The globalization of trade, which has contributed to food availability and diversification throughout the world, has also increased the chances that the food produced in one place will affect the health and diet of people living in another. As a result, global food safety and nutrition measures applicable across borders, institutions and disciplines, including the establishment of evidence-based international standards on food safety and nutrition, are more important than ever before. Since its inception in 1963, the Codex Alimentarius Commission has developed hundreds of such standards and provided guidance for improving food safety and nutrition in each of its member states and globally.

The Commission, whose 186 members represent 99% of the world's population, is the principal body of the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Food Standards Programme.1 In addition to international food safety and nutrition standards, it develops guidelines and codes of practice, also intended to protect consumers' health as well as to ensure fair practices in the food trade. Its standards and related texts cover an impressively wide range of subjects of international relevance having to do with biotechnology, pesticides, pathogens, additives and contaminants, food labelling, reference values for nutrients (particularly those related to the risk of noncommunicable diseases) and many other areas. In 1995, the World Trade Organization Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures called on members of the World Trade Organization to harmonize their national regulations to Codex standards,2 which have since become international benchmarks for food safety.

Over the decades the Commission has benefited from the scientific and technical advice provided by WHO. In collaboration with FAO, WHO has convened international meetings of experts to address emerging or emergency issues and provide independent risk assessments, and the recommendations from these meetings feed directly into the Commission's standard-setting process. Four expert groups meet regularly: the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives has carried out risk assessments related to food additives, contaminants, natural toxins and veterinary drug residues in food since 1956; the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues has assessed since 1963 the potential health effects of pesticide residues and recommends safe maximum residue levels for specific food commodities; the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment has focused since 2000 on risk assessments for selected pathogen–commodity combinations, and the recently-established Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meetings on Nutrition provide scientific advice on nutritional matters.

Although Codex standards are sometimes viewed as "trade standards", their primary purpose is to protect consumers' health by ensuring the safety and nutritional quality of food products traded worldwide. The importance of this work is evidenced by the large burden of food- and diet-related disorders and illness. Foodborne and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases kill an estimated 2.2 million people annually, most of them children3 and food containing harmful levels of chemicals can cause serious health problems, including cancer. Excessive intake of calories can lead to obesity and to conditions such as diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, cancer, hypertension and stroke.4,5 On the other hand, lack of sufficient food and vitamin and mineral deficiencies also cause enormous numbers of deaths and disability. Stunting, a mark of chronic undernutrition, affects 165 million children younger than 5 years and an estimated 35% of all deaths among children in this age group are associated with undernutrition.6 Foodborne diseases and malnutrition undermine not only human health and productivity, but also countries' potential for sustainable development.

As the Commission celebrates 50 years of successful work, it may be a good time to reflect on its trajectory and how it can serve the public interest even better. Over the years the Commission has become more inclusive. Thanks to the work of the FAO/WHO Project and Trust Fund for Enhanced Participation in Codex, launched in 2003, more countries in development and with economies in transition are actively participating in the Commission. The openness, transparency and precision of its reporting and prioritization procedures have been improved. Nonetheless, today's rapid changes in trade, travel and commerce call for an international standard-setting system that is able to respond more quickly to new situations. One way to achieve this might be through better use of modern information technology. Stronger support of national Codex contact points is needed as well, but equally necessary are heightened political will and an acknowledgement of the importance of food safety and nutrition in public health. Because trade, nutrition and food safety are so closely connected, closer collaboration between different sectors and strengthened interactions between the Codex and other global players will be essential.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether investigations of heterogeneity of treatment effects (HTE) in randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) are prespecified and whether authors' interpretations of their analyses are consistent with the objective evidence.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
Trials published in Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine in 1994, 1999, and 2004.

STUDY DESIGN
We reviewed 87 RCTs that reported formal tests for statistical interaction or heterogeneity (HTE analyses), derived from a probability sample of 541 articles.

DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION
We recorded reasons for performing HTE analysis; an objective classification of evidence for HTE (termed "clinicostatistical divergence" [CSD]); and authors' interpretations of findings. Authors' interpretations, compared with CSD, were coded as understated, overstated, or adequately stated.

PRINCIPLE FINDINGS
Fifty-three RCTs (61 percent) claimed prespecified covariates for HTE analyses. Trials showed strong (6), moderate (11), weak (25), or negligible (16) evidence for CSD (29 could not be classified due to inadequate information). Authors stated that evidence for HTE was sufficient to support differential treatment in subgroups (10); warranted more research (31); was absent (21); or provided no interpretation (25). HTE was overstated in 22 trials, adequately stated in 57 trials, and understated in 8 trials.

CONCLUSIONS
Inconsistencies in performance and reporting may limit the potential of HTE analysis as a tool for identifying HTE and individualizing care in diverse populations. Recommendations for future studies on the reporting and interpretation of HTE analyses are provided.


What do data from birdwatchers notepads tell us? The case of the Bearded Tit (Panurus biarmicus) occurrence in western Poland Birdwatchers gather significant amount of casual observations which are often used in scientific research. However, accuracy of this data is seldom controlled. The aim of this study was to detect if casual observations reflect real situation in the case of Bearded Tit occurrence. Two sources of data were compared: different birdwatchers casual observations (CO) and results of regular studies (RS) carried out in the same region by the author. In the case of RS, study areas were selected randomly and playback method was used to maximise efficiency of species searching. It has been revealed that birdwatchers explore mainly large lakes and big river valleys. Small marsh patches and streams, where significant part of Bearded Tit sites is located, are usually omitted. According to CO data, the peak of non-breeding birds, which normally occurs in the first half of October, took place a month later. This shift resulted from higher birdwatchers activity connected with holidays in the beginning of November and dynamics of rare waterbirds in the region. Flocks of wintering Bearded Tits found during RS were significantly smaller than in CO. Possible causes of observer biases are presented and discussed.


In this study we assess whether availability of silver could constrain a large-scale deployment of solar photovoltaics (PV). While silver-paste use in photovoltaics cell metallization is becoming more efficient, solar photovoltaics power capacity installation is growing at an exponential pace. Along photovoltaics, silver is also employed in an array of industrial and non-industrial applications. The trends of these uses are examined up to the year 2050. The technical coefficients for the expansion in photovoltaics power capacity and contraction in silver paste use have been assessed through an expert-consultation process. The trend of use in the non-PV sectors has been estimated through an ARIMA (auto-regressive integrated moving average) model. The yearly and cumulative silver demand are evaluated against the technological potential for increasing silver mining and the estimates of its global natural availability, respectively. The model implemented is tested with a quasi-random Monte Carlo variance-based global sensitivity analysis. The result of our inquiry is that silver may not represent a constraint for a very-large-scale deployment of photovoltaics (up to tens TW in installed power capacity) provided the present decreasing trend in the use of silver paste in the photovoltaics sector continues at an adequate pace. Silver use in non-photovoltaic sectors plays also a tangible influence on potential constraints. In terms of natural constraints, most of the uncertainty is dependent on the actual estimates of silver natural budget.


The primary goal of Parametric Modeling with Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5.0 is to introduce the aspects of solid modeling and parametric modeling. The text is a hands-on, exercise-intensive approach to all the important parametric modeling techniques and concepts. This book contains a series of eleven tutorial style lessons designed to introduce beginning CAD users to the most commonly used features of Pro/ENGINEER. Each lesson introduces a new set of commands and concepts, building on previous lessons. This text guides you from constructing basic shapes to building intelligent solid models and creating multi-view drawings. The basic premise of this book is that the more designs you create, the better you learn the software. This book will establish a good basis for exploring and growing in the exciting field of computer aided engineering. By the end of this book the reader will advance to an intermediate level Pro/ENGINEER user. Table of Contents Introduction 1. Parametric Modeling Fundamentals 2. Constructive Solid Geometry Concept 3. Model History Tree 4. Parametric Relations and Constraints 5. Parent/Child Relationships 6. Datum Features, 3D Annotations, and Part Drawings 7. Symmetrical Features in Designs 8. Three Dimensional Construction Tools 9. Advanced Modeling Tools 10. Assembly - Putting It All Together 11. Advanced Assembly Modeling and Pro/Animation Index


ASTM D 4832: Standard Test Method for Preparation and Testing of Controlled Low Strength Material (CLSM) Test Cylinders currently permits three types of capping for CLSM cylinders: sulfur mortar (ASTM C 617), gypsum plaster (ASTM C 617), and unbonded neoprene restrained by rigid retainers (ASTM C 1231). These cappings were developed for portland cement concrete (PCC) cylinders and all produce good estimates of PCC potential strength. However, these cappings are inappropriate for excavatable CLSM cylinders. Sulfur mortar and gypsum plaster methods often result in cylinder damage during capping due to the low strength of excavatable CLSM cylinders. The recommended 50 to 70 durometer neoprene pads are far too stiff at low stress levels, which are common in testing excavatable CLSM cylinders. The neoprene pads essentially act as a rigid plate rather than a capping material. The authors developed an unbonded capping system using a much softer neoprene that is more malleable at lower stress levels. To evaluate the effectiveness of the new capping system, ten batches of an air-entrained and ten batches of a non-air-entrained excavatable CLSM were produced. Each batch was approximately 0.0453-m3, allowing 20 100-by-200 mm cylinders as well as flow consistency (ASTM D 6103) and gravimetric air tests (ASTM D 6023). Five pairs of cylinders were tested at 7 days and five pairs at 28 days. At each age, one pair was capped with each of the following materials: sulfur mortar, gypsum plaster, 50-durometer neoprene, nothing, and the new softer neoprene unbonded capping system. The average 28-day compressive strength of the cylinders using the proposed capping system was 275 kPa (39.83 psi) for non-airentrained and 345 kPa (50.01 psi) for the air-entrained mix design. The proposed capping system was not significantly different than the sulfur mortar or gypsum plaster. It was significantly superior to 50-plaster durometer neoprene and the no-cap technique.


Having evolved to gain the capabilities of a computer and the inherent characteristic of mobility, mobile phones have transcended into the realm of the Internet, forcing mobile telecommunication to experience the phenomenon of IP Convergence. Within the wide spectrum of mobile services, the messaging business has shown the most promising candidate to exploiting the Internet due to its adaptability and growing popularity. However, mobile operators have to change the way they traditionally handle the message logistics, transforming their technologies while adhering to aspects of quality of service. To keep up with the growth in messaging, in the UK alone reaching to 52 billion in 2007, and with the increased complexity of the messages, there is an urgent need to move away from traditional monolithic architectures and to adopt distributed and autonomous systems.

The aim of this thesis is to propose and validate the implementation of a new distributed messaging infrastructure that will sustain the dynamics of the mobile market by providing innovative technological resolutions to the common problem of quality modelling, communication, evolution and resource management, within mobile Telecoms. To design such systems, requires techniques, not only found in classical software engineering, but also in the scientific methods, statistics and economics, thus the emergence of an apparent problem of combining these tools in a logical and meaningful manner.

To address this problem, we propose a new blended modelling approach which is at the heart of the research process model. We formulate a Class of problems that categorises problem attributes into an information system and assess each requirement against a quality model. To ensure that quality is imprinted in the design of the distributed messaging system, we formulate dynamic models and simulation methods to measure the QoS capabilities of the system, particular in terms of communication and distributed resource management. The outcomes of extensive simulation enabled the design of predictive models to build a system for capacity.
A major contribution of this work relates to the problem of integrating the aspect of evolution within the communication model. We propose a new multi-criteria decision making mechanism called the BipRyt algorithm, which essentially preserve the quality model of the system as it tends to grow in size and evolve in complexity. The decision making
in theprocess is based on the availability of computational resources, associated rules of usage and defined rules for a group of users or the system as a whole. The algorithm allows for local and global optimisation of resources during the system life cyde while managing conflicts among the rules, such as racing condition and resource starvation.

Another important contribution relates to the process of organizing and managing nodes over distributed shared memory. We design the communication model in the shape of a grid architecture, which empowers the concept of single point management of the system (without being a single point of failure), using the same discipline of managing an information system. The distributed shared memory is implemented over the concept of RDMA, where the system runs at very high performance and low latency, while preserving requirements such as high availability and horizontal scalability. A working prototype of the grid architecture is presented, which compares different network technologies against a set of quality metrics for validation purposes.


Technology and Global Change describes how technology has shaped society and the environment over the last 200 years. Technology has led us from the farm to the factory to the internet, and its impacts are now global. Technology has eliminated many problems, but has added many others (ranging from urban smog to the ozone hole to global warming). This book is the first to give a comprehensive description of the causes and impacts of technological change and how they relate to global environmental change. Written for specialists and nonspecialists alike, it will be useful for researchers and professors, as a textbook for graduate students, for people engaged in long-term policy planning in industry (strategic planning departments) and government (R&D and technology ministries, environment ministries), for environmental activists (NGOs), and for the wider public interested in history, technology, or environmental issues.


In this volume distinguished scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explore the work of Tacitus in its historical and literary context and also show how his text was interpreted in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Discussed here, for example, are the ways predilections of a particular age color one's reading of a complex author and why a reexamination of these influences is necessary to understand both the author and those who have interpreted him. All of the essays were first prepared for a colloquium on Tacitus held at Princeton University in March 1990. The resulting volume is dedicated to the memory of the great Tacitean scholar Sir Ronald Syme.The contributors are G. W. Bowersock ("Tacitus and the Province of Asia"), T. J. Luce ("Reading and Response in the "Dialogus""), Elizabeth Keitel ("Speech and Narrative in "Histories" 4"), Christopher Pelling ("Tacitus and Germanicus"), Judith Ginsburg (""In maiores certamina" Past and Present in the "Annals""), A. J. Woodman ("Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero"), Mark Morford ("Tacitean "Prudentia" and the Doctrines of Justus Lipsius"), Donald R. Kelley (""Tacitus Noster" The "Germania" in the Renaissance and Reformation"), and Howard D. Weinbrot ("Politics, Taste, and National Identity: Some Uses of Tacitism in Eighteenth-Century Britain").Originally published in 1993.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


PURPOSE
The 21-gene recurrence score (RS) assay quantifies the likelihood of distant recurrence in women with estrogen receptor-positive, lymph node-negative breast cancer treated with adjuvant tamoxifen. The relationship between the RS and chemotherapy benefit is not known.

METHODS
The RS was measured in tumors from the tamoxifen-treated and tamoxifen plus chemotherapy-treated patients in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B20 trial. Cox proportional hazards models were utilized to test for interaction between chemotherapy treatment and the RS.

RESULTS
A total of 651 patients were assessable (227 randomly assigned to tamoxifen and 424 randomly assigned to tamoxifen plus chemotherapy). The test for interaction between chemotherapy treatment and RS was statistically significant (P = .038). Patients with high-RS (> or = 31) tumors (ie, high risk of recurrence) had a large benefit from chemotherapy (relative risk, 0.26; 95% CI, 0.13 to 0.53; absolute decrease in 10-year distant recurrence rate: mean, 27.6%; SE, 8.0%). Patients with low-RS (< 18) tumors derived minimal, if any, benefit from chemotherapy treatment (relative risk, 1.31; 95% CI, 0.46 to 3.78; absolute decrease in distant recurrence rate at 10 years: mean, -1.1%; SE, 2.2%). Patients with intermediate-RS tumors did not appear to have a large benefit, but the uncertainty in the estimate can not exclude a clinically important benefit.

CONCLUSION
The RS assay not only quantifies the likelihood of breast cancer recurrence in women with node-negative, estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, but also predicts the magnitude of chemotherapy benefit.


In order to optimize the performance and reduce costs in the larviculture of ornamental carp ( Cyprinus carpio ) in a recirculating aquaculture system, different feeding strategies were tested. For this, two experiments were carried out both under controlled conditions in a greenhouse, in a recirculating aquaculture system with a physical particle filter, biofilter, and filtering by ultra-violet irradiation. In the first experiment, measurements of Artemia nauplii were tested in the initial exogenous feeding of larvae at concentrations of 100, 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1,000 Artemia nauplii per larvae. In the following experiment, different protocols were tested for initial feeding for larvae. At this stage, were used: live food ( Artemia nauplii) and inert (powder meal), used separately and simultaneously, and increases in the number of Artemia nauplii were also tested, offered at different times of cultivation. In the first experiment, the amount of 600 Artemia nauplii for larvae demonstrated to be the best option as it generated significant growth and the cost was less than that observed with the use of 800 and 1000 Artemia nauplii per larvae. The second experiment demonstrated that the feeding strategy with live food more commercial inert feed provided the best growth performance for ornamental carp larvae. The need to fix the amount of live food during the cultivation, probably due to the high specific growth rates observed during the larval stage also became evident.


Abstract Cobalt (Co) turnover frequency (TOF) has been reported to be independent of Co dispersion and support type. However, wide discrepancies in Co TOF values exist in the literature. Differences in catalyst preparation, process conditions, and characterization technique could be major factors that may account for the discrepancies. Therefore, a more accurate assessment of Co turnover frequency (TOF) is needed. In this study, Co TOFs over different Co/Al2O3 catalysts promoted with Pd, Ru, Pt and Re at the beginning of reaction and at steady state were determined. The catalysts were prepared in different batches, which resulted in two Co cluster sizes: small Co particle size (∼6 nm) and large Co particle size (11.5 nm). Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) reaction was carried out at different conditions in a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). All promoted Co catalysts were characterized using BET, TPR, H2-chemisorption and pulse re-oxidation. The FTS was conducted at 220–230 °C, 1.5 MPa, 6–13 Nl/gcat/h and H2/CO = 2.1. Results indicate that catalyst preparation including promoter effect and process conditions significantly impact initial and steady state TOF values. The Co catalysts with larger particles had a larger Co TOF and low space velocity (SV) reduced the number of Co active sites due to severe catalyst deactivation at high CO conversion. For SV of 8.0–13.0 Nl/g-cat/h and 1.5 MPa, high Co TOF values (0.074–0.082 s−1, at 210 °C) over the Re and Pt promoted 25%Co/Al2O3 were achieved and were in good agreement with recently published value (0.073s−1) in a few literature. Moreover, these values are about two times the values (0.023–0.045 s−1) reported in some Co related literature under similar conditions. Therefore, true TOF on single Co cluster with the size of 11.5 nm at 210 °C and 1.5–2.0 MPa should be about 0.073–0.082 s−1 (this value is conversion dependent). The effect of promoters (Pd, Ru, Pt and Re) and process conditions on FTS activity and selectivities (hydrocarbons, watersoluble oxygenates and CO2) was also studied.


Detecting independent motion from a single camera is a difficult task in computer vision. It is because the captured image sequences are the combinations of the objects' movements and the camera's ego-motion. One major branch is to find the focus of expansion (FOE) instead as the goal. This is ideal for the situation commonly seen in UAV's camera system. In this case, the translation is dominant in camera's motion while the rotation is relatively small. To separate the ego motion and scene structure, many researchers used the directional flow as the theoretic basis and extracted its properties related to FOE. In this paper, we formulate finding FOE as an optimizing problem. The position of FOE has the minimal standard deviation for the directional flow in all directions, which is also subjected to the introduced constraint. The experiments show the proposed methods out-perform the previous method.


Ribonucleic acids (RNAs) are considered as effective and minimally invasive biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis due to their critical role in the regulation of different cellular processes. Over the past several years, the rapid progress in RNA biomarker research has resulted in the development of a large number of high-performance RNA-detection methods. Most of these methods are based on molecular-biology techniques such as quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), microarrays, and RNA sequencing. In recent years, considerable attention has also been dedicated to developing RNA biosensors, exploiting micro- and nanofabrication technologies, and various readout strategies, including electrochemical and optical transducers. Here, the recent developments of RNA biosensors are concisely reviewed with a special emphasis on electrochemical-detection approaches. The following points are also highlighted: i) all the types of clinically relevant RNAs (mRNAs, miRNAs, lncRNAs) and their diagnostic and prognostic potential in cancer are outlined, ii) major challenges associated with current techniques are identified, followed by a critical analysis of how these challenges have been addressed by different biosensing approaches, and iii) the current requirements that still need to be met for effective screening of RNA biomarkers in both research and clinical settings.


Quantitative equity portfolio management has evolved into an interdisciplinary activity that draws expertise from the fields of finance, statistics, econometrics, accounting, and optimization. Each one of these streams is a mature discipline in itself, having its own body of knowledge, and operates under assumptions that are usually well accepted within the respective communities. But when concepts from these diverse fields are applied in a common setting, there is bound to be friction among various assumptions that get further magnified due to the use of an optimizer. In this article, Ceria, Saxena, and Stubbs focus on the interaction of three key elements that are part of the quantitative portfolio management process, namely, the expected returns model, the risk model, and the constraints that are used to formulate the portfolio construction problem. They generally refer to the issues caused by this interaction as factor alignment problems. The authors present a detailed investigation of these alignment problems, survey some of their common sources, analyze and document their effects on the ex post performance of optimized portfolios, and conclude with a practical and effective remedy in the form of augmented risk models.


How the two hemispheres of the adult brain contribute to categorical processing has been extensively investigated (e.g., Jager & Postma, 2003). However, despite categorization being a pervasive aspect of infant cognition, there is little understanding of how visual categories in infancy are lateralized. Here, we investigate the lateralization of categorical perception of orientation at 5-months. Although orientation is a continuum ranging from 0 to 360°, both adults and infants perceive it categorically. For example, infants dishabituate to a novel orientation when the novel and habituated orientations are from different categories (vertical and oblique) but not when from the same category, even when the degree of difference between novel and habituated stimuli is equated (e.g., Bomba, 1984). To investigate the lateralization of this category effect, a visual search task was used where oriented lines were presented in a ring around a central fixation point. One line (the target), which was presented to left or right visual fields (L/RVF), was a different orientation to the others (the distractors). Targets and distractors were either from the same category (15 and 30°) or from different categories (0 and 15°). Eye-movements were recorded, stimuli were presented only when centrally fixated, and latencies for a direct eye-movement to the target were analyzed. Infants were centrally fixated for the duration of the latency measure, ensuring that targets remained lateralized (Franklin, Drivonikou, Bevis, Regier, Kay & Davies, 2008). Infants were faster at initiating a direct eye-movement to the target amongst different- than same-category distractors, but only for targets in the RVF. As the RVF initially projects to the LH, orientation categories therefore appear to be LH lateralized at 5-months. The findings are contrasted to the lateralization of categorical perception of hue in infancy (Franklin et al., 2008) and are also related to the lateralization of visual categories in adults.


Background: Recent literature has indicated that a significant percentage of oncology patients describe finding some benefit (e.g., improved personal growth, sense of meaning, and enhanced interpersonal relationships) in the cancer experience. However, few studies have investigated the role of group-based psychosocial interventions in improving benefit finding (BF), and virtually none have investigated these constructs in men.Purpose: This study examined whether a cognitive-behavioral stress management (CBSM) intervention improves BF and quality of life (QoL) in men recovering from treatment for localized prostate cancer.Methods: Participants in this study were 191 men (M age = 65.1) treated with radiation or radical prostatectomy for clinically localized (i.e., Stage I or II) prostate cancer. Participants were primarily non-Hispanic White (40%) or Hispanic (41 %), followed by Black (18%) and other ethnicity (1 %), were an average of 65.1 years old (SD = 7.7), and earned an average of $47,800 annually (SD = $41,000). Participants were randomized to either a 10-week group-based cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention or a half-day educational seminar as a control condition. All participants provided demographic information and completed the Positive Contributions Scale-Cancer to assess BF, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy to measure quality of life, and a measure of perceived stress management skills. Structural equation modeling was utilized for all analyses.Results: Results indicated that the CBSM condition led to increases in BF and QoL and that these changes were mediated by the development of stress management skills.Conclusions: Results support the use of group-based cognitive-behavioral interventions in promoting QoL and BF in this population.


This project investigates multiple strategies for automatic discovery of scheduling knowledge from projects. In managing large projects with resource and budget constraints, project managers are often overwhelmed with complex project conditions and the large number of available tools. When faced with several alternatives that initially appear equally desirable, making a good judgment can be tedious and often a painful process. The goal of this project is to develop a hybrid system which can induce the relationship between project characteristics and heuristic scheduling performance, and extract meaningful rules t o guide managers in mining large project data. Preliminary experiments are conducted and demonstrate promising results. The modular structure of the system will facilitate the dynamic adaptation and learning to accommodate different project conditions. The resulting work will serve as a prototype system for further exploration of intelligent multi-agent architecture.


Defects during the drilling process in carbon fibre laminates can result in late stage rejections in the aerospace industry. This project shows a comprehensive analysis of the influence of drilling parameters on hole quality and delamination. Also, optimum drilling conditions are presented.
Drilling at different parameters with both drills uncoated and coated allowed the examination of the impact of the drilling parameters and the drill's coating on the results. Although during the machining unexpected high temperatures damaged the top surface of the work-piece, measurements of peel-up delamination at the holes entrances showed that it was improved by using a high feed rate and a low spindle speed. Push-out delamination could not be measured due to the poor quality of the holes exits. The overheating and the poor hole quality at the exits of the holes were mainly caused by the drill's geometry, which was proved to not be the most
adequate for the job. Drilling parameters also influenced both problems, which were increased when a low feed rate and a high spindle speed were used. In these same conditions the drills suffered the most wear and damage too. Although the drill's coating showed no impact on delamination or hole quality results, it was an effective solution regarding tool wear.
A second study regarding drilling conditions was carried out to improve the overheating and the poor holes quality achieved at the exits in the first study. The results showed that the use of coolant avoided high working temperatures and the use of a sacrifice board led to clean exits in where the delamination factor could be calculated.


The relationship between ethnicity and modes of response to illness has been well documented. One example is stoicism as contrasted with volatile behavior in response to pain of different groups. Another is increasing awareness of the fact that non-traditional healers (eog., espiritistas, cuaranderos) are used extensively by members of various ethnic groups. Insufficient attention has been paid to how such knowledge can be incorporated in social work practice. This paper reviews prevailing social work interventive procedures and skills and suggests needed adaptations if social work practice is to be more sensitive and responsive to different health behaviors and beliefs of various ethnic groups. Consideration is given to various views of illness causation, response, cure and death. In this context the potential for varying modes of cooperation with nontraditional healers is explored.


We present an approach to sensorimotor control in immersive environments. Our approach utilizes a high-dimensional sensory stream and a lower-dimensional measurement stream. The cotemporal structure of these streams provides a rich supervisory signal, which enables training a sensorimotor control model by interacting with the environment. The model is trained using supervised learning techniques, but without extraneous supervision. It learns to act based on raw sensory input from a complex three-dimensional environment. The presented formulation enables learning without a fixed goal at training time, and pursuing dynamically changing goals at test time. We conduct extensive experiments in three-dimensional simulations based on the classical first-person game Doom. The results demonstrate that the presented approach outperforms sophisticated prior formulations, particularly on challenging tasks. The results also show that trained models successfully generalize across environments and goals. A model trained using the presented approach won the Full Deathmatch track of the Visual Doom AI Competition, which was held in previously unseen environments.


Bilateral trade flows traditionally have been analysed by means of the spatial interaction gravity model. Still, (auto)correlation of trade flows has only recently received attention in the literature. This paper takes up this thread of emerging literature, and shows that spatial filtering (SF) techniques can take into account the autocorrelation in trade flows. Furthermore, we show that the use of origin and destination specific spatial filters goes a long way in correcting for omitted variable bias in an otherwise standard empirical gravity equation. For a cross-section of bilateral trade flows, we compare an SF approach to two benchmark specifications that are consistent with theoretically derived gravity. The results are relevant for a number of reasons. First, we correct for autocorrelation in the residuals. Second, we suggest that the empirical gravity equation can still be considered in applied work, despite the theoretical arguments for its misspecification due to omitted multilateral resistance terms. Third, if we include SF variables, we can still resort to any desired estimator, such as OLS, Poisson or negative binomial regression. Finally, interpreting endogeneity bias as autocorrelation in regressor variables and residuals allows for a more general specification of the gravity equation than the relatively restricted theoretical gravity equation. In particular, we can include additional country-specific push and pull variables, besides GDP (e.g., land area, landlockedness, and per capita GDP). A final analysis provides autocorrelation diagnostics according to different candidate indicators.


A novel combination of Surface X-ray Scattering techniques (SXS), i. e. GISAXS (Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering), XRR (X-Ray Reflectivity) and SXRD (Surface X-Ray Diffraction) alongside with simultaneous detection of gaseous products by OLEMS (On-Line Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry) has been applied to study under operando conditions structure-activity relationships of a Pt model electrocatalyst. The SXS-OLEMS combination is able to follow dynamic changes in surface morphology and crystallography during water electrolysis. To showcase the combined SXS-OLEMS setup for operando studies of electrode transformations, H2 and O2 evolution reactions (HER and OER) on a Pt model electrocatalyst and their dependence on type and degree of surface roughening have been investigated.


Small and medium enterprises are the major agents of economic growth and employment in Somaliland. 34 out of the 72 small and medium enterprises have closed down between 1996 and 2012 due to the many challenges they face (UNDP, 2012). The aim of this research was to establish the challenges facing SME's performance at Gobanimo market in Hargeisa-Somaliland. The specific objectives of the study was to investigate the relationship between accounting skills and performance of SMEs, and to examine how accounting skills possessed by entrepreneurs influences the performance of SMEs. The research reviewed Contingency theory and Capital Theory. The empirical review centered on the accounting skills, government policies and strategies contributing to SME challenges. The research used descriptive research design. Sampling frame used was obtained from the local authority on which Gobanimo Market is operating. The research targeted the population of 1250 registered SMEs in Gobanimo market.  303 respondents formed the sample of the study which was picked by using simple random sampling technique. Both primary and secondary data were used in this research. Primary data was collected by aid of a questionnaire while secondary data was collected from already published sources. A pilot study of 3 respondents was used to test reliability of the instrument. Validity and reliability tests were executed on the data collected. Data was analyzed by use of regression model and SPSS. Analyzed data was presented in tables, pie charts, and graphs. Keywords: SMEs performance, Accounting skills, government policies, strategies


This article presents a new form of fibre-reinforced polymer-concrete-steel hybrid columns and demonstrates some of its expected advantages using results from an experimental study. These columns consist of a concrete-filled fibre-reinforced polymer tube that is internally reinforced with a high-strength steel tube and are referred to as hybrid double-tube concrete columns. The three components in hybrid double-tube concrete columns (i.e. the external fibre-reinforced polymer tube, the concrete infill and the internal high-strength steel tube) are combined in an optimal manner to deliver excellent short- and long-term performance. The experimental study included axial compression tests on eight hybrid double-tube concrete columns with a glass fibre–reinforced polymer external tube covering different glass fibre–reinforced polymer tube thicknesses and diameters as well as different high-strength steel tube diameters. The experimental results show that in hybrid double-tube concrete columns, the concrete is well confined by both the fibre-reinforced polymer tube and the high-strength steel tube, and the buckling of the high-strength steel tube is suppressed so that its high material strength can be effectively utilized, leading to excellent column performance. Due to the high yield stress of high-strength steel, the hoop stress developed to confine the core concrete is much higher than can be derived from a normal-strength steel tube, giving the use of high-strength steel in double-tube concrete columns an additional advantage.


We carried out classical atomistic studies of crack propagation in fully three-dimensional nanocrystalline a-Fe ~body-centered cubic structure ! to examine the influence of temperature and average grain size on the fracture mechanisms and properties. Digital samples with grain sizes ranging from 6 to 12 nm are reported at temperatures ranging from 100 K to 600 K using atomistic simulations. For all grain sizes, a combination of intragranular and intergranular fracture is observed. Mechanisms such as grain boundary accommodation, grain boundary triple junction activity, grain nucleation and grain rotation are observed to dictate the plastic deformation energy release. Intergranular fracture is shown to proceed by the coalescence of nanovoids formed at the grain boundaries ahead of the crack. The simulations also show that at an atomistic scale the fracture resistance and plastic deformation energy release mechanisms increase with increasing temperature. The observed fracture toughness increases with decreasing grain size.


In this paper I try to work out what would be involved - and what would be some of the implications - in moving from the idea of motherhood to maternal subjectivity (which I theorise through the lens of unconscious intersubjectivity). Motherhood connotes a natural state or condition which functions as an empty category into which children's needs can be placed. Using feminist and post-structuralist critiques and building upon British and feminist psychoanalysis, I theorise developments in subjectivity and the capacity to care that are made possible by certain characteristics of the relationship with a developing child, characteristics which change over time. More specifically I explore the concepts of maternal ambivalence, containment, recognition and maternal development - all ways of understanding the specific workings and effects of unconscious intersubjective dynamics - in the context of asking how maternal subjectivity is constituted. In this way, the subject of inquiry is shifted from mothers to mothering.
This conceptualisation of maternal subjectivity aims to go beyond subjectivity as subjectification and mothers as the objects of children's needs (or, more recently, rights) and also beyond the idea of mothers as 'autonomous' subjects in their own right (to the extent that the idea of autonomy is one deriving from the rational unitary subject of modernism). Throughout I use the politically relevant theme of who can and should mother to inquire into the boundaries of maternal subjectivity and thus as a lens through which to illuminate the relations among mothering, fathering, parenting, primary caring and caring in general. I discuss the effects of these dynamics on adult subjectivities in general.


Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder that affects 1% of the world's population. Family interventions whereby the patients and their relatives can attend psychiatric therapy sessions are effective at preventing relapse of symptoms. In a country such as South Africa where there has been a shift from institutionalisation to community care, family therapy treatment models are an important option to explore. Although there is a paucity of research on family therapy for schizophrenia in the South African context, we found a number of studies conducted in both developed and developing countries. Problems with adherence to medication, lack of psychoeducation and low expressed emotion (EE) were identified as challenges to effective family therapy models. A country such as South Africa has additional challenges of stigmatisation of mental illness as well as cultural perceptions of illness that may influence barriers to mental health care. These should be considered when designing family therapy interventions. We suggest further research endeavour to explore the applicability of family therapy models for people living with schizophrenia in South Africa. EE in relation to different cultural groups in South Africa should be considered.


The FLOOD 1 project was carried out by the French Geological Survey (BRGM), the
University of Brighton and the British Geological Survey from April 2004 to June 2008
inclusive. It was carried out under the INTERREG IIIA initiative of the European Union
which provided 50% of the funding, the remainder coming from the three project partners and
a number of industrial partners who also formed the Project Advisory Group.
The project was set up to develop appropriate early warning systems for groundwater
flooding in Chalk catchments following the particularly severe groundwater floods during the
winter of 2000-01. It focussed on flooding in the Patcham area of Brighton and in the Somme
Valley of northern France. Research sites were set up to the north of Brighton and in the
Hallue sub-catchment of the Somme. An additional site was established at East Ilsley in the
Pang Valley of the Berkshire Downs; a Chalk catchment that suffers from groundwater
flooding, has been extensively studied and within which there are a number of research sites
which were established for the LOCAR thematic research programme.
Three main objectives were addressed by the project, namely:
(i) To understand the hydraulic behaviour of water flow in the unsaturated zone which
leads to triggering of groundwater flood events.
(ii) To develop unsaturated zone monitoring techniques, including non-intrusive ones such
as Magnetic Resonance Sounding (MRS), to reduce cost and environmental impact,
and to improve areal representation of the data.
(iii) To produce more appropriate methodologies and tools for forecasting groundwater
flood events capable of operating within a much longer timescale than is currently
possible (i.e. days and weeks rather than hours).
Whilst FLOOD 1 was a joint project, this report only covers the work carried out by the BGS.
Separate reporting procedures will be followed by the other two partners and a joint report
prepared for the INTERREG authorities by the overall project leader (BRGM) will contain
each partner's technical report as annexes. During the life of the project a number of joint
meetings were held to discuss progress and various issues in the development of our
understanding of the processes involved in groundwater flooding in the Chalk. The only
project staff working full time on the project were two Research Assistants based at the
University of Brighton. The detail of their work will appear as their PhD theses in due
course.
The project succeeded in addressing all three of the objectives outlined above and has without
doubt increased our knowledge of the unsaturated zone of the Chalk, not least because it
provided unique observations of water movement in this zone.


Despite the relevance for public health, surveillance of drinking water supply systems (DWSS) in Europe is mainly achieved by cultivation based detection of indicator bacteria. The study presented here demonstrates the use of molecular analysis based on fingerprints of DNA extracted from drinking water bacteria as a valuable monitoring tool of DWSS and was exemplified for a DWWS in Northern Germany. The analysis of the bacterial community of drinking water was performed by a set of 16S rRNA gene based fingerprints, sequence analysis of relevant bands and phylogenetic assignment of the 16S rRNA sequences. We assessed the microflora of drinking water originating from two reservoirs in the Harz Mountains. The taxonomic composition of the bacterial communities from both reservoirs was very different at the species level reflecting the different limnological conditions. Detailed analysis of the seasonal community dynamics of the tap water revealed a significant influence of both source waters on the composition of the microflora and demonstrated the relevance of the raw water microflora for the drinking water reaching the consumer. According to our experience, molecular analysis based on fingerprints of different degrees of resolution can be considered as a valuable monitoring tool of DWSS.


We explore the extent to which starting primary school earlier by up to one year can help shield children from the detrimental, long-term developmental consequences of having an ill or disabled sibling. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we employ a Regression Discontinuity Design based on birthday eligibility cut-offs. We find that Australian children who have a sibling in poor health persistently lag behind other children in their cognitive development - but only for the children who start school later. In contrast, for the children who commence school earlier, we do not find any cognitive developmental gaps. The results are strongest when the ill-health in the sibling is of a temporary rather than longer-term nature. We hypothesise that an early school start achieves this by lessening the importance of resource-access inequalities within the family home. However, we find mixed impacts on the gaps in non-cognitive development.


A possible two-qubit gate for optical quantum computing is the parity gate based on the weak Kerr effect. Two photonic qubits modulate the phase of a coherent state, and a quadrature measurement of the coherent state reveals the parity of the two qubits without destroying the photons. This can be used to create so-called cluster states, a universal resource for quantum computing. Here, the effect of self-phase modulation on the parity gate is studied, introducing generating functions for the Wigner function of a modulated coherent state. For materials with non-EIT-based Kerr nonlinearities, there is typically a self-phase modulation that is half the magnitude of the cross-phase modulation. Therefore, this effect cannot be ignored. It is shown that for a large class of physical implementations of the phase modulation, the quadrature measurement cannot distinguish between odd and even parity. Consequently, weak nonlinear parity gates must be implemented with physical systems where the self-phase modulation is negligable.


The paper identifies a growing problem, referred to as contract cheating, considered to be the successor to pure plagiarism. Contract cheating is defined as the submission of work by students for academic credit which the students have paid contractors to write for them. The usage of one particular site, RentACoder, known to be used for contract cheating is manually monitored. RentACoder is a site where computer solutions are written to contract for legitimate uses but can also be used for students to cheat. An exhaustive study shows that 12.3% of bid requests placed on RentACoder are identified as contract cheating. The primary study reported in the paper quantifies and discusses these contract cheaters. Out of 236 identified contract cheaters only 8.1% of these have made only a single bid request. Over half of the 236 cheaters have previously requested between two and seven pieces of work. The paper argues that this shows that this form of cheating is becoming habitual. The primary study identifies that as well as the usual types of individual students using the services of RentACoder non-originality agencies also appear to be working as subcontractors offering to complete student assignments. This adds an extra layer of complexity to methods of tracking cheating students. The paper concludes by advising that more automated detection techniques are needed and advises that assessments and academic policies need to be redesigned to remove the potential for contract cheating to be committed.


For mercury speciation analysis in environmental and biological samples, novel Hg2+ ion-imprinted polymers (IIPs) were synthesized by a sol-gel process using the chelating agent dithizone, and then dithizone-Hg2+ chelate as a template and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane as a functional monomer, followed by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (AFS) detection. The resultant Hg-IIPs offered high binding capacity, fast kinetics, and their adsorption processes followed a Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The IIPs displayed excellent selectivity toward Hg2+ over its organic forms and other metal ions with selectivity factors of 19-34, as well as high anti-interference ability for Hg2+ confronting with common coexistent ions. Through 10 adsorption-desorption cycles, the IIPs showed a good reusability with a relative standard deviation within 5%. Moreover, because of the chelation of dithizone, the IIPs could readily discriminate Hg2+ from organic mercury. Thus, mercury speciation analysis could be attained by using IIPs-SPE-AFS, presenting high detectability of up to 0.015 mu g L-1 for Hg2+ and 0.02 mu g L-1 for organic mercury. This method was validated by using two certified reference materials with very consistent results. Satisfactory recoveries ranging from 93.0-105.2% were attained for spiked seawater and lake water samples with three concentration levels of Hg2+. Furthermore, the analytical results for the spiked mercury species in real biological samples, such as human hair and fish meat, confirmed that the methods are practically applicable to speciation analysis. The IIPs-SPE-AFS demonstrated significant application perspectives for rapid and high-effective cleanup, enrichment and determination of trace mercury species in complicated matrices.


In this article, life-cultivation arts (yangsheng) in Beijing are presented as a form of political practice. These technologies of the self include physical exercise, nutrition, and transforming one's attitudes and habits. Drawing on interviews and on popular health literature, these ethnographic findings suggest that China is no exception in the field of modern biopolitics, despite its indigenous political philosophies, its long history of imperial bureaucracy, and its more recent revolutionary history of Maoist socialism. Nonetheless, the particular convergence of power and life is deeply historical (i.e., nonmodern) in instructive ways. Local and historically inflected approaches to spirit, pleasure, and health define the political in relation to the achievement of the good life.


SQL Server Reporting enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports. An integrated part of the Microsoft business intelligence framework, Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information to support daily operations and drive decisions. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services will help you understand Reporting Services from various perspectives: How it fits business scenarios How to install and configure Reporting Services Reporting Services components Developing reportsAs you progress to advanced user status, you will enjoy the chapter about accessing Reporting Services programmatically and extending Reporting Services, and you will be able to use this book as a convenient reference.


Multicore systems have increasingly gained importance in high performance computers. Compared to the traditional microarchitectures, multicore architectures have a simpler design, higher performance-to-area ratio, and improved power efficiency. Although the multicore architecture has various advantages, traditional parallel programming techniques do not apply to the new architecture efficiently. This dissertation addresses how to determine optimized thread schedules to improve data reuse on shared-memory multicore systems and how to seek a scalable solution to designing parallel software on both shared-memory and distributed-memory multicore systems. We propose an analytical cache model to predict the number of cache misses on the time-sharing L2 cache on a multicore processor. The model provides an insight into the impact of cache sharing and cache contention between threads. Inspired by the model, we build the framework of affinity based thread scheduling to determine optimized thread schedules to improve data reuse on all the levels in a complex memory hierarchy. The affinity based thread scheduling framework includes a model to estimate the cost of a thread schedule, which consists of three submodels: an affinity graph submodel, a memory hierarchy submodel, and a cost submodel. Based on the model, we design a hierarchical graph partitioning algorithm to determine near-optimal solutions. We have also extended the algorithm to support threads with data dependences. The algorithms are implemented and incorporated into a feedback directed optimization prototype system. The prototype system builds upon a binary instrumentation tool and can improve program performance greatly on shared-memory multicore architectures. We also study the dynamic data-availability driven scheduling approach to designing new parallel software on distributed-memory multicore architectures. We have implemented a decentralized dynamic runtime system. The design of the runtime system is focused on the scalability metric. At any time only a small portion of a task graph exists in memory. We propose an algorithm to solve data dependences without process cooperation in a distributed manner. Our experimental results demonstrate the scalability and practicality of the approach for both shared-memory and distributed-memory multicore systems. Finally, we present a scalable nonblocking topology-aware multicast scheme for distributed DAG scheduling applications.


The Heazlewood-Luina-Waratah area is a prospective region for minerals in northwest Tasmania, Australia, associated with historically important ore deposits related to the emplacement of granite intrusions and/or ultramafic complexes. The geology of the area is poorly understood due to the difficult terrain and dense vegetation. We have constructed an initial high-resolution 3D geologic model of this area using constraints from geologic maps and geologic and geophysical cross sections. This initial model is improved upon by integrating results from 3D geometry and physical property inversion of potential field (gravity and magnetic) data, petrophysical measurements, and updated field mapping. Geometry inversion reveals that the Devonian granites in the south are thicker than previously thought, possibly connecting to deep sources of mineralization. In addition, we identified gravity anomalies to the northeast that could be caused by near-surface granite cupolas. A newly discovered ultramafic complex linking the Heazlewood and Mount Stewart Ultramafic Complexes in the southwest also has been modeled. This implies a greater volume of ultramafic material in the Cambrian successions and points to a larger obducted component than previously thought. The newly inferred granite cupolas and ultramafic complexes are targets for future mineral exploration. Petrophysical property inversion reveals a high degree of variation in these properties within the ultramafic complexes indicating a variable degree of serpentinization. Sensitivity tests suggest maximum depths of 2–3 km for the contact aureole that surrounds major granitic intrusions in the southeast, whereas the Heazlewood River complex is likely to have a deeper source up to 4 km. We have demonstrated the value of adding geologic and petrophysical constraints to 3D modeling for the purpose of guiding mineral exploration. This is particularly important for the refinement of geologic structures in tectonically complex areas that have lithology units with contrasting magnetic and density characteristics.


We study steep capillary-gravity waves that form at the interface between two stably stratified layers of immiscible liquids in a horizontally oscillating vessel. The oscillatory nature of the external forcing prevents the waves from overturning, and thus enables the development of steep waves at large forcing. They arise through a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation, characterized by the square root dependence of the height of the wave on the excess vibrational Froude number (W, square root of the ratio of vibrational to gravitational forces). At a critical value Wc, a transition to a linear variation in W is observed. It is accompanied by sharp qualitative changes in the harmonic content of the wave shape, so that trochoidal waves characterize the weakly nonlinear regime, but 'finger'-like waves form for W ≥ Wc. In this strongly nonlinear regime, the wavelength is a function of the product of amplitude and frequency of forcing, whereas for W < Wc, the wavelength exhibits an explicit dependence on the frequency of forcing that is due to the effect of viscosity. Most significantly, the radius of curvature of the wave crests decreases monotonically with W to reach the capillary length for W = Wc, i.e. the lengthscale for which surface tension forces balance gravitational forces. For W < Wc, gravitational restoring forces dominate, but for W ≥ Wc, the wave development is increasingly defined by localized surface tension effects.


Recently, it took the individual actions of a Scottish-born, 48-year-old Australian to once again question the legitimacy of the traditional gender dichotomies generally subscribed to by state legislatures and the wider public they are elected to represent. Norrie May-Welby of Sydney- born a man, before undergoing a sex change operation and eventually opting to become a "neuter"- "made headlines after [...] receiving an official designation of gender neutrality in Australia" but was in next to no time confronted with the withdrawal of this document "over questions of whether the New South Wales registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages had the power to issue such a designation."2 The case of May-Welby resonates with a dramatic development in the contemporary relevance and problematic nature- nature of course being the operative word- of a number of issues raised during the international interdisciplinary conference "Constructions of Masculinity in British Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present," an event hosted by Prof. Dr. Stefan Horlacher at the Technical University of Dresden in lune, 2009. Organized with the support of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung fur Wissenschaft, this conference was, as the title suggests, primarily devoted to a series of literary-historical case studies within the scope of surveying and comparing the conception, construction, and representation of masculinity in different historical periods. Beyond exercising the scholarly minds of presenters and participants from a wide range of academic fields in Europe and the U.S., it also attracted the attention of the media, with Germany's preeminent tabloid newspaper BiId as well as television channel MDR losing no time in reporting on the event. Media and public interest stems from the perception of contemporary masculinity as being in an (oxymoronic) state of perpetual crisis, the typical manifestations of which are the increasing gender divide in academic performance, male perpetrated violence in the home or workplace, and most dramatically the copycat massacres in schools and colleges. It was thus fitting that, given the flurry of media interest in matters masculine, the conference opened with four papers that emphasized the growing cultural, social, and political significance of masculinity studies as an academic discipline. Stefan Horlacher's introductory paper addressed from a theoretical perspective the key questions of "Why Masculinities?" and "Why Literature?," thereby establishing the latter as the preeminent discursive resource for epistemological insights into the historical development and contemporary relevance of masculinities. By addressing key texts situated at the intersection of literature, literary studies, sociology, psychoanalysis, and other fields of research, Horlacher provided the necessary framework for examining the interplay of fictional constructions and of what is commonly perceived non-fictional, that is, "real-life" enactments of masculinities, emphasizing literature's potential to provide alternatives and offer solutions. Horlacher argued that while bearing a clear historical imprint, literary texts nevertheless transcend any narrow notion of mimesis that would reduce them to a mirror or straightforward representation of reality as "given." If one takes into account literature's ability (a) to constitute a discursive field in which even marginalized, aberrant voices can articulate themselves, (b) to give voice to something that could be called "the collective unconscious," and (c) to transcend its time of origin, literature (and literary studies), according to Horlacher, can be viewed as an extraordinarily privileged medium for the conception, reception, and analysis of historically changing phenomena linked to the construction and deconstruction of (not just) British mascuHnities (compare Horlacher, 2004, 2010). In his keynote address, Harry Brod (Northern Iowa), one of the founders of masculinity studies in the U. …


Africa is viewed as a consumer of the world's knowledge production. A significant factor influencing this status is the low research output, with the main contributor to this status being minimum access to scholarly content to support research. Stellenbosch University, a leading research institution on the African continent, is committed to contributing to changing this status quo through the distribution of its own research output utilizing open sources. Given the challenges that have plagued Africa in developing processes for the distribution of their research, Stellenbosch University has developed the African Open Access Repository Initiative (AOARI) which uses open source software for two platforms that support the 'green' and 'gold' route to sharing scholarly literature: Ubuntu is used as the operating system, DSpace is used for its repository and Open Journal Systems for its publication platform. It is anticipated that AOARI will be the bridge that facilitates the sharing of research output and nurtures a culture of research production in Africa.


Objective: Railway tunnel workers are exposed to excavated dust, gaseous fumes, oil vapours, etc. at their work site which may cause adverse respiratory health and decline in lung functions among these workers if safe occupational practices are insufficient. The aim of this study is the assessment of respiratory health and lung function among the tunnel workers of Riyadh metro railway tunnel. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study to monitor the respiratory health and lung functions among workers of Riyadh metro railway tunnel. Total of 87 tunnel workers were recruited for this study who were exposed with excavated dust during their work practices at the under-construction site of a metro railway tunnel. These tunnel workers were compared with 53 control subjects of same socio-economic status and were not occupationally exposed to dust before. Self-reported respiratory symptoms were obtained through the questionnaire-based survey. Spirometry was conducted for the lung function tests FEV1 (Forced expiratory volume in 1 second) and FVC (Forced vital capacity) of both exposed and control subjects. Results: Most of the symptoms reported by tunnel workers were shortness of breath (25.28%) and coughing that produces phlegm (25.28%). Both the lung function parameters viz. FEV1 and FVC were found to be significantly decreased among tunnel workers (p<0.01) as compared to control subjects. Significant negative correlation (p<0.01) was found between dust exposure period and FEV1 and FEV1/FVC. Conclusion: In conclusion, we found adverse respiratory health and decreased lung functions among tunnel workers which were also correlated with the exposure period.


A classified bibliographic resource for tracing the history of Jewish translation activity from the Middle Ages to the present day, providing the researcher with over a thousand entries devoted solely to the Jewish role in the east-to-west transmission of Greek and Arab learning and science into Latin or Hebrew. Other major sections extend the coverage to modern times, taking special note of the absorption of European literature into the Jewish cultural orbit via Hebrew, Yiddish, or Judezmo translations, for instance, or the translation and reception of Jewish literature written in Jewish languages into other languages such as Arabic, English, French, German, or Russian. This polyglot bibliography, the first of its kind, contains over 2,600 entries, is enhanced by a vast number of additional bibliographic notes leading to reviews and related resources, and is accompanied by both an author and a subject index.


The religious translation is one of the most difficult translations for the translator and interpreter as it relates to the biggest and most sensitive issue in the human life, the issue of religion and belief. Man naturally loves his religion and clings to his faith more than anything else. From this perspective comes the importance of religious translation, which is needed by more than a billion Muslims around the world, who do not speak Arabic, in order to transfer the Sharia sciences to them in different languages they speak. The study follows descriptive, comparative and analytical methods. The hypotheses correspond with the results that the translator faces a problem when translating the religious texts. There are several problems when translating religious texts, such as the problems related to word and semantics. The results showed that the translator and interpreter face some problems at the semantic and word levels; also, the study made some recommendations to find the suitable equivalents in the other languages.


Many algorithms have been proposed for fitting network models with communities, but most of them do not scale well to large networks, and often fail on sparse networks. Here we propose a new fast pseudo-likelihood method for fitting the stochastic block model for networks, as well as a variant that allows for an arbitrary degree distribution by conditioning on degrees. We show that the algorithms perform well under a range of settings, including on very sparse networks, and illustrate on the example of a network of political blogs. We also propose spectral clustering with perturbations, a method of independent interest, which works well on sparse networks where regular spectral clustering fails, and use it to provide an initial value for pseudo-likelihood. We prove that pseudo-likelihood provides consistent estimates of the communities under a mild condition on the starting value, for the case of a block model with two communities.


G protein βγ subunits stimulate a Fyn-dependent pathway that reverses thrombin-induced permeability of endothelial cells. Disruption of adherens junctions between endothelial cells, which are dependent on cadherins, or of adhesive interactions between these cells and the extracellular matrix, which are dependent on focal adhesion kinase (FAK), gives rise to increased endothelial permeability. Such loss of barrier function is associated with a number of inflammatory conditions, including acute respiratory distress syndrome. Noting that the binding of thrombin to protease-activating receptor 1 (PAR1), a G protein–coupled receptor, leads to a transient increase in endothelial permeability that depends on the α subunits of the Gq and G12 families of heterotrimeric G proteins, Knezevic et al. investigated a role for βγ subunits in this process. Knockdown of Gβ1 by small interfering RNA (siRNA) or inhibition of Gβγ activity did not impair thrombin-induced permeability of monolayers of human endothelial cells in culture but did prevent the recovery response that was observed in monolayers of control cells. Thrombin stimulated the phosphorylation (and activation) of FAK, which was dependent on Gβγ and Fyn, a member of the Src family of tyrosine kinases. Gβγ, Fyn, and FAK formed a complex in cells stimulated with thrombin, and Fyn was required for the phosphorylation of FAK and for the recovery of barrier function. Treatment of mice with the PAR1-activating peptide TFLLRN led to microvascular permeability in the lung, which was exacerbated in fyn–/– mice. TFLLRN stimulated the phosphorylation of FAK and its recruitment to adherens junctions of endothelial cells in the lungs of wild-type but not fyn–/– mice. A mutant of FAK that mimicked phosphorylated FAK rescued barrier integrity in lung microvessels of fyn–/– mice. Together, these data suggest that the Gβγ-dependent activation of Fyn triggers the FAK-dependent reversal of thrombin-induced endothelial permeability. N. Knezevic, M. Tauseef, T. Thennes, D. Mehta, The G protein βγ subunit mediates reannealing of adherens junctions to reverse endothelial permeability increase by thrombin. J. Exp. Med. 206, 2761–2777 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Multiple hypotheses have been proposed regarding the adaptive nature of different diel reproductive cycles observed in coral reef fishes. This study quantified the spawning patterns of 11 different reef fish species at Johnston Atoll (Central Pacific), while making simultaneous measure- ments of the environmental factors likely to affect their spawning behaviors. The environmental vari- ables measured (time of day, tides, current velocity, current speed and abundance of piscivores) were correlated with observed spawning outputs through multifactorial analyses. High interspecific vari- ability in spawning patterns was found among the 11 monitored species. The majority of species spawned at a specific time of the day, in agreement with the timing of spawning described at other locations, indicative of a fixed general response by fishes across distribution areas. Spawning of most fishes with daytime spawning peaks was correlated with local changes in current direction and predatory risks, suggesting responses designed to reduce the mortality of propagules and adults. Dusk-spawning species generally did not respond to changes in flow direction and predator abun- dance, most likely due to their short spawning periods and the reduced predatory pressures that occurred at dusk. Tides did not seem to be used exclusively as synchronizing cues by adult fishes for spawning. The influence of current speed in determining diel timing of spawning varied among spe- cies; some avoided spawning during low current speeds while the majority showed no clear response.


Currently there are six candidate strategies for freeing the refereed research
 literature: (1) Authors paying journal publishers for publisher-supplied online-offprints.
 (2) Asking journals to give away their contents online for free and boycotting
 those that do not. (3) Library consortial support (e.g. SPARC) for lower-priced
 journals. (4) Delayed journal give-aways -- 6-to-12+ months after
 publication. (5) Giving up established journals and peer review altogether, in
 favour of self-archived preprints and post-hoc, ad-lib commentary. (6)
 Self-archiving all preprints and postprints. (1) - (5) all require waiting for policy changes and, even once these are
 available, all require a needless sacrifice on the part of authors. With (1) the
 sacrifice is the needless author offprint expense, with (2) it is the author's right
 to submit to their preferred journals, with (3) it is (as before) the author's
 potential impact on those potential users who cannot afford even the lowered
 access tolls, with (4) it is the impact of the all-important first 6-12 months
 after publication, and with (5) the sacrifice is the quality of the literature itself. Only (6) asks researchers for no sacrifices at all, and no waiting for any
 change in journal policy or price. The only delay factor has been authors' own
 relative sluggishness in just going ahead and doing it! Nevertheless, (6) is
 well ahead of the other 5 candidates, in terms of the total number of papers
 thus freed already, thanks to the lead taken by the physicists.


Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace is a practical text that examines a range of sensitive issues concerned with managing and maintaining professional boundaries between worker and client. It uses experiences from probation, social work, the NHS, small business and church settings. A number of issues are addressed including: *the relationship between personal and professional values *changing professional-client relationships *definitions of 'being professional' *conflicts arising from different understandings of professionalism.


Background: Despite improvements in manufacture, sterilization and storage of tibial inserts, polyethylene
wear continues to restrict the survivorship of total knee replacements. The problem is
particularly evident in the young population undergoing knee arthroplasty.
Aims and Methods:
The objectives of the thesis were to ascertain:
• If polyethylene wear may be reduced by utilizing scratch resistant femoral coats.
• The timing of significant femoral scratching in the laboratory setting
• If retrieved femoral components exhibited scratches and whether the roughening of
the components is significant
Results:
• Both zirconium oxide and titanium niobium nitride femoral coats provided scratch
resistance. However, no polyethylene wear benefit was conferred by the titanium
niobium coat.
• Significant scratching was noted as early as 100 cycles.
• Retrieval specimens exhibited femoral scratching which were of the same orientation
of those noted from the simulator studies. Not all condyles had significant
roughening.
Conclusions:
Improving the scratch resistance of femoral components has the potential to improve the
longevity of total knee replacements. However, alternate bearing surfaces should be used
with caution, as the standard modern day knee replacement allows reproducibility and good
mid to long term results which are lacking for alternate bearings. Improvements in
polyethylene wear may be achieved by engineering a femoral coat that reduces abrasive,
adhesive wear and delamination or by optimizing the ultra high molecular weight
polyethylene components.


The timing of certain cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) management practices varies according to the yield potential and quality characteristics associated with a variety. A defoliation timing study was performed to (i) determine if certain cultivars respond differently to defoliation timings and (ii) compare the use of the open boll percentage at defoliation (OBPD), nodes above cracked boll (NACB), and micronaire readings at defoliation for their effectiveness in timing defoliation. The study was conducted in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Treatments consisted of two proprietary cultivars (ST 474 and DP 5409), each defoliated on the basis of OBPD measurements. At the time of defoliation, NACB was recorded and lint samples were retained for later high volume instrumentation (HVI) analysis. Neither variety produced consistently higher yields than the other in this study. In 2000, delaying defoliation from 40 to 60 OBPD would have resulted in a significant addition of approximately 75 kg lint ha -1 for either variety. Stoneville 474 micronaire was highest in all years suggesting that timely defoliation is more critical to ST 474 cotton compared with DP 5409 in years when overall conditions are favorable for high micronaire. DP 5409 fiber length (UHM) values were consistently higher than ST 474 and UHM was unaffected by changes in OBPD values regardless of variety. Stoneville 474 had higher uniformity index (UI) values in all three years and delaying defoliation produced mixed results. The data demonstrate that proper defoliation timing strategies aimed at optimizing quality can vary across varieties. Proper defoliation timing in the two varieties examined in this study varied little with respect to yields. Both NACB and micronaire readings taken at defoliation were more effective for timing defoliation to optimize micronaire readings than OBPD.


In this paper, a platform for measuring the impulse response of wireless multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) channels is presented. The platform is developed using Rice University Wireless Open-Access Research Platform (WARP) boards and utilized to perform an experimental study of V2V channels through conducting field measurements. A full characterization of MIMO-V2V channels is given via extracting the channel parameters from the acquired measurements. These parameters include the power-delay profile, the Doppler spectrum, and the MIMO transmit and receive correlation matrices of the channel. Numerical simulations are utilized to examine the effect of the channel parameters on the bit error rate (BER) performance of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based system.


Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes (PMSE) are strong radar echoes observed from altitudes of 80-90 km in polar regions, during summer time. PMSE are closely related to the fascinating atmospheric phenomenon known as noctilucent clouds (NLC). Since it has been suspected that NLC could respond to climate change in the mesosphere, they have attracted considerable interest in the scientific community during recent years. However, continuous visual or photographic NLC observations suffer from weather restrictions and the human factor. In contrast, PMSE radar measurements can easily be made over a long interval and are very attractive for long-term studies of the atmospheric parameters at the polar mesopause. This thesis uses the world's longest data set of PMSE observations made by the same radar at the same place. Since 1997 these measurements have been carried out with the 52 MHz ESRAD MST radar located near Kiruna in Northern Sweden. The data set for 1997-2008 has been used for studies of diurnal, day-to-day andyear-to-year variations of PMSE. We showed that PMSE occurrence rate and volume reflectivity on a daily scale show predominantly semidiurnal variations with the shape of the diurnal curves remaining consistent from year to year. We found that day-to-day and inter-annual variations of PMSE correlate with geomagnetic activity while they do not correlate with mesopause temperature or solar activity. We did not find any statistically significant trends in PMSE occurrence rate and length of PMSE season over 1997-2008. The thesis also presents also a new, independent calibration method, which can be used to estimate changes in transmitter output and antenna feed losses from year to year (for example due to changes of antenna configuration) and allows making accurate calculations of PMSE strength. This method is based on radar-radiosonde comparisons in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere region simultaneously with PMSE observations. Using this calibration we calculated the distribution of PMSE strength over magnitudes; it varies from year to year with the peak of the distribution varying from 2×10?15 to 3×10?14 m?1. We found that inter-annual variations of PMSE volume reflectivity strongly correlate with the local geomagnetic k-index and anticorrelate with solar 10.7 cm flux. We did not identify any significant trend in PMSE volume reflectivity over 1997–2009. Finally, using 11 years of measurements, we calculated in-beam the PMSE aspect sensitivities using the FCA technique. We showed that half of PMSE detected each year cannot be explained by isotropic turbulence since they are highly aspect sensitive echoes. The distribution of these echoes remains consistent from year to year with median values of aspect sensitivity from 2.9 to 3.7°. The remaining half of the PMSE have aspect sensitivity parameters larger than 9-11°. We found that PMSE aspect sensitivity has altitude dependence: the scatter becomes more isotropic with increasing height. We did not identify any dependence of PMSE aspect sensitivity on backscattered power for any year. We analysed limitations of the in-beam and off-zenith beam methods and concluded that the former is suitable for highly aspect sensitive echoes while the latter is needed for more isotropic scatterers.


ABSTRACT PML fuses with retinoic acid receptor α (RARα) in the t(15;17) translocation that causes acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). In addition to localizing diffusely throughout the nucleoplasm, PML mainly resides in discrete nuclear structures known as PML oncogenic domains (PODs), which are disrupted in APL and spinocellular ataxia cells. We isolated the Fas-binding protein Daxx as a PML-interacting protein in a yeast two-hybrid screen. Biochemical and immunofluorescence analyses reveal that Daxx is a nuclear protein that interacts and colocalizes with PML in the PODs. Reporter gene assay shows that Daxx drastically represses basal transcription, likely by recruiting histone deacetylases. PML, but not its oncogenic fusion PML-RARα, inhibits the repressor function of Daxx. In addition, SUMO-1 modification of PML is required for sequestration of Daxx to the PODs and for efficient inhibition of Daxx-mediated transcriptional repression. Consistently, Daxx is found at condensed chromatin in cells that lack PML. These data suggest that Daxx is a novel nuclear protein bearing transcriptional repressor activity that may be regulated by interaction with PML.


In 1976, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation and Communications decided to write its own bridge design code, breaking away from the AASHTO code, because: (1)It wanted a metric design code in 1978, target date for conversion of Canada's construction industry to the metric system; (2)it considered the AASHTO code too conservative; and (3)it wanted to synthesize its separate research reports into an acceptable design code. In 1973 the Ministry had built a full-scale test bridge designed using its research. Load testing supported the design concepts but the Ministry wanted to test existing bridges, too. Using its research, the Ministry tested a bridge whose replacement had been recommended. As a result, the Ministry was able to repair and strengthen, rather than replace, the bridge. Article describes Ontario's research and bridge testing and summarizes the new bridge code.


The morphologic distinction between cutaneous marginal zone lymphoma (CMZL) and secondary cutaneous involvement by B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) can be difficult. Both entities can show very similar architectural patterns of involvement in the skin and not uncommonly, the skin can be the first site of presentation of B-CLL in the elderly. We reviewed biopsies of 13 patients with cutaneous B-CLL and 14 patients with CMZL to compare their histologic and immunohistochemical features. CMZL and cutaneous B-CLL both predominantly exhibited a nodular pattern of skin involvement (9 of 13 B-CLL, 9 of 14 CMZL) with a minority of cases demonstrating a diffuse pattern (4 of 13 B-CLL, 4 of 14 CMZL). Although reactive germinal centers (12 of 14 cases) and plasma cells (10 of 14 cases) were seen more often in CMZL, plasma cells were also observed in cases of B-CLL (4 of 13). The lesional cells of B-CLL expressed CD79, CD5, CD23, and CD43, although CMZL did not express CD5 or CD43. Although we noted light chain restriction in 13 of 14 cases of CMZL cases, we also observed light chain restriction in 4 of 13 cases of B-CLL. Our results indicate that CMZL and B-CLL can be morphologically similar and both may show light chain restriction. Complete immunophenotyping is necessary to ensure that all cases are correctly classified.


Much of the work on the responses of terrestrial arthropods to high and low temperatures has been done on model organisms such as Drosophila. However, considerable variation in thermotolerance is partitioned at the family level and above, raising questions about the broader applicability of this work to other taxa. Here we investigate resistance to high and low temperatures, following different temperature treatments, in ten species and 31 populations of weevils found on sub-Antarctic Heard Island and Marion Island, which have substantially different climates. In these weevils there is considerable interspecific and among-population variation in critical thermal minimum (CTmin) and critical thermal maximum (CTmax), but most of this variation in critical limits can be ascribed to phenotypic plasticity. We find no relationship between CTmin and CTmax at the species level, and this is true also of populations and of responses to the temperature treatments. In general, plastic (acclimation) changes in CTmin are larger than those in CTmax. Our data therefore provide support for the idea that resistance to heat and to cold are decoupled in terrestrial arthropods. Furthermore, our results suggest that investigations of physiological limits to species borders should incorporate the effects of phenotypic plasticity on physiological capabilities.


For pt.I see ibid., vol.20, no.4, pp.384-91 (1997). The purpose of the second part of the DELPHI survey paper is twofold. First, to describe the experimental methods that have been developed to validate the numerical models generated to characterize a certain electronic part in full detail and second, to highlight the various approaches that were studied to generate compact models from the detailed models. It can be concluded that the results of the experimental as well as the numerical methods which are highlighted in this part are characterized by a high accuracy, typically of the order of 95% or better.


Fleas associated with different rodent species are considered as the major vectors of bubonic plague, which is still rampant in different parts of the world. The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of land use to rodent flea load distribution at fine scale in the plague endemic area of north-eastern Tanzania. Data was collected in three case areas namely, Shume, Lukozi and Mwangoi, differing in plague incidence levels. Data collection was carried out during both wet and dry seasons of 2012. Analysis of Variance and Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) statistical methods were used to clarify the relationships between fleas and specific land use characteristics. There was a significant variation (P ≤ 0.05) of flea indices in different land use types. Fallow and natural forest had higher flea indices whereas plantation forest mono-crop and mixed annual crops had the lowest flea indices among the aggregated land use types. The influence of individual land use types on flea indices was variable with fallow having a positive effect and land tillage showing a negative effect. The results also demonstrated a seasonal effect, part of which can be attributed to different land use practices such as application of pesticides, or the presence of grass strips around fields. These findings suggest that land use factors have a major influence on rodent flea abundance which can be taken as a proxy for plague infection risk. The results further point to the need for a comprehensive package that includes land tillage and crop type considerations on one hand and the associated human activities on the other, in planning and implementation of plague control interventions.


The development of parallel algorithms for an automatic recognition and classification of objects from an industrial line (either production or packaging) is presented. This kind of problem introduces a temporal restriction on images processing, a parallel resolution being therefore required. We have chosen simple objects (fruits, eggs, etc.), which are classified according to characteristics such as shape, color, size, defects (stains, loss of color), etc. By means of this classification, objects can be sent, for example, to different sectors of the line. Algorithms parallelization on a heterogeneous computers network with a PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) support is studied in this paper. Finally, some quantitative results obtained from the application of the algorithm on a representative sample of real images are presented.


Pliny the Elder's words "Semper aliquid novi African adferre" were perhaps more prophesy than statement. More and more one agrees that "Africa always brings [us] something new". South Africa brought with its democratic constitution much to ponder and digest, such as government liability and bureaucratic negligence. This is a matter of grave concern that had taken on a new dimension after 1994, and legal practitioners ignore new developments in this area at their own peril.


There is a wealth of agricultural indigenous knowledge (AIK) in Uganda, which is useful in livestock keeping, crop management and food processing and storage as well as soil and water management. Unfortunately, this AIK is becoming less visible and irrelevant in some communities because of the adoption of modern methods of farming. In fact, a lot of AIK has remained largely undocumented which threatens its sustained utilisation. One of the bottlenecks of the effective utilisation of AIK is access to relevant and usable indigenous knowledge for the diverse stakeholders in the agricultural sector including farmers. It seems farmers in Uganda are adopting modern methods of agriculture at the expense of the AIK because of the less perceived benefits that AIK promises because crops planted using AIK have often faced pests and diseases and not yielded much. The problem is perhaps compounded because of increasing population growth, land fragmentation as well as migration to urban areas. This phenomenon raises the question of how AIK can be conserved. This paper is based on a study that investigated how Agricultural Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) is documented and disseminated in addition to identifying the challenges faced in its management for sustainable food security in Uganda's district of Soroti. Data in this study was collected through interviews, focus group discussions, document reviews and participant observation. The study findings revealed that despite the advent of modern farming methods, many small-scale farmers in the Soroti district continue to embrace indigenous knowledge in farming such as in managing soil fertility, controlling pests and diseases, controlling weeds, soil preparation, planting materials, harvesting and storage of indigenous root crops and animals. The study concludes that indigenous knowledge is still widely used but most of it is not documented nor fully understood by some members of the community; and that the Iteso and Kumam cultures have some restrictions on who acquires the knowledge. Thus the study recommends that AIKs be recorded for posterity, AIK should be researched upon further, be thoroughly documented and made freely available to anyone who needs it. On the whole, AIK in Soroti district requires attitudinal, behavioural, and methodological changes to give it a scientific touch. Moreover, small-scale farmers should be involved in agricultural extension services rather than leaving the work to formally trained officers who may have little attachment to specific cultural practices in the areas they operate. Keywords: Documenting, Disseminating, Agricultural Indigenous Knowledge, Sustainable Food security, Uganda


Systems methods, applied inappropriately, have resulted in frequent failures. Moreover. complexity, variety, and widespread partial indeterminism of ecosystems and systems inhabited by humans, need to be addressed with tools that can achieve both a holistic and at the same time detailed and intelligible - that is parsimonious - treatment and that can combine a systematic approach with the necessity to allow for erratic behavior.

A method of scale for overview and a hierarchical approach are used to achieve the above stated objectives. A very effective new method is reported, where a dynamic model is used to generate time series of maps on pollution and forest damage.