Background: Safe medication use during pregnancy requires a great understanding of the benefits and risks associated upon use of the drug. Community Pharmacists (CPs) are the most accessible health care professionals for the pregnant women to get safety information about drugs. Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) of community pharmacists on medication safety during pregnancy. Methods: A crosssectional study was conducted among community pharmacists of various community pharmacies located in Anantapur district. A total of 403 CPs were enrolled and subjected for interview by using pre-validated selfadministered KAP questionnaire on medication safety during pregnancy. Descriptive statistics were used to represent the socio-demographic characteristics and KAP levels. Chi-square test was used to associate demographic profile with KAP levels. Results: A total of 403 community Pharmacists (CPs) were enrolled in the study. Majority of the pharmacists are males (345; 85.6%), residing in semi-urban area (184; 45.6%), possess diploma in pharmacy (232; 57.5%) and having more than 10 years' of experience. Among 403 CPs, only 21 (5.2%) had good knowledge, 380 (94.2%) had positive attitude and 119 (29.5%) have safe practice towards medication safety during pregnancy. Respondent's age, qualification and experience were significantly associated with good knowledge and safe practices. Conclusion: Community pharmacists are having a positive attitude and some knowledge about safe medication use in pregnant women. Still, there is a wide gap in knowledge levels and practices of CPs towards safe medication use in pregnant women. This gap can be fulfilled by providing focused educational intervention to all CPs.


Abstract Background and aims Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (CSBD) is a medical condition that can impair social and occupational functioning and lead to severe distress. To date, treatment effectiveness studies of CSBD are under-developed; typically, treatment for CSBD is based on guidelines for substance or other behavioural addictions. Mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) is an evidence-based treatment for substance addiction aimed at, among other things, reducing craving and negative affect—i.e. processes that are implicated in the maintenance of problematic sexual behaviours. However, to our knowledge no prior research has been published evaluating mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) in the treatment of CSBD, except two clinical case reports. Therefore, the aim of the current pilot study was to examine whether MBRP can lead to clinical improvement in CSBD. Methods Participants were 13 adult males with a diagnosis of CSBD. Before and after the eight-week MBRP intervention, participants completed a booklet of questionnaires including measurements of porn viewing, masturbation and emotional distress. Results As expected, we found that after MBRP participants spent significantly less time engaging in problematic pornography use and exhibited a decrease in anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Discussion and Conclusions The findings indicate that MBRP could be beneficial for CSBD individuals. Further clinical effectiveness studies with bigger sample sizes, delayed post-training measurements and randomised control trial design are warranted. In conclusion, MBRP leads to a decrease in time spent watching porn and a decrease in emotional distress in CSBD patients.


The deepening US-China trade war and nationalist reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping global economic relationships. Alongside these developments, two new megaregional trade agreements, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), will refocus East Asia's economic ties in the region itself. The new accords are moving forward without the United States and India, once seen as critical partners in the CPTPP and RCEP, respectively. Using a computable general equilibrium model, we show that the agreements will raise global national incomes in 2030 by an annual $147 billion and $186 billion, respectively. They will yield especially large benefits for China, Japan, and South Korea and losses for the United States and India. These effects are simulated both in a business-as-before-Trump environment and in the context of a sustained US-China trade war. The effects were simulated before the COVID-19 shock but seem increasingly likely in the wake of the pandemic. Compared with business as before, the trade war generates large global losses rising to $301 billion annually by 2030. The new agreements offset the effects of the trade war globally, but not for the United States and China. The trade war makes RCEP especially valuable because it strengthens East Asian interdependence, raising trade among members by $428 billion and reducing trade among nonmembers by $48 billion. These shifts bring regional ties closer to institutional arrangements proposed in the 1990s and incentivize greater cooperation among China, Japan, and South Korea.


The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry, where the economic performance consists of market-based and accounting-based estimates. In this regard, Spearman's ranking-order correlation was applied. The study found that there is some contradiction in the direction of the relationship between accounting-based estimates and market-based estimates and their relationship with environmental performance. Furthermore, there is some contradiction in the direction of the relationship between economic performance and the environmental performance of the different mining sectors. The main limitation is that only a limited number of mining companies reported on environmental-related issues. Only ten mining companies provided sufficient annual data over a five-year period. The contribution of this study is that it pointed out that causation can be argued both ways between environmental performance and economic performance. When a change in the environmental performance influences the economic performance, it can be determined whether it does/does not pay to be green. This one-sided view, used in previous studies, presents probably only half of the bigger picture.


This paper analyses government support for networking and regional cluster growth in the food sector. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first paper to provide a literature review of studies on regional food clusters, focusing on key features that characterise successful regional food clusters. The review compares key characteristics of such clusters with characteristics of clusters from other industrial sectors. The insights from these studies on clustering success and the role of government are contrasted with empirical evidence on government support for clustering in the Canadian food sector, specifically in the province of Alberta. The empirical evidence is based on two small industry surveys, one conducted in March 2005, and the second in August 2009. Considering this empirical evidence, we have little support for an emerging food (innovation) cluster in Alberta, and little evidence for effective government support toward food cluster development in Alberta.


Horizontal wells are widely applied in the Bohai offshore oil fields due to their large oil drainage areas and high yields. However, water coning is a significant problem existing in water-driven reservoirs. To control water coning, this paper introduces a stinger completion method which can be applied in the horizontal wells. Based on the principle of mirror reflection and mass conservation law, a mathematical model coupling fluid flow both in the reservoir and in the horizontal wellbore has been developed. Using the new proposed model, the well production profile and bottom hole flowing pressure distribution along the horizontal well, considering the influence of flowing in the wellbore, are calculated successfully. Moreover, the influence of the stinger completion on the inflow profile is investigated. According to the results of the sensitivity analysis, a 160 m' 2-7/8 tubing is designed to be built in the horizontal section. The field-test results show that the stinger completion could be used to improve the wellbore inflow profile and decrease the possibility of water-cut thus increasing the effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR).


Greater temporal and spatial sampling allows environmental processes and the well- being of our waterways to be monitored and characterised from previously unobtainable perspectives. It allows us to create models, make predictions and better manage our environments. New technologies are emerging in order to enable remote autonomous sensing of our water systems and subsequently meet the demands for high temporal and spatial monitoring. In particular, advances in communication and sensor technology has provided a catalyst for progress in remote monitoring of our water systems. However despite continuous improvements there are limitations with the use of this technology in marine environmental monitoring applications. We summarise these limitations in terms of scalability and reliability. In order to address these two main issues, our research proposes that environmental monitoring applications would strongly benefit from the use of a multi-modal sensor network utilising visual sensors, modelled outputs and context information alongside the more conventional in-situ wireless sensor networks. However each of these addi- tional data streams are unreliable. Hence we adapt a trust and reputation model for optimising their use to the network.
For our research we use two test sites - the River Lee, Cork and Galway Bay each with a diverse range of multi-modal data sources. Firstly we investigate the coordination of multiple heterogenous information sources to allow more efficient operation of the more sophisticated in-situ analytical instrument in the network, to render the deployment of such devices more scalable. Secondly we address the issue of reliability. We investigate the ability of a multi-modal network to compensate for failure of in-situ nodes in the network, where there is no redundant identical node in the network to replace its operation. We adapt a model from the literature for dealing with the unreliability associated with each of the alternative sensor streams in order to monitor their behaviour over time and choose the most reliable output at a particular point in time in the network. We find that each of the alternative data streams demonstrates themselves to be useful tools in the network. The addition of the use of the trust and reputation model reflects their behaviour over time and demonstrates itself as a useful tool in optimising their use in the network.


In 2014 the African Union adopted a 10-year Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024). The strategy provides a flexible framework for adopting flagship programs that involve a number of countries based on their needs, capabilities and long-term development objectives. Some areas of technological endeavor, however, represent foundations upon which economic activities are constructed. One of those areas is building geospatial data infrastructure. This can be achieved through a variety of data-collecting measures ranging from large satellites to unmanned aerial vehicles. The opportunity to use remote sensing technology for development has never been greater. There are over 100 remote sensing satellites currently in orbit, with over half designed to gather imagery that could be used for development. The industry is also growing: the OECD estimates that over 250 satellites will be launched during this decade alone, compared to half that amount during the last decade. Recent innovations around satellite technologies have also driven down costs and made it viable for low-income countries to develop cost-effective satellite programs. This paper examines small satellite programs as windows of opportunity for countries to achieve their development goals. First, it locates the potential socioeconomic benefits of satellites in low-income countries. Next, it explores the recent history of, and lessons learned by, South Africa, Brazil, and South Korea. While tens of other countries have developed satellite programs, these case studies offer insights into how and why countries have created successful programs. Next, this chapter examines the latest technologies and focuses on emerging opportunities for current and future space programs. Lastly, it develops concrete options and a clear strategy for policymakers in emerging markets to consider when designing future programs.


Growth of callus explants was studied by manipulating the hormonal composition of Von Arnold and Eriksson's (AE) 1977 medium. Various auxin – cytokinin combinations were tested. Growth of callus on fresh weight basis, was best promoted by 2mgl-1 Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA) and also by the interaction between Indole Butyric Acid (IBA) at 2mgl-1 and 6- Benzyl Amino Purine (BAP) at 0.5mgl -1 . Although there were no significant differences among the various combinations of NAA levels with kinetin levels and NAA levels with BAP levels with respect to fresh weight production, per cent increments over the controls were determined. Maximum increments were obtained from 1mgl -1 NAA x 0.5mgl -1 kinetin (406.5%) and 1mgl -1 NAA x 0.5mgl -1 BAP (198.06%). There were strong indications that high fresh weights were not always synonymous with dry matter production. Among the levels of NAA, 0mgl -1 and 0.5mgl -1 produced the highest percentages. In NAA x kinetin cultures, 0mgl -1 produced a value of 0.467% while 0.5mgl -1 in NAA x BAP cultures produced a value of 0.485%. For kinetin levels, 5mgl -1 produced the maximum percentage of 0.451% while for BAP levels, 0mgl -1 (0.471%) and 5mgl -1 (0.462%) produced the optimum percentages. With respect to the hormonal interactions, optimal percentages were obtained in 0mgl -1 NAA x 5mgl -1 kinetin (0.643%) and 0.5mgl -1 NAA x 0mgl -1 BAP (0.625%) cultures. Spectrophotometric studies revealed the existence of an association between the chlorophyll content of calluses and the grade of greening. Callus greening was best promoted by the main effects of kinetin (5mgl-1), BAP (5mgl-1) and NAA (2mgl -1 ). An unusual sign of physiological specialization (reddish pigmentation) was observed in some of the callus clumps. The implications of the results have been discussed.. Keywords : Totipotency, Explants, Auxins, Cytokinins, Callus Agro-Science Vol. 4(1) 2006: pp. 14-23


Malignant catarrhal fever (MCF) is caused by two closely associated gamma herpes viruses namely alcelaphine herpesvirus 1 (AlHV-1) and ovine herpesvirus 2 (OvHV-2) and characterised with lymphocyte infiltration in non-lymphoid tissues, vasculitis and epithelial damage. The mechanism by which the viruses cause the disease is not fully understood. The hypothesis of this project was that MCF is initiated by aberrant gene expression in endothelium, epithelium and infected T cells of susceptible animals, because they are not the natural hosts for the viruses and the viruses will not have evolved in them. The first goal was to examine whether rabbit epithelium and bovine endothelium can be infected in vitro and in vivo with AlHV-1 using q PCR and, if infected whether viral transcripts could be identified in these tissue cells using q PCR and in situ hybridisation (ISH). The results revealed that endothelium and epithelium can be infected and latent infection can be established in them. This suggests the likelihood of establishing a similar type of infection in vivo. Secondly, the trial to identify latency-associated transcripts using 5-azacitidine treatment on bovine turbinate fibroblast (BT) cells and rabbit large granular lymphocytes (LGLs) was only partially successful. However, pan T antigen was expressed in 5-azacitidine treated but not untreated LGLs cells. This may indicate a function of the drug either directly or through the latency state. Transcriptome analysis in the infected and treated LGLs and BT cells showed that several pathways were affected by 5-aza although a possible latency (low transcript levels) was only seen in the BTs. Transcriptome analysis revealed similar pathways to those described for MCF in the tissues in vivo, and an effect of 5-aza on these. Viral transcripts analysis showed that genes related to productive/lytic cycles were higher than latent ones on day 17 of the in vivo experiment demonstrating that the virus may replicate at this stage of the disease. The attempt to localize the viral transcripts on the rabbit infected tissues using ISH was unsuccessful due to a lack of time.


OBJECTIVE--To compare the abnormalities shown by magnetic resonance imaging of the brain in three clinically distinct groups of patients with multiple sclerosis, and to correlate the extent of abnormality with the degree of clinical disability in the three groups. DESIGN--All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging and full neurological examination, and their disability was scored according to the expanded Kurtzke disability state scale. SETTING--National Hospital for Nervous Diseases (Multiple Sclerosis NMR Research Group). PATIENTS--Three groups of patients with confirmed multiple sclerosis were studied: 12 patients with minimal disability despite a long (greater than 10 years) duration of illness (benign multiple sclerosis), 16 who had developed progressive disability after a relapsing and remitting course (secondary progressive multiple sclerosis), and 13 who had had progressive disability from the onset of the disease (primary progressive multiple sclerosis). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Number and size of lesions in 17 anatomically defined sites; total lesion load, estimated with an arbitrary scoring system weighted for the size of lesions; and disability score. RESULTS--Magnetic resonance imaging showed that all 41 patients had abnormalities. These were extensive in the groups with secondary progressive and benign disease compared with the group with primary progressive disease. The lesions in the patients with secondary progressive disease were larger and more confluent than those in the two other groups (p = 0.007). Most lesions (85%) in the patients with primary progressive disease were under 5 mm in diameter; this percentage was higher than that in the two other groups (p = 0.032). Consequently the patients with primary progressive disease had the lowest mean lesion load (36.7); that in the patients with benign disease was 52.7 and that in the patients with secondary progressive disease 64.6 (p = 0.05). No correlation existed between disability and total lesion load. The distribution of brain lesions and of detectable lesions of the spinal cord, and the frequency of cortical atrophy, were similar in all groups. CONCLUSIONS--No relation was found between the degree of clinical disability and the extent of abnormality shown by magnetic resonance imaging: patients with clinically benign disease often had extensive abnormalities and those with primary progressive disease had surprisingly few lesions. Though magnetic resonance imaging increases knowledge of the disease process in multiple sclerosis and is invaluable in diagnosis, it is not helpful in predicting disability in individual patients.


Shipbuilding industry grows rapidly due to the increasing growth of economies and thus, the need for new and bigger ships emerge. Manufacturing of ships in shipyards includes harmful processes, such as welding, which impact the workers and the environment. As a consequence of increase in demand for new ships, deleterious welding fume and emissions all over the world increase year by year. Welding fume includes hazardous micro and sub-micro sized metal particulates and in addition to welding fume, welding emissions consist of detrimental gaseous wastes as well. In this study, a set of experiments was designed by Taguchi method. These experiments were realized by two welders using two different types of covered electrodes (rutile and cellulosic), welding speeds and currents on Grade A shipbuilding steel, which is one of the most common steels in shipbuilding. After the experiments, fume formation rate was measured and it was observed that the contributions of the factors are 92.47%, 5.42% and 1.66% for electrode type, current and welder, respectively. The results were assessed using Taguchi and ANOVA and evaluated in terms of environment and occupational health and safety.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine the potential for a more comprehensive method of analysis of coal mine dust. Respirable dust is specifically of interest due to its ability to cause occupational lung disease when miners are overexposed to airborne concentrations. A detailed standard methodology to characterize respirable mine dust is carefully investigated with the use of scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray (SEM-EDX). In addition to a thorough description of the developed particle level characterization approach, the method is demonstrated with underground respirable dust samples collected from an underground coal mine in Central Appalachia. Results of this thesis indicate that a comprehensive dust characterization method is possible and can be efficient and effective, when standardized. This analytical approach uses measured compositions, dimensions, and shapes to produce an abundance of data in even a single sample of dust. Verification results show the method is suitable for analysis of respirable particles of common coal mine mineralogy and analysis of many samples in a timely manner. The results obtained from the underground samples in Central Appalachia reveal the quantity of information which can be generated using the developed method. The amount of data which is acquired using the more comprehensive dust characterization method may aid in understanding the health effects of various dust characteristics.


Sex offender registries, though popular, bring with them enormous fiscal costs and unintended consequences for offenders and communities. Consistent with the Grand Challenges, social workers can play a role in advocating for sex offender management policies that are better informed by evidence and thus a better use of resources. Registry reform would also mediate the stigma resulting from the sex offender label, and reduce barriers to offender reintegration. A brief history of registration laws and the research regarding their effectiveness will be provided, followed by a rationale for needed improvements in sex offender management policy. Five evidence-based recommendations for reform will be proposed: (1) juveniles should not be subjected to sex offender registration; (2) registration durations should be guided by risk assessment research; (3) procedures for relief and removal from registries should be available; (4) discretion should be returned to judges; (5) residence restrictions should be abolished. Such changes can result in improved public safety outcomes and social justice, as well as reduced fiscal and social costs.


Sex inequity in academic achievement was well documented before the COVID-19 pandemic, and evolving data suggest that women in academic surgery are disproportionately disadvantaged by the pandemic. This perspective piece reviews currently accepted solutions to the sex achievement gap, with their associated shortcomings. We also propose innovative strategies to overcoming barriers to sex equity in academic medicine that broadly fall into three categories: strategies to mitigate inequitable caregiving responsibilities, strategies to reduce cognitive load, and strategies to value uncompensated, impactful work. These approaches address inequities at the system-level, as opposed to the individual-level, lifting the burden of changing the system from women.


Abstract Three clay minerals from southern and central Tunisia were characterized. Both XRD quantitative analysis and a chemical method were used to determine the mineralogical and physico-chemical characteristics of the <2 mm clay fractions. The XRD, CEC and specific surface measurement analyses showed that the dominant phase in all samples is illite-smectite with kaolinite and traces of quartz also present. From quantitative XRD, the abundances of the minerals identified are consistent with the measured CEC, specific surface area and TG/DTA properties. Analysis by XRD also showed that the illite-smectite phases are composed of thin stacks (two to a maximum of ten layers per stack) of random illite-smectite and ordered (R1) illite-smectite. There is also some discrete illite.


Los Angeles, 1991. Maximilian Ophuls, one of the makers of the modern world, is knifed to death in broad daylight on the doorstep of his illegitimate daughter India, slaughtered by his Kashmiri driver, a mysterious figure who calls himself Shalimar the Clown. The dead man is a World War II Resistance hero, a man of formidable intellectual ability and much erotic appeal, a former United States ambassador to India, and subsequently America's counter-terrorism chief. The murder looks at first like a political assassination but turns out to be passionately personal. This is the story of Max, his killer, and his daughter - and of a fourth character, the woman who links them, whose story explains them all. The story of a deep love gone fatally wrong, destroyed by a shallow affair, it is an epic narrative that moves from California to France, England, and above all, Kashmir. At its heart is the tale of that earthly paradise of peach orchards and honey bees, of mountains and lakes, of green-eyed women and murderous men: a ruined paradise, not so much lost as smashed. Lives are uprooted, names keep changing - nothing is permanent, yet everything is connected. Spanning the globe and darting through history, Salman Rushdie's majestic narrative captures the heart of the reader and the spirit of a troubled age.


"A Prince [or "A King"] out of the North shall come" is a fifty-line verse prophecy about James I and VI, which survives in seventeen manuscripts. Until recently, it was misunderstood as a medieval work, in part because most manuscripts attribute it to Merlin. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English includes these lines among "Unpublished Merlin Prophecies," although in fact they were published by Hales and Furnivall in 1868. (1) The original Index of Middle English Verse and New Index of Middle English Verse both included "A Prince." (2) The electronic iMEV, however, remedies past errors by omitting this early modern piece. (3) Topical references and manuscript contexts both fix "A Prince" firmly in the 1620s, with some antiquarians collecting or copying it later in the seventeenth century. Alastair Bellany and Andrew McRae include this prophecy in Early Stuart Libels, where they discuss it as a response to the Spanish Match (the proposed union between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain). (4) Early Stuart Libels and the Union First Line Index of English Verses between them list fifteen copies of "A Prince" held in five libraries. To these, I can add two more: Washington, DC, Folger MS L.b. 670, a single sheet in the hand of George More, (6) and Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS Ee.V.36, a small manuscript volume that collects several pages of prophecies. (7) The More manuscript appears in the Folger's card file of first lines. Its omission from the Union First Line Index is surely an oversight. The Cambridge University Library manuscript, however, appears to have gone unnoticed by collectors of verse libels. Bellany and McRae note that "A Prince" had "an uncertain status in manuscript culture" and consider that some of its readers, like John Rous, "took the poem seriously as prophecy," rather than treating it as a political libel. (8) The seventeen manuscripts containing this verse vary their placement of the poem: some accompany it with political libels, some with prophecies, and some with other popular verses, while others combine it with collections of loose sheets that may have been the original "separates" on which this and other verses circulated. The Cambridge manuscript is another that seems to take the prophecy seriously, and like John Rous, its scribe corrects it with reference to other copies. Cambridge, CUL Ee.V.36 measures 210 x 160 mm, with a dark green marbled binding. It has forty-six numbered folios and two flyleaves. The main hand is small, neat, partly cursive italic with some secretary forms, which inscribes a variety of prophecies on the first eight folios. "A Prince" appears on folio one, with a marginal note: "fathered on Merlin but how true I know not." Below it appears a Latin prose prophecy ("Surget Rex ex natione illustrissimi Lilij"). The first eight leaves contain a variety of prophecies in English and Latin. Many have either dates in the 1620s or clear topical allusions to events of that decade. After folio 8v, the pages are blank through folio 46r. On folio 46v, a very current hand records a recipe involving fine castor sugar and flour. The page is darkened in places, as ifthis had been the outermost page for some time. It appears that this writer compared his collected prophecies to other versions, because on 8r, the writer indicates that two entries have been copied from others' manuscripts: John Rous and T. Greenwood. John Rous (c.1584 tol644), known as a diarist and Suffolk clergyman, studied "A Prince" with a scholar's care, recording it in London, British Library, Additional MS 28640, with annotations and notes on the two other copies he had seen. In his marginal notes, Rous spells out the initials CJS appearing in line 4: "Charles James Stuart" (f. 101). He also indicates variants in the text, gives additional lines from other copies, and comments on the need for changes: "this staffe is lame you see," he says of line 37 ("the seas and being past"). …


Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of Science and History. Ed. by Brian C. Black. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013. 4 vols. acid free $399 (ISBN 978-1-59884-761-1). Ebook available (978-1-59884-762-8), call for pricing. The first indication of the mixed message of this encyclopedia is the first sentence in the publisher's announcement: "Climate change is a controversial topic." It may have once been controversial but modern science has determined that climate change is real and definitely not controversial. It seems that one of the purposes of this work is to keep the climate pot boiling, rather than to provide unambiguous explanations of the science, environmental changes, and social impacts. The history of that science and the causes and contributors to climate change are many and important and what one would expect from the title. Climate change is more than an environmental issue. It is a social, political, scientific, personal, national, and global reality. Science can only report what changes have happened, what is currently happening, and what is likely to happen as conditions change. It may not be able to say precisely what will happen, where, or exactly when but does predict based on facts. The contributors come from many disciplines with interests in the social environment around the causes and effects of climate change. Only a few appear to be climate scientists or experts. The editor states that there is "more than enough data on how to keep the Earth robust and fit" and that this encyclopedia is dedicated to that aim (xx). "Robust and fit," which usually describe athletes, are odd terms to describe an ecologically safe and sustainable environment. This encyclopedia could have served its purpose better by emphasizing that the only current controversies are on the alternate plans and efforts to mitigate the highly probable outcomes. Political and public relations controversies should have been identified as such and factual information provided. Many of the brief, scientific, wide-ranging biographies put faces on important ideas. Some of them are undermined by the juxtaposition of inserts that may be irrelevant or seemingly designed to cast doubt on the main idea or credibility of the entry. For example, the first page of the entry on James Hansen, a leading climate scientist, includes a quote from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela at the Copenhagen climate meeting in 2009. Chavez spoke of the need for socialism to save the planet and the evils of capitalism. This sensationalism seems placed to minimize the serious science that Dr. Hansen represents. People seeking clear definitions of terms like: climatic determinism, fracking, geoengineering, greenwashing, hydrokinetic, methane, and tipping point, will find them. Along the way they may be confused by inserts that are as long as several pages. These inserts serve as sidebars, sometimes of questionable merit, usually by their locations. They are indicated by bold black lines above and below and by pale clip-art (large quotation marks for statements, a magnifying glass indicating a "Climate-History Connection," and a sun to indicate a "Hot Spot"). The Chavez quote is one of the more blatant inserts. The term "Hot Spot" is a geographical location about which there is a social, environmental or climate change issue. The term "Hot Spots" is in the index, as are the geographic locations separately. Their placements do not always relate directly to the adjacent entry or are the connections explained. Interspersed in the entry "Balance of Nature" are the "Hot Spots" Vanuatu and Venice, Italy. Vanuatu's wide ranging environmental problems are listed, as is Venice's long flood history. The "Balance of Nature" entry itself deals with defining the two words, balance and nature, separately and together pulling in ideas from ecologists, philosophers and physicists. In the middle of the entry "Medieval Warm Period" is a signed "Climate History Connection" about "The West African Great Warming" by another contributor. …


This work compares the alternative methods of etching silicon semiconductor materials. Conventional methods of pattern delineation using aqueous etchants are being replaced for some applications by dry processing. The reasons for the move towards plasma and ion beam etching are examined particularly in relation to very large scale integration (VLSI) technology and the required reduction in feature size. A review of the published information on the use of reactive gas plasmas shows that this etching process is capable of producing vertical profiles without loss of pattern definition in lum. features.
Noble gas ion beam sputtering, another alternative dry etching process, has some advantages over plasma etching but does not compare favourably in terms of material etch-rate selectivity and profile replication.
Reactive ion beams produced by heated filament sources etch silicon compounds more rapidly than argon beams, but undesirable topographical features such as "facets" and "trenches" may be observed after beam energies greater than about 1 keV have been used.
The total beam current and current distribution have been determined for a medium sized (B93) Saddle-Field source. The etch rates of several materials were greater with a fluorocarbon beam than with an argon beam produced by this source.
Examination of profiles produced by etching silicon dioxide with beams from the B93 source injected with either CHF3 or CF4 showed no evidence of sputtering induced artefacts or lateral attack due to the diffusion of chemically reactive fragments. The results of reactive ion beam etching (RIEB) with a Saddle-Field source suggest that chemical attack predominates over sputtering. A two stage mechanism is proposed in which the incident particles cause bond cleavage at the surface followed by addition and abstraction reactions, leading ultimately to the formation of volatile products.
The possible commercial applications of RIBE with Saddle-Field sources are discussed, and suggestions are advanced for further work in this area.


This paper investigates transient performance of inverter-based microgrids in terms of the resistive power losses incurred in regulating frequency under persistent stochastic disturbances. We model the inverters as second-order oscillators and compare two algorithms for frequency regulation: the standard frequency droop controller and a distributed proportional-integral (PI) controller. The transient power losses can be quantified using an input-output ℋ2 norm. We show that the distributed PI-controller, which has previously been proposed for secondary frequency control (the elimination of static errors), also has the potential to significantly improve performance by reducing transient power losses. This loss reduction is shown to be larger in a loosely interconnected network than in a highly interconnected one, whereas losses do not depend on connectivity if standard droop control is employed. Moreover, our results indicate that there is an optimal tuning of the distributed PI-controller for loss reduction. Overall, our results provide an additional argument in favor of distributed algorithms for secondary frequency control in microgrids.


This article contributes to the debate about urban governance in specialized European cities, by focusing on the interplay between changes in national defence policies and local initiatives. It is based upon qualitative research carried out in Toulon, a mid-sized French city and the biggest military port on the Mediterranean Sea. Firstly, it explains how the emergence of a new urban agenda aimed at diversifying the city from its military function challenged existing relations between the city and the Navy. As a consequence, new areas of conflict and cooperation can be observed. Secondly, it shows how political strategies adopted by elected officials respond to the need to legitimize the new agenda and to constrain the Navy to participate in it, while managing the military constituency. Despite a political discourse that proclaimed convergence of interest between the city and the Navy, the existence of a major conflict concerning the use and control of space doomed the partnership to a (partial) failure.


An expression is derived for the cross correlation of the electric field scattered from a roughened metallic disk to two points in the far zone. Both exponential and Gaussian surface correlations are considered. In the calculation of the cross correlation, careful treatment is given to the terms involving the surface slope, and our new results are applicable to a broader range of surface roughness and observation angle than were earlier approximate methods. The cross correlation is then reduced to give the backscattering cross section of the disk as a function of the tilt or incident angle for both types of surface correlation. It is found that the cross section for the Gaussian surface falls off rapidly with increasing tilt angle. A particularly interesting new finding is that the cross section for the exponential surface actually increases under certain roughness conditions as the tilt angle is increased. While the effect of shadowing is not included in the analysis, we derive an expression showing the limiting value of the tilt angle below which shadowing effects are negligible. In illustration of these basic results, experiments are presented for the backscattering from roughened surfaces prepared by bead blasting and by ion-beam etching.


An upcoming clinical trial at the Moffitt Cancer Center for women with stage 2/3 ER+breast cancer combines an aromatase inhibitor and a PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor, and aims to lower a preoperative endocrine prognostic index (PEPI) that correlates with relapse-free survival. PEPI is fundamentally a static index, measured at the end of neoadjuvant therapy before surgery. We develop a mathematical model of the essential components of the PEPI score in order to identify successful combination therapy regimens that minimize both tumor burden and metastatic potential, based on time-dependent trade-offs in the system. We consider two molecular traits, CCR7 and PD-L1 which correlate with treatment response and increased metastatic risk. We use a matrix game model with the four phenotypic strategies to examine the frequency-dependent interactions of cancer cells. This game was embedded into an ecological model of tumor population growth dynamics. The resulting model predicts both evolutionary and ecological dynamics that track with changes in the PEPI score. We consider various treatment regimens based on combinations of the two therapies with drug holidays. By considering the trade off between tumor burden and metastatic potential, the optimal therapy plan was found to be a 1 month kick start of the immune checkpoint inhibitor followed by five months of continuous combination therapy. Relative to a protocol with both therapeutics given together from the start, this delayed regimen results in transient sub-optimal tumor regression while maintaining a phenotypic constitution that is more amenable to fast tumor regression for the final five months of therapy. The mathematical model provides a useful abstraction of clinical intuition, enabling hypothesis generation and testing of clinical assumptions.


The Mekong River in Southeast Asia is an important source of life for people living within the basin. Sharing the river's water resources is, however, becoming increasingly difficult, and has already sparked disputes among riparians. Climate change could potentially increase political instabilities and intensify interstate disputes. It is important, therefore, to increase capacities to adapt to changing climatic conditions. To overcome existing shortcomings and improve adaptive capacities, synergies between climate and water diplomacy should be harnessed.


This qualitative case study explores how moments perceived as 'defining' or being a climatic turning point may influence students' preconceived ideas and viewpoints. Institutions worldwide are becoming cognisant of the importance of preparing students for global leadership roles. In meeting this objective the Student Leadership Development Office introduced students on its leadership course to the topics of leadership and citizenship. The Leadership Course's structure used an ethical lens to elaborate on elements of citizenship related to knowledge, skills, efficacy, and commitment. The course aimed to imbue students with a sense of stewardship, and commitment to civic involvement. The provision of real-world learning experiences included the use of a culturally responsive form of teaching, by the introduction of the African spiritual concepts of ubuntu and umhlangano. Lessons were further amplified by prior research, feedback, and the use of reflective journals by course participants. Using Mezirow's (1991) theoretical framework of transformative learning, this study considers how the course facilitates the possibility of catalytic experiences for course participants. This study is particularly interested in determining whether real change is possible via defining moments which may potentially trigger transformative learning. Data gathered from reflective journals and email questionnaires has been coded and analysed for possible themes. Triangulation between sources allowed for greater validity for the findings of the data collected. The study shows how, via transforming experiences, students became aware of preconceived biases and judgements in their internal landscapes. These defining moments contribute to catalysts for development. Case study results suggest that students could develop a broader understanding of the responsibilities of leadership and citizenship by obtaining an overall understanding and appreciation for diversity and being motivated to implement activities that could potentially have a positive bearing on community life.


Introduction There is a recognised difference in the centralised children's services compared with the more localised adult services for those with neuromuscular diseases. At the young people's unit at Martin House transition is a difficult time with uncertainties about the availability and working practices of physiotherapy services for adults. With funding from the DoH as part of the £30million the physiotherapy services in Yorkshire and Humber were reviewed. Method Contacts were made from a number of sources, starting with known children's services and an email questionnaire was sent. There was a small circulation of questions to users of the service. Results There was excellent completion circulated after contact had been established by the researcher. • The paediatric service in the region is well coordinated with close links with respective neuromuscular teams. • The challenge of identifying the different adult services highlighted the possible difficulties faced by people with a neuromuscular condition. • There is variety in the provision and accessibility of adult services offered around the region. • There is a limited review/monitoring service in place for adults with only 42% of teams offering this. • 54% of adult teams are unable to provide on-going physiotherapy. They are usually goal- orientated and based on self-management which isn't always appropriate in a progressive deteriorating condition. • The lack of access to specialist physiotherapy in adult services is a problem for both community and hospice physiotherapists and patients. • Provision of Hydrotherapy is an on-going issue. Recommendations • Consideration of a review/monitoring service for adults is needed. • Consideration of a transition service is needed. • There is a need to provide more access to specialist neuromuscular physiotherapists in adult services. • A maintained and accessible database of adult services for these patients should be made available to assist referrers.


This forum provides commentary on five accountability articles in this issue. In response to those pieces, it advances the argument that the study of accountability through the framework proposed by Kramarz and Park (and demonstrated by the empirical articles) can uncover key political dynamics that drive the design of global environmental governance initiatives. The utility of the practical application of accountability measures to ensure good design, rather than proper implementation, is less clear. Using the framework to study accountability does, however, provide an opening for debates over initiative design that may lead to improvements in global environmental governance outcomes.


While I served in the White House, [as Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs and Policy and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977-81], Ph.D. economists occupied the positions of Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Treasury, Director of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, the President's anti-inflation adviser, Chairman and Council Members of the Council of Economic Advisers, and many other senior positions throughout the government. Yet we presided over an economy with double-digit inflation and interest rates and a recession. Presidents of the United States and their White House Staff members expect economists to be omniscient prophets of the future course of the economy, unerring economic policy advisers, and teachers of the mysterious science of economics to often distracted pupils. They expect their economists to provide an economic blueprint for high growth, low inflation, and a guaranteed re-election—but without offending any important constituencies. What is the appropriate role for economists in the White House? What can they realistically be expected to do?


This paper explores abatement investment and location responses to environmental policy, which takes the form of emission taxes or tradeable emission permits and subsidies against the costs of abatement investment, under uncertainty and irreversibility. Uncertainty is associated with output price, environmental policy parameters, or technological parameters. Irreversibility is related to abatement expenses and movements to a new location. Uncertainty is modeled by Ito stochastic differential equations, and the problem is analyzed by using optimal stopping methodologies. Continuation intervals during which firms do not engage in abatement investment or relocate and intervals during which firms take the irreversible decision of undertaking abatement expenses or relocating are defined. Free boundaries are characterized for a variety of cases that include output price uncertainty expressed both in terms of continuous fluctuations of permit prices and unpredictable policy changes, and combined policy and technological uncertainty. An optimal environmental policy is defined as the combination of policy parameters that makes the free boundary corresponding to the profit maximization problem coincide with the free boundary corresponding to a social optimization problem.


Accurate and computationally efficient image alignment is a vital step in scientific efforts to understand the structure of the brain through electron microscopy images of neurological tissue. Connectomics is an emerging area of neurobiology that uses cutting edge machine learning and image processing algorithms to extract brain connectivity graphs from electron microscopy images. This poster abstract describes a high-throughput image alignment system that is designed to run on commodity multicore machines. We achieve alignments that differ by no more than 2 pixels from state-of-the-art alignment pipelines while achieving 40x additional throughput. The tools employed to achieve this performance boost include application-specific optimizations and the use of frugal snap judgments: a general purpose technique for optimizing computations that have strict accuracy-performance trade-offs.


Many organizations value workplace diversity and devote large expenditures to achieve this. As a college student entering the workplace, being diversity ready represents an asset to organizations. This study considers the impact of college on students' diversity attitudes and their diversity readiness in preparation for encountering a diverse workforce. Therefore, we examine whether level of diversity exposure relates to diversity attitudes in incoming students, and whether time in college, one's minority status, or one's major might affect their diversity attitudes. We also examine the relationship between diversity attitudes and diversity behavioral intent for students who are about to enter the workforce given that being diversity ready may be seen as an asset to organizations. Results suggest that one's level of exposure, time in college, and major predict diversity attitudes to a limited extent. However, minority status strongly predicts one's diversity attitudes and diversity attitudes also strongly predict diversity behavioral intent.


The Deaf community in Britain comprises people who use British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate and who share similar lived experiences. The storied lives of Deaf people, told in the community through personal experience narratives, provide insight into the issues that arise from being Deaf in a primarily hearing world. This thesis explores personal experience narratives told by 24 Deaf people from across the UK in an attempt to reveal the typicality embedded within signed personal experience narratives. As a study of human experiences, a qualitative approach is taken and this is reinforced with some numerical data that reveals the frequency of occurrence of patterns across the data sets. This qualitative research study explores signed narratives derived from two main sources: The British Sign Language Corpus and an additional data set collected through fieldwork.
In the study, a thematic analysis methodology is employed to answer the research questions, and the findings are divided into cultural and interactional themes. Five latent themes are identified from the data analysis process: Communication, Education, Travel, Access and Community. Further categorisation of the data resulted in a series of sub-themes, comprising: getting attention; signing; lack of understanding; mouthings/gestures; use of light; visuality; missed information; reading and writing; technology; and bonding. The study explores personal experiences that reflect the typicality embedded within the narratives, and concludes that the shared personal experiences of Deaf people are related to the consequences of communicating in an auditory-based society, and the effects of the educational provision for deaf children in the UK. The study also concludes that academic understanding of the lived experiences of Deaf people would benefit from further research of personal experience narratives told by Deaf people in order to expand existing knowledge and provide information to the Deaf community.


With the development of biotechnology, more and more biological sequence information has been acquired. The number of sequences in GenBank has been growing exponentially in the past 20 years (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). There are almost 8 million sequences in non-redundant (NR) database of protein sequences, including the complete genomes of 1800 different species. This large body of data is doubling in size every 28 months. Many computational and statistical methods for the comparison of biological sequences (DNA,
genome or protein sequences) have been proposed. It still remains one of the most active and important research areas in
bioinformatics and computational biology.

Two different methodologies for studying the sequence comparison (i.e., the similarity of sequences) are known as alignment-based and
alignment-free methods. Alignment-based method is widely used by scientists. However, the search for optimal solutions using sequence alignment-based methods is encountered with great difficulty in computational aspect with regard to large biological databases, especially when comparing three or more biological sequences at a time, i.e., multiple sequence alignment. In fact, multiple sequence
alignment is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, it is very necessary to develop the alignment-free approaches to overcome the critical limitations of alignment-based methods.

In chapter 2, we introduce an alignment-free approach, natural vector method, to characterize a biological sequence as a natural vector. We mathematically prove that the sequence and its natural vector are in one-to-one correspondence. This contribution allows us to embed the biological sequence space as a subspace of Euclidean space. More importantly, natural vector method is much faster and more accurate than the-state-of-the-art methods. Therefore, we can globally compare all the existing DNA, genome sequences within the space in a very short time whereas the conventional multiple
alignment methods can never achieve it. In addition, the evolutionary properties of an unknown DNA, genome sequence can be
predicted in the existing space by simply computing its associated natural vector. We conduct our method on new outbreak of A (H1N1) genes and genomes, human rhinovirus gnomes (HRV), mammalian mitochondrial genomes. The results indicate that natural vector method is much faster and more accurate than the-state-of-the-art methods in specifying the homology of DNA or genome sequences.

Secondly, we use the natural vector method to construct the protein space, a subspace of Euclidean space in chapter 3. Similarly, we can prove the one-to-one correspondence between a protein sequence and its natural vector.

In chapter 3, we use the natural vector method to reconstruct the phylogenetic tree for protein sequences. As illustration, protein kinase C (PKC) family and beta globin family sequences are tested
based on their 60-dimensional natural vectors.

In chapter 4, we introduce a novel method, ZC-method, to classify intron-less sequences from intron-containing sequences. This
proposed method extends Z-curve method and improve the accuracy significantly. In applications, we test the original data of Z-curve method and another large dataset by using ZC-method and other state-of-the-art methods including Genscan, N-scan and Z-curve. The result shows the proposed ZC-method is more accurate than others.


Classical electromagnetic theory is applied to determine the eigenvalue equation and the fields of the allowed guided modes in a symmetric metal-clad planar uniaxial crystal waveguide for an arbitrary orientation of the optical axes. There are different hybrid guided modes in the different uniaxial crystals. For each mode, the conditions for their existence, the dispersion equation, and the accuracy of the solutions of the modal fields are analytically discussed. We report the propagation conditions and the asymmetry of various electric field distributions of the single modes.


The presentation, publication and research platforms used for scholarly work in the Digital Humanities embody argument structures that are not always explicitly acknowledged. This article examines these platforms, and their protocols, as "middleware" that includes such purpose-designed projects as Omeka, and Scalar, and general purpose ones such as Drupal and PowerPoint, to ask how they embody rhetorical assumptions at every level of production (from back-end assumptions about what constitutes the smallest unit of discourse, to the frontend modes of presentation and organization of display). It extends the concept of middleware to include physical and social presentation spaces, activities (such as witnessing), to ask how these, also, perform the rhetorical activity of enunciation, positionality, and other discursive modalities.


Abstract. To characterize the stress field at the Grimsel Test Site (GTS) underground rock laboratory, a series of hydrofracturing and overcoring tests were performed. Hydrofracturing was accompanied by seismic monitoring using a network of highly sensitive piezosensors and accelerometers that were able to record small seismic events associated with metre-sized fractures. Due to potential discrepancies between the hydrofracture orientation and stress field estimates from overcoring, it was essential to obtain high-precision hypocentre locations that reliably illuminate fracture growth. Absolute locations were improved using a transverse isotropic P-wave velocity model and by applying joint hypocentre determination that allowed for the computation of station corrections. We further exploited the high degree of waveform similarity of events by applying cluster analysis and relative relocation. Resulting clouds of absolute and relative located seismicity showed a consistent east–west strike and 70° dip for all hydrofractures. The fracture growth direction from microseismicity is consistent with the principal stress orientations from the overcoring stress tests, provided that an anisotropic elastic model for the rock mass is used in the data inversions. The σ1 stress is significantly larger than the other two principal stresses and has a reasonably well-defined orientation that is subparallel to the fracture plane; σ2 and σ3 are almost equal in magnitude and thus lie on a circle defined by the standard errors of the solutions. The poles of the microseismicity planes also lie on this circle towards the north. Analysis of P-wave polarizations suggested double-couple focal mechanisms with both thrust and normal faulting mechanisms present, whereas strike-slip and thrust mechanisms would be expected from the overcoring-derived stress solution. The reasons for these discrepancies can be explained by pressure leak-off, but possibly may also involve stress field rotation around the propagating hydrofracture. Our study demonstrates that microseismicity monitoring along with high-resolution event locations provides valuable information for interpreting stress characterization measurements.


As is well known, on May 10, 2013, at a session of the American Bar Association Tax Section meeting in Washington, D.C., Lois Lerner, at the time the director of the Exempt Organization Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS or Service), apologized for IRS mishandling of applications by Tea Party groups for exemption as social welfare groups under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. A few days later, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) Inspector General released a report (TIGTA Report) concluding that the "IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention."On November 29, 2013, the Treasury and the Service issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking containing proposed Treas. Reg. § 1.501(c)(4)-1 (the "2013 Proposed Regulation") regarding the activities of organizations exempt under section 501(c)(4). The 2013 Proposed Regulation, however, did not offer any guidance on how to measure "primary activity" for section 501(c)(4) organizations. Instead, the 2013 Proposed Regulation offered only a definition of a new category, "candidate related-political activity," although it also asked for comment on a dozen issues. The 2013 Proposed Regulation prompted a record number of comments on a proposed tax regulation – just under 170,000. On May 22, 2014, the IRS announced that it and the Treasury Department would be making changes to the 2013 Proposed Regulation in light of the comments received. Speaking to a House committee on July 23, 2015, IRS Commissioner Koskinen confirmed that revised regulations would not be issued prior to the 2016 election. This paper argues that, despite their best efforts, the Treasury and IRS will be unable to propose a regulation that will satisfy critics either on the left or on the right because of a structural issue -- the existence and operation of section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, the provision defining, regulating, and taxing political organizations. In my view, regulation of political campaign intervention by section 501(c)(4) and other section 501(c) organizations cannot function well without establishing meaningful limits, and I believe that section 527 hamstrings the IRS in setting limits for such activity by section 501(c) organizations. In order to permit better and more consistent regulation of political campaign intervention, this paper proposes a number of changes to section 527, including moving responsibility for disclosure to the Federal Election Commission [FEC]. It further suggests that section 527(f) be eliminated and that all organizations, including section 501(c) organizations, be permitted to engage in political campaign intervention only through separate section 527 organizations to which contributions must be made directly. With such changes, political campaign intervention would be prohibited for all section 501(c) organizations. Given the fate of the DISCLOSE Act, which in general would require disclosure of donors who make contributions that could be used for political campaign intervention by nonprofit organizations, I do not have any expectation that such changes would be enacted any time soon. I argue, however, that such changes are needed to permit coherent regulation of political campaign intervention by section 501(c) organizations.


The distribution of molecular hydrogen in the troposphere, the lower stratosphere, as well as ocean surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean region was studied. A rather constant mixing ratio of 0.548 ± 0.015 ppmv was found in the southern troposphere and in the lower stratosphere of the northern hemisphere. Statistically significant higher levels of 0.558 ± 0.019 ppmv and 0.585 ± 0.029 ppmv have been obtained in the northern hemisphere in the upper troposphere and in surface air respectively. The data do not indicate any change in the H 2 mixing ratio in the lower stratosphere up to 4 km above the tropopause. Surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean appeared to be supersaturated by a factor of about 3. Vertical profiles showed distinct maxima between 500 and 1000 m depth. The discussion of sources and sinks leads to a tropospheric residence time of about 4 to 7 years. DOI: 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1974.tb01954.x


Using data from the 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the role of occupational heterogeneity in the standard overeducation–required–undereducation (ORU) earnings function introduced by Duncan and Hoffman [1981. The incidence and wage effects of overeducation. Economics of Education Review 1, no. 1: 75–86] is examined. The occupational category of nursing is subdivided into numerous (as many as 267) minor occupational categories in estimating the level of required education. If occupation heterogeneity impacts the ORU earnings function, the effects are likely small as estimates of the ORU earnings functions of nurses are similar to estimates found in other standard multi-occupation studies. Subdividing nursing into minor occupational categories has a tremendous impact on the measured incidences of overeducation, particularly as the number of occupational categories increases from 17 to 39. The results are analogous to findings in the literature which show that varying the measurement of required education has a sizeable impact on incidence levels and little impact on the ORU earnings functions.


This paper provides evidence of the long-run effects of a permanent increase in agricultural productivity on conflict. We construct a newly digitized and geo-referenced dataset of battles in Europe, the Near East and North Africa covering the period between 1400 and 1900 CE. For variation in permanent improvements in agricultural productivity, we exploit the introduction of potatoes from the Americas to the Old World after the Columbian Exchange. We find that the introduction of potatoes permanently reduced conflict for roughly two centuries. The results are driven by a reduction in civil conflicts.


General-equilibrium models for studying the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate contain implicit theories of unemployment. In some cases, the theory is explicit. When the nominal rate is above the level that clears the current market for output, the excess supply shows up as diminished output, lower employment, and higher unemployment. Quite separately, the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model is a widely accepted and well-developed account of turnover, wage determination, and unemployment. The standard DMP model is a clashing theory of unemployment, in the sense that its determinants of unemployment do not include any variables that signal an excess supply of current output. Altering the DMP model by allowing the rate of ination to inuence


In this paper, we propose the notion of Veriflable Attribute-Based Encryption (VABE) and give two constructs of key-policy VABE. One is with a single authority, and the other is with multi authorities. Not only our schemes are proved secure as the previous ABE schemes, they also provide a veriflcation property. This could not be trivially solved, such as trying random decryption. Adding the veriflcation property has a few advantages: flrst, it allows the user to immediately check the correctness of the keys, if not, he only needs the authority to resend the corresponding shares, especially, in multiauthority case, if the key does not pass the check, the user only needs to ask the particular authority to resend its own part, without need to go to all the authorities; second, if the keys pass the veriflcation but the user still does not rightly decrypt out the message, something might be wrong with the attributes or ciphertexts, then, the user has to contact with the encryptor; third, the trick used in this paper could also be used in the ciphertext-policy scenario. We formalize the notion of VABE and prove our schemes in our model.


Interferences in laboratory tests, immunoassays in particular, continue to be a significant challenge in clinical laboratory practice (1 ). A raised awareness to this type of analytical problem is important if laboratories are to avoid reporting incorrect test results. In spite of all efforts by the diagnostic community, interferences still occur, sometimes with disastrous consequences for the patient. These 2 cases illustrate 2 different circumstances that led to the suspicion of assay interference. In the case reported by van der Watt et al., it was discordance in thyroid test results that alerted the laboratory, and in the case reported by Kellogg et al., investigation of a possible laboratory artifact was a component in the standard of care for the suspected rare syndrome of inappropriate thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) secretion. Both cases illustrate the investigations that are required to establish the presence of an interference. These investigations include repeat analysis, reanalysis using another method, dilution, blocking, fractionation of the sample by (for example) precipitation, and investigating possible exposure of the patient to animals or animal products (e.g., monoclonal antibody preparations for therapy or imaging). The manufacturer of a test kit can also be an ally in such investigations. Kellogg et al. collaborated with the test kit manufacturer in some of the blocking studies that used a Ru-interference blocking agent designed to reveal an interference with the ruthenium complex used in the free thyroxine (T4) assay. In its own way, each case is notable. The case reported by Kellogg et al. is of special interest, as it is one of the relatively few reported cases of a negative interference in a sandwich immunoassay caused by a circulating antibody (2, 3 ). The more common finding is a false-positive result due to an interfering antibody [e.g., human antimouse antibody (HAMA)]. This case also illustrates that often it is not possible to verify the exact identity of an interferent. These types of studies are also frustrated by the limited amount of specimen available and patients who are lost to follow-up, thus precluding extensive and exhaustive studies. The van der Watt et al. case represents an example of false-positive interference in a competitive assay (due to binding of a putative antithyroxine antibody to the conjugate) and illustrates the differing effects of the interferent in a 1-step vs a 2-step analog-based free hormone assay. In light of the continuing problems with interferences, the question remains whether the Holy Grail of immunoassays, the interference-free immunoassay, will ever be within reach. Incremental improvements to the efficacy of blocking agents have not eradicated the problem. Alternative strategies, such as incubating all samples in the Scantibody-type blocking tubes, are prohibitive owing to cost and adverse impact on operational efficiency of the laboratory. Some believe that the answer lies with chickens (4 )! Chicken antibodies are not susceptible to common interferences such as rheumatoid factors and HAMA. Despite this beneficial feature, chicken antibodies have not made serious inroads into the dominant position held by mouse monoclonal and other animal antibodies as immunoassay reagents. A more ambitious notion is that the immunoassay, and its attendant problems, will be replaced by some superior non–antibody-based analytical technique. It is not clear what technology might sweep away a firmly entrenched method such as immunoassay with its 50-year history of development and application. In 2008, in what seems the heyday of the immunoassay, it is difficult to predict such a sea change. However, we should not forget that massive disturbances to the status quo are rarely predicted with any accuracy, and hence immunoassay is not necessarily guaranteed a role as the method of choice for its current range of analytes.


Abstract. To plan for the future, it is essential to understand the present as well as the past. Hindsight is the most valuable asset when examining how to proceed. Apart from natural catastrophes, conditions do not happen, they develop! This paper proposes that in order to change or influence conditions, not only must their present state be considered, but it is essential to investigate what triggered them in the first place. This requires access to records that might have to reach back for as much as many years. In Africa, such records are hard, if not impossible, to retrieve. Moreover, whatever records can be located are likely to have been compiled by a variety of different agencies, each presenting their own versions of events and consequently, often contradictory. To overcome such problems, it is proposed to use aerial photography that has been taken and hopefully archived over the past decades. Such aerial imagery can provide temporal geospatial data to trace the course, interaction and consequences of events. Combined with more recent satellite imagery, they provide unbiased evidence of past developments that can now be analyzed and assessed based on our awareness of today. This presentation deals with advanced data conversion and automated processing procedures conceived for convenient and user-friendly information access, as well as data mining and bigdata processing.


A cross-sectional survey covering 63 households (HH) in three administrative locations of Limuru Division in Kiambu District was carried out by means of a structured questionnaire. The three locations with high contact (HCL), medium contact (MCL) and low contact (LCL) of extension respectively, were selected on the basis of their exposure to government extension service. Twenty-one HH stratified by wealth status, (rich [R], medium [M] and poor [P]) were randomly selected from each location. The information gathered included farm/farmer characteristics, dairy herd structure, farmers' exposure to extension agencies and participation in extension activities, and performance and level of farmers' knowledge and practice of dairy technologies. The data was subjected to descriptive analysis and analysis of variance to establish the extent to which extension service affected farming practice. Only 32% of the farmers were in contact with the government extension service. Dairy co operatives and neighbours were the most important sources of information to all the farmers regardless of location and wealth status. HCL and MCL farmers ranked field days first in extension delivery, while LCL farmers did not express a preference. Knowledge of all dairy technologies was low across locations and wealth groups. However, farmers who were exposed to government extension service both knew and practised more technologies than the LCL farmers (p< 0.05), particularly in technologies related to feeding of napier grass and concentrates. Extension contact had a positive effect on uptake of technologies across extension contact groups, regardless of wealth group, implying that there was need for sustained extension farmer contact. The results showed that field days were the best method ol information delivery and therefore needed to be enhanced. To assess suitability of milk urea nitrogen (MUN) concentration as an indicator of nutritional status, data on feed offered, body condition, live weight and milk yield was collected from 21 farms for a period of 12 weeks. Milk samples were also taken and analysed for MUN concentrations. Napier grass comprised at least 60% while concentrates formed less than 5% of the total feed offered. The average total dry matter on offer was 2.54 kg/ 100 kg liveweight and average milk yield was 5.5± 3.55 kg. Body condition scores (BCS) taken on a scale of 1 to 5 showed an average score of 2±0.62 Average live weight was 323.6± 47.1kg and MUN 17.4±5.14 mg/lOOml. MUN showed a non-significant negative correlation with dry matter (DM) offered, milk yield and BCS. There was a significant (P< 0.01) positive correlation between milk yield and both DM offered and body condition score. Metabolisable energy-protein (ME:CP) ratio and DM crude protein content in g/kg were also significantly (P<0.01) and positively correlated. Though MUN concentrations have been used as an indicator of nutritional status (proteinenergy balance) in intensive temperate systems this method did not appear to be useful in the smallholder farms studied. This study concluded that the method was not effective where feed supply is highly varied, scarce and animals are often fed below their nutrient requirements.


The thesis begins with a parallel between marketing and personnel management and grows into an investigation of marketing managers as practising professionals. The subsequent methodological inadequacies of a dependence upon oral data lead to additional readings in anthropology and a methodology which attempts the complexities of consumption and the everyday importance of industrial artefacts.Individual consumers are seen accordingly as "bricoleurs" and their "closed world" as the result of a limited choice of physical and cultural possibilities. This commercially regulated exchange is, in turn, a significant determinant of social structure for marketing managers and any other band of workers may now be appreciated as kinship groups and not simply functional or work based gatherings. After establishing these patterns of social and industrial exchange as everyday means of communication, the thesis shows commercially regulated exchange to be a physically located practice and therefore responsible for forms of architecture and spatial understanding which reflect the social asymmetries that derive from a dependence upon mass consumption, mass employment and mass production. The same imbalance arises in an analysis of the Ford Edsel, a redoubtable commercial failure. Here, a considerable part of the thesis is focussed upon practical marketing management and the ways in which an industrial artefact might first symbolise "the power to speak" and then be reinterpreted within the terms of these same asymmetries. This process of evaluation involves coherent unspoken languages yet these "ways of seeing" are necessarily negotiated in accordance with the more commonly observed parameters of everyday reality; speech and the written word. "The power to speak" is thus a combination of these verbal disciplines and the visual aspects of consumption which codify and legitimise commercial exchange as a medium for the structuring of contemporary society. The thesis is therefore able to transcend the normally accepted view of marketing by arguing that mass consumption and commercially regulated exchange are so much a part of the "cultural design of persons and goods" as to undermine the exclusivity which is implied by ideas of marketing as a "professional understanding". This in turn enables a fuller evaluation of marketing management as a socially located practice whilst adding to theories of perception, the social construction of knowledge and the development of an "anthropology of consumption".


To identify the important soil components involved in 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) adsorption on Andosols, 2,4-D adsorption on a surface horizon of an Andosol was compared with that on hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-treated (soil organic matter [SOM] was removed), acid-oxalate (OX)-treated (active metal hydroxides and SOM were removed), and dithionite-citrate-bicarbonate (DCB)-treated (free and active metal [hydr]oxides and SOM were removed) soil samples at equilibrium pHs ranging from 4 to 8. Although the untreated soil contained a large amount of organic C (71.9 g kg-1), removal of SOM had little effect on 2,4-D adsorption. Active surface hydroxyls, which were attached to the active and free metal (hydr)oxides and metal SOM complexes, were identified as the most important soil functional group for 2,4-D adsorption. The dominant mechanism of the 2,4-D adsorption was a ligand exchange reaction in which the carboxylic group of 2,4-D displaced the active surface hydroxyl associated with metals and formed a strong coordination bond between the 2,4-D molecule and soil solid phase. The ligand exchange reaction reasonably accounted for the selective adsorption of 2,4-D over Cl-, competitive adsorption of phosphate over 2,4-D, reduction in plant-growth-inhibitory activity of soil-adsorbed 2,4-D, and the high 2,4-D adsorption ability of Andosols. Although a humic acid purified from the soil did not adsorb 2,4-D, the presence of the humic acid increased 2,4-D adsorption on Al and Fe, probably by inhibiting the hydrolysis and polymerization of Al and Fe resulting in the preservation of available adsorption sites on these metals. The adsorption behavior of 2,4-D on soils could be a good index for predicting the adsorption behavior of other organic acids in soils.


This book offers an important reference source about the most common classes of pesticides for researchers engaged in the area of neurotoxicology, metabolism, and epidemiology. The book presents details about thorough characterization of target and non-target enzymes and proteins involved in toxicity and metabolism; and epidemiology of poisonings and fatalities in people from shortand longterm exposures to these pesticides in different occupational settings on an individual country basis as well as on a global basis. The early portion of the book deals with metabolism, mechanisms and biomonitoring of anticholinesterase pesticides, while the later part deals with epidemiological studies, regulatory issues, and therapeutic intervention.


My dissertation, entitled, The Origin of Korean Trauerspiel: Gwangju, Stasis, Justice, argues that the vertiginous vicissitudes of contemporary South Korea since 1997 can be best described in terms of what Walter Benjamin calls Trauerspiel, or Mourning Play. This project identifies the 15-year period as the time-space of a series of suspended and thwarted mourning, in which death, be it in the past or present, hardly partakes of the economy of justice or sacrifice as it putatively does in tragedy in view of a new community to come. Drawing attention to the peculiar interplay between two contemporary catalysts of stasis, or civil war (i.e., the special amnesty granted in 1997 to ex-President Chun DooHwan for his executive role in the Gwangju Massacre in May 1980 and the U.S. War on Terror since 2002), I argue that both, coupled with a host of interrelated factors, serve to render naught the sublime causes (e.g. Democracy, Justice, and Peace) as well as human lives lostrather than sacrificedin relation to them, generating a genuine crisis of politics and ethics. By analyzing contemporary Korean cinema (e.g. films by Park Chan-wook, Bong Jun-ho, and Kim Jee-woon) and literature (e.g. Kim Hoon) of this period as allegory of this crisis, I show how attempts at doing justice are complicated and increasingly frustrated by progressive dissolution of a series of traditional distinctions between Victim and Perpetrator, Friend and Enemy, and Justice and Vengeance, leading to universal failures of mourning, only to constitute a vast singular Trauerspiel, or Mourning Play.


Human transglutaminase 2 (TG2), a member of a large family of enzymes that catalyze protein crosslinking, plays an important role in the extracellular matrix biology of many tissues and is implicated in the gluten-induced pathogenesis of celiac sprue. Although vertebrate transglutaminases have been studied extensively, thus far all structurally characterized members of this family have been crystallized in conformations with inaccessible active sites. We have trapped human TG2 in complex with an inhibitor that mimics inflammatory gluten peptide substrates and have solved, at 2-Å resolution, its x-ray crystal structure. The inhibitor stabilizes TG2 in an extended conformation that is dramatically different from earlier transglutaminase structures. The active site is exposed, revealing that catalysis takes place in a tunnel, bridged by two tryptophan residues that separate acyl-donor from acyl-acceptor and stabilize the tetrahedral reaction intermediates. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to investigate the acyl-acceptor side of the tunnel, yielding mutants with a marked increase in preference for hydrolysis over transamidation. By providing the ability to visualize this activated conformer, our results create a foundation for understanding the catalytic as well as the non-catalytic roles of TG2 in biology, and for dissecting the process by which the autoantibody response to TG2 is induced in celiac sprue patients.


The number of women in the Chartered Accounting (CA) profession has continued to rise since the 1970s; women now make up one-third of working CAs in Canada (Tabone, 2007). Yet, the number of women in the upper levels of the profession remains very low. The main purpose of this dissertation is to understand how women CAs experience and talk about the CA profession and to explore the implications of the CA context for the development and maintenance of friendship among women CAs. The ways in which power and agency are exercised in the micro-politics of the everyday lives of women CAs and the nexus of relations through which individuals develop and enact their identities is explored through open-ended interviews and discussion groups with Western Canadian women CAs. The dominant ideology of professionalism constructs both individual and collective identities while structuring workplace relations. The findings of this study demonstrate that female CAs believe strongly in elements of professionalism such as meritocracy, excellence, client service, and commitment but that their understanding is gender-neutral and differs from the dominant masculinist interpretations and practices. The participants' narratives reveal a particular pattern of engagement with the profession characterized by stages of early optimism, disillusionment and the glass ceiling, negotiation and the glass box, resignation, and justification. All participants encountered a glass ceiling, or invisible barriers to advancement, as a result of the conflicting meanings of the ideals of professionalism. As the women attempted to negotiate solutions to the constraints imposed by the profession's elite, masculinist discourses were mobilized by those in power in new ways resulting in further constraints upon the women, containing them within a "glass box" that limited their career mobility in all directions and may contribute to gender segmentation in the profession.Masculinist discursive practices have a significant impact not only on the participants' career aspirations, but also on their friendship relationships, which are, in part, constituted by their relationship to the profession, their need for support against masculinist strategies, and their choice of gender identity strategy. Friendships do not increase activism as the participants' feel powerless to create change and fear reprisals.


The centrepiece of this book is the diary kept by the celebrated agricultural reformer Edmund Ruffin during the eight months in 1843 in which he conducted an agricultural and geological survey of South Carolina. A vivid and informative account, the document offers a unique understanding of the state's planation economy during the late antebellum period. Ruffin believed that programmes of amelioration and diversification would relieve the argicultural depression of the state and help preserve its embattled system of slavery. At the request of Governor James Henry Hammond, Ruffin examined the different farming methods in use and the resources available for improvement. A published report of 1843 was the formal outcome; the diary was his private running commentary. Beginning in late January, Ruffin's field work took him through scenes of abandonment and desolation, down stumpy cart paths in unfamiliar terrain, and through thickly overgrown swamps, exposing him to severe weather and disease. During his travels through the state, he examined marl deposits, visited numerous plantations, met with agricultural societies and eminent South Carolinians, and even hunted alligators. Ruffin completed his survey by mid-September. This volume goes well beyond mere documentary reproduction. William M. Mathew offers an extended biographical supplement devoted to the prominent South Carolinians encountered by Ruffin, giving special attention to their farming practices and political philosophies. In his introduction Mathew recounts the preoccupation underlying Ruffin's survey and the reasons why it fell far short of its objectives.


Background Declining ambulatory activity represents an important facet of disablement in Parkinson disease (PD). Objective The primary study aim was to compare the 2-year trajectory of ambulatory activity decline with concurrently evolving facets of disability in a small cohort of people with PD. The secondary aim was to identify baseline variables associated with ambulatory activity at 1- and 2-year follow-up assessments. Design This was a prospective, longitudinal cohort study. Methods Seventeen people with PD (Hoehn and Yahr stages 1–3) were recruited from 2 outpatient settings. Ambulatory activity data were collected at baseline and at 1- and 2-year annual assessments. Motor, mood, balance, gait, upper extremity function, quality of life, self-efficacy, and levodopa equivalent daily dose data and data on activities of daily living also were collected. Results Participants displayed significant 1- and 2-year declines in the amount and intensity of ambulatory activity concurrently with increasing levodopa equivalent daily dose. Worsening motor symptoms and slowing of gait were apparent only after 2 years. Concurrent changes in the remaining clinical variables were not observed. Baseline ambulatory activity and physical performance variables had the strongest relationships with 1- and 2-year mean daily steps. Limitations The sample was small and homogeneous. Conclusions Future research that combines ambulatory activity monitoring with a broader and more balanced array of measures would further illuminate the dynamic interactions among evolving facets of disablement and help determine the extent to which sustained patterns of recommended daily physical activity might slow the rate of disablement in PD.


This paper proposes a Distributed Coding Spiking Neural Network (DC-SNN) with a self-regulated learning algorithm to deal with pattern classification problems. DC-SNN employs two hidden layers. First hidden layer has receptive field neurons that convert the real-valued input features to spike patterns and the second hidden layer employs LIF neurons with inhibitory interconnections. The second hidden layer has been termed as the distributed coding layer in the rest of the paper. The inhibitory interconnections in distributed coding layer will ensure that each neuron in this layer learns a distinct spike pattern from input feature space. The synaptic weights between layers and the weights of lateral inhibitory connections are learned using a self-regulated learning algorithm. Self-regulation identifies neurons for updating in the output layer and distributed coding layer and also adapts the learning rate based on the temporal separation between spikes in the output layer. It also skips learning from samples which are correctly classified with higher temporal separation and hence prevents over-training. The detailed performance comparisons of DC-SNN with other algorithms for SNNs in the literature using six benchmark data set from the UCI machine learning repository has been presented. Further, the performance of DC-SNN is evaluated on a real-world brain computer interface problem for classification of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals recorded during motor-imagery tasks. The results clearly indicate that the proposed DC-SNN architecture provides slightly better generalization ability and is suitable for deep spiking networks.


Felon disenfranchisement provisions are justified by many Americans under the principle that voting is a privilege to be enjoyed only by upstanding citizens. The provisions are intimately tied, however, to the country's legacy of racism and systemic disenfranchisement and are at odds with the values of American democracy. In virtually every state, felon disenfranchisement provisions affect the poor and communities of color on a grossly disproportionate scale. Yet to date, most challenges to the provisions under the Equal Protection Clause and Voting Rights Act have been unsuccessful, frustrating proponents of re-enfranchisement and the disenfranchised alike.

In light of those failures, is felon disenfranchisement here to stay? This Note contemplates that question, beginning with a comprehensive analysis of the history of felon disenfranchisement provisions in America, tracing their roots to the largescale effort to disenfranchise African Americans during Reconstruction, and identifying ways in which the racism of the past reverberates through practices of disenfranchisement in the present day. Applying this knowledge to understandings of prior case law and recent voting rights litigation, a path forward begins to emerge.


In this paper, we propose a new multiscale finite element methodology based on a recently developed micromechanical damage model for the modelling of the human bone behaviour under dynamic loading. The damage is carried out by the framework of the limit analysis based on the MCK (Monchiet, Charkaluk and Kondo) criterion. We first present the methodology allowing the estimation of elastic anisotropic properties of porous media by means of Mori–Tanaka homogenisation scheme. Then, we develop the formulation of the integrated yield criterion derived by considering trial velocity field inspired from the Eshelby inhomogeneous inclusion solution. The obtained micromechanical model is implemented via a User Material routine within the explicit dynamic code LS-DYNA©. The proposed micromechanical model has been applied successfully for the estimation of the mechanical properties of a human proximal femur under dynamic loading. From the obtained numerical results, it has been shown that the present model has improved the strength prediction of osteoporotic femurs by representing the failure risk in a more realistic approach.


This paper proposes an analytic model to compute the loss probability for wireless local loop (WLL) with a finite number of subscribers. The number of trunks between the WLL concentrator and the base station controller is less than the total number of radio links in the WLL. This model is validated against the simulation results. The execution of our model is efficient compared with simulation. However, its time complexity is higher than several existing analytic models that approximate the loss probability for WLL. Therefore, we design an efficient WLL network planning procedure (in terms of time complexity and accuracy) that utilizes the approximate analytic models to provide small ranges for selecting the values of system parameters. Our model is then used to accurately search the operation points of WLL within the small ranges of the system parameter values. This paper proves that the performance of WLL with limited trunk capacity and finite subscriber population is not affected by the call holding time distributions. Based on our model, we illustrate WLL design guidelines with several numerical examples.


The digital transformation in the manufacturing industry is referred to as Industry 4.0. The concept includes real-time data transfer and networking along the entire value chain and, with this, vertical and horizontal integration as well as end-to-end engineering through cyber-physical systems, sensors, actuators and human-machine interfaces. Seven years after its inception however, Industry 4.0 technologies have thus far been predominantly limited to certain test applications and pilot projects. In light of this, the present study aims to provide a detailed insight into the concept of Industry 4.0 and highlight the main obstacles that hinder its implementation. The study also seeks to answer the question of whether the concept of Industry 4.0 will ever be implemented to its full capacity in the German manufacturing industry. The research design of the present study is divided into a theoretical and empirical investigation. The theoretical part is based on extensive literature research and aims to provide the reader with an introduction to the technical characteristics and requirements of Industry 4.0, and in particular to highlight as many aspects as possible that hampers the implementation in Germany. The following empirical part is based on the analysis of expert interviews. For the investigation n=13 experts were selected based on their reputation and experience in the field of Industry 4.0 technologies. In order to supplement the theoretical results with practical experience, the experts were chosen from industrial associations as well as, in particular, from those occupying leading positions in the manufacturing industry and IT-consulting. The empirical part therefore will focus to identify the main inhibitory factors to implementing Industry 4.0, that are referred to as 'obstacles' in the course of this thesis. The findings of the present study indicate that, principally, two major obstacles hinder the implementation of Industry 4.0. The first major obstacle relates to the high complexity of the concept, a result of the interacting consequences of a lack of standards and interoperability, of security and legal aspects, as well as the lack of employees suitably qualified in the field of informatics. The other major obstacle concerns psychological reservations, which arise from a reluctance to open up company boundaries for the associated real-time data transfer along the entire value chain. The findings further indicate however, that despite these major obstacles, the German manufacturing industry still has a reasonable chance of succeeding with Industry 4.0 implementation over the long term.


A dark thriller by Philip McLaren, Aboriginal author and winner of the 1996 David Unaipon Award, Scream Black Murder invites the reader into the mind of a vicious killer, as a game of cat-and-mouse ensues across some of Australia's lesser-known milieus.New Year's Day. The bodies of a young Aboriginal woman and her boyfriend are discovered brutally murdered in Sydney's Redfern. Koori detectives Gary Leslie and Lisa Fuller, from the new Aboriginal Homicide Unit of the NSWPD, are assigned to their first case and struggle to keep their eyes on the trail amid a hostile police department and their own emergent attraction.But when a young white woman is killed, the pressure on the young detectives to find the killer -- fuelled by an increasingly frenzied media -- becomes unbearable.