This article first investigates historical trends in both the practice and the understanding of consultation, considering the often contrasting perspectives of architects and designers, compared to teachers and educationalists. Differing assumptions held by these two broad groups of professionals can lead to conflicting aims and objectives for school buildings, even where there is determination to communicate effectively and find common ground. Our exploration of this issue will centre on the potential contribution of users of the educational environment and, in particular, what happens to the student perspective. Consultation over school buildings has tended in the past to centre on educators, and so miss out direct involvement of students (Woolner et al., 2005). However, there is increasing conviction that children should participate in decision-making (Burke and Grosvenor, 2003; Clark et al., 2003), including about school-design (DfES, 2002), and methods are being developed to do this (Wall and Higgins, 2006). The historical analysis will bring us to a point where, using the example of one school, the consultation procedure in practice can be reflected on. This will form the second element of the article, exploring consultation within the modern context of participatory school design and student voice. The experiences of a school undergoing redesign of a classroom space will be discussed in light of the dichotomy previously established, the perspective of architecture in contrast to that of education. The role of the child's view in influencing design solutions will be considered, together with the consequences for teaching and learning, consultation procedures and the re-design of school buildings.


This paper develops a novel framework for semantic image retrieval based on the notion of a scene graph. Our scene graphs represent objects ("man", "boat"), attributes of objects ("boat is white") and relationships between objects ("man standing on boat"). We use these scene graphs as queries to retrieve semantically related images. To this end, we design a conditional random field model that reasons about possible groundings of scene graphs to test images. The likelihoods of these groundings are used as ranking scores for retrieval. We introduce a novel dataset of 5,000 human-generated scene graphs grounded to images and use this dataset to evaluate our method for image retrieval. In particular, we evaluate retrieval using full scene graphs and small scene subgraphs, and show that our method outperforms retrieval methods that use only objects or low-level image features. In addition, we show that our full model can be used to improve object localization compared to baseline methods.


Until the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Kabye country, some heads of enemies – those of men foreign to the group – were buried in a mound of earth referred to as hude, meaning 'manure'. In each locality, this mound is situated inside a wooded sanctuary where the spirit of the mythical founding ancestor resides. In order to understand this practice, this article examines how it fitted within the overall logic of the male initiation cycle, contextualising it in relation to past and present practices. Because it was a highly ambivalent element of the bush, the head of an enemy renewed the generative power of this original 'manure' prodigiously, so as to ensure the group's survival in their land. The burial of the heads of strangers appears to be an initiatory variant of other forms of mastery of the ambivalence of wild forces, entrusted in other African societies to the chief and his waste heap.


In commercial fisheries, stock collapse is an intrinsic problem caused by overexploitation or due to pure stochasticity. To analyze the risk of stock collapse, we apply a relatively simple Monte Carlo approach which can capture complex stock dynamics. We use an economic model with downward sloping demand and stock dependent costs. First, we derive an optimal exploitation policy as a feedback control rule and analyze the effects of stochasticity. We observe that the stochastic solution is more conservative compared to the deterministic solution at low level of stochasticity. For moderate level of stochasticity, a more myopic exploitation is optimal at small stock and conservative at large stock level. For relatively high stochasticity, one should be myopic in exploitation. Then, we simulate the system forward in time with the optimal solution. In simulated paths, some stock recovered while others collapsed. From the simulation approach, we estimate the probability of stock collapse and characterize the long term stable region.


This thesis attempts to disrupt the boundaries of how we think about organisation and
embodiment. From an investigation into five organisational regimes of Western public
health, it argues that the body is a problem for organisation. The body does not come
ready organised, but is a nonorganisational, messy and carnal matter of flesh and
blood, pains and pleasures, habits and desires. Although modem discourses and
institutions seek to organise how we live with our bodies in everyday life, they never
do so fully and completely. Bodies are powerful, creative and unpredictable and
disrupt the boundaries of organisation.
Asking how organisation theory deals with the problem of the body, the thesis seeks
to take the discipline further by developing an approach to how it should deal with the
body, and by identifying what implications this might have for our thinking about
organisation. Utilising the conceptualist philosophy of Canguilhem, Foucault and
Deleuze, this is done by analysing the concept of "organisation" and the concept of
the "body" across organisation theory and related fields.
Five ways of dealing with the body are identified: (i) not dealing with it at all, which
is mostly the case with mainstream research on formal organisations and more radical
research on organisational processes; (ii) reducing the body to an organismic
metaphor, which is what much classical and some contemporary mainstream research
does; (iii) studying how embodiment enables the successful management of formal
organisations; (iv) studying how bodies are organised within and without formal
organisations; and (v) studying nonorganisational embodiment, i.e. how bodies
disrupt and exist independently of organisation. Whereas the third and fourth themes
have been investigated in some organisation theory, little attempt has been made to
think about nonorganisational embodiment. Using material in Deleuze, Foucault,
feminism and current organisation theory, this thesis appreciates the ways in which
bodies disrupt the boundaries of organisation and the ways in which bodies live under
the conditions imposed by these boundaries. From this perspective, organisation is
less powerful, less stable and more fragile than we often think, and bodies are more
powerful, more dynamic and more creative.
This conceptualist interest in organisation, nonorganisation and the body gives rise to
a theory and philosophy of organisation that might provide the underpinnings of a
radical approach to everyday problems of organisation and embodiment, such as
aesthetic labour and impression management; virtual organisations; culture,
subcultures and resistance at work and in public space; health and safety; and gender,
race and sexuality.


One-Health studies applying massive-parallel and single-molecule sequencing are a suitable approximation to try to understand how antibiotic resistances flow between the human-animal-environment scenario. Colistin has been withdrawn in human medicine due to its toxicity, limiting its usage as a last-resort treatment option for multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. However, it is still used orally to treat Enterobacteriaceae infections in veterinary medicine. Since 2015, colistin resistance appeared to be located in mobile genetic elements, raising the concern of the likelihood of transmission by horizontal gene transfer between animals and humans. In this study, 202 faecal samples were collected in a mixed farm from pigs, calves, and the farmer. PCR for the mcr-1 gene was positive for 18 of the isolates, and Nanopore sequencing allowed us to determine the location of the gene, either on the chromosome or in plasmids. Three types of replicons were found within the positive isolates harbouring the mcr-1: IncX4, IncI2, and IncHI2. Four different genetic contexts probably indicate different stages of gene stabilization, either in the chromosome or plasmid, with ISApl1 as the main insertion element flanking the gene. Moreover, 43 other resistance genes were found in our samples, related to more than six different antibiotic families (e.g. aminoglycosides, lincosamides, beta-lactams, macrolides, trimethoprim, phenicols, and sulphonamides). We found resistance genes against colistin and that six antibiotic families together in at least one of the isolates from human, swine, and bovine. Isolate 15B-22 harboured one plasmid with seven resistance genes related to four families of antibiotics other than polymyxins, meaning that there are more chances to maintain colistin resistance even with the withdrawn of colistin. Nanopore long reads allowed us to assemble the DNA elements within the isolates easily and determine the genetic context of the mcr-1 gene. Furthermore, they allowed us to describe and locate more antimicrobial resistance genes to other antibiotic families and antiseptic compounds.


An outstanding piece of scholarship and a fascinating read, The Body Emblazoned is a compelling study of the culture of dissection the English Renaissance, which informed intellectual enquiry in Europe for nearly two hundred years. In this outstanding work, Jonathan Sawday explores the dark, morbid eroticism of the Renaissance anatomy theatre, and relates it to not only the great monuments of Renaissance art, but to the very foundation of the modern idea of knowledge. Though the dazzling displays of the exterior of the body in Renaissance literature and art have long been a subject of enquiry, The Body Emblazoned considers the interior of the body, and what it meant to men and women in early modern culture. A richly interdisciplinary work, The Body Emblazoned re-assesses modern understanding of the literature and culture of the Renaissance and its conceptualization of the body within the domains of the medical and moral, the cultural and political.


Laboratory data, which relate the liquefaction resistance of Firoozkooh sand and non-plastic silt mixtures to shear wave velocity are presented and compared to liquefaction criteria derived from seismic field measurements by Andrus and Stokoe [1]. In the work described herein, cyclic triaxial and resonant column tests were conducted on specimens of clean sand and sand-silt mixtures with silt content up to 60%, prepared at different densities. Cyclic undrained strength and small strain shear wave velocity were determined for identical specimens formed by undercompaction method. It was found that silt content affects cyclic resistance and shear wave velocity. In addition, the laboratory results indicated that using the existing field-based correlations will overestimate the cyclic resistance of the Firoozkooh sand-silt mixtures when silt content is 60%. For clean sand and the specimens containing up to 30% fines, results of this study on cyclic resistance are fairly consistent with Andrus and Stokoe correlations. These findings suggest the need for further evaluation of the effects of non-plastic fines content upon liquefaction criteria derived from seismic field measurements.


Consumption inequality has been rising in Indonesia over the last decade (see Figure 1). Before the onset of the Asian financal crisis (AFC) in 1997, Indonesia experienced little change in inequality. From 1980 to 1996, the Gini ratio (a standard economic measure of inequality), based on household consumption, fluctuated between 0.32 and 0.36.1 While the impact of the AFC brought down inequality to Indonesia's lowest level since 1980 (0.30 in 2000), this was largely because the crisis hit those who were relatively well-off in urban areas harder than it hit Indonesia's poor in rural areas. However, since recovering from the AFC in the early 2000s, the Gini ratio has increased rapidly and has reached new records of 0.41 in 2011 and 2012. Of course, rising inequality is not restricted to Indonesia; there is growing concern about the current trend of rising inequality across the world.2 Nonetheless, while some argue that inequality in income or consumption is necessary for the accumulation of assets or market incentive for long-term growth investment, our research3 finds that increasing inequality will actually lead to adverse growth. Consumption inequality is usually closely related to other forms of inequality, such as inequality in access to education, health, and public services. This often manifests as inequality of opportunity. These dimensions of inequality have significant detrimental effects on economic growth, and even political and social stability. Thus, in turn, it also poses substantial risk to human development.


Humans and animals are believed to use a very minimal set of trajectories to perform a wide variety of tasks including walking. Our main objective in this paper is two fold 1) Obtain an effective tool to realize these basic motion patterns for quadrupedal walking, called the kinematic motion primitives (kMPs), via trajectories learned from deep reinforcement learning (D-RL) and 2) Realize a set of behaviors, namely trot, walk, gallop and bound from these kinematic motion primitives in our custom four legged robot, called the "Stoch". D-RL is a data driven approach, which has been shown to be very effective for realizing all kinds of robust locomotion behaviors, both in simulation and in experiment. On the other hand, kMPs are known to capture the underlying structure of walking and yield a set of derived behaviors. We first generate walking gaits from D-RL, which uses policy gradient based approaches. We then analyze the resulting walking by using principal component analysis. We observe that the kMPs extracted from PCA followed a similar pattern irrespective of the type of gaits generated. Leveraging on this underlying structure, we then realize walking in Stoch by a straightforward reconstruction of joint trajectories from kMPs. This type of methodology improves the transferability of these gaits to real hardware, lowers the computational overhead on-board, and also avoids multiple training iterations by generating a set of derived behaviors from a single learned gait.


Abstract. The objective of the Nordic Snow Radar Experiment (NoSREx) campaign was to provide a continuous time series of active and passive microwave observations of snow cover at a representative location of the Arctic boreal forest area, covering a whole winter season. The activity was a part of Phase A studies for the ESA Earth Explorer 7 candidate mission CoReH2O (Cold Regions Hydrology High-resolution Observatory). The NoSREx campaign, conducted at the Finnish Meteorological Institute Arctic Research Centre (FMI-ARC) in Sodankyla, Finland, hosted a frequency scanning scatterometer operating at frequencies from X- to Ku-band. The radar observations were complemented by a microwave dual-polarization radiometer system operating from X- to W-bands. In situ measurements consisted of manual snow pit measurements at the main test site as well as extensive automated measurements on snow, ground and meteorological parameters. This study provides a summary of the obtained data, detailing measurement protocols for each microwave instrument and in situ reference data. A first analysis of the microwave signatures against snow parameters is given, also comparing observed radar backscattering and microwave emission to predictions of an active/passive forward model. All data, including the raw data observations, are available for research purposes through the European Space Agency and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. A consolidated dataset of observations, comprising the key microwave and in situ observations, is provided through the ESA campaign data portal to enable easy access to the data.


Stochastic geometry models are used to study wireless networks, particularly cellular phone networks, but most of the research focuses on the typical user, often ignoring atypical events, which can be highly disruptive and of interest to network operators. We examine atypical events when a unexpected large proportion of users are disconnected or connected by proposing a hybrid approach based on ray launching simulation and point process theory. This work is motivated by recent results [1] using large deviations theory applied to the signal-to-interference ratio. This theory provides a tool for the stochastic analysis of atypical but disruptive events, particularly when the density of transmitters is high. For a section of a European city, we introduce a new stochastic model of a single network cell that uses ray launching data generated with the open source RaLaNS package, giving deterministic path loss values. We collect statistics on the fraction of (dis)connected users in the uplink, and observe that the probability of an unexpected large proportion of disconnected users decreases exponentially when the transmitter density increases. This observation implies that denser networks become more stable in the sense that the probability of the fraction of (dis)connected users deviating from its mean, is exponentially small. We also empirically obtain and illustrate the density of users for network configurations in the disruptive event, which highlights the fact that such bottleneck behaviour not only stems from too many users at the cell boundary, but also from the near-far effect of many users in the immediate vicinity of the base station. We discuss the implications of these findings and outline possible future research directions.


We study hydrogen stability and its evolution during thermal annealing in nanostructured amorphous silicon thin films. From the simultaneous measurement of heat and hydrogen desorption, we obtain the experimental evidence of molecular diffusion in these materials. In addition, we introduce a simple diffusion model which shows good agreement with the experimental data


Analysis of genomic DNA derived from cells and fresh or fixed tissues often requires whole genome amplification prior to microarray screening. Technical hurdles to this process are the introduction of amplification bias and/or the inhibitory effects of formalin fixation on DNA amplification. Here we demonstrate a balanced-PCR procedure that allows unbiased amplification of genomic DNA from fresh or modestly degraded paraffin-embedded DNA samples. Following digestion and ligation of a target and a control genome with distinct linkers, the two are mixed and amplified in a single PCR, thereby avoiding biases associated with PCR saturation and impurities. We demonstrate genome-wide retention of allelic differences following balanced-PCR amplification of DNA from breast cancer and normal human cells and genomic profiling by array-CGH (cDNA arrays, 100 kb resolution) and by real-time PCR (single gene resolution). Comparison of balanced-PCR with multiple displacement amplification (MDA) demonstrates equivalent performance between the two when intact genomic DNA is used. When DNA from paraffin-embedded samples is used, balanced PCR overcomes problems associated with modest DNA degradation and produces unbiased amplification whereas MDA does not. Balanced-PCR allows amplification and recovery of modestly degraded genomic DNA for subsequent retrospective analysis of human tumors with known outcomes.


South Africa is faced with numerous socioeconomic problems, such as poverty and resource depletion. Sustainable planning is of great importance to ensure that the necessary resources are available for future generations. However, research has suggested that South African planners do not have the necessary level of map literacy and that new geovisualizations may be required. The goal of this paper is to present preliminary results of comparative experiments to evaluate map literacy of planners in 2D maps and 3D models in South Africa. In these experiments, participants performed equally well when exposed to 2D maps and 3D models. These preliminary results were used to inform the conceptual design of an experiment to evaluate map literacy of users with 2D maps and 3D models. The new experiment was developed using a mixed factorial design and aims to address the challenges identified in the preliminary results. The implementation and execution of the new experiment design will contribute to understanding the strengths and limitations of 3D geovisualization for planning in South Africa. Results will inform guidelines for the appropriate use of these non-traditional technologies for development planning.


One of the major advances in classical planning has been the development of Graphplan. Graphplan builds a layered structure called the planning graph, and then searches this structure backwards for a plan. Modern SAT and CSP approaches also use the planning graph but replace the regression search by a constrained-directed search. The planning graph uncovers implicit constraints in the problem that reduce the size of the search tree. Such constraints encode lower bounds on the number of time steps required for achieving the goal and account for the huge performance gap between Graphplan and its predecessors. Still, the form of local consistency underlying the construction of the planning graph is not well understood, being described by various authors as a limited form of negative binary resolution, k-consistency, or 2-j consistency. In this paper, we aim to shed light on this issue by showing that the computation of the planning graph corresponds exactly to the iterative computation of prime implicates of size one and two over the logical encoding of the problem with the goals removed. The correspondence between planning graphs and a precise form of knowledge compilation provides a well-founded basis for understanding and developing extensions of the planning graph to non-Strips settings, and suggests novel and effective forms of knowledge compilation in other contexts. We explore some of these extensions in this paper and relate planning graphs with bounded variable elimination algorithms as studied by Rina Dechter and others.


[ 1 ] The effects of solid-aqueous phase transitions on sulfate direct climate forcing (SDCF) are investigated by using both a column model and a global chemical transport model. Aqueous particles have a larger mass extinction efficiency but a smaller backscattered fraction than their solid counterparts. The column model shows that the hysteresis of the phase transition can result in an uncertainty in the SDCF of 20%. The global chemical transport model explicitly accounts for the relative humidity processing of particles and the associated hysteresis. The model also treats the extent of sulfate neutralization by ammonia. For the anthropogenic sulfate, the base case simulation finds that solid particles contribute 41% of the global burden, 26% of the clear-sky optical thickness, 31% of the clear-sky SDCF, and 37% of the full-sky SDCF, a trend that reflects the correlation of solid particles with clear skies. A perturbation to the model, omitting hysteresis by assuming that all particles are aqueous, results in an overestimate of the SDCF by +8% compared to the base case. A converse assumption that crystallization occurs at the deliquescence relative humidity underestimates the SDCF by (cid:1) 8%. A case that assumes that aqueous particles occur whenever the ambient relative humidity exceeds the crystallization relative humidity biases the SDCF by +5%. A case that includes hysteresis but omits the difference in the fraction of radiation backscattered to space by aqueous compared to solid particles changes the SDCF by +15%. Seasonal and regional differences can be much larger. We recommend that the ratio of the sulfate aerosol optical thickness calculated with versus without consideration of particle hygroscopicity be reported as a standard output of SDCF models to facilitate meaningful intercomparisons among different models.


Results of systematic studies of discrete dark solitons (DDSs) in the one-dimensional discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the cubic-quintic on-site nonlinearity are reported. The model may be realized as an array of optical waveguides made of an appropriate non-Kerr material. First, regions free of the modulational instability are found for staggered and unstaggered cw states, which are then used as the background supporting DDS. Static solitons of both on-site and inter-site types are constructed. Eigenvalue spectra which determine the stability of DDSs against small perturbations are computed in a numerical form. For on-site solitons with the unstaggered background, the stability is also examined by dint of an analytical approximation, that represents the dark soliton by a single lattice site at which the field is different from cw states of two opposite signs that form the background of the DDS. Stability regions are identified for the DDSs of three types: unstaggered on-site, staggered on-site, and staggered inter-site; all unstaggered inter-site dark solitons are unstable. A remarkable feature of the model is coexistence of stable DDSs of the unstaggered and staggered types. The predicted stability is verified in direct simulations; it is found that unstable unstaggered DDSs decay, while unstable staggered ones tend to transform themselves into moving dark breathers. A possibility of setting DDS in motion is studied too. Analyzing the respective Peierls-Nabarro potential barrier, and using direct simulations, we infer that unstaggered DDSs cannot move, but their staggered counterparts can be readily set in motion.


This article examines mothers' part-time employment, comparing working part-time with full-time employment and not working at all. Our analysis is organized around 2 paradigmatic views of maternal employment, 1 centered on the adaptive nature of mothers' part-time employment and the other on the detrimental nature of mothers' part-time employment. In each perspective, a variety of theories have been used to shape the literature, influencing the choice of research questions and interpretation of findings. These theories include stress and coping, life course, role, family systems, ecological, and feminist theory. In general, findings support part-time employment as an adaptive strategy. As an exception, mothers employed full-time had better marital quality and performed less household and child-care work than did mothers employed part-time. We also document limitations regarding attention to diverse familial outcomes in subgroups of mothers or families and to potentially important selection factors


This theoretical article explores the bottom-up data practices enacted by individuals and groups in the context of organized collective action. Conversing with critical media theory, the sociology of social movements, and platform studies, it asks how activists largely reliant on social media for their activities can leverage datafication and mobilize social media data in their tactics and narratives. Using the notion of digital traces as a heuristic tool to understand the dynamics between platforms and their users, the article reflects on the concurrent materiality and discursiveness of digital traces and analyzes the evolution of political agency vis-a-vis the datafied self. It contributes to our understanding of "digital traces in context" by foregrounding human agency and the meaning-making activities of individuals and groups. Focusing on the possibilities opened up by digital traces, it considers how activists make sense of the ways in which social media structure their interactions. It shows how digital traces trigger a quest for visibility that is unprecedented in the social movement realm, and how they can function as particular "agency machines."


Chromosomal instability evoked by abnormalities in centrosome numbers has been traditionally considered as a hallmark of aberrant, typically cancerous or senescent cells. We have reported previously that pristine human embryonic stem cells (hESC) suffer from high frequency of supernumerary centrosomes and hence may be prone to undergo abnormal mitotic divisions. We have also unraveled that this phenomenon of multicentrosomal mitoses vanishes with prolonged time in culture and with initiation of differentiation, and it is strongly affected by the culture substratum. In this study, we report for the first time that Cripto-1 protein (teratocarcinoma-derived growth factor 1, epidermal growth factor-Cripto/FRL-1/Cryptic) produced by hESC represents a factor capable of inducing formation of supernumerary centrosomes in cultured hESC. Elimination of Cripto-1 signaling on the other hand restores the normal number of centrosomes in hESC. Linking the secretory phenotype of hESC to the centrosomal metabolism may help to develop better strategies for propagation of stable and safe bioindustrial and clinical grade cultures of hESC. From a broader point of view, it may lead to unravelling Cripto-1 as a micro-environmental factor contributing to adverse cell behaviors in vivo.


A field in East Lansing, MI, showed a decline of potato common scab compared with an adjacent potato field. To confirm that the decline was due to biological factors, the soil was assayed. In the greenhouse, putative common-scab-suppressive soil (SS) was either treated with various temperatures or mixed with autoclaved SS at various ratios. Pathogenic Streptomyces scabies was incorporated into the treated soil at 106 CFU/cm3 of soil, followed by planting of either potato or radish. Disease severity was negatively correlated with the percentage of SS in the mixture and positively correlated with temperature above 60°C. The soil was screened for four groups of potential antagonists (general bacteria, streptomycetes, fluorescent pseudomonads, and bacilli) pairing in culture with S. scabies. The frequency of antagonistic bacteria in SS was higher than common-scab-conducive soil (CS) in all four groups but only pseudomonads and streptomycetes were significantly higher. The population of pathogenic Streptomyces spp. in the rhizosphere of CS was significantly higher than SS. Dilution plating of CS and SS samples showed no clear trends or differences in populations of total fungi, total bacteria, streptomycetes, fluorescent pseudomonads, and bacilli but terminal restriction fragment polymorphism analysis revealed two distinct microbial communities were present in SS and CS.


In this paper, we construe key factors in design and evaluation of image processing algorithms on the massive parallel graphics processing units (GPUs) using the compute unified device architecture (CUDA) programming model. A set of metrics, customized for image processing, is proposed to quantitatively evaluate algorithm characteristics. In addition, we show that a range of image processing algorithms map readily to CUDA using multiview stereo matching, linear feature extraction, JPEG2000 image encoding, and nonphotorealistic rendering (NPR) as our example applications. The algorithms are carefully selected from major domains of image processing, so they inherently contain a variety of subalgorithms with diverse characteristics when implemented on the GPU. Performance is evaluated in terms of execution time and is compared to the fastest host-only version implemented using OpenMP. It is shown that the observed speedup varies extensively depending on the characteristics of each algorithm. Intensive analysis is conducted to show the appropriateness of the proposed metrics in predicting the effectiveness of an application for parallel implementation.


From the Publisher:
Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 21 Days will strive to introduce readers to ASP.NET through individual lessons contained in chapters. These lessons will begin with a thorough overview of the technology and framework involved, and gradually expand to more difficult lessons requiring deeper engineering skills and knowledge. Although each chapter will be self-contained, each subsequent chapter will build upon previous lessons to ensure that each topic is not only taught, but also used.

The book will introduce the ASP.NET Framework, Visual Basic .NET, and C#, the new COM framework. The book will cover applications of these technologies.

Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 21 Days is the perfect book to introduce beginner and intermediate readers to the new technologies and frameworks presented by ASP.NET. By guiding readers through short but increasingly complex lessons, this book will give readers a strong foundation in ASP.NET, and the knowledge to develop their own creative solutions. Readers will delve into the new framework, the C# and Visual Basic programming languages, and techniques to approach difficult problems.


Background and Objectives
Social robots may promote the health of older adults by increasing their perceived emotional support and social interaction. This review aims to summarize the effectiveness of social robots on outcomes (psychological, physiological, quality of life, or medications) of older adults from randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Research Design and Methods
A mixed-method systematic review of RCTs meeting the study inclusion criteria was undertaken. Eight databases were electronically searched up to September 2017. Participants' characteristics, intervention features, and outcome data were retrieved. The mean difference and standardized mean difference with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were synthesized to pool the effect size.

Results
A total of 13 articles from 11 RCTs were identified from 2,204 articles, of which 9 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Risk of bias was relatively high in allocation concealment and blinding. Social robots appeared to have positive impacts on agitation, anxiety, and quality of life for older adults but no statistical significance was found in the meta-analysis. However, results from a narrative review indicated that social robot interactions could improve engagement, interaction, and stress indicators, as well as reduce loneliness and the use of medications for older adults.

Discussion and Implications
Social robots appear to have the potential to improve the well-being of older adults, but conclusions are limited due to the lack of high-quality studies. More RCTs are recommended with larger sample sizes and rigorous study designs.


Between 1550 and 1800 the Northern Netherlands went through a period of intense economic development. This did not leave the surrounding regions untouched. International trade blossomed, tens of thousands of foreign workers found employment in the Netherlands and many millions of guilders were channelled abroad to finance foreign commercial undertakings and government policies. This book offers the first systematic analysis of the international impact of Dutch economic development and investigates the economic consequences of Dutch dominance in the areas bordering the North Sea. By using a wide variety of sources and literature Christiaan van Bochove describes the international flows of goods, people and money, focussing attention on the effects on the prices of everyday goods, the wages of labourers and interest rates. This book shows how, by the end of the eighteenth century, the development of the Dutch economy had turned the North Sea region into an integrated spatial economy that operated at the frontier of what was technologically and institutionally possible.


In this work, we present an inspection method for power and ground (P&G) layers of printed circuit boards (PCB) also called utility layers. Design considerations for the P&G layers are different than those of signal layers. Current PCB inspection approaches cannot be applied to these layers. P&G layers act as internal ground, neutral or power sources. P&G layers are predominantly copper with occasional pad areas (without copper) called clearance. Defect definition is based on the spacing between the holes that will be drilled in clearances and the surrounding copper. Overlap of pads of different sizes and shapes are allowed. This results in complex, hard to inspect clearances. Our inspection is based on identification of shape, size and position of the individual pads that contribute to an overlapping clearance and then inspection of each pad based on design rules and tolerances. Main steps of our algorithm are as follows: (1) extraction and preprocessing of clearance contours; (2) decomposition of contours into segments: corner detection and matching lines or circular arcs between two corners; (3) determination of the pads from partial contour information obtained in step (2), and (4) design rules checking for each detected pad.


Central banks are still defining their approach to financial stability and are at an early stage in the development of useful models. The Bank of Canada's 2007 economic conference was organized to stimulate progress in the development of financial-stability frameworks. Among the highlights reported here are the discussions centred around three proposed frameworks: a contingent-claims-analysis framework, a semi-structural framework, and structural financial-stability models. Participants also reported on their experiences with stress-testing under the International Monetary Fund's Financial Sector Assessment Program and discussed the implications for financial stability of linkages among payment, clearing, and settlement systems.


The geological substrate of the town of Marche-en-Famenne, and its surrounding area, consists mainly of Givetian limestone and Frasnian to Emsian siliciclastics. The soil geochemistry within and around the town was studied by the collection of 214 samples from the urban area, and from a section of 3.5 by 20 km to the SW of the town. These samples were analysed for Ca, Cd, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn by AAS. One of the most remarkable feature is that the contrast between limestone and sandstone is only weakly reflected in the major and trace element distribution patterns. This may be explained by the presence of loamy soils, which develop on limestone after weathering, which are very comparable to loamy soils developed on top of sandy shale and shale. A clear relation between geological substrate, soil-type and Fe-K-Ni content is apparent, and is also reflected in the bivariate correlation matrix. Further, red coloured lithologies of the so-called Burnotian age (i.e.,, Emsian) display an increase in Fe-content. Some particular dispersion patterns are clearly geogenetic in origin (e.g., in relation with mineralised faults, presence of overbank sediments, etc.), while in and around industrial sites, elevated heavy metal concentrations have been recorded and reflect an anthropogenic influence on the natural environment. Highest recorded Zn, Pb and Cd concentrations are respectively about 1300 mg/kg, 500 mg/kg and 4 mg/kg. However, values do not exceed trigger values, commonly used in environmental studies (e.g., Flemish Soil Sanitation Act). A speciation study, based on selective extraction, showed that about 20% of Zn and Pb are relatively easily dissolved; Cd can also potentially be leached, since more than 40% relates to the operationally defined carbonate fraction. However, the Cd concentration is generally low. More important here is that overall heavy metals are dominantly bound to Mn- and/or Fe oxyhydroxides and to a fraction, which is only dissolved by strong acids (HCl cone -HNO 3 -HF cone ). This aspect, together with the absence of real anomalous concentrations in heavy metals, suggest that the eco- and human toxicological risk in the studied area is low.


This dissertation explores British perceptions of and discourses on the 'Ottomans' in the mid-nineteenth century, which have been largely overlooked in the existing literature. It approaches the question through three case studies analysing the construction of the perceptions through a discourse-analytic framework.
This thesis is divided into two main parts, with the first part providing essential background information for the three case studies which make up the second part.
Chapter 1 (Introduction) sets out the research question and the methodology. Chapter 2 looks at the development of Anglo-Ottoman relations from the beginning until the nineteenth century, identifying important stages in these relations which in turn impacted upon British perceptions. These early British perceptions are traced in Chapter 3, indentifying a range of perceptions none of which achieve a dominant position in the British public discourse on the Ottoman Empire and the Ottomans.
Part 2 constitutes the core of the dissertation. Chapter 4 focuses on Britain and the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s and 1870s, analysing the wider setting which forms the background to the case studies. Chapter 5 examines the Lebanon Crisis of 1860 tracing the formation of two discourses on the Ottomans in Britain: the sick-man discourse and the integrity discourse, which competed for dominance in the public debate. Chapter 6 examines the Cretan Crisis of 1866, which showed the continued use of these two discourses, with the sick-man discourse finding more support but not yet dominating the debate. This changes during the Bulgarian Atrocities Campaign of 1876, which is explored in Chapter 7. During this crisis, the sick-man discourse undergoes both a radicalisation and popularisation following the graphic coverage in the British press of the atrocities committed in the Balkans which is picked up by politicians who feel the need to respond to pressure from the streets.
The Conclusion sums up the main findings of the dissertation and discusses how far the nineteenth-century constructions of the Ottomans as the 'other' in Britain remain relevant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when the Muslims take the place of the Ottomans as the 'other'.


Plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD) of HfNx thin films using tris(dimethylamino)cyclopentadienylhafnium [CpHf(NMe2)3] as the Hf precursor and H2 plasma as the reducing co-reactant is reported. We previously concluded that the HfNx films prepared for a grounded substrate (0 V substrate potential) exhibited a rather high electrical resistivity of 9.0 × 10−1 Ω cm. In the present work, we show a steady decrease in the electrical resistivity by two orders of magnitude to 3.3 × 10−3 Ω cm upon increasing the time-averaged substrate potential up to −130 V by externally biasing the substrate. A further increase in potential up to −187 V led to an increase in electrical resistivity to 1.0 × 10−2 Ω cm. The variations in electrical resistivity with the potential were found to correlate with the extent of grain boundary scattering in the films, which significantly decreased upon increasing the potential up to −130 V, primarily due to major changes in the film chemical composition. The latter consisted in a decrease in O content from 20.1 at% under no bias to ≤ 2 at% for a potential of −130 V and an associated increase in the Hf3+ fraction from 0.65 to 0.82. The latter is key to the development of low resistivity δ-HfN. A further increase in potential to −187 V led to an increase in grain boundary scattering as a consequence of a major decrease in grain size as well as in-grain crystallinity. In view of advanced nanoelectronic devices, the HfNx layers were also deposited on 3D trench nanostructures at a potential of −130 V. A low oxygen content in the HfNx film was measured on both the planar and vertical topographies of the trenches. Overall, the time-averaged substrate potential has been shown to highly affect the chemical composition, microstructure and the associated electrical properties of the HfNx layers and can be used to tailor the HfNx film properties.


Introduction We focus on trauma care conducted in the context of a simulated traumatic event. This is in this study defined as a four-meter fall onto a hard surface, resulting in severe injuries to extremities in the form of bilateral open femur fractures, an open tibia fracture, and a closed pelvic fracture, all fractures bleeding extensively. Methods The simulated trauma care competence of 63 ambulance nurses in prehospital emergency care was quantitatively evaluated along with their perception of their sufficiency. Data was collected by means of simulated trauma care and a questionnaire. Results Life-saving interventions were not consistently performed. Time to perform interventions could be considered long due to the life-threatening situation. In comparison, the ambulance nurses' perception of the sufficiency of their theoretical and practical knowledge and skills for trauma care scored high. In contrast, the perception of having sufficient ethical training for trauma care scored low. Discussion This study suggests there is no guarantee that the ambulance nurses' perception of theoretical and practical knowledge and skill level corresponds with their performed knowledge and skill. The ambulance nurses rated themselves having sufficient theoretical and practical knowledge and skills while the score of trauma care can be considered quite low.


Increased popularity of smartphones has great potential to assist individuals in making healthy changes to their behaviour. Obesity and sedentary lifestyles are fast becoming a healthcare concern in modern societies. This study takes an important step in designing persuasive fitness applications (or apps) that can enhance the physical activity behaviour of individuals. We conceptualize that persuasive technology design principles embedded in social cognitive theory constructs will lead to the design of successful fitness apps. The conceptual model will be tested by analysing the design principles in existing mobile fitness apps. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


Improving the employability of graduates and professionals is the main aim of the European project CoMoViWo, a project which strives to address linguistic, virtual communication and intercultural challenges in global work contexts. To this end, the design and development of a series of intensive modules to improve communication in virtual and mobile contexts in the workplace is the objective of this three-year research and development project. To validate these modules, CoMoViWo has sought to establish a framework for the subsequent piloting of the materials. The present paper is delivered at the end of the third year of the project, and reports on the process of creating a questionnaire, a useful tool to pilot the communication learning modules. The rationale involved in the design and implementation of the questionnaire is discussed. The grid was designed following the recommendations proposed in several "Quality Guidelines" publications during recent years (see, for example, Lasnier et al., 2000). These criteria involve aspects such as transparency, reliability, integrity, practicality, attractiveness, flexibility, awareness and generativeness. The questionnaire was administered to the students to get feedback on the learning modules and their satisfaction with the modules. Although the students were not necessarily in a position to address the validity of the pedagogical aims of the input, their feedback on the structure, content, format and exercises/tasks, and their engagement with the platform and activities provided important data on their feasibility. The analysis of the results obtained indicate that the process of piloting the modules is an essential part of any materials elaboration project and vital for giving relevant feedback for the final stage of materials development. This confirms the validation of the grid devised and confirms the considerable relevance of the piloting process.


The Big Six Canadian banks are a dominant component of the Canadian financial system. How they finance their business activities is fundamental to how effective they are. Retail and commercial deposits along with wholesale funding represent the two major sources of funds for Canadian banks. What wholesale funding instruments do the Big Six banks use? How do they choose between different funding sources, funding strategies and why? How have banks changed their funding mix since the 2007-09 global financial crisis?


We present an exploratory study investigating a drumming experience with Kaspar, a humanoid child-sized robot, and a human. In this work, our aim is not to have Kaspar just replicate the human partner's drumming, but to engage with the human in a dasiasocial mannerpsila using head gestures in a call and response turn-taking interaction and to assess the impact of non-verbal gestures on the interaction. Results from the first implementation of a human-robot interaction experiment are presented and analysed qualitatively (in terms of participants' subjective experiences) and quantitatively (concerning the drumming performance of the human-robot pair). The interaction experience is discussed in terms of imitation, turn-taking, and the effect of gender differences.


Poster presented at the 2013 University Scholars Day at the University of North Texas. This poster discusses research on the impact of service learning on elders. Innovative ways of enhancing the elderly's wellness have been introduced with research and services focusing on improving physical activity, nutrition, and increasing social interaction and involvement.


We developed Columbia River streamflow reconstructions using a network of existing, new, and updated tree‐ring records sensitive to the main climatic factors governing discharge. Reconstruction quality is enhanced by incorporating tree‐ring chronologies where high snowpack limits growth, which better represent the contribution of cool‐season precipitation to flow than chronologies from trees positively sensitive to hydroclimate alone. The best performing reconstruction (back to 1609 CE) explains 59% of the historical variability and the longest reconstruction (back to 1502 CE) explains 52% of the variability. Droughts similar to the high‐intensity, long‐duration low flows observed during the 1920s and 1940s are rare, but occurred in the early 1500s and 1630s‐1640s. The lowest Columbia flow events appear to be reflected in chronologies both positively and negatively related to streamflow, implying low snowpack and possibly low warm‐season precipitation. High flows of magnitudes observed in the instrumental record appear to have been relatively common, and high flows from the 1680s to 1740s exceeded the magnitude and duration of observed wet periods in the late‐19th and 20th Century. Comparisons between the Columbia River reconstructions and future projections of streamflow derived from global climate and hydrologic models show the potential for increased hydrologic variability, which could present challenges for managing water in the face of competing demands.


In this edited volume, eighteen scholars examine the increasing role of digital media technologies in identity construction through play. Going beyond computer games, this interdisciplinary collection argues that present-day play and games are not only appropriate metaphors for capturing postmodern human identities, but are in fact the means by which people create their identity. From discussions of World of Warcraft and Foursquare to digital cartographies, the combined essays form a groundbreaking volume that features the most recent insights in play and game studies, media research, and identity studies.


Abstract Instructional technology plays a fundamental and crucial role in facilitating teaching learning process and makes it more effective, interesting and successful. Therefore, the study was conducted to investigate the availability, usability, usefulness and on the other hand barriers to the successful integration of instructional technology in private teacher training colleges in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (Pakistan). The main objectives of the study were to investigate the availability and usability of instructional technology in private teacher training colleges, the usefulness of instructional technology in teacher training programmes, and to find out the main barriers in the way of successful integration of instructional technology in teacher training programs. All the principals, teachers and prospective teachers working and studying in private teacher training colleges in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa constituted as the population of this study. In total, 24 private colleges out of 48 were selected randomly and from each of these colleges, one principal, 5 teachers and 15 prospective teachers were selected randomly as the sample of this ongoing research. The study was descriptive in nature. Three questionnaires were developed for principals, teachers and for prospective teachers as research instruments for the collection of data. After analysis of data, the researcher arrived at the conclusion that most of the important instructional technologies are not available in private teacher training colleges. Teachers do not use even the available instructional technologies into teaching learning process. The researchers noted that poor availability of instructional technologies is the main barrier to the technology integration. In addition, lack of technical and administrative support, lack of funding, lack of necessary skills and knowledge, excessive electricity failures, lack of training opportunities, and lack of preparation time were also observed during data collection. Key Words: Teacher Education, Teachers Training Colleges, Instructional Technology, Barriers to the successful integration of instructional technology


This study was conducted to evaluate the ecosystem health of the Olifants River by means of semi-quantitative surveys of the macroinvertebrates at 7 selected sites in the catchment. These surveys were performed during the high- and low-flow seasons for 2 consecutive years. Macroinvertebrates were collected by using a net consisting of a 30 cm square steel frame with a sturdy handle, to which a Perlon gauze net with a mesh of 1 mm was attached. Semi-quantitative surveys were done by sampling the vegetation, as well as the substratum, with the net at each site for approximately 15 min. The pH, water temperature and conductivity were measured in situ at each site during the different surveys. Samples were fixed and preserved in 90% ethanol and thereafter sorted, identified up to family level and counted. The specimens were categorised as tolerant, moderately sensitive or highly sensitive, according to the guidelines set by the South African Scoring System Version 5 (SASS5). Although a total of 95 taxa were recovered during this study, only 7 of these taxa were categorised as highly sensitive, it can be concluded that the water of the Olifants River is in a poor state of health as revealed by the macroinvertebrate assemblages. Keywords : Olifants River, macroinvertebrates, river health


The contemporary academic disciplines of Philosophy and Economics by and large do not concern themselves with questions pertaining to the ontology of economic reality; by economic reality I mean the kinds of economic phenomena that people encounter on a daily basis, the central ones being economic transactions, money, prices, goods and services. Economic phenomena also include other aspects of economic reality such as economic agents, (including corporations, individual producers and consumers), commodity markets, banks, investments, jobs and production. My investigation of the ontology of economic phenomena begins with a critical examination of the accounts of theorists and philosophers from the past, including Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Marx, Simmel and Menger. Here I discuss various themes that have emerged from these writings, including the metallism-chartalism debates and whether economic value is an objective or subjective notion. Then I turn to contemporary philosophers, such as Searle, Bloor and Collin, who have used money as an example in their accounts of social phenomena. I argue that their accounts fail for a number of reasons, including that they cannot accommodate abstract money (money that is not in the form of notes, coins or commodities). Based on a much modified and expanded version of Hadreas' speech act theory of money, I develop an analysis of exchange into reciprocal, conditional promissory relations and I provide a diachronic account of how money developed out of such promissory relations. I then go on to examine how my account can be applied to money in all its forms and to the development of economic systems and production and I show how it is possible to overcome an epistemological difficulty with respect to how neophytes learn about economic phenomena.


Quantum dots (QDs), because of their exciting optical properties, have been explored as alternative fluorescent sensors to conventional organic fluorophores which are routinely employed for the detection of various analytes via fluorometry. QD probes can detect toxic metal ions, anions, organic molecules with good selectivity and sensitivity. This chapter investigates the synthesis of Mn-doped ZnSe QDs using nucleation-doping strategy. The as-synthesized QDs were characterized by various analytical tools such as ultravioletvisible (UV-vis) absorption, photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was found that Mn doping of QDs significantly increases the PL intensity. The PL of the resulting QDs was examined in the presence of different metal ions to check its selective response. Among the various metal ions, Hg2+ exhibits a drastic quenching of the QD's emission intensity. A Stern-Volmer plot of [Hg2+] sensing using the as-synthesized QDs showed linearity in the range of 0–30 × 10−6 ML−1 with the regression coefficient R2 = 0.99. The detection limit was found to be 6.63 × 10−7 ML−1. Thus, the present Mn-doped ZnSe QDs represent a simple, non-toxic fluorescent probe for the qualitative and quantitative detection of mercury ions in aqueous samples.


Abstract:This article discusses Swiss counterintelligence measures against Chinese espionage during the Cold War, focusing on the problems the Swiss Federal Police encountered when trying to uncover and eliminate the national and transnational intelligence networks the PRC operated from Switzerland in the 1950s and 1960s. Using newly declassified Swiss Federal Police files, the article details the Swiss federal counterintelligence system as well as the Federal Police filing system, showing the effects this had on the surveillance and investigation of Chinese officials and their contacts in Switzerland and abroad. It also describes Swiss Federal Police methods for identifying intelligence agents among the Chinese diplomatic staff, as well as the problems encountered with wiretapping and surveillance by car. Finally, the article details the Federal Police's cooperation with other countries in investigating China's international espionage networks and trade in embargoed-goods.


Predictive assays are needed to help optimise treatment in muscle-invasive bladder cancer, where patients can be treated by either cystectomy or radical radiotherapy. Our finding that low tumour MRE11 expression is predictive of poor response to radiotherapy but not cystectomy was recently independently validated. Here we investigated further the mechanism underlying low MRE11 expression seen in poorly-responding patients. MRE11 RNA and protein levels were measured in 88 bladder tumour patient samples, by real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry respectively, and a panel of eight bladder cancer cell lines was screened for MRE11, RAD50 and NBS1 mRNA and protein expression. There was no correlation between bladder tumour MRE11 protein and RNA scores (Spearman's rho 0.064, p=0.65), suggesting MRE11 is controlled post-transcriptionally, a pattern confirmed in eight bladder cancer cell lines. In contrast, NBS1 and RAD50 mRNA and protein levels were correlated (p=0.01 and p=0.03, respectively), suggesting primary regulation at the level of transcription. MRE11 protein levels were correlated with NBS1 and RAD50 mRNA and protein levels, implicating MRN complex formation as an important determinant of MRE11 expression, driven by RAD50 and NBS1 expression. Our findings of the post-transcriptional nature of the control of MRE11 imply that any predictive assays used in patients need to be performed at the protein level rather than the mRNA level.


Second law analysis (entropy generation) for the steady two-dimensional laminar forced convection flow, heat and mass transfer of an incompressible viscous fluid past a nonlinearly stretching porous (permeable) wedge is numerically studied. The effects of viscous dissipation, temperature jump, and first-order chemical reaction on the flow over the wedge are also considered. The governing boundary layer equations for mass, momentum, energy and concentration are transformed using suitable similarity transformations to three nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Then, the ODEs are solved by using a Keller's box algorithm. The effects of various controlling parameters such as wedge angle parameter, velocity ratio parameter, suction/injection parameter, Prandtl number, Eckert number, temperature jump parameter, Schmidt number, and reaction rate parameter on dimensionless velocity, temperature, concentration, entropy generation number, and Bejan number are shown in graphs and analyzed. The results reveal that the entropy generation number increases with the increase of wedge angle parameter, while it decreases with the increase of velocity ratio parameter. Also, in order to validate the obtained numerical results of the present work, comparisons are made with the available results in the literature as special cases, and the results are found to be in a very good agreement.


The security of civilians in contemporary conflicts continues to tragically elude humanitarians. Scholars attribute this crisis in protection to macro-structural deficiencies, such as the failure of states to comply with international conventions and norms and the inability of international institutions to successfully reduce violence by warring parties. While offering important insights into humanitarianism and its limits, this scholarship overlooks the potential of endogenous sources of protection – the agency of civilians. On the basis of a case study of northern Uganda, we identify and discuss several civilian self-protection strategies, including (a) attempts to appear neutral, (b) avoidance and (c) accommodation of armed actors, and argue that each of these is shaped by access to local knowledge and networks. We illustrate how forced displacement of civilians to 'protected villages' limited access to local knowledge and, in turn, the options available to civilians in terms of self-protection. Analyses of the intersections of aid and civilian agency in conflict zones would afford scholars of humanitarianism greater explanatory insight into questions of civilian protection. The findings from our case study also suggest ways in which aid agencies could adopt protection strategies that empower – or at least do not obstruct – the often-successful protection strategies adopted by civilians.


Abstract Understanding the factors contributing to declining smolt-to-adult survival (hereafter "smolt survival") of Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch originating in the Salish Sea of southwestern British Columbia and Washington State is a high priority for fish management agencies. Uncertainty regarding the relative importance of mortality operating at different spatial scales hinders the prioritization of science and management activities. We therefore examined spatial and temporal coherence in smolt survivals for Coho Salmon based on a decision tree framework organized by spatial hierarchy. Smolt survival patterns of populations that entered marine waters within the Salish Sea were analyzed and compared with Pacific coast reference populations at similar latitudes. In all areas, wild Coho Salmon had higher survival than hatchery Coho Salmon. Coherence in Coho Salmon smolt survival occurred at multiple spatial scales during ocean entry years 1977–2010. The primary pattern within the Salish Sea was a declining smolt survival trend over this period. In comparison, smolt survival of Pacific coast reference populations was low in the 1990s but subsequently increased. Within the Salish Sea, smolt survival in the Strait of Georgia declined faster than it did in Puget Sound. Spatial synchrony was stronger among neighboring Salish Sea populations and occurred at a broader spatial scale immediately following the 1989 ecosystem regime shift in the North Pacific Ocean than before or after. Smolt survival of Coho Salmon was synchronized at a more local scale than reported by other researchers for Chinook Salmon O. tshawytscha, Pink Salmon O. gorbuscha, Chum Salmon O. keta, and Sockeye Salmon O. nerka, suggesting that early marine conditions are especially important for Coho Salmon in the Salish Sea. Further exploration of ecosystem variables at multiple spatial scales is needed to effectively address linkages between the marine ecosystem and Coho Salmon smolt survival within the Salish Sea. Since the relative importance of particular variables may have changed during our period of record, researchers will need to carefully match spatial and temporal scales to their questions of interest.


We demonstrate that polarization transformation and scattering in adiabatically twisted single-mode birefringent optical fibers is synchronized so that light in one evolving elliptically polarized mode is freely transmitted while orthogonally polarized light is scattered out of the fiber. Thus, linearly polarized radiation initially oriented along the fast axis of the untwisted fiber is transformed to circularly polarized light with the same sense of rotation as the twisted fiber and is scattered out of the fiber. When the fiber twist is first accelerated and then decelerated, the fiber becomes a broadband, low-insertion-loss, linear polarizer.


Abstract : We outline a new systematic approach to extracting high resolution information from HAADF-STEM images which will be beneficial to the characterization of beam sensitive materials. The idea is to treat several, possibly many low electron dose images with specially adapted digital image processing concepts at a minimum allowable spatial resolution. Our goal is to keep the overall cumulative electron dose as low as possible while still staying close to an acceptable level of physical resolution. We shall present the main conceptual imaging concepts and restoration methods that we believe are suitable for carrying out such a program and, in particular, allow one to correct special acquisition artifacts which result in blurring, aliasing, rastering distortions and noise.


Near-IR spectra of a totally amorphous polyamide measured over the temp. range from 25 DegC-200 DegC were analyzed using generalized two-dimensional (2D) correlation spectroscopy. At least five distinct bands at 5690, 5810, 5900, 5980 and 6010 cm-1 were identified in the region of the n(CH) overtones (5400-6100 cm-1). Among them, two bands at 5810 cm-1 (aliph. CH) and 6010 cm-1 (arom. CH) were found to be very sensitive to the temp.-induced structural changes of the polyamide under examn. In the n(NH) overtone region (6300-6800 cm-1), the asynchronicity of the bands assigned to the vibrations of the free and hydrogen-bonded NH groups indicates a complicated dissocn. mechanism and the existence of different hydrogen-bonded species in the investigated totally amorphous polyamide sample. Owing to the spectral resoln. enhancement in the 2D correlation spectra, a splitting of the first n(NH) overtone of free NH groups into two components at 6780 cm-1 (totally free) and 6740 cm-1 (free-end) can be obsd.


In American law, Native nations (denominated in the Constitution and elsewhere as "tribes") are sovereigns with a direct relationship with the federal government. Tribes' governmental status situates them differently from other minority groups for many legal purposes, including equal protection analysis. Under current equal protection doctrine, classifications that further the federal government's unique relationship with tribes and their members are not subject to heightened scrutiny. Yet this deferential approach has been subject to recent criticism and is currently being challenged in pending cases. Swept up in the larger drift toward colorblind or race-neutral understandings of the Constitution, courts and commentators question the distinction between tribes' political and racial status, and urge courts to strike down child welfare and gaming laws that benefit tribes. Yet tribes (as collectives) must trace their heritage to peoples who preceded European/American settlement in order to establish the political relationship with the federal government. Tribes, in order to be recognized as such under the Constitution, therefore must, as an initial definitional matter, consist of people tied together by something akin to lineage. Descent and ancestry (often conflated with the socio-legal category of "race,") are the difference between legitimate federal recognition of tribal status and unauthorized and unconstitutional acts by Congress. Congress, in other words, cannot establish a government-to-government relationship with just any group of people. Tribes are treated differently from other groups due to their ties to the indigenous peoples of North America, and federal courts should not use that constitutional distinction against tribes in a misguided effort to eradicate all traces of things currently sounding in "race."The argument advanced here might be seen as a form of American Indian law exceptionalism. Yet it is consistent with racial formation theory's project of understanding race as a construction that serves, creates, and perpetuates legalized subordination, and that also shapes daily social conceptions and interactions. Racial formation theory calls for multiple accounts of racialization depending on the social and economic purposes served by each groups' subordination. On the remedial side, racial formation theory therefore necessarily anticipates what we might think of as multiple exceptionalisms. Reversing policies that aimed to eliminate Native people from the continent, and the racialized understanding of Indians that drove them, requires maintaining the political status of tribes as separate sovereigns, not destroying it in the name of an ahistorical conception of "race" neutrality.


The purpose of this paper is to provide an update of the empirical evidence on the private returns to education in Italy. First, we show that, whilst returns to education in Italy (based on gross wages) are in line with the European average, educational attainment is generally much lower (particularly at secondary and tertiary levels). How can we reconcile these findings? Based on a simple human capital model - where the optimal level of schooling is given by equating the marginal return to the marginal cost of education - we speculate that either marginal costs are steeper in Italy or that a larger share of the population involved in human capital investment faces high marginal costs in Italy compared to the European average. Second, we examine whether the estimated returns to education have varied significantly over time. The evidence is that returns have not changed much over the period 1977 to 1995, with the exception of 1993 and 1995, when they have increased significantly,especially among female employees. Quite interestingly, the observed increase in the returns to education has been almost completely driven by higher returns to education in the public sector. Assuming that skill biased technical change has been an important factor in shifting out the marginal returns to education, an important question for future research is why these shifts have only affected returns in the public sector of the economy. Third and last, we confirm the usual finding in the international literature that accounting for measurement error in years of schooling and/or for the endogeneity of educational choices by using instrumental variables significantly increases the returns to education with respect to estimates based on OLS methods. We also show that adding family background variables to the set of instruments significantly increases returns, which suggests that these variables affect mainly the subgroup of individuals with higher marginal returns to schooling.


In clinical legal education, there is growing interest in the development of project-based clinical work, which includes a broad range of activities, such as legislative and policy reform, community economic development and community legal education. In the project model, students use non-litigation advocacy strategies to solve challenging legal problems for clients and engage a broad range of multidimensional legal skills, including complex problem-solving, strategic planning, project management, and professional communication skills. Clinical scholarship on project-based learning has suggested that key pedagogical methods, particularly maximizing role assumption and student ownership of clinic work, must be compromised in projects due to the inherent complexity of the model. Because the project model holds such great potential for creating systemic change and serving communities, clinicians who develop projects often struggle to navigate the balance between social justice impact and pedagogical goals. In response to these and other challenges of projects in clinical education, this article argues that through intentional and goal-driven planning, clinicians can design project-based learning experiences that meet social justice goals while also maximizing student ownership and learning. To assist clinicians in developing projects that are successful from pedagogical and social justice perspectives, this article offers eight pedagogical principles, transferable across clinical contexts, for the design and supervision of this emerging model of clinical education.


This paper considers the measurement properties of indices used to measure multidimensional child poverty in the developing world. Two indices are considered in detail: the Alkire Foster method (Alkire & Foster 2010) and the 'categorical counting' method as exemplified by UNICEF poverty indices based on methodologies by Gordon et al. (2003) and De Neubourg et al. (2013). This analysis examines the underlying differences between the two methodologies in two stages. First, using hypothetical data we consider the differences in measurement properties that arise from the axiomatic construction of indices using a laboratory approach. Second, we use harmonized Demographic and Health Surveys data from three countries to examine how the properties found in the laboratory data lead to actual differences in the measurement of the prevalence of multidimensional poverty within and across countries, and the ability of indices to monitor changes in the prevalence of multidimensional poverty. The paper concludes by considering the findings from the analysis and how they could be taken forward in future measurements of poverty prevalence and reduction in Sustainable Development Goals targets and indicators.


In this paper, we study the outage probability of an opportunistic multiple relay communication system over κ-μ shadowed fading channels for both amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward relaying protocols. We first provide an exact analysis of the impact of κ-μ shadowed fading on the outage probability of the system. To simplify the obtained analytical expression of the outage probability, we further approximate the κ-μ, shadowed fading channel by a Nakagami-m fading model. In order to illustrate the suitability of the approximation, numerical results are provided revealing that the exact outage probability using κ-μ, shadowed fading and the results obtained by approximating the fading by the Nakagami-m fading model match well as long as the parameters of the shadowed fading translate to integer values of the fading severity parameter m. Further, Monte-Carlo simulations have been conducted to validate the derived analytical expressions of the outage probability. Finally, the effect of network parameters such as the average transmit power at the source and the relay, the impact of the number of relays, the influence of the transmission distances and the fading parameters on the outage probability of the considered system is also illustrated through numerical examples.


The Lake Malawi/Nyasa/Niassa Catchment (LMNNC) supports exceptionally high diversity and endemism of freshwater species. This globally recognised centre of freshwater biodiversity is of extreme importance, not only for its biodiversity value but also for our understanding of evolutionary processes and species sorting. Additionally, it provides a resource that underpins the livelihoods of many people in each of the riparian countries of Malawai,  Mozambique and Tanzania, and is important to national economies and human wellbeing. As such, sustainable development for these three countries requires focussed management of the freshwater ecosystems within the LMNNC,which are currently at risk due to a number of pressures, such as over abstraction of natural resources by a growing human population. This study presents the findings of an assessment of the distribution and status of all described species of freshwater decapods, fishes, molluscs and odonates, and selected aquatic plants native to the catchment and evaluate change since the first baseline assessment by Darwall et al. (2011). The outputs presented here provide valuable input to guide future sustainable development of the LMNNC whilst helping to safeguard this unique biodiversity upon which so many depend.


Application layer forward error correction is becoming a popular addition to protocols for real-time video delivery over IP-based wireless networks. Since each part of video data is not equally important for video reconstruction, it is beneficial to divide video data based on its importance. Such partitioned data could then be provided with different degree of protection, with the important data having more protection against channel erasures. Data partitioning (DP) is one such low-cost feature in H.264/AVC enabling partitioning of video data based on its importance. In this paper, we propose an Unequal error protection (UEP) scheme to protect the DP H.264/AVC coded video data with Raptor and Random linear codes (RLC). The simulations have been performed using error traces which depict physical-layer Transport Stream (TS) packet losses in DVBH. The results highlight that for broadcasting applications with varying channel conditions, better results can be obtained with dynamic probability of selection of different importance layers.


This chapter examines the increasingly common scenarios in which bacteria actively modulate the immune response to ensure their persistence. The mechanisms of protection against infectious agents may be divided into two complementary components: innate, or natural, immunity and specific, or acquired, immunity. It is important to mention that nonprotein antigens, such as microbial (particularly mycobacterial) lipid and glycolipid antigens, can be presented to T cells in a restricted fashion by nonclassical major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, such as CD1, that are differentially expressed on antigen-presenting cells (APC) and cells of the gastrointestinal epithelium. Inhibition of mitogen-induced lymphocyte proliferation by whole live bacteria, soluble or particulate preparations of the bacteria, and sometimes purified molecules is arguably the most common observation in the literature concerning inhibition of the host's immune response. The induction of apoptosis in monocytes/macrophages has been shown to be triggered by a number of bacteria or purified bacterial products in vivo, as well as in vitro in primary and short-term cultures. Through an in-depth examination of the mechanisms used by the microbial adversaries to evade or otherwise subvert the host's immune response, we may be able to devise more effective live vaccines and develop novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of persistent infections, as well as to discover valuable immunomodulatory agents.


Change order or variation order as commonly known in Malaysian construction industry is a common phenomenon in any project. The nature of traditional construction process which separated the design and construction increase the chances for change order to occur in a project. There are many causes that may lead to change order in the construction project. However no matter what is the reason for their occurrences often they resulted in dispute and dissatisfaction among the parties involved in the project with regard to their resolution. Apart from that change order also resulted in project delay and difficult to manage as they often involved in new sum of additional or deduction of contract price. In general it is commonly understood that changes is an issue that involved the contactors and the client directly. However the implication of the change order to the consultants firm is also important to be reckoned. This study has been conducted with a specific focus to determine the main causes and effects of change order in Malaysian construction environment focusing on the engineering consultant's perspective. Questionnaire survey has been conducted as the main strategy in this study methodology. Samples for the study generated from the consultants firms population within Klang Valley area. The study has determined that the major causes of the change order that involved the consultant firms are resulted from the changes originated by the authorities that regulate the design process. Other major reasons are related to political influence, client request and needs to fulfill differing site conditions. The findings from the study also revealed that the consultants are unhappy with the current practice of making claims for the change order that involved them and this need to be improved. This study further provides recommendations on methods to improve the claim procedure practiced by engineering consultants on extra works caused by change order.


Heterotopic ossification (HO) is a disabling disorder where endochondral bone forms in soft tissue (1). Genetic diseases, traumatic injuries, or severe burns can induce this pathological condition and can lead to severe immobility (2). While the mechanisms by which the bony lesions arise are not completely understood, intense inflammation associated with musculoskeletal injury and/or highly invasive orthopaedic surgery is thought to induce HO. The incidence of HO has been reported between 3% and 90% following total hip arthoplasty or severe fracture of the long bones (3). While the vast majority of these cases are asymptomatic, some patients will present decreased range of motion and painful swelling around the affected joints leading to severe immobility. In severe cases, ectopic bone formation may be involved in implant failure, leading to costly and painful revision surgery (4). Currently, no treatment modalities exist for HO and attempts to prevent the ectopic formation of bone have had only limited success. Early diagnosis of the formation of ectopic bone is complicated by the absence of calcium in the matrix during the first few weeks following surgery, making X-ray detection of ectopic bone very difficult. Prophylactic radiation therapy, anti-inflammatory, and bisphosphonates agents have shown some promise in preventing HO, but their effects are mild to moderate at best and complicated with adverse effects (5). Furthermore, none of these treatment modalities target key signaling pathways critical in the development of the extra skeletal bone tissue formation.


Background & Aim: Professional ethic has a significant effect on individual and group performance and organizational results. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational commitment and professional ethics. Materials & Methods: It was a descriptive-correlational study. The sample consisted of 226 persons including nurses and administrative personnel (ward clerks, medical records employees…) of Imam Reza hospital in Amol city. They were randomly selected according to Krejcie and Morgan table and responded to Ali professional ethic questionnaire and Allen and Myer organizational commitment questionnaire. Data was analyzed by Pearson correlation and simple linear regression analysis tests using SPSS-PC (v. 16).  Results: The results showed that professional ethic has a positive significant relationship with organizational commitment and it's three dimensions (Affective, Continuance, Normative). Professional ethic also could predict organizational commitment (P<0/001), in such a way that an increase of one grade in professional ethics, will increase 0/284 grade in commitment mean. Conclusion: According to the findings, it is recommended that the managers of care organizations emphasis on general and specific aspects of professional ethic according to different jobs and as a role model act as a pioneer in consideration of ethic in their performance.


This article explains how minimalism can improve the quality and effectiveness of technical documentation. In the first part, we will define minimalism and its main principles, such as action-oriented approach and topic-based authoring. In the second part, we will conduct a comparative analysis based on the technical documentation of two working environments: Societe Générale Corporate Investment Banking and HR Access. We will analyse how minimalism impacts the effectiveness and searchability of the documentation. These different minimalism approaches depend on quality criteria adopted for documentation. As a consequence, the decision to apply minimalism or not depends on the context (targeted-audience, access to users feedback). To conclude, we will identify some of the best practices to implement minimalism in any documentation department.


Counts of preganglionic sympathetic neurons in the spinal cords of four male and four female cats were obtained. The number of these neurons in males was significantly greater than that in females. These data suggest that the numbers of neurons in the mammalian central nervous system are different in the two sexes.


The necessity for improved players and opponents in firstperson entertainment-based real-time artificial environments has inspired our research into artificial game players. We employed the approach of creating agent-based players, one using simple reflex-action based components and another based on a back propagation neural network, to interact in a modified Quake II environment. Our evaluation of these agents utilizes two metrics, a statistical measure and graph similarity based on clustering from player performance traces against interactive feature points in the environments—both comparing the agents to a sample of 20 human players. The reflex-based agent was able to complete 29 of 100 test levels with 73.1% within statistical humanperformance levels and 15.4% similar to the human players, while the BPNN-based agent was unable to complete any levels. These results, including some additional findings that reveal the potential for a combinational approach, are inspiring an architectural vision of a multi-agent system to provide an advanced artificial intelligence engine for the embodiment of advanced artificial characters in gaming and


It is crucial to involve the patient in the development of patient accessible eHealth systems. But who, how and when? Patient involvement in development of e-health services for citizens has gained little attention to date. It is important to highlight the experiences, pros and cons, and explore new issues and future challenges that arise for all different stakeholders involved in e-health development.One source of inspiration for this workshop is the European funded SUSTAINS project which aims to deploy e-health services with the patient as an important actor. Another is the Swedish research project My Care Pathways where focus is on development of new e-health services that enable the patient to follow and interact with their care processes.This workshop aims to discuss the experiences made in ongoing European deployment projects of online e-health services as well as methods to improve patient participation in such development based on current evaluations and future needs.The objective is to collect and disseminate various experiences from novel e-health service deployment in Europe; during the workshop active participation is desired via twitter and other eLearning tools, and afterwards the results of the workshop are published on easily accessible web sites.


We describe IRS, a program that combines partial-order planning with GDE-style, model-based diagnosis to achieve an integrated approach to repair. Our system makes three contributions to the field of diagnosis. First, we provide a unified treatment of both information-gathering and state-altering actions via the UWL representation language. Second, we describe a way to use part-replacement operations (in addition to probes) to gather diagnostic information. Finally, we define a cost function for decision making that accounts for both the eventual need to repair broken parts and the dependence of costs on the device state.


Total quality management (TQM) has been recognized by many countries to be one of
the keys to competitiveness. Organizations in other industries are increasingly using
self-assessment instrument to drive continuous improvement and direct the TQM
journey in moving the organizations towards business excellence. In Saudi Arabia,
many organizations implementing TQM are in need for a self-assessment instrument to assist in implementing TQM properly. There is a clear need to evaluate or assess
TQM practices as a key part of the TQM implementation strategy within the
construction industry organizations using an appropriate self-assessment instrument.
This thesis examined a novel approach for this problem through using Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) as the most suitable TQM model
selected among 16 models used worldwide within the construction industry
organizations. The developed TQM generic model is based on the selected TQM
model with consideration for the Saudi organizational culture and the requirements of construction industry. The criteria in the developed TQM generic model were used as
a framework that was translated into a multi-item questionnaire for assessing quality
performance. Quality, Assessment Instrument for the Saudi Construction Industry or
"QAISCI" was developed and it has the potential to assist in implementing and
assessing TQM. It contains TQM generic model, self-assessment questionnaire,
scoring system and achievement assessment graph. Statistical testing confirmed that
the self-assessment instrument is valid and there is significant correlation between the
scores obtained from survey and that obtained from TQM assessors.
The research also describes the results of survey about the quality management
practices carried out for 112 organizations consisting of clients, design consultants
and construction organizations. The level of TQM awareness for construction client,
consultant-design, and construction organizations were determined through QAISCL
The general level of TQM awareness for the construction industry organizations in
Saudi Arabia appears to be "Enlightenment" or exactly in the early stage of
"Enlightenment" with a percentage of progress towards full TQM implementation
equals to32%. The clients and contractors are realizing that continuous quality
improvements have been made and some benefits in the business are visible. Design consultants are seeing the first signs of improvement but still in the early stage of TQM joumey. The research also highlights on benchmarking and provides essential data for
organizations. Benchmarking process showed that 13.64% of the consultant-design
organizations and 20.94% of the construction organizations could be benchmarked to
create continuous improvement.
Also, through the study, 57% of the participating organization indicated that the main
benefit they found from implementing TQM in the business was "cost savings" and
39% stated that the major barrier was "changing the organization culture" towards a
quality culture. In addition, 50% illustrated that "evaluation of performance by merit rating" was the main pitfall.


This study aims to assess the acceptability, adherence, and retention of a feasibility trial on milk fortification with calcium and vitamin D (Ca+VitD) and periodontal therapy (PT) among low income Brazilian pregnant women with periodontitis (IMPROVE trial). This 2x2 factorial feasibility trial used a mixed-methods evaluation. 69 pregnant women were randomly allocated to four groups: 1.fortified sachet with Ca+VitD and milk plus early PT (throughout gestation); 2.placebo and milk plus early PT; 3.fortified sachet with Ca+VitD and milk plus late PT after childbirth; 4.placebo and milk plus late PT. Data were collected via questionnaires, field notes, participant flow logs, treatment diary, and focal group discussions. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using appropriate descriptive statistics and content analysis, respectively. Eligibility rate (12%) was below the target of 15%, but participation (76.1%) and recruitment rate (2 women/week) exceeded the targets. Retention rate (78.6%) was slightly below the target (80%). Adherence to the PT was significantly higher in the early treatment groups (98.8%) compared to the late treatment groups (29%). All women accepted the random allocation and baseline groups were balanced. There was no report of adverse events. This multi-component intervention is acceptable, well-tolerated, and feasible among low-risk pregnant women in Brazil.


A number of successive energy crises over the last decade due to the lack of a balanced investment planning in the energy sector in Chile has led to a strong dependence on external sources and also doubled energy prices in the country, thus posing a significant challenge to the local economy. With the purpose of reaching long-term goals while simultaneously addressing short-term urgencies, Chile seeks to build a consistent and integrated energy policy in order to attract investment in the sector. Despite an overall attractive investment climate and encouraging market conditions in the country, the energy sector has been adversely affected, in particular, by the communities' opposition to mega-projects based on their expected environmental and social impacts. The study highlights recent experiences of energy generation mega-projects in terms of addressing aspects of sustainability. Based on these experiences, it discusses underdeveloped role of environmental evaluations and the main regulatory challenges ahead, recommending then public policies to effectively address these challenges.


This research examined the reported effect of legal and nonlegal factors on those who actually make decisions about juvenile diversion. Previous researchers have analyzed the outcomes of recorded decisions made in the official justice process, with special attention paid to the effects of legal and extralegal variables on juvenile diversion decisions. However, little attention has been given to how the key players explain the influence of these factors on decision-making processes in the juvenile justice system. These actors—court-designated workers, county-appointed attorneys, and police administrators—significantly affect the outcomes of the diversion decision. This research attempts to fill in gaps left by earlier research between how the process is supposed to work in legislation and previously observed differences with regard to the effect of legal and extralegal factors on recorded outcomes. It is suggested that process-related factors should be examined to strengthen the understanding of how diversion decision making is achieved. These results are particularly significant in a time of increasing calls for get-tough and zero-tolerance policies with regard to even minor juvenile infractions.


This is the fifth in a series of Briefings for Business that Oxfam has published recently, the purpose of which is to offer ideas and insights into topical poverty issues and what they mean for business. Oxfam believes business plays a key role in poverty reduction by creating jobs that enable people to work their way out of poverty. There is a growing body of evidence that better labour standards also benefit business by boosting sales, staff recruitment and retention, and supply chain productivity. Sustainable, green and ethical are moving from the margins to the mainstream. Is your business prepared? Better Jobs in Better Supply Chains sets out two key labour issues based on Oxfam's current analysis and two business behaviours that hinder rather than help. In each case the issue is explored and the benefits of addressing them are identified. The four issues highlighted are; Precarious work and poverty wages, weak relations between management and workers, purchasing practices that undermine labour standards, and over-reliance on audits. Leading companies, working with NGOs and trade unions, have started to tackle the root causes of poor standards. Case studies are included on initiatives by Adidas, Next, Marks & Spencer, ASDA George, Danone, McDonalds and many other companies. There is a tool to help you benchmark your company, a section on emerging issues and a list of resources.