Lubricant trace evidence stands as associative evidence in sexual assault cases when there is an absence of semen. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a substance applied as a lubricant by the majority of condom manufacturers worldwide. As the awareness of sexually transmitted infections has amplified immensely over recent years, the number of perpetrators wearing condoms during sexual assaults has risen also.
Accounts of false positive results arising from lubricant analysis in alleged sexual assault cases are becoming progressively common. This led to suggestions that PDMS may be unintentionally transferred onto blank cotton swabs during manufacturing. This project accumulated a selection of blank swabs from vaginal swab kits and sexual assault early evidence kits. All swabs were extracted with isooctane then analysed using an FTIR microscope and u-ATR accessory. No PDMS was detected on any swabs examined.
Recently, the lubricating jelly used in sexual assault kits has been replaced with a more cost-effective option. Aquagel and OptiLube are the lubricants now found in sexual assault kits. However, manufacturers have failed to report the ingredients incorporated within these lubricants. If PDMS was to be present, this could lead to false positive results in sexual assault cases. A sample of Aquagel and OptiLube were examined using the u-ATR, and both substances were revealed to be water-based lubricants containing no PDMS.
Previous research has indicated that 0.125µl is currently the smallest volume of PDMS detected using FTIR analysis. However, the quantity of PDMS expected on intimate swabs following sexual intercourse with a silicone lubricated condom is unknown. Extracting various volumes of PDMS from swab heads, and analysing using FTIR could potentially produce a quantitative curve. This could allow the volume of an unknown sample of PDMS remaining on intimate swabs to be identified. Results indicated that there is a positive correlation between the amount of PDMS detected and the intensity of the peaks on the spectrum. However, examining samples using a u-ATR and FTIR microscope is not a fully quantitative method due to multiple external factors. For example, the technique is unable to include the whole sample to allow complete analysis.
In current forensic casework, forensic experts don't usually suggest lubricant analysis if the time that the intimate swabs were taken exceeded 24 hours since the alleged sexual assault. Previous research implied that PDMS was able to be detected in the vagina 48 hours after intercourse; however this research is very outdated. This was explored by participants undertaking sexual intercourse with their partner using a PDMS lubricated condom. Volunteers were then asked to take blind vaginal swabs at specific time intervals. Results indicated that PDMS was able to be detected on all swabs after 6 hours, and only 33% of swabs taken at 12 hours. No PDMS was recovered after 12 hours.
Up to this stage in the project, it can be confidently stated that volumes as low as 0.125µl are able to be detected on the swab head extracts using u-ATR after Sperm Elution. However, it is currently unknown whether the addition of multiple body fluids, in addition to semen, affects whether PDMS is able to persist on the swab head. Eight different body fluid combinations of semen, blood, saliva, vaginal material and faecal material were seeded onto blank cotton swabs alongside 2µl of PDMS. Swabs were then sperm eluted and extracted with isooctane. PDMS was able to be detected using the u-ATR on all of the swabs examined. This information will aid in the interpretation of casework results involving scenarios whereby multiple body fluids may be present.


Abstract. Biomass burning is a large source of light-absorbing refractory black carbon (rBC) particles with a wide range of morphologies and sizes. The net radiative forcing from these particles is strongly dependent on the amount and composition of non-light-absorbing material internally mixed with the rBC and on the morphology of the mixed particles. Understanding how the mixing state and morphology of biomass-burning aerosol evolves in the atmosphere is critical for constraining the influence of these particles on radiative forcing and climate. We investigated the response of two commercial laser-based particle mass spectrometers, the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ablation LAAPTOF and the IR vaporization SP-AMS, to monodisperse biomass-burning particles as we sequentially coated the particles with secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from α-pinene ozonolysis. We studied three mobility-selected soot core sizes, each with a number of successively thicker coatings of SOA applied. Using IR laser vaporization, the SP-AMS had different changes in sensitivity to rBC compared to potassium as a function of applied SOA coatings. We show that this is due to different effective beam widths for the IR laser vaporization region of potassium versus black carbon. The SP-AMS's sensitivity to black carbon (BC) mass was not observed to plateau following successive SOA coatings, despite achieving high OA : BC mass ratios greater than 9. We also measured the ion fragmentation pattern of biomass-burning rBC and found it changed only slightly with increasing SOA mass. The average organic matter ion signal measured by the LAAPTOF demonstrated a positive correlation with the condensed SOA mass on individual particles, despite the inhomogeneity of the particle core compositions. This demonstrates that the LAAPTOF can obtain quantitative mass measurements of aged soot-particle composition from realistic biomass-burning particles with complex morphologies and composition.


In an initiative by the World Commission on Culture and Development, the Council of Europe has produced a series of policy documents that aim to define Europe through a common `European culture'. This article explores the ideas of Europe, culture and consumerism that are used in the report to redefine the terms of European belonging and rights. I explore the gendered and racial interconnections in these definitions and the rhetorical use of cultural heritage in generating an idea(l) of Europe. I argue that new connections between consumer rights, European rights and cultural rights in the Council of Europe's discourses produce shifts in liberal concepts of self-expressive representational politics. These changes have important implications for those who have an ambiguous and/or marginalized relation to the terms of citizenship and cultural belonging.


Introduction: The humerus is a relatively common location of malignant bone tumor in general and Ewing sarcoma in particular. However, total humerus replacement after humeral tumor resection is still a fairly rare and challenging surgery for surgeons. Case presentation: A 14-year-old man was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. The patient underwent a total humerus replacement and neoadjuvant chemotherapy before and after the surgery. At 6 months post-operative, he was able to return to normal activities with good hand and elbow functions, although limited shoulder movement. MSTS score was 76.7%. There were no significant complications as well as local recurrence or metastasis. Conclusion: Total humerus replacement surgery for the patient of Ewing sarcoma of the humerus had initial positive results. However, the patient needs to follow up longer to evaluate the complications related to the prosthesis as well as the recurrence and metastasis of the tumor.


A bstrAct : How can the West continue to shape international order without over-committing itself to ruinous and ambiguous operations on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan? This article addresses this question by examining the failures of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, and by outlining three alternatives for future engagements: the Libya model, the indirect approach, and contingency operations in support of multilateral organizations. Each presents unique possibilities, but the imperative for strategic clarity and commitment is consistent.


Purpose of review The purpose of this review is to define what the best therapeutic approach is for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) pneumonia. Recent findings Although two meta-analyses reported conflicting findings, recent retrospective studies reported higher success rates in patients with MRSA pneumonia treated with linezolid when compared to vancomycin. Only registration trials are available for some anti-MRSA antibiotics, such as telavancin, ceftaroline, and ceftobiprole. Scarce information is available regarding the best therapeutic approach for MRSA community-acquired pneumonia. Summary Linezolid seems to be a better choice than vancomycin for the treatment of MRSA ventilator-associated pneumonia. It is still unclear whether this affirmation holds for other forms of MRSA pneumonia. Further research is needed to define whether newer antibiotics are better alternatives than currently recommended agents.


Glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES) is a modem analytical technique for the analysis of the chemical composition of bulk materials and the depth profiling of multi-layer structures. Most research in the use of GDOES has concentrated on developing accurate methodologies for quantitative analysis and depth profiling. However, this thesis presents a study on various aspects of surface layer evolution under argon ion etching in GDOES. The GDOES technique relies on the ion bombardment of sample surfaces which removes material from the surface, layer by layer, on the atomic scale. During the surface layer evolution, the ion bombardment causes different surface micro-textures and preferential sputtering in individual crystallites, which can cause degradation of depth resolution in GDOES depth profiling. Experimental results using pure iron specimens in this study show a correlation between textures induced by GDOES sputtering and the sputtering rate, and a difference in the sputtering rate for crystallites with different crystal orientations. In studying ion bombardment by GDOES in semiconductors, a novel pitting morphology on the surface of a carbon-coated silicon wafer was observed and characterised in detail. This may have a potential application in the fabrication of micro-lens arrays. The generation and development of the pits were investigated, which are believed to be dependent upon the different sputtering rates between the film and the substrate. Geometric features of the pits were obtained using atomic force microscope (AFM) and the sphere-like surface of the pit was confirmed. The experimental work in this study also shows that the Grimm source in GDOES is a powerful etching tool. Eroded surfaces of metal specimens with little damage to the crystallites and phase structures were obtained by GDOES etching. The method was found to be an ideal process for specimen preparation for electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD). The GDOES-etched surface of single crystal copper showed that the damaged layer formed by mechanical polishing using 6 micron diamond paste was about 1-2 pm and was removed after only a few tens of seconds of GDOES etching. GDOES etching was also applied to an investigation of internal oxides in carburised steels. The eroded surfaces provided plan views of the morphologies of internal oxides of carburised steels by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. Results of energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS)/SEM elemental mappings of different layers of the steels were in good agreement with GDOES depth profiles, which revealed that the elements Cr, Mn and Si were involved in the oxides. The last section of the thesis is about hydrogen detection in GDOES. The study includes a detailed analysis of: hydrogen contamination in GDOES, the hydrogen detection status of GDOES, the sample matrix effects on hydrogen detection and hydrogen effects on elemental concentrations in GDOES measurements. The experiments have confirmed that water vapour is the main source of the hydrogen contamination. When the GDOES system has stabilised, GDOES could be employed to differentiate specimens containing different concentrations of hydrogen. The experiments also showed that different hydrogen intensities could have resulted from different matrices even when the specimens were believed to contain no hydrogen. A possible explanation could be that variations of the y-electron ejection from different matrices and different sputtered atoms in the glow discharge, which altered the plasma and the energy distribution in the glow region, resulted in the variation of the excitation of the hydrogen atoms in the source. However, there are still some results in the matrix effects which could not be explained. The experiments concerning the consequence of hydrogen effects on apparent elemental concentrations in GDOES measurements were also undertaken using two steel standards. The results indicated that the hydrogen in the source has a negative effect on the signal from most of the metal elements in the specimens, and a positive effect on the non-metal and semiconductor elements.


Yambo, a sixty-ish rare book dealer who lives in Milan has suffered a loss of memory; not the kind of memory neurologists call 'semantic' (Yambo remembers all about Julius Caesar and can recite every poem he has ever read), but rather his 'autobiographical' memory: he no longer knows his own name, doesn't tecognize his wife or his daughters, doesn't remember anything about his parents or his childhood. His wife, who is at his side as he slowly begins to recover, convinces him to return to his family home in the hills somewhere between Milan and Turin. Yambo promptly retreats to the sprawling attic, cluttered with boxes of newspapers, comics, records, photo albums and adolescent diaries. There, he relives the story of his generation: Mussolini, Catholic education and guilt, Josephine Baker, Flash Gordon, Cyrano de Bergerac. As he recovers his memory, two voids remain shrouded in fog: a terrible event he experienced during the resistance, and the vague image of a girl whom he loved at sixteen, then lost. But a relapse occurs. Now in a coma, his memories run wild, and life racing before his eyes takes the form of a graphic novel. Yambo struggles through the frames to find at last the face of the girl he loves: she descends the stairs of their high school and morphs into a Dante-esque promise (or threat) of the afterlife, as he struggles harder to capture her simple, innocent, real-life image - the schoolgirl he never forgot. Copiously illustrated throughout with images from comics, book jackets, record sleeves and other printed ephemera, The Mysterious Flame is a fascinating and hugely entertaining new novel from the incomparable Umberto Eco.


In 1967, soon after Nigeria's civil war and six years after independence, Wole Soyinka famously declared that a "phase of disillusionment" had arrived in which the attention of the African writer had to be drawn to problems at home. A new order of vision was needed, he said, if writers were to have any influence in postcolonial African societies, in which the state seemed to provide no recourse against corruption and escalating violence. As a way of defining this programme, Soyinka declared the problems of settler-colonialism in southern Africa to be temporarily off the table. South Africa, especially, was "simply out of this world" ("The Writer in an African State" 15).


Patients with type 2 diabetes are at a markedly increased risk of a myocardial infarction than their non-diabetic peers. These patients often do not develop the classic warning signs of myocardial ischaemia, such as chest pain. Rather, they can display atypical symptoms or present with an acute myocardial infarction as the first indication of the presence of coronary artery disease. Current risk factor management techniques, largely based on risk factor scoring, have failed to identify this clinically important sub-population of patients, and the early diagnosis of silent myocardial ischaemia in this population would greatly aid risk stratification and subsequent therapy. Myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS), using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), has emerged as a specific and sensitive technique for detection of coronary artery disease in type 2 diabetic patients who have yet to develop signs or symptoms of coronary artery disease. Such abnormalities are common in this population, and are significantly associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction or death from ischaemic heart disease. The current evidence supports MPS with SPECT as the methodology of choice for identifying silent myocardial ischaemia possibly improving cardiovascular risk stratification. Appropriate use of this technique allows earlier identification of coronary artery disease in diabetic patients. Br J Diabetes Vasc Dis 2005;5:283‐8


A 79 year-old man sought treatment in the emergency room complaining of persistent fever, chest pain, and general fatigue. A chest X-ray showed a giant infectious bulla (24 cm in diameter) in the left lung. The patient had no history of abnormalities on X-rays, and his latest medical check-up, conducted in the preceding year, had produced no abnormal findings. Diagnostic procedures, including bronchoscopy, revealed lung cancer (large cell carcinoma) in the left lower bronchus. The tumor obstructed the airway. Although there have been various reports of giant bullae, their etiology remains unknown. We suggest that an obstruction, such as that caused by the tumor in this case, can lead to air trapping, resulting in the formation of a bulla. In the case of a giant bulla that rapidly increases in size, lung cancer should be included in the differential diagnosis.


Centella asiatica is commonly mentioned as a Rasayana in Ayurveda, an ancient system of Indian medicine for various ailments including abdominal disorders. Rasayanas have been advocated for use in rejuvenation therapy. The present study was conducted to evaluate the possible anti-ulcerogenic activity of fresh juice of C. asiatica (CAJ) against ethanol-, aspirin-, cold-restraint stress- and pyloric ligation induced gastric ulcers in rats. The drug given orally in doses of 200 and 600 mg/kg twice daily for five days, showed significant protection against all the above experimental ulcer models and the results were comparable with those elicited by sucralfate (SF, 250 mg/kg, p.o., BD x 5 days). CAJ showed little or no effect on offensive acid-pepsin secretion. However, at 600 mg/kg CAJ significantly increased gastric juice mucin secretion and increased the mucosal cell glycoproteins signifying increase in cellular mucus. It also decreased cell shedding indicating fortification of mucosal barrier. Thus, the ulcer protective effect of CAJ may be due to strengthening of the mucosal defensive factors.


Recovering valuable resources from wastewater will transform wastewater management from a treatment focused strategy to a sustainability focused strategy, creating a need for new technology development. Osmotic bioelectrochemical systems (OsBESs), an innovative treatment concept which is based on cooperation between bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) and forward osmosis (FO), have been introduced and studied in the past few years. An OsBES can accomplish the simultaneous treatment of wastewater and recovery of resources such as nutrients, energy, and water (NEW). The cooperation can be accomplished in either an internal (integrated OsBES) or external (coupled OsBES) configuration, through a strong synergy between a BES and FO. A BES can provide draw solute, perform pre-treatment, or reduce reverse salt flux to help with FO operation, while FO can achieve water recovery, enhance current generation, and supply energy sources to BES operation. Given that there has been much progress and interest in the OsBES, this paper reviews the previous studies, describes the current status, presents qualitative and quantitative analyses, and discusses the perspectives of the OsBES technology, focusing on NEW recovery from wastewater. The challenges for further research and development of OsBESs have also been identified.


Shallow turbulent mixing layers, generated downstream of a splitter plate between a fast and a slow open-channel flows of shallow water depth, were investigated experimentally for vertical confinement and bed-friction effects. Mean and r. m. s. velocity profiles across the mixing layers were obtained at a number of cross sections downstream of the splitter plate, using a hot-film anemometer in conjunction with a PDP11/03 instrumentation computer. The initial spreading of the shallow mixing layers was found to be twice as large as the nominal rate for the free mixing layer. The spreading rate diminished to zero in the far field region as a bed friction number approached a critical value of 0. 09.


This study delineates teaching strategies for helping counseling students to develop appropriate goal statements designed to facilitate participation in the group work experiential group process. Students reviewed literature on professional counselor development, emotional and social intelligence, and group leader characteristics. This literature delineated personal and professional attributes conducive to effective group leadership and was utilized to stimulate reflection on personal group goals. 21 students in a Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) accredited Community Counseling program completed the 10week group experience. At the end of group, students reflected, revaluated and reformulated their original group goals. A qualitative analysis yielded 14 student-constructed goal statements. These post-group goal student goal statements may prove helpful to future group facilitators of the group work learning experience.


The complex interaction between hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and their microenvironment in the human bone marrow ensures a life-long blood production by balancing stem cell maintenance and differentiation. This so-called HSC niche can be disturbed by malignant diseases. Investigating their consequences on hematopoiesis requires a deep understanding of how the niches function in health and disease. To facilitate this, biomimetic models of the bone marrow are needed to analyze HSC maintenance and hematopoiesis under steady state and diseased conditions. Here, 3D bone marrow models, their fabrication methods (including 3D bioprinting), and implementations recapturing bone marrow functions in health and diseases are presented.


Community management, a central part of community development, has gained wide acceptance among service intermediaries as a result of the failure of the top-down approach to community development. Govern- mental policy instruments therefore aim at a bottom-up approach in basic service delivery such as health care, water supply and sanitation without adequate critique of the circumstances. Operationally, the extent to which community management can be inserted into develop- ment strategies has remained elusive with mixed and often costly results. This paper critically examines community management and suggests some recommendations to help service intermediaries in the application of community management in communities larger than rural villages.


Abstract Since the advent of tyrosine kinase inhibitors as targeted therapies in cancer, several receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) have been identified that are operationally important for disease progression. Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is an example of a malignancy in need of new treatment options, and a better understanding of the heterogeneity of RTK expression could advance this goal. We investigated populations of alveolar RMS (aRMS) tumor cells derived from a transgenic mouse model expressing two such RTKs, Pdgfrα and Igf1r, by fluorescent activated cell sorting. Sorted subpopulations that were positive or negative for Pdgfrα and Igf1r dynamically altered their RTK cell surface expression profile as early as the first cell division. Interestingly, too, a difference in total Pdgfrα expression and nuclear Igf1r expression was conserved in populations. Nuclear Igf1r expression was greater than cytoplasmic Igf1r in cells with initially high cell surface Igf1r. Cells with high nuclear expression of Igf1r established tumors most efficiently


2, 3, 7, 8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is well known for its immunotoxic effects on the thymus, as well as on B and T lymphocyte functions. Previous studies suggested that TCDD exerted immunotoxic effects only on cells differentiating in response to antigenic challenge. To this date, no work has been done to characterize the long-term effects of TCDD on the activated cells. Additionally, no studies have been done to determine whether TCDD has any effect on resting T cells. In the current study, therefore, we investigated the effects of TCDD on activated and resting cells within the same animal. T cells in the popliteal lymph node cells were activated by rear footpad immunizations with anti-CD3 antibodies. Distally-located axillary lymph nodes were chosen as a source of naive and resting T cells. Our results demonstrate that TCDD acted at the time of cell differentiation to suppress the immune responses of activated T cells, but failed to suppress, and at times, enhanced the immune responses of resting T cells. The TCDD-induced immunomodulations were temporary; responsiveness of both activated and resting T cells from TCDD-treated animals returned to normal by two weeks post-treatment, suggesting that TCDD does not affect memory cells. Futhermore, we provide direct evidence that the TCDD-induced immunosuppression in activated cells is due to increased apoptosis of CD3 T cells. TCDD also induced significant changes in cell surface markers expressed by naive and activated T cells. Together our data suggested that TCDD suppresses the proliferative responsiveness of only the activated, but not naive, T cells and that this is accomplished by induction of increased apoptosis of activated T cells. These studies shed new light on the mechanism through which TCDD induces increased susceptibility to infections and cancer in the vertebrate host.


The campaign to persuade employers to pay the 'living wage' - a rate that is considerably higher than the prescribed National Minimum Wage - has also been fuelling concerns about the adequacy and relevance of the National Minimum Wage (NMW), and its effectiveness as a wage-setting mechanism. Particularly in the aftermath of successful industrial actions like the London Underground cleaners' strike in 2010 (which used the 'living wage' as the basis for the claim), the question, inevitably, is what is the point of the national minimum wage - particularly if it is set at such a low level? Is it now so unfit for purpose as to be irrelevant?

In the UK the Low Pay Commission is routinely accused of being over-cautious. Much of the criticism focuses on the Commission's reluctance to impose an excessive burden on employers' costs, thereby inhibiting job creation or distorting pay differentials. As the Commission itself has conceded, such concerns have not, in fact, materialised ('The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on Pay Setting since 1994', Income Data Services, 2011). Apart from the low level at which it is set, there are continuing concerns about deliverability. Even if the NMW can assist low paid workers in segmented labour markets where the wage levels are so low as to bear little resemblance to the rest of the labour market, non-compliance and enforcement concerns are still a major issue, despite the improvements made by the Employment Act 2008 to the enforcement regime (which came in the aftermath of the TUC's Commission on Vulnerable Work).

As argued in this paper, notwithstanding such concerns the NMW does still have the potential to perform its primary function as a regulatory intervention, which is to establish a legally enforceable minimum floor of income from the contractual wage. That 'floor' within the wages component of the wage-work bargain can then be supplemented by in-work welfare provision – in effect, the State's secondary 'wage'. This is a major plank in efforts by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to widen the floor of social protection advocated in the Bachelet Report, 2012. This was, indeed, how New Labour also envisaged the scheme would work. In effect, a minimum floor of contractual wage income supplemented, as necessary, by State support through tax credits and other in-work assistance. As explained by Bob Simpson in his commentary in 2004, the NMW had 'the limited role of supporting the system of tax credits' and which by 2003 was being 'reformed with the ostensible aim of increasing incentives to work' (B. Simpson 'The National Minimum Wage Five years On: Reflections on Some General Issues' (2004) 33 ILJ 22.

The importance of that secondary wage is seen in the way Working Tax Credit currently meets childcare and a range of other costs; and schemes like Housing Benefit assist with workers' rent costs. In the case of rent, take-up has risen dramatically. A combination of low wages and increasing rents has produced a sharp rise in the number of working Housing Benefit claimants (417,830 more in three years) - an increase of 86% since 2009 according to the National Housing Federation in Home Truths 2012: The Housing Market in England (NFH, 2012).

The problem is that both the NMW and in-work welfare systems, as distributive justice mechanisms, are under attack. The Coalition government has made it clear that the NMW from the end of 2012 onwards will only be raised by 'below inflation' rises - a stance intended to signal concerns that raising it any higher could jeopardise their 'growth' and 'enterprise' agendas. To that extent, it does not really matter what the Low Pay Commission thinks, or relies on in terms of 'evidence'. The ultimate decision is always the government's, and it is ultimately a political one. On the welfare side, the decision has been taken to restrict increases in Working Tax Credit, and its replacement, the Universal Credit after October 2013, to 1% for at least the next three years (Chancellor's Autumn Statement, Dec 2012).

As considered in the paper, this is bad news for many low paid workers struggling with rising prices and rising housing costs. Nor does it bode well for low paying employers. They are, of course, among the biggest groups of 'welfare dependants'. As the paper will argue, it is difficult to see how these developments can possibly advance the government's commitment to introduce policies to encourage take up of employment, 'make work pay', and promote labour market retention ('21st Century Welfare', 2010 Cm 7913).

Finally, the shortcomings in the NMW system are linked to other problems affecting wage levels in the UK, including the final retreat from statutory sectoral wages and conditions resulting from the Coalition's abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board, and the forthcoming demise of the Agricultural Minimum Wage. The AMW's removal brings the agricultural sector into line with other sectors where wages councils disappeared in 1993. However, there is no indication of any plans to fill the gap that this will leave - particularly in a sector where casualization means that there is next to no chance of collective bargaining becoming a feature of wages and conditions setting.


Cable Supported Bridges Niels J. Gimsing 2012-01-30 Fourteen years on from its last edition, Cable Supported Bridges: Concept and Design, Third Edition, has been significantly updated with new material and brand new imagery throughout. Since the appearance of the second edition, the focus on the dynamic response of cable supported bridges has increased, and this development is recognised with two new chapters, covering bridge aerodynamics and other dynamic topics such as pedestrianinduced vibrations and bridge monitoring. This book concentrates on the synthesis of cable supported bridges, suspension as well as cable stayed, covering both design and construction aspects. The emphasis is on the conceptual design phase where the main features of the bridge will be determined. Based on comparative analyses with relatively simple mathematical expressions, the different structural forms are quantified and preliminary optimization demonstrated. This provides a first estimate on dimensions of the main load carrying elements to give in an initial input for mathematical computer models used in the detailed design phase. Key features: Describes evolution and trends within the design and construction of cable supported bridges Describes the response of structures to dynamic actions that have attracted growing attention in recent years Highlights features of the different structural components and their interaction in the entire structural system Presents simple mathematical expressions to give a first estimate on dimensions of the load carrying elements to be used in an initial computer input This comprehensive coverage of the design and construction of cable supported bridges provides an invaluable, tried and tested resource for academics and engineers.


This paper aims to find the answers to the question: "Which factors are important in determining whether SMEs access the formal credit market, and what determines SMEs' satisfaction levels after applying for formal credit?". By using a survey of Vietnamese SMEs conducted from 2005 to 2013, this study provides a wider view and presents new evidence regarding determinants of access to formal credit before and after the global crisis in 2008. The study outlines the process, from applying for a formal loan to being satisfied with that loan. Three empirical models have been devised based on the decision processes: the application stage, the approval stage, and the satisfaction stage. The empirical results show that banking relationships and the business environment were important factors when applying for formal credit as well as in credit obtainment. However, positive measures of firms' performance, such as high return on assets scores and sales growth, did not have a significant influence on whether firms obtained credit. Furthermore, Vietnamese formal financial institutions were found to depend too much on collateral assets in assessing whether to supply credit.


The article analyzes the specifics of urbanization dynamics in Egypt, which is noteworthy for a number of reasons. first, there was a shift from the logistic trend in the 1970s, and the share of urban population stopped growing. The un data analysis shows that such a shift usually occurs against the background of very serious economic difficulties (and other problems associated with them). However, the urban population proportion stopped growing in Egypt when the country was experiencing a period of exceedingly rapid economic growth. We find labor migration of unprecedented scale to be the main reason which engendered this seemingly paradoxical situation. We further proceed to analyze the un forecast on the dynamics of the Egyptian urban population proportion up to 2050, which implies a return to the logistic trend and rapid growth of the urban population share, which is fraught with socio-political instability risks. However, we present data proving that the logistic urbanization trajectory is not inevitable for Egypt, and the destabiliza- tion risks connected with the rapid increase of urban population share are largely irrelevant to Egypt in the forecasted period. k eywords: Egypt, urbanization, migration, economic growth, forecasts, sociopolitical de stabilization


Nano tungsten oxide (WO3) particles were synthesized on the surface of graphene (GR) sheets by using a simple sonochemical method. The obtained composite, WO3@GR, was characterized by X-ray diffraction, N2adsorption/desorption analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis, Raman spectroscopy and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra measurements. It was found that chemical bonds between the nano WO3 particles and the GR sheets were formed. The average particle size of the WO3 was evidenced to be around 12 nm on the GR sheets. When used as photocatalyst for water splitting, the amount of evolved O2 from water for the WO3@GR composite with 40 wt% GR inside was twice and 1.8 times as much as that for pure WO3 and mixed-WO3/GR, respectively. The excellent photocatalytic property of the WO3@GR composite is due to the synergistic effects of the combined nano WO3 particles and GR sheets. The sensitization of WO3 by GR enhances the visible light absorption property of WO3@GR. The chemical bonding between WO3 and GR minimizes the interface defects, reducing the recombination of the photo-generated electron–hole pairs. Furthermore, the GR sheets in the WO3@GR composite enhance electrons transport by providing low resistance conduction pathways, leading to improved photo-conversion efficiency. The methodology opens up a new way of obtaining photoactive GR-semiconductor composites for photodissociating water under visible light.


Background: The influenza pandemics have caused serious morbidity and mortality around the world. Only a few studies have described the clinical profile of both influenza A and B infections among children and its seasonal variations. Aims: To study the clinical profile of children with influenza (A and B) admitted to a tertiary care hospital in India over a period of 17 months. Methods: A retrospective case file review was done for all influenza-positive cases (by real time-polymerase chain reaction) admitted in the ward and pediatric intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital from January 2018 to May 2019. Results: A total of 164 admitted children were screened for influenza, of which 41 children (25%) were positive. Seasonal variation showed highest peak in the month of October with 17 positive cases (41%). Influenza B was observed during the first half of the year 2018 followed by an increase in influenza A infection in the last 6 months. The common presenting symptoms were cough (16, 39%) and respiratory distress (21, 51%). Out of 41, 18 children (44%) required respiratory support, but only 2 (5%) required mechanical ventilation. Hyponatremia was present at admission in 13 (61%) of 21 (51%) tested samples. The median length of hospital stay in the admission hyponatremia group was 7 days (interquartile range [IQR] 4, 15) as compared to the overall median length of stay of 4 days (IQR 3, 7). Conclusions: Our study showed a predominance of influenza B in the first half of the year and influenza A infection during the second half. A similar pattern was also seen in the first half of the subsequent year. Further studies are required to understand the impact of hyponatremia in these patients.


Background. Many have called for more comprehensive follow-up of living kidney donors, both for the donor's benefit and to establish a high-quality database of donor outcomes. United Network for Organ Sharing currently requires transplant centers to report donor follow-up information at several time points after donation, but little is known about how frequently this information is obtained, or which barriers exist to compliance with United Network for Organ Sharing requirements. Methods. To assess practices and barriers in providing follow-up care to living donors, we sent a questionnaire to all program directors at U.S. transplant centers. Results. Few transplant centers are currently seeing donors for long-term follow-up. Many centers recommend that donor follow-up care be provided by primary care physicians, but follow-up information is rarely received from primary care physicians. The main barriers to collecting more complete information are donor inconvenience, costs, and lack of reimbursement to the transplant center for providing follow-up care. Conclusions. Significant changes are required to improve long-term donor follow-up by U.S. transplant centers.


Hailed by reviewers as "powerful," "haunting" and "a tour de force of personal journalism," When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man's struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present. Award winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family's steady collapse. This dramatic memoir is a searing portrait of unspeakable tragedy and exile, but it is also vivid proof of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love. "In the tradition of Rian Malan and Philip Gourevitch, a deeply moving book about the unknowability of an Africa at once thrilling and grotesque. In elegant, elegiac prose, Godwin describes his father's illness and death in Zimbabwe against the backdrop of Mugabe's descent into tyranny. His parent's waning and the country's deterioration are entwined so that personal and political tragedy become inseparable, each more profound for the presence of the other" -- Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon "A fascinating, heartbreaking, deeply illuminating memoir that has the shape and feel of a superb novel." -Kurt Anderson, author of Heydey


This paper examines the plastic figure as it appears in both Ray Kurzweil's vision of the post-singularity human body and in Thomas King's retelling of North-American Indigenous myth. It proposes that the plastic figure, true to its name, serves very different symbolic purposes. While in Kurzweil's vision, the plastic figure is part of a vision of unfettered consumption, in King's vision, plasticity suggests a chaotic quality that must be 'fixed.' The paper ultimately suggests that Kurzweil's and King's futuristic and mythical narratives possess vastly different views on the human body as it exists in the present.


We were pleased when Dr. Rogers asked us if we would be interested in guest-editing a special section of this journal on issues relevant to working with Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) military personnel and veterans. As Veterans Affairs (VA) clinician researchers we face the timeliness of these issues on a daily basis and appreciate the many ways in which the mental health community outside of the VA and the Department of Defense (DoD) can play a role in working with the men and women affected by the current conflicts. We therefore solicited original research, theoretical papers, critical reviews, and case reports from a broad cross section of disciplines. In particular, we sought manuscripts that would provide new ideas or timely reviews directly pertinent to the practice of mental health counseling with those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The resulting submissions were reviewed by a group of clinical scholars with expertise in the areas covered. We would like to thank our colleagues from the VA VISN 19 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center and Denver VA Medical Center, Drs. Lawrence Adler, Herbert Nagamoto, Beeta Homaifar, and Jennifer Olson-Madden, and from the Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, Dr. Michelle Cornette. We believe the articles selected present a range of ideas and techniques that address the goals of this special section. Application of this information can benefit military personnel, veterans, and their families. The common theme of the three articles selected is deployment-related stress and ways to facilitate coping. Potter and colleagues present data on an in-theater intervention for combat stress control. They also review the types of clinical work being done in the field. Besides informing DoD clinicians about a novel means of service delivery, their article can orient VA and community-based mental health counselors to the types of care their clients may have received in-theater. Corso and colleagues have adapted a range of evidence-based PTSD treatments to use in a primary care setting. Their data suggest that integrating mental health and primary care can be effective and that a behavioral health consultation model can decrease symptoms of PTSD in clients who do not seek traditional mental health services. Finally, from a review of the suicide literature as it relates to members of the military, Martin and colleagues highlight similarities and differences in risk and protective factors for military personnel and veterans compared with the general population. Their material can inform case conceptualization and treatment planning, particularly for counselors new to working with suicidal military personnel and veterans. Readers may be asking why a special section on such topics is necessary. Preliminary evidence suggests that the mental health needs of those who have served or are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are significant (Lineberry, Bostwick, & Rundell, 2006; Milliken, Auchterlonie, & Hoge, 2007; Seal et al., 2008). As such, increased attention to meeting the needs of these individuals is warranted. Ideally, this will be facilitated via DoD, VA, and community partnerships, and can in part be accomplished by collaboratively pooling resources and sharing information across systems. Based on the clinical literature (Lineberry, Ramaswamy, Bostwick, & Rundell, 2006) we expect that the challenges-both physical and psychological--faced by some individuals will require significant intervention, and that the type of care needed will evolve over time. As individuals return from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, clinicians will be seeing clients at differing points in their recovery. Corso et al. (this issue) highlight that many individuals are exhibiting symptoms but do not yet meet the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Providing treatments which help these individuals more effectively manage their symptoms may indeed lead to fewer clients developing PTSD. …


Apolipoprotein (apo)E is an important protein determinant in cholesterol homeostasis in man. The protein is synthesized by the liver as well as by a number of extrahepatic tissues. In the present study, immunohistochemical techniques were used to identify apoE in specific cells in various baboon organs. In the 11 tissues studied, the following cell types have been found to harbor apoE immunoreactivity: cerebral astrocytes; thyroid follicular cells; alveolar type II pneumocytes; hepatocytes, and Kupffer cells; adrenocortical cells in zona fasciculata and zona reticularis; adrenal medullary cells; some renal tubular epithelia; some pancreatic islet cells; histiocytic macrophages in lymph nodes and the spleen; some gastric mucosal epithelia; and ovarian oocytes. These observations indicate the wide distribution of apoE in many organs and suggest that the protein might perform other important functions such as regulation of local hormonal homeostasis in addition to its role in cholesterol metabolism.


A negative interest rate on reserves is effectively a tax on the banking system. The rationale for adopting such policy in the context of a classic liquidity trap is its expansionary effect, via the reduction in the incentive to save. However, critics argue that the resulting distortion in the banking system may have adverse effects which outweigh the welfare gains from economic stimulus. This paper contributes to the debate by modelling the banking sector in accordance with the maturity-transformation framework of Diamond and Dybvig (1983). I show that, on the one hand, negative interest on reserves leads to financial disintermediation, which reduces the extent of maturity transformation below the first-best level; while, on the other hand, it is expansionary, as consumers save less overall. The paper's main finding is that, while in normal times taxing banks is inefficient, optimal monetary policy in the liquidity trap prescribes a strictly negative interest on reserves.


ABSTRACT Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) programs play an important role in the learning experience of students in higher education and are widely used in many institutions. Within a large public research-intensive university in Australia, WIL approaches are used in many faculties, although this paper is focused on WIL within the tourism discipline. One of the capstone subjects in the undergraduate and postgraduate tourism programs utilise a WIL framework, whereby mentors assist groups of students to conduct projects for industry clients during a 13-week semester. This study aims to explore effective mentoring processes within the WIL program environment by interviewing mentors to identify their guidance and coaching experience, skills and capabilities and their self-development in this mentoring process. This study's outcome can assist to better understand the role of mentor in WIL for the design of future WIL programs.


We use 500 pc resolution cosmological simulations of a Virgo-like galaxy cluster to study the properties of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) that forms at the center of the halo. We compared two simulations; one incorporating only supernovae feedback and a second that also includes prescriptions for black hole growth and the resulting AGN feedback from gas accretion. As previous work has shown, with supernovae feedback alone we are unable to reproduce any of the observed properties of massive cluster ellipticals. The resulting BCG is rotating quickly, has a high Sersic index, a strong mass excess in the center and a total central density profile falling more steeply than isothermal. Furthermore, it is far too efficient at converting most of the available baryons into stars which is strongly constrained by abundance matching. With a treatment of black hole dynamics and AGN feedback the BCG properties are in good agreement with data: they rotate slowly, have a cored surface density profile, a flat or rising velocity dispersion profile and a low stellar mass fraction. The AGN provides a new mechanism to create cores in luminous elliptical galaxies; the core expands due to the combined effects of heating from dynamical friction of sinking massive black holes and AGN feedback that ejects gaseous material from the central regions.


Objectives:
Three studies addressed the effectiveness of a preventative Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training for university students and university employees. The studies aimed to explore whether changes in participants' psychological well-being would be mediated by the mechanisms of change theorized as central in ACT.

Design and Method:
The studies adopted an embedded mixed method, repeated-measures randomised controlled trial design. In the first study 65 participants recruited from a university student population were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1) a training day (6 hours) based on Acceptance 'and Commitment Therapy (ACT); 2) a waiting-list control group. The intervention was delivered to groups of participants. Participants in both conditions were required to complete outcome and mediation measures at baseline (Time 1), at one month (Time 2) and two months after the training (Time 3). At two months post, participants in the intervention group were also asked to provide written feedback reflecting on the impact of the training. The second and third studies utilised similar methodology. Specifically, in the second study, 71 participants were recruited from a university student population, and in the third study 68 participants were recruited from the university workforce. Assessments were completed at similar time points as in the first study.

Results:
The first study (students) resulted in significant between-group differences on mental health variables at one month benefiting the intervention group. The second study (students) indicated beneficial improvements in the intervention group's mental health at two months post intervention. There was some evidence of ACT-consistent mediation in these studies. The third study (employees) failed to identify significant improvements for participants in the ACT condition although participants in the waiting list group had evidenced deterioration of their mental health at one-month. Participants across studies described the experienced impact of the intervention and noted barriers of engaging with the training skills.

Conclusions:
Brief ACT preventative interventions could be of potential value as prophylactic approaches. The study identified a requirement of a longer intervention format to enhance engagement with training skills. The study outlines recommendations for improvements of future preventative ACT projects.


This paper examines the impact of five globalization variables on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions in Europe from 1980-2000 in the framework of one empirical model. The spatial autoregressive regression model is estimated using 2SLS. The five variables of interest are trade, foreign direct investment, neighboring countries wealth, cross-border pollution and participation in international environmental treaties. I then omit each of the globalization effects one at a time and find that omitted variable bias would be significant for four of the globalization variables, the exception being neighbors' wealth.


An assessment of the consequences of biological invasions and of the measures taken against must be at the base of each social decision in this field. Three forms of uncertainty can be distinguished that make such a decision difficult to take: (1) factual uncertainty, which encompasses not only risk, but also unknown probabilities of known consequences, and unknown consequences, (2) individual uncertainty, i.e. insecurity about the values to consider, and about the form how to consider them, and (3) social actor uncertainty, i.e. uncertainty about the social actors to consider and how to do it. This paper furnishes axiomatic reflections about the difficulties of assessments integrating these three uncertainties. Using this analytical separation, it restructures two main assessment techniques, and herewith shows the main differences between cost-benefit-analysis and multi-criteria decision aid in supporting public decisions about biological invasions. It is shown that the main difference between cost-benefit-analysis, the classical economic decision support, and multi-criteria decision analysis is less its mono- vs. multi-criteria approach, but its facility to be embedded in a social decision context. With multicriteria decision aid it is more facile to lay open the uncertainties in all three dimensions and to make them an explicit topic for public discourse. Therefore, it seems more suitable as an assessment method for biological invasions.


This Topic covers a range of key technology options associated with future space exploration systems and architectures that are resilient, reliable, and reconfigurable through the use of miniaturization, modularization of key functions in novel systems approaches. Platforms technologies that support self-assembly and in-space assembly, as well as in-space maintenance and servicing, are included. These efforts are coordinated with in-space assembly and related R&D within the Advanced Space Operations Topic (e.g., involving extra-vehicular activity (EVA) systems, robotics, etc.).


The aims of this study is to examine factors that affect (determinants) internal audit effectiveness in the public sector, Inspectorate office at Province Special Region of Yogyakarta. This study is a replication of the research that has been done by Alzeban and Gwilliam in Saudi Arabia. There are 4 (four) independent variables that affect internal audit effectiveness as dependent variable. There are competence of internal auditor, the relationship between internal and external auditor, auditee support to internal audit activity, and independence of internal auditor. The population in this research is 51 internal auditor working in Inspectorate office at Province Special Region of Yogyakarta. This study uses primary data in the form of questionnaire. All of questionnaire can be processed. The datawere collected were processed using PLS analysis with SmartPLS 3 program. Statistical tests showed that three of four independent variables, there are the competence of the internal auditor, the auditee support and the independence of the internal auditor affect the effectiveness of the internal audit. while relationship between the internal auditor with the external auditor does not affect the internal audit effectiveness Keywords : Internal auditor effectiveness, competence of internal auditor, relationship between internal and external auditor, auditee support to internal audit activity, independence of internal auditor.


Initiated hunters (donzow) rose to national prominence in Côte d'Ivoire during the 1990s as crimefighters and succeeded in restoring public order throughout the country. Politicians sought to ride the wave of donzo popularity to boost their electoral campaigns, but the Ivorian government of Henri Konan Bedié was more ambivalent toward the hunters and their association (donzo ton). The Ministry of the Interior feared that the donzow might form a paramilitary force that would some day threaten national security. President Bedié's main concern was that the Mandé and Mandé-influenced hunters' association (Binkadi) would support Mandé presidential hopeful Alassane Dramane Ouattara in the 2000 election. This paper examines the Bedié regime's containment policy that in the second half of the 1990s aimed to restrict donzo ton activities to the northern half the country and to prevent them from becoming an influential sociopolitical force. Various tactics were deployed to turn public opinion against the donzow and to divide and rule their organization. The attempts to reconfigure the scale of donzow's activities from the national to the regional levels were part of a larger ethnoterritorial politics, called ivoirité. Narrow definitions of citizenship, the (re)construction of culture areas, and the exclusion of immigrants from political and economic arenas demonstrate that the "authoritarian possibilities in culture" are realized with devastating consequences in Côte d'Ivoire. These policies and politics contributed to the volatile social and political atmosphere leading up to the 2002 armed rebellion, in which some donzow took up arms against the state.


The Community Rating System (CRS) was introduced to encourage community-level flood mitigation and increase household-level National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) participation. It is not clear, however, if and to what extent community participation in the CRS increases household participation in the NFIP and decreases damage claims payments. We employ genetic matching methods and estimate fixed-effects and Mundlak-style panel regression models that control for key geospatial, socioeconomic, and time effects to isolate the CRS treatment effect on these outcomes. Results show a positive and significant effect of CRS participation on NFIP participation, whereas significant effects on damage claims payments are limited.


This piece uses meditation, mantra and sound to embody cycles of yearning for Home and recognition of the Way of my ancestors.

As a being of African diaspora existing in a white society, there is a constant feeling of displacement; like we are sojourners. This poem speaks of the desire to be immersed in the beauty that is still present in the natural world by tending to my roots.

Throughout the course of the piece, I conjure the inner knowingness of what it means to be a traveler with indigenous origins. Our nature, as nature is that of co-creation with our natural surroundings; understanding there is a time to arrive, and a time to depart. There is a time to water and a time uproot. This is the way of our ancestors. As they cared deeply for the earth, recognizing when to be immersed and when to let go.

By the end of this poem, I rejoice in this knowing.
The final line, "Grant me more, and transience" acknowledges that while I do live in this society at this time, I am a sojourner passing through, and I will seek and maintain the way of my ancestors during my stay.


For anthropologists, the term neoliberal often becomes a shorthand for indicating all that is wrong with the present. But such usage of the term can foreclose our ability to imagine different futures. In this article, I go back to a time before neoliberalism, when economists and philosophers were engaged in debates about the rationality of economic planning within market economies, and in which the concept of "tacit knowledge" was pivotal. These 1920s and 1930s thinkers, especially Hayek and von Mises, were convinced that collectivism and planning would not work, and their work is cited still today as having established the basis for laissez-faire (neoliberal) capitalism. I critically juxtapose their findings with a historical analysis of the public sector in Egypt, with a short excursis into management theory (and research on tacit knowledge), and with my own ethnography. Looking at the case of a successful public sector banker I worked with in Cairo, I show how he relied on tacit knowledge as a collective inheritance that was embodied in collective subjects and "secrets of the trade." My findings thus call into question Hayek's argument about the irrationality of collectivism and economic planning. They also point to the importance of tacit knowledge practices as collective and public goods in our economic imaginary of the future.


In an era of rapid globalisation, how can the changes that characterise how the social question is addressed in rich and emerging countries be analysed? How can one interpret the crisis in the Welfare State and the emergence of new social policies that push for the financial contribution of beneficiaries and the development of new forms of solidarity? What can be said about the world's poorest countries and their recurrent difficulty in benefiting from international aid to fight against poverty and ensure the protection of all people?

This volume brings together 24 researchers from around the world to analyse a series of case studies of developed, emerging and developing countries. They study the evolution or decline observed in these countries and propose some answers to the issue of the way in which the economic model influences how the social question is taken into account around the world. A closer look reveals that the manner in which this question is addressed largely determines how the evolution of the world is perceived. While the contributors here highlight how capitalism makes it possible to reflect on the issue of social protection, they also show the limits of policies unable to guarantee this protection as soon as the economic situation can no longer allow countries to bear its costs.


Recently, we have introduced Multi-Leader Particle Swarm Optimization (MLPSO) algorithm for multiobjective optimization problem. Better convergence and diversity have been observed over the conventional MultiObjective Particle Swarm Optimization. In this paper, the same concept is extended to Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA). The performance was investigated by solving a set of ZDT test problem. An analysis was also performed by varying the value of initial gravitational constant.


Kathleen Parkinson places this brilliant and bitter satire on the moral failure of the "Jazz Age" firmly in the context of Scott Fitzgerald's life and times. She explores the intricate patterns of the novel, its chronology, locations, imagery and use of colour, and how these contribute to a seamless interplay of social comedy and symbolic landscape. She devotes a perceptive chapter to Fitzgerald's controversial portrayal of women and goes on to discuss how the central characters, Gatsby and Nick Carraway, embody and confront the dualism inherent in the American dream.


The development of behaviourally richer representations of the role of well-established and increasingly important influences on modal choice, such as trip time reliability and accounting for risk attitude and process rules, has moved forward at a fast pace in the context of automobile travel. In the public transport setting, such contributions have, with rare exception, not been considered. In this paper, we discuss and empirically illustrate the merits of advanced modelling developments aimed at improving our understanding of public transport choice, namely the inclusion of reliability in extended expected utility theoretic forms, to recognize risk attitude and perceptual conditioning, the consideration of passenger crowding and its inclusion in linear additive models, and the role of multiple heuristics in representing attribute processing as a way of conditioning modal choice. We illustrate the mechanics of introducing these behaviourally appealing extensions using a modal choice data set collected in Sydney.


Millions of people participate in outdoor recreation activities in New Zealand every year. Economic recreation studies in the country concentrate mostly on market values. Market values only present part of the outdoor recreation benefit; while non-market values represent the other part. In this study, a meta-analysis is used to determine the non-market benefit of recreation. Results show non-market benefits from outdoor recreation to be over five billion dollars annually, exceeding market benefits of approximately four billion. New Zealand non-market values were then compared to those from a United States recreation database and results were favourably similar.


This paper analyzes the impacts of climate change and human pressures on Yazd-Ardakan aquifer using the Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 (HADCM 3 ) circulation Model and A 2 emission scenario. Water levels in the study aquifer were simulated using three-dimensional finite-difference groundwater model (MODFLOW 2000) with GMS 8.3 as pre- and postprocessing software. Input for groundwater recharge time series under the climate change scenarios were derived using a regression equation based on the cumulative deviation from mean rainfall using MATLAB. Human pressures on the aquifer were modeled through climate change impacts on water requirements of cultivated areas. Three scenarios were simulated to represent the effects of climate change and human pressures on aquifer storage and hydraulic head. Climate change and human pressures (scenario 1) will reduce aquifer storage and result in decreasing hydraulic head by −0.56 m year −1 . Reduction in pumping water under scenario 2 (irrigation system modification) and scenario 3 (irrigation system modification and cropping patterns ) will result in groundwater level fluctuation of about −0.32 and 0.08 m year −1 , respectively. Scenario 3 is capable of restoring and protecting the groundwater resources in Yazd-Ardakan aquifer. The results of this study are useful to obtain sustainable groundwater management in Yazd-Ardakan aquifer.


This article highlights the imperative of developing multiple media literacy skills in high school students to prepare them for work in a world plagued by complex social, political, economic and environmental issues. These skills can be imbued through the integration of the concepts of journalism ethics with journalism's role in a democracy within the practical aspects of production of digital television community news. This idea is to be explored in an Australian Research Council Linkage project (2005 to 2007) - a collaborative initiative between Apple Computer Australia, WIN Television and the University of Wollongong (UOW). The ARC School News project investigates the notion that high school students' creation of digital video news about their school and community, facilitated by innovative technology and expert advice, can lead to their acquisition of multiple literacy skills. As the students' skills develop in constructing television news, they will then begin to appreciate a set of multiple literacy resources that should serve them as young participants in a democratic system. In a changing news media landscape, dominated by deception, spin and public relations, these resources are critical and young people require them to effectively exercise their rights, now and into the future. In the making of community oriented television news, young people will develop a critical ability to read the media products for what they are: constructions that are often persuasive and propagandist, disguised as news and loitering on the boundaries of the pornographic and the violent. Young people will develop their critical abilities in multi literacy, finding that news and current affairs often serve singular political and commercial interests, rather than what journalism purports to serve - balance, fairness, independence, investigation, pluralism and democracy.


This study reports successful deposition of high quantum efficiency (QE) bialkali antimonide K2CsSb photocathodes on graphene films. The results pave the way for an ultimate goal of encapsulating technologically relevant photocathodes for accelerator technology with an atomically thin protecting layer to enhance lifetime while minimizing QE losses. A QE of 17% at ≈3.1 eV (405 nm) is the highest value reported so far on graphene substrates and is comparable to that obtained on stainless steel and nickel reference substrates. The spectral responses of the photocathodes on graphene exhibit signature features of K2CsSb including the characteristic absorption at ≈2.5 eV. Materials characterization based on X‐ray fluorescence and X‐ray diffraction reveals that the composition and crystal quality of these photocathodes deposited on graphene is comparable to those deposited on a reference substrate. Quantitative agreement between optical calculations and QE measurements for the K2CsSb on free suspended graphene and a graphene‐coated metal substrate further confirms the high‐quality interface between the photocathodes and graphene. Finally, a correlation between the QE and graphene quality as characterized by Raman spectroscopy suggests that a lower density of atomistic defects in the graphene films leads to higher QE of the deposited K2CsSb photocathodes.


Photosynthesis allows plants to store light energy in organic compounds. Plants have an efficient apparatus to harvest photons from sunlight and use the energy to split water and transport electrons to specific high-energy electron acceptors. A proper balance between light reactions and electron consumption is important to maintain fluent photosynthetic activity during environmental conditions that are constantly changing. At the same time, photosynthetic components are protected through several regulatory mechanisms. The avoidance of damage to photosystem I (PSI) is particularly important because its recovery occurs extremely slowly as compared to that of photosystem II (PSII). Studies on damage, photoinhibition and recovery of PSI are scarcer than those of PSII. In this thesis, the occurrence of photoinhibition of PSI and some of its consequences to the plant metabolism were investigated. Arabidopsis thaliana L. plants lacking the PROTON GRADIENT REGULATION 5 protein (pgr5 mutants) that were treated with excess light were used as a model system for controlled PSI-photoinhibition. This experimental model was validated, and the impact of PSI photoinhibition and recovery on photosynthetic electron transport, primary metabolism, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and chloroplast retrograde signalling were thoroughly characterised. The results highlight that PSI photoinhibition induces impairment of CO2 fixation, starch accumulation, and dark respiration. The recovery of PSI function after photoinhibition proved to be dependent on light conditions, being especially deleterious for CO2 fixation under low irradiances, and supporting the idea that a pool of surplus PSI can be recruited to support photosynthesis under demanding conditions. High light-treated pgr5 mutants also displayed low occurrence of lipid oxidation associated with attenuated enzymatic oxylipin synthesis and consequent chloroplast regulation of nuclear gene expression. This model also showed that PSI photoinhibition prevents oxidative stress and accumulation of ROS, evidencing a role of PSI inactivation in avoiding over-reduction of downstream redox components.


Urban habitats differ from adjacent natural habitats in terms of disturbance regimes, light, temperature, rainfall, habitat distribution and resource abundance. Meteorological differences advance and prolong the growing season in urban habitats compared to nearby rural areas. In turn, urban bird populations may potentially start singing earlier, and reproduce earlier and more frequently than rural populations. However, this prediction has previously only been tested with data from single species using single spatial replicates from rural and urban sites. Here we provide the first general (paired urban and rural populations of 54 bird species) and large-scale (a 3800 km long latitudinal gradient across Europe) empirical evidence for longer and earlier singing periods in urban compared to rural habitats. Effects of urbanization on start and duration of the singing period (as a proxy for the breeding season) were positively related to size of cities and ecological characteristics of species. Bird species that have been urbanized for a long time started to sing earlier and had a more extended singing period in urban compared to rural habitats. We also found that the singing period started later and was shorter at higher latitudes. Geographical variation in phenology was related to temperature and rainfall, although differences between urban and rural habitats were not. Differences in duration of singing periods between paired urban and rural sites were as large as latitudinal differences between southern and northern Europe (5, 6 and 28 d for 3 common species, as compared to a mean latitudinal variation of 17.1 d). This suggests local adjustment to urban environments, either due to evolution or to plasticity of phenological behaviour.


An inevitable phenomenon called the ghost reflection has always been a problem in marine seismic acquisition. The great contrast in acoustic properties over the air-water interface is causing an almost perfect reflection of the up going seismic signal that is reflected from the subsurface. Interference between the up-going and down-going ghost signal is altering the original shape of the signal, and results in notches at certain frequencies in the amplitude spectrum of the signal. The information contained within the vicinity of these frequencies are therefor highly degraded. The process of removing the effect of the ghost is called deghosting. There are different ways of eliminating the ghost, both on acquisition side and processing side. PGS is recording both pressure and vertical particle velocity of the wavefield. These measurements are complementary, and perfect deghosting can in theory be achieved by doing this. However, noise present in low frequencies in the measurements of the vertical particle velocity are causing problems. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a program that performs deghosting of the type of data that PGS acquire. Furthermore, we would like to find out how PGS are deghosting the low frequency end of the signal, where noise in present in the vertical particle velocity. The program that was developed is a simple implementation of equations derived by many in the past. The program was first tested on synthetic seismic data. The synthetic seismic data was generated using a finite difference method for solving the wave equation. The results indicate that pressure measurements are the only contributor to PGS' P-up in frequencies up to 25 Hz, and the major contributor up to 40 Hz. Further, noise related to weather has briefly been studied. Additional pressure due to ocean gravity waves are is not a problem with the present day recording technology. This is due to the low frequency nature of these waves. a It was found that a noise level increase can be expected when wind speed increase. The increase is almost the same for all frequencies.


The aim of this paper is to present the first data set obtained with SOAR Adaptive Module-Fabry-Parot (SAM-FP), a Fabry-Perot instrument mounted inside the SOAR telescope Adaptive-Optics Module. This is the only existing imaging Fabry-Perot interferometer using laser-assisted ground-layer adaptive optics. SAM-FP was used to observe the ionized gas, traced by Halpha, in the centre of the 30 Doradus starburst (the Tarantula Nebula) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, with high spatial (~0.6" or 0.15 pc) and spectral (R=11200) resolution. Radial velocity, velocity dispersion and monochromatic maps were derived. The region displays a mix of narrow, sigma ~ 20 km/s profiles and multiple broader profiles with sigma ~ 70-80 km/s, indicating the complex nature of the nebula kinematics. A comparison with previously obtained VLT/FLAMES spectroscopy demonstrates that the data agree well in the regions of overlap, but the Fabry-Perot data are superior in spatial coverage. A preliminary analysis of the observations finds a new expanding bubble south of R136, with a projected radius of r=5.6 pc and an expansion velocity of 29 +/- 4 km/s. In addition, the first-time detailed kinematic maps derived here for several complexes and filaments of 30 Doradus allow identification of kinematically independent structures. These data exemplify the power of the combination of a high-order Fabry-Perot with a wide-field imager (3' x 3' GLAO-corrected field of view) for high-resolution spatial and spectral studies. In particular, SAM-FP data cubes are highly advantageous over multifibre or long-slit data sets for nebula structure studies and to search for small-scale bubbles, given their greatly improved spatial coverage. For reference, this paper also presents two appendices with detailed descriptions of the usage of Fabry-Perot devices, including formulae and explanations for understanding Fabry-Perot observations.


In 1919 a group of young men barely out of their teens, poorly armed, with no money and little training, renewed the fight, begun in 1916, to drive the British out of Ireland. Dan Breen was to become the best known of them. At first they were condemed on all sides. They became outlaws and My Fight describes graphically what life was like 'on the run,' with 'an army at one's heels and a thousand pounds on one's head'. A burning belief in their cause sustained them through many a dark and bitter day and slowly support came from the people.


Many athletes will go to great lengths—indeed almost any length—in the pursuit of success in their chosen sport. This includes training to the limits of what is tolerable and sometimes even beyond that. It is not surprising therefore that the search for anything that might confer even the smallest advantage is pursued assiduously. Some of the options chosen are of dubious benefit and some might even be harmful to the athlete's health, performance and long-term career.

Nutrition offers many opportunities for performance enhancement, and the influence of nutrition on athletic performance has been documented extensively.1 Potential benefits include an ability to sustain a higher training load without succumbing to illness or injury and an enhanced responsiveness to the training stimulus as well as direct effects on competition performance itself. Athletes are aware that the food choices they make can have profound effects on all of these aspects of their sporting life, but most …


In September 1966, a system was initiated at the University which provides for the use of automatically produced multiple orders and for the use of change chards to update order information on previously placed orders already on disk storage. The system is geared to an IBM 1620 Central Proessing Unit (40K) which has processed a total of 10,222 order transactions the first year. It is believed that the system will lend itself to further development within its existing framework and that it will be capable of handling future work loads.


The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are cultural differences in topic organization and role-related topic control in dinner conversations; such differences may function as a means for socialization into communicative styles. The research was designed as a comparative study of two geographically close but linguistically very different ethnic groups: Swedes and Finns, including Finns in Sweden as an intermediate group. Previous research has shown Swedes to generate more talk and to produce considerably shorter pauses than Finns. Furthermore, previous studies have indicated that lengthy pauses often precede topic changes. Empirical data were collected by video recording conversations in each of the three cultural groups: 11 Finnish families in Finland, 11 Finnish immigrant families in Sweden, and 11 Swedish families in Sweden. Due to the shared setting, the conversations displayed many similarities, but there were also some intercultural differences. The main result was that the Swedish family dinner discourse was significantly more encyclopedic and coherent than the Finnish and Swedish-Finnish one. The findings support the hypothesized connection between pausing and topic organization. The mothers in each group were most active in controlling topic development.


ABSTRACT Tea is the most consumed beverage either cold or hot. One kind of them is bag tea products. Tea bag is wrapped in smooth porous paper and heat resistant. In general, the paper uses chlorine as a bleach, it is the reason for necessary to study the chlorine content in water of tea bag. The purpose of this study was to determine the chlorine content in water of tea bag based on temperature and time. The kind of this study is descriptive survey. The object of study is the water of tea bag mixing in drinking water then examined in laboratorium of Balai Teknik Kesehatan Lingkungan Dan Pemberantasan Penyakit Menular Kelas I Medan by using spectrophotometric method. Based on the findings, there is the chlorine content of tea bag water at 40 0 -100 0 C with immersion time respectively 1 minutes, 3 minutes and 5 minutes. The survey results revealed that the chlorine content increased by the increasing of temperature and time. The chlorine content is 1.35 mg/250 ml in temperature of 90 0 c with 3 minutes immersion and chlorine content 0.2817 mg/250 ml in temperature of 80 0 c with 3 minutes. Hence, it is concluded that the increasing of temperature and time will increase the chlorine in the tea bag water. It can be harmful health both in short and long term. According to Permenkes RI No. 492/Menkes/Per/IV/2010 that chlorine levels in drinking water is 1.25 mg/250 ml. It is suggested for frequent consumption of tea using brewed tea. Keywords : Chlorine, tea bags, temperature, time, spectrophotometry


Background: The PRECEDE-PROCEED Model is an effective and adaptable program planning tool that has been widely used in the design, implementation and evaluation of health promotion programs. Objective: To retrospectively apply the constructs of the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model to a community-based youth fitness and nutrition summer camp program (Champ Camp) and to identify and describe how the program can be improved based on the findings of the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model evaluation. Design: A systematic application of the nine phases of the PRECEDE-PROCEED Model applied retrospectively to evaluate and improve the Champ Camp program. Setting: Children participating in Champ Camp offered through a seven-week summer camp coordinated by Burlington Parks, Recreation and Waterfront of Burlington, Vermont. The summer camp served as a licensed childcare program for children entering first through fifth grade. Measures: Improvements in nutrition knowledge and fitness scores measured biweekly. Additionally, the retrospective application of the planning model determined valuable demographic, behavioral, environmental, and policy information about the community. Statistical Analysis: A repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to determine if there was a statistically significant change over time in nutrition knowledge and physical fitness. Statistical analysis was also performed to determine if there were potential correlations between nutrition knowledge and performance on each fitness assessment individually. Results: The Champ Camp program significantly improved nutrition assessment scores for males. Additionally, there were statistically significant improvements in the fitness assessment scores for the ball throw within third through fifth grade males and females across the seven-week program. The retrospective application of the PRECEDEPROCEED Model proved to be successful in identifying the demographic, behavioral and environmental influences, and resources and invested parties of the target population. Most importantly the model emphasized the use of SMART program goals and objectives within successful health promotion programs. The model also stressed the necessity for appropriate and validated nutrition and fitness assessment tools that would offer more generalizable data. Moreover, the model also emphasized the need for stronger program evaluation by including more process evaluative measures and defining the determinants in which the programs' effectiveness and efficiency would be measured. Conclusions: The unique application proved to be a valuable and fruitful method for evaluating and identifying areas for improvement within a community-based youth fitness and nutrition summer camp program. This research not only serves to improve the existing Champ Camp program but to highlight the importance of program planning models and the critical components of successful health promotion programs.


Ever since the Great Recession, central banks have supplemented their traditional policy tool of setting the short-term interest rate with massive buyouts of assets to extend lines of credit and jolt flagging demand. As with many new policies, there have been a range of reactions from economists, with some extolling quantitative easing's expansionary virtues and others fearing it might invariably lead to overvaluation of assets, instigating economic instability and bubble behavior. To investigate these theories, we combine elements of the models in chapters 5, 10, and 11 of Godley and Lavoie's (2007) Monetary Economics with equations for quantitative easing and endogenous bubbles in a new model. By running the model under a variety of parameters, we study the causal links between quantitative easing, asset overvaluation, and macroeconomic performance. Preliminary results suggest that rather than being pro- or countercyclical, quantitative easing acts as a sort of phase shift with respect to time.


Better managers and managerial practices lead to better firm performance. Yet, little is known about what happens when managers move across firms. Does a firm hiring a good manager improve its performance? If yes is there some valuable knowledge the manager has acquired and successfully diffused to the new firm? In order to answer these questions we use information related to specific activities the manager was involved in when working for previous firms. More specifically, we use information on whether the manager has worked in the past for firms exporting to a specific destination country or a specific product. Our data is rich enough to allow controlling for both manager and firm unobservables and wash out any time-invariant ability of the manager as well as overall firm performance. We find that the export experience gained by managers in previous firms leads their current firm towards higher export performance, and commands a sizable wage premium for the manager. We use several strategies to deal with endogeneity including an exogenous event study: the sudden end of the Angolan civil war in 2002. We further refine our analysis by looking at different types of managers (general, production, financial and sales) and show how specific export experience interacts with the degree of product differentiation and/or the financial vulnerability of a firm's products as well as with rising import competition from China.


The release of buoyant harmful gases within enclosed spaces, such as tunnels and corridors, may engender specific health, industrial and transportation risks. For safety, a simple ventilation strategy for these spaces is to impose a flow along the tunnel, whose velocity is defined as 'critical', that confines the front of harmful buoyant gases immediately downstream of the source of emission. Determining the critical velocity as a function of the geometrical and dynamical conditions at the source is a fundamental fluid mechanics problem which has yet to be elucidated; this problem concerns the dynamics of non-Boussinesq releases relating to large differences between the densities of the buoyant and the ambient fluids. We have investigated this problem theoretically, by means of a simplified model of a top-hat plume in a cross-flow, and in complementary experiments by means of tests in a reduced-scale ventilated tunnel, examining releases from circular sources. Experimental results reveal: (i) the existence of two flow regimes depending on the plume Richardson number at the source $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}_{i}$ , one for momentum-dominated releases, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}_{i}\ll 1$ , and a second for buoyancy-dominated releases, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}_{i}\gg 1$ , with a smooth transition between the two; and (ii) the presence of relevant non-Boussinesq effects only for momentum-dominated releases. All these features can be conveniently predicted by the plume-based model, whose validity is, strictly speaking, limited to releases issuing from 'small' sources in 'weak' ventilation flows. Analytical solutions of the model are generally in good agreement with the experimental data, even for values of the governing parameters that are beyond the range of validity for the model. The solutions aid to clarify the effect of the source radius, and reveal interesting behaviours in the limits $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}_{i}\rightarrow 0$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}_{i}\rightarrow \infty$ . These findings support the adoption of simplified models to simulate light gas releases in confined ventilated spaces.


The maar lake Laguna Potrok Aike is located in the semi-arid Patagonian steppe (52°S), an area with hitherto only scarce paleoenvironmental information. Within the project SALSA (South Argentinean Lake Sediment Archives and modeling) Laguna Potrok Aike turned out to be the key site for recording climatic events in that area. With a continuous, high-resolution multi-proxy approach applied to the radiocarbon, optical (OSL) and tephra-dated sediments it is possible to distinguish between high and low lake level stands. Hydrological variations seem to be linked to variations in the carbonate content of Laguna Potrok Aike sediments brought about by concentration and dilution processes which was confirmed by various other proxies of lake level changes. These variations not only give information about climate events like the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Climate Anomaly, but also reflect rapid hydrological variations in southern Patagonia during the past 16 ka. Recently, the record was extended to the past 55 ka and suggests a high lake level for Laguna Potrok Aike before 13.1 cal ka BP. Variations in grain size and comparison of magnetic susceptibility, an assumed dust proxy, at Laguna Potrok Aike with the non-sea-salt calcium flux at Dome C (Antarctica) indicate a relatively high aeolian input during the glacial period. Although the source of the dust found in Antarctic ice cores often has been attributed to Patagonia, this is the first evidence for a similar dust pattern for both the main source area of southern South America and Antarctica. Additionally, analyses of volcanic ashes revealed that Laguna Potrok Aike is perfectly suited to extend the southern South American tephra chronology. Up to now, already three formerly unknown volcanic ashes were recovered from the sediment cores and tentatively dated to Oxygen Isotope Stage 3. These three examples demonstrate the potential for future research on sediment cores from Laguna Potrok Aike recovered during the ICDP drilling project PASADO (Potrok Aike maar lake sediment archive drilling project) probably reaching back to Oxygen Isotope Stage 5. PASADO not only enables a temporal extension of the existing record but also allows for higher-resolution analyses, as previously existing sediment cores exceeding 13.1 ka were recovered from very condensed sequences from the steep flanks of the lake. In addition to that, the international co-operations permit the utilization of a larger set of methods such as rock- and paleomagnetic-, biomarker-, or deep biosphere studies.


This research investigates communications network routing procedures, based on distributed learning automata concepts for circuit and packet switched networks. For this application, the learning automaton is shown to be an ideal adaptive control mechanism, with simple feedback and updating strategies which allow extremely practical implementations and perform very close to the desired optimum. In this thesis, the nature of learning automata routing schemes are explored by analytical and computer simulation techniques, primarily developing an elementary understanding of the automata routing and adaption process. Using simple circuit and message switched networks the conditions for minimum blocking probability and average delay are established and compared with the equilibrium behaviour of learning automata operating under alternative reinforcement algorithms. Later, large scale simulations of real networks are used to demonstrate and relate the learning automata scheme to existing routing techniques. These experiments, which are performed on sophisticated simulation packages produced for this study, take as examples hierarchical and general structured telephone networks and packet switched communications networks configured with both virtual call and datagram protocols. In addition, studies under failure mode conditions, including link, node and focussed overloads, conclusively demonstrate the superior performance afforded by the learning automata routing approach.


The National Trust face a new set of challenges in recent years; as one of the most influential heritage bodies in the UK, it is responsible for the preservation and protection of a large number of diverse sites from historic buildings to woodland. Yet this is set against a backdrop of complex set of challenges: creating an active dialogue with those who visit its sites and other stakeholders, such as the local community; ensuring their sites are preserved while, at the same time, encouraging access; on-going climate change and environmental risks; changing cultural, social and economic frameworks. The aim for the National Trust is to better understand how places might be managed differently in the light of these challenges.

This research builds on existing quantitative research conducted by the National Trust by examining how the engagement, embodiment and practice of visitors, staff and volunteers at National Trust sites informs a sense of place. The research employs a mixed method approach using qualitative ethnographic techniques. The methods of video and audio capture were used to explore and engage with the highly complex processes practiced at the sites and capture the non-verbal, pre cognitive and emotive ways in which people engage with site. From this insight, the research makes a conceptual contribution to knowledge by examining how site based practice informs emotional engagement and affect of place and how this experience produces a sense of place for people within National Trust sites.

Traditionally, the National Trust has put the physical aspects of a site at the heart of the visitor experience, whereas my research serves to demonstrate how an individual makes sense of a place through their own experiences, memories, cultural identity and uses these lenses to understand the world and their own identity. Furthermore, the research demonstrates that places are not fixed concepts but formed in an on-going, iterative way where multiple, sometimes competing, memories, emotions and affects are produced and that a place making is messy, interwoven with multiple, sometimes competing rhythms, emotions, affects and how this sense of place gets carried over time and space. The contribution that this research makes, therefore, is in extending the insights into how place can change people to how people change place within the context of National Trust sites.


Abstract Citizenship is the cornerstone of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's democratic security policy. In this paper I ask what kind of citizen is formed under this policy. I examine the premises of citizenship when implemented under the double logic of democracy and security, drawing upon the thoughts of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. My conclusion is that in Colombia the tensions between security and democracy are resolved with a bias towards the security rather than the democracy side of the equation. The consequence is the formation of a citizen less inclined to claim his or her rights politically and more prone to 'voluntary obedience' in return for protection; rather than a lasting peace this engenders a continuation of the barbarisms, this time in the name of securing citizens. I point out that the answers to these contradictions are found in the resistance movements of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, peasants, peace communities and the movement of victims of all armed actors. I suggest a framework for analysis inspired by decolonial thinkers.