We propose a highly scalable cluster-based hierarchical trust management protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to effectively deal with selfish or malicious nodes. Unlike prior work, we consider multidimensional trust attributes derived from communication and social networks to evaluate the overall trust of a sensor node. By means of a novel probability model, we describe a heterogeneous WSN comprising a large number of sensor nodes with vastly different social and quality of service (QoS) behaviors with the objective to yield "ground truth" node status. This serves as a basis for validating our protocol design by comparing subjective trust generated as a result of protocol execution at runtime against objective trust obtained from actual node status. To demonstrate the utility of our hierarchical trust management protocol, we apply it to trust-based geographic routing and trust-based intrusion detection. For each application, we identify the best trust composition and formation to maximize application performance. Our results indicate that trust-based geographic routing approaches the ideal performance level achievable by flooding-based routing in message delivery ratio and message delay without incurring substantial message overhead. For trust-based intrusion detection, we discover that there exists an optimal trust threshold for minimizing false positives and false negatives. Furthermore, trust-based intrusion detection outperforms traditional anomaly-based intrusion detection approaches in both the detection probability and the false positive probability.


: We present a semi-analytic numerical model to estimate the transverse modal instability (TMI) threshold for photonic crystal rod amplifiers. The model includes thermally induced waveguide perturbations in the fiber cross section modeled with finite element simulations, and the relative intensity noise (RIN) of the seed laser, which seeds mode coupling between the fundamental and higher order mode. The TMI threshold is predicted to ~370 W – 440 W depending on RIN for the distributed modal filtering rod fiber.


The Hanbit magnetic mirror has a central cell, one anchor cell and one plug cell plus associated vacuum chambers. The Hanbit device has been involved in a series of experiments on stabilization of the MHD flute type mode. Earlier work showed that it was possible to stabilize the m = -1 flute type MHD instability with RF power near the cyclotron resonance by the sideband coupling process. Divertors were used previously in experiments on the TARA mirror device and the HIEI mirror device. According to Pastukhov the main stabilizing effect is compressibility. The present configuration uses just one divertor coil in one end of Hanbit and produces a left-right asymmetry in the magnetic field. One of the central cell coils with reversed current is used as the divertor coil and two adjacent coils with increased current are used to compensate for the field droop and to prevent the field lines from intercepting the bare ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH) antenna. The divertor strongly reduces the m=-1 instability when the null point (x-point) is sufficiently inside the vacuum tank. However, the diverted plasma is directed into a wall and the divertor cannot be used to eliminate impurities.


This paper focuses on the spatial variation in the uptake of social security benefits following a large and detrimental exogenous shock. Specifically, we focus on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We construct a two-period panel of 66 Territorial Authorities (TAs) of New Zealand (NZ) observed in 2008-09 and 2020-21. We find that, despite the totally different nature of the two shocks, the initial increase in benefit uptake due to the COVID-19 pandemic was of a similar magnitude as that of the GFC, and the spatial pattern was also quite similar. We link the social security data with 146 indicator variables across 15 domains that were obtained from population censuses that were held two years before each of the two periods. To identify urban characteristics that point to economic resilience, we formulate spatial panel regression models. Additionally, we use machine learning techniques. We find that the most resilient TAs had two years previously: (1) a low unemployment rate; and (2) a large public sector. Additionally, but with less predictive power, we find that TAs had a smaller increase in social security uptake after the shock when they had previously: (3) a high employment rate (or high female labour force participation rate); (4) a smaller proportion of the population stating ethnicities other than NZ European; (5) a smaller proportion of the population living in more deprived area units. We also find that interregional spillovers matter and that resilient regions cluster.


The various ways in which robots and AI will affect our future society are at the center of scholarly attention. This essay, conversely, concentrates on their possible impact on humanity's past, or more accurately, on the ways societies will remember their joint past. We focus on the emerging use of technologies that combine AI, cutting-edge visualization techniques, and social robots, in order to store and communicate recollections of the past in an interactive human-like manner. We explore the use of these technologies by remembrance institutions and their potential impact on collective memory. Taking a close look at the case study of NDT (New Directions in Testimony) — a project that uses 'virtual witnesses' to convey memories from the Holocaust and other mass atrocities — we highlight the significant value, and the potential vulnerabilities, of this new mode of memory construction.

Against this background, we propose a novel concept of memory fiduciaries that can form the basis for a policy framework for robotic collective memory. Drawing on Jack Balkin's concept of "information fiduciaries" on the one hand, and on studies of collective memory on the other, we explain the nature of and the justifications for memory fiduciaries. We then demonstrate, in broad strokes, the potential implications of this new conceptualization for various questions pertaining to collective memory constructed by AI and robots. By so doing, this Essay aims to start a conversation on the policies that would allow algorithmic collective memory to fulfill its potential, while minimizing its social costs. On a more general level, it brings to the fore a series of important policy questions pertaining to the intersection of new technologies and inter-generational collective memory.


The following senior honors thesis project was developed to look at the connections between the topics of social media and virtual shopping. The domains of technology and e-commerce have created a fast-paced and fluctuating retail environment. Both social media and virtual shopping are increasing in popularity and use across the country and are influential in how consumers shop virtually and in real time. The research on social media and virtual shopping informs how the topics impact one another and the larger retail market. Research that looks at the connection between social media and virtual shopping can help companies prepare to accommodate consumers in the new realm of where e-commerce intersects with social media. This project aims to add to this growing body of research. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Technology Studies First Advisor Julie A. Becker


The Addictions and Trauma Recovery Integration Model (ATRIUM) presented here provides a blend of psychoeducation, process, and expressive activities, all of which are structured to address key issues linked to the experience of both trauma and addiction. The mind-body-spirit approach offers interventions to address these three dimensions of recovery in an integrated program of healing and empowerment. This how-to manual introduces new ways of thinking about self-care, self-soothing, and self-expression. It provides a practical and empathic approach to the dysregulated mind-body experience of people with addictions who struggle with the impact of trauma. The recovery model described here may be used in conjunction with 12-step or other addiction treatment programs, as a supplement to trauma-focused psychotherapy, or as an independent model for healing. Each treatment component includes clearly articulated, illustrated explanations and interventions to be used collaboratively by professionals and consumers in groups or individual treatment. Handouts allow consumers to work on coping skills between sessions.


Issues of immunity from attack and the assignment of responsibility for civilian deaths are central to the modern war convention. Koontz addresses several difficulties with Walzer's treatment of noncombatant immunity in Just and Unjust Wars. Walzer's theory of noncombatant immunity states that immunity from attack is a fundamental human right that can only be lost once a person becomes a direct threat or consents to give up his or her right to immunity. Koontz cites inconsistencies in Walzer's method of determining the immunity of soldiers and civilians. He argues from a deontological perspective that there can be no grounds for consent to the loss of immunity other than a direct threat posed by a civilian. This strengthens the protection of noncombatants, a principle that had been weakened by Walzer.


Eucalyptus is a potential forest species which is fast growing and has multipurpose
uses. The forest plantation of PT. Inti Indorayon Utama in Indonesia faces
serious problem of sending survival during transplanting. Furthermore, the budget for
fertilizer in the nursery is also very expensive. The objective of this study therefore
was to examine the effects of mycorrhiza application on nitrogen and phosphorus
requirement of nursery grown eucalyptus.
The study consisted of three components. The survey examined the occurrence
of mycorrhizae in several plantation sectors. The effectivity trial evaluated the
effectiveness of indigenous versus commercially produced mycorrhiza inoculum. The
nursery trial examined the effect of selected mycorrhiza on nitrogen and phosphorus
requirement of eucalyptus seedlings.
Results from the survey showed that both ectomycorrhiza and arbuscular
mycorrhiza were present in the almost all plantation sectors examined. plant age increased AM spore number, root colonization and presence of EM.
Plantation management practices and the amount of soil organic matter in the forest
were factors that contribute to the decrease in AM spore number under the young
eucalyptus stands. The combined effect of spore number and several soil
properties (Cu, Zn and pH) as well as the stage of eucalyptus stands affect percentage
AM root colonization.
The results from the effectivity study found that indigenous inoculum from
Habinsaran was the most effective. However, its effectivity was lower than the
commercially produced mycorrhiza.
The results from the nursery study showed that mycorrhiza was able to increase
seedling height, while reducing the amount of phosphorus fertilizer applied to the
plants. However, mycorrhiza was not able to replace the nitrogen function in seedling
growth. Application of combined indigenous with the commercial mycorrhiza
inoculum gave the best overall seedlings ,growth compared to individual mycorrbi2'a
inoculum (indigenous or commercial). The amount of N and P fertilizers applied also
influenced the mycorrbiza role in increasing seedling growth.
In conclusion growth of Eucalyptus seedlings was found to be significantly (p
S; 0.05) affected by both mycorrhiza and fertilizer factors.


Background: Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLR) is a common surgery performed in professional, collegiate, and high school athletes. Purpose: To report patient demographics, surgical techniques, and outcomes of all UCLRs performed at a single institution from 2004 to 2014. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: All patients who underwent UCLR from January 1, 2004, through December 31, 2014, at a single institution were identified. Charts were reviewed to determine patient age, sex, date of surgery, sport played, athletic level, surgical technique, graft type, and complications. Data were collected prospectively, and patients were contacted via phone calls to obtain the return-to-sport rate, Conway-Jobe score, Andrews-Timmerman score, and Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic (KJOC) Shoulder and Elbow score. Continuous variable data were reported as weighted means, and categorical variable data were reported as frequencies with percentages. Results: A total of 187 patients (188 elbows) underwent UCLR during the study period (92% male; mean age, 19.6 ± 4.7 years; 78.2% right elbows). There were 165 baseball players (87.8% of all patients), 155 of whom were pitchers (82.5% of all patients). Ninety-seven (51.6%) were college athletes, 68 (36.2%) high school athletes, and 7 (3.7%) professional athletes at the time of surgery. The docking technique was used in 110 (58.5%) patients while the double-docking technique was used in 78 (41.5%). An ipsilateral palmaris longus graft was used in 110 (58.5%) patients while a hamstring autograft was used in 48 (25.5%) patients. The ulnar nerve was subcutaneously transposed in 79 (42%) patients. Clinical follow-up data were available on 85 patients. Mean follow-up was 60 ± 30.8 months. Overall, 94.1% of patients were able to return to sport and had a Conway-Jobe score of good/excellent while 4.3% had a score of fair. The mean KJOC score was 90.4 ± 6.7 and mean Andrews-Timmerman score was 92.5 ± 7.1. Subsequent surgeries were performed in 5.3% of patients. Conclusion: UCLR was performed most commonly on collegiate athletes using an ipsilateral palmaris longus graft. Overall, 94.1% of patients who underwent UCLR were able to return to sport with a mean KJOC score of 90.4 and Andrews-Timmerman Score of 92.5.


Abstract We study the computational complexity of training a single spiking neuron N with binary coded inputs and output that, in addition to adaptive weights and a threshold, has adjustable synaptic delays. A synchronization technique is introduced so that the results concerning the nonlearn-ability of spiking neurons with binary delays are generalized to arbitrary real-valued delays. In particular, the consistency problem for N with programmable weights, a threshold, and delays, and its approximation version are proven to be NP-complete. It follows that the spiking neurons with arbitrary synaptic delays are not properly PAC learnable and do not allow robust learning unless RP = NP. In addition, the representation problem for N, a question whether an n-variable Boolean function given in DNF (or as a disjunction of O(n) threshold gates) can be computed by a spiking neuron, is shown to be coNP-hard.


Over the past few decades international flow of capital has contributed to the "globalisation" phenomena. Some countries took advantage of this, managing to develop their economies and to improve the standard of living of their citizens by attracting foreign investments. Others were not so successful. Countries of the South-Eastern Europe, hit by Balkan wars and economic sanctions, were late to be included in the first wave of international capital flow. But now, when the whole region tries to join the accession process to the European Union, foreign investments are more important then ever. This paper examines one such country – Montenegro, which suffered for almost two decades, isolated by economic sanctions and hit by the consequences of the Balkan wars. Montenegro is a part of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and it undertook extensive economic and social changes in order to fulfil the conditions for accession into the European Union. This paper presents general information for foreign investors interested in this part of Europe and describes specific benefits and risks that they may face during the process. There are many possibilities that can be exploited by educated investors not afraid to invest their capital in Montenegro


This paper deals with experiments for detecting two-dimensional small deformations by laser speckle pattern interferometry system. The optical setup uses a laser diode for the source together with a lens to expand the laser beam, and an inspection area can be chosen with the optical setup between 5 × 7.5 mm2 (microscopic range) up to 200 × 300 mm2 (macroscopic range). The measurements by the macroscopic and microscopic ranges are performed without marking to get overall and detailed deformations of porous ceramic materials respectively. In the macroscopic measurement, it was shown that pore of the ceramics is recognized as a kind of the marker in generating interference fringe. On the other hand, displacement behavior related to the microscopic structure of material can be observed when spatial decomposition of measuring distance is smaller than the pore size is achieved by limiting the inspection area to micro region. In this condition, displacement data with continuous distribution has not been obtained, because displacement measured at pore inside and that at material surface are detected in the one under way without distinguishing at all in the measurement for this microscopic region. However, through the measurement of displacement behavior in crack tip vicinity, it was confirmed that measured displacement distribution agrees with the analytic solution if the data is detected in the position where pore and surface concavity are avoided along the crack edge. By arranging measured data based on above-mentioned processing, valuable information such as strain distributions between adjacent pore was obtained from the measurement for microscopic region.


Electrospray ionization (ESI) is the softest ionization method that is currently available and it is widely accepted, that ESI generated ions of proteins and protein assemblies at certain conditions retain characteristic aspects of their solution-state conformation. ESI mass spectrometry (MS) therefore evolved as a useful tool to obtain information on composition, stoichiometry, and dynamics of non-covalently associated protein complexes. While tertiary structure information of proteins can be obtained from ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), only a few techniques yield direct information on the secondary structure of gas-phase peptides and proteins. We present here the mid-IR spectroscopic secondary structural analysis of three de novo designed -helical coiled coil model peptides and their non-covalently associated complexes in the gas-phase. The conformational stability of such coiled coil peptides in solution is primarily driven by aggregation. Isolated monomers usually remain unfolded. Two of the investigated peptides were designed to assemble into stable -helical complexes in acidic solution, while the third nfrared multiphoton dissociation lectrospray ionization -Helix one remains monomeric and unfolded at these conditions. Monomer ions of all three peptides show comparable photodissociation IR spectra and therefore suggest an unfolded conformation in the gas phase. In contrast, considerable C O stretch (amide-I) and N–H bend (amide-II) band shifts have been observed for the dimers which is consistent with an elevated H-bond content. These findings provide evidence that at least a fraction of the condensed phase -helical structure is retained in the gas-phase coiled coil


The air forces on a systematic series of biplane and triplane cellule models are the subject of this report. The test consist in the determination of the lift, drag, and moment of each individual airfoil in each cellule, mostly with the same wing section. The magnitude of the gap and of the stagger is systematically varied; not, however, the decalage, which is zero throughout the tests. Certain check tests with a second wing section make the tests more complete and conclusions more convincing. The results give evidence that the present army and navy specifications for the relative lifts of biplanes are good. They furnish material for improving such specifications for the relative lifts of triplanes. A larger number of factors can now be prescribed to take care of different cases.


Introduction Cancer cachexia has a negative impact on the quality of life (QOL) of patients and their informal caregivers but there are few psychoeducational interventions to address this. Aim To develop a brief supportive group-based intervention for patients with cancer cachexia and their carers Methods Workshop development followed the Coventry Intervention Development Process.1 Reasons why unintentional weight loss is difficult for patients and carers were mapped from interviews with 5 patients, 5 carers and 5 health care professionals (HCPs). A summary map was supplemented with data from systematic reviews of the patient and carer literature and by previously conducted interviews with patients and HCPs about the effect cancer cachexia has on QOL. Project advisory panel members rated the importance and changeability of each reason in the context of a workshop. The highest scoring reasons were grouped to form intervention targets. Reviews of the literature informed the information provided to address the targets and the methods used to do this. Results Underpinning the intervention is the Integrated Theory of Health Behaviour.2 The workshop has three intervention targets: providing information about eating well with cancer, addressing conflict and addressing negative emotions. Activities were devised to inform how cancer can cause unintentional weight loss, what to eat, strategies to maximise intake and conflict self-management. The underlying assumption is that negative emotions will be alleviated by providing clear information and advice. Conclusion We have developed a workshop to educate, aid coping and provide relationship support for patients with cancer cachexia and unintentional weight loss. References Martin F, Turner A, Bourne C, Batehup L. Development and qualitative evaluation of a self-management workshop for testicular cancer survivor-initiated follow-Up. Oncol Nurs Forum 2013;40:E14–E23 Ryan P. Integrated theory of health behavior change: background and intervention development. Clinl Nurse Spec 2009;23:161–170


The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), through the AGU-SEG Collaboration Committee, organize and support joint meetings to bridge the geophysical knowledge among these societies. The workshop, "Upper crust physics of rock," held 11–14 July 2016 in Hilo, Hawaii, is the latest of these collaborations. The meeting focused on highlighting the latest rock-physics knowledge from a tectonic, volcanology, petroleum, and CO2 sequestration perspective to advance our understanding and calibration of remotely sensed field geophysical observations.


In this article metonymy and metaphor are described in relation to the notion of poetic meaning, the definitional feature shared by all types of figurative uses. Even if both these types of tropes will draw on encyclopaedic experiences, or pre- or extra-linguistic cognitive complexes, they are also formed in relation to established structures in a language system. In other words, their occurrence shows how intertwined linguistic knowledge and experientially based cognition will be. Moreover, it is arguable that at least "fully alive" metaphors will have a more noticeable poetic and figurative character than metonymic uses. The reason for this is that a metaphor brings together domains that are felt to be similar in some respect, although they are also clearly different. In this imaginative coalescence many features in the source are suppressed, and a kind of "fake" superordinate category is created: the generalised target meaning. It spans both the ordinarily concrete source and some other phenomenon, often something more abstract. The poetic or figurative character of metonymies is by comparison more inconspicuous, presumably because they constitute descriptive or referential shortcuts in relation to just one meronymically structured domain or chain of contiguous domains.


For the Ankave of Papua New Guinea, men, unlike women, do not reach adulthood and become fathers simply by growing up and reproducing. The content of a certain number of relationships (with their mother, their eldest sister) must have first undergone a transformation. These changes take place in several stages, which are materialized by rituals in which the men and women perform complementary actions in separate spaces.
Based on first-hand ethnographic material gathered by a team of two anthropologists of different gender, this analysis of the Ankave ritual cycle for the first time places the male and female roles side by side, using material gathered by the author from the women in the village, and by her co-ethnographer from the men in the forest. The parallel material has made it possible to interpret them as a place and moment in which the novices' relations with certain kinswomen undergoes a transformation.
At the heart of this process is the idea that it is possible to act for and upon another, by obeying food taboos and drastically limiting one's own activities. Analysis of the behaviors respected for the most part by the women on behalf of male kinsmen are a vital link in the argument developed, as is the idea that the different stages of rituals forms a sequence, and have thus to be studied together. This new ethnographic material on the involvement of women in male initiations not only sheds a fresh light on the extant analyses, but also suggests another way of approaching life-cycle rituals in general.


Purpose of the studies was to develop a more robust technique to determine retinal mean transit time in healthy and in glaucoma eyes and to evaluate the circulation of the optic nerve head in glaucoma patients.The retinal mean transit time impulse-response method was evaluated in human healthy eyes and normal values and reproducibility were tested.Fluorescein and indocyanine green angiographies were recorded and the pictures were analyzed to obtain retinal mean transit time and to evaluate the proportion of low-fluorescent pixels of the optic nerve head in the glaucoma patients. Visual field defects were correlated to loss of neuroretinal rim area.A disturbed circulation was observed in the glaucoma patients, whether primary or secondary to loss of nerve fibre tissue can not be determined from these studies.


Exaggeration is often used in art and entertainment to capture the interest and attention of an audience. We present an approach to automatically exaggerate the distinctive features of 3D faces which contain skin detail down to the pores. Mesh adaptation and model simplification are used to produce two low resolution approximations of the face. The detail of the original high resolution face is captured by achieving two sets of model parameterizations: the high resolution face with respect to the face obtained using model simplification (simplified model) and the simplified model with respect to the model obtained using mesh adaptation (working model). The working model is exaggerated using a vector-based algorithm that automatically identifies the prominent features with respect to an average face. The resulting model and the parameterizations drive a two-stage model reconstruction process that generates the high resolution exaggerated model which preserves the original level of detail. The results of our testing show that the proposed methodology is capable of producing exaggerated models from an initial face model comprising roughly 2,000,000 triangles.


The purpose of the paper is to give an overview of the changes in the structure of industries in Romania, specifically on the questions (1) whether the industrial structures become more similar or more different in the Romanian regions and (2) whether the Romanian industries become more concentrated or more dispersed. EUROSTAT regional data on Gross Value Added and employed population for the period of 2000-2013 are used in order to calculate several statistical indices of specialization and concentration (Krugman, Entropy, Hirschman-Herfindahl, Lilien Index and Gini coefficient). By comparing the values of these different measurements, the main finding is that Romanian regions become less specialized, while industries become slightly more concentrated. The speed of structural changes in all Romanian regions registered a noticeable slowdown of the speed of sectoral changes after the economic crisis. Our conclusions provide useful information for the economic policy makers in investment funds allocation or employment measures designing.


The purpose of the study was to contribute to the NGO governance literature and also to provide NGOs' management and senior staff with evidence necessary for them to evaluate the effectiveness of their board composition. Using data from the NGOs located in Nairobi County in Kenya, the study measured the effects of board diversity on performance. It focused on the board diversity attributes of age, occupational and professional networks diversities. The overall objective of the study shall be to determine the effect of board diversity on performance within non-governmental organizations in Nairobi County in Kenya. The specific objectives were; to establish effect of age diversity of board members on NGOs performance; the effect of occupational diversity of board members on NGOs performance and to find out the effect of professional networks diversity of board members on NGOs performance; The scope of the study covered both local and international NGOs in Nairobi County. The Directory of Development Organizations identified that 702 NGOs are registered in Nairobi, Kenya. This body of organizations constituted the population of the study. This paper investigated three independent variables (age diversity, occupational diversity and professional networks diversity) against the dependent variable – performance. Performance was reviewed from a resource dependency theory perspective. The study employed a descriptive research design and adopted questionnaires as its data collection tool. Primary data was collected using questionnaires sent to a sample of 84 respondents. The study made use of descriptive, correlation and regression statistics in analyzing the data that was collected with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS20.0). The study variables (age diversity, occupational diversity and professional networks diversity) contributed to the improved organizational performance of the NGOs from the study. Out of the 84 issued questionnaires, 63 questionnaires representing 75% of the total questionnaires distributed were returned fully completed. Out of the 63 respondents, majority (46.9%) were aged between 31 – 42 years, 28.1% were aged between 43 – 55 years and 18.8% were aged 56 years and above. The respondents strongly agreed that the board of their organizations were composed of members with varied networks/connections with a mean of 3.1563 and a standard deviation of 1.13903. Respondents reported that the age diversity of the board members in their organizations was of low extent as shown by a mean of 2.8438 for a low extent and a standard deviation of 0.51490. The respondents agreed to a very great extent indicating that the boards of the studied organizations are composed of members from varied occupations with a mean of 4.4063 with a standard deviation of 0.49899. The correlation results indicated that occupational diversity was the strongest of the 3 variables with a positive correlation of 0.684 with a significance value of 0.015. Professional networks diversity was positively correlated at .578 with a significance value of .001, whereas, age diversity was positively correlated to organization performance at .586 and a significance value of .000. The estimates of the regression coefficients, t-statistics and the p-values for the relationship between age diversity, occupational diversity and professional network diversity against organizational performance resulted in the equation below which shows that all the independent variables had a positive relationship with organizational performance; Y1 = 3.604 + 4.058 X1 + 4.078 X2 + 2.780 X3 In conclusion, regression and correlation analysis showed that indeed there was a relationship between the three variables against the dependent variable, organizational performance. The study recommends the need for the top management of the non-governmental organizations to ensure presence of different professionals within their boards. Board members with diversified networks would facilitate growth of the organization. Also, the board of management in any organization should comprise of individuals of diversified ages and there is need for the non-governmental organizations to have different occupations represented in their boards of management.


BUILD IT. FIX it. OWN IT. A Beginners Guide to Building and Upgrading a PC Build It. Fix It. Own It. is the ultimate beginners guide to building and fixing your own PC. With a friendly, knowledgeable tone, this book shows the beginning PC builder everything he or she needs to know to build a computer or upgrade an existing one. We step you through the parts that lurk inside a PC, from the motherboard and power supply to the CPU, memory, hard drive, video card, sound card, and networking hardware. In each case, you will learn how the hardware works, what it does, what types of hardware are available, and what to look for when buying the hardware. Then we walk you step-by-step though a series of PC building projects. We show you how to build five different types of PC: a basic business PC, a home theater PC, a high-performance PC, a killer gaming PC, and a budget PC. And if building a new PC from scratch isnt in your budget, we show you how to resurrect an old PC by swapping out a few key componen ts. When you have your PC built and running, we show you how to set up a wireless network and the BIOS and maintain your new rig. Build It. Fix It. Own It. is the ultimate PC builders guide, even if youve never ventured inside a PC case before! Author Bio Paul McFedries is one of the industrys most well known and respected technical writers and is a passionate computer tinkerer. He is the author of more than 70 computer books that have sold more than three million copies worldwide. His recent titles include the Sams Publishing books Windows Vista Unleashed and Windows Home Server Unleashed and the Que Publishing books Networking with Microsoft Windows Vista, Formulas and Functions with Microsoft Excel 2007, Tricks of the Microsoft Office 2007 Gurus, and Microsoft Access 2007 Forms, Reports, and Queries. Paul also is the proprietor of Word Spy (www.wordspy.com), a website devoted to tracking new words and phrases as they enter the English language. Category Hardware Covers PC Hardwar e User Level BeginnerIntermediate


Mixtures (1: 1) of whole-crop dried wheat or barley, with peas or beans as a nitrogen supplement, were fed ad libitum to four groups of 16 6-mo-old male castrate sheep for a period of 42 days in 1971. The mean dry-matter consumptions (kg/day) and live-weight gains (g/day) were: wheat+peas 1·69, 264; wheat+beans 2·05, 288; barley+peas 1·80, 282; and barley+beans 1·81, 229. This experiment was repeated in 1972. The differences between treatments were non-significant. Dried pelleted whole-crop maize was fed ad libitum to British Friesian steers for 90 days, in conjunction with molasses and one of three protein sources, soya bean meal, urea or whole crop beans. The dry-matter intakes (kg/day) and live-weight gains (kg) were: maize+soya 9·68, 1·26; maize+urea 9·38, 10·4; and maize+beans 9·72, 1·15. Dried maize in conjunction with urea, whole crop beans and dried grass to supply crude protein levels between 9 and 11% was fed to 48 Hereford × British Friesian steers. The dry-matter intakes (kg/day) and live-weight gains (kg/day) were: whole crop maize, 8·35, 0·87; whole crop maize+urea, 9·55, 1·0; whole crop maize+whole crop beans, 7·44, 0·70; whole crop maize+dried grass, 8·94, 1·15; whole crop maize+rolled barley, 9·30, 1·23; and dried grass + rolled barley, 9·24, 1·21. Although there was no significant difference in live-weight gain between the treatments, two levels of performance were apparent.


Abstrak

Success of companies that compete in the business world is very much determined
by the extent to which the product can be accepted by consumers. To this end, the
company demanded to know what is needed by consumers to follow the way of
marketing. With four marketing mix planning, expected the company to formulate
marketing programs appropriate for products that can influence consumer
decisions to purchase products offered. Mc Donald restaurant franchise business is
one that offers a variety of food and beverages fast food. The general objective of
the food business establishment is to fulfill the public interest in development in
Bandar Lampung, especially against fast food and aim in particular to increase
profits by providing a variety of services that can make consumers feel satisfied
and loyal to the company, so it can repeat purchases.
The problem faced by Bandarlampung restaurant Mc Donald is not the optimal
mix of marketing strategies implemented so the impact on product sales value of
Mc Donald, so the problem is formulated as "Does the selling price of the
company, the selling price competition, promotional costs and distribution
channels affect the cost of product sales value Bandarlampung McDonald's "? The
aim is to determine the effect on the value of McDonald's product mix of sales in
Bandarlampung. Formulate the hypothesis that the average selling price of the
company, competition average selling price, promotion and distribution channels
affect the cost of product sales value Bandarlampung McDonald's.
Results of multiple regression analysis showed that the average selling price of the
company (X1), average selling price of a competitor (X2), distribution costs (X3),
and promotion costs (X4) are simultaneously significant influence on the value of
sales of products Mc Donald Bandarlampung based on the results of hypothesis
testing with the F test which showed that the F-count value (148.033) F table->
(4.12) at 5% significance level obtained value p = 0.000 <0.05.
All independent variables consisted of average selling price of the company (X1),
average selling price of a competitor (X2), distribution costs (X3), and promotion
costs (X4) at a significant level of 5% obtained by value t calculate> t-table and (p
May Puspita Sari
<0.05) so that H0 is rejected, which means that the influence of all independent
variables partially significantly to sales value Bandarlampung Mc Donald's.
Determining the selling price to consumers and expenditures for sales promotion
expenses and distribution to increase the value of Mc Donald product sales, we
can say is good and can contribute to increase in value of sales because the
application has been made in accordance with existing theories that cause a good
impression in the eyes of consumers, only to sell a product worth the price of Mc
Donald's record again because based on the results of multiple linear regression
showed that the average selling price of the company had a negative impact on
product sales value Mc Donald Bandarlampung.
Bandarlampung Restaurants Mc Donald ' s should not increase the sales price of
products for consumers, as this will have an impact on lowering the cost of sales,
because based on the results of the regression estimates determining the average
price of a product objection consumers show significant negative, so when the
selling price rises, the consumer will look for alternatives to fast food restaurants,
which offer a lower price.
Mc Donald's Restaurants Bandarlampung must keep promotional costs incurred
due to promotional costs that have been made to increase the value of sales, but
preferably in the election campaign the media, should be more varied so that
everyone may receive promotional messages conveyed.


Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) is a technique that produces a spectrogram of an ultrashort laser pulse. The intensity and phase of the ultrashort laser pulse can be determined through solving for the phase of the spectrogram with an iterative, phase-retrieval algorithm. This work presents a new phase-retrieval algorithm that retrieves both the probe and the gate pulses independently by converting the FROG phase-retrieval problem to an eigenvector problem. The new algorithm is robust and general. It is tested theoretically by use of synthetic data sets and experimentally by use of single-shot, polarization-gate FROG. We independently and simultaneously characterize the electric field amplitude and phase of a pulse (probe) that was passed though 200 mm of BK7 glass and the amplitude of an unchanged pulse (gate) from an amplified Ti:sapphire laser. When the effect of the 200 mm of BK7 glass was removed mathematically from the probe, there was good agreement between the measured gate and the calculated, prechirped probe.


Planning under deep uncertainty, when probabilistic characterizations of the future are unknown, is a major challenge in water resources management. Many planning frameworks advocate for "scenario‐neutral" analyses in which alternative policies are evaluated over plausible future scenarios with no assessment of their likelihoods. Instead, these frameworks use sensitivity analysis to discover which uncertain factors have the greatest influence on performance. This knowledge can be used to design monitoring programs and adaptive policies that respond to changes in the critical uncertainties. However, scenario‐neutral analyses make implicit assumptions about the range and independence of the uncertain factors that may not be consistent with the coupled human‐hydrologic processes influencing the system. These assumptions could influence which factors are found to be most important and which policies are most robust, belying their neutrality; assuming uniformity and independence could have decision‐relevant implications. This study illustrates these implications using a multistakeholder planning problem within the Colorado River Basin, where hundreds of rights holders vie for the river's limited water under the law of prior appropriation. Variance‐based sensitivity analyses are performed to assess users' vulnerabilities to changing hydrologic conditions using four experimental designs: (1) scenario‐neutral samples of hydrologic factors, centered on recent historical conditions, (2) scenarios informed by climate projections, (3) scenarios informed by paleohydrologic reconstructions, and (4) scenario‐neutral samples of hydrologic factors spanning all previous experimental designs. Differences in sensitivities and user robustness rankings across the experiments illustrate the challenges of inferring the most consequential drivers of vulnerabilities to design effective monitoring programs and robust management policies.


Central nervous system (CNS) astrocytes are glial cells performing crucial tasks encompassing energy metabolism, neurotransmission, ion and water stable levels, and immune defense and control local blood flow/oxygen levels. Arising from neural stem cells, astrocytes differentiate into subtypes that vary according to animal species. Human cerebral cortex astrocytes are sturdier and cytologically and functionally more complex, control wider domains, and spread calcium signals more quickly than their rodents' counterparts. They actively partake in CNS homeostasis maintenance and functioning by teaming up with their client neurons, other glial cell types, and cerebrovascular cells. Alterations of astrocytes' activities deeply impact on age-related chronic ailments like Alzheimer's disease (AD), the commonest senile dementia; AD involves the growing accumulation of amyloid-β peptides (Aβs) and hyperphosphorylated Tau proteins the astrocytes, and neurons supply following the interaction of their calcium-sensing receptors (CaSRs) with exogenous Aβs. The activated Aβ∙CaSR signaling triggers a self-propagating mechanism that spreads the neuropathology among adjacent and far away astrocytes and their neuronal clients causing neurons' death. CaSR antagonists or calcilytics suppress these noxious effects in vitro. Hence, calcilytics are potential therapeutics that could halt the spread of AD neuropathology and safeguard the patients' neuronal viability, cognition, memory, and ultimately life.


Although inflation is much feared for its negative effects on the economy, how to measure it is a matter of considerable debate that has important implications for interest rates, monetary supply, and investment and spending decisions. Underlying many of these issues is the concept of the Cost-of-Living Index (COLI) and its controversial role as the methodological foundation for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Price Index Concepts and Measurements brings together leading experts to address the many questions involved in conceptualizing and measuring inflation. They evaluate the accuracy of COLI, a Cost-of-Goods Index, and a variety of other methodological frameworks as the bases for consumer price construction.


Herbert Marcuse's relationship to the student-activists of the 1960s not only required a different form of discourse from that of his colleague, Theodor W. Adorno, but also indicated the range of conditions that govern political discourse in the academy. Whereas Adorno restricted his political activity almost exclusively to the pursuit of dialectical theory, Marcuse's insistence upon speaking to audiences of activists occasioned a contemporary manifestation of ancient debates over the discursive forms of rhetoric and dialectic. This essay analyzes two different kinds of discourses: (1) a dialectical conversation between Marcuse and Adorno, and (2) a rhetorical address that Marcuse presented to activists. Taken together, these texts reveal the dependence of the academy on more than one form of discourse and suggest that even under our contemporary circumstances, the ancient categories of rhetoric and dialectic continue to operate as counterparts.


Background In HIV-infected patients receiving rifampicin-based treatment for tuberculosis (TB), the dosage of lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) is adjusted to prevent sub-therapeutic lopinavir concentrations. In this setting, South African clinicians were advised to administer super-boosted LPV/r (400 mg/400 mg) twice daily, instead of standard dosed LPV/r (400 mg/100 mg) twice daily. We sought to determine – in routine practice – the tolerability and HIV treatment outcomes associated with super-boosted LPV/r compared to unadjusted LPV/r in combination with rifampicin-based TB treatment. Methodology/Principle Findings We conducted a retrospective review of HIV-infected patients who receiving second-line ART with a LPV/r-containing regimen who required concomitant TB treatment. We identified 29 patients; the median age was 36 years (IQR 29–40), 22 (76%) were female, the median CD4 cell count and viral load at first-line ART failure was 86 cells/mm3 (IQR 21–159) and 39,457 copies/mL (IQR 6,025–157,500), respectively. According to physician preference, 15 (52%) of 29 patients received super-boosted LPV/r (400 mg/400 mg) every 12 hours during TB treatment and 14 (48%) of 29 patients received standard dose LPV/r (400 mg/100 mg) twice daily during TB treatment. Among patients who received super-boosted LPV/r there was a trend towards a higher rate of symptomatic transaminitis (27% vs. 7%; p = 0.3), gastrointestinal toxicity (20% vs. 0%; p = 0.2) and a significantly increased need for treatment discontinuation (47% vs. 7%; p = 0.035. The durability of coadministered treatment was significantly shorter in patients who received super-boosted lopinavir/ritonavir with TB treatment compared to patients who received standard lopinavir/ritonavir dosing (log rank, P = 0.036). The rate of virologic failure was not higher in patients with unadjusted LPV/r dosing. Conclusions/Significance We observed a high rate of toxicity and need for treatment discontinuation among patients on standard rifampicin-based TB treatment who received super-boosted LPV/r.


This paper reports the findings of a study conducted to analyse the effect of mobile device intervention for student support services and to gauge its use for enhancing teaching – learning process as a future study in the context of offer of Distance Education programmes. The study was conducted with the learners of the coveted Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Cardiology programme of Indira Gandhi National Open University. In order to illustrate the issues involved primarily in student support services and the mobile learning as a future course of action, it is proposed to apply the Koole's FRAME model. Questionnaire and interview methods are used to obtain a feedback. The findings are discussed and future direction of study is also indicated.


Superconducting Fault Current Limiters (SFCLs) are able to reduce fault currents to an acceptable value, reducing potential mechanical and thermal damage and allowing more flexibility in an electric power system's design. Due to limitations in current YBCO thin film manufacturing techniques, it is necessary to connect a number of thin films in different series and parallel configurations in order to realise a practical SFCL for electric power system applications. The amount of resistance generated (i.e. the degree of current limitation), the characteristics of the S-N transition, and the time at which they operate is different depending on their comparative characteristics. However, it is desirable for series-connected thin films to have an operating time difference as small as possible to avoid placing an excess burden on certain thin films. The role of a parallel resistance, along with the influence of thin film characteristics, such as critical current (Ic), are discussed in regards to the design of SFCLs using YBCO thin films.


In multi-class categorization tasks, knowledge about the classes' semantic relationships can provide valuable information beyond the class labels themselves. However, existing techniques focus on preserving the semantic distances between classes (e.g., according to a given object taxonomy for visual recognition), limiting the influence to pairwise structures. We propose to model analogies that reflect the relationships between multiple pairs of classes simultaneously, in the form "p is to q, as r is to s". We translate semantic analogies into higher-order geometric constraints called analogical parallelograms, and use them in a novel convex regularizer for a discriminatively learned label embedding. Furthermore, we show how to discover analogies from attribute-based class descriptions, and how to prioritize those likely to reduce inter-class confusion. Evaluating our Analogy-preserving Semantic Embedding (ASE) on two visual recognition datasets, we demonstrate clear improvements over existing approaches, both in terms of recognition accuracy and analogy completion.


My aim in this article is to problematise the heteronormalised interlacings of citizenship, ethnicity, masculinity, ascendancy, morality, matrimony and religion among Malaysian Malay-Muslim men through queer analyses. The civil partnership of Malaysian Ariff Alfian Rosli caused considerable tumult among many Malay-Muslims in Malaysia, dislodging an entrenched image of heteronormative masculinity. I argue that Ariff's resoluteness in faith has irrevocably fractured heteronormative familiarities and opened up new avenues for a reconsideration of Syariah legalities on sexuality for non-heteronormative Malaysian Malay-Muslim men.


Basic research is needed to better understand the potential risk of dangerous biological agents that are unintentionally or intentionally introduced into a water distribution system. Included in this research is an assessment of how bio-pathogens will interact with biofilms growing on water-distribution system pipe-wall surfaces. Experiments are being run at Sandia National Laboratories to better understand the impact of biofilms on pathogen dissemination through water distribution systems, both before and after decontamination of the system. The hope is that these data can be fed into numerical tools that quantify the risk and associated uncertainty of pathogenic biological agents being introduced into water distribution systems and the effects of biofilms on this risk. In addition these data could be used in numerical tools that assess decontamination methods for water distribution system networks. Reproducible Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilms were grown in annular reactors with plate counts on the order of 10 5 and 10 6 CFU/cm 2 . A series of pathogen-introduction experiments, where both 1-μm-diameter fluorescently labeled polystyrene microspheres and Bacillus cereus (as a surrogate for B. anthracis ) were introduced in the annular reactor after the P. fluorescens biofilms have reached stationary phase. Integration of the pathogens in the biofilms was monitored by gram-specific plating techniques and epifluorescent microscopy. Fluorescent nucleic-acid stains were used to visually differentiate the gram-positive ( B. cereus ) and gram-negative ( P. fluorescens ) organisms. Fluorescence spectrophotometry was used to measure the microsphere concentrations. Variables examined in the experiments include initial pathogen concentration, rotation speed of the inner cylinder of the annular reactor (shear force), and biofilm plate counts prior to the start of the experiment. Chlorine was added to the system after the pathogen had at least 14 days in contact with the biofilms and the impact of the chlorine on pathogen concentration in the biofilms was monitored. Pathogens are observed to get integrated in the biofilms at a relatively constant concentration until the start of the chlorine treatment. The higher the initial pathogen concentration and the higher the initial biofilm plate counts prior the pathogen introduction, the more pathogen integrated into the biofilms. A decrease in pathogen concentration to below the detection limit in the biofilms and the reactor water was observed during the chlorine treatment. From the results of one experiment, it appears that the pathogens do not recover after termination of the chlorine treatment. However, more data need to be collected to confirm these results. These results indicated that biofilms may act as a safe harbor for bio-pathogens in drinking water systems, making it difficult to decontaminate the systems. Chlorination of the system appears to be effective in decontaminating the system in the annular reactor geometry at the concentrations that we used. Additional experiments are being run to further test this observation. As these experiments cannot assess the effectiveness of chlorination at pipe junctions and because annular reactors have a higher surface area to volume ratio than pipe systems, the results from these experiments should also be tested in a system with a more complicated geometry that more closely matches water distribution systems. This paper was presented at the 8th Annual Water Distribution Systems Analysis Symposium which was held with the generous support of Awwa Research Foundation (AwwaRF).


The biogeographic patterns in species density of herptiles were analysed in the Iberian Peninsula. Geoclimatic regions were identified using a PCA. Individual habitat suitability (HS) models for 23 amphibians and 35 reptiles at 10 × 10 km scale were calculated with ENFA, using 12 environmental factors established with Remote Sensing (RS) techniques. The species presence proportion in each geoclimatic region was calculated through a cross-tabulation between each potential occurrence model and the geoclimatic regions. Species chorotypes were determined through Hierarchical Cluster Analysis using Jaccard's index as association measure and by the analysis of marginality and tolerance factors from individual HS models. Predicted species density maps were calculated for each geoclimatic region. Probable under-sampled areas were estimated through differences between the predicted species density maps and observed (Gap analysis). The selected PCA components divided the Iberian Peninsula in two major geoclimatic regions largely corresponding to the Atlantic and Mediterranean climates. The Jaccard's index clustered herptiles in two main taxonomic groups, with distribution similar to the Atlantic and Mediterranean geoclimatic regions (7 amphibian + 13 reptile species in three Atlantic subgroups and 16 amphibian + 22 reptile species in four Mediterranean subgroups). Marginality and tolerance factor scores identified species groups of herptile specialists and generalists. The highest observed and predicted species density areas were broadly located in identical regions. Predicted gaps are located in north-western, north-east and central Iberia. RS is a useful tool for biogeographical studies, as it provides consistent environmental data from large areas with high accuracy.


While the practice of using educational technologies in Higher Education is increasingly common among educators, there is a paucity of research on innovative uses of emerging technologies to transform teaching and learning. This paper draws on data collected as part of a larger study aimed at investigating emerging technologies and their use in South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to improve teaching and learning. The research employed a mixed method research design, using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods—quantitative data from a survey of 262 respondents from 22 public HEIs in South Africa and qualitative data gathered from 16 experts/practitioners on their self-reflective definition of the term "emerging technologies." The paper concludes that levels of institutional development, access to resources, discipline, group belonging and individual motivation of respondents influenced the way they defined emerging technologies including what constituted an innovative use of technology, foregrounding the contextuality of emerging technologies.


This article examines the "progress" of Scottish metaphysics during the long eighteenth century. The scientific cultivation of natural knowledge drawn from the examples of Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), John Locke (1632–1704), and Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was a defining pursuit in the Scottish Enlightenment. The Aberdonian philosopher George Dalgarno (1616–1687); Thomas Reid (1710–1796), a member of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society known as the Wise Club; and the professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), contributed to that Scottish pattern of philosophical thinking. The question of the extent to which particular external senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) might be improved when others were damaged or absent from birth attracted their particular interest. This article shows the different ways in which Scottish anatomists of the mind resolved Molyneux's Problem of whether or not an agent could accurately perceive an object from a newly restored external sense.


We consider the steady propagation of an air finger into a buckled elastic tube initially filled with viscous fluid. This study is motivated by the physiological problem of pulmonary airway reopening. The system is modelled using geometrically nonlinear Kirchhoff–Love shell theory coupled to the free-surface Stokes equations. The resulting three-dimensional fluid–structure-interaction problem is solved numerically by a fully coupled finite element method. The system is governed by three dimensionless parameters: (i) the capillary number, Ca=μU/σ*, represents the ratio of viscous to surface-tension forces, where μ is the fluid viscosity, U is the finger's propagation speed and σ* is the surface tension at the air–liquid interface; (ii) σ=σ*/(RK) represents the ratio of surface tension to elastic forces, where R is the undeformed radius of the tube and K its bending modulus; and (iii) A∞=A*∞/(4R2), characterizes the initial degree of tube collapse, where A*∞ is the cross-sectional area of the tube far ahead of the bubble. The generic behaviour of the system is found to be very similar to that observed in previous two-dimensional models (Gaver et al. 1996; Heil 2000). In particular, we find a two-branch behaviour in the relationship between dimensionless propagation speed, Ca, and dimensionless bubble pressure, p*b/(σ*/R). At low Ca, a decrease in p*b is required to increase the propagation speed. We present a simple model that explains this behaviour and why it occurs in both two and three dimensions. At high Ca, p*b increases monotonically with propagation speed and p*b/(σ*/R) ∝ Ca for sufficiently large values of σ and Ca. In a frame of reference moving with the finger velocity, an open vortex develops ahead of the bubble tip at low Ca, but as Ca increases, the flow topology changes and the vortex disappears. An increase in dimensional surface tension, σ*, causes an increase in the bubble pressure required to drive the air finger at a given speed; p*b also increases with A*∞ and higher bubble pressures are required to open less strongly buckled tubes. This unexpected finding could have important physiological ramifications. If σ* is sufficiently small, steady airway reopening can occur when the bubble pressure is lower than the external (pleural) pressure, in which case the airway remains buckled (non-axisymmetric) after the passage of the air finger. Furthermore, we find that the maximum wall shear stresses exerted on the airways during reopening may be large enough to damage the lung tissue.


This paper analyses the interconnections between key ecological, economic and social drivers with other multiple stressors like climate change in the context of coastal governance. Information on underlying variables that influence stakeholders' perceptions and decision-making processes on marine resources use is compared with the former types of data. Potential benefits of this research include integrating disparate information into formats that can be applied to more precise targeting of policy action on governance in coastal zones such as those of the Seychelles.

Throughout March and August 2005, ecological (e.g. coral cover and fish abundance), economic (e.g. expenditure, source of income) and social (e.g. local perceptions of fish stocks, support for coastal management measures) variables were measured in four coastal communities around the islands of Mahe and Praslin in the Seychelles. Underwater visual census (UVC) was used to estimate fish size and abundance; corresponding marine habitats were also described. Stakeholders (artisanal fishers and heads of households; n= 265) were interviewed face-to-face, using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

Ecological findings show that the 1998 coral bleaching event has resulted in a shift from coral dominance, as observed in 1994, to rubble and algal dominance in 2005. Present coral cover (7.5%) is largely made up of massive and encrusting forms offering limited structure for other components of the ecosystem. This change in habitat, coupled with the physical degradation of the reef structure, has had a significant effect on reef fish assemblages, in particular diversity. Fishery target species show mixed responses. Notably, a significant loss
of smaller size classes suggests a lag affect intimating that the full effect of the coral loss is yet to be realised. More than 60% of stakeholders interviewed thought that fish had declined and attributed this to factors such
as changes in climate, fish behaviour, habitat, land-based and maritime pollution, and over fishing. Support for marine parks (MPs) as a management measure to enhance fish numbers was highest in those communities located further away from MPs (Grand Anse and Belombre; 26 and 23%, respectively) compared to those adjacent to MPs (Anse Volbert and Roche Caiman, 9 and 11%, respectively). With little apparent recovery of the Seychelles inner reef system and further degradation of the reef structure expected, effects on biodiversity, tourism and ultimately reef fisheries may get worse.


This thesis aims to address the research gap of understanding the relationship between "creativity" and "job-related motivators" in Hong Kong Chinese hotel employees. The Psychometric approach to measure creativity was adopted, and specifically Byrd's model (1971) was used as the instrument to measure creativity. Risk taking and
Creativity are the two factors in Byrd's model. Kovach's (1980) ten job-related motivators were adopted as the measurement of work, which includes both intrinsic
motivators and extrinsic motivators. Moos' (1986) Work Environment Scale was adopted as the instrument to measure organisational climate. This instrument has three
dimensions, the relationship dimension, the personal growth dimension, and the system maintenance and change dimension.
The sample consists of 983 hotel employees, and the data were gathered using the questionnaire method. The data analysis proves that there is a relationship between
creativity and job-related motivators (r = 0.311) with a high significance level at 0.000. However, there is no significant difference found for this relationship in the eight different organisational climates, High vs. Low organisational climate and various innovative indexes.
Two demographic variables, i. e. "Education level (r = 0.469) and "Level of Job" (r = 0.444) were found to exert a significant difference over the relationship between
creativity and job-related motivators. The study also discovered there is a relationship between creativity and organisational climate (r = 0.339) with high significance level. Similarly, no significant difference existed in the eight sub-sample organisational climates. A number of 2 way MANOVA tests were conducted and significant differences were found which justified further ANOVA and post hoc tests. In each dimension (creativity, job-related motivators, organisational climate), several interaction
effects were found in various demographic factors.
The author developed a See-Saw model to explain the relationship between creativity and job-related motivators. Like the see-saw in every child's playground, both sides
(creativity and job-related motivators) of the rod of the see-saw can be independent variables, and they can both exert a force on each other. Risk-taking was found to be
placed on the far left side, while Intrinsic Motivators was found to be placed on the far right side. The author recommends six C's for motivating creativity in the hotel industry in Hong Kong. They are: 1. ) Creating a macro culture by education, 2. ) Commitment from top management, 3. ) Congratulating success by reward and recognition, 4. ) Courage - risk taking, 5. ) Change - willing to accept new things and 6. ) Communication - exchanges of opinions for incubating creative ideas. To conclude, this research satisfies both etic (universal) and emit (cultural specific)
objectives. The etic approach proved that creativity is found in Chinese culture, and there is a relationship between creativity and job-related motivators. However, there was no significant difference by different organisational climates in the Hong Kong Chinese culture (emit approach). National Chinese culture may have a more influential impact over this relationship.


The 1983-1984 die-off of the long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum stands out as a catastrophic marine event because of its detrimental effects on Caribbean coral reefs. Without the grazing activities of this key herbivore, turf and macroalgae became the dominant benthic group, inhibiting coral recruitment and compromising coral reef recovery from other disturbances. In the decades that followed, recovery of D. antillarum populations was slow to non-existent. In late January 2022, a new mass mortality of D. antillarum was first observed in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We documented the spread and extent of this new die-off using an online survey. Infected individuals were closely monitored in the lab to record signs of illness, while a large population on Saba, Dutch Caribbean, was surveyed weekly before and during mortality to determine the lethality of this event. Within four months the die-off was distributed over 1,300 km from north to south and 2,500 km east to west. Whereas the 1983-1984 die-off advanced mostly with the currents, the 2022 event has appeared far more quickly in geographically distant areas. First die-off observations in each jurisdiction were often close to harbor areas, which, together with their rapid appearance, suggests that anthropogenic factors may have contributed to the spread of the causative agent. The signs of illness in sick D. antillarum were very similar to those recorded during the 1983-1984 die-off: lack of tube feet control, slow spine reaction followed by their loss, and necrosis of the epidermis were observed in both lab and wild urchins. Affected populations succumbed fast; within a month of the first signs of illness, a closely monitored population at Saba, Dutch Caribbean, had decreased from 4.05 individuals per m2 to 0.05 individuals per m2. Lethality can therefore be as high as 99%. The full extent of the 2022 D. antillarum die-off event is not currently known. The slower spread in the summer of 2022 might indicate that the die-off is coming to a (temporary) standstill. If this is the case, some populations will remain unaffected and potentially supply larvae to downstream areas and augment natural recovery processes. In addition, several D. antillarum rehabilitation approaches have been developed in the past decade and some are ready for large scale implementation. However, active conservation and restoration should not distract from the primary goal of identifying a cause and, if possible, implementing actions to decrease the likelihood of future D. antillarum die-off events.


The growing political momentum for a universal single-payer healthcare program in the United States is due in part to Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). However, according to Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray, it is Obamacare's successes and its failures that have boosted support for a single-payer system. Even after Obamacare, the US healthcare system still has significant gaps in coverage--all while facing the highest healthcare bill in the world. In this policy note, Wray argues that the underlying challenge for a system based on private, for-profit insurance is that basic healthcare is not an insurable expense. It is time to abandon the current, overly complex and expensive payments system and reconsider single payer for all. Social Security and Medicare provide a model for reform.


Although there exist human populations that differ in the proportions of particular alleles present, this fact does not support claims that 'race', as it is usually understood, is a biological rather than a social concept. Although there are differences in proportions of alleles in those races usually recognised in contemporary western social discourse (folk-racial categories), these differences are no more biologically significant than are the genetic differences that exist between populations that are not socially recognised as races (populations that do not correspond to folk-racial categories). This implies that whatever average genetic differences exist between the populations called 'races' in ordinary social discourse, those genetic differences are not what account for the folk-racial categories in use today. Despite recent research sometimes taken to imply otherwise, folk-racial categories – which remain of fundamental importance to people's life-prospects – remain social categories and not biological categories.

Key Concepts:

Many human populations differ from each other in the frequencies of particular alleles.

Many of these genetic variations between human populations can be explained by population structure.

Contemporary socially identified racial categories (folk-racial categories) can be mapped (albeit only roughly) onto human populations identified on the basis of the continental location of recent ancestors.

Since physical location is associated with population structure, it is no surprise that populations whose ancestors came from different locations will differ in the frequencies of some alleles.

Although human populations identified on the basis of folk-racial categories differ in the proportion of particular alleles, so too do many human populations that are not generally socially recognised as forming races (such as the country of origin within Europe).

Biologically, the populations that form folk-racial categories (e.g. Asians) are no more important or significant than many other populations that are not usually identified as races (e.g. the Spanish and Portuguese).

Although human populations identified on the basis of folk-racial categories differ in the proportion of particular alleles, this does not make the folk-racial categories biological categories.

Keywords:

biological race;
allele frequencies;
folk racial categories;
human populations;
human genetic variation


Background and Purpose: The investigation is dedicated to the study of personal resources of stress tolerance in work activities by the example of the medical workers. Materials and Methods: As a resource of stress negotiation in complex professional situations happened with the specialists of different age groups, we consider person vitality as a complex structured psychological formation, system of persuasions which contribute to the development of readiness to manage the situation of increased complexity and system of life guidance. Results: These inside criteria are important for the life prosperity, process orientation, result of activity, and feeling of being an origin of professional development. We analyzed coping strategies for the control of professional situations, used in the professional activity. During the experimental research, we identified the specific character of doctors' stress tolerance, concerned with a high professional motivation, self-confidence as a professional, which can prevent the professional burnout. Along with this fact, high activities of depersonalization in combination with non-productive coping strategies reveal the problems with patients' interaction. During the investigation, we revealed that the respondents (medical workers of children's polyclinic) have both the high activities of managerial stress receptivity and the high activities of vitality, caused by drawing in labor activity and feeling of control under what is going on at present, ability to risk in professional situations. Conclusion: The revealed connection of personal characteristics and components of stress tolerance display that they can be as a resource of stress tolerance.


There are increasing demands for Higher Education (HE) students to play a role in research-active communities and, similarly, for College Based Higher Education (CBHE) lecturers to develop their research practices. A cross-consortium Student Research Festival was designed to create a collaborative 'community of discovery' (Coffield and Williamson, 2011) and enable final year students to disseminate their research studies to a wider audience. The Festival drew on current HE pedagogies to build an open communicative space in which the three dimensions of practice architecture (Kemmis et.al., 2014) were embodied. The Festival was evaluated through a Collaborative Action Research project in order to establish how the sharing of research contributed to the participants' identity as researchers. Data were analysed using the a priori categories afforded by the practice architecture framework. Valuable insights emerged into the students' conception of research, as detached from the 'real' world and belonging to the privileged few. These views were challenged by the experience of the Festival, which narrowed the gap between student and researcher and unsettled existing roles. Recommendations include widening the scope of the Festival to include other stakeholders and embedding further research building opportunities in the undergraduate curriculum.


In this paper, a novel 3D head model retrieval approach is proposed, in which only a single 2D face view query is required. The proposed approach will be important for multimedia application areas such as virtual world construction and game design, in which 3D virtual characters with a given set of facial features can be rapidly constructed based on 2D view queries, instead of having to generate each model anew. To achieve this objective, we construct an adaptive mapping through which each 2D view feature vector is associated with its corresponding 3D model feature vector. Given this estimated 3D model feature vector, similarity matching can then be performed in the 3D model feature space. To avoid the explicit specification of the complex relationship between the 2D and 3D feature spaces, a neural network approach is adopted in which the required mapping is implicitly specified through a set of training examples. In addition, for efficient feature representation, principal component analysis (PCA) is adopted to achieve dimensionality reduction for facilitating both the mapping construction and the similarity matching process. Since the linear nature of the original PCA formulation may not be adequate to capture the complex characteristics of 3D models, we also consider the adoption of its nonlinear counterpart, i.e., the so-called kernel PCA approach, in this work. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is capable of successfully retrieving the set of 3D models which are similar in appearance to a given 2D face view.


Trust in public policy makers and public institutions is eroding. People sense that something is wrong with the way the political and economic elites in the G7 countries are discharging their responsibilities. This manifesto argues that the finely tuned antenna of people are right: the current trajectory of policies in the G7 countries is leading straight into a systemic crisis. It shows how key policies are irresponsible, whether in the domains of monetary and macro policies, or in the areas of climate change and defence. But these policies are presented as being in the public interest. The mainstream media present news that purport to show that all is well, while independent and critical views receive little coverage. In terms of policy-making, the world has turned up-side down within a few years. Heretical views of five years ago have become mainstream; mainstream analysis of yesterday is seen as not "getting it". The manifesto makes the case for a revolution in thinking if the march of the doomsday clock towards midnight is to be stopped. It advocates the transition from the reckless G7 model to an "economy for the common good". A model today seen as utopia - but that might soon become a categorical imperative.


In the last two decades, the social investment strategy has been the main approach to welfare state reform. Concretely, two spending programs have dominated the agenda: the expansion of active labor market programs and the development of childcare services. Many authors have suspected, however, that these social investments were realized at the expense of income protection for the poor. This article assesses this potential trade-off with time-series cross-sectional models of the determinants of active labor market policies expenditures, childcare spending and the adequacy of minimum income protection (MIP), for 18 OECD countries between 1990 and 2009. It turns out that social investments are rather akin to traditional welfare state programs, and are explained by similar institutional, political and economic factors. More importantly, they do not develop at the expense of income protection. Social investment initiatives are consistent with the usual politics of the welfare state and, overall, they are not inimical to the poor.


With the spread of the coronavirus disease across over 100 countries and its status upgraded to that of a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (World Health Organization), increased attention is being placed on the policy measures that may be required to effectively curb the rate of contagion within and across countries. Currently, several governments, such as China, Italy, Spain, Japan and the Republic of Korea, have implemented emergency measures informed by the principle of social distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus (World Health Organization). Ever since the virus was first identified in Wuhan City in December 2019, this succession of uncoordinated policy responses offers a set of natural experiments that should be analysed to understand the successes and failures of containment at the societal level. In this analysis, we focus on the case of Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe (Dong, Du, & Gardner, 2020; World Health Organization). The objective of this short note is to provide an even-handed analysis of the actions taken by the Italian government to cope with the transmission of the virus and to highlight lessons in emergency management that can be learnt for other countries currently facing the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic.


Christian Theology-Alister E. McGrath 2011-01-14 Alister McGrath's Christian Theology: An Introduction is one of the most internationally-acclaimed and popular Christian theology textbooks in use today. This 5th edition has been completely revised, and now features new and extended material, numerous additional illustrations, and companion resources, ensuring it retains its reputation as the ideal introduction to Christian theology. Fully updated 5th edition of the bestselling textbook, incorporating expanded material, numerous student features and new illustrations Features new sections on Copernicanism and Darwinism Includes extended discussions of Augustine's doctrine of creation, Trinitarian theologies of religion, and the relation of Christianity to other faiths May be used as a stand-alone volume, or alongside the Christian Theology Reader, 4th edition for a complete overview of the subject Retains the chapter structure of the 4th edition, ensuring comparability with earlier editions and courses based on these Accompanied by a revised instructor's website featuring expanded resources including study questions and answers; visit www.wiley.com/go/mcgrath for more details and to register for access


This is a guide to researching the American Revolution in the M.S.U. Libraries from both the American and British perspectives, but is not heavy into the military dimension. Loyalists. Empire Loyalists.


Acute ankle ligament sprains are common injuries. The majority of these occur during athletic participation in the 15 to 35 year age range. Despite the frequency of the injury, diagnostic and treatment protocols have varied greatly. Lateral ligament complex injuries are by far the most common of the ankle sprains. Lateral ligament injuries typically occur during plantar flexion and inversion, which is the position of maximum stress on the anterotalofibular liagment (ATFL). For this reason, the ATFL is the most commonly torn ligament during an inversion injury. In more severe inversion injuries the calcaneofibular (CFL), posterotalofibular (PTFL) and subtalar ligament can also be injured. Most acute lateral ankle ligament injuries recover quickly with nonoperative management. The treatment program, called "functional treatment," includes application of the RICE principle (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) immediately after the injury, a short period of immobilization and protection with an elastic or inelastic tape or bandage, and early motion exercises followed by early weight bearing and neuromuscular ankle training. Proprioceptive training with a tilt board is commenced as soon as possible, usually after 3 to 4 weeks. The purpose is to improve the balance and neuromuscular control of the ankle. Sequelae after ankle ligament injuries are very common. As much as 10% to 30% of patients with a lateral ligament injury may have chronic symptoms. Symptoms usually include persistent synovitis or tendinitis, ankle stiffness, swelling, and pain, muscle weakness, and frequent giving-way. A well designed physical therapy program with peroneal strengthening and proprioceptive training, along with bracing and/or taping can alleviate instability problems in most patients. For cases of chronic instability that are refractory to bracing and external support, surgical treatment can be explored. If the chronic instability is associated with subtalar instability that is refractory to conservative measures and bracing as outlined above, surgical treatment must address the subtalar joint as well. Subtalar ligament injury and instability are probably more common than appreciated. Definition and diagnosis of this entity are difficult, however. Fortunately, it appears that in the majority of the acute injuries healing occurs with the same functional rehabilitation program as that for lateral ankle ligament sprains. For chronic subtalar instability an intial attempt at functional rehabilitation with ankle proprioceptive training and bracing should be attempted. If this program fails primary repair or reconstruction can be beneficial. Reconstructive procedures must address the subtalar joint. Subtalar instability often occurs in conjunction with talocrural instability, so careful diagnosis is critical in anyone with chronic ankle instability. If either is not addressed, the patient will continue to have problems. Deltoid ligament injuries most often occur in association with ankle fractures. They are rare as isolated injuries. If no fracture is evident on radiographs, particular attention must be paid to the syndesmosis to ensure there is not an associated syndesmosis disruption. True isolated deltoid injuries seem to do well with non-operative functional treatment as for lateral ankle ligament injuries. Deltoid ruptures associated with ankle fractures appear to heal well by addressing the other injuries and allowing the deltoid to heal on its own. It is vital to correct any syndesmosis injury and to obtain correct bony alignment. Syndesmosis injuries can be debilitating if not treated properly. Careful physical exam and interpretation of radiographs is necessary to obtain a correct diagnosis. Partial injuries appear to do well with functional rehabilitation. However, complete tears, if widening is not corrected, can lead to chronic ankle pain and early degenerative changes. Widening of the syndesmosis with a tear of the inferior tibiofibular ligaments is an indication for surgery to place a syndesmosis screw for reduction of the mortise. Protected weight bearing is required for about 6 weeks after surgery, at which time the screw should be removed. A functional rehabilitation program can then begin.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether circulating concentrations of biomarkers of glucose homeostasis, progesterone, and growth hormone in healthy female Elkhounds differ during diestrus and anestrus and to compare those findings with data from dogs of other breeds.

ANIMALS
22 healthy female dogs of Elkhound breeds (known to have a high incidence of diestrus-associated diabetes mellitus) and 18 healthy female non-Elkhound dogs.

PROCEDURES
For each dog, a blood sample (12 mL) was collected once during anestrus and once 2 to 8 weeks after cessation of estrual bleeding. Serum or whole blood samples were analyzed for glucose, growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor-1, C-peptide, fructosamine, and glycated hemoglobin A1c concentrations. Homeostasis model assessments (HOMAs) of pancreatic beta-cell function and insulin secretion were calculated.

RESULTS
In Elkhounds, C-peptide concentration and the HOMA for beta-cell function (markers of insulin secretion) were higher in samples obtained during diestrus, compared with findings in samples obtained during anestrus. The HOMA for insulin sensitivity was lower (albeit not significantly) during diestrus than it was during anestrus in Elkhounds. Markers of insulin secretion and sensitivity were similar during anestrus and diestrus in the dogs of other breeds. Serum progesterone concentrations were greater during diestrus than during anestrus in Elkhounds and non-Elkhound dogs. All other variables did not differ between diestrus and anestrus within or between the 2 breed groupings.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Results provided evidence that circulating insulin concentrations during diestrus are higher than those during anestrus in Elkhounds, which could contribute to development of diestrus-associated diabetes mellitus.


Digital teaching tools are prevalent in classrooms now more than ever. Using a digital teaching tool (e.g., a blog) can positively affect student engagement and achievement due to its relevancy to students who have become increasingly more exposed to technology. However, the scarce research on technological instructional tools and achievement in a Career and Technical Education (CTE) classroom, particularly dental assisting, is what brought about the need for this research project. The purpose of this study was to determine if a technology intervention using a blog affected dental assisting students' achievement. Participants in this study were dental assisting students, ranging in ages from 18-55, attending a dental assisting program in Central California (n = 24). This study utilized a quantitative pretest/post-test design using a convenience sample. Using independent and paired samples t-tests, pre and post-test assessment data were analyzed. Results only partially supported the original hypothesis that treatment group participants would have higher achievement gains, since the treatment group post-test scores were not statically significantly different than those of the control group. Although data analysis showed that post-test scores between both groups (i.e. treatment and control) were not statistically different, both groups did show substantial improvement between pre and post-tests.


Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World. CHRISTOPHER C. FENNELL. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2007. 192 pp., $59.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-8130-9141-5. Reviewed by Jayur Mehta In his new book, Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World, Christopher Fennell posits that the African slave trade was an incipient form of globalization that brought a variety of African ideas, concepts, and beliefs to the New World. Humans were taken as slaves from many different places and brought to a range of oppressive environments; while some overseers allowed slaves to form social bonds, others dominated with zeal. In these different contexts, enslaved Africans had to choose which parts of their heritage to express and which to disguise. Fennell's book relates how these processes occurred, resulting in the ethnogenesis of African American cultures. Using one particular archaeological example as an anchor, a ceramic skull discovered at the Demory house, Fennell demonstrates how Africans in the New World modified their cultural heritage using readily available materials and knowledge. Chapter 2 introduces the reader to the archaeological focus of the book: Fennell's fieldwork at the Demory house in the Loudoun Valley, Virginia. The area has an occupational history stretching from Native American, to immigrant German and enslaved African, to British American. The house was built in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and was relatively intact during Fennell's fieldwork. Shovel tests around the structure uncovered a clay skull figurine inscribed with an X and four letters (R, S, M, D). To the author, the skull represents an enigmatic problem in artifact classification. Rather than categorize this object based on his preliminary understanding of the occupational sequence of the structure, Fennell explores the history of the African diaspora, colonialism, and of other emigrations to the Americas. Fennell advocates the use of ethnohistoric analogy to make inferences on the past, and in the following chapter, promotes an in-depth analysis of artifacts and their history. There can be a myriad of interpretations for the Demory skull, and by exploring various, types of conjuration objects and the ways in which skulls and cross-shaped inscriptions were used by African societies, Fennell determines the best of all choices for how the Demory skull was used. Fennell outlines a three pronged interpretative approach for the study of cultural symbolism in chapter 3. He believes that (1) core symbology takes a variety of expressions, from emblematic to instrumental modes; (2) fully embellished emblematic symbology is often used in the public sphere, while instrumental symbology is often abbreviated and relegated to the private sphere; and (3) individual and private use of core symbols often leads to stylistic innovation. Fennell illustrates this method using the core symbol of the BaKongo group of west-central Africa, the dikenga. The dikenga is a cosmogram that signifies group solidarity and the relationship of an individual to the BaKongo. Its design can be as elaborate as an assortment of circles inscribed around an X to just an X. Fennell adroitly uses Bourdieu's habitus and Giddens's concept of structuration to delineate the interplay of processes that occur among the individual, social structures, and the core symbology of the dikenga. The cyclical nature of structuration and the innovation that can occur when individuals consume and then reinterpret cultural symbols, explains how innovative symbolic objects project shared meanings. Given the context of the Congo, where conflicts between colonial European Christians and indigenous Africans left the residents of the Congo subjugated, it is not difficult to see how the Christian crucifix could have been reinterpreted and accepted as the abbreviated X-shaped dikenga. Instrumental symbology is particularly effective in these types of situations, as individuals can continue to engage in their indigenous belief systems while superficially adopting European belief systems. …


RNA-Ligand Interactions, Part B focuses on molecular biology methods. Major topics covered include: solution probe methods, tethered-probe methodologies, in vitro affinity selection methodologies, genetic methodologies for detecting RNA-protein interactions, protein engineering methodologies useful for RNA-protein interaction studies, and cell biology methods. RNA-Ligand Interactions, Part A, its companion, VOLUME 317 focuses on structural biology methods. The critically acclaimed laboratory standard for more than forty years, Methods in Enzymology is one of the most highly respected publications in the field of biochemistry. Since 1955, each volume has been eagerly awaited, frequently consulted, and praised by researchers and reviewers alike. Now with more than 300 volumes (all of them still in print), the series contains much material still relevant today--truly an essential publication for researchers in all fields of life sciences.


BACKGROUND
Influenza infection is an important trigger of asthma attacks. Influenza vaccination has the potential to reduce the incidence of influenza in people with asthma, but uptake remains persistently low, partially reflecting concerns about vaccine effectiveness (VE).

METHODS
We conducted a test-negative design case-control study to estimate the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in children and adults with asthma in Scotland over six influenza seasons (2010/11 to 2015/16). We used individual patient level data from 223 primary care practices which yielded 1,830,772 patient-years of data, which were linked with hospital and virological (n=5,910 swabs) data.

RESULTS
Vaccination was associated with an overall 55.0% (95% confidence interval (CI): 45.8-62.7) reduction in the risk of a laboratory-confirmed influenza infection in people with asthma over the six seasons. There was substantial variation in VE between seasons, influenza strains and age groups. The highest VE (76.1%; 95% CI: 55.6-87.1) was found in 2010/11 season where the A(H1N1) strain dominated and there was a good antigenic vaccine match. High protection was observed against A(H1N1) (e.g. 2010/11: 70.7%; 95%CI: 32.5-87.3) and B strains (e.g. 2010/11: 83.2%; 95%CI: 44.3-94.9), but there was lower protection for the A(H3N2) strain (e.g. 2014/15: 26.4%; 95%CI: -12.0-51.6). The highest VE against all viral strains was observed in adults aged 18-54 years (57.0%; 95%CI: 42.3-68.0).

CONCLUSION
Influenza vaccination gave meaningful protection against laboratory-confirmed influenza in people asthma across all six seasons. Strategies to boost influenza vaccine uptake has the potential to substantially reduce influenza triggered asthma attacks.


Chenopodium botrys L. is native to Europe and Asia and adventive in much of North America. The plant has been used traditionally for medicinal purposes; generally, these therapeutic uses and health benefits of C. botrys are largely based on folklore rather than on scientific substantiation, making it a good candidate to gather documentations, including the phytochemical content, in vitro experiments, animal models and human studies available in the scientific studies. The herb contains flavonoids, alkaloids and several terpenoids. C. botrys of different origins yielded 0.08-2% essential oil. Pharmacological reports support medicinal potential of C. botrys for developing new drugs. Different isomers of ascaridole were identified in C. botrys oil from different origins. In some reports, these compounds were major constituents of the essential oil. Ascaridole has various properties including anthelmintic, antifungal, sedative and pain-relieving. Ascaridole also showed activity against different tumor cell lines in vitro. These data suggest that C. botrys may be an interesting novel candidate plant for cancer treatment, but many studies are needed to confirm this possibility. Review Article