Scholarship on the Arabic novel often approaches it in light of questions of
national consciousness, identity formation and contact with the West. This
study relates the traditional fictional narrative of individual self-development
found in biographical subgenres of the novel such as the Bildungsroman,
autobiographical and confessional novels with these scholarly enterprises. It
explores how biographical forms, as found in the post-1967 Arabic novel, have
reflected an individualistic worldview that began as a reaction to certain
collectivist ideas inherited from a previous generations of writers and
intellectuals. The individualism of biographical forms is shown to be a reaction
to the literary conventions associated with the themes of national identity and
the Western encounter.
The New Sensibility movement that evolved during the period that the study
covers is analysed in relation to various Arabic texts from eight countries.
Theories of intertextuality provide the interpretive tools to discuss the links
between those novels and the changes in genres over time. Gerard Genette's
concept of hypertextuality is one of such tools used to analyse the relationship
between the contemporary texts and their predecessors, and Bakhtin's ideas
on utterances and speech genres allow me to interpret the implied writers'
views on the values associated with the literary convention in which they are
participating. I use three prototypical narratives to summarise the elements of
the established literary conventions and the presuppositions of the writers and
readers.
The study focuses on two recurrent themes in the contemporary biographical
novel; political activism and immigration. It shows how these two topics were
developed literary codes that contemporary writers gave new significations. In
prototypical narratives, they were literary vehicles for imagining a unified
community, and in the late twentieth century they transformed into narratives of
self-discovery and individualistic emphasis on uniqueness and agency. By
focusing on certain attributes of the biographical form, such as the spontaneous
desire of the individual and the persistent motif of the double, I show how this
particular subgenre of the novel was used to disturb the collectivist ideologies
and stable speech genres that had become prevalent by the latter half of the
twentieth century.


Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the current responses applied in Vietnam to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and link these measures to priority actions highlighted in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) From there, strengths, limitations and recommendations on applying the SFDRR to build the pandemic resilience in the future are discussed Design/methodology/approach: The authors synthesize literature on response measures to the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam from January to June 2020 and compare to four priority actions of the SFDRR including understanding risk, strengthening governance, investing in risk reduction for resilience and enhancing preparedness for effective response and resilient recovery Findings: Vietnam has effectively controlled the pandemic with 401 infected cases and no death so far Well preparation, timely policies' implementation, risk communication and comprehensive approaches are key strategies These measures are same as the four priority actions in the SFDRR Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study in Vietnam to link the COVID-19 response and the SFDRR, which can serve as an important example for other countries in responding to the pandemic Some measures have surpassed SFDRR's guidance, especially preventive responses applied nationwide with strong political will and the community's commitment accompanied by sanctions Cultural factors such as the habit of using masks to prevent air pollution have contributed to the good observance of wearing mask regulations during the pandemic However, some areas that need more attention include specific solutions for vulnerable groups, limiting fake news and ensuring patient privacy © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited


This project built upon the successful outcomes of a previous project (TU02005) by adding to the database of salt tolerance among warm season turfgrass cultivars, through further hydroponic screening trials. Hydroponic screening trials focussed on new cultivars or cultivars that were not possible to cover in the time available under TU02005, including: 11 new cultivars of Paspalum vaginatum; 13 cultivars of Cynodon dactylon; six cultivars of Stenotaphrum secundatum; one accession of Cynodon transvaalensis; 12 Cynodon dactylon x transvaalensis hybrids; two cultivars of Sporobolus virginicus; five cultivars of Zoysia japonica; one cultivar of Z. macrantha, one common form of Z. tenuifolia and one Z. japonica x tenuifolia hybrid.

The relative salinity tolerance of different turfgrasses is quantified in terms of their growth response to increasing levels of salinity, often defined by the salt level that equates to a 50% reduction in shoot yield, or alternatively the threshold salinity.

The most salt tolerant species in these trials were Sporobolus virginicus and Paspalum vaginatum, consistent with the findings from TU02005 (Loch, Poulter et al. 2006). Cynodon dactylon showed the largest range in threshold values with some cultivars highly sensitive to salt, while others were tolerant to levels approaching that of the more halophytic grasses. Coupled with the observational and anecdotal evidence of high drought tolerance, this species and other intermediately tolerant species provide options for site specific situations in which soil salinity is coupled with additional challenges such as shade and high traffic conditions.

By recognising the fact that a salt tolerant grass is not the complete solution to salinity problems, this project has been able to further investigate sustainable long-term establishment and management practices that maximise the ability of the selected grass to survive and grow under a particular set of salinity and usage parameters.

Salt-tolerant turf grasses with potential for special use situations were trialled under field conditions at three sites within the Gold Coast City Council, while three sites, established under TU02005 within the Redland City Council boundaries were monitored for continued grass survival. Several randomised block experiments within Gold Coast City were established to compare the health and longevity of seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum), Manila grass (Zoysia matrella), as well as the more tolerant cultivars of other species like buffalo grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum) and green couch (Cynodon dactylon). Whilst scientific results were difficult to achieve in the field situation, where conditions cannot be controlled, these trials provided valuable observational evidence of the likely survival of these species.

Alternatives to laying full sod such as sprigging were investigated, and were found to be more appropriate for areas of low traffic as the establishment time is greater. Trials under controlled and protected conditions successfully achieved a full cover of Paspalum vaginatum from sprigs in a 10 week time frame.

Salt affected sites are often associated with poor soil structure. Part of the research investigated techniques for the alleviation of soil compaction frequently found on saline sites. Various methods of soil de-compaction were investigated on highly compacted heavy clay soil in Redlands City. It was found that the heavy duplex soil of marine clay sediments required the most aggressive of treatments in order to achieve limited short-term effects. Interestingly, a well constructed sports field showed a far greater and longer term response to de-compaction operations, highlighting the importance of appropriate construction in the successful establishment and management of turfgrasses on salt affected sites.

Fertiliser trials in this project determined plant demand for nitrogen (N) to species level. This work produced data that can be used as a guide when fertilising, in order to produce optimal growth and quality in the major turf grass species used in public parkland. An experiment commenced during TU02005 and monitored further in this project, investigated six representative warm-season turfgrasses to determine the optimum maintenance requirements for fertiliser N in south-east Queensland. In doing so, we recognised that optimum level is also related to use and intensity of use, with high profile well-used parks requiring higher maintenance N than low profile parks where maintaining botanical composition at a lower level of turf quality might be acceptable.

Kikuyu (Pennisetum clandestinum) seemed to require the greatest N input (300-400 kg N/ha/year), followed by the green couch (Cynodon dactylon) cultivars 'Wintergreen' and 'FLoraTeX' requiring approximately 300 kg N/ha/year for optimal condition and growth. 'Sir Walter' (Stenotaphrum secundatum) and 'Sea Isle 1' (Paspalum vaginatum) had a
moderate requirement of approximately 200 kg/ha/year. 'Aussiblue' (Digitaria didactyla)maintained optimal growth and quality at 100-200 kg N/ha/year.

A set of guidelines has been prepared to provide various options from the construction and establishment of new grounds, through to the remediation of existing parklands by supporting the growth of endemic grasses. They describe a best management process through which salt affected sites should be assessed, remediated and managed. These guidelines, or Best Management Practices, will be readily available to councils.

Previously, some high salinity sites have been turfed several times over a number of years (and Council budgets) for a 100% failure record. By eliminating this budgetary waste through targeted workable solutions, local authorities will be more amenable to investing appropriate amounts into these areas. In some cases, this will lead to cost savings as well as resulting in better quality turf. In all cases, however, improved turf quality will be of benefit to ratepayers, directly through increased local use of open space in parks and sportsfields and indirectly by attracting tourists and other visitors to the region bringing associated economic benefits. At the same time, environmental degradation and erosion of soil in bare areas will be greatly reduced.


We address the problem of coupling cyclic robotic tasks to produce a specified coordinated behavior. Such coordination tasks are common in robotics, appearing in applications like walking, hopping, running, juggling and factory automation. In this paper we introduce a general methodology for designing controllers for such settings. We introduce a class of dynamical systems defined over n-dimensional tori (the cross product of n oscillator phases) that serve as reference fields for the specified task. These dynamical systems represent the ideal flow and phase couplings of the various cyclic tasks to be coordinated. In particular, given a specification of the desired connections between oscillating subsystems, we synthesize an appropriate reference field and show how to determine whether the specification is realized by the field. In the simplest case that the oscillating components admit a continuous control authority, they are made to track the phases of the corresponding components of the reference field. We further demonstrate that reference fields can be applied to the control of intermittent contact systems, specifically to the task of juggling balls with a paddle and to the task of synchronizing hopping robots.


Hormonal measurements in some women with hirsutism often reveal little or no elevation in androgen levels to explain the disorder. Thus, it has been postulated that increased sensitivity of the hair follicle to androgen may contribute to the development of hirsutism in such patients. We, therefore, sought androgen receptor abnormalities in skin fibroblasts cultured from 10 hirsute women (ages 17-43) and normal or mildly elevated plasma testosterone levels (28-82 ng/dl). Androgen receptor content (Ro) and binding affinity (Kd) in cultured pubic skin fibroblasts were measured using a dispersed, whole cell assay. Ten such cell lines from these women were compared with 19 pubic skin cell lines from 9 normal volunteers (6 males and 3 females) and from 10 other subjects (males with gynecomastia or hypospadias). There was no statistically significant difference in the mean androgen receptor content (11,600 +/- 2700 (SE) sites/cell fibroblasts vs 7900 +/- 700 sites/cell or binding affinity (2.0 +/- 0.3 (SE) X 10(-9) M vs 1.5 +/- 0.2 X 10(-9) M, respectively) between the patients' fibroblasts and those of the controls. We conclude that hirsutism cannot be explained by abnormalities in fibroblast androgen receptor number or affinity. These observations do not exclude the possibility that other mechanisms might lead to increased peripheral androgen sensitivity in such patients.


Metallocarboxypeptidases are found in most organisms and function in the digestion and maturation of proteins. Ecm14 is a putative metallocarboxypeptidase found in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae vacuole. The function of Ecm14 as an enzyme has been unclear due to the presence of active site amino acids not typically found in metallocarboxypeptidases, suggesting either no enzymatic activity or a unique mechanism. In order to investigate the enzymatic mechanism of Ecm14, expression of histidine-tagged Ecm14 protein was attempted in human HEK293T cell culture, S. cerevisiae, and baculovirus expression systems. No expression was detected in HEK293T cells in preliminary experiments. Expression in the yeast system resulted in insolubility of Ecm14, regardless of induction time, temperature, or inducer concentration. In contrast, following expression of Ecm14 in Sf9 cells using the baculovirus system, approximately 31% of Ecm14 was soluble and detected as a 40 kDa histidine-tagged protein by western blotting. Sf9-expressed Ecm14 was purified using metal affinity chromatography. No enzymatic activity could be detected for purified Ecm14 in the presence of substrate consisting of chromogenic 3-(2-furyl) acryloyl conjugated to a C-terminal dipeptide, PhePhe. Activation of Ecm14 by enzymatic removal of the prodomain was successful with the addition of chymotrypsin. Ecm14 cleaved of its prodomain showed activity in the presence of the above substrate with a preference for substrate at a pH of 6.0, similar to the known pH of the yeast vacuole. Ecm14 showed activity towards substrate proportional to the amount of enzyme present, suggesting that Ecm14 is non-catalytic in activity. Ecm14 can bind to substrate and limit the activity of a carboxypeptidase with known activity, CPA1, indicating that Ecm14 binds and cleaves but does not release the cleavage products.


We have undertaken a double blind placebo controlled study of the effect of nasal beclomethasone on the tendency to wheeze in 20 unselected hay fever sufferers, half with a history of previous seasonal wheezing. We found no difference between either bronchial hyperresponsiveness, as measured by methacholine challenge, home‐monitored PEFR, nor recorded wheeze nor cough between treated and placebo groups although the numbers were small. All were allowed the antihistamine cetirizine hydrochloride 10 mg daily. Eighteen out of the 19 patients had either bronchial hyper‐responsiveness (PD20 methacholine < 8 μmol or a > 2 doubling dose change in their PD20 during the pollen season). We have shown a significant positive correlation between a hay fever score (HFS) (created by taking the sum of the home scored; nasal discharge, nasal blockage, eye irritation, sneeze and antihistamine use) and peak seasonal specific IgE to mixed grass pollen (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.5 P<0.02). There was also a positive correlation between the rise in specific IgE from pre to peak season and the HFS, correlation coefficient 0.6 P =0.03).


Ammonia (NH 3) emissions in the atmosphere have increased substantially over the past decades, largely because of intensive livestock production and use of fertilizers. As a short-lived species, NH 3 is highly variable in the atmosphere and its concentration is generally small, except near local sources. While ground-based measurements are possible, they are challenging and sparse. Advanced infrared sounders in orbit have recently demonstrated their capability to measure NH 3 , offering a new tool to refine global and regional budgets. In this paper we describe an improved retrieval scheme of NH 3 total columns from the measurements of the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI). It exploits the hyperspectral character of this instrument by using an extended spectral range (800–1200 cm −1) where NH 3 is optically active. This scheme consists of the calculation of a dimensionless spectral index from the IASI level1C radiances, which is subsequently converted to a total NH 3 column using look-up tables built from forward radiative transfer model simulations. We show how to retrieve the NH 3 total columns from IASI quasi-globally and twice daily above both land and sea without large computational resources and with an improved detection limit. The retrieval also includes error characterization of the retrieved columns. Five years of IASI measurements (1 November 2007 to 31 October 2012) have been processed to acquire the first global and multiple-year data set of NH 3 total columns, which are evaluated and compared to similar products from other retrieval methods. Spatial distributions from the five years data set are provided and analyzed at global and regional scales. In particular, we show the ability of this method to identify smaller emission sources than those previously reported, as well as transport patterns over the ocean. The five-year time series is further examined in terms of seasonality and inter-annual variability (in particular as a function of fire activity) separately for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.


Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common neurologic disorder that is a chronic inflammatory, demyelinating, and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Its etiology remains unknown. Several recent studies have found that decreased susceptibility to vitamin D deficiency is also associated with a decreased risk of MS. The role of vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene and its polymorphisms are highlighted as susceptible components. In this study, we aimed to identify the relationship between ApaI (rs7975232), BsmI (rs 1544410), and TaqI (rs731236) gene polymorphisms with MS. ApaI, BsmI, and TaqI genotypes were determined in 70 patients with MS and in 70 control subjects. DNA was isolated from blood samples, and then ApaI, BsmI and TaqI gene polymorphisms were identified using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay. The distribution of BsmI and TaqI polymorphisms did not show any significant differences in MS patients and controls; however, increased A allele of ApaI polymorphism was found in MS patients. Our findings suggest that the ApaI gene polymorphism might be associated with MS. Investigation of a larger population and functional work on these gene structures and function in MS patients are recommended.


Courts struggle with the tension between national competition laws, on the one hand, and state and local regulation, on the other - especially as traditional governmental functions are privatized and as economic regulation advances beyond its traditional role to address market monitoring. This Article defends a process-based account of the state action antitrust exception against alternative interpretations, such as the substantive efficiency preemption approach recently advanced by Richard Squire, and elaborates on what such a process-based account would entail for courts addressing the role of state economic regulation as a defense in antitrust cases. It recasts the debate as focused around delegation issues and judicial deference to regulation - traditionally issues of administrative law. State action antitrust exception issues frequently are invoked where state officials fail to act or only act partially to regulate, as is increasingly common where states privatize governmental functions or attempt to deregulate, or implement competition policies of their own. As I shall argue, in such contexts a delegation model, which focuses on the conditions under which state legislative bodies have made delegations, whether agency regulators have standards, and the reasons provided by state and local officials for regulatory inaction, provides a more powerful and principled approach for evaluating the interaction between regulation and antitrust litigation than alternative approaches. A process-based account of the state action exception recognizes federalism and efficiency as important values, but changes the primary emphasis of the judicial inquiry. Federalism values and economic efficiency may well be advanced by applications of the state action exception, but that does not require courts to ground their decisions in individual cases entirely on federal preemption legal analysis or on an assessment of the substantive efficiency of state or local regulation. On a process-based account, federalism goals could be advanced by state and local political processes as much as by federal courts attempting to identify and apply the substantive values in broad federal statutes such as the Sherman Act. Moreover, a process-based account of antitrust defenses, such as the state action exception, recognizes the possibility that economic efficiency can inform the application of the substantive standards of antitrust law without requiring economic efficiency to be the primary focus in evaluating every governmental program, particularly at the state and local level. By discouraging courts from directly addressing economic efficiency concerns before addressing the merits of an antitrust violation, such an approach promotes judicial economy and, if properly cabined, can also have a positive effect on the behavior of private groups in the lawmaking process. Even within alternative accounts that give priority to federalism or economic efficiency, the delegation approach should be used to inform the evidentiary assessment of procedure, serving as predicate any judicial decision to extend a state action antitrust exception. The Article proceeds in four parts. Part I discusses the problems with current formulations and applications of the antitrust state action exception, which no one finds satisfactory. As I argue, traditional approaches, such as a federal preemption-oriented understanding of state action doctrine, have serious limitations given a state and local regulatory environment that is increasingly characterized by regulatory transition and inaction. Part II introduces Chevron, the predominant paradigm for judicial review of regulation in administrative law, highlighting its delegation structure and aspects of it that are useful to understanding the problems state regulation present for antitrust law. Part III explains limits to the analogy between Chevron step one and the clear articulation requirement for antitrust state action. Part IV draws an analogy to step two of Chevron and analyzes the implications of recasting the state action antitrust exception to focus on agency reasons, not power or history. The Article concludes by addressing the kinds of reasons that should suffice for purposes of addressing active regulatory supervision at the state and local level as a predicate to extending an antitrust state action exception.


For the past few years, I've wandered around narrative conferences muttering. "Please, not another talk about the implied author," "Can't we banish arguments about the implied author from the conference? .... How about a moratorium on the term 'implied author' for next year?" Those cranky comments were calling not for the erasure of a term but for the admission of a stalemate: I believed that the longstanding debates about the implied author had reached a point of diminishing returns. I am hoping that the current issue of Style will prove me wrong. Meanwhile, hoisted with my own petard to participate in a conversation I'd proclaimed we should banish, I offer a set of propositions about the non-entity that continues to haunt narratological discourse. That I adopt a quasi-theological language is a conscious choice that attempts to render the spirit of this prolonged inquiry. Let me clarify that I don't consider the issue of implied authorship unimportant, just stuck. The manifesto I offer here is an effort to articulate a set of principles that might lead if not to consensus, then to a shift in our approach, a move neither away from nor toward the implied author but toward a different critical practice that might tell us whether--and, if so, how--divergent understandings of implied authorship affect the poetic-hermeneutic enterprise. My propositions are agnostic not only because I myself remain so with respect to the concept of the implied author, but because I hope they will speak to theorists on both sides of the 1A divide. As steps toward praxis, these premises build on one another and are thus best read in sequence. 1. The implied author is not an empirical entity. It is neither an identifiable textual voice nor a demonstrable material being. It therefore has no place in a model of communication. Nearly all literary scholars agree that the implied author is neither the historical ("flesh-and-blood") author of a text. nor a narrator, nor any other textually identifiable persona. But we do not always act in keeping with this axiom. Even though Seymour Chatman, for instance, argues that the implied author"has no voice" (41), he famously includes the implied author as a figure in his chain of communication. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan criticized this inclusion almost immediately (89), and there has been no successful refutation of her position, yet Chatman's model continues to be evoked even by narrative theorists who disagree with it, which perpetuates its visual power. As Ansgar Nunning reminds us, no one has ever been able to tell us where the implied author resides, except in ways that conflate the implied author with the "totality of meanings that can be inferred from a text" (Bal 18). 2. Since the implied author has no material being or textual identity, it is necessarily a reading effect, it is something that happens rather than something that is, and it happens in the wake of reading rather than prior to it. This axiom holds true no matter how one defines the implied author and no matter what one believes about the relationship between the implied author and the historical author. As Bal argues, the implied author is necessarily "the result of the investigation of the meaning of a text." In other words, "only after interpreting the text on the basis of a text description can the implied author be inferred and discussed" (18). This necessarily sequential--and thus dependent--position of the implied author distinguishes it dramatically from the historical author. Without a reader, there is no implied authorship. Even if the implied author is "contained" in the work, as Wolf Schmid recognizes, it is "not represented"; it has "only a virtual existence" (26) and therefore must be created from the work rather than the other way around. 3. The belief that a particular text is an intentional human discourse provides the only feasible rationale for deploying the concept of implied author. …


In every state and territory in Australia, child welfare departments, under various names, maintain or, alternatively, fund group homes for children and young people in the non-government sector. Increasingly, these group homes offer only four places with no integrated treatment or educational services. In that respect they can best be viewed as providing care and accommodation only. Since 2010, following the release of a definition of therapeutic residential care by the National Therapeutic Residential Care Work Group, there has been debate about how to make group homes therapeutic. In 2017, as part of a wider reform effort, New South Wales renamed all their out-of-home care (foster care and residential care) as intensive therapeutic care and ceased using the term residential. The net result is that the group homes in New South Wales will from now on be referred to as intensive therapeutic care homes. This article raises questions about the utility of this renaming and explores whether or not group homes can be therapeutic given the characteristics of the population of children and young people they accommodate, their small size, the staffing complement and the limited job satisfaction with high staff turnover as a consequence of this smallness. All of these factors lead to the well-documented, anti-therapeutic instability of the group home life space.


This paper investigates the brain's response to appealing and unappealing versions of images. We present results from several ElectroEncephaloGraph (EEG) experiments using images with varying levels of 'pleasingness' as stimuli, which shed light on the preference and perception of pleasing and displeasing image versions. An analysis of the EEG data shows a distinct and reliable difference in the neural response to image versions with the same content but different parameter values for saturation, contrast and brightness. We use this EEG data to create a neuralfeedback loop to automatically optimize these parameters to render more pleasing image variations.


Modern applications of mathematical programming must take into account a multitude of technical details, business demands, and legal requirements. Teaching the mathematical modeling of such issues and their interrelations requires real-world examples that are well beyond the toy sizes that can be tackled with the student editions of most commercial software packages. We present a new tool, which is freely available for academic use including complete source code. It consists of an algebraic modeling language and a linear mixed integer programming solver. The performance and features of the tool are in the range of current state-of-the-art commercial tools, though not in all aspects as good as the best ones. Our tool does allow the execution and analysis of large real-world instances in the classroom and can therefore enhance the teaching of problem solving issues. Teaching experience has been gathered and practical usability was tested in classes at several universities and a two week intensive block course at TU Berlin. The feedback from students and teachers has been very positive.


The study examined the factors that influence high academic performance in some
secondary schools in Kilimanjaro region. It was based on the fact that some schools
in Kilimanjaro performed high academically in each year, when compared with other
schools in Tanzania. Six secondary schools in Kilimanjaro Region were selected for
this study. The study employed systematic sampling technique and qualitative
research approach was applied using descriptive genre. Data were collected using
interviews, questionnaires, and documentary review. Qualitative data were
manipulated through content analysis while quantitative data were analyzed by SPSS
and Excel software to produce descriptive statistics.
The results indicated that high performing secondary schools had enough qualified
teachers, had conducive teaching and learning environment, and teaches insisted on
formative evaluations before accepting students in their schools, Further, it was
found that involvement of parents in students' progress and other school business
was high. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Vocational
Training (MoEVT) should train enough teachers to raise learning standards in
secondary schools. It was further recommended that secondary schools should screen
students before they are allowed to enroll as quality control. The last
recommendation was that, every teacher should strive to create conducive
environment for teaching and learning for high performance. For further research,
this study recommends that researchers need to focus on what works in education
instead of always focusing on what is not working, This will help to understand the
strengths and emulate for quality teaching and learning.


The concept of resilience is becoming widely used by many industries where safety and security is crucial for success. At the last REA we've presented a definition of resilience that can be used in CD&E experiments regarding socio-technical systems. Self-synchronization was identified to play an important role. Methods: The approach chosen towards diagnosing selfsynchronization was inspired by the methods used in psychiatry to diagnose psychiatric diseases as utilized in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM 5) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 10). This approach was chosen because it allows to diagnose certain conditions based solely on the presence or absence of easily observable and assessable conditions and observations. We introduced two categories of indicators. The first category constitutes of five factors (mandate, autonomy, communication, coordination, cooperation) and was named "threshold conditions". These conditions are necessary for self-synchronization to occur but are not sufficient to determine if selfsynchronization occurred. The second category was named "value added observations" and consists of seven factors (situational awareness, self-awareness, negotiation, dependability, motivation, sub-networks, distributed decision making). These observations are used to quantify the level of self-synchronization reached. Results: The model was applied in two different settings of war games, performed during the Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC) "Info-age C2" campaign. It was possible to diagnose the level of selfsynchronization reached in the exercises. Based on these results, the model was further simplified and transferred into a checklist-format that allows for real-time self-synchronization diagnosis during exercises and real-live missions. Conclusion: In this paper, we will present our experience with a newly developed diagnostic model of self-synchronization. A highfidelity research-version will be presented together with an operational version that can be applied for the assessment of self-synchronization during real world missions.


High climate variability has been a characteristic of mountain ecosystems, even before climate change concerns emerged. Indigenous cultures of Central America and the Andean region have been living in these unpredictable environments for centuries. As a result, they possess a variety of knowledge and technologies that have helped them to adapt their livelihoods to increasing uncertainty and risk. Traditional knowledge has proven to be compatible with scientific knowledge and, despite its local nature, it includes techniques that demonstrate great potential to meet the challenges of climate change expected over coming decades. These cultures therefore have much to contribute to climate change adaptation processes and should participate in adaptation strategy design and implementation. However, social exclusion, lack of information systems and inadequate protection from governments mean traditional knowledge is slowly being eroded. This Brief highlights a selection of indigenous climate change technologies from across Latin America. It then describes how Latin American countries have successfully harnessed indigenous knowledge to improve climate change adaptation policy, and the challenges they face in doing so. Finally, it describes the main contextual factors that explain how and why traditional knowledge and technologies have been gradually incorporated into climate change adaptation policy and practice in Latin America, and offers lessons learned for other regions. SUMMARY ELLA Brief


ISSUE ADDRESSED
The prevalence of smoking among the adult Aboriginal population is almost double that of the non-Aboriginal population. Research shows smoking cessation brief interventions have a positive impact on quit attempts. However, examples of statewide, Aboriginal-led initiatives that ensure health service delivery of brief intervention to all Aboriginal clients are limited.

METHODS
Guidance from an Aboriginal chief investigator and key health stakeholders supported the development of the NSW SmokeCheck Program. One component of the program was the establishment of a state-wide network of Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) and other health professional participants. Another was a culturally specific training program to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and confidence of participants to provide an evidence-based brief smoking-cessation intervention to Aboriginal clients. The brief intervention was based on the transtheoretical model of behaviour change, adapted for use in Aboriginal communities.

RESULTS
SmokeCheck training reached 35.5% of the total NSW AHW workforce over a 15-month period. More than 90% of participants surveyed indicated satisfaction with the curriculum content, workshop structure and training delivery, agreeing that they found it relevant, easy to understand and applicable to practice.

CONCLUSIONS
An evidence-based approach to designing and delivering an Aboriginal-specific health promotion intervention appears to have facilitated the development of a state-wide network of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health professionals and strengthened their capacity to deliver a brief smoking cessation intervention with Aboriginal clients.


When historical geographer Sam B. Hilliard's book Hog Meat and Hoecake was published in 1972, it was ahead of its time. It was one of the first scholarly examinations of the important role food played in a region's history, culture, and politics, and it has since become a landmark of foodways scholarship. In the book Hilliard examines the food supply, dietary habits, and agricultural choices of the antebellum American South, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. He explores the major southern food sources at the time, the regional production of commodity crops, and the role of those products in the subsistence economy. Far from being primarily a plantation system concentrating on cash crops such as cotton and tobacco, Hilliard demonstrates that the South produced huge amounts of foodstuffs for regional consumption. In fact, the South produced so abundantly that, except for wines and cordials, southern tables were not only stocked with the essentials but amply laden with veritable delicacies as well. (Though contrary to popular opinion, neither grits nor hominy ever came close to being universally used in the South prior to the Civil War.) Hilliard's focus on food habits, culture, and consumption was revolutionary - as was his discovery that malnutrition was not a major cause of the South's defeat in the Civil War. His book established the methods and vocabulary for studying a region's cuisine in the context of its culture that foodways scholars still employ today. This reissue is an excellent and timely reminder of that.


Introduction: Acute abdominal pain in the lower-right quadrant can be misdiagnosed as acute appendicitis and may be caused by anatomic variations of the intra-abdominal organs in rare cases. Anatomical variations in the position and morphology of the sigmoid colon should be considered by clinicians and radiologists to avoid misdiagnosis and unnecessary surgical procedures.Case Report: A 54-year-old man was admitted to our emergency department complaining of abdominal pain in the lowerright quadrant, nausea, vomiting, and fever for 2 days. Physical examination revealed local rebound tenderness on the lowerright quadrant and a temperature of 38°C. Abdominal ultrasound showed that the intestinal loops were thickened and the surrounding mesenteric tissue was edematous in the right abdominal quadrant. Abdominal computed tomography was performed after a bolus administration of intravenous contrast material, and sigmoid colon position anomalies and diverticulitis were observed. The patient was treated medically, and diverticulosis was confirmed by colonoscopy. Conclusion: Clinical evaluation and ordered appropriate imaging methods by the emergency specialist is important in patients with abdominal pain on the lower-right quadrant who are admitted to the emergency department. Thus, rare anatomical variations mimicking acute appendicitis can be diagnosed accurately, and patients can be protected from undergoing unnecessary surgeries


This study investigates the Italian film in Flanders and its translation, more specifically its Dutch subtitles. Traditionally, many disciplines have featured in films: economics, engineering, computer science, psychology, sociology, cognitive sciences, semiotics , linguistics, translation studies, and so on. In this PhD, we look at film as a cultural object, according to a tradition initiated by the sociology of culture. Considering a film as a cultural object allows us at the same time to study its double nature: material and symbolic. After all, a film has a material dimension - it is a commodity that is bought and sold and produced by an industry – but it also upholds. immaterial, symbolic values, as it may be a film about life and love, it may mark an era, or it may be life-changing. The sociology of culture provides the theoretical framework that allows us to study a film in this double capacity and to investigate how an Italian film is received in cinemas in Flanders, the professionals who import it and the symbolic values it represents.
To understand how a film is accepted at a transnational level, the sociological aspect is complemented by concepts developed in the framework of Cultural Studies and Reception Studies. The Theory of Cultural Discount, where the value of a single film , if exported, is discounted due to cultural differences concludes the theoretical framework which is aimed at reconstructing the social world of the Italian film in Flanders.
Sociology of culture, Cultural Studies, Reception Studies and Cultural Discount constitute the theoretical paradigm which enables us to respond to questions about why, and how, an Italian film arrives in Flanders.
These disciplines are not concerned, however, with the study of the film dialogue and its meanings. The meanings (symbolic or not) of the film are not only transmitted by the film as a whole, but also, and perhaps above all, by the words of the film which, in our case , are the translated words of the film, i.e. the subtitles.
The audiovisual translation is the object of Translation Studies and, in particular, Audiovisual Translation Studies . The Dutch subtitles of Italian films are thus addressed in this study with the tools offered by this discipline.
Traditionally, Translation Studies does not concern itself with the underlying issues when a film is exported from one country (Italy ) to another (Flanders). This study tries to show how a sociological framework is nevertheless useful for improving the analysis of translation problems. Particular attention will be paid to the cultural problems posed by the translation of realia.
The realia, otherwise also referred to as cultural words, names of particular entities, culture-bound words, extralinguistic culture-bound references (ECRs), are words that refer to elements of daily life, history, culture, products of a certain country and that do not exist in other countries. In this research, it is believed that realia, the cultural elements that are most frequently encountered in film dialogue, constitute a very relevant object of study and help us appreciate the presence of the symbolic values in films.
Accordingly, Audiovisual Translation Studies offers the theoretical paradigm within which questions about how certain themes and certain words of Italian films are presented to the Flemish public are addressed.
The linguistic research consists of a corpus that collected the Italian film dialogue, along with the Dutch subtitles, of six films: La meglio gioventu (Giordana 2003), L'ultimo bacio (Muccino 2001), Malena (Tornatore 2000), Non ti muovere (Castellitto 2004) and Pane e tulipani (Soldini 2000).
Realia are the connection between the two parts of research. They are the bridge that allows us to study both language and culture in the film dialogue.
The case-study: The only Italian film that stood out in Flanders during the period under scrutiny was La meglio gioventu. The film, exceptional for its duration, setting and content, has become a bit of a cultural phenomenon in Flanders. Its success was party driven by the fact that the film was presented at an event that determined the pattern of its consumption and a renegotiation of its meanings. For these reasons, we used the film as a case study that helped us analyse other films of the corpus.
The findings : The journey that Italian films make to arrive in Flanders is very much determined by the cultural intermediaries who choose and distribute them. Usually working for small, or very small, enterprises that also own Art-houses, they generally decide on which films to bring back at film festivals,Cannes and Berlin being the more prestigious ones. At those festivals, some films acquire what is known as a buzz, a positive reputation that circulates and makes them interesting. These films are bought more willingly than others.
When an Italian film has been purchased and brought back to Flanders, it is distributed exclusively in the Art-houses, or else broadcast by the state television. It is not distributed in multiplexes or transmitted on private television.
Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the fact that Italian films are in Italian is the key factor that determines the type of buyer, distributor, theatre, public that will choose it. This happens regardless of the content, the director and the genre of the film. The language is the single greatest influence factor that determines a film's fate (not in English) in Flanders. The identification of the significance of this linguistic factor is one of the most important findings of this research, not least because it is an innovative viewpoint that opens up many research prospects.
The language factor becomes particularly important when you realise that films are subtitled in Flanders. Subtitles translate the film dialogue and, in doing so, contribute significantly to the transmission of symbolic values and cultural themes of the film. These are conveyed by the film dialogue and, consequently, by its translation.
When a film crosses national borders, it conveys elements that are difficult to export from a thematic and linguistic point of view. These elements are expressed by the film dialogue and must be translated. The words that give voice to these elements are the realia, because they are words that are understandable in the light of the cultural tradition of one people, but not of another. The realia, coagulating elements of the real world and of the fictional world, play a vital, cohesive role in a film, and constitute one of the elements that guarantee its credibility. The study of the translation of realia, however, has highlighted the fact that very often, the translation strategies adopted to render them tend to omit their connotative dimension.
Despite the significance of the language factor, the cultural intermediaries consider subtitles to be a marginal element of the film, relegating them to one of the technical elements that are necessary for the distribution of films, while the translators are primarily concerned with the quality of subtitles as a product. Research and innovation of subtitles do not appear to be within the sphere of interest of either film distributors or translators.
The study of translation strategies that is applied to render the realia has shown that there is a common strategy that brings near the interpretation of the film in Flanders and the importance of some of its mono-cultural elements. When realia refer to mono-cultural themes of the Italian films, they are often rendered with one single, dominant translation strategy, a choice that suggests a lack of awareness of the need to translate the connotative dimension of these realia.
This research has also highlighted a general lack of promotion of Italian films, particularly with regard to the absence of intervention in new media.
Conclusions : The conclusion is twofold. On the one hand, the Italian film should be distributed along with a discourse that makes them more easily accessible to the Flemish public, while . on the other hand, the translation of their mono-cultural realia should include the film's huge number of mono-cultural themes.
In future, we suggest more time and money is invested in a general reflection on the techniques used for creating subtitles in order to make them more flexible and suitable to modern communication. Ideally, subtitles should be generated as the film develops.


Elevation of UV-B radiation (280-315 nm), occurring as a result of depletion of the stratospheric ozone, causes a number of physiological and biochemical changes in plants. Damage to the photosynthetic apparatus (including the bleaching of the pigments which trap the sun's energy), to the processes of cell division and growth regulation, and to the composition and replication of genetic material are just some of these changes. The consequences include reduction in growth yield, changes in levels and effects of plant hormones and secondary metabolites, and alteration of interactions between plants and other organisms. This thesis deals with several mechanistic questions related to regulation of responses during UV-B stress in plants. Our results show significant ecotype-specific variability in UV-B response in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Differences at the molecular level (expression of PR-5 and steady-state concentration of H2O2) resulted in statistically significant differences in biomass, rosette size and leaf area. Therefore, it is of great importance to pay attention to the responses of the background ecotypes when for instance studying mechanisms of responses toward ultraviolet-B radiation in mutants. Using a DNA microarray approach, we found a number of novel genes to be differentially expressed under UV-B radiation. Two of the genes (PYROA and MEB5.2) were later used as molecular markers for monitoring of UV-B stress. Promoters of PYROA and MEB5.2 were compared with promoters of genes for the phenylpropanoid pathway. The comparisons indicated only few common elements with the UV-B-regulated promoters of CHS, PAL and CHI. In contrast, the genes identified as being UV-B regulated in this study (MEB5.2, PYROA and UBQ3), completely lacked elements required for the UV-B induction of CHS, indicating that these genes are regulated by different transcription factors. In addition, novel unidentified cis-elements are probably also present upstream of the transcription start. Reverse and forward genetics were used for searching novel genes responsive to UV-B and for examination of proposed candidates of the UV-B signal transduction chain. Screening of more than 2000 T-DNA mutants for differential response to UV-B resulted in the identification of a mutant displaying insensitivity to UV-B induced inhibition of hypocotyl growth. By using the corresponding knock-out mutants, the involvement of NADPH oxidase and MAPK phosphatase 1 in UV-B signalling was demonstrated. For the plant to be able to respond appropriately to UV-B irradiation, UV-B quanta have to be absorbed. There are indirect evidences for the existence of specific UV-B receptor(s), whereas the receptor itself still remains unknown. By the classical approach of action spectroscopy, we undertook an attempt to identify the absorption spectra of the chromophore(s) sensing UV-B radiation in plants. The investigated molecular markers revealed the presence of two potential chromophores absorbing in the UV-B region and peaking at 280-290 and 300 nm, respectively.


Latent variable models represent the probability density of data in a space of several dimensions in terms of a smaller number of latent, or hidden, variables. A familiar example is factor analysis, which is based on a linear transformation between the latent space and the data space. In this article, we introduce a form of nonlinear latent variable model called the generative topographic mapping, for which the parameters of the model can be determined using the expectation-maximization algorithm. GTM provides a principled alternative to the widely used self-organizing map (SOM) of Kohonen (1982) and overcomes most of the significant limitations of the SOM. We demonstrate the performance of the GTM algorithm on a toy problem and on simulated data from flow diagnostics for a multiphase oil pipeline.


LAURIE A. FIKE and MARTIN B. SHICHTMAN, Cinematic Illuminations: The Middle Ages on Film. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Pp. xi +445. ISBN: 978-0-8018-9345-2. $60.00 (HB). $30.00 (PB). The study of cinema medievalia in general and of cinema arthuriana in particular is fast becoming a fair field full of folk thanks to a number of recent studies of the cinematic tradition of reimagining the Middle Ages. Queer Movie Medievalisms, edited by Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh (Ashgate, 2009), with its dozen essays bookended by an introduction and an afterword, focuses on the ways in which such films undercut medieval and modern constructions of gender and sexuality. Medieval Film, edited by Anke Bernau and Bettina Bildhauer (Manchester University Press, 2009), provides an introduction by the editors, eight essays, and suggestions for further readings. The focus here is on interdisciplinarity, as the contributors ask us to think about what it means to create and watch a 'medieval' film. Race, Class, and Gender in 'Medieval' Cinema, edited by Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), includes thirteen essays discussing multicultural identity, barbarism, the medieval other, and romantic values in films set in more or less recognizably medieval worlds. Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media by Richard Burt (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) links so-called 'medieval' film to such examples of old and new media as scrolls, illuminated manuscripts, the Bayeux Tapestry, and DVDs and HD DVDs. Le Moyen Âge mis en scene: perspectives contemporaines, edited by Sandra Gorgievski and Xavier Leroux (Babel, vol. 15, 2007), contains fifteen essays by British, American, and European scholars discussing the Middle Ages as an object of both representation and interpretation in modern theater and film. Portrayals of Joan of Arc in Film by Margaret Joan Maddox (Edwin Mellen, 2008) amounts, unfortunately, to little more than a facile discussion of a topic definitively discussed in greater depth by Robin Blaetz in her Visions of the Maid (University Press of Virginia, 2001). But, despite these and other volumes, Cinematic Illuminations by Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman will remain the definitive study of the continuing phenomenon of cinematic reinterpretations of the Middle Ages. The book-like the authors' earlier King Arthur and the Myth of History-is a model of solid, insightful, groundbreaking prose unfettered by academic jargon and vigorous in its adherence to the highest tenets of academic integrity. …


Resulfurized steels are commonly used in the industry due to its good machinability, which can be related to the formation of microstructural manganese sulfide (MnS) inclusions. On the downside, MnS inclusions cause a high steel anisotropy due to its elongated form. Within this paper, the effect of a MnS reduction and the influence of different countermeasures on the machinability is investigated. The addition of either selenium (Se) or bismuth (Bi) is combined with a reduction of the sulfur content with the aim to increase the isotropy and, consequently, the fatigue performance of the steel variants. Drilling investigations in longitudinal and transversal direction to the steel fiber are conducted and evaluated regarding wear development and cutting forces. The experiments showed that the addition of the two elements resulted in a good compensation of the MnS reduction regarding the machinability.


Self-trackers are a diffuse and diverse group that quantify their lives. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, intimate and vital happenings that occur on (infra)-empirical planes are cast as legible events. Blood pressure, heartbeat rate, testosterone levels, posture, diet, muscle tension, social activity, geographical position. These are now happenings to be intervened upon and rendered as units of measurement and comparable variables. These measurements may give insight to help rebuild a re-cognition of oneself (Catani 2015), or allow a brooding recall of lost moments (Kalina 2012) – this is the manifest quantified body, a body read and a body written. Yet the quantified body is a veneer, it is the outward appearance of control, awareness and care-for-self: we were cynical subjects (Sloterdijk 1987) long before we were quantified bodies. However, self-tracking intrinsically disassociates from the ubiquitous cynical condition. The cynical self-tracker gropes for independence whilst submitting to a life of mediated self-discovery, it is a renunciation of independent vitality so as to act "as if", to appear to be whilst never being – to fall short of realising difference. It is argued here that the quantified body allocates us all to be designers – reading and writing in culture. And as such, our actions must be critiqued as a symptom of a design practice, where the condition of subjectivity is at the forefront of value-making in taste, style and fashion. How does the cynic self-track? What is the value of design in the field of new media and digital culture?


Today merely a few monitoring systems for in-process detection of laser welding defects are commercially available. Despite a trend towards cameras, the industrially most powerful concept is still a photodiode with optical filter, measuring thermal emissions from the melt surface and from the plasma or laser beam reflections. The monitoring rule for each application is identified empirically through temporal correlations between dynamic signal changes and obtained welding defects. The mechanisms behind are widely not understood. Thus the method does not provide a systematic estimation of success for identifying a certain welding defect.The here presented research approach studies the context between welding defects, the physical mechanisms behind, particularly the dynamics of melt pool, plasma and temperature field, and the photodiode signal. Numerical simulation results of the thermal emissions from the weld pool and keyhole dynamics and their non-linear conversion into a voltage signal are presented. An essential outcome is the sensitivity of the sensor signal to certain sub-mechanisms of the motion for judging under which conditions they can be monitored. Various results are discussed for simplified hypothetic cases as well as for observed weld pool dynamics of practical relevance.Today merely a few monitoring systems for in-process detection of laser welding defects are commercially available. Despite a trend towards cameras, the industrially most powerful concept is still a photodiode with optical filter, measuring thermal emissions from the melt surface and from the plasma or laser beam reflections. The monitoring rule for each application is identified empirically through temporal correlations between dynamic signal changes and obtained welding defects. The mechanisms behind are widely not understood. Thus the method does not provide a systematic estimation of success for identifying a certain welding defect.The here presented research approach studies the context between welding defects, the physical mechanisms behind, particularly the dynamics of melt pool, plasma and temperature field, and the photodiode signal. Numerical simulation results of the thermal emissions from the weld pool and keyhole dynamics and their non-linear conversion into a voltage signal are presented. An...


During animal development, accurate control of tissue specification and growth are critical to generate organisms of reproducible shape and size. The eye-antennal disc epithelium of Drosophila is a powerful model system to identify the signaling pathway and transcription factors that mediate and coordinate these processes. We show here that the Yorkie (Yki) pathway plays a major role in tissue specification within the developing fly eye disc epithelium at a time when organ primordia and regional identity domains are specified. RNAi-mediated inactivation of Yki, or its partner Scalloped (Sd), or increased activity of the upstream negative regulators of Yki cause a dramatic reorganization of the eye disc fate map leading to specification of the entire disc epithelium into retina. On the contrary, constitutive expression of Yki suppresses eye formation in a Sd-dependent fashion. We also show that knockdown of the transcription factor Homothorax (Hth), known to partner Yki in some developmental contexts, also induces an ectopic retina domain, that Yki and Scalloped regulate Hth expression, and that the gain-of-function activity of Yki is partially dependent on Hth. Our results support a critical role for Yki- and its partners Sd and Hth - in shaping the fate map of the eye epithelium independently of its universal role as a regulator of proliferation and survival.


We investigate the imposition of a horizontal technical barrier to trade (HTBT) in a symmetric, cross-hauling duopoly. Tariffs and subsidies are ruled out, but, in the absence of a mutual recognition agreement, it is possible for governments to impose HTBTs, so long as firms apply different technologies. If firms are first movers, this possibility may induce them to avoid technical collaboration, in order to tempt governments into creating national monopolies, except where spillovers and R&D effects are high. This exacerbates the costs of regulatory protection, compared to standard models without R&D or spillovers.


Multigrating operation of degenerate four-wave mixing in photorefractive media is considered in the strong pump regime. Closed-form expressions for the reflectivity are obtained for the cases of absorption and no absorption. An arbitrary phase mismatch between the intensity interference fringes and the refractive-index gratings is allowed.


The urban focus of crime has dominated the attention of criminologists. Although images of idyllic, crime-free areas beyond the cityscape persist, there is scant academic consideration of the realities and variances of crime across regional, rural and remote Australia.

Contributors to Locating Crime explore the nexus between crime and space, examining the complexities that exist in policing, prosecuting and punishing crime in different zones. The various authors draw upon original knowledge and insight and utilise innovative research and an interdisciplinary approach to their work.

The broad theme of Locating Crime is centred on 'context, place and space', but several sub-themes emerge too. Contributors grapple with a number of issues: contextualisations of rurality; notions of 'access to justice'; the importance of building 'social capital'; the role of history; and of proactively addressing offending rates with crime prevention measures. This original research adds significantly to criminological understandings of crime in different spaces and offers novel insights of the impact upon victims and communities affected by crime in non-urban environments.

Twelve scholarly chapters are grounded in criminological, legal and socio-legal frameworks and incorporate theoretical and practical knowledge from other fields such as history, sociology, cultural geography, media, cultural studies and Indigenous studies. The contributions from four professionals with expert knowledge of specific facets of criminal justice systems in Australia offer evaluations often absent from scholarly criminological literature. By melding both academic and practitioner discourse into the same work, this book allows a greater appreciation of the nexus between thought and practice.


This paper introduces the concept of intangible assets in sequential supply chains and the importance of their appropriability in the organizational decision of firms. We focus on the quality of intellectual property rights (IPR) institutions, which on top of the hold-up problem between a supplier and the final producer entails an additional risk of imitation as technology may leak to competing producers in the market. The level of IPR enforcement in the location of a supplier can therefore play a crucial role in determining the decision of a final good producer whether to outsource or integrate a particular stage of production. The analysis is performed with Antras and Chor (2013) in the background, where the position of the input along the supply chain, i.e. its upstreamness, and the degree of sequential complementarity of stage-specific inputs influence the organizational strategy of firms through the incentive structure of supplier investments. Our findings show that introducing intangible assets in sequential supply chain may have the opposite effect of contractibility on outsourcing decision, where only tangible property rights are considered. We argue therefore that the risk of imitation is a relevant feature that needs to be accounted for in the incomplete contract literature. Our theoretical predictions are validated on Slovenian firm-level data.


Arctic-haze layers and their radiative effects have been investigated previously in numerous studies as they are known to have an impact on the regional climate. In this study, we report on an event of an elevated aerosol layer, notably consisting of high-absorbing soot particles, observed in the European Arctic free troposphere the 2007 April 14 during the ASTAR 2007 campaign. The ca. 0.5 km vertically thick aerosol layer located at an altitude of around 3 km had a particle-size distribution mode around 250 nm diameter. In this study, we quantify the radiative effect aerosol layers have on the Arctic atmosphere by using in situ observations. Measurements of particles size segregated temperature stability using thermal denuders, indicate that the aerosol in the optically active size range was chemically internally mixed. In the plume, maximum observed absorption and scattering coefficients were 3 × 10−6 and 20 × 10−6 m−1, respectively. Observed microphysical and optical properties were used to constrain calculations of heating rates of an internally mixed aerosol assuming two different surface albedos that represent snow/ice covered and open ocean. The average profile resulted in a heating rate in the layer of 0.2 K d−1 for the high-albedo case and 0.15 K d−1 for the low albedo case. This calculated dependence on albedo based on actual observations corroborates previous numerical simulations. The heating within the plume resulted in a measurable signal shown as an enhancement in the temperature of a few tenths of a degree. Although the origin of the aerosol plume could not unambiguously be determined, the microphysical properties of the aerosol had strong similarities with previously reported biomass burning plumes. With a changing climate, short-lived pollutants such as biomass plumes may become more frequent in the Arctic and have important radiative effects at regional scale.


Objective: Because the practical application of motivational interviewing (MI) for health practitioners has been highlighted as a limitation to the approach, the purpose of this pilot study was to assess the impact of a one-day training workshop in MI applied through Co-Active life coaching (CALC) skills on health care practitioners' perceived competence, autonomy and attitudes toward facilitating health-behavior changes.
Methods: A pre-test/post-test multiple baseline design was used with 10 health care practitioners. Data was collected beginning 25 days prior and for 4 weeks post-training. Participants received a 7.5 hour interactive workshop in January 2011. The Perceived Competence Scale, the Perceived Autonomous Motivation Scale and the Nutrition in Patient care Survey were adapted and administered to assess attitudes toward facilitating health-behavior changes in clinical care.
Results: Significant increases in perceived competence [Cohen's effect size d =4.61], perceived autonomy [ d =1.62], practitioner efficacy [ d =2.22], and behavior change in routine care [ d =1.69] were reported and remained clinically significant four weeks after the training.
Conclusion: Participation in this applied workshop was effective and should be explored further with a larger group.
Practice Implications: This training improved practitioners' comfort to counsel behavior changes and may be a useful training model for health professionals.


Abstract: Spontaneous emission and Lamb shift of atoms in absorbing dielectrics are discussed. A Green's-function approach is used based on the multipolar interaction Hamiltonian of a collection of atomic dipoles with the quantised radiation field. The rate of decay and level shifts are determined by the retarded Green's-function of the interacting electric displacement field, which is calculated from a Dyson equation describing multiple scattering. The positions of the atomic dipoles forming the dielectrics are assumed to be uncorrelated and a continuum approximation is used. The associated unphysical interactions between different atoms at the same location is eliminated by removing the point-interaction term from the free-space Green's-function (local field correction). For the case of an atom in a purely dispersive medium the spontaneous emission rate is altered by the well-known Lorentz local-field factor. In the presence of absorption a result different from previously suggested expressions is found and nearest-neighbour interactions are shown to be important.


Background: Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), is the main route of paediatric human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. While paediatric HIV has been virtually eliminated in most developed countries with structured interventions, many developing countries still record high transmission rates. Maternal knowledge on MTCT is a corner stone for effective implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of the four-pronged approach to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Aims and Objectives: The study was carried out to assess the knowledge of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV among our pregnant women as well as their attitude and practice of HIV counselling and testing. Methodology: The study population included pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at the State Specialist Hospital, Akure, Ondo State. It was an institutional based descriptive cross-sectional study conducted over a period of one month (May 2018). Systematic random sampling technique was used to select 400 pregnant women. Data was obtained using structured pre-tested questionnaire, and analysed using SPSS Windows 20. Results: The study showed that majority were between 30-39 years, were educated, and married. Among the respondents, 389 (97.3%) have heard about HIV while 11 (2.8%) have not heard about HIV. Overall 85.3% of the respondents had a good knowledge of HIV and its mode of transmission. Among the women, 83% were aware of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV with the information mostly obtained from health workers. Only 252 (63.2%) had been tested for HIV in this pregnancy while 148 (36.8%) were not yet tested with many of them blaming this on lack of counsellors. On multivariable analysis, younger women were more knowledgeable about HIV and MTCT, those who were public servants and had partners educated to tertiary level were more likely to practice PMTCT. Conclusion: The knowledge of HIV and PMTCT was high among the women. However, not all the women were tested for HIV in the index pregnancy as a result of lack of counsellors. Adequate counsellors are essential for effective PMTCT programme.


Every day brings new headlines about climate change as politicians debate how to respond, scientists offer new data, and skeptics critique the validity of the research. To step outside these scientific and political debates, Timothy Leduc engages with various Inuit understandings of northern climate change. What he learns is that today's climate changes are not only affecting our environments, but also our cultures. By focusing on the changes currently occurring in the north, he highlights the challenges being posed to Western climate research, Canadian politics and traditional Inuit knowledge. Climate, Culture, Change sheds light on the cultural challenges posed by northern warming and proposes an intercultural response that is demonstrated by the blending of Inuit and Western perspectives.


Seven alfalfa varieties differing in degree of winterhardiness were germinated in water and in 6-atm mannitol solution (500 ml substrate) at 20 C in the dark. The delay in germination was expressed as the ratio between the rate of germination over the period at which most of the slope of the germination curve is near linear in the 0- and 6-atm solutions, respectively. This ratio (R₀R₀ value) was found to be closely related to the apparent winterhardiness of the varieties. The test enabled fair separation between 19 and 21 seed lots of 'Ranger' and 'Vernal' alfalfa, respectively. The lots represented different generations of increase and were derived from a wide latitudal range of seed production areas. However, all were from the same harvesting year.


Iron and sulfur cycling is an important control on contaminant fate and transport. We present the effects of soil structure, specifically the presence of a soil layer, on linked biogeochemical and hydrological processes involving Fe and S cycling in the vadose zone using repacked soil columns. Synthetic rainwater was applied to a homogenized medium‐grained sand column, a homogenized organic‐rich loam column, and a sand‐over‐loam layered column. Water samples were voltammetrically analyzed for total sulfide, Fe2+, and aqueous FeS clusters (FeSaq) using a mercury drop electrode. Aqueous FeS clusters were observed in the loam and layered columns, with the greatest concentrations of FeSaq occurring at the sand–loam interface in the layered column. Redox potential (Eh) measurements showed rapid cycling of redox conditions at the interface (hours to days) suggesting that FeSaq formation was favored under conditions of disequilibrium. However, the relative stability and aqueous nature of FeSaq allowed for it to be transported, which has broader implications for chemical fate and transport in the vadose zone. The co‐occurrence of FeSaq with iron‐rich soil aggregates near the sand‐loam interface in the layered column suggest that FeSaq may act as a precursor to the formation of aggregates that, in our column, subsequently caused an order of magnitude decrease in hydraulic conductivity. These findings suggest that FeSaq should be considered when predicting the transport of contaminants, particularly metals that may associate with FeSaq, in systems with prominent iron and sulfur cycling.


Educational games have generated attention for their potential to teach more successfully and with longer-lasting outcomes than traditional teaching methods. Questions remain, however, about which features of games enhance learning. This study investigates the effects of art style and narrative complexity on training outcomes of a game designed to help players mitigate three cognitive biases. The training was effective and was retained eight weeks later, although differences in art style and narrative complexity did not affect overall learning. The games were also compared with an alternative training technique, a professionally produced video. Immediately after exposure, the games produced better training than the video on two of the biases; eight weeks later, the games produced better training than the video on one of the biases.


Steganography is one of the most powerful techniques to conceal the existence of hidden secret data inside a cover object. Images are the most popular cover objects for Steganography and in this work image steganography is adopted. Embedding secret information inside images requires intensive computations and therefore designing Steganography in hardware speeds up Steganography. This is implemented using ARM7TDMI processor. Steganography differs from cryptography in the sense that where cryptography focuses on keep in the contents of a message secret, steganography focuses on keeping the existence of a message secret. This paper intends to offer a state of the art overview of the LSB algorithms used for image steganography to illustrate the security potential of steganography for business and personal use. After the overview it briefly reflects on the introduction to embedded system used in this paper i.e. ARM. The Least Significant Bit embedding technique suggests that data can be hidden in the least significant bits of the cover image and the human eye would be unable to notice the hidden image in the cover file. This technique can be used for hiding images in 24-Bit, 8-Bit, Gray scale format. This paper explains the LSB embedding technique and Presents the evaluation for various file Formats.


A 2 x 5 factorial production and balance study with 90 broiler breeders was performed to assess the effects calcium particle size and NPP levels. Cobb 500 broiler breeders, 24 wk of age, were fed 4.68 g Ca intake at peak using 2 particle sizes of dietary calcium carbonate (185.5 microns; 58.8% solubility and 3489.7 microns; 38.5% solubility) and 5 levels of dietary %NPP (0.2% to 0.4% NPP in 0.05% increments; corresponding to a daily intake of 288, 360, 432, 504 and 576 mg at peak intake). Egg production, specific gravity and egg wt were monitored from 24 to 40 wk of age and tibia relative strength at 45 weeks. A retention study was performed at 31 wk of age to determine Ca and P balance. No differences were noted in breeder bone integrity due to NPP intake, though eggs per hen housed and egg shell quality were affected. The breeders fed 288 mg NPP produced the largest number of eggs. The % P retention showed a positive linear response to increasing dietary NPP for breeders fed large particle limestone; but no response in hens fed small particle limestone. The amount of P excreted was increased with P intake but was minimized for hens fed large particle limestone. The amount of Ca excreted was significantly increased with increasing P intake. There was a significant linear increase in excreta Ca and linear decrease in % Ca retention for breeders fed increasing P intake along with small particle calcium but the amount of Ca excreted and % Ca retention was not statistically impacted by particle size. Feeding breeders large particle calcium carbonate increased the egg weight but did not significantly improve shell quality or tibia bone strength. The increased egg weight response for breeders fed large particle calcium carbonate in this short term experiment may have reduced the opportunity for large particle Ca to significantly improve egg shell quality. It can be concluded that particulate Ca sources can improve breeder performance and that dietary levels as low as 0.20% NPP (288 mg/day NPP intake) can be fed without impacting breeder performance; however dietary levels of >0.25%NPP (360 mg/day NPP intake) ensure adequate skeletal integrity.


Carotenoids are used as natural colorants and have been shown to have numerous health benefits, making these molecules highly desirable in the aquaculture, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical markets. There is increasing consumer demand for the natural synthesis of carotenoids, but current methods are limited by the cost and difficulty of extraction from organisms. The halophilic archaeon Haloferax volcanii is amenable to extraction and has an endogenous carotenoid biosynthetic pathway that culminates in the accumulation of the carotenoid bacterioruberin; however, H. volcanii also synthesizes important precursors that can be converted into more highly-desired carotenoids, such as β-carotene and astaxanthin, in the presence of enzymes that catalyze these reactions. In this work, we show that the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in H. volcanii can be manipulated to increase overall carotenoid production and to synthesize carotenoids of high demand. Insertion of a highly active promoter resulted in significantly increased lycopene and phytoene production, while expression of a nonnative gene encoding the lycopene cyclase enzyme allowed for β-carotene synthesis. These results may inform future work investigating the use of H. volcanii for the bioproduction of carotenoids on an industrial scale.


The title is already insightful. We in the information sector are involved with the new media. The importance of understanding the issues we are working with has been emphasized. It is of relevance that we understand the new media as well. This publication offers marvellous thoughts and perspectives in this regard. 'An instant classic, Remediation is required reading for anyone interested in the New Media, especially in relation to other forms of representation. This is one you won't want to miss' writes Katherine Hayles.


The purpose of this study was to determine whether different classes of neocortical pyramidal neurons possess distinctive electrophysiological properties. Neurons were assigned to classes on the basis of their somadendritic morphology as revealed by intracellular HRP injection. The electrophysiological features of each class are compared in the following paper (Mason and Larkman, 1990). Coronal slices were prepared from the visual cortex of the albino rat and maintained in vitro. Pyramidal neurons from layers 2/3 and 5 were impaled with electrodes containing HRP. After intracellular recording, the cells were injected, reacted to visualize the enzyme, and examined in the light microscope. The 18 neurons from layer 2/3 showed an underlying similarity of somadendritic morphology and were considered to constitute a single cell class, although some features varied with the depth of the soma in the cortex. The 22 layer 5 cells were more diverse and were divided into 2 main classes. Eleven cells had single, thick apical trunks which ascended to close to the layer 1 border then branched to form a terminal arbor. These cells were termed thick layer 5 cells, and were found mainly in the upper part of the layer. Ten layer 5 cells had single apical trunks which tapered to a fine diameter and terminated, without forming an obvious terminal arbor, near the top of layer 4 (3 cells) or in layer 2/3 (7 cells). These cells were termed slender layer 5 cells and were found throughout the layer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


In Materializing New Media, Anna Munster offers an alternative aesthetic genealogy for digital culture. Eschewing the prevailing Cartesian aesthetic that aligns the digital with the disembodied, the formless, and the placeless, Munster seeks to "materialize" digital culture by demonstrating that its aesthetics have reconfigured bodily experience and reconceived materiality. Her topics range from artistic experiments in body-computer interfaces to the impact that corporeal interaction and geopolitical circumstances have on producing new media art and culture. She argues that new media, materiality, perception, and artistic practices now mutually constitute"information aesthetics." Information aesthetics is concerned with new modes of sensory engagement in which distributed spaces and temporal variation play crucial roles. In analyzing the experiments that new media art performs with the materiality of space and time, Munster demonstrates how new media has likewise changed our bodies and those of others in global information culture. Materializing New Media calls for a re-examination of the roles of both body and affect in their relation to the virtual and to abstract codes of information. It offers a nonlinear approach to aesthetics and art history based on a concept of"folding" that can discern certain kinds of proximities and continuations across distances in time (in particular between the Baroque and the digital). Finally, it analyzes digital culture through a logic of the differential rather than of the binary. This allows the author to overcome a habit of futurism, which until now has plagued analyses of new media art and culture. Technology is now not seen as surpassing the human body but continually reconfiguring it and constitutive of it.


Normal-mode helioseismic data analysis uses observed solar oscillation spectra to infer perturbations in the solar interior due to global and local-scale flows and structural asphericity. Differential rotation, the dominant global-scale axisymmetric perturbation, has been tightly constrained primarily using measurements of frequency splittings via "a-coefficients." However, the frequency-splitting formalism invokes the approximation that multiplets are isolated. This assumption is inaccurate for modes at high angular degrees. Analyzing eigenfunction corrections, which respect cross-coupling of modes across multiplets, is a more accurate approach. However, applying standard inversion techniques using these cross-spectral measurements yields a-coefficients with a significantly wider spread than the well-constrained results from frequency splittings. In this study, we apply Bayesian statistics to infer a-coefficients due to differential rotation from cross-spectra for both f-modes and p-modes. We demonstrate that this technique works reasonably well for modes with angular degrees ℓ = 50–291. The inferred a 3-coefficients are found to be within 1 nHz of the frequency-splitting values for ℓ > 200. We also show that the technique fails at ℓ < 50 owing to the insensitivity of the measurement to the perturbation. These results serve to further establish mode-coupling as an important helioseismic technique with which to infer internal structure and dynamics, both axisymmetric (e.g., meridional circulation) and non-axisymmetric perturbations.


In the past few years, many states have filed complaints against the tobacco industry in state court to recover Medicaid costs paid by the states to treat their citizens for tobacco related illnesses. The states are also attempting to recover other damages, such as punitive damages, against the tobacco industry. For various reasons, the states have hired private attorneys to assist the state Attorneys General in prosecuting these cases. In most cases, the retention of private counsel has included a fee agreement specifying the amount of compensation that these attorneys will receive for their services. These agreements are not uniform among the states, but most tend to provide some form of contingency fee arrangement. Some of these states have developed a sliding scale contingency fee schedule which varies with the amount of time spent on the litigation and whether a trial has begun. This report briefly summarizes the different fee agreements that the states have with private counsel.


The best way to master Windows Phone 7 development is to watch an expert do it, from start to finish. Adam Nathan's first volume, 101 Windows Phone 7 Apps, Volume I, proved that, teaching WP7 development by walking through the construction of 50 realistic, complete apps - all packed with code that's easy to borrow and extend. Now, in 101 Windows Phone 7 Apps, Volume II, Nathan returns with another 51 great Windows Phone 7 apps that take developers even further towards success. Like its predecessor, this 100% practical book doesn't focus on unnecessary theory. Instead, Nathan shows developers exactly what it takes to build the kind of apps people will actually want to buy. He brings insider's insight to these and many other Windows Phone 7 features and development tasks: choosers, launchers, hub integration, HTML-based apps, location-aware apps, networking, RSS, password protection, push and toast notifications, badges, scoreboards, custom rotation, Xbox LIVE Avatar support, Silverlight, and game physics. Readers will build apps ranging from email search to mapping, Twitter and Foursquare integration to Dodgeball and MineSweeper. As they do, they'll learn all the skills - and get all the code - they need to build their own winning mobile apps, right now!


This study of women in management was initiated to explore, through women managers themselves, the barriers they thought were hindering their progress up the management hierarchies in BT. To facilitate this study the first former utility organisation to be privatised was approached to be the case study. At the time the organisation, which was undergoing a major organisational change programme aimed at taking it from the utility provider it had been to the dynamic private company it wanted to be, was gaining a reputation for enlightened equal opportunity policies. It had a vigorous gender champion and an equal opportunities department that had ensured circulation of the organisation's equal opportunities policies to all members of staff. BT employed a large number of women managers in different functions, working in different locations throughout the UK and in a number of positions in the management hierarchy short of the most senior management or director levels. It therefore presented a unique opportunity to study women in the management pipeline from across a broad spectrum of jobs and backgrounds, women who were not being promoted in the same proportions as their male counterparts.

To examine their circumstances a mixed methodology was used drawing on aspects of feminist, positivist and pragmatic models because each offered an essential element of the mix needed to satisfy the requirements for undertaking the study. As the researcher was both a manager employed by the case study organisation and a woman there were elements of feminist methodology that guided involvement and personal interest in the study. The culture of the case study organisation was such that it was driven by the quantitative measures offered by positivism. An implicit element of the agreement between researcher and case study organisation was therefore that elements of the findings should reflect this requirement. Finally, a pragmatic approach to undertaking the study underpinned the dialogue between researcher and case study organisation as ways were explored for carrying out the investigation.

While it cannot be assumed that the same barriers to progress for women managers found in the case study organisation exist for women managers in other organisations, the findings of this study have nevertheless highlighted issues beyond the borders of the organisation. Firstly, they confirm the conclusions of previous research that women have been both horizontally and vertically segregated in areas of organisations from which progress into top management positions is more difficult to achieve. Secondly, the study casts new light on the pressures that women face when trying to reconcile the needs of work and caring responsibilities. Women's ambitions are still tempered by their place in the home as carer and partner and many are prepared to subordinate their career opportunities to the needs of their family. Most crucially, the study highlights the extent to which women's aspirations are bounded by their work experiences.

It has been assumed that organisational cultures have been becoming more sympathetic towards the inclusion of women managers and more prepared to encourage women to progress but the evidence of this study is that this operates at the level of rhetoric instead of action. The organisational structures and management styles presented barriers that flattened the ambition of women and exposed them to bullying, intimidation and harassment. Nurtured by an uncompromisingly macho company culture underpinned by an old boys' network, the barriers that women encountered served to suppress initiative and detain them at lower levels of management. Many women felt that because of this they were stifled, inhibited from improving their own or the organisation's performance. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the nebulous nature of these insidious discriminatory practices renders them almost impenetrable. Just as BT shares a history and culture similar to several other former utility organisations so it is probable that these practices are mirrored in other organisations.

Finally, the assumptive base of some recent analysts question the ways in which women are likely to progress in management. It has been assumed that the excellent educational achievements of women in recent years will automatically translate into increased opportunities for high office in organisations. However the findings of this study show that the organisational climate in which women find themselves has a larger impact on their progress. In this study the women with the highest qualifications were clustered in the lowest ranks in the division of the organisation that showed most resistance to gender diversity. Therefore while education may enhance a woman's opportunities, it does not automatically position her for higher office.

The other assumption that women are increasingly limiting their own career opportunities by making positive decisions to remain at the lowest positions in the management pipeline, through positive lifestyle choices, are challenged by the findings here. It was only when women found themselves hampered and unlikely to progress or thought that the harmony of their home lives was threatened that they decided to limit their options. Otherwise, many of them stated, they would have relished the challenge of higher office. As this study shows, it would clearly be a disservice to these women managers to confuse their forfeiture of ambition because of the prevailing hostile organisational climate or for family reasons, with their positively deciding to limit their careers.


We present a novel method for generic visual categorization: the problem of identifying the object content of natural images while generalizing across variations inherent to the object class. This bag of keypoints method is based on vector quantization of affine invariant descriptors of image patches. We propose and compare two alternative implementations using different classifiers: Naive Bayes and SVM. The main advantages of the method are that it is simple, computationally efficient and intrinsically invariant. We present results for classifying nine semantic visual categories and comment on results obtained by Fergus et al using a different method on the same data set. We obtain excellent results as well for multi class categorization as for object detection. A thorough evaluation clearly demonstrates that our method is robust to background clutter and produces good categorization accuracy even without exploiting geometric information.


Hierarchical models represent a challenging setting for inference algorithms. MCMC methods struggle to scale to large models with many local variables and observations, and variational inference (VI) may fail to provide accurate approximations due to the use of simple variational families. Some variational methods (e.g. importance weighted VI) integrate Monte Carlo methods to give better accuracy, but these tend to be unsuitable for hierarchical models, as they do not allow for subsampling and their performance tends to degrade for high dimensional models. We propose a new family of variational bounds for hierarchical models, based on the application of tightening methods (e.g. importance weighting) separately for each group of local random variables. We show that our approach naturally allows the use of subsampling to get unbiased gradients, and that it fully leverages the power of methods that build tighter lower bounds by applying them independently in lower dimensional spaces, leading to better results and more accurate posterior approximations than relevant baselines.


Praise for Successful Business Intelligence"If you want to be an analytical competitor, you've got to go well beyond business intelligence technology. Cindi Howson has wrapped up the needed advice on technology, organization, strategy, and even culture in a neat package. It's required reading for quantitatively oriented strategists and the technologists who support them." --Thomas H. Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor, Babson College and co-author, Competing on Analytics"When used strategically, business intelligence can help companies transform their organization to be more agile, more competitive, and more profitable. Successful Business Intelligence offers valuable guidance for companies looking to embark upon their first BI project as well as those hoping to maximize their current deployments." --John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects"A thoughtful, clearly written, and carefully researched examination of all facets of business intelligence that your organization needs to know torun its business more intelligently and exploit information to its fullest extent." --Wayne Eckerson, Director, TDWI Research"Using real-world examples, Cindi Howson shows you how to use business intelligence to improve the performance, and the quality, of your company." --Bill Baker, Distinguished Engineer & GM, Business Intelligence Applications, Microsoft Corporation"This book outlines the key steps to make BI an integral part of your company's culture and demonstrates how your company can use BI as a competitive differentiator." --Robert VanHees, CFO, Corporate Express"Given the trend to expand the business analytics user base, organizations are faced with a number of challenges that affect the success rate of these projects. This insightful book provides practical advice on improving that success rate." --Dan Vesset, Vice President, Business Analytics Solution Research, IDC