In 1994, the combined prospects of rapid demographi c c ange and a radically changed political system held out the promise of rapid movement toward a tra nsformed citizenry, based primarily on an emerging post-apartheid generation imbued with the values of the new South African citizen. But as far as popular demand for democracy goes, the postapartheid generation is less committed to democracy than their parents or grandparents. Rather than re-drawing th e country's main cleavages along lines of age and generation (as in post-war Germany), many of the ke y fault lines of apartheid have been replicated within the new generation. While the country's new school ing curriculum was meant to produce a new type of democrat, only the products of the country's histor cally advantaged schools seems to have profited fr om this process. South African democracy remains depe ndent on performance based legitimation. But whatever advantages might accrue from the new polit ical experiences of political freedom and a regular , peaceful, electoral process, are diminished by frus trating encounters with the political process, victimization by corrupt officials, and enduring un employment and poverty.


Recently we have seen a relaxing on the historic restrictions on the use and subsequent research on the cannabis plants, generally classified as Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. What research has been performed to date has centered on chemical analysis of plant flower products, namely cannabinoids and various terpenes that directly contribute to phenotypic characteristics of the female flowers. In addition, we have seen many groups recently completing genetic profiles of various plants of commercial value. To date, no comprehensive attempt has been made to profile the proteomes of these plants. In this study we present our initial findings consisting of the identification of 17,269 unique proteins identified from Cannabis plant materials, as well as 6,110 post-translational modifications identified on these proteins. The results presented demonstrate the first steps toward constructing a complete draft map of the Cannabis proteome.


This paper discusses key findings concerning population dynamic of the Indigenous minorities living in the Russian North during the post-Soviet period, highlighted by the 2002 Census. The paper places recent demographic trends into the context of past and current economic, social and institutional changes. It also provides comparisons with Indigenous population dynamics in other parts of the Arctic. Although most Indigenous peoples of the Russian North were growing numerically, they still experienced effects of Russia's economic crisis, primarily reflected in rapidly falling fertility and rising mortality in the middle-age cohorts. In addition, both the ethnic drift and legal changes seriously contributed to the population dynamic.


We present a novel Kalman filtering approach for GPS/INS integration. In the approach, GPS and INS nonlinearities are preprocessed prior to a Kalman filter. The GPS preprocessed data are taken as measurement input, while the INS preprocessed data are taken as additional information for the state prediction of the Kalman filter. The advantage of this approach, over the well-studied (extended) Kalman filtering approaches is that a simple and linear Kalman filter can be implemented to achieve significant computation saving with very competitive performance figures.


In this paper I interrogate why a nation grounded with an overarching assumption of a unified community is increasingly being confronted with ruptures, breaches and anomalies when it comes to indigenous inclusion. I search the intersections of current political rhetoric and indigenous relations to uncover an entrenched colonialism in relation to this inclusion. Following Nancy's notion of partage, which connotes a sharing while sharing out, and the structure of 'engaging with' rather than 'deciding for', I sketch an originary relation of ethos that questions the material effects of a community homogenously bounded by ownership and entrepreneurialism .


Action monitoring in a home environment provides important information for health monitoring and may serve as input into a smart home environment. Visual analysis using cameras can recognise actions in a complex scene, such as someones living room. However, although there the huge potential benefits and importance, specifically for health, cameras are not widely accepted because of privacy concerns. This paper recognises human activities using a sensor that retains privacy. The sensor is not only different by being thermal, but it is also of low resolution: 8x8 pixels. The combination of the thermal imaging, and the low spatial resolution ensures the privacy of individuals. We present an approach to recognise daily activities using this sensor based on a discrete cosine transform. We evaluate the proposed method on a state-of-the-art dataset and experimentally confirm that our approach outperforms the baseline method. We also introduce a new dataset, and evaluate the method on it. Here we show that the sensor is considered better at detecting the occurrence of falls and Activities of Daily Living. Our method achieves an overall accuracy of 87.50% across 7 activities with a fall detection sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 99.21%.


A novel localization approach is proposed in order to find the position of an individual source using recordings of a single microphone in a reverberant enclosure. The multipath propagation is modeled by multiple virtual microphones as images of the actual single microphone and a multipath distance matrix is constructed whose components consist of the squared distances between the pairs of microphones (real or virtual) or the squared distances between the microphones and the source. The distances between the actual and virtual microphones are computed from the geometry of the enclosure. The microphone-source distances correspond to the support of the early reflections in the room impulse response associated with the source signal acquisition. The low-rank property of the Euclidean distance matrix is exploited to identify this correspondence. Source localization is achieved through optimizing the location of the source matching those measurements. The recording time of the microphone and generation of the source signal is asynchronous and estimated via the proposed procedure. Furthermore, a theoretically optimal joint localization and synchronization algorithm is derived by formulating the source localization as minimization of a quartic cost function. It is shown that the global minimum of the proposed cost function can be efficiently computed by converting it to a generalized trust region sub-problem. Numerical simulations on synthetic data and real data recordings obtained by practical tests show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


According to the 2006 Supplemental Victimization Survey, over half of the estimated 1.7 million technological stalking victims in the United States have had a previous intimate relationship with the aggressor (Baum et al., 2009). Despite growing evidence that this crime is growing in scope and severity, researchers know very little about this phenomenon. Therefore, this current hermeneutic phenomenological study examines the lived experiences of individuals who have been technologically stalked by a past intimate. A Communication Privacy Management Theory lens is used to investigate the participants' narratives for privacy boundary modifications following relational dissolution, but prior to technological stalking, incidents of privacy violations during technological stalking, and reports coping mechanisms used following privacy boundary turbulence. The results indicate (a) victims report contextual factors, such as contact with the aggressor and abuses enacted during the intimate relationship, as key reasons for modifying privacy boundaries with their past partners, (b) aggressors use datatransmission devices in order to commit privacy violations (c) victims' attempts to cope with boundary turbulence are often frustrated by the aggressor, as well as by third parties.


As we see when looking at fish in an aquarium, optical materials can distort the actual locations of objects. Scientists are now able to manipulate light in "fishy" ways that may enable big scientific breakthroughs such as invisibility cloaking in the near future.


The address term COMRADE in the 20th century Russian and Mandarin Chinese presents an attempt to neutralize and compress the category of formal address by collapsing in a single lexeme the dimensions of power, social distance, age, and gender differentials. This situation-dependent variability of politeness-import proved to be of limited efficacy on the more global, paradigmatic scale. With COMRADE falling out of use in the late 20th century, the current tendency in Russian and Mandarin is to reinforce novel forms of address and/or recover select obsolescent ATs. Both strategies suggest the contemporary address systems of these languages show a trend against reduction and towards populating the paradigm of generic address with ATs whose politeness import is specific and stable.


A cucumber mosaic virus isolate, named Ho [CMV(Ho)], was isolated from a symptomless Arabidopsis halleri field sample containing low virus titers. An analysis of CMV(Ho) RNA molecules indicated that the virus isolate, besides the usual cucumovirus tripartite RNA genome, additionally contained defective RNA3 molecules and a satellite RNA. To study the underlying mechanism of the persistent CMV(Ho) infection in perennial A. halleri, infectious cDNA clones were generated for all its genetic elements. CMV, which consists of synthetic transcripts from the infectious tripartite RNA genomes, and designated CMV(Ho)tr, multiplied in A. halleri and annual Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 to a similar level as the virulent strain CMV(Y), but did not induce any symptoms in them. The response of Col-0 to a series of reassortant CMVs between CMV(Ho)tr and CMV(Y) suggested that the establishment of an asymptomatic phenotype of CMV(Ho) infection was due to the 2b gene of CMV RNA2, but not due to the presence of the defective RNA3 and satellite RNA. The accumulation of CMV(Ho) 2b protein tagged with the FLAG epitope (2b.Ho-FLAG) in 2b.Ho-FLAG-transformed Col-0 did not induce any symptoms, suggesting a 2b-dependent persistency of CMV(Ho)tr infection in Arabidopsis. The 2b protein interacted with Argonaute 4, which is known to regulate the cytosine methylation levels of host genomic DNA. Whole genomic bisulfite sequencing analysis of CMV(Ho)tr- and mock-inoculated Col-0 revealed that cytosine hypomethylation in the promoter regions of 82 genes, including two genes encoding transcriptional regulators (DOF1.7 and CBP1), was induced in response to CMV(Ho)tr infection. Moreover, the increased levels of hypomethylation in the promoter region of both genes, during CMV(Ho)tr infection, were correlated with the up- or down-regulation of their expression. Taken altogether, the results indicate that during persistent CMV(Ho) infection in Arabidopsis, host gene expression may be epigenetically modulated resulting from a 2b-mediated cytosine hypomethylation of host genomic DNA.


The present study investigated individuals with slight, marked and extreme fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia) (Ruch and Proyer 2008a). Altogether 640 individuals filled in the GELOPH (Ruch and Proyer 2008b) online and 228 filled in a paper and pencil version. In both samples principal components analyses of the 15 items were computed for subgroups of individuals exceeding the cut-off point for slight gelotophobia (i.e., 2.5). All solutions between one and five factors were examined but a three-factor-solution seemed most preferable. These positively correlated components were interpreted as coping with derision (by control, withdrawal, internalizing), disproportionate negative responses to being laughed at, and paranoid sensitivity to anticipated ridicule. The latter two are seen specific to gelotophobia while the former might be shared with social anxiety in general. In the hierarchical factor analysis the more unspecific coping factor did split up further into three factors of control, withdrawal, and internalizing, while the two gelotophobia-specific factors stayed stable between the three- and five-factor solutions. These three factors yielded different correlational patterns. Coping with ridicule was higher among females and among the older while there were no differences for the other two factors. Furthermore, people reporting having been bullied were higher in defensive coping with ridicule and had stronger disproportionate negative responses to being laughed at than those who were not bullied. Results are discussed within a framework for future studies of individuals with higher levels of this fear. In particular, the computation of subscales is recommended when the focus lies on the extreme scorers.


There has been a strong tendency towards decentralization of collective bargaining in European countries. This means that wage negotiations have moved closer to the individual enterprise. Centralized collective bargaining systems have traditionally been seen to reduce wage inequality, which has attracted the attention to the effects of decentralization on both the level of wages and wage dispersion. European studies show the decentralization leads to higher wage increases. This is an unambiguous finding in the literature. However, the results on wage dispersion are much more varied and no clear results emerge. In Finland, the decentralization of collective bargaining has taken place through so-called local pots. These are wage increases that can be allocated locally. The results of a new Finnish study show that wage increases have been higher when the contract has included local pots. The local pots have increased the dispersion of wage increases for white-collar employees and reduced it for blue-collars. This difference in the outcomes is likely due to different preferences concerning wage dispersion and local bargaining between these two employee groups.


The organometallic compounds bis(allyl)zinc and bis(2-methylallyl)zinc have been shown to serve as MOCVD precursors for the deposition of zinc at temperatures as low as 150{degrees}C. The deposits on Si(100) wafers, quartz, copper, and aluminum consist of aggregates of hexagonal plates and columns. On silicon(100) substrates and at low background pressures (10{sup {minus}4} Torr), the zinc crystals are oriented preferentially with their c axes perpendicular to the silicon surface. The organic byproducts generated under CVD conditions are 1,5-hexadiene (76 mol%), 2-methyl-1,4-pentadiene (14 mol%), and propene (10 mol%); except for the pentadiene product, analogous hydrocarbons in similar amounts are formed when bis(2-methylallyl)zinc is used as the precursor. In situ spectroscopic studies on single-crystal Cu(111) substrates show that bis(allyl)zinc transfers its allyl groups to the surface below 250{degrees}C; the surface-bound allyl groups are probably bound in a trihapto fashion. On clean surfaces, the allyl groups react between 10 and 130{degrees}C to give propene and smaller amounts of 2-methyl-1,4-pentadiene. The propene is the result of transfer of a hydrogen atom to the surface allyl groups; the source of the hydrogen atoms has been traced to the sacrificial fragmentation of some of the allyl groups. The dehydrogenation of some of the surface allyl groups also more » gives rise to hydrogen-deficient hydrocarbon fragments, which eventually convert to a carbonaceous overlayer. Once the overlayer is formed, fragmentation of allyl groups is inhibited and, instead, coupling of allyl groups to 1,5-hexadiene is the predominant reaction channel. Passage of a mixture of bis(2-methylallyl)zinc and bis(2-methylallyl)palladium over substrates at 250{degrees}C and 10{sup {minus}2} Torr results in the deposition of Zn/Pd alloys. 47 refs., 12 figs. « less


There is growing recognition amongst policymakers that social protection policies and programmes are uniquely placed to reduce child labour2 because they directly address its root causes: tackling simultaneously the poverty, exclusion and vulnerability that compel families to depend on the meagre incomes they can earn by sending their children to work. Social protection can also address the underlying social and economic causes that prevent children from attending school. Nevertheless, particular social protection schemes vary significantly in their ability to tackle child labour – depending on their specific features and the characteristics of the children they target (ILO, 2012).


In this collection of essays, Joshua Cohen locates ideas about democracy in three far-ranging contexts. First, he explores the relationship between democratic values and history. He then discusses democracy in connection with the views of defining political theorists in the democratic tradition: John Locke, John Rawls, Noam Chomsky, Juergen Habermas, and Susan Moller Okin. Finally, he examines the place of democratic ideals in a global setting, suggesting an idea of 'global public reason' - a terrain of political justification in global politics in which shared reason still plays an essential role. All the essays are linked by his overarching claim that political philosophy is a practical subject intended to orient and guide conduct in the social world. Cohen integrates moral, social-scientific, and historical argument in order to develop this stance, and he further confronts the question of whether a society conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality can endure. At Gettysburg, President Lincoln forcefully stated the question and expressed both hope and concern over this same struggle about an affirmative answer. By enabling us to trace the arc of the moral universe, the essays in this volume - along with the companion collection on Philosophy, Politics, and Democracy - give us some reasons for sharing that hope.


Crime has always been one of the major concerns of residents of many cities around the world. It is one of the fundamental threats faced at every level of society - individual, organizational, sub-national, national, international/global. The need to assure a high level of security for the city's inhabitants and visitors is one of the most important tasks of local government. It is clear that only a comprehensive strategy with different crime fighting methods can bring positive results. Although theories coming from social sciences dominate this field of research, the authors of the paper emphasize the role of other perspectives, especially those developed by urban planners. The second part of the paper describes the process and results of the empirical research conducted in Vilnius city which was aimed at identifying the most vulnerable to crime open public spaces of the city applying the space syntax theory. The analysis helped to identify several common tendencies and specific proposals for local governments aiming to achieve a higher level of security in their cities and a better quality of life for local population. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.11.3.2498


This paper analyses the impact of vertical grants on local public sector efficiency. First, we develop a theoretical model in which the bureaucrat sets the tax price while voters choose the quantity of public services. In this model, grants reduce efficiency if voters do not misinterpret the amount of vertical grants the local bureaucrats receive. If voters suffer from fiscal illusion, i.e. overestimate the amount of grants, our model yields an ambiguous effect of grants on efficiency. Second, we use the model to launch a note of caution concerning the inference that can be drawn from the existing cross-sectional studies in this field: Taking into account vertical financial equalization systems that reduce differences in fiscal capacity, empirical studies based on cross-sectional data may yield a positive relationship between grants and efficiency even when the underlying causal effect is negative. Third, we perform an empirical analysis for the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which has implemented such a fiscal equalization system. We find a positive relationship between grants and efficiency. Our analysis shows that a careful reassessment of existing empirical evidence with regard to this issue seems necessary.


We report a laboratory experiment aimed at investigating factors affecting choice between different versions of a full-length movie. In particular, we estimate the willingness to pay for a legal, rather than pirated copy and compare it to the impact of such characteristics as picture quality or delay in delivery. We find a modest but highly significant preference for the authorized version. By conducting otherwise identical choice experiments both with and without actual experiential and monetary consequences, we conclude that the method does not seem to suffer from hypothetical bias. We also find that when the proceeds from legal sale are transferred to a good cause, willingness to pay for the unauthorized copy is reduced.


The GIAU+S (Research group on Architecture, Urbanism and Sustainability of Universidad Politecnica de Madrid) has drafted a comprehensive report on urban deprivation/poverty observatories in the EU.

This report is related to the Urban Poverty Partnership's Action 2 "Setting up a European network of national observatories with experience in urban poverty", one of the horizontal Actions of the Partnership.

The study focuses on national observatories of urban poverty in deprived neighbourhoods or areas in the EU. A national observatory is considered to be a mapping tool with statistical information related to poverty/deprivation at the intra-city (neighbourhood) level.

Authors of the report are: Rafael Cordoba Hernandez, Isabel Gonzalez Garcia, Gerardo Guerrero Perinan; English reviewes: Ms. Pru Brooke-Turner and Mr. Benjamin Wilkes


This article is an attempt to examine the role and impact of the history of theologised politics in South Africa and the 1913 Land Act and its impact on the flight from the black self. This is done specifically to locate the question of land and land dispossession of black South Africans that, according to the author of this article, resulted from the theologised politics of South Africa. It is the contention of the author that land dispossession, which was officialised in South Africa with the passing of the 1913 Land Act, was chiefly responsible for the "flight from the black self". This is crucial, simply because the author is of the view that land dispossession had a terrible impact on black people's self-worth. It is for this reason that the author argues that black people in the main have internalised oppression. On the basis of this, the author surmises that Apartheid, which was rationalised as being biblically and theologically sanctioned, precipitated the 1913 Land Act and in turn the flight from the black self. It is in this context of the flight from the black self that we must understand the assertion that there are many South Africans within one South Africa.


In commercial cellular networks, like the systems based on direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA), many types of interferences can appear, starting from multi-user interference inside each sector in a cell to inter-operator interference. Also unintentional jamming can be present due to co-existing systems at the same band, whereas intentional jamming arises mainly in military applications. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) use as an advanced pre-processing tool for blind suppression of interfering signals in direct sequence spread spectrum communication systems utilizing antenna arrays. The role of ICA is to provide an interference-mitigated signal to the conventional detection. Several ICA algorithms exist for performing Blind Source Separation (BSS). ICA has been used to extract interference signals, but very less literature is available on the performance, i.e., how does it behave in communication environment. This needs an evaluation of its performance in communication environment. This paper evaluates the performance of some major ICA algorithms like Bell and Sejnowski's infomax algorithm, Cardoso's joint approximate diagonalization of eigen matrices (JADE) algorithm, Hyvarinen's fixed point algorithm, Pearson-ICA algorithm and Comon's algorithm in a communication blind source separation problem. Independent signals representing sub-Gaussian, Gaussian and mix users(sub-Gaussian, super-Gaussian and Gaussian) are generated and then mixed linearly to simulate communication signals. Separation performance of ICA algorithms measure by performance index.


ABSTRACT Background/objectives: Major depression has a negative impact on quality of life, increasing the risk of premature death. It imposes social and economic costs on individuals, families and society. Mental illness is now the leading cause globally of disability/lost quality life and premature mortality. Finding cost-effective treatments for depression is a public health priority. We report an economic evaluation of a dietary intervention for treating major depression. Methods: This economic evaluation drew on the HELFIMED RCT, a 3-month group-based Mediterranean-style diet (MedDiet) intervention (including cooking workshops), against a social group-program for people with major depression. We conducted (i) a cost-utility analysis, utility scores measured at baseline, 3-months and 6-months using the AQoL8D, modelled to 2 years (base case); (ii) a cost-effectiveness analysis, differential cost/case of depression resolved (to normal/mild) measured by the DASS. Differential program costs were calculated from resources use costed in AUD2017. QALYs were discounted at 3.5%pa. Results: Best estimate differential cost/QALY gain per person, MedDiet relative to social group was AUD2775. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis, varying costs, utility gain, model period found 95% likelihood cost/QALY less than AUD20,000. Estimated cost per additional case of depression resolved, MedDiet group relative to social group was AUD2,225. Conclusions: A MedDiet group-program for treating major depression was highly cost-effective relative to a social group-program, measured in terms of cost/QALY gain and cost per case of major depression resolved. Supporting access by persons with major depression to group-based dietary programs should be a policy priority. A change to funding will be needed to realise the potential benefits.


Blood handling devices such as left ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts offer life-saving treatments for patients suffering from severe heart failure. Current devices have clinically proven that heart assist pumps are a safe and effective therapy, and indeed in many cases they are the only available method of treatment. However, current devices cause side effects including stroke, bleeding, infection, and thrombosis, preventing the technology from reaching its full potential. If the side effects could be reduced, then more patients could benefit from these devices. The complications are related to damage to blood cells and proteins as a result of contact with foreign materials and mechanical stress. There is a need for better devices with minimal blood impact to enable more patients to be safely treated; better tools, especially flow cytometry, could support the device development life cycle. In this chapter we review the clinical, in vivo, and in vitro flow cytometry data available for ventricular assist devices, conduct a gap analysis, and identify areas of future possibilities for device developers to establish new flow cytometry-based methodologies.


Purpose of reviewThe purpose of this review is to summarize the distinct metabolic and pathophysiologic phenotype of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and the subsequent clinical implications with regard to future type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cardiovascular risk. Recent findingsBoth IFG and IGT manifest the two core defects of T2DM, that is, insulin resistance and &bgr;-cell dysfunction. However, the site of insulin resistance and shape of &bgr;-cell dysfunction differ. These distinct metabolic and pathophysiologic phenotypes explain the greater cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk associated with an increase in the 2-h plasma glucose concentration, that is, IGT compared with an increase in the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) concentration, that is, IFG. Moreover, the increase in future T2DM risk in IFG study participants is, at least in part, explained by the strong correlation between the increase in FPG and the increase in 2-h plasma glucose concentration. SummaryLast, recent studies have reported the presence of diabetic microvascular complications, that is, retinopathy and neuropathy, at the IGT stage.Thus, a glucose load (e.g. oral glucose tolerance test) is required in study participants with elevated FPG concentration to accurately assess their future risk for T2DM, as well as their risk for CVD to identify the subgroup of IFG who are at greater risk and subject them to an intervention program to decrease their future T2DM and CVD risk.


In myelinated axons, voltage-dependent sodium channels are segregated at high density at nodes of Ranvier (Rosenbluth, 1976; Waxman and Quick, 1978; Black et al., 1990; Elmer et al., 1990), a distribution that is critical for the saltatory conduction of action potentials (Huxley and Stampfli, 1949). The factors that specifically control the organization and immobilization of sodium channels at nodes are unknown. Recently we have reported that segregation of sodium channels on axons is highly dependent on interactions with active Schwann cells and that continuing axon-glial interactions are necessary to maintain sodium channel distribution during differentiation of myelinated nerve (Joe and Angelides, 1992). The specific recruitment of sodium channels at these early stages of myelination and the conspicuous absence of other axon membrane components suggest that the factors governing sodium channel cluster formation show molecular specificity. However, it is not clear whether these clustered sodium channels originate from a redistribution of preexisting diffusely distributed sodium channels. To determine how Schwann cells might regulate sodium channel distribution during myelination we have examined the lateral mobility of fluorescently labeled sodium channels at defined stages of myelination by fluorescence photobleach recovery using tetramethylrhodamine (TmRhd)-labeled Tityus gamma, a sodium channel- specific fluorescent toxin. First, to test whether Schwann cells, in addition to modulating sodium channel distribution, affect the mobility of sodium channels, we cultured dorsal root ganglion neurons in the presence or absence of Schwann cells and monitored sodium channel mobility on cell bodies, axon hillocks, and axons. Even in the absence of Schwann cells, approximately 80% of the sodium channels were immobile on the time scale of the fluorescence photobleach recovery measurement (DL < or equal to 10(-12) cm2/sec), although the remaining fraction of channels are mobile with diffusion coefficients of 5–13 x 10(-11) cm2/sec. Most importantly, in contrast to the effects of Schwann cells on altering the distribution of sodium channels, we found that Schwann cells did not alter the rate of lateral mobility or the mobile fraction of axonal sodium channels. Therefore, although sodium channel distribution depends on Schwann cell contact, immobilization of sodium channels is independent of Schwann cell contact. These effects appear to be specific for sodium channels because 45% of the succinyl concanavalin-A receptors on the axon are mobile, a fraction that decreases to 25% in the presence of Schwann cells later in development. To determine how sodium channels might be immobilized other than by Schwann cell contact, TmRhd-Tityus gamma-labeled dorsal root neurons were treated with 0.5% Triton X-100.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


The polarization characteristics of diffracted beams from twisted nematic (TN) gratings are investigated. The TN grating is fabricated by exploiting the photoalignment effect in a dye-doped homogeneous liquid-crystal film. Experimental results indicate that the irradiation of an azo-dye-doped liquid-crystal film with appropriate light can induce dye adsorption on a glass substrate. The adsorbed dyes then reorient the liquid-crystal director perpendicular to the pump-beam polarization. The polarizations of the diffracted beams from such a TN grating are systematically studied. The experimental results correlate well with theory. Additionally, the TN grating can be used as a polarization beam splitter.


Feminist ethics is a branch of moral philosophy. Its concerns range across meta-ethics (the question of how feminist moral principles and values may be grounded or legitimated), moral theory (the articulation of substantive feminist moral principles and values), and applied ethics (the application of feminist moral principles and values to specific areas of practice such as health, education, reproduction, war, and so forth). (1) Yet although it is a branch of moral philosophy, there is a sense in which feminist ethics has always unsettled and subverted the morality/politics binary that helps to define the business of modern moral philosophy in the Western academy. According to this mainstream thinking (reflected also in much commonsense usage) morality may ground, orient, or be applied as a corrective to politics, but nevertheless a clear line is (must be) drawn between them. (2) Morality is defined as being about values and principles that transcend the particularities of any specific human life, whereas politics is about the struggles and negotiations through which those particularities are constructed, sustained, challenged, and managed. The subversion of this binary takes different forms in different strands of feminist ethics. But one common thread that runs through all feminist ethics is the argument that the moral theories, religious and philosophical, that have dominated thinking about morality from ancient times to modernity in the West are fundamentally political in one key sense. All of them purport to be the revelation of God or outcome of reason (or both), but all of them turn out, in whole or in part, to be about the reflection and maintenance of relations of power in which women are systematically oppressed, excluded, and silenced. However, feminist ethicists differ in the extent to which they interpret the latter as a problem in principle or in application and in the extent to which they turn the same skeptical eye upon their own moral discourse. (3) As a result of this, ongoing debates within feminist ethics have been less to do with the substantive accounts of justice and the good on offer and more to do with the question of whether feminist claims about justice and the good have any authoritative foundation or can achieve universal reach across different women in different times and places. For feminist critics of moral universalism, feminist ethics risks assimilating and/or silencing different women, thus reproducing the same oppressive politics as the patriarchal mainstream in which morality operates as a mask for power. For feminist universalists, their critics risk reducing morality to politics in the sense of making all moral claims contingent on specificities of power and culture and thereby losing the possibility of making the moral critique of women's oppression that is needed to underpin feminism as a political project. Within the context of feminism as a transnational movement, which reaches across barriers of state and culture, the question of authoritative foundation and universal reach for the claims of feminist ethics is particularly salient. For example, most feminist ethics in the Western tradition has tended to focus either on abstract meta-ethical issues or on the application of feminist insights to issues that particularly affect women within Western liberal states. (4) Even where specifically international contexts or issues are in question (e.g., global distributive justice, human rights, and war) there has been a tendency to take an ethical position worked out in relation to the context of a Western liberal state and apply it to the international domain. (5) This tendency has increasingly become subject to challenge by non-Western feminists, who argue for the irrelevance or inapplicability of the concerns of Western feminist ethics to the lives and experiences of women in nonliberal states and/or non-Judeo-Christian cultures. (6) In this article, my concern is with a response to the feminist dilemma between moral universalism and moral pluralism--a response that appears to offer a particularly promising route forward for a feminist ethics that is specifically concerned with international, transnational, or global political contexts and issues. …


Underemployment is a serious and pervasive problem both in terms of its impact on those individuals affected, and for the economy as a whole. International research has found that those who experience periods of underemployment are more likely to have lower job satisfaction, higher job turnover, poorer mental and physical health and persistently lower earnings. Labour markets with high rates of underemployment are at risk of underutilisation of important skills. This paper explores the patterns of underemployment for mature aged workers in Australia, and seeks in particular to determine the principal factors that contribute to a heightened risk of underemployment. Importantly, our results point to a significant path dependency whereby previous periods of underemployment increase the propensity towards underemployment in the current period.


Refactorings are structured changes to existing software that leave its externally observable behaviour unchanged. Their intent is to improve readability, performance or other non-behavioural properties. State-of-the-art automatic refactoring tools are syntax-driven and, therefore, overly conservative. In this paper we explore semantics-driven refactoring, which enables much more sophisticated refactoring schemata. As an exemplar of this broader idea, we present Kayak, an automatic refactoring tool that transforms Java with external iteration over collections into code that uses Streams, a new abstraction introduced by Java 8. Our refactoring procedure performs semantic reasoning and search in the space of possible refactorings using automated program synthesis. Our experimental results support the conjecture that semantics-driven refactorings are more precise and are able to rewrite more complex code scenarios when compared to syntax-driven refactorings.


In this study, we develop and compare satellite rainfall retrievals based on generalized linear models and artificial neural networks. Both approaches are used in classification mode in a first step to identify the precipitating areas (precipitation detection) and in regression mode in a second step to estimate the rainfall intensity at the ground (rain rate). The input predictors are geostationary satellite infrared (IR) brightness temperatures and Satellite Application Facility (SAF) nowcasting products which consist of cloud properties, such as cloud top height and cloud type. Additionally, a set of auxiliary location-describing input variables is employed. The output predictand is the ground-based instantaneous rain rate provided by the European-scale radar composite OPERA, that was additionally quality-controlled. We compare our results to a precipitation product which uses a single infrared (IR) channel for the rainfall retrieval. Specifically, we choose the operational PR-OBS-3 hydrology SAF product as a representative example for this type of approach. With generalized linear models, we show that we are able to substantially improve in terms of hits by considering more IR channels and cloud property predictors. Furthermore, we demonstrate the added value of using artificial neural networks to further improve prediction skill by additionally reducing false alarms. In the rain rate estimation, the indirect relationship between surface rain rates and the cloud properties measurable with geostationary satellites limit the skill of all models, which leads to smooth predictions close to the mean rainfall intensity. Probability matching is explored as a tool to recover higher order statistics to obtain a more realistic rain rate distribution.


Environmental pollution caused by heavy metals from different industrial activities constitutes a serious risk for the environment. Soils contaminated with metals, such as Cu, Cd and Zn, are often subjected to physical or chemical remediation procedures to purify soils from these metals. Typical chelating agents used for metal extraction and soil washing generally include ethylene-diaminetetraacetic acid nitrilotriacetic acid, diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid and citric acid. The subject study evaluating the potential of soil washing methods using EDTA and ferric chloride on two types of soils (coarse grained, fine grained). The effects of operating parameters, such as liquid/solid ratio, soil washing chemicals and washing time were examined. In extraction procedure of Cd (266 mg kg), Cu (194 mg kg) and Zn (497 mg kg) from contaminated coarse grained soil with using 0.01 M FeCl3 washing solution (liquid/solid ratio 20) for 2 hours, contaminants were removed 96.66%, 90.02% and 98.25%, respectively. In extraction procedure of Cd (218 mg kg), Cu (153 mg kg) and Zn (441.6 mg kg) from contaminated fine grained soil with using 0.01 M FeCl3 washing solution (liquid/solid ratio 20) for 2 hours, contaminants were removed 98.18%, 97.48% and 98.05%, respectively. Better removal efficiencies have been obtained by using FeCl3. These results confirmed the effectiveness of the soil-washing method with FeCl3 in remediating heavy metals (Cu, Cd and Zn) from different types of soil.


Significant cost and debilitation results from connective tissue injury and disease every year. Prolotherapy is an effective medical treatment used to increase joint stability. However, most associated studies are retrospective or case studies, rather than comprehensive laboratory investigation originating with the cellular response to exposure to the proliferant solutions. As a parallel consideration, nanoparticles are being investigated for use in drug delivery and heat shock treatment of cancerous tissue due to their unique structural and thermal properties. The phenomenal strength and stiffness of carbon nanoparticles have been used for commercial purposes in composite materials, but investigation of biomedical applications is still fairly nascent. In an attempt to develop a non-surgical approach to supporting and healing damaged ligaments and tendons resulting from injury or disease by combining prolotherapy and the use of nanoparticles, the author presents studies investigating the cellular response to proliferative therapy solution as well as tendon and ligament tissue's mechanical and cellular response to exposure to nanoparticles. In the prolotherapy solution cell studies, the results suggested that there is an optimal dosage of the proliferant for in vitro studies, different responses between cell types, and a dosage-dependent response in cell viability and collagen production to the solution P2G in preosteoblasts. In the nanoparticle studies, cell populations tolerated nanoparticles at the levels tested, tendon mechanical properties were increased (stiffness significantly so), and bright field and transmission electron microscopic histological images were taken of connective tissue and carbon nanohorn interactions.


Energy consumption is increasing in the IT sector and a remarkable part of this energy is consumed in data centers. Numerous techniques have been proposed to solve the energy efficiency issue in cloud systems. Recently, there are some efforts to decentralize the cloud via distributing data centers in diverse geographical positions. In this paper, we elaborate on the energy consumption of different cloud architectures, from a mega-datacenter to a P2P-cloud that provides extreme decentralization in terms of datacenter size. P2P-cloud is defined as a set of commodity host machines, connected to each other to serve a community. Our evaluation results reveal the fact that the more decentralized the system is, the less energy may be consumed in the system. Studying the energy efficiency of P2P-cloud infrastructure shows that the additional system design complexity involved is warranted with improved energy-efficiency and better locality for some services. Our analysis indicates that such P2P-cloud outperforms the classic datacenter model as long as it meets the locality conditions, which are commonplace in communities. Moreover, we illustrate how much energy can be saved for MapReduce applications with a diverse range of specifications by switching to P2P-cloud.


We characterized E-W shortening crustal deformation using GPS measurements and an earthquake focal mechanism solution to estimate conditions before the Ms 6.5 Ludian earthquake of 3 August 2014 (16:30, UTC+8). A series of NW-SE striking transpressive faults are distributed outside the Chuan-Dian Block. They accommodated the E-W shortening and N-S stretching in this region resulting from Chuan-Dian Block outward expansion. The displacement velocity field about the eastward, faultnormal slip rate and the vertical component are also examined. The results show that they share a similar rate change at the Anninghe, Zemuhe, Puxionghe, Jiaojihe, and Baogunao-Xiaohe faults. Among these faults, the maximum thrusting slip rate of the Baogunao-Xiaohe fault is less than 4 mm yr-1. The slip rate change may represent a transition from lateral translation into a vertical thrusting movement. Furthermore, counterclockwise rotation also plays an important role in absorbing the E-W shortening. Relative to the inner zone, the outer Chuan-Dian Block together with the Daliang Shan fault zone represent the development of a new deformation area. A prediction could be made that the Daliang Shan fault zone will eventually replace the east boundary fault role of the Anninghe-Zemuhe-North Xiaojiang fault due to Chuan-Dian Block continuous outward expansion.


Past research has identified anatomically specific sites within the posterior inferior temporal gyrus (PITG) and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) areas that are engaged during arithmetic processing. Although a small region of the PITG (known as the number form area) is selectively engaged in the processing of numerals, its surrounding area is activated during both digit and number word processing. In eight participants with intracranial electrodes, we compared the timing and selectivity of electrophysiological responses in the number form area-surround and IPS regions during arithmetic processing with digits and number words. Our recordings revealed stronger electrophysiological responses in the high-frequency broadband range in both regions to digits than number words, with the difference that number words elicited delayed activity in the IPS but not PITG. Our findings of distinct profiles of responses in the PITG and the IPS to digits compared with number words provide novel information that is relevant to existing theoretical models of mathematical cognition.


In many real-world settings, a team of agents must coordinate their behaviour while acting in a decentralised way. At the same time, it is often possible to train the agents in a centralised fashion in a simulated or laboratory setting, where global state information is available and communication constraints are lifted. Learning joint action-values conditioned on extra state information is an attractive way to exploit centralised learning, but the best strategy for then extracting decentralised policies is unclear. Our solution is QMIX, a novel value-based method that can train decentralised policies in a centralised end-to-end fashion. QMIX employs a network that estimates joint action-values as a complex non-linear combination of per-agent values that condition only on local observations. We structurally enforce that the joint-action value is monotonic in the per-agent values, which allows tractable maximisation of the joint action-value in off-policy learning, and guarantees consistency between the centralised and decentralised policies. We evaluate QMIX on a challenging set of StarCraft II micromanagement tasks, and show that QMIX significantly outperforms existing value-based multi-agent reinforcement learning methods.


It has been proposed that the design of robots might benefit from interactions that are similar to caregiver–child interactions, which is tailored to children's respective capacities to a high degree. However, so far little is known about how people adapt their tutoring behaviour to robots and whether robots can evoke input that is similar to child-directed interaction. The paper presents detailed analyses of speakers' linguistic behaviour and non-linguistic behaviour, such as action demonstration, in two comparable situations: In one experiment, parents described and explained to their nonverbal infants the use of certain everyday objects; in the other experiment, participants tutored a simulated robot on the same objects. The results, which show considerable differences between the two situations on almost all measures, are discussed in the light of the computer-as-social-actor paradigm and the register hypothesis. Keywords: child-directed speech (CDS); motherese; robotese; motionese; register theory; social communication; human–robot interaction (HRI); computers-as-social-actors; mindless transfer


Terahertz (THz) imaging and sensing technologies are increasingly being used in a host of medical, military, and security applications. For example, THz systems are now being tested at international airports for security screening purposes, at major medical centers for cancer and burn diagnosis, and at border patrol checkpoints for identification of concealed explosives, drugs, and weapons. Recent advances in THz applications have stimulated renewed interest regarding the biological effects associated with this frequency range. Biological effects studies are a valuable type of basic science research because they serve to enhance our fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that govern THz interactions with biological systems. Such studies are also important because they often times lay the foundation for the development of future applications. In addition, from a practical standpoint, THz biological effects research is also necessary for accurate health hazard evaluation, the development of empirically-based safety standards, and for the safe use of THz systems. Given the importance and timeliness of THz bioeffects data, the purpose of this review is twofold. First, to provide readers with a common reference, which contains the necessary background concepts in biophysics and THz technology, that are required to both conduct and evaluate THz biological research. Second, to provide a critical review of the scientific literature.


The CO2 that comes from the use of fossil fuels accounts for about 65% of the global greenhouse gas emission, and it plays a critical role in global climate changes. Among the different strategies that have been considered to address the storage and reutilization of CO2, the transformation of CO2 into chemicals or fuels with a high added-value has been considered a winning approach. This transformation is able to reduce the carbon emission and induce a "fuel switching" that exploits renewable energy sources. The aim of this brief review is to gather and critically analyse the main efforts that have been made and achievements that have been made in the electrochemical reduction of CO2 for the production of CO. The main focus is on the prospective of exploiting the intrinsic nature of the electrolysis process, in which CO2 reduction and H2 evolution reactions can be combined, into a competitive approach, to produce syngas. Several well-established processes already exist for the generation of fuels and fine-chemicals from H2/CO mixtures of different ratios. Hence, the different kinds of electrocatalysts and electrochemical reactors that have been used for the CO and H2 evolution reactions have been analysed, as well as the main factors that influence the performance of the system from the thermodynamic, kinetic and mass transport points of view.


Sporadic tungro virus disease is considered as one of the most devastating viral diseases of rice and causes significant yield losses to sustainable annual rice productions in the world. An experiment was conducted to find out the influence of tungro disease on the chlorophyll and carotenoid content in fourteen rice cultivars of three groups viz., susceptible - MTU 1010, TN-1, IR 64, Tapaswini and IR 50 ; moderately resistant - Swarna , RP Bio 226, BPT 5204, Swarnadhan and Nidhi ; and resistant rice cultivars - Tamphaphou , TKM 6, IRTN 51 and Vikramarya. The virus isolate induced a considerable alteration in the pigment content by always exhibiting lesser amounts of chlorophyll 'A', chlorophyll 'B', total chlorophyll and carotenoid contents in the leaves of susceptible rice cultivars as compared to moderately resistant and resistant cultivars. Considerable reduction in seed weight has been observed in the susceptible rice cultivars compared to moderately resistant and resistant cultivars due to virus infection.


MOOCs can support educational innovation in a wide range of contexts, from formal to informal and from expected to unexpected. This kind of open online courses are often used within campus modules as core elements of their curriculum. This is the case of this experimental study, where we analyse an experiment of HE educational innovation about the perceptions of students around strengths and weaknesses of MOOCs in socio-educational settings. 54 students were surveyed with multiple choice questions around this topic. The results show that HE students of education degrees tend to see the potential of MOOCs to aid the transformation of the classrooms often currently reserved to social elites. They also see that MOOCs can transcend to new learning arenas more ubiquitous, connected, informal and horizontal, which can facilitate the digital inclusion of disenfranchised groups, as well as potentiate the blooming of interactive communities of collective intelligence. However, these students were also aware of important shortcomings such as the lack of monitoring, and MOOC ́s often unattainable demand of high learner autonomy.


In the context of climatic uncertainty and potential climatic change, incorporating climatic variability and change in eco‐hydrological analysis, as well as understanding the impact of such variability on ecosystems, is of crucial importance. The latter is particularly true for those complex ecosystems, such as wetlands, which cradle large varieties of species, many of which rare or endangered. Focusing on the Everglades wetlands, we investigate the presence of non‐stationary elements in the seasonal cycle of precipitation, temperature and stage level and examine their correlation and potential impact on the ecosystem's flora and fauna. To this aim, we revisit demodulation techniques and demonstrate their validity for the diagnosis of long‐term trends in the amplitude and phase of seasonal patterns of hydrologic series. We then analyse historical records of fauna and flora components of the Everglades in order to reveal potential relationships with hydrological trends. We observe that the seasonal patterns of all the time series analysed are non‐stationary. In addition, we observe that the amplitude of seasonal oscillations of all hydro‐climatic drivers is strongly correlated with anomalies in records of wading birds population and plant carbon assimilation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Similarity learning can be significantly advanced by informative relationships among different samples and features. The current methods try to excavate the multiple correlations in different aspects, but cannot integrate them into a unified framework. In this paper, we provide to consider the multiple correlations from a unified perspective and propose a new method called MetricFormer, which can effectively capture and model the multiple correlations with an elaborate metric transformer. In MetricFormer, the feature decoupling block is adopted to learn an ensemble of distinct and diverse features with different discriminative characteristics. After that, we apply the batch-wise correlation block into the batch dimension of each mini-batch to implicitly explore sample relationships. Finally, the feature-wise correlation block is performed to discover the intrinsic structural pattern of the ensemble of features and obtain the aggregated feature embedding for similarity measuring. With three kinds of transformer blocks, we can learn more representative features through the proposed MetricFormer. Moreover, our proposed method can be flexibly integrated with any metric learning framework. Extensive experiments on three widely-used datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method over state-of-the-art methods.


Semi-Global Matching (SGM) is widely used for real-time stereo vision in the automotive context. Despite its popularity, only implementations using reconfigurable hardware (FPGA) or graphics hardware (GPU) achieve high enough frame rates for intelligent vehicles. Existing real-time implementations for general purpose PCs use image and disparity sub-sampling at the expense of matching quality. We study methods to improve the efficiency of SGM on general purpose PCs, through fine grained parallelization and usage of multiple cores. The different approaches are evaluated on the KITTI benchmark, which provides real imagery with LIDAR ground truth. The system is able to compute disparity maps of VGA image pairs with a disparity range of 128 values at more than 16 Hz. The approach is scalable to the number of available cores and portable to embedded processors.


In our competitive world, companies need to adapt their processes quickly in order to react, for instance, to changing customer demands. Process models, as means to support process management, are nowadays often created and adapted in a time-consuming, widely used manual manner. Semantic Business Process Management in combination with planning approaches can alleviate this drawback by enabling an automated planning of process models. This paper describes the drawbacks that existing planning algorithms have related to the creation of process models. Therefore, we introduce based on the design science paradigm an innovative algorithm (method) that is suitable for the planning of process models focusing on the construction of the control flow pattern exclusive choice. Demonstrating the feasibility and the effectiveness of our method, we implemented our approach as a prototype. Finally, we evaluate the algorithm in terms of different properties like termination and its applicability within a real-use situation.


The adoption of brands as an identity marker for hate groups has been extensively noted for decades. The use of specific brands, often covertly, allows hate groups to have identity markers without the social stigma ascribed to historical hate symbols. With high-profile events such as the 'Unite the Right' march in Charlottesville, hate groups have utilized media coverage to increase their visibility and, by extension, the brands that they have co-opted. Such unwanted associations for organizations are defined by this research as a hatejack, whereby an extremist group publicly presents linkage to a brand, typically to claim legitimacy by the association. The covert, hide-and-seek nature of the hatejack also allows extremist groups to identify with each other without public or legal scrutiny. The dangers of a hatejack have been exacerbated by two-way symmetrical models of public relations that focus on online and social media. Popular press books such as Brand Hijack seem to suggest that organizations would do well to cede ownership of their identity and allow the construction of brands by external publics. This emphasis, however, has allowed for hate groups to more readily adopt brands and publicly proclaim a connection to the organization that does not exist. This research examines cases of hatejacks in which brands become unwitting instruments of extremist groups and seeks to identify emerging and consistent themes across cases that merit further investigation by researchers and actions by practitioners.


The performance of face recognition methods using subspace projection is directly related to the characteristics of their basis images, especially in the cases of local distortion or partial occlusion. In order for a subspace projection method to be robust to local distortion and partial occlusion, the basis images generated by the method should exhibit a part-based local representation. We propose an effective part-based local representation method named locally salient ICA (LS-ICA) method for face recognition that is robust to local distortion and partial occlusion. The LS-ICA method only employs locally salient information from important facial parts in order to maximize the benefit of applying the idea of 'recognition by parts.' It creates part-based local basis images by imposing additional localization constraint in the process of computing ICA architecture I basis images. We have contrasted the LS-ICA method with other part-based representations such as LNMF (Localized Non-negative Matrix Factorization) and LFA (Local Feature Analysis). Experimental results show that the LS-ICA method performs better than PCA, ICA architecture I, ICA architectureII, LFA, and LNMF methods, especially in the cases of partial occlusions and local distortions.


Today in the United States, millions of men, women, and children are considered 'illegal aliens' under federal law. While the presence of these migrants runs against the law, many arrive in response to US demand for cheap labor and stay to contribute to community life. This book asks where migrants stand within God's world and how authorities can govern immigration with Christian ethics. The author tracks the emergence of the concept of the illegal alien in federal US law while exploring Christian ways of understanding belonging, government, and relationships with neighbors. This is a thought-provoking book that provides a fresh response to the difficult issue of illegal immigration in the United States through the context of Christian theology.


The Relationship between Musical Ability and the Perception and Production of L2 Prosodic Features Jun Akiyoshi M.A. English: TESL Minnesota State University, Mankato Mankato, Minnesota 2013 Studies in L2 acquisition have indicated that musically trained individuals are apt to demonstrate better L2 pronunciation skills. As for music, it was recently clarified that some amusiacs demonstrate selective impairment in L1 prosody discrimination. The purpose of this study was to investigate a relationship between amusical L2 learners and their perception and production of L2 prosody. To investigate this, 24 native-Japanese learners of English either in EFL (n=22) or ESL context (n=2) were examined in terms of their musical ability and L2 intonation perception and production. The musical test indicated that there was one amusiac and 10 low-level musical sufferers in the EFL group. Based on a contrastive analysis between amusical and non-amusical participants, as well as between participant groups with and without musical difficulty, it was found that any level of musical difficulty was correlated with lower auditory processing ability in L2 intonation for these English-language learners. However, the contrastive analysis pertaining to the productive skill indicated that musical difficulty was not associated with their production of accurate L2 intonation patterns. According to these findings, the present study concluded that musical difficulty is only related to these learners' L2 intonation processing. Conversely, the present research found that the ESL learners' learning context appeared to be less associated with their aural performance than with their intonation production. In addition, it was found that the level of previous musical training was related to both better L2 intonation perception and production.


Coal mining in New Zealand has caused perturbation of water resources and biodiversity. Contaminants impairing local waterbodies include acidity, iron, aluminum, arsenic, manganese, nickel, zinc, copper, sulfate and suspended solids. Exposure of sulfur containing rocks, such as pyrite, to atmospheric oxygen during mining operations produces acid mine drainage (AMD). Sulfuric acid and metal acidity are generated and can accentuate metal mobilization and bioavailability. Metals favor the dissolved state in acidic environments but form less toxic precipitates when exposed to adequate alkalinity. Metal toxicity effects are synergistic dependent on metals speciation and their concentrations. New Zealand is in the initial stages of acid mine drainage mitigation and has yet to develop proven treatment technologies. Implementation of passive treatment methods, such as engineered wetlands, have successfully reduced acid mine drainage impacts worldwide. Design criteria for these systems are improving while their limitations are well documented. We are currently collecting water quality and flow data from selected AMD-impacted sites. We are in the process of designing pilot-scale engineered wetland systems to ameliorate acid mine drainage in New Zealand. Sequential-treatment trains will be constructed and their performance evaluated in order to optimize design effectiveness. New Zealand acid mine drainage characteristics and complex topography offer unique challenges for implementing treatment systems. The AMD typically contains very high aluminum concentrations (commonly exceeding 50 g/m 3 ) and has an aluminum to iron concentration ratio of three to one. Abundant steep topography can be exploited to create adequate driving head for implementing systems such as SCOOFI reactors while reducing and alkalinity producing systems can also be employed. Precipitation of up to six meters per year contributes to dynamic hydraulic characteristics and will offer unique design and treatment challenges.


Direct FIA methods for estimation of Naringenin (NG) in different samples were proposed. These methods are based on diazotization coupling reactions of two reagents: method (A) p-chloroaniline (PCA) and method (B) procaine hydrochloride (PRH) with NG in basic medium. Yellow dyes with maximum absorption at 416 and 415 nm were formed respectively. Calibration curves were constructed over different NG concentrations, linearity was from 1- 70 and 1- 40 µgmL -1 with detection limits of 0.55 and 0.24 µgmL -1 for (A) and (B) respectively. All analytical variables involved in the FIA procedure were evaluated and optimized. The established methods were successfully applied for the determination of NG in its supplements and urine samples.


There is evidence of adverse health impacts from human exposure to traffic-related ultrafine particulate matter pollution. As more commuters are spending a significant portion of their daily routine inside vehicles, it is increasingly relevant to study exposure levels to harmful pollutants inside the vehicle microenvironment. This study is one of the first research efforts to combine detailed freeway traffic data (at 20 s intervals) and in-vehicle ultrafine particulate (UFP) exposure data under varying vehicle ventilation conditions. Results show that due to negative correlation between traffic speed and density, traffic states have a small but significant impact on in-vehicle UFP concentrations, highest in high traffic flowhigh speed conditions or in high traffic density-low speed conditions. Vehicle cabin barrier effects are the primary determinant of in-vehicle exposure concentrations, providing 15% protection with the windows down, 47% protection with the windows up and the vent open, and 83e90% protection with the windows up and the vent closed (more with the air conditioning on). Unique results from this study include the dominance of ventilation over traffic effects on UFP and the non-linear relationships between traffic variables and UFP concentrations. The results of this research have important implications for exposure modeling and potential exposure mitigation strategies. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Anxiety, depression, and tragedy are all unavoidable aspects of existence that we find ourselves grappling with at some point in our lives. In those darker moments we often look beyond ourselves for a means to cope with our struggles in the hopes of transcending into enhanced states of being. The world's religions have provided various answers to problems of mental and physical affliction. Across cultures and throughout history, numerous techniques for "mending the mind" have emerged, conditioned by a number of factors, including the normative values of a society as well as the scientific advances and technologies available for therapeutic application. Buddhism encompasses a broad tradition of beliefs, practices, and philosophies that, taken together, aim at eliminating suffering from the human experience. It is suggested that anyone who comes to understand and practice Buddhist teachings—Dharma—will rise out of the life of suffering and into a condition of awakening or nirvana. With this as an intended goal, a person who is unfulfilled in their life or who is experiencing feelings of depression will, it might be assumed, find great potential in turning to Buddhism as means for alleviation of these states. In contemporary western society, however, the most common route for eliminating emotional distress is to take antidepressant medication, which aims for immediate relief of the negative feelings and experiences that arise from depression. As I will argue, while this may be a successful approach to masking unwanted feelings, it in fact fails to treat the actual roots or cause of the undesirable experiences. Moreover, such a "therapeutic" approach lacks any aspect geared towards developing a consistently rewarding lifestyle. I will argue that the incorporation of Dharma—both a set of ideas and as a form of practices—into daily routines and modes of thinking provides the means for a balanced lifestyle, allowing the individual to relieve suffering and depression in a manner that the narrow scope of western medicine cannot provide.


Multiscale decomposition has been an invaluable tool for the processing of physiological signals. Much focus on multiscale decomposition for processing such signals have been based on scale-space theory and wavelet transforms. In this paper, we take a different perspective on multiscale decomposition by investigating the feasibility of utilizing a Bayesian-based method for multiscale signal decomposition called Bayesian residual transform (BRT) for the purpose of physiological signal processing. In BRT, a signal is modeled as the summation of residual signals, each characterizing information from the signal at different scales. A deep cascading framework is introduced as a realization of the BRT. Signal-to-noise ratio analysis using electrocardiography signals was used to illustrate the feasibility of using the BRT for suppressing the noise in physiological signals. Results in this paper show that it is feasible to utilize the BRT for processing physiological signals for tasks, such as noise suppression.


Polyethylene terephthalate containers (PET bottles) are recycled into fibers and sheets, but the complicated process requires a high level of technology and large cost resulting in a low recycling rate of PET. Weight reduction of concrete has been demanded for certain uses. In view of this, lightweight concrete embedding raw PET bottles is conceivable. It may be used for void slabs and lightweight wall panels for dwelling units. Also such bottles filled with functional materials can add a new function to concrete. In this study, the basic physical properties of lightweight multifunctional concrete embedding used PET bottles were investigated. A method of placing concrete with embedded PET bottles was examined. PET bottles fixed to the mold at their caps withstood the impact and the pressure during concrete placing with no deformation and the filling capability of concrete was confirmed. The weight reduction of the reinforcing concrete panel embedding PET bottles was approximately 16%. The strength properties of concrete embedding PET bottles were examined and the compressive strength of the specimen embedding bottles with the smallest intervals between bottles was 55% of that of the solid concrete specimen.


Background

Even if childhood-onset of schizophrenia is described in the literature, and there are several case reports of concomitant autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS), early diagnosis of comorbidity remains less the norm than the exception. The definition of a specific syndrome – which we propose to call Passerella – describing this comorbidity condition can help focusing diagnosis and initiate early treatment avoiding dangerous delays in care.

Method

We report the detailed clinical history of 4 patients, 2 women and 2 men. The case of one of the women has been previously reported. The evolution of the clinical state of the patients is reported together with the diagnosis provided by the caregivers, the pharmacological and psychological treatment and the patient's clinical evolution.

Results

The delay in formulating a diagnosis of concomitant ASD and COS, as well as the emphasis on the achievement of school or social results, have been an aggravating factor for the patients' sequel of crisis and relapses. The clinical status of the patients has presented a marked improvement when the comorbidity has been acknowledged and properly treated, both pharmacologically and via an appropriate reduction of the stressful demands for school or social performance.

Conclusion

Early diagnosis of psychiatric comorbidities in ASD allows a more effective therapeutic strategy and the adoption of a psychopedagogic approach adapted to the vulnerability of these patients with respect to stress. The definition of a specific syndrome can help orienting caregivers toward earlier diagnosis and more appropriate intervention.


We present a new code assistance tool for integrated development environments. Our system accepts free-form queries allowing a mixture of English and Java as an input, and produces Java code fragments that take the query into account and respect syntax, types, and scoping rules of Java as well as statistical usage patterns. The returned results need not have the structure of any previously seen code fragment. As part of our system we have constructed a probabilistic context free grammar for Java constructs and library invocations, as well as an algorithm that uses a customized natural language processing tool chain to extract information from free-form text queries. The evaluation results show that our technique can tolerate much of the flexibility present in natural language, and can also be used to repair incorrect Java expressions that contain useful information about the developer's intent. Our demo video is available at http://youtu.be/tx4-XgAZkKU.


Abstract A potential difficulty with mixed model equations for multiple trait evaluation of sires is solving the equations as the number of equations increases proportionally to the number of traits. Time required to obtain inverse solutions increases by the number cubed. Thus, iterative procedures often are used. Three iterative procedures, successive overrelaxation, block iteration with relaxation, and the method of conjugate gradients, were compared for four sets of multiple trait equations for sire evaluation. Equations were solved after absorption of equations for random herd-year-season effects. Equations for two and four traits each with test and complete data sets made up the four sets of equations. The two-trait system featured high heritabilities and large negative correlations among effects whereas the four-trait system had low heritabilities and smaller negative correlations. Rate of convergence for block iteration was faster than for successive overrelaxation, especially for the four-trait system and especially for more exacting convergence criteria. The method of conjugate gradients was efficient only for test data sets (30 and 60 equations) and was not competitive with the other methods for complete data sets (1426 and 2852 equations). Test data sets accurately predicted optimum relaxation factors for successive overrelaxation for complete data sets. Optimum relaxation factor for the two-trait system was 1.5 to 1.7 and for the four-trait system was 1.3 to 1.5. Gauss-Seidel iteration took 33 to 400% more rounds than successive overrelaxation with the optimum relaxation factor depending on stopping criteria and data set.


The Supreme Court's much anticipated invalidation of gay marriage bans improved the personal lives of millions of ordinary Americans. It made the country a more decent place. Even Chief Justice Roberts, at the conclusion of his otherwise scathing dissent, acknowledged that the decision was a cause for many Americans to celebrate.But although the Chief Justice thought that advocates of gay marriage should "by all means celebrate today's decision," he admonished them "not [to] celebrate the Constitution." The Constitution, he said, "had nothing to do with it".Part I of this article quarrels with the Chief Justice's assertion that the Constitution "had nothing to do with it." It argues that it is the dissenting justices, rather than their colleagues in the majority, who have ignored the traditions of American Constitutional law.Part II argues that the Chief Justice is exactly right when he says that we should celebrate the Obergefell decision, but not the Constitution, but he is right for reasons that he, himself, would disagree with. The Court's decision marks a partial and flawed but nonetheless important advance toward inclusion and decency. The majority's opinion, replete with invocations of the supposedly binding force of constitutional obligation, belittling of the large and growing number of Americans who are unmarried, and mischaracterization of the nature of the movement for gay rights, is exclusionary, reactionary, and authoritarian. Even as the Court demonstrates its (concededly limited) capacity to advance the cause of social justice, it unwittingly also demonstrates the failure of constitutional law to serve its core purpose of providing a just ground for cooperation among people who disagree about fundamentals.A brief conclusion discusses the implications of this failure.


The abolition of slavery and similar institutions of servitude was an important global experience of the nineteenth century. Considering how tightly bonded into each local society and economy were these institutions, why and how did people decide to abolish them? This collection of essays examines the ways this globally shared experience appeared and developed. Chapters cover a variety of different settings, from West Africa to East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, with close consideration of the British, French and Dutch colonial contexts, as well as internal developments in Russia and Japan. What elements of the abolition decision were due to international pressure, and which to local factors? Furthermore, this collection does not solely focus on the moment of formal abolition, but looks hard at the aftermath of abolition, and also at the ways abolition was commemorated and remembered in later years. This book complicates the conventional story that global abilition was essentially a British moralizing effort, "among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations". Using comparison and connection, this book tells a story of dynamic encounters between local and global contexts, of which the local efforts of British abolition campaigns were a part. Looking at abolitions as a globally shared experience provides an important perspective, not only to the field of slavery and abolition studies, but also the field of global or world history.


Now, that the European cities are overcoming the recent economic challenges, they accelerate the development of major housingschemes to accommodate their growing urban population. Amsterdam for instance, sets out to construct 50,000 new homes by 2025. Parallel to this, the City Council presented a new regeneration and urban optimisationprogram in 2017, to reinforce existing neighbourhoods with relatively weak socio-economic status. If these housing policies are to maximise on opportunities, they need to anticipate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Climate Agreement, and local socio-environmental challenges, into a single cohesive, sustainable solution. Currently, literature indicates that large scale spatial developments, have a tendency to move away from social and ecological ambitions during the course of the planning process. Moreover, ambitions tend to be short term "fixes" where they could be striving for long-term systemic solutions. What is needed, are practice proven comprehensive development strategies to secure pathways for inclusive and integrated development. Those strategies are spatial and programmatic governance arrangements. Employing a comparative analysis method, we follow and compare the redevelopment of three deprived boroughs across Amsterdam. In collaboration with communities, we are able to construct a "Design Thinking" approach for urban spatial development, using different types of arrangements. This is in reflection and collaboration with the municipality of Amsterdam and a wide variety of skilled experts. The arrangements are tested in practice, following a plan-do-check-act cycle. The research project takes an in-depth look at the Amsterdam case and presents the first set of arrangements for planning more cohesive, urban spatial development and the preliminary strategies we see emerging.


NEW LANGUAGE VISUALIZES PROGRAM ABSTRACTIONS CLEARLY AND PRECISELYPopular software modelling notations visualize implementation minutiae but fail to scale, to capture design abstractions, and to deliver effective tool support. Tailored to overcome these limitations, Codecharts can elegantly model roadmaps and blueprints for Java, C++, and C# programs of any size clearly, precisely, and at any level of abstraction. More practically, significant productivity gains for programmers using tools supporting Codecharts have been demonstrated in controlled experiments.Hundreds of figures and examples in this book illustrate how Codecharts are used to:Visualize the building-blocks of object-oriented designCreate bird's-eye roadmaps of large programs with minimal symbols and no clutterModel blueprints of patterns, frameworks, and other design decisionsBe exactly sure what diagrams claim about programs and reason rigorously about themTools supporting Codecharts are also shown here to:Recover design from plain Java and visualize the program's roadmapVerify conformance to design decision with a click of a buttonThis classroom-tested book includes two main parts:Practice (Part I) offers experienced programmers, software designers and software engineering students practical tools for representing and communicating object-oriented design. It demonstrates how to model programs, patterns, libraries, and frameworks using examples from JDK, Java 3D, JUnit, JDOM, Enterprise JavaBeans, and the Composite, Iterator, Factory Method, Abstract Factory, and Proxy design patterns.Theory (Part II) offers a mathematical foundation for Codecharts to graduate students and researchers studying software design, modelling, specification, and verification. It defines a formal semantics and a satisfies relation for design verification, and uses them to reason about the relations between patterns and programs (e.g., "java.awt implements Composite" and "Factory Method is an abstraction of Iterator").


Studies have primarily examined meditation's effects as a self regulation strategy for stress management. Fewer studies have examined its utility as a self exploration strategy for enhancing psychological health in psychotherapy and behavior change. And, few studies have examined meditation's effect regarding its original religious purpose as a self liberation strategy to enhance spiritual growth and wisdom, and cultivate compassionate service. This article examines the reasons underlying this differential proportion of studies on each of the above variables and details the merits and limitations of research that attempted to remove the religious and philosophical context of meditation in order to focus on its content. The article then examines why it has been necessary to reintroduce the context of meditation as a variable, whether that context be stress management, psychotherapy, or a religious perspective. Finally, based on the mentalist and cognitive revolution, this article asks: "Is God always a confounding variable in meditation research?" If the only research tool a person has is a hammer, then all questions begin to look like the head of an undriven nail. -Abraham Maslow When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are pockets. Anonymous


Perceptual Proficiency Ratings of Obstruent Productions in L2 Learners of English as a Function of Speech Task Type, Word Position, and Listener Expertise Rachel McPherson Zitting Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Second language (L2) learners of English must learn to produce English phonemes, words, and sentences. These L2 learners make many errors when learning English; they may change the place or manner of articulation, insert vowels, or delete consonants. Obstruent sounds, such as fricatives, affricates, and stops, can be especially difficult for L2 learners. This study analyzed native English speakers' perception of the quality of obstruents produced by native Mandarin Chinese and Korean speakers. Target words containing obstruents had been produced in three different tasks: in a carrier phrase, in a paragraph, and in a spontaneous speech sample. Obstruents were produced in word-initial position and word-final position. Raters with differing levels of expertise listened to these words and rated the perceptual quality of the obstruents within the words. This study found that overall, English obstruent productions by native Mandarin and Korean L2 speakers learning English were rated most clear when produced in word-initial position in a carrier phrase or a paragraph. The lowest ratings given were of obstruents in word-final position in spontaneous speech. No significant differences were found for listener expertise level. Combined with future research, results from this study will help educate the field of second language instruction as to how the speech of Korean and Mandarin learners of English is perceived. It also provides additional information on the effect that listener expertise has on the judgment of L2 speech production.


How should courts evaluate the truth or falsity of corporate speech about science? This question is critical to antifraud actions like the ongoing state investigations into whether ExxonMobil misrepresented scientific knowledge regarding global climate change. ExxonMobil claims that these investigations chill scientific inquiry and burden speech on a matter of public concern in violation of the First Amendment. Of course, the notion that scientific progress depends on the free exchange of ideas is not controversial. But even if the free-market approach to scientific discourse has firm foundations, this Article suggests that it is a misguided approach to the question of when corporate speech about science is misleading.

Too often, courts and commentators assume the truth of corporate speech about science, an assumption that inevitably results in First Amendment scrutiny. The reluctance to analyze the truth of such speech is understandable given the nature of scientific knowledge itself. Scientific knowledge is not easily described in terms of truth or falsity. But corporate speech that uses the inherent uncertainty of scientific inquiry to mischaracterize scientific knowledge is not participating in scientific discourse. Moreover, when courts treat such speech as part of a larger scientific debate, they threaten to undermine the deterrent function of antifraud laws and shift the costs of misleading speech onto the public.

This Article is the first to offer an analytical approach to the question of whether corporate speech about science is misleading. The central argument is that courts should consider a number of context-specific factors in determining whether such speech is misleading. These factors include the costs and benefits of the speech, as well as the regulatory context, cognitive biases, and cultural values that shape how recipients understand the speech. The Article concludes with a discussion of how the First Amendment would apply to commercial and corporate speech about science once the threshold question of misleadingness is resolved.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate the prevalence and analyze the pattern of intimate partner violence, before and during pregnancy and in the postpartum period.

METHODS
This was a cohort study undertaken on 960 women aged 18 to 49 years, who were registered in the Family Health Program of the city of Recife, Northeastern Brazil, between 2005 and 2006. The women were interviewed during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, using a questionnaire adapted from the World Health Organization's Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence. To assess the pattern of intimate partner violence occurrences between a given time period and the subsequent period, the odds ratio (OR) was calculated with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI).

RESULTS
The prevalence of intimate partner violence before, during and/or after pregnancy was estimated to be 47.4%. For the three periods separately, it was 32.4%, 31.0% and 22.6% respectively. The women who reported violence before pregnancy were 11.6 times more likely to report violence during pregnancy (95%CI: 8.3;16.2). When the women reported violence during pregnancy, the chance of reports in the postpartum period was 8.2 times higher (95%CI: 5.1;11.7). Psychological violence was more prevalent, especially during pregnancy (28.8%; 95%CI: 26.0%;31.7%). Sexual violence was less prevalent, especially after delivery (3.7%; 95%CI: 2.6%;5.0%). Physical violence diminished by almost 50% during pregnancy, in comparison with the preceding period.

CONCLUSIONS
A significant proportion of women of reproductive age experience situations of intimate partner violence. The periods of prenatal and childcare consultations are opportunities for healthcare professionals to identify situations of violence.


Book synopsis:

This innovative volume explores a fundamental issue in the field of sentencing: the factors which make a sentence more or less severe. All sentencing systems allow courts discretion to consider mitigating and aggravating factors, and many legislatures have placed a number of such factors on a statutory footing. Yet many questions remain regarding the theory and practice of mitigation and aggravation. Drawing on legal and sociological perspectives and examining mitigation and aggravation in various jurisdictions, the essays provide practical illustrations of specific factors as well as theoretical justifications. After the foreword by Andrew von Hirsch, a number of contributors address broad conceptual issues raised at sentencing. These contributions are followed by several empirical chapters including an exploration of personal mitigation in English courts. The authors are leading scholars from a range of common law jurisdictions including England and Wales, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.


ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS, whether small, 700-student Livingston Manor Central School District in New York, or Florida's Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth-largest in the country, have at least one thing in common: the challenge of keeping track of their growing number of IT assets. IT/software asset management (abbreviated IT/AM or IT/SAM) includes information about computer hardware--serial number, configuration, location--and software--license number, patch/update status, settings. In talks with schools and vendors, a primary reason for conducting asset management emerges: license tracking for compliance reporting. "We have seen organizations that have, in the first year of implementing asset management, found 10 to 20 percent initial savings in licensing," says Jack Heine, research vice president at IT consultancy Gartner (www.gartner.com), and author of the December 2006 Gartner report, "How to Find Answers to IT and Software Asset Management Questions." It's about more than licensing, of course. "Good asset management practices consist of basic inventory management," Heine says. "What's your migration plan--what needs to be replaced or upgraded, and when? This allows for some precise budgeting. There are significant savings associated with good asset management." Some IT/SAM products even handle--or are part of suites that can handle--software update/patching, disk reimaging, and per-program access control. Many schools use established IT/SAM products or modules from companies such as Altiris, BigFix, and Sitekeeper, or utilities provided from vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Microsoft. But many others are using home-grown or modified solutions, even simply databases or spreadsheets. Handling Your IT Load The specs on the Lafayette School Corporation in Indiana are daunting: 8,000 students, 750 staff, 20 facilities, and, according to Kevin Little, the district's CTO and director of facilities, some 4,000 workstations, 350 notebooks, 130 servers, 80 telecom closets, and 8,000 data ports, plus numerous printers. Handling the entire IT administrative load, including deploying and provisioning about 1,000 computers each year, is a staff of four engineers and six techs. "We had some automation software, but it was bits and pieces," says Little. "We decided to go with Altiris' (www.altiris.com) Inventory Solution." Little's department uses the product not only for asset management, but also for deployment, patch management, remote control, and desktop snapshots. "We bought the full Altiris enterprise bundle, which includes the Service and Asset Management Suite." Using the Altiris IT/SAM tools, Little says, "we can see every piece of software installed on every computer in the district, and can also know about the hardware--what size drive, processor type, how much RAM, fragmentation, etc." He says reports generated by Altiris allow the district to demonstrate compliance with software licenses. "And the system provides proactive information, like when there's some kind of problem, so we can get information to our help desk or work order system before something fails." In addition to the Altiris suite, Little says, the district has asset tags installed on every computer, "and that tag information is also in the computer's BIOS, including 'where it is' location information." Time savings is another advantage of IT/SAM. Tennessee's Scott County Schools has around 1,200 PCs and 15 servers in six locations--and "an IT department that's really an administrator, a secretary, and me as the network technician, plus a general-purpose technician full time," says Greg Bond, network administrator. "That's a lot of machines to keep up with. Our farthest school is about 30 minutes from our central office; it would take someone a full day per site to do a simple physical inventory. We needed a package that would let us get a good count of machines and keep track of licensing, to be sure we were legally compliant. …


Abstract The neutron capture cross section of rhodium has been measured in the energy region from 0.003 eV to 80 keV by the neutron time-of-flight method with a 46-MeV electron linear accelerator of the Kyoto University, Research Reactor Institute. An assembly of Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) scintillators, which was composed of 12 pieces of BGO and placed at a distance 12.7 ± 0.02 m from the neutron source, was employed as a total energy absorption detector for the prompt capture gamma-ray measurement from the sample. In order to determine the neutron flux impinging on the capture sample, a plug of 10B powder sample and the 10B(n, αγ) standard cross section were used. The existing experimental data and evaluated capture cross sections in ENDF/B-VI, JENDL-3.2, and JEF-2.2 have been compared with the current measurement. Popov and Shapiro obtained poor energy resolution data in the resonance region with a lead slowing-down spectrometer. Furthermore, their data are a little higher than the current values above ˜1 keV. The experimental data measured by Weston et al., Hockenbury et al., Macklin and Halperin, Fricke et al., and Block et al. are somewhat higher than the current values. The data measured by Moxon and Rae are somewhat lower than the current values above ˜100 eV. The data measured by Wisshak et al. and Bokhovko et al. are in general agreement with the measurement above 4 keV within the experimental error. The evaluated data in ENDF/B-VI, JENDL-3.2, and JEF-2.2 have been in good agreement with the current result, although the JENDL-3.2 and the JEF-2.2 values are somewhat lower than the measurement in the cross section minimum region from 10 to 100 eV. The thermal neutron cross sections (2200 m/s values) measured by Seren et al. and Walker et al. are in good agreement with the current measurement (133.0 ± 0.93 b) within the experimental error. Other experimental data and the evaluated data are discrepant by 9 to 29% from the measurement.