Interactions between humans and the red-billed queleas in the Kondoa District have shaped the attitudes of the local inhabitants toward these birds. This bird is considered a pest of small grain cereal crops, which represent the major crops grown in the area. On the other hand, quelea birds are caught and consumed as a household food source. Furthermore, harvested birds are sold at bus stops to passengers, as well as to local villagers, as a source of household income. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of differential costs and benefits of the red-billed quelea, as well as the socio-economic factors (education level, gender, age and economic activity) that might shape the attitudes of the local inhabitants of Kondoa. To explore the attitudes of the inhabitants, a questionnaire survey was randomly conducted among 360 households in six villages within Kondoa from June to August 2012. Most of the inhabitants who incurred costs of crop damage exhibited negative attitudes toward the red-billed quelea, despite the benefits obtained from them. In contrast, those who benefitted from harvested quelea birds exhibited positive attitudes. The most important socio-economic factors influencing both the positive and negative attitudes were education and gender. In contrast, economic activity only influenced the negative attitudes. Most of the inhabitants of Kondoa rely on crop production as the only important economic activity. However, the majority of local people exhibited negative attitudes because the benefits from the red-billed quelea were perceived to be lower than the costs of the resulting crop damage. To change such negative attitudes; practical, economical and applicable solutions for the quelea pest problem are needed. Further studies examining the application of harvesting methods with a sustainable quelea management strategy are therefore recommended. Key words: Attitudes, costs, benefits, red-billed quelea, socio-economic factors, local inhabitants and Kondoa-Tanzania.


Abstract In this short article, we discuss what is specific language impairment (SLI) and why it is a hidden disability that few people have heard about. We describe the impact on research, policy and practice of SLI being a neglected condition. We end by providing the background and rationale of a new internet campaign, RALLI (www.youtube.com/rallicampaign), aimed at changing this state of affairs and raising awareness of SLI.


Purpose

Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a political one: data point educators toward ameliorative actions without forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to achievement disparities. To highlight the problematic nature of this tension, the purpose of this paper is to identify key problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflect on the ways in which they influence teachers' data-use practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper illustrates the data use practices of a workgroup of sixth-grade math educators. Their meeting represents a "best case" of commonplace practice: during a full-day professional development session, they used data from a standardized district benchmark assessment with support from an expert instructional leader. This sociolinguistic analysis examines episodes of data reasoning to understand the links between the educators' interpretations and instructional decisions.

Findings

This paper identifies three primary issues with test-based accountability policies: reducing complex constructs to quantitative variables, valuing remediation over instructional improvement, and enacting faith in instrument validity. At the same time, possibilities for equitable instruction were foreclosed, as teachers analyzed data in ways that gave little consideration of students' cultural identities or funds of knowledge.

Social implications

Test-based accountability policies do not compel educators to use data to address the deeper issues of equity, thereby inadvertently reinforcing biased systems and positioning students from marginalized backgrounds at an educational disadvantage.

Originality/value

This paper fulfills a need to critically examine the ways in which test-based accountability policies influence educators' data-use practices.


A growing area of research into rebound effects from increased energy efficiency involves application of demand-driven input-output models to consider indirect energy consumption effects associated with respending decisions by households with reduced energy spending requirements. However, there is often a lack of clarity in applied studies as to how indirect effects involving energy use and/or carbon emissions in supply chains of both energy and non-energy goods and services have been calculated. We propose that more transparency for policymakers may be introduced by replacing consideration of what are often referred to as 'indirect rebound' effects with a simple Carbon Saving Multiplier metric. We illustrate using results from a demand-driven input-output model that tracks supply chain activity at national and/or global level. We argue that this captures and conveys the same information on quantity adjustments in energy used in supply chain activity but does so in a manner that is more positive, transparent, understandable and useful for a policy audience. This is achieved by focusing (here via carbon emissions) on the net benefits of changes in different types of energy use at both household and supply chain levels when energy efficiency improves in households.


This research investigates the relationship between profitability, liquidity, and
management preference and the use short-term modes of financing among Islamic
savings co-operatives in Thailand. The results of this research will shed some light
on whether profitability, liquidity and management preference are determinants of
short-term financing in the co-operatives.
Both descriptive statistics and regression analysis are used in this study. Descriptive
analysis is used to explain the relationship between short-term financing and
management preference. Regression analysis is applied to obtain the relation of
short-term financing to profitability and liquidity. Data used in descriptive analysis is
obtained via a questionnaire. Data on short-term financing, profitability, liquidity
and other two contributing factors i.e. solvency and activity is obtained from
secondary data mainly income statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flow. The raw data is transformed to financial ratios to represent profitability,
liquidity, solvency and activity management. Short-term financing is calculated from
the change of short-term financing over the period.
The results of the regression analysis show that the profitability, liquidity, and
activity management of the co-operatives are determinants of short-term financing in
the co-operatives. The results confirm opinions being expressed by most executive
board members and staff of the co-operatives who agreed, during the survey session,
that profitability and liquidity are the two main concerns for the co-operatives to rely
heavily on short-term modes of financing. The management of the co-operatives
agree somewhat that they prefer short-term financing.


Modern distributed water-aware technologies (including, for example, grey water recycling and rainwater harvesting) enable water reuse at the scale of household or neighbourhood. Nevertheless, even though these technologies are in some cases economically advantageous, they have a significant handicap compared to the centralized urban water management options: it is not easy to estimate a priori the extent and the rate of the technology spread. This disadvantage is amplified in case of additional uncertainty due to expansion of an urban area. This overall incertitude is one of the basic reasons the stakeholders involved in urban water are sceptical about the distributed technologies, even in the cases these appear to have lower cost. In this study, we suggest a methodology that attempts to cope with this uncertainty by coupling a cellular automata (CA) and a system dynamics (SD) model. The CA model is used to create scenarios of urban expansion including the suitability of installing water-aware technologies for each new urban area. Then, the SD model is used to estimate the adoption rate of the technologies. Various scenarios based on different economic conditions and water prices are assessed. The suggested methodology is applied to an urban area in Attica, Greece.


This collection of essays by leading social scientists focuses on development in India to explore the emergence of "regional modernities" in ways that are distinct from a so-called global modernity and its myriad local variations. "Regional," for the authors, incorporates the state and other subnational and supranational social and political formations that are more or less salient depending on the social networks and development projects under consideration. In particular, the concept of region allows the assessment of large-scale ethnic, religious, social, and geo-political formations as they mediate oversimplified binary oppositions of colonial or postcolonial power and local incorporation or resistance. Individual essays present case studies of development across India, considering the role of class, caste, gender, and ethnic and political identities in their interactions with government forces. They investigate the binding of diverse groups through large projects such as dam building and offer rich ethnographic accounts of tree farmers, entrepreneurs, government officials, women in Gandhian ashrams, slum dwellers, and atomic scientists.


Maritime situation awareness is of importance in a lot of areas --e.g. detection of weapon smuggling in military peacekeeping operations, and harbor traffic control missions for the coast guard. In this paper, we have combined the use of Self Organizing Maps with Gaussian Mixture Models, in order to enable situation awareness by detecting deviations from normal behavior in an unsupervised way. Initial results show that simple anomalies can be detected using this approach.


Many scholars claim that democracy improves the welfare of the poor. This article uses data on infant and child mortality to challenge this claim. Cross-national studies tend to exclude from their samples nondemocratic states that have performed well; this leads to the mistaken inference that nondemocracies have worse records than democracies. Once these and other flaws are corrected, democracy has little or no effect on infant and child mortality rates. Democracies spend more money on education and health than nondemocracies, but these benefits seem to accrue to middle- and upper-income groups.


Abstract A five-week research project was designed as part of a summer internship for high school students, and could also be used with educators or in introductory undergraduate research courses. This is a guided-inquiry-based project, framed within the significant issue of supplementing fertilizer use in agriculture with nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. This experience exposes students to how scientists are studying real-world problems; it teaches them basic research techniques, and promotes inquiry-based learning in a real research environment. It also fills a current gap in K-12 education that lacks enough microbiology emphasis. Research interns collect soil samples from various fields and use culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques to test whether there are nitrogen-fixing microorganisms that can be isolated and identified in each soil sample. Students work in a research laboratory making nitrogen-free media; culturing, isolating, and identifying microorganisms; extracting soil DNA; and amplifying the 16S rRNA and nifH genes. We administer a pre-test and a post-test, and students present their research both in a short talk and with a poster. By hosting high school students in a research laboratory and immersing them in laboratory science, we hope to inspire them to pursue a STEM-related career.


The shift in higher education away from traditional, transactional service models and toward innovative, transformational approaches, has led to a reframing of professional identities. At the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), the creation of the Student Engagement team in 2015 took a learner-centred, theory-driven and evidence-based approach. However, the new team has been drawn from diverse backgrounds and is building a new, shared identity. To create a common language and understanding of practice in the team, the theory and scholarship of higher education was integrated into team leader discussions. These staff participated in a series of discussions, were encouraged to apply this learning to their daily practice in work with students and in communicating and contextualising their work among staff. The participants have shared their perspective on this new approach and results indicate that, while we are successfully achieving some objectives, the initiative can be adapted to become more effective.; ;


High-order harmonic generation from a solid surface affected by the contrast of a laser pulse was studied using an oscillating mirror model. High-order harmonics generated from solid surfaces have unusual properties such as spectral redshift, and an intensity difference between even- and odd-order harmonics which is not reported for high-order harmonics generated by a gas medium. We confirmed that high-order harmonics from solid surfaces have selectivity of polarization as well as cut-off extension and the enhancement of conversion efficiency proportional to laser intensity. And the principle of operation and the characteristics of a plasma mirror system developed for achieving high contrast laser pulses to pursue the experimental realization of high-harmonic generation from solid surfaces are reported. Energy fluence on the plasma mirrors is tunable between 10 J/cm 2 and 1000 J/cm 2 and around 1000 shots are available before the plasma mirrors require replacement.


Global and regional projections of climate change by Earth system models are limited by their uncertain estimates of terrestrial ecosystem productivity. At the middle to low latitudes, the East Asian monsoon region has higher productivity than forests in Europe‐Africa and North America, but its estimate by current generation of terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) has seldom been systematically evaluated. Here, we developed a traceability framework to evaluate the simulated gross primary productivity (GPP) by 15 TBMs in the East Asian monsoon region. The framework links GPP to net primary productivity, biomass, leaf area and back to GPP via incorporating multiple vegetation functional properties of carbon‐use efficiency (CUE), vegetation C turnover time (τveg), leaf C fraction (Fleaf), specific leaf area (SLA), and leaf area index (LAI)‐level photosynthesis (PLAI), respectively. We then applied a relative importance algorithm to attribute intermodel variation at each node. The results showed that large intermodel variation in GPP over 1901–2010 were mainly propagated from their different representation of vegetation functional properties. For example, SLA explained 77% of the intermodel difference in leaf area, which contributed 90% to the simulated GPP differences. In addition, the models simulated higher CUE (18.1 ± 21.3%), τveg (18.2 ± 26.9%), and SLA (27.4±36.5%) than observations, leading to the overestimation of simulated GPP across the East Asian monsoon region. These results suggest the large uncertainty of current TBMs in simulating GPP is largely propagated from their poor representation of the vegetation functional properties and call for a better understanding of the covariations between plant functional properties in terrestrial ecosystems.


This study explores the effect of two NGO empowerment programs on the lives of women in urban slum communities of Ghana and India. In particular, the research aims to understand whether and to what extent economic empowerment through microfinance and skills training addresses women's basic need and gender inequality in contexts of urban poverty. Considering the centrality of "empowerment" to collective feminist politics as well as development policy and practice, the purpose of this study is to contemplate what "empowerment" actually means from the perspective of those actively engaged in the process. Based on the survey and interview responses of program clients, this project explores the depth and scope of NGO empowerment interventions and considers steps that can be taken to further women's empowerment.


Scalable multichannel microstructuring was demonstrated by multiplexing a focused molecular fluorine laser beam with cylindrical nanolayer microaxicons into an array of converging pseudo-nondiffracting subbeams. The axicons were fabricated by shadow-mask vapor deposition of magnesium fluoride onto substrates of identical material. Long-period surface gratings of variable pitch were generated on poly(methyl methacrylate) by varying the target position within the converging periodic focal lines.


We propose a comprehensive information processing, knowledge discovery and simulation platform for Big Data Healthcare. In addition, we present a related, well-defined workflow that promotes model-guided personalized medicine. We start by identifying disease signatures and homogeneous patient groups, whilst modeling case-based patient similarity. Then we analyze correlations between variables and patient groups to deliver accurate and reusable predictive statistical simulation models. Such a framework provides significant advantages on both the clinician's daily routine and targeted biomedical research.


In this paper we introduce the Fourier-Mukai transform for Lawson homology of abelian varieties and prove an inversion theorem for the Lawson homology as well as the morphic cohomology of abelian varieties. As applications, we obtain the direct sum decomposition of the Lawson homology and the morphic cohomology groups with rational coefficients, inspired by Beauville's works on the Chow theory. An analogue of the Beauville conjecture for Chow groups is proposed and is shown to be equivalent to the (weak) Suslin conjecture for Lawson homology. A filtration on Lawson homology is proposed and conjecturally it coincides to the filtration given by the direct sum decomposition of Lawson homology for abelian varieties. Moreover, a refined Friedlander-Lawson duality theorem is obtained for abelian varieties. We summarize several related conjectures in Lawson homology theory in the appendix for convenience.


Reports on a survey of convenient access to, and use of, electronic databases (CD-ROM and online) including full text journals and their effect on information seeking behavior of health sciences faculty at the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ghana Medical School. The survey documented preferences between print and electronic resource use, and the specific databases and full text journals that faculty have particularly found useful. The results showed faculty lack of awareness and use of the two most resourceful full text journal databases available at the library (HINARI and PERI), hence they resorted to PUBMED as their source of access to full text articles. Concludes that most faculty now prefer using electronic access to information (CD-ROM/online) than traditional print indexes and abstracts. Includes recommendations for more functional and effective use of these electronic databases and full text journals that are available at the library.


AIM
We aimed to show whether ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury causes damage on brain or not, and whether thymoquinone and silymarin, as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory herbs, have beneficial effects on this damage or not.

METHODS
Forty Wistar albino rats were carried out and were randomized to 4 groups with equal numbers (n=10): sham group, implemented of only anesthesia; control group, implemented of anesthesia and I/R injury; silymarin group, implemented of anesthesia and I/R injury and treated with a dose of 200 milligram/kg silymarin ip and thymoquinone group, implemented of anesthesia and I/R injury and treated with a dose of 20 mg/kg thymoquinone. Serum lipid hydroperoxide (LOOH) and total free sulfhydryl (Sh) levels were determined. Light microscopy was used to evaluate histological changes in brain tissue.

RESULTS
Serum LOOH levels (0.21 ± 0.04 for control group, 0.29 ± 0.01 for sham group, 0.23 ± 0.09 for silymarin group, 0.29 ± 0.09 for thymoquinone group) were significantly higher and Sh levels (10.74 ± 1.71 for control group, 6.82 ± 0.24 for sham group, 9.12 ± 1.04 for silymarin group, 8.41 ± 1.12 for thymoquinone group) were significantly lower in control, silymarin and thymoquinone groups compared to control group (p<0.05 for all). According to the histopathologic damage score assessment, it was seen that the damage decreased significantly in the silymarin and the thymoquinone groups.

CONCLUSION
We showed that tissue damage also occurs in brain following the ischemia reperfusion. It was shown that thymoquinone and silymarin is quite effective in preventing this damage.

KEY WORDS
Brain, Hydroperoxide levels, Ischemia reperfusion injury, Sulfhydryl levels, Silymarin, Thymoquinone.


Holistic education molds the head, the hand and the heart of a learner at all levels of education. Quality assurance has become an essential part of these academic core-value systems in institutions of higher learning, particularly, universities. This research focused on general quality; quality control, quality assurance and academic standards at Solusi University. The research took a library and computer based approach where information was gathered mainly from official documents. The researcher also got some information through observation. Collected data was analyzed qualitatively and the following themes emerged: assuring quality requires effort from all university workers and Solusi University has managed it; Solusi University controls quality through assessing the following: students entry requirements, programs, facilities, activities, faculty and feedback from stake holders; Quality is assured by Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZIMCHE) and Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA). The study concluded that Solusi University has high academic standard that are abreast with global university expectations; although Solusi University has high quality, it has a number of areas that can still be improved.


Background: There is lack of interest in the subject of community medicine among undergraduate MBBS students leading to poor understanding of community problems and drastic fall in preventive, promotive component of health care. Aim: To evaluate effectiveness of interactive teaching learning (ITL) over traditional teaching learning (TTL) methods in creating interest in the subject. Objectives: 1. To identify the need of interactive teaching among students. 2. To know the perception of students towards it.3. To know the views and opinion of faculties towards it. Materials and Methods: An interventional study at NRIIMS, Vishakhapatnam. After need assessment survey, under graduate MBBS students were randomly allocated to study (A) and control groups (B). 2 topics were taught using ITL 1& 2 in group A and TTL in group B. After a washout period of 15 days, 2 other topics were taught using ITL3 & 4 in group B and TTL in group A, which was followed by assessment. Feedback from students and faculties were taken at the end of session. Results: 82% of students felt significant need of interaction in classroom. There was an increase in performance of students in the intervention group in terms of better scores (>75% score) which was found to be statistical significant in all the four sessions (P value are 0.0230, 0.0058, 0.0075, 0.0034 for TPS, BS, CBS, PTP respectively). Students were satisfied, so as the faculties with the implementation of ITL module. Conclusions: Student performance was increased. Overall satisfaction was good among students and faculties.


The dearth of women in computing is very much on everyone's mind. Elena Strange offers a new perspective on this. She observes that the solid, utility hitters (and players) are the backbone of every baseball team. In playing on her computing teams she has no aspirations for MVP awards and strives for personal excellence in the things she does. She asks her male colleagues to value her as a .250 hitter without holding her to the standard of a .314 hitter. This simple change could open the gates to a flood of women in computing. Elena holds Grace Hopper as the equivalent of the legendary .314 hitter in computing. Hopper told her friends that she was never aspiring to be a legendary leader, but only to do the best possible job with the tasks that were before her. Be personally excellent and interact with people from your heart, said Hopper, and all the rest will take care of itself. You can see in Elena's story the seeds that Grace Hopper planted.


Scan registration is an essential subtask when building maps based on range finder data from mobile robots. The problem is to deduce how the robot has moved between consecutive scans, based on the shape of overlapping portions of the scans. This paper presents a new algorithm for registration of 3D data. The algorithm is a generalization and improvement of the normal distributions transform (NDT) for 2D data developed by Biber and Strasser, which allows for accurate registration using a memory‐efficient representation of the scan surface. A detailed quantitative and qualitative comparison of the new algorithm with the 3D version of the popular ICP (iterative closest point) algorithm is presented. Results with actual mine data, some of which were collected with a new prototype 3D laser scanner, show that the presented algorithm is faster and slightly more reliable than the standard ICP algorithm for 3D registration, while using a more memory‐efficient scan surface representation. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Inequality is a state where there is an imbalance between each other. Inequality indicates the unevenness ofdevelopment that runs in an area. In Central Java, the problem of inequality among people still exists in daily life.Geographically Weight Regression method is a method that yields model parameter estimators that have localizedproperties at each point or location. In this study aims to modeling the inequality problem that occurred in CentralJava using Geographically Weight Regression method that has the nature of localization at the point. Data takenfrom Central Statistics Agency (BPS) 2015. Through Geographically Weight Regression method can beconcluded that with OLS method got 2 variables effect on imbalance wit h α 10% is variable of HDI (IPM) andPDRB. While the influential GWR method is the number of population and the amount of labor. While goodnessof fit test showed there is no difference between GWR model and OLS model or in other words there is no spatialeffect in the imbalance analysis in Central Java Province (0.4976 <0.1).


Along with the development of the Windows operating system, browser applications to surf the internet are also growing rapidly. The most widely used browsers today are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Both browsers have a username and password management feature that makes users login to a website easily, but saving usernames and passwords in the browser is quite dangerous because the stored data can be hacked using brute force attacks or read through a program. One way to get a username and password in the browser is to use a program that can read Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox login data from the computer's internal storage and then show those data. In this study, an attack will be carried out by implementing Rubber Ducky using BadUSB to run the ChromePass and PasswordFox program and the PowerShell script using the Arduino Pro Micro Leonardo device as a USB Password Stealer. The results obtained from this study are the username and password on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox successfully obtained when the USB is connected to the target device, the average time of the attack is 14 seconds then sending it to the author's email.


Phospholipids make up about 60% of the brain's dry weight and play key roles in many brain signal tranduction mechanisms. A recent review(1)identified the increasing evidence that abnormal phospholipid and related fatty acid metabolism may contribute to illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This current paper reviews the main pathways of phospholipid metabolism, emphasizing the role of phospholipases of the A2 in signal tranduction processes. It also updates the chromosomal locations of regions likely to be involved in these disorders, and relates these to the known locations of genes directly or indirectly involved in phospholipid and fatty acid metabolism.


This is an original survey of the economic and social history of slavery of the Afro-American experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. The focus of the book is on the Portuguese, Spanish, and French-speaking regions of continental America and the Caribbean. It analyzes the latest research on urban and rural slavery and on the African and Afro-American experience under these regimes. It approaches these themes both historically and structurally. The historical section provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of slavery and forced labor systems in Europe, Africa, and America. The second half of the book looks at the type of life and culture which the salves experienced in these American regimes. The first part of the book describes the growth of the plantation and mining economies that absorbed African slave labor, how that labor was used, and how the changing international economic conditions affected the local use and distribution of the slave labor force. Particular emphasis is given to the evolution of the sugar plantation economy, which was the single largest user of African slave labor and which was established in almost all of the Latin American colonies. Once establishing the economic context in which slave labor was applied, the book shifts focus to the Africans and Afro-Americans themselves as they passed through this slave regime. The first part deals with the demographic history of the slaves, including their experience in the Atlantic slave trade and their expectations of life in the New World. The next part deals with the attempts of the African and American born slaves to create a viable and autonomous culture. This includes their adaptation of European languages, religions, and even kinship systems to their own needs. It also examines systems of cooptation and accommodation to the slave regime, as well as the type and intensity of slave resistances and rebellions. A separate chapter is devoted to the important and different role of the free colored under slavery in the various colonies. The unique importance of the Brazilian free labor class is stressed, just as is the very unusual mobility experienced by the free colored in the French West Indies. The final chapter deals with the differing history of total emancipation and how ex-slaves adjusted to free conditions in the post-abolition periods of their respective societies. The patterns of post-emancipation integration are studied along with the questions of the relative success of the ex-slaves in obtaining control over land and escape from the old plantation regimes.


Active normal fault scarps that offset 12-18 ka landforms in the Apennines, Italy, have been mapped into Google Earth to provide precise locations for structures responsible for tectonic strain release and earthquake rupture. Climate change at the end of the last glacial maximum (12-18 ka) reduced erosion and sedimentation rates below a critical threshold allowing preservation of displacements produced by surface ruptures to palaeoearthquakes. The resultant fault scarps, which record the surface displacements from multiple earthquakes, allow determination of the spatial variation in the rates of fault slip, a parameter critical to assessment of how long-term strain release recorded in the geomorphology (104 years) relates to short-term strain release recorded by earthquake catalogues and geodesy (102-3 years). Spatial variation in fault slip occurs at a scale of tens of kilometres, whilst fault scarps have offsets of <20-40 metres and a geomorphic expression that can only be visualised on topographic images with spatial resolution approaching the metre-scale. Thus, until now, debate has surrounded the exact positions of scarps at least in part due to problems of visualising both the detailed geomorphic features and their regional variation. Provision of complete SPOT image coverage and topography within Google Earth allows individual scarps visited during fieldwork to be visualised at a regional scale within an easily-accessible interface. The resultant maps are used to comment on tectonic strain release and earthquake rupture.


It is envisaged that the grid infrastructure will be a large-scale distributed software system that will provide high-end computational and storage capabilities to differentiated users. A number of distributed computing technologies are being applied to grid development work, including CORBA and Jini. In this work, we introduce an A4 (Agile Architecture and Autonomous Agents) methodology, which can be used for resource management for grid computing. An initial system implementation utilises the performance prediction techniques of the PACE toolkit to provide quantitative data regarding the performance of complex applications running on local grid resources. At the meta-level, a hierarchy of identical agents is used to provide an abstraction of the system architecture. Each agent is able to cooperate with other agents to provide service advertisement and discovery to schedule applications that need to utilise grid resources. A performance monitor and advisor (PMA) is in development to optimize the performance of agent behaviours.


Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) failure is a common occurrence in electronic devices. Failing to comply with FCC/CE requirements set by government agencies delays the product time to market. Besides following proper design guidelines of layout, grounding, shielding, filtering, etc., using simulation to predict EMI failures during early design stage will greatly save time and cost. In this paper, EMI from a practical product with multiple pairs of high speed differential signals are studied. The power spectrum density of both common mode and differential mode on those differential pairs are measured. By combining with noise source information and simulated far field transfer functions, the simulated EMI can be obtained. The simulation results are later compared with measured results to show the accuracy of simulations.


There is a data gap in our current knowledge of the geospatial distribution, type and extent of C rich peatlands across the globe. The Pastaza Marañón Foreland Basin (PMFB), within the Peruvian Amazon, is known to store large amounts of peat, but the remoteness of the region makes field data collection and mapping the distribution of peatland ecotypes challenging. Here we review methods for developing high accuracy peatland maps for the PMFB using a combination of multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical remote sensing in a machine learning classifier. The new map produced has 95% overall accuracy with low errors of commission (1–6%) and errors of omission (0–15%) for individual peatland classes. We attribute this improvement in map accuracy over previous maps of the region to the inclusion of high and low water season SAR images which provides information about seasonal hydrological dynamics. The new multi-date map showed an increase in area of more than 200% for pole forest peatland (6% error) compared to previous maps, which had high errors for that ecotype (20–36%). Likewise, estimates of C stocks were 35% greater than previously reported (3.238 Pg in Draper et al. (2014) to 4.360 Pg in our study). Most of the increase is attributed to pole forest peatland which contributed 58% (2.551 Pg) of total C, followed by palm swamp (34%, 1.476 Pg). In an assessment of deforestation from 2010 to 2018 in the PMFB, we found 89% of the deforestation was in seasonally flooded forest and 43% of deforestation was occurring within 1 km of a river or road. Peatlands were found the least affected by deforestation and there was not a noticeable trend over time. With development of improved transportation routes and population pressures, future land use change is likely to put South American tropical peatlands at risk, making continued monitoring a necessity. Accurate mapping of peatland ecotypes with high resolution (<30 m) sensors linked with field data are needed to reduce uncertainties in estimates of the distribution of C stocks, and to aid in deforestation monitoring.


The rapid and continuous development of new technologies at the turn of the 20th and 21st century and the ever-growing importance of the Internet allow companies to change the rules of competition in many sectors. The Internet has proven to be an effective tool for improving market position and at the same time has become an indispensable tool for communicating with customers. Opinions on businesses and goods or services offered are formed by online communities, and market position is built on comments posted by Internet users. The purpose of this article is to identify the types and examples of social media used for internet marketing by WIG30 companies and NewConnect companies. The study used the netnography method (virtual entrainment) and was conducted among twenty listed companies in Poland. The results show that the WIG30-listed companies are companies with a strong market position and a large number of loyal customers. However, they do not turn their back on social media and utilise more than five examples of them. On the other hand, the smaller NewConnect-listed companies are less recognizable among customers, so they should strive to establish interactions with online communities, using more social media for that purpose.


A great challenge facing future agricultural water policy is to explore the potential for transition from the current myopic competitive (common) exploitation of groundwater resources to a long-term efficient and sustainable allocation. A number of economic and/or command and control instruments can be used by the relevant water authority in order to deal with the economic and environmental problems generated by competitive exploitation. However, according to previous experience in both developed and developing countries, tradable permits seem as one of the most effective and efficient instruments, especially under conditions of limited water availability. On this account, the aim of the current study is to explore the feasibility and implementation of a tradable permit system in irrigated agriculture. To this end, two distinct optimization models are applied and compared: (a) an individual farmer's model (representing the myopic non-cooperative exploitation of groundwater) and (b) a social planner's model (representing the cooperative and sustainable allocation). The deviation of their results shows the rationale for using a tradable permit system, while the final allocation of the social planner's model, solved as an optimal control problem that maximizes the social welfare under specific water policy objectives, denotes the equilibrium state of this system. The two models are then applied in a typical rural area of Greece where groundwater is the only source of irrigated agriculture. The derived time paths for water consumption and water availability illustrate the significant environmental benefits from the future implementation of a tradable permit system.


The sustainable intelligent building is a building that has the best combination of environmental, social, economic and technical values. And its sustainability assessment is related with system engineering methods and multi-criteria decision-making. Therefore firstly, the wireless monitoring system of sustainable parameters for intelligent buildings is achieved; secondly, the indicators and key issues based on the "whole life circle" for sustainability of intelligent buildings are researched; thirdly, the sustainable assessment model identified on the structure entropy and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is proposed.


This study explored the negotiation of a Chinese EFL teacher's teaching identity in light of recent critique of neoliberalism. Ms. Q, our focal participant, worked in a private English school that commodified English, and her main teaching responsibility was to prepare students for the IELTS test. We adopted an agency-centered approach to explore how Ms. Q's professional identity was negotiated in relation to the exercise and investment of her professional agency. In particular, Haneda and Sherman's (2016) job-crafting perspective on teacher agency was adopted to illustrate how Ms. Q was able to go beyond the prescribed teaching role assigned by the school. This move, in turn, contributed to her teacher identity development because she was able to exercise agency within the affordances and constraints of the given work context. Our data include classroom observation, interviews with Ms. Q and her students, Ms. Q's teaching materials and her posts in a Chinese social network (Wechat). Our findings revealed that Ms. Q's investment in constructing the desired teacher identity, that is, to be a good educator, supported her to transcend the prescribed space for teaching practice and make agentic decisions in the classroom that were in accordance with her teaching beliefs.


Abstract IR spectroscopy in the range 12–230 μm with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) will reveal the physical processes governing the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes through cosmic time, bridging the gap between the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes at shorter wavelengths and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array at longer wavelengths. The SPICA, with its 2.5-m telescope actively cooled to below 8 K, will obtain the first spectroscopic determination, in the mid-IR rest-frame, of both the star-formation rate and black hole accretion rate histories of galaxies, reaching lookback times of 12 Gyr, for large statistically significant samples. Densities, temperatures, radiation fields, and gas-phase metallicities will be measured in dust-obscured galaxies and active galactic nuclei, sampling a large range in mass and luminosity, from faint local dwarf galaxies to luminous quasars in the distant Universe. Active galactic nuclei and starburst feedback and feeding mechanisms in distant galaxies will be uncovered through detailed measurements of molecular and atomic line profiles. The SPICA's large-area deep spectrophotometric surveys will provide mid-IR spectra and continuum fluxes for unbiased samples of tens of thousands of galaxies, out to redshifts of z ~ 6.


Since the 1920s, textbook critics have maintained that textbooks should offer a homogenous editorial approach, including an acknowledgment of a mix of author opinion and scholarly research. Several researchers indicated that some textbooks are not homogenous. The purpose of this quantitative content analysis study was to examine whether independently authored online education textbooks published in the infancy of online teaching development from 1999 to 2007 included acknowledgment of scholarly studies pertaining to a teaching technique dubbed immediacy. In consideration of the growing field of online education and its efficacy, a secondary purpose of the study was to examine the effective transformation of scholarly knowledge to practice. For this study, teacher immediacy in the online classroom was operationalized as non-verbal teacher communications that foster psychological closeness and acknowledge student feelings in a timely manner. This study examined terminology related to immediacy in the first four chapters and chapter titles. The results indicated the early online textbooks did not prominently acknowledge immediacy terminology and did not include peer-reviewed scholarly immediacy references. Compared to terminology related to general student collaboration, the textbooks did not convey significant terminology related to student feelings or closeness, thus the textbooks did not offer a homogeneous approach regarding immediacy scholarship. In addition, in this instance, the books were idiosyncratic in communicating scholarly immediacy knowledge to the field. Internet Learning Journal – Volume 4, Issue 1 – Spring 2015


The high marsh in southeast Atlantic coast salt marshes forms a relatively small but ecologically important transition zone between low marsh and the terrestrial shoreline. However, long-term trend data from high marshes are limited to a few studies. Permanent plots established in a high marsh near Waties Island in northeast South Carolina were measured for plant coverage from 2002–2010. At the beginning and at the end of the study, four groups of plots were identified: mixed indicated by Borrichia frutescens, Distichlis spicata, and Fimbristylis castanea; Juncus indicated by Juncus roemerianus; Salicornia indicated by Salicornia virginica; and Spartina indicated by Spartina patens. Ordination of the 2010 plot data and soil analyses produced clear separation of the groups along a single dominant axis with Salicornia and Juncus groups at the high end of a salinity gradient and the Spartina group at the high end of soil organic matter gradient. Comparison of plots classified in 2002 to the same plots in 2010 suggested both stability and change, depending on community classification. Salicornia and Spartina groups were stable. The mixed group experienced a switch in dominance from Distichlis spicata to Borrichia frutescens, whereas the Juncus group had gradually declining importance of Juncus roemerianus and gradually increasing importance of Borrichia frutescens. These data represent patterns and trends in a system and time period not affected by development or influenced by high intensity disturbance, and can be used as a reference for other high marshes in the immediate area experiencing environmental change.


Crop production in many world regions can be highly variable on a year-to-year basis. Much of the variability in crop yield can be attributed, in part, to climate variability. Research in recent years has opened the opportunity to predict, at least in probabilistic terms, a considerable amount of that variability. Integration of climate forecasting systems with crop models means that prediction of potential crop yield is also possible in many work regions. Indeed, recent research has demonstrated that forecasting on decadal or interdecadal time scales may now be possible.

The interesting issue then arises as to whether there is potential for use of knowledge of climate variability and climate forecasting to the plant breeding programs. In particular, knowledge of overall environmental conditions at a location for the ensuing 10-13 years may have value in the selection of new varieties for more marginal environments. The question then arises as to whether this type of climate information would have value in provision of more defensive breeding programs.

Plant breeding is about packaging gene networks into genotypes using appropriate search strategies that seek 'best fitness' on the gene-environment landscape. A key step forward may be to enhance breeding search strategies through environment characterisation and assessment of trait values. The value of this approach is to connect crop model and climate model with a quantitative genetics model to simulate 'fitness' in order to evaluate new breeding strategies.

It is then possible to identify the relative frequency of environment types using simulation studies for the entire period of climatological record (e.g. 100 years). Changes in the frequencies of environmental types effect overall yield likelihood and cause G*E.(genotype by environment). This is important in weighting the representativeness of the selection environments. Thus, the importance of a weighted selection becomes apparent as this process better accommodates large GxE and improves yield more rapidly than conventional selection.

Crop physiology and modelling can improve efficiency in genetic improvement of crops by characterising environments for weighted selection and in assisting with decisions on the level of investment in traits by assessing their likely value. However, this approach will be of less eventual value if the breeding programs make their selection based on 'average climate' for a location or in an atypical year when the selection should be based on the prevailing or likely long-term climate pattern more appropriate for that location.


Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is regarded as a transitional state between normal aging and dementia. It may progress to dementia, remain same, or revert to normalcy. Most western studies report an annual conversion of 10%–15% of MCI to dementia. There is a paucity of literature on prospective studies on MCI in India. Objective: The objective is to prospectively study the cognitive status of MCI patients at least 1 year after their diagnosis. The other objective was to find the conversion among the MCI patients to Alzheimer's dementia. Methodology: We followed up persons with MCI above 50 years evaluated in the Geriatric Clinic of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) between 2012 and 2014, reassessed their cognitive abilities (neuropsychological measures) 1 year later, and compared them with earlier assessment and the conversion rate among this sample. Hindi Mental Status Examination (HMSE), Everyday Abilities Scale for India (EASI), NIMHANS neuropsychological battery for Indian elderly, and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale instruments were used for assessment. Results: Twenty-seven persons with a diagnosis of MCI were contacted. Twenty-one participated and underwent repeat clinical and neuropsychological evaluations. The mean duration of follow-up was 1.43 (standard deviation: ± 0.46) years. Six participants (28.6%) had progressed to mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on EASI, CDR, and neuropsychological scores, 15 (71.4%) retained their MCI status, and none had reverted back to normal status. The mean age of converters (progressed to mild AD) was 72 ± 5.69 years and nonconverters (remained as MCI) was 72.6 ± 7.16 years. Multiple medical comorbidities were found in both the groups with hypertension being the higher in converters (P = 0.04). Among the converters compared to nonconverters, there was a significant decline in total word list learning (P = 0.006), design construction copy (P = 0.042), total figures canceled in figure cancellation test (P = 0.009), and total omissions on figure cancellation test (P = 0.02). Discussion and Conclusion: Scores on episodic memory, attention, and visuospatial skills were low in the MCI compared to normal controls to start with – there was a further significant decline in few of these parameters over the follow-up. The conversion rate in our study was 28.6% for 1.43 years, which is higher compared to the western studies. Executive function learning and memory were the domains predominantly affected in the converters compared to nonconverters. The study based on tertiary hospital and help seeking with a specialist by those who perceived/were perceived to worsen could be probable reason for this higher rate. Higher medical comorbidities, lower HMSE scores, and executive function and memory at baseline are found to increase the risk of progression to AD.


Introduction During vertebrate limb development, gene members of the HoxD cluster are transcribed in two subsequent waves, following a collinear strategy. Early on, genes located in the center of the cluster are transcriptionally activated and pattern a "central" part of the limbs, such as the forearm and part of the arm. Subsequently, a partially overlapping group of genes, located at one extremity of the cluster, are activated in a distal territory, which will expand and organize the distal pieces of our limbs: the hands. Although enhancer sequences controlling the latter phase have been characterized and mapped in a gene desert centromeric to the gene cluster, the location of the early enhancers, as well as the mechanism underlying the transition from the early to the late phases of transcription, remained elusive. Regulation of Hoxd gene collinear expression in developing limb buds. The HoxD cluster is flanked by two topological domains containing distinct regulatory capacities. The telomeric domain regulates early transcription in the arm and forearm. The centromeric domain subsequently patterns the hands. During limb development, a switch occurs between landscapes as specific Hoxd genes swing from one regulatory domain to the other through a conformational change. This modular organization creates a domain in between, which will form the wrist. Methods To localize enhancer sequences, we screened a series of conserved sequences using a transgenic lentivector-based approach in mice. We also analyzed various histone modifications by chromatin immunoprecipitation, as well as the interaction profiles by multiplex circular chromosome conformation capture sequencing (4C-seq) on microdissected wild-type and mutant limb buds. The regulatory switch was monitored using 4C-seq, and mutant configurations were produced using embryonic stem cell targeting, targeted meiotic recombination, and sequential targeted recombination strategies. In situ hybridizations and reverse transcription quantitative real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction analyses were used as readouts for gene transcription. Results We show that the early phase of transcription requires enhancers located in the telomeric gene desert. Therefore, the early and late phases of Hoxd gene transcription in limb buds are controlled by two opposite deserts flanking the cluster on either side and corresponding to two adjacent topological domains. The transition between early and late regulation involves a functional and conformational switch between these domains, as reflected by a subset of genes mapping centrally into the cluster, which initially interact with the telomeric domain and subsequently shift to establish new contacts with the opposite side. This polarization of the cluster between the two domains ensures a proper collinear distribution of HOX products in both proximal and distal limb structures. Discussion The intriguing collinear correspondence between Hoxd gene topology and the patterning of proximal versus distal limb structures relies on the sequential implementation of two regulatory landscapes flanking the gene cluster. Genes located around the boundary between these two topological domains will swing from one to the other, along with the switch in regulation. The existence of independent regulation allows for cellular offset to occur between the two expression domains, where a reduced HOX protein dose is present, and which will develop into the wrist. Therefore, the mechanism patterning vertebrate proximal and distal limb pieces also contains the intrinsic capacity to build the necessary articulation in between—an adaptive value presumably explaining the selection of this complex regulatory system in tetrapods. Collinearity Cracked in Tetrapod Limbs During limb development, the time a nd place of Hox transcription are fixed by respective gene position within the gene cluster. Andrey et al. (p. 1234167; see the Perspective by Rodrigues and Tabin) found that this enigmatic property results from the opposite and successive actions of two large regulatory landscapes located on either side of the mouse Hox locus. In the early phase, one of these topological domains regulates transcription in the proximal limb until a switch occurs toward the other topological domain, which takes over the regulation in the distally developing digits. As a side effect of this antagonistic regulatory strategy, cells in-between have lessened Hox transcription, which generates the wrist. Regulation of the HoxD gene cluster switches from one side of the cluster to the other in parallel with limb development. [Also see Perspective by Rodrigues and Tabin] Hox genes are major determinants of the animal body plan, where they organize structures along both the trunk and appendicular axes. During mouse limb development, Hoxd genes are transcribed in two waves: early on, when the arm and forearm are specified, and later, when digits form. The transition between early and late regulations involves a functional switch between two opposite topological domains. This switch is reflected by a subset of Hoxd genes mapping centrally into the cluster, which initially interact with the telomeric domain and subsequently swing toward the centromeric domain, where they establish new contacts. This transition between independent regulatory landscapes illustrates both the modularity of the limbs and the distinct evolutionary histories of its various pieces. It also allows the formation of an intermediate area of low HOX proteins content, which develops into the wrist, the transition between our arms and our hands. This regulatory strategy accounts for collinear Hox gene regulation in land vertebrate appendages.


Abstract. We have pursued, in Parts 1 and 2, the re-analysis of the 1985–1986 GIBEX CTD data we initiated in the mid 2000's with a focus on the Mediterranean Outflow (MO) heterogeneity. At the Strait entrance (Part 1), a transect (5°40' W) and a yo-yo time series (5°43' W) show Mediterranean Waters (MWs) markedly stratified into relatively homogeneous layers where intense mixing processes occur, hence definitively showing that the MO there is composed of four-five different and essentially superimposed components. Within the Strait (Part 2), five north-south transects at both 5°50' W and 6°05' W, together with another yo-yo time series (6°05' W), show that the MO is markedly heterogeneous all along the Strait, but there on the horizontal, being composed of a set of different components juxtaposed side by side. All temperature-salinity diagrams from these transects are straight mixing lines between the Atlantic Waters (AWs) and each of the MWs, most of them evidence bottom homogeneous layers, the lightest of the MWs is split and starts sinking as soon as the Camarinal sills in the northern side of the Strait while the densest MWs are in its southern side, the MO has an overall density range > 0.5 kg m−3 and it is markedly meandering at 6°05' W, and the AWs' variability is much larger than that of the MWs, which prevents from accurately specifying the MO characteristics downstream. Herein (Part 3) we re-analyze the whole CTD data set from the MO-2009 Experiment that was conducted at the Strait exit (near 6°20' W) by the Institut de Ciencies del Mar from Barcelona (Spain) in order to specify the downstream momentum and energy evolution of the MO and investigate the mechanisms leading to its structure. Even without the above-mentioned results and our previous hypotheses in mind, 418 CTD profiles combining regional surveys (over 30 × 30 km2), repeated tow-yo transects (over ~6 km) performed with a relatively low sampling interval (~1 km) in cross-MO and along-MO directions, and yo-yo time series, provide valuable information about the hydrological structure of the MO there. Four components, with the lightest (densest) in the north (south), clearly juxtaposed side by side and relatively isolated from each others, being often separated by marked interface layers, spread over a ~0.7 kg m−3 density range. Yo-yo time series confirm that short-term variability at a given place is essentially due to the MO meandering that allows evidencing locally two (up to three and even four) components, and density ranges up to 0.3 kg m−3 within a couple of hours, which demonstrates that the MO heterogeneity is mainly due to the Sea functioning and the AWs-MWs mixing, its splitting does not needing any bathymetric effect. The fact that any of the four components can be missed with profiles 1 km apart accounts for their relatively small wideness and we claim that a single pair of tow and tow-yo (at a few-hundred m interval) cross-Strait transects performed near 6°20' W with basic instrumentation will provide definite information about the MO heterogeneity.


We present a theoretical analysis for multilayer gratings of arbitrary shape containing uniaxial materials in which all optic axes lie in the plane of incidence, which itself is perpendicular to the grating grooves. The analysis is based on the differential method with internal boundary conditions imposed by means of a scattering matrix. Our development allows for layer interfaces of different shape, although they must all share the same periodicity.


Since 1935, Social Security has provided a vital safety net for millions of Americans who cannot work because of age or disability. This safety net has been especially critical for Americans of Latino decent, who number more than 50 million or nearly one out of every six Americans. Social Security provides benefits to roughly one out of six Latino households (U.S. Census Bureau 2009). Social Security is critical to Latinos because it is much more than a retirement program. In addition to protecting those that cannot work because they are too old, the program benefits disabled workers and their families as well as children and spouses of the deceased. Because Latinos have larger families and are more likely to become disabled in physically demanding jobs, the Social Security safety net protects them disproportionately (Torres-Gil et al. 2005). However, benefits are far from generous. For Latinos over the age of sixty-five, the average annual benefit for men was only $12,213; for women it was only $9,536 (Social Security Administration 2011a). On average, for Latino households age sixty-five or older receiving benefits, Social Security makes up 75.4 percent of the household's total income. For a portion of those households--44.2 percent--Social Security makes up all of the income received (Social Security Administration 2008). Without Social Security, the elderly Latino poverty rate of approximately one out of six (17.9 percent) would explode to one out of two (50.7 percent) (Torres-Gil et al. 2005). Because of lower lifetime income, longer life expectancies, higher incidence of disability, and larger families, Latinos receive a rate of return on their Social Security contributions that is 35 percent to 60 percent higher than that of the overall population--more than any other ethnic group (Social Security Administration 2011a). Most Latino and seniors advocates believe benefits need to be expanded. For example, Latinos for a Secure Retirement (a coalition of ten leading Latino organizations) and the Commission to Modernize Social Security (a group of national policy experts representing African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American communities) created reform plans in 2011 that would expand Social Security benefits. Eighty-four percent of Latinos agree that preserving Social Security for future generations is critical, even if it means increasing Social Security taxes on workers (Rockeymoore and Maitin-Shepard 2010). Ninety percent of Latinos agree that Social Security's societal benefits are worth the cost (Rockeymoore and Maitin-Shepard 2010). Despite the importance and popularity of Social Security to Latinos, the past year has seen conservative politicians call for the program to be slashed. For example, some members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, colloquially referred to as the Supercommittee, have called for a chained consumer price index (CPI) benefit cut, which would slash benefits by drastically reducing the cost of living adjustment (COLA). COLA was designed to help Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits keep pace with inflation (Social Security Administration 2011b). However, most Social Security experts believe the current COLA is insufficient and should be increased (NCPSSM 2011). The experimental CPI for the elderly (CPI-E), developed by the federal government in 1988, has found that Social Security beneficiaries face higher inflationary pressures than the population as a whole. Opponents of Social Security have tried to present the proposed adoption of the chained CPI benefit cut as a minor technical change, but it would have drastic consequences for Latinos. Because the benefits cut compounds over time, the disabled and the most elderly would be especially hurt. As stated above, Latinos are more likely to be disabled and to live longer than other ethnic groups. A Hispanic male's life expectancy at birth is 77. …


This study examined how societal changes associated with modernization are related to cognitive development. Data were from 4 cultural communities that represented a broad range of traditional and modern elements: the Garifuna (Belize), Logoli (Kenya), Newars (Nepal), and Samoans (American Samoa). Naturalistic observations and the performances of 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children (N = 192) on 7 cognitive measures were examined. Results replicated age-related improvement on all measures. Contributions of modernity were evident in children's play behaviors and cognitive performances, especially in skills related to schooling. Modernization and schooling independently predicted differences on most of the measures. Results are discussed in relation to the Flynn effect, the worldwide increase in cognitive scores across generations, and the ways in which societal modernization may contribute to cognitive development.


Radio for the whole town: The first Finnish radio broadcasting station in Tampere 90 years ago

This article examines the earliest period of Finnish radio broadcasting history, the time before the founding of Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) in 1926. Between 1923-1926 local and regional radio associations in Finland started several small and mostly short-lived radio stations. The most successful of these early broadcasters was Tampere Radio (Tampereen Radio). While in the capital city of Helsinki there were many interest groups competing with their own radio projects, in Tampere all efforts were gathered around one radio station.

The article argues that the key to the success of Tampere Radio was its close and working relationships with the local community. The radio station was operated by engineers working in local electric and telephone companies. The station broadcasted live orchestral music from a local movie theater and a restaurant and invited local actors, musicians and teachers to create programs for the radio. After some dispute, the station also started broadcasting religious services from a local church in February 1925, the first radio station in Finland to do so.

Although short-lived as an independent radio station, Tampere Radio was a pioneer broadcaster creating early models of Finnish broadcasting culture that Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) was later able to utilize.


Explanatory economic analysis of the common law has long been subject to deep philosophical skepticism for two reasons. First, common law decisions appear to be cast in the language of deontic morality, not the consequentialist language of efficiency. For this reason, philosophers have claimed that explanatory economic analysis cannot satisfy the transparency criterion, which holds that a legal theory's explanation must provide a plausible account of the relationship between the reasoning it claims judges actually use to decide cases and the express reasoning judges provide in their opinions. Philosophers have doubted that the economic analysis has a plausible account of why judges would use deontic moral terms to explain cases they decide using consequentialist economic reasoning, arguing instead that only a deontic moral account of judicial reasoning can be squared with the judicial use of deontic moral language. Second, the common law has a bilateral structure, in which a plaintiff's right to recover and a defendant's duty to compensate are treated as correlative. Philosophers have observed that this structure seems custom tailored to retrospective moral rights adjudication and ill suited to prospective efficient regulation. Recently, two philosophers, Jules L. Coleman and Stephen A. Smith, have developed these ideas into a full-scale assault on the explanatory credentials of the economic analysis. I defend the economic analysis by arguing that the bilateral structure of the common law either constitutes a "second best" approach to providing incentives for efficient behavior, as economic analysts have maintained, or that it is the vestigial remnant of the common law's originally deontic conception. I also claim that the economic analysis satisfies the transparency criterion by arguing that terms with a deontic plain meaning have acquired a consequentialist contextual meaning within the common law. Although this "contextualist convergence" thesis is counterintuitive, I build on Coleman's semantic theory to explain how it is possible. To demonstrate that it is plausible as well, I argue that evolutionary forces would have naturally led to this result over the course of the common law's development. In particular, I claim that the substantial indeterminacy of deontic moral theory, and the superior determinacy of the economic analysis, explains why judges would be intuitively attracted to reasoning that is best reconstructed in economic terms, notwithstanding the superior normative force of deontic moral theory. Thus, the core of my defense of explanatory economic analysis is that its critics overlook the central theoretical and practical role determinacy plays in explanation and justification generally, and in the explanation of judicial reasoning in particular, where determinacy is prized, if not above all else, no less than any other virtue.


This thesis is an exploration of the nature of archaeological sites presented to the public in Scotland through an analysis of five case studies. The project utilises qualitative in-depth interviews, an approach that, although well recognised in other social sciences, has been little-used in archaeology. For this project, semi-structured recorded interviews were undertaken with participants at the sites, which were subsequently transcribed and analysed using QSR NVivo software. This approach, the rationales behind using it, and benefits for research in public archaeology, will be discussed in detail. This will be followed by an in-depth analysis of the roles and significances of archaeology, the ways it influences and is influenced by perceptions of the past, and the values placed upon it.
The essence of the thesis will then focus on the in-depth analysis of the case studies. Backgrounds will be given to each of the sites, providing a framework from which extracts of interviews will be used to elucidate on themes and ideas of participant discussions. This approach allows for the real, lived experiences of respondents to be relayed, and direct quotations will be used to provide a greater context for discussions. This will reflect a number of recurring themes, which developed during interviews, both within sites and across sites. The interviews will also reflect the individual roles and functions of archaeological sites for the public, and the often idiosyncratic nature of participant engagements with archaeology.
The information and insights gained from this research will then be considered with regard to potential impacts on the presentation of archaeological sites to the public in general. Themes and ideas which are developed in the case study chapters will be discussed in more detail, before suggestions for changes to the ways archaeological sites are presented are made. Finally, specific suggestions for changing approaches to the case study sites will be considered.


Exchanging data between a mobile phone and a computer such as a laptop is still a very cumbersome process. This paper presents two different techniques, touch & connect and touch & select, designed help to overcome this problem and facilitate and speed up spontaneous interactions between such devices. Using touch & connect, the user can physically touch a computer in order to pair a Bluetooth connection and initiate a file transfer between these two devices. Touch & select extends this concept in that users can select a specific object or location on the computer screen by simply touching it with the mobile phone. We report the implementation of these interaction techniques based on Near Field Communication (NFC) tags and present a formal, comparative study focusing on transferring images. The results provide clear evidence of the advantages of touch & connect and touch & select when compared with current Bluetooth-based implementations. Considering task completion time for uploading and downloading pictures, touch & select was 43% and touch & connect 31% faster than the conventional Bluetooth-based approach.


ABSTRACT Small-colony variants (SCVs) of bacteria are associated with recurrent and persistent infections. We describe for the first time SCVs of Streptococcus tigurinus in a patient with a prosthetic joint infection. S. tigurinus is a novel pathogen of the Streptococcus mitis group and causes invasive infections. We sought to characterize S. tigurinus SCVs using experimental methods and find possible genetic explanations for their phenotypes. The S. tigurinus SCVs were compared with the wild-type (WT) isolate using phenotypic methods, including growth under different conditions, autolysis, and visualization of the cell ultrastructure by use of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Furthermore, comparative genome analyses were performed. The S. tigurinus SCVs displayed reduced growth compared to the WT and showed either a very stable or a fluctuating SCV phenotype. TEM analyses revealed major alterations in cell separation and morphological abnormalities, which were partially explained by impaired autolytic behavior. Intriguingly, the SCVs were more resistant to induced autolysis. Whole-genome sequencing revealed mutations in the genes involved in general cell metabolism, cell division, stringent response, and virulence. Clinically, the patient recovered after a 2-stage exchange of the prosthesis. Comparative whole-genome sequencing in clinical strains is a useful tool for identifying novel genetic signatures leading to the most persistent bacterial forms. The detection of viridans streptococcal SCVs is challenging in a clinical laboratory due to the small colony size. Thus, it is of major clinical importance for microbiologists and clinicians to be aware of viridans streptococcal SCVs, such as those of S. tigurinus, which lead to difficult-to-treat infections.


This paper effectively inverts the argument of an earlier paper of mine, "The Particularisation of Attributes", to argue that there are no necessarily particularised and unshareable attributes of the sort that contemporary metaphysics calls tropes. In that earlier paper I distinguished two kinds of attributes, namely, properties and qualities, and argued that if there were tropes they could only be particularised qualities, i.e. particularisations of, say, redness, rather than particularisations of, say, being red. While continuing to hold that there cannot be particularised properties—that the very notion is oxymoronic—I now hold, further, that the supposition of qualities (that is, abstract stuffs) in addition to properties (that is, conditions or ways of being) is both ontologically extravagant and conceptually outlandish. Hence there are no qualities, and thus no tropes either.


Example synthesis is one of the leading methods to tackle the problem of few-shot learning, where only a small number of samples per class are available. However, current synthesis approaches only address the scenario of a single category label per image. In this work, we propose a novel technique for synthesizing samples with multiple labels for the (yet unhandled) multi-label few-shot classification scenario. We propose to combine pairs of given examples in feature space, so that the resulting synthesized feature vectors will correspond to examples whose label sets are obtained through certain set operations on the label sets of the corresponding input pairs. Thus, our method is capable of producing a sample containing the intersection, union or set-difference of labels present in two input samples. As we show, these set operations generalize to labels unseen during training. This enables performing augmentation on examples of novel categories, thus, facilitating multi-label few-shot classifier learning. We conduct numerous experiments showing promising results for the label-set manipulation capabilities of the proposed approach, both directly (using the classification and retrieval metrics), and in the context of performing data augmentation for multi-label few-shot learning. We propose a benchmark for this new and challenging task and show that our method compares favorably to all the common baselines.


The intelligence community and the law enforcement sector are supposed to be working closely to keep us all safe from terrorists and other dangers. The benefits of this cooperation should not be frittered away by unnecessary burdens in trying suspected terrorists in civilian courts. If the executive branch is to be kept away from the dark side of counterterrorism, the courts, Congress, or a combination of the two should modernize their approach to alignment, to Section 6 of Classified Information Procedures Act, and to closed portions of trials. First, a prosecutor's discovery obligations should apply to the intelligence community only when spymasters have most actively participated in the investigation. When defining "most actively" and in determining who falls within the prosecution unit, all three branches of government should err toward non-alignment. The recent creep toward conceding alignment on all cases since 9/11 should stop. Second, courts should be less inclined to admit top-secret information into trial than information at a lower level of classification. The more sensitive the information, the more leeway courts should give prosecutors in proposing substitutions and summaries. The common sense that probably fills the gaps of CIPA practice, squeezing around cases and the statute, should be formalized by an update of CIPA. Third, it should be possible to close portions of trials to all but the judge, jury, and the parties to the case when especially sensitive information is being presented. These limited closures will allow courts, as a compensating benefit, to lean toward defendants on Section 6 decisions as to the use of classified information at trial. By this compensation, the either/or of full disclosure versus complete suppression is traded for a range of options. CIPA is showing its age. Even so, because its foundation is solid, it does not require a tear down as much as a remodeling. In at least three areas – alignment, Section 6, and closed portions of trials – our nation deserves a better resolution between the conflicting interests of prosecutors and spymasters.


Images have always played a vital role in political communication and in the visualization of power structures and hierarchies. They gain even more importance in situations where non-verbal communication prevails: In the negotiation processes between two (or more) different cultures, the language of the visual is often thought of as the most effective way to acquaint (and overpower) the others with one`s own principles, beliefs, and value systems. Scores of these asymmetrical exchange situations have taken place in the Portuguese overseas empire since its gradual expansion in the 16th century. This book offers new insights into the broad and differentiated spectrum of functions images could assume in political contexts in those areas dominated by the Portuguese in early modern times. How were objects and artifacts staged and handled to genereate new layers of meaning and visualize political ideas and concepts? And what were the respective reasons, means, and effects of the visualization of Portuguese power and politics?


Does law matter regarding public health outcomes? Regardless of what one may think about the answer to this age-old question, in recent years the public health community has increasingly demonstrated and recognized the roles that public health laws and policies play in effectuating long-lasting and broad-based population-wide changes. Public health laws and policies have been instrumental in the following ways: reducing smoking prevalence; reducing underage alcohol-related drinking, driving, crashes, and fatalities; reducing exposure to second-hand smoke; eliminating vaccine–associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP); increasing seat-belt use and reducing traffic fatalities; reducing dental carries; and reducing access to and consumption of unhealthy foods and beverages sold in schools and to reductions in caloric intake and overweight. In fact, in a review of the ten greatest public health achievements in the 20th century, all were influenced by policy change.


This article investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the U.S. meat products industry from 1977 to 1992. Results show that acquired meat and poultry plants were very productive before mergers, and that all but the very largest meat slaughter and processing plants and all but the bottom 20% of the poultry slaughter and processing plants significantly improved their productivity growth in their postmerger periods. These results lead to the conclusion that synergies and related efficiencies are important motives for M&As.


This research attempts to identify the types, causes, and mechanisms of injuries in semiprofessional handball players 17-20 years old according to their positions. We have had 103 samples of boy and girl players. The personal and reported injuries data have been gathered by questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics by one sample chi square have been applied between the types, causes, and mechanisms of the injuries in different positions. In the different positions, the joint and muscular injuries have been the most frequent. The most frequent causes of the injuries are continuous overpressure, strikes or sudden pressure, wrong performance of tactics, in order of importance. The most frequent mechanisms of injuries in different positions of girls and boys are direct hits, overuse of one organ, body contact with other player, turning motion, throwing motion and falling. The results of this research indicated that the most types of injuries in goalkeeper position is bone injuries and in center, right wing, and left back positions, joint injuries are the most frequent. In line, left wing, and right back positions, the muscular injuries are the most frequent in the players. The causes of the injuries in goalkeeper position is continuous pressure and in other positions strikes, hits or sudden pressure. The mechanism of the injuries in goalkeeper, and right back and wing positions is direct hits as well as in line and center positions, the mechanism is overuse of one organ. The mechanism is also strike in left back and turning and falling in left wing.


Several theories of inference and decision employ sets of probability distributions as the fundamental representation of (subjective) belief. This paper investigates a frequentist connection between empirical data and convex sets of probability distributions. Building on earlier work by Walley and Fine, a framework is advanced in which a sequence of random outcomes can be described as being drawn from a convex set of distributions, rather than just from a single distribution. The extra generality can be detected from observable characteristics of the outcome sequence. The paper presents new asymptotic convergence results paralleling the laws of large numbers in probability theory, and concludes with a comparison between this approach and approaches based on prior subjective constraints.


This review begins with an historical introduction to the field of nonlinear fiber optics and then focuses on the propagation of short optical pulses inside optical fibers. The underlying nonlinear Schrodinger equation is used to discuss the nonlinear phenomenon of self-phase modulation that leads to the formation of solitons in the presence of anomalous dispersion. Recent work on supercontinuum generation is reviewed with emphasis on the important nonlinear processes, such as the fission of higher-order solitons and intrapulse Raman scattering. Applications of fiber-based supercontinuum sources are also discussed in diverse areas ranging from biomedical imaging to frequency metrology. The last part describes applications resulting from nonlinear phenomena, such as cross-phase modulation, stimulated Raman scattering, and four-wave mixing.


Importance
There are ongoing concerns about the benefits of intensive vs standard blood pressure (BP) treatment among adults with orthostatic hypotension or standing hypotension.

Objective
To determine the effect of a lower BP treatment goal or active therapy vs a standard BP treatment goal or placebo on cardiovascular disease (CVD) or all-cause mortality in strata of baseline orthostatic hypotension or baseline standing hypotension.

Data Sources
Individual participant data meta-analysis based on a systematic review of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CENTRAL databases through May 13, 2022.

Study Selection
Randomized trials of BP pharmacologic treatment (more intensive BP goal or active agent) with orthostatic hypotension assessments.

Data Extraction and Synthesis
Individual participant data meta-analysis extracted following PRISMA guidelines. Effects were determined using Cox proportional hazard models using a single-stage approach.

Main Outcomes and Measures
Main outcomes were CVD or all-cause mortality. Orthostatic hypotension was defined as a decrease in systolic BP of at least 20 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP of at least 10 mm Hg after changing position from sitting to standing. Standing hypotension was defined as a standing systolic BP of 110 mm Hg or less or standing diastolic BP of 60 mm Hg or less.

Results
The 9 trials included 29 235 participants followed up for a median of 4 years (mean age, 69.0 [SD, 10.9] years; 48% women). There were 9% with orthostatic hypotension and 5% with standing hypotension at baseline. More intensive BP treatment or active therapy lowered risk of CVD or all-cause mortality among those without baseline orthostatic hypotension (hazard ratio [HR], 0.81; 95% CI, 0.76-0.86) similarly to those with baseline orthostatic hypotension (HR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.70-1.00; P = .68 for interaction of treatment with baseline orthostatic hypotension). More intensive BP treatment or active therapy lowered risk of CVD or all-cause mortality among those without baseline standing hypotension (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.75-0.85), and nonsignificantly among those with baseline standing hypotension (HR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.75-1.18). Effects did not differ by baseline standing hypotension (P = .16 for interaction of treatment with baseline standing hypotension).

Conclusions and Relevance
In this population of hypertension trial participants, intensive therapy reduced risk of CVD or all-cause mortality regardless of orthostatic hypotension without evidence for different effects among those with standing hypotension.


DISPROPORTIONATE REPRESENTATION OF PRESCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES by Michael Joseph Morrier Historically, students from ethnically diverse backgrounds in grades K-12 have been over-represented in special education, yet little research on disproportionate representation has been conducted with preschool-aged children. This study examined if 72,525 preschool-aged children with disabilities from ethnically diverse backgrounds were disproportionately represented in special education within and across five southern states. Data were gathered from the 2006 December 1st Child Count reported by each State Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Education. Chosen states offered state-funded pre-kindergarten programs, which should have provided equal opportunities for inclusion across states. Analyses compared children with disabilities for disproportionate representation across state of residence, across special education eligibilities, across educational placements, and amount of inclusion provided. Data were analyzed for child and placement characteristics. Due to data suppression by individual states, analyses were conducted using children from Black and White backgrounds, and children from Hispanic backgrounds were used when reported by individual states. Child characteristics considered included the child"s: (a) type of disability eligibility category, (b) age, and (c) ethnicity. Placement characteristics included: (a) type of educational placement, (b) state in which child resided, and (c) amount of inclusion received. Indices of disproportionate representation were calculated using: (a) composition index, (b) risk index, (c) odds ratio, and (d) relative risk ratio. A 3 x 5 ANOVA was used to calculate placement differences between states. Factorial analysis was used to calculate determinants of placement status for preschool-aged children with disabilities. Results revealed disproportionate representation does occur at the preschool level, although between state variability was great, and patterns differed from the K-12 literature. Children from American Indian backgrounds were over-represented due to high proportions in states of Alabama and North Carolina, while children from Asian and Hispanic backgrounds were under-represented. Children from Black and White backgrounds were represented in special education at expected rates. The most common eligibility categories were speech/language impairments and developmental delay. Placement results revealed over-representation for White preschoolers and males, although type of state-funded pre-k program was a non-significant factor. Inclusion analyses favored Whites and males. Child demographic factors explained the majority of variability in inclusion status. DISPROPORTIONATE REPRESENTATION OF PRESCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES by Michael Joseph Morrier


Spanish Society depicts a complex and fascinating country in transition from the late Middle Ages to modernity. It describes every part of society from the gluttonous nobility to their starving peasants. Through anecdotes, a lively style and portraits of figures such as St Teresa of Avila and Torquemada, the book reflects the character and humour with which the common Spaniard endured an often-wretched lot. Beginning with a description of the geography, political life, and culture of Spain from 1400 to 1600, the unfolding narrative charts the country's shifts from one age to the next. It unveils patterns of everyday life from the court to the brothel, from the 'haves' of the aristocracy and clergy to the 'have nots' of the peasantry and the urban poor. Historical records illuminate details of Spanish society such as the transition from medieval festivities to the highly-scripted spectacles of the early modern period, the reasons for violence and popular resistance and the patterns of daily living: eating, dressing, religious beliefs and concepts of honour and sexuality. This compelling account includes historical examples and literary extracts, which allow the reader direct access to the period. From the street theatre of village carnivals to the oppressive Spanish Inquisition, it gives an abiding sense of Spain in the making and renders vivid the colours of a passionate history.


Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, characterized by axonal demyelination and multifocal inflammation. Like many autoimmune diseases, it is a sexually dimorphic disease, being 3-4 times more common in females than in males. p38α MAP kinase (MAPK) has an integral role in modulating inflammatory processes in autoimmunity. Conditionally ablating p38α MAPK in myeloid cells in B6 mice shows a sex difference in the animal model of MS, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). In the absence of sex hormones, this sex difference was reversed, suggesting a role for sex hormones in modulating p38α MAPK signaling in EAE. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that pro-inflammatory functions in EAE is p38-indepdendent in the presence of androgens and p38-dependent in the presence of estrogens. For the purposes of this project, the role of androgens was evaluated. Both in vivo and in vitro techniques were used to assess how androgen receptor (AR) signaling: 1) impacts EAE pathogenesis, and 2) impacts the role of p38α in EAE pathogenesis and macrophage function. To this end, using Cre-Lox technology, we generated mice deficient in: 1) AR globally or conditionally in macrophages, as well as 2) mice doubly deficient in AR and p38α. In vivo results from p38α-sufficient global AR knockout mice show no effect of global AR deletion on EAE pathogenesis. Surprisingly, results from p38α-sufficient conditional AR knockout mice showed significant worsening in disease compared to WT counterparts, suggesting that AR signaling in myeloid cells has a protective role in EAE pathogenesis. These findings implicate a protective role for AR signaling in EAE. Studies with mice doubly deficient in p38α and AR to determine whether AR regulates the role of p38α in EAE are ongoing, but so far show no effect on AR deletion on the role of p38α MAPK. Further studies with larger cohorts of mice are needed elucidate the relationship between AR and p38α MAPK signaling in myeloid cells in EAE pathogenesis. In vitro studies using the immortalized macrophage cell line RAW 264.7 showed that pharmacologic inhibition of p38 MAPK after stimulation with LPS reduced the production of classic pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNFα, and effect that was not affected by treatment with 5-dihydrotestosterone, suggesting that the AR does not modulate the role of p38α in cytokine production. These findings implicate no direct role of AR signaling on the functional role of p38α MAPK in the myeloid cell lineage in inflammatory and autoimmune responses.


A Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) model was used to simulate the results of a production test carried out in a well drilled in a tight, fractured carbonate reservoir. Several static DFN models, depicting different geological scenarios, were built based on data from well logs, core analyses, PLT surveys and structural geology studies. Each of these models underwent a validation procedure, consisting of the simulation of the production test. The comparison between the simulated results and the actual data identified the scenario whose results most closely matched the actual well behaviour. In order to compensate for the lack of geological data, an iterative loop was performed between the static model and the dynamic simulation. Constraints-added flow simulations provided new information for use in modifying the DFN model, resulting in a step-by-step updating of the static model itself. Finally, a geologically sound model accurately matching the results of the production test was obtained. The final DFN model was used to calculate the equivalent petrophysical parameters that were transferred to the corresponding region of the full field dual-porosity fluid flow model.


Students in public schools are becoming more diverse yet the school psychologists who serve them are still primarily Caucasian. One of the goals of the profession is to diversify the workforce; although there is a shortage of school psychologists filling open positions with individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds remains difficult. Utilizing an African American presenter to provide information about a career in school psychology is one strategy to recruit individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds in to the profession. Some research suggests that African Americans prefer career role models of the same race while other research suggests that interpersonal skills are more influential than race alone. Since most school psychologist practitioners faculty and students in school psychology graduate training programs are not African American it is important to understand whether information provided by a Caucasian presenter would also increase African American students' interest in school psychology.  The main purpose of this study is to understand if the race of the presenter providing information about a career in school psychology impacts participants' interest in school psychology. Twenty-five African American undergraduate psychology majors completed a pre-intervention survey listened to a brief information session about a career in school psychology presented by a Caucasian presenter and completed a post-intervention survey. There was significant change in interest in school psychology as a career following the information session. The change in the participants' expressed interest was not significantly different from that of a previous study in which the presenter was African American.  The career information session conducted by a Caucasian presenter to students from diverse ethnic backgrounds seems as effective in increasing interest in the field as that presented by an African American. This provides some evidence that school psychology practitioners faculty and students in school psychology graduate training programs could be effective recruiters of diverse individuals into the field even if they are not African American. Accurate information also increases African American participants' perception that a career in school psychology can meet multiple career satisfaction domains. These career domains match the domains that practicing school psychologists find most satisfying about their careers indicating that participants have a more realistic view of the career satisfactions provided by a school psychology career. Increasing ethnically diverse students' interest in school psychology may increase their likelihood of enrolling in a graduate training program and eventually practicing school psychology.