This pioneering work examines prostitution in Shanghai from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawn mostly from the daughters and wives of the working poor and declasse elites, prostitutes in Shanghai were near the bottom of class and gender hierarchies. Yet they were central figures in Shanghai urban life, entering the historical record whenever others wanted to appreciate, castigate, count, regulate, cure, pathologize, warn about, rescue, eliminate, or deploy them as a symbol in a larger social panorama. Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many ways: as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity.For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity. Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the 'larger' meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives?Hershatter makes use of a broad range of materials: guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers. Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.


The technicality requirement confines patentable subject matter to practical processes and products. It excludes theoretical knowledge and methods of conducting services as such from patentability. In a post-industrial age, there may be good arguments to abandon this limiting requirement, because innovation has become highly scientific and because services now form such an important part of industrial activity. However, because the underlying effect of the requirBment is to limit the scope of patent claims, it should arguably be retained: patents of excessively broad scope have a negative aggregate welfare effect. In any case, even within the constraints of technicality, courts applying the NRDC principles retain sufJicient Wibi l i ty to adapt the concept of "manner of manufacture" to rapid evolution in science and industry.


We report findings from a survey of United States foreign exchange traders. Our results indicate that (i) technical trading best characterizes about 30% of traders, with this proportion rising from five years ago; (ii) news about macroeconomic variables is rapidly incorporated into exchange rates; (iii) the importance of individual macroeconomic variables shifts over time, although interest rates always appear to be important, and; (iv) economic fundamentals are perceived to be more important at longer horizons. The short run deviations of exchange rates from their fundamentals are attributed to excess speculation and institutional customer/hedge fund manipulation. Speculation is generally viewed positively, as enhancing market efficiency and liquidity, even though it exacerbates volatility. Central bank intervention does not appear to have a substantial effect, although there is general agreement that it increases volatility. Finally, traders do not view purchasing power parity as a useful concept, even though a significant proportion (40%) believe that it affects exchange rates at horizons of over six months.


Human body movements are especially effective in eliciting imitative responses. This thesis aims to establish why this is the case, and fundamentally, what this suggests about the mechanisms mediating imitation. Chapter 1 outlines theories which can account for this imitative bias, and highlights issues upon which these theories can be distinguished. Chapter 2 establishes whether the finding that responses are executed faster in response to stimuli of the same action type reflects an automatic tendency to imitate observed actions. On the basis of evidence to support this hypothesis, Chapters 3 and 4 use this reaction time measure to investigate imitation mechanisms. Chapter 3 addresses whether the human imitative bias emerges through top-down modulation of imitation mechanisms, on the basis of knowledge about whether stimuli are of human origin, or through perceptual properties of stimuli. These experiments suggest that automatic imitation effects are larger with human stimuli than robotic stimuli, but are unaffected by beliefs about stimulus identity, indicating that the imitative bias is driven by perceptual properties of stimuli. Chapter 4 asks why the perceptual properties of human stimuli are especially effective in eliciting imitative responses. On the basis of evidence suggesting that training can modulate imitation of robotic stimuli, this chapter supports the hypothesis that the imitative bias results from greater opportunity for associative learning with human stimuli. Chapter 5 investigates whether visuotactile integration can be modulated through training, in a similar way to visuomotor integration. By recording event-related brain potentials in response to tactile stimulation following visuotactile training, Chapter 5 indicates that visuotactile integration is modulated following training, but there are some differences in the influences of training with human and non-human visual stimuli. In summary, the results of the experiments reported in this thesis support the hypothesis that the human imitative bias emerges because of perceptual properties of human stimuli and greater opportunity to form associations between these stimuli and matching responses. These findings are consistent with the Associative Sequence Learning model of imitation. Visuotactile integration may also be understood with reference to associative learning.


To solve the problems of the Si anode such as excessive volume expansion and the corresponding destruction of the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film, we propose a porous MoS2@C heteroshell with a Si yolk structure. We prepared a porous MoS2@C heteroshell with a Si yolk structure using polydopamine (PDA) polymerization and a hydrothermal method using sodium molybdate and L-cysteine. In particular, the PDA layer on the Si yolk plays a role as a medium in growing the MoS2 shell as a MoS2@C heteroshell. We proposed Si@C@MoS2 (SCM) structures having different MoS2 shell thicknesses (SCM1, SCM3, SCM5 in the order of shell thickness) and measured various electrochemical properties. When the MoS2 shell was thin (SCM1), it exhibited a high specific capacity of 1451 mA h g−1 with a coulombic efficiency of 86.6% after 100 cycles at a current density of 100 mA g−1 (1st cycle), 200 mA g−1 (2nd cycle), and 500 mA g−1 (3rd cycle and following cycles). Furthermore, it shows excellent rate capability even at high current density compared to the Si@C electrode. When the MoS2 shell was thick (SCM5), ultrahigh electrochemical output properties and rate capability were exhibited although it shows low absolute capacity because of the high MoS2 weight ratio. From the results, we found that the thin MoS2 coating on the carbon shell had advantages compared to only the carbon shell because of the remarkable Li ion transport properties of MoS2. It was also found that there is a trade-off between the MoS2@C heteroshell thickness and the participation of Si in electrochemical reactions. In addition, the initial coulombic efficiency depended on the MoS2 shell thickness. This excellent electrochemical phenomenon was attributed to the high specific surface area and high ion conductivity of MoS2. Therefore, it is expected that these phenomena can also be applied to other anode materials to enable excellent cyclic stability and good rate capability for high performance Li ion batteries.


Updated with a new chapter that draws on behavioural finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, here is the best-selling, authoritative and gimmick-free guide to investing. Burton Malkiel evaluates the full range of investment opportunities, from stocks, bonds and money markets to insurance, home ownership and tangible assets such as gold or collectibles. This edition includes new strategies for rearranging your portfolio for retirement, along with the book's classic life-cycle guide to investing, which matches the needs of investors in any age bracket. "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" long ago established itself as the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio and this "entertaining and informative" ("Financial Times") book remains the best investing guide money can buy.


The proliferation and embeddedness of Information Technology (IT) resources into many organizations' business processes continues unabated. The security of these IT resources is essential to operational and strategic business continuity. However, as the large number of recent security breaches at various organizations illustrate, there is more that needs to be done in securing IT resources. Firms, through organizational structures, usually delegate the management and control of IT security activities and policies to the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Nevertheless, there seem to be a number of firms without a CISO and for the ones that do, there is little consensus regarding who the CISO should be reporting to. This exploratory study investigates the organizational security reporting structures using a dataset of all the firms that hired a CISO between 2010 and 2014. The results suggest that the number of firms hiring CISOs is increasing and that the hired CISOs are predominantly coming from outside the firm. Also, CISOs who are hired to fill newly created positions tend to report to the CEO whereas replacement hires for existing positions tend to report to the CIO. These findings have implications for both academics and practitioners.


As noted by Thorne (1997), formal critique plays a role not only in pressing knowledge forward but also in sustaining our humility. We are indeed humbled by the comments of our colleague regarding the rationale, method, and substance of our study. Although the commentator provided rich food for thought, and we agree with some of her points, we respectfully challenge others. First, we address one misunderstanding on her part. She alluded to our failure to link "two professed interests"; however, our article addressed only one topic: potentially problematic interviewee behaviors. This topic surfaced in nursing literature in a 1992 article by Hutchinson and Wilson on validity threats in interviews. Although scholars might argue with Hutchinson and Wilson?s designation of certain behaviors as "problematic," we found their discussion intriguing and shared their concern about the possibility of such behaviors threatening the validity of interview data. We wondered how prevalent such behaviors were; however, Hutchinson and Wilson did not present data regarding prevalence, nor could we locate any studies during an extensive literature search. In response to the commentator?s question, "What were the authors? reasons for focusing on interviewee behaviors?" the answer is simple: We decided that an important first step would be exploring the frequency and nature of problematic interviewee behaviors.


In this chapter, we set out to provide an overview of recent critical responses to the corporatisation of higher education and the configuration of the student as consumer. We also discuss the relationship between the core activities of teaching and research and reflect on both nineteenth century discourse and more recent efforts to re-establish the university as a liberal humanist institution, where teaching and research are equal and fundamental aspects of academic life. While recognizing recent efforts which acknowledge and go some way to addressing the need for enquiry-based learning and constructivist models of student participation, we argue that a more critical approach is necessary to promote change at an institutional level. This critical approach looks at the wider social, political and economic context beyond the institution and introduces the work of Benjamin and other Marxist writers who have argued that a critique of the social relations of capitalist production is central to understanding and remodeling the role of the university and the relationship between academic and student.

The idea of student as producer encourages the development of collaborative relations between student and academic for the production of knowledge. However, if this idea is to connect to the project of refashioning in fundamental ways the nature of the university, then further attention needs to be paid to the framework by which the student as producer contributes towards mass intellectuality. This requires academics and students to do more than simply redesign their curricula, but go further and redesign the organizing principle, (i.e. private property and wage labour), through which academic knowledge is currently being produced. An exemplar alternative organizing principle is already proliferating in universities in the form of open, networked collaborative initiatives which are not intrinsically anti-capital but, fundamentally, ensure the free and creative use of research materials.

Initiatives such as Science Commons, Open Knowledge and Open Access, are attempts by academics and others to lever the Internet to ensure that research output is free to use, re-use and distribute without legal, social or technological restriction (www.opendefinition.org). Through these efforts, the organizing principle is being redressed creating a teaching, learning and research environment which promotes the values of openness and creativity, engenders equity among academics and students and thereby offers an opportunity to reconstruct the student as producer and academic as collaborator. In an environment where knowledge is free, the roles of the educator and the institution necessarily change. The educator is no longer a delivery vehicle and the institution becomes a landscape for the production and construction of a mass intellect in commons.


Abstract The paper presents composition of vascular plant species in spring niches in the Ojców National Park (Southern Poland). 111 species of vascular plants, fourteen mosses, two liverworts and one species of ferns were recorded during the first comprehensive study carried out in 2009 and 2010. Plants occurring in these places showed different degrees of association with spring niches. The largest group was represented by accidental krenophytes (74 species), while spring plants - obligatory krenophytes, constituted only a small part of the local flora (5 species). Meadow species of the Molinio-Arrhenatheretea class and forest species of the Querco-Fagetea class, penetrating niche areas from the adjacent areas, were the dominating ones. Plants of aquatic and spring communities were scarce, due to the predominance of small type karst springs. The diversity of vegetation was significantly influenced by habitat factors such as availability of light, humidity or the amount of organic matter in the soil.


Learning and performance are not always commensurable. Conditions that maximize performance in the initial learning may not maximize learning in the longer term. I exploit this incommensurability to theoretically and empirically interrogate four possibilities for design: productive success, productive failure, unproductive success, and unproductive failure. Instead of only looking at extreme comparisons between discovery learning and direct instruction, an analysis of the four design possibilities suggests a vast design space in between the two extremes that may be more productive for learning than the extremes. I show that even though direct instruction can be conceived as a productive success compared to discovery learning, theoretical and empirical analyses suggests that it may well be an unproductive success compared with examples of productive failure and productive success. Implications for theory and the design of instruction are discussed.


ABSTRACT The Upper Proterozoic quartzites from the Taoudeni basin contain up to 27% quartz cement occurring as overgrowth on detrital grains. An oxygen isotope study of the quartz cement in the Upper Proterozoic quartzites of western Mali (Souroukoto Group, So2 formation) permitted an assessment of the nature and origin of the cementing fluids as well as the source of cement. The 18O values measured for the quartz overgrowths range from 15.9 to 17.7 per mil SMOW. These data, combined with petrological and geological evidence, suggest that quartz cementation took place relatively early after deposition, at shallow depth and low temperature from meteoric fluids. The markedly 18O-depleted (with respect to seaw ter) character of the parent fluids (18O values between -25 and -11 per mil SMOW) is directly related to the cold climatic conditions prevailing on the West African craton during Late Proterozoic times. Mass transfer, paleogeographic, and paleoclimatologic considerations suggest that the bulk of the silica necessary to form the observed volume of quartz cement was internally derived.


I When one has lived for quite a long time in a particular civilization1 and has often tried to discover what its origins were and along what path it has developed, one sometimes also feels tempted to take a glance in the other direction and to ask what further fate lies before it and what transformations it is destined to undergo. But one soon finds that the value of such an enquiry is diminished from the outset by several factors. Above all, because there are only a few people who can survey human activity in its full compass. Most people have been obliged to restrict themselves to a single, or a few, fields of it. But the less a man knows about the past and the present the more insecure must prove to be his judgement of the future. And there is the further difficulty that precisely in a judgement of this kind the subjective expectations of the individual play a part which it is difficult to assess; and these turn out to be dependent on purely personal factors in his own experience, on the greater or lesser optimism of his attitude to life, as it has been dictated for him by his temperament or by his success or failure. Finally, the curious fact makes itself felt that in general people experience their present naïvely, as it were, without being able to form an estimate of its contents; they have first to put themselves at a distance from it— the present, that is to say, must have become the past—before it can yield points of vantage from which to judge the future. Thus anyone who gives way to the temptation to deliver an opinion on the probable future of our civilization will do well to remind himself of the difficulties I have just pointed out, as well as of the uncertainty that attaches quite generally to any prophecy. It follows from this, so far as I am concerned, that I shall make a hasty retreat before a task that is too great, and shall promptly seek out the small tract of territory which has claimed my attention hitherto, as soon as I have determined its position in the general scheme of things. Human civilization, by which I mean all those respects in ————————————— 1 [See Editor's Note, p. 4.]-5-which human life has raised itself above its animal status and differs …


Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) was used to measure ground deformation during explosive eruptions on 27 and 28 May 2010 at Pacaya volcano, Guatemala. Interferograms produced using spaceborne and airborne synthetic aperture radar data reveal ∼3 m of along-slope movement of the southwest sector of the edifice during these eruptions. This is the largest measured slope instability witnessed in a single event at a volcano that did not result in a catastrophic landslide. This rapid and extreme movement is particularly concerning given the history of sector collapse and persistent activity at this volcano. These findings emphasize the utility of high-resolution InSAR measurements for monitoring deformation and potential catastrophic slope instability at volcanoes.


The hunter has become the prey! The headless corpses of three men are found in a London side street. Their mutilated torsos are witness to an unspeakably agonizing death. It becomes chillingly clear that this discovery is a horrific message to the Metropolitan Police - and to one officer in particular. DI Stacey Collins finds herself on the hunt for a psychopathic killer. But it would seem that this is no ordinary homicide! All the victims had themselves been predators, terrorizing the innocent. Is this a twisted vigilante mission, or something far more sinister? Meanwhile, Collins must battle her own demons as the MET's Internal Affairs department investigate her past and her connections to London's underworld. Collins faces her toughest challenge yet - torn between justice and revenge.


Abstract This article examines the deep epistemological and theological roots of the religious philosophy of jihādī-Salafism and its role in the construction of the ideology of Boko Haram. To achieve this, four aspects are considered: first, the core theological doctrines of jihādī-Salafism on the subject of takfīr and ḥukm bi-ghayri mā anzala Allāh; second, the sacred texts and Islamic scriptures that have been adroitly exploited to support the jihādī-Salafīs' idealization, theological legitimization and meta-justification for divinely sanctioned jihād; third, the ideologues of jihādī-Salafism, and how their readings of Islamic history and theology have provided a stamp of approval for the legitimization of jihād against the political rulers in the Muslim world; and fourth, an explanation of why the jihādī-Salafīs diverge from the interpretation of the quietist Salafīs despite their unified common understanding about following the model of the Prophet and his companions. These four aspects serve as a matrix that helps to explain the enduring relationship between the religious philosophy of jihādī-Salafism and the ideology of Boko Haram. In what follows, this article shows that the theological doctrines of jihādī-Salafism and the cultural framing of the historical tradition of tajdid in northern Nigeria – specifically the distinctive trans-generational discourses, Islamic traditions and jihādī legacy established by the eighteenth-century Islamic reformer Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio – have played a greater role in Boko Haram's legitimization of jihād than has hitherto been acknowledged.


Acquisition of IR spectra often generates complex datasets that are not readily interpretable for the purposes of deriving biomarkers. From a computational perspective, this raises the question of what multi-step processing is required and, whether there is a well-defined sequence of steps that can be applied to objectively shed insight into a biological question. To generate a dataset to investigate this, we set up an in vitro transformation assay (pH 6.7) using Syrian hamster embryo (SHE) cells (1). SHE cells were interrogated by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Derived mid-IR spectra (nspectra @14,000) were inputted into a computational framework designed for outlier removal, multivariate analysis and validation of the robustness of analysis, and biomarker identification. Biomarker identification methods were independently applied and compared to identify common discriminating chemical entities. Stable biomarkers of chemical-induced alterations or transformation were identified and confirmed. The analysis framework was implemented in the form of a user-friendly graphical user interface using a programming toolkit designed for research on computational methods. The database platform developed to store our dataset is scalable and can facilitate a data-sharing inter-laboratory process towards end-user applications for IR spectroscopy.


Artificial intelligent (AI) systems today are booming and they are used to solve new tasks or improve the performance on existing ones. However, most AI systems work in a black-box fashion, which prevents the users from accessing the inner modules. This leads to two major problems: (i) users have no idea when the underlying system will fail and thus it could fail abruptly without any warning or explanation, and (ii) users' lack of proficiency about the system could fail pushing the AI progress to its state-of-the-art. In this work, we address these problems in the following directions. First, we develop a failure prediction system, acting as an input filter. It raises a flag when the system is likely to fail with the given input. Second, we develop a portfolio computer vision system. It is able to predict which of the candidate computer vision systems perform the best on the input. Both systems have the benefit of only looking at the inputs without running the underlying vision systems. Besides, they are applicable to any vision system. By equipped such systems on different applications, we confirm the improved performance. Finally, instead of identifying errors, we develop more interpretable AI systems, which reveal the inner modules directly. We take two tasks as examples, words semantic matching and Visual Question Answering (VQA). In VQA, we take binary questions on abstract scenes as the first stage, then we extend to all question types on real images. In both cases, we take attention as an important intermediate output. By explicitly forcing the systems to attend correct regions, we ensure the correctness in the systems. We build a neural network to directly learn the semantic matching, instead of using the relation similarity between words. Across all the above directions, we show that by diagnosing errors and making more interpretable systems, we are able to improve the performance in the current models. Towards Interpretable Vision Systems


This thesis analyses clinical knowledge surrounding anorexia. What clinicians say and write about anorexia constitutes a key area of clinical knowledge. This knowledge is complex and has many dimensions. It identifies typical "manifestations" of the illness, such as "fear of fatness". It also identifies theitype of woman (e. g. her age or social class) likely to suffer firoin the disorder. Most importantly, clinical knowledge suggests that anorexia has specific "causes". Anorexia, clinicians inform us, represents a flight firom adulthood on the part of girls who are intensely afraid of becoming fat. This thesis analyses this complex psychiatric model, using a number of different methods. The study argues that psychiatry constructs a stereotype of the anorexic. This stereotype is visible in two areas. Firstly an archetype of the sufferer's cognitive symptoms is visible. This suggests that anorexics fear fatness and are afraid to grow up. Secondly a stereotype of the anorexic's demographic profile is apparent. This constitutes the sufferer as young, middle class, educated, and urban. The study examines the accuracy of this stereotype among a sample of 104 anorexics. Using open and closed ended-data, the study suggests that the "anorexic stereotype' may have limited empirical support. In the current study, patients suggested that anorexia was a strategy of control. The concept Of control, while validly describing patients' experiences, may partly have been acquired by Patients from clinicians. The thesis appraises patients' testimonies to examine the extent to which patients have acquired such "modicalised" language. It also analyses 24 doctor-patient interviews and concludes that doctors may encourage patients to view their disorder in clinical terms. Using feminist theory, and theory fi-om the sociology of chronic illness, the findings of the thesis are analysed from a sociological perspective. Chapter 1 The Story of the Anorexic Stereotype


BackgroundHigh mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) is a ubiquitously expressed non-histone nuclear protein which acts as a danger signal when released from cells. HMGB1, which is associated with inflammation, angiogenesis, and T helper (Th)2 polarization, contributes to the development of various inflammatory diseases and malignancies. However, it remains to be determined whether HMGB1 is involved in cutaneous Tcell lymphoma (CTCL).ObjectivesTo investigate the role of HMGB1 in CTCL.Materials & methodsSerum HMGB1 levels were measured in patients with CTCL and healthy controls using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. HMGB1 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in CTCL and normal skin was examined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry. Moreover, we analysed correlations between the levels of HMGB1 and other cytokines and chemokines, laboratory data, disease activity, and prognosis.ResultsHMGB1 levels were significantly higher in sera of CTCL patients than those of normal controls and correlated with serum levels of soluble interleukin-2 receptor, lactate dehydrogenase, thymus and activation-regulated chemokine, and the number of eosinophils in peripheral blood. Serum HMGB1 levels also reflected disease activity and prognosis for each patient with CTCL. HMGB1 mRNA levels in CTCL lesional skin were significantly elevated and correlated with IL- 4, IL-10, IL-19, and angiogenin mRNA levels. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that HMGB1 was expressed not only in the nucleus but also in the cytoplasm of various cells in CTCL lesional skin.ConclusionThese results suggest that enhanced HMGB1 expression may contribute to the progression of CTCL through Th2 polarization and promotion of angiogenesis.


Over the last few years it has been shown that protein modelling techniques, especially template based modelling, are now accurate enough for qualitative analysis and decision-making in support of a wide range of experimental work.

Automatic protein modelling pipelines are becoming ever more accurate; however, this has come hand in hand with an increasingly complicated interplay between all components involved. Despite all progress, still important problems remain and so far computational methods cannot routinely meet the accuracy of experimentally determined protein structures. In protein modelling pipelines, several important steps dictate a model's quality. Selecting a good template and aligning the query sequence correctly, backbone completion, model refinement and final model selection are considered the main steps.
As a first step to approach protein refinement, a genetic algorithm (GA) for protein model recombination and optimization is presented in this work. This algorithm has the potential, to drive models away from the template towards the native structure. Furthermore, a complete and novel modelling pipeline, incorporating this GA is presented. In this context, a new scoring scheme, backbone repair algorithm and several other findings are reported and presented: We introduce the novel concept of Alternating Evolutionary Pressure, i.e. intermediate rounds within the GA simulation, where unrestrained linear growth of the model population is allowed. This approach improves the structural sampling and thereby facilitates energy-based model selection.

Finally, the GA in combination with molecular dynamics simulations is used in the context of protein engineering. Several mutants were identified to stabilise and increase the activity of the cancer drug L-Asparaginase, a complex enzyme. The successful prediction of these mutations stresses the importance of protein molecular modelling for cell biology and in a clinical context.


Several state-of-the-art imaging applications require a large operational spectral band, a large field size, and a high numerical aperture (NA). The design of a lens that simultaneously meets these requirements is a challenging task. We present optical designs of hyper NA imaging systems that comprise a multi reflection optical element. Light entering this element reflects multiple times before exiting. The present lens designs are 1.65 NA imaging system that operate in the broad spectral band [486.1 ~656.3 nm], have field size of 1.75 mm, and 20X magnification.


The NAFTA increasingly looks like a "one-shot" deal with little of the ongoing deepening of economic relationships expected at the time of its negotiation and no provisions for ongoing negotiations. As a result, alternative trading arrangements may provide an opportunity to move the North American trade agenda forward. The FTAA is one alternative. The FTAA, however, is an extremely ambitious undertaking bringing together a large number of very divergent economies in terms of size, stage of economic development, economic performance and economic philosophy. This increases the complexity of negotiations and the probability of failure. The paper outlines the major areas where negotiations are likely to be difficult and provides suggestions regarding what has been learned from the NAFTA experience that is relevant to the FTAA.


AI has been well supported by government research and development dollars for decades now, and people are beginning to ask hard questions: What really works? What are the limits? What doesn't work as advertised? What isn't likely to work? What isn't affordable? This article holds a mirror up to the community, both to provide feedback and stimulate more self-assessment. The significant accomplishments and strengths of the field are highlighted. The research agenda, strategy, and heuristics are reviewed, and a change of course is recommend-ed to improve the field's ability to produce reusable and interoperable components.


Malawi has a proud history of delivering free healthcare for its citizens, but this is now seriously under threat. Bypass fees for hospitals are already causing major hardship by excluding poor people from accessing the healthcare they need. The Government of Malawi must reject the fees system completely and instead use tax financing and development aid. Development partners must support the health sector with adequate financing to fulfil world leaders' commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind. Malawi cannot be the first country in a generation to introduce these dangerous fees while the world watches.


In this paper we consider a novel Bayesian interpretation of Fisher's discriminant analysis. We relate Rayleigh's coefficient to a noise model that minimises a cost based on the most probable class centres and that abandons the 'regression to the labels' assumption used by other algorithms. Optimisation of the noise model yields a direction of discrimination equivalent to Fisher's discriminant, and with the incorporation of a prior we can apply Bayes' rule to infer the posterior distribution of the direction of discrimination. Nonetheless, we argue that an additional constraining distribution has to be included if sensible results are to be obtained. Going further, with the use of a Gaussian process prior we show the equivalence of our model to a regularised kernel Fisher's discriminant. A key advantage of our approach is the facility to determine kernel parameters and the regularisation coefficient through the optimisation of the marginal log-likelihood of the data. An added bonus of the new formulation is that it enables us to link the regularisation coefficient with the generalisation error.


Interoperability sets standards for consistency when integrating information from multiple sources. Trends in e-government have encouraged the production of digital information yet it is not clear if the data produced are interoperable. The objective of the project was to evaluate interoperability by building a retrieval tool that could track United States public policy from the legislative to the executive branch using only machine-readable government information. A case study of policy created during the 2008 financial crisis serves as an illustration to investigate the organizational, technical, syntactic, and operational interoperability of digital sources. The methods of citing law varied widely enough between legislation and regulation to impede consistent automated tracking. The flow of federal policy authorization exemplifies remaining socio-technical challenges in achieving the interoperability of machine-readable government data.


Corrosion inhibition of mild steel in normal hydrochloric acid solution at 303 K by Brachychiton essential oil (B.O.) has been studied by potentiodynamic polarization and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The oil essential of Brachychiton (B.O.), was analyzed by chromatography (HPLC/UV) and FTIR spectra. The results show that this oil is characterized by palmitoleic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid being the major constituents. The inhibition efficiency increases with the increase of inhibitor concentration. Potentiodynamic polarization studies clearly reveal that the presence of this inhibitor acts like a mixed inhibitor. The effect of temperature on the corrosion behavior of mild steel in 1M HCl with and without oil in the temperature range 303-333 K, indicates that inhibition efficiency increases with temperature. While SEM analysis the formation of protective layer over the steel surface. The adsorption of natural product son the mild steel surface obeys to Langmuir's adsorption isotherm.


Aim Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems serve as reference laboratories for the investigation of global change because of their transitional climate, the high spatiotemporal variability of their environmental conditions, a rich and unique biodiversity and a wide range of socio-economic conditions. As scientific development and environmental pressures increase, it is increasingly necessary to evaluate recent progress and to challenge research priorities in the face of global change. Location Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems. Methods This article revisits the research priorities proposed in a 1998 assessment. Results A new set of research priorities is proposed: (1) to establish the role of the landscape mosaic on fire-spread; (2) to further research the combined effect of different drivers on pest expansion; (3) to address the interaction between drivers of global change and recent forest management practices; (4) to obtain more realistic information on the impacts of global change and ecosystem services; (5) to assess forest mortality events associated with climatic extremes; (6) to focus global change research on identifying and managing vulnerable areas; (7) to use the functional traits concept to study resilience after disturbance; (8) to study the relationship between genotypic and phenotypic diversity as a source of forest resilience; (9) to understand the balance between C storage and water resources; (10) to analyse the interplay between landscape-scale processes and biodiversity conservation; (11) to refine models by including interactions between drivers and socio-economic contexts; (12) to understand forest–atmosphere feedbacks; (13) to represent key mechanisms linking plant hydraulics with landscape hydrology. Main conclusions (1) The interactive nature of different global change drivers remains poorly understood. (2) There is a critical need for the rapid development of regional- and global-scale models that are more tightly connected with largescale experiments, data networks and management practice. (3) More attention should be directed to drought-related forest decline and the current relevance of historical land use.


ABSTRACT Filistatidae is one of the most phylogenetically enigmatic spider groups, and the genus Kukulcania Lehtinen includes the commonest representatives of the family. Its type species, K. hibernalis (Hentz, 1842), remains a favorite candidate for studies on spider phylogeny and comparative morphology. However, little is known about the taxonomy, species limits, and distribution of its closest relatives, because no generic revision has ever been undertaken. We present the first comprehensive assessment of the taxonomy of Kukulcania. The species K. hibernalis, K. arizonica (Chamberlin and Ivie, 1935), K. utahana (Chamberlin and Ivie, 1935), K. hurca (Chamberlin and Ivie, 1942), K. brignolii (Alayón, 1981) comb. nov. (transferred here from Filistata Latreille), K. tractans (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1896), and K. geophila (Chamberlin and Ivie, 1935) are redescribed based on our examination of type material. We show that the name Filistata brevipes Keyserling, 1883, which had previously been placed in Kukulcania, actually belongs to a prithine spider, and propose the new combination Pikelinia brevipes (Keyserling, 1883). Filistata geophila wawona Chamberlin and Ivie, 1942, is newly synonymized with Kukulcania geophila. Eight new species of Kukulcania are described: K. cochimi, sp. nov. (from Baja California), K. gertschi, sp. nov. (northern Mexico), K. mexicana, sp. nov. (central Mexico), K. santosi, sp. nov. (southern Mexico to northern South America; previously misidentified as K. brevipes), K. tequila, sp. nov. (western Mexico), K. chingona, sp. nov. (western Mexico), K. benita, sp. nov. (endemic to the San Benito Islands in Baja California) and K. bajacali, sp. nov. (Baja California). With this, the number of recognized species in the genus is increased to 15. All species have their distributions mapped and both sexes illustrated. The first identification key to the genus is presented. A study on the morphology of the genus is undertaken using light and scanning electron microscopy, and the phylogenetic position of Kukulcania within the Filistatinae is briefly discussed. A novel putative synapomorphy for the subfamily is proposed.


The United States and many other countries are dramatically tightening fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles. Higher fuel economy reduces per-mile driving costs and may increase miles traveled, known as the rebound effect. The magnitude of the elasticity of miles traveled to fuel economy is an important parameter in welfare analysis of fuel economy standards, but all previous estimates impose at least one of three behavioral assumptions: (a) fuel economy is uncorrelated with other vehicle attributes; (b) fuel economy is uncorrelated with attributes of other vehicles owned by the household; and (c) the effect of gasoline prices on vehicle miles traveled is inversely proportional to the effect of fuel economy. Relaxing these assumptions yields a large effect; a one percent fuel economy increase raises driving 0.2 to 0.4 percent.


BACKGROUND: Acinetobacter species are typical nosocomial pathogens causing infections and high mortality, almost exclusively in compromised hospitalized patients. Acinetobacter sp. are intrinsically less susceptible to antibiotics and have propensity to acquire resistance. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter sp. blood infection in the neonatal intensive care unit patients create a great problem in hospital settings. AIMS: A prospective data analysis was performed over a one year period of all neonates admitted with sepsis who developed Acinetobacter infection and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern was carried out. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Blood samples of infected neonates were collected aseptically and cases of Acinetobacter septicemia were identified. Speciation of Acinetobacter species was done. Various risk factors were identified and their drug-sensitivity test was performed. RESULTS: The incidence of neonatal septicemia due to Acinetobacter species was 13.7% (49/357). Predominant species isolated was Acinetobacter baumannii (98%). The major symptoms were lethargy and poor feeding. The major signs were tachypnea, intercostal retraction, and respiratory distress. The major fetal risk factors were low birth weight and prematurity. High degree of resistance was observed to the various antibiotics used. Majority of the isolates (95.9%) were MDR while 93.68% were resistant to carbapenems as well as extensively drug resistant. However, all the strains were sensitive to colistin. CONCLUSION: MDR Acinetobacter septicemia in neonatal patients is becoming alarmingly frequent and is associated with significant mortality and morbidity. Therefore, rational antibiotic use is mandatory along with an effective infection control policy in neonatal intensive care areas of each hospital to control Acinetobacter infection and improve outcome.


Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.) is known for the production of high quality beverage while Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre) has been characterized as a neutral, weak flavored and occasionally with strong acid and pronounced bitterness. Viable and reasonably fertile interspecific hybrids can easily be obtained from crosses between the allotetraploid C. arabica L. and induced autotetraploid forms of C. canephora P. This study was carried out to determine beverage quality characteristics and biochemical components of 15 coffee genotypes, nine of them being interspecific Arabusta F1 hybrids. Beverage quality was determined by a panel of six judges using the prescribed sensory evaluation procedures, while caffeine, oil, trigonelline, total chlorogenic acids (CGA) and sucrose were analyzed in green coffee samples using recommended methodologies. The results indicated significant (p<0.05) variations among the genotypes for all the sensory attributes. The total score, which is a reflection of the broad coffee quality performance showed that SL34 and SL28 (which served as reference in sensory quality), were not significantly different from Arabusta hybrids SL34 x UT8, SL28 x UT8, N39 x UT8, SL34 x UT6, CaturraxUT6 and SL28 x UT6. The quality of some Arabusta hybrids was found to be similar to that of pure Arabica genotypes. Similarly, biochemical variables revealed significant (p<0.05) variations for caffeine, oil and sucrose, among genotypes except for CGA and trigonelline which were not significantly different. There were positive significant correlations between all the sensory characteristics. Sucrose showed significant (P<0.05) correlations with fragrance flavour, aftertaste and overall. Trigonelline showed a significant negative correlation with body and caffeine. All the Arabusta hybrids scored specialty grade (80 points and above for total score) and therefore future studies on their performance in many locations with more variable climatic conditions is recommended.

 Key words: Coffee, Arabusta, F1 interspecific hybrids, sensory variables, biochemical components.


In this paper, we present an information-based approach to select a reduced number of landmarks and poses for a robot to localize itself and simultaneously build an accurate map. We develop an information theoretic algorithm to efficiently reduce the number of landmarks and poses in a SLAM estimate without compromising the accuracy of the estimated trajectory. We also propose an incremental version of the reduction algorithm which can be used in SLAM framework resulting in information based reduced landmark SLAM. The results of reduced landmark based SLAM algorithm are shown on Victoria park dataset and a Synthetic dataset and are compared with standard graph SLAM (SAM [6]) algorithm. We demonstrate a reduction of 40-50% in the number of landmarks and around 55% in the number of poses with minimal estimation error as compared to standard SLAM algorithm.


Nowadays, the ever-increasing world electricity generation by renewable energy sources has brought about changes in conventional power plants, especially in those ones where large steam turbines work, which were widely used to meet the world's energy needs by operating mostly at fixed conditions. Now, instead, they have to be capable to operate with greater flexibility, including rapid load changes and quick starts as well, in order to make the most of the renewable resources while guaranteeing the coverage of any shortcomings of the latter with traditional fossil fuel systems. Such service conditions are particularly challenging for the exhaust hoods, which have a great influence on the overall turbine performance, especially at off-design conditions. In fact, the complex and high rotational 3D flow generated within the diffuser and the exhaust hood outer casing can cause an increase in aerodynamic losses along with the detriment of the hood recovery performance. For these reasons, an optimized design and adequate prediction of the exhaust hood performance under all the machine operating conditions is mandatory. Since it has been widely proven that the exhaust hood flow strongly interacts with the turbine rear stage, the necessity to model this as well into a CFD modeling becomes crucial, requiring a remarkable computational effort, especially for full transient simulations. Even if adopting simplified approaches to model the last stage and exhaust hood interfaces, such as the so-called Frozen Rotor and the Mixing Plane ones, helps to keep the computational cost low, it can be not for an exhaust hood optimization process, which requires a significant number of CFD simulations to identify the most performing geometry configuration. For these reasons, a simplified model of the exhaust hood must be adopted to analyse all the possible design variants within a feasible time.
 The purpose of this work is to present a strategy for the exhaust hood design based on the definition of a simplified CFD model. A parametric model has been developed as a function of key geometrical parameters of both the exhaust hood and the diffuser, taking into account the strong fluid-dynamic coupling between these components. A periodic approximation has been introduced to model the exhaust hood domain, thus allowing to augment the number of the geometrical parameters of the DOE, while keeping the computational effort low. A response surface has been achieved as a function of the key geometrical parameters, therefore an optimization method has allowed identifying the best performing configuration. A 3D model of the optimized periodic geometry has been then generated to assess the effectiveness of the procedure here presented. Finally, the presented procedure has been applied in several off-design operating conditions, in order to find out an optimal geometry for each operating point, evaluating how much they differ from that one got for the design point.


The present research considered conversational self-focus, a previously unstudied variant of normative self-disclosure in which one conversation partner re-directs conversations to focus on the self. It was hypothesized that having a friend who is selffocused, especially during conversations about problems, would be related to negative friendship and emotional outcomes. These hypotheses were addressed in two studies, a survey and an observational study. The results of the two studies were mixed. Study 1 suggested that youth with internalizing symptoms tend to perceive their friends as being self-focused and report lower friendship quality than youth without internalizing symptoms. Study 2, on the other hand, suggested that youth with internalizing symptoms tend to self-focus themselves but did not report lower friendship quality. Thus hypothesized relations did not hold when using more stringent methodology (observations). Future research should incorporate both survey and observational methods. Additionally, applied contributions of this research (e.g., interventions for self-focused youth) are discussed.


Timing is crucial to understanding the causes and consequences of events in Earth history. The calibration of geological time relies heavily on the accuracy of radioisotopic and astronomical dating. Uncertainties in the computations of Earth's orbital parameters and in radioisotopic dating have hampered the construction of a reliable astronomically calibrated time scale beyond 40 Ma. Attempts to construct a robust astronomically tuned time scale for the early Paleogene by integrating radioisotopic and astronomical dating are only partially consistent. Here, using the new La2010 and La2011 orbital solutions, we present the first accurate astronomically calibrated time scale for the early Paleogene (47–65 Ma) uniquely based on astronomical tuning and thus independent of the radioisotopic determination of the Fish Canyon standard. Comparison with geological data confirms the stability of the new La2011 solution back to ∼54 Ma. Subsequent anchoring of floating chronologies to the La2011 solution using the very long eccentricity nodes provides an absolute age of 55.530 ± 0.05 Ma for the onset of the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 54.850 ± 0.05 Ma for the early Eocene ash −17, and 65.250 ± 0.06 Ma for the K/Pg boundary. The new astrochronology presented here indicates that the intercalibration and synchronization of U/Pb and 40Ar/39Ar radioisotopic geochronology is much more challenging than previously thought.


The Leidenfrost effect influences substantially the contact of a liquid droplet with
a hot surface. Contact between the liquid and solid is crucial for cooling applications
such as fire-fighting, hot-mill steel rolling, thermal power plants and microprocessor
cooling. In automotive or aerospace internal combustion engines, the
combustion chamber is pressurized prior to ignition. Despite various effects of elevated
pressure, the combustion process needs to be controlled. The reaction time in
a combustion chamber is limited, but mixture preparation involves prior evaporation.
Fuel in contact with a combustion chamber wall evaporates in a uncontrolled
manner. Furthermore, the fuel reacts with lubricants and decomposes into coke
residue.
The fundamental physics of the Leidenfrost effect are yet to be fully understood.
This applies especially to the influence of pressure on the Leidenfrost effect. For
the question, if injected water droplets would stay in contact with the heated combustion
chamber wall, current models would need to be extrapolated from ambient
pressure, although there is no validation experiment available.
This experimental study addresses the influence of elevated pressure on the Leidenfrost
effect, providing observations and measurements suitable to validate theories,
hence extending the knowledge about the Leidenfrost effect. The experiment
is implemented inside a pressure chamber and results for single water droplets impinging
onto a hot aluminium substrate are presented. The droplet impingement
Weber number was 5. The experiments were conducted at chamber pressures from
1 to 25 bar (0.1 to 2.5 MPa) and wall temperatures from 100 to 460 °C (373 to
733 K).
Based on video observations, phenomenological boiling states are identified and
mapped on a pressure-temperature diagram. The various states of impact behaviour
shift to higher temperatures with increasing pressure. Nucleate boiling
and critical temperature models of the bulk liquid serve as the lower and the upper
bounds for the transition for all observed states of droplets, respectively.
A new nucleation model, accounting for the fluid flow inside the impacting
droplet, agrees reasonably well with experimental results for the nucleate boiling
in the experiment.
All previous theories and correlations predict transition temperatures which are
constant or deviate from experimental values at elevated pressures. Therefore, the theoretical part of this study tests refined hypotheses for transition from nucleate
boiling to film boiling.
A Landau instability model and a bubble percolation model propose explanations
for transitions in the boiling phenomena, but these models deviate from experimental
results. Refinement of these approaches is still needed with respect to the
characteristic length of instability and the active nucleation site count.
The experimentally observed onset of the transition state exhibits a linearity between
the reduced pressure value and the reduced contact overheat.
The boiling states are further quantified with the measurement of the residence
time upon the target. In the wetting state at ambient pressure, the residence time is
equal to the evaporation time of the droplets. Residence time is lower for the transition
and the Leidenfrost rebound states. The droplet detaches from the surface
prior to complete evaporation.
Residence time thresholds mark the observed transition state. Asymptotic rebound
time marks the rebound state. The time thresholds follow the state borders
in the pressure-temperature map.
Secondary droplets are detected with the shadowgraph technique. Characterization
of the secondary droplets has been achieved using a new image processing
algorithm. It is based on the irradiance model of a semi infinite screen. The Sauter
mean diameter of the secondary droplets in transition boiling state increases with
increasing pressure. An increasing trend of the Sauter mean diameter of secondary
droplets to the bubble departure diameter was observed.


Text analytics systems often rely heavily on detecting and linking entity mentions in documents to knowledge bases for downstream applications such as sentiment analysis, question answering and recommender systems. A major challenge for this task is to be able to accurately detect entities in new languages with limited labeled resources. In this paper we present an accurate and lightweight, multilingual named entity recognition (NER) and linking (NEL) system. The contributions of this paper are three-fold: 1) Lightweight named entity recognition with competitive accuracy; 2) Candidate entity retrieval that uses search click-log data and entity embeddings to achieve high precision with a low memory footprint; and 3) efficient entity disambiguation. Our system achieves state-of-the-art performance on TAC KBP 2013 multilingual data and on English AIDA CONLL data.


In the HARP experiment the large-angle spectrometer is using a cylindrical TPC as main tracking and particle identification detector. The momentum scale of reconstructed tracks in the TPC is the most important systematic error for the majority of kinematic bins used for the HARP measurements of the double-differential production cross-section of charged pions in proton interactions on nuclear targets at large angle. The HARP TPC operated with a number of hardware shortfalls and operational mistakes. Thus it was important to control and characterize its momentum calibration. While it was not possible to enter a direct particle beam into the sensitive volume of the TPC to calibrate the detector, a set of physical processes and detector properties were exploited to achieve a precise calibration of the apparatus. In the following we recall the main issues concerning the momentum measurement in the HARP TPC, and describe the crosschecks made to validate the momentum scale. As a conclusion, this analysis demonstrates that the measurement of momentum is correct within the published precision of 3%.


"The space of vulnerability" – the title of the influential paper by Michael Watts and Hans-Georg Bohle from 1993 highlights the importance of spatiality for vulnerability research. As geographers have fundamentally shaped the concept of vulnerability, the issue of spatiality has been crucial for vulnerability from the outset. However, what notion of space have scholars adopted in their vulnerability analysis? The aim of the paper is to assess the ways in which space has been conceptualised in vulnerability research. We conduct this assessment behind the background of the conceptual development of space in human geography. Of particular interest is the question of how the successive socio-spatial turns identified by Jessop et al. (2008), which evolved around the categories of place, scale, network and territory, are reflected in publications on vulnerability. The assessment is based on a review of literature. We found that all four key socio-spatial categories have been taken up by scholars for vulnerability analysis. Following Jessop et al. we argue that a critical geography of vulnerability should acknowledge the polymorphy of socio-spatialities and assess the interplay of place, network, scale, and territory in the (re)production of vulnerability. We exemplify the argument with case studies from Bangladesh and Thailand and conclude that the full repertoire of spatial and social theories are needed in order to fully understand the social and spatial (re)production of vulnerability.


Information on public services for older people is often limited to institutional care and Home Help/Home Care, be it for individuals in surveys, statistics for a specific country or for international comparisons. Yet, these two major services are in many countries supplemented - or substituted - by other, minor services. The latter include services such as transportation services, meals-on-wheels, alarm systems and day care. This diversification is the outcome of a rationing of services to achieve a more rational allocation of resources and attempts to keep down costs. In this presentation we use various data sources to provide information on all these types of support for Spain and Sweden. When all of them are considered, service coverage is much higher than by basic services alone, indicating further consolidation of services. Data suggests a high targeting in Sweden, but fragmented delivery in Spain, where - we suspect-users get what is available, with little differentiation between needs. With higher service rates, as in Sweden, there is greater overlap between family care and public services; with lower coverage rates, as in Spain, family care and public services are more often substituted for each other. It is suggested that a range of services, major and minor, may suit the varying needs of older people better - and more efficiently-than the choice between nothing, Home Help or institutional care, but that minor services may also be used as an inexpensive - and sometimes inferior-substitute for full support.


A bestseller in hardback, this is a highly-praised and much-needed biography of the first Duke of Wellington, concentrating on the personal life of the victor of Waterloo, and based on the fruits of modern research. Christopher Hibbert is Britain's leading popular historian. Wellington (1769-1852) achieved fame as a soldier fighting the Mahratta in India. His later brilliant generalship fighting the French in Spain and his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo earned him a dukedom and the award of Apsley House (No. 1, London) and a large estate in Hampshire. His second career saw him make his mark as a politician with commanding presence. Appointed Commander-in-Chief for life, he became Prime Minister in 1827 and presided over the emancipation of Roman Catholics and the formation of the country's first police force. Privately, he was unhappily married, and had several mistresses (including two of Napoleon's) and many intimate friendships with women. The private side of the public man has never been so richly delineated as in this masterly biography.


Medical marijuana has a long history of use as an analgesic for chronic pain disorders, including dyspareunia (pain during intercourse), a hallmark of the rare chronic pain disorder vulvodynia. Many women's health topics remain under investigated. Few studies address cannabis's potential to treat vulvodynia symptoms despite their dramatic impact on quality of life. Women who had used cannabis and who reported experiencing vulvodynia symptoms (N = 38) completed an online survey assessing symptoms, expectancies regarding cannabis-associated relief from vulvodynia symptoms, cannabis use, and cannabis-related problems. Generally, women expected cannabis to have moderate to large effects on vulvodynia symptoms (d = .63-1.19). Nevertheless, women expected greater relief for burning/stabbing pain than for itching and pain associated with tampon insertion, as well greater relief for dyspareunia than for pain associated with tampon insertion. Those whose symptoms were worse expected more relief from cannabis treatment. Expectations of cannabis-induced relief did not increase frequency of use or problems. These data support the idea that further work is warranted, including placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials to rule out any placebo effects and identify potential adverse side effects from a cannabis treatment for vulvodynia.


Your Passport to International Business Etiquette The most authoritative and comprehensive text of its kind, Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, 2nd Edition is your must-have guide to proper international business protocol. With countries such as China and India taking on a more significant role in the global business landscape, you can't afford not to know the practices, customs, and philosophies of other countries. Now fully revised, updated, and expanded with over sixty country profiles, Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, 2nd Edition provides invaluable information on how to handle common business interactions with grace, respect, and an appreciation for different cultures.


Factors affecting activity, habitat use, and home-range size of the red fox were analysed in a highly heterogeneous rural environment. Individual differences in behaviour were used to test our hypotheses. Food habits tended to depend on food availability, which, in turn, was mainly influenced by temperature. Diet was highly heterogeneous. Insects, e.g. grasshoppers and beetles, and cultivated fruits were the staple of the diet, but no diet component stood out clearly from all others. For an opportunistic species such as the fox, habitat heterogeneity may be the main factor underlying a wide trophic niche. All foxes selected the vineyard as part of their home ranges, whereas they preferred for activity the abandoned olive-yard among the habitats of their home ranges. Human intolerance of foxes affects their pattern of activity, habitat selection, and ranging behaviour. Foxes were strongly nocturnal. Cover-rich habitats were preferred for resting and for movements in daylight. Areas under human management were mainly used at night. Selectivity was higher for resting than for activity sites. Variation in home-range size and shape can be influenced not only by the dispersion of the main food patches, but also by the location of shelters


In this paper, we present Active Cloud DB, an open source Soft wareas-a-Service (SaaS) application that allows for RESTful ac cess to cloud-based distributed datastore technologies that implement the Goo gle Datastore API. We implement Active Cloud DB as a Google App Engine application hat we employ to expose the Google App Engine Datastore API to developers – for use with any language and framework. We evaluate this SaaS on both Google App Engine and over AppScale, the open-source implementation of Googl e App Engine that enables Google App Engine applications to execute on cloud i nfrastructures without modification. As part of this work, we extend Active Cloud DB with simple caching support to improve the performance of datastore acc ss and evaluate our technique with and without this support. We also make use of t his support within multiple client-facing prototypes (e.g. Ruby on Rails, Pyt hon through Django) to show the ease-of-use and applicability of our contribution o other web development environments.


The present study reports the tissue distribution, pharmacokinetics, mass balance, and elimination of [(14)C] artesunate (AS) following single intravenous administration in rats. Protein binding was performed with rat and human plasma. Radioactivity and drug levels in blood, plasma, tissues, urine, and feces up to 192 hours were collected and measured. The mean terminal half-life of plasma (76 h) and blood (105 h) radioactivity was prolonged compared with that of unchanged AS (0.43 h) and dihydroartemisinin (0.75 h), an active metabolite of AS. Drug was widely distributed after 1 hour in select tissues. After 24 hours, the radioactivity rapidly declined in all tissues except spleen until 96 hours. Only 1% of total radioactivity was detected in brain tissue. AS revealed a higher binding capacity with human and rat plasma proteins (73-81%). The radioactivity in whole blood was higher (two to fourfold) than that in plasma throughout the period of the treatment, suggesting that AS binding to RBCs may relate to its powerful antimalarial activity.


This study was a survey that investigated how realistic is it to expect the use of computers in the teaching and learning of school mathematics at senior secondary level in Botswana. Data sample consisted of 43 subjects, of whom 35 were mathematics teachers from seven senior secondary schools in the southern part of the country, six participants were school head and two were principal education officers. While teachers completed a 30-item questionnaire, the other participants were interviewed. In the teachers' opinion, it is currently not feasible to use computers in school mathematic teaching and learning in Botswana. Evidence indicates that computers in School are of limited quantity designated for general purpose- computer awareness or computer studies programmes mainly. Other impending factors especially teacher support and how this is been addressed is discussed.


Amount of mRNA depends on the both the rates of mRNA transcription in the nucleus and mRNA degradation in the cytoplasm. Although each of the processes was studied independently, recent studies demonstrated the interplay between transcription and mRNA degradation in various cellular processes, such as cell-cycle, cellular differentia tion, and stress responses. In this review, we discuss the benefit of the interplay in the gene expressions and the mechanisms how these two processes are coupled. We also review recent genome-wide methods to measure the rates of transcription and degradation.


The survival of North Atlantic right whales ( Eubalaena glacialis ) is seriously threatened by mortality caused by ships and entanglements in fishing gear. Demographic modeling indicates that the population is declining despite efforts to reduce anthropogenic mortalities, and in spite of recent increases in calving. The authors of this
 Policy Forum
 recommend immediate emergency management actions to reduce shipping and entanglement mortalities in right whales, so as to avoid a catastrophic population decline and inevitable extinction.


Background: Macrophage activation-like syndrome (MALS) and complex immune dysregulation (CID) often underlie acute respiratory distress (ARDS) in COVID-19. We aimed to investigate the effect of personalized immunotherapy on clinical improvement of critical COVID-19. Methods: In this open-label prospective trial, 102 patients with ARDS by SARS-CoV-2 were screened for MALS (ferritin >4,420 ng/mL) and CID (ferritin ≤4,420 ng/mL and low human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR expression on CD14-monocytes). Patients with MALS or CID with increased aminotransferases received intravenous anakinra; those with CID and normal aminotransferases received tocilizumab. The primary outcome was ≥25% decrease in the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score and/or 50% increase in the respiratory ratio by day 8; 28-day mortality, change of SOFA score by day 28, serum biomarkers, and cytokine production by mononuclear cells were secondary endpoints. Results: The primary study endpoint was met in 58.3% of anakinra-treated patients and in 33.3% of tocilizumab-treated patients (p: 0.01). Most patients in both groups received dexamethasone as standard of care. No differences were found in secondary outcomes, mortality, and SOFA score changes. Ferritin decreased among anakinra-treated patients; interleukin-6, soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor, and HLA-DR expression increased among tocilizumab-treated patients. Survivors by day 28 who received anakinra were distributed to lower severity levels of the WHO clinical progression scale. Greater incidence of secondary infections was found with tocilizumab treatment. Conclusion: Immune assessment resulted in favorable anakinra responses among critically ill patients with COVID-19 and features of MALS.


Forest ecosystems play multiple roles at global as well as local levels and provide a range of important economic, social and environmental goods and services that have impact on the well-being of the people. The objective of this paper is to assess thedeclining contribution of forestry to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria and to proffer possible solution to the problem. Secondary data for the research were collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria from the period 1980-2004. Multiple regression analysis (exponential or transformed semi log) was used to determine the input factors that critically influence the Gross Domestic product in the agricultural sector of the country. The equation and figures revealed a high performance of the model in term of the high value of' R2. The high value of R2 implies that 98.7% percent variability in gross income generated from Agriculture is explained by combined effect of the independent variables (Crop production, Fishing, Forestry and Livestock). The level of significance of the explanatory variables is high. F-value is significant at both 1 percent and 5 percent. Individually, their contributions are not significant (P>0.05), but pulled together, it showed significant difference at P<0.01. The result showed that the contribution of forestry sub-sector has been declining as GDP increases. Forestry has been a unique business in Nigeria even before independence. In 1958, forestry contribution to the GDP of the country was 6.1 %; in 1960, it was 5.3%. Surprisingly, the percentage contribution in 2003 is 0.6%. The declining export role of forest produce in the national economy is partly due to the over-exploitation of the high quality timbers in the previous decades and partly to the inability of the forest departments and the timber trade to develop the secondary species which now constitute the main timber contents of the forest estate. It is recommended that the new hectarages of planted trees need not be in large expanse of lands, rather, the new forest lands might have to be in patches located in water shed areas, school compound, road sides, government institutions, community lands, and private properties.


: The presence, abundance, and distribution of organisms within a landscape are highly dependent on the composition, quality, and configuration of habitat patches. Intertidal oyster Crassostrea virginica reefs provide a structured habitat for many organisms; however, declining oyster populations have induced reef fragmentation and loss. Over 2 years (2011−2012), we evaluated naturally occurring fringing and patch intertidal oyster reefs in southeastern North Carolina, USA, to determine how varied reef type, size, and distance from edge to interior influenced the associated benthic macrofauna and mobile nekton. In addition, the effects of size and edge vs. interior were examined on constructed intertidal reefs at 2 different locations. On the natural reefs, species richness of benthic macrofauna and mobile nekton were significantly increased on fringing reefs. Benthic macrofauna richness significantly decreased on large natural reefs, whereas mobile nekton richness significantly increased off of large reefs. Further, associated benthic macrofauna richness significantly decreased along the reef edge, whereas mobile nekton diversity increased along the reef/open bottom interface. Species richness and densities for benthic macrofauna increased with created reef size, while there was greater species richness and diversity and dissimilar communities for mobile nekton along constructed reef edges. Habitat specificity may influence utilization for mobile nekton, as resident organisms with limited vagility had a stronger response to habitat characteristics. Thus, utilization of intertidal oyster reefs can be highly structured by habitat characteristics on many scales, and should be considered when examining species interactions, ecosystem management, and future restoration efforts.


The time factor, T, and the degree of consolidation, U, from Terzaghi's theory of consolidation can be shown to have a bilinear behavior when plotted as log (U/T) versus log T. Using this property, a method is proposed for the evaluation of the coefficient of consolidation, Cv. The results obtained using the proposed method are compared with those using other methods in use. A fairly good agreement is obtained, which lends support to the validity of the approach suggested. This approach can be used in all cases including those in which popular methods like square root of time fitting method and logarithm of time fitting method fail.


Media regulation in the United Kingdom has traditionally seen a division between State regulation (in the case of broadcasting) and self-regulation (in the case of newspapers), both subject to laws of general application. However, co-regulation has emerged as a significant feature of contemporary regulation of the media, particularly in relation to video- on-demand (VOD). This article considers the various stages of consultation and implementation of the European Union's Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) in the United Kingdom. A proposal for a new approach to categorizing and analysing relevant statutory provisions and regulatory arrangements that pertain to audio-visual media including VOD is made. Other issues are explored, including methods of regulation, technological and organizational developments in the media industries, and the impact on community media and the film industry. It is argued that the AVMSD did not resolve all issues in relation to the scope of regulation, and that even the most recent developments in the launch of co-regulation highlight the diverse forms of media regulation now in force.


This paper is about strategies of neoliberalisation in relation to practices of dissent and resistance. It explores how struggles arising in the context of neoliberalisation may be subject to entanglement within the very processes they seek to contest and – in so doing - interrogates the political stakes of neoliberal governmental rationality. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic research, I trace the international trajectory of mobilisations against the dispossession visited upon Colombian farmers in the context of BP's investment in oilfields in the mid-1990s. Reasoning through attention to the ways in which this one specific struggle was neutralised, I suggest that a key aim of neoliberal strategies of political control is to accomplish a sort of "political hygiene" by nullifying politically surplus subjects and containing dissent within manageable parameters. The invocation of discourses of rights and civil society can be seen to be integral to neoliberal political rationality in this regard: but rights are comprehended within a symbolic structuration of the population that coincides with neoliberal logics. I suggest that such logics are directed not so much at incorporating the population into a generalised "right of death and power over life", as Foucault famously put it, but but at inscribing subjects into networks of unstable and precarious private contract that constrict the wider obligations of population and citizenship commonly associated with liberalism. Discourses of rights, civil society, and development are not antidotes to socio-economic dispossession or armed repression. Rather, all of these are complementary components of strategies aimed at the domestification of dissent.


Presented at: SIMS 2012 : The 53rd Scandinavian conference on simulation and modeling, organized by Orkustofnun, Reykjavik 4-6 October, 2012


A \emphk-stack layout (respectively, \emphk-queuelayout) of a graph consists of a total order of the vertices, and a partition of the edges into k sets of non-crossing (non-nested) edges with respect to the vertex ordering. A \emphk-track layout of a graph consists of a vertex k-colouring, and a total order of each vertex colour class, such that between each pair of colour classes no two edges cross. The \emphstack-number (respectively, \emphqueue-number, \emphtrack-number) of a graph G, denoted by sn(G) (qn(G), tn(G)), is the minimum k such that G has a k-stack (k-queue, k-track) layout.\par This paper studies stack, queue, and track layouts of graph subdivisions. It is known that every graph has a 3-stack subdivision. The best known upper bound on the number of division vertices per edge in a 3-stack subdivision of an n-vertex graph G is improved from O(log n) to O(log min\sn(G),qn(G)\). This result reduces the question of whether queue-number is bounded by stack-number to whether 3-stack graphs have bounded queue number.\par It is proved that every graph has a 2-queue subdivision, a 4-track subdivision, and a mixed 1-stack 1-queue subdivision. All these values are optimal for every non-planar graph. In addition, we characterise those graphs with k-stack, k-queue, and k-track subdivisions, for all values of k. The number of division vertices per edge in the case of 2-queue and 4-track subdivisions, namely O(log qn(G)), is optimal to within a constant factor, for every graph G. \par Applications to 3D polyline grid drawings are presented. For example, it is proved that every graph G has a 3D polyline grid drawing with the vertices on a rectangular prism, and with O(log qn(G)) bends per edge. Finally, we establish a tight relationship between queue layouts and so-called 2-track thickness of bipartite graphs. \par


The forecasts are grim and time is running out, but that's not the end of the story. In this book, Fred Krupp, longtime president of Environmental Defense Fund, brings a stirring and hopeful call to arms: We can solve global warming. And in doing so we will build the new industries, jobs, and fortunes of the twenty-first century.In these pages the reader will encounter the bold innovators and investors who are reinventing energy and the ways we use it. Among them: a frontier impresario who keeps his ice hotel frozen all summer long with the energy of hot springs; a utility engineer who feeds smokestack gases from coal-fired plants to voracious algae, then turns them into fuel; and a tribe of Native Americans, for two thousand years fishermen in the roughest Pacific waters, who are now harvesting the fierce power of the waves themselves.These entrepreneurs are poised to remake the world's biggest business and save the planet-if America's political leaders give them a fair chance to compete.


The aim of the study is to create an effective and standard risk assessment tool that provides the company with support and security in purchasing of new products. The goal was to create a tool that complements and standardizes risk assessment forms and shows rapid results. Using the procurement risk management system, the risk associated with a given product can be determined easily and in a short time. In the process, critical areas where hazards may occur can be clearly identified and the risk can be minimized if properly managed.


One of the key environmental problems facing South Asia is a layer of air pollution, known as the Atmospheric Brown Cloud that covers large parts of the region. Much of this pollution is caused by farmers burning agricultural field residue. This pollution has a significant negative impact on people's health and on regional climate and crop output. A recent SANDEE study from India's Punjab region looks at the factors that drive field residue burning. It also assesses the potential of new technology to address the problem. The study is the work of Ridhima Gupta, from the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi.


Humans depend on services provided by ecosystems, and how services are affected by climate change is increasingly studied. Few studies, however, address changes likely to affect services from seminatural ecosystems. We analyzed ecosystem goods and services in natural and seminatural systems, specifically how they are expected to change as a result of projected climate change during the 21st century. We selected terrestrial and freshwater systems in northernmost Europe, where climate is anticipated to change more than the global average, and identified likely changes in ecosystem services and their societal consequences. We did this by assembling experts from ecology, social science, and cultural geography in workshops, and we also performed a literature review. Results show that most ecosystem services are affected by multiple factors, often acting in opposite directions. Out of 14 services considered, 8 are expected to increase or remain relatively unchanged in supply, and 6 are expected to decrease. Although we do not predict collapse or disappearance of any of the investigated services, the effects of climate change in conjunction with potential economical and societal changes may exceed the adaptive capacity of societies. This may result in societal reorganization and changes in ways that ecosystems are used. Significant uncertainties and knowledge gaps in the forecast make specific conclusions about societal responses to safeguard human well-being questionable. Adapting to changes in ecosystem services will therefore require consideration of uncertainties and complexities in both social and ecological responses. The scenarios presented here provide a framework for future studies exploring such issues.


We measure the H II-region oxygen and nitrogen abundances for 14 star-forming emission-line galaxies (ELGs) at intermediate redshifts (0.11<z<0.5) using optical spectra obtained with the Keck II telescope and low-resolution imaging multiobject spectrograph. The target galaxies exhibit a range of metallicities from slightly metal poor, as in the LMC [12+log(O/H)≃8.4], to supersolar [12+log(O/H)≃9.05] where the solar value is 12+log(O/H)≃8.89. Oxygen abundances of the sample correlate strongly with rest-frame blue luminosities. The metallicity-luminosity relation based on these 14 objects is formally indistinguishable from the one obeyed by galaxies in the local universe, although there is marginal evidence (1.1 σ) that the sample is slightly more metal-deficient than local galaxies of the same luminosity. The observed galaxies exhibit smaller emission line widths than local galaxies of similar metallicity, but proper corrections for inclination angle and other systematic effects are unknown. For eight of the 14 objects we measure nitrogen-to-oxygen (N/O) ratios. Seven of the eight systems show evidence for secondary nitrogen production, with log(N/O)>-1.4, similar to local spiral galaxies. These chemical properties are inconsistent with unevolved objects undergoing a first burst of star formation. Comparison with local galaxies showing similar chemical properties suggests that these intermediate-z objects contain substantial old stellar populations that were responsible for the bulk of the heavy elements presently seen in the ionized gas. Four of the 14 galaxies exhibit small half-light radii and narrow emission-line profiles (compact narrow emission-line galaxies [CNELGs]; Koo et al. 1995) consistent with small dynamical masses despite their large optical luminosities and high levels of chemical enrichment. We find that the four CNELGs are indistinguishable from the 10 other emission-line galaxies (ELGs) in the sample on the basis of their metallicity and luminosity alone. Because of their morphological similarity to H II and spheroidal galaxies, CNELGs have been proposed as the starburst progenitors of today's spheroidal galaxies. Our assessment of the stellar chemical abundances in nearby spheroidal galaxies reveals that the majority of the CNELGs are presently ~4 mag brighter and ~0.5 dex more metal rich than the bulk of the stars in well-known metal-poor dwarf spheroidal galaxies such as NGC 205 and NGC 185. Two of the four CNELGs exhibit oxygen abundances higher than the planetary nebula oxygen abundances in NGC 205, making an evolution between these two CNELGs and metal-poor dwarf spheroidal galaxies highly improbable. However, the data are consistent with the hypothesis that more luminous and metal-rich spheroidal galaxies like NGC 3605 may become the evolutionary endpoints of some CNELGs after 1-3 mag of fading. We suggest that the z=0.1-0.4 ELGs, and perhaps some of the CNELGs, are the precursors to today's spiral galaxies during an episode of vigorous bulge star formation ~5 Gyr ago.


Although existing research evaluates how the adoption of proactive environmental strategies affects corporate performance, there is little understanding of the organizational mechanisms that link such strategies to competitive advantage. It is, therefore, unclear how environmental strategies relate to other management strategies that could lead to a competitive advantage. In this article, we analyze the organizational capabilities that underlie a firm's ability to generate competitive advantage from the adoption of proactive environmental strategies. We develop and test a model where absorptive capacity facilitates the development of proactive environmental strategies that result in competitive advantage. Results from a survey of 157 German chemical firms strongly support the model.


Managing risk is important to any E-commerce merchant. Various machine learning (ML) models combined with a rule set as the decision layer is a common practice to manage the risks. Unlike the ML models that can be automatically refreshed periodically based on new risk patterns, rules are generally static and rely on manual updates. To tackle that, this paper presents a data-driven and automated rule optimization method that generates multiple Pareto-optimal rule sets representing different trade-offs between business objectives. This enables business owners to make informed decisions when choosing between optimized rule sets for changing business needs and risks. Furthermore, manual work in rule management is greatly reduced. For scalability this method leverages Apache Spark and runs either on a single host or in a distributed environment in the cloud. This allows us to perform the optimization in a distributed fashion using millions of transactions, hundreds of variables and hundreds of rules during the training. The proposed method is general but we used it for optimizing real-world E-commerce (Amazon) risk rule sets. It could also be used in other fields such as finance and medicine.


A good understanding of how the target environments for a breeding program differentiate the germplasm with respect to yield is crucial and allows plant breeders to better target their germplasm. To determine the relationships among high rainfall yield testing locations, yield data from 8 yr of CIMMYT's High Rainfall Wheat Yield Trial (HRWYT) were analyzed by shifted multiplicative model (SHMM) and incremental sum of squares (ISS) classification analyses to group sites within and across years. In the cumulative cluster analysis, about half of the sites clustered into a group characterized by increasing temperature toward maturity. The SHMM analysis identified several sites with high overall association with other sites around the world, and which can be considered as good predictors of global yield performance within the high rainfall megaenvironment. These are autumn-sown locations, which fall into the biggest group of the cumulative cluster analysis with increasing temperature during the growing season. On the other hand, remarkably low associations with global yield ranking were shown for Sta. Catalina (Ecuador) and CIMMYT's primary high rainfall yield-testing location at Toluca (Mexico), which in contrast experience decreasing temperatures toward maturity. Although excellent sites for disease screening, this analysis shows that they do not associate well with the world's high rainfall wheat growing areas for yield.


Contextual Design: Design for Life, Second Edition, describes the core techniques needed to deliberately produce a compelling user experience. Contextual design was first invented in 1988 to drive a deep understanding of the user into the design process. It has been used in a wide variety of industries and taught in universities all over the world. Until now, the basic CD approach has needed little revision, but with the wide adoption of handheld devices, especially smartphones, the way technology is integrated into peoples lives has fundamentally changed. Contextual Design V2.0 introduces both the classic CD techniques and the new techniques needed to "design for life", fulfilling core human motives while supporting activities. This completely updated and revised edition is written in a clear, informal style without excessive jargon, and is the must-have book for any UX Design library. Users will find coverage of mobile devices and consumer and business products, all illustrated with new examples, case studies, and discussions on how to use CD with the agile development and other project requirements methods. Provides tactics on how to gather detailed data on how people live, work, and use productsHelps develop a coherent picture of a whole user population Presents tactics on how to use the seven "Cool Concepts" to support core human motives and generate new product concepts guided by user data, ideation techniques, and principles key to producing a compelling user experienceExplains how to structure the system and user interface to best support the user across place, time, and platform


Electricity has attained a very important place in every household on this planet. It is a major contributor towards improvement of the standard of living of any individual, family and society at large. The primary focus for this research is to demonstrate the viability of Factor Analysis as a statistical tool for use in exploratory research. This tool not only offers the possibility of attaining a clear view of the data but also the possibility of utilizing the output in further analyses. In this light, the paper aims to find the latent variables which explain the factors behind consumer behavior and awareness in context of household electricity consumption. A questionnaire based study for 395 Delhi households was undertaken wherein the sample households were selected on the basis of stratified random sampling technique. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is conducted with a principal components extraction method and varimax rotation method. The factors are identified which stand valid to be included and targeted in further research on the electricity consumption and its conservation.


OBJECTIVE
The association between workplace bullying and sickness absence remains unclear. This paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of research on the association.

METHOD
We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published primary studies on workplace bullying and sickness absence. Studies based on prospective design or registry data on sickness absence were included. Cross-sectional studies with self-reported sickness absence were excluded.

RESULTS
Seventeen primary studies were included in the review, sixteen originated from the Nordic countries and fifteen included registry data on sickness absence. All but one study found that exposure to workplace bullying was associated with increased risk of sickness absence. A meta-analysis of ten independent studies showed that exposure to bullying increased the risk of sickness absence (odds ratio 1.58, 95% CI 1.39-1.79). Five studies included variables that moderated the association between bullying and absenteeism. None of the studies included mediating variables. No studies examined sickness absence as a risk factor for later exposure to bullying. Following the GRADE guidelines, the evidence for an association between bullying and sickness absence is moderate.

CONCLUSIONS
Workplace bullying is a risk factor for sickness absence, but the mechanisms to explain this relationship are not sufficiently described. It is unclear whether sickness absence predicts later exposure to bullying. While, the methodological quality of the reviewed studies was high, the knowledge base is small. There is a need for more research on how and when bullying is related to sickness absence and the possible bidirectional relationships involved.


Little has been written about the structural behavior of conical shells, while conical shells' construction techniques due to the high rise and small span has always required special attention throughout the history of Islamic architecture. This paper aims to examine how conical shells bear weight loads and resist against bending through a qualitative analysis. After proving that 'rise/span' ratio strongly affects weight loads and bending in external shells, the main question of the paper is "what construction techniques architects adopted to carry weight loads, and how these techniques differed in domes with various 'rise/span' ratios". To find out about paper's main question, a qualitative approach for structural analysis has been adopted. First, architectural maps and dimensions of six cases were documented, and then, according to the documentation, some ratios and parameters have been defined to find their probable correlation with 'rise/span' ratio. Results show that to restrain weight loads in external shell, design of stiffeners and thickness of the conical shell play a crucial role to keep structure balanced. According to the results, 'rise/span' ratio has a positive correlation with 'thickness/span', 'height of stiffeners/span', 'stiffeners' sectional area/span', 'gradual decrease of thickness' and "number of stiffeners/ number of flat planes". In contrast, 'Rise/span' ratio does not have any meaningful relationship with 'stiffeners' end point' and 'struts' end point', and has a negative correlation with "the number of flat plains.