Questions exist as to whether growth-inhibiting chemicals mimic the effects of reduced mowing heights on putting green ball roll. An experiment was initiated during Spring 1997 to investigate ball roll and visual quality parameters of putting greens maintained at 3.2, 4.0, or 4.8 mm with plant growth regulator (PGR) treatments applied monthly over the course of 1 year. Additional experiments were conducted during Fall 1995 and 1996 and Spring 1996 to investigate diurnal PGR effects on ball roll. All experiments were conducted on pure stands of 'Penncross' creeping bentgrass ( Agrostis palustris Huds). Treatments included trinexapac-ethyl and paclobutrazol, both inhibitors of gibberellin biosynthesis. In the one-year experiment, mowing height was inversely related to ball roll. However, compromises in turfgrass visual quality and shoot density in 'Penncross' turf mowed at 3.2 mm make this a questionable mowing height in areas with severe summer conditions. Ball roll during summer months was reduced by PGRs, suggesting that PGRs have little potential as alternatives to decreasing mowing height for increased ball roll. Paclobutrazol reduced turfgrass quality and shoot density during summer months, suggesting that it be used with caution. Other PGRs, particularly trinexapac-ethyl at 0.05 kg·ha -1 a.i., increased afternoon ball roll by as much as 5% to 10% in diurnal experiments. Use of PGRs on creeping bentgrass putting greens may therefore produce short-lived increases in ball roll with subtle to negative effects on bentgrass growth over more extended periods of time. Chemical names used: 4-(cyclopropyl- α- hydroxymethylene)-3,5-dioxocyclohexane carboxylic acid ethylester (trinexapac-ethyl); (+/-)-(R*,R*)-β-((4-chloro-phenyl)methyl)-α-(1,1dimethylethyl)-1H-1,2,4-triazole-1- ethanol (paclobutrazol).


OBJECTIVE
To review recent advances in medication practices and standards of care in the treatment of schizophrenia and examine the disparity between the knowledge base and clinical practice.

DATA SOURCES
Key literature on medication practices, novel pharmacotherapies, and the evolution of practice guidelines for schizophrenia were reviewed.

DISCUSSION
Emerging data demonstrate a lack of consistent application of current knowledge and best practices, in part due to major structural inconsistencies in the public mental health system. Implementation of results from effectiveness research as well as the incorporation of practice guidelines may help bridge this gap.

CONCLUSION
As standards of care for schizophrenia are developed, the following issues will need particular attention: coordination with the criminal justice system, comprehensive treatment of comorbid illnesses, outcomes based on symptoms in all domains, and continuous and integrated collection of data to produce rational cost justification.


The results of thermal recycling of rubber in the fluidized bed are
 presented. Two different types of the bed material were used: sand and low
 density spheres (cenospheres). For two bed types, rubber decomposition
 time, as the mass and the bed temperature functions, were determined. Time
 of the samples residence time was calculated with the assumption, that
 reactor and the analytical block may be described with the well-stirred
 model. Time of samples decomposition, decrease with increasing temperature,
 as expected. It was also established, there are significant deviations
 between shirking core model, and obtained results of the residence time as
 a mass function. Cenospheric bed application allows to reduce of the process
 pressure drop, and caused shift of the gas decomposition products zone to
 the deeper region of the bed. Acoustic and optical effects confirmed
 significant differences between combustion of sand and cenospheric bed.
 Higher frequency of bubbles explosions and reduction of diffusive flames
 number were observed during incineration in cenospheric bed. The
 relationship between exhaust emission (VOC, CO, NOx) and type of the bed
 was not confirmed, the identical situation is observed for the samples
 combustion time. In the presented manuscript, the above physical quantity
 depends almost completely on sample type and bed temperature.


Land reform has been a part of the South African government's strategy since the late 1980s when the first tentative steps were made to address the extreme inequities and segregation in relation to land. The 1991 White Paper on Land Reform initiated some important policy proposals around land reform and called for the repeal of some of the most notorious discriminatory legislation. The issues around property that were thrashed out during the Codesa negotiations led to the incorporation of land restitution provisions in the interim Constitution of 1993 and resulted in a carefully crafted property clause in the 1996 Constitution. The second part of this property clause authorises state action to promote land and related reforms. Given its scope, land reform has developed into a distinct area of the law, with its own unique, comprehensive, and at times confusing set of policies and legislation. Professor Juanita Pienaar has now systematised this very extensive material in a seminal publication. Land Reform is the fifth title in Juta's Property Law Library Series. As such, its point of departure is a property law one, but it links all the relevant constitutional and human rights considerations.


Background: Natural organic matter is the cause of many problems associated with water treatment such as the presence of disinfection by-products (DBPs) and membrane fouling during water filtration. In this study, the performance of the peroxi-electrocoagulation process (PEP) was investigated for the removal of humic acids (HAs) from aqueous solutions.Methods: PEP was carried out for the removal of HA using a plexiglas reactor with a volume of 2 L and fitted with iron electrodes and a direct current supply (DC). Samples were taken at various amounts of pH (2-4), current density (1 and 2A/cm2), hydrogen peroxide (50-150 mg/L) and reaction time (5-20 minutes) and then filtered to remove sludge formed during reaction. Finally, the HA concentration was measured by UV absorbance at 254 nm (UV254).Results: Results indicated that increasing the concentration of H2O2 from 50 to 150 mg/L increased HA removal efficiency from 83% to 94.5%. The highest removal efficiency was observed at pH 3.0; by increasing the pH to the alkaline range, the efficiency of the process was reduced. It was found that HA removal efficiency was high in current density 1A/cm2. Increasing current density up to 1 A cm-2 caused a decrease in removal efficiency. Results of this study showed that under the optimum operating range for the process ([current density]=1A/cm2, [hydrogen peroxide concentration]=150 mg/L, [reaction time]=20 minutes and [pH]=3.0), HA removal efficiency reached 98%.Conclusion: It can be concluded that PEP has the potential to be utilized for cost-effective removal of HA from aqueous solutions.


The goal of this paper is to observe whether and how harmful algal blooms are capitalized in home prices in several Ohio counties along Lake Erie. Harmful algal blooms have increased in severity and frequency, reducing the amenity value of the lake, posing health risks, and even threatening the drinking water supply. To address the problems of omitted variable bias due to unobserved emitter sites, we employ a repeat sales model. We find that a reduction of 1μg/L of chlorophyll-a yields a 2% increase in home prices, though the effect decays rapidly by distance. Secchi disk depth, while previous found to be significant in the literature, is statistically insignificant when utilizing repeat sales, and we find noticeable evidence of omitted variable bias when we do not control for emitter effects.


The 2.7 kilometers double track elevated viaducts of Doha metro green line, currently under construction, consist of cast-in-situ and precast segmental simply supported spans ranging from 20 to 35 m and continuous cast-insitu two and three spans (30-57 m), (50-51-44 m) and (37-68-37 m) U-trough decks. The non-typical configuration of the continuous span arrangements was imposed to the designer by existing underneath utilities and infrastructures. In order to ensure the passenger comfort and traffic safety by preventing track instability during train operation for this special landmark project, performing a dynamic analysis was vital. The dynamic analysis focuses on the vertical accelerations and vertical displacements as well as lateral frequencies of vibration. All simply supported spans as well as the continuous spans of the project are considered. The real train of the project composed of 6 vehicles with a total length of 120m and with actual axle loads (maximum axle load of 160 kN with 4 axles per vehicle) is adopted in the dynamic analysis. The analysis is carried out using both direct time integration of the equation of motion and modal time history analysis for different train speeds ranging from 60 km/hr to the maximum permissible speed along the metro line (160 km/hr) with the maximum operating speed ranging from 100 to 130 km/hr. For each train speed the maximum vertical acceleration and the maximum vertical deflection are monitored using the CSI bridge software and are compared to the allowable values given in EN 1991-2 and EN 1990-Annex 2. According to relevant Euronorm requirements, the vertical accelerations and the vertical deflections were found acceptable for all segments of the elevated viaduct.


Existing analyses of neural network training often operate under the unrealistic assumption of an extremely small learning rate. This lies in stark contrast to practical wisdom and empirical studies, such as the work of J. Cohen et al. (ICLR 2021), which exhibit startling new phenomena (the"edge of stability"or"unstable convergence") and potential benefits for generalization in the large learning rate regime. Despite a flurry of recent works on this topic, however, the latter effect is still poorly understood. In this paper, we take a step towards understanding genuinely non-convex training dynamics with large learning rates by performing a detailed analysis of gradient descent for simplified models of two-layer neural networks. For these models, we provably establish the edge of stability phenomenon and discover a sharp phase transition for the step size below which the neural network fails to learn"threshold-like"neurons (i.e., neurons with a non-zero first-layer bias). This elucidates one possible mechanism by which the edge of stability can in fact lead to better generalization, as threshold neurons are basic building blocks with useful inductive bias for many tasks.


The implementation of weather radars in Norway by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) has made radar a potential tool to improve hydrologic predictions through the use of distributed precipitation input. Met.no supplies gauge-adjusted quantitative hourly radar precipitation estimates. A key concern regarding the use of radar precipitation estimates in hydrology is their accuracy. In this study, the precipitation estimates from the Rissa radar in Norway were evaluated through a comparison with observations from 112 gauges used in the adjustment (dependent) and 15 gauges not included in the adjustment (independent). The comparison with daily measurements from the dependent gauges showed a decline in the radar9s detection probability beyond a range of about 140 km, with a more severe decline in winter. The deviations between radar- and gauge-conditional mean precipitation were significantly higher in summer than in winter. There was an overestimation at most of the gauge locations during summer, while there were more underestimations during winter. A dependence of accuracy on range was identified from the spatial distribution of the Efficiency Index and mean absolute difference. The evaluation against the independent gauges revealed trends mostly similar to the ones obtained from comparison with the dependent gauges. The radar estimates exhibited better agreement with gauge measurements during winter. The main reasons for the errors remaining in the gauge-adjusted precipitation estimates are the absence of correction for the vertical profile of reflectivity, the use of average monthly adjustment factors, derivation of these factors using data from previous years and the use of a single reflectivity–precipitation rate ( Z – R ) relation.


In This work we present an efficient image categorization and retrieval system applied to Image Clef 2009 medical image retrieval task. In this task we have presented methodology is based on local patch representation of the image content and a bag-of-features approach for defining image categories, with a kernel based SVM classifier. Two main tasks are addressed: First organ identification task; second the detection and identification of pathologies, i.e. shifting from the organ level to pathology level analysis. We used a large generic archive of 12,000 radiographs (IRMA) to tune the system parameters. We demonstrate automated organ detection on the IRMA collection as well as the generalization to a new data collection. We submitted one run, using support-vector-machines trained on the visual word histograms in multiple scales. We proposed system was helped to find discriminating orientation and body regions in X-ray images also organ-level discrimination we show an application to pathology level categorization of chest X-ray data. Results indicate detection of pathology at a sensitivity of 88.4% and a specificity of 81%. This is first step towards similarity-based medical image categorization that has a major clinical importance in computer-assisted diagnostics. It can identify suspicious pathological X-rays and alert the referring clinicians to potential emergencies. Overall it is hoped that the development of such systems will contribute to the improvement of safety and quality of medical services


Many official economic indicators are released with a time lag, released infrequently and often require revision. In this Commentary, I discuss new sources of electronically recorded data that are both timely and reflect the real-time intentions of millions (or billions) of agents. Specifically, I consider whether Google searches and the growth of electronic payments variables, such as debit and credit card transactions, would have predicted the 2008 – 2009 recession. Not too long ago, Canadian empirical macroeconomic researchers would have to wait two months for the release of the monthly National Accounts in order to update their models and forecasts. However, in the last 10 years to 20 years, technological innovations have resulted in vast amounts of other data being recorded electronically and stored. New data series are now being generated at a rate faster than analysts can study them. Due to the emergence of Google as the dominant search engine, its search-term usage can provide a snapshot of current group interests in numerous issues, such as economics, politics, health, etc. In principle, if many people are entering the same economic search terms, this could provide a clue about changing conditions, such as the onset of a recession. I find that the usage of Google search terms "recession" and "jobs" could have predicted the recession up to three months in advance of its onset. However, since Google query data are only available from 2004, the time span studied in this Commentary is very short in the context of business cycles. Consequently, our study should be viewed as illustrative of the potential uses of electronic data. I also highlight the benefits and pitfalls that users of Google data may encounter in the context of economic monitoring.


The popular pressures for reforms of the democratic process have mounted across the OECD nations over the past generation. In response, democratic institutions are changing, evolving, expanding in ways that may alter the structure of the democratic process. These changes include reforms of representative democracy proceses, the expansion of direct democracy, and the introduction of new forms of advocacy democracy. Indeed, some observers claim that we are witnessing the most fundamental transformation of the democratic process since the creation of mass democracy in the early 20th Century. This essay first summarizes the institutional reforms that are occurring in advanced industrial democracies. Given these changes, we consider how each of the three modes fulfills Dahl's criteria for democracy, and how the shifting patterns of democratic access are transforming the relationship between citizens and their political system. This essay is adapted from their edited volume, Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2003).


In vitro metabolic behavior was investigated for two chromium tricarbonyl derivatives of the antischistosomal drug praziquantel (PZQ) with the formula (η(6)-PZQ)Cr(CO)3 (1 and 2), by use of human liver microsomes. The metabolic profiles of the derivatives differ significantly. The optically pure (η(6)-PZQ)Cr(CO)3 derivatives (S, Sp)-1, (R, Rp)-1, (S, Rp)-2, and (R, Sp)-2 were also prepared to assess the eudysmic ratios of 1 and 2 against Schistosoma mansoni in vitro. A strong enantioselective antischistosomal activity was observed. The R-enantiomers are highly active against adult schistosomes in vitro (IC50 0.08-0.13 μM), whereas both S-enantiomers lack activity. The in vivo activity of 1 and 2 was then studied in mice harboring a chronic S. mansoni infection. A single dose of 1 and 2 (400 mg/kg) resulted in low worm burden reductions of 24% and 29% (p > 0.05).


Parallel and concurrent software is more complex than sequential code because interactions between concurrent computations and the ordering of program events can vary across executions. This nondeterministic variation is hard to understand and control, introducing the potential for concurrency bugs. This dissertation addresses two challenges related to concurrency bugs, focusing on shared-memory multi-threaded programs. First, concurrency bugs are hard to find, understand, and fix, but debugging is essential to software correctness. Second, concurrency bugs cause schedule-dependent failures that degrade system reliability. Targeting debugging, we develop two new concurrency debugging techniques based on statistical analysis and novel abstractions of inter-thread communication. These techniques isolate communications related to bugs and reconstruct failing executions. We show several hardware and software system designs that efficiently implement these techniques. Targeting the avoidance of schedule-dependent failures, we then develop two techniques for automatically avoiding schedule-dependent failures due to atomicity violations, a common concurrent program failure. We use specialized serializability analyses to identify code that should be atomic and system support to enforce atomicity. We implement these techniques with architecture and system support. Finally, we develop a mechanism for general schedule-dependent failure avoidance. We use a statistical analysis and leverage large communities of deployed systems to learn how to constrain executions to avoid previously seen failures. We show a software-only distributed system implementation that avoids real software failures with overheads low enough for production use.


Credit for the swift unification of Japan following the 1868 overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate is usually given to the national leaders who instigated the coup and formed the new Meiji government. But is brilliant leadership at the top sufficient to explain how regional separatist tendencies and loyalties to the old lords were overcome in the formation of a nationally unified state? On the contrary, argues James C. Baxter. Though plans were drawn up by policy makers in Tokyo, the efforts of citizens all over the country were required to implement these plans and create a sense of national identity among local populations. Drawing on extensive archival resources, Baxter describes the transformation of the Tokugawa domain of Kaga into the Meiji prefecture of Ishikawa. The result is a richly detailed study that helps explain how Japan achieved national unity without the bloody struggles that have often accompanied modernization and nation-building.


Through "Teaching Games for Understanding: Theory, Research, and Practice," you can- gain a comprehensive perspective of the teaching games for understanding (TGfU) model, seeing it in context of its influences and evolution;- tap into the latest research and findings in the model, learning from worldwide experts in each of the topics covered;- consider how students learn best, what should be taught, and why it should be taught using the TGfU model; and- learn how to apply the TGfU approach at all educational levels.Teaching games for understanding (TGfU) is a dynamic approach to sport education that has gained worldwide popularity over the past 25 years. Now, through "Teaching Games for Understanding: Theory, Research, and Practice," readers can discover the latest refinements and up-to-date research from the world's highest-regarded experts on the topic. This book presents a comprehensive look at the TGfU model and provides multiple perspectives from 17 contributors in 6 countries. As such, it is a valuable resource for preservice and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and coaches around the world. It details the history, theory, research, and practice of the approach (also known as the tactical games model and the games sense model) and enables readers to better understand and apply TGfU."Teaching Games for Understanding" includes the following features: - Opening scenarios or quotes to make the material relevant and draw the reader in- Discussion questions for each chapter to facilitate understanding and provide teachers with a ready-made starting point for review of the material- Chapter-ending summaries that present an overview of the material to help students test their understanding and recall the contentsNever before has a book presented such an all-encompassing analysis of the TGfU model. Every angle is covered. The book explores why and how to involve students in the construction of games, how to use the model in curriculums at the elementary and secondary levels and in teacher education programs, and how assessment factors in. It examines how to integrate the model with sport education, covers the social interactions and decision-making processes involved in the model, and details the implications of model-based instruction for research on teaching. It also presents real-life stories of teachers successfully implementing this approach. Finally, it takes a look at the future direction for TGfU, considering its continuing evolution.Highly readable and widely applicable, "Teaching Games for Understanding: Theory, Research, and Practice" is a vital text in the field of sport education, affording readers a solid foundation for understanding and using TGfU.


While subsistence poaching is a large threat to wildlife conservation in Southern Africa, this behaviour is seldom researched. Individual and community level factors that really drive such behaviour are less understood because of both lack of data and literature's predominant focus on commercial poaching. To study the drivers of subsistence poaching, this article uses primary survey data from a large number of respondents and communities in the Great Limpopo, a transfrontier reserve spanning across Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. We focus on two features, reported poaching incidences in the community and the previous hunting behaviour of individuals, in multivariate regression analysis. There is no evidence of the role of education, employment and livestock ownership on poaching. However, speaking to previous theoretical accounts, our results suggest that factors such as age, gender, trust, group size, local institutions, resource quality and perceptions about park management influence subsistence poaching. The findings indicate that capacity building in local institutions, training related to wildlife management and public awareness campaigns could be used by policymakers to affect peoples' perceptions and behaviours in this context.


We explore how adults learn counterintuitive causal relationships, and whether they discover hypotheses by revising their beliefs incrementally. We examined how adults learned a novel and unusual causal rule when presented with data that initially appeared to conform to a simpler, more salient rule. Adults watched a video of several blocks placed sequentially on a blicket detector, and were then asked to determine the underlying causal structure. In the near condition the true rule was complex, but could be found by making incremental improvements to the simple and salient initial hypothesis. The distant condition was governed by a simpler rule, but to adopt that rule participants had to set aside their initial beliefs, rather than revising them incrementally. Adults performed better in the near condition, despite this rule being more complex, providing some of the first evidence for an explore-exploit trade-off in inference, analogous to the trade-off in active learning.


The extraction, processing and smelting of ores has long been responsible for the release of heavy metals into the fluvial environment. As a consequence numerous studies have reported enhanced metal concentrations found in association with the sediments of rivers and in their surrounding floodplains. This thesis investigates the mobilisation, transport and the overbank deposition of sediment-associated heavy metals during flood events on the River Swale, North Yorkshire. This catchment has a prolonged history of mining for lead and zinc which spans approximately 2,000 years.
Contemporary overbank sediment deposits for the fbll length of the river system were examined following three flood events that occurred in 2002. The quantity of sediment deposited and concentrations of associated metals were determined as well as the metal deposition flux and speciation, by using various analytical procedures including a nitric acid digestion and the BCR sequential extraction method. Physical characteristics such as sediment grain size, pH, loss on ignition and carbonate content were also investigated. Floodplain sedimentation rates were relatively high during the floods and the patterns in metal concentrations were both spatially and temporally consistent. The locations of most concern were located within the headwaters of the catchment where lead concentrations exceeded 25,000 mg kg'. Investigations into the mobility of the
sediment-associated metals revealed that up to 88% of cadmium was found within the exchangeable phase of the sediment, however the concentrations of exchangeable lead and zinc were much higher and surpassed UK Government guidelines for crop growth and grazing livestock. Concentrations of exchangeable lead and zinc reached 19,241 mg kg' and 1,457 mg kg' respectively. Locations of 'exchangeable metal hotspots' with high levels of bioavailable metals were repeatedly found within the upper 21 km of the catchnent, around the confluence of tributaries which drain once intensively mined areas.
These very high concentrations potentially pose a risk to flora and fauna that grow or graze on the floodplain surrounding the River Swale if they are taken up or ingested. Remediation measures could be adopted to treat either the source of metals in order to prevent them entering the fluvial system, reduce the concentrations already in the contaminated floodplain, or minimise the area inundated by flood waters. Alternatively, land management strategies could be adopted in order to reduce the potential for metal uptake by plants and animals and subsequently entering into the foodchain.


The protection of the human life has become an imperative social problem in Romania, as a consequence of the fact that 1 in 4 citizens, or, more precisely, 23.40% of our country's population, suffers from a chronic disease or a long time deficiency in their health condition. Thus, we have considered that the issue can be regarded from the perspective of the moral values and the principles of bioethics, from that of the legal norms and the results of a field sociological research. There are evidenced normative documents that provide the legal framework for the functioning of the health system in general, at the European and national level, and we explained the gap between the rule of law and the present state of the health care system in Romania. We have used the results of a field research conducted on a sample of 1,000 people in Craiova and Drobeta Turnu-Severin, stating that over 20% of the population of these cities suffers from certain diseases. There were rendered valuable the results of a field research, made on a sample of 1,000 people, from the cities of Craiova and Dr. Turnu-Severin, which attest that over 22% of the population from Craiova, and over 30% of the population from Dr. Turnu-Severin suffers from specific diseases, including some serious ones (almost 3%). Systematically, we analyzed the deficiencies of the Romanian health system. Due to this fact, over 120 seriously ill patients sued the Romanian state because it violates the right to treatment, diminishing their chances of saving their lives. In the final part of the article we showed, synthetically, a number of solutions and proposals for making up a national health system, effective in Romania, taking into account the specific requirements of patients and the associations that represent them. Simultaneously, we stressed the need for the education of citizens in matters of law, enjoying the rights to health protection in the area of EU countries, laws, which they do not know.


Abstract Background: In April 2008, the first case of pertussis since 1998 was diagnosed in the Free State province. The outbreak that occurred over a 12-month period is described in this article. Method: This is a case series of 18 children diagnosed with pertussis in Bloemfontein, Free State province, between April 2008 and March 2009. The clinical diagnosis was confirmed by means of a Bordetella polymerase chain reaction test done on a nasal swab. Data were collected from every child with a confirmed diagnosis of pertussis. Results: Eighteen cases of pertussis were diagnosed in the 12-month period; 15 in the public sector and three in the private sector. A peak of cases was observed in the autumn and early winter months. Twelve infants were under six months of age and were thus regarded as "pre-vaccinated". Fourteen children required admission to hospital, of whom five required intensive care. No deaths occurred. The cost of managing these children was high. Conclusions: Pertussis is not commonly diagnosed in South Africa. Young children are worst affected by the disease. Ongoing surveillance is needed. A vaccination plan to prevent pertussis in South Africa requires consideration.


Thermal tolerance windows were investigated in lugworms Arenicola marina (L.) from the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic during winter and summer seasons. We adopted the concept of oxygen- and capacity-limited thermal tolerance and tested a variety of methods for their suitability to identify characteristics of the respective thermal window, such as critical, pejus (lat.: getting worse) and optimum temperatures (Tc, Tp and Topt), as well as temperature-dependent perfor- mance. First, the effect of acute temperature changes on oxygen consumption and pumping activity was examined in artificial burrows ventilated by lugworms collected in winter and summer from North Sea mudflats (acclimation temperatures 5 and 10°C). Second, the window of acutely temperature- dependent growth was evaluated by following the integration of uniformly labelled 13 C-L-phenylala- nine into proteins of the cuticulo-muscular tube, using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, possibly providing access to Tp values. Third, seasonal changes in haemoglobin half-saturation oxy- gen tension (P50) and haemoglobin oxygen status in vivo were studied in lugworms from the North Sea population. Tc values were defined by use of oxygen consumption measurements, whereas pumping activity, growth performance and tissue oxygenation allowed determination of Topt. Our results show that the thermal window of actively ventilating lugworms is narrower in winter than in summer. The acute optimum temperature of growth performance was tilted towards the lower Tc and likely shifts with acclimation. Methods were found suitable to identify the acute thermal window of oxygen-limited thermal tolerance in the lugworm. Consecutive comparison of populations during various seasons in a latitudinal cline should thus lead to a better understanding of the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems.


One of the primary aspects of sustainable development involves accurate understanding and modeling of environmental phenomena. Many of these phenomena exhibit variations in both space and time and it is imperative to develop a deeper understanding of techniques that can model space-time dynamics accurately. In this paper we propose NOSTILL-GP - NOn-stationary Space TIme variable Latent Length scale GP, a generic non-stationary, spatio-temporal Gaussian Process (GP) model. We present several strategies, for efficient training of our model, necessary for real-world applicability. Extensive empirical validation is performed using three real-world environmental monitoring datasets, with diverse dynamics across space and time. Results from the experiments clearly demonstrate general applicability and effectiveness of our approach for applications in environmental monitoring.


The work detailed in this thesis concerns organic thin films synthesised either using R.F. inductively coupled plasmas excited in unsaturated monomers containing either fluorine or a nitrile group, or else irradiating the said monomers in vacuo using ultraviolet light. The effect of the following parameters on the composition and structure of the resultant films was determined using ESCA/XPS : a) power input to the R.F. plasma system, b) photon flux during UV irradiation, c) monomer type (including structural isomerism), and d) monomer flow rate. Relative system deposition rates were rationalised in terms of Yasuda's parameter, W/FM, which was found to hold true qualitatively, if not quantitatively. Introduction of halogen vapour to the plasma system in the presence of nitrile monomers physically decreased the glow volume. Analysis by ESCA and UV absorption spectroscopy revealed the presence of ionic halogen species in the resultant films. An overall decrease in deposition rate of the system was also observed. A similar result for the latter was seen for UV irradiation in the presence of iodine. The results were rationalised by assigning a free radical mechanism for both plasma and photochemical film deposition which is inhibited by halogens. Films formed by irradiation at >200 nm were found to have differing chemical compositions compared to those obtained in the vacuum ultraviolet (<200 nm). This result was attributed to the differing photochemistries occurring in the two wavelength regions. Reference to the gas-phase photochemical literature enabled identification of the likely intermediates and term states involved, including 1,1 and 1,2 molecular elimination from ethylenic monomers in the vacuum UV to give the respective ethynes, together with secondary photolysis products. Consequently a mechanism for surface photopolymerisation was outlined which was compared with that proposed for plasma polymerisation, both of which involve vibrationally excited ground states for the monomers studied.


Action representation for robust human activity recognition is still a challenging problem. This thesis proposed a new feature for human activity recognition named SIFTMotion Estimation (SIFT-ME). SIFT-ME is derived from SIFT correspondences in a sequence of video frames and adds tracking information to describe human body motion. This feature is an extension of SIFT and is used to represent both translation and rotation in plane rotation for the key features. Compare with other features, SIFT-ME is new as it uses rotation of key features to describe action and it robust to the environment changes. Because SIFT-ME is derived from SIFT correspondences, it is invariant to noise, illumination, and small view angle change. It is also invariant to horizontal motion direction due to the embedded tracking information. For action recognition, we use Gaussian Mixture Model to learn motion patterns of several human actions (e.g., walking, running, turning, etc) described by SIFT-ME features. Then, we utilize the maximum log-likelihood criterion to classify actions. As a result, an average recognition rate of 96.6% was achieved using a dataset of 261 videos comprised of six actions performed by seven subjects. Multiple comparisons with existing implementations including optical flow, 2D SIFT and 3D SIFT were performed. The SIFT-ME approach outperforms the other approaches which demonstrate that SIFT-ME is a robust method for human activity recognition.


The reduction of mechanical properties by oxide films has been documented and studied for decades. Among these studies, Campbell proposed that tangled thin oxides created during the filling of a mould become flattened or acquire a spherical shape because of several processes: the penetration of dissolved hydrogen from the liquid aluminium into the bifilm during solidification, the pushing of oxides by dendrites during solidification, the growth of heterogeneously nucleated intermetallic faces upon the wetted oxide side, and shrinkage that pulls oxides. This proposal has been argued from a theoretical standpoint; however, there is no direct experimental evidence to support it. This work attempts to build an experimental procedure to obtain experimental evidence for the proposal. To obtain aluminium bifilms smaller than 3 mm in 12-mm diameter specimen bars, an oxide generator was designed using a gating system. Micro X-ray tomography (Skyscan 1702) was used to establish the best specimen diameter and scanning conditions, including exposure time, magnification, rotation angle and rotation-step angle. Following scanning, the specimens were re-melted for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 minutes at 745 °C, and then quenched in the air until solidified. They were then re-scanned to establish the changes in their defect morphologies. In the experiments, the maximum scanning exposure time, minimum rotation step angle, maximum magnification, minimize specimen size and centring of the specimen on the specimen holder were important to obtain the best detail in the topographical results. In addition, adjusting the threshold level had an important effect on the volumetric analysis. This research could not use a re-melting method. However, in a comparison before and after re-melting processes, the surface connected defects did not change their shape. Hydrogen penetration and intermetallic effects could not be observed in this experiment. However, dendrite pushing and shrinkage could be observed.


New Re-Os molybdenite dates are presented from three deposits (Casino, Cash, and Mt. Nansen) in the Dawson Range, Yukon, northern Canadian Cordillera. The Re-Os molybdenite dates provide constraints on the timing of sulfide mineralzation, and together with 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and K-Ar mineral dates yield estimates for the longevity of the porphyry hydrothermal system. At the Casino deposit, Re-Os molybdenite dates associated with the potassic (75.05 ± 0.28; 74.69 ± 0.28 Ma) alteration are nominally older to overlapping with Re-Os molybdenite dates (~74.4 ± 0.28 Ma, n = 2) with phyllic alteration and suggest that it is likely that potassic and phyllic mineralization-alteration was contemporaneous. The Re-Os molybdenite dates are significantly older than hydrothermal K feldspar 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and K-Ar biotite dates (~72 Ma), which most likely reflect the cessation of the porphyry hydrothermal system. The molybdenite age data combined with silicate hydrothermal mineral dates suggest a porphyry hydrothermal system longevity of 4.16 to 1.94 (Casino), 8.66 to 6.44 (Cash), and 2.47 to 1.48 Ma (Mt. Nansen). These longevity estimates for porphyry hydrothermal systems are greater than previously proposed (~ 50°C/km) may control the disparate Re-Os molybdenite and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar K feldspar dates of the porphyry systems of this study. The contrasting Re-Os and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates clearly show the Re-Os isotope system in molybdenite is resistant to prolonged (~1 Ma) interaction with a high-temperature (400°-500°C) hydrothermal fluid, and that the Re-Os isotope systematics in molybdenite unambiguously record directly the timing of sulfide mineralization. This ability to directly date sulfide mineralization has identified mid- (Pattison, Idaho Creek, ~102-104 Ma) and Late Cretaceous (Zappa-Koffee, ~74.5 Ma) mineralization, which is hosted by the mid-Cretaceous (~104-102 Ma) Casino Plutonic Suite. The Late Cretaceous date is very similar to that for molybdenite mineralization at Casino, and we suggest that the Zappa-Koffee mineralization is an area of Late Cretaceous porphyry mineralization, for which the host pluton has not yet been discovered.


This thesis examines the historical shoreline response to inlet modifications and sea
level rise. Inlet modifications are considered to be the geographic stabilization and training
(through the use of structures) of natural inlets and the creation and further modification of
artificial inlets. Shoreline response to natural and artificial processes must be understood in
order to predict the performance of the coastline. The tendency for creating and modifying
inlets increases as industry and population growth demands. Sea level rise is a natural process
which cannot be controlled at this time. Current theoretical approaches to predicting
shoreline response indicate that sea level rise and inlet modifications can cause substantial
shoreline impact. Florida, with roughly a century of shoreline position and relative sea level
data, provides a basis for examining past trends and comparing them with theory.
The shoreline of Florida was found to be accreting with the greatest accretion along
the east coast. Shoreline responses within the boundaries of the erosional influence of inlets
due to their creation and/or modification were examined for 19 inlets around the coast of
Florida. The differences in the shoreline response before and after the initial modification of
each inlet show the erosional strain that inlets apply on the nearby shoreline. The effect on
shoreline response due to the human intervention (unnatural processes) of modifying inlets
was isolated and examined. The shoreline response due to this "human intervention" was erosional, thereby showing the negative impact that modified inlets have on shorelines. This
induced erosion is responsible for the loss of roughly 21.6 million cubic yards of sand from the
shoreline that is within the erosional influence of Florida's east coast inlets. Combining the
shoreline changes due only to natural processes with sea level rise data allows for comparison
with the commonly accepted Bruun Rule for shoreline response as a result of a changing
sea level. This comparison and the effects of including a lag time between a rise in sea level
and a change in shoreline along the east coast of Florida during the last century show no
agreement with the Bruun Rule and no correlation with a specific lag time. (Document has 153 pages.)


In early 1997 Peter Penfold, arrived in Sierra Leone as the British High Commissioner. This fascinating book describes not just his eventful three year tour but the background and subsequent events that placed this small country at the centre of the world stage. During his tour he found himself as right hand man to the country's beleaguered President Kabbah. Due to rebel actions, including shocking atrocities, the Author had to not only evacuate the international community (twice) but was forced out himself. At times he flew in daily from British warships as the situation was dangerously unstable. We learn how almost immediately after being praised by Prime Minister Tony Blair for his pivotal role in getting this once rich country back on its feet, he found himself under Customs and Excise investigation and Parliamentary Committee scrutiny for his supposed role in the 'Arms for Africa' Enquiry. While reprimanded by the FCO, he was feted and made a Paramount Chief by the Sierra Leone people. He describes how, after his tour was cut short despite his and the host Government's appeals, the situation again deteriorated. He gives a highly informed account of the subsequent events including the SAS Operation BARRAS - the rescue of the British military hostages. This is a very important account based on the most privileged knowledge.


The current study was designed to investigate the occurrence of malarial infections in the Northern areas (District Malakand) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Malarial parasites were detected in the blood samples of suspected patients of the infection. Out of 210 suspected cases of malaria, 47 (22.38%) were found to be positive for the malarial parasite in blood smear slides. Out of positive cases, 28 (59.57%) were identified as Plasmodium vivax infection and 19 (40.42%) cases with P. falciparum. No case was found having both the malarial parasites. This research work evidenced that P. falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are steadily becoming more dangerous and deadly in rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in general, and particularly in District Malakand. It is therefore highly necessary to take immediate and effective measures to minimize death toll in these areas.


Recent concern regarding the potential decline of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) forests in the western United States has sparked concern over whether the species can be effectively regenerated. Using a retrospective approach, we quantified the response of regenerating aspen stems to an ordinary set of silvicultural treatments conducted over approximately the past decade in southern Utah, USA. A suite of variables describing stand structure and composition, stand vigor, physiographic factors, herbivore pressure, and treatment types were measured to predict the possible controls, as well as their relative importance, on aspen regeneration. Results suggested that aspen regeneration was most strongly related to browsing pressure, site preparation technique, and the presence of advance reproduction before treatment, which is a novel finding. Secondary predictors included elevation, site index, and overstory conditions, which are generally characteristics of stand vigor. Management recommendations based on our results should recognize the strong primary control that browsing pressure exerts on regeneration. First, the height of advance reproduction is inherently dependent on antecedent herbivory and also indicative of present browsing and should be assessed before treatment. Second, the most effective site preparation techniques, namely broadcast burning and browsing reduction, will directly reduce browsing pressure, assuming ungulate populations are not too large. Any management targeting timely and effective aspen regeneration should incorporate monitoring and (or) controlling browsing pressure, both before and after treatment.


A decade ago, it appeared that Green parties might fade as quickly as they had bloomed. Now, how ever, Green parties appear to have become fixtures in the party systems of most Western democracies, and the Greens participate in coalition governments at the national level in Germany, France, Belgium, and Finland, as well as at the regional and local level in most European states. The green challenge has entered a new phase. The rise of the Greens as a political force was sustained by the unprecedented increase in concern for the environment. Environmentalism has been seen as one enduring manifestation of the "post-materialist" revolution in values that swept the Western world in the wake of increased affluence, participation in higher education, and relative geopolitical stability. However, to see environmentalism solely in this light is to ignore the extent to which, especially for the world's poor, environmental issues are often fundamentally materialist issues of physical survival, safety, and sustenance. Partly for that reason, the level of environmental concern in a country has not been a particularly good predictor of electoral support for its Green party. The Greens have polled poorly in such places as southern and eastern Europe, where the understanding of global environmental issues is low, environmental concerns principally take the form of personal complaints about pollution and its impact on health, and environmental organizations are weak. But nor have the Greens been successful in all countries where global environmental awareness is most widespread and environmental movement organizations are especially strong. Environmental awareness may have been a precondition for the rise of Green parties, but the prevailing electoral systems and the conditions of political competition determine whether potential is translated into votes. Origins The Greens have been most successful under conditions of proportional representation. By contrast, the majoritarian electoral systems of the United States and Britain have been especially inhospitable to them. Even when the British Greens won almost 15 percent of the national vote in the European election in 1989, they did not win a single seat in parliament. In such systems, a vote for the Greens appears to be a "wasted vote," or at best a symbolic act of protest against the mainstream alternatives. Such protest voting may have the effect of making major parties more attentive to environmental issues, but a proportional system of representation is a necessity for the advance of Green parties. In Britain, the introduction of proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, and the London Assembly in 1999 and 2000 facilitated the election of the Greens despite their relatively small share of the overall vote. In New Zealand, the introduction of proportional representation in 1999 led to the election of Green members of parliament (MPs) and to the Greens holding the balance of power. In Australia, the Greens' breakthrough in 2001 came in elections to upper houses elected by proportional representation but not in lower houses where majoritarian systems prevail. Green parties have seldom grown automatically out of environmental movements. Indeed, if there is a common antecedent to Green parties, it is not so much the broad environmental movement, which traces its origins to the conservation and urban-hygiene movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the anti-nuclear movements and campaigns of the 1970s. Indeed, in countries such as Britain, Sweden, and the Netherlands, where the environmental movement was already relatively well-institutionalized, environmentalists have often regarded Green parties with indifference or even hostility. The antinuclear campaigns, however, did not enjoy the measure of institutional access commonly accorded to environmental groups. Moreover, they were novel and urgent, and they drew on sections of the left that linked environmental objections to nuclear energy with wider security issues. …


Abstract Porous limestones are widely used in the monuments of Hungary, and are often treated using stone consolidants on site during restoration works. Two types of porous Miocene limestones from Sóskút were treated with dilute and concentrated silicic acid ester under laboratory conditions. The aim of the experiments was to assess the performance of the consolidants of different concentrations on fine- and medium-grained limestones, and to detect physical changes caused by consolidation. The pore-size distribution and fabric of the limestones were also different with initial porosities of 37 and 23%, respectively. In the open pores only a few per cent (3.2–5.2%) of silica gel was precipitated even under vacuum saturation. The loss of porosity was higher when concentrated consolidant was used. The decrease in porosity was found not to be proportional to the changes in strength. Indeed, the dilute consolidant caused a greater increase in strength than the concentrated one. The increase of tensile strength was higher for the less porous medium-grained limestone than for the fine-grained one. The differences in strength between non-consolidated and treated specimens were also detectable using ultrasonic pulse velocities. The tests have shown that the efficacy of silica acid ester treatments in terms of strength is less influenced by the concentration of the consolidant, but rather its ability to reach the micropores of porous limestones.


ABSTRACT: Passive and Semi-Active Tuned Mass Damper (SATMD) building systems are proposed to mitigate structural response due to seismic loads. A structure's upper portion itself plays a role as a tuned mass and a viscous damper or a semi-active (SA) resetable device is adopted as a control feature for the Passive TMD (PTMD), creating a SATMD system. Two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) analytical studies are employed to design the prototype structural system, specify its element characteristics and determine its effectiveness for seismic response mitigation, including defining the resetable device dynamics. For the PTMD system realistic 15% and much higher optimal TMD damping ratios are compared. For the SATMD system the stiffness of the resetable device design is combined with and without rubber bearing stiffness. From the parametric results, the most effective SATMD system can be derived and then adopted as a practical control scheme. Response spectrum results using suites of earthquake are used to compare the SATMD scheme to an uncontrolled (No TMD) and an ideal passive tuned mass damper (PTMD) building system. The results from this design focused research will be utilised to assess the non-linear seismic response of realistic multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structures.


From Sarah Palin's surprising rise to political stardom to recurring environmental battles over oil drilling in the arctic and public works projects like the Bridge to Nowhere, the remote state of Alaska continues to occupy center stage in the national spotlight. Yet for most Americans the history of this sparsely populated region remains a vast unknown. Roxanne Willis takes readers behind common and simplistic representations of the state to explore the rich history and extreme diversity of a land that cannot easily be pigeonholed into typical American conceptions about place. Alaska's story is usually confined to regional history books, and in many American history texts, the state simply disappears after the Klondike gold rush. Willis's book marks the first comprehensive examination of Alaskan development schemes from 1890 to the present, connecting these plans to the changing priorities of American culture and politics. She examines competing definitions of Alaska--from a ""Last Frontier"" meant to be exploited to a ""Last Wilderness"" to be protected at all costs--and explains how the contemporary Alaskan landscape is a result of this ongoing struggle to define this mythic state's place in the American West. Willis focuses on five historic battles between environmentalists and developers: the Alaska Native reindeer herding industry, the New Deal homesteader program in the Matanuska Colony, the construction of the Alaska Highway, the political dispute over the Rampart Dam, and the ongoing struggles over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. She presents these case histories in clear language that will engage general readers while using new historical analysis that will appeal to scholars of environmental history and the American West. The result is an effective introduction to the historical origins of current political conflicts in Alaska. Transcending the typical regional histories of the state, Willis's study shows how Alaska development schemes have affected the history of American development more broadly, with conclusions that will be useful to anyone interested in environment and development issues in America or the circumpolar North--including a consideration of Alaska as the new frontier in global climate change. By showing why Alaska continues to resonate in the American imagination, Willis's book situates the forty-ninth state within the environmental movement, within the definition of the American West, and within American culture as a whole.


An efficient decoupling feeding network is proposed in this letter. It is composed of two directional couplers and two sections of transmission line for connection use. By connecting the two couplers, an indirect coupling with controlled magnitude and phase is introduced, which can be used to cancel out the direct coupling caused by space waves and surface waves between array elements. To demonstrate the method, a two-element microstrip antenna array with the proposed network has been designed, fabricated and measured. Both simulated and measured results have simultaneously proved that the proposed method presents excellent decoupling performance. The measured mutual coupling can be reduced to below -58 dB at center frequency. Meanwhile it has little influence on return loss and radiation patterns. The decoupling mechanism is simple and straightforward which can be easily applied in phased array antennas and MIMO systems.


The research is based on the international tax concept of transfer pricing and specifically examines it as a mechanism used abusively by international oil companies (IOCs) to dodge taxes. Transfer price manipulation (TPM) has recently emerged as an issue of concern to stakeholders in the oil industry due to the fairly extensive scope of operations and assets that are controlled by IOCs and the economic recession of 2008 that widely caused a decline in corporate profits. Over time, the effect has been reinforced reliance by multinational enterprises (MNEs) on aggressive tax planning schemes to optimize after tax profits and the adoption of countervailing measures by governments to protect their domestic tax bases from undue erosion. Notwithstanding that IOCs pay large amounts in taxes to governments around the world the atmosphere has been particularly tense with critics accusing them of being notorious abusers of international tax rate differentials. In reaction to this perceived threat, many resource rich countries seeking to mobilize badly needed but increasingly scarce fiscal revenues have over the years allocated considerable resources to developing anti-avoidance regimes capable of deterring, detecting and remedying aggressive tax avoidance schemes. This raises three important concerns, namely: (i) the extent of involvement of IOCs in TPM, (ii) the effectiveness of present anti-avoidance regimes in the Gulf of Guinea in terms of tackling abusive practices, and (iii) measures that can be taken to improve effectiveness of these regimes. It is against this backdrop that anti-avoidance regimes in two OECD (US, France) and two GoG (Cameroon, Nigeria) countries are analyzed. Using qualitative analysis as basis for the study it is argued that defects in the engineering and administration of anti-avoidance regimes in the GoG could create an incentive or facilitate recourse by IOCs to complex TPM schemes designed to avoid taxes. The range of techniques used to achieve this outcome is examined and defects in the design and implementation of existing GoG tax anti-avoidance regimes are identified. Finally, in order to improve the effectiveness of these regimes the study recommends domestic and international measures to be taken to diminish existing lacunae and mitigate recourse by IOCs to TPM schemes.


The rapid advance of computer based highthroughput technique have provided unparalleled opportunities for humans to expand capabilities in production, services, communications, and research. Meanwhile, immense quantities of high-dimensional data are accumulated challenging state-of-the-art data mining techniques .The intelligent analysis of Databases may be affected by the presence of unimportant features, which motivates the application of Feature Selection. By treating this task as a search and optimization process, it is possible to use the synergy between Genetic Algorithms and Multi-objective Optimization to carry out the search for (quasi) optimal subsets of features considering possible conflicting importance criteria. This work presents an application of Multi-objective Genetic Algorithms to the Feature Selection problem, combining different criteria measuring the importance of the subsets of features.


The clinical syndrome idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH), also termed pseudotumor cerebri, consists of symptoms of headache, nausea, vomiting and visual field defects in combination with findings of papilledema. IIH is more commonly seen in overweight women where the rise in intracranial pressure is putatively a consequence of an endocrine-based disturbance of electrolytes. Less frequently, it can also occur in men and in the pediatric age group. Associated risk factors include primary and secondary aldosteronism, pregnancy, recombinant growth hormone (r-GH) therapy, oral contraceptives, obesity, vitamin A intoxication or deficiency, Addison disease, corticosteroid therapy or acute withdrawal of steroid therapy and Cushing disease. Herein, we review the association between these conditions and IIH working toward its having a unifying neuroendocrine hypothesis.


Stimulated Raman scattering driven by intense subpicosecond laser drivers is analyzed, in particular, the effects of the pulse shape and relativity on the instability and its characteristic spectra. The analysis is carried out in the pulse group velocity frame (Lorentz transformed) where growth rates for backscattering are decreased relative to their values when analyzed in the laboratory frame, while forward-scattered growth rates have greatly enhanced values. A range of intensities and densities is considered, appropriate to recent experiments, which ranges from strongly coupled scattering at high densities (even for forwardscattering) to stimulated Compton scattering regimes for backscattering and relativistically trapped forwardscattering at low densities. The inhomogeneities in intensity and density cause mode conversion between waves inside and outside the pulse. This can be at a modest level, as for backscattering, or extreme as in the case of forwardscattering when the Raman scattered light can be trapped within the laser pulse. The consequent feedback between modes within the pulse allows solutions, absolutely growing in the pulse frame, to be found.


AbstractSuccessful implementation of build-operate-transfer (BOT), infrastructure projects is dependent on a full and thorough analysis of factors that include social, economic and political, amongst others. Alongside the financially focused evaluations, qualitative factors will also have a strong impact on the project and so require specific techniques for the analysis. This paper presents a new evaluation framework, based on the analytical hierarchy process technique, for use in assessing the most common and significant decision factors relating to risks in BOT projects. Consultations with an expert group identified a series of risk decision factors. The results produced twenty-eight critical Risk Factors, which have a particular impact on the risks of BOT projects. The project risk framework was constructed by classifying the factors into five categories. The framework was successfully validated using a BOT project case study. This research seeks to make a valuable contribution to the field by having d...


Recent evolutions in wireless mobile communications have shown that by employing multiple inputs and multiple outputs (MIMO) technology at both the transmitter and receiver, both the wireless system capacity and reliability can be enhanced without the need for increasing the power transmitted or using more spectrum. Despite a considerable amount of research have been done on the design of MIMO and diversity handset antennas, the design of low profile, small footprint and multi-standard (wideband or multiband) diversity antennas on handset devices remains a challenging issue. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to present new antenna structures for handset MIMO and diversity applications. As the MIMO antenna design can be conducted either using multiple element antennas (MEA) or isolated mode antenna technology (IMAT), the work in this thesis is fallen in these two general design themes (areas).
 The first area under investigation concerns multiport antennas (IMAT antennas). It has the following two contributions:
• A novel dual-feed water-based antenna is designed from a low cost liquid material with a very high dielectric constant (pure water ). The isolation between feeds is achieved by two back to back L-shaped ground plane strips. A prototype is made and the optimised diversity parameters are obtained, the results show that this design has a good diversity performance over the frequency range of 2.4 – 2.7 GHz.
• A new and low profile (h = 3 mm) planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) with a coplanar-feed is presented. It has a wideband response over the frequency range of 2.35 – 3.25 GHz. The design is based on a comparative study on the mutual coupling between different feed arrangements. As a result, the coplanar feed is employed in the proposed antenna; the polarization diversity is achieved by exciting two orthogonal radiation modes. The isolation between the feeds is achieved by an L-shaped ground plane slot. Both simulated and measured results demonstrate that the design is a very good candidate for mobile diversity and MIMO applications.
 The second investigation area concerns multiple element antenna (MEA) systems for wideband and multiband handset applications. It includes the following contributions:

• Three antenna systems of the planar inverted-L (PILA) antenna (h = 5 mm) are employed for wideband handset diversity applications over the frequency range of 1.7 – 2.85 GHz: 1) The first design has a dual-element PILA in which both the pattern and spatial diversities are employed; one antenna element is located on the upper edge of the ground plane while the other is located on the lower edge. 2) The second design represents a more compact dual-element PILA antenna in which the two elements are placed on the same ground plane edge (collocated on the same edge). The antenna isolation is achieved using a parasitic decoupling element inserted between the two elements. A novel approach for the design of the parasitic decoupling element is proposed. It is based on stepped impedance resonator circuit theory. As a result, more space is saved with this design (footprint = 385 mm2) over the first design (footprint = 702 mm2). 3) The third design is a four-element PILA system in which two antenna pairs (one pair at the upper edge which the other pair is located on the lower edge on the system PCB). All the prototypes are made and evaluated; the results show excellent diversity performance over the applications in the frequency range of 1.7-2.7 GHz.
• A dual-element hexa-band antenna is proposed for smartphone MIMO applications. It consists of two elements: a hexa-band metallic frame antenna and a hepta-band PILA antenna coupled with a meandered shorted strip as an internal antenna. The isolation is achieved due to the resulted orthogonal radiation patterns, especially, at 0.85 GHz. The optimized antenna is made and tested and the results show that this design covers a hexa-band and is particularly suitable for GSM850/ DCS1800/ PCS1900/ UMTS2100/ LTE2500/ LTE3600 smartphone applications.


This paper introduces swarm user interfaces, a new class of human-computer interfaces comprised of many autonomous robots that handle both display and interaction. We describe the design of Zooids, an open-source open-hardware platform for developing tabletop swarm interfaces. The platform consists of a collection of custom-designed wheeled micro robots each 2.6 cm in diameter, a radio base-station, a high-speed DLP structured light projector for optical tracking, and a software framework for application development and control. We illustrate the potential of tabletop swarm user interfaces through a set of application scenarios developed with Zooids, and discuss general design considerations unique to swarm user interfaces.


Most litigants involved in lawsuits in the United States are responsible for the cost of their own attorney's fees. However, because Congress believed that certain types of claims, including employment discrimination and other civil rights claims, are important enough to encourage potential plaintiffs and their attorneys to pursue these actions, it enacted several fee-shifting statutes. These statutes provide that the prevailing party may recover a reasonable attorney's fee. While these statutes typically do not exclude prevailing defendants from recovering their attorney's fees, usually only prevailing plaintiffs are entitled to recover what can sometimes be a significant amount. However, a problem with these statutes occurs when a plaintiff is able to prove that a defendant violated his rights but is then awarded only nominal damages. In most of these cases, courts have denied these plaintiffs' requests for attorney's fees, despite the fact that they were prevailing parties. This Article will argue that the Supreme Court should revisit this issue and conclude that in employment discrimination and other civil rights cases where plaintiffs are awarded only nominal damages, such plaintiffs, as prevailing parties, should typically be awarded attorney's fees.


Abstract Rigid ryegrass is a major weed of southern Australian cropping systems. Increased knowledge about the germination biology of rigid ryegrass would facilitate development of effective weed control programs. The influence of different environmental factors on seed germination of rigid ryegrass was studied. The level of seed dormancy in five different populations, collected from different fields on the same farm, was found to be similar, suggesting consistency in seed dormancy in populations at a single location. Dormancy release was more rapid for seeds after-ripened in the field compared with those after-ripened dry in a greenhouse. Seed decay was found to be an important contributor to the loss of seeds for this species from the seed bank in the field. Seed decay was much greater for seeds after-ripened on the soil surface compared with buried seed. In contrast, germination played an important role in the loss of buried seed as compared with surface seed. Regardless of the burial depth, the dormant seed component present at the end of the growing season was quite small (4 to 16%). Seedling emergence of rigid ryegrass in the field was greater (49%) for seeds buried at 1 cm than for those on the soil surface (16%). No seedlings emerged from seeds buried at 10 cm. Seed germination of rigid ryegrass was tolerant to a wide range of pH and showed some tolerance to salt and osmotic stress. The results indicate rigid ryegrass is unlikely to become a greater weed problem in no-till compared with cultivated seeding systems. Nomenclature: Rigid ryegrass, Lolium rigidum Gaudin LOLRI.


The need for higher data rates in WLANs boosts drastically because tremendous consumer interest in emerging multimedia applications, such as HDTV, has been increased. Currently, the IEEE 802.11a/b/g WLANs provide a limited data rate for the current user application requirements. In order to overcome substantial limitations of the existing WLANs, the next generation of WLANs, IEEE 802.11n, is in the course of development and expected to support higher throughput, larger coverage area and better QoS. The high performance IEEE 802.11n WLAN can improve data rate significantly by using smart antenna systems in the physical layer to take advantage of multi-path fading of wireless channels. In this thesis, an analytical model is developed to study the MAC performance and the underlying smart antenna technologies used in multi-path fading channels. Multiple antennas employed in the AP arise two popular approaches to provide a significant performance improvement, diversity and multiplexing. Considering the diversity gain of multiple antennas at the AP in which the AP with multiple antennas serves one user at a time, the capacity and throughput can be obtained. In addition, the AP is possible to serve multiple users in the downlink, by exploiting the multiplexing gain of the wireless channel. We investigate the maximum network throughput when the traffic intensity of the AP approaches to one. Unlike most of previous research which focus on either the physical or the MAC layer performance, our analytical model jointly considers the MAC protocol and the smart antenna technology.


CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAUSING FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES in the Canadian north. The net effect is an overall warming process that is now beginning a transformation with the potential to change almost all aspects of life in the region. These range from the way in which the northern aboriginal peoples hunt and fish on the land to the Canadian Arctic's position in the international system. With regards to the latter, the changing physical environment has the potential to accelerate a wide host of challenges to Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security. A warming Arctic will become a more accessible Arctic for the international community. It is this greater accessibility that will test Canada's ability to ensure that this region remains protected and promoted for all Canadians, including those that call it home.Not everyone believes, however, that Canada is facing such challenges. In the spring 2003 issue of International Journal, Dr. Franklyn Griffiths offered an extensive and compelling article on why he believes such concerns about Canadian Arctic sovereignty are either overstated or so far into the future that they should be of limited concern to Canadians today. I disagree with this assessment.Dr. Griffiths is one of Canada's top experts on the international elements of the Canadian north. His academic work has stood out as the leading literature on the subject,(1) but he has not limited his northern studies to the academic community alone. His op-eds in the national media have often played an integral role in prodding the government to actually "do" something in the north.(2) His work has been both a principle source of information and inspiration for all who wish to understand Canadian northern foreign policy. It is, therefore, with a strong sense of trepidation and challenge that I offer a critique of his recent article "The Shipping News: Canada's Arctic sovereignty not on thinning ice."What complicates this task is that, while I consider his core arguments to be wrong, I do agree with some of his conclusions. What is the nature of this seeming paradox? In part, this is a direct result of Dr. Griffiths' ability to challenge accepted orthodoxies. One of the hallmarks of his highly successful academic career has been his ability to challenge accepted "wisdoms." Accordingly, he disputes the argument that climate change is creating an environment that will challenge Canadian northern sovereignty, contending that it is not substantiated in fact. On this point, I disagree. As this article will make clear, my reading of recent scientific evidence is that the melting of the ice cover is, indeed, occurring at a rate that warrants concern now, rather than later. Furthermore, I believe that there are numerous threats to Canadian sovereignty that will also occur sooner rather than later. As he proceeds through his argument, however, he still returns to the point that the Canadian Government is not doing enough to protect northern Canadian's interests. He is particularly critical of the government's continued reluctance to involve the Canadian northern peoples in the northern foreign policy process in a meaningful fashion, and it is on these points that I agree with him. Likewise, he calls for the creation of a consultative body that would combine the federal and territorial governments with northern aboriginal organizations to develop Canadian policy regarding the Arctic Archipelago, including issues related to security and sovereignty. On the need for such a body, I also agree. While the Canadian Government has taken important steps to consult with northerners and their leaders on foreign policy issues, there has been little evidence of these consultations leading to new and expanded funding to deal with the large number of international issues facing the Canadian north.Where Dr. Griffiths and I part company, however, is on the urgency of the problem of melting ice. In his article, I believe he has created a "straw man" in which he has developed a series of arguments that, ultimately, depend on extreme circumstances in order to hold strong. …


The Federal Circuit's recent nonobviousness jurisprudence has been the subject of much criticism. Reports from the Federal Trade Commission and the National Research Council and a pending petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court all conclude that the Federal Circuit has improperly relaxed the nonobviousness standard. Most of this criticism focuses on the Federal Circuit's implementation of part of the nonobviousness inquiry - the suggestion test. The suggestion test queries whether a suggestion to make the invention existed before the invention's creation. The Federal Circuit allegedly requires a suggestion to come solely from prior art references. The court ignores other evidence of undocumented suggestions that may exist in the knowledge of those skilled in the relevant technology or the nature of the problem being solved. This Article tests the validity of this criticism and finds that the Federal Circuit has not narrowed the suggestion test. By taking a novel look at the jurisprudence, the Article concludes that, instead, the court has adopted an evidentiary-like aspect to the suggestion test. Those cases where it appears the court is focusing only on the prior art are actually instances where the court is exercising an evidentiary aspect of the suggestion test. The suggestion test's rule of evidence excludes undocumented evidence of suggestion that does not contain the requisite detail and analysis. This rule of evidence is tailored to adjust the level of detail and analysis required to correspond to the complexity of the technology at issue. As a result, the suggestion test's rule of evidence helps to reduce overvaluation of suggestion evidence and the resulting, incorrect obviousness determinations. However, the rule may produce some erroneous nonobviousness determinations of its own, particularly at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and thus should be relaxed in this context. Finally, this use of an evidentiary lens to look at, and evaluate, patent doctrine has application in patent law far beyond nonobviousness and the suggestion test.


The results presented in this study indicate the possibility of seasonal runoff prediction when satellite-derived basin snow-cover data are related to point source river discharge data for a number of years. NOAA-VHRR satellite images have been used to delineate the areal extent of snow cover for early April over the Indus and Kabul River basins in Pakistan. Simple photo-interpretation techniques, using a zoom transfer scope, were employed in transferring satellite snow-cover boundaries onto base map overlays. A linear regression model with April 1 through July 31 seasonal runoff (1974-1979) as a function of early April snow cover explains 73% and 82% of the variance, respectively, of the measured flow in the Indus and Kabul Rivers. The correlation between seasonal runoff and snow cover is significant at the 97% level for the Indus River and at the 99% level for the Kabul River. Combining Rango et al.9s (1977) data for 1969-73 with the above period, the April snow cover explains 60% and 90% of the variance, respectively, of the measured flow in the Indus and Kabul Rivers. In an attempt to improve the Indus relationship, a multiple regression model, with April 1 through July 31, 1969-79, seasonal runoff in the Indus River as a function of early April snow-covered area of the basin and concurrent runoff in the adjoining Kabul River, explains 79% of the variability in flow. Moreover, a significant reduction (27%) in the standard error of estimate results from using the multi-variate model. For each year of the study period, 1969-79, a separate multiple regression equation is developed dropping the data for the year in question from the data-base and using those for the rest of the years. The snow cover area and concurrent runoff data are then used to estimate the snowmelt runoff for that particular year.The difference between the estimated and observed dircharge values averaged over the 11 year study period is 10%. Satellite derived snow-covered area is the best available input for snowmelt-runoff estimation in remote, data sparse basins like the Indus and Kabul Rivers. The study has operational relevance to water resource planning and management in the Himalayan region.


The retreat of the Larsen B ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, and the collapse of its northern section are analyzed using satellite images acquired between January 1995 and May 2003. Over 1 week during March 2002, after a period of steady retreat since 1995, 2300 km of the ice shelf broke up into many small icebergs. This rapid collapse occurred at the end of an exceptionally warm summer, and after a multi-year period of decreasing surface net mass balance, ice thinning, flow acceleration and widening of rifts. The ice-shelf area decreased from 11 512 km in January 1995 to 3463 km in March 2002, and 2667 km in April 2003. ERS synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images were used to identify iceshelf zones with different surface morphology, which generated icebergs of different sizes and shapes. The pattern of retreat and break-up, similar to that of Larsen A in 1995, suggests that fracturing enhanced by abundant surface melt played a key role. In addition, the recent changes of grounded and residual floating ice north of Larsen B are analyzed by means of Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) images up to summer 2003, showing significant loss of grounded ice upstream of those iceshelf sections which disintegrated in 1995 and 2002.


The human microbiome is an internal ecosystem that refers to the community of microorganisms that populate the human body. These microorganisms are essential to support his health, because the interaction between the host immune system and microorganisms, provide the host with protection against pathogens, and contributes to the preservation of health. Bacteriological culture has been the basis for traditional microbiology; however, most of the bacterial forms observed in nature cannot be isolated with laboratory culture methods. At present, metagenomic applies a suite of genomic technologies, where the microorganisms are identified by their genomic fingerprint. The 16S rRNA subunit is considered as the universal target for bacterial identification from DNA with the aid of sequencing. Sanger sequencing technology had a great impact on the first generation sequencing due to its simplicity and precision. Platforms high-throughput known as second generation secuencing technologies are capable to generate hundreds of thousands of sequence reactions in a faster and economic way. However, thanks to the third generation sequencing the greatest advances in nanotechnology have been made. Using the reference gene, the massive sequencing techniques and bioinformatics tools used for the data processing, there has been an important development of the human microbiome, achieving an unprecedented detail level on the taxonomy and microbial function. This has meant an authentic revolution not only in their knowledge but also in their involvement in the health or illness of the human being.


Introduction Endotracheal intubation (ETI) in the prehospital setting poses unique challenges where multiple ETI attempts are associated with adverse patient outcomes. Early identification of difficult ETI cases will allow providers to tailor airway-management efforts to minimize complications associated with ETI. We sought to derive and validate a prehospital difficult airway identification tool based on predictors of difficult ETI in other settings. Methods We prospectively collected patient and airway data on all airway attempts from 16 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ground emergency medical services (EMS) agencies from January 2011 to October 2014. Cases that required more than two ETI attempts and cases where an alternative airway strategy (e.g. supraglottic airway) was employed after one unsuccessful ETI attempt were categorized as "difficult." We used a random allocation sequence to split the data into derivation and validation subsets. Using backward elimination, factors with a p<0.1 were included in the multivariable regression for the derivation cohort and then tested in the validation cohort. We used this model to determine the area under the curve (AUC), and the sensitivity and specificity for each cut point in both the derivation and validation cohorts. Results We collected data on 1,102 cases with 568 in the derivation set (155 difficult cases; 27%) and 534 in the validation set (135 difficult cases; 25%). Of the collected variables, five factors were predictive of difficult ETI in the derivation model (adjusted odds ratio, 95% confidence interval [CI]): Glasgow coma score [GCS] >3 (2.15, 1.19–3.88), limited neck movement (2.24, 1.28–3.93), trismus/jaw clenched (2.24, 1.09–4.6), inability to palpate the landmarks of the neck (5.92, 2.77–12.66), and fluid in the airway such as blood or emesis (2.25, 1.51–3.36). This was the most parsimonious model and exhibited good fit (Hosmer-Lemeshow test p = 0.167) with an AUC of 0.68 (95% CI [0.64–0.73]). When applied to the validation set, the model had an AUC of 0.63 (0.58–0.68) with high specificity for identifying difficult ETI if ≥2 factors were present (87.7% (95% CI [84.1–90.8])). Conclusion We have developed a simple tool using five factors that may aid prehospital providers in the identification of difficult ETI.


Polish director Tadeusz Kantor, who died in 1990 at the age of 75, is widely recognized as one of the most important theatre artists of this century. Critics have ranked him with such influential directors as Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Brecht, and Grotowski. Known in the United States primarily for his visually stunning productions, he is also highly regarded throughout Europe for his theoretically adventurous writings. Michal Kobialka, whom Kantor authorized to translate his work, provides us with the first collection of Kantor's essays in English, together with his analysis of the corpus of Kantor's work, both written and staged.


The dynamics of tides in the Gulf of Maine are unique due to the tidal resonance, which generates the largest tidal range in the world (about 16 m). Consequently, a large tidal energy resource is available in this area, particularly in the Bay of Fundy, and is expected to be harvested in the future. Currently, more than 6 projects are operational or under development in this region (in both US and Canadian waters). Understanding the far-field impacts of tidal-stream arrays is important for future development of tidal energy extraction. The impacts include possible changes in water elevation, currents, and sediment transport. Accordingly, a number of previous studies have assessed the impacts of the tidal energy development in the Gulf of Maine. Further, due to the sea level rise (SLR), those impacts may also change during the project lifetime, which is usually more than 25 years. The objective of this study is to assess the combined effects of SLR and tidal energy extraction on the dynamics of tides in the Gulf of Maine. A tidal model of the Gulf of Maine was developed using Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS) at one arcminute scale. The model extends from 71.5W to 63.0W and from 39.5N to 46.0N. After validation of the model at NOAA tidal gauge stations and NERACOOS buoys, several scenarios; including SLR scenario, and tidal extraction scenario, were examined. Recent studies suggest that the global dynamics of tides will change due to SLR; therefore, SLR not only affects the bathymetry of the model inside the domain, it also changes the boundary forcing, which was considered in this effort. The results of the impacts of the tidal energy extraction with and without the SLR were presented, and compared with those from literature. Up to 4% decrease in tidal range and M2 amplitude was estimated in Minas Basin due to the 2.5 GW extraction scenario without SLR. On Massachusetts coastal area, the impacts of the same scenario can be considered negligible, 0.94%. In summary, the implementation of modified boundary forcing due to SLR, which was ignored in the previous works, can change the results of the impact assessment. Based on the results, the far-field impact is more threatening in coastal regions of US. However, the impact of energy extraction in Minas Passage is relatively small. Compared to the model validation, the impacts were inside the uncertainty level of the model. For example, maximum change in Boston coastal area was calculated up to 1.65 %, which is inside the level of uncertainty in models, about 10 %. Furthermore, the impact of SLR on the dynamics of tides is much more than energy extraction assuming 2.5 GW extraction in Minas Passage.


Burning provides irreparable effects on the affected patient. Several studies show
that these cells may contribute to tissue regeneration whether through producing a variety of bioactive
growth factors and/or by differentiation into mesoderm lineage. Several studies demonstrate that
stimulated mesenchymal stem cells have more therapeutic potential than unstimulated cell in accelerate
tissue wound healing. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of subcutaneous
administration of stimulated bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells with lipopolysaccharide in
repairing or regeneration of skin wounds induced by third-degree burn and to compare it with
unstimulated Mesenchymal stem cell in mouse model.
Materials & Methods: The third-degree skin burn was induced on male mice (N=27). After 1 hour,
based on the equal physical condition mice were randomly divided into three separate groups which
included control, mesenchyme and LPS groups and then respectively subcutaneously administered with
phosphate buffered saline (PBS; 400 μl), mesenchymal stem cells and stimulated mesenchymal stem
cells with LPS (106 cell in 400μl PBS) at the burn site. In order to check the speed of the process of 21-
days wound repair, tissue section at days 7, 14, and 21 after induction of burn were prepared and stained
with hematoxylin/eosin and Masson's trichrome.
Results: Considering investigated parameters including formation of granulation tissue, angiogenesis,
fibroblast proliferation, collagen deposition and the rate and quality of healing of third-degree thermal
burns were significantly accelerated in mesenchyme and LPS groups when compared to the control
group (P<0.05). As well as LPS group in comparison to mesenchymal group was superior in collagen
deposition and rate of wound healing.
Conclusion: The results demonstrate that stimulate cells whit LPS improve BMSc's therapeutic effect
in some factors of burn wound healing.


Abstract Alaria esculenta is an important kelp species in northern Europe, Atlantic Canada and USA and the Arctic, with high economic potential. Microspongium alariae, a brown algal endophyte using A. esculenta as host, is reported for the first time from Scotland (Great Britain) and Brittany (France), suggesting a wide distribution in NW Europe. The alga was found growing epi-endophytically in A. esculenta stipes and was occasionally associated with warts. Isolated Microspongium thalli grew in host-free cultures and formed plurilocular sporangia in a broad range of temperature and irradiance conditions. DNA barcoding using the nuclear ribosomal ITS1, the mitochondrial COI and the plastidial rbcL confirmed the identity of the endophyte as M. alariae. Electron microscopy was used to compare the alga when endophytic in Alaria with a host-free culture. As an endophyte, cell diameter, pyrenoid diameter and cell wall thickness were reduced. In contrast, there were more plasmodesma connections between endophyte cells, possibly to enhance nutrient transport along the endophytic thallus. In the light of this evidence, a parasitic life style is considered unlikely for the species and the adaptive value of endophytism in M. alariae remains to be elucidated.


Two problems of half-wave hole and high ripples in the transmittance region for a harmonic beam splitter had been pointed out and analyzed. Based on the application of a half-wavelength control and a new admittance matching methods, a harmonic beam splitter was designed and fabricated. The former method eliminated the half-wave hole fundamentally, and the latter smoothed high ripples in the transmittance region effectively. The matching stack consisted of a symmetrically periodic structure and provided a complete matching at the desired wavelength, i.e., both conditions for the equivalent admittance and phase thickness were fulfilled. Furthermore, both the theoretical and the tested curves had been given, and a good agreement between them was obtained.


Innovation has become a major field of study in economics, management, sociology, science and technology, and history. Case studies, empirical models, appreciative analyses and formal theories abound. However, after several decades of study on innovation, and so many different types of contribution, there are still many phenomena we know very little about. The debate on innovation still has much to deliver; important questions remain unanswered and many problems require solution. Bringing together many leading figures in the field, this collection aims to address these concerns by offering detailed analyses of topics that are crucial for understanding innovation. In addition, it offers discussions of topics that researchers are just beginning to explore and of topics that continue to defy our efforts to understand and systematise. This important and wide-ranging collection will be essential reading for academic researchers and graduate students who wish to gain a broad overview of frontier-research in innovation.


With the appointment and probable confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, social conservatives have locked in a 5-4 majority, likely for a generation. The constitutional doctrine most likely on the brink of extinction is substantive due process: the idea that certain unenumerated privacy interests are constitutionally protected. Over the course of several decades, conservatives have drawn progressive legal thinkers and jurists into an unseemly debate about body parts and bodily functions; in this way, conservatives were winning an ideological war while losing some battles. Conservatives, by indulging fear-based arguments about abortion, sodomy, and the "homosexual agenda," made progressives focus on discrete and narrowly defined individual rights rather than on the authority, jurisdiction, and competence of the state to regulate activities that are components of citizen life--where governments have no business regulating, regardless whether those activities implicate some kind of "fundamental right." Progressive advocates must become expert on the philosophy of John Locke, using it to appeal to conservatives' stated suspicion of governmental overreach and fealty to originalism. Locke, whose writing clearly formed the basis for the words 'retained' in the Ninth Amendment and 'reserved' in the Tenth, focused on the limited power of government to interfere in the private lives of its subjects rather than the scope of the individual's jurisdiction over his or her own discrete choices. By focusing on the latter rather than the former, progressives abandoned solid ground and stepped into a minefield that conservatives had laid down; conservatives successfully framed issues around personal privacy in such a way that progressives could not ultimately win. The time is now for progressive to re-frame these issues, focusing on the broad power generally reserved to the people over their own personal and moral choices (and thus beyond the jurisdiction or reach of any government) rather than the historical or traditional views of narrow and discrete (and often personal to the point of embarrassment) "rights" or privacy interests.


As the proliferation of social media and live streaming, online celebrity endorsement is a common practice of content marketing in e-commerce platform. Despite the prevalent use of social media and online community, empirical research investigating the economic values of user-generated-content (UGC) and marketer-generated-content (MGC) still lags. This study seeks to contribute theoretically and practically to an understanding of how online celebrity endorsement and fans interaction behaviors affect e-commerce sales. We adopt cross-sectional regression to assess the economic value of online celebrity endorsement, and we employ panel vector autoregressive model to explain the dynamic relationship between marketers' and consumers' content marketing behaviors and e-commerce product sales. Empirical results highlight that the interaction within fans community has spillover effect on content marketing under "Fan Economy" era.