Background. Lung transplantation is a well accepted therapy for end-stage lung disease, despite high mortality rates. Mortality after transplantation is mainly caused by allograft failure in the first years after transplantation. Mannose binding lectin (MBL), a recognition molecule of innate immunity, has been associated with transplant outcome in other solid organ transplantation. In this study, the effect of donor- and recipient-MBL genotype on lung transplant outcome was investigated. Materials and Methods. All lung transplantations performed in our center, except from retransplantations and combined lung–liver or heart–lung transplantations, were included. Genotyping of the MBL2 variants (promoter: L/H, Y/X, and P/Q allele and exon 1: A/D, A/B, and A/C allele) was performed in donor and recipient DNA. Analyses on graft survival and the development of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome were performed with Kaplan-Meier (log rank) survival analysis. Results. Of the 277 included cases, DNA was available from 189 donors and 200 recipients and genotyping of the promoter single nucleotide polymorphisms was successful in 184 donors and 198 recipients and of the exon 1 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 181 donors and 193 recipients. Patients who received a graft from a donor with an X-allele had better graft survival (P=0.007) and bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome free survival (P=0.007). Recipient MBL genotype was not associated with transplant outcome. Conclusion. The donor X-allele, which corresponds to the LXPA haplotype is associated with superior lung transplant outcome. Our findings might prove to be important in finding ways to optimize outcome after lung transplantation.


Background Rapid identification of sepsis enables prompt administration of antibiotics and is essential to improve patient survival. Procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker used to diagnose sepsis in people. Commercial assays to measure canine PCT peptide have not been validated. Objective To investigate the validity of a commercially available enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) marketed for the measurement of canine PCT. Animals Three dogs with sepsis, 1 healthy dog, 1 dog with thyroid carcinoma. Methods Experimental study. The ELISA's ability to detect recombinant and native canine PCT was investigated and intra‐assay and interassay coefficients of variability were calculated. Assay validation including mass spectrometry of the kit standard solution was performed. Results The ELISA did not consistently detect recombinant canine PCT. Thyroid lysate yielded a positive ELISA signal. Intra‐assay variability ranged from 18.9 to 77.4%, while interassay variability ranged from 56.1 to 79.5%. Mass spectrometry of the standard solution provided with the evaluated ELISA kit did not indicate presence of PCT. Conclusions and Clinical Importance The results of this investigation do not support the use of this ELISA for the detection of PCT in dogs.


There has been increasing rate of forest destruction and consequently decline in forest resources in Kenya due to the high rate of increase in human population, thus exerting
pressure on natural resources. The decline has been attributed to factors such as deforestation, commercial agriculture, urbanization, pastoralism, charcoal production, forest cultivation, illegal logging, forest fires and replacement of indigenous forests with exotic plantations. Decline in forest resource has been further exacerbated by increasing poverty levels and the community perspective of forest as public good in addition to changing global forest trends. It is on this back drop in forest cover levels that the government of Kenya through Kenya Forest Service modified "shamba system" to PELIS which for a long time has been used by the government of Kenya to raise forest plantations where the forest adjustment communities benefits from cultivation of crops in the forest and KFS benefits from forest plantation establishment at low costs. The key objectives were; to establish the influence of plantation establishment on forest cover, to determine the influence of plantation survival rate on forest cover, to investigate the influence of cost of plantation establishment on forest cover and to assess the influence of livelihood improvement on forest cover. Therefore this study aimed at establishing the influence of PELIS as a strategy to increase forest cover. The study was informed by the theories of Environmental Kuznets Curve and forest transition, which affirms that a U shaped relationship exists between environmental quality and economic development and also contends that forest cover, is an indicator of environmental quality and income levels. Survey research design was used. The study targeted a population of 6521 including 6 forest station managers and 6515 CFA members. Stratified, purposive and simple random sampling methods were used to select forest stations and CFA members for the study. Structured questionnaires, interview schedules and personal observations were used to collect primary data besides use of secondary data from the offices. Descriptive statistics such as
means, tables, percentages and frequencies were used. The findings of the study provided an insight on the contribution of PELIS in increasing forest cover. The study established that
PELIS contributed to 12.8 % increase of forest cover. The results clearly showed that the survival rates were higher in plantations established with PELIS than those established
without PELIS by an average of 75.1% and 45.2% respectively. On the cost of plantation establishment, it was established that the cost was Khs 39,527 with PELIS while without PELIS was Kshs 50,564 representing 27.9% savings. The study also confirmed that there was livelihood improvement as PELIS farmers harvested an average of 22 bags, 54 bags and 5
bags of maize, potatoes and beans respectively. The study also established that 96.3% of CFA members dependent on farming-PELIS as a source of livelihood. It was recommended that there is need to give forest adjacent communities alternative sources of livelihood as incentives so that they could allocate a portion of their land for tree growing, there should also be closer supervision of all PELIS activities to reduce damage to young plantations. Multinational companies should supplement government efforts through provision of funds for reforestation and government should fast track forest management and conservation bill that provides for benefit sharing.


Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation provides a critical account of the key connections between twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and nineteenth-century German idealist G. W. F. Hegel. While Hegel has been recognized as one of the key targets of Deleuze's philosophical writing, Henry Somers-Hall shows how Deleuze's antipathy to Hegel has its roots in a problem the two thinkers both try to address: getting beyond a philosophy of judgment and the restrictions of Kant's transcendental idealism. By tracing the development of their attempts to address this problem, Somers-Hall offers an interpretation of the sweep of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, providing a series of analyses of key moments in the history of thought, including the logics of Aristotle and Russell, Kant's own philosophy of judgment, and the philosophy of Bergson. He also develops a novel interpretation of Deleuze's philosophy of difference, and situates his philosophy in relation to the broader post-Kantian tradition. In addition to Deleuze's relation to Hegel, the book makes important contributions to the study of Deleuze's philosophy of mathematics, as well as to the study of several underappreciated areas of Hegel's own philosophy.


Increasingly, scholars have begun to employ social movement theory to historical studies of the 19th century. This article uses political process, resource mobilization, and framing theories to examine black southern emigration movements to Liberia before and after the Civil War through historical-narrative analysis. It argues that the draconian racial environment in the South pushed black southerners to utilize strategies of interracial cooperation in order to minimize the number of whites' repressive tactics against them and to accrue the support of white sponsorship when orchestrating territorial separatist movements. Elite individual whites, white colonization societies, and U.S. government organizations provided black southern separatists with benefits such as financial and material assistance, physical protection, and character references, along with logistical and general information about traveling to and living in Liberia. Additionally, during the antebellum era, black southerners used religion and culture frames to garner sympathy from supportive whites, while justice and oppression frames calling for the redress of racial grievances were more widely used during the era of Reconstruction. Historical evidence suggests that black southern nationalists utilized strategic cooperation with elites and strategic framing to facilitate movements for territorial separatism both before and after the Civil War.


Whether in response to civil rights laws or demographic shifts in the labor pool, employers today seem to realize that women and minorities will be a part of their workforces. Indeed, many employers broadly espouse diversity as part of doing good business. At the same time, over the past several decades, employers have increasingly turned to employee fit as a formal job requirement and have retreated from detailed bureaucratic structures in ways that place heightened importance on social relations. These structural moves raise new concerns about workplace equality, for they strengthen demands to conform with prevailing work culture by making social relations more crucial to an individual's employment success. In this Article, I seek to frame an expanded antidiscrimination discourse that isolates work culture as a source of discrimination and puts legal pressure on employers to devise meaningful programs for reform. Drawing on a rich literature on the meaning of culture and the operation of human bias, I examine how particular work cultures can develop and persist along gender and/or racial lines and expose the harms that those cultures can impose on women and minorities. I then locate a substantial gap in existing legal discourse, where work culture is more frequently seen as a matter of business prerogative than one of antidiscrimination concern. For both normative and practical reasons, however, I argue against the creation of a new legal right to be free from discriminatory work culture, and I explore several alternatives to a legal rights approach, one that builds on existing legal doctrine and another that is driven by an administrative obligation, that might be used to trigger the type of contextual problem solving needed for meaningful work culture change.


At a moment when free circulation within the European Union is hampered by particularisms and populisms, and the European project seems increasingly endangered by the non-European «other» inside and outside its geopolitical confines, this essay investigates Europeanness shaped by the joint action of travel and translation, as forms of transit and border crossing promoting exchange and difference. Focusing on Christine Brooke-Rose and Diego Marani, the essay explores the act of «carrying across» common to geographic dislocation and linguistic transfer as an agent of transformation able to regenerate the European power of symbolization through linguistic and cultural grafts. The two authors undermine eurocentrism from within by presenting language and identity as unstable spaces of multiple interactions. Their practice of spatial and cultural transfer situates Europeanness between national singularity and the levelling indistinction of globalism, redefining geographic and linguistic boundaries as lines of contact and estrangement that foreground identity's intrinsic alterity.


We have compiled a record of the geochronology of mantle plume activity between 3.8 and 1.6 Ga. Over this time period, the ages of komatiites, and those of global plumes, correlate strongly, at the 99% confidence level, with the ages of banded iron formations (BIFs). The ages of continental plumes correlate more weakly, at an overall 85% confidence level. Using the geochronological records of these events, we can define four periods characterized by mantle superplume activity. Three of these periods are also times of enhanced BIF deposition. The fourth mantle plume period may similarly be coeval with increased BIF accumulation, but the BIF chronostratigraphic resolution is not accurate enough to test this rigorously. Mantle superplume volcanism may promote BIF deposition by increasing the Fe flux to the global oceans through continental weathering and/or through submarine hydrothermal processes. It may also be enhanced by increasing the number of paleotectonic environments appropriate for BIF deposition (particularly plume-induced ocean plateaus, seamounts, and intracratonic rifts) and by promoting global anoxic, Fe-rich hydrothermal plumes in the shallow to intermediate marine water column.


Steerable displays use a motorized platform to orient a projector to display graphics at any point in the room. Often a camera is included to recognize markers and other objects, as well as user gestures in the display volume. Such systems can be used to superimpose graphics onto the real world, and so are useful in a number of augmented reality and ubiquitous computing scenarios. We contribute the Beamatron, which advances steerable displays by drawing on recent progress in depth camera-based interactions. The Beamatron consists of a computer-controlled pan and tilt platform on which is mounted a projector and Microsoft Kinect sensor. While much previous work with steerable displays deals primarily with projecting corrected graphics onto a discrete set of static planes, we describe computational techniques that enable reasoning in 3D using live depth data. We show two example applications that are enabled by the unique capabilities of the Beamatron: an augmented reality game in which a player can drive a virtual toy car around a room, and a ubiquitous computing demo that uses speech and gesture to move projected graphics throughout the room.


The etiology of prostate cancer remains elusive, although steroid hormones probably play a role. Considering the carcinogenic potential of estrogen metabolites as well as altered intraprostatic estrogen biosynthesis during the development of prostate cancer, we investigated associations between repeat polymorphisms of three key estrogen-related genes (CYP11A1, CYP19A1, UGT1A1) and risk of prostate cancer in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), designed to test finasteride versus placebo as a chemoprevention agent. Using data and specimens from 1154 cases and 1351 controls who were frequency matched on age, family history of prostate cancer and PCPT treatment arm, we used logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) separately in the placebo and finasteride arms. Among men in the placebo arm, CYP19A1 7/8 genotype carriers had a significantly higher risk of prostate cancer compared with those with the 7/7 genotype (OR = 1.70, 95% CI = 1.16-2.5), regardless of Gleason grade. This genotype was also associated with elevated serum estrogen levels. For the (TA)(n) repeat polymorphism in UGT1A1, the heterozygous short (<7 repeats)/long (≥7 repeats) genotype was significantly associated with the risk of low-grade prostate cancer (OR = 1.34, 95% CI = 1.05-1.70) compared with the short/short genotype. No significant association was found with CYP11A1. These associations were not observed among men in the finasteride arm. The results indicate that repeat polymorphisms in genes involved in estrogen biosynthesis and metabolism may influence risk of prostate cancer but that their effects may be modified by factors altering hormone metabolism, such as finasteride treatment.


Neural networks are usually over-parameterized with significant redundancy in the number of required neurons which results in unnecessary computation and memory usage at inference time. One common approach to address this issue is to prune these big networks by removing extra neurons and parameters while maintaining the accuracy. In this paper, we propose NoiseOut, a fully automated pruning algorithm based on the correlation between activations of neurons in the hidden layers. We prove that adding additional output neurons with entirely random targets results into a higher correlation between neurons which makes pruning by NoiseOut even more efficient. Finally, we test our method on various networks and datasets. These experiments exhibit high pruning rates while maintaining the accuracy of the original network.


This PhD thesis is a critical investigation of the formation of managers in the UK further and higher education (FHE) sector. It explores the character and problematics that surround the development of senior FHE post-holders as managers in the first half of the 1990s. The work draws on interviews with more than 70 senior post-holders in four universities and four further education colleges and observation in one university and one college. It analyses the narratives and practices that make up the changing working lives of the respondents. These are discussed in relation to recent social theory, particularly around approaches to 'discourse', 'the body', and 'identity/subjectivity'. This in turn is set against the backdrop of broad political-economic circumstances and conditions. Two key issues are addressed in the thesis: the problematics that surround the development of managers, and the gendered dimensions of this formation. The thesis is in three sections: 'Epistemological Commitments and Ontological Priorities' (this divides into three chapters: 'Managing Discourse and Discoursing Managers', 'Living Bodies and Inscribing Bodies' and 'The Relative Thickness of Human Material, approaching 'Identity' and 'Subjectivity'), 'Speaking Historically, Politically and of literatures' (this divides into three chapters: 'Making Sense of Making Managers, a review of the critical further and higher education management literature', 'From Methodology to Research Methods' and 'Further and Higher Education's Turbulent Years'), and 'Making Managers in Further and Higher Education' (this divides into three chapters: 'Doing the business, constructing the supervisors of production in further and higher education', 'Just how managed is the New Further and Higher Education? 'and 'University and College management; Is it men's work? '). The concluding chapter draws out the key points from the thesis, discusses these in the context of possible futures for further and higher education, and suggests directions for further research work.


Sarah Bagnall and Edwin M. Truman examine the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) report, which claims to be "a solid, initial step toward a better understanding of the IFSWF and of the Santiago Principles," and find this to be largely true, with a few limitations. The report, released July 7, 2011, is a self-assessment of the voluntary compliance of 21 member sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) with the Generally Accepted Principles and Practices of SWFs, issued in October 2008. Bagnall and Truman find that the extent of compliance with the Santiago Principles is somewhat exaggerated. In addition, some of the 21 funds have substantially lower rates of compliance than others, which is not reported. However, the report is frank about many of the issues that arise with respect to the interpretation of its results, for example regarding the application of the principles on investment policies and on nonfinancial restrictions on SWF investment decisions. Ultimately, presentation may obscure some results in the IFSWF report, but Bagnall and Truman find the report credible and admirable.


Financial market shocks and imperfections, alongside productivity shocks, represent both an impulse and a propagation mechanism of aggregate fluctuations. When labor and financial markets are imperfect, firms' funding and leverage respond to productivity changes. Models of business cycle with equilibrium unemployment largely ignore financial imperfections. The paper proposes and solves a tractable equilibrium unemployment model with imperfections in two markets. Labor market frictions are modeled via a traditional Diamond Mortensen Pissarides (DMP) model with wage positing. Financial market imperfections are modeled in terms of limited pledgeability, in line with the work of Holmstrom and Tirole. We show analytically that borrowing constraints increase unemployment volatility in the aftermath of productivity shocks. We calibrate the model to match key labor and financial moments of the US labor markets, and we perform two quantitative exercises. In the first exercise we ask whether the interaction between productivity shocks and borrowing constraints increase the volatility of unemployment with respect to models that focus only on the labor market imperfections. In the general specification of the model, both leverage and non pledgeable income move with the cycle. Our calibration exercise shows that the volatility of unemployment in response to productivity shock increases by as much as 50 percent with respect to a pure DMP model with wage posting. The second quantitative exercise explores the role of pure financial shocks on aggregate equilibrium. We calibrate pledgeability shocks to match the frequency of financial crisis and define financial distress as a situation in which internal liquidity completely dries up. The second exercise shows that full dry up of internal liquidity implies an increase in unemployment as large as 60 percent. These results throw new light on the aggregate impact of financial recessions.


Several quartz crystals from three different Alpine vein localities and of known petrologic setting and evolution have been examined for possible elemental sector zoning in order to help to constrain the mechanisms of such trace element incorporation. Using different in situ techniques (EMPA, LA-ICPMS, SIMS, FTIR-spectroscopy), it was established that Al and Li concentrations can exceed several hundreds of ppma for distinct growth zones within crystals formed at temperatures of about 300 °C or less and that also display patterns of cyclic growth when examined with cathodoluminescence. In contrast, crystals formed at temperatures closer to 400 °C and without visible cyclic growth have low concentrations of Al and Li as well as other trace elements. Al and Li contents are correlated along profiles measured within the crystals and in general their proportion does not change along the profiles. No relationships were found between Al, Na, and K, and germanium has a qualitative relationship with Al. FTIR spectra also show OH − absorption bands within the quartz, with higher amplitudes in zones rich in Al and Li. Sector zoning is present. It is most pronounced between prismatic and rhombohedral faces of the same growth zone, but also between the rhombohedral faces of r and z , which contain different amounts of trace elements. The sector zoning is also expressed by changes in the Li/Al ratio, with higher ratios in z compared to r faces. It is concluded that the incorporation of trace elements into hydrothermal quartz from Alpine veins is influenced by growth mechanisms and surface-structures of the growing quartz crystals, the influence of which may change as a function of temperature, pH, as well as the chemical composition of the fluid.


We present the results of a combined theoretical and experimental investigation of the influence of surface tension $\sigma$ on the laminar circular hydraulic jump. An expression is deduced for the magnitude of the radial curvature force per unit length along a circular jump, $F_c\,{=}\,{-}\sigma ( s - \uDelta R )/R_j$, where $R_j$ is the jump radius, and $s$ and $\uDelta R$ are, respectively, the arclength along the jump surface and radial distance between the nearest points at the nose and tail of the jump at which the surface is horizontal. This curvature force is dynamically significant when $2\sigma/(\rho g R_j \uDelta H)$ becomes appreciable, where $\uDelta H$ is the jump height, $\rho$ the fluid density and $g$ the acceleration due to gravity. The theory of viscous hydraulic jumps (Watson 1964) is extended through inclusion of the curvature force, and yields a new prediction for the radius of circular hydraulic jumps. Our experimental investigation demonstrates that the surface tension correction is generally small in laboratory settings, but appreciable for jumps of small radius and height.


This paper aims at assessing the issue of both the English language and the English and Jahreszeiten/The Seasons Indeed, the English origin of each of the two texts, either directly written as an English libretto meant to be set to music (Charles Jennens's text, probably meant for Handel and later to be translated by Gottfried van Swieten) or as the adaptation of James Thomson's poetical work The Seasons accounts not only for the long-lasting popularity of the two works, but also for the ineradicable belief that Haydn's masterpieces are essentially English works. As many commercial recordings show, the English version of Haydn's text is still currently performed today, and many scholars and performers contend that this is how it should be done. The paper thus focuses on the Englishness of Haydn's two oratorios, especially as far as the verbal text is concerned. It examines several versions of the English "libretto" of The Creation – indeed, in order to be adequately performed, the original English always had to be slightly modified, according to criteria that differ greatly when seen from a diachronic point of view… –, as well as the several existing translations of G. van Swieten's adaptation, translation or rewriting of J. Thomson's famous poem. Again, the different translations display a certain amount of variability in their various authors' willingness to return, or not, to Thomson's original text.


A 6-month-old female Staffordshire bull terrier cross presented to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital with lethargy, weakness, decreased appetite, abnormal vocalisation, twitching of the facial muscles and ears, circling, alopecia, pruritus, seborrhoea sicca and erythema. Serum biochemistry revealed severe hypernatraemia (200.4 mmol/L; Reference Interval 140 mmol/L - 155 mmol/L). Treatment required careful administration of intravenous fluids. The electrolytes were monitored to ensure slow and controlled sodium normalisation (the target reduction of Na concentration was by 0.5 mmol/L/h -1 mmol/L/h or 12 mmol/L/24 h - 24 mmol/L/24 h). Despite the careful fluid calculations and close monitoring, the serum sodium levels dropped more than the recommended 0.5 mmol/L/h - 1 mmol/L/h in the first 4 h and the fluids had to be adjusted. The patient's habitus improved and the central nervous system signs started to resolve after 1 day of fluid treatment. The puppy started eating food mixed with water, but made no attempt to drink water. The pruritus and erythema resolved once the sodium levels normalised and the seborrhoea sicca began to resolve. At a follow up visit 20 days post discharge the skin was normal. A diagnosis of hypernatraemia as a result of pure water loss due to hypodipsia or adipsia was made, as the puppy made no attempt to drink water when her serum sodium levels increased (a strong thirst stimulus). Hypernatraemia recurred if she was not forced to take in adequate amounts of water mixed with her food. Dermatological changes such as seborrhoea, hyperkeratosis and alopecia have been reported in a few other cases of hypernatraemia in dogs and sodium levels should be investigated in dermatological patients when no other cause can be established. This study, supported by another retrospective study done in 2008, suggests that the Staffordshire bull terrier may be a breed that is predisposed to hypernatraemia.


In his earlier work, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens, J.R. Miller explored the history of relations between whites and native peoples in Canada. Sweet Promises is a companion volume. It brings together the work of a number of scholars on a wide range of issues in Indian-white relations, and develops many of the themes identified in the earlier work. The articles, all previously published, are concerned with developments in the various regions of Canada from the days of New France to the present. They deal with the early military alliances, relations at the time of the fur trade, civil Indian policy, treaties and reserves, the Northwest Rebellion, the impact of religion and agricultural and educational policies, the emergence of native political organization, differing attitudes towards the environment, and the struggle for aboriginal rights and contemporary land claims disputes. In a new introduction Miller provides an overview of the history of Indian- white relations over five centuries, and in the conclusion he draws together the themes discussed in the volume.


From the Preface: The title for this collection was the title of a course in literary criticism that I gave for many years at Bennington College. And much of the material presented here was used in that course. The title should serve well to convey the gist of these various pieces. For all of them are explicitly concerned with the attempt to define and track down the implications of the term "symbolic action," and to show how the marvels of literature and language look when considered form that point of view.


Motivation The biological importance of changes in gene and transcript expression is well recognised and is reflected by the wide variety of tools available to characterise these changes. Regulation via Differential Transcript Usage (DTU) is emerging as an important phenomenon. Several tools exist for the detection of DTU from read alignment or assembly data, but options for detection of DTU from alignment-free quantifications are limited. Results We present an R package named RATs – (Relative Abundance of Transcripts) – that identifies DTU transcriptome-wide directly from transcript abundance estimations. RATs is agnostic to quantification methods and exploits bootstrapped quantifications, if available, to inform the significance of detected DTU events. RATs contextualises the DTU results and shows good False Discovery performance (median FDR ≤0.05) at all replication levels. We applied RATs to a human RNA-seq dataset associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with three DTU events validated by qRT-PCR. RATs found all three genes exhibited statistically significant changes in isoform proportions based on Ensembl v60 annotations, but the DTU for two were not reliably reproduced across bootstrapped quantifications. RATs also identified 500 novel DTU events that are enriched for eleven GO terms related to regulation of the response to stimulus, regulation of immune system processes, and symbiosis/parasitism. Repeating this analysis with the Ensembl v87 annotation showed the isoform abundance profiles of two of the three validated DTU genes changed radically. RATs identified 414 novel DTU events that are enriched for five GO terms, none of which are in common with those previously identified. Only 141 of the DTU evens are common between the two analyses, and only 8 are among the 248 reported by the original study. Furthermore, the original qRT-PCR probes no longer match uniquely to their original transcripts, calling into question the interpretation of these data. We suggest parallel full-length isoform sequencing, annotation pre-filtering and sequencing of the transcripts captured by qRT-PCR primers as possible ways to improve the validation of RNA-seq results in future experiments. Availability The package is available through Github at https://github.com/bartongroup/Rats.


The question of why some Wall Street AI applications are successful while others fail is explored. The Wall Street problem domain is modeled from a knowledge-based perspective, and the environment is represented from both an object-oriented view and a process view. Both models demonstrate the complexity inherent in formally defining the Wall Street environment. Analytic and cognitive models of the Wall Street environment are discussed, focusing on the shortcomings of each approach. The use of a new type of intelligent tool, called a collaborative system, that combines analytic models, human judgment, and cognitive models is proposed.<<ETX>>


An important information access problem arises when the user is confronted with a very large number of documents that have been retrieved in response to a query. In this paper we explore the use of a technique, called Scatter/Gather, for the navigation of large collections of retrieved documents. Scatter/Gather clusters the documents into semantically coherent groups on-the-fly and presents descriptive summaries of the groups to the user. These groups can be used in several ways: to identify useful subsets of documents to be perused with other tools, to eliminate subsets whose contents appear nonrelevant, or to select promising document subsets for reclustering into more refined groups. This paper describes the Scatter/Gather algorithm and illustrates its application to retrieval results via two examples.


This paper examines the institutional determinants of discipline in legislative parties. The model formalizes the tradeoff between resources at the leader's discretion, and the leader's need to maintain a minimum level of support to continue leading. The value of the leader's promises of future benefits is here endogenously determined by the backbenchers' beliefs about the extent of support to the leader among other party legislators. Rewards that can be distributed publicly and on the spot are effective tools to coordinate beliefs about the stability of the leader, and thus also increase the value of the leader's promises of future benefits. These spot resources are in fact necessary for the leader to be powerful: without them, the leader can use promises of future benefits to sway members' behavior only if a majority of the party agrees ( ex ante ) with the leader's preferred position in the first place.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] General Description Ontario is characterized by its large urban centers in the south, located beside or close to the Great Lakes, surrounded by rural, agricultural areas, and by less-populated areas in the northern part of the province. It contains 12.7 million of Canada's 32.6 million people and covers an area of just under 416,000 square miles. Canada's public elementary and secondary education is a provincial responsibility; there is no national education ministry. Ontario's publicly funded education system has over two million students. There are 1,400,000 elementary and 700,000 secondary students in over 5,000 schools of which 4,002 are elementary and 884 secondary. These schools are administered through 72 boards and 33 school authorities that serve remote or distinct communities. Ontario provides educational services through both public and Catholic schools and school boards. Students in Ontario have an entitlement to education in either of Canada's two official languages, English and French. There are English-language and French-language schools and district school boards. Ontario employs 114,200 teachers--72,200 elementary and 42,000 secondary. Education funding is second only to health care in its share of the Ontario budget. A common curriculum is used from Kindergarten through Grade 12 in the publicly funded education system. The curriculum details the knowledge and skills that students are expected to develop in each subject at each grade level. The government also established provincial standards for student performance at Grades 3, 6, 9, and 10. By defining the curriculum for use by all Ontario teachers, the Ministry sets standards for the entire province. In 1999 a reform unique to Ontario was implemented, the shortening of the secondary program from five years to four years, comprising Grades 9 to 12. Included with this reform was a Grade 10 literacy test that students must pass in order to graduate. Also required are 40 hours of community volunteering activities. Course Review--Year 1 Review process for courses is approximately a three-year process. In Year 1 there are initial consultations with all school boards, faculties of education, other ministries, associations that involve colleges and universities, workplace organizations, subject associations, parents, students, and other stakeholders. There is a technical analysis, literature search and content analysis, and benchmarking against other jurisdictions: Alberta, Australia, British Columbia, New Zealand, and Texas, FLEPPB (French Language Education Policy and Program Branch) and others. Summaries are compiled from all of the data gathered during analysis, then a report is compiled and used as a basis for recommendations for revision. A recommendations report is compiled in conjunction with FLEPPB and presented to the Ministry of Education for approval. A summer writing session is put in place focusing on addressing areas for improvement while maintaining the strengths of the document. Teams are composed of 50 writers from across the province, representing 29 school boards and 4 provincial subject associations (OCTE (Ontario Council for Technology Education), ECOO (Educational Computing Organization of Ontario), ACSE (Association of Computer Science Educators) and SSHEO (Secondary School Hospitality Educators of Ontario). Broad-Based Technologies (BBT) In the mid 90s there was a shift from specialized technology programs to Broad-Based Technologies. Initially, seven Broad-Based Technologies were introduced: Communications Technology, Construction Technology, Health and Personal Services, Hospitality and Tourism, Manufacturing Technology, Technological Design, and Transportation Technology. There was the ability to offer emphasis courses built into the offerings and the opportunity to offer multi-credit courses. A student could take up to three credits (330 hours) in one grade level for any BBT course. …


Electrical stimulation of deep brain structures is an established therapy for drug-resistant focal epilepsy. The emerging implantable neural sensing and stimulating (INSS) technology enables simultaneous delivery of chronic deep brain stimulation (DBS) and recording of electrical brain activity from deep brain structures while patients live in their home environment. Long-term intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) iEEG signals recorded by INSS devices represent an opportunity to investigate brain neurophysiology and how DBS affects neural circuits. However, novel algorithms and data processing pipelines need to be developed to facilitate research of these long-term iEEG signals. Early-stage analytical infrastructure development for INSS applications can be limited by lacking iEEG data that might not always be available. Here, we investigate the feasibility of utilizing the Deep Generative Adversarial Network (DCGAN) for synthetic iEEG data generation. We trained DCGAN using 3-second iEEG segments and validated synthetic iEEG usability by training a classification model, using synthetic iEEG only and providing a good classification performance on unseen real iEEG with an F1 score 0.849. Subsequently, we demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing the synthetic iEEG in the INSS application development by training a deep learning network for DBS artifact removal using synthetic data only and demonstrated the performance on real iEEG signals. The presented strategy of on-demand generating synthetic iEEG will benefit early-stage algorithm development for INSS applications.


The  company  indifferent  toward  working  environment  condition  will  have  impact  on  working motivation  of  employee.  The  research  objective  was  to  determine  the  effect  of  working  environment  on working motivation of employee either in partial or simultaneous manner. Respondents in this research were permanent employees of PT. PLN (Persero) covering South Sumatra, Jambi and Bengkulu Regions (WS2JB) branch of Palembang with magnitude of 129 employees. Proportional Random Sampling method was applied to  select  respondents  by  using  Slovin  formula  so  that  sample  numbers  was  56  respondents.  Data  analysis was conducted by using double regression analysis technique. The results showed that working environment consisting  of  physical  and  non-physical  working  environments  had  simultaneous  significant  effect  on working motivation of employee with magnitude of 84.216 (sig. 0.000). Non-physical working environment had more dominant effect on working motivation of employee with magnitude of 2.808 (sig. 0.010) than that of physical working environment with magnitude of 1.892 (sig. 0.041). Therefore, working environment had significant effect on working motivation of employee.  Keywords: Working Environment, Working Motivation


Proponents claim that the adoption of building information modeling BIM will lead to greater efficiencies through increased collaboration. In this paper, we present research that examines the use of BIM technologies for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire life safety systems often referred to as MEP coordination and how the introduction of BIM influences collaboration and communication. Using data from over 12 months of ethnographic observations of the MEP coordination process for two commercial construction projects and interviews with 65 industry leaders across the United States, we find that BIM-enabled projects are often tightly coupled technologi- cally, but divided organizationally. This means that while BIM makes visible the connections among project members, it is not fostering closer collaboration across different companies. We outline the competing obligations to scope, project, and company as one cause for this division. Obligations to an individual scope of work or to a particular company can conflict with project goals. Individual leadership, especially that of the MEP coordinator in the teams we studied, often substitutes for stronger project cohesion and organization. Organi- zational forces and structures must be accounted for in order for BIM to be implemented successfully.


Hydrological extremes regularly occur in all regions of the world and as such have large impacts on society. Floods and drought are the most severe hydrological extremes, in terms of their societal impact and potential economic damage. These events are amongst the most costly natural disasters, due to their often large spatial extent and high societal impact. The main objective of this thesis is: To reduce uncertainty in simulations, reanalysis, monitoring, forecasting and projections of hydrological extremes for large river basins. The first part of this thesis focusses on the uncertainty in hydrological simulation and short-term flood forecasting. I try to reduce the uncertainty in, (i) precipitation, (ii) historic hydrological simulations and state estimates and (iii) short term flood forecasting. Thereafter, I focus on the vagueness in drought terminology by studying the definitions that are used to identify and quantify drought. I present an intercomparison between frequently used drought indicators to study their differences and provide a solution to define drought under a changing climate. In the final part of the thesis, the hydrological drought projections are studied in more detail. Magnitude and directionality of changes in hydrological drought characteristics are largely unknown. I evaluated the impact of the climatology and catchment characteristics as well as the impact of human water use on future hydrological drought. The results from this thesis show that the inclusion of data assimilation, satellite data and model simulation is beneficial in the field of flood forecasting and hydrological modelling in general. This is shown by the results obtained in the first part of this thesis, where I successfully integrated different sources of observations to reduce uncertainty in hydrological model simulations. It was also proven in the second part of this work that there are multiple ways to identify drought events and that the impact of climate change on drought identification is significant. This impact of a changing climate contributes to the current vagueness in drought terminology and should be taken into account when studying the phenomena drought. Finally, I showed that the impact of climate change on future hydrological drought is highly dependent on the local climatology and the impact of human influence. This thesis showed that it is possible to reduce the uncertainty in the simulations of hydrological extremes by combining existing data, models and frameworks. These findings can bring major advances in the field of hydrological modelling to support monitoring and forecasting of hydrological extremes in large river basins.


A type of stable integrated couplers based on the twin-core fiber (TCF) is proposed and demonstrated. The integrated coupler is fabricated by heating a piece of TCF with the thermally diffused core technique. During the heating process, the dopant in the cores of the TCF will diffuse to the cladding which leads to expansion of the core mode fields. As a result, the optical power in the two cores can be coupled to each other. Because the external shape of the coupling region of the TCF coupler does not change, such type of couplers have high mechanical strength and stable responses to temperature, strain, and surrounding refractive index changes. The coupling characteristics between the cores of the thermally diffused TCF are theoretically analyzed and experimentally investigated. Results show that the coupler is almost stable when the temperature changed from 30 to 120 °C, the strain changed from <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0\;{{\mathbf \mu \varepsilon }}$</tex-math></inline-formula> to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1923\;{{\mathbf \mu \varepsilon }}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and the external refractive index ranged from 1.3435 to 1.3676.


Oxygen radicals are known to be produced by the cerebral vasculature during acute, pressor-induced hypertension and are also known to inactivate endothelium-derived relaxing factor. The objective of our present study was to determine if the oxygen radical scavenger superoxide dismutase (24,000 units/kg plus 1,600 units/kg/min) alters the pressor, cerebral blood flow, and mortality responses to systemic norepinephrine in rats. Increasing doses (0.01-30 micrograms/kg i.v.) of norepinephrine were given by bolus injection to eight rats, and changes in the cortical microcirculatory blood flow were measured by laser-Doppler flowmetry. Superoxide dismutase shifted the norepinephrine-blood pressure and -cerebral blood flow dose-response curves moderately, but significantly, to the right such that it took more norepinephrine to reach a given blood pressure. However, superoxide dismutase had no effect on the autoregulation of cerebral blood flow. Additionally, whereas five (63%) of the eight control rats died after the 10 micrograms/kg norepinephrine dose, all eight rats treated with superoxide dismutase survived this dose. The mechanism by which superoxide dismutase reduced mortality is uncertain. The blood pressure and cerebral blood flow results suggest that superoxide dismutase prevents oxygen radicals from destroying endothelium-derived relaxing factors, which reduce the pressor effects of norepinephrine.


This paper investigates engagement (E), alignment (A), and rigor (R) as vital signs of high-quality teacher instruction as measured by the EAR Classroom Visit Protocol, designed by the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE). Findings indicated that both school leaders and outside raters could learn to score the protocol with adequate reliability. Using observations of 33 English language arts (ELA) teachers and 25 mathematics teachers from four high schools, findings indicated that engagement, alignment, and rigor were all predictive of math and ELA standardized achievement test scores when controlling for the previous year's scores, although some of the associations were marginal. Students' self-reports of their engagement in school were also generally predictive of test scores in models that included perceived academic competence and observed engagement, alignment, or rigor. We discuss the importance of classroom engagement, alignment, and rigor as markers of instructional quality and the utility of the EAR Protocol as a means of assessing instructional quality.


Abstract:This article examines the relationships between austerity, debt and mood through a focus on temporality and the future. Its starting point is a poll, conducted in Britain in 2011, which showed an increase of pessimism about the future and led to suggestions that 'a new pessimism' had become the 'national mood'. Exploring this survey and other related examples, I ask whether and how pessimism about the future might be considered a mood characteristic of austerity in the UK, consider some of the implications of the future being imagined not as better but as diminished and, drawing on Berlant's concept of cruel optimism, propose a notion of hopeful pessimism. I explore the politics of pessimism about the future, focusing especially on the affects and emotions that some women and young people might feel. In these senses, I aim to turn around the focus of this special issue to inquire not so much about the future of austerity as about the kinds of futures that are imagined in the new age of austerity, and the affective experiences of such imaginations.


Nearly a quarter of all workers in the United States are currently in a job that requires an occupational license. As the prevalence of occupational licensing has grown, so have claims that its overuse is causing increased consumer costs and impairing labor mobility and economic freedom. To address these concerns, many policymakers and academics argue that licensing restrictions should be more closely tailored to the goal of protecting the public from harm and that, to guard against capture, practitioners should not regulate their own licensing. Federal courts, in turn, have drawn on this vision of the proper role of occupational licensing to significantly limit when and how licensing can be used through their interpretation of antitrust law and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

This Article takes a step back to argue that these critiques of occupational licensing, and the federal jurisprudence based on them, embrace a narrow view of the role of licensing in the economy that is grounded in both an embrace of economic libertarianism and an antagonism towards professional self-regulation. While this view generally recognizes licensing as justified to protect the public from harm in limited situations, it disregards a range of other values that occupational licensing has historically been viewed to promote. This Article draws on social science literature to categorize these other justifications as (1) fostering communities of knowledge and competence; (2) developing relationships of trust; and (3) buffering producers from the market.

The Article uses specific examples from the judiciary's occupational licensing jurisprudence to show how acknowledging this broader set of justifications should constrain the courts from imposing a narrow view of licensing's role in the economy. It ends by suggesting that if the federal government is to shape occupational licensing policy, Congress and the Executive are better placed than the judiciary to take the lead.


ABSTRACT The Safety and Tritium Applied Research (STAR) Facility has been established at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and is designated as a National User Facility. STAR is designed for use by the fusion community to study tritium science and technology issues associated with the development of fusion technology. The facility tritium inventory limit is 16,000 Ci, allowing several simultaneous experiments requiring hundreds to a few thousand Ci per experiment. Experiments are conducted in gloveboxes. Current plans include research on tritium interactions with plasma facing materials; tritium behavior, corrosion and safety studies for molten fluoride salts; chemical reactivity of fusion materials; mobilization of activation products and characterization of dust/debris from fusion devices.


The impact of culture on non-kin cooperation has been singled out as critical for economic activity. However, causal evidence of culture's influence on cooperation remains scant. In this paper we provide such evidence, focusing on two key components of culture: preferences and beliefs. Adopting the view that culture is one aspect of an individual's multi-faceted self-concept (identity) we conduct an experiment with foreign- and US-born Chinese immigrants at a large US public university. In a two-by-two design, we exogenously vary: i) the salience of participants' American or Chinese cultural identities; and ii) the capacity for culture to affect beliefs by randomly providing previous-session cooperation-rate information. Comparing behavior across cultures and information conditions, our results suggest a prominent role for both preferences and beliefs. In particular, we find that culture's effects through beliefs are as important as its effects through preferences.


This paper examines the efficiency gains from linking marginal Social Security benefits to marginal Social Security payroll taxes. In the U.S. the current combined employer-employee OASI payroll tax rate is 10.4 percent. Recent estimates suggest that the average marginal income tax rate is roughly 27 percent (Barro and Sahaskul (1983)). If marginal OASI payroll taxes provided no marginal Social Security benefits or were incorrectly perceived to provide nomarginal benefits, the effective marginal federal government taxation of labor supply would average roughly 38 percent. Since the efficiency costs of distortionary taxation rise as roughly the square of the tax rate, the Social Security payroll tax may be more than doubling the dead weight loss of labor income taxation.The findings of this paper suggest that there may be very significant efficiency gains available from tightening the connection between marginal Social Security taxes paid and marginal Social Security benefits received. Indeed,the simulated efficiency gains are very large in comparison with those obtained from analyses of the gains from structural tax reform. Restructuring Social Security to greatly enhance marginal benefit-tax linkage may be infeasible, at least in the short run. However, simply providing annual Social Security reports indicating how a worker's projected benefits are affected by his or her tax contributions could provide substantial increases in economic efficiency. Such efficiency gains are potentially as large as increasing GNP by 1 percent this year and every year in the future.


Easy to understand and fun to read, this, this engaging primer on the etiology and pathogenesis of human disease will help you develop a basic understanding of pathology that will set you on the path to a successful career in the health professions. Punctuated by humor, unique case studies that link pathology to real-world clinical applications, and absorbing tales from the history of medicine, this engaging book focuses on the patient as it guides you through the causes and consequences of common diseases. Written throughout to help you succeed in the course, this book will help you: read with purpose using Chapter Outlines that provide a handy chapter roadmap and Learning Objectives that alert you to specific material you need to master; develop clinical insight as you explore each chapter's opening real world Case Study (which include chief complaint, clinical history, physical examination, and clinical course) and chapter-ending Case Study Revisited, takes a second look at the case through the lens of the information presented in the chapter; fine tune your understanding of specific human disorders with full color illustrations and photographs that clarify key points. You can learn the key "rules" that determine why disease occurs and why it unfolds the way it does, with bulleted lists that summarize major disease determinants. You can develop insights into the patient side of disorders through The Clinical Side boxes. You can build your understanding of the molecular level of disease through easy-to-grasp discussions of simple molecular mechanisms in Molecular Medicine boxes. You can increase your mastery of essential points using the brief callouts in Case Notes, Pop Quiz questions and Remember This! features. You can evaluate your mastery of key topics with chapter-ending Chapter Challenge questions.


This course presents an in-depth exploration of the history of the Cold War, combining a variety of methodological approaches and focusing on the global dimensions of the Cold War as well as its multiple international, domestic, economic, and cultural imp


Holm, Helge Vidar. Moeurs de province: Essai d'analyse bakhtinienne de Madame Bovary. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. Pp. 266. ISBN: 978-3-0343-0453-5 Helge Vidar Holm's new study on Moeurs de province, the subtitle of what is likely to be considered Gustave Flaubert's best-known novel, Madame Bovary, is a refreshing addition to critical debate in the field of Flaubert Studies. Referencing numerous editions of the novel, Holm demonstrates that even though Flaubert insisted on using a subtitle for his work (he added it to the publisher's copy in his own hand), later editions of the novel continued mysteriously to omit it. Further, Holm affirms this absence in an informative section at the end of the text in which he reproduces the covers of several editions of Flaubert's novel, with and without the subtitle. To this end, it turns out that "Moeurs de Province" is much more than a Balzacien allusion to the local color of rural life, or an attempt to highlight the juxtaposition between Emma's desire to be a "grande dame" and her social station as wife of a poor country doctor. For Holm, this subtitle has a direct correlation with the language of the provinces and its impact on the novel. Drawing from Claude Duchet's observations on the signification of the subtitle in two different articles ("Discours social et texte italique dans Madame Bovary" in Langages de Flaubert (1976) and "Etranges moeurs de province" in Le magazine litteraire (2006)), Holm adds his own interpretive twist to the importance of Flaubert's choice of subtitle by approaching it through the work of Mikhail Bakhtine. Specifically, Holm utilizes Bakhtine's notion of dialogisme as a critical lens that highlights the metatextual dialog between Madame Bovary and Moeurs de Province, a unique perspective discernible from the very title of Holm's text that promotes for the first time the subtitle to a position similar to that of the title of the novel itself. For Holm, this change is paramount to his argument on the importance of the subtitle, which describes, as he states: "[...] l'importance cruciale des moeurs langagieres sur lesquelles le romancier normand fonde sa critique de la societe de l'epoque" (3). In this case, it is not just Emma's penchant for transposing the fictive onto the real that impedes her progress in society, but also the language she uses that is an integral part of her character, as well as of the novel itself. Dividing his study into three distinct parts: "Le texte dialogique," "Les dimensions axiologique et temporelle," and "Le destinataire," Holm guides his readers logically into what would otherwise present a labyrinth of nebulous critical perspectives from notable scholars, past and present, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Ricceur, Ferdinand de Saussure, Tzvetan Todorov, and many others. …


Case summary A 10-year-old boy presented with severe progressive generalised weakness on a background of 3 days of diarrhoea and vomiting. Vital signs were normal. Peripheral neurological examination revealed grade 1–2 power in all limbs, hypotonia and hyporeflexia. Sensation was fully intact. Cranial nerve examination and speech were normal. The ECG (figure 1) and initial venous blood gas (figure 2) are shown. Figure 1 ECG. Figure 2 Venous blood gas. Question 1 What abnormalities are present on the ECG? Peaked T waves, prolonged PR segment and loss of P waves? Shortening of the QT interval and Osborn waves (J waves)? T wave flattening/inversion, prominent U waves and long QU interval? Prolonged QT interval with multiple atrial and ventricular ectopics? Question 2 How would you manage this patient's hypokalaemia? Question 3 What is the likely diagnosis? Conversion disorder. Myasthenia gravis. Periodic paralysis. Guillain-Barré syndrome. Botulism. Question 4 What interventions can be considered for long-term treatment of this condition? Answers can be found on page 2.


The paper evaluated recommendations of the Nziramasanga Report as these recommendations relate to gender equity in education in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2010. A desk review design, in which several documents were perused, was adopted for the study. A gender mainstreaming and empowerment framework built on three critical pillars, that is, parity, equity and equality was utilised. The successes of the report's recommendations were based on the achievements of government and other gender equity stakeholders in formulating policies and strategies intended to bring about gender equity in the education sector. In this evaluation process, the paper revealed that a number of successes have been realised. These include the National Gender Policy and its Implementation Strategy. An amendment to the Education Act in 2004 was made with a view to addressing and promoting gender equity in Education. Gender parity in primary schools has been achieved whilst in secondary schools it is about to be achieved. However, at tertiary level, gender disparities in enrolment are still a challenge. 'Feminisation' of teacher education is now a reality as opportunities have been availed to female as well as male students to train as teachers. Engendering the curriculum is a process that has started. However teachers in the school system are not yet using gender responsive pedagogy, neither are textbooks used in schools all gender sensitive. Policies such as those allowing maternity and paternity leave for girls who fall pregnant and boys, who are responsible for impregnating these girls respectively, though meeting with a lot of resistance, are also an example of an implementation success. However, the school and the community still require gender sensitisation to handle issues of girl pregnancies in a more humane way. Other challenges include religion and culture as inhibitive factors for the girl child and Affirmative Action Policies not being strictly followed up. By and large successes have been scored and challenges have been encountered in the implementation of gender equity recommendations. However, a lot more could be done by both government and other gender equity stakeholders to ensure that there is equal access of both males and females to educational facilities, resources and provisions that the country offers.


In this paper, we employ a unique dataset of actual US dollar (USD) forward positions against a number of currencies taken by so-called Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). We investigate to what extent these positions exhibit a pattern of USD carry trading or other patterns of currency trading over the recent period of the ultra-loose US monetary policy. Our analysis indeed shows that USD positions against emerging market currencies are characterised by a pattern of carry trading. That is, the USD, as the lower yielding currency, is associated with short positions. The payoff distributions of these positions, moreover, are found to have positive Sharpe ratios, negative skewness and high kurtosis. On the other hand, we find that USD positions against other advanced country currencies have a pattern completely opposite to carry trading which is in line with uncovered interest parity trading; that is, the lower (higher) yielding currency is associated with long (short) positions.


The purpose of this thesis was to study health professionals' views and practice in relation to overweight and obesity. In particular, the aims were: to explore the key cognitions of health professionals, with a view to describing their obesity stereotype and related attitudes;
to explore the same cognitions among dieters; to compare and contrast the views of health professionals and dieters; to explore the relationship between health professionals'
cognitions and practices; and to investigate the way in which health professionals' practice may be improved. Four studies were undertaken. The first was a survey of health
professionals' views of overweight and obese people, compared to their views of smokers. In an independent, factorial design, participants responded to questions about moderately or extremely overweight people, or moderate or heavy smokers. Two hundred and fifty-five health professionals took part. Health professionals' beliefs and attitudes were mixed, but of the four groups, attitudes towards obese people were most negative. The obesity
stereotype appeared to be differentiated from the overweight stereotype by perceptions of reduced self-esteem, sexual attractiveness and health.

The second study examined dieters' cognitions of overweight and obesity. In another independent, factorial design, dieters' views about moderately or extremely overweight
people were examined as a function of their own body weight (normal weight, moderately and extremely overweight). Two hundred and three people participated. The findings
showed that dieters of different body weights had the same kinds of cognitions about both overweight and obese people. The key cognitions underpinning the overweight stereotype
among dieters were that mood-related factors were viewed as important in causing overweight, and that overweight people were seen as ordinary people, but with reduced
self-esteem, sexual attractiveness and health. A direct comparison of health professionals' and dieters' responses was undertaken using data from Studies 1 and 2. There were many similarities in the perceptions of the two groups, but dieters tended to have slightly more traditional views of the causes of overweight (mood, lack of willpower) and the
responsibilities of overweight people. The pattern of attitudes for both groups was mixed, but health professionals' responses were more likely than dieters' to be influenced by the level of severity of the weight problem.

The third study explored the relationship between cognitions and practices among 187 dietitians. Respondents' views of overweight were similar to those of the health
professionals in the first study. In addition, belief that a lack of willpower was important in causing obesity (but not general attitudes or beliefs about responsibility) was associated with a number of reported practice choices.

The final study investigated strategies for improving health professionals' management of obesity and the delivery of health care for overweight and obese people, through a systematic review of the evidence. Twelve studies were included, but due to the limited quality of many of the studies, there is currently very little information on how obesity practice may be improved and whether this will result in improved outcomes for patients.

Overall, the findings indicate that cognitions about overweight and obese people were mixed. Although some negative perceptions may exist among health professionals, these may be less negative than previously documented. Significant level effects among health professionals suggest that where they exist, they are more likely to be directed at obese people than moderately overweight people. As obese people are at a greater health risk, the implications for improving practice need to be explored in detail. The findings of the systematic review suggest that where practice does need to be improved, currently very
little is known about what strategies may be effective.


Unemployment is not only an economic concern but also a political, social and ethical challenge that National Development Plan (NDP)' s vision 2030 aims to abate through its strategy for full employment. The NDP vision 2030 was so huge that it arguably undermined a major sector in employment creation in developing countries: the informal sector.1 The NDP is debatably unable to foster a viable alternative to joblessness that will decline the current dimension of unemployed labour force, the low-skilled labour. Joblessness in South Africa is highly linked to the level of skills or educational qualification at one's disposal. This means that the bulge of unemployment, in general, is within those with less formal education qualifications. According to World Bank statistics, the bulk of unemployment in South Africa has been among the primary and secondary education leavers. This paper argues that the NDP 2030 undermined the impact of informal economic activities such as skills acquisition to uplift people out of poverty and unemployment.


This paper presents a Rao-Blackwellized mixed state particle filter for joint head tracking and pose estimation. Rao-Blackwellizing a particle filter consists of marginalizing some of the variables of the state space in order to exactly compute their posterior probability density function. Marginalizing variables reduces the dimension of the configuration space and makes the particle filter more efficient and requires a lower number of particles. Experiments were conducted on our head pose ground truth video database consisting of people engaged in meeting discussions. Results from these experiments demonstrated benefits of the Rao-Blackwellized particle filter model with fewer particles over the mixed state particle filter model.


The beta sliding clamp encircles the primer-template and tethers DNA polymerase III holoenzyme to DNA for processive replication of the Escherichia coli genome. The clamp is formed via hydrophobic and ionic interactions between two semicircular beta monomers. This report demonstrates that the beta dimer is a stable closed ring and is not monomerized when the gamma complex clamp loader (gamma(3)delta(1)delta(1)chi(1)psi(1)) assembles the beta ring around DNA. delta is the subunit of the gamma complex that binds beta and opens the ring; it also does not appear to monomerize beta. Point mutations were introduced at the beta dimer interface to test its structural integrity and gain insight into its interaction with delta. Mutation of two residues at the dimer interface of beta, I272A/L273A, yields a stable beta monomer. We find that delta binds the beta monomer mutant at least 50-fold tighter than the beta dimer. These findings suggest that when delta interacts with the beta clamp, it binds one beta subunit with high affinity and utilizes some of that binding energy to perform work on the dimeric clamp, probably cracking one dimer interface open.


We show with DFT calculations that hydroxyl formation on anatase TiO2 from dissociation of water molecules is strongly enhanced by a nanostructured state of the oxide, involving the occurrence of complexes consisting of undercoordinated 4-fold Ti-2-fold O pairs. Our study of ridges delimited by anatase TiO2 (101) surfaces of different orientations shows that hydroxyl formation is significantly increased by the high acidity/basicity combination of these Ti-4c-O-2c pairs located on the ridges and by a stabilization effect associated with chemical bonds of the hydrogen atoms. This is at variance with the cases of the ideal (101) surface and of a ridge with 5-fold coordinated Ti atoms, where water adsorption is molecular. We demonstrate that these pairs of undercoordinated atoms on ridge edges have a particularly strong reactivity, and we propose that they play a major role in the observed high chemical activity of TiO2 nanosystems.


[1] Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) version 2.2 (V2.2) and CloudSat R04 (release 4) ice water content (IWC) and partial-column ice water path (pIWP) measurements are analyzed and compared to other correlative data sets. The MLS IWC, representing an average over ∼300 × 7 × 4 km3 volume, is retrieved at 215–268 hPa with precision varying between 0.06 and 1 mg/m3. The MLS pIWP products, representing the partial columns over ∼100 × 7 km2 area with the bottom at ∼8, ∼6, and ∼11 km for 115, 240, and 640 GHz, have estimated precisions of 5, 1.5, and 0.8 g/m2, respectively. CloudSat, on the other hand, shows a minimum detectable sensitivity of −31 dBZ in the reflectivity measurement at 94 GHz. CloudSat IWC is an average over ∼1.8 × 1.4 × 0.5 km3 volume, and its precision varies from 0.4 mg/m3 at 8 km to 1.6 mg/m3 at 12 km. The estimated single-profile precision for CloudSat IWP is ∼9 g/m2. However, these measurements are associated with relatively large systematic error, mostly due to uncertainties in the retrieval assumptions about microphysics, which lead to relatively poor accuracy compared to measurement precision. To characterize systematic differences among various observations and those derived from models, we employ the normalized probability density function (pdf) in the comparisons. CloudSat IWC shows generally consistent slopes of pdf distribution with in situ observations, particularly at ∼12 km where the in situ data come mostly from long-leg flights. Despite similar IWC morphology found between MLS and CloudSat observations, CloudSat R04 IWC retrieval is higher compared to MLS, especially at 14–17 km where the MLS technique is not limited by sensitivity saturation. The MLS and CloudSat IWC pdf's agree well in the overlapped sensitivity range with relative difference 500 g/m2.


Novel copper complex based initiating systems for redox free radical polymerization (FRP) of methacrylate resins under mild conditions are proposed. Remarkably, the FRP performance of the Cu(I)/ascorbic acid (Vitamin C – VitC)/benzoyl peroxide (BPO) redox system is noticeably more significant than that of the amine/BPO reference especially at the top surface where the oxygen inhibition is particularly deleterious. The Cu(I)/BPO interaction leads to a decomposition of the peroxide and generates a benzoyl radical and Cu(II) as a byproduct. The ascorbic acid acts as a reducing agent and allows the regeneration of Cu(I) from Cu(II). Hydroperoxides formed at the surface through the radical/O2 interaction are also decomposed by the new proposed Cu complex leading to additional polymerization initiating species. The structure/reactivity relationship of the new proposed Cu(I) complexes in the Cu(I)/VitC/BPO systems is studied. The use of Cu(I)/VitC/BPO/iodonium salt systems in redox photoactivated FRP is also explored.


The application of poultry litter to agricultural land has become a topic of interest for policy makers due to public concern about its effects on water quality. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) version 2005 is designed to assess nonpoint and point sources of pollution. In this study, six subwatersheds in Texas (HUC-8; 12070101) are used to evaluate the model's ability to simulate water quality at a small scale. Each of these subwatersheds randomly received poultry litter rates of 0.0 to 13.4 Mg ha -1 . Monthly and daily data from 2002 were used for calibration purposes, while 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004 were used for validation. The SCS runoff curve number for moisture condition II (CN2) and the soil evaporation compensation factor (ESCO) parameters were found to be more sensitive than the surface runoff lag time (SURLAG) and initial soil water content expressed as a fraction of field capacity (FFCB). The monthly and daily runoff model simulations for the six subwatersheds resulted in calibration Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) values of 0.59 and 0.53 and validation NSE values 0.82 and 0.80, respectively. The monthly and daily R 2 runoff values for the six subwatersheds resulted in calibration values of at least 0.60 and 0.53 and validation R 2 values of 0.86 and 0.81, respectively. The observed trends included SWAT's overestimation of runoff in the dry periods and underestimation in the wet periods. The monthly NSE and R 2 values for sediment and nutrient losses were generally above 0.4 and 0.5, respectively. Paired t-tests for the monthly manually adjusted parameter simulation of sediment, organic N and P, NO3-N, and soluble P for the 2000-2004 period losses showed that their respective SWAT means were not significantly different from the measured values ( = 0.05), except for NO3-N losses for the Y10 subwatershed (p-value 0.042). The control subwatershed's measured and simulated water quality results were significantly different ( = 0.05) from the treated subwatersheds, most likely due to the amount of inorganic N present. Almost all of the subwatersheds that had poultry litter applied resulted in higher sediment, organic N, organic P, and soluble P losses than the control subwatershed upon averaging the monthly validation values. High NO3-N losses may have been a function of poultry litter and commercial fertilizers being applied before a large rainfall event occurred. The subwatersheds that received smaller amounts of commercial fertilizer and/or poultry litter lost more sediment, organic N, and organic P than the subwatersheds that received the higher litter and/or fertilizer treatments. Overall, the SWAT simulated the hydrology and the water quality constituents at the subwatershed scale more adequately when all of the data were used to simulate the model, as evidenced by statistical measures.


An attempt to achieve a high level of interaction between a real-time vision system capable of tracking moving objects in 3-D and a robot arm with gripper that can be used to pick up a moving object is described. The interplay of hand-eye coordination in dynamic grasping tasks such as grasping of parts on a moving conveyor system, assembly of articulated parts, or for grasping from a mobile robotic system is explored. The goal is to build an integrated sensing and actuation system that can operate in dynamic as opposed to static environments. The system built addresses three distinct problems in using robotic hand-eye coordination for grasping moving objects: fast computation of 3-D motion parameters from vision, predictive control of a moving robotic arm to track a moving object, and interception and grasping. The system operates at approximately human arm movement rates. Experimental results in which a moving model train is tracked, stably grasped, and picked up by the system are presented. The algorithms developed to relate sensing to actuation are quite general and applicable to a variety of complex robotic tasks. >


These essays examine issues across the wide arc of Faulkner's extraordinary career, from his aesthetic apprenticeship in the visual arts, to late-career engagements with the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and beyond, to the place of death in his artistic vision and the long, varied afterlives he and his writings have enjoyed in literature and popular culture. Contributors deliver stimulating reassessments of Faulkner's first novel, Soldiers' Pay; his final novel, The Reivers; and much of the important work between. Scholars explore how a broad range of elite and lowbrow cultural forms--plantation diaries, phonograph records, pulp magazines--shaped Faulkner's capacious imagination and how his works were translated into such media as film and modern dance. Essays place Faulkner's writings in dialogue with those of such fellow twentieth-century authors as W. E. B. Du Bois, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Hall, and Jayne Anne Phillips; locate his work in relation to African American intellectual currents and Global South artistic traditions; and weigh the rewards as well as the risks of dislodging Faulkner from the canonical position he currently occupies. While Faulkner studies has cultivated an image of the novelist as a neglected genius who toiled in obscurity, a look back fifty years to the final months of the author's life reveals a widely traveled and celebrated artist whose significance was framed in national and international as well as regional terms. Fifty Years after Faulkner bears out that expansive view, reintroducing us to a writer whose work retains its ability to provoke, intrigue, and surprise a variety of readerships.


The use of computer-generated holograms to display three-dimensional images is suggested. To simplify the calculation of the hologram, the parallax in the vertical direction is eliminated where a projection of the object onto the hologram plane is performed. The synthesis of the horizontal parallax involves one-dimensional transforms. This procedure reduces computer-memory requirements and permits a high-speed generation.


Islanding detection is a very essential function for a photovoltaic grid-connected system. Islanding phenomenons not only damage to equipment, but also endanger to the safety of the maintenance personnel. Passive islanding detection methods that use alone have considerable non-detection zone (NDZ); active islanding detection methods that use alone are that join disturbance to system, but the disturbance will cause system instability [1]. In this paper, an over/under voltage and over/under frequency detection method combines with an improved active power perturbation detection method are proposed. The photovoltaic system can be reduced non-detection zone (NDZ) with improved the power quality and reduced the total harmonic distortion (THD) through this method.


Maternity care in the United States is in a state of crisis, characterized by high cesarean rates, poor performance on various mortality and morbidity measures, and a steep price tag. There are many factors that impede access to high-quality, evidence-based maternity care for certain women. Grassroots organizers have raised awareness about the extent to which giving birth in the United States has become overly medicalized. Perhaps less widely known, however, is the extent to which women experience abuse, coercion, and disre spect while giving birth. Inspired by activists in Latin America, advocates in the United States have begun to adopt the language of "obstetric violence" to describe and condemn such mistreatment. However, the existing research on obstetric violence is limited, which complicates the task of defining the problem and identifying solutions. To that end, this Article explores the profound mistreatment that some women experience during childbirth at the hands of their health care providers. It identifies various types of provider behavior that qualify as obstetric violence and paints a broad picture of how childbirth can be a damaging experience for some women, even when they leave the hospital with a healthy baby. Having developed a nuanced view of provider mistreatment and its implications, this Article then examines the current failure of law and regulation to provide meaningful prevention or recourse. It concludes by suggesting forms of advo cacy within the legal and health care systems that offer promising approaches to shifting maternity care culture and, ultimately, to securing necessary changes in the tort system for women harmed by provider mistreatment during childbirth.


This thesis is about infancy, independence, and how
medicalisation shapes mothers' perceptions of their
infants. It draws on ethnographic research in Cardiff,
undertaken during a period of heightened concern about the
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and funded by the
Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.
Three "cultural constructions" of infancy are juxtaposed:
the vulnerable and constantly accompanied Bangladeshi
infant, the Welsh or English infant encouraged towards
independence, and the autonomous infant of epidemiological
analysis.
The thesis shows how the processes of medicalisation
brought contrasting perceptions of infancy to light,
suggesting that Bangladeshi women taking part in an
"English for Pregnancy" project were not only learning
language, but also learning about medicalised infant care.
It argues too that health professionals shape the way in
which mothers perceive their infants through the
introduction of the language of "risk factors".
The infant body itself emerged at the boundary of powerful
systems of meaning. If the boundaries of the Bangladeshi
infant body were blurred through constant contact, those of
the Welsh or English infant were marked intermittently
through alternating periods of solitude with "attention".
Some Welsh and English mothers spoke of infants and their
care in terms of the care of domestic animals, and the
mothers' own ambivalence about their own animality, while
some Bangladeshi mothers spoke of the spiritual power and
vulnerability of infants, and in doing so articulated their
links with Bangladesh. For health professionals the
infant body was a site for demonstrating expertise through
both research (which constructed ethnic minorities as
'natural') and recommendations for action.
The thesis discusses the location of contemporary
anthropology at cultural boundaries. Juxtaposing
contrasting beliefs about infancy revealed very different
perceptions of independence, marked in particular by
contrasting perceptions of time, space, and the infant body
itself.


Decline in immune response is a well-documented age-associated biological change. Protein-bound polysaccharides (PSP) are biological response modifiers and have been shown to have immunoenhancing and antitumor effects. This study was conducted to examine the effect of dietary supplementation with PSP-containing extract derived from mycelia of Coriolus versicolor on in vitro and in vivo indices of immune function of young and old mice. Young (5 mo) and old (23 mo) C57BL/6NIA mice were fed purified diets containing 0, 0.1, 0.5 or 1.0% PSP for 1 mo at which time indices of immune function were measured. PSP supplementation had no significant effect on mitogenic response to concanavalin A (Con A), phytohemagglutinin (PHA) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), or on production of interleukin (IL)-1, IL-2, IL- 4 and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). Of the in vivo indices of immune function tested, old mice fed 1.0% PSP had significantly higher delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response than those fed 0% PSP. No significant effect of PSP was observed on the DTH response of young mice. The antibody response to sheep red blood cells was not significantly influenced by PSP in young or old mice. These results suggest that PSP-containing extract from mycelia of Coriolus versicolor might have a modest immunoenhancing effect in aged mice, but not in young mice.


Tinnitus and dizziness are symptoms of acute mountain sickness. We investigated the mechanism by which high altitude (i.e. hypobaric hypoxia) affects inner ear function by measuring transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) under conditions of normobaric normoxia (1,013 hPa; 760 mm Hg) and hypobaric hypoxia (540 hPa; 405 mm Hg). The possibility that air pressure effects on the eustachian tube impacted our findings was excluded by the use of tympanograms. The nonphysiological effects of hypobaric hypoxia on TEOAE and DPOAE were also assessed using an ear simulator. Under conditions of hypobaric hypoxia, both TEOAE and DPOAE levels were reduced. The amount of reduction that occurred was approximately 4 dB in the total echo power and signal-to-noise ratio of the TEOAE, and in the 2f1 – f2 element level of the DPOAE. Stimulus levels that were measured using an ear simulator were also reduced by approximately 4 dB under conditions of hypobaric hypoxia. These results do not indicate that stimulus levels affected TEOAE and DPOAE levels because these levels were actually only slightly affected by changes in the stimulus level. Instead, this reduction was likely due to the nonphysiological hypobaric effects of the sound pressure emitted from the tympanic membrane. We conclude that the impact of hypobaric hypoxia on cochlear function was negligible up to pressures of 540 hPa.


How harmful are phthalates? DEHP: It is considered one of the most toxic phthalates and has been banned in toys in several countries. Exposure to it via house dust is known to cause asthma and allergy in children. In mammals it has been found to interfere with male and female reproductive systems such as early development of testes. It has also been found responsible for poor semen quality, genital defects and premature breast development in humans, and reduced testosterone in male rats. Exposure to DEHP during pregnancy has also been linked to pre-term birth in human beings.


Seafood is an increasingly important source of sustenance as it provides an energy efficient, low environmental impact source of protein. New innovations and techniques have improved fishing efficiency and scale, making seafood relatively inexpensive to catch. However, this increase in volume has consequently generated a growing global concern about the environmental impacts of seafood production and harvesting. The resulting increase in seafood demand was matched by an inverse decrease in fish stock. For example, tuna has decreased in global population by 80% since 1970, and is decimated by severe overfishing. In order to educate consumers about the environmental effects of production and consumption of seafood and its environmental global effects, eco-labeling agencies began to brand exclusive product that meet specific requirements. Through our research, we aimed to evaluate the premium that consumers are willing to pay for eco-labeled seafood product. More specifically, we sought to evaluate how consumer education level, income, proximity to ocean, as well as preferences with regard to local produce effect consumers choices towards consuming local and sustainable seafood. Our survey results indicated that people who have "lower education" are willing to pay more for locally caught seafood than those who have "higher education" but are willing to pay less for sustainable seafood than those with "higher education", people are willing to pay more for locally caught seafood the closer they live to the ocean, individuals with higher income are willing to pay more for both sustainability and locally caught seafood, and lastly consumers who "Often or Always" consume sustainable local produce were more likely to prefer local and sustainable seafood.


This thesis work is concerned with the design and performance analysis of purely textile antenna for wireless applications. The materials used for radiating element, ground plane and dielectric substrate are purely textile. Two types of antennas are studied, the microstrip patch antenna and RFID tag antenna. Each type of antenna is designed and fabricated using two different conductive textile materials as radiating element. The radiating element and ground plane of conventional printed antenna is manufactured with the metal plating on a solid dielectric substrate. The radiating element which is used in this thesis work has different characteristics as compared to printed antenna because it is made of conductive textile material which is less conductive than metal and elastic in nature. Each conductive textile material has different surface resistivity. The study has been made to analyze the effect on gain and radiation efficiency of the antenna when different conductive textile material is used as the radiating element. The measured results of the fabricated antennas present the full potential of conductive textile materials to be used as an antenna.


What exactly is a children's book? How is children's literature defined as a genre? A leading scholar presents close readings of six classic stories to answer these questions and offer a clear definition of children's writing as a distinct literary form. Perry Nodelman begins by considering the plots, themes, and structures of six works: "The Purple Jar," Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Doolittle, Henry Huggins, The Snowy Day, and Plain City-all written for young people of varying ages in different times and places-to identify shared characteristics. He points out markers in each work that allow the adult reader to understand it as a children's story, shedding light on ingrained adult assumptions and revealing the ways in which adult knowledge and experience remain hidden in apparently simple and innocent texts. Nodelman then engages a wide range of views of children's literature from authors, literary critics, cultural theorists, and specialists in education and information sciences. Through this informed dialogue, Nodelman develops a comprehensive theory of children's literature, exploring its commonalities and shared themes. The Hidden Adult is a focused and sophisticated analysis of children's literature and a major contribution to the theory and criticism of the genre.


A review of:

Lambert, Frank. "Assessing the Authoritativeness of Canadian and American Health Documents: A Comparative Analysis Using Informetric Methodologies." Government Information Quarterly 22.2 (2005): 277-96.

Objective - To assess by means of citation analysis whether the public trust afforded health documents published by the Canadian and U.S. governments is appropriate, and to ascertain whether differences in the respective health care systems influence how publications are produced.

Design – Comparative study.

Setting – The Canadian Depository Service Program (DSP) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) web sites.

Subjects – One hundred sixty-six electronic documents sourced from the DSP website, and 284 electronic documents sourced from the DHHS website.
Methods – Subjects were randomly selected from repositories offering the most comprehensive collections. Documents with evidence of references to other works used in preparation were separated from those without such characteristics. Data variables were collected from documents with evidence of references. Statistical analysis of the data was undertaken.
Main results – Of the respective samples, 89 (53%) from the DSP and 109 (38.4%) from the DHHS contained references. Personal authors were identified in 46 (51.7%) and 63 (58%) of the respective subsets. Handbooks and guidebooks accounted for the largest portion of the DSP subset (29; 32.6%) and government periodicals were the largest constituent of the DHHS subset (41; 37.6%). Scholarly journals were the most common reference type for both the DSP (44%) and the DHHS (58.5%) subsets. The number of references per document was widely dispersed for both subsets; the DSP mean was approximately 64 (SD=114.68) and the DHHS was 73.71 (SD=168.85). Kruskal-Wallis subset analysis of median number of references by document type found differences generalizable to the entire DSP and DHHS populations. Health Canada Reports, handbooks, and guidebooks contained significantly more references than periodical articles or fact sheets. Certain DHSS documents, classified as "other," contained more references than periodical articles. Canadian documents were more likely to contain references than U.S. documents. Comparison of documents to determine whether one country employs more rigorous citation practices did not produce statistically significant results. U.S. Federal Government documents are more likely to be referenced in other U.S. government health documents, compared to Canadian publications. The presence of references in documents from either country significantly affected likelihood of being cited by web authors.
Conclusion – Significant differences in reference use frequencies between DSP and DHHS documents challenges Foskett's stance that documents of value contain references (Foskett). Use of peer-reviewed scholarly journals for both DSP and DHHS publications was reassuring, suggesting a fairly rigorous publication standard. Reliance of DHHS publications upon federal government documents remains unclear. Referencing of DSP documents, irrespective of reference usage suggests a level of trust towards Canadian government health publications. Web authors appear more comfortable citing referenced DHHS documents. Further study could involve the examination of reference frequency by journal compared against journal impact factors.


We report on nighttime airglow imaging observations of the low latitude ionosphere by means of a 630-m all-sky imager installed in March 2006 at Yonaguni, Japan (24.5°N, 123.0°E; 14.6°N geomagnetic), about 100 km east of Taiwan. The imager detected medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) for about 7 hours on the night of 26 May 2006. A dense GPS network in Japan also observed the same MSTID event on this night. The imager and GEONET data indicate that most of the MSTIDs propagated southwestward from the north of Japan to the south of Yonaguni and Taiwan over 4000 km, with a southern limit of 19°N (geomagnetic latitude 9°N) or lower On the night of 10 November 2006, the imager observed two weak emission bands that were embedded on the F-region anomaly crest to the south of Yonaguni. The simultaneous electron density profiles from the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission demonstrate that the weak emission bands are due to density depletions in equatorial plasma bubbles. These case studies suggest that the Yonaguni imager in collaboration with other instruments is very suitable for the study of ionospheric disturbances in and around the northern F-region anomaly crest.


InGaN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on c-plane sapphire substrates. The growth of InGaN is carried out at 550 °C with a large V/III ratio to counteract the low efficiency of NH3 at that temperature and to promote the two-dimensional mode of growth. An In composition of 16%±2% was determined by high-resolution x-ray diffraction experiments. Room-temperature photoluminescence of InGaN/GaN single QWs can be obtained over the whole visible spectrum (from 0.4 to 0.66 μm) by varying the well thickness from 1 to 5 nm. These heterostructures exhibit very large Stokes shifts between the emission and the absorption edge energies.