Over the last decades, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have grown at an increasing rate, which is likely to continue on the long-term trend. These emissions must be significantly reduced to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. As the world becomes more urbanized, cities stand at the forefront of efforts to achieve this goal. GHG emissions flow in and out of the administrative and geographical limits of a city, and interdisciplinary information is needed to pursue low-emission urban development strategies. Existing GHG inventory tools and procedures favor scaled-down estimations and direct emission sources. Policy makers cannot rely on scaled-down data from national GHG inventories to take action on a neighborhood level. As the geographic coverage of a GHG inventory gets smaller, emission activities that occur within the defined boundaries are intrinsically interconnected with 'out-of-bound' areas. In this case, accounting for emissions occurring outside a neighborhood is not an option, but a requirement. This paper presents a comparison among existing GHG emissions tools and methodologies, focusing on the problems that arise when using top-down Emissions factors to calculate indirect emissions.


In the aftermath of recent episodes (such as the accounting fraud at Satyam) that have tested the efficacy of corporate governance norms in India, the Government has adopted a cautious approach to reforms with a view to avoiding a knee-jerk reaction. Change to existing norms have come forth in the form of the Corporate Governance Voluntary Guidelines, 2009 [hereinafter, "the Guidelines"], a set of good practices that may be voluntarily adopted by Companies. This article examines, primarily on two counts, the response of the Government of India to governance scandals through the issue of the Guidelines. First, it evaluates the substantive provisions of the Guidelines and finds that while the Guidelines do contribute to enhancement of the existing corporate governance framework in significant ways, they fail to satisfactorily address some of the shortcomings in the prevailing regime that have surfaced in the recent past. Second, it seeks to determine the efficacy of the "voluntary" approach followed by the Government of India (whereby companies are encouraged to follow a code of corporate governance on a recommendatory basis) rather than through the imposition of mandatory rules. Based on a comparison of the voluntary and mandatory approaches to corporate governance and an analysis of various factors at play in India, it raises doubts about the success of the voluntary approach in India.


As offshore wind turbines are moving to deeper water depths, mooring systems are becoming more and more significant for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs). Mooring line failures could affect power generations of FOWTs and ultimately incur risk to nearby structures. Among different failure mechanics, an excessive mooring line tension is one of the most essential factors contributing to mooring failure. Even advanced sensing offers an effective way of failure detections, but it is still difficult to comprehend why failures happened. Unlike traditional parametric studies that are computational and time-intensive, this paper applies deep learning to investigate the major driven force on the mooring line tension. A number of environmental conditions are considered, ranging from cut in to cut out wind speeds. Before formatting input data into the deep learning model, a FOWT model of dynamics was simulated under pre-defined environmental conditions. Both taut and slack mooring configurations were considered in the current study. Results showed that the most loaded mooring line tension was mainly determined by the surge motion, regardless of mooring line configurations, while the blade and the tower elasticity were less significant in predicting mooring line tension.


Bitcoin, a decentralised cryptocurrency system conceived by a mysterious person or group of people using the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto," promises to revolutionise the way that we think about money and the transfer of value in general. After a quiet launch in 2009, it has evolved several years later into a multi-billion dollar industry and has inspired the creation of hundreds of similar cryptocurrency systems. However, little research has been undertaken so far to study the vibrant business ecosystems that form around these decentralised networks. The aim of this project is thus to explore the emergence of the Bitcoin business ecosystem and its evolving structure using a data-driven approach, and identify the factors that drive this evolution. For this purpose, a theoretical market segment framework is developed and applied to a longitudinal dataset of 514 companies and projects that was specifically built for this project. Using a visualisation approach, the business ecosystem is mapped in terms of the affiliations of entities to market segments over a time window from 2010-2015 in order to visually analyse how the structure evolves. The key findings and observations are presented and several factors influencing the evolution of the business ecosystem are identified. Finally, the results are discussed in relation to the existing theory. The project provides the first comprehensive and data-driven analysis of the Bitcoin business ecosystem and offers interesting insights into its structure and evolution. Moreover, it contributes to the understanding of the factors that drive this evolution and provides a unique dataset that can be used for further research.


S1 Summary: The purpose of this new classification compendium is to republish the Orthopaedic Trauma Association's (OTA) classification. The OTA classification was originally published in a compendium of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma in 1996. It adopted The Comprehensive Classification of the Long Bones developed by Müller and colleagues and classified the remaining bones. In this compendium, the introductory chapter reviews new scientific information about classifying fractures that has been published in the last 11 years. The classification is presented in a revised format that is easier to follow. The OTA and AO classification will now have a unified alphanumeric code eliminating the differences that have existed between the 2 codes. The code was significantly revised for the clavicle and scapula, foot and hand, and patella. Dislocations have been expanded on an anatomic basis and for most joints will be coded separately. This publication should stimulate new developments and interest in a unified language to code and classify fractures. Further improvements in classification will result in better patient care and clinical research.


Contact zones between ecotypes are windows for understanding how species may react to climate changes. Here, we analysed the fine-scale genetic and morphological variation in harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) around the UK by genotyping 591 stranded animals at nine microsatellite loci. The data were integrated with a prior study to map at high resolution the contact zone between two previously identified ecotypes meeting in the northern Bay of Biscay. Clustering and spatial analyses revealed that UK porpoises are derived from two genetic pools with porpoises from the southwestern UK being genetically differentiated, and having larger body sizes compared to those of other UK areas. Southwestern UK porpoises showed admixed ancestry between southern and northern ecotypes with a contact zone extending from the northern Bay of Biscay to the Celtic Sea and Channel. Around the UK, ancestry blends from one genetic group to the other along a southwest--northeast axis, correlating with body size variation, consistent with previously reported morphological differences between the two ecotypes. We also detected isolation by distance among juveniles but not in adults, suggesting that stranded juveniles display reduced intergenerational dispersal. The fine-scale structure of this admixture zone raises the question of how it will respond to future climate change and provides a reference point for further study.


Trichoderma harzianum 650 (Th650) and Paenebacillus lentimorbus 629 (Pl629) selected earlier for their ability to control Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium solani and F. oxysporum in vitro , were applied alone or combined with solarization (summer assay)  and/or with methyl bromide (MeBr) (summer and winter assays) to a soil with a high inoculum level, for the control of tomato root rot caused by the complex F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici - Pyrenochaeta lycopersici - Rhizoctonia solani. Evaluations were also performed independently for root damage caused by P. lycopersici , and also for R. solani in the summer assay. MeBr decreased tomato root damage caused by the complex from 88.7% to 21.2% and from 78.4% to 35.7% in the summer and in the winter assay, respectively. None of the bio-controllers could replace MeBr in the winter assay, but Th650 and Pl629 reduced root damage caused by this complex in the summer assay. Treatments with bio-controllers were improved by their combination with solarization in this season. Independent evaluations showed that the positive control of Th650 towards R. solani and the lack of effect on P. lycopersici correlates well with the endochitinase pattern expressed by Th650 in response to these phytopathogens. Root damage caused by R. solani can be controlled at a similar level as it does MeBr in summer assays, thus representing an alternative to the use of this chemical fungicide for the control of this phytopathogen.


General. Submission of a paper to the Editorial Board will be held to imply that it represents the results of original research not previously published; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and that if accepted for the British Journal of Nutrition it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or any other language, without the consent of the Editorial Board. Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees. Women are requested to give one forename in full to avoid confusion. The name and address of the laboratory or institution where the work was performed should be given. Any necessary descriptive material about the author, e.g. Beit Memorial Fellow, should appear in parentheses after the author's name or at the end of the paper, and not in the form of a footnote. Typescripts should bear the name and address of the person to whom the proof of the paper is to be sent and should also give a shortened version of the paper's title, not exceeding forty-five letters and spaces in length, suitable for a running title in the published pages of the work.


The amount and the quality of the available information on the web make it an interesting resource for seeking quick answers to simple questions. Question answering (QA) systems have proven to be helpful to users because they can provide accurate answers that do not require users to go through a large number of documents for an answer. However, despite the recent advances in QA research, the accuracy of the extracted answer is still an open domain that needs more investigation from the researchers to achieve a high accuracy. In this project, we implemented Named-entity tagging ( Gate-NE ) and Grammar Parsing ( Link parser ) as two different approaches to improve the extracted answer accuracy of an existing web-QA system. TREC-8 (200 questions) was used as a training set and a total of 1693 questions of TREC-9, 10, and 2002 were used for the validation process. Our approach shows a 11% MRR increase, from 0.101 to 0.113, compared to the original system and a 9% increase in the number of correct answers extracted, from 276 to 300. Although the increase is not as high as we had hoped, we believe that our results are encouraging and this work should be considered a base and starting point for future work to achieve more performance enhancements.


Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his explosive stories in The New Yorker, including his headline-making pieces on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Now, Hersh brings together what he has learned, along with new reporting, to answer the critical question of the last four years: How did America get from the clear morning when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of the war on terror and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a critical chapter in America's recent history. In a new afterword, he critiques the government's failure to adequately investigate prisoner abuse -- at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere -- and punish those responsible. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an administration blinded by ideology and of a president whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.


The majority of the coal in the Powder River Basin (PRB) is located in formations too deep to be economically mined but microorganisms within some of these deep coal seams generate coal-bed methane (CBM) which can be harvested and utilized as an energy source. However, little is known about the in-situ microbial community, the environmental conditions conducive to CBM production, or the microbial community interactions that promote CBM production. Several sampling locations within the PRB were identified as methane-producing sites based on geochemical analysis of groundwater. A diffusive microbial sampler (DMS) was utilized for microbial sampling which was loaded with coal and only opened at the bottom of the wells where the coal seam was exposed. Pyrotag analysis of DMS coal identified the predominant in-situ bacterial and archaeal populations, providing insight into microbes generating CBM within the PRB. Changes in the composition and structure of microbial communities that occur under stimulated conditions were investigated by applying molecular methods in combination with cultivation techniques (with and without nutrient supplementation) to identify conditions which maximize methane production in batch, bench-scale incubations. Results from these studies indicated the addition of yeast extract resulted in an increase in methane production as well as a shift to a microbial population capable of acetate production / acetate utilization. Isolation methods targeting coal utilizing Bacteria and methanogenic Archaea were applied in addition to DNA based methods to infer microbial community members present within coalbeds. The acetoclastic methanogen Methanosarcina was isolated which is the only identified methanogen with the highefficiency acetate kinase (Ack) / phosphotransacetylase (Pta) methane production pathway. This pathway provides increased growth and methane production when acetate concentrations are high which can result from microbial stimulation with nutrients. Genomic analysis revealed Ack evolved through gene duplication and divergence of acetyl CoA synthetase within the methanogenic genome. This research resulted in an increased understanding of the contribution of acetoclastic methanogenesis to CBM production and novel insight into the evolution of the high-efficiency Ack/Pta pathway. 109 Lewis Hall Montana State University PO Box 173520 Bozeman, MT 59717 Tel: 406-994-2902 Fax: 406-994-4926 email@example.com Microbiology and Immunology


The filamentation instability of counterstreaming beams is a nonresonant hydrodynamic-type instability whose growth rate is a smooth function of the wavelength (scale). As a result, perturbations with all unstable wavelengths develop, and the growth saturates due to the saturation of available current. For a given scale, the magnetic field at saturation is proportional to the scale. As a result, the instability develops in a nearly linear regime, where the unstable modes stop growing as soon as the saturation of the corresponding wavelength is reached. At each moment there exists a dominant scale of the magnetic field which is the scale that reached saturation at this particular time. The smaller scales do not disappear and can be easily distinguished in the current structure. The overall growth of the instability stops when the loss of the streaming ion energy because of deceleration is comparable to the initial ion energy.


Spiritual health is one of the essential components of health, where patients search for meaning and purpose in life. Patients with life threatening illnesses experience distress, both physically and spiritually. There are studies which found that nurses did not regularly integrate spiritual care into their daily routine, due to lack of time and lack of education. It is important to discover existing evidences of spiritual interventions which help the nurses promote spiritual health as regards to patients' need in hospital settings. The aim of this study was to describe nursing interventions applied in promoting spiritual health for patients with life threatening illnesses in hospital settings. A literature review of sixteen articles was carried out. Articles were retrieved from CINAHL and MEDLINE databases to answer the study's objective. Eleven articles were retrieved from the databases and five articles were found using an ancestry search. A process of re-reading and finding the similar categories from articles was being used to develop themes in analyzing the data. Results were categorized into three themes: person-centred communication, adapting a team approach, and modifying the physical environment. It was found that the nurses conducted a deeper level of communication which covered topics about patients' wishes and hopes, and being there for patients as major interventions. The nurses also assessed patients' spiritual needs prior to interventions, and were promoting patients and family belief and value in a respectful way. Family and referrals were also included in the intervention given by the palliative care team, moreover the nurses were providing privacy with regards to supporting a healing environment. In conclusion acknowledgement of dying is essential in providing appropriate care. It is essential for the nurses to be prepared adequately through education, to conduct spiritual care interventions within a person-centred care approach. The information from this study may improve the quality of delivering spiritual care in hospital settings for patients with life threatening illnesses. Further recommendation for future research is to explore deeper about various spiritual nursing interventions from various cultures.


Thermal comfort in building is a trendy that has been under investigation by many researchers. The mosque, for Muslim worshippers, is one of the most popular religious buildings. The demand of new mosques is continuously increasing due to the increasing number of Muslims population and growth in both economic and urban land escape. Recently, there have been a reasonable number of researches that have been investigating the thermal performance of mosque buildings. As a matter of fact, the location of the mosque and the climate play key roles on mosque building thermal performance. Additionally, mosque buildings are unique because of the intermittent operation pattern and the varying number of the users, which require rather controlled heating or cooling strategies. Sustainable energy techniques are keystone that ensures low energy consumption and provide better indoor environment for users of buildings. On the other hand due to environmental pressure to suppress global warming, more energy efficient and sustainable buildings design is one of the current issues in building industries. This research explores application of sustainable technologies for mosque buildings in hot climate zone. A number of mosque buildings in different regions, time frame and climates have been studied, and application of passive techniques on these cases have been evaluated. Performance of these techniques on roofs including building insulation, shading and green roofing have been analysed taking into account the climate and building specifications. The preliminary results obtained from this research clearly indicate that, there are design correlations and guidelines to be established for the architects and mosque buildings designers under any given climate for a sustainable mosque building design. Use of these guidelines also have potential of financial saving appropriately applied in mosque buildings in hot arid climate.


Autonomic computing is a grand challenge in computing that aims to produce software that has the properties of self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization and self-protection. Adding such autonomic properties into existing applications is immensely useful for redeploying them in an environment other than they were developed for. Such transformed applications can be redeployed in different dynamic environments without the user making changes to the application. However, creating such autonomic software entities is a significant challenge not only because of the amount of code transformation required but also for the additional programming needed for such conversion.
This thesis presents techniques for injecting autonomic primitives into existing user code by statically analyzing the code and partitioning it to manageable autonomic components. Experiments show that such code transformations are challenging, however they are worthwhile in order to provide transparent autonomic behavior. Software architecture to provide such autonomic computing support is presented and evaluated to determine its suitability for a fully fledged autonomic computing system. The presented architecture is a novel peer-to-peer distributed object-based management automation architecture. In this model, independent or communicating objects are treated as managed elements in the geographically distributed autonomic elements.
The presented organization offers significant advantages over a traditional clientserver organization by permitting the incorporation of self-management properties into each of the distributed nodes and making each of the Autonomic Elements in the distributed environment identical in terms of managerial capacity. The unification of traditional client-server roles allows management functions to be distributed across different elements in the system, allowing autonomous behavior of the whole system. This thesis also presents a self regulating design of an autonomic element in a distributed object environment. Architectural choices have a profound effect on the capabilities of any autonomic system and affect many of the design decisions during its implementation. The goal of this architectural design is to provide an easy to program autonomic element which can be implemented in most domains with minor modifications. Profiling and experimentation with this design shows that it is lightweight and perform smoothly without causing extensive overhead.


Pupils moving from primary to secondary school encounter a number of challenges that can affect their social, academic and personal development. This paper explores the expectations and experiences of a group of 10-11 year old primary school pupils who made the transition to an inner-city secondary school in Wales from one of its 'feeder' primary schools during 2011. As an exploratory study, an ethnographic approach was adopted with 'pupil voice' a distinctive and central feature. Two phases of fieldwork were conducted. The first examined pupils' thoughts and feelings pre-transition; the second examined the extent to which their experiences matched their expectations in a local secondary school. There were four main findings from the study: the importance of academia; the opportunity to 'grow up'; social issues; and pupils' general feelings towards the transitional process (both pre and posttransition). [137 words]


Abstract Background Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing public health problem and an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Disparities in CKD may be related to social determinants and health inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. This study determined how social determinants of health influence trends in the prevalence and mortality of CKD in Peru. Methods This was an ecological study based on a secondary analysis of health care and death records obtained from the Ministry of Health of Peru for the period 2010–2016. The standardized prevalence and mortality rates of CKD were descriptively reported using geospatial exploratory analysis. We also determined the association with social determinants of health according to the domains suggested by Healthy People 2020. Results In the studied period, CKD prevalence increased by 300% and was associated with the health insurance coverage rate (β=5.9 [95% CI 0.82 to 10.92]), proportion of people with a secondary education level (β=11.4 [95% CI 1.94 to 20.93]), mean age (β=−10.7 [95% CI −19.33 to −2.12]), monetary poverty rate (β=−2.2 [95% CI −3.88 to −0.60]) and gross domestic product per capita (β=−63.2 [95% CI −117.81 to −8.52]). The standardized mortality decreased by 10% and was associated with mean age (β=−0.6 [95% CI −1.22 to −0.06]) and the proportion of people with a primary education level (β=−0.5 [95% CI −0.9 to −0.05]). Conclusions During the period 2010–2016, the prevalence of CKD increased and the mortality associated with CKD decreased. The observed changes were associated with some social determinants of health, such as increased health coverage and education. The health system of Peru must be prepared to take on the challenge.


This thesis focuses on historiography, which is the study of history and methodology of the discipline of history. The problems of historical theory and the role of critical theory in historical understanding are the main objectives of this study. The thesis explores the urban history of Baghdad in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to posit alternative historiographical methods that involve non-conventional textual representations as historical evidence. These textual representations include poetry, travelogues and narratives around non-monumental everyday urban places, all of which are often ignored in conventional history writing.
Conventional approaches to historiography are normally single-layered and limited, and contain gaps or 'absences' of distinctive local historical themes and spaces that are smoothed over by grand narratives. The alternative method in historiography suggested in this thesis emphasises the need for closer ties between history and literary criticism. It interprets literature in relation to knowledge, and it discloses their philosophical connections to the 'overlooked' meanings in urban history. Although the alternative method comprises strong links to literary analysis, the thesis seeks a combination of both scientific and speculative philosophies, and an addition of extra concepts, towards the generation of specific historiographical concepts and themes.
Baghdad provides an excellent vehicle to investigate the general problem of historiography, with its complex history of conquest and colonisation, its long history of creative writings and the vague representation of its urban spaces in current historiographical studies. Although this thesis explored the entire history of Baghdad, the period of interest is the Mamluk period between mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. In addition to the transformation and change that shaped Baghdad's urban history, this period significantly produced rich poetry and historical narratives that embraced plentiful themes of the urban development of the city, which have been overlooked in conventional historiography. These themes include the measures of beauty of Baghdad, the attractive and interlocking qualities of the Tigris River, Karkh region and markets, the multiple meanings of gardens and learning centres, and the social and leisure significance of houses.
The thesis focuses on the poetry of the prominent scholar and poet Sheikh Kadhem Al-Uzari, the historian and religious scholar Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Al-Suwaidi, and the poet and chief of the writing bureau in Baghdad Sheikh Saleh Al-Tamimi, in addition to a number of texts by other scholars in that period. The thesis also focuses on the travelogues of mainly four travelers who wrote significant observations of Baghdad during this period, namely; the surveyor Carsten Niebuhr, the entomologist Guillaume Antoine Olivier, the British resident Claudius Rich and the traveler and writer James Silk Buckingham.The thesis also refers to the writings of philosophers such as Edward Said, Hans Georg Gadamer and Michel Foucault for philosophical frameworks to outline the alternative method of interpretation of these texts.
The analysis of poetry and narratives composed by Baghdadis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and of travelogues of the same period, is 'another' method in historiography that is intended to support and complement the existing understanding of the city's history, and to attain a more dialogical interface with the past. In this way, historiography becomes a more critical influential discipline in historical studies.


By using a nonlinear transfer matrix method and an iteration method, we investigated an optical limiting in a defective quadratic nonlinear photonic crystal under strong pump-depletion conditions. Due to a giant enhancement of the second harmonic (SH) generation induced by the strong localization of light near the defective band, the progress of the energy exchange from the forward fundamental frequency (FF) channel to the SH channels (both forward and backward) and the backward FF channel is speeded up. The structure can therefore be used as a high-efficient compact optical power limiter. We have also studied the effects of two important parameters of the defective nonlinear periodic structure, the number of the periods and the nonlinear efficiency of the composite material, on the optical limiting.


Abstract The study of Thomas Torrance is undergoing a revival, but has neglected to highlight one significant influence: the insights of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray. This article focuses on three respects in which Torrance affirmed Macmurray's work: in overcoming dualism, in creating an integrated realist philosophy and in expounding the form of the personal. This study will bring to light Macmurray's contributions to Torrance's thought, surveying the works of Torrance to reveal where Macmurray contributed key epistemic and systemic points to Torrance's developing scientific theology. This brief summary intends to reveal both Torrance's overt acknowledgement of Macmurray and the need for more exploration of their connections in order to enrich the study of both scholars.


Quantitative analyses were performed on computer tomography (CT) scans from 7 patients with Korsakoff's syndrome, 7 age-matched alcoholic subjects, and 7 age-matched healthy control subjects. CT values were used to estimate tissue density and fluid volume in specified brain areas. Tissue density was assessed by averaging CT values in small (5 x 5 mm) areas sampled bilaterally in 6 specified areas--thalamus, head of the caudate nucleus, putamen, anterior white matter, posterior white matter, and centrum semiovale. We assessed fluid volume using a semiautomated computer algorithm that estimated the proportion of fluid in 7 brain regions--total ventricular space, third ventricle, interventricular region, frontal sulci, peri-Sylvian region, medial cerebellum, and vertex. For the patients with Korsakoff's syndrome, we also assessed the correlation between CT measures and performance on 6 cognitive and 12 memory tests. Compared with alcoholic subjects and healthy control subjects, patients with Korsakoff's syndrome had lower CT density values bilaterally in the region of the thalamus and had greater estimated fluid bilaterally in the region of the third ventricle. Alcoholic and healthy control subjects did not differ on these measures. Significant cortical atrophy in frontal sulcal and peri- Sylvian areas was detected both in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome and in alcoholic subjects. For patients with Korsakoff's syndrome, impairment on behavioral tests, and on memory tests in particular, was correlated with low-density values in the thalamus and with high fluid values in the region of the frontal sulci. Damage to diencephalic and frontal areas may especially contribute to the memory and cognitive impairment exhibited by patients with Korsakoff's syndrome.


Aim The aims of this study were twofold: (a) to explore whether specific components of shared decision making were present in consultations involving nurse prescribers (NPs), pharmacist prescribers (PPs) and general practitioners (GPs) and (b) to relate these to self-reported patient outcomes including satisfaction, adherence and patient perceptions of practitioner empathy. Background There are a range of ways for defining and measuring the process of concordance, or shared decision making as it relates to decisions about medicines. As a result, demonstrating a convincing link between shared decision making and patient benefit is challenging. In the United Kingdom, nurses and pharmacists can now take on a prescribing role, engaging in shared decision making. Given the different professional backgrounds of GPs, NPs and PPs, this study sought to explore the process of shared decision making across these three prescriber groups. Methods Analysis of audio-recordings of consultations in primary care in South England between patients and GPs, NPs and PPs. Analysis of patient questionnaires completed post consultation. Findings A total of 532 consultations were audio-recorded with 20 GPs, 19 NPs and 12 PPs. Prescribing decisions occurred in 421 (79%). Patients were given treatment options in 21% (102/482) of decisions, the prescriber elicited the patient's treatment preference in 18% (88/482) and the patient expressed a treatment preference in 24% (118/482) of decisions. PPs were more likely to ask for the patient's preference about their treatment regimen (χ 2=6.6, P=0.036, Cramer's V=0.12) than either NPs or GPs. Of the 275 patient questionnaires, 192(70%) could be matched with a prescribing decision. NP patients had higher satisfaction levels than patients of GPs or PPs. More time describing treatment options was associated with increased satisfaction, adherence and greater perceived practitioner empathy. While defining, measuring and enabling the process of shared decision making remains challenging, it may have patient benefit.


When the zero lower bound on nominal interest rate binds, monetary policy makers may lack traditional tools to stimulate aggregate demand. We investigate whether "unconventional" fiscal policy, in the form of preannounced consumption tax changes, has the potential to meaningfully shift durables purchases intertemporally and how it is affected by consumer credit. In particular, we test whether car sales react in anticipation of future sales tax changes, leveraging 57 preannounced changes in state sales tax rates from 1999 to 2017. We find evidence for substantial tax elasticities, with car sales rising by more than 8% in the month before a 1% increase in the sales tax rate. Responses are heterogeneous across households and sensitive to supply of credit. Consumers with high credit risk scores are most able to pull purchases forward. At the same time, other effects such as customer composition and attention lead to even greater tax elasticity during recessions, despite these credit frictions. We discuss policy implications and the likely magnitudes of tax changes necessary for any substantive long-term responses.


In the Argentinian Andes (Frontal Cordillera) the upper part of the late Carboniferous-early Permian San Ignacio Formation is made up of lacustrine-palustrine microbial carbonates and interbedded volcanic deposits. In this lacustrine-palustrine environment a natural monospecific forest was developed. The deposits of this sedimentary-volcanic succession were repeatedly subjected to subaerial exposure and modified by pedogenesis to varying degrees giving rise to paleosoils development. Subaerial diagenetic microfabrics were well preserved in the carbonates and volcanic rocks. The carbonate microfabrics comprise a wide spectrum of features consisting of root marks and stumps-related structures (rhizoliths, alveolar texture, tunnel-like structures and coprolites of arthropods), pisoids, coated grains and pseudomicrokarst, cracking, brecciated and nodular fabrics, and grainification also occur corresponding to different stages in the pedogenic evolution. Meteoric dissolution and cementation processes are observed; examples are well identified by scanning electron microscope showing silica-filled voids in partially dissolved carbonates and growths of inorganic carbonate microcrystals or of microbial origin in voids. Other different types of cements can be seen such as discontinuous carbonate crusts, ribbon spar, cavities with silt infillings and pendant cements. The whole set of these microfabrics are indicative of wetting, desiccation and meteoric conditions (vadose and phreatic). The abundance of plant roots and associated micro-organisms mainly of bacterial origin (micro-rods, short rod-shapes, nano-fibres, filaments and nano-spheres) played an important role in the pedogenic and subaerial diagenetic processes affecting these deposits. The immature character of the paleosoils and absence of calcretes point out to short intervals of subaerial exposure due to oscillating fluctuations in water level, intermittent volcanic supply, tectonic subsidence and oscillating climatic conditions. The whole of the macro and microfabrics reveals that the prevailing weather could correspond to an intermediate between semi-arid to sub-humid, however the alternating wetting and drying conditions in IN PR ES S


In gynecology, endometriosis is an important pathological disorder that can be seen worldwide. It is considered an important public health problem for reproductive age women. Visceral endometriosis is a serious form of endometriosis. Thoracic endometriosis is kind of visceral endometriosis. In this report, the authors present and discuss on a case of a patient who had history of repeated spontaneous pneumothorax and finally gets the diagnosis of thoracic endometrisosis. Full text available online at https://drive.google.com/file/d/13C5vDna3eYOzPlITkBRG0tpThATUt2De/view


The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) presents a puzzle for those interested in the design of private governance institutions: How has this private standard-setter managed simultaneously (1) to remain independent and free of capture, (2) to achieve institutional stability and legitimacy, and (3) to operate in a politicized context in the teeth of opposition from its own constituents? This Article looks to governance design to account for this institutional success. The FASB's founders made a strategic choice between two models of a public regulatory agency, the New Deal model of an independent expert and the post-war pluralist model of a politically responsive regulator. They opted for the New Deal model, structuring the FASB to emphasize independence. Because the New Deal model calls for a normative goal to channel the agency's exercise of discretion, they also undertook to set out a coherent theory of accounting, the "Conceptual Framework," to contain and direct the FASB's decisions and thereby import legitimacy. The Conceptual Framework, however, neither determined nor justified the FASB's subsequent decisions. It nonetheless contributed to the FASB's institutional success by disavowing a neutral posture respecting the conflicting interests of the FASB's leading constituents, explicitly privileging the interests of the users of financial reports (investors and market intermediaries) over the interests of the reports' preparers (large firms and their managers). The FASB's consistent adherence to this repudiation of pluralist responsiveness has had three results. First, it made the FASB's general approach defensible as a matter of economic theory. Second, it triggered political opposition from the preparers that muted allegations of capture even as it resulted in occasional political reversals. Third, it aligned the FASB's institutional mission with that of the SEC, its public overseer, importing institutional stability if not political invulnerability. The FASB remains vulnerable to a secondary capture allegation. Critics charge that its complex, rules-based standards serve the audit firms' interest in lowering the risk of liability while sacrificing the users' interest in "fairly" stated financials; "principles-based" standards would be better. This Article endorses the rejoinder position. What some see as capture also can be characterized as "responsiveness," and the FASB serves a public interest in taking seriously the accounting firms' need for auditable standards. Even as detailed rules can distort the overall story told by a report's bottom line, they make it easier to see what preparers are doing, easing verification and making audit failures and scandals less likely. In this post-Enron era, scandal prevention arguably takes a legitimate place with transparency as a public-regarding goal for the GAAP setter. The FASB emerges as a generator of suboptimal but institutionally-defensible standards. If not ideally legitimate, the FASB has been legitimate enough.


Building large models with parameter sharing accounts for most of the success of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In this paper, we propose doubly convolutional neural networks (DCNNs), which significantly improve the performance of CNNs by further exploring this idea. In stead of allocating a set of convolutional filters that are independently learned, a DCNN maintains groups of filters where filters within each group are translated versions of each other. Practically, a DCNN can be easily implemented by a two-step convolution procedure, which is supported by most modern deep learning libraries. We perform extensive experiments on three image classification benchmarks: CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and ImageNet, and show that DCNNs consistently outperform other competing architectures. We have also verified that replacing a convolutional layer with a doubly convolutional layer at any depth of a CNN can improve its performance. Moreover, various design choices of DCNNs are demonstrated, which shows that DCNN can serve the dual purpose of building more accurate models and/or reducing the memory footprint without sacrificing the accuracy.


The aim of this thesis is to examine personal pronominal reference in two lang1;5ges, French and Spanish, from an interactional perspective. Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) 'Politeness theory' seeks to provide an explanation for much of the mismatch between what is 'said' and what Is 'implicated' in spoken discourse. One area of speech where this mismatch is particularly evident is that of personal reference where extralinguistic information is paramount in its use and interpretation. While previous approaches to this area have sought to assign one interpretation to a given pronominal use, this study seeks to show how speakers and hearers can exploit a multiplicity of potential values in the interest of faceprotection. Based on 5 qualitative methodology derived from the field of linguistic pragmatics applied to a corpus of naturally-oc:urring data of speech situations where there is threat to the face of speakers and hearers, this study will argue that the contextual factors of power and status as well as a knowledge of linguistic politeness itself are of crucial :mportance in the use and interpretation of persmal reference.


Focusing on a course taught to Palestinian and Jewish Israelis, this essay suggests that the study of life writing can help students develop a better informed civic identity, particularly in relation to divisive national matters. By carefully constructing collective classroom practices of reading, writing, discussing, and listening, the instructor can forge an environment that strengthens students' capacity to appreciate the textual and contemporary interaction between individuals and their historical contexts, and to hear alternative perspectives and experiences attentively, without argument. University classrooms can thus play a vital role in democratic culture, as spaces in which a broader range of voices can be heard and in which minority voices are specially protected and projected.


The Juvenile Wood Initiative (JWI) project has been running successfully since July 2003 under a Research Agreement with FWPA and Letters of Association with the consortium partners STBA (Southern Tree Breeding Association), ArborGen and FPQ (Forestry Plantations Queensland). Over the last five and half years, JWI scientists in CSIRO, FPQ, and STBA have completed all 12 major milestones and 28 component milestones according to the project schedule. We have made benchmark progress in understanding the genetic control of wood formation and interrelationships among wood traits. The project has made 15 primary scientific findings and several results have been adopted by industry as summarized below. This progress was detailed in 10 technical reports to funding organizations and industry clients. Team scientists produced 16 scientific manuscripts (8 published, 1 in press, 2 submitted, and several others in the process of submission) and 15 conference papers or presentations.

Primary Scientific Findings. The 15 major scientific findings related to wood science, inheritance and the genetic basis of juvenile wood traits are:

1. An optimal method to predict stiffness of standing trees in slash/Caribbean pine is to combine gravimetric basic density from 12 mm increment cores with a standing tree prediction of MoE using a time of flight acoustic tool. This was the most accurate and cheapest way to rank trees for breeding selection for slash/Caribbean hybrid pine. This method was also recommended for radiata pine.

2. Wood density breeding values were predicted for the first time in the STBA breeding population using a large sample of 7,078 trees (increment cores) and it was estimated that selection of the best 250 trees for deployment will produce wood density gains of 12.4%.

3. Large genetic variation for a suite of wood quality traits including density, MFA, spiral grain, shrinkage, acoustic and non-acoustic stiffness (MoE) for clear wood and standing trees were observed. Genetic gains of between 8 and 49% were predicted for these wood quality traits with selection intensity between 1 to 10% for radiata pine.

4. Site had a major effect on juvenile-mature wood transition age and the effect of selective breeding for a shorter juvenile wood formation phase was only moderate (about 10% genetic gain with 10% selection intensity, equivalent to about 2 years reduction of juvenile wood).

5. The study found no usable site by genotype interactions for the wood quality traits of density, MFA and MoE for both radiata and slash/Caribbean pines, suggesting that assessment of wood properties on one or two sites will provide reliable estimates of the genetic worth of individuals for use in future breeding.

6. There were significant and sizable genotype by environment interactions between the mainland and Tasmanian regions and within Tasmania for DBH and branch size.

7. Strong genetic correlations between rings for density, MFA and MoE for both radiata and slash/Caribbean pines were observed. This suggests that selection for improved wood properties in the innermost rings would also result in improvement of wood properties in the subsequent rings, as well as improved average performance of the entire core.

8. Strong genetic correlations between pure species and hybrid performance for each of the wood quality traits were observed in the hybrid pines. Parental performance can be used to identify the hybrid families which are most likely to have superior juvenile wood properties of the slash/Caribbean F1 hybrid in southeast Queensland.

9. Large unfavourable genetic correlations between growth and wood quality traits were a prominent feature in radiata pine, indicating that overcoming this unfavourable genetic correlation will be a major technical issue in progressing radiata pine breeding.

10. The project created the first radiata pine 18 k cDNA microarray and generated 5,952 radiata pine xylogenesis expressed sequence tags (ESTs) which assembled into 3,304 unigenes.

11. A total of 348 genes were identified as preferentially expressed genes in earlywood or latewood while a total of 168 genes were identified as preferentially expressed genes in either juvenile or mature wood.

12. Juvenile earlywood has a distinct transcriptome relative to other stages of wood development.

13. Discovered rapid decay of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in radiata pine with LD decaying to approximately 50% within 1,700 base pairs (within a typical gene). A total of 913 SNPS from sequencing 177,380 base pairs were identified for association genetic studies.

14. 149 SNPs from 44 genes and 255 SNPs from a further 51 genes (total 95 genes) were selected for association analysis with 62 wood traits, and 30 SNPs were shortlisted for their significant association with variation of wood quality traits (density, MFA and MoE) with individual significant SNPs accounting for between 1.9 and 9.7% of the total genetic variation in traits.

15. Index selection using breeding objectives was the most profitable selection method for radiata pine, but in the long term it may not be the most effective in dealing with negative genetic correlations between wood volume and quality traits. A combination of economic and biological approaches may be needed to deal with the strong adverse correlation.


The United States Tax Court applies the Federal Rules of Evidence (the "Rules") during its proceedings. These rules establish the guidelines the judge will use to determine what testimony and documents will be admissible in evidence. We follow the Federal Rules of Evidence in our proceedings. This provides all parties with ground rules for presenting their cases. To depart from these rules not only would contradict our mandated authority but also would prejudice the parties by removing the certainty of what the Court may consider in finding facts. A party could not adequately prepare or defend a case if it were uncertain what standards would be applied to judge the admissibility of evidence. While it is generally accepted that a relaxed application of the rules of evidence during a bench trial results in less prejudice to the fact finder because of a judge's legal training and experience, the uncertainty of what will be used to find facts is highly prejudicial to a party whether the fact finder is a judge or a jury. Incompetent evidence should not be admitted to proof. We, therefore, believe that adhering to the Federal Rules of Evidence is a sound way to protect the integrity of our proceedings. In order to present the best case possible, it is imperative for a party litigating in the Tax Court to understand the Rules and how they have been interpreted and applied by the Tax Court. This Article surveys the Tax Court's interpretation and application of the Rules. It updates and expands an earlier version of this Article. The Article does not discuss the application of the Rules by federal district courts, the Court of Federal Claims, or the federal circuit courts of appeal, except to the extent there is a split of authority in the circuit courts. Appendix A identifies those Rules that have not been addressed or interpreted by the Tax Court in its opinions. Appendix B provides a tabular summary of the Rules most commonly used in the Tax Court and their various foundational requirements.


This is a position paper on connecting engineering education to the prevailing needs of society. Engineering is the foundation for national development and engineers work at the intersection of science, technology, and societal needs. Throughout history, engineering has played a crucial role in the advancement of commerce, development of society, and the pursuit of human welfare. The application of engineering to the problems of society is predicated on structured education programs. This paper addresses how engineering education is progressively important to society and what must be done to continually advance the quality and effectiveness of engineering education. The paper proposes 15 grand challenges for global engineering education, based on the premise of the 14 grand challenges for engineering published in 2008 by the US National Academy of Engineering and highlights the role of diverse disciplinary viewpoints needed to ensure that engineering education addresses economic, cultural, and social factors that impinge upon engineering solutions to societal problems. The premise of the paper is to spark more interest in research into models, techniques, and tools essential for making engineering education more robust in solving global society problems.


by Ankit Rohatgi The particle and fluid interactions that occur in dilute suspensions of noncolloidal particles in shear flow are examined in this thesis. In the theoretical and experimental studies described here, a range of intriguing mechanisms that give rise to particle and fluid diffusion in these suspensions are elucidated. While shear-induced migration of particles in suspensions has been studied for several decades, most studies in the past have focused on concentrated suspensions. The mechanisms that lead to particle and fluid migration in concentrated suspensions vanish in the dilute limit. However, many other mechanisms play a significant role only at low particle concentrations. The confining walls of a sheared dilute suspension give rise to particle and fluid diffusion even at large separations from the walls. Here, the diffusivities arising due to the this mechanism are predicted for smooth and rough spheres. This mechanism is also experimentally studied by observing the motion of particles and fluid in sheared suspensions. The experimental study of particle flux due to gradients in concentration is used to determine the diffusivity arising from the interaction of the roughness elements on the surface of particles. An intriguing and previously unknown mechanism of fluid dispersion arising due to the translation of spheres in shear flow is also described in this thesis. Ankit Rohatgi Analogous to this case, a mechanism of fluid dispersion due to forced translation of spheres that are located in the close proximity to a wall is also described. It is shown that this mechanism can give rise to fluid mixing many particle radii away from the wall when non-neutrally buoyant particles are allowed to settle along the walls in the presence of shear flow.


Background: The use of cytological methods in the diagnosis of malignant lesions of the respiratory tract has been generally acclaimed as one of its most successful applications. Flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy revolutionized respiratory cytology, as bronchial brushings, broncho-alveolar lavage and bronchial forceps biopsy became more easy, accessible and popular, shifting the emphasis from diagnosis of advanced malignancy in inoperable patients to the use of cytology as a first line diagnostic and management tool. Respiratory tract cytology is well established throughout the world as a diagnostic procedure in the evaluation of patient with suspected lung malignancy. Materials and Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 50 patients divided in two groups who underwent fiberoptic bronchoscopy during the period from November 2007 to October 2008 at the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Unit, Bir Hospital. Group I consisted of 35 cases of suspected lung malignancy on clinical and radiological examination, while group II consisted of 15 cases of non-neoplastic lung diseases. Results: Bronchial brushing and forceps biopsy showed a sensitivity of 50% and 84.21% respectively in the diagnosis of malignancy. Broncho-alveolar lavage revealed malignancy in 66.7% patients. Transthoracic needle aspiration had the highest sensitivity of 100% whereas bronchial wash was revealed malignancy only in 17.4% of the cases. Conclusion: Combination of various cytohistological techniques complements each other and enhances the diagnostic efficacy of various neoplastic and non-neoplastic lung diseases. Bronchial brushing, forceps biopsy and transthoracic needle aspiration are complimentary in diagnosis of various lung malignancies whereas broncho-alveolar lavage is a useful procedure in detection of infections diseases. Keywords: Fiberoptic bronchoscopy; Lund cancer; Infection; Cytohistologic technique DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jpn.v1i2.5407 JPN 2011; 1(2): 126-130


Context: International scholarship and policy tend to depict national structures governing Vocational Education and Training (VET) as uniform and devoid of internal differences. This macro perspective neglects the numerous processes at the meso and micro level that shape the structure and content of VET. This article focusses on professional associations (meso level) in Switzerland to examine the heterogeneity of governance of individual VET programmes that can exist within one country or one collective skill formation system. Approach: Drawing on insights from historical institutionalism and research on corporatism, we argue that these differences are the product of the characteristics, traditional practices and styles of reasoning of the various associations involved in VET governance. Our analysis is based on expert interviews and governance documents in two vocational areas: Electrotechnology and food services. Findings: We identify and decode an array of cooperative practices and show that collective skill formation has a different meaning for different associations and, correspondingly, different occupations. Collaboration with state actors, unions, VET schools and single firms, as well as voting procedures, differ considerably between associations. Furthermore, we find that these different modes of governance are determined by associational characteristics such as size, level of professionalization, location and established cooperative practices, as well as traditional styles of reasonings. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the decisions taken are not always the product of current day training requirements but of historically grown associational characteristics. Thus, path dependencies are to be considered not only at a macro level but also at the meso level. There is a multifaceted variety of governance approaches beneath the classification "collective skill formation system". Associations are key in defining VET content, working life structures and collectivity.


The Kalahari Transect is proposed as one of IGBPs Transects (see Koch et al. 1995 [IGBP Report 36]). It is located so as to span the gradient between the arid subtropics and the moist tropics in southern Africa, a zone potentially susceptible to changes in the global precipitation pattern. Its focus is the relationships between the structure and function of ecosystems and their large-scale biophysical and human drivers (climate, atmosphere and land use). The Kalahari Transect spans a strong climatic gradient in southern Africa, from the arid south to the humid north, while remaining on a single broad soil type, the deep sands of the Kalahari basin. The vegetation ranges over the length of the transect from shrubland through savannas and woodlands to closed evergreen tropical forest, with land uses ranging from migratory wildlife systems, through pastoralism, subsistence cropping to forestry. The objectives of the Kalahari Transect activity are to: build an active network of regional and international researchers around the issue of ecosystem structure and function in savanna woodlands undergoing climatic and land use change; quantify the current and future role of southern African savanna woodlands in the global carbon, water and trace gas budgets and the degree of dependence of these budgets on climate and land use change; develop a predictive understanding of future changes in southern African savannas and woodlands on sandy soils, including their capacity to deliver forage, timber and other products. A five year project is proposed, commencing in 1997. The project revolves around four themes: vegetation structure, composition and dynamics; biogeochemistry, trace gas emissions and productivity; resource use and management and water and energy balance. These themes define the minimum set of processes necessary for understanding of the Kalahari system.


Quantum theory and relativity are the pillar theories on which our understanding of physics is based. Poincaré invariance is a fundamental physical principle stating that the experimental results must be the same in all inertial reference frames in Minkowski spacetime. It is a basic condition imposed on quantum theory in order to construct quantum field theories, hence, it plays a fundamental role in the standard model of particle physics too. As is well known, Minkowski spacetime follows from clear physical principles, like the relativity principle and the invariance of the speed of light. Here, we reproduce such a derivation, but leave the number of spatial dimensions n as a free variable. Then, assuming that spacetime is Minkowski in 1 + n dimensions and within the framework of general probabilistic theories, we reconstruct the qubit Bloch ball and finite dimensional quantum theory, and obtain that the number of spatial dimensions must be n = 3, from Poincaré invariance and other physical postulates. Our results suggest a fundamental physical connection between spacetime and quantum theory.


The vast majority of processors in the world are actually microcontroller units (MCUs), which find widespread use performing simple control tasks in applications ranging from automobiles to medical devices and office equipment. The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to inject machine learning into many of these every-day objects via tiny, cheap MCUs. However, these resource-impoverished hardware platforms severely limit the complexity of machine learning models that can be deployed. For example, although convolutional neural networks (CNNs) achieve state-of-the-art results on many visual recognition tasks, CNN inference on MCUs is challenging due to severe finite memory limitations. To circumvent the memory challenge associated with CNNs, various alternatives have been proposed that do fit within the memory budget of an MCU, albeit at the cost of prediction accuracy. This paper challenges the idea that CNNs are not suitable for deployment on MCUs. We demonstrate that it is possible to automatically design CNNs which generalize well, while also being small enough to fit onto memory-limited MCUs. Our Sparse Architecture Search method combines neural architecture search with pruning in a single, unified approach, which learns superior models on four popular IoT datasets. The CNNs we find are more accurate and up to $4.35\times$ smaller than previous approaches, while meeting the strict MCU working memory constraint.


The methanol rootbark extract of Combretum glutinosum was subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening and in vitro antimicrobial tests. The methanol rootbark extract revealed the presence of flavonoids, tannins saponins, alkaloid and cardiac glycosides using standard procedures. The antimicrobial activity of the plant extract was assayed by the agar plate disc diffusion and nutrient broth dilution techniques. Test microorganisms which were laboratory isolates include Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, Bacillus subtilis, Corynae bacterium species and Aspergillus niger. The antimicrobial activities were shown to be concentration-dependent. The extract inhibited the growth of some of the test organisms; the highest diameter of inhibition zone of the crude flavonoids fraction was exhibited by Corynae bacterium species had 30.33±0.58 mm followed by Shigella dysenteriae; the crude saponins fraction was effective towards Escherichia coli with mean inhibition diameter of 19.67±0.58 mm. The extract couldn't inhibit the growth of Bacillus subtilis as well as Aspergillus niger at the tested concentrations of 100, 50 and 25 mg/ml. However, the crude flavonoids fraction inhibited the growth of Bacillus subtilis at all concentrations with mean values of 25.00±0.00, 22.67±0.58 and 19.33±0.58 mm respectively at concentrations of 100, 50 and 25 mg/ml. Therefore, it is pertinent to say that the activities against bacteria by this plant extract may be due to flavonoids part of the extractives. More so, this study has justified the traditional use of this plant for the treatment of some infectious diseases whose causative agents are some of the organisms tested in this study.


Abstract. Satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations have been used to estimate particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5). However, such a relationship could be affected by the representativeness of satellite-derived AOD to surface aerosol particle mass concentration and satellite AOD data quality. Using purely measurement-based methods, we have explored the impacts of data quality and representativeness on the AOD-inferred PM2.5 / AOD relationship for the contiguous United States (CONUS). This is done through temporally and spatially collocated data sets of PM2.5 and AOD retrievals from Aqua/Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP). These analyses show that improving data quality of satellite AOD, such as done with data assimilation-grade retrievals, increases their correlation with PM2.5. However, overall correlation is relatively low across the CONUS. Also, integrated extinction observed within 500 m above ground level (a.g.l.), as measured by CALIOP, is not well representative of the total column AOD. Surface aerosol in the eastern CONUS is better correlated with total column AOD than in the western CONUS. The best correlation values are found for estimated dry mass CALIOP extinction at 200–300 m a.g.l. and PM2.5, but additional work is needed to address the ability of using actively sensed AOD as a proxy for PM2.5 concentrations.


Investment in infrastructure is widely recognized as crucial to promoting economic and social growth through the development of essential services and assets. As the global population grows and urbanizes, the demand for infrastructure grows with it. The New Climate Economy estimates that from 2015 to 2030, the global requirement for new infrastructure assets will be US$90 trillion, more than the value of the world's existing infrastructure stock. In 2015, the majority of countries formally adopted an ambitious framework for both sustainable development (Sustainable Development Goals) and combating climate change (Paris Agreement). In particular, 189 countries committed to specific climate-change mitigation targets through their "Intended nationally determined contributions" (INDCs). In order to align with the Paris Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, these infrastructure investments must take place through planning and development processes that consider social, economic and environmental sustainability at their core.


Neurophobia, defined as 'the fear of neural sciences and neurology' is reported among medical students, which threatened their performance in neurology course. This phenomenon has not been studied among rehabilitation sciences students despite the significance of neurology as an area for rehabilitation. In this study we aim to assess the perceptions of neurology course and the possibility of neurophobia existence among rehabilitation sciences students of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). We also aimed to identify learning methods which are regarded as useful among the students. A survey using self-administered questionnaires was conducted among 73 students from School of Rehabilitation Sciences of the university. Questions in the questionnaire were adapted from previous studies, in which neurophobia was indicated by poor knowledge and low confidence level in managing neurology course. Results showed that the percentage of participants who perceived having good knowledge of neurology was significantly higher than the percentage who claimed of having poor knowledge level (90.4% versus 9.6%, p < 0.01). Similarly, the percentage of participants who claimed having high confidence to handle neurology cases was higher than the percentage who expressed lack of confidence (79.2% versus 20.8%, p = 0.03). However, neurology course was perceived as difficult by majority of the participants (78.1%) when compared to other courses. Majority of the participants (97.3%) perceived clinical teaching as a useful method of learning rehabilitation science courses including neurology followed by problem-based learning (90.4%). While limited exposure to neurology cases was claimed as the main reason to why neurology is difficult. In conclusion, although neurology is perceived as a difficult course among rehabilitation sciences students, the students did not report lack of knowledge and confidence in the course. This implies that neurophobia does not exist among UKM rehabilitation students. Enhancement of learning methods may assist in reducing the level of difficulty of neurology course among the students. DOI :  http://dx.doi.org./10.17576/JSKM-2018-27


Male gametophyte (pollen) isozyme profiles were compared with those of the sporophyte for nine enzyme systems. Sixty percent of the structural genes coding for these enzymes in the sporophyte were also found to be expressed by the gametophyte. All the genes tested were found to be expressed after meiosis, apparently transcribed and translated in the haploid gametophytes.


This paper examines the labor market implications of a mandatory social insurance scheme introduced in Ethiopia in 2011 for private sector employees in the formal sector. We use firm-level panel data and exploit differences in pre-reform pension plans across firms to identify the effects of the reform. We find no evidence of employers fully shifting the cost of pension benefits to workers in the form of lower wages. In fact the reform seems to be associated with an increase in real wage rates particularly among large firms. Firm-level employment declined after the reform with a greater contraction among firms without pre-reform provident funds and firms that were initially small. The composition of the workforce also shifted in favor of skilled workers although this effect may not be attributed entirely to the pension reform. We also find an increase in firm-level investment, capital per worker, and labor productivity.


The increase of the female labour force participation has made a change in family forms, equals opportunities and in family responsibility. The commitment between work and family is one of the major topics on the European social agenda, with another important topic: to eliminate the gender gap between males and females. In this paper we analyzed the gender gap in the family using data from five EU countries. Wives suer two types of discrimination: a lower wage with respect the husband's and the primary responsibility for children. Cross-section and panel data techniques are used to estimate wage equations for husbands and wives over time (1994-2001). Using the selectivity correction in the wage of married women we find that the wage gap decomposition is dierent if we ignore self-selection. Dierent methods to study gender gap are used to investigate the family gender gap.


This is a book for all readers who want to learn about amphibians, the animal group that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. It draws on many years of classroom teaching, laboratory experience, and field observation by the authors. The authors explore some of nature's most interesting creatures, interspersing their own observations throughout the book. The book can serve as a textbook for students and independent learners, as an overview of the field for professional scientists and land managers, and as an introduction for general readers. The class Amphibia contains more than 4500 known living species. New species are being discovered so rapidly that the number may grow to more than 5000 during our lifetimes. However, their numbers are being rapidly diminished around the globe, largely due to the encroachment of humans on amphibian habitats and from growing human-caused environmental pollution, discussed at length in the final chapter. The authors focus our attention on the "natural history" of amphibians world-wide and emphasize their interactions with their environments over time: where they live; how they reproduce; how they have been affected by evolutionary processes; what factors will determine their destinies over time.


When educators provide students with opportunities to interact with educational technology such as floor-robots, it may: (a) increase students' awareness of new educational tools, and (b) enhance students' use and engagement with new technologies. This case study provided upper-elementary, Hispanic students with opportunities to engage in structured and unstructured activities with floor-robots, with direct support from researchers and the cooperating teacher. These educational robots were introduced to student-participants on multiple occasions during regular instructional class time in a Title I school on the U.S.-Mexico border to determine: (a) students' interest in continued use of floor-robots; and (b) students' perceptions of ease-of-use of floor-robots. Floor-robots were selected largely because researchers had access to two types: a Roamer floor-robot and a Thymio floor-robot. For students from underserved populations, it is important that educators strengthen students' self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas (Mau & Li, 2018), as well as increase students' awareness and use of newer educational technologies, which is a growing field and includes floor-robots. However, in-service teachers may need guidance, support, and professional development when selecting and using new educational technologies such as floor-robots. Student-participants' post-study surveys and interviews provided researchers with insight into elementary students': (a) interest in floor-robots and robotics, (b) perceived ease-of-use, (c) preferred type of floor-robot in this particular study, and, (d) opinions on the potential uses and downsides of floor-robots.


In-line fiber-optic microcells are fabricated by postprocessing NKT LMA10 photonic crystal fibers. The cells are suspended core (SC) elements created by locally inflating some of the air holes while the core is being tapered. Based on a SC microcell with six air holes, a cantilever beam accelerometer is demonstrated. The microcells could also be used as gain and absorption cells for amplifier and spectroscopy applications.


This book challenges the common assumption that little or nothing of scientific value was achieved during the Burke and Wills expedition.

The Royal Society of Victoria initiated the Victorian Exploring Expedition as a serious scientific exploration of hitherto unexplored regions of inland and northern Australia. Members of the expedition were issued with detailed instructions on scientific measurements and observations to be carried out, covering about a dozen areas of science. The tragic ending of the expedition meant that most of the results of the scientific investigations were not reported or published. Burke and Wills: The Scientific Legacy of the Victorian Exploring Expedition rectifies this historic omission.

It includes the original instructions as well as numerous paintings and drawings, documents the actual science undertaken as recorded in notebooks and diaries, and analyses the outcomes. It reveals for the first time the true extent and limits of the scientific achievements of both the Burke and Wills expedition and the various relief expeditions which followed.

Importantly, this new book has led to a re-appraisal of the shortcomings and the successes of the journey. It will be a compelling read for all those interested in the history of exploration, science and natural history, as well as Australian history and heritage.


We have given an introduction to the theory of cluster categories and cluster-tilted algebras, and this was one of our main objectives in this thesis. We have seen that cluster-tilted algebras are relation-extension algebras, and this gave us a way of constructing the quiver of a cluster-tilted algebra from a tilted algebra. A cluster-tilted algebra of finite representation type is determined by its quiver, and this raised questions about the generality of this result. We defined a new class of algebras, namely cluster-relation algebras, and saw that the Cartan determinant of a cluster-relation algebra in some cases can be found directly from its quiver. Cluster-tilted algebras of finite representation type are cluster-relation algebras. We asked questions about when a cluster-relation algebra is cluster-tilted, and which cluster-tilted algebras are cluster-relation algebras. Another interesting problem mentioned, is to classify which quivers can occur as cluster-tilted algebras. The java-application JMutation has been developed, and it is described in Appendix A. We used this application to compute the number of cluster-tilted algebras of type $A_n$ and $D_n$ for small $n$. It could be possible to find functions $a(n)$ and $d(n)$, giving the number of cluster-tilted algebras of type $A_n$ and $D_n$ respectively. As we can see, there are many open problems waiting to be answered.


Finding minimal cuts on graphs with a grid-like structure has become a core task for solving many computer vision and graphics related problems. However, computation speed and memory consumption oftentimes limit the effective use in applications requiring high resolution grids or interactive response. In particular, memory bandwidth represents one of the major bottlenecks even in today's most efficient implementations. We propose a compact data structure with cache-efficient memory layout for the representation of graph instances that are based on regular N-D grids with topologically identical neighborhood systems. For this common class of graphs our data structure allows for 3 to 12 times higher grid resolutions and a 3- to 9-fold speedup compared to existing approaches. Our design is agnostic to the underlying algorithm, and hence orthogonal to other optimizations such as parallel and hierarchical processing. We evaluate the performance gain on a variety of typical problems including 2D/3D segmentation, colorization, and stereo. All experiments show an unconditional improvement in terms of speed and memory consumption, with graceful performance degradation for graphs with increasing topological irregularities.


There is surprisingly little evidence on how terror attacks impact elections. With only a few exceptions, previous studies in this literature have focused on a particular country or attack, limiting their generalizability. Ours is the first comprehensive, multi-country examination of the effects of terror attacks on political opinions and election outcomes. The results provide little evidence that terror attacks are systematically related to Europeans' attitudes towards immigrants and how much trust they have in government. International terror attacks are, however, associated with an increase in the vote share received by nationalistic parties in Europe. These results are relevant to the ongoing debate among academics over the effectiveness of terror attacks.


Sickle cell disease is caused by the intracellular polymerization of human hemoglobin containing a mutation of a glutamic acid to a valine residue at the sixth position of the β chain. This substitution of a hydrophobic residue for a hydrophilic residue greatly decreases the solubility of the hemoglobin tetramer, promoting the formation of ordered fibers in deoxygenated red blood cells. These fibers are composed of double strands of hemoglobin tetramers, which effectively bury the valine side chain in a hydrophobic pocket, eliminating its unfavorable interaction with solvent. Inhibition of fiber formation would greatly
alleviate the symptoms of sickle cell disease; therefore, the elucidation of the structure of the fiber is critical to developing treatments for the disease. In this thesis, an analysis of the crystal structures of the double strand component of the
fibers formed by HbS and other site-directed mutants displaying altered sickling properties is undertaken.

Structure of HbS at high resolution: The structure of HbS was solved at 2.05 A resolution. This high-resolution analysis produced significant improvements in the previous 3.0 A model. In particular, the accurate positioning of side chains, and the placement of more than 500 solvent molecules was achieved. Some side chains in the physiologically relevant contacts were moved by as much as 3.5 A away from their locations in the lower resolution model. The structure also demonstrates that well ordered water molecules are located in both the axial and lateral contacts, some of which may be exploited in the design of sickling
inhibitors.

Structures of Hbβ6L and Hbβ6W: The crystal structures of two human hemoglobins with mutations at the β6 position that display altered sickling behavior were solved and refined at high resolution. Both mutants were crystallized under conditions similar to those used with HbS. Hbβ6L showed a greater tendency to polymerize, and displayed reduced delay times in aggregation assays. The refined structure was very similar to that of HbS, with changes confined mostly to the lateral contacts. However, the packing of Leu β6 in the linear crystalline double strands is sub-optimal. This has important ramifications for the differences between the crystalline double strands and those within the physiological HbS fiber. Hbβ6W, on the other hand, showed a reduced tendency to polymerize and shorter delay times in polymerization assays. The protein crystallized in a different space group from the other two mutants (HbS and Hbβ6L) under the same crystallization conditions, and formed fundamentally different double strands in the crystals. This structure demonstrates conserved interactions at the axial contacts, but very different interactions at the lateral contacts. The alternate double strand formed by this protein in the crystal may be useful as a model for tetramer interactions within the physiological fiber, or as a structural model for heterogeneous nucleation. The structures of each of these mutants help explain their…


Here we describe a new theropod, Bicentenaria argentina nov. gen. et nov. sp., from the early Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. It is represented by more than a hundred bones belonging to different sized individuals, which were buried together in disarticulation after little transportation. The available association of skeletal elements suggests a gregarious behaviour for Bicentenaria , an ethological trait also recorded among other theropod clades. Increasing documentation of monospecific assemblages of different groups of theropods suggests that a gregarious ehaviour may have constituted the ancestral condition for Theropoda, at least. Bicentenaria characterizes for the surangular bone with a high dorsal margin and a prominent lateral shelf, a retroarticular process that is low, wide and spoon-shaped, and quadrate bone with its lateral condyle larger than the medial one. Phylogenetic analysis found the Chinese Tugulusaurus and the atagonian Bicentenaria as successive sister taxa of all other coelurosaurs, thus revealing the importance of the new taxon in the understanding of the early diversification of Coelurosauria. In particular, Bicentenaria amplifies the array of basal coelurosaurs that inhabited Gondwana during the Cretaceous, also including compsognathids, Aniksosaurus and Santanaraptor. Although still restricted to a handful of forms, available information indicates that Gondwana was a cradle for the evolution of different lineages of basal coelurosaurs, different from those documented in Upper Cretaceous beds in the northern landmasses. Analysis of body size distribution in averostran theropods results in the identification of two main episodes of drastic size reduction in the evolutionary history of Coelurosauria: one occurred at the initial radiation of the group (as represented by Bicentenaria, Zuolong, Tugulusaurus, compsognathids, and Aniksosaurus), and a second episode occurred at the early diverification of Paraves or avialans. Reduction in body size may have allowed adult coelurosaurians to exploit ecological niches not occupied before by larger basal averostrans.


The reflections presented in this article are devoted to Junko Theresa Mikuriya's book, A History of Light. The Idea of Photography. It is a unique view on the search for pre-photographic origins of photography in the field of philosophical writings ranging from Plato, through the neoplatonic philosopher Jamblich's enquiry, to the texts by Philotheus of Batos and by an early Renaissance philosopher, Marsilio Ficino. When thinking about metaphysics present in (moving and still) images, one should not forget about the metaphysics of the image itself. The idea of photography – regardless of whether we are witnessing a fundamental change in an ontological transition from an analogue to a digital form of image recording – obliges us to discuss the "history of light", as this is what Mikuriya does. While locating the discussed concepts in the context of the history and theory of photography, as well as the archaeology of media, the author of this essay engages in a dialogue with Mikuriya and polemically discusses many of her hypotheses. Key concepts such as chalepon, photagogia, triton genos, phôteinographeisthai are analysed in order to indicate inspiring moments in the Mikuriya's reflections, but also a kind of interpretive abuse in the process of reading and analysing philosophical texts addressing the issues of light.


Credit scoring models are important tools in the credit granting process. These models measure the credit risk of a prospective client based on idiosyncratic variables and macroeconomic factors. However, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are subject to the effects of the local economy. From a data set with the localization and default information of 9 million Brazilian SMEs, provided by Serasa Experian (the largest Brazilian credit bureau), we propose a measure of the local risk of default based on the application of ordinary kriging. This variable has been included in logistic credit scoring models as an explanatory variable. These models have shown better performance when compared to models without this variable. A gain around 7 percentage points of KS and Gini was observed.


Abstract Jomonlithus littoralis is a coccolithophore exhibiting unusual coccolith morphology that has previously only been reported from Japanese coastal waters. Jomonlithus is a mono-specific genus that has remained incertae sedis within the Prymnesiophyceae since its original description. We isolated a culture of the calcifying (diploid) stage of this species from Mediterranean coastal waters that subsequently produced a non-calcifying life cycle stage in culture. The non-calcifying (haploid) stage of J. littoralis is described for the first time through light and electron microscope observations of cytology, scale ornamentation and ultrastructure. A 28s rDNA molecular phylogeny is presented and the systematic affinities of Jomonlithus are discussed. This genus is placed in the Hymenomonadaceae and the diagnosis of this family is emended.


Common Wiki systems such as MediaWiki lack semantic annotations. WikSAR (Semantic Authoring and Retrieval within a Wiki), a prototype of a semantic Wiki, offers effortless semantic authoring. Instant gratification of users is achieved by context aware means of navigation, interactive graph visualisation of the emerging ontology, as well as semantic retrieval possibilities. Embedding queries into Wiki pages creates views (as dependant collections) on the information space. Desktop integration includes accessing dates (e.g. reminders) entered in the Wiki via local calendar applications, maintaining bookmarks, and collecting web quotes within the Wiki. Approaches to reference documents on the local file system are sketched out, as well as an enhancement of the Wiki interface to suggest appropriate semantic annotations to the user.


Experiments on-board the International Space Station experience a convective flow due to the oscillatory g-jitters induced by several sources such as crew activities, mechanical systems, thrusters firing, spacecraft docking, etc. Although g-jitter seems to have a major impact on diffusion-related experiments in Space, very few experimental studies have addressed this topic.

This study examined the effect of oscillatory g-jitters on transport processes (fluid flow, heat transfer and mass transfer). Cubic rigid cells filled with water and isopropanol at different concentrations were subjected to thermal gradients and forced vibrations. The cells were exposed to different levels of vibration in terms of frequency and amplitude, which were applied perpendicular to the temperature gradient. The full transient Navier Stokes equations coupled with the mass and heat transfer formulas were solved numerically using the control volume technique. The physical properties of the fluid mixture such as the density were determined using two different models.

The effect of different levels of vibration on the flow was analysed and the results were compared in a benchmark study with other scientific groups. The effect of the diffusion coefficients variation and other physical properties on the temperature and concentration distribution was compared to those results obtained with constant diffusion coefficients. Results show that use of variable physical properties in the modelling produces different flow patterns and component concentration. By examining different flow patterns, it was found that the effect of using variable coefficients is much more significant in the cases with high Rayleigh vibration that result in strong flow when compared with numerical analysis using constant variables. The numerical analysis was also performed for the actual experiment on board the International Space Station. The same trend was seen for both the numerical and experimental results. However, the separation of components was higher in the experiment in comparison with the numerical analysis. This was discussed in detail for various scenarios in terms of the applied frequency and amplitude. Recommendations are made according to the findings from this study for the improvement of accuracy in the numerical and experimental analyses of future diffusion experiments in Space.


The project deals with the development of recommendation for collection of municipal solid waste in Cyprus.

Project Aim
The aim of the project is to propose a new method of collection in order to improve the existing Municipal Solid Waste Management System in Cyprus.

Project Research Approach
The whole project approach is based on the Epistemological positivisticpragmatism method under the umbrella of Action Research. A complete Action Plan is followed step by step in order to reach the findings.

Project Findings
• The Stability test, of the refuse collection vehicle (RCV), was found to bemissing as a must for the proper selection of a new purchased RCV;
• The improper selection of chassis, creates serious problems such as over weighted trucks;
• The RCV should comply with safety regulations of 2001 by the Ministry ofLabour and Social Insurance;
• The RCVs manufactured in Cyprus don't comply with the European Standard ofEN 1501-1:2008;
• The plastic 1100lt bins were found to be the reason of overfilling waste;
• Metallic compactors of 10 cubic metres capacity must be used in order toeliminate overfilling;
• The use of skip loaders must be implemented, not only because was proved tobe more economical than the use of RCVs, but in order to transfer thecompactors for discharge;

Project Recommendations
• New method of collection called "Mixed Design" should be used for themunicipal solid waste in Cyprus;
• Stop using the 1100lt bins;
• All RCVs shall comply fully with the standard EN 1501-1:2008;
• Upgrading the specifications for the purchase of new RCV and Compactors;
• Compactors must be installed in each new building;
• A National System for monitoring and control of waste collection, must bedeveloped at the Ministry of Interior and Municipal/Local authorities;


Object. The treatment of adult spinal deformity (ASD) remains a challenge for the spine surgeon. While minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has many favorable attributes that would be of great benefit for the ASD population, improvements in lordosis and sagittal balance have remained elusive in cases involving the MIS approach. This report describes the evolution of an MIS method for treating ASD with attention to sagittal correction. Methods. Over an 18-month period 25 patients with thoracolumbar scoliosis were treated surgically. The mean patient age was 72 years, and 68% of the population was female. Patients were treated with multilevel facet osteotomies and interbody fusion in which expandable cages (mean 3.2 levels) were placed and percutaneous screw fixation (mean 5.3 levels) was performed. Seven patients underwent supplemental percutaneous iliac fixation. Results. All patients underwent MIS without conversion to a traditional open procedure. The mean operative time was 273 mins and the mean blood loss was 416 ml. There were no intraoperative complications. The Cobb angle over the scoliotic deformity improved from a mean of 29.2° to that of 9.0° (p < 0.001). Lumbar lordosis between L-1 and S-1 improved from a mean of 27.8° to one of 42.6° (p < 0.001). Sagittal vertical axis improved from 7.4 cm to 4.3 cm (p = 0.001). Numeric pain scale scores improved as well, an average of 3.3 and 4.2 for the leg and back, respectively. A mean improvement of 20.8 points on the Oswestry Disability Index was seen at 12 months. Compli - cations included: two cases requiring hardware repositioning, one case of screw pullout, one asymptomatic pedicle screw breach, prolonged hospitalization from constipation, and one acute coronary syndrome developing 3 days after surgery without myocardial damage. An expanding body of evidence suggests that sagittal balance remains a keystone for good out - comes after ASD surgery. Minimally invasive surgery that involves a combination of osteotomies, interbody height restoration, and advanced fixation techniques may achieve this goal in patients with less severe deformities. While feasibility will have to be proven with larger series and improved surgical methods, the present technique holds promise as a means of reducing the significant morbidity associated with surgery in the ASD population.


Filling the gap in the market for comprehensive coverage of this hot topic, this timely book covers a wide range of organic transformations, e. g. reductions of unsaturated compounds, oxidation reactions, Friedel-Crafts reactions, hydroamination reactions, depolymerizations, transformations of carbon dioxide, oxidative coupling reactions, as well as C-C, C-N, and C-O bond formation reactions. A chapter on the application of zinc catalysts in total synthesis is also included. With its aim of stimulating further research and discussion in the field, this is a valuable reference for professionals in academia and industry wishing to learn about the latest developments.


The aim of this study was to analyse the kinds and frequency of visual learning representations within 8th grade students' notebooks for science classes. As part of the research, 93 science notebooks which belonged to students from 13 secondary schools in Kars Province (the east of Turkey) were collected at the end of the academic year in 2018. Document analysis, a qualitative research strategy, has been adopted and content analysis technique was used to analyse the collected documents. The results showed that the visual learning representations recorded on students' notebooks were notably different from one unit to another and from one school to another. Moreover, it has been observed that students did not make frequent use of visual representations whilst learning the content.  Additionally, the visual learning representations in students' notebooks mostly consisted of the representations used by teachers during classes. These findings suggest that science teachers might have not been successful enough in guiding students to incorporate different visual representations into their learning processes for a better understanding of science subjects.


Abstract Solanum viarum, commonly known as tropical soda apple (TSA), is native to Brazil and Argentina but has become a harmful weed in many countries with tropical climates. This study was conducted to reassess the seed biology of TSA found in South Africa. Cold stratification (14 d), acid scarification (20% H2SO4 for 5 min), and sandpaper scarification (30 s) significantly improved percentage germination when compared to the control. The highest germination (99.5%) was achieved when seeds were germinated in 50% Hoagland's nutrient solution (HS). The lowest germination (66%) was recorded in the absence of phosphorus (P) under alternating light conditions. HS without nitrogen (N) completely inhibited seed germination of TSA under constant light conditions. These findings are useful in controlling TSA by amending the levels of N and P in soils. Seed germination of TSA was significantly enhanced by different concentrations of smoke-water and butenolide solution. Smoke-water dilution of 1∶500 v/v and butenolide concentration of 10−8M showed the highest seedling vigor indices (6,688 and 6,666, respectively) in comparison to the control (1,251) and gibberellic acid (GA3) concentrations (< 5,327). These findings suggest that germination of seeds or seedbanks of TSA might be successfully stimulated using smoke solutions. Subsequently, patches of seedlings emerging after treatment can be mechanically uprooted to reduce the infestation of TSA. However, justifying this with field trials is essential. Nomenclature: Tropical Soda Apple; Solanum viarum Dunal SOLVI.