This letter presents a novel dual-band (HF and UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna. Two key challenges are faced: the compact dimension and the impaired bandwidth due to the couplings between two band structures. To enable the implementation of whole design on a credit-card-size single-layer support, a spiral coil along the edges of the card is designed to handle the HF (13.56 MHz) near-field coupling, and the UHF antenna is placed inside the coil instead of outside. Meanwhile, a diagonal symmetric design consisting of two meander lines inside the spiral coil is adopted for UHF band. This structure supports multiple resonance modes around 915 MHz to broaden the working bandwidth under the large inductive circumstance from the HF coil. The proposed antenna is easy for adjustment with ways of handling both coarse tuning and fine-tuning. Its overall dimension is of a credit card size on a single-layer thin substrate. The design methodology and antenna measurement results are both presented and discussed in the letter.


This article explores how White settler mountain bikers in British Columbia understand their relationship to recreational landscapes on unceded Indigenous territory. Using original qualitative research, the authors detail three rhetorical strategies settler Canadians employ to negotiate their place within geographies of belonging informed by Indigeneity and recreational colonialism: ignorance, ambivalence, and acknowledgement. In Canada's post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission climate, the discourses settlers use to situate themselves vis-à-vis landscapes and Indigenous people contribute to the conditions of possibility for meaningful movement toward a more equitable existence for all. This work points to a growing need to problematize the seemingly apolitical landscapes of recreation as a prerequisite toward meaningful reconciliation.


Acinetobacter baumannii is an important nosocomial pathogen that accounts for up to 20 percent of infections in intensive care units worldwide. Furthermore, A. baumannii strains have emerged that are resistant to all available antimicrobials. These facts highlight the dire need for new therapeutic strategies to combat this growing public health threat. Given the critical role for transition metals at the pathogen-host interface, interrogating the role for these metals in A. baumannii physiology and pathogenesis could elucidate novel therapeutic strategies. Toward this end, the role for calprotectin- (CP)-mediated chelation of manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn) in defense against A. baumannii was investigated. These experiments revealed that CP inhibits A. baumannii growth in vitro through chelation of Mn and Zn. Consistent with these in vitro data, Imaging Mass Spectrometry revealed that CP accompanies neutrophil recruitment to the lung and accumulates at foci of infection in a murine model of A. baumannii pneumonia. CP contributes to host survival and control of bacterial replication in the lung and limits dissemination to secondary sites. Using CP as a probe identified an A. baumannii Zn acquisition system that contributes to Zn uptake, enabling this organism to resist CP-mediated metal chelation, which enhances pathogenesis. Moreover, evidence is provided that Zn uptake across the outer membrane is an energy-dependent process in A. baumannii. Finally, it is shown that Zn limitation reverses carbapenem resistance in multidrug resistant A. baumannii underscoring the clinical relevance of these findings. Taken together, these data establish Zn acquisition systems as viable therapeutic targets to combat multidrug resistant A. baumannii infections.


Editorial: Natural Sciences is debuting"There's a way to do it better – find it." –Thomas A. EdisonWelcome to Wiley's new flagship journal, Natural Sciences. Our aim is to meet the challenge of publishing top-tier papers in an open-science environment and thereby contribute to innovating the ways scientists communicate with one another and with society at large. We encourage you to partake in this transformative endeavor.Natural Sciences is an inter- and multidisciplinary journal that publishes outstanding research from the global community spanning biology, chemistry, and physics and their interfaces, as well as seminal works from related fields such as engineering and biomedical research. The journal's aspiration is to promote the sharing and hybridization of disciplinary perspectives and thereby to foster crossing of the traditional boundaries that have previously separated disciplines. The journal will feature Research Articles of all lengths and formats, Commentaries, and Reviews, as well as Editorials, Highlights, Book Reviews, and News items.In contrast to many other high-ranking "elite" journals, Natural Sciences is run by practicing academic scientists who will treat submitted papers just like they wish their own papers would be treated – fairly, quickly, and without bias. That's why our tagline readsA Journal of, by, and for scientists .By embracing open science, Natural Sciences will promote the global scientific community's shared goal of enriching society with freely accessible prime scientific research. With open-science in general and open-access publishing in particular, the cost of scientific publishing will be carried by funding agencies or research institutions, and not the reader. Subscription-model-based academic publishing will be relegated to the sidelines, and scientific publications made freely accessible and re-usable for all.Moreover, Natural Sciences supports the cultural changes in the research community that call for increased transparency and openness in communicating and sharing the results of scientific research. Open science encompasses not only open-access publishing but also open peer review and sharing of primary scientific data. These, along with reviewer recognition, are key innovations effecting such a transformation and will be espoused by Natural Sciences .In developing the concept of Natural Sciences , we worked closely with Wiley to ensure efficient editorial practices. Wiley's international network of experienced professionals steeped in scientific publishing are there for us 24/7. Together, we are committed to open-science publishing that is timely and rigorous – and to embracing open-science innovations in the process.The ideas and values that led us to envision Natural Sciences are summarized in our Manifesto [link to https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/26986248/homepage/manifesto].Natural Sciences is now open for submissions [link to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/naturalsciences]. The Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived during the first two years.Looking forward to your submissions,Bretislav Friedrich, Executive EditorMarianne Bronner, Chief Biology EditorVivian Yam, Chief Chemistry EditorGerard Meijer, Chief Physics Editor [link all the names to https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/26986248/homepage/editorial-board]


Ad hoc keyword search engines built using modern information retrieval methods do a good job of handling fine-grained queries. However, they perform poorly at facilitating spatial and spatially-embedded thematic exploration of the results, despite the fact that many queries, e.g. "civil war," refer to different documents and topics in different places. This is not for lack of data: geographic information, such as place names, events, and coordinates are common in unstructured document collections on the web. The associations between geographic and thematic contents in these documents can provide a rich groundwork to organize information for exploratory research. In this paper we describe the architecture of an interactive thematic map search engine, Frankenplace, designed to facilitate document exploration at the intersection of theme and place. The map interface enables a user to zoom the geographic context of their query in and out, and quickly explore through thousands of search results in a meaningful way. And by combining topic models with geographically contextualized search results, users can discover related topics based on geographic context. Frankenplace utilizes a novel indexing method called geoboost for boosting terms associated with cells on a discrete global grid. The resulting index factors in the geographic scale of the place or feature mentioned in related text, the relative textual scope of the place reference, and the overall importance of the containing document in the document network. The system is currently indexed with over 5 million documents from the web, including the English Wikipedia and online travel blog entries. We demonstrate that Frankenplace can support four distinct types of exploratory search tasks while being adaptive to scale and location of interest.


Private benefits of control (PBC) are benefits that controlling shareholders consume, but that are not shared with minority shareholders. Research focusing on the value protection role of corporate governance typically frames PBC as principal–principal (PP) agency costs, and interprets them as a form of minority shareholder expropriation that decreases firm performance. Taking a value creation perspective of corporate governance, however, we propose a more nuanced role for PBC. Specifically, we see them also as PP agency benefits that compensate controlling shareholders for their monitoring and advisory services, which can increase firm performance. Since both PP costs and benefits affect firm performance, we theorize that PBC enhance firm performance at a diminishing rate. Furthermore, we show that the effect of PBC on firm performance is more positive when country-level external governance mechanisms are strong.


Carbon tetrachloride has long been used to produce experimental liver necrosis, but its mode of action is obscure. In the present work we have investigated the behaviour of the respiratory enzymes in carbon tetrachloride poisoning, using whole cells and cell-free systems obtained by the method of differential centrifugation. Of the cell fractions, the mitochondria were found to be the component attacked by the poison. We have been able to show that the tricarboxylic acid cycle is disorganized. The earliest changes occur between 10 and 15 h after the poison is administered, and consists of inhibition of the oxidation of citrate, malate, octanoate, pyruvate and glutamate, but at this time the oxidation of succinate is unimpaired. The inhibition of malate, glutamate and citrate oxidation can be reversed by the addition of pyridine nucleotide. In the case of pyruvate the inhibition may be partially reversed by the addition of Co I and ATP. The poisoned mitochondria lose pyridine nucleotide at an abnormally fast rate, and at differing times for the different enzymes. Conversely, we have shown that Co I penetrates poisoned mitochondria at a faster rate than normal mitochondria. Administration of choline to poisoned animals delays both the microscopic appearances of injury and the biochemical changes. We have reproduced the biochemical effects of carbon tetrachloride by in vitro treatment of liver homogenates, and we suggest that the mode of action of the agent is a direct attack on the mitochondria. This attack results in a disorganization of the enzyme systems, and is not a specific inhibition of any one of them. The rate of incorporation of 32P into mitochondrial phospholipid has also been studied, and found to be somewhat increased in carbon tetrachloride poisoning.


Negative properties, like not flying, are controversial. I introduce negative properties, and offer semantic arguments against the inclusion of such properties in ontology. I distinguish predicate negation and sentential negation, and examine the syntactic and semantic behaviour of predicate negation. I contend that predicate negation is identical with sentential negation. If it is not, then we lose a lot of intuitive inferences found in natural languages and make no clear metaphysical gain. Other arguments based on Ockham's razor are offered. Finally, I address the problem raised by words like "immortal". These words apparently express negative properties. My views have interesting consequences on the ontological scope of these words.


A study was conducted on genetics of shelf life and yield characters
of long bean. Four parental lines namely, L30, KU7, KU8 and CSL 1 9 were
used in the study. Genetic component analysis for shelf life and yield
characters were done following generation mean analysis from four cross
combinations namely Cross 1 (L30 X KU7), Cross 2 (L30 X KU8), Cross 3
(KU7 X KU8) and Cross 4 (L30 X CSL1 9). F1, F2 and backcross generations
were developed. A study was also conducted to transfer genes for long shelf
life from a donor parent (L30) to the genetic background of recurrent parent
(KU7, KU8, CSL 19) using backcross breeding method.
Results of scaling test showed that the additive-dominance model was
adequate in explaining the genetic control of seeds per pod, seed weight,
pod protein and seed protein in Cross 1; pod protein, seed protein and pod
protein yield per plant in Cross 2; and shelf life in Cross 4. This study revealed the importance of dominance gene effects, followed by dominance
X dominance (I) interaction effects for shelf life and yield characters. The
additive gene effect was proportionately small . Duplicate type of epistasis
was observed in most of the characters including shelf l ife. Exploitation of
heterosis breeding is suggested for the improvement of these traits having
involved with non-additive gene effects. For characters which are under the
control of additive (d) and additive X additive (i) gene interactions, simple
selection procedu re like pedigree method in the early generation is
recommended .
The varied estimates of narrow-sense heritability among the crosses
for different characters were due to genotype X environment interactions.
Estimates of narrow-sense heritability for pod yield per plant and shelf life
were high in Crosses 1 and 2, respectively. Shelf life and pod yield
manifested high estimates of narrow-sense heritability in Cross 4.
The degree of heterosis varied with characters among the crosses,
because of diverse geographical origin of the parental lines and the
contributions of background genotypes through its interaction with
segregating loci. Heterosis estimates were moderately h igh for shelf life and
pod yield per plant in Cross 1, and low in Crosses 2, 3 and 4. Days to flower,
days to harvest, moisture content and pod length showed negative heterosis
among the crosses, indicating earliness of the hybrids, having less moisture
content and reduced pod length .


Increased safety of caesarean section operation has led to increase in the incidence to an alarming level. Currently it is the most common surgery performed in females worldwide. It is reported to > 30 % in some of the cities in India. WHO had issued statement that 10-15 % rate of caesarean section is medically justified. Although safe, caesarean section is not as safe as vaginal delivery. The mortality and morbidity of caesarean section is quite high as compared to vaginal delivery. Caesarean sections on demand, done for convenience or for commercial reasons are unjustified. Changing the attitude of both patients as well as doctors will only help in controlling this epidemic which is highly and urgently needed.


espnW is ESPN, Inc.'s, first entity targeted at female fans and female athletes. espnW portrays female athletes as competent sportswomen and serious competitors as measured by quantitative analysis of photographs and articles on the site. A more critical look at the discourse, however, reveals 2 major themes. First, divergent dialogues are used in espnW articles to reify relations of power and privilege for male athletes. Divergent dialogues appear in articles on espnW in the forms of descriptive language used for female athletes, mention of nonsporting topics that have little or nothing to do with athleticism, and direct references to physical/personality attributes. Second, positioning espnW as "additive content" to ESPN for female fans relies on ideas of natural sexual difference and choice. If the institution of sport is defined by masculinity and partially upheld by traditional sports journalism, women are excluded.


Comprehensive collaborative studies from our laboratories reveal the extensive biodiversity of the microflora of the surfaces of smear-ripened cheeses. Two thousand five hundred ninety-seven strains of bacteria and 2,446 strains of yeasts from the surface of the smear-ripened cheeses Limburger, Reblochon, Livarot, Tilsit, and Gubbeen, isolated at three or four times during ripening, were identified; 55 species of bacteria and 30 species of yeast were found. The microfloras of the five cheeses showed many similarities but also many differences and interbatch variation. Very few of the commercial smear microorganisms, deliberately inoculated onto the cheese surface, were reisolated and then mainly from the initial stages of ripening, implying that smear cheese production units must have an adventitious "house" flora. Limburger cheese had the simplest microflora, containing two yeasts, Debaryomyces hansenii and Geotrichum candidum, and two bacteria, Arthrobacter arilaitensis and Brevibacterium aurantiacum. The microflora of Livarot was the most complicated, comprising 10 yeasts and 38 bacteria, including many gram-negative organisms. Reblochon also had a very diverse microflora containing 8 yeasts and 13 bacteria (excluding gram-negative organisms which were not identified), while Gubbeen had 7 yeasts and 18 bacteria and Tilsit had 5 yeasts and 9 bacteria. D. hansenii was by far the dominant yeast, followed in order by G. candidum, Candida catenulata, and Kluyveromyces lactis. B. aurantiacum was the dominant bacterium and was found in every batch of the 5 cheeses. The next most common bacteria, in order, were Staphylococcus saprophyticus, A. arilaitensis, Corynebacterium casei, Corynebacterium variabile, and Microbacterium gubbeenense. S. saprophyticus was mainly found in Gubbeen, and A. arilaitensis was found in all cheeses but not in every batch. C. casei was found in most batches of Reblochon, Livarot, Tilsit, and Gubbeen. C. variabile was found in all batches of Gubbeen and Reblochon but in only one batch of Tilsit and in no batch of Limburger or Livarot. Other bacteria were isolated in low numbers from each of the cheeses, suggesting that each of the 5 cheeses has a unique microflora. In Gubbeen cheese, several different strains of the dominant bacteria were present, as determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, and many of the less common bacteria were present as single clones. The culture-independent method, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, resulted in identification of several bacteria which were not found by the culture-dependent (isolation and rep-PCR identification) method. It was thus a useful complementary technique to identify other bacteria in the cheeses. The gross composition, the rate of increase in pH, and the indices of proteolysis were different in most of the cheeses.


Abstract:This essay examines the missing national film archive of Pakistan against the politics of competing cultural memory. Sharing a common past yet existing in the shadows of the Indian film industry, cinema in Pakistan found itself in an unusual predicament after decolonization and Partition. While filmmaking was expected to carry the imprint of national difference, the intercultural context of colonial India bequeathed the industry its traditions and personnel. Yet when the British Film Institute repatriated colonial Indian films in the mid-1960s, the holdings went entirely to India. The lack of a public film repository denied Pakistan not only its colonial heritage but also the systematic preservation of its postcolonial film culture. In the absence of a state archive, what has emerged in the country is a democratic archive consisting of independent collectors, magazine proprietors, and avid users. Using a term extracted from one of the archives, filmaria (film fever), Siddique reads in the popular film archives the contagious circumstances of intercultural cinema. It alerts us to a film contagion widespread in the subcontinental publics that thrives on filmgoing, cinematic resemblance, and embodied cultural memory, a condition caused by the displacements of Partition and the creation of national difference.


This article first examines the textual structure of the Śāriputra Saṃyukta (舍利弗相應 Shelifu Xiangying) of the Chinese Saṃyuktāgama (Taishō vol. 2, no. 99) in conjunction with its Pāli parallel. Then it compares the main teachings contained in the two versions. It reveals similarities but also significant differences in both structure and doctrinal content, thus advancing the historical/critical study of early Buddhist doctrine in this area.


Presenting a highly innovative exploration of the relationship between philosophical and psychological issues, Edwin L. Hersch argues that psychological theories and practices inescapably rest upon a series of philosophical positions - whether they are acknowledged and reflected upon or not. To examine this proposition Hersch develops his Hierarchy of Levels of Theoretical or Philosophical Inquiry Method, which involves the systematic consideration of a series of philosophical questions pertaining to the ontological, general epistemological, field-specific epistemological, and psychological stances adopted (either explicitly or implicitly) by any particular psychological theory. By using this hierarchical framework the book then attempts to develop a new approach to psychological theory and psychotherapeutic practice based largely on the premises of phenomenological philosophy. The scope of the book cuts across a variety of theoretical and professional disciplinary approaches within the broad psychological field in demonstrating the relevance of certain philosophical issues for all of them. Clinicians, theorists and students in the psychological field are presented with a palatable introduction to the importance and inevitability of dealing with philosophy in pursuing their own work. Furthermore, his philosophical explications of a variety of psychological theories provides a new tool with which to better understand, compare, or assess any internal inconsistencies.


Matching grants are commonly used to influence the bundle of public goods provided by governments. A contingent valuation experiment was designed to determine the value that individuals place on improved recreational facilities under a matching grant proposal. The experiment provided an opportunity to examine preferences given the public good exists in an active and well-defined market, and the valuation experiment was perceived as meaningful to public policy. The researchers estimated a mean willingness-to-pay for park improvements of $8.30, far less than the implied tax increase of $21 provided by local politicians opposed to the project but nearly double the actual tax increase for the average property owner.


Intracellular transport phenomena, such as kinesins and myosins moving
along cytoskeletal filaments or ribosomes along messenger RNA, can be
modeled by one-dimensional driven lattice gases. Among these, the
Totally Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (TASEP), has been
extensively used. It describes a system of particles hopping in a
preferred direction with hard core interaction. The goal of this
thesis is to explore the relevance of some features that are missed by
this simple model, such as the exchange of particles between molecular
track and the cytoplasm, the extended molecular structure of each
motor, and the interaction of motors with imperfections on the track
acting as road blocks for intracellular traffic.

Recent studies have taken into account particle exchange between the
track and bulk solution (Langmuir kinetics). It was found that this
violation of current conservation along the track leads to phase
coexistence regions in the phase diagram not present in the TASEP. We
have extended these studies in two ways. First, motivated by the fact
that many molecular motors are dimers, we study how the stationary
properties of the system (density profile and phase behavior) change
upon replacing monomers with extended particles. Analytical refined
and generalized mean field theory, supported by numerical Monte Carlo
simulations, give a detailed description of the phase diagram. Our
study proves that the extension gives quantitative but not qualitative
changes in the phase diagram, showing that the picture obtained in the
case of monomers is robust upon considering extended particles.
Second, motivated by the presence of structural imperfections of the
track that act as road blocks, we study the influence of an isolated
defect characterized by a reduced hopping rate on the non-equilibrium
steady state. We explore the phase behavior in the full parameter
range and find that the phase diagram changes qualitatively as
compared to the case without defects, showing new phase coexistence
regions. In particular above a certain threshold strength of the
defect, its presence induces a macroscopic change in the density
profile. The regions where the defect is relevant (called bottleneck
phases) are identified and studied.

In the second part of the thesis we investigate the dynamical features
of these models. First we concentrate on the dynamics of the simple
TASEP, for which a complete analysis was missing. We use a technique
borrowed from solid state physics, the Boltzmann-Langevin method, to
give a full description of the correlation function in the whole
parameter space. Finally we study the dynamics of a tracer particle
in a TASEP with on-off kinetics. We observe that it is possible to
reconstruct the density profile from the velocity of the tracer
particle and we propose to perform single molecule experiments with
fluorescently labelled molecular motors to explore the density profile
and ultimately test the phase behavior predicted in this thesis.


In 1945, the Royal Society of South Africa published a wide-ranging report, prepared by a committee led by Dr C.L. Wicht, dealing with the preservation of the globally unique and highly diverse vegetation of the south-western Cape. The publication of the Wicht Committee's report signalled the initiation of a research programme aimed at understanding, and ultimately protecting, the unique and diverse ecosystems of the Cape Floristic Region. This programme has continued for over 70 years, and it constitutes the longest history of concerted scientific endeavour aimed at the conservation of an entire region and its constituent biota. This monograph has been prepared to mark the 70th anniversary of the Wicht Committee report. It provides a detailed overview of the circumstances that led up to the Wicht Committee's report, and the historical context within which it was written. It traces the development of new and substantial scientific understanding over the past 70 years, particularly with regard to catchment hydrology, fire ecology, invasive alien plant ecology, the harvesting of plant material and conservation planning. The Wicht Committee's report also made recommendations about ecosystem management, particularly with regard to the use of fire and the control of invasive alien plants, as well as for the establishment of protected areas. Subsequently, a combination of changing conservation philosophies and scientific conservation planning led to the creation and expansion of a network of protected areas that now covers nearly 19% of the Cape Floristic Region. We also review aspects of climate change, most of which could not have been foreseen by the Wicht Committee. We conclude that those responsible for the conservation of these ecosystems will face many challenges in the 21st century. These will include finding ways for effectively managing invasive alien plants and fires, as foreseen by the Wicht Committee. While the protected area network has expanded beyond the modest targets proposed by the Wicht Committee, funding has not kept pace with this expansion, with consequences for the ability to effectively manage protected areas. The research environment has also shifted away from long-term research conducted by scientists embedded in management agencies, to short-term studies conducted largely by academic institutions. This has removed a significant benefit that was gained from the long-term partnership between research and management that characterised the modis operandus of the Department of Forestry. Growing levels of illegal resource use and a changing global climate also pose new challenges that were not foreseen by the Wicht Committee.


Aims Rheum palmatum complex comprises all taxa within section Palmata in the genus Rheum, including R. officinale, R. palmatum, R. tanguticum, R. tanguticum var. liupanshanense and R. laciniatum. The identification of the taxa in section Palmata is based primarily on the degree of leaf blade dissection and the shape of the lobes; however, difficulties in species identification may arise from their significant variation. The aim of this study is to analyze the patterns of variation in leaf blade characteristics within and among populations through population-based sampling covering the entire distribution range of R. palmatum complex. Methods Samples were taken from 2340 leaves from 780 individuals and 44 populations representing the four species, and the degree of leaf blade dissection and the shape of the lobe were measured to yield a set of quantitative data. Furthermore, those data were statistically analyzed. Important Findings The statistical analysis showed that the degree of leaf blade dissection is continuous from lobed to parted, and the shape of the lobe is also continuous from broadly triangular to lanceolate both within and between populations. We suggested that taxa in section Palmata should be considered as one species. Based on the research on the R. palmatum complex, we considered that the quantitative characteristics were greatly influenced by the environment. Therefore, it is not reliable to delimitate the species according to the continuously quantitative vegetative characteristics.


Most existing Multiple-Instance Learning (MIL) algorithms assume data instances and/or data bags are independently and identically distributed. But there often exists rich additional dependency/structure information between instances/bags within many applications of MIL. Ignoring this structure information limits the performance of existing MIL algorithms. This paper explores the research problem as multiple instance learning on structured data (MILSD) and formulates a novel framework that considers additional structure information. In particular, an effective and efficient optimization algorithm has been proposed to solve the original non-convex optimization problem by using a combination of Concave-Convex Constraint Programming (CCCP) method and an adapted Cutting Plane method, which deals with two sets of constraints caused by learning on instances within individual bags and learning on structured data. Our method has the nice convergence property, with specified precision on each set of constraints. Experimental results on three different applications, i.e., webpage classification, market targeting, and protein fold identification, clearly demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method over state-of-the-art methods.


This report examines the health and environmental impacts of the TSAP-2012 baseline emission scenarios that have been presented in the TSAP Report #1 to the Stakeholder Expert Group in June 2012. The baseline suggests for the next decades a steady decline of energy-related emissions from industry, households and transport while no significant changes are foreseen for NH3 from agricultural activities.

These emission trajectories will lead to significant improvements in air quality. For instance, loss of statistical life expectancy from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is expected to decline from 9.6 months in 2000 and 6.9 months in 2010 to 5.5 months in 2020 and 5.0 months in 2030. It is estimated that the number of premature deaths attributable to short-term exposure of ground-level ozone will drop by about 30% by 2020. Ecosystems area where biodiversity is threatened by excess nitrogen deposition will shrink from 1.2 million km2 in 2000 to 900,000 km2 in 2030, and acidification will remain an issue at only four percent of the European forest area.

However, by 2020 the baseline improvements for fine particular matter health impacts and eutrophication will fall short of the targets established in the 2005 Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution, while for acidification and ozone these targets will be met. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the baseline development will achieve full compliance with the air quality limit values for PM10 and NO2 throughout Europe. Equally, the baseline scenario will not provide protection against excess nitrogen deposition at almost 50% of the legally protected Natura2000 areas and other protected zones.

In addition, the magnitude of air pollution impacts and resulting damage remains substantial. It is estimated that for the baseline in 2030, the European population would still suffer a loss of 210 million life-years and experience 18,000 premature deaths because of ozone exposure. Biodiversity will remain threatened by excess nitrogen input at 900,000 km2 of ecosystems, including 250,000 km2 which are legally protected, inter alia as Natura2000 areas.

The analysis also highlights the scope for additional measures that could alleviate the remaining damage and move closer to the objectives of the Sixth Environment Action Program. Full application of readily available technical emission reduction measures in the EU could reduce health impacts from PM by 2020 by another 30% and thereby gain more than 55 million life-years in the EU. It could save another 3,000 premature deaths per year because of lower ozone concentrations. Further controls of agricultural emissions could protect biodiversity at another 200,000 km2 of ecosystems against excess nitrogen deposition, including 50,000 km2 of Natura2000 areas and other protected zones. It could eliminate almost all likely exceedances of PM10 air quality limit values in the old Member States, while in the urban areas of new Member States additional action to substitute solid fuels in the household sector with cleaner forms of energy would be required. Such Europe-wide emission controls would also eliminate in 2030 all likely cases of noncompliance with EU air quality standards for NO2 with the exception of a few stations for which additional local measures (e.g., traffic restrictions, low emission zones) would be necessary.

While the general trend appears to be robust, quantification of the remaining effects requires more uncertainty analyses.


Rabies is a zoonotic infectious disease of the central nervous system (CNS). In unvaccinated or untreated subjects, rabies virus infection causes severe neurological symptoms and is invariably fatal. Despite the long-standing existence of effective vaccines, vaccine availability remains insufficient, with high numbers of fatal infections mostly in developing countries. Nucleic acid based vaccines have proven convincingly as a new technology for the fast development of vaccines against newly emerging pathogens, diseases where no vaccine exists or for replacing already existing vaccines. We used an optimized non-replicating rabies virus glycoprotein (RABV-G) encoding messenger RNA (mRNA) to induce potent neutralizing antibodies (VN titers) in mice and domestic pigs. Functional antibody titers were followed in mice for up to one year and titers remained stable for the entire observation period in all dose groups. T cell analysis revealed the induction of both, specific CD4+ as well as CD8+ T cells by RABV-G mRNA, with the induced CD4+ T cells being higher than those induced by a licensed vaccine. Notably, RABV-G mRNA vaccinated mice were protected against lethal intracerebral challenge infection. Inhibition of viral replication by vaccination was verified by qRT-PCR. Furthermore, we demonstrate that CD4+ T cells are crucial for the generation of neutralizing antibodies. In domestic pigs we were able to induce VN titers that correlate with protection in adult and newborn pigs. This study demonstrates the feasibility of a non-replicating mRNA rabies vaccine in small and large animals and highlights the promises of mRNA vaccines for the prevention of infectious diseases.


The count-strength-product (CSP) of cotton yarn is a complex function of fiber properties and spinning performance. The traditional way of predicting yarn CSP is using linear multiple regression. The correlation coefficient between actual CSP and predicted CSP obtained from linear regression is almost always less than 0.9. In this paper, we used a Fuzzy ARTMAP network to predict yarn CSP from fiber properties and spinning performance. Fiber properties and spinning data were used as inputs to ARTa, and yarn CSP was used as ARTb input. Our objectives are: better prediction of the quality of the end product, and to determine the optimum set of fiber properties to make reliable predictions. Several experiments were designed with different combinations of fiber properties (based on the measuring instruments used in collecting those properties) as ARTa inputs. To improve relative accuracy of prediction, three voter networks were used in each experiment. During training, order of the training data was scrambled to create 3 ARTMAP networks. The ARTb templates in the voter networks indicates the range of CSP for any particular inputs to the ARTa. Since CSP is a continuous analog value, the boundary of ARTb templates is usually not fixed among the voters. To improve absolute accuracy of prediction, we took a Fuzzy OR function among the three chosen voter templates during recall to reduce the span of the range. When predicting, each ARTb template is represented by its center of gravity. In each experiment, the correlation coefficient between the actual and the predicted CSP was better than 0.95. A combination of all fiber properties from traditional and Advanced Fiber Information System (AFIS) tests made marginally better prediction than any other combination of fiber properties including when fiber properties from all the tests were fed into ARTa.


Impersonal predications are often viewed as structures expressing either agent defocusing, or lack of canonical subject properties. The study of one type of prototypical impersonal predication, meteorological predicates, in various Afroasiatic branches suggests that the subject or agent may not be centrally associated to the notion of impersonal. Rather, defocussing or backgrounding can concern either the entity or the event, resulting not only in subjectless structures and non-canonical subjects, but also in verbless structures and non-canonical predicates. What unifies those structures, rather than lack of canonical subjecthood or agent defocusing, is theticity, which may also be at play in other impersonal types than meteorological predicates. Keywords: impersonal; Afroasiatic; theticity; meteorological predications; weather verbs


Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyse whether employment growth is faster in regions housing a university compared to non-university regions. We argue that universities per se are less likely to trigger externalities that facilitate employment growth. Instead, we propose that it depends on the concentration of different skills in that particular region. This is analysed by running a number of ordinary least squares regressions, based on official data on a municipal level from Statistics Sweden, on how concentrations of human capital, analytic, synthetic and symbolic knowledge bases in Swedish university regions influence employment growth in 2002–2008. The results indicate that the presence of universities per se does not influence employment growth. However, the findings suggest that university regions with high concentrations of human capital and, in particular, with employees characterized by the synthetic knowledge base, show higher growth rates. This implies that the influence of universities on employment is greatest in regions with high concentrations of skills able to apply the knowledge created in universities. Consequently, the regional composition of skills needs to match the knowledge produced by universities for significant university-induced spillovers to occur.


Because enforcement of forestry law has become extremely difficult in Indonesia, a ban on export of logs has been suggested as a means of controlling over-harvest and illegal logging. A model of a log export ban can help us visualize its effects on the forestry sector. The model consists of simplified overviews of: the wood processing sector, demand—price feedback loops, forest standing stock and log availability, log harvest capacity, and log exports. It examines important feedbacks that must be understood if the potential costs and benefits of a log export ban are to be properly considered. Although some scenarios can help reduce log harvests to sustainable levels, others encourage expansion of small domestic milling capacity leading to increased log harvests. Excess domestic milling capacity added during a log export ban may continue to operate even after a log export ban is lifted. For a log export ban to be an effective tool in combating over-harvest and illegal harvest, limits must also be placed on possible increases in domestic milling and logging capacity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


AIMS
To estimate the association between per capita alcohol retail outlet density and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) from 51 547 suicide decedents and to analyse the relationship between alcohol outlet density and socio-demographic characteristics among alcohol-positive suicide decedents in the United States by racial/ethnic groups and method of suicide.

DESIGN
Analysis of US data, 2003-11, National Violent Death Reporting System.

SETTING
Suicide decedents from 14 US states.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 51 347 suicide decedents tested for BAC.

MEASUREMENTS
BAC and levels were derived from coroner/medical examiner reports. Densities of county level on-premises and off-premises alcohol retail outlets were calculated using the 2010 Census.

FINDINGS
Multi-level logistic regression models suggested that higher off-premises alcohol outlet densities were associated with greater proportions of alcohol-related suicides among men-for suicides with alcohol present [BAC >0; adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.03-1.13]. Interactions between outlet density and decedents' characteristics were also tested. There was an interaction between off-premises alcohol availability and American Indian/Alaska Native race (AOR = 1.36; 95% CI = 1.10-1.69) such that this subgroup had highest BAC positivity. On-premises density was also associated with BAC >0 (AOR = 1.07; 95% CI = 1.03-1.11) and BAC ≥0.08 (AOR = 1.05; 95% CI = 1.02-1.09) among male decedents.

CONCLUSIONS
In the United States, the density of both on- and off-premises alcohol outlets in a county is associated positively with alcohol-related suicide, especially among American Indians/Alaska Natives.


We report the upconversion processes that produce violet, blue, green, orange, and red emissions in K5Nd(MoO4)4 stoichiometric crystal together with the dynamics and spectral properties of the laser emission. The influence of upconversion energy-transfer processes on the energy storage capacity through the reduction of fluorescence lifetimes of the metastable  4F3/2 level is investigated. The experiments were conducted in such a way that the dynamics of the infrared and visible fluorescence was performed under lasing and nonlasing conditions. The dynamics of the upconverted emission shows that both energy-transfer upconversion and excited-state absorption of the laser emission occur. A brief analysis about the polarization properties of the laser emission is presented.


The national clinical final examination (NCFE) plays an important role in order to measure the level of knowledge and performance of nursing students. Our findings indicate that the design of the NCFE is beneficial for the students' clinical reasoning and problem solution in the caring situation. The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of the NCFE from lecturers who corrected the written part examination. A further aim was to study the lectures and the RN during observation in the bedside part of the examination. The NCFE is divided into two parts: a theoretical (written) part and a practical (bedside) part. In nursing education it is essential to assess nursing competencies for the future professional role such as the assessment of clinical competence that has become central to evaluate what outcomes are assessed. In addition, it provides a valuable approach to measure the level of knowledge and performance of nursing students. Future development of the NCFE is necessary regarding the degree to which the examination meets learning objectives and educational results.


This work evaluated the effect of freezing on chondrocytes maintained in culture, aiming the establishment of a cell bank for future application as heterologous implant. Chondrocytes extracted from joint cartilage of nine healthy New Zealand White rabbits were cultivated and frozen with the cryoprotector 5% dimethylsulfoxide for six months. Phenotypic and scanning electron microscopy analyses were carried out to identify morphological and functional differences between fresh and thawed cells. After enzymatic digestion, a total of 4.8x10cells per rabbit were obtained. Fresh chondrocytes showed a high mitotic rate and abundant matrix was present up to 60 days of culture. Loss of phenotypic stability was notable in the thawed chondrocytes, with a low labeling of proteoglycans and weak immunostaining of type II collagen. The present study showed important loss of chondrocyte viability under the freezing conditions. For future in vivo studies of heterologous implant, these results suggests that a high number of cells should be implanted in the host site in order to achieve an adequate number of viable cells. Furthermore, the chondrocytes should be implanted after two weeks of culture, when the highest viability rate is found.


I. INTRODUCTION (1) During the last decade a major public policy issue in the United States--and indeed the world--has concerned the appropriate strategy and means to prevent and punish international crime. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States led the effort in counter-drug policy. An instrumental part of the strategy is the anti-money laundering and asset forfeiture laws enacted in the mid 1980s. This policy was exported to the international community and became enshrined in the 1988 Vienna Convention against the trafficking of narcotics and psychotropic substances. (2) During the Clinton Administration, the focus of this policy expanded to combating transnational organized crime (TOC), including the use of economics sanctions against TOC, which became embodied in the U.N. Palermo Convention. (3) The policy focus under George W. Bush was counter-terrorism and the use of the "war" paradigm. Similarly in 1977, the United States enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and has led the crusade against transnational corruption. These policies are embedded in about five international anti-bribery conventions. Currently, under the Obama Administration, the United States has prioritized making strategic revisions in U.S. international criminal policy. This article discusses developments in the United States and international policy with respect to international white collar crime, as well as the interaction between international criminal law, especially counter-terrorism, and international human rights law. One question is whether the U.S. government and lawyers will play a leadership role in international enforcement policy and law. II. THE RISE, AND CHALLENGE OF, INTERNATIONAL WHITE COLLAR CRIME The modern economy, globalization, and new technologies facilitate the spread of transnational crime, especially economic crime. The fact that new types of substantive international crimes emerge every decade, such as cybercrimes and money laundering, is a recent phenomenon. Just as importantly, the procedural aspects of international criminal law continue to grow. (4) For instance, the interplay of free trade and economic integration is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, to the extent free trade agreements (FTAs) and economic integration do not confront criminal cooperation and justice, they facilitate the growth of transnational crime. On the other hand, to the extent FTAs and economic integration do confront these issues within the agreement, as is the case with the pacts governing economic cooperation within the European Union, they become a laboratory for cutting-edge international criminal cooperation and criminal justice developments. Another essential and dynamic component of international criminal law is the evolving framework of institutions. The dramatic growth of broad criminal justice agendas within traditional international institutions like the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and multilateral development banks led by the World Bank Group continues to make criminal law a growth sector. Concomitantly, the international community is increasingly establishing informal groups, such as the G8, G20, Financial Action Task Force, and the Egmont Group, to deal with various international criminal groups. (5) Just as important has been the rise of national institutions throughout the world, such as counter-drug enforcement agencies, financial intelligence units, and asset forfeiture agencies. (6) A. Environment Giving Rise to International Economic Crimes Contemporary transnational criminals take advantage of globalization, trade liberalization, and emerging new technologies to commit a diverse range of crimes, and to move money, goods, services, and people for purposes of pure economic gain or political violence. (7) A key component facilitating international white collar crime is trade liberalization, especially FTAs. The problem is that the lack of foresight, leadership, and favorable politics prevents trade negotiators from providing for comprehensive enforcement mechanisms. …


Student Centred Learning' and 'Resource Based Learning' (RBL) seem to be two of the buzz words in tertiary education at the moment. By the year 2000 it is likely that at least 30% of all undergraduate teaching in Australian Universities will involve the use of specially designed learning resources (NCODE, 1996). According to the literature one of the benefits of RBL is the facilitation of autonomous, reflective learning (NCO D E, 1996). The Introduction to Tertiary Teaching (ITT) subject for academics at Wollongong University aims to facilitate reflective learning and the subject is presently being redesigned to provide a modular program with RBL as one of its features. The intention is to satisf Y the diverse needs of participants and to encourage the 'Deep Approach' to learning identified by Marton & Siiljo (1976) such that participants are motivated to seek meaning rather than simply reproduce information. This article describes some of my experiences in the design and implementation of the first ITT module and offers some suggestions to staff interested in integrating RBL into their courses. This journal article is available in Overview University of Wollongong Teaching & Learning Journal: http://ro.uow.edu.au/overview/ vol4/iss1/7


Objective: The efficacy of acupuncture alone in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is controversial, but the benefit of acupuncture added to usual care has rarely been studied. We aimed to examine the benefit of acupuncture added to usual care through network meta-analysis (NMA). Methods: PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were searched from their inception to 1 July 2021, without any language restriction. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing the effect of acupuncture alone or acupuncture combined with usual care for IBS were included. The primary outcome was improvement of global IBS symptoms. Standard NMA was performed to compare differential combinations of acupuncture (including manual acupuncture (MA) and electroacupuncture (EA)), and component network meta-analysis (CNMA) was subsequently performed to determine whether acupuncture provided additional benefits to usual care. The effect size of an intervention was measured using relative ratio (RR). Results: We included 25 RCTs (n = 3041 participants) after screening 582 retrieved articles. Five RCTs were classified as low risk of bias. The results of standard NMA showed that MA combined with usual care ranked the most effective (sham acupuncture as common comparator; RR = 1.96 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.23 to 3.12)). The results of CNMA showed that MA was the most effective component (RR = 1.38 (95% CI, 1.12 to 1.70)) when added to usual care. Conclusion: Acupuncture provided additional benefits to usual care, and it might be considered as adjunctive therapy for patients who respond inadequately to usual care.


OBJECTIVE To examine trends in diabetes incidence among Ontario residents with Chinese and European origins. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Respondents to population-based health surveys in 1996, 2001, 2003, and 2005 who were aged ≥30 years, who did not have diabetes, and who self-identified as having European (n = 76,285) or Chinese (n = 1,041) origins were followed for diabetes incidence through a validated administrative data–derived diabetes registry. RESULTS Age- and sex-standardized diabetes incidence increased from 1.3 to 19.6 per 1,000 person-years in the Chinese population and from 7.8 to 10.0 in the European population. Relative to the 1996 European population, the adjusted hazard ratio for diabetes was 4.50 (95% CI 1.89–7.49) for the 2005 Chinese population and 1.22 (1.05–1.39) for the 2005 European population. CONCLUSIONS Diabetes incidence increased much more rapidly between 1996 and 2005 in the Chinese population than in the European population, independent of age, obesity, and other risk factors.


Abstract Cercartetus nanus (Desmarest, 1817) is a burramyid commonly called the eastern pygmy-possum. It is 1 of 4 species in the genus Cercartetus, which together with Burramys parvus form the marsupial family Burramyidae. This species is endemic to southeastern Australia and occupies a range of vegetation types, but Banksia woodland is probably preferred habitat. This species is notable for its longevity, ability to hibernate, and its likely role as an important pollinator of a range of large-flowered plants. This species is of conservation concern in several Australian states, where it is threatened by habitat loss, inappropriate fire regimes, and introduced predators.


The spokes of a bicycle wheel brace and stiffen its slender rim, but only as long as the pre-tension is high enough to prevent them from going slack under external loads. However, if the spoke tension is too high, the rim will buckle into a non-planar shape. Despite its importance for wheel strength and safety, we know of no formula in the literature for the maximum tension a wheel can withstand before buckling. Here we derive such a formula. The non-dimensionalized buckling tension depends only on two parameters which are identified as the ratio of rim torsional stiffness to rim bending stiffness, and the ratio of lateral spoke bracing stiffness to rim bending stiffness. The buckled rim adopts a sinusoidal lateral profile where the number of positive peaks n ≥ 2 is determined by these two stiffness ratios. The lateral stiffness of the wheel may be represented by a system of equivalent springs: two series-connected springs for the rim bending and torsion stiffness, connected in parallel with a spring for the spoke system.


Summary
Invasive non-native plants (INNPs) can have serious and widespread negative ecological and socio-economic impacts. It is therefore important they are managed appropriately. Within domestic gardens management decisions, which will tend to be made by individual members of the public, are likely to vary depending on (a) understanding of problems caused by INNP, and (b) knowledge of best practice.
Using content analysis, an approach seldom employed in an ecological context, this study analysed variation in internet-based information sources regarding INNP to determine how this collective discourse might influence risk perceptions and management decisions for domestic garden owners/managers. We used Japanese knotweed Fallopia japonica in the UK, as a case study, as it is one of the most ecologically and economically damaging INNP in the region. Our analysis categorized the types of author disseminating information about Japanese knotweed, the relative frequency of documents between author categories, and variation in content and style between and within author categories.
We identified five author categories: environmental NGOs, control companies, government, media and the property market. There was extensive variation in document structure, topics discussed, references and links to other sources, and language style; sometimes this variation was between author categories and sometimes within author categories. The most significant variation in topics discussed between author categories was indirect socio-economic problems, with control companies discussing these most. The number of pieces of legislation referenced and the proportion of militaristic words used were also highly significantly different between author categories. Some documents used neutral terminology and were more circumspect, whilst others were more forceful in expressing opinions and sensational.
The author category returning the highest number of documents was the subcategory local government, the shortest of which contained neither links to other information nor referenced any organizations. Further analysis of local government documents revealed conflicting advice regarding the disposal of Japanese knotweed waste material; confusion about this topic could result in decisions being made that spread Japanese knotweed further and are potentially unlawful.
The potential implications of our findings for the management of INNP in domestic gardens and societal perceptions of risks posed by INNP are discussed.
Synthesis and applications. To help prevent inappropriate management of invasive non-native plants (INNPs), for example Japanese knotweed Fallopia japonica in domestic gardens, we recommend that local and national authorities collaborate and work towards disseminating more consistent messages about (a) the potential socio-economic and ecological problems caused by INNP, whilst avoiding hyperbole, and (b) the most appropriate management techniques.


Virtual reality tracking systems are used to detect the position and orientation of a user inside spatially immersive systems. In this paper, we simulate a laser-based tracking system that was originally developed for a six-sided spatially immersive system in environments with one and five walls to evaluate its performance for other installations. As expected, the results show that performance degrades with the number of walls, but they also show that tracking with even one wall is still very feasible.


Mosquitoes transmit diseases, causing millions of human deaths every year. Due to the huge consequences of synthetic insecticides, plants may be alternative sources of mosquito control agents. The present study assessed the phytochemicals and larvicidal activity of different solvent leaf extracts of Plectranthus glandulosus against three major vector mosquitoes, viz. Anopheles gambiae, Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus. Twenty five early fourth instar larvae of each mosquito species were exposed to various concentrations ranging from 125- 1000 ppm of methanol crude extract (MCE), hexane (HF), chloroform (CF), ethyl acetate (EAF) and methanol fractions (MF), from 250-2000 ppm of water extract (AE) and 2000 ppm of DDVP. The WHO standard protocol was followed. The larval mortality was observed 24 h post-exposure. The LC50 and LC90 values were determined by probit analysis. The qualitative phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of Alkaloids, Terpenoids, Steroids, Saponins, Tannins and Phenolic Compounds, Lipids, Fats and Fixed Oils. Among all solvent extracts and fractions tested, the maximum efficacy was observed in HF against all target mosquito species with LC50 values of 17.11, 89.08 and 610.40 ppm against An. gambiae, Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus, respectively. MCE, CF and EAF against An. gambiae were also effective with LC50 values of 167.85, 201.50 and 76.21 ppm, respectively. The results of the leaf extracts and fractions of P. glandulosus are promising as good mosquito larvicides against An. gambiae, Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus. This is a new eco-friendly approach that may replace the chemical DDVP for vector control programs.


There is growing concern about the impact of climate change on agriculture and the potential need for better risk management instruments that respond to a more risky environment. This is based on the widespread assumption that climate change will increase weather and yield variability and will expose farmers to higher levels of risk. But it is not obvious what will be the net impact of those on the distribution of yields and its correlation with weather indexes. Five stylized scenarios for crop yields are built on the basis of the available empirical information: baseline, marginal climate change without adaptation, with adaptation and with misalignment of expectations, and an extreme events scenario. A micro simulation model is calibrated using micro farm level data from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Four alternative policy measures are analyzed: three types of subsidized insurance (individual yield, area-yield and weather index) and an ex post disaster payment. Results on insurance uptake, budgetary costs and impacts on diversification, farmers' welfare and farm income variability, are presented for three different types of farms. The paper goes beyond indentifying the effectiveness of risk management instruments under stylized climate change scenario and analyze the policy decision criteria when policy makers face ambiguous climate change contingencies.


In this article, we draw on the narratives of residents and development workers to understand what freedoms hinder and enable access to water services in informal settlements in the Indian cities of Faridabad, Delhi and Mumbai. We show that although development practice and thinking in the water sector often frame water deficiencies as politically neutral technical and governance challenges, residents and development workers on the ground identify a lack of freedoms relating to first of all, residents' rights to the city and its resources, and secondly, meaningful engagement between residents and the political establishment as key causes for inadequate access to water services. Our findings indicate that water‐service development efforts can be more effective if they include strategies to strengthen informal settlers' rights to the city through a politicization of public engagement. We discuss the implications of our findings for practice and outline a future research agenda geared towards operationalizing our key findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


In this paper, transmission line systems are modeled as multi-span cable structures. A force method model is proposed for analysing the static response of the multi-span cables with small sags. The accepted cable model reduces to two groups of differential equations (the equilibrium equations in y, z directions) and an integral equation (the compatibility equation). Substituting the differential equation solutions into the compatibility condition, the governing equation is obtained in terms of the tension component in chord direction. This equation has been named the force method equation (FME). In this way the infinite-degree-of-freedom dynamic system is effectively simplified to a system with only one unknown. Finally, one example is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed force method.


In this paper, we introduce Bayesian sensing hidden Markov models (BS-HMMs) to represent sequential data based on a set of state-dependent basis vectors. The goal of this work is to perform Bayesian sensing and model regularization for heterogeneous training data. By incorporating a prior density on sensing weights, the relevance of different bases to a feature vector is determined by the corresponding precision parameters. The BS-HMM parameters, consisting of the basis vectors, the precision matrices of sensing weights and the precision matrices of reconstruction errors, are jointly estimated by maximizing the likelihood function, which is marginalized over the weight priors. We derive recursive solutions for the three parameters, which are expressed via maximum a posteriori estimates of the sensing weights. We specifically optimize BS-HMMs for large-vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) by introducing a mixture model of BS-HMMs and by adapting the basis vectors to different speakers. Discriminative training of BS-HMMs in the model domain and the feature domain is also proposed. Experimental results on an LVCSR task show consistent improvements due to the three sets of BS-HMM parameters and demonstrate how the extensions of mixture models, speaker adaptation, and discriminative training achieve better recognition results compared to those of conventional HMMs based on Gaussian mixture models.


Objective: Due to few lack of researches in the field of changes of inflammatory factors after post-operative knee surgery in our country in order to improve the health status of the patients, in this study, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein  and white blood cells  changes after uncomplicated arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction of the knee were investigated.
Material and Methods: In this prospective experimental study, patients undergoing arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction of the knee with uncomplicated postoperative course in Imam Hospital were studied.
Results: We included 60 patients, 56 (93.3%) were male and mean age of patients was 29.58±7.15 years. C-reactive protein levels peaked on the 2nd post-operative day and then declined and returned to the pre-operative levels on 7th day. erythrocyte sedimentation rate in patients after surgery has been peaked on the 2nd post-operative day, and returned to the pre-operative levels 14 days after surgery. The age of the patients had a direct correlation with post-operative  C-reactive protein on the seventh and twenty-eighth, respectively  r = 0.39, p = 0.04 and r = 0.84, p = 0.009. Patient age had a direct correlation with erythrocyte sedimentation rate day 7 and 14, respectively r = 0.49, p = 0.012; r = 0.44, p = 0.046.
Conclusion: Post-operative C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate levels returned to pre-operative levels in days two and fourteen respectively. If  C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate levels not reduced after the seventh and fourteenth day, respectively or increase again, definitive diagnosis of infection should be investigated.
Key words: ACL reconstruction, CRP, ESR, septic arthritis


The spectrum of stars in the submillimeter to centimeter wavelength range remains poorly constrained due to a lack of data for most spectral types. An accurate characterization of stellar emission in this regime is needed to test stellar atmosphere models, and is also essential for revealing emission associated with unresolved circumstellar debris. We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the three nearby, main-sequence, debris-poor, F-type stars γ Lep, γ Vir A, and γ Vir B at 0.87 and 1.29 mm. We use these data to constrain semiempirical atmospheric models. We discuss the atmospheric structure of these stars, explore potential short-term variability, and the potential impact on debris disk studies. These results are part of an ongoing campaign to obtain long wavelength observations of debris-poor stars, entitled Measuring the Emission of Stellar Atmospheres at Submillimeter/millimeter wavelengths.


The experiment and lesson developed in this paper aim at dealing with the curse of knowledge, or the disharmony between what instructors believe they are teaching and what students are learning. This paper proposes that by adopting a beginner's mind, instructors will be able to mitigate the disharmony. To adopt a beginner's mind, an instructor must first recognize any priors he holds that will be important for understanding the topic that differ from the priors that students likely hold. The best way to deal with these mismatched priors is to craft an experiment that develops the priors in a straightforward way (a beginner's mind experiment). The goal is to make the experiment itself the vessel that students learn through. Each beginner's mind experiment and lesson are composed of 3 phases: the warm up, the work and the cool down. The first phase of the beginner's mind experiment is the warm up while the beginner's mind experiment is the warm up phase for the entire lesson. The key takeaway is to remember that classroom experiments are fun and the fun you have running experiments will be even more meaningful when you are convinced students are learning a lot from the experiment.


Abstract We study in this paper how effective latency-tolerating and -reducing techniques are at cutting the memory access times for shared-memory multiprocessors with directory cache protocols managed by hardware and software. A critical issue for the relative efficiency is how many protocol operations such techniques trigger. This paper presents a framework that makes it possible to reason about the expected relative efficiency of a latency-tolerating or -reducing technique by focusing on whether the technique increases, decreases, or does not change the number of protocol operations at the memory module. Since software-only directory protocols handle these operations in software they will perform relatively worse unless the technique reduces the number of protocol operations. Our experimental results from detailed architectural simulations driven by six applications from the SPLASH-2 parallel program suite confirm this expectation. We find that while prefetching performs relatively worse on software-only directory protocols due to useless prefetches, there are examples of protocol optimizations, e.g., optimizations for migratory data, that do relatively better on software-only directory protocols. Overall, this study shows that latency-tolerating techniques must be more carefully selected for software-centric than for hardware-centric implementations of distributed shared-memory systems.


The question about the role of the armed forces in the information space is in fact a question about the role of the factor of force in the Kremlin's domestic and foreign policy. In Russia, this factor has invariably been treated as a hallmark of the country's position as a global power, an instrument of deterrence, and a way to exert political pressure and build spheres of influence. The country's military information strategy is designed to serve those tasks, and envisages multiple battle fronts, including internal and external affairs, the info-psychological front, the cyberspace and other spheres. Its visible consequences include a militarisation of the language of politics and propaganda, the imposition on public opinion of the narrative of an information war against Russia, and a radical change of the Russian army's image. Today Russia forcefully demands that other countries respect its spheres of influence in the neighbourhood (as seen from its aggression against Ukraine and its armed intervention in Syria). It claims to be the guarantor of peace processes, even as it demolishes the European and global security architecture, and presents itself as a centre of power, asserting the right to co-decide on matters of global security.


ABSTRACT Short history of the Gazola's collection of fossil fishes from the Eocene of Monte Bolca (Italy) housed in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. The history of Gazola's collection of fossil fishes from Monte Bolca (Italy) is generally incompletely known as reference is only made to the requisitioning of this collection, in May 1797, by commissioners who accompanied the French troops which occupied Verona. However, the study of manuscript sources has allowed to show that Giovanni Battista Gazola stayed in Paris for a long time during the year 1803 and that, on the 10th of May (20 Floreal an 11), he wrote a letter to the administrators of the french Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, for proposing them to offer new specimens that could complete the part of his collection which had been seized five years earlier.


This essay assesses how digital media—and particularly online reading habits—have begun to affect some of the standard texts for teaching literature to college students. In particular, I examine Ernest Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" as it appears in a recent anthology, Literature: Craft and Voice, published in 2010. The anthology's editors state explicitly that their aim is to help "students learn the art of sustained reading" in the midst of "a visual age" and "the skim-and-grab reading that permeates our Internet culture." With this in mind, their designers have created "a text for reading" that includes arresting visuals throughout the text. This essay considers how the anthology's photographs compete with Hemingway's narrative design and discusses Hemingway's own complex attitude toward visual accompaniments.


Bayesian Networks (BNs) are popular computer models used to perform reasoning under uncertainty. They are popular as they are one of the few computer models able to be constructed by analysing historical data or expert elicitation. The main contribution of this thesis is a new workflow for expert elicitation of BNs, aiming to reduce the associated knowledge elicitation bottleneck. This bottleneck is caused by logistical issues associated with interviewing multiple experts, resolving conflicting opinions among experts, and the combinatorial explosion that occurs when eliciting probabilities. The workflow proposed in this thesis brings together research from the fields of BN construction, knowledge acquisition, the survey methodology, and crowd sourcing. The end result is a workflow for conducting online surveys (SEBN) which has been implemented in an open source online survey tool called BN Elicitator (BNE). This workflow allows a greater number of experts to contribute to the construction of BNs compared to traditional elicitation approaches. It also reduces the workload of the knowledge engineer facilitating the BN elicitation and minimizes the time required of each expert contributing knowledge to the BN. Two evaluation surveys were conducted using the BNE software to measure how successfully the newly proposed technique was able to elicit BNs. The results of these evaluations showed a small improvement over the currently employed methods of eliciting BNs from experts (primarily face to face interviews) but also many undesirable outcomes. The improvements obtained allowed the BNE software to facilitate the elicitation of a BN was faster than would have otherwise been required for face to face interviews. However, the BN resulting from the evaluation did not compare favourably to an existing published BN. Issues with the methods used to collate survey responses into a BN were identified and discussed, such as the choice of crowd sourcing algorithms. Such issues highlight the need for further research in this area to improve the accuracy of BNs elicited using online surveys.


Background: The relationship between the iron indices and mortality in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients has remained unclear. We performed a retrospective, observational cohort study to investigate the relationships between serum ferritin levels and mortality in MHD patients. Methods: MHD outpatients (n = 150) were followed up for a median period of 49 months. Their ESA and low-dose iron supplement dosages were adjusted to maintain their hemoglobin (Hb) concentrations in the 10 - 11 g/dl range in accordance with Japanese guidelines. The Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank tests, and Cox proportional hazards models were used to perform the statistical analyses. The patients were divided into 3 groups according to their serum ferritin levels: a serum ferritin 100 ng/ml group. Results: During the median follow-up period of 49 months, there were 55 deaths. The multivariate analysis showed no significant associations between the ferritin level groups and all-cause mortality or cardiovascular (CV) events, and the Kaplan-Meier analysis showed no significant differences among the 3 ferritin level groups in all-cause mortality and CV event rates. However, the multivariate analysis revealed that age, CRP level and a history of previous CV disease were independently associated with all-cause mortality, while diabetes, previous CV disease, and iron administration were independently associated with CV events. Conclusion: The results of this study revealed no significant associations of MHD patients between the ferritin ranges and all-cause mortality or CV events. Thus, the adverse clinical outcomes in these patients were independently associated with other markers and not with their serum ferritin levels.


The electroglottography method is an instrumental analysis by the device called Laryngograph, which can be practically applied in the speech signal analysis for people with voice disorders issues. In this paper capabilities of this device are estimated. A very interesting fact is that visualization of the speech signal obtained with the use of Laryngograph device allows to detect the acoustically and phonetically most important features and present them in a graphical form. The research show that Laryngograph can a very efficient tool in such domains as: speech therapy (in order to improve speech process); clinical examination of nose and throat (to diagnose work of vocal folds, e.g., after surgical procedures); improvement of the voice of singers and announcers; examination of relations between speech and work of vocal cords; teaching foreign languages. The experimental research presented in this paper concerns also the evaluation and the development of oral ability of deaf children. The obtained results and following practical conclusions can serve as guidelines in clinical and logopedical applications in voice rehabilitation and communication development of groups of children with hearing impairments. Key-Words: electroglottography method, Laryngograph, speech signal analysis, voice disorders, voice profile, vocal cords irregularity


Work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences rely heavily on the development of relationships between the university, industry and often community organizations. As participation in WIL is increasing, the issue of sustainability becomes paramount, requiring processes and practices for effective collaborations and partnerships. This paper reports on an action research project to develop a framework to represent the critical success factors for sustainable WIL relationships. Drawing on reflections from WIL practitioners on what they considered were the critical success factors and a review of literature, a framework was developed, prioritizing three key themes: communication, commitment and compatibility. Within these themes, nine key factors were identified and then evaluated by academic and industry stakeholders in New Zealand, Canada and Australia. Trust, expectations, reciprocity, coordination, vision, learning, resources, reputation, and recognition were confirmed as important factors for sustainable WIL relationships. The framework provides good practice guidelines for all WIL stakeholders.


A review of the socio-political history of the Caribbean and a discussion of the development
of archaeology in the region provides the context for this research. The research focus is
explored through the creation of a comprehensive database of Cuban archaeology. Analysis
of this database reveals that of the 1061 previously excavated archaeological sites in Cuba,
only 31 are located on offshore islands. Therefore, it became apparent that it was necessary
to generate further archaeological data with which to study prehistoric island interaction.
Archaeological fieldwork was carried out in northern Cuba over four successive field
seasons. An aim of this fieldwork was to expand the number of known archaeological sites
on offshore islands in Cuba and generate a body of archaeological material with which to
study prehistoric island interaction. Systematic archaeological survey was conducted in a
2000km2 case study area that included 22 islands in the Jardines del Rey archipelago.
Archaeological excavations were carried out on 7 islands and a large assemblage of
archaeological material was recovered. Artefact analyses were carried out at laboratories in
Cuba and additional material was exported for further scientific analyses in the laboratories
of UCL Institute of Archaeology.
This research provides evidence of prehistoric island interaction in a case study area of
northern Cuba. Excavations at the site of Los Buchillones on the Cuban mainland provide
evidence of a settlement with stilted houses in a wetland environment with a maritime
focused economy. Analysis of faunal assemblages from eight sites on offshore islands
provides evidence of regular island interaction for the purposes of marine resource and
subsistence exploitation. A radiocarbon dating project was conducted that collected 28
wood and marine shell samples from excavated archaeological contexts. These radiocarbon
determinations provide evidence of long-term island interaction covering over 4000 years, as
well as corroborative evidence of contemporaneous human activity at different sites in the
case study area during later prehistoric times. This research uses GIS applications to map
this evidence and to compare archaeology from the case study area with the newly created
database of Cuban archaeology. Spatial analysis of the archaeological and environmental
evidence for inter-site movement allows different interpretive models for prehistoric island
interaction in the Caribbean to be evaluated.


This paper estimates the impact of market access liberalization in high-income countries on sub-Saharan African exports. The methodology exploits the large reduction in trade barriers that was induced by three unilateral trade liberalization initiatives: (1) the dismantling of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, (2) the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the United States, and (3) the extension of EU trade preferences for developed countries through its Everything-but-Arms program and the General System of Preferences. Using detailed product-level information at the 6-digit level of the Harmonized System and a triple-difference empirical specification, the usual endogeneity-of-policy critique is flexibly controlled for. The results indicate strongly positive export effects, which are especially large for textile, apparel, and leather products, and tend to be realized fully within 5 years. Each percentage point reduction in import tariffs raises exports to the EU by 0.73 percent and to the United States by 0.30 percent; effects are two to three times as large for textiles. The presence of strong Chinese imports has ambiguous effects on countries' ability to take advantage of trade liberalization as the impact on the export effects to the EU and the United States show an opposite sign.


Sociologists of science such as Richard Whitley explain that official institutions may have a profound influence on the character and organization of science. We examine the ties of authors and editorial officers of the Journal of Development Economics (2002) to the World Bank, the IMF, and so on. "Ties†includes past or current employment, consultancy, grant, publication and presentation. Regarding the 124 authorships, we find that 75 percent have ties to the "Big 8†official development institutions, and 84 percent to official development institutions more broadly defined. Of the 26 editorial officers, we find that all have ties to the Big 8, all but one with ties of employment, consultancy, or grant. This article contains a link to the data (with individual identities redacted).


The framework for simultaneous inference by Hothorn, Bretz, and Westfall (2008) allows for a unified treatment of multiple comparisons in general parametric models where the study questions are specified as linear combinations of elemental model parameters. However, due to the asymptotic nature of the reference distribution the procedure controls the error rate across all comparisons only for sufficiently large samples. This thesis evaluates the small samples properties of simultaneous inference in complex parametric designs. These designs are necessary to address questions from applied research and include nonstandard parametric models or data in which the assumptions of classical procedures for multiple comparisons are not met.
This thesis first treats multiple comparisons of samples with heterogeneous variances. Usage of a heteroscedastic consistent covariance estimation prevents an increase in the probability of false positive findings for reasonable sample sizes whereas the classical procedures show liberal or conservative behavior which persists even with increasing sample size.
The focus of the second part are multiple comparisons in survival models. Multiple comparisons to a control can be performed in correlated survival data modeled by a frailty Cox model under control of the familywise error rate in sample sizes applicable for clinical trials. As a further application, multiple comparisons in survival models can be performed to investigate trends. The procedure achieves good power to detect different dose-response shapes and controls the error probability to falsely detect any trend.
The third part addresses multiple comparisons in semiparametric mixed models. Simultaneous inference in the linear mixed model representation of these models yields an approach for multiple comparisons of curves of arbitrary shape. The sections on which curves differ can also be identified. For reasonably large samples the overall error rate to detect any non-existent difference is controlled. An extension allows for multiple comparisons of areas under the curve. However the resulting procedure achieves an overall error control only for sample sizes considerably larger than available in studies in which multiple AUC comparisons are usually performed.
The usage of the evaluated procedures is illustrated by examples from applied research including comparisons of fatty acid contents between Bacillus simplex lineages, comparisons of experimental drugs with a control for prolongation in survival of chronic myelogeneous leukemia patients, and comparisons of curves describing a morphological structure along the spinal cord between variants of the EphA4 gene in mice.


Introduction: Parthenium hysterophorus has become a huge problem throughout the world and is menacingly threatening the agriculture and environment. The existing methods for controlling or eradicating P. hysterophorus weed have their own limitations, that is, physical methods are very laborious, costly and ineffective in long term; chemical methods are costly and less environmental friendly and biological methods are not appropriate on large scale. The compost from Parthenium weed can be prepared to recycle the nutrients that are sucked by undesired weed from the soil. Presently, the available methods take a long time in preparing Parthenium compost, while the shorter methods are mostly less ecofriendly. In the present work, a method and recipe have been developed for preparing compost of Parthenium weed in comparatively less time (60 days only) and that too, in an ecofriendly manner; and it has been named as Vishishta composting. The term 'Vishishta' is a Hindi word, which means 'something special'. Materials and Methods: In the present experiment, Parthenium weed was composted using rock phosphate, Trichoderma viride fungi culture powder and different organic wastes such as cow dung, sawdust, cow dung ash, dried fallen leaves and wheat straw in a duration of 60 days using the method of Vishishta composting. Results: The P. hysterophorus compost contains more nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and other nutrients than farmyard manure. Overall status of the nutrients as-prepared compost is appreciable. Conclusion: In the present experiment, a method and recipe have been developed for composting Parthenium weed in shortest duration as compared to earlier methods available till date.


We evaluate the cost-effectiveness of various policy options and infrastructure investment proposals to improve the security of gas supply in Bulgaria, one of the most gas insecure countries in the European Union. We do this by computing 'security of supply cost curve' for different gas supply disruption scenarios. The curves show the cumulative amount of security of supply on the horizontal axis and the unit cost of security on the vertical axis. Measures should be implemented by order or rising unit cost until the public authorities' preferred level of security is achieved. Our results show that a costeffective gas supply security policy for Bulgaria would concentrate on two measures: (1) allowing reverse-flow transactions on the transit pipelines to Greece and Turkey to access the LNG terminals in these countries in case of disruption in Russian gas supplies and, (2) ensuring effective dual-fuel capability for Bulgaria's heat generation plants. The infrastructure options actually considered by the Bulgarian authorities and gas industry (expanding the withdrawal rate of the Chiren underground gas storage and building a new gas interconnector pipeline with Greece) appear to be much more costly.


Significant improvement to visual quality for real-time 3D graphics requires modeling of complex illumination effects like soft-shadows, reflections, and diffuse lighting interactions. The conventional Z-buffer algorithm driven GPU model does not provide sufficient support for this improvement. This paper targets the entire graphics system stack and demonstrates algorithms, a software architecture, and a hardware architecture for real-time rendering with a paradigm shift to ray-tracing. The three unique features of our system called Copernicus are support for dynamic scenes, high image quality, and execution on programmable multicore architectures. The focus of this paper is the synergy and interaction between applications, architecture, and evaluation. First, we describe the ray-tracing algorithms which are designed to use redundancy and partitioning to achieve locality. Second, we describe the architecture which uses ISA specialization, multi-threading to hide memory delays and supports only local coherence. Finally, we develop an analytical performance model for our 128-core system, using measurements from simulation and a scaled-down prototype system. More generally, this paper addresses an important issue of mechanisms and evaluation for challenging workloads for future processors. Our results show that a single 8-core tile (each core 4-way multithreaded) can be almost 100% utilized and sustain 10 million rays/second. Sixteen such tiles, which can fit on a 240 mm2 chip in 22 nm technology, make up the system and with our anticipated improvements in algorithms, can sustain real-time rendering. The mechanisms and the architecture can potentially support other domains like irregular scientific computations and physics computations.


This study examines the relationship between Type A behaviour and burn out. Data were gathered from 200 bank managers of four banks in Nigeria, with a mean age of 35.5 years (Age range: 20-65 years, SD=5.70) using a Type A behaviour scale. Results revealed that Type A employees reported more symptoms of burnout than Type B personalities on all measures of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and sense of personal accomplishment. The observed relationship between burnout and Type A behaviour remains sig nificant for job related stress, environmental and personality factors. The need to cope and manage stress and burnout in enhancing employee overall wellbeing is suggested.


In focusing on what employees do, this dissertation provides opportunities to assess whether particular activities are congruent with who employees are, and whether, and to what extent, those activities constrain or enhance employee well-being and performance. My research shows that each individual activity can be related to employee well-being. Changes in work over time may thus sometimes imply that what employees do at a certain moment no longer sufficiently reflects who employees are professionally or what they can deal with in terms of workload. Incongruence between what employees do and what the employee and/or the organization need in terms of well-being or performance may also unintentionally occur based on employees being true to themselves or their calling rather than rational decisions. Although more research is needed to understand how to address incongruences when they occur, a greater understanding of what employees do, how they perceive these activities, and how this impacts well-being and performance is an important first step in balancing between meaningful and meaningless work. Continuous assessment what employees do at the level of activities may provide researchers and practitioners alike information to understand how balance in work can be (unintentionally) disrupted and (intentionally) be regained to optimize employees' well-being and performance through changing what employees do, who they are, or their subjective experiences of the two.


The purpose of this paper is to uncover behind the trends in corruption cases in Indonesia's public sector. This study examines 1,192 selected corruption-related court decisions in the period of 2001-2015 based on the behavioural perspective.This study found that corruption offenders of high level of seniority were more destructive to the country's economy compared to their younger less experienced counterparts. Additionally, compared to the real experience in the workplace, education does not seem to give offenders more advantages when committing their offences.This paper demonstrates how the seemingly small and insignificant behavioural clues may become effective tools to predict and to prevent the occurrence of corruption in the future.


Applying value engineering (VE) in a construction project has proven to be an effective way to save the cost of a project. Different VE models have been developed and used in construction projects in the past. One common attribute of construction projects is the dependence of a highly qualitative decision making process: capturing, interpreting, and quantifying expert's subjective judgment. This study proposes an advanced five-phase VE model, each phase of which consists of a series of steps to better quantify subjective opinions of VE team members. Construction simulation technique, the Cyclic Operation Network, is used as a means to minimize subjectivity in estimating the value of different alternatives in terms of time and cost savings. A case study shows that the advanced five-phase VE model improves analysis, assessment, and decision on VE. This new approach has a great potential to minimize subjectivity during VE process and improves VE decision-making process by using quantitatively derived data from the simulation analysis.


This study is concerned with the high rates of school attrition among adolescent girls in rural regions of Cambodia and with the effectiveness of national and international programmes that have thus far been undertaken in order to ameliorate this problem. The research sought to investigate the impact that these programs have had on the dispositions and attitudes to education of female students in a rural school in Cambodia as reflected through the perspectives they offer on their own context. In order to elicit these beliefs, the study looked for the differences between the participants' perspectives and the key factors that research and government reports traditionally identified as limiting educational opportunities of female students. This is a mixed methods study. Qualitative and quantitative data was analysed using quantitative procedures. Questionnaire was chosen as a method of data collection. The questions were informed by studies which examined the impact of different factors on the retention of female students' enrolments. The participants included 206 female students from a lower secondary school in Pursat province, Cambodia. Overall, the findings show that participants value education despite its many challenges. Still, not all students felt that they could pursue their education, predominantly due to financial pressures. Drawing on theories of Freire (1973, 1990) and Gadotti (2010), the study interpreted its research findings in relation to frameworks which concern themselves with power as a factor of one's engagement. It concludes with a framework proposed to assist the government in developing capacity-building programs which support change by building community social capital through strategies which focus less on problems and more on the mechanisms by which communities can negotiate, envisage and address the needs and resources that are appropriate for their well-being and sustainable futures. Girls' education can only benefit from such a reflective, critical and constructive process.


With about 10 per cent of Moroccan and Mexican citizens living abroad, remittances have become a vital source of income and poverty alleviation for both countries. Hein de Haas and Simona Vezzoli explore how migration has affected development and ways to reframe the migration-development debate. This article showcases research that builds upon IMI's previous work, the Bellagio Dialogue on Migration (a month-long project in 2006 which explored migration and development challenges).