This study focuses on analyzing the effects of traveling modes on the boundary layer flow over a rotating cone in a still fluid system. Non-stationary modes are known to manifest in the boundary layer of rotating cones with highly polished, very smooth surfaces. In this paper, only the broad rotating cone (defined as a cone with the half angle ψ ≥ 40°) system is considered. An asymptotic analytical method is used to solve the governing equations and output the waveangle and wavenumber of the system. This is then compared to a numerical formulation that uses a Chebyshev spectral method. The resulting solutions show that increasing the wave frequency destabilizes the system with a much stronger destabilization for the viscous wall type II modes than the inviscid cross-flow type I modes, where the type I mode is the dominant mode seen in experiments. This result suggests that a slower frequency wave should be selected in order to increase the stability of the system. It was also observed that the negative frequency values have a minimum of the critical Reynolds number values for each cone half angle. It also shows that there is a comparison limit for high frequency positive values. After this, an energy balance analysis is conducted to see the effect on the total mechanical energy transferred between the basic flow and the perturbation quantities. This showed that as the frequency of the traveling modes increases, the energy transferred decreases.


Phonetic similarity algorithms identify words and phrases with similar pronunciation which are used in many natural language processing tasks. However, existing approaches are designed mainly for Indo-European languages and fail to capture the unique properties of Chinese pronunciation. In this paper, we propose a high dimensional encoded phonetic similarity algorithm for Chinese, DIMSIM. The encodings are learned from annotated data to separately map initial and final phonemes into n-dimensional coordinates. Pinyin phonetic similarities are then calculated by aggregating the similarities of initial, final and tone. DIMSIM demonstrates a 7.5X improvement on mean reciprocal rank over the state-of-the-art phonetic similarity approaches.


Most of the existing research work in mobile ad hoc networking is based on the assumption that a path exists between the sender and the receiver. On the other hand, applications of decentralised mobile systems are often characterised by network partitions. As a consequence delay tolerant networking research has received considerable attention in the recent years as a means to obviate to the gap between ad hoc network research and real applications. In this paper we present the design, implementation and evaluation of the context-aware adaptive routing (CAR) protocol for delay tolerant unicast communication in intermittently connected mobile ad hoc networks. The protocol is based on the idea of exploiting nodes as carriers of messages among network partitions to achieve delivery. The choice of the best carrier is made using Kalman filter based prediction techniques and utility theory. We discuss the implementation of CAR over an opportunistic networking framework, outlining possible applications of the general principles at the basis of the proposed approach. The large scale performance of the CAR protocol are evaluated using simulations based on a social network founded mobility model, a purely random one and real traces from Dartmouth College.


The paper presents the results of experimental and numerical investigations
of the reinforced (RC) continuous beams made of self-compacting concrete
strengthened with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP). Strengthening was
performed by mounting glass and carbon FRP bars under the concrete
surface (NSM method) as well as by glueing the FRP strips on the tensioned
concrete surface (EB method). Six continuous beams were tested during
which the deformations of beams and the strains in concrete, steel and FRP
reinforcement were recorded until failure under monotonically incresed
loading. By strengthening beams with additional glass (O10 mm) and
carbon (O8 mm) FRP bars increasing in bearing capacity was achieved
compared to control (unstrengthened) beam of 22% to 82% depending on
the type and the position of FRP reinforcement while by strengthening beam
with FRP strips increasing in bearing capacity was achieved of 50%. In
addition to observed the ultimate strength state, the ultimate serviceability
state was verified, while the stress-strain states of the beams and formation
of plastic joints were monitored. By using FEM, continuous beams were
modelled, and numerical non-linear analysis was conducted using the
program ANSYS. The obtained results of numerical analysis correlated very
well with the experimental results. Based on the carried out investigation it
is concluded that a significant increase in capacity can be achieved by
strengthening of continuous beams using reinforcement made of FRP
materials, regardless of the type of FRP reinforcement and strengthening
method, whereby the NSM method has many advantages compared to the
EB method.


OBJECTIVE
To study the uptake of E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha-mRNA in isolated intrahepatic bile duct epithelial cells.

METHODS
Fluorescent immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization techniques and observations with a confocal laser scanning microscope.

RESULTS
Positive reactions to LPS were found in the cytoplasm of isolated intrahepatic bile duct epithelial cells after incubation with S type LPS (S-LPS) for 15 minutes, and the FITC fluorescent intensity against LPS was significantly higher than that of controls. After incubation with S-LPS for 3 hours, FITC fluorescent intensities to the expression of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha-mRNA by flurescent in situ hybridization in the cytoplasm and nuclei of cultured bile duct epithelial cells were significantly higher than that of controls. The increase of FITC fluorescent intensity to TNF-alpha-mRNA expression showed a peak at 6 hours after incubation and at various time points after incubation with LPS, the increase of fluorescent intensities in the cytoplasm were much higher than that in the nuclei.

CONCLUSION
It is suggested that LPS could act on and enter into isolated intrahepatic bile duct epithelial cells and stimulate the expression of TNF-alpha-mRNA.


This contribution reviews the evolving legal framework that underpins language rules and practices in the European Union. It seeks to address EU language issues holistically, arguing in particular that concerns about the management of the official EU languages should not be divorced artificially from questions relating to minority languages. The development of the legal framework has, however, become increasingly fragmented, and this has problematic implications for both structural and substantive coherence. It is suggested that until and unless the legal foundations of EU language policy are carefully worked out, its continuing ad hoc construction will never deliver a more rational yet ideologically and legally sound EU language scheme.


In this contribution we present a theoretical approach which has been utilized to inform the coordination of the development of complex systems. Coordination is regarded as a form of human activity in which individual and social aspects as well as technical ones need to be considered. We analyze human activity from an interaction point of view in which various types of signs mediate the relation between individual cognition and phenomena in the environment. The sign-mediated interaction is apprehended as having a connectional, conceptual and linguistic facet. From a cognitive and semiotic analysis of these facets, we conjecture that the following constituents are fundamental for human activity: intersubjectivity experiential learning, contextuality, spatiality, temporality, stabilizing core and tool usage. These constituents are employed in structuring human activity from a coordination point of view as activity domains. A framework for articulating activity domains is described. This framework, which includes information system support, is currently used to coordinate the software integration of the third generation mobile systems at the Ericsson company. We report on some result from this usage. The results indicate that the theoretical approach is relevant for practical purposes.


Anomalous dependence of visco-elastic parameters against frequency for solid polymers measured both in conditions of surrounding air as well as in vacuum were examined. In theoretical consideration the single system of one degree of freedom for representing a sample was assumed together with the presence of friction force introduced by the air. The values of E and η were measured in the air (105Pa) and in the vacuum (102Pa) conditions against frequency f from 20-2x103Hz. The results show essential differences for both conditions. A comparison between numerical and experimental curves are presented. Anomalous behaviour of E(f) and η(f) against frequency in the air is essential for polymers of small values of Young modulus up to 106N/m2. The damping influence of the air having essential contribution in measurements of complex elastic modulus in light polymers must be taken into account when using the E, and η in situations the knowledge of exact values of those quantities is required, for example when mechanisms of internal friction in polymers are evaluated.


The planetary boundary layer (PBL) represents the part of the atmosphere that is strongly influenced by the presence of the underlying surface and mediates the key interactions between the atmosphere and the surface. On Mars, this represents the lowest 10 km of the atmosphere during the daytime. This portion of the atmosphere is extremely important, both scientifically and operationally, because it is the region within which surface lander spacecraft must operate and also determines exchanges of heat, momentum, dust, water, and other tracers between surface and subsurface reservoirs and the free atmosphere. To date, this region of the atmosphere has been studied directly, by instrumented lander spacecraft, and from orbital remote sensing, though not to the extent that is necessary to fully constrain its character and behavior. Current data strongly suggest that as for the Earth's PBL, classical Monin‐Obukhov similarity theory applies reasonably well to the Martian PBL under most conditions, though with some intriguing differences relating to the lower atmospheric density at the Martian surface and the likely greater role of direct radiative heating of the atmosphere within the PBL itself. Most of the modeling techniques used for the PBL on Earth are also being applied to the Martian PBL, including novel uses of very high resolution large eddy simulation methods. We conclude with those aspects of the PBL that require new measurements in order to constrain models and discuss the extent to which anticipated missions to Mars in the near future will fulfill these requirements.


The Bayesian Networks are graphical models that are easy to interpret and update. These models are useful if the knowledge is uncertain, but they lack some means to express ambiguity. To face this problem, we propose Fuzzy Evidence in Bayesian Networks and combine the Fuzzy Logic and Bayesian Network. This has allowed to benefit from mutual advantages of these two approaches, and to overcome the problem of data and observation ambiguity. This paper proposes an inference algorithm which uses the Bayesian Network and Fuzzy Logic reliability. This solution has been implemented, tested and evaluated in comparison with the existing methods.


Ecological restoration of urban natural areas can enhance ecological function and ecosystem services within cities and has become a common focus of civic environmental stewardship. This study examines the effectiveness of civic environmental stewardship in urban restoration ecology by examining preliminary data from the Green Seattle Partnership (GSP), a collaborative forest management program in Seattle. Particularly, it asks how invasive cover, native or non-invasive cover, and species richness have changed and responded to restoration efforts and how restoration can fit into and contribute to self-reinforcing functions of ecological systems.. For ecological data, 424 management units were surveyed both before and during restoration activities and compared against work logs that recorded restoration activity. The results indicate a relationship between restoration activities and invasive species cover in the sampled management areas. However, non-invasive vegetative cover and species richness have not yet been as responsive to intervention. While there is evidence that the reduction in invasive species will contribute toward self-reinforcing function, the results also point to a continued need for management and intervention to achieve and sustain restoration goals.


With the rising incidence and prevalence of cancer in Asia–Pacific, the need for adequate cancer education of medical graduates in the region has become particularly urgent. There are 769 medical schools across the Asia–Pacific region in 33 countries serving over 60% of the world population in very diverse socioeconomic environments. This paper discusses some of the challenges for medical education in the Asia–Pacific in light of increasing globalization of health care, including the need to develop global standards in the area of diverse resources and health care priorities. It also points out emerging opportunities including online learning, telemedicine and collaborative educational initiatives across the region.


This study presents a longitudinal analysis of three monolingual
Iranian children's language development between ages 1;8-2;6, 2;2-3;2
and 2;4-3;4. The overall aims are to identify and establish the structural
patterns in the acquisition of Persian, a pro-drop, inflectional and mostly
verb final language. Structural patterns particular to Persian are
identified in contrast to English and data drawn from the children's
language progress are discussed in the light of recent theories of
language acquisition. In addition, the study provides a comprehensive
and systematic description of children's syntactic development in such a
way as to be useful for clinical data analysis by Iranian speech and
language therapists and includes some cross-linguistic comparisons
with other research on language acquisition. The applicability of MLU
(Mean Length of Utterance) measures to Persian is investigated and it is
found that MLU measured in morphemes is most appropriate for
evaluating the Iranian children's early language development up to
value 4. In order to give a more detailed analysis of the children's
language acquisition, the LARSP (Language Assessment Remediation
and Screening Procedure) framework (Crystal, Fletcher and Garman,
1989) is adapted to Persian. Analysing Persian data with LARSP
categories shows that there are many features common to both
languages. Particular categories are identified. A PLARSP (Persian
LARSP) profile is established based on the hypothesis that structures can
be assigned to stages according to their number of elements at clause
and phrase levels. The profile provides a framework for the analysis of
language development in Persian and is employed in chapters 6 and 7 to
set out the developmental picture of the children's language at
approximately equal MLU values in the early stages, and age in the later
stages. Close examination of the data points to the use of formulas by
the children at early stages. Apart from the formulas, although the
children show different strategies of language acquisition, the resulting
distribution of categories is found to fit the data well, presenting an
orderly progress down the chart according to MLU and age.


A heuristic model of irradiance fluctuations for a propagating optical wave in a weakly inhomogeneous medium is developed under the assumption that small-scale irradiance fluctuations are modulated by large-scale irradiance fluctuations of the wave. The upper bound for small turbulent cells is defined by the smallest cell size between the Fresnel zone and the transverse spatial coherence radius of the optical wave. A lower bound for large turbulent cells is defined by the largest cell size between the Fresnel zone and the scattering disk. In moderate-to-strong irradiance fluctuations, cell sizes between those defined by the spatial coherence radius and the scattering disk are eliminated through spatial-frequency filtering as a consequence of the propagation process. The resulting scintillation index from this theory has the form σI2=σx2+σy2+σx2σy2, where σx2 denotes large-scale scintillation and σy2 denotes small-scale scintillation. By means of a modification of the Rytov method that incorporates an amplitude spatial-frequency filter function under strong-fluctuation conditions, tractable expressions are developed for the scintillation index of a plane wave and a spherical wave that are valid under moderate-to-strong irradiance fluctuations. In many cases the models also compare well with conventional results in weak-fluctuation regimes. Inner-scale effects are taken into account by use of a modified atmospheric spectrum that exhibits a bump at large spatial frequencies. Quantitative values predicted by these models agree well with experimental and simulation data previously published. In addition to the scintillation index, expressions are also developed for the irradiance covariance function of a plane wave and a spherical wave, both of which have the form BI(ρ)=Bx(ρ)+By(ρ)+Bx(ρ)By(ρ), where Bx(ρ) is the covariance function associated with large-scale fluctuations and By(ρ) is the covariance function associated with small-scale fluctuations. In strong turbulence the derived covariance shows the characteristic two-scale behavior, in which the correlation length is determined by the spatial coherence radius of the field and the width of the long residual correlation tail is determined by the scattering disk.


NMDA antagonists have been shown to attenuate the development of tolerance to the antinociceptive effects of morphine, but paradoxically, to potentiate the acute effects of morphine in assays of antinociception. In an effort to characterize the effects of these types of drugs on learning, morphine and the competitive NMDA antagonist, LY235959, were studied alone and in combination in two experiments. The first experiment utilized the Morris Swim Task, a procedure widely used to study spatial learning in rats. The second experiment used an olfactory discrimination procedure for rats. Both experiments involved the use of a within-subject, repeated acquisition and performance procedure (RAP). The RAP procedure allows the researcher to distinguish between a drug's effects on learning versus more general performance effects. In both procedures, morphine produced selective impairments on acquisition, but LY235959 generally affected acquisition only at doses that also produced performance effects. Combinations of selected doses of the two drugs produced effects that suggest a potentiation of the effects that each drug produced alone.


Blockchain technologies have received a considerable amount of attention, and immutability is essential property of blockchainwhich is paramount to applications such as cryptocurrency. However, "Right to be Fogotten" has been imposed in new European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, making legally incompatible with immutalbe blockchains. Moveover, illicit data stored in immutable blockchain poses numerous challenge for law enforcement agencies such as Interpol. Therefore, it is imperative (even legally required) to design efficient redactable blockchain protocols in a controlled way. In this paper, we present a redactable proof-of-stake blockchain protocol in the permissionless setting with fast confirmation. Our protocol offers public verifiability for redactable chains, and to prevent an adversary from targeted attack, also uses a verifiable random function to randomly select voters for redaction on different slots in a private and non-interactive way. Compared to previous solutions in permissionless setting, our redaction operation can be completed quickly, even only within one block in synchronous network, which is desirable for redacting harmful or sensitive data. Moreover, our protocol is compatible with most current proof-of-stake blockchains requiring only minimal changes. Furthermore, using simulation techniques, we prove that our protocol can achieve the security property of redactable common prefix, chain quality, and chain growth. Finally, we implement our protocol and provide experimental results showing that compared to immutable blockchain, the overhead incurred for different numbers of redactions in the chain is minimal.


The tissues surrounding 65 cemented and 36 cementless total joint replacements undergoing revision were characterised for cell types by immunohistochemistry and for cytokine expression by in situ hybridisation. We identified three distinct groups of revised implants: loose implants with ballooning radiological osteolysis, loose implants without osteolysis, and well-fixed implants. In the cemented series, osteolysis was associated with increased numbers of macrophages (p = 0.0006), T-lymphocyte subgroups (p = 0.03) and IL-1 (p = 0.02) and IL-6 (p = 0.0001) expression, and in the cementless series with increased numbers of T-lymphocyte subgroups (p = 0.005) and increased TNF alpha expression (p = 0.04). For cemented implants, the histological, histochemical and cytokine profiles of the interface correlated with the clinical and radiological grade of loosening and osteolysis. Our findings suggest that there are different biological mechanisms of loosening and osteolysis for cemented and cementless implants. T-lymphocyte modulation of macrophage function may be an important interaction at prosthetic interfaces.


In this paper, we thoroughly elaborate on the impact different transmit-antenna selection (TAS) strategies induce in terms of the outage performance of incremental cognitive multiple-input multiple-output relaying systems employing receive maximum-ratio combining (MRC). Our setup consists of three multi-antenna secondary nodes: a transmitter, a receiver and a decode-and-forward relay node acting in a half-duplex incremental relaying mode whereas the primary transmitter and receiver are equipped with a single antenna. Only a statistical channel-state information is acquired by the secondary system transmitting nodes to adapt their transmit power. In this context, our contribution is fourfold. First, we focus on two TAS strategies that are driven by maximizing either the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), and extend their operating mode into an incremental relaying setup where MRC is carried jointly over both relaying hops. Second, given the inherited complexity, we proceed by the exact outage analysis of the direct (first-hop) transmission as a preliminary yet innovative step pertaining to the SINR-driven TAS strategy. Third, the end-to-end (second-hop) transmission outage performance is also evaluated although shown to entail an involved derivation roadmap for both TAS strategies. Fourth, we simplify our exact derivations by means of the asymptotic analysis which reveals that the detrimental effect of mutual interference on the secondary system is originated from the primary transmitter (i.e., co-channel interference) and not from the primary receiver (i.e., interference threshold). That is, even if the secondary system operates at a high tolerated amount of interference, an outage floor will still occur because the primary system will pump a high amount of co-channel interference in return. The SINR-driven TAS shows up as an optimal interference-aware strategy in this regard. It achieves the same diversity gain but a better coding gain compared to its SNR-driven counterpart. The correctness of our results is confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations and the actual outage gap between both TAS strategies is reflected.


Here, Jay Ruby - a founder of visual anthropology - distills his 30-year exploration of the relationship of film and anthropology. Spurred by a conviction that the ideal of an anthropological cinema has not even remotely begun to be realized, Ruby argues that ethnographic filmmakers should generate a set of critical standards analogous to those for written ethnographies. Cinematic artistry and the desire to entertain, he argues, can eclipse the original intention, which is to provide an anthropological representation of the subjects. The book begins with analyses of key filmmakers (Robert Flaherty, Robert Garner and Tim Asch) who have striven to generate profound statements about human behaviour on film. Ruby then discusses the idea of research film, Eric Michaels and indigenous media, the ethics of representation, the nature of ethnography, anthropological knowledge and film, and lays the groundwork for a critical approach to the field that borrows selectively from film, communication, media and cultural studies. Witty and original, yet intensely theoretical, this collection is a major contribution to the field of visual anthropology.


The public debate on democracy is often constrained within an alienating and disenfranchising narrative of opinion polls, campaign platforms, personalities and formal structures that generate legislation, all of which surreptitiously seems to trickle down to the classroom. Paul R. Carr asserts that democracy must be cultivated in a vigorous, conscientious, meaningful and critical way in and through education in order for it to have salience in society, especially within a neoliberal conjuncture that promotes limited space for epistemological interrogation of how we understand and are engaged in maintaining and/or transforming our societies. Building on the critical pedagogical work of Paulo Freire, Joe L. Kincheloe, and others, this book develops a framework for understanding how a thicker democratic education can be conceptualized and implemented in schools. The book aims to move the focus on democracy away from voting, and place it more properly on the importance of social justice and political literacy as a way of understanding what democracy is and, importantly, how to make it more relevant for all of society. The book concludes that another democracy is possible, as well as being desirable, and that education is the fundamental intersection in which it must be developed.


Henry Roth, who died in 1995 at age 89, was the author of Call It Sleep (1934), Shifting Landscape (1987), and a multi-volume novel, Mercy of a Rude Stream, published between 1994 and 1998. Most of the significant questions concerning Roth's artistic career are suggested by what Roth himself called the "longest writer's block in history," and it is important to consider the reason for this blockage and the fact of Roth's recovery from it during the last two decades of his life. Roth's hiatus from writing-a remarkable period of silence for an enormously gifted writer who was widely praised for his first novel-should, I believe, be understood as symptomatic of a condition of subservience to an adopted national culture, a captivity from which Roth never freed himself as the conflicting ideals of pride in his immigrant history and drive toward assimilation left him no alternative but silence. The searing humiliation of Roth's childhood, beginning in the lower East Side slums, resulted in an habitual identification with privilege and hegemony, an identification that Roth questioned only in retrospect. Even then, in the revisionary settling of accounts of Mercy of a Rude Stream, Roth anxiously adopted new sources of authority, even as he freed himself of earlier captivity. Both Roth's career, and the critical reception and promotion of his writing, must be positioned in relation to the control of hegemonic culture. The force of the national culture is everywhere evident in the critical reception of his work, from the ambivalence of contemporary reviewers of Call It Sleep (impressed by Roth's artistry but uncomfortable with his political tentativeness) through the novel's "rediscovery" after its reissue in 1964. Roth's work continued to attract critical attention notably in Alfred Kazin's influential New York Review of Books essay on Call It Sleep (1990). With the publication of the first volumes of Mercy of a Rude Stream, beginning in 1994, even greater interest in Roth's work emerged as evidenced by such influential essays as Irving Howe's New York Times Book Review front-page review. The critical perception of Henry Roth's work, however, has remained consistent since the 1930s and was itself, as Kazin points out, a critical production of the intellectual culture of the late-modernist period. As Kazin writes: "We can see now that [Call It Sleep] belongs to the side of the 1930s that still believed in the sacredness of literature, whether or not it presumed to change the world" (x). This interpretation, in which Roth is figured as a heroic sufferer in the cause of revolutionary art, continued to be echoed, even in more poststructuralist criticism, such as an article on Roth's textuality by Wayne Lesser.1 A third generation of critics, including Thomas J. Ferraro and Hannah-Wirth Nesher, has positioned Roth in relation to new interests in immigrant and multiethnic literary studies. All of these readings, however, obscure the destructive force of hegemony as represented not by Roth but in Roth's career. By enshrining Roth as a modernist, or poststructuralist, or postcolonial martyr, a Promethean figure by virtue of his ambitious first novel and subsequent silencing, the critical figuration of Roth's fiction has never confronted the destructive force of hegemonic culture in his case, and thus has failed to comprehend its actual significance as a record of hegemonic power. Perhaps the greatest injustice of the critical reception of Roth's works has been the inability of criticism to recognize the conflict of subaltern and hegemonic culture in Roth's writing as represented primarily by the conflict of Jewish immigrant and middle-class American culture. However ingenious, Wayne Lesser's response to this conflict-the central thematic and emotional tension of Roth's work-finally results in the undermining of its significance, since, as Lesser admits, in this reading David's search for meaning within "the religious, familial, and social systems most commonly assumed to possess such universal value . …


The ability of a two-sector model to quantify the contribution of the housing market to business fluctuations is investigated using U.S. data and Bayesian methods. The estimated model, which contains nominal and real rigidities and collateral constraints, displays the following features: first, a large fraction of the upward trend in real housing prices over the last 40 years can be accounted for by slow technological progress in the housing sector; second, residential investment and housing prices are very sensitive to monetary policy and housing demand shocks; third, the wealth effects from housing on consumption are positive and significant, and have become more important over time. The structural nature of the model allows identifying and quantifying the sources of fluctuations in house prices and residential investment and measuring the contribution of housing booms and busts to business cycles.


Wild barley (Hordeum sp.) germplasm is rich in genetic diversity and provides a treasure trove of useful genes for crop improvement. We carried out a comprehensive program combining short-term hydroponic screening via hematoxylin-staining of root-regrowth procedure and filter paper–based evaluation of diverse germplasm in response to Al/acid stress using 105 annual Tibetan wild barley and 45 cultivated barley genotypes. Root elongation among the 105 Tibetan wild barley genotypes varied significantly after Al exposure, ranging from 62.9% to 80.0% in variation coefficients and 4.35 to 4.45 in diversity index. These genotypic differences in Al resistance were fairly consistent in both the hydroponic and filter paper–based evaluations: XZ16, XZ166, and XZ113 were selected as Al-resistant genotypes, and XZ61, XZ45, and XZ98 as Al-sensitive wild genotypes. Furthermore, significantly lower Al concentrations in roots and shoots were detected in the three selected Al-resistant genotypes than in the three sensitive genotypes in the filter paper–based experiment. Meanwhile, XZ16 was the least affected by Al toxicity in regard to reduced SPAD value (chlorophyll meter readings), plant height, root length, dry biomass, tillers per plant, and chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv/Fm) in the long-term hydroponic experiment compared with the Al-resistant cultivated barley cv. Dayton, while XZ61 had the severest stress symptoms.


Human development, including not just economic growth but also the capability for longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives, depends on innovation and creativity. While various economic, technological, social and other factors influence innovative and creative activity, intellectual property (IP) rights – copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other appropriation mechanisms – play an increasingly important role. How IP rights help or hinder innovation and creativity in different contexts in Africa is the subject of this book.This chapter canvasses aspects of the current reality of IP in the four main regions of the African continent. The evidence it summarizes helps to build an understanding of the ways in which the dual goals of protecting IP and preserving access to knowledge can be balanced. This chapter also gives an explanation of the broader rationale and methodological choices of Open AIR's research, which provides indications of the roles that are being, and can be, played by collaborative and openness-oriented dynamics in relation to innovation, creativity and IP. A better understanding of the nuances and dynamics of IP is essential to creating policy frameworks and management practices that balance IP protection and access in such a way that African regions, nations and communities can harness IP as a tool to facilitate collaborative networking within diverse systems of innovation and creativity.


BACKGROUND
The exposure of the round window (RW) through the facial recess (FR) is sometimes partial. The anatomic variations that alter RW exposure during cochleostomy have not been clearly defined to date.

AIMS
The aim of this study was to assess the best FR position in which to achieve the widest exposure of the RW niche and to define the topographic relationship between two other important anatomical structures, the facial nerve (FN) and the chorda tympani (CT).

STUDY DESIGN
Cadaver study.

METHODS
Twenty-four temporal bones were included in the study. Anterior and posterior epitympanectomy and posterior tympanotomy were performed after mastoidectomy. Bone was removed until the FN and CT were skeletonized and the CT branching point was visible. Two pictures were taken. The first was taken when the facial recess was at its widest exposure, while the second was taken when the RW niche was maximally exposed through the facial recess. Various measurements were taken.

RESULTS
The RW niche was totally visible in 19 temporal bones (79.2%). The RW was partially visible in the remaining five bones (20.8%). The unexposed part of the RW lay posteromedial to the FN in these five bones. While the branching point of the CT could be visualized in all cases at the widest exposure of RW, the part of the FN distal to the branching point was hidden in eight subjects (33.3%) under the posterior wall of the external ear canal.

CONCLUSIONS
The RW niche was totally visible in most of the temporal bones. The RW lay posteromedial to the FN in some cases and total exposure was impossible.


Consumption By Christa Ahrens Abstract Lifestyle choices of college students influence their risk of obesity and/or developing chronic heart disease later in life. Many students gain weight during college due to decreased exercise, overeating, and poor nutritional choices. Exercise may increase food consumption and/or the consumption of unhealthy foods due to compensation. The purpose of the study was to determine if individuals who discussed exercise-related topics would compensate by taking more food after the exercise session than those who discussed entertainment-related topics. Sixteen female college students were randomly assigned to participate in either the exerciserelated or entertainment-related conversations while working out, both consisting of power walking at the same absolute intensity for the same duration. To determine if there was a difference in food intake between groups, the calories of the snacks that subjects took after their session were recorded. The subjects who participated in the session that had exercise-related conversations had a significantly higher intake of food than the subjects in the entertainmentrelated conversation session. In conclusion, individuals may compensate with food more if are talking about exercise-related topics than entertainment related topics while exercising.


Using data from the 1989 and 1999 population and housing censuses of Kenya, this paper estimates the total number of intercensal adult deaths due to HIV/AIDS. It also investigates patterns of adult mortality due to HIV/AIDS by age, sex and education level. Results show higher mortality among people with secondary or higher education than those with little or no education. This pattern is true for both men and women. Higher mortality for women than men is observed during the study period. This research is the first to use census data to demonstrate differential mortality due to AIDS by education level in sub-Saharan Africa.


The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained from aerial parts of Galium verum L. (Rubiaceae) from Iran was examined by a combination of GC and GC/MS. The oil isolated by hydro-distillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus.
Air-dried aerial parts of Galium verum (80 g) which were collected from Bomehen in Tehran province at full flowering stage on May 2003, were subjected to hydro-distillation for 3 h using a Clevenger-type apparatus to produce oil in 1.3% (w/w) yield. The oil was dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate and stored under nitrogen in a sealed vial till analysis. The oil was analyzed by a combination of GC (shimadzu GC-9A) and GC/MS (Varian 3400, Saturn II).
The oil isolated by hydro-distillation from the aerial parts of Galium verum was obtained with a yield of 1.3% (w/w), based on the dry weight. Twenty-three components were identified in the essential oil of Galium verum representing to more than 93% of the oil, the major components of which were found to be ?-caryophyllane (26%), caryophyllene oxide (16.2%), and Germacrene D (11.2%).
The qualitative composition and quantitative content of polyphenol components of five galium species of Galium has been reported previously, these species have their highest content of flavonoides and tanning agents at the start of growth. The species contain carbohydrates and amino acids. A literature search did not reveal any reference to previous work on the essential oil of Galium verum.


Current mobile devices extensively run video players that are power hungry. Further, higher power densities as a result of technology scaling results in higher on-chip temperatures. Unlike general purpose computer systems, mobile devices that run on batteries cannot afford to have expensive cooling mechanisms. Therefore, in order to satisfy thermal constraints while running power hungry applications, dynamic thermal management (DTM) techniques have been employed. For multimedia applications, the techniques primarily relied on dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) and dynamic power management (DPM) while taking care that maximum video quality is achieved. However, no prior work has exploited frame drops to lower the inserted idle times under predetermined quality constraints. In this work, we propose a DPM framework that utilizes frame drops to dynamically insert low idle times in order to satisfy a peak temperature constraint under a given quality constraint. This also reduces the end-to-end latency. The latencies are further reduced by maintaining lightweight workload histories. For the videos used in our experiments, it was observed that a small reduction in quality of 2 dB (reduction from 32 dB to 30 dB) due to frame drops in motion videos results in a maximum latency reduction of 1.7 sec.


Although a free press is an integral part of democratic governance, intercountry adoption is one case in which the media makes it virtually impossible for governments to send children abroad for adoption. A country (State A) which gives up a child for intercountry adoption should receive a "credit" for that child which will entitle any other family within State A that may want to adopt a child to priority on the list at the Vatican. The second major function for the Intercountry Adoption Agency might be called the "annual report" function. All adoptive parents who take a child from the Vatican must sign a pledge to write an annual report on the welfare of the child.


Open biological data is distributed over many resources making it challenging to integrate, to update and to disseminate quickly. Wikidata is a growing, open community database which can serve this purpose and also provides tight integration with Wikipedia. In order to improve the state of biological data, facilitate data management and dissemination, we imported all human and mouse genes, and all human and mouse proteins into Wikidata. In total, 59,530 human genes and 73,130 mouse genes have been imported from NCBI and 27,662 human proteins and 16,728 mouse proteins have been imported from the Swissprot subset of UniProt. As Wikidata is open and can be edited by anybody, our corpus of imported data serves as the starting point for integration of further data by scientists, the Wikidata community and citizen scientists alike. The first use case for this data is to populate Wikipedia Gene Wiki infoboxes directly from Wikidata with the data integrated above. This enables immediate updates of the Gene Wiki infoboxes as soon as the data in Wikidata is modified. Although Gene Wiki pages are currently only on the English language version of Wikipedia, the multilingual nature of Wikidata allows for a usage of the data we imported in all 280 different language Wikipedias. Apart from the Gene Wiki infobox use case, a powerful SPARQL endpoint and up to date exporting functionality (e.g. JSON, XML) enable very convenient further use of the data by scientists. In summary, we created a fully open and extensible data resource for human and mouse molecular biology and biochemistry data. This resource enriches all the Wikipedias with structured information and serves as a new linking hub for the biological semantic web.


Strategic risk is a grey area in which governments need to make critical assessments of capability, motive and intent. Over recent decades, judgements in this area have relied heavily on the conclusion that the capabilities required for a serious assault on Australia simply did not exist in our region. In contrast, in the years ahead, the level of capability able to be brought to bear against Australia will increase, so judgements relating to contingencies and the associated warning time will need to rely less on evidence of capability and more on assessments of motive and intent. Such areas for judgement are inherently ambiguous and uncertain.


BACKGROUND
Previous studies have documented the presence of specific barriers to school nurses' communications with families about weight-related health. The purpose of the present study was to contribute to the literature by further analyzing, using focus group methodology, school nurses' perceived barriers to addressing weight-related health issues with children and their families.

METHODS
Twenty-two school nurses from urban and rural school districts in the Midwestern United States participated in 7 focus groups during the spring semester of 2008. Sessions were recorded and transcribed in their entirety. Study authors reviewed the focus group content and identified themes of perceived barriers. NVivo 8 was used to code and evaluate themes.

RESULTS
Consistent with the extant literature, nurses identified a lack of knowledge and resources, personal weight challenges, lack of institutional support, and lack of time as barriers to weight-related communications with families. However, in addition to these previously identified barriers, nurses also identified family characteristics, child motivation, fear of reactions, and difficulty establishing relationships with children as barriers that impeded their communication with families about weight-related health.

CONCLUSIONS
As expected, the use of focus group methodology yielded evidence of barriers to communication that had not been previously identified in the literature, as well as those that had been well documented. Consistent with a socioecological view of pediatric healthcare, results suggest a number of systems that could be targeted to improve nurses' weight-related communications with families.


Apologetics arguments related to the creation account in Genesis have ranged from evidential proofs for a young creation to the presuppositional consistency of the biblical worldview. Each of these arguments has its place, but the effectiveness varies depending on the audience's background. A fundamental assumption for all arguments is that God exists and that he has purposefully communicated with his creation through special revelation. Those not holding this faith commitment resort to other answers that they feel are scientifically based. What they overlook are the faith commitments underlying their scientific answers. This paper poses the question "What is the Eternal?" to expose the faith basis for all answers related to origins issues. For the purpose of this paper, the "Eternal" is defined to be that which is before all things and will persist after all other things are gone. It is the foundation or basis for all that is real. From the author's perspective there are five distinct responses to this question. All other possible responses are syntheses of these basic five. 1. This is a ridiculous question. This response denies the need to address first causes. 2. Everything came from nothing. This response is not an argument for ex nihilo creation, but for the spontaneous creation of the universe from nothingness. 3. The material universe is eternal. This response retains the foundations of atomism, but adds other assumptions to address the expansion of the universe. 4. The eternal is a metaphysical essence or cosmic consciousness. This response resorts to impersonal forces beyond the physical to explain the fine-tuning of the universe and the complexity of life. 5. The eternal is a self-existent, omnipotent, personal creator. This response corresponds to traditional theism and posits that the existence of the universe is the result of a purposeful choice of a Creator, who desires relationship with His creation. The argument outlined in this paper has historical roots predating Paul's defense on Mar's Hill. The originality of this approach hopefully is in its ability to expose syncretic thinking in a culture that makes science the ultimate authority. Historically creationists have debated evolution using a two-model approach: theism vs. materialism. However, it is becoming clear to the author that metaphysical explanations appear with increasing frequency in scientific literature to skirt the philosophical and moral barrenness of materialism. Presenting an audience with the distinction Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship between "What is the Eternal" and "Who is the Eternal" will help them to respond to the One "to whom we must give account." (Heb. 4:13)


The sustainability of native forests in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on the diversification of sources to generate bioenergy, and Eucalyptus spp. wood has been highlighted. However, the determination of energy quality parameters has been a challenge to enable plantation wood to generate energy. The research assessed the ash content of radial and longitudinal samples of Eucalyptus grandis (Hill) clone with different ages and growth sites. Samples were collected in three pre-established plots in the center of Mozambique. Five trees were cut down in each plot and six discs were removed from each tree. Grinded samples with <0.5 mm particle size were generated from the heartwood and sapwood of each disk to determine the ash content. Wood from 7-year-olds had a higher ash content compared to 9-year-olds. The two sample plots differed from each other in terms of wood ash content. Heartwood samples had smaller ash content than sapwood samples. In general, the ash content of the intermediate positions was lower than those from the base and top of the stem, for both radial sections. No conclusive differences were found between samples from the base and the top of the trees, indicating that the material from the top of the trees can also be used as wood fuel. Ash content can be a considerable parameter to assess the quality of the wood of Eucalyptus spp. as a fuel.


Purpose: This research strives to understand challenges of parents adopting foster children. Design and Methods: A qualitative, semi-structured interview was used to collect data from 11 social workers on their experiences working with adoptive parents. Findings: Findings indicate clear challenges/needs for these adoptive parents pursuing. Identified needs include quality training/education, desirable parental qualities, adoptioncompetent professionals, support, and resources to help with challenges brought by adoptive parents, the child and system. Implications: Findings enforce the importance of best practices though continuing research and the need for improvements to policy and practice. Several policy suggestions are made include ensuring timely delivery of information to adoptive parents, listing of all available children on the state adoption exchange, and to eliminate adoption disincentives. Foster Care Adoption 3


The study of quadrupolar nuclei using NMR spectroscopy in the solid state significantly increased in popularity from the end of the 20th century, with the introduction of specific methods to acquire spectra free from the effects of the quadrupolar interaction, that results in broadened lineshapes that cannot be completely removed by spinning the sample at the magic angle (MAS), unlike most of the other interactions present in the solid state. The first technique which allows, without any specific hardware, the removal of this broadening has been the Multiple-Quantum MQMAS experiment. The method quickly gained a popularity within the NMR community, with numerous successful applications published. However, the multiple-quantum filtration step in this experiment relies on severely limits sensitivity, restricting application to the most sensitive nuclei. Extending the applicability of MQMAS to less receptive nuclei requires the use of signal improvement techniques. There are multiple examples of such approaches in the literature, but most of these require additional optimisation that may be time-consuming, or simply impossible, on less receptive nuclei. This work introduces a novel signal improvement technique for MQMAS, called FAM-N. Its optimisation is solely based on density matrix simulations using SIMPSON, implying no additional experimental optimisation is required, while improving the signal in MQMAS spectra by equivalent or higher amounts than other common methods. In order to prove the applicability of this method on virtually any system, FAM-N has been investigated by simulation, and tested experimentally using a number of model samples, as well as samples known to be challenging to study by NMR. This work also explores other aspects of NMR spectroscopy on quadrupolar nuclei. Adiabatic inversion of the satellite populations can be performed to improve the central transition signal in static or MAS spectra. A range of methods has been tested and compared, with particular attention given to hyperbolic secant-shaped pulses, for which 7 ABSTRACT its performance have been described. Finally, cross-polarisation from a spin I = 1/2 nucleus to a quadrupolar nucleus has been investigated. After reviewing the theory for the static case, simulations have been performed under MAS in order to identify the conditions for efficient magnetisation transfer, with applications in spectral editing or for the combination with MQMAS.its performance have been described. Finally, cross-polarisation from a spin I = 1/2 nucleus to a quadrupolar nucleus has been investigated. After reviewing the theory for the static case, simulations have been performed under MAS in order to identify the conditions for efficient magnetisation transfer, with applications in spectral editing or for the combination with MQMAS.


In the present study, anti-cancer property of Aloe vera was evaluated against 7,12-dimethyl benz(a)anthracene (DMBA) induced skin tumorigenesis in Swiss albino mice. A single topical application of 7,12-dimethyl benz(a)anthracene (100 μg/100 μl of acetone), followed 2 weeks later by repeated application of croton oil (1% in acetone three times a week) for 16 weeks exhibited 100 percent tumor incidence (group III).
In contrast, animals treated topically with Aloe gel (group IV) or orally with Aloe extract (group V) and topical with Aloe gel + orally with extract (group VI) exhibited 40, 50 and 20 per cent tumor incidence, which significantly higher than 100% tumor incidence in the group III (control). The cumulative number of papillomas during the observation period of 16 weeks was significantly decreased in the Aloe treated groups IV, V and VI (4, 5 and 2 in Aloe gel, Aloe extract, and Aloe gel + Aloe extract treated animals respectively) in compare to 36 cumulative number of papillomas in carcinogen control group.

The average latent period significantly increased from 4.9 weeks in the control group to 5.3, 6.4 and 6.5 weeks in all Aloe treated groups. The tumor burden and tumor yield were significantly lesser (1.33, 1.25 and 1.0 and 0.4, 0.5 and 0.2) as compared to DMBA/ croton oil treated control (3.6 and 3.6).
Furthermore, the level of lipid peroxidation was significantly lesser than in the control animals (group III) in skin. In addition, depleted levels of reduced glutathione (GSH), DNA, catalase and protein were restored in Aloe-treated groups. The study has revealed the inhibition of dimethylebenz (a) anthracene (DMBA)/croton oil induced skin tumorigenesis in Swiss albino mice by Aloe vera treatment.


Presenting structural damage detection problem as an inverse model-updating approach is one of the well-known methods which can reach to informative features of damages. This paper proposes a model-based method for fault prognosis in engineering structures. A new damage-sensitive cost function is suggested by employing the main concepts of the Modal Assurance Criterion (MAC) on the first several modes' data. Then, Chaotic Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (CICA), a modified version of the original Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) which has recently been developed for optimal design of complex trusses, is employed for solving the suggested cost function. Finally, the optimal solution of the problem is reported as damage detection results. The efficiency of the proposed method for damage identification is evaluated by studying three numerical examples of structures. Several single and multiple damage patterns are simulated and different number of modal data are utilized as input data (in noise free and noisy states) for damage detection via suggested method. Moreover, different comparative studies are carried out for evaluating the preference of the suggested method. All the obtained results emphasize the high level of accuracy of the suggested method and introduce it as a viable method for identifying not only damage locations, but also damage severities.


INTRODUCTION Since September 11th, 2001, there has been a growing debate over the desirability of loosening international and constitutional prohibitions against torture in the "war" against terrorism. (1) This paper critically appraises three justifications that federal courts have invoked to justify abstaining from reviewing the conditions of confinement of prisoners held on suspicion of involvement in transcontinental terrorism, including allegations of torture. The first of these justifications is that international and constitutional constraints, including those against torture and those requiring due process, do not apply to prisoners that are held outside the territory of the United States. (2) The second justification is that the prisoners were captured in the U.S. war against terrorism and the President has designated them "enemy combatants." Further, in light of the "extra-ordinary circumstances" arising as a result of the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001, the enhanced authority of the President's War Powers is not subject to judicial review. (3) The third justification is that where the prisoners are aliens, they are not entitled to constitutional and international protections otherwise available to citizens and friendly aliens. (4) These grounds for abstaining from judicial review are now on appeal before the Supreme Court. (5) This article explores whether extraterritorial torture of foreign citizens in the context of the war on terrorism ought to be subject to judicial review in the United States under the rules of customary international law. In other words, does the extraterritorial location of an alleged violation of rules of customary international law against a foreign citizen preclude judicial review? I argue that there are no justifiable grounds for denying jurisdiction to a person alleging torture under rules of universal jurisdiction, even if such a person is a foreigner captured in the course of war and is held outside the territory of the United States. To argue otherwise is problematic for at least two reasons. First, by denying jurisdiction, federal courts effectively acquiesce to allegations of torture during interrogations as well as to cruel, inhuman, and degrading imprisonment conditions. Second, denials of jurisdiction that definitively bar judicial scrutiny of the merits of executive decisions in times of war are contrary to the obligations of the United States under international law. (6) Jurisdictional denials also legitimize an international and constitutional doctrine under which there are no limitations on executive power to hold suspects indefinitely, incommunicado, and without due process even if they are tortured. (7) To demonstrate the sheer limitlessness of this doctrine of unconstrained executive power that, in turn, justifies loosening the prohibitions against extraterritorial torture, I proceed as follows: I begin by examining how best to frame the allegations of torture in a manner that is cognizable for purposes of obtaining federal judicial power with regard to the conditions of confinement of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. I then examine the prohibition against torture under both international and U.S. law and the "extraordinary circumstances" doctrine. This doctrine has guided federal judicial responses to petitions challenging the conditions of confinement including allegations of torture of the Guantanamo Bay detainees by the confining authorities. (8) In the main part of the paper, I compare and contrast the assumption of jurisdiction with respect to extraterritorial commercial conduct with the problems associated with accepting extraterritorial jurisdiction over questions regarding the conditions of confinement of the detainees. By doing so, I show that federal courts are far more willing to assume jurisdiction over remote, extraterritorial commercial conduct (9) than they are to confer jurisdiction and enforce fundamental human and civil rights norms in the context of confinement conditions of non-U. …


China's economy remains "red-hot" and U.S. companies continue to view the Chinese market as being critical to achieving revenue targets and growth projections. However, with reward comes risks, and the lure of China profits can bring companies dangerously close to running afoul of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") unless business leaders fully understand and appreciate the many nuances of the broad-reaching statute and the unique FCPA compliance risks of doing business in China.The FCPA prohibits payment or offering of payment of money or anything of value to a "foreign official" in order to obtain or retain business (the "Anti-Bribery Provisions"). Proof of a U.S. territorial nexus is not required for the FCPA to be implicated against U.S. companies and citizens and FCPA violations can, and often do, occur even if the prohibited activity takes place entirely outside of the U.S. For this reason, business leaders must be knowledgeable about all business activity, including activity that takes place thousands of miles away from corporate headquarters.FCPA enforcement is at an all-time high and several recent enforcement actions concern business activity in China. The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (the two government agencies with FCPA enforcement authority) interpret the statute broadly such that much more than just a "suitcase full of cash to a government official" type of scenario is actionable. Included in this broad interpretation is the "foreign official" element of an Anti-Bribery violation, a defined term meaning "any officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof." Once a foreign company is deemed an "instrumentality" of a foreign government, every single employee, from the chief executive officer to an administrative assistant, will be considered a "foreign official" for purposes of the FCPA. This is true regardless of how local law may characterize the individual and regardless of whether the foreign company has attributes of a private enterprise such as publicly traded stock.While the FCPA applies to all of a company's international operations, FCPA compliance in China poses a unique risk and challenge given the prevalence of state-owned or state-controlled enterprises ("SOEs") in that country. As demonstrated by several recent FCPA enforcement actions, Chinese SOE employees will be considered "foreign officials" under the FCPA and a company's interaction with such individuals (individuals who likely are not viewed as a "foreign official" by business leaders and individuals who likely do not even view themselves as a "foreign official") will be subject to close scrutiny under the FCPA by U.S.enforcement agencies. Thus, FCPA compliance in China presents a trap for the unwary of the extent of "foreign officials" in that country, not to mention certain cultural norms and expectations of doing business in China.Despite the numerous FCPA compliance challenges in China, the FCPA risks of doing business in that country are manageable and can best be attained through effective, comprehensive, and well communicated FCPA compliance policies and procedures. The article concludes with guidance for business leaders to consider in developing such policies and procedures so that a company is able to legally and effectively navigate the lucrative Chinese market and avoid the costly and embarrassing shortcomings of other companies who rushed into China without fully knowing their business and without a full understanding and appreciation for the FCPA.


Geotechnical centrifuges have been seen to date principally as research machines. A role is now suggested in which centrifuges of modest size and cost can contribute usefully to the education and training of geotechnical engineers in college laboratories. One such machine, which has been used in teaching for 15 years, is described, and examples of the results of a series of simple demonstrations are shown.


Building on the experience of working with middle-income countries in PISA since 2000, and in an effort to respond to the emerging demand for PISA to cater to a wider range of countries, the OECD launched the PISA for Development (PISA-D) initiative in 2014. This one-off pilot project, spanning six years, aims to make the assessment more accessible and relevant to low-to-middle-income countries.
A key component of PISA-D was building capacity in the participating countries for managing large-scale student learning assessments and using the results to support national policy dialogue and evidence-based decision-making.
Around 37 000 students completed the school-based assessment, representing about one million 15-year-old students (in grade 7 or above) in the schools of the seven participating countries: Cambodia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Senegal and Zambia. On average across PISA-D countries, only 43% of all 15-year-olds were enrolled in at least grade 7 by age 15 and were eligible to sit the PISA-D test, compared to the OECD average of 89%. The remaining 15-year-olds were either in grades below 7 or were out of school. In Cambodia, Senegal and Zambia, only around 30% of 15-year-olds were eligible to sit the PISA-D test.


The main purpose of this study is to compare the contribution to measurement accuracy of the verbal score of each of the four verbal item types included in the GRE General Test. Comparisons are based on item response theory, a methodology that allows the researcher to look at the accuracy of individual points on the score scale. This methodology is based on the assumption that the four verbal item types measure the same verbal ability. Since the results of the study do indicate that the reading comprehension item type measures something slightly different from what is measured by sentence completion, analogy, or antonym item types, only tentative conclusions may be drawn.

The antonym item type contributes the most accuracy of the four item types for scores above about 550. Analogy items contribute to the measurement accuracy of verbal ability throughout the score range. This is especially true when item types are matched on verbal difficulty. These results suggest that the analogy and antonym item types are useful for maintaining accuracy of the verbal score scale at the upper levels. Eliminating these items might have a serious impact on the validity of the GRE verbal score in the upper regions of the scale. Studies of the validity of item types at the upper score range using external criteria would be necessary to understand the exact contribution of the item types to the validity of the test.


"This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all." As the end of the Bush era approaches, the legacy is clear: George W. Bush is a wartime president. His enemy, battered but not defeated after repeated surges: the English language. The ultimate edition of George W. Bushisms captures this legacy -- from the Gulf Coast to Iraq and back -- with all-new pearls of wisdom and the twenty-five greatest hits of the entire presidency. "You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one." "I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?"


This book deals with the (re)production of cohesion and coherence in translation. Building on the theories and methods of Translation Studies and Discourse Analysis it answers some basic, still much debated questions related to translational discourse production. Such a question is whether it is possible to analyse the (re)production of coherence, and if yes, how? Can the models devised for the study of English original (not translated) and independent texts (unlike translations and their sources) be applied for the analysis of translation? How do cohesive, rhetorical and generic structure "behave" in translation? How do particular components of coherence relate to translation universals? The volume proposes a complex translational discourse analysis model and presents findings that bring new insights primarily for the study of news translation, translation strategies and translation universals. It is recommended for translation researchers, discourse analysts, practicing translators, as well as professionals and students involved in translator training.


Symbolic interactionists Kenneth Burke1 and Hugh Duncan2 have stressed that social interaction is not a process, but a dramatic expression, an enactment of roles by individuals who seek to identify with each other in the search to create a social scheme. A community presents itself through art or popular culture, which in turn determines society. The master symbols through which the world is viewed (and in terms of which its citizens act) are created and manipulated through popular culture. Pitirim Sorokin3 argued that changes in popular culture foreshadow changes in society. Since music is one aspect of popular culture it seems only reasonable to conclude that attitudes expressed musically may have emotionally strengthened and politically meaningful effects.


The understanding of flow behavior in rough fractures is essential for many engineering activities. When the aperture of a rough fracture approaches the mean free path of fluid molecules, the microflow effect, sometimes also referred to relative rarefaction effect, relative discrete effect or non-equilibrium effect, becomes pronounced. It was found often to enhance the flow rate. However, the surface roughness shows completely contrary influence. In order to clarify the influences of the two factors, a computer simulation work accompanied with theoretical analyses is conducted. Previous empirical models for hydraulic aperture which already containing roughness effect are modified with consideration of the microflow effect. Direct simulation using the lattice Boltzmann method is conducted on artificially created 2D fractures with random roughness following Gaussian distribution to reveal the competitive relationship of two effects. The simulation results also verify modified models. Among them, the one based on Rasouli and Hosseinian's model agrees with the simulation on the relationship between hydraulic aperture and mechanical aperture for both cases with very rough fractures and relatively smooth fractures. Further investigation confirms that, under various roughness, the ratio of hydraulic aperture over mechanical aperture shows quantitatively different trends as mechanical aperture decreases. This phenomenon exists on a relatively wide scale. An equilibrium point of two effects is also found through analysis of the relationship. The results reveal the mechanism of microflow in 2D rough fractures and also provide a reference for engineering problems like the transport of natural gas through microfractures. Cited as : Zhang, G., Zhang, Y., Xu, A., Li, Y. Microflow effects on the hydraulic aperture of single rough fractures. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2019, 3(1): 104-114, doi: 10.26804/ager.2019.01.09.


This Article examines the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment's significance for women, and concludes that the Amendment widely was understood to be consistent with a wide variety of disabilities and other discriminatory laws that the states then imposed on them. These understandings were based on several ideas: women enjoyed the same rights as men, but vicariously through their families; women, like children, were implied exceptions to the Amendment's prima facie requirements; and the legal regulation of women's rights was a kind of regulation of the family, peculiarly suited to the states rather than the federal government. The mindset that found these notions agreeable was composed of ideas about natural law, custom, and federalism. The Article concludes that these findings present a conundrum for originalists comparable in some respects to the difficulties posed by Brown v. Board of Education.


Seismic changes are occurring in the world of advertising due to the inexorable rise of new technologies and the way consumers are using new media. These changes in behaviour are challenging accepted ways of using the media to build brands. Based on data from the IPA Effectiveness Awards databank and from IPA TouchPoints, the world's first customer-centric media habits survey, plus research from Nielsen and Millward Brown, the authors propose a new model, 'F.A.I.P.A', for media and communications planning. This model describes how to select the right media channel to promote a brand from the many that are now available, and if you are employing a range of 'bought', 'owned' and 'earned' media, which to concentrate on, and how to allocate the budget between them. Spending Advertising Money in the Digital Age also has contributions from leading figures in the media industry and contains many examples of top campaigns with demonstrable results in the marketplace.


The LAPBIAT measurement campaign took place in the Varrio SMEAR I measurement station located in Eastern Lapland in the spring of 2003 between 26 April and 11 May. In this paper we describe the measurement campaign, concentrations and fluxes of aerosol particles, air ions and trace gases, paying special attention to an aerosol particle formation event broken by a air mass change from a clean Arctic air mass with new particle formation to polluted one approaching from industrial areas of Kola Peninsula, Russia, lacking new particle formation. Aerosol particle number flux measurements show strong downward fluxes during that time. Concentrations of coarse aerosol particles were high for 1–2 days before the nucleation event (i.e. 28–29 April), very low immediately before and during the observed aerosol particle formation event (30 April) and increased moderately from the moment of sudden break of the event. In general particle deposition measurements based on snow samples show the same changes. Measurements of the mobility distribution of air ions showed elevated concentrations of intermediate air ions during the particle formation event. We estimated the growth rates in the nucleation mode size range. For particles <10 nm, the growth rate increases with size on 30 April. Dispersion modelling made with model SILAM support the conclusion that the nucleation event was interrupted by an outbreak of sulphate-rich air mass in the evening of 30 April that originated from the industry at Kola Peninsula, Russia. The results of this campaign highlight the need for detailed research in atmospheric transport of air constituents for understanding the aerosol dynamics.


This paper focuses on the evaluation of research institutions in terms of size-independent indicators. There are well-known procedures in this context, such as what we call additive rules, which provide an evaluation of the impact of any research unit in a scientific field based upon a partition of the field citations into ordered categories, along with some external weighting system to weigh those categories. We introduce here a new ranking procedure that is not an additive rule – the HV procedure, after Herrero & Villar (2013) – and compare it those conventional evaluation rules within a common setting. Given a set of ordered categories, the HV procedure measures the performance of the different research units in terms of the relative probability of getting more citations. The HV method also provides a complete, transitive and cardinal evaluation, without recurring to any external weighting scheme. Using a large dataset of publications in 22 scientific fields assigned to 40 countries, we compare the performance of several additive rules – the Relative Citation Rate, four percentile-based ranking procedures, and two average-based high-impact indicators – and the corresponding HV procedures under the same set of ordered categories. Comparisons take into account re-rankings, and differences in the outcome variability, measured by the coefficient of variation, the range, and the ratio between the maximum and minimum index values. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Land restoration is considered to be the remedy for 21st century global challenges of land degradation. As a result, various land restoration and conservation efforts are underway at different scales. Ethiopia is one of the countries with huge investments in land restoration. Tremendous land management practices have been implemented across the country since the 1970s. However, the spatial distribution of the interventions has not been documented, and there is no systematic, quantitative evidence on whether land restoration efforts have achieved the restoration of desired ecosystem services. Therefore, we carried out a meta‐analysis of peer‐reviewed scientific literature related to land restoration efforts and their impacts in Ethiopia. Results show that most of the large‐scale projects have been implemented in the highlands, specifically in Tigray and Amhara regions covering about 24 agroecological zones, and land restoration impact studies are mostly focused in the highlands but restricted in about 11 agroecological zones. The highest mean effect on agricultural productivity is obtained from the combination of bunds and biological interventions followed by conservation agriculture practices with 170% and 18% increases, respectively. However, bunds alone, biological intervention alone, and terracing (fanya juu) reveal negative effects on productivity. The mean effect of all land restoration interventions on soil organic carbon is positive, the highest effect being from "bunds + biological" (139%) followed by exclosure (90%). Reduced soil erosion and runoff are the dominant impacts of all interventions. The results can be used to improve existing guidelines to better match land restoration options with specific desired ecosystem functions and services. Although the focus of this study was on the evaluation of the impacts of land restoration efforts on selected ecosystem services, impacts on livelihood and national socioeconomy have not been examined. Thus, strengthening socioeconomic studies at national scale to assess the sustainability of land restoration initiatives is an essential next step.


The river Bayelva drains a catchment area of 31.5 km2 in the Kongsfjord area close to the research station Ny-Alesund (79° N 12°E) on the northwest coast of Spitsbergen. The basin is 54% glacierized, and the studied glacier Austre Broggerbreen is 6.1 km2 and constitutes 20% of the basin. On this glacier a mass-balance monitoring program including accumulation and ablation measurements has been carried out continuously since 1967. The winter snow accumulation shows very stable conditions with a mean accumulation of 0.71 ± 0.16 m/year in water equivalent. The runoff from the glacier in an equilibrium year should thus be 4.33 × 106 m3. The mean ablation on this glacier has been greater than the winter accumulation, 1.14 ± 0.26 m/year of water equivalent, which results in an annual runoff of 6.95 × 106 m3. That is more than 60% higher runoff from the glacier than in a year with zero net balance. The result is a mean net balance of – 0.42 m/year, or an annual runoff from the glacier due to the retreat of the glacier of 2.6 × 106 m3.

In Bayelva, a runoff station was operated from 1974-1978. In 1988 this basin was chosen as a hydrological research site, and the runoff measurements were restarted and a permanent station for water discharge and sediment transport measurements was constructed in the river. This basin is the only one in Svalbard with some years of hydrological data. The water balance discussion shows that there is good agreement between the measured runoff in the river Bayelva and the potential runoff calculated from the mass-balance measurements on Broggerbreen. On the basis of this correlation the total annual runoff was reconstructed from the whole period of mass-balance data from 1967-1991. The runoff from the whole basin has been 30% higher than in years with an equilibrium mass-balance on the glacier.


Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with progressive impairment of motor and non-motor functions in aging people. Overwhelming evidence indicate that mitochondrial dysfunction is a central factor in PD pathophysiology, which impairs energy metabolism. While, several other studies have shown probiotic supplementations to improve host energy metabolism, alleviate the disease progression, prevent gut microbiota dysbiosis and alter commensal bacterial metabolites. But, whether probiotic and/or prebiotic supplementation can affect energy metabolism and cause the impediment of PD progression remains poorly characterized. Therefore, we investigated 8-weeks supplementation effects of probiotic [Lactobacillus salivarius subsp. salicinius AP-32 (AP-32)], residual medium (RM) obtained from the AP-32 culture medium, and combination of AP-32 and RM (A-RM) on unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-induced PD rats. We found that AP-32, RM and A-RM supplementation induced neuroprotective effects on dopaminergic neurons along with improved motor functions in PD rats. These effects were accompanied by significant increases in mitochondrial activities in the brain and muscle, antioxidative enzymes level in serum, and altered SCFAs profile in fecal samples. Importantly, the AP-32 supplement restored muscle mass along with improved motor function in PD rats, and produced the best results among the supplements. Our results demonstrate that probiotic AP-32 and A-RM supplementations can recover energy metabolism via increasing SCFAs producing and mitochondria function. This restoring of mitochondrial function in the brain and muscles with improved energy metabolism might additionally be potentiated by ROS suppression by the elevated generation of antioxidants, and which finally leads to facilitated recovery of 6-OHDA-induced motor deficit. Taken together, this work demonstrates that probiotic AP-32 supplementation could be a potential candidate for alternate treatment strategy to avert PD progression.


Due to the trends towards Big Data and Cloud Computing, one would like to provide large storage systems that are accessible by many servers. A shared storage can, however, become a performance bottleneck and a single-point of failure. Distributed storage systems provide a shared storage to the outside world, but internally they consist of a network of servers and disks, thus avoiding the performance bottleneck and single-point of failure problems. We introduce a cache in a distributed storage system. The cache system must be fault tolerant so that no data is lost in case of a hardware failure. This requirement excludes the use of the common write-invalidate cache consistency protocols. The cache is implemented and evaluated in two steps. The first step focuses on design decisions that improve the performance when only one server uses the same file. In the second step we extend the cache with features that focus on the case when more than one server access the same file. The cache improves the throughput significantly compared to having no cache. The two-step evaluation approach makes it possible to quantify how different design decisions affect the performance of different use cases.


Technological developments are likely to bring many new opportunities, which may be even larger in emerging economies and may allow them to "leapfrog" certain stages of development. Notwithstanding these opportunities, emerging economies face significant challenges associated with rapid technological progress. Many of these challenges are the same as in advanced economies, but differences in starting conditions may result in a greater threat for the emerging world. This study explores the benefits and risks brought by this new technological wave from the perspective of thirteen key emerging economies: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. In particular, it examines: the risk of automation; whether labour markets are polarising; and the potential benefits (but also challenges) of the platform economy.


VCM 503 Current Lit in Equine Med Surg credit: 1 Hour. (https:// courses.illinois.edu/schedule/terms/VCM/503/) This course will use current primary literature in the fields of equine medicine and surgery as a gateway to discussion. Current literature will be reviewed, critiqued, and discussed in the context of current equine clinical practice. Students are expected to be graduate veterinarians with a thorough understanding of equine medical and surgical concepts before enrolling in the course. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite: Graduate Veterinarian or consent of instructor.


Abstract Attitudes about religion in Polish society have scarcely changed since 1989, in spite of radical political and economic transformation over the past 20 years, as survey data show. The question is why? In the following article, the author develops five alternative hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Each of the hypotheses relates to some function of religion that is relevant in contemporary times. Among other things, historical circumstances, the role of Catholicism as a civil religion, security, and hidden privatization form the context in which one may explain the continuing vitality of religion in Poland.


Linear compressor technology is characterized by the absence of a crank mechanism, which has gained increasing attention in vapor compression systems due to its compactness and lower friction losses in comparison to conventional reciprocating compressors. Limited work was found in the open literature related to the development and in-depth validation of a comprehensive linear compressor dynamic model that couples thermodynamic aspects with both mechanical and electrical sub-models. The current thesis presents a comprehensive and generalized simulation model that is used to simulate the dynamic performance of a linear compressor. The model is based on mass and energy balance equations applied to open control volumes. The overall model is composed of several sub-models including the piston dynamics, electrical motor, valve dynamics, and leakage flows. The thermodynamic model and the sub-models are integrated into a compressor overall energy balance that describes the different heat flows and losses. The linear compressor model is able to predict both transient and steady-state behaviors of the piston movement, internal pressure and temperatures as well as the overall performance. Moreover, the simulated compressor was characterized experimentally by using a hot-gas bypass test stand over its operating envelope and the experimental data (i.e., measured mass flow rate, motor power and overall isentropic efficiencies), was used to validate the developed linear compressor model. The validated model was then used to investigate and quantify major sources of losses, analyze the system vibration as well as eccentricity caused by the spring assembly. The validated comprehensive model is a powerful tool that can be used to improve the prototype linear compressor design as well as explore alternative designs. In addition, the comprehensive compressor model has been exercised to design and 3-D print novel liner compressor component with the goal of evaluating their potential to approach an quasi-isothermal compression process. The concept of design has been integrated into a refrigeration system and a system simulation model was developed and used to analyze the system performance and to assess its potential for approaching a quasi-isothermal compression process through the utilization of refrigerant economizing and regeneration technology. Moreover, the scalability analysis is conducted in terms of heat pump and air compression application, which provides a guidance to design a scale-up linear compressor as well as the selection of components.


In the EeV range, neutrinos are expected to be produced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays interactions with the Cosmic Microwave Background during propagation in the Universe. We report on the search for ultra-high energy neutrinos in data collected with the Surface Detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The searches are most efficient in the zenith angle range from 60 degrees to 95 degrees with tau neutrinos skimming in the Earth playing a dominant role. The present non-detection of UHE neutrinos in the Pierre Auger Observatory excludes the most optimistic scenarios of neutrino production in terms of UHE cosmic rays chemical composition and cosmological evolution of the acceleration sites. We also report on the searches for neutrinos in coincidence with the recent Gravitational Wave events detected by LIGO/Virgo.


A single doubly-fed induction machine (SDFM) is a wound rotor induction machine with the stator connected to a supply network and the rotor fed by a bi-directional converter. A cascaded doubly-fed induction machine (CDFM) is a. connection of two wound rotor induction machines with the rotors connected electrically and mechanically thus avoiding brushes. One stator is connected to the supply network and the other is fed by a bidirectional converter. Both schemes, the SDFM and the CDFM, have in common that the VA-rating of the power converter is reduced compared to a singly-fed system. This thesis presents investigations of the field oriented control for the SDFM and the CDFM. After reviewing and categorising doubly-fed machines a thorough steady state analysis and stator flux oriented control treatment of the SDFM is presented. Although the steady state analysis and the field oriented control of a SDFM is well established it is necessary that this is included as foundation for the CDFM control behaviour and for the sensorless control investigations. Steady state analysis of the CDFM highlights similarities to the SDFM. Two different field oriented control schemes are applied to the CDFM. A previously developed combined flux oriented scheme is modified to be applicable to a CDFM consisting of any machine combination. Furthermore, the scheme is simplified by removing a mathematical control extension in the q-axis, which has a stabilising effect on the control performance. Justified by steady state analysis the stator flux oriented control structure initially developed for the SDFM is applied to the CDFM. Two variations of a position sensorless scheme taking advantage of the proportionalitics between stator and rotor quantities are applied to the SDFM. Differentiating the estimated position angle allows the schemes to be extended for speed control purposes. The performance of the scnsorless field oriented control methods are also investigated on the CDFM. Harmonic analysis of the SDFM / CDFM system establishes harmonic sources and harmonic current propagation through the system. A theoretical harmonic current prediction process incorporating simulation and steady state modeling delivers good results. All theoretical investigations are confirmed by experimental results. The experimental realtime controlled drive system consists of two 2.25 kW wound rotor induction machines, a bidirectional IGBT converter and the control hardware comprises two 8OC167 microcontrollers.


Search-based approaches have been used in the literature to automate the process of creating unit test cases. However, related work has shown that generated tests with high code coverage could be ineffective, i.e., they may not detect all faults or kill all injected mutants. In this paper, we propose Cling, an integration-level test case generation approach that exploits how a pair of classes, the caller and the callee, interact with each other through method calls. In particular, Cling generates integration-level test cases that maximize the Coupled Branches Criterion (CBC). Coupled branches are pairs of branches containing a branch of the caller and a branch of the callee such that an integration test that exercises the former also exercises the latter. CBC is a novel integration-level coverage criterion, measuring the degree to which a test suite exercises the interactions between a caller and its callee classes. We implemented Cling and evaluated the approach on 140 pairs of classes from five different open-source Java projects. Our results show that (1) Cling generates test suites with high CBC coverage, thanks to the definition of the test suite generation as a many-objectives problem where each couple of branches is an independent objective; (2) such generated suites trigger different class interactions and can kill on average 7.7% (with a maximum of 50%) of mutants that are not detected by tests generated randomly or at the unit level; (3) Cling can detect integration faults coming from wrong assumptions about the usage of the callee class (25 for our subject systems) that remain undetected when using automatically generated random and unit-level test suites.


Using a fixed effect variance decomposition model we estimate SUR models to analyse FDI spillovers from contagion and spillovers from competition on local firms in China. While the former type of spillover mainly depends on the degree of foreign presence, the latter kind is related to how foreign and local firms interact. The main conclusion is that FDI has been beneficial for the Chinese economy but that spillovers are not evenly distributed across firms and industries. Spillovers from contagion tend to exhibit an inverse U-shaped pattern with respect to the degree of foreign presence at the industry level, whereas spillovers from competition are more linear. Industries with high absorptive capacity and/or high efficiency are the ones best equipped to take advantage of spillovers from foreign-owned firms.


Coral reefs are harboring a large part of the marine biodiversity and are important ecosystems for the equilibrium of the oceans. As a consequence of anthropogenic CO2 emission, a drop in pH and an increase in seawater temperature is observed in the Gulf coastal waters that potentially threaten coral assemblages. An experimental study was conducted on two species of corals to assess the effect of ocean warming and ocean acidification on the net calcification rate. Two pH conditions 8.2 and 7.5 and three temperatures, 22.5, 27.5 and 32.5 °C, were considered. Net calcification rates were measured using 45Ca radiotracer. Both temperature and pH had a significant effect on net calcification rates following a similar pattern for both species. The highest calcification rate was observed at low temperature and high pH. Increased temperature and decreased pH led to a decrease in net calcification rates. An interactive effect was observed as the effect of pH decreased with increasing temperature. However, the two species of coral were able to calcify in all the tested combination of temperature and pH suggesting that they are adapted to short term changes in temperature and pH. Ability to calcify even at a high temperature of 32.5 °C that is identical to the summertime Gulf seawater temperature under both the ambient and low pH condition with no mortalities, raises a question: are these corals adapted to high seawater temperatures and low pH? More in-depth assessments will be required to confirm if this is an adaptation to higher temperatures in Persian Gulf corals.


Biosensors are heterogenous devices, incorporating biological structures combined with electronics, optical or other readout systems. They have been developed for detecting different biomolecules and/or pathogens and represent a key technology for advanced and point-of-care diagnostics as well as patient monitoring. In this paper we present a systematic classification of biosensors described in literature, particularly focusing on nanotechnology-based sensing. Then, we present our approach to develop electrochemical biosensors for measuring metabolites and anticancer drugs, based on a platform for multiple target detection. This platform is modular and achieves a clear separation between the chemical and the electrical components, thus easing design and manufacturing. It shows superior performance thanks to the excellent properties of electron transfer and selectivity showed by enzymes immobilized on carbon nanotubes.