associated with MetS, cardiovascular disease and mortality. We also propose that the SCD ratio [16:1/16:0] might be a novel and useful marker of dietary saturated fat, at least in Western high-fat diets. Finally, genetic variations in the human SCD1 gene were linked to obesity and insulin sensitivity, results that agree with data in SCD1 deficient mice.This thesis suggests that dietary fat quality and endogenous desaturation may play a role in the development of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases and the results support current dietary guidelines.


The recent turmoil in the international financial markets following the subprime mortgage crisis in the US has raised questions about the role of credit rating agencies in this crisis. Whether credit rating agencies are meeting the needs of the market and if there is a need for increased regulation have become ever more topical issues. This timely publication looks at the views of market participants before the crisis and provides an insight into the rapid development and practices of the agencies.


Stainless steel, termed as the 'miracle metal' is all around us in numerous applications ranging from everyday household items to sophisticated biomedical applications. Stainless steel is one of the fastest growing segments in metal industries. New developments and a wide range of research on stainless steel is taking place all around the world in order to obtain superior quality stainless steel and expand its applications to meet growing demands. Taking those facts into account, this book is compiles recent developments in the properties, applications and further processing of stainless steel and recent research trends. The book includes high-tech characterization techniques of stainless steel to address the decomposition behaviour; decomposition–induced transformation to the correlated property-microstructure; powder metallurgy to produce difficult-to-cast stainless steel components, depassivation/repassivation behaviour, various surface treatment processes as well as a wide range of machining techniques to address the need of machinability of stainless steel.


The X linked form of Kallmann syndrome (KAL) and X linked ocular albinism (OA1) have both been mapped to Xp22.3. We have used a dinucleotide repeat polymorphism at the Kallmann locus to type 17 X linked ocular albinism families which had previously been typed for the Xg blood group (XG) and the DNA markers DXS237 (GMGX9), DXS143 (dic56), and DXS85 (782). Close linkage was found between KAL and OA1 with a maximum lod score (Zmax) of 30.14 at a recombination fraction (theta max) of 0.06 (confidence interval for theta: 0.03-0.10). KAL was also closely linked to DXS237 (Zmax = 15.32; theta max = 0.05; CI 0.02-0.12) and DXS143 (Zmax = 14.57; theta max = 0.05; CI 0.02-0.13). There was looser linkage to the Xg blood group (XG) and to DXS85 (782). Multipoint linkage analysis gave the map: Xpter-XG-0.13-DXS237-0.025-KAL-0.025-DXS143-0.01 5-OA1-0.09-DXS85-Xcen. Placement of OA1 proximal to DXS143 was supported by odds of 2300:1 compared to other orders. This confirms our previous localisation of OA1 and improves the genetic mapping of both disease loci.


During its primary encounter with a pathogen, the immune system has to decide which type of immune response is most appropriate. Based on signals from the innate immune system and the immunological context in which the pathogen is presented, responding lymphocytes will adopt a particular phenotype, e.g. secrete a particular profile of cytokines. Once stimulated, lymphocytes store the appropriate type of response by differentiating from a naive to a memory phenotype. This allows the appropriate type of immune reaction to be regenerated upon re-stimulation of those memory clones. We developed a computer simulation model in which cross-reacting effector/memory clones contribute to the immunological context of pathogens. If a pathogen is recognized by both naive clones and pre-existing effector/memory clones, the naive lymphocytes adopt the effector mechanism of the memory clone. The adaptive immune system thereby stores immunological decisions and somatically learns to induce the right type of immune response to pathogens sharing epitopes. The influence of effector/memory lymphocytes may be detrimental when they cross-react to new pathogens that require a different kind of immune response. Here, we show that the immune system needs to be sufficiently specific to avoid such mistakes and to profit from the information that is stored in effector/memory lymphocytes. Repertoire diversity is required to reconcile this specificity with reactivity against many pathogens.


In the aftermath of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, regulators and policy makers recognized the importance of making bond ratings publicly available. Although rating agencies have made some data available, obtaining this information in bulk can be difficult or impossible. At some times, the data is costly; at other times, it is simply unavailable. Some rating agencies have provided data only on a subscription basis for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
The cost and lack of availability of ratings data are particularly striking given the regulatory requirement that rating agencies publish such data. We describe the relevant Securities and Exchange Commission publication rules and requirements. Unfortunately, the ways in which the major credit rating agencies have responded to these rules have not made data available in an easily accessed or comprehensive way and have instead hindered academic and think-tank research into credit ratings. Financial researchers who lack the funds required to purchase bulk ratings must use a variety of ad hoc methods to obtain rating data or limit their studies of credit ratings.
This brief paper describes our recent initiative to make credit ratings data publicly available. We provide links to a software tool written in Python that crawls credit rating agency websites, downloads the XRBL files, and converts them to Comma Separated Value (CSV) format. We also provide a link to the most recently processed ratings data, separated by agency and asset category, as well as the entire universe of ratings actions, including more than eight million assignments, upgrades, downgrades, and withdrawals.
We hope these resources will further credit rating research and look forward to corresponding with academics and analysts using this data.


A serotype-specific tube latex agglutination assay for 10 pneumococcal serotypes was evaluated with use of urine samples from 72 Kenyan adults with pneumonia whose blood or lung aspirate cultures were positive for Streptococcus pneumoniae, 203 patients with pneumonia whose cultures were negative for S. pneumoniae, and 101 afebrile controls. Detection thresholds for purified capsular polysaccharide in normal urine ranged from 0.33 to 10 ng/mL. The sensitivity of the assay for the 10 pneumococcal serotypes was 0.57 (95% confidence interval, 0.44-0.70) and was unaffected by human immunodeficiency virus seropositivity, prior antibiotic use, and bacteremic or nonbacteremic status but varied significantly by serotype. Of the pneumococci obtained by culture, 81% were of serotypes (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 19, and 22) that were included in the antigen assay. Strong simultaneous agglutinations against two different serotypes were found in urine samples from two patients. The specificity of the assay was 0.98 (lower 95% confidence limit, 0.95). Subjective reading of agglutination results introduced variation in specificity that may be inapparent if not formally measured. The assay extended the diagnostic yield in pneumococcal pneumonia by a factor of 2.2 (from 54 diagnoses established by blood culture to 119 established by both methods) and may therefore prove useful in reducing the sample size of epidemiological studies of pneumococcal pneumonia in adults.


In September 2016, the Cabinet Office of Japan published the results of an epidemiological survey focusing on acute social withdrawal ( hikikomori ). This article summarizes and assesses the major features of the survey. It aims at facilitating research and international exchanges on a mental health and social problem affecting at least 541,000 people in Japan that seems to have spread to industrialized societies.


The adaptation of GIS has evolved from a land/resource management system to a non-exhaustively applied solution for managing, manipulating, analysing and presenting all kinds of spatially relevant information. Contemporary usage is particularly strong in ecology, demographics, utilities, planning, logistics, quaternary science, defence, retail, asset management and business, yet application within urban security, particularly at the operational level, is still relatively peripheral. This comes despite the fact that location is critical in understanding urban security problems, the premise upon which GIS is based. Utilising case study based application evidence this focus paper depicts the benefits of aligning GIS with decision making in the urban security domain as well as highlighting the design and development processes and procedures followed in the creating the bespoke BESECURE GIS which serves as the functional underpinning and reasoning to the Inspirational Platform, Policy Support Platform and the Urban Data Platform.


In this paper, a twofold approach to improve the performance of genetic algorithms (GAs) in the feature selection problem (FSP) is presented. First, a novel genetic operator is introduced to solve the FSP. This operator fixes in each iteration the number of features to be selected among the available ones and consequently reduces the size of the search space. This approach yields two main advantages: a) training the learning machine becomes faster and b) a higher performance is achieved by using the selected subset. Second, we propose using the Walsh expansion of the FSP fitness function in order to perform ranking on the problem features. Ranking features have been traditionally considered to be a challenging problem, especially significant in health sciences where the number of available and potentially noisy signals is high. Three real biological datasets are used to test the behavior of the two approaches proposed.


Recent interest in alternative purchasing arrangements has centered on "supplier alliances," an approach used to establish broader roles in the buyer-supplier relationship. Prior research about strategic supplier alliances has focused on the appropriate environments for developing these relationships and the potential benefits of such a strategy. This article addresses a different issue: implementation difficulties caused by supplier discontent. Information about this issue has been generated from a survey covering a wide array of firms. Responding buyers were requested to nominate exemplary suppliers for a follow-up survey. Responses from matched pairs of buyers and suppliers subsequently were compared for differences in their perceptions of their alliance. The degree to which their views differed was evaluated against several key hypotheses. This research interprets and suggests the management implications of the results.


Combined floating offshore wind platform and wave energy converter (WECs) systems have the potential to provide a cost-effective solution to offshore power supply and platform protection. The objective of this paper is to optimize the size and layout of WECs within the hybrid system under a given sea state with a numerical study. The numerical model was developed based on potential flow theory with viscous correction in the frequency domain to investigate the hydrodynamic performance of a hybrid system consisting of a floating platform and multiple heaving WECs. A non-dimensional method was presented to determine a series of variables, including radius, draft, and layout of the cylindrical WEC at a typical wave frequency as the initial design. WECs with larger diameter to draft ratio were found to experience relatively smaller viscous effects, and achieve more wave power, larger effective frequency range and similar wave power per unit volume in the same sea state. The addition of WECs reduced the maximum horizontal force and pitch moment on the platform, whereas the maximum vertical force increased due to the increasing power take-off force, especially at low frequencies. The results presented in this paper provide guidance for the optimized design of WECs and indicate the potential for synergies between wave and wind energy utilization on floating platforms.


The specific localization of polyribosomes and certain messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in dendrites allows for the intriguing possibility that neurotransmitters trigger long-lasting, synapse-specific, changes in synaptic efficacy through local regulation of protein synthesis. Such use-dependent modifications of particular neuronal pathways could be critically involved in learning and memory. The specific pathways through which localized mRNA translation is regulated, however, remain unclear, nor has a clear link been established between dendritic protein synthesis and behavior in intact animals. Two studies fill in some blanks. Using mass spectrometry and Western analysis on mRNAs and associated proteins isolated from rat hippocampus or cortex, Angenstein et al. demonstrated that a receptor for activated C kinase, RACK1, was a component of a poly(A)-mRNA-protein complex associated with polysome-bound mRNAs actively undergoing translation. Either stimulating metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) in hippocampal slices or activating protein kinase C β2 (PKCβ2) in vitro enhanced RACK1 and PKCβ2 association with the complex. In vitro, exogenous PKCβ2 phosphorylated poly(A)-mRNA-associated proteins that were also phosphorylated in vivo. These data, together with the immunocytochemical localization of RACK1 to dendrites (and somata) suggest that mGluR-triggered PKCβ2 binding to poly(A)-mRNA-protein complexes is involved in localized regulation of protein synthesis. Miller et al. used transgenic mice with mutated calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIα (CaMKIIα) 3' untranslated regions to investigate the effects of disrupting CaMKIIα mRNA targeting to dendrites. In the transgenic mice, CaMKIIα mRNA was restricted to the soma, dendritic CaMKIIα was markedly reduced, and both late-phase long-term potentiation (LTP) and behaviors associated with memory consolidation were impaired. These data indicate that local translation is important for dendritic expression of CaMKIIα and that it contributes to LTP and some forms of memory. F. Angenstein, A. E. Evans, R. E. Settlage, S. T. Moran, S.-C. Ling, A.Y. Klintsova, J. Shabanowitz, D. F. Hunt, W. T. Greenough, A receptor for activated C kinase is part of messenger ribonucleoprotein complexes associated with polyA-mRNAs in neurons. J. Neurosci. 22, 8827-8837 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] S. Miller, M. Yasuda, J. K. Coats, Y. Jones, M. E. Martone, M. Mayford, Disruption of dendritic translation of CamKIIα impairs stabilization of synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation. Neuron 36, 507-519 (2002). [Online Journal]


Learning representations of sets of nodes in a graph is crucial for applications ranging from node-role discovery to link prediction and molecule classification. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have achieved great success in graph representation learning. However, expressive power of GNNs is limited by the 1-Weisfeiler-Lehman (WL) test and thus GNNs generate identical representations for graph substructures that may in fact be very different. More powerful GNNs, proposed recently by mimicking higher-order-WL tests, only focus on representing entire graphs and they are computationally inefficient as they cannot utilize sparsity of the underlying graph. Here we propose and mathematically analyze a general class of structurerelated features, termed Distance Encoding (DE). DE assists GNNs in representing any set of nodes, while providing strictly more expressive power than the 1-WL test. DE captures the distance between the node set whose representation is to be learned and each node in the graph. To capture the distance DE can apply various graph-distance measures such as shortest path distance or generalized PageRank scores. We propose two ways for GNNs to use DEs (1) as extra node features, and (2) as controllers of message aggregation in GNNs. Both approaches can utilize the sparse structure of the underlying graph, which leads to computational efficiency and scalability. We also prove that DE can distinguish node sets embedded in almost all regular graphs where traditional GNNs always fail. We evaluate DE on three tasks over six real networks: structural role prediction, link prediction, and triangle prediction. Results show that our models outperform GNNs without DE by up-to 15% in accuracy and AUROC. Furthermore, our models also significantly outperform other state-of-the-art methods especially designed for the above tasks.


Stress measurements in deep boreholes have universally shown that stresses in the Earth's crust are in equilibrium with favorably oriented faults with friction coefficients in the range 0.6‐0.7 and with nearly hydrostatic pore-pressure gradients. Because of the lack of any fault-adjacent heat-flow anomaly as predicted by a conductive model of frictional heating, the San Andreas fault has long been thought to be an exception, i.e., far weaker than this standard case. Borehole stress measurements near the San Andreas fault have failed to confirm this weak-fault hypothesis, being either inconclusive or in conflict with it. Directions of maximum horizontal stresses reported to be nearly fault normal in central California are now known not to be regional stresses but a result of active folding within folds that have been rotated 20°‐30° clockwise from their original orientations. Everywhere in southern California it is observed that the maximum stress directions rotate to smaller angles (30°‐60°) with the San Andreas, within 20 km of it. The sense of this rotation is opposite to that expected from the weak-fault hypothesis and indicates that the shear stress on the San Andreas is comparable in magnitude to all other horizontal stresses in the system. In the "big bend" section of the fault, this rotation is predicted from a transpressional plate-boundary model in which the San Andreas is loaded by a deep shear zone with a locking depth of 10 km. If the adjacent minor thrust faults are assumed to obey Byerlee friction, the crustal-average shear stress on the San Andreas in that region must be in the range 100‐160 MPa, regardless of the pore pressure in the fault. These stresses are many times greater than permitted by the weak-fault hypothesis. In the more transcurrent regions farther south, the San Andreas shear stress will be smaller than this estimate, but similar stress rotations observed there indicate that the San Andreas cannot be weak relative to minor faults in that region. These stress rotations can only be consistent with the weakfault hypothesis if it were assumed that all faults in California were equally weak, which is known to be untrue. The conclusion is that the heat-flow model is flawed, probably in its assumption that all heat transfer is governed by conduction.


Recently, we reported a single input channel joint transform correlator for the color pattern recognition which decomposes the input color image into three R, G, and B gray components and adds those components into a single gray image in the input plane. This technique has the merit of a single input channel instead of three input channels. However, we found this technique has some problems with discrimination impossibility in the case of a simple primary color pattern which results in the same gray level through the addition process. Thus, we propose a modified coding technique which selectively recombines the decomposed three R, G, and B gray components instead of the simple adding process. Simulated results show that the modified coding technique can accurately discriminate a variety of kinds of color images.


A wide range of the epigenetic effectors that regulate chromatin modification, gene expression, genomic stability, and DNA repair contain structurally conserved domains called plant homeodomain (PHD) fingers. Alternations of several PHD finger-containing proteins (PHFs) due to genomic amplification, mutations, deletions, and translocations have been linked directly to various types of cancer. However, little is known about the genomic landscape and the clinical significance of PHFs in breast cancer. Hence, we performed a large-scale genomic and transcriptomic analysis of 98 PHF genes in breast cancer using TCGA and METABRIC datasets and correlated the recurrent alterations with clinicopathological features and survival of patients. Different subtypes of breast cancer had different patterns of copy number and expression for each PHF. We identified a subset of PHF genes that was recurrently altered with high prevalence, including PYGO2 (pygopus family PHD finger 2), ZMYND8 (zinc finger, MYND-type containing 8), ASXL1 (additional sex combs like 1) and CHD3 (chromodomain helicase DNA binding protein 3). Copy number increase and overexpression of ZMYND8 were more prevalent in Luminal B subtypes and were significantly associated with shorter survival of breast cancer patients. ZMYND8 was also involved in a positive feedback circuit of the estrogen receptor (ER) pathway, and the expression of ZMYND8 was repressed by the bromodomain and extra terminal (BET) inhibitor in breast cancer. Our findings suggest a promising avenue for future research—to focus on a subset of PHFs to better understand the molecular mechanisms and to identify therapeutic targets in breast cancer.


Context: The police personnel resort to tobacco-associated habits often as a stress buster and consider the nicotine rush will settle their nerves so that they can focus better on their work. Recently, some nongovernmental organizations have taken a note of this and carried out health checkup camps for the police personnel in the city of Mumbai, but similar awareness for oral and dental health is still largely missing. Aim: The present study was carried out with the primary aim to determine the prevalence of tobacco-associated habits and oral lesions in the police personnel from Greater Mumbai. Materials and Methods: All the police personnel included in the study were subjected to a detailed case history elicitation and examination procedure after obtaining their informed written consent. Special stress was given in eliciting history of tobacco-associated habits while care was taken to diagnose tobacco-associated oral lesions such as tobacco pouch keratosis, preleukoplakia, leukoplakia, oral submucous fibrosis, carcinomatous, and other lesions. The data so collected were tabulated and sent for statistical analysis, and objective conclusions were drawn. Results: Use of tobacco with lime was found to be the most common habit present in the police personnel (34.0%), whereas the least common habit found was betel nut chewing (3.9%). In a sample size of 2388 police personnel included in the study, the overall prevalence of leukoplakia was found to be 11.12% with homogenous leukoplakia being the most common sub-type encountered (96.24%) with the second most common subtype encountered being speckled leukoplakia accounting for 2.26% of the cases reported. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated tobacco-associated habits to be very common in the police personnel from Greater Mumbai which emphasized specific efforts to be made to reduce tobacco usage by police personnel on active duty.


Abstract. Recent satellite observations show efficient vertical transport of Asian pollutants from the surface to the upper-level anticyclone by deep monsoon convection. In this paper, we examine the transport of carbonaceous aerosols, including black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC), into the monsoon anticyclone using of ECHAM6-HAM, a global aerosol climate model. Further, we investigate impacts of enhanced (doubled) carbonaceous aerosol emissions on the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS), underneath monsoon circulation and precipitation from sensitivity simulations. The model simulation shows that boundary layer aerosols are transported into the monsoon anticyclone by the strong monsoon convection from the Bay of Bengal, southern slopes of the Himalayas and the South China Sea. Doubling of emissions of both BC and OC aerosols over Southeast Asia (10° S–50° N, 65–155° E) shows that lofted aerosols produce significant warming (0.6–1 K) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) near 400–200 hPa and instability in the middle/upper troposphere. These aerosols enhance radiative heating rates (0.02–0.03 K day−1) near the tropopause. The enhanced carbonaceous aerosols alter aerosol radiative forcing (RF) at the surface by −4.74 ± 1.42 W m−2, at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) by +0.37 ± 0.26 W m−2 and in the atmosphere by +5.11 ± 0.83 W m−2 over the TP and Indo-Gangetic Plain region (15–35° N, 80–110° E). Atmospheric warming increases vertical velocities and thereby cloud ice in the upper troposphere. Aerosol induced anomalous warming over the TP facilitates the relative strengthening of the monsoon Hadley circulation and increases moisture inflow by strengthening the cross-equatorial monsoon jet. This increases precipitation amounts over India (1–4 mm day−1) and eastern China (0.2–2 mm day−1). These results are significant at the 99 % confidence level.


This paper extends the literature on monopsony and labor market concentration by taking a skillbased approach and estimates the causal effect of monopsony power on labor market outcomes. The prior literature has focused on industry and occupation concentration and likely overstates the degree of monopsony power, since worker skills are substitutable across different firms, occupations and industries. Exploiting linked employer-employee data that cover the universe of Norwegian workers over time, we find that our skill-based monopsony measure shows lower degrees of monopsony power than the conventional industry-and occupation-based measures. However, we also find that the gender gap in concentration is substantially larger using the skillbased measure relative to the occupation- or industry-based measures. Using mass layoffs and establishment closures as an exogenous shock to labor demand, we find that workers who experience a mass separation have substantially worse subsequent labor market outcomes when they are in more concentrated skill clusters. Our results point to the existence of employer market power in the economy that is driven by the concentration of skill demand across firms.


This book analyses the establishment and operation of international agreements regulating trade in goods, focusing on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The book outlines the history of the international trading system from the creation of the first GATT agreement in 1947 to the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1994. The major substantive provisions of the GATT are then analysed alongside the other foundational trade agreements of the WTO, clarifying the economic rationale for the current legal framework. Throughout the book it is maintained that the agreements themselves represent 'incomplete contracts', realized through interpretation by the WTO and other judicial bodies. A comprehensive analysis of the case-law is provided, where it is argued that a more rigorous theoretical approach is needed to ensure a greater coherence to the interpretation of the core provisions regulating trade in goods. The book presents an extension and elaboration of the author's views expressed in The General Agreement in Tariffs and Trade: A Commentary (OUP, 2005). Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/law/9780199552139/toc.html


While the recession has officially been declared as ending during the past summer, the prolonged economic conundrum continues to pose new challenges to organizations around the world. The past year has shown some increase in IT investments, yet IT executives continue to proceed cautiously and predict incremental improvements in 2011; there is no anticipated dramatic return to the growth levels that preceded the recession.However, a significant shift in IT priorities first captured in 2009 continues: IT organizations are working aggressively and closely with their business partners to identify opportunities to reduce costs and improve productivity across the company through IT initiatives. This phenomenon is very different from previous recessions where IT budgets were typically the first to be cut.Since its inception in 1980, the Society for Information Management (SIM) survey has helped IT leaders around the globe understand important issues and trends. This article presents the major findings based on survey responses from 172 U.S. organizations in mid-2010. The top five management concerns were: 1. Business productivity and cost reduction; 2. Business agility and speed to market; 3. IT and business alignment; 4. IT reliability and efficiency; 5. Business process re-engineering.This is the fifth in a series of MISQE-published reports based on a SIM membership survey facilitated by the lead author. As in previous reports, this article also presents findings on key application and technology developments, and various aspects of the IT organization. In addition, similarities and differences between the U.S. results and those from similar samples of European and Asian/Australian organizations provide a more global perspective.


Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) food security can be comprehensively governed by the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the ASEAN Social and Cultural Community (ASCC). This paper reviews the ASCC Blueprint and argues that, within the ASEAN framework, it is imperative for the ASCC to address food security in relation to climate change and disaster risks. There are three main reasons for this: the larger scope of environment security, climate change, and disaster risks under the ASCC; food security from beyond an economic standpoint under the flagship of the AEC; and climate change that alters regional food systems, agriculture, and fisheries, which contribute significantly to the livelihoods and well-being of all people in the region. Although the distribution of impacts and risks of climate change will be different from place to place and household to household, marginal farmers, fisherfolk, and poor urban consumers are likely to be impacted disproportionately. Thus the need for a shared governance of food security and climate change under the ASCC and AEC to comprehensively consider the availability, accessibility, utility, and stability of food for populations from both an economic and socio-cultural perspective.


The multinational enterprise (MNE) is now a significant part of the world economy
both in temis of trade and employment. The performance of an MINE is in part
dependent on the capability of its human resource. The knowledge and experience of
employees is a source of competitive advantage, but whether this is realised or not
may depend on having the right human resource policies. Managers therefore seek to
implement best practice, and in multinationals there is the potential for intraorganizational
learning across national boundaries. The aim of this thesis is to
examine a number of questions arising from the proposition that multinational firms
are contributing to the development of international norms of best practice in human
resource management as a result of a trend towards greater coordination of
management practice in MNEs. It is suggested that multinationals are developing
mechanisms to encourage the transfer of knowledge and experience across national
boundaries, and this is therefore an important aspect of international human resource
management (HRM).
The thesis contains a review of the literature, firstly on the management of
multinationals, secondly on the development of a strategic view of human resource
management, and thirdly on HRM in the MINE. From this material, a theoretical
framework is developed that links together a number of research questions. These
formed the basis for the design and execution of a qualitative research project in which
information on strategy, structure and management practice was obtained from twentyfour
companies. These represented a cross-section of country ownership, including
the UK, other European countries, the USA and Japan. The design of the research
project is explained, and this is followed by a presentation of the results. These
support the proposition that as a consequence of the globalization of markets,
multinationals are tending to adopt a more global perspective in which there is greater
cross-national integration of operations, coordination of management practice, and the
development of internationally orientated management. The analysis discusses the
implications of this for international human resource management, and offers a
number of recommendations for HRM in the multinational enterprise. Finally some
suggestions are made for future research to build on and extend the findings of this
project.


Following neo-Aristotelians Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, we claim that humans are story-telling animals who learn from the stories of diverse others. Moral agents use rational emotions, such as compassion, which is our focus here, to imaginatively reconstruct others' thoughts, feelings and goals. In turn, this imaginative reconstruction plays a crucial role in deliberating and discerning how to act. A body of literature has developed in support of the role narrative artworks (i.e. novels and films) can play in allowing us the opportunity to engage imaginatively and sympathetically with diverse characters and scenarios in a safe protected space that is created by the fictional world. By practising what Nussbaum calls a 'loving attitude', her version of ethical attention, we can form virtuous habits that lead to  phronesis  (practical wisdom). In this paper, and taking compassion as an illustrative focus, we examine the ways that students' moral education might usefully develop from engaging with narrative artworks through Philosophy for Children (P4C), where philosophy is a praxis, conducted in a classroom setting using a Community of Inquiry (CoI). We argue that narrative artworks provide useful stimulus material to engage students, generate student questions, and motivate philosophical dialogue and the formation of good habits, which, in turn, supports the argument for philosophy to be taught in schools.


Dendritic cells (DC) are efficient and potent antigen-presenting cells in our immune
system. The ability of DC to present antigens and stimulate T cells has prompted
their application as therapeutic cancer vaccines. The objective of this study was to
generate DC from two resources: monocytes and AML blasts. The generated DC
were evaluated for their morphology by phase contrast microscopy and May
Grunwald Giemsa staining. Viability of cells was determined by trypan blue dye
exclusion. Percentage of yields and immunophenotypes were carried out with flow
cytometry. The functional capability of DC was also tested in Mixed Leukocyte
Reactions and anti-leukaemia cytotoxicity assay. As a result, the generated DC
shown typical morphology of those reported and expressed DC surface markers
including CDl a, CD83, CD86, CD80 and HLA-DR. Down regulation of CD14 was
also observed for cultured monocytes. In MLR assay, both generated DC elicited
strong allo-stimulatory response up to more than 100 fold compared to preculture
cells. Mild anti-leukaemia cytotoxicity effect (1 5%) was also observed fiom primed
effector cells with AML antigen pulsed DC generated fiom monocytes. These data
indicate that DC were successfully generated fiom the two resources and they were
capable of eliciting immune response.


Chlorinated solvents are the most ubiquitous organic contaminants found in groundwater since the last five decades. They generally reach groundwater as Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL). This phase can migrate through aquifers, and also through aquitards, in ways that aqueous contaminants cannot. The complex phase partitioning to which chlorinated solvent DNAPLs can undergo (i.e. to the dissolved, vapor or sorbed phase), as well as their transformations (e.g. degradation), depend on the physico-chemical properties of the contaminants themselves and on features of the hydrogeological system. The main goal of the thesis is to provide new knowledge for the future investigations of sites contaminated by DNAPLs in alluvial settings, proposing innovative investigative approaches and emphasizing some of the key issues and main criticalities of this kind of contaminants in such a setting. To achieve this goal, the hydrogeologic setting below the city of Ferrara (Po plain, northern Italy), which is affected by scattered contamination by chlorinated solvents, has been investigated at different scales (regional and site specific), both from an intrinsic (i.e. groundwater flow systems) and specific (i.e. chlorinated solvent DNAPL behavior) point of view. Detailed investigations were carried out in particular in one selected test-site, known as "Caretti site", where high-resolution vertical profiling of different kind of data were collected by means of multilevel monitoring systems and other innovative sampling and analytical techniques. This allowed to achieve a deep geological and hydrogeological knowledge of the system and to reconstruct in detail the architecture of contaminants in relationship to the features of the hosting porous medium.
The results achieved in this thesis are useful not only at local scale, e.g. employable to interpret the origin of contamination in other sites of the Ferrara area, but also at global scale, in order to address future remediation and protection actions of similar hydrogeologic settings.


Abstract

Well-being plays a significant role in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and music therapy can bring about an increased perception of well-being in these patients. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between the improvement in the emotional perception and the physiological parameters (immunoglobulin A (IgA) and alpha-amylase). A prospective, mixed analytical and quasi-experimental study was carried out, involving eight music therapy sessions over a two-month period in patients with mild AD. The final sample for this pilot study contained 25 patients from Valencia (Valencia Association of Relatives of Alzheimer's Patients (Spain)) and the experiment was performed between the months of October and November of 2015.

The ELISA technique was used to quantify salivary IgA and alpha-amylase before and after the sessions. Mood questionnaires were also used to analyze mood state happiness. Salivary IgA and alpha-amylase were found to be correlated and to increase after music therapy although the differences were not significant. The happiness scores were seen to increase significantly, but showed a non-significant association with IgA production. Therefore, IgA and alpha amylase could be used as possible biomarkers of increases in well-being in AD patients, although more studies are needed to confirm these results.


The Innere Fuehrung with its corollary of "citizen in uniform" greatly contributed to the fact that the Bundeswehr became not only a self-evident part of our society but also a reliable instrument of German security policies. (1) --Dr. Franz Josef Jung, Former German Defense Minister On 12 May 1949, Germany's three Western Military Governors (United States, France and Great Britain) sent a letter to Dr. Conrad Adenauer, the President of the Parliamentary Council. With some reservations, this letter approved the Draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. (2) In less than two weeks, on 23 May 1949, the Constitution (or Basic Law) for the young democracy was confirmed by the Parliamentary Council in a public session. (3) The unique preamble of the Basic Law committed the German nation to the promotion of peace and European unity. The Basic Law did not, however, include any articles regarding the establishment of armed forces. (4) Even so, Germany and its occupying powers were determined not to repeat the militarism and fanaticism that had brought the nation and the world into two devastating wars in the first half of the century. The ensuing deepening East-West conflict necessitated a German military contribution to defend Western freedom. This was especially evident following the 1950 communist North Korean invasion of South Korea. (5) The United States urged its European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners to rearm Germany as a NATO member after the Pleven Plan for a European Defense Community was rejected by the French national assembly in 1954. (6) But German citizens, who had suffered two major wars, remained skeptical regarding their nation's rearmament. (7) Nonetheless, Chancellor Adenauer managed to gain formal approval of rearmament, even though the majority of Germans opposed it. (8) He envisioned this as a way to restore Germany's sovereignty; a rearmed Germany would gain equal partnership within the western alliance of democracies. (9) On 12 November 1955, the 200th birthday of General Scharnhorst, the founding father of conscription in Prussia, (10) the first 101 volunteers joined the Bundeswehr. (11) Two years later the first 10,000 conscripts were drafted. (12) A central issue was how to guarantee that the new force would be an integral part of the young democracy and not yield to antidemocratic tendencies in its ranks. This was especially important because much of its military leadership would come from the veterans of the Wehrmacht and Reichswehr. In October 1950, a Rearmament Commission established by Chancellor Adenauer issued its initial proposal for the formation of a new German army. A group of 15 hand-picked former Wehrmacht officers met at the "Eifelkloster Himmerod" under the lead of Adolf Heusinger (13) and drafted the so-called "Himmeroder Denkschrift" (Himmerod Memorandum), (14) which became the founding document for the new Bundeswehr. The group strongly advised that the preconditions for German rearmament should be totally different from those that led to the Wehrmacht. They insisted that Germany's new army should be closely integrated with German society and subordinate to civilian leadership. (15) German leaders did not want to create another "state within a state," (16) as happened with the Reichswehr. Nor did they want the military to be misused politically or to be subject to political indoctrinations, as was the Wehrmacht. (17) The preamble of the Basic Law guided the new German national vision: "Inspired by the determination to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe, the German people, in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law." (18) The founding fathers of the Bundeswehr needed to ensure that the norms and values embodied in the Basic Law would be assured in the Bundeswehr. (19) Therefore, Lieutenant General Graf von Baudissin (20) advocated that the Bundeswehr be built on the principle of Innere Fuehrung (leadership development and civic education), based on its corollary of "citizen in uniform" (Staatsbuerger in Uniform). …


The hedgehog (HH) signaling pathway regulates the development of multiple organs in the embryo as well as remodeling in adult tissues. Signaling occurs through binding of one of three secreted HH ligands (Indian, desert and sonic) to the membrane receptor patched (PTCH); this relieves inhibition of the signal transducer smoothened (SMO), and downstream signaling occurs through GLI transcription factors. The objective of this study was to determine the role of HH signaling in development of the female reproductive tract. Mice were created in which expression of a dominant active allele of Smo, known as SmoM2, and a fusion protein, yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), are induced in the Müllerian duct by CRE-mediated recombination using the Amhr2 cre/+ allele. The Amhr2 cre/+ allele is known to be expressed during embryonic development of the Müllerian duct and the ovary. In Amhr2 cre/+ SmoM2 mutant mice, YFP was detected in the reproductive tract on the day of birth, confirming that expression of the SmoM2/Yfp fusion gene had been induced. At 24 days of age, levels of mRNA for genes that are known transcriptional targets of HH signaling, Gli1, Ptch1 and Hhip, were increased in uteri and oviducts of Amhr2 cre/+ SmoM2 mutant mice compared to genotype-matched Amhr2 +/+ SmoM2 controls. Thus, over-activation of HH signaling continued in prepubertal mutant mice. The reproductive tract of mutant mice failed to develop normally. Unlike the uterus in control mice, in which the luminal epithelium consists of a single layer of columnar epithelial cells, the luminal epithelium in mutant mice had stratified squamous cells, resembling those of a normal cervix. In addition, the uterus of mutant mice lacked glands, had a disorganized myometrium and the oviduct lacked coiling. These characteristics suggested partial homeotic transformation of the uterus in mutant mice to resemble the more posterior cervix and failure of the oviduct to develop normally. The anterior-posterior axis of the reproductive tract is known to be regulated by differential expression of genes in the Hox family. Wnt7a and Wnt5a null mice have defects in patterning of the reproductive tract. Furthermore, neonatal treatment with DES was reported to alter development of the reproductive tract and the expression of Hox and Wnt genes. Therefore, steady state levels of mRNA for Hoxa9, Hoxa10, Hoxa11, Hoxa13, Wnt5a and Wnt7a were determined in oviduct, uterus and vagina of 24-day old Amhr2 cre/+ SmoM2 mutant and control mice. In control mice, expression of Hoxa9 was most prevalent in the oviduct, Hoxa10 and Hoxa11 in the uterus and Hoxa13 in the vagina. mRNA levels of Hoxa9, Hoxa10 and Hoxa11 in the oviduct and uterus of mutant mice were similar to that in control mice. In contrast, mRNA of Hoxa13 in uterus of mutants was 12-fold higher than in controls. Steady state levels Wnt7a mRNA were was similar in the reproductive tract of mutants and controls. In contrast, Wnt5a expression was increased 1.7-fold in the oviducts and 1.8-fold in the uterus of mutant mice compared to control mice, but it did not differ in the vagina. Mutant mice were infertile, in large part due to an ovarian defect that prevented ovulation. In addition, mating with either fertile or vasectomized wild-type males induced a severe inflammatory response in the reproductive tract by a mechanism that remains to be determined. In summary, over-activation of HH signaling results in a defect in patterning of the reproductive tract that is associated with an altered pattern of expression of Hoxa13 in the uterus and elevated expression of Wnt5a in the oviduct and uterus. These results show that development of the reproductive tract can be influenced by HH signaling.


Despite claims to being counterculture and a better alternative, grassroots activist design groups and free culture movements may replicate the marginalizing behaviours of dominant society, also in their governance and designs of their interaction platforms. We developed a code-of-conduct, or Community Guidelines, for our online commonsoriented group to nurture a sense of a caring and mutually responsible community. The guidelines aim to bring into online interaction the living person-to-person dialogic relationality we exhibit in collaborative work offline. Our social learning process could have implications for designing healthier online community protocols and platforms and be able to better tackle the challenges of intersectionality.


Large surveys, such as the Kepler mission and Palomar Transient Factory, are discovering upwards of thousands of objects which require further characterization at angular resolutions significantly finer than normally allowed by atmospheric seeing. The demands on precious space-based observatories (i.e. Hubble Space Telescope) and large telescopes with adaptive optics (AO) systems (i.e. Keck, VLT, Gemini) leave them generally unavailable for high angular resolution surveys of more than a few hundred targets at a time. To address the gap between scientific objects and available telescopes, we have developed Robo -AO, the first robotic laser AO system, as an economical and efficient imaging instrument for the more readily available 1-3 m class telescopes. The Robo -AO system system demonstrates angular resolutions approaching the visible diffraction limit of the Palomar 60-inch telescope. Observations of over 200 stellar objects per night have routinely been performed, with targetto-target observation overheads of less than 1.5 minutes. Scientific programs requiring high-resolution follow-up characterization of several thousands of targets can thus be executed in mere weeks, and Robo -AO has already completed the three largest AO surveys to date.


This study is a contribution based on Greek material to a field of inquiry that deals with the diachronic development of formal syntactic devices and their interrelationship with the dichotomy between main and subordinate clauses in Indo-European (Kiparsky 1995, Luhr 2008). First, we focus on some devices signaling indirect speech that emerged in Pre-Classical and Classical Greek, such as the development of a system of complementizers (hoti 'that.COMP', hōs 'that.COMP') and some characteristic usages of moods (the optative of indirect speech). In Post-Classical Greek, this system of traits that had been employed to code indirect speech collapsed, as evidenced by the disappearance of hōs 'that.COMP' and the optative of indirect speech as well as the high frequency of pleonastic hoti 'that.COMP'. Later in the history of Greek a new subordination system arises. We interpret these developments in the light of contemporary syntactic theory (Emonds 2004, 2012), and try to formulate a hypothesis regarding the cycle-like regularities and recurrent patterns that are followed by (clusters of) traits, that is, the "Indirect Speech Traits Cycle".


Analysis of the impact of scholarly artifacts is constrained by current unreliable practices in cross-referencing, citation discovering, and citation indexing and analysis, which have not kept pace with the technological advances that are occurring in several areas like knowledge management and security. Because citation analysis has become the primary component in scholarly impact factor calculation, and considering the relevance of this metric within both the scholarly publishing value chain and (especially important) the professional curriculum evaluation of scholarly professionals, we defend that current practices need to be revised. This paper describes a reference architecture that aims to provide openness and reliability to the citation-tracking lifecycle. The solution relies on the use of digitally signed semantic metadata in the different stages of the scholarly publishing workflow in such a manner that authors, publishers, repositories, and citation-analysis systems will have access to independent reliable evidences that are resistant to forgery, impersonation, and repudiation. As far as we know, this is the first paper to combine Semantic Web technologies and public-key cryptography to achieve reliable citation analysis in scholarly publishing


Pipelining is a common method for improving the throughput of a system, especially when the majority of the processing is sequential. Unfortunately when the sequentiality is broken, a pipelined system suffers additional delay and, most importantly for this work, energy waste which is roughly proportional to the pipeline depth. Standard pipelines cannot be modified once they are built so their depth is fixed. This paper proposes a method that allows the dynamic adaptation of the structure of an asynchronous pipeline, so that pipeline stages can be merged and split at run-time, allowing greater flexibility. It is based on novel latch controllers that can be configured dynamically as 'normal' or 'collapsed', i.e. keeping their latches permanently transparent. Using these controllers a model of AMULET3 was designed that is capable of changing its pipeline depth dynamically when branches are anticipated, in order to alleviate the energy loss when the branch finally arrives.


This document reinterprets C. P. Snow's famous "Two Cultures" (the so-called "literary elite" and scientists) lecture of 1959, in light of advances in information systems in the past fifty years. While Snow referred to specific groups, his analysis is generalizable: cultural groups differentiate through lack of communication. Here Snow's analysis and advice are applied to a different pair of "cultures"(IT purveyors and IT users) as an example of his general principles. At a time of great unease about terrorism in the face of apparently relentless technological advance – analogous to Snow's speech at the height of the Cold War—and also during a time of (then) apparently dramatic technological advance, the lessons Snow derived can now apply usefully to today's specific "two cultures" case.


PROPERTIES MODEL FOR AQUEOUS SODIUM CHLORIDE SOLUTIONS NEAR THE CRITICAL POINT OF WATER Bing Liu Department of Chemical Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Traditional excess Gibbs energy models in terms of temperature, pressure, and concentration become progressively less effective in describing the thermodynamics of aqueous solutions at temperatures above 300  ̊C, and are totally inadequate in the critical region of water. This deficiency is due to the strong ion association and the large property fluctuations (such as density) with small variations in pressure, temperature, and solute concentration around the critical point of water. In this work, a speciation-based model has been developed to describe the thermodynamic properties of aqueous sodium chloride solutions in the critical region of water. The anomalous fluctuation problem is avoided by adopting a residual Helmholtz energy approach in terms of temperature, density, and solute concentration. Partial ion dissociation is accounted for by including an isochoric equilibrium constant equation and a mean spherical approximation in the present model. The present model includes such classical interactions or effects as hard-sphere interactions, dipole-dipole interactions, ion dissociation effects, long-range ion-ion interactions, and a non-classical perturbation term. The related parameters that account for these effects were regressed to fit the measured values in the critical region of water. Densities, compressibility factors, apparent molar volumes, heats of dilution, and apparent isobaric molar heat capacities were used to test the validity of the model. The predicted values in this work agree well with the literature data over a wide range of temperatures (350 to 400  ̊C), pressures (17.5 to 40 MPa), and sodium chloride concentrations (0 to 5 mol/kg). Comparisons with other models are also included in this work. This model can be used to predict speciation, solute dissociation reaction, and many other comprehensive properties in aqueous sodium chloride solutions at near-critical conditions.


DNA microarray analysis has provided a wealth of data on global patterns of gene expression but has yet to deliver on its early promise of identifying networks of interacting gene products. In his Perspective, Quackenbush discusses new work (Stuart et al.) that uses evolutionary conservation of gene expression patterns in yeast, worm, fruit fly, and human in an attempt to identify functionally related groups of genes.


We consider problems of splitting and connectivity augmentation in hypergraphs. In a hypergraph G = (V +s, E), to split two edges su, sv, is to replace
them with a single edge uv. We are interested in doing this in such a way as to preserve a defined level of connectivity in V . The splitting technique is often used as a way of adding new edges into a graph or hypergraph, so as to augment the connectivity to some prescribed level. We begin by providing a short history of work done in this area. Then several preliminary results are given in a general form so that they may be used to tackle several problems. We then analyse the hypergraphs G = (V + s, E) for which there is no split preserving the local-edge-connectivity present in V. We provide two structural
theorems, one of which implies a slight extension to Mader's classical splitting theorem. We also provide a characterisation of the hypergraphs for which there
is no such "good" split and a splitting result concerned with a specialisation of the local-connectivity function.

We then use our splitting results to provide an upper bound on the smallest number of size-two edges we must add to any given hypergraph to ensure that in the resulting hypergraph we have λ(x, y) ≥ r(x, y) for all x, y in V, where
r is an integer valued, symmetric requirement function on V*V. This is the so called "local-edge-connectivity augmentation problem" for hypergraphs. We also provide an extension to a Theorem of Szigeti, about augmenting to satisfy a requirement r, but using hyperedges. Next, in a result born of collaborative work with Zoltan Kiraly from Budapest, we show that the local-connectivity
augmentation problem is NP-complete for hypergraphs.

Lastly we concern ourselves with an augmentation problem that includes a locational constraint. The premise is that we are given a hypergraph H = (V,E) with a bipartition P = {P1, P2} of V and asked to augment it with size-two
edges, so that the result is k-edge-connected, and has no new edge contained in some P(i). We consider the splitting technique and describe the obstacles that prevent us forming "good" splits. From this we deduce results about which hypergraphs have a complete Pk-split. This leads to a minimax result on the optimal number of edges required and a polynomial algorithm to provide an optimal augmentation.


Learning long term dependencies in recurrent networks is difficult due to vanishing and exploding gradients. To overcome this difficulty, researchers have developed sophisticated optimization techniques and network architectures. In this paper, we propose a simpler solution that use recurrent neural networks composed of rectified linear units. Key to our solution is the use of the identity matrix or its scaled version to initialize the recurrent weight matrix. We find that our solution is comparable to LSTM on our four benchmarks: two toy problems involving long-range temporal structures, a large language modeling problem and a benchmark speech recognition problem.


South‐east Asia's tropical rainforests are experiencing the highest rate of deforestation worldwide and fire is one of the most important drivers of forest loss and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions. In this study, we analyzed all fire events in Borneo recorded by satellites over a period of 10 years. About 16.2 Mha, which corresponds to 21% of the land surface, have been affected by fire at least once and 6% more than one time. During El Niño conditions, which cause prolonged droughts in the region, the fire‐affected area was on average three times larger than during normal weather conditions. Similarly, fires in forests affected 0.3 Mha in normal years and 1 Mha during El Niño years. Carbon rich peat swamp forest ecosystems were most severely affected. There is a pronounced difference in fire occurrence between different countries and provinces in Borneo although ecosystem and land use are very similar across the island. Compared with Sarawak, Sabah (Malaysia) and Brunei the relative annual fire‐affected area in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, was on average five times larger. During El Niño conditions the fire‐affected area increased only in Kalimantan and not in Brunei and the Malaysia. A similar pattern was observed in National Parks. This suggests, that El Niño related droughts are not the only cause of increased fire occurrence and do not necessarily lead to a higher number of fire events. These results improve our understanding of existing fire regimes and drivers of fire in SE Asian tropical ecosystems and may help to better protect the remaining rainforests.


Land‐use dynamics in drylands are complex processes. In the context of a typical agropastoral village in northwestern Syria Im Mial, the effects of demographic and social changes, reduced soil productivity, changes in agricultural technologies and historical events on land use and land productivity are examined. Decreasing yields, mainly the result of reduced fallow periods and low investments in the land, and the deterioration of the grazing resources are the two main signs of the loss of land productivity in the area. The growing population forces the villagers to practise continuous rainfed barley cultivation with no or only occasional fallow, and without any application of plant nutrients. Also, technological changes, from the use of donkey ploughs and hand harvesting to less labour‐intensive and time‐consuming cultivation practices with tractors and combine harvesters, and the increased importance of stubble in the livestock diet have contributed to the reduction of the fallow periods. The villagers attribute the yield decreases mainly to the low rainfall in the area. The high rainfall variability discourages the fallowing of fields because continuous cultivation maximizes the chances for good harvests in years with high rainfall. There is also an expansion of cultivation into the less fertile and sloping traditional grazing areas. Population growth, increased numbers of livestock and the expansion of cultivated land into grazing areas has also put pressure on the grazing resources of the village. The possession of livestock is seen as a sign of wealth and the villagers aim to have large flocks of animals. For them, livestock is also an important means for investment of cash earned from off‐farm work, which is the main source of income for most of the households in the village. There is a recent trend of increasing levels of crop‐livestock integration with less free grazing that produces higher return to the land users. This may also have a positive effect on the restoration and conservation of the degraded natural traditional grazing grounds. The stabilization and productive use of the land resources in this dry environment requires the combined and interdisciplinary effort from both the land‐users and the policy‐makers. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.