All-thin film perovskite/CIGS multijunction solar modules, combining a semi-transparent perovskite top solar module stacked on a CIGS bottom solar module, are a promising route to surpass the efficiency limits of single-junction thin-film solar modules. In this work, we present a scalable thin-film perovskite/CIGS photovoltaic module with an area of 3.76 cm2 and a power conversion efficiency of 17.8%. Our prototype outperforms both the record single-junction perovskite solar module of the same area as well as the reference CIGS solar module. The presented perovskite/CIGS thin-film multijunction solar module makes use of the "4-terminal architecture", which stacks the perovskite solar module in superstrate configuration on top of the CIGS solar module in substrate configuration. Both submodules apply a scalable interconnection scheme that can accommodate scale-up towards square meter scale thin-film multijunction solar modules. In order to identify the future potential of the presented stacked perovskite/CIGS thin-film solar module, we quantify the various losses in the presented prototype and identify the key challenges of this technology towards very high power conversion efficiencies.


Drawing on archival material from Shaker members, observers, and apostates, noted historian Suzanne R. Thurman offers a scholarly yet eminently readable study of life in two of the oldest, most prominent American Shaker villages: the Harvard and Shirley communities of massachusetts. Even as she delves into the complex fabric of Shaker social life, Thurman challenges traditional perceptions of gender roles within the community. Shaker spiritual and social ethics, she points out, strongly favored women. Celibacy and an androgynous theology, for instance, allowed androgynous social roles to evolve. Another key factor was the lively arena of nineteenth-century reformers and intellectuals in nearby Boston. With admirable detail, Thurman documents the relationship that grew between these forward thinkers and the Believers. Their influence, she argues, enlightened Shaker consciousness and empowered their women of Harvard and Shirley with opportunities denied them in the world at large. The author also explores links, particularly economic, between Shakers and the greater American society. Treating Harvard and Shirley Believers as an idiosyncratic part of the nation rather than a fringe group, Thurman sheds new light on their constant struggle to be in the world but not of it.


From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy, a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our children Why, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us? In this comprehensive and thought-provoking book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a masterful analysis of how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why. He argues that the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of "child-centered" and "how-to" learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn. The result is failing schools and widening inequality, as only children from content-rich (usually better-off) homes can take advantage of the schools' educational methods. Hirsch unabashedly confronts the education establishment, arguing that a content-based curriculum is essential to addressing social and economic inequality. A nationwide, specific, grade-by-grade curriculum established in the early school grades can help fulfill one of America's oldest and most compelling dreams: to give all children, regardless of language, religion, or origins, the opportunity to participate as equals and become competent citizens. Hirsch not only reminds us of these inspiring ideals, he offers an ambitious and specific plan for achieving them.


Organ transplantation is an accepted therapy for diseases that result in chronic irreversible failure of various organs. During transplantation, the transplanted organ is subjected to two inflammatory processes, alloantigen-independent (ischemia/reperfusion injury) and alloantigen-dependent (rejection), both of which involve release of cytokines. The objectives of this dissertation were to evaluate the effect of acute rejection of liver in rats on hepatic and extra-hepatic drug metabolizing capacity for phase I and II enzymes, to evaluate the effect of chronic rejection of liver in humans on hepatic metabolizing capacity of phase I and II enzymes, to evaluate the effect of acute and chronic rejection of liver on hepatic and extra-hepatic protein and mRNA expression of P-glycoprotein and to evaluate the effect of different cytokines on the constitutive and inducible hepatic CYP3A4 activity and protein expression in human hepatocytes. Alloantigen-independent inflammation and altered blood flow caused a reduction in hepatic mRNA of different phase I and II enzymes. However, this reduction did not significantly alter protein levels of all CYP450 enzymes studied. Occurrence of rejection resulted in further reduction in mRNA, protein levels and activity of all CYP450s studied. Syngeneic and allogeneic transplantation caused reduction in the metabolic capacity of extra-hepatic tissues and increased expression of P-gp in the liver. Chronic rejection of the liver in humans selectively altered the activity and protein expression of different phase I and II enzymes and increased P-gp protein expression. In human hepatocyte cultures, IL-1â, IL-6 and TNF-a decreased the activity and protein expression of both constitutive and induced forms of CYP3A4 enzyme. Pre-exposing or co-exposing the hepatocytes to cytokines reduced the ability of rifampicin to induce CYP3A4.In conclusion, acute and chronic rejection of liver significantly altered the expression and activity of several drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters. The magnitude of these alterations was higher in acute rejection. Acute rejection also caused alterations in the metabolizing ability and transporters expression in renal and pulmonary tissues. Cytokines play a major role in modulating the activity of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters and may contribute to the large inter-individual variation in the pharmacokinetics of drugs in transplant patients.


ABSTRACT Skiing is an important part of Norwegian culture, but as climate change leads to warmer, more variable winters, the ski industry needs to adapt. Despite the growing literature on climate change impacts on ski tourism, adaptation options, particularly beyond snowmaking, barriers and the financial and visitor experience implications remain under-researched. Employing projections for future snow and snowmaking conditions, this paper investigates adaptive capacity among seven Western Norwegian ski resorts. Adaptive capacity is examined in terms of physical situation, technology, economic resources, innovative ability, networks and institutions. We find that smaller resorts make up for poor economic performance by drawing on local community support and by implementing innovative efforts to diversify income. Nonetheless, despite high adaptive capacity with respect to networks, institutions and innovative ability, increased snow production costs will make operations in three low-lying resorts unviable as early as the 2030s, with salient implications for winter tourism patterns, small community economies and future participation in the sport. The results also suggest that studies using snow production model projections that represents physical and technical adaptive capacity only, may be conservative in their estimated impact of future climate change.


This work examines the applicability of a previously postulated heuristic model for the temporal evolution of the small-amplitude tilt of a tropical cyclone‐like vortex under vertical shear forcing for both a dry and cloudy atmosphere. The heuristic model hinges on the existence of a quasi-discrete vortex Rossby wave and its ability to represent the coherent precession and tilt decay of a stable vortex in the free-alignment problem. Linearized numerical solutions for a dry and cloudy vortex confirm the model predictions that an increase in the magnitude of the radial potential vorticity (PV) gradient within the vortex skirt surrounding the core yields a more rapid evolution of a sheared vortex toward the equilibrium, left-of-shear tilt configuration. However, in the moist-neutral limit, in which the effective static stability vanishes in rising and sinking regions, the heuristic model yields a poor approximation to the simulated vortex core evolution, but a leftof-shear tilt of the near-core vortex, radially beyond the heating region, remains the preferred long-time solution. Within the near-core skirt, the PV perturbation generated by vertical shearing exhibits continuousspectrum-type vortex Rossby waves, features that are not captured by the heuristic model. Nevertheless, the heuristic model continues to predict the rapid vertical alignment and equilibrium, left-of-shear tilt configuration of the simulated near-core vortex in the moist-neutral limit.


Introduction: Almost all pediatric humerus fractures are well managed with conservative treatment with higher percentage of union rate. However there are certain conditions where surgical intervention will be inevitable like humerus fracture associated with polytrauma compound fractures, those with head and unacceptable alignment. It is not only the stable fixation but also the alignment which is important and can be maintained even by a single pre-bent elastic or flexible intramedullary nailing. Methods: This was a retrospective study of 28 pediatric humeral fractures fixed with a single retrograde titanium elastic nail from 2012 to 2016. Time to unite the fracture along with other complications was noted. The functional outcomes were assessed according to Broberg and Morrey for elbow function and Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) score for shoulder function. Results: Average age of patients was 8.85 1.84 (range 6 to 12 years). Time to unite the fracture was 8.28 2.43 weeks (range 6 to 12 weeks). There were 1 case of malunion around 10 degrees, 1 case of nail migration, one case of superficial infection at the site of nail entry, one case of transient radial nerve palsy and one case of nail protrusion in our study. There were 24 (85.71%) cases of excellent and 4 (14.29%) cases of good results according to Broberg and Morrey functional scores. Conclusion: Fixation of pediatric humerus fractures with a single flexible nail reduces operative time, radiation exposure, cost of treatment, chances of iatrogenic supracondylar fracture and ulnar nerve injury without compromising the final outcomes.


In what ways can changes to the structure of regulation (as well as other regulatory reforms) mitigate the effects of policies which trigger financial instability? More specifically policies, information asymmetries or externalities which could give rise to bank contagion, systemic/liquidity risks or procyclical effects? Whilst acknowledging that accounting standards play a fundamental role in addressing problems which could contribute to information asymmetries and ultimately systemic risks, this paper also highlights why the type of regulatory structure, clear allocation of responsibilities between regulators, as well as measures aimed at fostering accountability, constitute vital elements which could serve as safeguards in mitigating procyclical effects (as well as other factors) which could trigger financial instability. In achieving this aim, the paper focusses on the rationale for fair value accounting, as well as problematic issues arising from its implementation. The adoption of international accounting standards is considered to have a vital role in contributing to financial stability. This paper will also illustrate how the implementation of accounting standards and policies, in certain instances, have contrasted with Basel Committee initiatives aimed at mitigating procyclicality and facilitating forward looking provisioning. More importantly, the paper will highlight how and why differences between regulatory and accounting policies could (and should) be mitigated.


Civil conflict in Sudan has raged for 34 out of the past 45 years. It has been responsible for over two million casualties and has displaced over four million people in the last 17 years alone. With no attention from major news organizations, the conflict continues to worsen, largely due to Western actions. The seeds of the civil conflict were planted when Sudan was first colonized in 1898. The southern part of what is currently Sudan, then controlled jointly by Britain and Egypt, was arbitrarily added to the northern portion by the British. Culturally very different from the north, the peoples of the south are mostly black African--Christian and animist by religion--while the north is predominantly Muslim. The conflict is not, however, solely between these two culturally diverse populations; in central Sudan, another group of people, the Nubans, are involved. Organized religion is unimportant to the Nubans, and within one family, one may commonly find Muslims, Christians, and animists who follow traditional African religions. Because the Sudanese government is led by Islamic fundamentalists who feel threatened by cultures that do not follow their strict rules, the racial diversity in Sudan is the primary cause of conflict. Since gaining its independence in 1956, Sudan has been controlled by several military governments. Omar al-Bashir has held power in the capital city of Khartoum since 1989. Although al-Bashir enforces Islamic law, or Shari'a, the enforcement is not as strict as in other nations. Sudanese women must wear headscarves, for example, but many of them are brightly colored, unlike the traditional blue or black veils. Opposing alBashir's regime is the southern rebel army led by John Garang. His group, officially the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is an eclectic mix of ethnic groups continuously in conflict with one another. Conflict among these groups has waged continuously for the past 17 years after a short lull in the late 1970s, and it has been prolonged by the strategies of alBashir's military. Pitting ethnic groups against one another, alBashir fights the war by ordering government-sponsored militias to torch houses, commit rape, and murder followers of Christianity, indigenous cultures, and Muslims who reject the governments extreme form of Islam. Over three million people are at risk of famine after continual looting of foodstuffs by the militias, while the government continues to condone slavery. In general, Sudan's troubled relations with its neighbors exacerbate the problem. Sudan and Egypt have historically had tense dealings with each other. Egypt accuses Sudan of providing a safe haven for Egyptian Islamic militants who are responsible for various attacks in Egypt. Although the Sudanese government funded an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995, Egypt continues to give aid to Khartoum. Relations between these two nations remain unclear, although a plausible explanation for Egypt's support is the similar Islamic ideologies of the two governments. Despite the financial backing from Egypt, by early 1998 the war seemed to be nearing an end. …


The occurrence of the two-lipped calyx, used by Nees and Bremekamp as a defining character for the seven segregate genera, Adenacanthus, Buteraea, Larsenia, Parachampionella, Perilepta, Triaenacanthus and Tetragompha, is traced through the genus Strobilanthes. It is shown to occur almost randomly, with little correlation with inflorescence or pollen characters and to intergrade with the common subequally five-lobed calyx. No justification can be found in this character for the creation of separate genera. Individual species with this character are reassessed. Broad concepts are proposed for Strobilanthes rufescens with the recognition of three subspecies, and for S. auriculata with the commonly cultivated Persian Shield accepted as var. dyeriana. The widely used but misapplied name for the Assam Indigo plant, Strobilanthes flaccidifolia, is shown to be based on a specimen that correctly belongs to S. denticulata. Pollen is shown to be of crucial importance in species delimitation, allowing separation of Strobilanthes tashiroi and S. mogokensis from morphologically similar species. Seven new species, Strobilanthes adpressa, S. bipartita, S. decipiens, S. heliophila, S. maxwellii, S. perplexa and S. tripartita are described and new combinations for S. decumbens and S. korthalsii are made.


The novel beta-coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, may pose a threat to North American bat populations if bats are exposed to the virus through interaction with humans, if the virus can subsequently infect bats and be transmitted among them, and if the virus causes morbidity or mortality in bats Further, if SARS-CoV-2 became established in bat populations, it could possibly serve as a source for new infection in humans, domesticated animals, or other wild animals Wildlife management agencies in the United States are concerned about these potential risks and have begun to issue guidance regarding work that brings humans into contact with bats, but decision making is difficult because of the high degree of uncertainty about many of the relevant processes that could lead to virus transmission and establishment The risk assessment described in this report was undertaken to provide management agencies with an understanding of the likelihood that the various steps in the causal pathways would lead to SARS-CoV-2 infection of North American bats from people This assessment focused on the active season for bats in the temperate zone of North America (April 15 through November 15), and used Myotis lucifugus (little brown bats) as a surrogate species At the time of this work (April 2020), no empirical data about the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on North American bats were available, so a formal process of expert judgment was used to elicit estimates of the underlying parameters Twelve experts in bat ecology, epidemiology, virology, and wildlife disease from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia participated in the elicitation A Monte Carlo simulation model was used to integrate the parameter estimates elicited from the experts and to predict the likelihood of exposure and infection in bats through a series of transmission pathways, with particular attention to capturing uncertainty in the predictions Given the current state of knowledge as expressed by the expert panel, the results of this assessment indicate that there is a non-negligible risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to bats For example, if a research scientist were shedding SARS-CoV-2 virus while handling bats under the field protocols used in North America prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the risk model indicates that 50 percent (uncertainty, 15-84 percent) of those bats could be exposed to virus, and 17 percent (uncertainty, 3-51 percent) could become infected Use of personal protective equipment, especially a respirator, is expected to reduce the exposure risk The expert panel estimated that exposure risk from research scientists could be reduced 94-96 percent (uncertainty, 86-99 percent) through proper use of appropriate N95 respirators (a type of mechanical filter worn over the nose and mouth), dedicated clothing (such as Tyvek coveralls), and gloves Should any North American bats become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the expert panel estimated that there is an approximately 33-percent chance the virus could spread within a bat population This study, conducted by the U S Geological Survey in cooperation with the U S Fish and Wildlife Service, identified several critical uncertainties that could affect the estimate of risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 entering bat populations- notably, the underlying probability that a human would be shedding virus while working with bats, the likelihood of the virus replicating in bat tissue, and the likelihood of transmission of the virus within bat populations Ongoing empirical work during May-October 2020 may shed light on these issues Follow-up work is needed to better understand the probability of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to bats from the general public;the manner in which the probabilities of exposure, infection, and transmission would differ during hibernation compared to the breeding season;and the likelihood of important effects, like morbidity and mortality in bats, the possibility of zoonosis from a North American bat reservoir, and effects of and on other wildlife


The telecommunications sector has experienced significant changes over the past few years. The advent and rise of new applications and services, together with a competitive market, has led to a complex scenario in which quality of service (QoS) plays a major role. Under this condition, novel QoS regulation and standardization initiatives are required. During the last few years new terms and concepts, such as Quality of Experience (QoE) or QoS Perceived (QoP), have been included in the updated and new QoS-related standards as to better integrate the user's point of view, as opposed to only network performance parameters. The influence of the user's satisfaction on the Quality of Business (QoBiz) has also been given increased attention in the regulation and standardization bodies recently. The result is a loose collection of metrics and models that are not standardized and do not integrate all aspects of quality. Such integration is necessary to assure the successful development of this sector. This paper presents a new and integrated QoS model (QoXphere) that is spherical, adaptive and multi-layered.


This paper discusses the Sierra Madre Mountain Range of the Philippines and its associated influence on the intensity and distribution of rainfall during tropical cyclones. Based on Weather and Research Forecasting model simulations, a shift in rainfall was observed in different portions of the country, due to the reduction of the topography of the mountain. Besides increasing the rainfall along the mountain range, a shift in precipitation was observed during Tropical Storm Ondoy, Typhoon Labuyo, and Tropical Storm Mario. It was also observed that the presence of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range slows down the movement of a tropical cyclones, and as such allowing more time for precipitation to form over the country. Wind profiles also suggest that the windward and leeward sides of mountain ranges during Tropical Cyclones changes depending on the storm path. It has been suggested that in predicting the distribution of rainfall, the direction of movement of a tropical cyclones as well as its adjacent areas be taken into great consideration. While the study shows high amounts of variation in the characteristics of different tropical cyclones with respect of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, the results of this study can provide insights to pre-disaster operations before tropical cyclones approaches land. The decrease in tropical cyclones speed introduced by the Sierra Madre Mountain Range can be used to identify the possible areas that can experience prolonged rains due to the mountain range. Disaster management authorities can also prepare in advance by identifying which locations can experience orographic enhanced precipitation. However, due to the lack of available data and resources, further studies are recommended due to the study presenting limited cases.


The optical mechanism and dynamics of electron-trapping material under simultaneous illumination with two wavelengths is investigated. Our analytical model proves that the equilibrium-state luminescence of such a material can be controlled to produce highly nonlinear behavior with potential applications in nonlinear optical signal processing and optical realization of nonlinear dynamical systems. Combining this new approach with state-of-the-art fast spatial light modulators and CCD cameras that can precisely control and measure exposure, large arrays of nonlinear processing elements can be accommodated in a thin film of this material.


The survey of organization structures analyzed in this paper was launched at the end of 2005 by the LIBER Division Library Management and Administration (LMA). It was conducted electronically in a representative group of LIBER libraries located across Europe: 78 libraries from 33 countries. It has been analyzed by the LMA Division's committee and a member of the staff of the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF), allocating groups of countries between them, with the very important help of the French school of librarianship. I want to give warm thanks to all the colleagues who have responded and to those who have helped in the analysis of this very rich material. The selection of libraries was made by the members of the committee, according to their geographical contacts. The answers give an uneven geographic representation (see Appendix 2) and the libraries are of different types and sizes, but all are research libraries affiliated to LIBER. The main purpose of the survey was to gain an insight into what organization charts can tell us about the evolution of research libraries in different European countries. The key goals were to compare organization and service arrangements in a range of libraries, to gain an understanding of changes in recent years, as evidenced by the organization charts, and to analyse trends in the evolution of organizations, rather than arriving at firm quantifiable findings concerning change. Our intention was not to investigate change in general, but merely to look at the way it has been expressed through organization charts (and their evolution over time). The work is indicative rather than scientifically significant.


In the study described here, the laser ablation method was applied to clean thick (40–60 μm) a-C:D co-deposits on the ALT-II limiter blade from the TEXTOR tokamak, and at the same time to characterize the ejected particles formed during ablation and measure the amount of fuel carried by them. Ablation was accomplished by ∼ 3.5 ns, 0.5 J Nd:YAG laser pulses in either vacuum or an O2 atmosphere at different pressures. Fast camera tracking of the process provided an estimate of the population and velocity of up to 100 m s−1 for larger dust particles. In the same experiment, the dust particles were caught using ultra-light Si aerogel collectors placed in front of the ablation target. SEM analysis of aerogel surfaces verified the speed estimate, providing the trapped particles' size distribution and particle yield during ablation. The D/C atomic concentration ratio was measured with the 3HE ion beam nuclear reaction analysis method in deposited layers before ablation and with a micro-ion beam in individual particles on aerogel collectors. This indicated that most of the D was thermally released during ablation, leaving no more than 5% of its original amount in the particles. The effect of ablation conditions on the acceleration of ejected particles, their population, composition and D content is the main subject of this paper.


The vasoactive properties of potassium were assessed in the microcirculation of the hamster cremaster muscle and the muscular and epithelial portions of the hamster cheek pouch. Tissues were transilluminated and suffused with a physiological salt solution whose potassium concentration varied from 0 to 20 mM. Vessel diameters were measured and normalized as a percent of the control diameter (± SE) observed during exposure to 4.7 mM K+. Altering the potassium concentration in the suffusion solution caused a transient vascular response. The peak changes in the vascular diameter of the arterioles supplying striated muscle varied directly with the suffusion solution potassium concentration from a minimum of 78 ± 3% in 0 mM K+ to 155 ± 15% in 15 mM K−. Vascular diameter increases were sustained for the full 5-minute test period only in 15 mM K+. In the epithelial portions of the cheek pouch, only the constrictor component of the potassium response was observed. The data indicate that potassium is sufficiently potent to participate in initiating functional hyperemia in striated muscle and might cause as much as a 6.3-fold increase in flow. Functional hyperemias exceeding approximately 3 minutes cannot be due to potassium ion, since the dilation induced by this agent is transient.


The genus Eucalyptus encloses several species with high ecological and economic value, being the subgenus Symphyomyrtus one of the most important. Species such as E. grandis and E. globulus are well characterized at the molecular level but knowledge regarding genome and chromosome organization is very scarce. Here we characterized and compared the karyotypes of three economically important species, E. grandis, E. globulus, and E. calmadulensis, and three with ecological relevance, E. pulverulenta, E. cornuta, and E. occidentalis, through an integrative approach including genome size estimation, fluorochrome banding, rDNA FISH, and BAC landing comprising genes involved in lignin biosynthesis. All karyotypes show a high degree of conservation with pericentromeric 35S and 5S rDNA loci in the first and third pairs, respectively. GC-rich heterochromatin was restricted to the 35S rDNA locus while the AT-rich heterochromatin pattern was species-specific. The slight differences in karyotype formulas and distribution of AT-rich heterochromatin, along with genome sizes estimations, support the idea of Eucalyptus genome evolution by local expansions of heterochromatin clusters. The unusual co-localization of both rDNA with AT-rich heterochromatin was attributed mainly to the presence of silent transposable elements in those loci. The cinnamoyl CoA reductase gene (CCR1) previously assessed to linkage group 10 (LG10) was clearly localized distally at the long arm of chromosome 9 establishing an unexpected correlation between the cytogenetic chromosome 9 and the LG10. Our work is novel and contributes to the understanding of Eucalyptus genome organization which is essential to develop successful advanced breeding strategies for this genus.


A novel matrix inversion approach is proposed to correct several contributions to the instrument line shape (ILS) of a Fourier transform spectrometer. The matrix formalism for the ILS is first quickly reviewed. Formal inversion of the ILS matrix is next discussed, along with its limitations. The stability of the inversion process for large field-of view- (FOV-) limited and highly off-axis line shapes is investigated. The effect of inversion on the noise that is present in the spectrum is also presented. Use of classical iterative inversion methods, coupled with efficient synthesis algorithms, is proposed as a way to drastically speed up the inversion process. The method is applied to correct HBr spectra obtained from a laboratory spectrometer that has an adjustable field of view. ILSS from six FOVs are brought to the same spectral axis and to the same ideal sinc shape.


The issue of CSRD has been recognized as an evolving phenomenon since late 1970's and it has been given attention in accounting literature with increased pressure from the stakeholders on companies to pay-back to their host communities. This study examines empirically the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and financial performance of quoted cement companies in Nigeria. Secondary data were sourced and used from the quoted Nigerian cement companies annual reports. A Samples of three [3] companies emerged from the  population of five [5] companies using purposive sampling technique method. This study utilizes annual report of ten [10] years period covering [2008-2017] to obtain data for the study. The objective of this study is to examine relationship between CSRD and financial performance of quoted cement companies in Nigeria. Pooled OLS and Random Effect [RE] Panel Estimation analysis methods were used to display and discuss the results using STATA Version 12. The results revealed that corporate social responsibility disclosure have a significant and positive impact on the return on equity and return on capital employed. However, leverage and company size as control variables have a positive significant effects on the financial performance of quoted cement companies in Nigeria. Thus, CSRD is an important component to consider in determining financial performance of companies. The study recommends that quoted cement companies should increase the level of their CSR activities due to its enormous benefits on their financial performance, especially on the ROE and ROCE and Government should set quantum amount of atleast 2.5% on PBT of cement companies for execution of CSR activities to their immediate communities.


This article aims to analyze the relationship between the public and private instances in special education policies in Brazil during the period of the civil-military dictatorship (1964/1985). Despite the advances private-philanthropic institutions of special education had obtained in the previous period (1945 to 1963), it was during the dictatorship that institutions specializing in special education received incentives that allowed their dissemination throughout the Brazil. It was also during this period that they increased their influence over national policies for special education. Through document analysis, we were able to detail and analyze scarcely known processes of this relationship, involving public funding granted to these institutions and the political influence they exerted during that time.


High temperature stress imposed during the cell division stage of
maize (Zea mays L.) kernel development adversely affects growth and
mature mass. However, the processes affected by heat stress are not
known. The goal of this study was to determine the mechanisms by
which heat stress affects early zein accumulation in maize kernels.
Intact ears of growth chamber–grown plants were subjected to heat
stress (continuous 35�C) for 2 or 4 d, starting at 5 d after pollination
(DAP). Both the 27 kDa and cluster 1 zeins of subfamily 4 (ZSF4C1)
zein mRNA steady-state levels were significantly delayed by 4 d of
heat stress (DHS), but were not affected by 2 DHS. Similarly, transcription
rates of both zeins were reduced in the endosperm of kernels
exposed to 4 DHS treatment up to 17 DAP. The 2 DHS treatment
significantly delayed endosperm endoreduplication, up to 17 DAP,
whereas 4 DHS significantly repressed it. The lack of coordinate
changes among mRNA steady-state levels, transcription rates, and
endoreduplication during heat stress indicates that the effects of heat
stress on zein transcription rates may not be directly related to alterations
in endoreduplication. Instead, zein transcription is most likely
affected by a delay in endosperm development.


INTRODUCTION
Community participation is a collaborative process aimed at achieving community-identified outcomes. However, approaches to community participation within Aboriginal health promotion initiatives have been inconsistent and not well documented. Smart and Deadly was a community-led initiative to develop sexual health promotion resources with young Aboriginal people in regional Victoria, Australia. The principles of community-centred practice, authentic participatory processes and respect for the local cultural context guided the initiative. The aim of this article is to report factors that facilitated community participation undertaken in the Smart and Deadly initiative to inform future projects and provide further evidence in demonstrating the value of such approaches.

METHODS
A summative evaluation of the Smart and Deadly initiative was undertaken approximately 2 years after the initiative ended. Five focus groups and 13 interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 32 participants who were involved with Smart and Deadly in one of the following ways: project participant, stakeholder or project partner, or project developer or designer. A deductive content analysis was undertaken and themes were compared to the YARN model, which was specifically created for planning and evaluating community participation strategies relating to Aboriginal sexual health promotion.

RESULTS
A number of factors that facilitated community participation approaches used in Smart and Deadly were identified. The overarching theme was that trust was the foundation upon which the facilitators of community participation ensued. These facilitators were cultural safety and cultural literacy, community control, and legacy and sustainability. Whilst the YARN model was highly productive in identifying these facilitators of community participation, the model did not have provision for the element of trust between workers and community. Given the importance of trust between the project team and the Aboriginal community in the Smart and Deadly initiative, a suggested revision to the YARN model is that trust is included as the basis upon which YARN model factors are predicated.

CONCLUSIONS
Adding trust to the YARN model as a basis upon which YARN model factors are grounded assists future Aboriginal health promotion projects in ensuring community participation approaches are more likely to be acceptable to the Aboriginal community.


One way internet users determine the quality of a w ebsite is to look for so called 'credibility factors'. These factors can either be positive: th presence of a date, reference list, independent site certification; or negative: the pr sence of advertisements or broken links. This thesis investigates what role such factors pla y in the effectiveness of two e-health interventions. An e-health intervention is a healt h related website designed to change a person's behaviour. Until now research into credibility has been largel y theoretical. Studies have relied on subjective outcome measures such as Likert scales, website co n nt recall, expressions of preference and self reported behaviour. This thesi s describes two studies, the second of which investigates, for the first time, whether sur face credibility manipulations change objective behavioural outcomes. Surface credibility is how much a perceiver believes a website on simple inspection. Based on a comprehen siv literature review of credibility research, the following credibility factors were ex plored: presence of advertising, recognisable logos, contact details, physical addre ss, r ferences, third party certification, currency information, privacy statement, HTTPS encr yption, top level domain and presence of a broken link. The first study involved the assembly of an exercis promotion website. Participants were randomised to receive the site modified to contain either factors heightening credibility or those lowering credibility. Participants using the high credibility version spent twice as long browsing the site as those using the low credibilit y version. There was no effect on attitude to exercise or self reported physical activity. The second study used the same methodology but with a website targeting an objectively measurable health behaviour (registration as an org an donor). In this study 889 university students were exposed to a website promoting organ donation. Information on the site was assembled based on theoretical domain interviewing and current research into organ donation interventions. 336 (37.79%) participants registere d through the study website. The study detected no significant difference in registration rates between high and low credibility versions of the site. Of the 17 comments left on t he low credibility site, only 3 were credibility related criticisms. It is the finding of this thesis that university st udents are willing to submit personal information and place trust in a website contraveni ng many current credibility guidelines. Future studies into credibility are needed to explo re why this is the case. One possibility is that the website was trusted simply because it was part of a research study. Another possibility is that the high quality of the textual content compensated for the lack of credibility of the site itself. It is the recommendation of this thesis that future studies focus on objective behavioural outcome measures and control for other forms of cre dibility such as participation in a research study.


Event sequence datasets with high event cardinality and long sequences are difficult to visualize and analyze. In particular, it is hard to generate a high level visual summary of paths and volume of flow. Existing approaches of mining and visualizing frequent sequential patterns look promising, but have limitations in terms of scalability, interpretability and utility. We propose CoreFlow, a technique that automatically extracts and visualizes branching patterns in event sequences. CoreFlow constructs a tree by recursively applying a three‐step procedure: rank events, divide sequences into groups, and trim sequences by the chosen event. The resulting tree contains key events as nodes, and links represent aggregated flows between key events. Based on CoreFlow, we have developed an interactive system for event sequence analysis. Our approach can compute branching patterns for millions of events in a few seconds, with improved interpretability of extracted patterns compared to previous work. We also present case studies of using the system in three different domains and discuss success and failure cases of applying CoreFlow to real‐world analytic problems. These case studies call forth future research on metrics and models to evaluate the quality of visual summaries of event sequences.


OBJECTIVE
to undertake a systematic literature review of risk factors for abuse in community-dwelling elders, as a first step towards exploring the clinical utility of a risk factor framework. Search strategy and selection criteria: a search was undertaken using the MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE and PsycINFO databases for articles published in English up to March 2011, to identify original studies with statistically significant risk factors for abuse in community-dwelling elders. Studies concerning self-neglect and persons aged under 55 were excluded.

RESULTS
forty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria, with 13 risk factors being reproducible across a range of settings in high-quality studies. These concerned the elder person (cognitive impairment, behavioural problems, psychiatric illness or psychological problems, functional dependency, poor physical health or frailty, low income or wealth, trauma or past abuse and ethnicity), perpetrator (caregiver burden or stress, and psychiatric illness or psychological problems), relationship (family disharmony, poor or conflictual relationships) and environment (low social support and living with others except for financial abuse).

CONCLUSIONS
current evidence supports the multifactorial aetiology of elder abuse involving risk factors within the elder person, perpetrator, relationship and environment.


BACKGROUND
Patients with stable coronary artery disease and diabetes mellitus who have not had a myocardial infarction or stroke are at high risk for cardiovascular events. Whether adding ticagrelor to aspirin improves outcomes in this population is unclear.

METHODS
In this randomized, double-blind trial, we assigned patients who were 50 years of age or older and who had stable coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus to receive either ticagrelor plus aspirin or placebo plus aspirin. Patients with previous myocardial infarction or stroke were excluded. The primary efficacy outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke. The primary safety outcome was major bleeding as defined by the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) criteria.

RESULTS
A total of 19,220 patients underwent randomization. The median follow-up was 39.9 months. Permanent treatment discontinuation was more frequent with ticagrelor than placebo (34.5% vs. 25.4%). The incidence of ischemic cardiovascular events (the primary efficacy outcome) was lower in the ticagrelor group than in the placebo group (7.7% vs. 8.5%; hazard ratio, 0.90; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81 to 0.99; P = 0.04), whereas the incidence of TIMI major bleeding was higher (2.2% vs. 1.0%; hazard ratio, 2.32; 95% CI, 1.82 to 2.94; P<0.001), as was the incidence of intracranial hemorrhage (0.7% vs. 0.5%; hazard ratio, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.18 to 2.48; P = 0.005). There was no significant difference in the incidence of fatal bleeding (0.2% vs. 0.1%; hazard ratio, 1.90; 95% CI, 0.87 to 4.15; P = 0.11). The incidence of an exploratory composite outcome of irreversible harm (death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke, fatal bleeding, or intracranial hemorrhage) was similar in the ticagrelor group and the placebo group (10.1% vs. 10.8%; hazard ratio, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.86 to 1.02).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with stable coronary artery disease and diabetes without a history of myocardial infarction or stroke, those who received ticagrelor plus aspirin had a lower incidence of ischemic cardiovascular events but a higher incidence of major bleeding than those who received placebo plus aspirin. (Funded by AstraZeneca; THEMIS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01991795.).


We study the problem of holistic scene understanding. We would like to obtain a compact, expressive, and interpretable representation of scenes that encodes information such as the number of objects and their categories, poses, positions, etc. Such a representation would allow us to reason about and even reconstruct or manipulate elements of the scene. Previous works have used encoder-decoder based neural architectures to learn image representations, however, representations obtained in this way are typically uninterpretable, or only explain a single object in the scene. In this work, we propose a new approach to learn an interpretable distributed representation of scenes. Our approach employs a deterministic rendering function as the decoder, mapping a naturally structured and disentangled scene description, which we named scene XML, to an image. By doing so, the encoder is forced to perform the inverse of the rendering operation (a.k.a. de-rendering) to transform an input image to the structured scene XML that the decoder used to produce the image. We use a object proposal based encoder that is trained by minimizing both the supervised prediction and the unsupervised reconstruction errors. Experiments demonstrate that our approach works well on scene de-rendering with two different graphics engines, and our learned representation can be easily adapted for a wide range of applications like image editing, inpainting, visual analogy-making, and image captioning.


We review evidence for climate change over the past several millennia from instrumental and high‐resolution climate "proxy" data sources and climate modeling studies. We focus on changes over the past 1 to 2 millennia. We assess reconstructions and modeling studies analyzing a number of different climate fields, including atmospheric circulation diagnostics, precipitation, and drought. We devote particular attention to proxy‐based reconstructions of temperature patterns in past centuries, which place recent large‐scale warming in an appropriate longer‐term context. Our assessment affirms the conclusion that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric and, likely, global scales. There is more tentative evidence that particular modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, may have exhibited late 20th century behavior that is anomalous in a long‐term context. Regional conclusions, particularly for the Southern Hemisphere and parts of the tropics where high‐resolution proxy data are sparse, are more circumspect. The dramatic differences between regional and hemispheric/global past trends, and the distinction between changes in surface temperature and precipitation/drought fields, underscore the limited utility in the use of terms such as the "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" for describing past climate epochs during the last millennium. Comparison of empirical evidence with proxy‐based reconstructions demonstrates that natural factors appear to explain relatively well the major surface temperature changes of the past millennium through the 19th century (including hemispheric means and some spatial patterns). Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century.


In this study, the standard Mincer earnings regression equation in the form of the lognormal (LN) model is generalized into the form of the double-Pareto-lognormal (dPLN) model, substantially improving the goodness-of-fit to wage data. The empirical study contrasts the new and traditional models with respect to relationships between the wage and its determinant factors other than the primary equation for the conditional mean of log-wage, given potential work experience and education, such that, the wage distributions predicted by the dPLN-regression model faithfully reproduce the log-wage quantile regression results of the original data, whereas those by the LN-regression model fail such reproduction. Furthermore, the dPLN-regression model predicts that higher education has statistically significant positive effects on wage dispersion, particularly at the higher end, whereas the LN-regression model predicts insignificant negative effects even when heteroskedasticity in the error term is incorporated into the model. Thus, the new model is expected to be useful for not only accurately estimating contributions of wage determinant factors to wage dispersions and the shares of low-wage workers, but also improving the existing analysis methods using earnings equations such as the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and return of education by utilizing the dispersion regression equations.


OBJECTIVE
In this study, morphometric developments of the sphincter of Oddi in human fetuses were observed.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
We observed 113 human fetuses consisting of 67 male and 46 female subjects, whose ages varied between 14 to 40 weeks who showed no signs of any pathology or anomaly externally. The common external measurements of fetuses were carried out, followed by abdominal dissection to determine where the sphincters of Oddi were localized within the duodenum and pancreas. Histological specimens of tissue samples were gathered from the inner wall of the duodenum where it was assumed that the sphincters of Oddi had been localized. The parameters of total external diameters, lumen diameters, wall thickness, diameters of ductus choledochus and ductus pancreaticus, and the distance between these two structures, which are also known as the origins of the sphincter of Oddi, were measured by using a light microscope. The standard deviations of the measurements were calculated for each gestational week and trimester.

RESULTS
The calculations suggested that there were statistically significant correlations between gestational age and all of the other parameters with the exception of the ductus choledochus (p<0.001). It was observed that the wall thickness of the ductus choledochus increased at the first half of the fetal stage and decreased at the second half, as the lumen diameter increased through the 40th week. The gender difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05).

CONCLUSION
The data we collected in our study were considered as useful for the evaluation of the development of the sphincter of Oddi area and fetal stage.


This work is concerned with a new type of realtime reconfigurable control systems that is based on the use of autonomous agents. To this end, two stages have been examined in the context of intelligent agent decision making; the fault detection and identification (FDI) stage and the reconfiguration stage (RC). The FDI stage detects that a fault has occurred. It then further diagnoses the situation. The RC stage follows this by adapting or changing the control architecture to accommodate the fault. The problem is to synchronize or integrate these two stages in the overall structure of a control system on real world applications. The multi-agent architecture proposed in this paper has several advantages in terms of modularity, reliability, ability to learn and achieve overall higher robustness over past "single software" methods. Initial tests on an example system have been carried out to demonstrate this new organisation of reconfigurable control systems.


The video game industry is expanding rapidly and video games have become an important part of our society. However, it is still unclear if the increasing amount of time spent on playing video games causes positive or negative consequences. This research-in-progress paper proposes a model, rooted in the Dualistic Model of Passion, to explain why video games can create addiction or non-pathological flow in video game players based on gamers' type of passion for video gameplay. Moreover, this research aims to explain the environmental and personal factors that define different forms of passion towards video games. The findings of this research will also clarify the role of emotional reactions during video gameplay on gamers' subjective well-being.


The IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon calibration curves have been revised utilizing newly available and updated data sets from 14C measurements on tree rings, plant macrofossils, speleothems, corals, and foraminifera. The calibration curves were derived from the data using the random walk model (RWM) used to generate IntCal09 and Marine09, which has been revised to account for additional uncertainties and error structures. The new curves were ratified at the 21st International Radiocarbon conference in July 2012 and are available as Supplemental Material at www.radiocarbon.org. The database can be accessed at http://intcal.qub.ac.uk/intcal13/.


In recent years courts have taken a permissive approach to matching rights, viewing them as standard features in merger agreements. Matching rights are deal protection devices intended to give the rightholder assurance that the deal will be completed, consequently these measures can deter subsequent bidders and, in the event a subsequent bid appears, ensure that the initial bidder is advantageously positioned to succeed. This Article argues that courts should re-evaluate the emerging legal standard governing the use of "matching rights" in merger agreements. Plaintiffs have brought challenges to the use of matching rights in various circumstances. Until now, however, courts have refused to acknowledge that there might be circumstances in which matching rights are preclusive deal protections and therefore unreasonable. Consequently, the emerging legal standard with respect to matching rights is one of permissiveness. In fact, there are circumstances in which one can expect matching rights to be potentially powerful deterrents to second bidders. In such circumstances, the use of matching rights may be unreasonable. Courts should employ the same fact-intensive review to the use of matching rights that they employ with respect to other deal protection measures. Once sensitized to the specific deterrent effects of matching rights, courts should more closely scrutinize the use of matching rights, particularly when the right-holder is a financial buyer or the sales process demonstrates characteristics of a common value sale.


Determining requirements for any design project involves identifying and ranking user needs and preferences. User needs are typically elicited via personal or focus group interviews, site visits, and photographic and video analysis. Often, however, users know more than they say in a single or even several interviews [1]. We propose a methodology for assisting a user who is interested in learning about his or her own preferences using a process we call image-based experience sampling and reflection. We describe the methodology using a storyboard example from the domain of architectural redesign of home environments.


Every transaction, toward physical exchange of goods involves flows of information, material, money, manpower and capital equipment, wherein flows involving information, material and money are vital to maneuver. The exchange of goods necessitates physical flow, information flow and financial flow imbibing inbound logistics and outbound logistics to deliver right material, at right place in right time with right information. The financial flow involves the transaction made either in soft or hard format calls for documents for purchase, sales, shipping, inventory, billing etc. The outcome of every transaction involves exchange of funds. The real hidden potential among the various flows has not been tapped for many decades as the various flows remained unsynchronized. An attempt made to optimize flow singly resulted in vain hence for reaping maximum benefits, the combination of the three flows has to be integrated and optimized. This paper studies the conditions that have led the industry to acknowledge the relationship among these three flows, how their integration will improve efficiency all along the value chain, and the key challenges faced by the decision makers for achieving that integration. Finally, a case study of a hypothetical company Reliablecure, an Indian medical supplies company, has been illustrated for its successful ability to get the highly perishable surgical wound adhesives from its' manufacturing facility in Austria to surgeons across the US, just by seamless integration across the value chain.


The whole world is now in the grip of a financial crisis which is far more serious than any experienced since the Great Depression 1930. Mid of 2008, we all surprise that financial market down stairs seriously day by day. The US goverment has bailout more than three trillion dollars toward a number of industrial countries to abate somewhat the intensity of the crisis. The US goverment policy oppose capitalism paradigm: laissez faire. This article tries to discuss about capitalisme; history and the development in the global era. This economic system was fail overcome economic crises, even capitalism known as a cause of global financial crisis wordwide. Keywords: economic crises, capitalism paradigm, Amerika, great depression.


Diverse attitudes toward Malagasy prickly pear cactus demonstrate that French colonialism was not a single cohesive strategy but was marked by contradictions and struggles. Struggles among groups of colonizers included not only the control of cactus but also its appropriateness and desirability. One side of the debate attributed an aggressive and threatening agency to thorny cactus. Another side emphasized that prickly pear was a vital socioeconomic plant for pastoralists. While some French colonists implemented drastic measures against the perceived cactus threat–based more on blind hopes than scientific knowledge--others criticized interfering with the delicate symbiotic relationship between herder and cactus. Although pastoralist resistance to foreign interference took different forms during this period, avoidance was the main form.


The isoflavone, genistein, present in soybean is being actively investigated for its potential beneficial effect against Alzheimer's disease. Our data, however, show that in SHSY5Y cells genistein causes increased expression (mRNA and protein) of amyloid precursor protein (APP), increased mRNA expression and activity of β-secretase and diminished level of insulin degrading enzyme (IDE) which also degrades amyloid beta peptide. These effects of genistein lead to enhanced accumulation of amyloid beta peptide (Aβ42) in SHSY5Y cells. The results do not support the view that genistein could be a putative drug against AD and instead strengthen the epidemiological study which implies that genistein content of soybean food product (Tofu) leads to cognitive impairment.


This paper presents the photoluminescence and EPR experiments performed on two varieties of diamond crystals from the Sytykanskaya pipe: small crystals which were inclusions in the ancient olivines, and large sized specimens. Small crystals and the cores of large crystals contain B and P2 nitrogen defects whereas the outer zone of large diamonds includes A nitrogen centers and their derivatives with vacancies. Coatings of large diamonds are a product of a second step of crystallization. The interpretation of data obtained proposes that small crystals from Sytykanskaya pipe are the most ancient of the Yakutia province, and that the generation of the P2 centers is a result of B centers destruction during early plastic deformation.


Landscapes are not just backdrops to human action; people make them and are made by them. How people understand and engage with their material world depends upon particularities of time and place. These understandings are dynamic, variable, contradictory and open-ended. Landscapes are thus always evolving and are often volatile and contested. They are also always on the move - people may or may not be rooted, but they have 'legs'. From prehistoric times onwards people have travelled, but the process of people-on-the-move - as tourists, or on global business, as migrant workers or political or economic refugees - has vastly accelerated.How and why do people who share the same landscape have different and often violently opposed ways of understanding its significance? How do people-on-the-move make sense of the unfamiliar? How do they create a sense of place? How do they rework the memories of places left behind? There is nothing easeful about the landscapes discussed in this book, which are often harsh-edged and troubled both socially and politically. The contributors tackle contested notions of landscape to explain the key role it plays in creating identity and shaping human behaviour.This landmark study offers an important contribution towards an understanding of the complexity of landscape.


This article, based on an analysis of 30 community mediation sessions, provides a theoretical frame for tracking the emergence and domestication of violence stories in the sessions themselves. Challenging the Cartesian distinction between mental and physical violence, I use Scarry's 1985 work to identify the presence of violence stories as stories in which speakers (1) objectify pain through the discursive production of weapons and wounds, (2) describe the loss of voice itself, and (3) describe attempts to reappear as agents in the elimination of pain itself. Drawing on Minow's 1987 analysis of rights discourse, I offer a definition of the "domestication" of violence as a movement from "rights" to "needs" in the discourse of the session. With this framework. and consistent with Silbey and Sarat's 1989 research, I found that violence stories were domesticated in 80% of the sessions in which such stories emerged. Finally, drawing on Foucault (1979), I describe this domestication process as a function of the "microphysics of power" and track the rules of transformation through which violence is subducted into the discourse of mediation itself. I argue that the mediation process contributes to erase any morality that competes with the morality of mediation and, in the process, disappears violence. Critics of mediation have long argued that mediation operates as a site for the deregulation and decriminalization of violence, particularly violence against women (Lerman 1984; Rifkin 1989). However, advocates of mediation argue that cases where violence is an issue will, in fact, be referred to criminal legal settings; their presumption that mediation does not contribute to the decriminalization of violence reflects the assumption that the legal system will "fit the forum to the fuss" (Sander 1976), appropriately designating the process to address the complaint. The "multidoor courthouse" has, indeed, provided a model for articulating informal to formal processes, designating the informal settings as sites to address "minor" disputes where the alleged violence does not cross over into felonious criminal categories (McGillis 1986),1 preserving the formal (criminal) system for "serious" cases. Outside criminal legal codes, denied (and resisting) any substantive code for defining and redressing violence, mediation cannot intrude into the arena where bodies are injured and pain is materialized. Yet, critical legal scholars,2 as well as feminist legal scholars,3 have collectively decried the dangers of mediation for the "violated," arguing that mediation favors the continued oppression of women and the domination of state's interests (Harrington 1985; Abel 1982).4 Lerman (1989) and others (Rifkin & Harrington 1987; Rifkin 1989; Fineman 1988) have argued that informal processes reconstitute gender inequalities (Lerman 1989), decriminalizing violence against women (Stallone 1984) and reducing women's access to formal arenas where claims of injustice have the potential for social reform (Germane, Johnson, & Lemon 1985; Lerman 1984). Among this group, there is condemnation of the use of mediation for disputes that explicitly involve violence; some further claim that the diversion of violence to informal settings continues the historical practice of delegalizing family conflict and perpetuating women's inequality (Lefcourt 1984). These critics argue that mediation undermines the legal rights and literal safety of women and other less advantaged parties (Lerman 1984) precisely because mediation evaporates claims of rights; a discourse of rights is central to redressing violence because such a discourse names the victim, the victimizer, and the harm done to the victim (Bumiller 1988).5 One might draw an analogy to political repression by pointing out that whenever violence is "disappeared,"6 the victimizers go free, the victims are left socially isolated to manage the consequences of the violence, the harm goes unaddressed. …


Purpose—to determine student attitudes towards authenticity and the interrelation between authenticity and the use of ICT in the ESP learning context. Design/methodology/approach—the research conducted in autumn 2011 was aimed at comparative analysis of students of two study modes—full-time and part-time. It followed research focusing on Bachelor study programme student attitudes (Business Informatics and Finance Economics) to authentic resources carried out in spring of 2010. The survey participants were Bachelor study cycle first year students from several faculties of MRU (Law, Politics and Management, Economics and Finance Management, Social Informatics, Social Policy). The paper discusses the ESP learning experience at Mykolas Romeris University and presents research findings obtained through the questionnaire survey. Findings—comparative analysis between full-time and part-time study mode student responses reveals similar learning patterns; however, certain differences can also be observed. The full-time students are motivated by more advanced authentic learning materials and they are more computer literate and able to access these materials, whereas the respondents from the part-time study mode appreciate more traditional Internet-based language learning tools. Research limitations/implications—the research sample was composed of first year Bachelor study programme students, therefore the results cannot be generalised and applied to Master level students. Practical implications—awareness of student needs and problems encountered in authentic learning environment may help improve ESP teaching methods. Originality/Value—gaining insight into student perception of authenticity in learning process and technological proficiency to access authentic resources Keywords: authenticity, student autonomy, ESP context, information communication technologies (ICT). Research type: research paper.


Geological mapping and geophysical data indicate that the geological history of the EastAntarctic between Berkner Island in the west and Enderby Land in the east faced severalgeological events, which are not fully understood. The main information on the sub-icegeology is provided by aerogeophysical investigations. However, these surveys are somehowlogistically limited to a region, which is parallel to the coast line. Thus, large parts of the innerAntarctic continent are only sparsely surveyed due to the lack of long-range aircrafts, whichcan operate also in these remote areas. As a consequence geological units, which areidentified in the coastal or near coastal mountain ranges, cannot be followed into the interior.Thus, most of the models, which predict the continuation of the geological features from thesurrounding continents into the Antarctic craton are still highly speculative. Thus, weconcentrate in this contribution on the aero/marine magnetic investigations, which aim tofurther constrain the plate movements since 160 Myr, and thus provide a good fit. This mightfacilitate at a later stage the correlation of geological units across the continents, if there is anycontinuation. The areas and remaining problems from our perspective are described(Abbreviations: SAM-South America, ANT-Antarctica, FRS-Filchner-Ronne Shelf, EANTEastAntarctica, WANT-West Antarctica, AFR-Africa, IND-India):South America-AntarcticaAccording to the latest models SAM was situated deep in the southern Weddell Sea. Thebreak-up with the formation of oceanic crust started some 148 Ma (Konig and Jokat, 2006)with spreading rates around 1-2 cm/yr. Slow to ultra-slow spreading rates dominated thedocumented drift history of ANT and SAM. The magnetic anomalies in the southwesternWeddell Sea are for unknown reasons- not well developed. A short high resolution magneticsurvey along the Larsen rifted margin did not show any continuous magnetic anomalies,which would allow to better describe the evolution of this area. It is questionable, if a furtherdensification of the existing data will provide better constraints than the existing ones.Filchner-Ronne Shelf-EastANT/WestANTWe consider the FRS to consist mainly of highly stretched continental crust. However, in thecentre of this huge sedimentary basin, some indications for the existence of oceanic crust canbe deduced from deep seismic sounding profiles. This is supported by aeromagnetic data,which show at least four more or less continuous magnetic anomalies. They can be interpretedas edge or spreading anomalies. In our current geodynamic model we have introduced somemoderate extension of the FRS to account for this observation.Falkland Plateau (FP)The distance between the Falkland islands and the easternmost part of the FP, the MauriceEwing Bank, is almost 800 km. The nature of the underlying crust is speculative. It mightconsist either of stretched continental or oceanic crust or a mixture of both. Since the earlygeophysical investigations no critical new geophysical data were gathered to constrain thesize of the FP in a pre-breakup configuration.Mozambique RidgeThis ridge in the Indian Ocean is almost 700 km long, and is located almost parallel to theEast African coast. Recent magnetic and seismic investigations show that the ridge might beof volcanic origin, and might have been formed during the separation of AFR and ANT.Magnetic anomalies in the strike of the ridge show high amplitudes, and are partly continuouswithin the survey area. The current model on the origin of the ridge is not unique due to thelimited geophysical data sets. In any case, evidence for a large amount of volcanic materialerupted between 130-100 Ma exists. If true, this region would have faced much more postbreak-up volcanism than previously expected.AfricaThe spreading system between AFR and ANT moved twice as fast as the SAM-ANT platesystem. This might be an indication for separate spreading cells, which receivedindependently largely different volumes of mantle material to drive the plate drift. Recentconjugate magnetic investigations in the Riiser Larsen Sea and the Mozambique Basinconfirmed models, which predicted a 155 Myr old spreading system. According to Konig andJokat (2006) this area together with the Somali Basin was the first true oceanic basin, whichformed within Gondwana.India and MadagascarNumerous models are published on the base of a growing geophysical data set. However, dueto the line spacing of the magnetic data their interpretation is not unique. Furthermore, therole of the Kerguelen Plateau as a large oceanic plateau is questioned. Deep drilling hasrecovered continental rocks.Currently a Japanese/German project tries to derive additional constraints on the separation ofIND and ANT. The first results indicate that at least in the area close to the Gunnerus Ridgethe oceanic crust has a different age than predicted in published models. A denseaeromagnetic grid indicates a lack of Mesozoic magnetic anomalies north of 67°S. Oneprominent magnetic anomaly is could be mapped close to the rifted margin of ANT.Therefore, the following interpretations are possible:--This anomaly represents M0. This would shift the break-up of IND and ANT to much younger times than in published models.--The magnetic anomaly is of continental origin-- It is an anomaly of the M-series, but the other anomalies are beyond the survey area. In this case the ANT/IND plates must have moved significantly faster than any model predicted.--The survey is still located within the continent-ocean transition, and M-anomalies are located more to the north.


The extensive Venezuelan coastline is very important for understanding the evolution of the Caribbean marine fauna. We report new fossil material collected from three Neogene fossil sites in the Falcon Basin and present the first diversity analysis of the known fossil echinoids from Venezuela and other Caribbean regions. Five species are reported for the first time from Venezuela. Each of the three fossil sites shows a different taxonomic composition, which may be a consequence of differing palaeoecological conditions during the Neogene. Furthermore, the environmental changes caused by the closure of the Central American Isthmus may also have played a role. The analysis of the Venezuelan echinoid fossil record, including the new herein described material, reveals three major diversity decreases and a maximal diversity peak in the Middle Miocene instead of the Eocene as it is the case in other Caribbean echinoid faunas. The first diversity decrease at the end of the Early Cretaceous, recognised by a gap in the fossil record, unfolds new research potential. The second one, around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, is interpreted as an extinction event, as has been recognized for other echinoid and invertebrate faunas throughout the Caribbean. In contrast to other Caribbean invertebrate faunas, the cause of the third diversity decrease of echinoids throughout the Caribbean appears to be the beginning, instead of the end, of the closure of the Central American Isthmus. Although Venezuela plays a special ecological role in the Caribbean due to its seasonal upwellings, this study provides (1) a basis to better understand the fossil Venezuelan echinoid fauna, (2) a contrast to other Caribbean regions, and (3) insights into the Caribbean echinoid evolutionary patterns.


Background Despite being entirely preventable, canine rabies still kills 55,000 people/year in developing countries. Information about local beliefs and practices can identify knowledge gaps that may affect prevention practices and lead to unnecessary deaths. Methodology/Principal Findings We investigated knowledge, attitudes and practices related to rabies and its prevention and control amongst a cross-section of households (n = 5,141) in urban and rural areas of central, southern and northern Tanzania. Over 17% of respondents owned domestic dogs (average of 2.3 dogs/household),>95% had heard about rabies, and>80% knew that rabies is transmitted through dog bites. People who (1) had greater education, (2) originated from areas with a history of rabies interventions, (3) had experienced exposure by a suspect rabid animal, (4) were male and (5) owned dogs were more likely to have greater knowledge about the disease. Around 80% of respondents would seek hospital treatment after a suspect bite, but only 5% were aware of the need for prompt wound cleansing after a bite. Although>65% of respondents knew of dog vaccination as a means to control rabies, only 51% vaccinated their dogs. Determinants of dog vaccination included (1) being a male-headed household, (2) presence of children, (3) low economic status, (4) residing in urban areas, (5) owning livestock, (6) originating from areas with rabies interventions and (7) having purchased a dog. The majority of dog-owning respondents were willing to contribute no more than US$0.31 towards veterinary services. Conclusions/Significance We identified important knowledge gaps related to, and factors influencing the prevention and control of rabies in Tanzania. Increasing knowledge regarding wound washing, seeking post-exposure prophylaxis and the need to vaccinate dogs are likely to result in more effective prevention of rabies; however, greater engagement of the veterinary and medical sectors is also needed to ensure the availability of preventative services.


Using an error-correction model (ECM) framework, the authors attempt to quantify the degree of disequilibrium in Canadian housing stock over the period 1961–2008 for the national aggregate and over 1981–2008 for the provinces. They find that, based on quarterly data, the level of housing stock in the long run is associated with population, real per capita disposable income, and real house prices. Population growth (net migration, particularly for the western provinces) is also an important determinant of the short-run dynamics of housing stock, after controlling for serial correlation in the dependent variable. Real mortgage rates, consumer confidence, and a number of other variables identified in the literature are found to play a small role in the short run. The authors' model suggests that the Canadian housing stock was 2 per cent above its equilibrium level at the end of 2008. There was likely overbuilding, to varying degrees, in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.


Brown sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) is rarely used for food product because its protein has lower digestibility compared to other cereals. One factor affecting lower sorghum protein digestibility is anti nutrition al effect from tannin and phytic acid. Some processing methods of sorghum have successfully increased protein digestibility, one of them is tempeh fermentation. The aims of this research were to degrade anti nutritional compounds and to increase in vitro protein digestibility of sorghum grain using tempeh fermentation. This research was performed in two steps; prepar ation of sorghum grain and production of sorghum tempeh. Proximate contents , anti nutritional compounds, and in vitro protein digestibility were tested. The test was applied to each of sorghum tempeh samples every 12 hour until 72 hours of total incubation time. The result of study showed that fermentation process decreased anti nutritional factors such as tannin and phytic acid, and increased in vitro protein digestibility of sorghum grain. The reduction of anti nutrition s and increase of in vitro protein digestibility of sorghum grain were time-dependent in the fermentation process . The highest in vitro protein digestibility (79 . 13 %) was observed from 72 hour-fermented sorghum.


Refurbishments have different features in comparison with new build projects. This refers mainly to the fact that they are carried out in an existing asset that might remain in operation. Such characteristics increase the complexity inherent to construction settings. Yet, studies indicate that mainstream practices, that are not capable of dealing with complex projects, are predominantly used for managing production. Prior research suggests that the use of such an incompatible management approach is likely to lead to poor performance. Indeed, problems in managing refurbishments have been identified in several countries.

Despite this troubling scenario, the management of refurbishment works has not been properly addressed in the current research agenda. There are numerous studies related to the broad refurbishment area, but only a small number refer to the way those projects are managed. Moreover, the majority of studies about this topic have not been based on a proper theory of production. Clearly, there is a gap in this research domain.

In order to fill such a gap, this research aims to developing a method for construction management in refurbishment projects, with the purpose of improving production performance, by indicating appropriate approaches of production control. The method comprises a conceptual model of refurbishments, a framework for project characterisation, and a list of managerial solutions, grounded on a robust theory of production and suited to the context of refurbishments.

The constructive research approach is adopted in the study. Two rounds of empirical studies were conducted throughout the research. Firstly, two studies were carried out to obtain a deeper understanding of the topic investigated and to develop the initial version of the method. Secondly, a study was conducted to implement and refine the artefact. Thirdly, a focus group was organised to evaluate the utility of the method, to refine it, and to examine its scope of applicability.

The main theoretical contributions of the study, embrace the conceptual model of refurbishments to support effective construction management, the framework having project dimensions for helping managers to cope with the management of complexity innate to refurbishments, and the framework of managerial solutions for production management. In practical terms, the study showed that the application of the method assisted managers in choosing suitable practices for managing construction in a retrofit project and contributed to enhance project performance. Moreover, it is contended that the method can be used to help organisations to get started on lean in refurbishment projects.


Influenza A viruses (IAVs) are pathogens of birds and mammals, including humans. They cause a huge economic burden and major public health problems. All IAVs recognize terminal sialic acids (SIAs) as receptors. The hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein is responsible for binding to SIA receptors, whereas neuraminidase (NA) cleaves SIA receptors. HA binding, NA cleavage and the balance between the two (HA/NA balance) are of great importance in IAV entry, replication, release and transmission, and thus for host tropism. In this PhD project, we established a kinetic and label-free methodology to study virus-receptor interactions based on biolayer interferometry (BLI). Furthermore, we aimed to analyze the correlation between antigenic drift and virus-receptor binding and to study to what extent the emergence of novel highly pathogenic H5Nx viruses was accompanied with changes in virus receptor binding properties. By using BLI we were able to show that in the absence of NA activity viruses were dynamically, but irreversibly attached to the receptor-coated sensors. Low activity NA protein could contribute to the initial binding rate of virus particles. In the presence of NA activity, virus particles were rolling over the receptor-coated surface until the receptor density was sufficiently decreased to allow virus dissociation. Both antibodies and mucus decoy receptors were shown to interfere with the virus-receptor interactions. Strikingly, virus self-elution and elution driven by mucus or antibodies decreased upon increased virus-receptor binding times indicating virus binding to become much tighter with time. We refer to this process as the maturation of virus binding. Based on these observations, we propose that the HA/NA balance is a crucial determinant of viral fitness by enabling migration through mucus layers and over cell surfaces. Maturation of virus binding is proposed to result from multiple HA protomers in the HA trimer interacting with sialosides, which may be important for virus entry. BLI was also used to analyze to what extent changes in HA antigenicity are accompanied with changes in receptor binding. While antigenically distinct viruses display similar receptor-binding properties, some individual mutations affecting antigenicity increased or decreased binding. Potential compensatory effects on receptor binding were observed for some of the antigenically neutral mutations, suggesting they may function in limiting the changes in receptor binding properties resulting from antigenic changes. Finally, we also studied the evolutionary history of the HA proteins of novel highly pathogenic H5 subtypes that emerged in 2014 and that contained different NA subtypes (H5Nx viruses). We showed that these H5 genes form a monophyletic group that evolved from a clade 2.3.4 H5N1 variant. The H5 proteins were shown to be able to bind fucosylated receptors resulting from –for highly pathogenic H5 unique- substitutions at positions 222 and 227 in the receptor binding site. We hypothesize that the altered receptor-binding specificity of these novel H5 proteins has contributed to their ability to team up with different NA subtypes and their unprecedented emergence and spread.


Freezing the pre-trained backbone has become a standard paradigm to avoid overfitting in few-shot segmentation. In this paper, we rethink the paradigm and explore a new regime: {\em fine-tuning a small part of parameters in the backbone}. We present a solution to overcome the overfitting problem, leading to better model generalization on learning novel classes. Our method decomposes backbone parameters into three successive matrices via the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), then {\em only fine-tunes the singular values} and keeps others frozen. The above design allows the model to adjust feature representations on novel classes while maintaining semantic clues within the pre-trained backbone. We evaluate our {\em Singular Value Fine-tuning (SVF)} approach on various few-shot segmentation methods with different backbones. We achieve state-of-the-art results on both Pascal-5$^i$ and COCO-20$^i$ across 1-shot and 5-shot settings. Hopefully, this simple baseline will encourage researchers to rethink the role of backbone fine-tuning in few-shot settings. The source code and models will be available at https://github.com/syp2ysy/SVF.


It has been shown that standard cepstral speaker recognition models can be enhanced by region-constrained models, where features are extracted only from certain speech regions defined by linguistic or prosodic criteria. Such region-constrained models can capture features that are more stable, highly idiosyncratic, or simply complementary to the baseline system. In this paper we ask if another major class of speaker recognition models, those based on MLLR speaker adaptation transforms, can also benefit from region-constrained feature extraction. In our approach, we define regions based on phonetic and prosodic criteria, based on automatic speech recognition output, and perform MLLR estimation using only frames selected by these criteria. The resulting transform features are appended to those of a state-of-the-art MLLR speaker recognition system and jointly modeled by SVMs. Multiple regions can be added in this fashion. We find consistent gains over the baseline system in the SRE2010 speaker verification task.


Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. Participation in elections in the United States is much lower than in the vast majority of mature democracies. Perhaps this is because of the lack of competition in a country where only two parties have a true chance of winning, despite the fact that a large number of citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both. Or perhaps it is because in the U.S. campaign contributions disproportionately favor incumbents in most legislative elections, or that largely unregulated groups such as the now notorious 527s have as much impact on the outcome of a campaign as do the parties or the candidates' campaign organizations. Studying these factors, you begin to get a very clear picture indeed of the problems that underlay our much trumpeted electoral system. This Very Short Introduction introduces the reader to these issues and more, providing an insider's view of how the system actually works while shining a light on some of its flaws. As we enter what is sure to be yet another highly contested election year, it is more important than ever that Americans take the time to learn the system that puts so many in power. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


This paper discusses a time-dependent classification approach for single trial recognition of spatial covert visual attention for Brain–Computer Interface. Covert visual attention is a natural and intuitive mental task that does not require any external stimulation. The possibility to recognize it from single trials is essential for a future online close-loop BCI. Experimental results indicate the feasibility of the proposed approach and its high performance in an offline study. We achieved an accuracy of 84.1±8.9% with a rejection of 6.5±6.6% averaged across subjects.


Alpha Trans Inducing Factor (a-TIF) is a herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) virion tegument protein present in the tegument layer between the capsid and the envelope, in association with cellular proteins and trans-activated viral activities. a-TIF stimulates the transcription of HSV-1 Immediate Early genes during lytic virus replication. The presence or absence of functional a-TIF protein in vivo is always associated with viral activities. Its role behind latent HSV-1 infection is ambiguous. No drug is designed for HSV till now based on this protein and thus its conformational details can be very important for drug designing purpose. Methods. Docking studies on this protein becomes logical. Four different ligand molecules viz. Adenosine-3"-5"-Diphosphate, P1-(5"-Adenosyl) P4-(5"-(2"-Deoxy-Thymidyl)) Tet-raphosphate, 9-Hydroxymethylguanine, 9-(4-Hydroxybutyl)-N2-Phenylguanine were screened for the study. Results. P1-(5"-Adenosyl) P4-(5"-(2"-Deoxy-Thymidyl) Tetraphophate was found to be the best ligand as it showed the lowest docking energy of 9.238 kcal/mol. Conclusions. The best ligand was found to bind different sites of the a-TIF protein and hence can be utilized to combat HSV-1 successfully, with a synergistic effect of multiplicity of drug molecules on the target protein


The Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) is a federally listed endangered species living solely within the confines of Devils Hole, a geothermal pool ecosystem in the Mojave Desert of the American Southwest. This unique species has suffered a significant, yet unexplained, population decline in the past two decades, with a record low survey of 35 individuals in early 2013. The species survives on a highly variable seasonal input of nutrients and has evolved in a thermal regime lethal to other pupfish species. The short lifespan of the species (approximately 1 year) makes annual recruitment in Devils Hole critical to the persistence of the species, and elevated temperatures on the shallow shelf that comprises the optimal spawning habitat in the ecosystem can significantly reduce egg viability and increase larval mortality. Here we combine computational fluid dynamic modeling and ecological analysis to investigate the timing of thresholds in the seasonal cycles of food supply and temperature. Numerical results indicate a warming climate most impacts the heat loss from the water column, resulting in warming temperatures and reduced buoyancy‐driven circulation. Observed climate change is shown to have already warmed the shallow shelf, and climate change by 2050 is shown to shorten the window of optimum conditions for recruitment by as much as 2 weeks. While there are many possible reasons for the precipitous decline of this species, the changing climate of the Mojave region is shown to produce thermal and nutrient conditions likely to reduce the success of annual recruitment of young C. diabolis in the future, leading to continued threats to the survival of this unique and enigmatic species.


The hydrological response of a catchment to rainfall on different timescales is result of a complex system involving a range of physical processes which may operate simultaneously and have different spatial and temporal influences. This paper presents the analysis of streamflow response of a small humid-temperate catchment (Aixola, 4.8 km 2 ) in the Basque Country on different timescales and discusses the role of the controlling factors. Firstly, daily time series analysis was used to establish a hypothesis on the general functioning of the catchment through the relationship between precipitation and discharge on an annual and multiannual scale (2003-2008). Second, rainfall-runoff relationships and relationships among several hydrological variables, including catchment antecedent conditions, were explored at the event scale (222 events) to check and improve the hypothesis. Finally, the evolution of electrical conductivity (EC) during some of the monitored storm events (28 events) was examined to identify the time origin of waters. Quick response of the catchment to almost all the rainfall events as well as a considerable regulation capacity was deduced from the correlation and spectral analyses. These results agree with runoff event scale data analysis; however, the event analysis revealed the non-linearity of the system, as antecedent conditions play a significant role in this catchment. Further, analysis at the event scale made possible to clarify factors controlling (precipitation, precipitation intensity and initial discharge) the different aspects of the runoff response (runoff coefficient and discharge increase) for this catchment. Finally, the evolution of EC of the waters enabled the time origin (event or pre-event waters) of the quickflow to be established; specifically, the conductivity showed that pre-event waters usually represent a high percentage of the total discharge during runoff peaks. The importance of soil waters in the catchment is being studied more deeply.


This paper examines the process of "acting ethnic", and demonstrates that, in certain circumstances, people act in keeping with an ethnic identity. Based on a study of two infantry brigades in the Israeli army (the IDF), the paper shows how organizational ethnic culture forms the basis of the process of "acting ethnic". This paper highlights the tendency in certain situations to suspend nonethnic privileges by adopting an ethnic identity and in addition, to exaggerate ethnic performance. Moreover, it is argued that "acting ethnic" is a collective performance, aimed not only at belonging to the group, but also as a means of maintaining and reproducing ethnic identity and asserting a legitimate alternative to the hegemonic identity.


Research impact agendas are gaining momentum globally and changing research policies from funding agencies and universities. This article reports on an environmental scan of research impact indicators and resources for Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) from 32 countries. Changing policies from national research funders include new expectations for researchers to mobilize their research to non-academic audiences that could benefit from its use and demonstrate the tangible impacts of their work. Many have argued that research impact agendas disadvantage HSS as compared to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. As such, the purpose of this environmental scan was threefold: (a) to examine how funding agencies are defining and conceptualizing research impact and KMb in different countries, (b) to gather and analyze research impact indicators used to assess HSS and (c) to identify practical resources that might support HSS researchers with research mobilization and impact. The scan yielded 721 research impact resources relevant to HSS; included analysis of 1,105 indicators; and identified 87 resources for researchers (including tools, networks, projects and open access repositories). Supplementary files for this article include a taxonomy of research impact indicators as well as a guidebook of research impact resources for researchers.


Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy is widely used in the management of patients with ulcer bleeding. However, most randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been conducted outside of the United States. Jensen and colleagues have conducted the first United States-based RCT to compare a PPI with an H(2)-receptor antagonist following appropriate endoscopic hemostatic treatment for patients with ulcer bleeding. Unfortunately, the trial had to be discontinued prematurely because of problems with enrolment. There was a statistically nonsignificant difference in rebleeding rates between the two treatment arms. A type II statistical error probably explains this apparent lack of efficacy. However, U.S. patients may also require higher doses of PPI for adequate control of intragastric acidity.