Abstract Brood parasitism and predation are two factors that limit seasonal fecundity in grassland songbirds. We removed Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) in a switchback experiment to examine the effects of brood parasitism and nest predation on the productivity of Dickcissels (Spiza americana). Nesting Dickcissels were monitored at four study plots in northeast Kansas in a two-year study. Brown-headed Cowbirds were captured with drop-in traps at two removal plots, two unmanipulated plots were reference plots, and treatments were reversed between years. To evaluate the effect of Brown-headed Cowbird removals, we compared the percentage of nests parasitized, rates of multiple parasitism, clutch size, daily nest survival rates, and overall productivity per nest between removal and reference plots. Removals of Brown-headed Cowbirds successfully reduced the probability of parasitism and rates of multiple parasitism, but only in one of two years. Brown-headed Cowbirds did not appear to contribute to nest losses, given that few nests were abandoned because of cowbird activity and that the probabilities of nest parasitism and nest survival declined simultaneously over the breeding season. Overall, nest productivity showed no difference between treatments in either year, despite reduced rates of parasitism at removal plots in 2004. High rates of nest predation minimized the potential benefits of Brown-headed Cowbird removals for increasing productivity of Dickcissels. Our results demonstrate that removals can reduce parasitism levels but that the success of removal programs may vary annually, particularly in regions where Brown-headed Cowbirds and nest predators are abundant. Management actions that minimize parasitism and predation by modifying habitat structure may provide better alternatives to programs based on removals.


The emerging novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has swept across the world and become a global threat to public health. More than 200 countries and territories worldwide are suffering from this COVID-19 pandemic. Worryingly, no specific vaccines or drugs have been approved for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19. Under the pressure of a sustained rise in the incidence and mortality of COVID-19, an unprecedented global effort is being implemented to identify effective drugs to combat the current coronavirus. As the understanding of SARS-CoV-2 virology, the underlying mechanism by which it attacks host cells, and the host response to the infection rapidly evolves, drugs are being repurposed and novel drugs are being identified and designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. Presented here is a brief overview of both virus-based and host-based potential therapeutic drugs that are currently being investigated.


Scholars highlight an "innocence problem" as one of plea bargaining's chief failures. Their concerns, however, are misguided. In fact, most innocent defendants are far better off in a world with plea bargaining than without. Plea bargaining is not the cause of wrongful punishment. Rather, inaccurate guilty pleas are merely symptomatic of errors at the points of arrest, charge, and/or trial. Much of the worry over an innocence problem proceeds from misperceptions over (i) the characteristics of typical innocent defendants, (ii) the types of cases they generally face, and (iii) the level of due process they ordinarily desire. In reality, most innocent defendants are recidivists, because institutional biases select for the arrest and charge of these repeat players. And most cases are petty. In these low-stakes cases, recidivist innocent defendants face high pretrial process costs (particularly if they are detained). But innocent defendants also enjoy low plea prices, because prosecutors ultimately prioritize work avoidance over sentence maximization. Moreover, defendants possess certain underappreciated bargaining advantages in these lowstakes cases. In the end, the costs of proceeding to trial often swamp the costs of pleading to lenient bargains. Put differently, many recidivist innocent defendants are punished by process and released by plea. Thus, plea bargaining is no source of wrongful punishment; rather, it is a normative good that may cut punishment short, and (for the innocent at least) less punishment is a positive. Accordingly, the system must provide the innocent access to plea bargaining. Current vehicles for rational choice pleas - like no-contest pleas and equivocal pleas - are not up to the task. Instead, the system should re-conceive of false pleas as legal fictions and require defense lawyers to advise and assist innocent defendants who wish to enter into plea bargains and mouth dishonest on-the-record words of guilt.


Germany's national film industry has been undergoing a remarkable resurgence since the beginning of the new millennium. German language films such as The Lives of Others have been winning Oscars, and all the main international festivals, from Berlin to Cannes, have been showcasing these films. German language cinema is again attracting attention at home and abroad and New Directions in German Cinema explores its developments since 2000.
An international group of specialists on German film, society, culture, and politics together provide a wide-ranging study of this remarkable turn of fortunes. They examine just what German language film now has to offer, from the evolution of the so-called 'heritage films' which now dominate the country's mainstream and which examine Germany's problematic pasts – the Nazi, East German and terrorist legacies – to those which focus on the contemporary social reality of the Berlin Republic.


In this book, Stephanie J. Shaw brings a new understanding to one of the great documents of American and black history. While most scholarly discussions of "The Souls of Black Folk" focus on the veils, the color line, double consciousness, or Booker T. Washington, Shaw reads Du Bois' book as a profoundly nuanced interpretation of the souls of black Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. Demonstrating the importance of the work as a sociohistorical study of black life in America through the turn of the twentieth century and offering new ways of thinking about many of the topics introduced in "Souls," Shaw charts Du Bois' successful appropriation of Hegelian idealism in order to add America, the nineteenth century, and black people to the historical narrative in Hegel's philosophy of history. Shaw adopts Du Bois' point of view to delve into the social, cultural, political, and intellectual milieus that helped to create "The Souls of Black Folk."


Land evaluation procedure
given by FAO for soil site suitability for various land utilization types for
rainfed agriculture has been used to assess the land suitability for khasi
mandarin orange and pineapple in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya. The
database on soil and land use/land cover was generated from IRS-P6 remote
sensing satellite data, soil survey and laboratory analysis of soil samples to
perform an integrated analysis in the Geographic Information System
environment. Different soil chemical parameters and physical parameters were
considered to evaluate soil site suitability for orange & pineapple. Different
thematic layers were derived from soil map by using ArcGIS software.
Subsequently all of them were overlaid and integrated in GIS environment and suitability criteria was applied to
the resulted composite map and generated land suitability map for orange and pineapple. The result indicated that
the soil sites of the study area are highly to marginally suitable for mandarin
orange whereas it is marginally suitable for pineapple. The study reveals that
highly suitable areas for orange are found in the Cherapunjee and Mawsynram area
that covers 34.5 Sq.Km areas. Moderately suitable (37% of TGA) and
marginally suitable (24% of TGA) areas are
found only because of slope constraint (8%-30% slope).
The hills with deep gorges and ravines on the southern portion of the district
is found not suitable for orange plantation
because of steep slopes (>30%) and stoniness. Land suitability analysis for
pineapple showed that 81% area of total geographical area of the district is
marginally suitable and 19% area is not suitable to support the crop. The
district is marginally suitable because of topography (slope and erosion), soil
fertility (base saturation and CEC) and climate.


When working on techniques to address the wide-spread problem of software bugs, one often faces the need for a large number of realistic bugs in real-world programs. Such bugs can either help evaluate an approach, e.g., in form of a bug benchmark or a suite of program mutations, or even help build the technique, e.g., in learning-based bug detection. Because gathering a large number of real bugs is difficult, a common approach is to rely on automatically seeded bugs. Prior work seeds bugs based on syntactic transformation patterns, which often results in unrealistic bugs and typically cannot introduce new, application-specific code tokens. This paper presents SemSeed, a technique for automatically seeding bugs in a semantics-aware way. The key idea is to imitate how a given real-world bug would look like in other programs by semantically adapting the bug pattern to the local context. To reason about the semantics of pieces of code, our approach builds on learned token embeddings that encode the semantic similarities of identifiers and literals. Our evaluation with real-world JavaScript software shows that the approach effectively reproduces real bugs and clearly outperforms a semantics-unaware approach. The seeded bugs are useful as training data for learning-based bug detection, where they significantly improve the bug detection ability. Moreover, we show that SemSeed-created bugs complement existing mutation testing operators, and that our approach is efficient enough to seed hundreds of thousands of bugs within an hour.


Abstract : A list of ten one-syllable nouns was repeated as many times as possible to nine Ss during an eight-hour sleep period. A continuous EEG recording during the presentation of the training material was used to determine the sleep level at that time. The stimulus material was turned off as soon as cyclical activity within the alpha range was observed. The experimental Ss did not do significantly better than the control group in selecting the words on the training list of 50 words. Nor did they choose the training words any more frequently than they chose an equivalent list of untrained words. There was some indication that words presented during a period of deep drowsiness can be retained, but this was significant only when the S was also able to give an immediate response to the material being presented. The effects of sleep level and the importance of continuous EEG monitoring while presenting the training material are discussed in their relation to recall. It is concluded that material presented a number of times during sleep (using an EEG criterion) cannot be subsequently recalled. (Author)


Alignment is a static orientation of some objects, or set of objects, in relation to others. In archaeoastronomy we can separate stone alignments (stone rows) and alignments connected with orientation (e.g. graves, or skeletons orientation). The object of our research is to emphasize the importance of orientation in the Neolithic time, which we can determine by using a magnetic compass. Our collected data led us to conclude that solar observation was the determinant of orientation. More particularly, the rising of the sun above the horizon and possibly, though less frequently, the setting sun, provided the alignment. It was possible to show a close correlation with sunrise, or sunset at feast days, that is, the day on which the venerated God was celebrated, at Easter and on true east, determined by equinoctial sunrise. We consider the orientation of burials in the Neolithic, on the south-eastern Romanian territory. These necropolises (Cernica, Grǎdistea Ulmilor, etc.) show clearly that the East-West orientation was mostly taken. The Neolithic burials are aligned on that arc of the horizon where the Sun rises between the winter and summer solstices (solar arc) in a year. In the middle of the solar arc, of course, is also the zone within which Easter (spring and autumn equinoxes) falls.We can notice that the idea that we are trying to assign to prehistoric man, that is the sacredness condition, which represents a specific feature and is manifested by voluntary deeds and actions, such as the artistic creation and the funeral phenomenon, was a specific feature of the social life of prehistoric communities. Regarding the so various burial practices, understood as representative for the will of the community members, the social relations between them, a certain state of religiosity and continuity in the prehistoric environments, we try to differentiate between ritual space and sacred space; ritual space cannot be permanently equated, especially for the localizations of its manifestations, to the sacred space. Ritual space has become sacred following the repetition of the manifestations of the collective sacredness (we refer, for instance, to the continuity of the burials in the same place, considered by its effectiveness, observed as repetition of the phenomenon of funeral sacredness); thus, the ritual space of the Paleolithic caves or outside them has become open to sacredness by the attitude of the practitioners, of the initiated, and also, possibly, by the one of a large number of adepts, participants in the respective cult manifestations. During the Upper Paleolithic one notices sometimes the same practices of the funeral behavior, and also particular innovations. Variations appear regarding the deposition and the orientation of the dead and especially of the funeral offerings etc. We consider it is only then that the behavior of the living population creates the possibility of evaluation of the functioning manners of the respective human communities, their organization, mentalities and, last but not least, their beliefs and religious practices.


In recent years, binary coding techniques are becoming increasingly popular because of their high efficiency in handling large-scale computer vision applications. It has been demonstrated that supervised binary coding techniques that leverage supervised information can significantly enhance the coding quality, and hence greatly benefit visual search tasks. Typically, a modern binary coding method seeks to learn a group of coding functions which compress data samples into binary codes. However, few methods pursued the coding functions such that the precision at the top of a ranking list according to Hamming distances of the generated binary codes is optimized. In this paper, we propose a novel supervised binary coding approach, namely Top Rank Supervised Binary Coding (Top-RSBC), which explicitly focuses on optimizing the precision of top positions in a Hamming-distance ranking list towards preserving the supervision information. The core idea is to train the disciplined coding functions, by which the mistakes at the top of a Hamming-distance ranking list are penalized more than those at the bottom. To solve such coding functions, we relax the original discrete optimization objective with a continuous surrogate, and derive a stochastic gradient descent to optimize the surrogate objective. To further reduce the training time cost, we also design an online learning algorithm to optimize the surrogate objective more efficiently. Empirical studies based upon three benchmark image datasets demonstrate that the proposed binary coding approach achieves superior image search accuracy over the state-of-the-arts.


Researchers have long explored the desirability and benefits of industry-university collaborations and acknowledge they can be fraught with difficulties. We examine one such alliance, focused on driverless cars, a current hot topic in the public imagination and in technology design. Our collaboration began as an alliance between two anthropologists, one a professor at the University of North Texas, the other a consultant with the Nissan Research Center in Sunnyvale, California. We designed a research project for a design anthropology course that Christina Wasson taught in Fall 2014. Brigitte Jordan, at the time, was conducting an informal ethnography class for engineers and computer scientists at NRC. Our alliance had two objectives: to determine what a successful industry-university collaboration could look like when it involves ethnographic research in the high-tech sector, and to provide insights into usable ethnographic methods and data that would support social and cultural questions in autonomous vehicle (AV) research at the Nissan center. We found these two geographically separated classes eventually allowed building bridges across academia and industry, anthropology and engineering, leading in the long run to some softening of the boundaries between the two disciplines. Here we discuss significant variance in the research cultures of class participants at UNT and NRC (ethnographers and automotive engineers), and the various manners in which these differences were bridged over the course of the project (or not, as the case may be). We explore factors which inhibit or encourage exchange between university and industry micro-cultures, consider reasons for the success or failure of such projects, and offer suggestions for improving future collaborations. We end with ideas about what a model for productive industry-academia collaboration could look like.


The urinary enzymes Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT), Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP), Leucine-Arylamidase (LAS) and Dipeptidyl-Peptidase-IV (DPP-IV) were measured before and after endoscopic treatment of vesico-ureteric reflux (VUR) in two groups of twenty children's. Ten patients had undergone successful endoscopic corrective surgery for VUR, another 10 patients had unsuccessful endoscopic intervention. After successful treatment the activity of LAS in the urine did not change, but that of GGT, ALP and DDP-IV activity in the urine was 2-5 times higher than before treatment (P < 0.03 for all three enzymes). Considerable changes of urinary enzymes' activity were not observed following unsuccessful endoscopic treatment. Our data and the literature are contradictory. However this contradiction might be explained by the differences in urine sampling methods. Our patients received the same chemoprofilactic drug at the time of both urine sampling, a point not considered by other researchers. The extent of increase of enzyme activity after endoscopic treatment of VUR did not reach the level that would permit the use of investigated enzymes for screening, because the observed changes did not exceed the limits of the normal range.


Abstract: The first cases of infection with the eyeworm Thelazia callipaeda (Spirurida, Thelaziidae) in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) from Portugal are described. Worms were collected from 1 fox (7 worms) in the north and from 2 foxes (10 worms) in the central region of the country. Partial molecular amplification of mitochondrial cythocrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene and sequencing revealed a 100% homology with T. callipaeda haplotype 1, which is the sequence type circulating in Europe. Data suggest that wildlife participate in maintaining this endemic infection in dog and cat populations from the studied areas. Furthermore, due to the zoonotic potential of T. callipaeda, there is a risk of infection in humans residing in areas where thelaziosis is present in wild and domestic animals.


Physics can explain many of the things that we commonly encounter. It can tell us why the night is dark, what causes the tides, and even how best to catch a baseball. With In Praise of Simple Physics, popular math and science writer Paul Nahin presents a plethora of situations that explore the science and math behind the wonders of everyday life. Roaming through a diverse range of puzzles, he illustrates how physics shows us ways to wring more energy from renewable sources, to measure the gravity in our car garages, to figure out which of three light switches in the basement controls the light bulb in the attic, and much, much more.

 How fast can you travel from London to Paris? How do scientists calculate the energy of an atomic bomb explosion? How do you kick a football so it stays in the air and goes a long way downfield? Nahin begins with simpler problems and progresses to more challenging questions, and his entertaining, accessible, and scientifically and mathematically informed explanations are all punctuated by his trademark humor. Readers are presumed to have some background in beginning differential and integral calculus. Whether you simply have a personal interest in physics' influence in the world or you're an engineering and science student who wants to gain more physics know-how, this book has an intriguing scenario for you.

 In Praise of Simple Physics proves that if we look carefully at the world around us, physics has answers for the most astonishing day-to-day occurrences.


The explosion of new research in cognitive neuroscience has revealed fascinating dimensions of the human brain/mind system. But even as it brings us closer to understanding how the mind works, science is producing more, and perhaps even larger questions. What further powers and abilities are latent within us? The Wondering Brain argues that the profound questions raised by cognitive neuroscience may best be answered through a dialogue with religion. Kelly Bulkeley argues that cognitive neuroscience, seen in the light of religion, is a unique source of insight into the natural groundings of faith, morality, love, ecstasy, and revelation. And religion, seen in the light of cognitive neuroscience, is a powerful cultural system whose most valuable function is to stretch and expand our basic cognitive capacities. Kelly Bulkeley's deep engagement with both religious thinking and the workings of cognitive neuroscience makes for a constantly surprising book, full of stories that catch the reader in the unexpected place between two supposedly irreconcilable ways of being in the world.


Existing searches for cosmic axions relics have relied heavily on the axion being non-relativistic and making up dark matter. However, light axions can be copiously produced in the early Universe and remain relativistic today, thereby constituting a Cosmic $\textit{axion}$ Background (C$a$B). As prototypical examples of axion sources, we consider thermal production, dark-matter decay, parametric resonance, and topological defect decay. Each of these has a characteristic frequency spectrum that can be searched for in axion direct detection experiments. We focus on the axion-photon coupling and study the sensitivity of current and future versions of ADMX, HAYSTAC, DMRadio, and ABRACADABRA to a C$a$B, finding that the data collected in search of dark matter can be repurposed to detect axion energy densities well below limits set by measurements of the energy budget of the Universe. In this way, direct detection of relativistic relics offers a powerful new opportunity to learn about the early Universe and, potentially, discover the axion.


It is widely agreed that the flowers of hermaphrodite plants evolve in response to selection acting simultaneously through male and female sexual functions, but we know very little about the pattern of gender–specific selection. We review three current hypotheses for gender–specific selection by viewing them within a single phenotypic selection framework. We compile data from phenotypic selection and manipulative studies and evaluate the fit between empirical data and the hypotheses. In this preliminary analysis, we find that neither the male–function hypothesis nor the gender–balance hypothesis is well supported. However, the context–dependence hypothesis is supported by the documented diversity of gender–specific selection and by evidence that selection through female fertility is significantly correlated with pollen limitation of seed production. Future studies contributing to our understanding of selection through male and female function in plants need to quantify and manipulate the ecological context for reproduction, as well as describe male and female fitness responses to fine–scale trait manipulation.


In contexts such as education and sports, skill-accumulation of individuals over time crucially depends on the amount of training they receive, which is often allocated on the basis of repeated selection. We analyze optimal selection policies in a model of endogenous skill formation where, apart from their ability to transform training into skills, individuals also differ with respect to relative age. The latter has been identified by recent empirical research as a major determinant for performance differentials within cohorts. We find that the optimal policy is pro-competitive at later selection stages in the sense of selecting the individuals with the higher skill signals. All eventual corrections due to relative age occur at early stages, where selection is either counter-competitive (i.e. individuals with low skill signals are selected) or even avoided at all. Thereby, the induced selection quality is non-monotone in the degree of ex-ante asymmetry due to relative age. Finally, the (empirical) observation of persistent relative age effects does in general not hint at suboptimal selection policies.


In this paper I take up anew the suggestion recurrent in the work of Kierkegaard and Lukács, among others, that literature is fundamentally ironic. Literary creations, I argue, are ironic because they convey the real world, even though the worldhood of this world is ineffable. In creating a world from words in a novel or poem, the author confronts his or her own scepticism about the possibilities of written expression. Literary creations are only completed when the reader is able to engage with the world of words that is constituted in the work, and to realize that what is said in the writing does not exhaust the literary creation as a whole.


This thesis presents aWeb-based Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) called the Education through Virtual Experience (EVE) Portal which supports e-Science learning for schoolchildren. The VLE guides students and teachers in
the production of collaborative research papers to summarize their inquiry-based activities. This thesis details the formative evaluations carried out on the VLE and provides empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that the initial version of the VLE successfully supported inquiry-based science investigations. The VLE evaluations also provided an opportunity to assess the eectiveness of each of the VLE components toward our educational objectives. This thesis describes the shortfalls identied in the original version of the VLE, which has lead to the encapsulation of team management, collaborative writing and image-based data collection into the VLE. This thesis
also details the initial trials of the collaborative components of the VLE and provides evidence to support the contention that collaboration has been successfully introduced into the VLE. Finally, this thesis provides a technical description of the underlying architecture of the EVE Portal and describes the implementation details of the EVE imaging component.
This thesis makes contributions to e-Learning by providing empirical evidence that an amalgamation of software tools can support an inquiry-based scientic process with schoolchildren and teachers. The encapsulation of team allocation and team-based writing presents an innovative method for supporting inquiry-based learning within schools. The requirements elicitation and customized development of the EVE imaging component highlights many of the difficulties associated with the creation of Web-based software to support constructivist learning at pre-tertiary level. Finally, the EVE Portal provides an innovative way for teachers to capitalize on time spent carrying out inquiry activities through the codication of structure into a software supported process.


A theory of the principal monaural pathway is described according to which temporal information is spatially coded on three dimensions roughly corresponding to the levels of, respectively, the cochlea, the inferior colliculus, and the auditory cortex [C. Schreiner and G. Langner, ''Coding of temporal patterns in the central auditory nervous system,'' Auditory Function: Neurobiological Bases of Hearing, edited by G. M. Edelman et al. (Wiley, New York, 1988), pp. 337–361]. This theory is expressed in the form of a computational model which simulates peripheral and central processing and which has the following main components: (1) a one‐dimensional linear bandpass filter‐bank to simulate the cochlea; (2) a two‐dimensional amplitude‐modulation (AM) bandpass filter‐bank to simulate the colliculus; (3) a three‐dimensional AM bandpass filter‐bank to simulate layer IV receptive cells in the cortex; (4) a cortical cross‐channel correlation mechanism; and (5) a central pattern recognition mechanism. Overall, periodicity pitch (i.e., periods of up to about 1000 Hz) is primarily associated with subcortical processing whereas time and rhythm (i.e., periods of up to about 20 Hz) are primarily associated with cortical processing. The model is applied to the following phenomena: virtual pitch shift, musical chords, the psychophysical law for interval discrimination, and the filled interval illusion.


OUR KNOWLEDGE of the large-scale structure of the Universe is limited by our ability to recognize and observe remote objects, and to determine their distances and physical properties. Clusters of galaxies may be the most fundamental condensations of matter in space. In any case, they are the systems which we can most conveniently recognize, and for which estimates of at least relative distances are possible. The study of clusters of galaxies, therefore, in addition to its own intrinsic interest, may well provide the clues to our understanding of the Universe as a whole.


This research is a descriptive analysis answering the question, what measures are currently taken by the leadership―boards of trustees and superintendents of schools―of Texas school districts to prevent embezzlement? The research perspective utilized was quantitative with a descriptive, cross-sectional design. Data collection was accomplished through a survey with questions constructed from the most commonly recommended strategies discovered through the review of literature. The survey was distributed to the 1031 superintendents of school districts in Texas via email. The response rate was 33% or 339 returned surveys. The data set created concentrates on the four most common preventive measures: policy and procedure, management, auditing, and ethics. These measures are considered as they function to interrupt the principles of the fraud triangle. Comparisons were completed regarding region, district size, superintendent tenure and superintendent experience. Policy adoption was found to be extremely widespread. Procedures written to fully implement policy were less prevalent. Review of management practices found problems concerning credit cards, personnel evaluations, and password access to multiple computer finance recordkeeping systems concentrated in one employee. External auditing programs were universal due to statutory mandate but internal auditors and internal audit committees were few. Ethics training for business office personnel existed but with little consistent application across districts. The adoption of a code of ethics for business office personnel was rare. Recommendations made were that school leaders should be educated concerning appropriate actions in the common prevention areas. They need an to understand the importance of internal auditing, know the language in local policy, and they need to write procedures.


In 1973 the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was called to life as to regulate the international wildlife trade, and to prevent species becoming (economically and biologically) extinct. The trade in freshwater turtles and tortoises in Asia is so huge that it threatens the survival of many species. In 2006 and 2007, during three surveys at Chatuchak market in Bangkok, Thailand, we recorded a signifi cant trade in non-native CITES-listed freshwater turtles and tortoises to be used as pets. We documented a total of 688 individuals of 19 species from different regions of the world, many of which are globally threatened with extinction. Most commonly recorded were three species of tortoise from Madagascar and Africa, i.e. Radiated Tortoise Geochelone radiata, Spurred Tortoise G. sulcata and Leopard Tortoise G. pardalis. Five species were listed on CITES Appendix I, precluding all international trade, and an additional six Appendix II or III-listed species that can be traded albeit regulated, were not registered as being imported into Thailand in the last six year. CITES I-listed species were not more expensive than CITES II or III listed species, nor was there a relationship between retail price and numbers of turtles observed. The large number and availability of illegally sourced animals indicates a blatant disregard for law and authority by traders both from Thailand and from exporting countries. We conclude that the trade in these species, in such signifi cant volumes, is of serious conservation concern, and in order for CITES to be more effective it is imperative that Parties recognize the scale of the international trade in freshwater turtles and tortoises and respond accordingly.


Treatment of the mono-meso-substituted iron(II) octaethylporphyrin complexes, (py)2Fe(II)(meso-NO2-OEP), (py)2Fe(II)(meso-CN-OEP), (py)2Fe(II)(meso-HC(O)-OEP), (py)2Fe(II)(meso-Cl-OEP), (py)2Fe(II)(meso-OMe-OEP), (py)2Fe(II)(meso-Ph-OEP), and (py)2Fe(II)(meso-n-Bu-OEP), with hydrogen peroxide in pyridine-d5 at -30 degrees C in the strict absence of dioxygen has been monitored by 1H NMR spectroscopy. The product oxophlorin complexes are stable as long as the samples are protected from exposure to dioxygen. Hydrogen peroxide reacts cleanly with mono-meso-substituted iron(II) porphyrins in pyridine solution under an inert atmosphere to form mixtures of three possible oxygenation products, (py)2Fe(cis-meso-R-OEPO), (py)2Fe(trans-meso-R-OEPO), and (py)2Fe(OEPO). The yields of (py)2Fe(OEPO), which results from replacement of the unique meso substituent, as a function of the identity of the meso substituent decrease in the order NO2 > HC(O) approximately equal to CN approximately equal to Cl > OMe > Ph, Bu, which suggests that the species responsible for attack on the porphyrin periphery is nucleophilic in nature. A mechanism involving isoporphyrin formation through attack of hydroxide ion on a cationic iron porphyrin with an oxidized porphyrin ring is suggested. The identity of the unique meso functionality also affects the regiospecificity of substitution when the unique meso group is retained. Although random attack at the two different meso sites is expected to yield a cis/trans product ratio of 2, the observed ratios vary in the following order: cyano, 5.0; n-butyl, 4.9; chloro, 3.2; formyl, 2.6; methoxy, 1.9; phenyl 1.4.


This paper demonstrates that the use of ensemble methods and carefully calibrating the decision threshold can significantly improve the performance of machine learning methods for morphological word decomposition. We employ two algorithms which come from a family of generative probabilistic models. The models consider segment boundaries as hidden variables and include probabilities for letter transitions within segments. The advantage of this model family is that it can learn from small datasets and easily generalises to larger datasets. The first algorithm Promodes, which participated in the Morpho Challenge 2009 (an international competition for unsupervised morphological analysis) employs a lower order model whereas the second algorithm Promodes-H is a novel development of the first using a higher order model. We present the mathematical description for both algorithms, conduct experiments on the morphologically rich language Zulu and compare characteristics of both algorithms based on the experimental results.


This paper builds on tobacco document research by analysing contemporary materials to explore how the global tobacco market has changed, how transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) are responding and the implications for tobacco control. The methods involved analysis of a variety of materials, including tobacco company annual reports, investor relations materials, financial analyst reports, market research reports and data. Once China, where TTCs have little market share, is excluded, global cigarette volumes are already declining. Nevertheless, industry profits continue to increase. This pattern is explained by the pricing power of TTCs—their ability to increase prices faster than volumes fall, a consequence of market failure. Pricing power is now fundamental to the long term future of TTCs. Consequently, and in light of growing regulations, the business model of the TTCs is changing. Product innovation is now a key marketing technique used to drive consumers to buy more expensive (ie, profitable) premium cigarettes. Contrary to established wisdom, high tobacco excise rates, particularly where increases in excise are gradual, can benefit TTCs by enabling price (profit) increases to be disguised. Large intermittent tax increases likely have a greater public health benefit. TTC investments in smokeless tobacco appear designed to eliminate competition between smokeless tobacco and cigarettes, thereby increasing the pricing power of TTCs while enabling them to harness the rhetoric of harm reduction. Monitoring TTCs can inform effective policy development. The value maximising approach of TTCs suggests that a ban on product innovation and more informed tobacco excise policies are needed.


We present αKanren, an embedding of nominal logic programming in Scheme. αKanren is inspired by αProlog and MLSOS, and allows programmers to easily write interpreters, type inferencers, and other programs that must reason about scope and binding. αKanren subsumes the functionality, syntax, and implementation of miniKanren, itself an embedding of logic programming in Scheme. We present the complete implementation of αKanren, written in portable RRS Scheme. In addition to the implementation, we provide introductions to miniKanren and αKanren, and several example programs, including a type inferencer for the simply typed λ-calculus.


ABSTRACT Cambrian–Ordovician strata of the midwestern United States are considered a promising reservoir for geologic storage of carbon dioxide. To assess the potential of the Ordovician St. Peter Sandstone, storage-resource estimates were generated using a hierarchical approach to estimating prospective storage resources. The method employs a series of increasingly sophisticated analyses to better facilitate an understanding of the uncertainty in the estimates. Results demonstrate how uncertainty of storage-resource estimates varies as a function of data availability and quality as well as the underlying assumptions used in the application of specific storage efficiency factors. In the simplest analysis, storage-resource estimates were calculated from updated regional-scale mapping of the gross thickness of the formation and by applying a single best estimate of the mean porosity for the entire formation. This analysis follows the technique prescribed by the US Department of Energy and yields storage-resource estimates ranging from 3.3 to 35.1 billion t CO 2 in the Michigan Basin and 1.0 to 11.0 billion t CO 2 in the Illinois Basin at the 10% and 90% probability levels. The second analysis incorporated generalized models of the diagenetic history of the formation throughout the two basins by implementing depth-dependent functions of porosity that lead to more realistic portrayals of spatially variable results. Similar resource estimates were calculated for the Michigan Basin, but reduced estimates (43%) were found for the Illinois Basin. The third analysis explicitly accounted for the local-scale spatial variability in reservoir quality using net-porosity calculations, resulting in a significant increase in the low-range resource estimate for the Michigan Basin and dramatic increases for Illinois Basin resource estimates (factor of 3 to 11 increases). A fourth analysis was conducted for the Michigan Basin that used advanced reservoir characterization to define reservoir properties for multiple reservoir facies and yielded resource estimates significantly larger than the third analysis and a larger range of uncertainty. This study highlights how different factors impact the expected uncertainty in storage-resource estimates, and analysis suggests that estimates from the first two approaches provide excessively conservative results, whereas the second two approaches tend to overestimate the resource.


Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) with recycled water or other alternative resources is one of the most rapidly growing techniques that is viewed as a necessity in water-short areas. In order to better control health and environmental effects of MAR, this paper presents two case studies demonstrating how to improve water quality, enable reliable tracing of injected water and better control and manage MAR operation in the case of indirect and direct aquifer recharge. Two water quality management strategies are illustrated on two full-scale case studies, including the results of the combination of non conventional and advanced technologies for water quality improvement, comprehensive sampling and monitoring programs including emerging pollutants, tracer studies using boron isotopes and integrative aquifer 3D GIS hydraulic and hydrodispersive modelling.


Aim: to evaluates the incidence, clinical profile of antenatal and postpartum women requiring admission to the ICU the interventions required in these women and final outcome. Material and methods: This retrospective observational study was done the Department of Anaesthesia, Metro Hospital and Cancer Research Center, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India Data were recorded and analyzed for each patient: age, parity, primary diagnosis (obstetric or non-obstetric e.g. community-acquired pneumonia, rheumatic heart disease) responsible for the patient's critical illness, indication of ICU admission, obstetric interventions performed, critical care interventions performed during ICU stay (mechanical ventilation, central venous catheterization, invasive arterial pressure monitoring, hemodialysis), duration of mechanical ventilation, length of ICU stay and outcome of patient. Results: During the study total 200 obstetric patients were admitted to the ICUs (4.44% of total ICU admissions). There were 12000 deliveries in this period, and the ICU admission rate was 16.30 per 1000 deliveries. The mean maternal age (in years) was 24.26±4.78 (mean±standard deviation). Primigravida (55%) were more as compared to multigravida (45%). Only 16% patients were in antepartum period while majority of patients (84%) were admitted during postpartum period. The main obstetric indications for ICU admission were pregnancy-induced hypertension (15%) followed by obstetric haemorrhage (9%) and community acquired pneumonia (7%), other indications were valvular heart disease (5%) and monitoring (6.5%). In the present study maternal mortality among the women admitted to ICU was 16%. The leading cause of maternal death was obstetric haemorrhage (28.13%) followed by pregnancy induced hypertension (21.87%). An ICU intervention during the stay of the patients in terms of mechanical ventilation was used in 135 (67.5%) cases. Conclusion: A high quality multidisciplinary care is required in complicated pregnancies for safe motherhood. So, there is a need for dedicated ICU for obstetric patients.


Tele-collaboration between medical professionals is well established for specialties like radiology, cardiology or pathology. Typically these applications do not allow for ad hoc participation of non-registered users like patients and / or medical professionals. This paper describes an approach for extending these tele-applications to non-registered users and providing ad hoc participation with means for providing and accessing data. A light weight, web-based approach is used to assure acceptance and ease of use while maintaining and complying to the required regulations regarding authentication, authorization and protection of personal data. The approach has been implemented and is in use with a nationwide tele-collaboration network in Germany.


The United States has used tax credits and mandates to promote ethanol production. To offset the tax credits received by imported ethanol, the United States instituted an import tariff. This study provides insights about the quantitative nature of a U.S. trade policy that would establish a free-market price for ethanol, given the U.S. ethanol mandate and tax credit. The theoretical results from a horizontally related ethanol-gasoline partial equilibrium model show that the United States should provide an import subsidy rather than impose a tariff. The empirical results quantify that this import subsidy is 9 cents, instead of a 57 cent import tariff, per gallon of ethanol.


Telomerase is a multi-subunit enzyme that reverse transcribes telomere repeats onto the ends of linear eukaryotic chromosomes and is therefore critical for genome stability. S. cerevisiae telomerase activity is cell-cycle regulated; telomeres are not elongated during G1 phase. Previous work has shown that Est1 protein levels are low during G1 phase, preventing telomerase complex assembly. However, the pathway targeting Est1p for degradation remained uncharacterized. Here, we show that Est1p stability through the cell cycle mirrors that of Clb2p, a known target of the Anaphase Promoting Complex (APC). Indeed, Est1p is stabilized by mutations in both essential and non-essential components of the APC. Mutations of putative Destruction boxes (D-boxes), regions shown to be important for recognition of known APC substrates, stabilize Est1p, suggesting that Est1p is likely to be targeted for degradation directly by the APC. However, we do not detect degradation or ubiquitination of recombinant Est1p by the APC in vitro, suggesting either that the recombinant protein lacks necessary post-translational modification and/or conformation, or that the APC affects Est1p degradation by an indirect mechanism. Together, these studies shed light on the regulation of yeast telomerase assembly and demonstrate a new connection between telomere maintenance and cell cycle regulation pathways.


Abstract The timing and location of the first cases of the 1918 influenza pandemic are still controversial, a century after the pandemic became widely recognized. Here, we critically review competing hypotheses on the timing and geographical origin of this important outbreak and provide new historical insights into debates within military circles as to the nature of putative pre-1918 influenza activity. We also synthesize current knowledge about why the 1918 pandemic was so intense in young adults. Although it is still not clear precisely when and where the outbreak began and symptom-based reports are unlikely to reveal the answer, indirect methods including phylogenetics provide important clues, and we consider whether intense influenza activity as far back as 1915 in the USA may have been caused by viral strains closely related to the 1918 one.


We propose and demonstrate a new integrated-optic TE/TM splitter using a polarization-selective Ti:LiNbO(3) directional coupler. By application of appropriate voltages, either polarization can be selected (cross talk will be below -30 dB) or both TE and TM modes can be simultaneously extracted (cross talk will be -24 dB).


Cuttings from a well through a thick section of Miocene–Oligocene mudrocks from Kenedy County, Texas, spanning a depth range of 2130 to 5490 m (7000 to 18 000 ft), have been studied petrographically and geochemically. On the basis of whole-rock chemical analyses, the deepest samples have lost ≈18 wt% (and approximately vol%), mostly as CaCO3, mineral-bound H2O, and SiO2, but including additional Ca, as well as Sr, light rare earth elements (REE) (La, Ce, Nd, Sm), Fe, and Li. K2O and Rb have been added to the deeper rocks. The large chemical changes are accompanied mineralogically by loss of detrital calcite, kaolinite, K-feldspar, Ca-plagioclase, and muscovite, gain of chlorite and albite, and continued reaction of smectitic illite/smectite (I/S) to more illitic (and K-rich) compositions throughout the entire depth interval of the well. The large chemical changes in this thick mud-rich interval almost certainly require advection of water (free convection?) to accomplish the mass transfer. Initial variation in sediment composition is ruled out as a cause of the observed compositional changes with increasing depth because (1) a variety of "immobile" elements (Al2O3, TiO2, Zr, Hf, heavy REE [Er, Yb], Th, and Sc) remain constant relative to each other despite their uneven distribution across various particle size fractions in the sediments; (2) deep Frio shales are unlike Quaternary Gulf of Mexico sediments or average shales; and (3) unreasonable primary mineralogic compositions would be necessary to explain the chemical composition of the deep samples.

These results indicate that burial diagenesis of argillaceous sediment can be a considerably more open chemical process than is conventionally assumed, that it can account for the two major chemical cements (calcite and quartz) in associated sandstones, and that it mirrors secular changes in shales throughout geologic time.


Writers on the history of international law, such as Grewe and Ziegler, maintain that in the Tractatus represaliarum by the fourteenth-century jurist Bartolus de Saxoferrato, there is an analogy between ius belli and reprisal. According to these scholars, Bartolus derived his theory of causa legitima for both war and reprisals solely from scholastic thought. This seems curious, since in the Corpus iuris civilis itself there are numerous texts dealing with reprisals and self-defence. This article therefore aims to establish whether Bartolus did indeed refer to any Roman legal text in his treatment of the causa legitima for reprisal.


Objective: To evaluate the effects of simulated pulpal pressure (SPP) on the variation of intrapulpal temperature ( D T) during light-curing of the adhesive system. Material e methods: One hundred sound human molars were sectioned from the highest pulp horn to obtain a 2-mm of thickness dentin. The specimens were randomly divided into two groups: (n=50), according to the presence or absence of SPP (15 cm H 2 O). The specimens were sequentially treated as follows: 37% phosphoric acid (Scotchbond Universal; 3M/ESPE), adhesive system (Scotchbond Universal/3M ESPE) and light-curing (10 seconds). D T was evaluated during adhesive light-curing with a K-type thermometer put inside the pulp chamber. Data were analysed by using Mann-Whitney's test (at 5%). Results: According to Mann-Whitney's test, the absence group presented a D T of 2°C, whereas the presence group 1°C. The mean values of D T were 0.82±0.56°C for the presence group and 2.30±0.73°C for the absence group. Conclusions: Simulated pulpal pressure significantly reduced the temperature rise in the pulp chamber during light-curing of the adhesive system, showing the importance of inserting this protocol of simulated pulpal pressure in the laboratory procedures. Keywords : Dentin; Light-curing; Pulpal pressure; Temperature.


There is a need to focus on research conducted on online talk about mental health in the domains of ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis (CA), Discursive Psychology (DP), and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). We use the notion of "talk" in this article, as opposed to what could be considered a more common term such as "discourse," to highlight that we approach computer-mediated discourse as inherently interactional. It is recipient designed and unfolds sequentially, responding to messages that have come before and building a context for messages that are constructed next. We will refer to the above domains that all share this view as CA(-related) approaches. A characterizing feature of interactional approaches to online mental health talk is their focus on in-depth analyses of relatively small amounts of data. With this focus at the center of their attention, they sit in the wider field of Discourse Analysis (DA), or Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) who use language as their lens to understand human interaction. DA and CMDA research include a much wider set of both micro- and macro-analytic language-focused approaches to capture online discourse. Of all the CA(-related) work on online materials, a disproportionally large number of studies appear to deal with (mental) health talk. We aim to answer the question what the field of research on online mental health talk has yielded in terms of findings and methodologies. Centrally, CA (-related) studies of online mental health talk have aimed to grasp the actions people accomplish and the identities they invoke when they address their health concerns. Examples of actions in online mental health talk in particular are presenting oneself, describing a problem, or offering advice. Relevant questions for the above approaches that consider language-as-social-action are how these different actions are brought off and how they are received, by closely examining contributions such as e-mail and chat postings and their subsequent responses. With a focus on talk about mental health, this article will cover studies of online support groups (OSGs, also called online communities), and interaction in online counseling programs, mainly via online chat sessions. This article is organized as follows. In the historiography, we present an overview of CA(-related) work on online mental health talk. We discuss findings from studies of online support groups (OSGs) first and then move to results from studies on online counseling. The start of our historiography section, however, sets out to briefly highlight how the Internet may offer several particularly attractive features for those with mental health problems or a mental illness. After the historiography, we discuss what an interactional approach of online mental health talk looks like and focuses on. We offer examples of empirical studies to illustrate how written contributions to a forum, and e-mails or chat posts that are part of online counseling sessions are examined as interaction and which types of findings this results in. We conclude with a review of methodological issues that pertain to the field, address the most important ethical considerations that come into play when examining online mental health talk, and will lastly highlight some areas for future research.


Our presentation discusses the practices and findings from a PhD workshop series at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, Sweden. The partnership between librarians, writing tutors/researchers in supporting PhD research has recently become a new reality with Information Literacy courses offered as tools for resources and searching (Hassani, 2015; Paasio & Hintikka, 2015; Garson,2016). The insights from our course contribute to this literature by re-conceptualizing "academic literacy", including Information Literacy, in doctoral education.
Adopting Academic Literacies (Lea & Street, 1998, 2006) as our workshops' underlying framework, we propose literacy beyond individual, transferable cognitive skills of writing and reading. Rather, it is an interrelated, dynamic, and situated set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes that help PhD students acculturate into disciplinary discourses, the academic community, and wider social contexts.
Our course approaches literacy holistically as comprising Research competence, Information literacy, and Academic English, with consideration to social processes (power, identity, and authority). The workshops cover critical reading, the literature review, writing abstract, communicating research and writing papers, but the PhD students are also encouraged to make sense of their writing by having critical, inquiry-based reflections about themselves, academia, and social discourses.
The results from the first three workshop seasons emphasize knowledge co-creation – between academic librarians and researchers, and between workshop instructors and PhD students, as one key principle in developing academic literacies. The findings indicate that Information Literacy can be seen beyond tools and resources but rather a springboard that stimulates PhD students' critical thinking in their becoming researchers. The positive feedback from the participants also gives the rationale for the expanding roles of the library (Delaney and Bates, 2018). These workshops have strengthened our belief that collaboration is one important strategy for librarians and writing tutors/researchers to acquire the skills of the future.
Authors
Mai Trang Vu, PhD, works at the Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, and Department of Language Studies, Umeå University, Sweden, email@example.com.
Magnus Olsson, Academic Librarian, Academic Resource Centre, Umeå University Library, Sweden, firstname.lastname@example.com.

References
Delaney, Geraldine, & Bates, Jessica. (2018). How Can the University Library Better Meet the Information Needs of Research Students? Experiences from Ulster University. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 24(1), 63-89.
Garson, D. S. (2016). Doctoral students becoming researchers: An innovative curriculum. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 8(1).
Hassani, A. E. (2015). The role of Information Literacy in higher education: An initiative at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 7(1).
Lea, M. & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157–72.
Lea, M. & Street, B. (2006). The 'Academic literacies' model: Theory and applications. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 368–77.
Paasio, A-L, Hintikka, K. (2015). An Information Literacy course for doctoral students: Information resources and tools for research. Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher Education, 7(1).


We studied density-gradient separation of autologous bone marrow grafts in preparation for ex vivo 4-hydroperoxy-cyclophosphamide (4-HC) purging. A two-step procedure of buffy coat isolation followed by Ficoll-diatrizoate separation was used. Buffy-coat cells were isolated primarily either using the COBE 2991 Blood Cell Processor or Haemonetics 30 Cell Separator. All density-gradient separations were performed using the COBE 2991. The nucleated cell recoveries after buffy-coat isolation were 44.3 +/- 10.4% and 85.1 +/- 10.5% (+/- standard deviation, P less than 0.001) for the Haemonetics 30 and COBE 2991 isolated grafts, respectively. The final nucleated cell recoveries after density-gradient separation for these two buffy-coat techniques were 24.2 +/- 10.1% and 29.5 +/- 14.7% (p = 0.30). Compared to manual density-gradient separation, the techniques using the COBE 2991 recovered slightly higher numbers of nucleated cells and CFU-GM. The red blood cell concentration of the 4-HC incubation mixture was 1.0 +/- 0.6% and the CFU-GM survival after treatment was 2.4 +/- 2.6%. The variability in CFU-GM survival after 4-HC incubation of the density-gradient separated grafts appears less than previous experience treating buffy-coat cells. Density-gradient separation of autologous bone marrow appears to provide a more uniform treatment with 4-HC and may improve the clinical transplant course of the autograft recipient.


Finite micro-tabs have been investigated experimentally to evaluate the potential for load control on wind turbines. Two dimensional full span, as well as multiple finite tabs of various aspect ratios have been studied on an AH93W174 airfoil at different chord wise positions. A force balance was used to measure the aerodynamic loads. Furthermore, the wake vortex system consisting of the Karman vortex street as well as the tab tip vortices was analyzed with a 12-hole probe and hot wire anemometry. Finally, conventional oil paint as well as a quantitative digital flow analysis technique called SMARTviz were used to visualize the flow around the finite tab configurations. Results have shown that the devices are an effective solution to alleviate the airfoils overall load. The influence of the tab height, tab position as well as the finite tab aspect ratio on the lift and lift to drag ratio have been evaluated. It could be shown, that the lift difference can either be varied by changing the tab height as well as by altering the aspect ratio of the finite tabs. The drag of a two-dimensional flap is directly associated with the vortex street, while in the case of the finite tab, the solidity ratio of the tabs has the strongest effect on the drag. Therefore, the application of a finite tab system showed to improve the lift to drag ratio.


the 1960s, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have monopolized the market for teacher representation services. In the 34 states that require school boards to bargain collectively, the NEA and AFT share almost 100 percent of the market for teacher representation services. Inasmuch as the two unions operate under a noncompete agreement, there is virtually no competition for the right to serve as the exclusive representative of teachers at the local level. As is the case with monopolies generally, the NEA/AFT monopoly over teacher representation services has resulted in excessive costs and producer domination of services affecting millions of teachers and support personnel. In 2001, active teacher membership in the two unions was about 2.7 million out of a total membership of about 3.7 million. Their combined revenues (local, state, and national) probably exceeded $1.5 billion, not including their political action committees, foundations, and special purpose organizations. Although teachers would be the primary direct beneficiaries of competition against NEA/AFT, the school choice movement would be a major, indirect beneficiary. NEA and AFT are the primary opponents of school choice. Were it not for their all-out opposition, our educational system would include many options that are not yet available to K-12 students. The argument in this analysis is that for-profit and nonprofit entities of all types should be authorized to compete with membership organizations— that is, unions—for the right to serve as the exclusive representative of teachers in collective bargaining. Such reform would open up competition to nonmembership organizations, solo entrepreneurs, negotiators, lawyers, and collective bargaining companies. Teachers would retain the right to go without an exclusive representative, and each representation option would compete against all the others. Teacher representation in the bargaining-law states would not be limited to unions as it is now. Teachers could change their choice of representative periodically, perhaps every two or three years, or at the expiration of their collective agreements. The best way to end the NEA/AFT monopoly is for states to enact legislation that (1) reduces the minimum required showing of interest from 30 to 10 percent of the bargaining unit, (2) explicitly allows individuals, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and membership organizations to compete for the right to represent teachers, and (3) enables all members in bargaining units to vote on the key decisions affecting their terms and conditions of employment. Liberating Teachers


This paper examines different approaches for assessing causality as typically followed in econometrics and proposes a constructive perspective for improving statistical models elaborated in view of causal analysis. Without attempting to be exhaustive, this paper examines some of these approaches. Traditional structural modeling is first discussed. A distinction is then drawn between model-based and design-based approaches. Some more recent developments are examined next, namely history-friendly simulation and information-theory based approaches. Finally, in a constructive perspective, structural causal modeling (SCM) is presented, based on the concepts of mechanism and sub-mechanisms, and of recursive decomposition of the joint distribution of variables. This modeling strategy endeavors at representing the structure of the underlying data generating process. It operationalizes the concept of causation through the ordering and role-function of the variables in each of the intelligible sub-mechanisms.


Information and communication technology are potentially significant tools in strengthening local initiatives towards sustainability. The Science and Technology (S&T) Framework for Sustainable Development provides a context for such development. This article describes a study aimed at examining how the existing mobile technologies of standard messaging service and wireless application protocol can be used to support the activities of an environmental grassroots organisation–London 21 Sustainability Network (henceforth London 21). Following the S&T Framework, it is clear that to realise the potential of these technologies a new mobile service should be effectively embedded into the structure and activity of the network. Using a participatory research approach, an extensive user requirements study with 273 participants was carried out to ensure that the development of the mobile service for London 21 fulfils the purposes, goals and expectations of the organisation. This article describes a Mobile Spatial Messaging Service, called EcoTEXT, which was developed and deployed for London 21. This service allows individuals to receive geographically targeted, action-orientated, time-relevant information via text messages on their mobile phones. The content of the service is information about upcoming local environmental events and activities, which match the interest of the user, when these events occur in close spatial proximity to where that user resides. This type of service represents a powerful new dimension for the provision of data-driven services in comparison to current text-based services. Location is giving the service additional meaning and value. The introduction of such a service into the organisation's communication toolkit offers the potential to create, supplement and strengthen social ties and interactions within the community.


In this article, we present Cellulo, a novel robotic platform that investigates the intersection of three ideas for robotics in education: designing the robots to be versatile and generic tools; blending robots into the classroom by designing them to be pervasive objects and by creating tight interactions with (already pervasive) paper; and finally considering the practical constraints of real classrooms at every stage of the design. Our platform results from these considerations and builds on a unique combination of technologies: groups of handheld haptic-enabled robots, tablets and activity sheets printed on regular paper. The robots feature holonomic motion, haptic feedback capability and high accuracy localization through a microdot pattern overlaid on top of the activity sheets, while remaining affordable (robots cost about 125 at the prototype stage) and classroom-friendly. We present the platform and report on our first interaction studies, involving about 230 children.


CREATING AND NURTURING A CULTURE OF ADOPTION AND ORPHAN CARE IN THE LOCAL CHURCH: A MULTIPLE CASE STUDY Randall Damon Burns, Ed.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015 Chair: Dr. Anthony Wayne Foster This research, a multiple case study, examined three churches to identify the key strategies used to develop and sustain an orphan care culture within their congregations. A minimum of five participants were interviewed at each church. The qualitative research design was achieved by completing semi-structured interviews over the telephone. Following the interviews, I transcribed, coded, and analyzed the data. This research identified four main strategies: teaching, leading, providing opportunities to engage, and developing support structures. Each strategy had substrategies. Teaching included awareness, communication, instruction, preaching, theology, Bible study, practical information, and training. Leading included types of leadership and methodology. The strategy providing opportunities to engage included raising awareness about the types of orphan care and making them accessible. Developing support structures included organizational support structures like a resource library and relational support structures like a support group. Key terms: adoption, adoption culture, culture, forming culture, orphan, orphan care, orphan care culture, orphan care strategies.


In the studies of quantum field theory in curved spacetime, the ambiguous concept of vacuum state and the particle content is a long-standing debatable aspect. So far it is well known to us that in the background of the curved spacetime, some privileged class of observers detect particle production in the suitably chosen vacuum states of the quantum matter fields. In this work we aim to study the characteristics behaviour of these produced particles in the background of the de-Sitter (dS) Friedmann-Lama\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) Universe (both for $(1+1)$ and $(3+1)$ dimensions) and $(1+1)$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole (BH) spacetime, from the point of view of the respective privileged class of observers. Here the analysis is confined to the observers who perceive particle excitations in the conformal vacuum. We consider some test particles in the thermal bath of the produced particles and calculate the correlation function of the fluctuation of the random force as exerted by the produced quanta on the test particles. We obtain that the correlation function abides by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, which in turn signifies that the test particles execute Brownian-like motion in the thermal bath of the produced quanta.


It is necessary to modify the simple vapour compression refrigeration systems in order to improve the performance. The coefficient of performance of the system can be increased either by decreasing the work of compression or increasing the refrigerating effect or by the combination of both. The refrigerating effect can be increased by maintaining the condition of refrigerant in lower temperature liquid stage, at the entrance of evaporator. This can be achieved by expanding the refrigerant very close to the liquid line i.e. by sub-cooling the refrigerant and by removing the flashed vapour. The present work describes the design of a VCRS and the design of the liquid suction heat exchanger. A tube in tube type heat exchanger is incorporated in the system, in between the liquid line i.e. pipe joining the condenser and the expansion device and the suction line i.e. pipe joining the evaporator and the compressor. So it is called as Liquid Suction Heat Exchanger (LSHX) or Suction line heat exchanger (SLHX). Effect of reduced flashing was found dominant, compared with the effect of sub-cooling on the refrigeration capacity. The effects of different flow rates of refrigerant and initial temperature of water on COP, work of compression, refrigeration effect of the system, heat exchange capacity of the LSHX, effectiveness of the LSHX & refrigeration capacity of the evaporator are calculated and analyzed. On the basis of experimentation and analysis, it is found that, use of liquid suction heat exchanger in the VCRS, increases the COP of the refrigeration unit for different initial temperatures of water. The power consumption by the compressor gets reduced by using the liquid suction heat exchanger. The optimum effect of the LSHX is seen at different flow rates of the refrigerant for lower initial temperature of water (30 to 35 °C).


In this paper we analyze the recent migration wave in Armenia, using household level representative data from 2011. We identify determinants of emigration intentions by estimating a bivariate probit model with endogenous remittances. The key finding is that remittances help potential migrants to ease the migration process, serving as a resource rather than as a contractual tool between migrants and non-migrants. Spatial factors dominate in the set of (community level) instruments driving remittances. When distinguishing the destination country for potential migrants, Post-Soviet versus Western countries (EU countries or USA), we find that the instruments identified for remittances are more relevant for individuals targeting the Post-Soviet area (mainly Russia). Nevertheless, remittances remain a significant resource for migrating to Western countries. In this case, we control for endogeneity of remittances using Lewbel's (2012) methodology. Our findings suggest that the two pools of potential migrants differ crucially in the main set of skill characteristics: high-skilled potential migrants opt for Western countries (brain drain), while the low-skilled prefer Post-Soviet countries as a destination. In particular, English language knowledge and computer literacy increase the likelihood for migrating to Western countries, and individuals with those skills are less likely to migrate to Post-Soviet countries. Education is significant for the Post-Soviet model only, with a negative impact on migration intentions.


This paper documents that an appreciation of the U.S. dollar is associated with a reduction in the supply of commercial and industrial loans by U.S. banks. An increase in the broad dollar index by 2.5 points (one standard deviation) reduces U.S. banks' corporate loan originations by 10 percent. This decline is driven by a reduction in the demand for loans on the secondary market where prices fall and liquidity worsens when the dollar appreciates, with stronger effects for riskier loans. Today, the main buyers of U.S. corporate loans-and, hence, suppliers of funding for these loans-are institutional investors, in particular mutual funds, which experience outflows when the dollar appreciates. A shift of traditional financial intermediation to these relatively unregulated entities, which are more sensitive to global developments, has led to the emergence of this new channel through which the dollar affects the U.S. economy, which we term the secondary market channel.


The recommended approach for response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, was to test to enable timely detection, isolation and contact tracing so as to reduce the rapid spread of the disease. This highlighted that the laboratory as one of the core capacities of the International Health Regulations and key technical area in the International Health Security was critical in curbing the spread of the virus. Zimbabwe embarked on testing for SARS-CoV-2 in February 2020 following the guidance and support from WHO leveraging the existing testing capacity. Testing was guided by a laboratory pillar which constituted members from different organizations partnering with the Ministry of Health and Child Care. SARS-CoV-2 testing expansion was based on a phased approach using a tiered system in which laboratory staff from lower tiers were seconded to test for coronavirus using RT-PCR with National Microbiology Reference Laboratory (NMRL) being the hub for centralized consolidation of all results. As the pandemic grew nationally, there was an increase in testing per day and reduction in turnaround time as five laboratories were fully capacitated to test using RT-PCR open platforms, thirty-three provincial and district laboratories to test using TB GeneXpert and 5 provincial laboratories to use Abbott platforms.


We have studied the geological time evolution of volcanism in Earth and other inner solar system planetary bodies (Mercury, Moon, Mars and Venus) in both geophysical and biophysical perspective. The record of Large Igneous Provinces in Earth and other planetary objects suggest the existence of increasing, decreasing and cessation phases of major volcanic activity over geological time scales. We have extended the existing scale of measuring intensity of volcanic eruptions based on Earth based observations to accommodate intense and extreme volcanic activity. The mass of a rocky planetary object is found to be related to the magnitude of the internal heat, occurrences of Large Igneous Provinces and the duration of major volcanic activity from relevant data available for the inner solar system. The internal heat magnitude may also decide the intensity of volcanism in these planetary objects. The time evolution of volcanism in Earth and Mars has probably influenced the origin of life and biological evolution in these planets.


Aster Yellows phytoplasma (AYp; 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris') is an obligate bacterial pathogen that is the causative agent of multiple diseases in herbaceous plants. While this phytoplasma has been examined in depth for its disease characteristics, knowledge about the spatial and temporal dynamics of pathogen spread is lacking. The phytoplasma is found in plant's phloem and is vectored by leafhoppers (Cicadellidae: Hemiptera), including the aster leafhopper, Macrosteles quadrilineatus Forbes. The aster leafhopper is a migratory insect pest that overwinters in the southern United States, and historical data suggest these insects migrate from southern overwintering locations to northern latitudes annually, transmitting and driving phytoplasma infection rates as they migrate. A more in-depth understanding of the spatial, temporal and genetic determinants of Aster Yellows disease progress will lead to better integrated pest management strategies for Aster Yellows disease control. Carrot, Daucus carota L., plots were established at two planting densities in central Wisconsin and monitored during the 2018 growing season for Aster Yellows disease progression. Symptomatic carrots were sampled and assayed for the presence of the Aster Yellows phytoplasma. Aster Yellows disease progression was determined to be significantly associated with calendar date, crop density, location within the field, and phytoplasma subgroup.


Injuries and deaths due to accidents are inescapable in the modern way of living. The accidental deaths are mostly due to the road traffic, but the deaths due to railway fatalities are also not negligible, especially in the areas where railway traffic is high. Southern railways are major mode of transportation of the passengers and goods; consequently, the incidences of railway fatalities and mishaps are also high in South India. Most of the reported cases of railway deaths led to the conclusion that either the victim was directly hit by the train or died due to some other reason, but the body was recovered in the vicinity of the railway platforms. Here, we are discussing the injuries in a young pregnant woman in a train and pedestrian accident, where the injury to the abdomen resulted into the expulsion of preterm fetus and death of pregnant woman.

 Key words: Railway accident, death, delivery, autopsy.


This paper tackles the problem of designing state observers for flexible link mechanisms: an investigation is made on the possibility of employing observers making use of suitable piecewise-linear truncated dynamics models. A general approach is proposed, which provides an objective way of synthesizing observers preventing the instability that may arise from using reduced-order linearized models. The approach leads to the identification of the regions of the domain of the state variables where the linear approximations of the nonlinear model can be considered acceptable. To this purpose, first of all, the stability of the equilibrium points of the closed-loop system is assessed by applying the eigenvalue analysis to appropriate piecewise-linear models. Admittedly, the dynamics of such a closed-loop system is affected by the pole perturbation caused by spillover, and by the discrepancies between the linearized models of the plant and the one of the observer. Additionally, when nodal elastic displacements and velocities are not bounded in the infinitesimal neighborhoods of the equilibrium points, the difference between the nonlinear model and the locally-linearized one is expressed in terms of unstructured uncertainty and stability is assessed by H∞ robust analysis. The method is demonstrated by applying it to a closed-chain flexible link mechanism.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) is a joint Federal/State partnership program with a sample size of 1.2 million establishments over a 3-year period (six semi-annual panels each consisting of 200,000 establishments). The OES collects occupational employment and wage data for approximately 800 occupations at the MSA by 4-5 digit industrial (NAICS) level. Because of the burden on respondents, this survey is designed to collect wage data in intervals rather than exact wages for individual employees. In this paper, we will present the previous research work on the construction of lower and upper bounds of the intervals; alternative methods for estimating mean wages—arithmetic, geometric, and NCS mean wages; updating of wages from prior panels; and calculation of mean wages for the upper open-ended Interval L (i.e., employees making $70 or more per hour in the years 2003-2005). This study further examines several methods for approximating mean wages for Interval L for occupations that have significant employment (>5%) in Interval L and validates the OES methodology on independent data sets from the Current Population Survey for years 2003, 2004, and 2005.


Fractures are the main fluid-flow pathways in tight-oil sandstones, and they have a significant influence on tight-oil distribution, exploration, and development. Cores and image logs are commonly unavailable because of their high costs, so employing conventional logs for fracture detection is imperative for tight-oil sandstones. We compared the fracture-response characteristics of conventional logs based on two data sets, one from 8 cored wells with fracture intensities greater than 1 m−1 (3.3 ft−1) and the other from 11 cored wells with fracture intensities less than 0.5 m−1 (1.6 ft−1), with a case study of the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation in southwest Ordos Basin, China. The results indicate that when tight-oil sandstones are more intensely fractured, the caliper log, acoustic log, compensated neutron log, density log, dual induction logs, and laterolog 8 present fracture responses to some extent. However, it is difficult to make a distinction between fractured and nonfractured zones using conventional logs in sandstones with smaller fracture intensities. The fracture-response intensities of conventional logs are weak, and they are influenced by fracture abundance, fracture occurrence, fracture scale, and mineral-filling degree. Moreover, lithology, fluids, and rock physical properties can cause fracturelike responses. Hence, some ambiguity exists when using conventional logs to directly identify fractures. Accompanying fracture-sensitive conventional logs with some methods to enhance fracture-response intensity and eliminate nonfracture influence could enable fracture identification in tight-oil sandstones.


Aim of the study: As with other chronic diseases, depression is more prevalent among the patients with type
2 diabetes mellitus. Depression and diabetes-related distress adversely affect diabetes-related outcomes. This
study aims at identifying comprehensive effects of antidepressant treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes
mellitus and co-morbid depression.
Material and methods: 124 subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus were screened for depression using the
Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 (PHQ-9). 34 subjects with PHQ score > 10 were recruited to the study and
rated on Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and
the Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS). Subjects' glycemic parameters – Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS), Post-Prandial Blood Sugar (PPBS) and Glycated Hemoglobin (HbA1C) were recorded. All subjects were treated with
either escitalopram or mirtazapine for a period of 8 weeks. Post-intervention changes in BDI, MADRS, DDS
and glycemic parameters were noted.
Results: Antidepressant treatment has led to a significant improvement in depressive symptoms (reduction in
BDI: 19.13 ± 8.06; reduction in MADRS: 17.16 ± 5.3) and diabetes-related distress (reduction in DDS: 17.81
± 8.93). Significant improvements were also noticed in glycemic parameters: FBS (p= 0.015) and HbA1C
(p=0.004).
Discussion: Distress in diabetes leads to poor self-care and higher HbA1C, while depression predicts poorer
glycemic control, more complications and higher health-care costs. Improvement in depression and distress
in diabetes yields much greater benefits.
Conclusions: Antidepressant treatment with escitalopram or mirtazapine can effectively treat depression and
reduce diabetes-related distress in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Beneficial effects are noted on glycemic parameters as well.


Liver fibrosis initiates the progression of cirrhosis, and, finally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The increased proliferation and activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) are crucial for hepatic fibrogenesis. Paeonol is the major vigorous component of Cortex Moutan, a traditional herbal medicine widely used for treating various diseases. Here, we identified a novel paeonol derivative (4-methoxy sulfonyl paeonol, 4-MSP) that inhibits TGF-β1-induced Smad2/3 phosphorylation and collagen expression in HSCs. 4-MSP pretreatment suppressed the PDGF-BB–induced phosphorylation of MAPK pathway members (MEK/ERK, p38, JNK), Akt/p70S6K, and HSC proliferation. However, 4-MSP treatment had no effect on the induction of apoptosis in HSCs. The microarray experiments showed that 4-MSP treatment affects the TGF-β signaling, MAPK cascade, and other pathways related to HSCs activation and proliferation. The administration of 4-MSP to a liver fibrosis mouse model induced by CCl4 significantly decreased the expression of hepatic fibrosis markers (α-SMA, col1A2, TGF-β, and MMP2), and attenuated hepatic collagen deposition and liver damage. In addition, no adverse effects were observed in 4-MSP exposed mice. In conclusion, this novel paeonol-phenylsulfonyl derivative prevents the progression of liver fibrosis through blocking TGF-β1/Smad, PDGF-BB/MAPK, and Akt signaling, which suggests its use as a novel therapeutic against liver fibrosis.


Although polymers are widely employed to impart specific function to surfaces, techniques to characterize the adsorbed molecule are limited and usually indirect. We present two independent dynamic NMR studies to deduce the manner in which adsorbed polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) attaches to the surface of ZnO colloidal nanoparticles and directs particle precipitation. In our colloidal system, the conformation of the polymer molecule on the particle surface—loosely described as trains, loops, or tails—can be elucidated by probing the nuclear response of the solvent or the polymer to pulsed magnetic fields. The dynamic 1H-NMR signal of polymer-juxtaposed solvent molecules are monitored in our first approach, in which we monitor both spin-lattice (also known as T1) and spin-spin (also known as T2) relaxation behavior of the solvent, as the ease of solvent relaxation varies with proximity to the nanoparticle surface. In a second approach, the proton signal of the polymer is monitored over time. The rationale of this approach is that the signal of particle-bound polymer moieties will be lost faster than that of unbound polymer ones. Determining the signal of spin-echo and solid-echo processes enables calculation of polymer bound fraction. The ZnO nanoparticle platforms are synthesized by the hydrolysis and condensation of zinc oxide precursors in PVP-containing solutions. Particle size distribution is determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS), as well as extrapolation from UV-visible absorption spectra. Three specific PVP concentrations are chosen in producing ZnO particles. Synthesis in solutions of high PVP concentration produces comparable results between the hydrodynamic radius and the extrapolated UV-visible radius, whereas at low polymeric concentrations, the difference between the two radii increases, suggesting a change in the conformation of adsorbed polymer on the nanoparticle surface under varying concentration. Dynamic NMR T1 analysis reveals a loss of solvent mobility at higher polymer concentrations. In a separate experiment, we investigate the effect of the Zn precursor cations on the solvation of PVP, by using DLS to measure the hydrodynamic radius of the interpenetrating PVP in propanol, in the presence and absence of the zinc cation precursor. The results suggest that the zinc precursor ions pull the PVP chains closer, most likely due to the pyrrolidone rings on the polymers, and reduce the radius of gyration of polymer globules at high PVP concentrations. These results validate a model of highly dense polymer globules serving as reactors for ZnO nanoparticle precipitation, in which the high density of pyrrolidone rings in the globule hinders the diffusion of Zn+2by electrostatic interaction. At high concentrations, large PVP globules appear to trap the reactant species and adsorb in a train conformation on the surface of precipitating ZnO nanoparticles. At low concentrations, the sizes of PVP globules are comparable to that of the evolving ZnO nanoparticles, and PVP adsorbs in looped and tail-only conformation.


The Anomalous X‐ray Pulsar 4U 0142+61 is the only neutron star where it is believed that one of the long searched‐for 'fallback' disks has been detected in the mid‐IR by Wang et al. [1] using Spitzer. Such a disk originates from material falling back to the NS after the supernova. We search for cold circumstellar material in the 90 GHz continuum using the Plateau de Bure Interferometer. No millimeter flux is detected at the position of 4U 0142+61, the upper flux limit is 150 μJy corresponding to the 3σ noise rms level. The re‐processed Spitzer MIPS 24μm data presented previously by Wang et al. [2] show some indication of flux enhancement at the position of the neutron star, albeit below the 3σ statistical significance limit. At far infrared wavelengths the source flux densities are probably below the Herschel confusion limits.


Historically, the practice of real property and foreclosure law was routine and noncontroversial. This legal landscape significantly altered during the spectacular growth of securitization deals involving trillions of dollars of residential mortgage loans. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) was a driving force behind one of these changes. It adopted amendments to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code in 1998, at least in part, to facilitate securitization. These modifications included extending coverage to the sale of (not merely to a security interest in) promissory notes, declaring that the sale of the note also constitutes a sale of the mortgage without the need for a written assignment of the mortgage, and providing for automatic perfection of interests in both the note and the accompanying mortgage without the need to file. Meanwhile, the behavior of a number of mortgage lending and securitization participants or their agents generated additional legal complications. Examples include the mishandling of loan notes and mortgages, the forging of indorsements or the submitting of fraudulent affidavits to courts in support of their purported right to foreclose, and the pressing of foreclosures without the necessary documentation. Confusion about the roles of and intersections among Articles 3 and 9 of the UCC and the right to foreclose under state real property law followed in the wake of these changes. These misunderstandings spawned volumes of judicial rulings, many of which appear to be at odds with each other. In an effort to reduce the ensuing legal confusion about the intersections between the right to foreclose and the UCC, this Article provides a roadmap of the relevant rules in Articles 3 and 9 and the right to foreclose in state real property law. Further, it explores the tension developing over the last decade among Articles 3, 9, and the right-to-foreclose concept in state real property law.This Article advances the literature concerned with the right to foreclose by categorizing recent state appellate court decisions that address this right by the type of analysis applied by those courts. The rulings from Arizona, California, and Georgia fall into one category and are the subject of special scrutiny because they dismiss the role of the UCC outright. Moreover, these three states have experienced some of the worst foreclosure rates in the nation and permit foreclosures to proceed nonjudicially. Hence, these decisions will affect a broad swath of homeowners in danger of losing their homes. The Article then applies statutory construction principles to determine whether those courts ruled out the UCC unnecessarily, proffering that foreclosure laws in those states could be harmonized with the UCC.Finally, the Article concludes that where inconsistencies arise between the UCC and state real property law, applying statutory construction principles likely will result in creating a more uniform legal landscape throughout the nation, in protecting homeowners from unjustified foreclosures, and in reducing litigation costs and judicial resources in a distraught foreclosure system.


New sustainable composite materials inspired by plant cuticles have been fabricated by impregnation of fibrous cellulose substrates with a naturally occurring polyhydroxylated fatty acid (9,10,16‐trihydroxypalmitic or aleuritic acid) and subsequent polymerization of the latter into polyaleuritate. A two‐step preparation method is used, comprising of spraying and hot‐pressing. The hot‐pressing temperature is critical for the extent of polymerization of polyaleuritate and its alteration allows fine tuning of the mechanical properties, opacity, wettability, and water adsorption of the developed composite materials. The cellulose substrate controls other characteristics such as water permeability and thermal conductivity. Addition of carnauba wax into the polyaleuritate matrix results in improvement of water and oxygen barrier properties. Best results in terms of mechanical resistivity, transparency, water resistance, and low values of oxygen permeability are obtained for samples fabricated using hot‐pressing temperature of 200 °C and with a final formulation of 80.6% of cellulose, 17.7% of aleuritic acid, and 1.7% of carnauba wax. Comparison of the composite properties with common plastics confirms that these plant cuticle‐like materials can become promising alternatives to petroleum‐based macromolecules for packaging applications.


The increasing environmental limits and carbon emissions taxes are substantial to develop the efficient systems for offering an effective energy utilization. This study proposed a new biomass-based gasification-assisted configuration for the renewable hydrogen production system offering efficient energy utilization. A multi-effect desalination system is employed for water desalination which is converted to steam and fed to the entrained flow gasifier. The integrated heat recovery steam generator gains the additional heat from the syngas to generate steam using fresh water from the desalination unit. The produced hydrogen is supplied to the multistage compression unit that stores hydrogen at high pressure. Industrial aspen plus software V9 version is employed for the simulation under the RK-SOAVE property method. The production of hydrogen before the water gas shift reactor is 129.5 mol/s and after the water gas shift reactor is found to be 171 mol/s. The thermodynamic performance of the biomass energy-assisted system is determined through overall energetic and exergetic efficiencies that are revealed to be 40.86% and 38.63%. Numerous sensitivity studies are performed to explore the performance of the designed system and presented and discussed.


This study began as an investigation into the proverbial "dog that didn't bark," that failure of intuition which often opens the most interesting avenues of inquiry. In this case, the silent dog was an authoritarian Russian Federation: from 1991 onward, there was widespread expectation that it would be only a matter of time before Russia fell back into old habits, and that the experiment with democracy would be little more than an odd footnote in an otherwise unbroken record of autocracy. I am forced to admit that I was part of this chorus of pessimism, and in late 1993-despite the fact that I felt Y eltsin was right to crush the attempted coup of Ruslan Khasbulatov and Aleksandr Rutskoi-I expected little more than that Russia would then descend into some kind of muddled and mild authoritarianism.


This article draws on interviews with farm women and men who have experienced a family break up to analyse their experiences of gender expectations in family farming, their fear of stigmatisation and their receipt of help from the rural community. The interviews illustrate their compliance with dominant constructions of rural gendered moralities. Men struggled to live up to the ideals of rural masculinity, which centre on hard work, self-sufficiency and mental strength. Women, who were strongly influenced by the moral norms of rural womanhood, managed to retain their feminine dignity as being caring and considerate of the family. Rural communities are often characterised as nurturing close relationships, but also as being pervaded by social control and gossip. Both women and men interpreted their break up as a private matter and deliberately avoided disclosing their relationship problems in order to protect themselves and their families from gossip, which made it difficult for them to seek and receive help from the rural community. While some of the hardships are recognisable for any divorced couple, the article is concerned with the rural farm particularities of the divorce situation.