This paper presents a novel deep neural network (DNN) architecture with highway blocks (HWs) using a complex discrete Fourier transform (DFT) feature for keyword spotting. In our previous work, we showed that the feed-forward DNN with a time-delayed bottleneck layer (TDB-DNN) directly trained from the audio input outperformed the model with the log-mel filter bank energy feature (LFBE), given a large amount of training data [1]. However, the deeper structure of such an audio input DNN makes an optimization problem more difficult, which could easily fall in one of the local minimum solutions. In order to alleviate the problem, we propose a new HW network with a time-delayed bottleneck layer (TDB-HW). Our TDB-HW networks can learn a bottleneck feature representation through optimization based on the cross-entropy criterion without stage-wise training proposed in [1]. Moreover, we use the complex DFT feature as a method of pre-processing. Our experimental results on the real data show that the TDB-HW network with the complex DFT feature provides significantly lower miss rates for a range of false alarm rates over the LFBE DNN, yielding approximately 20 % relative improvement in the area under the curve (AUC) of the detection error tradeoff (DET) curves for keyword spotting. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of different pre-processing methods for the deep highway network.


Orthodontic tooth movement represents a series of events at both cellular and molecular levels which in turn stimulates inflammatory pathway to induce tooth movement. Some drugs taken by patients have a negative effect which can block this pathway, on the other hand, others may influence these events and reduce treatment time.A search strategy was implemented using both manual hand search and electronic databases, including Cochrane database of clinical trials, PubMed, ScienceDirect and Scopus. The risk of biased eligible studies to be included in the final analysis was assessed independently by two authors using Cochrane risk of bias tool.A total of 491 articles were identified in both manual and electronic searches as well as by checking the reference lists of articles to be included in the study. After reviewing the titles, abstracts and full-text articles, only 8 RCTs met the inclusion criteria, and thus, were included in the final analysis. Six out of the 8 RCTs were assessed as of low quality. No statistical methods were employed to combine the studies due to the heterogeneities of the studies and the low level of evidence.Acetylsalicylic acid and ibuprofen reduced orthodontic tooth movement whereas paracetamol, Rofecoxib and tenoxicam had no impact on orthodontic tooth movement. Due to the low quality of the studies included, therefore to base our practice on scientific evidence, better-controlled RCTs are needed to investigate the impact of common medications on orthodontic tooth movement.


TOMS is a shoe company that gives away a pair for each pair you buy. In light of their success, the imitator BOBS entered offering similar shoe design and the same buy one give one initiative. Corporate Social responsibility (CSR), by its definition, is a noble cause that benefits society, thus, one would expect consumers' response to BOBS would be equally favorable as they didi to TOMS. However, this was not the case (Jørgensen & Pedersen, 2013). Intrigued by the story of TOMS vs BOBS we arrived to the following decision problem: How can companies that imitate CSR initiatives alleviate unfavorable response from consumers? In order to operationalize this research question, two specific questions were investigated: (1) Can brand equity alleviate consumers' unfavorable response to imitated CSR initiatives, and (2) Can a persuasive story alleviate consumers' unfavorable response to imitated CSR initiative? These questions were addressed with a 2x2 factorial design experiment where the dimensions were known brand/unknown brand and persuasive story/ no persuasive story. The persuasive story yielded significant main effects on product attitude and purchase intentions. However, simple effects analysis revealed that it was persuasive story alongside the known brand that provided the significant results. The implication for managers is that persuasive story with a strong brand can jointly bring forth more favorably consumer response to imitated CSR-products. Interestingly, the present study found significant correlation between perceived sincerity of the company and perceived fit (between CSR initiative and the company), recognizing that this correlation may not necessarily mean causation, future studies may consider investigation of the causal analysis between the two variables.


Previous studies have prioritized trait-relevant cell types by looking for an enrichment of GWAS signal within functional regions. However, these studies are limited in cell resolution by the lack of functional annotations from difficult-to-characterize or rare cell populations. Measurement of single-cell gene expression has become a popular method for characterizing novel cell types, and yet, hardly any work exists linking single-cell RNA-seq to phenotypes of interest. To address this deficiency, we present RolyPoly, a regression-based polygenic model that can prioritize trait-relevant cell types and genes from GWAS summary statistics and single-cell RNA-seq. We demonstrate RolyPoly's accuracy through simulation and validate previously known tissue-trait associations. We discover a significant association between microglia and late-onset Alzheimer's disease, and an association between oligodendrocytes and replicating fetal cortical cells with schizophrenia. Additionally, RolyPoly computes a trait-relevance score for each gene which reflects the importance of expression specific to a cell type. We found that differentially expressed genes in the prefrontal cortex of Alzheimer's patients were significantly enriched for highly ranked genes by RolyPoly gene scores. Overall, our method represents a powerful framework for understanding the effect of common variants on cell types contributing to complex traits.


This research focuses on the design and analysis of a Boost cascaded Buck-Boost (BoCBB) power converter with super high efficiency in electric power conversion. The BoCBB power converter is based on emerging wide-bandgap silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFETs and Schottky diodes, which have only 1/6 times of power loss in traditional silicon power semiconductor devices. The BoCBB power converter can be widely applied in solar harvesting for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), military bases and electric utilities, as well as high-power DC motor drives for the electric vehicles, robotics, and manufacturing and product lines. This research analyzed the topology and energy efficiency of a 3-kW BoCBB power converter. The energy efficiency of the SiC-based BoCBB power converter was calculated under various switching frequencies (20-kHz – 100-kHz) and was first tested by a simulation study of solar power integration in a 400-Vdc distribution microgrid in Matlab/Simulink environment. The design of 50-kHz in switching frequency revealed to be optimal in overall system performance. This conclusion was further verified by experimental tests. The experimental tests demonstrated a high efficiency of above 97% in power conversion. In order to improve the power quality of the BoCBB power converter for time-varying solar radiation, a novel sliding-window-combined (SWC) hysteresis control technique was proposed and preliminarily verified by a simulation study to enhance transients of a power grid.


In this chapter for an edited volume on the Obama presidency, we examine Obama's judicial legacy and specifically his relationship to the Supreme Court. Obama shaped the Court with two important appointments, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, thus increasing the number of women on the Court to three. But he was unable to shift the Court dramatically in a progressive direction, despite the death of Antonin Scalia — the intellectual center of the conservative Court — late in Obama's second term. Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, a moderate, was stymied by a recalcitrant Republican-led Senate.
So too, despite a conservative majority on the Court, conservatives' hopes to change the fundamental terms of the existing constitutional settlement were not realized. Obama's signature social welfare program — the Affordable Care Act — survived constitutional challenge, while marriage rights were extended to gays and lesbians. The constitutional doctrine the Supreme Court elaborated in the middle of the twentieth century had two essential features: the broad legitimacy of the federal administrative state, especially in the realm of economic regulation, and the judicial protection of civil rights and civil liberties. Those two pillars of Supreme Court jurisprudence mostly survived, even as conservative justices cut back significantly on racial civil rights, expanded gun rights, and extended speech and religious rights to corporations.
With Donald Trump's election in 2016, Obama lost the appointment that would have shaped the Court for years. Scalia's replacement, Neil Gorsuch, appears to share Scalia's judicial approach. Ideologically, the Court looks about the same as it did during Obama's two terms in office. Trump's ascendancy, however, raises the possibility that a new appointment will substantially alter what has been a fairly stable, fifty-year constitutional settlement.


Numerous deep learning applications benefit from multitask learning with multiple regression and classification objectives. In this paper we make the observation that the performance of such systems is strongly dependent on the relative weighting between each task's loss. Tuning these weights by hand is a difficult and expensive process, making multi-task learning prohibitive in practice. We propose a principled approach to multi-task deep learning which weighs multiple loss functions by considering the homoscedastic uncertainty of each task. This allows us to simultaneously learn various quantities with different units or scales in both classification and regression settings. We demonstrate our model learning per-pixel depth regression, semantic and instance segmentation from a monocular input image. Perhaps surprisingly, we show our model can learn multi-task weightings and outperform separate models trained individually on each task.


Two distributed asynchronous drift estimation algorithms for time synchronization in networks with random communication delays and measurement noise are proposed. The algorithms are superior to similar existing methods. Convergence of the algorithms to consensus in the mean square sense and w.p.1 is proved. Rate of convergence of the algorithms is analyzed. It is also shown that the algorithms can be applied as flooding algorithms, with one reference node. Illustrative simulation results are also given.


BACKGROUND
Various studies have demonstrated that nursing is stressful and that the incidence of occupational stress-related burnout in the profession is high.

AIM
This descriptive-correlational study examined nurses' satisfaction with their psychosocial work environment, their moral sensitivity and differences in outcomes of clinical nursing supervision in relation to nurses' well-being by systematically comparing supervised and unsupervised nurses.

METHODS
Nurses were selected from two hospitals (n = 71). Data collection was by means of questionnaires and analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESULTS
The nurses' satisfaction with their psychosocial work environment was reflected in six factors: 'job stress and anxiety', 'relationship with colleagues', 'collaboration and good communication', 'job motivation', 'work demands' and 'professional development'. The nurses' perceptions of moral sensitivity comprised seven factors: 'grounds for actions', 'ethical conflicts', 'values in care', 'independence patient-oriented care', 'the desire to provide high-quality care' and 'the desire to provide high-quality care creates ethical dilemmas'. Nurses well-being were reflected in four factors 'physical symptom and anxiety', 'feelings of not being in control', 'engagement and motivation' and 'eye strain sleep disturbance'. The moral sensitivity 'ethical conflicts' were found to have mild negative correlations with psychosocial work environment 'job stress and anxiety professional development' and with 'total score' psychosocial work, moral sensitivity factor 'independence were correlated with psychosocial work factor 'relationships with colleagues' and 'total score', moral sensitivity were mildly correlated with 'collaboration and good communication and had a negative correlation to psychosocial work factor 'work demands'. In addition, significant correlations were found between the nurses' well-being profile and demographic variables, between 'engagement and motivation' and 'absence due to illness' and between 'time allocation for tasks', 'physical symptoms and anxiety' and 'age'. Mild significant differences were found between nurses attending and not attending group supervision and between 'physical symptoms and anxiety' and 'feelings of not being in control'.

CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that ethical conflicts in nursing are a source of job-related stress and anxiety. The outcome of supporting nurses by clinical nursing supervision may have a positive influence on their perceptions of well-being. clinical nursing supervision have a positive effect on nurses physical symptoms and their feeling of anxiety as well as having a sense of being in control of the situation. We also conclude that psychosocial work have an influence on nurses experience of having or not having control and their engagement and motivation.


In Iranian accounting standard, cash flows statement includes five elements. This is justifiable considering all discussions that exist in International Accounting Standard No.7 (IAS 7). This new representation method has raised many debates on its usefulness. In this study, cash flows from operations (CFO) were separated into different elements and the predictability of future earnings was examined by them as the most important criterion which would facilitate the evaluation of the performance along with net earnings. Using data of listed companies in Tehran stock exchange, results of testing research hypotheses showed that when a model including the elements of accruals and net CFO based on the IAS was used for predicting net earnings, separating CFO elements, disclosed by the direct method of representing cash flow statement and replacing these elements in the model did not increase the predictability of the model significantly. Also, the method of separating CFO into its gross sums based on IAS 7 had more predictability compared to the method of separating the items of cash flows into three (operating activities, return on investment and paid earnings for financing, and tax) elements according to Iranian Accounting Standard. Our results are applicable for the standard-makers and users of financial statements, developing disclosure literature in the financial statements.


Although a strategy, in theory, should help the organization to move in the same direction by showing a direction for the organization, in practice the strategy increases the number of possible paths, as managers translate the strategy into their own context. This increases the number of strategies in the organization, and it becomes difficult to get an overview of the interaction and relationships between the translated strategies. The managers distinguish between the different parts of the strategy, such as the abstract words or intention, and the concrete as targets and projects. Managers use the various parts of the strategy in different contexts, but still speak about "strategy" even if they have changed dimension like the words and KPIs. Another dimension is that the managers also perceive the strategy as correct, but irrelevant, which is linked to their distinction between the abstract and the concrete in the strategy. The abstract dimension is perceived as being true, while the effet of the strategy may be irrelevant for certain managers. The strategy is also used as documentation for senior management intentions. This allows other players to gain insight into top management's thinking, take


The Ping Pong gun or Ping Pong bazooka has been a popular and compelling tool for physics education. However, the design necessarily means the ball emerges at subsonic speed. The design has been modified to include a pressure chamber and a convergent-divergent nozzle, similar to the design of some supersonic wind tunnels. This modification results in supersonic speeds. The current design has achieved a launch speed of 406 m/sec, about Mach 1.23.


The University of Colorado (CU) recognizes its responsibility to minimize negative impacts on human health and the environment while supporting a diverse, equitable, and vibrant community and economy. CU acknowledges that the products and services the University buys have inherent social, human, health, environmental, and economic impacts and that CU should make procurement decisions that embody, promote, and encourage the University's commitment to sustainability.


The intensity of strategic HRM (SHRM) practices adopted by two selected private companies in the manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka was examined in this study. This research was carried out based on a mixed approach but centered on a qualitative research method which was designed around face-to-face discussions with four managerial level employees, two from each company. A structured questionnaire consisting of 40 questions was used in gathering data. Interviewees were encouraged to express their views on SHRM practices and the researcher rated the answers on a five point Likert scale to analyze the data. The intensity of SHRM was measured on five major dimensions and related contributing elements were investigated under each dimension to gain insights into the implementation of SHRM practices. Among the two companies the study found a higher level of intensity from one company which was a multinational (75%) and a somewhat lower level of intensity from the other investigated company which is a publicly listed company (54.2%). The analysis shows the ways in which an organization can enhance the intensity of SHRM being practiced as it has identified the practical problems which reduce the level of intensity. The suggestions subsequently given provide guidance on how an organization can be successful in developing SHRM through eradicating the possible obstacles. Keywords: SHRM, Intensity, Private Companies


Summary Flumazenil is traditionally administered intravenously to reverse the adverse effects of over sedation with benzodiazepines. The aim of this study was to test postoperative cognitive and psychomotor recovery from midazolam conscious sedation, following reversal with orally administered flumazenil. It was hypothesised that when administered by the oral route, flumazenil may enhance recovery over a prolonged period, thus increasing safety. Eighteen patients requiring intravenous midazolam sedation for dental treatment completed a randomised, double‐blind, crossover trial. Following treatment the patients' sedation was reversed using either flumazenil or saline (asplacebo), administered orally, on alternate appointments. Assessment of mood and cognitive function were undertaken using ClinPhone.cdr®, a highly sensitive and specific computerised battery of cognitive tests administered by telephone prior to sedation and every hour for seven hours post reversal. Results indicate that within 20 min of administration, oral flumazenil is capable of partially reversing some cognitive and psychomotor impairments but the attentional and stimulus discrimination effects of midazolam sedation still remain.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Congenital afibrinogenemia is a rare coagulation disorder whose molecular basis is still poorly characterized. Most mutations have been identified in the fibrinogen Aalpha- and gamma-chain genes, whereas only two missense mutations have been reported in the Bbeta-chain gene. The aim of this work was to widen knowledge about the mutational spectrum of this disease by analyzing the molecular bases of congenital afibrinogenemia in three unrelated Iranian patients.

DESIGN AND METHODS
All patients showed unmeasurable levels of clottable fibrinogen in plasma. Mutational screening was performed by sequencing the whole coding region, including exon-intron boundaries and part of the promoter region of the three fibrinogen genes.

RESULTS
Sequencing in one patient revealed the presence of a novel nonsense mutation (3282C-->T) in exon 2 of the fibrinogen Bbeta-chain gene, causing a severe truncation of the corresponding polypeptide (R17X). In the remaining probands, two already known small deletions (4209delA and 4220delT), both located in exon 5 of the fibrinogen Aalpha-chain gene, were identified, and their effect at the protein level explored by computer-assisted analysis.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
The identification of the first truncating mutation in the fibrinogen Bbeta-chain gene confirms the involvement of all three fibrinogen genes in the pathogenesis of congenital afibrinogenemia and widens the mutational spectrum of the disease. This knowledge is clinically essential in order to carry out prenatal diagnosis in families at risk.


mHealth has great potential to change the landscape of health service delivery in less developed countries—expanding the reach of health information to frontline health workers in remote areas. Formative, process, and summative evaluation each play an important role in mHealth interventions. K4Health conducted a Health Information Needs Assessment in Malawi from July to September 2009 (formative evaluation) that found widespread use of cell phones among health workers offering new opportunities for knowledge exchange, especially in areas where access to health information is limited. K4Health subsequently designed an 18-month demonstration project (January 2010 to June 2011) to improve the exchange and use of family planning/reproductive health and HIV/AIDS knowledge among health workers, which included the introduction of a short message service (SMS) network. K4Health conducted a pretest of the mHealth intervention from June to October 2010. A baseline assessment was carried out in November 2010 before expanding the SMS network and included use of qualitative and quantitative measures and comparison groups (summative evaluation). Routinely collected statistics also guide the program (process evaluation). This article describes the approach and main findings of the SMS baseline study and contributes to a growing body of evidence measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of mHealth programs using a strong evaluation design.


As the recent controversies surrounding alleged unattributed copying by historians Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin illustrate, plagiarism is a concept that evokes both strong emotions and genuine puzzlement. Because it is not, strictly speaking, a legal concept, plagiarism has mostly been ignored by legal commentators. Yet there is much that legal theory can contribute to its understanding. This article seeks to use criminal law concepts such as intent, willful ignorance, consent, harm, and the distinction between mistake of law and mistake of fact, to elucidate the meaning of plagiarism; and the idea of plagiarism to explore the outer limits of theft law (particularly as it relates to the misappropriation of various forms of intangible property, such as computer software). Among the issues dealt with are the following: Why are some acts of plagiarism regarded as a serious moral transgression while others a mere faux pas? Is unattributed copying that is inadvertent still plagiarism? Is it plagiarism to employ a ghostwriter or copy one's own work without attribution? What exactly is it that the plagiarist steals, and is this the sort of thing that the law of theft is meant to protect? This discussion leads, in turn, to a consideration of the increasing criminalization of intellectual property law and the widening gap between what the law is and what people think it should be. While powerful social norms prevent most people from even thinking of, say, walking into a bookstore and stealing a book, many people have no qualms at all about downloading pirated music or software from the Internet. Unlike legislation that makes theft of other kinds of property a crime, legislation that makes it a crime to misappropriate various forms of intellectual property seems to lack the firm foundation of social norms that such legislation generally needs to be effective. Such legislation thereby presents a kind of paradox: Whereas the mostly non-legalized rule against plagiarism is regarded, at least within the relevant communities, as having something very much like the force of law (hence, the repeated reference to plagiarism as theft, larceny, stealing, and so forth), many intellectual property laws (which, after all, are law) are regarded as illegitimate and non-binding. The article seeks to explore some of the implications of this apparent paradox.


Commentary on : Raith EP, Udy AA, Bailey M, et al . Prognostic accuracy of the SOFA score, SIRS criteria, and qSOFA score for in-hospital mortality among adults with suspected infection admitted to the intensive care unit. JAMA 2017;317:290–300.

The Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3) has redefined sepsis, now defining sepsis as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection, with organ failure defined as a two-or-more-point change in the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score.1 The new sepsis definition was determined in a retrospective cohort of both intensive care unit (ICU) and non-ICU encounters.2 The quick SOFA (qSOFA) score (altered mentation, systolic blood pressure ≤100 mm Hg and respiratory rate ≥22/min) was also introduced as a possible useful predictive tool among patients outside the ICU.

This external validation study compares the discrimination …


Theories in second language research abound. They are applied in research undertaking to explain the occurrence of a phenomenon. They provide a means of understanding a phenomenon.  However, theories in research are not well developed by students or researchers. Sometimes the theories are not mentioned. Sometimes they are mentioned but not well elucidated or described. At worst, they are incorrectly applied. Theories can mystify researchers especially the less experienced ones. They may fail to understand what the theories are about and hence are not able to apply them appropriately in their research work. This paper highlights the roles of theories in second language research. It explains the importance of selecting relevant theories to support a research undertaking and how these theories support the study. It suggests more informed use of theories to improve and strengthen research undertakings and evaluation of the effectiveness of these theories. This paper guides the researcher to select theories which are relevant to their studies. It also enables the researcher to analyse the elements within one theory and relate them to the elements in other related theories. Hence the inter-relatedness among theories can be understood to enable the researcher to apply these theories meaningfully in their research work. It will also elucidate the connection between the input and the output and between theory and reality. It will explain the use of theory to answer research questions and to support the findings of the study.


The study was conducted to examine water availability in different climatic scenarios in Oyo State. The data used comprised of rainfall and temperature records. The spans of the data used vary from one station to the other: 38-year data for Ibadan and 37-year for Ogbomoso stations, both collected from NIMET Office, Ilorin while 11-year also collected from the Office of Oyo State Agricultural Development Programme (OYSADEP) Headquarters at Shaki were available for Shaki Station. Evapotranspiration data for the three stations were empirically generated while water balance model was computed using MATLAB R2007a version in order to determine the respective water availability and the regression analysis was used to determine rainfall trends. The results showed that rainfall amounts vary from year to year and also increasing trends in the three stations over the period examined. It was also discovered that in all the periods investigated across the stations, Ibadan has 81.58%, Shaki, 81.81% and Ogbomoso, 56.80% as wet years indicating that there is abundant water resources in Oyo State. It is recommended that strategies  be put in place to exploit excess rainwater for various purposes especially by increasing the capacity of water reservoirs and dams across the State for development of pipe borne water network and also, for irrigation farming during dry spells. Further investigation is recommended on water balance and its implications for agricultural practice in the study area.


We study the problem of learning multiple tasks in parallel within the online learning framework. On each online round, the algorithm receives an instance for each of the parallel tasks and responds by predicting the label of each instance. We consider the case where the predictions made on each round all contribute toward a common goal. The relationship between the various tasks is defined by a global loss function, which evaluates the overall quality of the multiple predictions made on each round. Specifically, each individual prediction is associated with its own loss value, and then these multiple loss values are combined into a single number using the global loss function. We focus on the case where the global loss function belongs to the family of absolute norms, and present several online learning algorithms for the induced problem. We prove worst-case relative loss bounds for all of our algorithms, and demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a large-scale multiclass-multilabel text categorization problem.


Over the past twenty years, the term "agro-ecological zones methodology" (AEZ) has become widely used. However, it has been associated with a wide range of different activities that are often related yet quite different in scope and objectives. FAO and IIASA differentiate the AEZ methodology in the following activities:

First, AEZ provides a standardized framework for the characterization of climate, soil and terrain conditions relevant to agricultural production. In this context, the concepts of Length of Growing Period (LGP) and of latitudinal thermal climates have been applied in mapping activities focusing on zoning at various scales, from sub-national to global level. Second, AEZ matching procedures are used to identify crop-specific limitations of prevailing climate, soil and terrain resources, under assumed levels of inputs and management conditions. This part of the AEZ methodology provides estimates of maximum potential and agronomically attainable crop yields for basic land resources units. Third, AEZ provides the frame for various applications. The previous two sets of activities result in very large databases. The information contained in these data sets form the basis for a number of AEZ applications, such as quantification of land productivity, extents of land with rain-fed or irrigated cultivation potential, estimation of the lands population supporting capacity, and multi-criteria optimization of land resources use and development.

The AEZ methodology utilizes a land resources inventory to assess, for specified management conditions and levels of inputs, all feasible agricultural land-use options and to quantify expected production of cropping activities relevant in the specific agro-ecological context. The characterization of land resources includes components of climate, soils and landform. Recent availability of digital global databases of climatic parameters, topography, soil and terrain, and land cover has allowed for revisions and improvements in calculation procedures and to expand assessments of AEZ crop suitability and land productivity potentials to temperate and boreal environments. This effectively enables global coverage for assessments of agricultural potentials.

The AEZ methodologies and procedures have been extended and newly implemented to make use of these digital geographical databases, and to cope with the specific characteristics of growing periods in the seasonal temperate and boreal climates. This report describes the methodological adaptations necessary for the global assessment and illustrates with numerous results a wide range of global AEZ applications.


The analysis of indirect inspection data is a critical factor in conducting a successful External Corrosion Direct Assessment (ECDA) process. Any "out of range" data must be validated prior to being considered an ECDA indication. Furthermore, standard methods of validating the accuracy of the field data must be reviewed when special conditions are present. This paper covers a number of lessons learned by dealing with less well-known sources of measurement error, during nine years of ECDA application on more than 100 projects. Topics like "clipped" gradients during the DC Voltage Gradient (DCVG) Survey, AC current drain by well casings during influence testing, and sharp drops in potential indicating the presence of an underground isolating flange are discussed in detail in this paper.


This paper presents HYDSIM (Hydro-electric Simulation), a new versatile computer model developed to simulate the hourly or daily operation of a large network of multi-purpose reservoirs and river systems. The salient features of HYDSIM include computational efficiency and accuracy of results. To achieve computational efficiency, calculations are carried out in two phases. In the first phase, the program develops a set of feasible hourly hydro plant generation schedules based upon the availability and cost of fuels for thermal generation, unit maintenance schedules, flow forecasts, etc. In the second phase, the program optimally dispatches the scheduled hourly plant outputs among the units available in each plant. The paper includes computational results obtained from an application of this model to an existing hydro-thermal system.


Late Cretaceous laminated diatomaceous sediments from the Marca Shale (California) and CESAR 6 core (Arctic Ocean) have been analysed using scanning electron microscopy techniques and found to contain marine varves. The varve interpretation is based on the pervasive occurrence of laminae types that can be related to different seasons and placed into robust annual flux cycles. In the Marca Shale this consists of intermittent near-monospecific laminae of Azpeitiopsis morenoensis deposited in the late summer, succeeded by a 'fall dump' mixed assemblage laminae, dominated by fragmented Hemiaulus polymorphus, Stephanopyxis spp. and Stellarima spp.. Intermittent near-monospecific Chaetoceros-type resting spore laminae, deposited in spring follow and are in turn overlain by terrigenous laminae, reflecting enhanced fluvial runoff during the summer. A mixed floral diatomaceous and terrigenous laminae couplet constitute the annual flux cycle in the majority of varves. Summer terrigenous flux may indicate that the ~43°N palaeolatitude estimate is incorrect, and deposition actually occurred at lower latitudes or alternatively, that the Marca basin was influenced by intense monsoonal summer storms. The CESAR 6 annual flux cycle consists of alternating diatom resting spore and vegetative cell laminae (often dominated by Hemiaulus), interpreted to represent spring bloom flux and 'fall dump'/intermittent summer blooms flux, respectively. Near-monospecific Rhizosolenia laminae frequently occur above vegetative laminae, relating to subsequent 'fall dump' flux. Common silicoflagellate/setae-rich laminae, often containing diatom hash, occur beneath resting spore laminae, interpreted as the early spring flux of silicoflagellate blooms and grazed diatoms. Seasonally occurring detrital 'blebs' and rare detrital laminae are also observed, which may represent ice rafted debris, consistent with Campanian model simulations. Diatom taxa adapted to exploit stratified conditions, sedimented over the summer or in a 'fall dump', are important components of both sequences. Spring bloom flux was important in the CESAR 6, but was only a subsidiary component in the Marca Shale. The abundance of Hemiaulus spp. at both localities may be evidence for diatom blooms powered by N2-fixing cyanobacteria. Diatom biostratigraphy indicates a late Late Campanian age for the CESAR 6, although an earliest Maastrichtian age cannot be discounted. Time-series analysis of laminae thickness data from both sequences and bioturbation index data from the Marca Shale, reveal both sites contain strong quasi-biennial signals (mean periodicities of 27.4 and 30.4 months, respectively), inferred to relate to the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO). The CESAR 6 contains strong sub-decadal/quasi-decadal peaks interpreted to relate to Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode (NAM) variability. Together with the QBO signals, this suggests NAM variability was robust during the Late Cretaceous. Similar frequency peaks occur in the Marca Shale which, supported by several sedimentological lines of evidence, indicates the presence of an El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-like oscillation. Theory dictates that a weakening of the 'Bjerknes' feedback loop in the equatorial Pacific will lead to a reduction or shutdown of ENSO variability, resulting in a permanent El Nino climate. The Late Cretaceous was witness to a severe weakening of the 'Bjerknes' feedback, yet the results of this study demonstrate that there was robust ENSO variability during this greenhouse period, adding to the evidence against permanent 'El Nino' climate states. A 10.66 year harmonic peak in the CESAR 6 is taken as evidence for modulation of the NAM by solar variability. Peaks at 10.0, 10.3 and 10.8 years in the Marca Shale are interpreted to relate to the solar modulation of strong ENSO events. Both sites also contain multi-decadal peaks, the frequency of which may also have been modulated by solar variability. Quasi-bidecadal peaks are inferred to relate to the NAM or an oscillation analogous to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), possibly influenced by the Hale cycle. A 44 year peak in the Marca Shale is also inferred to relate to the PDO. The CESAR 6 contains a harmonic peak at 78.74 years, interpreted to relate to modulation of the NAM over the Gleissberg solar cycle or alternatively, to modulation of the PDO.


We pilot tested the efficacy of a virtual reality-based imagery rehearsal and rescripting treatment (ReScript) for nightmares. Nineteen community volunteers (Mage = 49 years) who varied in terms of their nightmare distress levels participated in a 4-week-long trial of ReScript therapy. Participants used VR manual controls in an Oculus headset to manipulate 3 scary or threatening images per session with 2 sessions per week. The object was to manipulate these images into less scary or threatening images so as to gain cognitive control over intrusive imagery and to lessen overall anxiety or nightmare distress or nightmare daytime effects. Images were taken from the International Affective Picture System database and varied along 3 affective dimensions (valence, arousal, and dominance) important for nightmare imagery. Results demonstrated a significant reduction (from baseline to trial end) in anxiety levels, nightmare distress, and nightmare effects (all effect sizes .63 or above), as well as a significant decrease in anxiety words and a significant increase in cognitive process words in rescripted narratives. Nightmare frequency was also significantly reduced though effect size was small. No significant side or adverse effects were reported by participants during the 4-week trial. Indeed, Depersonalization and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Checklist scores significantly declined and mood function tests improved over the 4-week trial. We conclude that ReScript may be a safe and effective short-term therapy for nightmare distress but should next be tested with a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.


Open Assessment of Learning (OAoL) is an emerging educational concept derived from the incorporation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to education and is related with the Open Education Movement. In order to improve understanding of OAoL a literature review was conducted as a meta-synthesis of 100 studies on ICT-based assessment published from 1995 to 2015, selected from well-established peer-reviewed databases. The purpose of this study focused on identifying the common topics between ICT-based assessment and OAoL which is considered as an Open Educational Practice.The review showed that extensive use of the Internet makes it easy to achieve some special features of OAoL as collaboration or sharing, which are considered negative or inconvenient in traditional assessment but at the same time become elements that promote innovation on that topic. It was also found that there is still a great resistance to accept change (as OAoL does) when structural elements of traditional assessment are questioned or challenged.


Presented here are flow simulations of a network of natural rivers flanked by one or two large and complex floodplains with impermeable groynes and bridge embankments using one- and quasi-two-dimensional dynamic flow models. The effects of the large floodplain storage capacity, momentum transfer interaction and apparent shear stress at the vertical interface between the main channel and floodplain on the flow-simulated discharge and water depth values could be well explained. The two models were tested and validated in the Arakawa River basin, Kanto Region, Japan. The simulated results show that the large floodplain storage capacity greatly affected the flow discharge and water depth results and cannot be neglected. The quasi-two-dimensional river flow model was used in a flow simulation of a compound channel with complex floodplains with groynes and gave more acceptable results. In the simulated case, the average reduction in flood discharge using floodplain groynes was about 7–15%. Thus, floodplain groynes can be effective for flood protection and attenuation.


The economic impacts of multiple environmental regulations of offshore oil and gas exploration and production are examined using an integrated, investment-production-regulatory model developed by the authors. Simulation results indicate that at the firm level, strict environmental regulations can significantly (1) reduce firms' after-tax-net present value and payments to government and (2) increase minimum field size. At the aggregate regional level, compliance with strict regulations can reduce the supply of oil and gas from marginal fields. The paper examines the cost of compliance only; consideration of benefits from regulations is outside the scope of the paper.


The aim of the research was the determination of testing conditions and visual and numerical evaluation of renderings made with three different rendering engines in Maya software, which is widely used for educational and computer art purposes. In the theoretical part the overview of light phenomena and their simulation in virtual space is presented. This is followed by a detailed presentation of the main rendering methods and the results and limitations of their applications to 3D objects. At the end of the theoretical part the importance of a proper testing scene and especially the role of Cornell box are explained. In the experimental part the terms and conditions as well as hardware and software used for the research are presented. This is followed by a description of the procedures, where we focused on the rendering quality and time, which enabled the comparison of settings of different render engines and determination of conditions for further rendering of testing scenes. The experimental part continued with rendering a variety of simple virtual scenes including Cornell box and virtual object with different materials and colours. Apart from visual evaluation, which was the starting point for comparison of renderings, a procedure for numerical estimation and colour deviations of renderings using the selected regions of interest in the final images is presented.


Visual anomaly classification and segmentation are vital for automating industrial quality inspection. The focus of prior research in the field has been on training custom models for each quality inspection task, which requires task-specific images and annotation. In this paper we move away from this regime, addressing zero-shot and few-normal-shot anomaly classification and segmentation. Recently CLIP, a vision-language model, has shown revolutionary generality with competitive zero-/few-shot performance in comparison to full-supervision. But CLIP falls short on anomaly classification and segmentation tasks. Hence, we propose window-based CLIP (WinCLIP) with (1) a compositional ensemble on state words and prompt templates and (2) efficient extraction and aggregation of window/patch/image-level features aligned with text. We also propose its few-normal-shot extension Win-CLIP+, which uses complementary information from normal images. In MVTec-AD (and VisA), without further tuning, WinCLIP achieves 91.8%/85.1% (78.1%/79.6%) AU-ROC in zero-shot anomaly classification and segmentation while WinCLIP + does 93.1%/95.2% (83.8%/96.4%) in 1-normal-shot, surpassing state-of-the-art by large margins.


A descriptionptive type of research using a mailed questionnaire was conducted to identify the factors influencing the enrolment of female senior secondary school students in agricultural science subject. Statements were developed around four major domains of parent, student, teacher and school related variables that literature had asserted could contribute to the factors affecting enrolment in the subject. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with the statements in the four domains the questionnaire was prepared, validated and the reliability estimate calculated was 0.75. Data collected were analysed and computed using frequencies and percentages. The respondents were one hundred and thirty-three (133) form five female students selected from senior secondary schools in Gaborone. Analysis of data revealed that the parent related domain mostly affected the enrolment of female students in agricultural science.


1053-5888/10/$26.00©2010IEEE C onvex optimization has been used in signal processing for a long time to choose coefficients for use in fast (linear) algorithms, such as in filter or array design; more recently, it has been used to carry out (nonlinear) processing on the signal itself. Examples of the latter case include total variation denoising, compressed sensing, fault detection, and image classification. In both scenarios, the optimization is carried out on time scales of seconds or minutes and without strict time constraints. Convex optimization has traditionally been considered computationally expensive, so its use has been limited to applications where plenty of time is available. Such restrictions are no longer justified. The combination of dramatically increased computing power, modern algorithms, and new coding approaches has delivered an enormous speed increase, which makes it possible to solve modest-sized convex optimization problems on microsecond or millisecond time scales and with strict deadlines. This enables real-time convex optimization in signal processing.


This research aims to know and analyze the moral values of the functional strategy in the Wong Solo restaurant of Gresik branch. The aspects of the moral values consist of responsibility, globalization, truth, good working and good services. The success standard of the moral values of the functional strategy can be seen from the achievement of the employment in doing the aspects above. The research is a qualitative approach with a case study strategy. Data collection is done by using interview and observation to the object of the research. An used analysis technique is descriptive-qualitative by narrating the result of the interview and observation to the object of research. The result of this research of Restaurant Wong Solo of Gresik Branch in developing the business has been able to do some moral values well. It can be seen from the responsibility of the employments. The success by doing the moral values can also be seen by good aspect. The company gives some facilities to the employments such as: financial, and healthy. In doing operational strategy, the company has operational standardization in the production process. All employments perform that standardization of the rule that is stated by the company.


The aim of this study is to present an efficient method to generate imager-specific Monte Carlo (MC)-based dose kernels for amorphous silicon-based electronic portal image device dose prediction and determine the effective backscattering thicknesses for such imagers. EPID field size-dependent responses were measured for five matched Varian accelerators from three institutions with 6 MV beams at the source to detector distance (SDD) of 105 cm. For two imagers, measurements were made with and without the imager mounted on the robotic supporting arm. Monoenergetic energy deposition kernels with 0-2.5 cm of water backscattering thicknesses were simultaneously computed by MC to a high precision. For each imager, the backscattering thickness required to match measured field size responses was determined. The monoenergetic kernel method was validated by comparing measured and predicted field size responses at 150 cm SDD, 10 x 10 cm2 multileaf collimator (MLC) sliding window fields created with 5, 10, 20, and 50 mm gaps, and a head-and-neck (H&N) intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) patient field. Field size responses for the five different imagers deviated by up to 1.3%. When imagers were removed from the robotic arms, response deviations were reduced to 0.2%. All imager field size responses were captured by using between 1.0 and 1.6 cm backscatter. The predicted field size responses by the imager-specific kernels matched measurements for all involved imagers with the maximal deviation of 0.34%. The maximal deviation between the predicted and measured field size responses at 150 cm SDD is 0.39%. The maximal deviation between the predicted and measured MLC sliding window fields is 0.39%. For the patient field, gamma analysis yielded that 99.0% of the pixels have gamma < 1 by the 2%, 2 mm criteria with a 3% dose threshold. Tunable imager-specific kernels can be generated rapidly and accurately in a single MC simulation. The resultant kernels are imager position independent and are able to predict fields with varied incident energy spectra and a H&N IMRT patient field. The proposed adaptive EPID dose kernel method provides the necessary infrastructure to build reliable and accurate portal dosimetry systems.


Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies have revealed brain gray matter (GM) abnormalities in cirrhotic patients with and without hepatic encephalopathy. However, these findings are heterogeneous and have not been quantitatively reviewed. Here, we aimed to conduct a meta-analysis that integrated the existing VBM studies, to determine concordant GM alterations in patients with cirrhosis. A systematic search was conducted for the whole-brain VBM studies comparing cirrhotic patients with healthy controls. Coordinates were extracted from clusters with significant GM differences.


The ultrastructure of the immature sporocyst and the initiation of sporozoite formation in T. gondii was examined in oocysts which had been allowed to sporulate for 12 or 24 hours at 27°C. The sporocyst was ellipsoidal in shape and possessed a two layered sporocyst wall. A nucleus, with associated Golgi bodies, was situated at either end of the organism. The cytoplasm of the sporocyst also contained a number of polysaccharide granules, lipid globules, mitochondria and a few strands of rough endoplasmic reticulum. Sporozoite formation was initiated by the appearance of two dense plaques at either end of the organism in the vicinity of a nucleus, adjacent to the limiting membrane of the organism.


This thesis sets out to record, analyze, and assess modern Sudanese literature within its historical, cultural, and political context. It highlights the diversity and distinctiveness of that literature, the wide range of its themes, and the resilience and complex background of its major practitioners. A principal preoccupation of the study, however, is to point out the various challenges this literature, its universality and appeal notwithstanding, poses to translators. The close and intimate connection between its bold and vibrant colloquial expressions and the cultural and geographical environment in which these expressions are entrenched makes the task of the translator, especially one translating into a somewhat "remote" language like English, fraught with difficulty, at times unachievable. The near impossibility of rendering such expressions, proverbs, allusions to religious texts, and metaphors into English is illustrated in many examples. Paradoxically, such inadequacies and challenges, analysed from a semantic and syntactical perspective and investing in translation theory, point to a remarkable resilience and inventiveness of the translators involved as well as to the importance of translation in acting as a bridge between cultures.
This thesis is structured in three parts. Part One examines the historical, cultural, social, political, religious, and linguistic factors that went into the making of modern Sudanese literature. Using postcolonial theory, it explores in some depth Sudanese cultural identity and self-identification as expressed in and partly shaped by the evolving literature. That body of written, and, in part, oral expression, was traditionally nourished by the two main streams of Arab and African cultures, but was steadily enriched under British occupation by exposure to Western, and principally English, literature and literary criteria as well as by a modern system of education. The study highlights what it claims to be highly distinctive and indeed unique features of Sudanese literature, reflecting the many-sidedness and complexity of its country, itself being a huge melting pot, whose very existence has been severely tested in more recent times.
 Part Two of the study offers a critical survey of Sudanese literature, examining its two main genres, poetry and fiction, and its evolution over three major literary periods, the Neoclassical, the Romantic and the Social Realist. The contributions made by literary movements or groups established and led by some prominent cultural and national figures and in which belles-lettres and patriotism were interwoven are also highlighted and assessed. This part elaborates on the dynamic which saw modern Sudanese writers interacting with influences from Western literature and investing in new literary genres while maintaining links with and creatively building on traditional and modern Arabic literature, itself evolving under various influences and requirements from without each country and within.
Part Three focuses on Sudanese literature in English translation through a close analysis of representative texts with a view to illustrating and addressing specific problems and challenges associated with the task of translation. The samples are drawn from the literary genres and texts discussed in Part Two and are reflective of the themes tackled in the first two parts, thus emphasising the coherence and unity of the study. The methodology used involves applying theories of translation but also invests in insights gained from interviews conducted with some of the writers and translators discussed in the study as well as from feedback provided by ten native speaker informants. Taking into consideration the hybrid nature of modern Sudanese Literature and the cultural and linguistic diversity of its context, many difficulties are highlighted along with the range of strategies used by translators to address them.


This book gives a concise account of a complex movement for the new reader, with many specific examples of films and other works. It also discusses the theorisation of artists' film, located between the gallery and the cinema, and the consequences for contemporary digital and installation media. It contributes to current debates on the role of avant-gardes and artists' cinema, the legacies of modernism and the problems of constructing its history.

The book was originally commissioned by BFI/Palgrave in 1999, and has been substantially revised and reset – with integrated illustrations – for this second edition. A new introduction and final chapter (7,000 words) discuss the last decade, and extensive new notes (2,000 words) and other textual changes are provided to update the contents. The text makes accessible the main lines of historical research and presents many specific issues (e.g. dates, tendencies, technical processes, organisations), which are explored in detail with extensive bibliographies. Like the first edition of the book, which went through eight editions, this revised account is used widely in BA and MA film courses, and has sold especially well in the USA. It has been translated into Japanese (2011) and Korean (2012); Chinese and Turkish versions are being prepared.

This book is aimed at a wide non-specialist readership and has a broadly linear structure divided into short, headed sections rather than chapters, to draw out the diverse ideas, themes and technologies of experimental film. While locating film and video as art movements, Rees also describes their many links to – and divergences from – commercial cinema, alongside their intersections with advertising, music videos, TV, motion graphics and electronic media. Rees explores the first dada, surrealist and constructivist films in the 1920s, the birth of independent avant-gardes internationally after WW2, and provides an account of artists' film and video in the UK.


An organised fishery and trade of seahorses exist in the Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar coasts of India. Six species of seahorses namely Hippocampus borboniensis Dumeril 1870, Hippocampus spinosissimus Weber 1913, Hippocampus kuda Bleeker 1852, Hippocampus fuscus Ruppell 1838, Hippocampus trimaculatus Leach 1814 and Hippocampus guttulatus Cuvier 1829 were identified from the southern coast, and the total landing at the major fishing centre, Thondi was estimated as 18.25 MT or 26,48,179 numbers of seahorses during 2001. The volume of seahorse trade from India was estimated as 9.75 MT of dried seahorses. A significant quantity of 1.6 MT (5,61,418 numbers) is also landed along the Quilon coast in Kerala, but it is not involved in any organised trade. H. borboniensis was found to be the major species (27.96%) at Thondi, followed by H. spinosissimus (22.14%), H. kuda (20.9%), H. trimaculatus (14%), H. fuscus (9%) and H. guttulatus (4%). The major size classes represented in the fishery were 145-175 mm, 145-165 mm, 105-190 mm, 110-165 mm, 140-190 mm and 150-190 mm respectively for the six species collected from Thondi in 2001. Crustaceans (88.85%), consisting of copepods (22.8%), mysids and cumaceans (22.12%), amphipods and isopods (20.86%), decapod larvae and tiny caridean shrimps (20.67%) dominated the gut contents of H. kuda at Thondi. Ova diameter ranged from 0.5-0.8 mm and the mean fecundity was 56.8 g-I body weight of the female. The length-weight relationships were obtained as W = 0.438615 (L 1.103592) for males, and W = 0.370531 (L 1.231822) for females of H. kuda collected from Thondi. The size at first maturity for males and females of H. kuda was found to be 66.07 mm and 77.99 mm for males and females respectively. At Thondi H. kuda was found to breed year round, the major breeding season extending from June to September with peak from July to August. The sex ratio remained almost the same, except during the breeding season when more males were seen in the catches. The captive rearing of the hatchlings of H. kuda using different feeds showed that a diet of enriched Artemia nauplii and mixed marine copepods was the best combination, which gave mean survival rates of up to 56% and growth of 49.4 mm and 0.316 g after 60 days of rearing. A stocking density of 3 juveniles per litre was found to be the optimum, which gave high growth increment in length (43.67 mm) and weight (0.313 g) as well as the highest mean production per litre of 1.51 during a rearing period of 60 days. The juveniles of H. kuda were found to grow equally well in salinities ranging from 15 %0 to 35 %0. The highest mean survival (60.56%), mean length (28.7 mm) and mean weight (39.1 mg) were obtained at 30 %0 while rearing for 14 days. Rearing tanks, which were partially covered to improve the feeding efficiency of Artemia nauplli registered the highest mean survival (91 %) and mean length (36.2 mm) and weight (66.14 mg) of juveniles during a 14-day period. The juveniles of H. kuda were found to have reasonably high tolerance to extreme levels of salinity, pH and formalin. The LC50 values were 4.62, 4.83, 5.43 and 5.56 for low pH and 11.04,10.52,10.33 and 10.23 for high pH at 12, 24,48 and 72 h respectively. In the case of salinity, LC50 values of 1.59, 2.92, 3.63 and 4.67 %0 for low salinity, and 58.08, 54.45, 51.29 and 49.26 %0 for high salinity were obtained for 12, 24, 48 and 72 h respectively. The LC50 for formalin was found to be 315,296.48,279.25 and 271.02 ppm for 12, 24, 48 and 72 h respectively.


The shaping of laser beams has developed into a powerful tool for optical micromanipulation. In this context, Airy and parabolic laser beams which follow curved trajectories have drawn considerable attention. These beams may allow clearing of microparticles through particle transport along curved paths, a concept termed "optically mediated particle clearing (OMPC)." In this communication we apply this concept to microparticles and cells within specially designed microwells. Our results open novel perspectives for the redistribution of cells between different media within a microfluidic environment.


We present our work on the coherent combining of an array of diode emitters in a conventional diode bar configuration using the coherent polarization locking technique. An external laser cavity is designed so that the diode emissions from four diode emitters are spatially overlapped and passively phase locked via a series of birefringent walk-off crystals and a polarizing beam splitter. This concept was experimentally demonstrated up to 1030 mW of coherently combined power and was shown to increase the laser brightness of the diode bar by approximately 50 times.


Teaching note for the Mina O'Reilly at Logan's TSA Case: Mina O'Reilly, an officer at Logan Airport's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Boston, must discipline an employee responsible for a security breach that resulted in a 45-minute terminal closure during peak hours, a potential threat to traveler safety, and travel delays across the U.S. O'Reilly considers the impact of her decision on a shifting labor force: the growing divide between those employees deeply committed to the mission and those joining to simply find a job. The senior TSA staff and airlines are calling for accountability, but the person responsible for the breach is a passionate and valued employee who has been with TSA since its formation. As her shift approaches, O'Reilly must decide whether or not she can clock in as usual.


The financial value of security service provided by dual-branch controller of a large-scale photovoltaic system (LPS) has been investigated in this paper. To perform this task, it is necessary to investigate the impact of LPS on small-signal stability of power network. To study the impact and performance of LPS on low-frequency oscillatory modes, a systematic scheme is developed to achieve an accurate model of multi-machine power network including of the LPS technology. A fully-described LPS model with all network-relevant control functions will be obtained. The proposed model has been then employed in the study of financial compensation strategy of security service provided by the LPS controller. The proposed compensation strategy in this paper is based on correlation of swing damping rate (SDR) criterion with generation cost (GC) criterion as dynamic and pecuniary indices, respectively. A weighted sum of performance and robustness indices is considered for SDR. The financial profit created by dual-branch controller of LPS as ancillary service (AS) is evaluated by a two-purpose optimization based on SDR and GC indices. The proposed strategy is tested on a modified 6-machine 3-area power system. Comprehensive discussion is provided to describe the performance of the presented method.


This article examines the responses of two communities to hate crimes in their cities. In particular it explores how community understandings of responsibility shape collective responses to hate crimes. I use the case of Bridesberg, Pennsylvania to explore how anti-racist work is restricted by backward-looking conceptions of moral responsibility (e.g. being responsible). Using recent writings in feminist ethics.(1) I argue for a forward-looking notion that advocates an active view: taking responsibility for attitudes and behaviors that foster climates in which hate crimes are more likely to occur, even when a person's individual actions do not contribute directly to harms. Using the case of Billings, Montana, I explain how recent Not In Our Town campaigns take responsibility for hate crimes in the ways feminist literature suggests. I take as my point of departure hate crimes committed against the family of Bridget Ward, an African American woman, who moved into the suburb of Bridesburg in 1996. When issues of responsibility for racism arose in the local press, most Bridesbergers insisted that their community was not racist; they blamed only the individual vandals. This narrow blame-assigning focus is in keeping with most Anglo-American definitions of responsibility as belonging essentially to individuals and not to communities. Traditionally, moral and legal theory construct responsibility from a perspective that looks downward and back. These perspectives are preoccupied with punishment and reward, praise and blame; they assume justice is done when guilty parties are found and tried. This focus masks deeper community problems. As Elizabeth Spelman remarks, "tolerance is easy if those who are asked to express it need not change a whit." (2) Focus on praise and blame is, in part, a function of race privilege. Bridesberg is 98% white, and part of "the arrogance whitely behavior" is positioning one's self as a judge, expert, and problem solver. (3) The view from this particular subject position limits attention to individuals and their actions, rather than to communities and their practices; it shifts attention away from the fact that Bridesberger's collective practice of distrusting outsiders has lead to hate crimes in the past. Pointing to vandals and claiming "they are racist" does not free one's community of racism. It reinscribes a community spirit that is resistant to change.The second part of this essay explores what communities like Bridesberg might have done to prevent violence. Often there is little individuals alone can do to stop racial violence, but that there is a sense in which community members are obligated to organize themselves. Strategies that focus community responsibility on retribution rather than long-term change, are short lived and ineffective. Anti-racist activism requires a forward-looking view of responsibility: one that aims at inoculating the community against increased risk of violence. This requires taking responsibility for the fact that one's town might foster climates in which hate crimes are more likely to occur. It requires that we begin inquiry in the lives of those harmed.Collective citizen efforts to prevent Aryan groups from gaining a foothold in Billings, Montana offers a clear illustration of how to take responsibility for hate crimes using strategies designed consciously to prevent further hate crimes (e.g., when Black Churches were threatens, all community members attended services there; when a rock was thrown through a window with a menorah, many homes displayed menorahs). The community responses in Billings are a stark contrast to those of Bridesburg, and serve as a powerful example of how forward-looking notions of responsibility can translate into effective political strategy. Although, these strategies are not in and of themselves feminist, they are powerful illustrations of what feminists mean by forward-looking views. The success of resident's collective action and coalition building gave rise to a national Not In Our Town campaign used in about a dozen cities today.


Developing service design within the product design programme at Glasgow School of Art, involved exploring areas of commonality between product and service design and the parallel skills that can be applied to both. During this process, we had the opportunity to consider how we teach design in a service context and to begin the process of developing a common framework for a service design language within the department.

To help develop this knowledge and expertise and to complement design and social science skills within the department, service design professionals were brought in to share their professional practice and knowledge through workshops with the students. Projects were run with the year 3 product design students in collaboration with an external client to provide a real-world context, user-groups and stakeholders for the project.

There were also interesting spin-off benefits to the projects. As well as the students, and staff, benefiting from input professional service designers, we also noted the value of delivering design tools and prototypes to the client organisation. These tools and prototypes were used to disseminate the service propositions internally, but had the added benefit of raising awareness to service design thinking and processes within the organisation. Over the last two summer breaks, two students per year have been employed on internships to develop ideas generated during the projects. Also, some of the project outputs were used to help develop briefs for service design consultancies.

The benefits for the students and staff within the product design department and the client organisation, as well as spin-off work for graduates and consultancies have been numerous. Some of these benefits could have been predicted, but many were not, and it is with reflection that these benefits were identified.


In this work, a transparent dielectric elastomer actuator is integrated into a tunable transmission grating. A 13 micron-thick silicone membrane has been sandwiched between two 750 nanometer-thick transparent ionogel electrodes to fabricate a transparent dielectric elastomer actuator. By structuring the top transparent ionogel electrode into a sinusoid grating profile, with 2 µm period, the transparent dielectric elastomer actuator is transformed into a tunable transmission grating. The structured stretchable electrode plays both the role of electrical conductor and optical grating. When 1300V is applied between the two stretchable ionogel electrodes, the actuator presents a linear strain of 12.8 percent, which correspond to a 1.4 degree change in the first diffraction angle for green light. The transparent ionogel electrode also present the self-clearing property, thus further extending the lifetime of the actuator at high drive voltages. The ionogel electrodes maintain the accurate grating shape for several weeks, and could be patterned into the shape of any diffractive element.


During cinema's early years, Jack London was an international screen commodity. As Tony Williams states, 'His fiction became ideal movie material for the 1909-1912 period of small narrative mass production.' What remains unclear is London's relationship with cinema in the years before the timescale mentioned by Williams, and whether film held any value for him other than as a new form of narrativization. Focusing on a transatlantic text of social 'passing', this essay demonstrates that London tried to make his writing more like film, and that his interest in cinema as spectacle was co-existent with its narrative possibilities. Cinema was a factor in London's thinking as early as 1902, and its influence operated in a way that was qualitatively different from that which has been identified by previous London scholars.
In order to prove these claims, this essay examines The People of the Abyss (1903), a text of undercover social investigation which, I claim, bears film's aesthetic imprint. The young Californian explored London's East End for several weeks during 1902 disguised as an unemployed American sailor. When presenting his results, he adopted a structuring principle of showmanship and spectacle that he took from moving pictures. Since this move repeats the strategies of early film exhibition, I term it the 'literature of attractions'.

The writer was influenced by transatlantic films such as George Melies 'pre-enactment' of the coronation of Edward VII. London watched Le Sacre d' Edouard VII (1902) during its headline run at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. For him, the film substituted being able to witness the ceremony first-hand. This and other experiences with film affected the way that he wrote People, as well as how he framed, selected and ordered its accompanying photographs.
Another influence was Coney Island, which by this time included films shows, and which he had visited just before setting sail for England. Given that the ideological effect of Coney island was, as Miriam Hansen puts it, to create 'an ostensibly classless, Americanized, community of leisure', then we can understand why London compares the 'Abyss' into which the English poor fall with the apparently limitless opportunities available in America. The narrator of People is more of a showman, in the mould of the amusement park, variety performance and early film exhibition, than a slummer concerned with remaining incognito. At one point, he throws away his disguise in order to create a spectacle. At another, he prefaces the Royal procession by stating that the only comparable sights were 'Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets' (p.138). Referencing his visits to Coney Island and the Alhambra theatre at the beginning, he shapes the chapter along the lines of a variety show, in which vaudeville and other live acts would precede the main entertainment.

London's use of spectacle, particularly in his photography, is an essential aspect of his critique of the English class system. His photographs adopt various filmic tropes in order to become what Noel Burch calls, with reference to early cinema, 'emblematic shots'; that is, images which function as allegorical or synecdochal representations of the text's overall themes. Influenced both by American fight films and by Thomas Edison's 1901 movie 'The Gordon Sisters Boxing', London presents the image of two women fighting as an allegory of the British working class. The fighting women of the East End are both comic and tragic: an oddity at which the reader is supposed to laugh, at the same time that they represent the author's anxiety regarding the 'degeneration' of the English working classes, and the British Empire more generally.
The existence of a 'literature of attractions' helps us to think about the aesthetic conjunctions between writing and cinema during the years of the latter's birth. The concept does not prove simply the latent appeal of early moving pictures across a wider cultural plane than has been acknowledged, but it also enables a greater appreciation of the specific cinematic innovations of authors at the turn of the century.


International Journal of Exercise Science 12(4): 989-1000, 2019. Many young adults experience distorted body image and decreased body satisfaction. To attain more "ideal" bodies, negative alterations in eating and/or exercise habits are common. This study's objective was to compare disordered eating and muscle dysmorphia in undergraduates who participate in aerobic-, anaerobic-, or flexibility-predominant exercise; mixed exercise; or no exercise. One hundred twelve undergraduate students (age 21.2 ± 4.8 years; BMI 25.0 ± 4.6 kg/m2) were recruited from the student union and recreation center. The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (MDDI), and demographic/exercise questions were administered via iPad. Exercisers reported ≥ 150 minutes/week of exercise. Predominant exercise type was defined as ≥ 50% reported minutes from one type. Between-sex differences were assessed by t-tests, while exercise type differences were assessed using analysis of variance. Disordered eating was exhibited in 25.9% of undergraduates. Females had higher EAT-26 total and dieting subscale scores (p < 0.05 for both). EAT-26 total, dieting subscale, and bulimia and food preoccupation subscales were higher in aerobic-predominant compared to anaerobic-predominant exercisers (p < 0.05 for all). Muscle dysmorphia was exhibited in 7.1% of undergraduates. Males had higher MDDI total and drive for size subscale scores, while females scored higher on the appearance intolerance subscale (p < 0.05 for all). Aerobicand anaerobic-predominant exercisers had higher MDDI total and functional impairment subscale scores than non-exercisers (p < 0.05). Non-exercisers were largely unaffected by disordered eating and muscle dysmorphia. Females and aerobic-predominant exercisers exhibited more symptoms of disordered eating, while males exhibited more symptoms of muscle dysmorphia. University campuses should consider targeted education for these groups.


Abstract. Satellite altimeters routinely supply sea surface height (SSH) measurements, which are key observations for monitoring ocean dynamics. However, below a wavelength of about 70 km, along-track altimeter measurements are often characterized by a dramatic drop in signal-to-noise ratio, making it very challenging to fully exploit the available altimeter observations to precisely analyze small mesoscale variations in SSH. Although various approaches have been proposed and applied to identify and filter noise from measurements, no distinct methodology has emerged for systematic application in operational products. To best address this unresolved issue, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) actually provides simple band-pass filtered data to mitigate noise contamination of along-track SSH signals. More innovative and suitable noise filtering methods are thus left to users seeking to unveil small-scale altimeter signals. As demonstrated here, a fully data-driven approach is developed and applied successfully to provide robust estimates of noise-free Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) signals. The method combines Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), to help analyze non-stationary and non-linear processes, and an adaptive noise filtering technique inspired by Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) decompositions. It is found to best resolve the distribution of SLA variability in the 30–120 km mesoscale wavelength band. A practical uncertainty variable is attached to the denoised SLA estimates that accounts for errors related to the local signal-to-noise ratio, but also for uncertainties in the denoising process, which assumes that the SLA variability results in part from a stochastic process. For the available period, measurements from the Jason-3, Sentinel-3 and Saral/AltiKa missions are processed and analyzed, and their energy spectral and seasonal distributions characterized in the small mesoscale domain. In anticipation of the upcoming SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission data, the SASSA data set (Satellite Altimeter Short-scale Signals Analysis, Quilfen and Piolle, 2021) of denoised SLA measurements for three reference altimeter missions already yields valuable opportunities to evaluate global small mesoscale kinetic energy distributions.


An extraordinary amount of regulation goes into making sure that protein expression is controlled correctly. Several layers of regulation function to achieve the proper levels and proper timing of protein expression. Much is known about the protein machinery involved in translation, but we are lagging behind in understanding the mechanisms of control in eukaryotes. Kozak reviews the new second edition of Translational Control of Gene Expression, which attempts to catalog the mechanisms used by prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and the viruses that infect them and subvert their translational machinery. Review and commentary on Translational Control of Gene Expression Edited by Nahum Sonenberg, John W. B. Hershey, and Michael B. Mathews Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 2000, 1020 pp. $115 ISBN: 0-87969-568-4


Constructions of home are powerful from both heritage and tourism perspectives, as 'home' suggests a certain type of heritage precedence while also providing a competitive tourism advantage over rival locations. Sport tourism sites also disseminate notions of home as part of their narrative, both to create and solidify particular heritage claims as well as to enhance the tourism potential of a location. Home narratives are used, in particular, during stadium tours, where tourists go 'behind the scenes' at a famous sports venue. Tour narratives at Twickenham Stadium were examined in this study. At Twickenham, it was found that the stadium was represented as 'home' during tours in three different ways: as the literal home of the English National Rugby team; as the spiritual home of the sport of rugby; and as the home of particular notions of English identity. These representations were created as a means of claiming cultural propriety, particularly with regard to the sport and its heritage, as well as in recognition of the venue's role as an international tourism destination. However, the employment of home narratives, which espouse notions of stability and continuity, also mask wider heritage and tourism anxieties, in particular competition from rival sites.


Salinity is a major abiotic stress limiting the productivity of crop plants
globally. The discovery of novel genes in stress adaptation will provide
effective genetic engineering strategies leading to g reater stress tolerance.
The objectives of this research are to identify and isolate salinity tolerance
genes from the mangrove plant, Bruguiera cylindrica (L.) Blume through
suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) and bacterial functional assay.
B. cylindrica propagules were grown in fresh water and 20 ppt salinity water.
Root morphology differences between B. cylindrica grown in fresh water and
20 ppt salinity water were largely due to the need of roots to obtain more
water and nutrients during salinity stress. B. cylindrica plants grew better in
the presence of salt as higher mean values were obtained for all
morphological measurements compared to B. cylindrica plants grown in
fresh water. Four RNA extraction methods were attempted to obtain high yield and high
purity RNA. The cesium chloride method was chosen for RNA extraction as
it gave the highest amount of pure RNA. Subtracted cDNAs were prepared
from the roots of the B. cylindrica seedlings that were grown in fresh water
and salt water, respectively. A total of 84 subtracted cDNAs were cloned into
pCR-BLUNT II TOPO and sequenced. A total of 51 subtracted cDNAs with
good sequencing quality were assembled into 7 contigs and 10 singletons.
These non-redundant sequences were grouped into unknown protein
(41.18%), novel (29.41%), protein destination and storage (11.76%), energy
(5.88%), intracellular traffic (5.88%) and protein synthesis (5.88%). Some
motifs of novel and unknown sequences may involve in the salinity tolerance
of B. cylindrica such as Kv1.3 voltage-gated K+ ion(s) channel signature,
calcium-activated BK potassium channel alpha subunit and Kir2.1 inward
rectifier K+ ion(s) channel signature.
Meanwhile, a cDNA library was also constructed from the roots of B.
cylindrica that were grown in fresh water. Bacterial functional assay was
performed to identify cDNAs that confer salt tolerance. A total of 85 cDNA
clones that were able to grow on 2x YT containing 400 mM NaCI were
sequenced and 73 cDNAs with good sequence quality were assembled into
9 contigs and 53 singletons. The non-redundant sequences were also
categorised into unknown protein (58.06%), metabolism (9.68%),
transporters (9.68%), transcription (6.45%), energy (4.84%), cell
growth/division (4.84%), novel (3.23%), miscellaneous (1.61%) and
disease/defense (1.61%) A motif search on novel and unknown cDNAsequences had revealed some possible motifs that may be involved in
salinity tolerance of B. cylindrica e.g. C. elegans Srg family integral
membrane protein signature and 2Fe-2S ferredoxins, iron-sulfur binding
region signature.
Sequence analysis of subtracted cDNAs and putative salt tolerant cDNAs
isolated by bacterial functional assay showed some putative proteins that
may be involved in the salinity tolerance of B. cylindrica such as putative
potassium transporter HAK 1p (M33), putative zinc finger protein (M3),
ubiquitin (BC27) and L-ascorbate peroxidase (A46).


The architecture, applications, and experimental verification of a simple neighbor discovery method are presented. The method follows the recent International Telecommunication Union—Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardization, automatically switched optical network (ASON)/generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS), on automatically switched optical networks. The method needs no specific hardware components but claims to be so simple that virtually any equipment with common optical ports can support it. It eliminates the need for costly and complex synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy/optical transport network (SONET/SDH/OTN) overhead read–write functionality in optical elements such as optical cross connects (OXCs). The method thus offers a fast track to automated optical networks.


We investigated whether co‐expression of Neurog1 and Atoh1 in common neurosensory precursors could explain the loss of hair cells in Neurog1 null mice. Analysis of terminal mitosis, using BrdU, supports previous findings regarding timing of exit from cell cycle. Specifically, we show that cell cycle exit occurs in spiral sensory neurons in a base‐to‐apex progression followed by cell cycle exit of hair cells in the organ of Corti in an apex‐to‐base progression, with some overlap of cell cycle exit in the apex for both hair cells and spiral sensory neurons. Hair cells in Neurog1 null mice show cell cycle exit in an apex‐to‐base progression about 1–2 days earlier. Atoh1 is expressed in an apex‐to‐base progression rather then a base‐to‐apex progression as in wildtype littermates. We tested the possible expression of Atoh1 in neurosensory precursors using two Atoh1‐Cre lines. We show Atoh1‐Cre mediated β‐galactosidase expression in delaminating sensory neuron precursors as well as undifferentiated epithelial cells at E11 and E12.5. PCR analysis shows expression of Atoh1 in the otocyst as early as E10.5, prior to any histology‐based detection techniques. Combined, these data suggest that low levels of Atoh1 exist much earlier in precursors of hair cells and sensory neurons, possibly including neurosensory precursors. Analysis of Atoh1‐Cre expression in E18.5 embryos and P31 mice reveal β‐galactosidase stain in all hair cells but also in vestibular and cochlear sensory neurons and some supporting cells. A similar expression of Atoh1‐LacZ exists in postnatal and adult vestibular and cochlear sensory neurons, and Atoh1 expression in vestibular sensory neurons is confirmed with RT‐PCR. We propose that the absence of NEUROG1 protein leads to loss of sensory neuron formation through a phenotypic switch of cycling neurosensory precursors from sensory neuron to hair cell fate. Neurog1 null mice show a truncation of clonal expansion of hair cell precursors through temporally altered terminal mitosis, thereby resulting in smaller sensory epithelia. Developmental Dynamics 234:633–650, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Citing similarities in the shape and manufacture of stone tools found on both sides of the Atlantic, a pair of archaeologists argues that at least 20,000 years ago, at the height of the last ice age, people of the Solutrean culture of France and Spain made their way by foot and by boat along the edge of Atlantic ice sheets. Eventually, they reached the East Coast of North America, and so were the first to people the New World. This flies in the face of strong evidence, particularly from genetics, that points to Asian origins for the first Americans. So some researchers are outraged by the notion that the Solutrean hypothesis—which has been a decidedly minority view for decades—is still taken seriously.


This article gives an overview of the global trends in the treatment of indigent EMS (Emergency Medical Service) patients. Following an introduction to Netcare 911, the article starts with clarifying the definition of "indigent" from a specifically global perspective. The article then explores this topic in the South African context from which a broader global overview is taken, with particular research honing into four nations i.e. Singapore, Unites States of America, United Kingdom and Canada. Before making a final conclusion, the argument of whether it is a social, political or economic issue is contemplated.


Problem statement: E-coating process is widely used to provide a protective coating layer on metal parts in the automotive and metal finishing industry. The wastewater from the coating process contains organic compounds that are used in the cleaning, pretreatment and coating steps. Organic pollutants can be removed biologically. In the aerobic biological treatment, water aeration accounts for a significant portion of the total operating cost of the treatment process. Intermittent aeration is thus of benefit since it would reduce the energy consumption in the wastewater treatment. In the present study, wastewater from an electro-coating process was treated biologically using a packed column as an aerator where the wastewater was aerated by a countercurrent air flow. The objective was to obtain an optimum aeration cycle. Approach: Intermittent aeration time was varied at different preset cycles. An operational optimum of the aeration time (or air-water contacting time in the column) was determined from the BOD5 removal after a certain treatment period. For continuous aeration of the wastewater, the air-liquid contacting time in the column was 52 min for 24 h of treatment. A unit energy consumption for pumping liquid and air, which was defined as the energy consumption per percent BOD5 removed, was used as a criterion to determine the optimum contacting time. Results: Optimum air-liquid contacting times were found to be about 38, 26 and 22 min for the treatment times of 24, 48 and 72 h, consecutively. This indicates that 27-58% saving on the unit energy consumption can be achieved using intermittent aeration of the wastewater. On the basis of the overall BOD5 removal, 17% and 23% savings in energy were observed with the intermittent aeration as compared to the continuous aeration of the wastewater for 48 and 72 h. Conclusion: The results obtained indicate that an appropriate intermittent aeration cycle can bring about a substantial energy saving while an adequate treatment of wastewater is maintained.


Background: There is a high variability in the reasons for cancellation of elective urological surgery cases. Case cancellation rate is expected to be high in the Public Health System with perceived inefficiencies compared to private facilities in the same developing economy. Aims and Objectives: This comparative analysis was to determine the case cancellation rate and the reasons for cancellation of elective urological surgeries in a public tertiary hospital and a private specialist hospital in Accra. This is intended to form a basis for interventions aimed at reducing the case cancellation rate. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data on Day of Surgery cancelled elective urological cases from September 2014 to October 2015 at the urology unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), a public Tertiary Hospital and the Trust Specialist Hospital (TSH), a privately managed hospital in Accra. The reasons for case cancellation were categorized into structural factors, patient factors and process factors. Results: There was no significant difference between the case cancellation rate for elective urological cases at KBTH and the TSH which were 20.8% and 17.1% respectively (p = 0.317). For KBTH, the reasons for cancellation of elective urological cases were due to structural factors in 11/117 (9.4%), patient factors in 15/117 (12.8%) and process factors in 91/117 (77.8%) which was due mainly to surgery running late. At the TSH, the reasons were due to structural factors in 1/29 (3.4%), patient factors in 27/29 (93.1%) mainly due to patient not turning up and process factors in 1/29 (3.4%). Conclusion: The case cancellation rate of elective urological surgeries in both the Public Tertiary Hospital and the Private Specialist Hospital were high with no significant difference between the two. However, in the Public Tertiary Hospital, process factors predominated as the cause of these cancellations while patient factors were the predominant cause in the privately managed facility. Exposure of theater managers in public facilities to management practices in privately run facilities should be encouraged to help improve the efficiency of the public facilities.


The local heat/mass transfer characteristics on the tip and shroud were investigated using a low speed rotating turbine annular cascade. Time-averaged mass transfer coefficients on the tip and shroud were measured using a naphthalene sublimation technique. A low speed wind tunnel with a single stage turbine annular cascade was used. The turbine stage is composed of sixteen guide plates and blades. The chord length of blade is 150 mm and the mean tip clearance is about 2.5% of the blade chord. The tested Reynolds number based on inlet flow velocity and blade chord is 1.5×10 5 and the rotational speed of the blade is 255.8 rpm at design condition. The results were compared with the results for a stationary blade and the effects of incidence angle of incoming flow were examined for incidence angles ranging from -15 to +7 deg. The off-design test conditions are obtained by changing the rotational speed with a fixed incoming flow velocity. Flow reattachment on the tip near the pressure side edge dominates the heat transfer on the tip surface. Consequently, the heat/mass transfer coefficients on the blade tip are about 1.7 times as high as those on the blade surface and the shroud. However, the heat transfer on the tip is about 10% lower than that for the stationary case due to reduced leakage flow with the relative motion. The peak regions due to the flow reattachment are reduced and shifted toward the trailing edge and additional peaks are formed near the leading edge region with decreasing incidence angles. But, quite uniform and high values are observed on the tip with positive incidence angles. The time-averaged heat/mass transfer on the shroud surface has a level similar to that of the stationary cases.


Climate is a primary control on the chemical composition of paleosols, making them a potentially extensive archive applicable to problems ranging from paleoclimate reconstruction to paleoaltimetry. However, the development of an effective, widely applicable paleosol temperature proxy has remained elusive. This is attributable to the fact that various soil orders behave differently due to their respective physical and chemical properties. Therefore, by focusing on an individual order or a subset of the 12 soil orders whose members exhibit similar process behavior, a better-constrained paleothermometer can be constructed. Soil chemistry data were compiled for 158 modern soils in order to derive a new paleosol paleothermometry relationship between mean annual temperature and a paleosol weathering index (PWI) that is based on the relative loss of major cations (Na, Mg, K, Ca) from soil B horizons. The new paleothermometer can be applied to clay-rich paleosols that originally formed under forest vegetation, including Inceptisols, Alfisols, and Ultisols, and halves the uncertainty relative to previous approaches. A case study using Cenozoic paleosols from Oregon (United States) shows that paleotemperatures produced with this new proxy compare favorably with paleobotanical temperature estimates. Global climatic events are also evident in the Oregon paleosol record, including a 2.8 °C drop across the Eocene-Oligocene transition comparable to marine records, and a Neogene peak temperature during the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum.