This article explores the macroeconomic impact of the rise in energy prices since 2004. The article discusses the various channels through which rising energy prices are likely to influence the degree of inflationary pressure in the UK economy. Rising energy costs put upward pressure on the prices of energy-intensive goods and services, and can affect both aggregate demand and potential supply. The adjustment of prices and quantities in the labour market are particularly important in this regard. Ultimately though the impact on inflation will depend on monetary policy and the behaviour of inflation expectations. Some past episodes in which energy prices increased sharply preceded a marked deterioration in the macroeconomic environment. The evidence so far suggests a more muted impact on the economy than in these previous cases.


Red oak Quercus spp., Subgenus Erythrobalanus acorns are forage for mallards Anas platyrhyncos, wood ducks Aix sponsa, and other wildlife that use bottomland hardwood forests in the southeastern United States. However, annual variation in true metabolizable energy from acorns would affect carrying-capacity estimates of bottomland hardwood forests for wintering ducks. Because gross energy and true metabolizable energy are strongly positively correlated and gross energy is easier to measure than true metabolizable energy, we used gross energy as a surrogate for true metabolizable energy. We measured gross energy of six species of red oak acorns in autumns 2008 and 2009. Within species, mean gross energy of these acorns varied less than 2% between years. The small interannual variation in gross energy of red oak acorns found in this study would have negligible effect on estimates of carrying capacity of bottomland hardwood forests for wintering ducks and other wildlife.


Many biological molecules are by their nature amphiphilic and have the ability to act as surfactants, stabilizing interfaces between aqueous and immiscible oil phases. In this paper, we explore the adsorption kinetics of surfactin, a naturally occurring cyclic lipopeptide, at hexadecane/water interfaces and compare and contrast its adsorption behaviour with that of synthetic alkyl benzene sulfonate isomers, through direct measurements of changes in interfacial tension upon surfactant adsorption. We access millisecond time resolution in kinetic measurements by making use of droplet microfluidics to probe the interfacial tension of hexadecane droplets dispersed in a continuous water phase through monitoring their deformation when the droplets are exposed to shear flows in a microfluidic channel with regular corrugations. Our results reveal that surfactin rapidly adsorbs to the interface, thus the interfacial tension equilibrates within 300 ms, while the synthetic surfactants used undergo adsorption processes at an approximately one order of magnitude longer timescale. The approach presented may provide opportunities for understanding and modulating the adsorption mechanism of amphiphiles on a variety of interfaces in the context of life sciences and industrial applications.


Seasonal change in the intensity of fish predation affects succession in lake zooplankton communities. Predation affects not only the zooplankton prey, but also their parasites. Because the ability of a parasite to spread depends in part on the death rate of the hosts, seasonal reductions in the intensity of predation on zooplankton could lead to parasite epidemics. We examined seasonal population dynamics, mortality rate, and incidence of parasitism in lake populations of Daphnia to determine whether parasitism displayed seasonality and synchrony among lake populations and whether any such patterns are consistent with seasonal changes in predation rates. Infections of a bacterial parasite (Spirobacillus cienkowskii) in Daphnia dentifera populations were seasonal with epidemics in many lakes occurring synchronously in autumn. In situ foraging behavior of the dominant fish planktivores, bluegill sunfish, is highly selective on infected Daphnia. Mortality rates on the Daphnia drop just prior to the initiation of epidemics. An epidemiological model shows that this magnitude of decrease in mortality rate, if driven largely by a reduction in predation, can account for the seasonal occurrence of epidemics in our Daphnia populations. Together, these results suggest that parasitism in Daphnia populations may be seasonally restricted by fish predation.


This article explores the obviational process through which the value of salaries is continuously being transformed, based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among young road workers employed by a Chinese construction consortium to rehabilitate the N1 highway in the southern part of Mozambique. To the Mozambican workers, the value of salaries emerged by gradually dropping the traces of its own origin rather than indexing a fixed ratio between labor and money. Only when money received enabled the workers to supplant the fraught relationship to their Chinese superiors—for example, by buying construction materials for a projected cement house—was it considered as a proper salary that connected the present (purchase of building materials) to the past (road work) in a viable manner. Following this initial conversion, I then chart how the emergent temporal association (road work :: house building project) opened toward new images of altered and improved social positions for the young Mozambican road workers. The article proposes to consider value as an optimal way of supplanting (rather than confirming) existing forms of relational meaning by relating a process of suspended value transformations to an overarching temporal cosmology widespread in the southern part of Mozambique (tomorrowness).


We describe our progress extending the undergraduate Computer Science (CS) curriculum to include a deep understanding of information retrieval (IR) and data mining (DM). Instead of simply understanding how to build applications using tools involving IR and DM, students build these tools and learn the relevant algorithms implemented in these tools. Some novel approaches exist in our work. We include a hands-on lab setting where students use the tools they have built to perform experiments that could ultimately extend the field. Hence, undergraduates have firsthand knowledge of performing research in Computer Science using a scientific method. Secondly, we have a rigorous set of evaluation criteria developed by our Psychology department that will evaluate how well students learn using our novel approaches. Ultimately, we believe these two courses warrant consideration into standards developed for the undergraduate CS curriculum.


Water that is drunk primarily to slake thirst may also supply major, and especially minor or trace elements, nutritionally essential to good health and longevity. Of the 14 trace elements known to be essential for human beings (Schwarz, 1974), apparently some are significantly more readily assimilated from water than from food.

Modern, municipal water-treatment plants condition water more for the sake of the steam boiler, laundry, and industry (the large volume users) than for the stomach. This paper considers water for drinking purposes from the perspective of health benefits. Means are explored by which healthful drinking water may be formulated.

The use of glacial milk, essentially an aqueous extract (solution and suspension) of rocks, by the natives of Hunza, West Pakistan, has been cited as a major factor contributing to purported excellent health and unusual longevity of those peoples. A suspension of rock flour can supply not only immediately assimilable substances in solution, but also continuous, delayed-action, mineral-nutrient reserves after ingestion.

Cooperative effort between geologists knowledgeable about water and nutritionists knowing the needs for optimum human health should upgrade the role of drinking water in human health and longevity.


Abstract High seas oceanic ecosystems are considered important habitat for juvenile sea turtles, yet much remains cryptic about this important life‐history period. Recent progress on climate and fishery impacts in these so‐called lost years is promising, but the developmental biogeography of hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) has not been widely described in the Pacific Ocean. This knowledge gap limits the effectiveness of conservation management for this globally endangered species. We address this with 30 years of stranding observations, 20 years of bycatch records, and recent simulations of natal dispersal trajectories in the Hawaiian Archipelago. We synthesize the analyses of these data in the context of direct empirical observations, anecdotal sightings, and historical commercial harvests from the insular Pacific. We find hawksbills 0–4 years of age, measuring 8–34 cm straight carapace length, are found predominantly in the coastal pelagic waters of Hawaii. Unlike other species, we find no direct evidence of a prolonged presence in oceanic habitats, yet satellite tracks of passive drifters (simulating natal dispersal) and our small sample sizes suggest that an oceanic phase for hawksbills cannot be dismissed. Importantly, despite over 600 million hooks deployed and nearly 6000 turtle interactions, longline fisheries have never recorded a single hawksbill take. We address whether the patterns we observe are due to population size and gear selectivity. Although most sea turtle species demonstrate clear patterns of oceanic development, hawksbills in the North Pacific may by contrast occupy a variety of ecosystems including coastal pelagic waters and shallow reefs in remote atolls. This focuses attention on hazards in these ecosystems – entanglement and ingestion of marine debris – and perhaps away from longline bycatch and decadal climate regimes that affect sea turtle development in oceanic regions.


A better understanding of the links between biodiversity, health and disease presents major opportunities for policy development, and can enhance our understanding of how health-focused measures affect biodiversity, and conservation measures affect health. The breadth and complexity of these relationships, and the socio-economic drivers by which they are influenced, in the context of rapidly shifting global trends, reaffirm the need for an integrative, multidisciplinary and systemic approach to the health of people, livestock and wildlife within the ecosystem context. Loss of biodiversity, habitat fragmentation and the loss of natural environments threaten the full range of life-supporting services provided by ecosystems at all levels of biodiversity, including species, genetic and ecosystem diversity. The disruption of ecosystem services has direct and indirect implications for public health, which are likely to exacerbate existing health inequities, whether through exposure to environmental hazards or through the loss of livelihoods. One Health provides a valuable framework for the development of mutually beneficial policies and interventions at the nexus between health and biodiversity, and it is critical that One Health integrates biodiversity into its strategic agenda.


In order to study the growth and development of three irrigated sunflower hybrids (Helianthus annuus L. CVs. Zaria, Alestar and Azargol) in different irrigation halts, a field experiment was conducted at Zahedan Islamic Azad University field experiments Zahedan, Iran, in 2005. The experiment was laid out in split plot arrangement at randomized complete block design (RCBD) in 4 replications. Main plots were arranged for irrigation halt according to plant phonological stages in four levels normal irrigation or control, halt irrigation at pre anthesis, full flowering and post anthesis stages, sub plots were included three sunflower Zaria, Alestar and Azargol cultivars. The results showed halt irrigation had significant effect on all measured characters. The study of treatments interactions showed halt irrigation could reduce sunflower yield quality and quantity immediately. Azargol hybrid under flowering stage halt irrigation had the heist seed yield by 4.29 t/ha. However, Azagol cultivar was able to maintain its yield by 4.3 t/ha after halt irrigation at seed development stage. Alestar cultivar was more sensitive to halt irrigation at reproductive stages; its decreased was 48% and 45% in yield and oil yield, respectively. Zaria cultivar showed higher resistance to halt irrigation, comparing to Alestar and Azargol.


E-government is a positive situation prevalent in most developed and developing countries in order to provide the best possible service to citizens and keep time and effort and reduce the waste of public money (Al-Dabbagh, 2011). Based on view of literature in some countries, problems faced in the establishment of e-government are located within the same geographic region surround Iraq as well as countries from other spot in the world. In light of the lack of studies on women's participation in information and communication technology in the world and especially in the Arab region and highlights so clearly in Iraq, which generates our idea of the rareness of women's participation according to (Reade-Fong and Gorman, 2005) "while new information technology has given women the opportunity to share information and interact on a scale that was hard to imagine, in terms of political, economic and social participation, women's worldwide presence in information technology remains low".


With increasing urbanization and the number of cars on road, there are many global issues on modern transport systems, Autonomous driving and connected vehicles are the most promising technologies to tackle these issues. The so-called integrated technology connected autonomous vehicles (CAV) can provide a wide range of safety applications for safer, greener and more efficient intelligent transport systems (ITS). As computing is an extreme component for CAV systems,various mobile computing models including mobile local computing, mobile edge computing and mobile cloud computing are proposed. However it is believed that none of these models fits all CAV applications, which have highly diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements such as communication delay, data rate, accuracy, reliability and/or computing latency.In this thesis, we are motivated to propose a hybrid mobile computing model with objective of overcoming limitations of individual models and maximizing the performances for CAV applications.In proposed hybrid mobile computing model three basic computing models and/or their combinations are chosen and applied to different CAV applications, which include mobile local computing, mobile edge computing and mobile cloud computing. Different computing models and their combinations are selected according to the QoS requirements of the CAV applications.Following the idea, we first investigate the job offloading and allocation of computing and communication resources at the local hosts and external computing centers with QoS aware and resource awareness. Distributed admission control and resource allocation algorithms are proposed including two baseline non-cooperative algorithms and a matching theory based cooperative algorithm. Experiment results demonstrate the feasibility of the hybrid mobile computing model and show large improvement on the service quality and capacity over existing individual computing models. The matching algorithm also largely outperforms the baseline non-cooperative algorithms.In addition, two specific use cases of the hybrid mobile computing for CAV applications are investigated: object detection with mobile local computing where only local computing resources are used, and movie recommendation with mobile cloud computing where remote cloud resources are used. For object detection, we focus on the challenges of detecting vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists in driving environment and propose three methods to an existing CNN based object detector. Large detection performance improvement is obtained over the KITTI benchmark test dataset. For movie recommendation we propose two recommendation models based on a general framework of integrating machine learning and collaborative filtering approach.The experiment results on Netix movie dataset show that our models are very effective for cold start items recommendation


The Wisconsin Public Service Commission's August 8, 1974 decision to restructure the rates of the Madison Gas and Electric Company was an effort to obtain the optimum allocation of resources as part of a general rate increase proceeding. This new system was implemented through time-of-day metering to create price differentiation for on- and off-peak sales in a way that would best allow the prices of the utility's goods and services to equal their marginal costs of production. The goal was for customers to be accurately charged for energy consumption as measured by the cost actually imposed on society, while simultaneously being rewarded for shifting their energy use to off-peak times to improve the utility's load factor. The Commission determined that taxation in such a way would be the most appropriate way to recognize externalities in the rate-making process.


The robustness of three digital halftoning techniques are simulated for a hypothetical electrophotographic laser printer subjected to dynamic environmental conditions over a copy run of one thousand images. Mathematical electrophotographic models have primarily concentrated on solid area reproductions under time-invariant conditions. The models used in this study predict the behavior of complex image distributions at various stages in the electrophotographic process. The system model is divided into seven subsystems: Halftoning, Laser Exposure, Photoconductor Discharge, Toner Development, Transfer, Fusing, and Image Display. Spread functions associated with laser spot intensity, charge migration, and toner transfer and fusing are used to predict the electrophotographic system response for continuous and halftone reproduction. Many digital halftoning techniques have been developed for converting from continuous-tone to binary (halftone) images. The general objective of halftoning is to approximate the intermediate gray levels of continuous tone images with a binary (black-and-white) imaging system. Three major halftoning techniques currently used are Ordered-Dither, Cluster-Dot, and Error Diffusion. These halftoning algorithms are included in the simulation model. Simulation in electrophotography can be used to better understand the relationship between electrophotographic parameters and image quality, and to observe the effects of time-variant degradation on electrophotographic parameters and materials. Simulation programs, written in FORTRAN and SLAM (Simulation Language Alternative Modeling), have been developed to investigate the effects of system degradation on halftone image quality. The programs have been designed for continuous simulation to characterize the behavior or condition of the electrophotographic system. The simulation language provides the necessary algorithms for obtaining values for the variables described by the time-variant equations, maintaining a history of values during the simulation run, and reporting statistical information on time-dependent variables. Electrophotographic variables associated with laser intensity, initial photoconductor surface voltage, and residual voltage are degraded over a simulated run of one thousand copies. These results are employed to predict the degraded electrophotographic system response and to investigate the behavior of the various halftone techniques under dynamic system conditions. Two techniques have been applied to characterize halftone image quality: Tone Reproduction Curves are used to characterize and record the tone reproduction capability of an electrophotographic system over a simulated copy run. Density measurements are collected and statistical inferences drawn using SLAM. Typically the sharpness of an image is characterized by a system modulation transfer function (MTF). The mathematical models used to describe the subsystem transforms of an electrophotographic system involve non-linear functions. One means for predicting this non-linear system response is to use a Chirp function as the input to the model and then to compare the reproduced modulation to that of the original. Since the imaging system is non-linear, the system response cannot be described by an MTF, but rather an Input Response Function. This function was used to characterize the robustness of halftone patterns at various frequencies. Simulated images were also generated throughout the simulation run and used to evaluate image sharpness and resolution. The data, generated from each of the electrophotographic simulation models, clearly indicates that image stability and image sharpness is not influenced by dot orientation, but rather by the type of halftoning operation used. Error-Diffusion is significantly more variable than Clustered-Dot and Dispersed-Dot at low to mid densities. However, Error-Diffusion is significantly less variable than the ordered dither patterns at high densities. Also, images generated from Error-Diffusion are sharper than those generated using Clustered-Dot and Dispersed-Dot techniques, but the resolution capability of each of the techniques remained the same and degraded equally for each simulation run.


: This study identifies the important role of climate change and photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) in the regenerative competence of ash and beech seedlings in 12 inter-and intra-specific competition designs in simulated mixed ash-beech forest gaps under conditions of non-limiting soil volume, water and nutrient supply. The growth conditions simulated natural forest conditions as closely as possible. Simulations were performed by growing interacting seedling canopies for one season in temperature-regulated closed-top chambers (CTCs). Eight CTCs were used in a factorial design with replicate treatments of [CO 2 ] × temperature × PPFD × competition design. [CO 2 ] tracked ambient levels or was 360 µmol mol –1 higher. Temperature tracked ambient levels or was 2.8 (cid:1) C higher. PPFD on two plant tables inside each CTC was 16% and 5% of open-field levels, respectively, representative of typical light flux levels in a natural forest gap. In several of the competition designs, climate change made the ash seedlings grow taller than the beech seedlings and, at the same time, attain a larger leaf area and a larger total biomass. Advantages of this type for ash were found particularly at lower PPFD. There was a positive synergistic interaction of elevated temperature × [CO 2 ] for both species, but more so for ash. There are many uncertainties when a study of chambered seedlings is to be projected to real changes in nat-ural forests. Nevertheless, this study supports a possible future shift towards ash in north European, unmanaged, mixed ash-beech forests in response to the predicted climate change.


Background: Carbon filters and expensive evacuation machines are available to evacuate surgical smoke in long-lasting laparoscopic operations and achieve good visibility and patient's safety. Methods: This study was aimed to determine which of two methods for laparoscopic smoke evacuation is most effective getting the best visibility. 20 patients submitted to elective laparoscopic colorectal resections were allocated to be operated using, either a carbon filter (Group A) or a home-made tubing with a continuous suction (Group B) connected through one of the ports to the hospital vacuum system: both methods were regulated with a roller clamp to increase smoke evacuation in order to obtain good visibility. A mono-polar hook and the LigasureV 5-mm vessel-sealing device were used. Groups were comparable for demographic characteristics, surgical techniques, and malignancy. Mann-Whitney and Fisher's exact test were used for statistics. Results: Morbidity was 10%. There was no mortality, and there was no difference between Group A and B according to complications (p = 1.00), hospital stay (p = 0.23), duration of the operation (p = 0.79) and total consumption of CO2 (p = 0.36). However, the number of times that the clamp had to be released (Group A: 3.4 + 1 vs Group B: 1.5 + 1) (p = 0.006) and that a port had to be opened freely to quickly evacuate dense smoke (Group A: 0.9 + 0.7 vs Group B: 0) (p = 0.002) was very significantly increased in Group A as compared to Group B. Mean follow-up was 60 months and no port site metastases that could be a consequence of "chimney effect" or wound recurrence have been detected. Conclusions: The surgeon's subjective impression that carbon filters are less effective for smoke evacuation than continuous outflow of gas through a port connected to the hospital vacuum source was confirmed. This simple method is advised for long-lasting laparoscopic procedures to improve visibility throughout the procedure.


INTERNATIONAL LAW AND LAWS OF WAR AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW--PROSECUTION OF Child Soldiers--United States v. Omar Ahmed Khadr, (Military Comm'n, referred Apr. 24, 2004) (1) INTRODUCTION At Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Omar Ahmed Khadr waits for his trial for war crimes, allegedly committed when he was fifteen years old, to resume. (2) Mr. Khadr's case raises the question of when, if ever, children should be prosecuted for violations of the laws of war. (3) In 2008, the Military Commission in the Khadr case ruled that the law does not prohibit the prosecution of juveniles for violations of the laws of war. (4) While the Commission's holding may have been accurate as a matter of law, the policy of the United States to detain and prosecute juveniles for war crimes is inconsistent with the United States' obligations to rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers. (5) FACTS Omar Ahmed Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was born on September 19, 1986 in Toronto, Canada. (6) In 1990, at the age of four, Khadr moved with his family to Pakistan and then in 1996, to Afghanistan. (7) On July 27, 2002, Khadr was captured by U.S. forces and held in detention in Afghanistan for three months before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (8) On February 2, 2007, more than four years after his capture, Khadr was charged with murder in violation of the laws of war, attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, providing material support to terrorism, and spying. (9) At the time of the alleged offenses, Mr. Khadr was fifteen years old. (10) On January 21, 2009, following the inauguration of President Obama, the Commission granted a four month continuance of Mr. Khadr's case while the new administration conducts a review of the Military Commission system and all cases before it. (11) HISTORY The Military Commissions Act The Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 authorized the President to establish Military Commissions to try "alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war." (12) The MCA defines unlawful enemy combatants as: (i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its cobelligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces); or (ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense. (13) International Law of Child Soldiers International law maintains the somewhat contradictory views that child soldiers are to be treated as both victims and perpetrators. (14) Children unlawfully forced to participate in hostilities are to be disarmed, demobilized, and reintegrated into society, as required by the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Optional Protocol to C.R.C), State practice and opinio juris. (15) Significantly, the United States is a signatory to the C.R.C. (16) While international law gives preference to the rehabilitation and reintegration of child soldiers, it does not expressly prohibit the prosecution of children for violations of the laws of war. (17) Following the Second World War, at least two Allied military tribunals in Germany prosecuted children for war crimes.18 Matthew Happold has documented numerous examples of prosecutions of child soldiers at the national level, notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. (19) The statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone expressly grants the court jurisdiction over persons aged fifteen and above. (20) Even Amnesty International has implied that prosecution may be appropriate where the "child soldier concerned was clearly in control of his or her actions," "committed atrocities voluntarily" and was "not coerced, drugged or forced into committing atrocities. …


Background Physical inactivity accounts for 9% of all deaths worldwide and is among the top 10 risk factors for global disease burden. Nearly half of people aged over 60 years are inactive. Efforts to identify which factors influence physical activity behaviour are needed. Objective To identify and synthesise the range of barriers and facilitators to physical activity participation. Methods Systematic review of qualitative studies on the perspectives of physical activity among people aged 60 years and over. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychINFO and AMED were searched. Independent raters assessed comprehensiveness of reporting of included studies. Thematic synthesis was used to analyse the data. Results From 132 studies involving 5987 participants, we identified six major themes: social influences (valuing interaction with peers, social awkwardness, encouragement from others, dependence on professional instruction); physical limitations (pain or discomfort, concerns about falling, comorbidities); competing priorities; access difficulties (environmental barriers, affordability); personal benefits of physical activity (strength, balance and flexibility, self-confidence, independence, improved health and mental well-being); and motivation and beliefs (apathy, irrelevance and inefficacy, maintaining habits). Conclusions Some older people still believe that physical activity is unnecessary or even potentially harmful. Others recognise the benefits of physical activity, but report a range of barriers to physical activity participation. Strategies to enhance physical activity participation among older people should include (1) raising awareness of the benefits and minimise the perceived risks of physical activity and (2) improving the environmental and financial access to physical activity opportunities.


A distinctly American business, the automobile industry produces a product that is more than transportation-it is a lifestyle. It is a lifestyle defined by fashion, speed, mobility, comfort, and, above all, individual choice. The car became a physical extension of how the vast majority of Americans, regardless of age, have chosen to live. Similar to other business sectors, the automobile industry grew dramatically after World War Π. Young GIs coming home to begin new families in new suburbs became the growth platform for car companies. The resulting baby boom not only picked up where the now-aging World War II generation left off, it perpetuated and cultivated a youth culture around the car for nearly sixty years (Flink, 1975). Our fathers' auto industry catered to a seemingly endless market of young (mostly male) buyers far more numerous than their parents to build the nation's largest industry. DISRUPTIVE DEMOGRAPHICS AND PRODUCT INNOVATION Today, the youngest of the baby boomers are age 40-plus, and the bumper crop of youth in the United States, Europe, and Japan is young no more. Not only has the bumper crop aged, but the sheer number of new buyers-young people of driving age with the incomes necessary to buy a new car-has declined. J.D. Power and Associates forecasts the market for new cars and trucks will grow less than 1 percent annually over the next decade. In sharp contrast, the number of consumers who are no longer considered 'Young" has exploded. A new generation of older consumers, at the peak of their economic power, are now the single largest market for luxury automobiles-car models that most often provide the highest profit margins to manufacturers. The boomers alone are nearly 40 percent of the large luxury-car market. Most older adults continue to rely on the car for transportation (Collia, Sharp, and Giesbrecht, 2003). Nearly 90 percent of people age 65-plus use the automobile compared to other options. Although older adults may not drive as many miles or make as many trips as younger people, the notion that retirement is a period of relaxing at home in one's favorite recliner is a myth. A real decline in trip-making by car from the lifetime peak travel years of 35-54 is not really seen until age 75-plus, when the number of trips drops from nearly 4.5 trips per day to fewer than 3 trips per day (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2003). Moreover, forecasts indicate that as the boomers age, they are more likely to drive and make more trips, and they add an entirely new generation of older women drivers who, unlike their mothers, have commanded the steering wheel, not the passenger seat (Bush, 2005). At 50 years old, most people have half of their adult years still ahead of them, and this segment of the population controls over half of the nation's purchasing power. For the auto industry, this statistic translates into future purchases of four or five new vehicles (many in the higher-end or luxury category) as well as influence on the buying decisions of a spouse or child. Nissan's chief product specialist, Shinjiro Yukawa, noted the coming shift of market share, predicting that the "over 50$ will be the core Volume' generation in the future" (NYSE Magazine, 2002). The disruptive demographics of today's aging marketplace are challenging the most basic assumptions of product development and innovation. After six decades of success focusing on the younger consumer, how does the auto industry retool itself to develop innovative product strategies that excite and delight both the younger consumer and the new generation of older car buyers? Product innovation can be described in three dimensions. The first dimension is how a business defines its market. In short, who is the company's customer and what does their customer value? This definition affects far more than advertising. It also affects the types of products a firm believes will appeal to and satisfy the market, through what channels they will be delivered, and at what standards and costs. …


Today's urban water managers are faced with an unprecedented set of issues that call for a different approach to urban water management. These include the urgent changes needed to respond to climate change, population growth, growing resource constraints, and rapidly increasing global urbanization. Not only are these issues difficult to address, but they are facing us in an environment that is increasingly unpredictable and complex. Although innovative, new tools are now available to water professionals to address these challenges, solving the water problems of tomorrow cannot be done by the water professionals alone. Instead, the city of the future, whether in the developed or developing world, must integrate water management planning and operations with other city services to meet the needs of humans and the environment in a dramatically superior manner.

Water Sensitive Cities has been developed from selected papers from 2009 Singapore Water Week "Planning for Sustainable Solutions" and also papers taken from other IWA events. It pulls together material that supports the water professionals' need for useful and up-to-date material.

This title belongs to Cities of the Future Series .

ISBN: 9781843393641 (Print)

ISBN: 9781780400921 (eBook)


Many pavement subgrades in Virginia consist of wet, highly plastic clay or other troublesome soils. Such soils can be treated with traditional lime and cement stabilization methods. Alternatives, including lignosulfonates and polymers, are available, but their performance record is mixed and solid engineering data are lacking, which prevents reliable design. The goal of this research was to screen a suite of traditional and non-traditional stabilizers against three Virginia soils that have caused problems during construction or resulted in poor performance in service. The selected stabilizers were: quicklime, hydrated lime, pelletized lime, cement, lignosulfonate, synthetic polymer, magnesium chloride, and a proprietary cementitious stabilizer. A laboratory procedure was developed and applied to three Virginia soils obtained from Northern Virginia, Staunton, and Lynchburg. Key findings from the research include: (1) traditional lime and cement stabilizers were far more effective than liquid stabilizers (lignosulfonate, synthetic polymer, and magnesium chloride) in increasing strength; (2) the liquid stabilizers were ineffective on soils with a high moisture content; (3) the proprietary cementitious stabilizer was more effective in increasing strength than lime for all cases tested but was not as effective as the cement stabilizer; (4) quicklime and hydrated lime increased the workability of the soils although they did not produce strengths comparable to cement; (5) the strength of soils stabilized with cement and the proprietary cementitious stabilizer can be estimated based on the water-amendment ratio of the mixture; and (6) the strength of soils stabilized with lime can be estimated based on a combination of the plasticity index and the water-amendment ratio of the mixture. The benefits of subgrade stabilization are that it improves the strength, stiffness, and durability of soft subgrade soils. Such improvement allows a reduction in the required thickness of overlying pavement courses and/or an increase in pavement life. Quantifying the life cycle cost benefits requires performing pavement design studies based on anticipated traffic levels, desired serviceability, etc. The preferred design method would be a mechanistic design, which requires resilient modulus values for the stabilized subgrade and other pavement layers. Neither resilient modulus testing nor pavement design studies were included in the scope of the work for this project, but they should be included in subsequent phases.


Improving decision processes and the informational basis upon which decisions are made in pursuit of safer and more effective fire response have become key priorities of the fire research community. One area of emphasis is bridging the gap between fire researchers and managers through development of application-focused, operationally relevant decision support tools. In this paper we focus on a family of such tools designed to characterise the difficulty of suppression operations by weighing suppression challenges against suppression opportunities. These tools integrate potential fire behaviour, vegetation cover types, topography, road and trail networks, existing fuel breaks and fireline production potential to map the operational effort necessary for fire suppression. We include case studies from two large fires in the USA and Spain to demonstrate model updates and improvements intended to better capture extreme fire behaviour and present results demonstrating successful fire containment where suppression difficulty index (SDI) values were low and containment only after a moderation of fire weather where SDI values were high. A basic aim of this work is reducing the uncertainty and increasing the efficiency of suppression operations through assessment of landscape conditions and incorporation of expert knowledge into planning.


This article lays out a legislative process failure theory of statutory interpretation. It first defends an intent-based approach to interpretation by arguing that Congress, in the process of drafting statutes, does not use the same mechanisms for determining meaning as do courts when they interpret them. Therefore, courts and legislatures comprise different linguistic interpretive communities. The article proceeds to define legislative process failure to occur when the mechanism of each community leads to different understandings of statutory text. The paramount question then becomes: what is the best response of the legal system to such failure? Legislative supremacy requires that the courts and Congress come to some accommodation to ensure that courts will interpret statutes in accord with the legislature's understanding. That assumption, however, is satisfied so long as Congress knows how courts will interpret statutes and can adjust its process to ensure that the statutes it enacts will be interpreted as it intends. Legislative process failure theory therefore leads to the subsequent question: which branch should accommodate the other's method of attaching meaning to statutes, and under what circumstances? I conclude that, generally, legislatures cannot engage in judicial type inquiries into statutory meaning while drafting statutes because the cost of engaging such statutory analysis ex-ante – before identification of the potential provisions that might exhibit process failure – is prohibitive. But, once the legislature becomes aware of a process failure, the costs of engaging in judicial type textual inquiry become manageable, and the error costs of interpretation due to strategic manipulation of legislative meaning greatly increase. Hence, in the face of such awareness, usually a textual approach is justified. Finally, having developed the legislative process failure of interpretation, the article considers several types of failures for which courts should accommodate the legislative approach to attaching meaning to statutes.


Nonprofit organizations face intense competition in the market for charitable contributions. Increasingly, donation decisions are made online, and organizations have responded by implementing substantive Internet disclosure and reporting regimes. We posit here that the voluntary disclosure of financial and performance information inherent in these regimes provides additional relevant information to a broad array of market participants, and thus has a positive impact on the receipt of charitable contributions. We test our hypotheses on a random sample of 400 US nonprofit organizations by building on the well established economic model of giving (Weisbrod and Dominguez, 1986), in which donations serve as the proxy for demand. Our central research question is thus: Are donors willing to "pay" for Web disclosure? Results indicate a positive relationship between the level of charitable contributions and the amount of disclosure provided by an organization on its website; however, performance and annual report disclosure are more important than financial disclosure, and performance disclosure has the biggest impact in organizations that are less reliant on donations.


In 1976, amidst a period of détente in the Cold War, the Government of Canada officially hosted an inaugural open-play invitational ice hockey tournament. A detailed narration of these events, pieced together from archival sources, allows scholars to understand the negotiations to prepare the political terrain for the event, including efforts to secure the official endorsement of the International Ice Hockey Federation for a tournament sponsored by the Government of Canada in exchange for Canada's return to international competition in 1977; the participation of various countries and their respective hockey governing bodies, especially the Soviet Union, in an international tournament featuring professional players; and an agreement with the North American professional hockey cartels, especially the National Hockey League, to allow star players to participate in the event. The success of the 1976 Canada Cup accelerated the commodification and commercialization of hockey both in North America and globally—a process that was increasingly driven by the interests and aspirations of the National Hockey League. At the center of this history is one increasingly powerful—and avaricious—character: Alan Eagleson.


Mutagenesis screening is a powerful forward genetic approach that has been successfully applied in lower-model organisms to discover genetic factors for biological processes. This phenotype-based approach has yet to be established in vertebrates for probing major human diseases, largely because of the complexity of colony management. Herein, we report a rapid strategy for identifying genetic modifiers of cardiomyopathy (CM). Based on the application of doxorubicin stress to zebrafish insertional cardiac (ZIC) mutants, we identified 4 candidate CM-modifying genes, of which 3 have been linked previously to CM. The long isoform of DnaJ (Hsp40) homolog, subfamily B, member 6b (dnajb6b(L)) was identified as a CM susceptibility gene, supported by identification of rare variants in its human ortholog DNAJB6 from CM patients. Mechanistic studies indicated that the deleterious, loss-of-function modifying effects of dnajb6b(L) can be ameliorated by inhibition of ER stress. In contrast, overexpression of dnajb6(L) exerts cardioprotective effects on both fish and mouse CM models. Together, our findings establish a mutagenesis screening strategy that is scalable for systematic identification of genetic modifiers of CM, feasible to suggest therapeutic targets, and expandable to other major human diseases.


This paper investigates the effect of coupling in a collective decision-making scenario, in which the task is to correctly identify a (noisy) stimulus between two known alternatives. Multiple interconnected decision-making units, each represented by a Drift-Diffusion Model (DDM), accumulate evidence toward a decision. A number of different graph topologies among the DDM's are considered, and their effect on the accuracy of the decision is investigated. It is deduced that, for the same stimuli, the average of the collected evidence increases linearly with time toward the correct decision regardless of the communication topology. However, the uncertainty associated with the process is affected by the interconnection graph, implying that certain topologies are better than others.


Testing is a key activity in industry to verify and validate products before they reach end customers. In hardware-in-the-loop system-level verification of automotive systems, testing is often performed using sequential execution of test scripts, each containing a mix of stimuli and assertions. In this paper, we propose and study an alternative approach for automated system-level testing automotive systems. In our approach, assertion-only test scripts and one (or several) stimuli-only script(s), execute concurrently on the test driver. By separating the stimuli from the assertions, with each assertion independently determining when the system under test shall be verified, we seek to achieve three things: 1) tests that better represent real-world handling of the product, 2) reduced test execution time, and 3) increased defect detection. In addition to describing our proposed approach in detail, we provide experimental results from an industrial case study evaluating the approach in an automotive system test environment.


While collections of parametric shapes are growing in size and use, little progress has been made on the fundamental problem of shape-based matching and retrieval for parametric shapes in a collection. The search space for such collections is both discrete (number of shapes) and continuous (parameter values). In this work, we propose representing this space using descriptors that have shown to be effective for single shape retrieval. While single shapes can be represented as points in a descriptor space, parametric shapes are mapped into larger continuous regions. For smooth descriptors, we can assume that these regions are bounded low-dimensional manifolds where the dimensionality is given by the number of shape parameters. We propose representing these manifolds with a set of primitives, namely, points and bounded tangent spaces. Our algorithm describes how to define these primitives and how to use them to construct a manifold approximation that allows accurate and fast retrieval. We perform an analysis based on curvature, boundary evaluation, and the allowed approximation error to select between primitive types. We show how to compute decision variables with no need for empirical parameter adjustments and discuss theoretical guarantees on retrieval accuracy. We validate our approach with experiments that use different types of descriptors on a collection of shapes from multiple categories.


ABSTRACT In the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) motivation is conceptualized to be generated by discomfort associated with the learner's experience of a discrepancy between their current L2 self, and their ideal L2 self. However, in the L2MSS model, this discrepancy is not operationalized. A questionnaire containing measures of current L2 selves was administered to two cohorts of students learning English in Sweden, one in grade 7, and one in grade 9. Using structural equation modeling, results revealed that the discrepancy between the ideal L2 self and the current L2 self was greater for the grade 7 cohort. So too was the impact on a criterion variable measuring intended effort. Arguments for the operationalization of the self-discrepancy process in research designs are put forward. In studies tracking changes over time, it is suggested that the inclusion of a variable measuring the current L2 self could provide important insights into self-discrepancy trajectories, facilitate the investigation of motivational dynamics, and bring greater sensitivity to intervention-design.


The article discusses the perspectives of hedging instruments used for justification and monitoring the effectiveness of risk-oriented strategies of development of grain trading companies. The analytical tools that support decision-making under risk in agriculture are identified. The characteristics of the occurrence and realization of the risk factors in the grain market, the destructive potential of individual risks of agribusiness are also investigated. The method of strategy development in conditions of high uncertainty in terms of the price on grain and derived products are proposed. It includes identification and assessment of the potential effects of risks, revealing the most dangerous risks for hedging by mean of option models and derivatives. Analytical model for justification of risk-oriented strategy for grain traders companies allows maintaining its financial sustainability regardless of the state of the grain business traditional risks. It positively affects on the key factors of the market value.


The glucose transporter isoform, GLUT4, has been expressed in Chinese hamster clones and its subcellular trafficking has been determined following labelling at the cell surface with the impermeant bis-mannose photolabel, 2-N-(1-azi-2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)benzoyl-1,3-bis(D-mannos -4-yloxy)-2-propylamine (ATM-BMPA). ATM-BMPA-tagged GLUT4 leaves the cell surface rapidly and equilibrates to give an internal/surface distribution ratio of approx. 3.5 after 60 min. GLUT4 in which the N-terminal phenylalanine-5 and glutamine-6 are mutated to alanine-N-(FQ-AA) and in which the C-terminal leucine-489 and -490 are mutated to alanine C-(LL-AA) have low internal/surface ratios of 0.64 and 1.24 respectively. If all cell-surface transporters are able to recycle, as would be the case for a two-pool recycling model with a single intracellular pool, then analysis suggests that the wild-type GLUT4 distribution ratio is dependent on endocytosis and exocytosis rate constants of 0.074 and 0.023 min(-1). These values are similar, but not identical, to those found for GLUT4 trafficking in adipocytes. The distribution of the N-(FQ-AA) transporter appears to be due to a decrease in endocytosis with reduced intracellular retention, while the distribution of the C-(LL_AA) transporter appears to be mainly due to poor intracellular retention. These results are also considered in terms of a consecutive intracellular pool model in which GLUT4 targeting domains alter the distribution between recycling endosomes and a slowly recycling compartment. In this case the more rapid apparent exocytosis of the mutated GLUT4 is due to their failure to reach a slowly recycling compartment with a consequent return to the plasma membrane by default. It is suggested that overexpression of transporters increases the proportion that are recycled in this way. Wortmannin is shown to decrease glucose transport activity and cell-surface photolabelled transporters in a manner consistent with an inhibition of transporter recycling. Studies on the rate of loss of transport activity and ATB-BMPA-tagged transporter in wortmannin-treated cells confirm that the N-(FQ-AA) mutant is endocytosed more slowly than the wild-type GLUT4. Taken together, these results suggest that the mutation at either the N- or the C-terminal domain can reduce movement to a slowly recycling intracellular compartment but that neither domain alone is entirely sufficient to produce wild-type GLUT4 trafficking behaviour.


The primary contribution of this work lies in the derivation of the exact characteristic function (and hence, the mean and variance) of the capacity of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems for semicorrelated flat-fading channels. A Gaussian approximation to the exact capacity results is suggested and evaluated for its accuracy. We show that over a range of correlation levels this approximation is adequate even for moderate numbers of transmit and receive antennas.


Managing the Drug Discovery Process: How to Make It More Efficient and Cost-Effective thoroughly examines the current state of pharmaceutical research and development by providing chemistry-based perspectives on biomedical research, drug hunting and innovation. The book also considers the interplay of stakeholders, consumers, and the drug firm with attendant factors, including those that are technical, legal, economic, demographic, political, social, ecological, and infrastructural. Since drug research can be a high-risk, high-payoff industry, it is important to researchers to effectively and strategically manage the drug discovery process.

 This book takes a closer look at increasing pre-approval costs for new drugs and examines not only why these increases occur, but also how they can be overcome to ensure a robust pharmacoeconomic future.  Written in an engaging manner and including memorable insights, this book is aimed at redirecting the drug discovery process to make it more efficient and cost-effective in order to achieve the goal of saving countless more lives through science. A valuable and compelling resource, this is a must-read for all students and researchers in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

 Considers drug discovery in multiple R&D venues, including big pharma, large biotech, start-up ventures, academia, and nonprofit research institutes

 Analyzes the organization of pharmaceutical R&D, taking into account human resources considerations like recruitment and configuration, management of discovery and development processes, and the coordination of internal research within, and beyond, the organization, including outsourced work

 Presents a consistent, well-connected, and logical dialogue that readers will find both comprehensive and approachable


Markov processes are increasingly used to generate finite-length sequences that imitate a given style. However, Markov processes are notoriously difficult to control. Recently, Markov constraints have been introduced to give users some control on generated sequences. Markov constraints reformulate finite-length Markov sequence generation in the framework of constraint satisfaction (CSP). However, in practice, this approach is limited to local constraints and its performance is low for global constraints, such as cardinality or arithmetic constraints. This limitation prevents generated sequences to follow structural properties which are independent of the style, but inherent to the domain, such as meter. In this article, we introduce meter, a constraint that ensures a sequence is 1) Markovian with regards to a given corpus and 2) follows metrical rules expressed as cumulative cost functions. Additionally, meter can simultaneously enforce cardinality constraints. We propose a domain consistency algorithm whose complexity is pseudo-polynomial. This result is obtained thanks to a theorem on the growth of sumsets by Khovanskii. We illustrate our constraint on meter-constrained music generation problems that were so far not solvable by any other technique.


Stochastic hybrid system (SHS) models can be used to analyze and design complex embedded systems that operate in the presence of uncertainty and variability. Verification of reachability properties for such systems is a critical problem. Developing sound computational methods for verification is challenging because of the interaction between the discrete and the continuous stochastic dynamics. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic method for verification of SHSs based on discrete approximations focusing on reachability and safety problems. We show that reachability and safety can be characterized as a viscosity solution of a system of coupled Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. We present a numerical algorithm for computing the solution based on discrete approximations that are derived using finite-difference methods. An advantage of the method is that the solution converges to the one for the original system as the discretization becomes finer. We also prove that the algorithm is polynomial in the number of states of the discrete approximation. Finally, we illustrate the approach with two benchmarks: a navigation and a room heater example, which have been proposed for hybrid system verification.


BACKGROUND
Green and black tea polyphenols have been extensively studied as cancer chemopreventive agents. Many in vitro experiments have supported their strong antioxidant activity. Additional in vivo studies are needed to examine the pharmacokinetic relation of absorption and antioxidant activity of tea polyphenols administered in the form of green or black tea or tea extract supplements.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare the pharmacokinetic disposition of tea polyphenols and their effect on the antioxidant capacity in plasma 8 h after a bolus consumption of either green tea, black tea, or a green tea extract supplement.

DESIGN
Thirty healthy subjects were randomly assigned to 3 different sequences of green tea, black tea, or a green tea extract supplement in a 3 x 3 crossover design with a 1-wk washout period in between treatments.

RESULTS
Flavanol absorption was enhanced when tea polyphenols were administered as a green tea supplement in capsule form and led to a small but significant increase in plasma antioxidant activity compared with when tea polyphenols were consumed as black tea or green tea. All 3 interventions provided similar amounts of (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate.

CONCLUSIONS
Our observations suggest that green tea extract supplements retain the beneficial effects of green and black tea and may be used in future chemoprevention studies to provide a large dose of tea polyphenols without the side effects of caffeine associated with green and black tea beverages.


Mechanical treatment of dry powder mixtures has often been reported to give new compounds. The assumption of neat mechanochemical conditions must, however, be made with caution even if the reactants are not crystal hydrates. The fluidised intermediate, which is often necessary for mechano-co-crystallisation of organic molecules, can readily form by interaction with atmospheric moisture. We illustrate this using "dry" mechanochemical synthesis of glycinium semi-malonate as an example. The α-glycine and malonic acid mixture is shown to be highly hygroscopic, which can be largely accredited to the hygroscopicity of malonic acid. Dissolution in atmospheric moisture is sufficient for the spontaneous crystallisation of the salt product. This is a prime example where liquid is both necessary for mechanosynthesis, while simultaneously hindering the reaction by affecting the rheology of the mixture: Liquid Hindered Grinding. These results shed new light on possible sources of regional, seasonal and temperature effects on mechanosynthesis, as well as a potential role for polymer additives.


T HE permanent settlement of Queensland commenced somewhat more than a century ago and, during the intervening years, agricultural and pastoral pursuits have become firmly established throughout the State. The degree of development achieved in the different branches of plant industry has varied appreciably, however, and a survey of the present status and distribution of crops and pastures in the State should be useful and interesting both to Queenslanders and to residents of other Australian States and overseas countries. Some aspects of the survey will doubtless deal with points familiar to many Queenslanders, but it is believed that Queensland readers will find something of interest to them in the discussions on districts with which they are not personally familiar. This pamphlet is accordingly devoted, firstly, to a survey of the State and its farm, orchard, and market garden crops and pastures, and, secondly, to a somewhat brief discussion o.f the organisation and
activities of the Department of Agriculture and Stock and kindred institutions which function within the State.


The post‐translational modifications of histones are key to the modulation of chromatin structure. Distinct patterns of modifications established by histone‐modifying enzymes control diverse chromosomal processes. Here, we report the purification and molecular characterization of the fission yeast Clr6 histone deacetyl ase involved in higher order chromatin assembly. We show that a chromodomain protein Alp13, which belongs to the conserved MRG protein family linked to cellular senescence in humans, is associated with Clr6. In addition, Clr6 interacts with homologs of the mammalian transcriptional co‐repressors Sin3, Pst1 and Pst2, and a WD40 repeat‐containing protein, Prw1. Alp13, Pst2 and Prw1 form a stable complex with Clr6 in the nucleus. Deletion of any of these factors causes progressive loss of viability and sensitivity to DNA‐damaging agents, and impairs condensation/resolution of chromosomes during mitosis. This is accompanied by hyperacetylation of histones and a reduction in histone H3 Ser10 phosphorylation, which correlates with chromosome condensation during mitosis. These results link the MRG family protein Alp13 to histone deacetylation, and suggest that Clr6 and its associated factors are essential for fundamental chromosomal events.


The drive towards renewable energy become intense nowadays due to the increasing price of fossil fuels and depletion of their sources. Among promising resource of renewable energy is the biomass. In Malaysia, oil palm biomass are available in large quantity and suitable for conversion into value added bio-fuels. In this study, an-innovative small-scale downdraft gasifier was designed, development and tested for biomass gasification. The gasifier operates at flowrate less than 0.1 m/s 3 with a capacity of 5 KW. During testing and commissioning of the gasifier, the maximum efficiency of the gasifier was found to be about 71% when firing empty fruit bunch pellets. This gasifier has potentials to be up scaled for actual use either for domestic or industrial use.


In order to achieve sustainable society, it is necessary to transform industrial structure to the one that does not reduce the Earth's resources. Under this circumstance, a business model of "not selling goods, but selling services" has been expected as a measure of co-existence of business and the environment. This idea, which is called as "Product-Service Systems: PSS" or "Servicizing" etc., has been studied in Europe, the United States and international organisations, and is now studied in Japan. However, the idea of PSS is still not effectively used for policy development. One of the major reasons is that PSS concept itself is under-developed. Under the unclear concept of PSS, researchers are working towards more scientific understanding while policy makers are trying to develop new policy measures, and there is confusion in those communities. In order to develop policy measures, it is necessary to make clear the position of PSS in socio-economic system. This paper overviews previous PSS researches and relevant policy measures conducted in Japan, the US and EU, and tries to grasp the context of researches and policy activities and to find out the agenda of the current status. The characteristics of PSS rest on the innovative relationship between producer and consumer. However, PSS researches are stuck at measurement of environmental loads, and relevant policies tend to be rest on the ones targeting producers. In order to get out of this situation, it is necessary to ask question what is PSS and to make it clear where PSS can be positioned in socio-economic system. PSS is important, because PSS has an element of creating sufficiency as well as eco-efficiency. It is recommended that PSS concept needs to be examined as a research effort, and environmentally sound product policy needs to be systematically organised.


Abstract This article examines the EU's immigration policy as it has developed towards Sub‐Saharan Africa. It argues that the securitization of this policy is counterproductive in two important ways. First, the erection of further barriers to economic migration from the south and the extra‐territorialization of this problem merely increase the transaction costs and physical dangers faced by an important source of cheap labour. Secondly, in seeking to keep African migrants out of the EU, the Union is locking economic and social insecurity into its territorial area. Furthermore, this article argues that the connection of migration policy to the 'global war on terror' fundamentally mis‐specifies the threat of terrorism from African sources. Aid conditionality, and the policies that follow on from it, merely serve to radicalize African populations — thus creating the threat that is feared by European policy makers.


Depression and anxiety disorders are the first and sixth leading cause of disability worldwide according to latest reports from the World Health Organization. Despite their high prevalence and the significant disability resulted, there are limited advances in new drug development. On the other hand, the advent of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has greatly improved our understanding of the genetic basis underlying psychiatric disorders. In this work we employed gene-set analyses of GWAS summary statistics for drug repositioning. We explored five related GWAS datasets, including two on major depressive disorder (MDD-PGC and MDD-CONVERGE, with the latter focusing on severe melancholic depression), one on anxiety disorders, and two on depressive symptoms and neuroticism in the population. We extracted gene-sets associated with each drug from DSigDB and examined their association with each GWAS phenotype. We also performed repositioning analyses on meta-analyzed GWAS data, integrating evidence from all related phenotypes. Importantly, we showed that the repositioning hits are generally enriched for known psychiatric medications or those considered in clinical trials, except for MDD-PGC. Enrichment was seen for antidepressants and anxiolytics but also for antipsychotics. We also revealed new candidates or drug classes for repositioning, some of which were supported by experimental or clinical studies. For example, the top repositioning hit using meta-analyzed p-values was fendiline, which was shown to produce antidepressant-like effects in mouse models by inhibition of acid sphingomyelinase and reducing ceramide levels. Taken together, our findings suggest that human genomic data such as GWAS are useful in guiding drug discoveries for depression and anxiety disorders.


This study is about the latest advances in the optimization of the microstructure and properties of thin strip cast austenitic stainless steel (AISI 304, 1.4301). Concerning the processing steps the relevance of different thin strip casting parameters, in‐line forming operations, and heat treatments for optimizing microstructure and properties have been studied. The microstructures obtained from the different processing strategies were analysed with respect to phase and grain structures including the grain boundary character distributions via EBSD microtexture measurements, the evolution of deformation‐induced martensite, the relationship between delta ferrite and martensite formation in austenite, and the texture evolution during in‐line deformation. It is observed that different process parameters lead to markedly different microstructures and profound differences in strip homogeneity. It is demonstrated that the properties of strip cast and in‐line hot rolled austenitic stainless steels are competitive to those obtained by conventional continuous casting and hot rolling. This means that the thin strip casting technique is not only competitive to conventional routes with respect to the properties of the material but also represents the most environmentally friendly, flexible, energy‐saving, and modern industrial technique to produce stainless steel strips.


Integral Spirituality is being widely called the most important book on spirituality in our time. Applying his highly acclaimed integral approach, Ken Wilber formulates a theory of spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity—including the revolutions in science and culture—while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions. He shows how spirituality today combines the enlightenment of the East, which excels at cultivating higher states of consciousness, with the enlightenment of the West, which offers developmental and psychodynamic psychology. Each contributes key components to a more integral spirituality. On the basis of this integral framework, a radically new role for the world's religions is proposed. Because these religions have such a tremendous influence on the worldview of the majority of the earth's population, they are in a privileged position to address some of the biggest conflicts we face. By adopting a more integral view, the great religions can act as facilitators of human development: from magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral—and to a global society that honors and includes all the stations of life along the way.


Abstract This paper proposes a new general framework of higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) and solves the structural responses of the functionally graded (FG) plates using novel exponential shape functions for the Ritz method. Based on the fundamental equations of the elasticity theory, the displacement field is expanded in a unified form which can recover to many different shear deformation plate theories such as zeroth-order shear deformation plate theory, third-order shear deformation plate theory, various HSDTs and refined four-unknown HSDTs. The characteristic equations of motion are derived from Lagrange's equations. Ritz-type solutions are developed for bending, free vibration and thermal buckling analysis of the FG plates with various boundary conditions. Three types of temperature variation through the thickness are considered. Numerical results are compared with those from previous studies to verify the accuracy and validity of the present theory. In addition, a parametric study is also performed to investigate the effects of the material parameters, side-to-thickness ratio, temperature rise and boundary conditions on the structural responses of the FG plates.


We propose a multilingual model to recognize Big Five Personality traits from text data in four different languages: English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. Our analysis shows that words having a similar semantic meaning in different languages do not necessarily correspond to the same personality traits. Therefore, we propose a personality alignment method, GlobalTrait, which has a mapping for each trait from the source language to the target language (English), such that words that correlate positively to each trait are close together in the multilingual vector space. Using these aligned embeddings for training, we can transfer personality related training features from high-resource languages such as English to other low-resource languages, and get better multilingual results, when compared to using simple monolingual and unaligned multilingual embeddings. We achieve an average F-score increase (across all three languages except English) from 65 to 73.4 (+8.4), when comparing our monolingual model to multilingual using CNN with personality aligned embeddings. We also show relatively good performance in the regression tasks, and better classification results when evaluating our model on a separate Chinese dataset.


Small cells (SCs) are expected to be densely deployed during the next few years to enhance the network capacity of future heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Due to their dense deployment, not all SCs are expected to have a direct connection to the core network. As a result, some SCs will forward their traffic to the neighboring SCs until they reach the core network, thus forming a multi-hop backhaul (BH) network. Due to the large number of BH links, the BH is expected to be one of the main challenges that future HetNets will have to face. At the same time, traffic demands are growing exponentially resulting in higher energy consumption. Therefore, how to achieve high network energy efficiency becomes of utmost importance. To that end, in this paper, we study the role of BH in future outdoor HetNets aiming to answer to whether or not it could constitute an energy bottleneck for the HetNet. To gain insights, we study the BH energy consumption impact compared to the access network under different traffic distribution scenarios and BH technologies.


Summary The Journal of Apicultural Research (JAR) was first published in 1962 under the Editorship of Dr Eva Crane, Director of the then Bee Research Association (BRA). The journal was envisaged as an international English language medium of refereed science dealing with all kinds of bee including: honey bees, stingless bees, bumble bees and solitary bees. The international nature of this journal and its parent journal Bee World were instrumental in the change of title of BRA to International Bee Research Association (IBRA). This paper, coming at the completion of the fiftieth volume of JAR, describes the origins and history of the journal, and discusses some of the most notable papers published within its pages.


Detailed observations of mineral phases in the skeleton of a massive reef-building coral were performed at nano- to micrometer scales using an analytical transmission electron microscope. The most notable result is the discovery of a nanosized halite (NaCl) phase coexisting with aragonite (CaCO 3 ) in the coral skeleton. The halite grains are scattered not only along grain boundaries but also inside aragonite grains. The specific relationship of crystallographic orientations and microstructural features between halite and surrounding aragonite suggest that halite precipitated simultaneously with aragonite during calcification. The primary deposition of a mineral phase other than aragonite in a coral skeleton is confirmed for the first time.


Charged excitons called trions play an important role in the fundamental valley dynamics in newly emerging two-dimensional semiconductor materials. We use ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy to study the valley trion dynamics in a ${\mathrm{MoSe}}_{2}$ monolayer grown by using chemical vapor deposition. The dynamics displays an ultrafast trion formation followed by a nonexponential decay. The measurements at different pump fluences show that the trion decay dynamics becomes slower as the excitation density increases. The observed trion dynamics and the associated density dependence are a result of the trapping by two defect states as being the dominating decay mechanism. The simulation based on a set of rate equations reproduces the experimental data for different pump fluences. Our results reveal the important trion dynamics and identify the trapping by defect states as the primary trion decay mechanism in monolayer ${\mathrm{MoSe}}_{2}$ under the excitation densities used in our experiment.


Recent evidence suggests that trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody which targets HER2, in combination with chemotherapy is a therapeutic option in patients with HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer. Widely accepted guidelines for HER2 testing in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer have not been established. The purpose of this study was to analyze the incidence and patterns of HER2 expression in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer using a tissue microarray approach, which closely simulates small biopsies routinely tested for HER2. One hundred sixty-nine patients, including 99 primary gastric adenocarcinomas and 70 primary gastroesophageal junction carcinomas were analyzed for HER2 overexpression by immunohistochemistry and HER2 gene amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridization using scoring schemes proposed by both American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists (ASCO/CAP) and the results of the recently published Trastuzumab for Gastric Cancer (ToGA) trial. In our analysis, 19 adenocarcinomas were HER2 positive, defined as either a HER2/CEP17 ratio >2.2 and/or a 3+ HER2 immunohistochemistry score with either the ASCO/CAP or ToGA scoring schemes. Of the 19 HER2-positive adenocarcinomas, 8 (42%) exhibited a characteristic strongly intense basolateral membranous staining pattern which would be interpreted as negative (1+) using the accepted ASCO/CAP scoring scheme for HER2 assessment in breast carcinoma, but were correctly labeled as 3+ positive using the proposed ToGA scoring scheme. Of the 19 HER2-positive adenocarcinomas, 8 (42%) demonstrated heterogeneous HER2 protein expression by immunohistochemistry. Twelve of 99 (12%) gastric carcinomas were positive for HER2. Of these, HER2 was more often identified in intestinal-type adenocarcinomas (10 of 52, 19%) compared with diffuse (2 of 34, 6%) adenocarcinoma. Seven of 70 (10%) gastroesophageal junction carcinomas were positive for HER2 of which all were intestinal type (7 of 58, 12%). HER2 status or primary tumor site did not correlate with patient survival. Gastric and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinomas typically display a characteristic basolateral membranous pattern of HER2 expression which is often heterogeneous rendering routine evaluation of HER2 status on small tissue samples challenging.


This volume brings together scholars from the United States and Europe to examine the history of one of the great challenges to European politics today-the relationship between political democracy and ethnic diversity. The major questions posed by the authors are: is ethnic homogeneity a condition of democracy, or is it a historical coincidence that modern democracies seem to prosper in ethnically homogeneous societies? How relevant is ethnic diversity or homogeneity in explaining the success or failure of democracy in Europe? And how did democracies cope with ethnic diversity, in comparison with other political systems-empires and modern dictatorships in particular? The answers may be unsettling: homogeneity and diversity have both proven to be destructive forces in history. Whereas Western European democracies incorporated these ethnic differences into their political system, the introduction of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe was seriously hampered, both by ethnic conflicts and by efforts to homogenize the region ethnically. This is the first book in which the fate of democracy is directly related to ethnic diversity.


Tip vortices generated by marine lifting surfaces such as propeller blades, ship rudders, hydrofoil wings, and antiroll fins can lead to cavitation. Prediction of the onset of this cavitation depends on model tests at Reynolds numbers much lower than those for the corresponding full-scale flows. The effect of Reynolds number variations on the scaling of tip vortex cavitation inception is investigated using a theoretical flow similarity approach. The ratio of the circulations in the full-scale and model-scale trailing vortices is obtained by assuming that the spanwise distributions of the section lift coefficients are the same between the model-scale and the full-scale. The vortex pressure distributions and core sizes are derived using the Rankine vortex model and McCormick's assumption about the dependence of the vortex core size on the boundary layer thickness at the tip region. Using a logarithmic law to describe the velocity profile in the boundary layer over a large range of Reynolds number, the boundary layer thickness becomes dependent on the Reynolds number to a varying power. In deriving the scaling of the cavitation inception index as the ratio of Reynolds numbers to an exponent m, the values of m are not constant and are dependent on the values of the model- and full-scale Reynolds numbers themselves. This contrasts traditional scaling for which m is treated as a fixed value that is independent of Reynolds numbers. At very high Reynolds numbers, the present theory predicts the value of m to approach zero, consistent with the trend of these flows to become inviscid. Comparison of the present theory with available experimental data shows promising results, especially with recent results from high Reynolds number tests. Numerical examples of the values of m are given for different model- to full-scale sizes and Reynolds numbers.


BackgroundThe Tight Control of psoriatic arthritis (TICOPA) trial confirmed improved clinical outcomes with a treat to target (T2T) strategy in PsA. This consisted of 4-weekly review and escalation of 'step up' therapy (single disease modifying therapy (DMARD), combination DMARDs and then biologics) based on remission criteria. Based on this, a T2T approach is supported by European PsA treatment recommendations. However, it is not commonly implemented in routine care primarily due to feasibility and cost concerns. In the TICOPA trial, the same treatment regime was used for all participants regardless of their disease profile. Despite the recognition of PsA as a highly heterogenous condition no studies have tailored which drugs are used depending on disease severity. The cohort will establish real world outcomes for the T2T approach in PsA and also form the basis of a trials within cohorts (TWiCs) design to test alternative therapeutic approaches within embedded clinical trials providing an evidence base for treatment strategy in PsA.MethodsThe Multicentre Observational Initiative in Treat to target Outcomes in Psoriatic Arthritis (MONITOR-PsA) cohort will apply a T2T approach within routine care. It will recruit newly diagnosed adult patients with PsA starting systemic therapies. The cohort is observational allowing routine therapeutic care within NHS clinics but a T2T approach will be supported when monitoring treatment within the cohort. Eligible participants will be adults (≥18 years) with active PsA with ≥1 tender or swollen joints or enthesis who have not previously had treatment with DMARDs for articular disease.DiscussionThis study is the first TWiC designed to support a fully powered randomized drug trial. The results from the observational cohort will be compared with those observed in the TICOPA trial investigating the clinical effectiveness and health care costs of the pragmatic T2T approach. Nested trials will provide definitive RCT evidence establishing the optimal management of PsA within the T2T approach. The TWiCs design allows robust generalizability to routine healthcare, avoids disappointment bias, aids recruitment and in future will allow assessment of longer term outcomes.Trial registrationNCT03531073, retrospectively registered 21 May 2018


In bacterial vaginosis, the normal vaginal lactobacilli are replaced by various combinations of Gardnerella vaginalis, Bacteroides spp. and Mobiluncus spp. Products of anaerobic metabolism are present in the foul-smelling non-inflammatory discharge. As markers of general metabolic activity, volatile and non-volatile fatty acids were measured in a series of pure and mixed cultures of Lactobacillus acidophilus, G. vaginalis, B. bivius and M. curtisi in Fastidious Anaerobe Broth. Growth and metabolic activity (propionate and isovalerate production) of M. curtisi were stimulated in mixed culture with each of the other three species; stimulation was greatest by L. acidophilus. Lactate produced by G. vaginalis was reduced in M. curtisi-G. vaginalis mixtures. In M. curtisiB. bivius mixtures, isobutyrate was reduced but succinate increased. There were no interactions in mixtures of G. vaginalis with B. bivius or L. acidophilus, but growth and metabolic activity of B. bivius were markedly inhibited by L. acidophilus. In mixtures of three species, G. vaginalis had little effect; the metabolic patterns were generally those of the other pairs. In M. curtisi-B. bivius-L. acidophilus mixed culture, B. bivius was not inhibited; the amount of lactate was reduced, apparently metabolised to propionate by M. curtisi, and the predominant metabolites were those of B. bivius and M. curtisi. The addition of G. vaginalis to this mixture had no further effect.


As college instructors have recognized the benefits provided by cooperative and active learning, many have shifted from their traditional teaching style, dominated by lectures, to a new style where students work together and learn from each other as well as from the instructor. One strategy commonly used to implement cooperative learning in the classroom is to require students to work in teams to complete a class project. This strategy is particularly attractive to natural resources educators because natural resource issues are generally complex and interdisciplinary providing a natural setting for teaching concepts regarding natural resources ecology and management using student team projects. Further, natural resources agencies are seeking to employ individuals who have the skills to work in interdisciplinary teams to address current problems. Thus, assigning projects to student teams in natural resources classes can serve several important purposes: it can aid student mastery of the subject matter by creating a cooperative learning environment; it can provide a hands-on, problem solving context for student learning; and it can provide students with the necessary skills and experience to work effectively in teams as professionals. Although using student team projects has many potential benefits, the effectiveness of this approach as a teaching tool can vary greatly. We reflect on our experiences with using the team approach in three different courses: Fishery Management, designed for junior and senior level students; Natural Resources Decisions, a capstone course designed for seniors in the School of Forest Resources; and Watershed Management Planning, a graduate level course. As a result of our collective experiences in these three courses, we propose that investing a relatively small amount of class time to introduce students to the concept of a team and how teams work can increase the effectiveness of teaching by using student team projects.


This study is concerned with the mathematical modelling of the formation and subsequent evolution of sand dunes, both beneath rivers (fluvial) and in deserts (Aeolian). Dunes are observed in the environment in many different shapes and sizes; we begin by discussing qualitatively how and why the different forms exist. The most important aspect of a successful model is the relationship between the bed shape and the shear stress that the flow exerts on the bed. We first discuss a simple model for this stress applied to fluvial dunes, which is able to predict dune-like structures, but does not predict the instability of a flat bed which we would hope to find. We therefore go on to look at improved models for the shear stress based on theories of turbulent flow and asymptotic methods, using assumptions of either a constant eddy viscosity or a mixing length model for turbulence. Using these forms for the shear stress, along with sediment transport laws, we obtain partial integrodifferential equations for the evolution of the bed, and we study these numerically using spectral methods. One important feature of dunes which is not taken into account by the above models is that of the slip face - a region of constant slope on the downwind side of the dune. When a slip face is present, there is a discontinuity in the slope of the bed, and hence it is clear that flow separation will occur. Previous studies have modelled separated flow by heuristically describing the boundary of the separated region with a cubic or quintic polynomial which joins smoothly to the bed at each end. We recreate this polynomial form for the wake profile and demonstrate a method for including it into an evolution system for dunes. The resulting solutions show an isolated steady-state dune which propagates downstream. From the asymptotic framework developed earlier with a mixing length model for turbulence, we are able, using techniques of complex analysis, to model the shape of the wake region from a purely theoretical basis, rather than the heuristic one used previously. We obtain a Riemann-Hilbert problem for the wake profile, which can be solved using well-known techniques. We then use this method to calculate numerically the wake profile corresponding to a number of dune profiles. Further, we are able to find an exact solution to the wake profile problem in the case of a sinusoidally shaped dune with a slip face. Having found a method to calculate the shear stress exerted on the dune from the bed profile in the case of separated flow, we then use this improved estimate of the shear stress in an evolution system as before. In order to do this efficiently, we consider an alternative method for calculating the wake profile based on the spectral method used for solving the evolution system. We find that this system permits solutions describing an isolated dune with a slip face which propagates downstream without changing shape. All of the models described above are implemented in two spatial dimensions; the wind is assumed to blow in one direction only, and the dunes are assumed to be uniform in a direction perpendicular to the wind flow. While this is adequate to explain the behaviour of transverse dunes, other dune shapes such as linear dunes, barchans, and star dunes are by nature three-dimensional, so in order to study the behaviour of such dunes, the extension of the models to three dimensions is essential. While most of the governing equations generalize easily, it is less obvious how to extend the model for separated flow, due to its reliance on complex variables. We implement some three-dimensional evolution models, and discuss the possibility of modelling three-dimensional flow separation.


Brand awareness is frequently cited as a main objective for firms engaging in sponsorship, and is often used as a measurement of sponsorship effectiveness. Meanwhile, sport sponsorship has evolved from static signage and one-way messaging to include an exhaustive list of assets and intangible rights, along with extensive on-site activation, each with a specific incremental cost. Yet, it is unknown whether the mix of assets and rights firms may choose to purchase, along with an investment in activation, impacts their ability to generate greater sponsorship effectiveness, in the form of brand awareness. While controlling for duration as a sponsor, results indicate that the selection of videoboard and LED in-stadium advertising, as well as on-site activation, led to increased brand awareness for sponsors. Moreover, category exclusivity and official status designation were also statistically significant predictors of brand recognition, with exclusivity doubling the probability that a sponsor is recognized by consumers.


Neurons acquire an optimized structure for the reception and processing of information, with long protrusions extending from the neuronal cell body. These protrusions are morphologically and functionally different from each other, and are crucial for the establishment of a dynamic and intricate neuronal network. The axon is a long protrusion responsible for the transmission of electrochemical signals to other neurons, while dendrites receive these signals. The propagation of information from the axon of one neuron to the dendrite of another happens at specialized regions called synapses. When a signal travels along the axon and reaches the presynapse, it induces the fusion of synaptic vesicles with the plasma membrane in the presynaptic terminal, releasing neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can bind to receptors present at the postsynaptic membrane of the receiving neuron, generating a signal that can be transmitted to the next neuron. To ensure the accurate communication between neurons, synapses must be correctly assembled during development and supplied with specific proteins to the pre- and postsynaptic compartments. As most of the proteins are synthesized in the cell body, they need to be transported to the proper location by motor proteins, which use the underlying actin and microtubule cytoskeleton as rails. The axon extends considerably from the soma to reach the appropriate synaptic partners, and the molecular mechanisms underlying this process have intrigued many neuroscientists. We can study axon development in a controlled environment by culturing neurons from rodent brains. In this system, the axon is formed within the first 24 hours after plating, and the factors that support axon development and outgrowth have to be delivered by motor proteins to the proper location. We have addressed the role of motor proteins in the extension of the axon in hippocampal neurons. Besides their role in axonal outgrowth, we showed that motor proteins are also required for the maintenance of synapses along the dendrites of hippocampal neurons. The presynaptic terminals are very dynamic structures, appearing, disappearing and reappearing at the same location along the axon. Inhibitory presynaptic boutons have been shown to be particularly dynamic, but the molecular mechanisms underlying these dynamics are not understood. In this thesis, we studied a new regulatory pathway of inhibitory presynaptic bouton dynamics triggered by the guidance protein Semaphorin4D.


The speed of propagation of a premixed turbulent flame correlates with the intensity of the turbulence encountered by the flame. One consequence of this property is that premixed flames in both laboratory experiments and practical combustors require some type of stabilization mechanism to prevent blow-off and flashback. The stabilization devices often introduce a level of geometric complexity that is prohibitive for detailed computational studies of turbulent flame dynamics. Furthermore, the stabilization introduces additional fluid mechanical complexity into the overall combustion process that can complicate the analysis of fundamental flame properties. To circumvent these difficulties we introduce a feedback control algorithm that allows us to computationally stabilize a turbulent premixed flame in a simple geometric configuration. For the simulations, we specify turbulent inflow conditions and dynamically adjust the integrated fueling rate to control the mean location of the flame in the domain. We outline the numerical procedure, and illustrate the behavior of the control algorithm on methane flames at various equivalence ratios in two dimensions. The simulation data are used to study the local variation in the speed of propagation due to flame surface curvature.


Ubiquitous sensing and unique characteristics of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have led to an increase in application areas such as smart parking, environmental monitoring, automotive industries and sports. In recent years, WSNs have gained more significance as the foundation infrastructure for the Internet of Things (IoT), which has greatly increased the number of connected objects with instantaneous communication and data processing. However, designing energy-efficient models for integrating WSNs into IoT is a challenging issue due to scalability and interoperability of IoT, and previous approaches designed for WSNs cannot be applied directly. This study proposes two energy-efficient models for WSNs in the IoT environment: (i) a service-aware clustering model where individual sensor nodes are assigned roles based on their service delivery; and (ii) an energy-aware clustering model. Performance evaluation shows better energy efficiency, end-to-end delay and network load balance of the proposed models for integrating wireless sensor networks into the IoT protocol compared with low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy centralised protocol and fuzzy C-means clustering protocol.