Aim: To determine the reliability of family assessment for the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) for children with cerebral palsy in the UK. Methods: Families of a complete geographically defined population of children with cerebral palsy between 6 and 12 years old were identified from the 4Child epidemiological database. Postal surveys were conducted with the families and any of the child's health professionals that were nominated by the families. Results: Families of 129/314 eligible children took part in the study (41%). The indices of agreement and reliability between families and professionals were also equivalent to those observed between the professionals (κ = 0.5, ICC ⩾0.9). Reliability coefficients were higher when more of the professionals classified children using direct observation rather than only reviewing their clinical records. Conclusions: Despite excellent reliability, families and professionals did not always agree exactly on a child's GMFCS level. Classifications may differ due to children's varying performance in different environments, in which case families will almost certainly know their children's ability in a broader range of settings. The indices of reliability of family assessment for the GMFCS meet the recommended criteria for use with individuals and groups, indicating that the method is suitable for use in research studies and clinical practice.


MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO, NO. 13 abstract: This article has two main aims. The first is to problematize the dominant view of the informal economy as a sort of separate economy, related primarily to (immigrant) small business and distinct from the so-called formal economy, which for the most part encompasses big companies as well as state economic activities. In contrast, the present article assumes that all economic actors are increasingly ready to adopt informal economic strategies to secure their economical survival. In line with this assumption, the second aim of the article is to contribute to our knowledge of the causes of, as well as the actors within, the current informalization trends that characterize Western economies. The article concludes that the informalization of contemporary advanced economies in general terms is a result of a structural conflict between new economic trends and old regulatory frameworks. These frameworks, with their focus on decommodification, have become too restrictive for new forms of capital accumulation, with their focus on flexible adaptation, which include an increasing demand for the re-commodification of labour. The conflict emerges and intensifies, among other reasons, because of the radically different internal operational logics, agendas and priorities that characterize these two social processes. keywords: informal economy, post-Fordist transformation, recommodification of labour.


The new institutional economics is one of the the most important new bodies of theory to emerge in economics in recent years. The contributors to this volume address its significance for the developing world. The book is a major contribution to an area of debate still in its formative phase. The book challenges the orthodoxies of development, especially concerning the role of markets. It includes articles from Robert Bates, John Toye and Nobel Laureate Douglass North.


Electroless plated Co-Ni-Re-P alloy films for use as perpendicular magnetic recording media were studied. It was found that the addition of tartronic acid to the plating bath makes it possible to form Co-Ni-Re-P perpendicular anisotropic films with no MnSO4 present. Co-Ni-Re-P alloy films, with a composition simpler than that of previously developed Co-Ni-Re-Mn-P films, has a greater potential than do the latter for practical use as perpendicular recording media. The read/write characteristics of 8-inch disks employing Co-Ni-Re-P films were also measured, in combination with a ring head. Characteristics almost equal to those of media containing Mn were obtained, and even higher recording densities are expected, given improved matching of head and disk properties. A recording density of D50 = 54 kFRPI was obtained for a 0.2 micron thick medium, using a 0.33 micron gap ring head and with a 0.12 micron head-medium spacing.


Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) is the dominant object model for the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. COM encourages each object to support several views of itself, i.e. interfaces. Each interface represents a collection of logically related functions. A COM object is not allowed to expose multiple interfaces using multiple inheritance, however, as some languages do not support it and those that do are not guaranteed to do so in a binary-compatible way. Instead, an object exposes interfaces via a function called QueryInterfaceO. An object implements QueryInterfaceO to allow a client to ask what other interfaces the object supports at run-time. This run-time type discovery scheme has three important characteristics. One, it allows an object to add additional functionality at a later date without disturbing functionality expected by an existing client. Two, it provides for language-independent polymorphism. Any object that supports a required interface can be used in a context that expects that interface. Three, it provides an opportunity for the client to degrade gracefully should an object not support requested functionality. For example, the client may request an alternate interface, ask for guidance from the user or simply continue without the requested functionality. COM attempts to provide its services in as efficient a means as possible. For example, when an object server shares the same address space as its client, the client calls the functions of the object directly with no third-party intervention and no more overhead than calling a virtual function in C+ +. However, when using COM with some programming languages, this efficiency has a price: language integration. COM does not integrate well with a close-to-the-metal language like C+ +. In many ways COM was designed to look and act just like C + + , but C + + provides its own model of polymorphism, object lifetime control, object identity and type discovery. Of course: since C+ + is not language-independent or location transparent. it was designed differently. Because of these contrasting design goals, a C+ + programmer using COM often has a hard time reconciling the differences between the two object models. To bridge the two object models, I have developed an abstraction for this purpose that I call a faux-object class. In this thesis, I illustrate the use of a specific instance of the faux-object idiom to provide an object model bridge for COM that more closely integrates with C+ +. By bundling several required interfaces together on the client side, a faux-object class provides the union of the operations of those interfaces, just as if we were allowed to use multiple inheritance in COM. By managing the lifetime of the COM object in the faux-object's constructor and destructor, it maps the lifetime control scheme of C+ + onto COM. And by using C+ + inline functions, a faux-object can provide most of these advantages with little or no additional run-time or memory overhead. COM provides a standard Interface Definition Language (IDL) to unambiguously describe COM interfaces. Because IDL is such a rich description language, and because faux-object classes are well defined, I was able to build a tool to automate the generation of faux-object classes for the purpose of bridging the object models of COM and C + +. This tool was used to generate several faux-object classes to test the usefulness of the faux-object idiom.


We introduce ProbLog, a probabilistic extension of Prolog. A ProbLog program defines a distribution over logic programs by specifying for each clause the probability that it belongs to a randomly sampled program, and these probabilities are mutually independent. The semantics of ProbLog is then defined by the success probability of a query, which corresponds to the probability that the query succeeds in a randomly sampled program. The key contribution of this paper is the introduction of an effective solver for computing success probabilities. It essentially combines SLD-resolution with methods for computing the probability of Boolean formulae. Our implementation further employs an approximation algorithm that combines iterative deepening with binary decision diagrams. We report on experiments in the context of discovering links in real biological networks, a demonstration of the practical usefulness of the approach.


Silicon-based digital camera sensors exhibit significant sensitivity beyond the visible spectrum (400-700nm). They are able to capture wavelengths up to 1100 nm, i.e., they are sensitive to near-infrared (NIR) radiation. This additional information is conventionally treated as noise and is absorbed by a NIR-blocking filter affixed to the sensor. Retaining instead of removing NIR information can significantly improve certain computational photography and computer vision tasks. Indeed, intrinsic properties of the NIR wavelength band guarantee that images can be sharper, less affected by man-made colorants, and more resilient to changing light conditions. Exploiting the inherent correlation and de-correlation of the different waveband images can lead to improved color rendering and object recognition.


At this study, international standards and experimental control methods which are compulsory to apply for the curtain wall systems usage of which at the nowadays high buildings increases rapidly have been researched. For this purpose; Experimental studies carried out for a selected building have been analyzed and assessed in order to determine standards and experimental control methods applied for the curtain wall at Turkey where buildings constructed using the curtain wall systems increase every day.


The history of Sicily is one of defeats: defeats of reason, defeats of reasonable men.... From that however comes skepticism, that is not, in effect, the acceptance of defeat, but a margin of security, of elasticity, through which the defeat, already expected, already rationalized, does not become definitive and mortal. Skepticism is healthy though. It is the best antidote to fanaticism. (6) Leonardo Sciascia Sicily as a Metaphor Sicily, the setting for many famous myths such as those we know from Homer's The Odyssey, has proven to be equally fertile soil for the mythology of Italian Americans. With a literary tradition that goes back more than a thousand years, it would only be a matter of time before emigrants from Sicily, the Italian region that sent more emigrants than any other to the United States, would affect American literature. The offspring of Sicilian immigrants have created an eruption of writing that testifies to the power that the island has on the artists it creates. Through contemporary Sicilian American historians, memoirists, fiction writers, poets, and culinary aesthetes, Sicily is insured of passing along more to American culture than the mafia and St. Joseph tables. This look at the use of Sicily in the works of a few Italian American writers and filmmakers focuses on how Sicily serves as the source of non- or even anti-American elements that help shape characters' identities. Sicily also serves as a source from which writers can create artistic antidotes to what they perceive as socio-cultural ills spawned in and by the United States. American writers go to Sicily, actually or through their imagination, in search of what they cannot find in the United States. The result is a rewriting of Sicily and the United States into something uniquely Sicilian American. The dean of Sicilian American writers, Jerre Mangione, was an American-born son of Sicilian immigrants. Mangione grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Rochester, New York. His memoir, Mount Allegro, which has remained in print most of the years since its first appearance in 1943, is the first of four non-fictional books written by Mangione that deal with Sicilian and Sicilian American culture. In each book Sicily represents an "old world" that affects his development, from Sicilian, to American, and eventually to Sicilian American. The books are Mount Allegro (1943), Reunion in Sicily (1950), A Passion for Sicilians (1968), and An Ethnic At Large (1978). Mangione's life and writing, in many respects, are attempts to escape Sicilian notions of "destino." He tells us that his relatives' lives are governed by traditions and myths. Mangione writes that "destino," a barrier that keeps his relatives from becoming Americans, contained "strong elements of fatalism" that were "ingrained in the Sicilian soul by centuries of poverty and oppression.... In their minds, 'Destino,' the willingness to resign oneself to misfortune, was the key to survival; to refuse to believe that an almighty force predetermined the fate of all people was to court disaster" (Ethnic 32). Mangione can overcome this barrier only by leaving his relatives. Throughout Mount Allegro we get the sense that the narrator is documenting the decline of a people, the end of an era, an era that becomes history the moment the narrator separates himself from his immigrant relatives. In fact, Mangione can only write this book after he has left his home. As Mangione tells us in Contemporary Novelists, "the experiences that became the substance of Mount Allegro accentuated for me the sharp contrast between the philosophical values of the old world and those of the new. It also succeeded in casting me in the role of outsider who, belonging to neither world, tries to create his own world by writing" (571). Mangione's role of the outsider causes a submerging of the self in his non-fictional writings. This insertion of the narrator as an invisible protagonist/observer, according to Ben Morreale, is a typical characteristic of control practiced by many Sicilian writers: Coming from an island that had been the crossroads of armies bent on world domination for centuries, having insecurities that some have translated into a psychological paura storica, or history of fear, the Sicilian has learned not to reveal himself. …


The turn to narrative as a form of therapy has become a common practice with individuals telling their stories in private and public forums in hopes of finding healing and recovery for a wide variety of mental health disorders. With the emergence of the internet and the proliferation of new media forms, narrative practices have evolved concurrently. An examination of the digitally mediated narratives I call e-stories, on mental health community websites can provide a window into how people use psychological concepts in narratives to do mental health work in everyday life (Edwards & Potter, 1992). This case study of the HealthyPlace online journal community shows how e-stories play a significant role in self-identity construction and ideological reproductive work in relation to mental illness and recovery. This research examines autobiographical introductions posted on twenty-eight journal homepages to explore how everyday people use psychotherapeutic coherence systems — lay versions of expert knowledge — to demonstrate expertise and authority while organizing experiences into a socially sharable narrative, characterizing self-identity in terms of illness and health simultaneously. These e-stories reveal the power of language to serve as a tool to negotiate community membership, reproduce ideologies about mental health and recovery, and employ narrative devices online to represent self-identities of people as "screwed up, but working on it."


Transpiration reduction functions are often used in hydrological modeling to estimate actual transpiration as a function of soil water status. Empirical reduction functions are most frequently used due to the higher data needs and computational requirements of mechanistic models. Empirical models, however, lack a description of physical mechanisms and their parameters require extensive calibration. We derive a process‐based reduction function predicting system potentials, resistances, and water flows. An analytical solution for a special case of Brooks and Corey soils is presented. A numerical version of the reduction function for van Genuchten soils was implemented in the Soil–Water–Atmosphere–Plant (SWAP) hydrological model, allowing predictions for layered soil profiles and root length density variations over depth. The analytical and numerical versions of the model allow an increasingly quantitative insight into the mechanism of root water uptake, such as the existence of a maximum root water uptake rate as a function of soil water status, soil hydraulic properties, root length density, and root radius, in addition to the fact that sensitivity of simulated root water uptake to the radial root conductivity and axial conductance decrease when root length density increases. The approach can be used for the estimation of threshold values for empirical reduction functions.


How do children acquire an appreciation for culture, and how does this change over the period which takes them from childhood to late adolescence? What part does engaging in such activities as watching television, listening to the radio and to music, reading books and magazines, playing video games, using computers and surfing the internet play in the daily lives of young people, and to what extent does it contribute to the construction of their identity?The result of a large-scale longitudinal survey which followed the same children (a sample group of almost 4000) from the age of 11 (in 2002) up to 17 (in 2008), this study describes the frequency and diversity of adolescent practices, uses and consumption, and the influence of transmission agents (parents, family, school, cultural institutions, etc.). This previously-unpublished study into cultural behaviour contributes to the understanding of the sociology of youth culture and the journey of children over a number of years, between adoption and abandonment of culture.


Abstract In the foreland area of western Taiwan, some of the pre-orogenic basement-involved normal faults were reactivated during the subsequent compressional tectonics. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by the pre-existing normal faults in the recent tectonics of western Taiwan. In NW Taiwan, reactivated normal faults with a strike-slip component have developed by linkage of reactivated single pre-existing normal faults in the foreland basin and acted as transverse structures for low-angle thrusts in the outer fold-and-thrust belt. In the later stage of their development, the transverse structures were thrusted and appear underneath the low-angle thrusts or became tear faults in the inner fold-and-thrust belt. In SW Taiwan, where the foreland basin is lacking normal fault reactivation, the pre-existing normal faults passively acted as ramp for the low-angle thrusts in the inner fold-and-thrust belt. Some of the active faults in western Taiwan may also be related to reactivated normal faults with right-lateral slip component. Some main earthquake shocks related to either strike-slip or thrust fault plane solution occurred on reactivated normal faults, implying a relationship between the pre-existing normal fault and the triggering of the recent major earthquakes. Along-strike contrast in structural style of normal fault reactivation gives rise to different characteristics of the deformation front for different parts of the foreland area in western Taiwan. Variations in the degree of normal fault reactivation also provide some insights into the way the crust embedding the pre-existing normal faults deformed in response to orogenic contraction.


Abstract The ocular-following responses elicited by brief unexpected movements of the visual scene were studied in human subjects. Response latencies varied with the type of stimulus and decreased systematically with increasing stimulus speed but, unlike those of monkeys, were not solely determined by the temporal frequency generated by sine-wave stimuli. Minimum latencies (70–75 ms) were considerably shorter than those reported for other visually driven eye movements. The magnitude of the responses to sine-wave stimuli changed markedly with stimulus speed and only slightly with spatial frequency over the ranges used. When normalized with respect to spatial frequency, all responses shared the same dependence on temporal frequency (band-pass characteristics with a peak at 16 Hz), indicating that temporal frequency, rather than speed per se, was the limiting factor over the entire range examined. This suggests that the underlying motion detectors respond to the local changes in luminance associated with the motion of the scene. Movements of the scene in the immediate wake of a saccadic eye movement were on average twice as effective as movements 600 ms later: post-saccadic enhancement. Less enhancement was seen in the wake of saccade-like shifts of the scene, which themselves elicited weak ocular following, something not seen in the wake of real saccades. We suggest that there are central mechanisms that, on the one hand, prevent the ocular-following system from tracking the visual disturbances created by saccades but, on the other, promote tracking of any subsequent disturbance and thereby help to suppress post-saccadic drift. Partitioning the visual scene into central and peripheral regions revealed that motion in the periphery can exert a weak modulatory influence on ocular-following responses resulting from motion at the center. We suggest that this may help the moving observer to stabilize his/her eyes on nearby stationary objects.


Prolonged physical load can unfavourably influence the human vertebral column. Thirty-six well-trained male soldiers from the Estonian ESTCOY-8 infantry company were examined before and after a 6-month military mission to assess the effect of long-term physical load on soldiers' spinal column kyphotic curvature in relation to their body build (height-weight category). Body height and weight of the men under study were measured before and after the 6-month-long military mission. BMI was calculated as the body weight (kg) divided by the square of the standing body height (m). Body height-weight category was assessed according to Kaarma et al. 2008. Spine kyphotic curvature in the sagittal plane was recorded using pantography. The results of the study showed that significant kyphotic curvature appeared in half of the well-trained soldiers. Changes in kyphotic curvature were related to the person's body build (height-weight category). Subjects with a larger body seemed to have greater stability of kyphotic curvature.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the association of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic deprivation with initiation of guideline-recommended diabetes medications with cardiovascular benefit (glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists [GLP1-RA] and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors [SGLT2i]) among older adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and either incident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) or congestive heart failure (CHF).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
Using Medicare data (2016-2019), we identified 4,057,725 individuals age >65 years with T2D and either incident ASCVD or CHF. We estimated incidence rates and hazard ratios (HR) of GLP1-RA or SGLT2i initiation within 180 days by race/ethnicity and zip code-level Social Deprivation Index (SDI) using adjusted Cox proportional hazards models.

RESULTS
Incidence rates of GLP1-RA or SGLT2i initiation increased over time but remained low (<0.6 initiations per 100 person-months) in all years studied. Medication initiation was less common among those of Black or other race/ethnicity (HR 0.81 [95% CI 0.79-0.84] and HR 0.84 [95% CI 0.75-0.95], respectively) and decreased with increasing SDI (HR 0.96 [95% CI 0.96-0.97]). Initiation was higher in ASCVD than CHF (0.35 vs. 0.135 initiations per 100 person-months). Moderate (e.g., nephropathy, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease) but not severe (e.g., advanced chronic kidney disease, cirrhosis) comorbidities were associated with higher probability of medication initiation.

CONCLUSIONS
Among older adults with T2D and either ASCVD or CHF, initiation of GLP1-RA or SGLT2i was low, suggesting a substantial deficit in delivery of guideline-recommended care or treatment barriers. Individuals of Black and other race/ethnicity and those with higher area-level socioeconomic deprivation were less likely to initiate these medications.


Cancer can have major implications for those who receive a diagnosis, not only as a result of its physical impact, but its emotional one. The emotional impact can not only be distressing in itself, it can also affect behaviour and therefore, has been linked to poorer treatment adherence. The experience of difficult self-directed emotions, such as guilt, shame and disgust have provoked particular interest, particularly due to their association with rejection and avoidance. Therefore, insight into how and when these emotions are experienced within the cancer treatment journey are important to understand, in order that optimum support can be provided. The first paper is a thematic synthesis that explores the emotional experiences of people undergoing cancer treatment with a curative intent. The synthesis is structured by a sequential framework of four key transition points within the cancer journey, and the emotional experiences synthesised within each one. The temporal transition points were: Being diagnosed and facing treatment; Getting rid of cancer; Changed body and stigma; Reflections on the emotional journey having completed treatment. The synthesis demonstrates how emotions and feelings evolve and change in type, frequency and intensity across the curative cancer journey. The second study uses narrative analysis methodology to explore difficult self-directed emotions throughout cancer treatment and into recovery. The analysis focuses on how and when the emotions of disgust, guilt, shame and fear arise, as well as resulting changes to the sense of self. The findings demonstrate how many factors, such as relationships, current stressors, past experiences and resources (personal and systemic) can impact on emotional experiences. The critical appraisal focuses on strengths and weaknesses of the studies, particularly in relational to emotional research considerations more generally.


Thesis (Ph. D. in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2004.


Recent work in psychology and economics has investigated ways in which individuals experience their lives. This literature includes influences on individuals' momentary happiness. We contribute to this literature using a new data source, Mappiness (www.mappiness.org.uk), which permits individuals to record their wellbeing via a smartphone. The data contain more than a million observations on tens of thousands of individuals in the UK, collected since August 2010. We explore the links between individuals' wellbeing measured momentarily at random points in time and their experiences of paid work. We explore variation in wellbeing within-individual over time having accounted for fixed unobservable differences across people. We quantify the effects of working on individuals' affect relative to other activities they perform. We consider the effects of working on two aspects of affect: happiness and relaxation. We find paid work is ranked lower than any of the other 39 activities individuals engage in, with the exception of being sick in bed. Although controlling for other factors, including person fixed effects, reduces the size of the association its rank position remains the same and the effect is still equivalent to a 7-8% reduction in happiness relative to circumstances in which one is not working. Paid work has a similar though slightly larger negative impact on being relaxed. However, precisely how unhappy or anxious one is while working depends on the circumstances. Wellbeing at work varies significantly with where you work (at home, at work, elsewhere); whether you are combining work with other activities; whether you are alone or with others; and the time of day or night you are working. JEL Classification: I1; J0; J28


In the United States, 12.8 percent of children under 18 have special health care needs. Ninety percent of youth in America with special health care needs and/or disabilities can now be expected to reach adulthood. Youth with special health care needs and/or disabilities are less likely to experience successful transition to adulthood in comparison to youth without special health care needs. This article presents a person-centered, asset-based community development approach that assisted youth in achieving transition and inclusion-oriented outcomes. Examples are drawn from a Healthy & Ready to Work demonstration project in Wisconsin. At the center of our approach to transition were community connectors -- adults who knew the personal interests and assets of youth and who found opportunities in the community that matched individual youth interests. Implications for youth development professionals as successful community connectors are described.


The Mediterranean is a semi-enclosed sea surrounded by Europe to the north, Asia to the east, and Africa to the south. It covers an area of approximately 2.5 million km2, between 30–46 °N latitude and 6 °W and 36 °E longitude. The term Mediterranean climate is applied beyond the Mediterranean region itself and has been used since the early 20th century to classify other regions of the world, such as California or South Africa, usually located in the 30º–40º latitudinal band. The Mediterranean climate can be broadly characterized by warm to hot dry summers and mild wet winters. However, this broad picture hides important variations, which can be explained through the existence of two geographical gradients: North/South, with a warmer and drier south, and West/East, more influenced by Atlantic/Asian circulation.
 The region is located at a crossroad between the mid-latitudes and the subtropical regimes. Thus, small changes in the Atlantic storm track may lead to dramatic changes in the precipitation of the northwestern area of the basin. The variability of the descending northern branch of the Hadley cell influences the climate of the southern margin, while the eastern border climate is conditioned by the Siberian High in winter and the Indian Summer Monsoon during summer. All these large-scale factors are modulated by the complex orography of the region, the contrasting albedo, and the moisture and heat supplied by the Mediterranean Sea. The interactions occurring among all these factors lead to a complex picture with some relevant phenomena characteristic of the Mediterranean region, such as heatwaves and droughts, Saharan dust intrusions, or specific types of cyclogenesis.
 Climate model projections generally agree in characterizing the region as a climate change hotspot, considering that it is one of the areas of the globe likely to suffer pronounced climate changes. Anthropogenic influences are not new, since the region is densely populated and is the home of some the oldest civilizations on Earth. This has produced multiple and continuous modifications in the land cover, with measurable impacts on climate that can be traced from the rich available documentary evidence and high-resolution natural proxies.


SRC homology 2 domain-containing phosphatase 2 (SHP2) is a ubiquitously expressed cytosolic protein tyrosine phosphatase. Downstream of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and other receptors, SHP2 is activated by binding to phosphotyrosine-containing receptors and adapter proteins, is required for complete extracellular regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK) pathway activity, which promotes cellular proliferation and survival, and regulates other signaling processes. In this thesis, we explored the signaling functions of SHP2 in lung and brain cancer cell systems with or without clinically relevant mutations that render EGFR constitutively active and developed computational models of EGFR-mediated SHP2 activation. In non-small cell lung cancer cells, SHP2 promoted ERK-dependent resistance to EGFR inhibition, but in cells with EGFR kinase-activating mutations this SHP2 functional role was impaired through sequestration of biochemically active SHP2 with internalization-impaired EGFR mutants. In glioblastoma multiforme cells, SHP2 simultaneously promoted ERK activity and antagonized STAT3 phosphorylation such that SHP2 drove proliferation while also promoting sensitivity to EGFR and c-MET co-inhibition. These SHP2 functions were perturbed by sufficiently high expression of the EGFR variant III mutant. Furthermore, SHP2 was found to regulate EGFRvIII and c-MET phosphorylation and control hypoxia-inducible factor expression in a way that may regulate tumorigenesis. We next developed computational models and associated quantitative experimental data sets to gain quantitative understanding of the regulation of protein complexes containing SHP2 and GRB2-associated binder 1 (GAB1), the primary phosphorylated adapter with which SHP2 associates following EGFR activation. Our analysis revealed that in some cell settings EGFR activity is amplified by intermediary SRC family kinases (SFKs) which drive GAB1 phosphorylation and enable GAB1-SHP2 complexes to persist in the cytosol distal from EGFR. A reaction-diffusion model further predicted that EGFR-initiated GAB1-SHP2 complexes persist over the entire cell length scale, which could permit membrane-localized EGFR to regulate signaling events through SHP2 at subcellular locations where EGFR itself is not present. Overall, these results motivate the continued search for specific SHP2 inhibitors, while providing a contextual basis for predicting when such interventions may be particularly effective, and establish a quantitative framework for understanding EGFR's ability to activate SHP2 and how this might be perturbed in different pathological contexts. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering First Advisor Matthew J. Lazzara This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1279


In this paper, we describe a new method for constructing minimal, deterministic, acyclic finite-state automata from a set of strings. Traditional methods consist of two phases: the first to construct a trie, the second one to minimize it. Our approach is to construct a minimal automaton in a single phase by adding new strings one by one and minimizing the resulting automaton on-the-fly. We present a general algorithm as well as a specialization that relies upon the lexicographical ordering of the input strings. Our method is fast and significantly lowers memory requirements in comparison to other methods.


Background: Hydrogen has been demonstrated can selec vely reduce the hydroxyl, which is the main cause of ionizing radia on-induced damage. Amifos ne (AM) is the only radioprotec ve drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administra on for use in radiotherapy. The purpose of the present study was to inves gate the combined radio-protec ve effect of hydrogen rich water (HRW) and AM. Materials and Methods: Male ICR mice were treated intragastrically with HRW or/and intraperitoneally with AM 30 minutes prior to 9.0 Gy whole body irradia on from a 60 Co source (dose rate 0.96Gy/min). Then the survival rate for 30 days, the hematological parameters, the Clinical chemistry parameters and the bone marrow nucleated cells were examined. Results: We found that the mice treated with HRW and AM before irradia on could increase the 30-day survival rate and improve the body weight be2er than the HRW or AM treatment alone group and irradia on alone group. Hematological test and Clinical chemistry assays also showed the same results that HRW combined AM could be2er improve the recovery of hemopoie c system and alleviate the detrimental effects of radia on. Conclusion: The results indicate that the combined applica on of HRW and AM may be a be2er method for radia on therapy.


We examine the effect of the introduction of uniform water charging for aquifer management and provide evidence using a survey-based choice experiment of agricultural water users in rural Tunisia. Theoretically, we show that the implementation of the proposed second-best regulation would result both in efficiency gains and in distributional effects in favor of small landholders. Empirically, we find that resistance to the introduction of an effective water-charging regime is greatest among the largest landholders. Resistance to the regulation of common resources may be rooted in the manner in which heterogeneity might determine the distributional impact of different management regimes. (JEL Q25, Q28)


Achieving efficient many‐to‐many communication on a given network topology is a challenging task when many data streams from different sources have to be scattered concurrently to many destinations with low variance in arrival times. In such scenarios, it is critical to saturate but not to congest the bisectional bandwidth of the network topology in order to achieve a good aggregate throughput. When there are many concurrent point‐to‐point connections, the communication pattern needs to be dynamically scheduled in a fine‐grained manner to avoid network congestion (links, switches), overload in the node's incoming links, and receive buffer overflow. Motivated by the use case of the Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment (CBM), we study the performance and variance of such communication patterns on a Cray XC40 with different routing schemes and scheduling approaches. We present a distributed Data Flow Scheduler (DFS) that reduces the variance of arrival times from all sources at least 30 times and increases the achieved aggregate bandwidth by up to 50%.


A method to assess flood risk on Danish national roads in a large area in the middle and southern part of Jutland, Denmark, was developed for the Danish Road Directorate. Flood risk has gained renewed focus due to the climate changes in recent years and extreme rain events are expected to become more frequent in the future. The assessment was primarily based on a digital terrain model (DTM) covering 7,500 km2 in a 1.6 x 1.6 m grid. The high-resolution terrain model was chosen in order to get an accurate estimation of the potential flooding in the road area and in the immediate vicinity, but also put a high requirement on the methods, hardware and software applied. The outcome of the analysis was detailed maps (as GIS layers) illustrating the location of depressions with depths, surface area and volume data for each depression. Furthermore, preferential flow paths, catchment boundaries and ranking of each depression were calculated. The ranking was based on volume of depressions compared with upstream catchment and a sensitivity analysis of the runoff coefficient. Finally, a method for assessing flood risk at a more advanced level (hydrodynamic simulation of surface and drainage) was developed and used on a specific blue spot as an example. The case study shows that upstream catchment, depressions, drainage system, and use of hydrodynamic calculations have a great influence on the result. Upstream catchments can contribute greatly to the flooding.


The aim of this study was to determine the haematological changes induced by subchronic glyphosate exposure in Wistar rats and the ameliorative effect of zinc. Sixty adult male and female Wistar rats were used for the study. Twelve of them were used for the LD50 which was evaluated to be 3750 mg kg-1 with clinical signs of respiratory distress, diarrhoea, rough hair coat and subsequently death observed. The remaining 48 rats were divided into six groups of four males and four females each. The agent(s) administered are as follows: Group I (DW), control, distilled water (2 ml kg-1), group II (Z), zinc (50 mg kg-1), group III (G), glyphosate (375 mg kg-1, 10 % of the LD50), group IV (Z + G), zinc (50 mg kg-1) and glyphosate (375 mg kg-1) while group V (GC), glyphosate (14.4 mg kg-1) and group VI (Z + GC), zinc (50 mg kg-1) and glyphosate (14.4 mg kg-1). The treatment regimens were administered orally by gavage once daily for eight weeks. At the end of the study, blood samples were collected and analysed but there were no statistical different (p>0.05) among the treatment groups. However, the haematological parameters were relatively higher in the groups treated with glyphosate alone except the lymphocyte which was relatively low in the glyphosate treated groups compared to the control group. These changes were suggestive of haematological toxicity induced by oxidative stress caused by glyphosate exposure. In conclusion, the alterations in the haematological parameters such as packed cell volume, hemoglobin concentration, total white blood cell count, neutrophils and lymphocyte counts induced by subchronic glyphosate exposure were found to be differentially ameliorated by pre-treatment with zinc.


My dissertation investigates the production, representation and experience of space in Hellenistic urbanism, architecture, artworks. Considering festivals as spatialized practices, I argue that the Hellenistic urban setting was carefully designed as stages or arenas for the celebration and performance of state ceremonials. To this end, architects used symbolically charged design technologies, such as skenographia which was deeply informed by ancient optical science. I demonstrate that the perspectival developments in architecture, painting and sculpture were closely allied through application of skenographia, forming a unified visual discourse that was highly attentive to the eye of the spectator. I reconstruct the spatial practices in three major sites of Hellenistic Pergamon, namely, the sanctuary of Athena Nikephoros (bringer of Victory), the famous Altar of Zeus, and the sanctuary complex of the theater of Dionysus. Through these reconstructions, I demonstrate that the spatial order of the Hellenistic urban sanctuary facilitated Attalid kings' appropriation of Pergamene urban setting as a constituent of their sovereign power.


Vibrio cholerae bacteria of the serological variety O1 were consistently isolated from water samples by passing the water with added Tween 20 through columns packed with polystyrene beads coated with antibodies against the O1 antigenic determinants. The beads from the columns were washed, transferred to alkaline peptone broth, and incubated. The O1 serovars were isolated and identified by established procedures.


"I do not regard this as an adversary proceeding."(1) - Arlen Specter On the morning of October 11, 1991, Senator Arlen Specter used these words to begin what many observers view as a rather antagonistic interview with Professor Anita F. Hill regarding her allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. For many long hours, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meeting in open session, questioned Hill, Thomas, and other witnesses in attempts to assess the validity, relevance, and consequences of her claims. These hearings, reconvened after Thomas' initial review specifically to address Hill's complaints, captured the attention of home viewers across the country during live television broadcasts, largely because of the unusual drama of such an otherwise dull governmental proceeding. Senator Specter was widely regarded as one of the fiercest figures during this second round of hearings. In the midst of the questioning, TV commentators even "credited him with having 'drawn first blood'," a remark which reportedly pleased and invigorated the senator (Phelps & Winternitz, p. 345). Yet, in the disclaimer quoted above as well as in other instances, Specter maintained that his purpose as examiner was not to attack Hill, but simply "to find out what happened." Given such protestations, how, in his questioning of Hill, did the senator demonstrate hostility toward this witness? Put otherwise, what social structures and argumentative strategies did Specter invoke in this discursive practice to place Hill in a position of such seeming powerlessness? In this article, I suggest that one key resource contributing to the adversarial nature of Specter and Hill's interaction is that of ambiguity, specifically in terms of "selective representation." As it is used here, "selective representation" refers to Specter's consistent pattern of referring back to previous events and testimony through partial and out-of-context descriptions. Warnick and Inch characterize such incomplete depictions as unacceptable: Arguers have an obligation, so far as is possible, to fully inform their recipients about available alternatives so that they can make informed choices about the best choice or course of action. For this reason, slighting or misrepresenting opposing points of view is undesirable. (p. 296) Thus, by continuing to proffer selectively represented descriptions, Specter promoted an adversarial perspective which persisted throughout the hearings. The instances I will examine are taken from the morning of October 11, 1991, Hill's first day of testimony, during Republican designate Specter's first turn at questioning her. Before this point, Hill only read a prepared statement and responded to questions from Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who might be considered a "friendly" examiner of this witness against Republican nominee Thomas. Although Specter and others question Hill at length on different occasions during the hearings, this initial interrogation is an important interaction since it sets the tone for how he (and perhaps all of the Republicans) treats this witness throughout the proceedings. By closely examining how Specter builds his questions and elicits Hill's responses, I will attempt to demonstrate Specter's active role in this "adversarial" proceeding. That I have chosen to examine a text which I feel represents a "hostile" interaction may appear to be a subjective assessment. However, the significant political repercussions arising from his questioning style which Specter experienced in the aftermath of the Thomas hearings provide intersubjective agreement on the part of the American public as to his antagonistic behavior. Immediately after the exchange, Specter's offices in both Washington and Pennsylvania were flooded by thousands of telephone calls from citizens protesting his rough treatment of Hill. "Forty people were put to work in the senator's offices simply answering irate women's calls, which overloaded the telephone system and temporarily put it out of commission" (Phelps and Winternitz, p. …


The centrosome plays a key role in cancer invasion and metastasis. However, it is unclear how abnormal centrosome numbers are regulated when prostate cancer (PCa) cells become metastatic. CP110 was previously described for its contribution of centrosome amplification (CA) and early development of aggressive cell behaviour. However its regulation in metastatic cells remains unclear. Here we identified miR-129-3p as a novel metastatic microRNA. CP110 was identified as its target protein. In PCa cells that have metastatic capacity, CP110 expression was repressed by miR-129-3p. High miR-129-3p expression levels increased cell invasion, while increasing CP110 levels decreased cell invasion. Overexpression of CP110 in metastatic PCa cells resulted in a decrease in the number of metastasis. In tissues of PCa patients, low CP110 and high miR-129-3p expression levels correlated with metastasis, but not with the expression of genes related to EMT. Furthermore, overexpression of CP110 in metastatic PCa cells resulted in excessive-CA (E-CA), and a change in F-actin distribution which is in agreement with their reduced metastatic capacity. Our data demonstrate that miR-129-3p functions as a CA gatekeeper in metastatic PCa cells by maintaining pro-metastatic centrosome amplification (CA) and preventing anti-metastatic E-CA.


Proteochemometric (PCM) modelling is a computational method to model the bioactivity of multiple ligands against multiple related protein targets simultaneously. Hence it has been found to be particularly useful when exploring the selectivity and promiscuity of ligands on different proteins. In this review, we will firstly provide a brief introduction to the main concepts of PCM for readers new to the field. The next part focuses on recent technical advances, including the application of support vector machines (SVMs) using different kernel functions, random forests, Gaussian processes and collaborative filtering. The subsequent section will then describe some novel practical applications of PCM in the medicinal chemistry field, including studies on GPCRs, kinases, viral proteins (e.g. from HIV) and epigenetic targets such as histone deacetylases. Finally, we will conclude by summarizing novel developments in PCM, which we expect to gain further importance in the future. These developments include adding three-dimensional protein target information, application of PCM to the prediction of binding energies, and application of the concept in the fields of pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics. This review is an update to a related publication in 2011 and it mainly focuses on developments in the field since then.


This study assessed the effects of role models in persuasive messages about risk and social norms to increase motivation to obtain hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination in men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM at risk for HBV in The Netherlands (N = 168) were recruited online via a range of websites and were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (risk communication: yes and no) × 2 (social norms communication: yes and no) factorial design. In each condition, participants subsequently provided self-completed assessments of their perceived risk of HBV infection, perceived social norms regarding HBV vaccination and their intention to obtain vaccination against HBV. Risk communication and social norms communication that used social role models were effective in significantly increasing men's intention to obtain vaccination against HBV. No additive effect was found for a combined message. Mediation analyses showed that communications influenced intention via perceived risk and social norms. Findings extend previous theorizing and research and show that both role model-based risk communication and social norms communication can be effective in increasing intentions to obtain HBV vaccination in MSM. This knowledge contributes to the development of effective health promotion to increase HBV vaccination in MSM.


In the present study, thirty dairy cows from each of eight Danish dairy farms were investigated for excretion of glyphosate in urine. Blood serum parameters indicative of cytotoxicity as alkaline phosphatase (AP), glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT), creatinine kinase CK), nephrotoxicity, (urea, creatine), cholesterol and the trace elements as manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co), selenium (Se), copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) were investigated. All cows excreted glyphosate in their urine but in varying concentrations. Increased levels of GLDH, GOT and CK in cows from all farms demonstrate a possible effect of glyphosate on liver and muscle cells. High urea levels in some farms could be due to nephrotoxicity of glyphosate. Also the unexpected very low levels of Mn and Co were observed in all animals which could be explained due to a strong mineral chelating effect of glyphosate. In contrast the mean levels of Cu, Zn and Se were within the normal reference range. In conclusion, this study gives the first documentation to which extent Danish dairy cattle are exposed to Glyphosate and its impact on blood parameters.


Oceanic islands are productive habitats for generating new species and high endemism, which is primarily due to their geographical isolation, smaller population sizes and local adaptation. However, the short divergence times and subtle morphological or ecological divergence of insular organisms may obscure species identity, so the cryptic endemism on islands may be underestimated. The endangered weevil Pachyrhynchus sonani Kôno (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae: Pachyrhynchini) is endemic to Green Island and Orchid Island of the Taiwan‐Luzon Archipelago and displays widespread variation in coloration and host range, thus raising questions regarding its species boundaries and degree of cryptic diversity. We tested the species boundaries of P. sonani using an integrated approach that combined morphological (body size and shape, genital shape, coloration and cuticular scale), genetic (four genes and restriction site‐associated DNA sequencing, RAD‐seq) and ecological (host range and distribution) diversity. The results indicated that all the morphological datasets for male P. sonani, except for the colour spectrum, reveal overlapping but statistically significant differences between islands. In contrast, the morphology of the female P. sonani showed minimum divergence between island populations. The populations of P. sonani on the two islands were significantly different in their host ranges, and the genetic clustering and phylogenies of P. sonani established two valid evolutionary species. Integrated species delimitation combining morphological, molecular and ecological characters supported two distinct species of P. sonani from Green Island and Orchid Island. The Green Island population was described as P. jitanasaius sp.n. Chen & Lin, and it is recommended that its threatened conservation status be recognized. Our findings suggest that the inter‐island speciation of endemic organisms inhabiting both islands may be more common than previously thought, and they highlight the possibility that the cryptic diversity of small oceanic islands may still be largely underestimated.


Systematic and random errors inherently present in all inertial sensors contribute to the long-term divergence of the navigation solution of an Inertial Navigation System (INS). To keep such long-term divergence under control while taking advantage of their excellent short-term performance, an INS is often combined with information from other navigation aids. However, the improvements due to external aiding are limited by the type, accuracy and update period of the information provided by the aid(s). In the case where an INS is aided by GPS, only the long-term inertial errors are suppressed while the short-term inertial errors essentially remain unaffected. A better navigation solution can therefore be expected if most of the short-term inertial sensor noise is reduced prior to data integration. This paper describes a method of inertial data pre-filtering over the frequency band of interest, i.e. between the measurement period of external aiding with GPS and the edge of the motion band. A model for the short-term inertial errors in this band is introduced as a combination of a broad band signal with noise possessing self-similarities over several decades of frequency. The model is defined in the frequency and wavelet domains. A technique for adaptive estimation of the model parameters is introduced. This method is based on an analysis of a short portion of data above the band of interest. Once the model parameters are estimated for a specific system and time-period, the noise distribution is predicted within the band of interest and the signals are de-noised. This filtering methodology is tested using different navigation-grade strapdown inertial systems and the results are presented. A 20% improvement in the attitude determination has been observed under the dynamic conditions with respect to an independent reference.


Environmentalists argue that we need to reduce population and consumption to protect the environment, and that this is something we can all do by individually choosing to have smaller families and buying fewer products. This article questions the ecological effects of such choice. When people have fewer children or reduce their consumption, they save money. What they then do with this money is crucial to the consequences of their actions. If they place it in conventional financial mechanisms, such as banks or stocks, they merely shift the locale of environmental harm since these mechanisms, within a capitalist economy, redeploy savings into further investment and productivity. For individual lifestyle choices to make a difference, environmentalists must find ways of linking such choices to efforts aimed at changing the nature of capitalist economies. If we had effective public policies that redistributed income, forced polluters to pay for the harm they cause, mandated more environmentally friendly technologies, and reduced the workday in the richer parts of the world, we could alter the way we live our material lives.


This paper describes the application of a nonlinear identification method to extract model parameters from the steady-state response of a capacitive dual-backplate microelectromechanical systems microphone. The microphone is modeled as a single-degree-of-freedom second-order system with both electrostatic and mechanical nonlinearities. A harmonic balance approach is applied to the nonlinear governing equation to obtain a set of algebraic equations that relate the unknown system parameters to the steady-state response of the microphone. Numerical simulations of the governing equation are also performed, using theoretical system parameters, to validate the accuracy of the harmonic balance solution for a weakly nonlinear microphone system with low damping. Finally, the microphone is experimentally characterized by extracting the system parameters from the response amplitude and phase relationships of the experimental data.


The 200 km wide, east-west trending Paleoproterozoic mobile belt of the Ammassalik region of South-East Greenland contains a diverse assemblage of Paleoproterozoic and Archean rocks, variably affected by Paleoproterozoic deformations and high-grade low or high pressure metamorphism. By using previous field and geochemical data combined with new zircon dating and zircon trace element geochemistry, this mobile belt is confirmed as a 1870 to 1840 Ma collisional orogen, which contains one or more 1900 to 1880 Ma magmatic suites and northern and southern Archean basement terranes. The most studied 1900 to 1880 Ma magmatic suite is the Ammassalik Intrusive Complex, which is dominated by diorites (with arc-like geochemical signatures and with Paleoproterozoic Nd depleted mantle model ages), which was intruded into sedimentary rocks, (with predominantly Paleoproterozoic detrital zircons). Both these associated rock types show 1900 to 1880 Ma moderate pressure granulite facies metamorphism (7 kbar, ≥ 850°C). Paleoproterozoic mylonites separate the Ammassalik Intrusive Complex from Archean orthogneisses containing 1870 Ma eclogite (≥ 11 kbar, 650 –700°C) and high-pressure granulite facies assemblages in Palaeoproterozoic diabase dike remnants. Associated with these Archean gneisses are pelitic metasediments, marbles and orthoquartzites (with Archean detrital zircon with complex 1870 to 1740 Ma metamorphic rims) that contain kyanite, thereby also showing high-pressure metamorphism. In the Ammassalik area we propose that one or more Paleoproterozoic magmatic arcs with syn-magmatic moderate pressure, high temperature metamorphism were emplaced over the edge of southern Archean continental crust. This resulted in at least doubling of crustal thickness, causing the transient 1870 Ma eclogite to high-pressure granulite facies metamorphic conditions in the buried southern Archean terrane. Archean orthogneisses in the north of the mobile belt preserve low-pressure Archean granulite facies assemblages, and are interpreted as a different terrane at a higher structural level, which was juxtaposed with the southern eclogite-bearing Archean terrane and the lower pressure metamorphism Paleoproterozoic arc rocks during the collisional event(s). This new information from the Ammassalik region is used in a synthesis of Paleoproterozoic crustal accretion and collisional orogeny in Greenland.


A two-wave mixing (TWM) interferometer using photorefractive (PRC) InP:Fe crystal is configured to demodulate the spectral shift of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor. The FBG is illuminated with a broadband source, and any strain in the FBG is encoded as a wavelength shift of the light reflected by the FBG. The wavelength shift is converted into phase shift by means of an unbalanced TWM interferometer. TWM wavelength demodulation is attractive for monitoring dynamic strains because it is adaptive and multiplexable. Adaptivity implies that it can selectively monitor dynamic strains without active compensation of large quasi-static strains and large temperature drifts that otherwise would cause system to drift. Multiplexability implies that several FBG sensors can be simultaneously demodulated using a single demodulator. TWM wavelength demodulation is therefore a cost-effective method of demodulating several spectrally encoded FBG sensors.


This interpretivist study, in the field of information Systems, investigates the process of transformative professional change using a knowledge management lens. The goal of the research was to understand how online communities of practice (CoPs) facilitate the transfer and embedding of professional knowledge. It was guided by the question: How do online CoPs facilitate the transfer and embedding of professional knowledge? This topic was of contemporary and strategic significance in New Zealand: The government had embarked on a strategy to transform teaching in NZ schools, aiming to leverage a major investment in IT infrastructure, using online CoPs to help embed a new paradigm of studentcentred, ICT-enriched learning at system level. There was, however, no research to suggest how this might occur. Despite the increasing use of online CoPs by organisations, and an expansion in the number of tools available for this purpose, there is little understanding of how online CoPs can facilitate knowledge transfer. The way in which knowledge embedding (deep transfer) occurs, and the role online CoPs may play in supporting this process, is particularly poorly understood. This is significant issue in this internet-rich era, when developing nations are aiming to cultivate knowledge economies. I conducted the research using a case research strategy, qualitative methods and an inductive process of theory generation. The research case was a national professional development programme for schools, with five CoP subunits: Four were regionally based school cluster CoPs and one was a distributed blogging community. (Membership of this community overlapped with three of the cluster CoPs.) Based on my analysis of data, and on feedback from participants, I found that three complementary mechanisms were operating simultaneously, facilitating the embedding of knowledge at meso, micro and macro levels. The result of my study is a threelevel explanatory theory. At the meso (school) level, knowledge embedding followed a six-stage cycle, with different activities and issues characterising each stage. Online CoPs played a different role at each stage. At the micro (individual) level, knowledge embedding was driven by teachers' crossings of multiple engagement spaces (communication contexts) in a polycontextual environment. Crossings drove personalisation and facilitated the linking of theory and practice, leading to deep individual understanding. At the macro level, the embedding of knowledge was driven by the brokering function of a middle layer community in a system of overlapping, tiered CoPs. Key roles were played by two kinds of knowledge brokers: connector-leaders and follower-feeders. All three embedding-facilitating mechanisms promoted five fundamental knowledge embedding processes: focusing, persuading, aligning, adapting, and owning (developing ownership).


The research deals with part of the specific epithets in Latin language in binomial botanical names, in particular with those that consist of two separate words. This article proposes linguistic analysis of used grammatical forms as well as their informative value. An appendix of personal names and an index of ancient authors cited in the article, are included to give more thorough and comprehensive interpretation of Latin terms.


The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that the regulation of certain areas of domestic relations, including standing to seek a childcare order, rests within the virtually exclusive province of the states. State lawmakers recently have undertaken many new domestic relations initiatives relevant to parental and nonparental childcare, prompted by new forms of human reproduction, large numbers of nonmarital births, and shifts in in family structures. In this article we review past, current and future state lawmaking on the availability of nonparental childcare and child contact orders for grandparents. Our work coincides with the current inquiries into new model childcare laws by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) involving both parental childcare, via a "Revised Uniform Parentage Act" (RUPA), and nonparental childcare, via a new "Non-Parental Child Custody and Visitation Act" (NPCCVA). Each model will speak in some ways to childcare by grandparents for their grandchildren. We introduce our examination by describing one grandmother's efforts to maintain her connections with her granddaughter after her son's, the father's, tragic death. Upon describing Grandma Penny's efforts to maintain connections with her granddaughter, Sidney, we review the preliminary work of the NCCUSL; the federal constitutional limits on nonparental childcare and child contact orders over parental objections; and, current state laws on opportunities for grandparent childcare and child contact. We then explore the key questions facing state lawmakers considering new grandparent childcare and child contact laws. We find existing laws, and the NCCUSL models to date, inadequate for the likes of Grandma Penny and Sidney.


Abstract Objective: Medical education and teaching skills are core competencies included in the generic curriculum for specialty training. To support the development of these skills, there is need for a validated instrument. This study aims to develop and test an instrument to measure the attributes of specialty trainees as effective teachers. Methods: The study was conducted in two phases. In first phase, the content of the instrument was generated from the literature and tested using the Delphi technique. In second phase, the instrument was field tested for validity and reliability using factor analysis and generalizability study. Feasibility was calculated by the time taken to complete the instrument. Acceptability and educational impact were determined by qualitative analysis of written feedback. Attributes of specialty trainees were assessed by clinical supervisors, peers, and students. Results: The Delphi study produced consensus on 15 statements which formed the basis of the instrument. In field study, a total of 415 instruments were completed. Factor analysis demonstrated a three-factor solution ('learning-teaching milieu', 'teaching skills', and 'learner-orientated'). A generalizability coefficient was 0.92. Mean time to complete the instrument was five minutes. Feedback indicated that it was an acceptable and useful method of assessment. Conclusion: This new instrument provides valid, reliable, feasible, and acceptable assessment of clinical teaching.


Many neonates who are born premature suffer from respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) for which mechanical ventilation and an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device are used in treatment. However, the use of these invasive techniques results in higher risk of complications like bronchopulmonary dysplasia or requires surgery to gain vascular access. An alternative biomimetic approach is to use the umbilical cord as a vascular access and to connect a passive device to the baby that functions like a placenta. This concept, known as the artificial placenta, provides enough oxygenation and causes minimal distress or complications. Herein, we have developed a new artificial placenta-type microfluidic blood oxygenator (APMBO) with high gas exchange, low priming volume and low hydraulic resistance such that it can be operated only by pressure differential provided by the baby's heart. Mimicking the placenta, we have made our new device ultra-thin and flexible so that it can be folded into a desired shape without losing its capability for gas exchange and achieve a compact form factor. The ability to fold allowed optimization of connectors and reduced the overall priming volume to the sub-milliliter range while achieving a high oxygen uptake which would be sufficient for preterm neonates with a birth-weight of around 0.5 kg.


In Gilded Voices, Qiliang He focuses on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, to explore the role of the cultural market in mediating between the state and artists in the PRC era.


Initiated and co-organized a public round-table discussion and screening investigating the impact of CelAction software on the UK animation industry. Co-organisers: Paul Wells (Director, Animation Academy, Loughborough University) and Gareth Howell (Research Assistant). Contributors included Tim Searle (Triffic Films), Kitty Taylor (Tiger Aspect), Iain Harvey (Illuminated Films) and Andy Blazdell (co-creator of CelAction). This discussion furthered understanding of the impact of the CelAction programme, and drew on the knowledge of the group, including the author's experiences working as an art director on CelAction productions such as Charlie and Lola (Tiger Aspect).


The comparative cytotoxic evaluation of two monomers, diacetone acrylamide (DA) and acrylamide (AA) used in holographic photopolymer formulations, is reported. Two normal cell lines were used: BEAS-2B and HaCaT. Cellular viability was assessed using the MTT assay for three different exposure times. A difference of two orders of magnitude is observed in the lethal dose (LD50) concentrations of the two monomers. Diacetone acrylamide exhibits a significantly lower toxicity profile in comparison to acrylamide at all exposure times. This result justifies the replacement of acrylamide with diacetone acrylamide in the photopolymer formulation, with the view to reducing occupational hazard risks for large-scale holographic device fabrication. A comparative study investigating the holographic recording ability of the two photopolymers in transmission mode showed that the DA photopolymer is capable of reaching refractive index modulation values of 3.3 × 10 −3 , which is 80% of the refractive index modulation achieved by the AA photopolymer. This makes the DA-based photopolymers suitable for a wide range of applications.


Objective To investigate the effect of opiate substitution treatment at the beginning and end of treatment and according to duration of treatment. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting UK General Practice Research Database Participants Primary care patients with a diagnosis of substance misuse prescribed methadone or buprenorphine during 1990-2005. 5577 patients with 267 003 prescriptions for opiate substitution treatment followed-up (17 732 years) until one year after the expiry of their last prescription, the date of death before this time had elapsed, or the date of transfer away from the practice. Main outcome measures Mortality rates and rate ratios comparing periods in and out of treatment adjusted for sex, age, calendar year, and comorbidity; standardised mortality ratios comparing opiate users' mortality with general population mortality rates. Results Crude mortality rates were 0.7 per 100 person years on opiate substitution treatment and 1.3 per 100 person years off treatment; standardised mortality ratios were 5.3 (95% confidence interval 4.0 to 6.8) on treatment and 10.9 (9.0 to 13.1) off treatment. Men using opiates had approximately twice the risk of death of women (morality rate ratio 2.0, 1.4 to 2.9). In the first two weeks of opiate substitution treatment the crude mortality rate was 1.7 per 100 person years: 3.1 (1.5 to 6.6) times higher (after adjustment for sex, age group, calendar period, and comorbidity) than the rate during the rest of time on treatment. The crude mortality rate was 4.8 per 100 person years in weeks 1-2 after treatment stopped, 4.3 in weeks 3-4, and 0.95 during the rest of time off treatment: 9 (5.4 to 14.9), 8 (4.7 to 13.7), and 1.9 (1.3 to 2.8) times higher than the baseline risk of mortality during treatment. Opiate substitution treatment has a greater than 85% chance of reducing overall mortality among opiate users if the average duration approaches or exceeds 12 months. Conclusions Clinicians and patients should be aware of the increased mortality risk at the start of opiate substitution treatment and immediately after stopping treatment. Further research is needed to investigate the effect of average duration of opiate substitution treatment on drug related mortality.


In recent years, both formal methods and software reuse have been increasingly advocated as a means of alleviating the ills of the software crisis. During this same time period, purely functional programming languages, which have a long history in the realm of rapid prototyping, have emerged as a viable medium for real-world applications. Since these trends are likely to continue, this work describes a methodology that facilitates the derivation of purely functional programs from existing Z specifications. A unique aspect of the methodology is its incorporation of an intermediate specification language (FunZ) during the design phase of software development.
Most of the previous techniques for translating Z specifications to functional programs were designed primarily to expedite rapid prototyping. In contrast, the FunZ methodology, which is an adapted form of the IBM Hursley method, is a comprehensive approach, spanning the software life cycle from specification through design to final implementation. Due to its greater scope, the FunZ methodology offers several advantages over existing approaches. First, the specification language integrates features from Z with those of the functional programming paradigm to provide a bridge between Z specifications and functional implementations. Since FunZ is expressly designed to target functional languages, the implementor's job is simplified. In fact, a FunZ document looks like extended Haskell code, so an obvious effect in applying FunZ is that the distance from design to code is reduced. Second, the methodology provides a framework for recording design decisions, which is useful for future maintenance. Within this framework, users may select a development path ranging from an intuitive style to a fully formal approach that includes the proofs of functional refinement. Furthermore, FunZ allows software developers to prove properties about a system design within the realm of Z or Haskell. This means that proofs can be performed throughout software development and the designer is free to select the most appropriate notation.
In summary, the intermediate specification language FunZ and its related methodology provide software developers with a complete, formal approach for translating Z specifications to Haskell implementations. Previously, such extensive methods were only available for traditional, imperative languages.


Land and wealth are closely related in rural Brazil, a country characterized by high levels of inequality in terms of income or landholdings. After presenting a historical retrospective of land concentration and land reform in Brazil, this study evaluates the impact of the land reform programme undertaken in the 1990s on land ownership and land distribution. It is shown that the programme increased landownership among poor rural families and those with less educated household heads, reducing the fraction of the other families with landholding. Also, the land reform programme increased land inequality among landowners.


Critical size bone defects after fracture or malignant tumour resection are still a
challenge to repair in orthopaedics. Stem cell therapy combined with cytokines and
bone grafts has the potential to improve outcomes. However, this application has its
drawbacks preventing it from popular clinical use. The large number of stem cells
required for transplantation is often a limiting factor.
The goal of this thesis was to make the stem cells more effective and efficient in
bone repair thus potentially reducing the required number of cells. In this study I
engineered stem cells by the introduction of a gene to over express stromal cellderived
factor-1 (SDF-1), a pivotal chemokine that has been proved to regulate cell
migration, with the hypothesis that these cells would effectively increase the
migration of native cells to the site of the repair, thus, enhancing bone repair. In vitro
treatment of recombinant SDF-1 to human mesenchymal stem cells induced
significantly greater osteogenic differentiation compared with control cells (p=0.024)
and increased the migration of non-infected cells in a trans-well migration test
(p=0.04). In a rat femoral bone defect model, using a low number of bone marrow
cells, resulted in no difference in bone formation compared control defects without
cells. Interestingly, the same number of bone marrow cells overexpressing SDF-1
showed significantly (86% increase, p=0.02) more new bone formation within the
gap and less bone mineral loss at the area adjacent to the defect site during the early
bone healing stage. A greater number of donor cells transfected with SDF-1
remained in the repair site compared with the control non-transfected site. An
additional second cell injection of cells at 3 weeks was applied to the fracture but did
not result in increased new bone formation but did reduce bone mineral loss at this
time point.
This thesis demonstrates that by applying stem cells transfected with SDF-1, bone
fracture healing was improved using a low cell number, which is a non-optimal
condition for normal stem cell transplantation. This suggests that SDF-1 transfected
cells recruited more host's stem cells into the fracture gap or resulted in greater
osteogenic differentiation, preventing bone loss and increasing bone formation. These findings need further investigations to reveal the mechanism of SDF-1 in bone
healing by studying the effects of down stream signaling pathway of SDF-1, the cell
type of the recruited cells and the angiogenesis in the defect site.


During the stay of the Nica-detachment at Port Dickson, Malaya, in March 1946, a small collection of fishes was made, which was presented by Major Dr. L. D. Brongersma to the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie at Leiden. Besides these fishes from Malaya, two specimens of flying fishes from the Indian Ocean were presented. The collection from Port Dickson was pretty small, 45 specimens in total, belonging to 25 species. It gives therefore by no means an idea of the fishfauna of Malaya. The fishfauna of the Westcoast of Malaya is still imperfectly known, so even this small collection can contribute to the knowledge of this fauna. The species are arranged according to the system followed by M. Weber & L. F. de Beaufort in their Fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago. The length of the specimens is the total length. PORT DICKSON, MALAYA, MARCH 1946 Stolephorus indicus (v. Hasselt) 2 specimens of 39 and 45 mm. Plotosus canius H.B. 1 specimen of 41 mm. Muraena (Gymnothorax) meleagris Shaw 1 specimen of 157 mm. Syngnathoides biaculeatus (Bl.) 4 specimens of 127-141 mm. Hippocampus kuda Blkr. 1 specimen of 136 mm from tip of coronet to end of tail. Zenarchopterus quadrimaculatus Mohr


ABSTRACT Feminist pedagogies hold potential to create more inclusive and transformative classrooms. Adopting a tension-centered approach, we draw on our individual and collective reflections on the design and instruction of a multisection undergraduate organizational communication course to build an autoethnographic account of the tensions associated with enacting feminist pedagogies. Specifically, we unpack the ways tensions emerged as we strove to align our practice with specific feminist pedagogical principles—building nonhierarchical relations, encouraging multivocality, and caring for students—and how we made sense of and discursively managed these tensions. In doing so, we dissect the ways that tensions are communicatively constituted, gauge how to transform our pedagogy by reframing dualisms into dialectics, emphasize the importance of reflexivity, and, finally, offer practical strategies for communication instructors who seek strategies for transforming classrooms.


A major transition to a low carbon electricity and energy generation system is anticipated. Technical and institutional change is required for the UK Government to reach its target of an 80% reduction in CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions by 2050, and a 20% reduction by 2020. The energy infrastructure requires investment, and re-design, to continue to meet predicted UK demand whilst aiding in a reduction in CO2 emissions and improving supply security. Four outline transition pathways have been developed that depict a diverse range of realistic predictions for the transition of the UK gas and electricity infrastructure to a low carbon economy from 2008 until 2052. This paper focuses on evaluating future CO2 emission reductions in the UK electricity grid, out to 2052, from one of the pathways entitled 'Market Rules'. Results are given for future trends in CO2 emissions from 2003 to 2052. Future CO2 intensities, measured in g/kWh, are also analysed. Findings of this work indicate that a large reduction in CO2 emissions is possible due to both CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) and future gas turbine technological improvement. Further, there is a great variance in publicised UK electricity system CO2 emissions and CO2 intensity, from UK and European energy statistics, leading to an unclear determination of a realistic trend in future emissions for 'Market Rules'.


It is generally assumed that the vimentin intermediate filament network present in most mesenchymally-derived cells is in part responsible for the strength and integrity of these cells, and necessary for any tissue movements that require the generation of significant tractional forces. Surprisingly, we have shown that transgenic KO mice deficient for vimentin are apparently able to undergo embryonic development absolutely normally and go onto develop into adulthood and breed without showing any obvious phenotype. However, fibroblasts derived from these mice are mechanically weak and severely disabled in their capacity to migrate and to contract a 3-D collagen network. To assess whether these functions are necessary for more challenging tissue movements such as those driving in vivo tissue repair processes, we have analysed wound healing ability in wild-type versus vimentin-deficient embryos and adult mice. Wounds in vimentin-deficient adult animals showed delayed migration of fibroblasts into the wound site and subsequently retarded contraction that correlated with a delayed appearance of myofibroblasts at the wound site. Wounds made to vimentin-deficient embryos also failed to heal during the 24 hour culture period it takes for wild-type embryos to fully heal an equivalent wound. By DiI marking the wound mesenchyme and following its fate during the healing process we showed that this impaired healing is almost entirely due to a failure of mesenchymal contraction at the embryonic wound site. These observations reveal an in vivo phenotype for the vimentin-deficient mouse, and challenge the dogma that key morphogenetic events occurring during development require generation of significant tractional forces by mesenchymal cells.


Our ability to detect prominent changes in complex acoustic scenes depends not only on the ear's sensitivity but also on the capacity of the brain to process competing incoming information. Here, employing a combination of psychophysics and magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigate listeners' sensitivity in situations when two features belonging to the same auditory object change in close succession. The auditory object under investigation is a sequence of tone pips characterized by a regularly repeating frequency pattern. Signals consisted of an initial, regularly alternating sequence of three short (60 msec) pure tone pips (in the form ABCABC…) followed by a long pure tone with a frequency that is either expected based on the on-going regular pattern ("LONG expected"—i.e., "LONG-expected") or constitutes a pattern violation ("LONG-unexpected"). The change in LONG-expected is manifest as a change in duration (when the long pure tone exceeds the established duration of a tone pip), whereas the change in LONG-unexpected is manifest as a change in both the frequency pattern and a change in the duration. Our results reveal a form of "change deafness," in that although changes in both the frequency pattern and the expected duration appear to be processed effectively by the auditory system—cortical signatures of both changes are evident in the MEG data—listeners often fail to detect changes in the frequency pattern when that change is closely followed by a change in duration. By systematically manipulating the properties of the changing features and measuring behavioral and MEG responses, we demonstrate that feature changes within the same auditory object, which occur close together in time, appear to compete for perceptual resources.


Whispering gallery mode biosensors have been widely exploited over the past decade to study molecular interactions by virtue of their high sensitivity and applicability in real-time kinetic analysis without the requirement to label. There have been immense research efforts made for advancing the instrumentation as well as the design of detection assays, with the common goal of progressing towards real-world sensing applications. We therefore review a set of recent developments made in this field and discuss the requirements that whispering gallery mode label-free sensors need to fulfill for making a real world impact outside of the laboratory. These requirements are directly related to the challenges that these sensors face, and the methods proposed to overcome them are discussed. Moving forward, we provide the future prospects and the potential impact of this technology.


Pulsed- and continuous-wave type-I and type-II difference-frequency generations (DFGs) in monolithic AlGaAs Bragg reflection waveguides were comparatively investigated. Phase matching bandwidth of exceeding 40 nm was observed in all the processes. Highest difference-frequency (DF) power of 2.45 nW was obtained in continuous-wave type-II interaction with the average external pump and signal powers of 62.9 and 2.9 mW, respectively. The corresponding nonlinear conversion efficiency is about 1.3×10−3% W−1 for a sample with a length of 1.5 mm. Using split-step Fourier method, the impacts of third-order nonlinearities including two-photon absorption and self-phase modulation on the efficiency of the DFG are numerically investigated. Furthermore, the adverse effects of group velocity mismatch and group velocity dispersion of the interacting frequencies on the efficiency of the pulsed nonlinear process are theoretically studied. Simulations indicate that the dominant factors in limiting the efficiency of the pulsed interaction are group velocity mismatch between pump and DF signal and two-photon absorption of the interacting waves.


A model for logic programming of real time computing systems is presented. The model is based on the process interpretation of Horn-Clause Logic and employs a non-deterministic committed-choice stream-And parallel search strategy. A real time computing system is represented as a network of communicating goals where each goal maintains its own logical clock which can be read and set by the node reduction process. The system of distributed logical clocks satisfies Lamport's correctness and distributed synchronisation conditions. The programming language is a variant of GHC to which many features are borrowed from PARLOG. Primitives to express time and timing constraints are provided. A meta-interpreter is given to describe the operational semantics of the language and the implementability of the model in the language itself. A telecommunications switching system has been specified and implemented in terms of the model presented here. It is also shown that the fairness problem has a natural solution in the proposed logical frame work. This is illustrated through a real time fair binary merge operator.


Th is paper addresses the status of History teaching and learning in Lesotho which is at its lowest ebb. Very few schools teach the subject and the poor Junior Certifi cate (JC) examination results exacerbate the situation. An analysis of the examiners' comments in the last seven years points to poor and/or lack of essay writing skills among the candidates as one of the main reasons behind the high failure rate in JC History. In recognition of the situation's implications for 'quality' teacher education, this study proposes (1) rigorous preand in-service training in the teaching of History essay writing, and (2) vigilant monitoring that ensures constant practice and dedicated delivery of the required skills by trainees to JC History learners in order to improve the examination results.


Cisplatin, as a platinum-based chemotherapeutic medication, is applied for various types of solid tumors. Regarding the treatment of cancer cells, cisplatin is potentially accompanied with some side effects such as nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and ototoxicity in spite of high efficacy of Cisplatin. The present study aimed to determine whether the use of oral sertraline can contribute to preserve hearing threshold among the patients who receive cisplatin or not. This research has done for one year, along with a 3 months course and follow-up. This is a double-blind, randomized, and placebo-controlled trial study. The study was conducted in Oncology Clinic and Audiology Department of Firoozgar University Hospital in Tehran, Iran. Among 112 patients, 79 patients who were suffering from different types of solid tumors and were candidates for receiving cisplatin for chemotherapy treatment were selected. The grade of hearing impairment and otoacoustic emission in the first day and the last stage of the study was used for data analysis. Among 112 patients, 79 patients were randomly selected to receive either sertraline (50 mg/d) as the case group, or placebo as the control group. Before and after the treatments, the patients were assessed by High-Frequency Audiometry and dpOAE tests. First, the two groups were distributed homogeneously based on sex and age. Based on Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), the Ototoxicity Grade indicated a significantly lower grade of deficits in the Sertraline group (p<0.001), compared to that of the control group. In addition, a significant difference was observed between the two groups regarding the changes in the threshold of dpOAE (p=0.000). The daily consumption of sertraline (50 mg/d) among the adults who were candidates for chemotherapy treatment with cisplatin could result in preserving the hearing threshold significantly.


Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) accommodate the study of overdispersion and correlation inherent in hierarchically structured data. These models are an extension of generalized linear models (GLMs) and linear mixed models (LMMs). The linear predictor of a GLM is extended to include an unobserved, albeit realized, vector of Gaussian distributed random effects. Conditional on these random effects, responses are assumed to be independent. The objective function for parameter estimation is an integrated quasi-likelihood (IQL) function which is often intractable since it may consist of high-dimensional integrals. Therefore, an exact maximum likelihood analysis is not feasible. The penalized quasi-likelihood (PQL) function, derived from a first-order Laplace expansion to the IQL about the optimum value of the random effects and under the assumption of slowly varying weights, is an approximate technique for statistical inference in GLMMs. Replacing the conditional weighted quasi-deviance function in the Laplace-approximated IQL by the generalized chi-squared statistic leads to a corrected profile quasilikelihood function for the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimation of dispersion components by Fisher scoring. Evaluation of mean parameters, for fixed dispersion components, by iterative weighted least squares (IWLS) yields joint estimates of fixed effects and random effects. Thus, the PQL criterion involves repeated fitting of a Gaussian LMM with a linked response vector and a conditional iterated weight matrix. In some instances, PQL estimates fail to converge to a neighbourhood of their true values. Bias-corrected PQL estimators (CPQL) have hence been proposed, using asymptotic analysis and simulation. The pseudo-likelihood algorithm is an alternative estimation procedure for GLMMs. Global score statistics for hypothesis testing of overdispersion, correlation and heterogeneity in GLMMs has been developed as well as individual score statistics for testing null dispersion components separately. A conditional mean squared error of prediction (CMSEP) has also been considered as a general measure of predictive uncertainty. Local influence measures for testing the robustness of parameter estimates, by inducing minor perturbations into GLMMs, are recent advances in the study of these models. Commercial statistical software is available for the analysis of GLMMs.


The relationship between budget deficits and macroeconomic variables (such as growth, interest rates, trade deficit, exchange rate, among others) represents one of the most widely debated topics among economists and policy makers in both developed and developing countries. However, the purpose of this paper is to review the extensive literature to such a relationship, concentrating on theoretical debates and empirical studies, in order to derive substantive conclusions, which can be beneficial in the macroeconomics area; policy analysis; or in terms of constructing or developing a macroeconomic model for analyzing the impact of budget deficits on macroeconomic variables. The majority of these studies regress a macroeconomic variable on the deficit variable. These studies are cross-country and utilize time series data. In general the key outcomes from the studies presented in this paper indicated that both the method of financing and the components of government expenditures could have different effects. Therefore, it is crucial for the government to distinguish between consumption and investment expenditures especially when the government is in the process of evaluating the impact of fiscal policy on private investment and output growth or in the process of cutting expenditures to reduce the fiscal imbalances in the country. Even though the overall results from the empirical literature with respect to the impact of public investment on private investment and growth are ambiguous, the bulk of the empirical studies find a significantly negative effect of public consumption expenditure on growth, while the effects of public investment expenditure (such as on education, healthcare) are found to be positive although less robust. The key findings from these studies is important in particular for developing countries to be aware of the importance of government investment expenditures in the area of education, healthcare, infrastructure to long-term economic growth and the benefits from which are an important contributor to welfare and well-being. The key outcome from all of the studies presented in this paper while investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and current account deficit showed strong evidence in both developed and developing countries towards supporting the Keynesian proposition (conventional view) which suggests that an increase in the budget deficit would induce domestic absorption and, hence import expansion, causing a current account deficit. The key findings from the empirical studies investigating the relationship between the budget deficit and interest rates indicated strong evidence towards supporting the Keynesian model of a significant and positive relationship between budget deficits and interest rates. The major outcomes from the empirical studies examining the relationship between budget deficits and inflation showed strong evidence that the budget deficit financed through monetization and a rising money supply could lead to inflation.


The annual British Social Attitudes survey is carried out by Britain's largest independent social research organisation, the National Centre for Social Research. It provides an indispensable guide to political and social issues in contemporary Britain. This 26th Report summarises and interprets data from the most recent nationwide survey, as well as drawing invaluable comparisons with the findings of previous years to provide a richer picture and deeper understanding of changing British social values. The British Social Attitudes survey report is essential reading for anyone seeking a guide to the topical issues and debates of today or engaged in contemporary social and political research.


Environmental, political, and economic events seem to conspire simultaneously towards the objective to erase coal-fired power plants. The most important events are: the increase of environmental regulations, the surge of natural gas as a cleaner fuel, the operative costs, the aging and the efficiency issue of the coal-fired power plants. However, the decision of the U.S.A. Supreme Court, the 29 th of June 2015, suspended the regulation proposals presented by the U.S.A. Environmental Protection Agency concerning the mercury emissions of coal-fired power plants. This decision caused debate and controversy. The main objective of the sustainable approach for electricity generation is to find the blending of fuels that decrease contamination. However, the contradiction of different events in the world poses the challenge to evaluate if the XXI Century will see the end of the coal era. Could the technological breakthroughs like the Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) and the development of other Clean Energy Technologies on Coal (CCT) stop this trend or, will the financial and environmental profitability of coal help it to remain in the energy mix?