Presented is a methodology to explicitly identify and account for cloud-free satellite measurements below a sensor's measurement detection level. These low signals can often be found in satellite observations of minor atmospheric species with weak spectral signals (e.g., ammonia (NH3)). Not accounting for these non-detects can high-bias averaged measurements in locations that exhibit conditions below the detection limit of the sensor. The approach taken here is to utilize the information content from the satellite signal to explicitly identify non-detects and then account for them with a consistent approach. The methodology is applied to the CrIS Fast Physical Retrieval (CFPR) ammonia product and results in a more realistic averaged dataset under conditions where there are a significant number of non-detects. These results show that in larger emission source regions (i.e., surface values > 7.5 ppbv) the non-detects occur less than 5% of the time and have a relatively small impact (decreases by less than 5%) on the gridded averaged values (e.g., annual ammonia source regions). However, in regions that have low ammonia concentration amounts (i.e., surface values < 1 ppbv) the fraction of non-detects can be greater than 70%, and accounting for these values can decrease annual gridded averaged values by over 50% and make the distributions closer to what is expected based on surface station observations.


At a geophysics meeting last spring, space physicist Louis Frank of the University of Iowa in Iowa City flashed stunning satellite images on a screen, showing dark spots silhouetted against the ultraviolet (UV) glow of Earth9s upper atmosphere. Those spots, he said, restored to grace his discredited 1986 theory that Earth is pelted with small comets daily. Now an analysis of UV images from a similar camera on the same satellite suggests that the mysterious spots are nothing more than instrument artifacts.


Abstract Baron Achille de Zigno (1813–1892) of Padua published dozens of articles on the early Mesozoic floras from the Venetia region of Italy. His magna opera, however, were the two volumes of the Flora fossilis formationis oolithicae (Volume 1 (1856–1867) and Volume 2 (1873–1885), Padua University Press, Padua). In these he aimed to put the Venetian Jurassic plants in context with what were then considered oolitic floras from around the world. Like many of his contemporaries, his research has been revised both taxonomically and stratigraphically, so that the fossil plants he described from the calcari grigi are now regarded as older than Middle Jurassic. His collection of over 3000 specimens of Italian fossil plants, now kept in the University of Padua, continued to attract researchers during the 20th century from across Europe who used light microscopy to investigate them. Today electron microscopy is being applied to Baron Zigno's specimens that are of importance not only as representatives of a rare Middle Liassic flora but also of value in the palaeobiogeography of the Tethys area in Lower Jurassic times.


The efficiency in nitrogen removal from wastewater generated at CSBP Ltd fertiliser and chemical manufacturer by two hybrid constructed wetland mesocosms was compared. The mesocosms were set up in order to help clarify the reasons why the two year old constructed wetland located at the industrial facility, a 1.2 ha free water surface/vertical flow conjugated system, has performed under the 50% removal expectation (16% for NH4+-N, 39% for NO3--N and 20% for total nitrogen). It is believed that the short retention time and insufficient oxygen transfer may be limiting nitrification. A free water surface/vertical flow wetland, simulating the design and operation mode of the industry's wetland, and a vertical/horizontal flow, an alternative system, were tested. All systems were set in duplicates and planted with Schoenoplectus validus. On average, removals of NH4+-N, NO3--N and total nitrogen (TN) for the free water surface/vertical flow mesocosm were 79%, 78% and 79% respectively, hydraulic retention time (HRT) was 10.4 days. The vertical/horizontal flow system performed better for ammonium removal (97%) but it failed to remove nitrate properly (-10%), TN removal was 66%, HRT = 8.5 days. The vertical flow stage of the vertical/horizontal flow mesocosm alone removed 95% of the NH4+-N and almost doubled the concentration of nitrate in its outflow in 2.4 days, indicating the nitrification capacity of vertical flow systems. The experimental free water surface/vertical flow system which simulates the CSBP wetland outperformed the full scale one and this may be attributed to the lower hydraulic loading rate received by the mesocosm.


ABSTRACT Research has shown that user comments influence peoples' perceptions, with recent evidence suggesting that comment presentation order (e.g., whether comments are presented prior to/after the commented item) may alter the strength of comments' effects. Considering the implications of this finding for content producers, the informed design of experiments, and the interpretation of prior studies, this study aimed (1) to replicate a recent study on comment presentation order, and (2) to identify why (negative) comments presented after an article seem to have stronger effects on users' perceptions. A pre-registered experiment with 325 participants provided inconclusive evidence of the predicted presentation order effect and did not allow for further investigations of the underlying reasons. Overall, the findings highlight the ongoing need for studying the conditions under which effects of user comments occur.


I. The first comprehensive and large-scale investigation of Qatari teenagers' health-information and health-monitoring behavior is the basis of our paper. It presents an overview of the results. A survey of more than 1,100 Qataris, 13 to 20 years old, conducted in spring 2017, addressed which the health issues are they are most concerned about, how often they use various types of health-monitoring tools and communication platforms to seek health information, how satisfied they are with what they get through these platforms and tools, how much they trust health information channels, and whether they have ever attempted to change their behavior due to health information or digital health tools. Qatari adolescents face severe health problems. Qatar has the highest rate of overweight boys and young men under 20 years old (34 percent) in the Middle East and in North Africa (Ng et al., 2014). In 2014, according to Qatar's Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), 37 percent of Qatar's population aged 15 and above said that they smoke tobacco (Doha News, September 2014). And in his study of undergraduate students, Abdel-Khalek (2013) posits that mental health problems are also comparatively frequent in Qatar. Of course, Qatar has taken steps to address these health issues through a variety of national initiatives–from campaigns for a healthier diet to health apps. But do these measures in Qatar actually serve their purpose? II. So far, little evidence exists about health-information behavior in the Middle East a North Africa (MENA) and, more specifically, in the Gulf, among adolescents: • Arnott-Smith and Keselman (2015) found that GCC residents of all ages "first seek information from conversations with physicians and hospital personnel, followed by family, friends, and knowledgeable elders and religious leaders in the community" (p. 174). • Similarly, 93 percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia first expected health information from their physicians (Al Ghamdi a Almohedib, 2011). • Also, interviews with Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) educators revealed that "the most common information sources about cancer in Qatar originate in advice from friends and family in addition to the patient's physician" (Arnott-Smith a Keselman, 2015, p. 173). These results could be explained through the Arab world's more relationship-based culture, instead of a rule-based one (Hooker, 2012). This means that social behavior is more strongly determined by one's family, peers and superiors. And in his classic work in 1984, Hofstede found a value system for the Arab world that is characterized, among other features, by masculinity and "power distance," i.e., more hierarchical relationships. These cultural characteristics should indeed make personal health communication more successful. Also, a person's power and charisma could count more than their professional expertise. But interestingly, at least in Qatar, this plausible pattern is not as clear-cut as it looked for Qataris' information behavior specifically about cancer. Because for health information in general, a representative sample of Qataris in 2016 named Primary Health Care Centers (PHCCs) as the most frequently used health information source, followed by family, friends, and then the internet (especially among younger Qataris). Northwestern University's surveys "Media use in the Middle East" (2013, 2015) show that in 2015, almost half (45 percent) of Qatari internet users aged 18 to 24 years looked up health information (in the widest sense of the term) at least once a day–a sharp rise from 24 percent of that same group in 2013. In 2015, almost half (48 percent) of the same age cohort reported that their "most important source for health information" was websites; 31 percent named face-to-face personal communication, and only six percent mentioned television. Social media followed with five percent. III. The results of our large-scale study in 2017 show that young people in Qatar rely heavily on interpersonal sources of health information, including their parents, siblings, friends, and medical providers. Nevertheless, the vast majority of teens also turn to the internet for health information. Only television can compete, to some extent, with online sources. Finally, health campaigns in Qatar do not reach the younger Qatari demographic as often as one would hope. Many Qatari teens, however, have also turned to digital devices–apps and games–beyond online health information. Health trackers have not gained traction among teens. The internet most often serves as a tool for additional information about symptoms, treatments and medication. But it is also a pathway for accessing information that could have a negative impact on health. This is why our study underscores the importance of ensuring that accurate, appropriate, and easily accessible health information is available to teens online. But Qatari teens' naivety when it comes to posting about personal health problems is alarming as well–reasons for making sure teens have strong digital health literacy: They need the judgment and skills to know how to assess and deal with the abundance of information they come across online. References Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (2013). The relationships between subjective well-being, health, and religiosity among young adults from Qatar. Mental Health, Religion a Culture, 16, 306-318. Al Ghamdi, K. M. a Almohedib, A. M. (2011). Internet use by dermatology outpatients to search for health information. International Journal of Dermatology, 50,292-299. Arnott Smith, A., a Keselman, A. (2015). Meeting health information needs outside of healthcare: Opportunities and challenges. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture»s consequences: International differences in work-related values (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hooker, J. N. (2012). Cultural differences in business communication. In C. B. Paulston, S. F. Kiesling a E. S. Rangel (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 389–407). Maladen, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Ng, M. et al. (2014). Global regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet, 384, 766-781. Northwestern University in Qatar (2013). Media use in the Middle East 2013.Doha, Qatar: Northwestern University in Qatar. Northwestern University in Qatar (2015). Media use in the Middle East 2015.Doha, Qatar: Northwestern University in Qatar.


Abstract Spectral analysis of earthquake recordings provides fundamental seismological information. It is used for magnitude calculation, estimation of attenuation, and the determination of fault rupture properties including slip area, stress drop, and radiated energy. Further applications are found in site‐effect studies and for the calibration of simulation and empirically based ground‐motion prediction equations. We identified two main limitations of the spectral fitting methods currently used in the literature. First, the frequency‐dependent noise level is not properly accounted for. Second, there are no mathematically defensible techniques to fit a parametric spectrum to a seismogram with gaps. When analyzing an earthquake recording, it is well known that the noise level is not the same at different frequencies, that is, the noise spectrum is colored. The different, frequency‐dependent, noise levels are mainly due to ambient noise and sensor noise. Methods in the literature do not properly account for the presence of colored noise. Seismograms with gaps are usually discarded due to the lack of methodologies to use them. Modern digital seismograms are occasionally clipped at the arrival of the strongest ground motion. This is also critical in the study of historical earthquakes in which few seismograms are available and gaps are common, significantly decreasing the number of useful records. In this work, we propose a method to overcome these two limitations. We show that the spectral fitting can be greatly improved and earthquakes with extremely low signal‐to‐noise ratio can be fitted. We show that the impact of gaps on the estimated parameters is minor when a small fraction of the total energy is missing. We also present a strategy to reconstruct the missing portion of the seismogram.


The paper presents a new framework to assess firm level heterogeneity and to study the rate and direction of technical change. Building on the analysis of revealed short-run production functions by Hildenbrand (1981), we propose the (normalized) volume of the zonotope composed by vectors-firms in a narrowly defined industry as an indicator of inter-firm heterogeneity. Moreover, the angles that the main diagonal of the zonotope form with the axes provide a measure of the rates and directions of technical change over time. The proposed framework can easily account for n-inputs and m-outputs and, crucially, the measures of heterogeneity and technical change do not require many of the standard assumptions from production theory.


The United States experienced unprecedented growth after World War II. America in the 60's began to confront cultural, racial and value issues. Questions regarding brutality and unjust treatment by members of law enforcement towards minorities began to become more observed. March 2015 saw President Barack Obama's Taskforce on 21st Century Policing begin to address this issue in their interim report. The task force identified law enforcement's need to use new technology as a tool to improve the relationship with the citizens they are sworn to protect and serve. This finding was supported immediately by the Obama Administration. The goal of this qualitative study is to determine what effect body worn cameras worn by law enforcement have had on society. The use of body worn cameras by law enforcement is relatively new. The researcher felt the need to identify a sample group of a specific faction of law enforcement was important to this project. The sample group selected represented small cities/towns from a specific region in Illinois. Law enforcement executives from this specific region, which have body worn camera programs in place, were than interviewed on the effectiveness of their programs. The effect cameras have had on society is identified as positive. Cameras were shown to reveal negative and positive reactions from citizens as well as law enforcement. The results of this case study research project showed that racial discord and police brutality concerns were overshadowed by the economic constraints body worn camera programs create for small communities. BODY CAMERAS 5 What Effect Body Worn Cameras Worn by Law Enforcement had on Society CHAPTER


Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a basic 38-amino acid regulatory peptide contained in the adrenal gland and involved in the control of its secretory activity. Bilateral splanchnic-nerve section caused in the rat a significant decrease in PACAP38 adrenal content and concentration, as measured by RIA. In contrast, chemical sympathectomy, obtained by administering newborn rats with 6-hydroxydopamine, was ineffective. Our findings support the view that splanchnic nerves play an important role in the control of rat adrenal function.


Early detection of β-thalassemia (β-thal) trait is important. Voluntary blood donors represent an important group who are accessible and cooperative for this purpose. However, the usefulness of this population in β-thal trait detection programs has not been studied in India. We conducted a hematological survey of 5,045 blood donors who visited the Bhopal Memorial Hospital & Research Centre, Bhopal in central India. Using robust Bayesian methods, we estimated the prevalence of β-thal trait. The overall prevalence of β-thal trait in the study population was 9.59% [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 8.78–10.4%]. The prevalence of β-thal trait varied across the states of origin and within the state of Madhya Pradesh. We observed a cline effect for β-thal trait prevalence in relation to the latitude (p = 0.024). We conclude that blood donors offer an attractive adjunct to β-thal trait detection in national programs. Our study also offers insights into the β-thal trait gene flow and migration in India.


It is widely known now that scholarly communication is in crisis, resting on an academic publishing model that is unsustainable. One response to this crisis has been the emergence of Open Access (OA) publishing, bringing scholarly literature out from behind a paywall and making it freely available to anyone online. Many research and academic libraries are facilitating the change to OA by establishing institutional repositories, supporting OA policies, and hosting OA journals. In addition, research funding bodies, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), are mandating that all published grant research outputs be made available in OA, unless legal and contractual obligations prevent this. Despite these broader changes, not all scholars are aware of the new publishing environment. In particular, the rate of adoption of OA models in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) has historically been lower than Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) disciplines. Nevertheless, some local and international OA exemplars exist in HSS. At Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, the faculty-administered environmental humanities journal, Landscapes, was migrated to the institutional open access repository in 2013. Subsequently, researchers in the Faculty of Education and Arts were surveyed regarding their knowledge, understandings, and perceptions of OA publishing. The survey was also designed to elicit the barriers to OA publishing perceived or experienced by HSS researchers. This article will present the findings of our small faculty-based OA survey, with particular attention to HSS academics (and within this subject group, particular attention to the arts and humanities), their perceptions of OA, and the impediments they encounter. We argue that OA publishing will continue to transform scholarship within the arts and humanities, especially through the role of institutional repositories. The "library-as-publisher" role offers the potential to transform academic and university-specific publishing activities. However, the ongoing training of university researchers and personnel is required to bring into balance their understandings of OA publisher and the demands of the broader Australian and international research environment.


This work introduces the study of toxic torts and identifies the theories of liability related to both toxic products and environmental pollution. It also covers special defendants, such as employers, governmental entities, and government contractors; workers' compensation; insurance coverage issues; key defenses such as statutes of limitations and preemption; causation and scientific evidence; and new theories of injury and damages. A chapter examines regulation of hazardous releases into the environment under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The work also addresses mass toxic torts and examines emerging actions related to nanotechnology and hydraulic fracturing.


Influenza virus (types A, B and C) infection is one of the most common infectious diseases globally and is responsible for millions of sick-days every year, especially in younger children and those with underlying chronic systemic diseases. The infection occurs both as sporadic disease and as epidemics/ pandemics. From public health point of view type-A influenza virus is most significant as it affects other species also (in addition to humans), undergoes frequent antigenic changes thus escaping immune system and leading to epidemics/ pandemics. Vaccination is considered one of the best preventive strategies against this virus. In general, two types of influenza vaccines are available: trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) and live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV). However, there are a number of challenges in implementing vaccination programs for influenza, especially for developing countries with limited resources and many other competing health priorities. The current influenza A 2009H1N1 pandemic has shown the world how fragile today's resources in pandemic and pre-pandemic, but also seasonal, vaccines are. This article discusses, in brief, the development, immunogenicity, efficacy and safety of influenza vaccines (seasonal, pre-pandemic and pandemic 2009H1N1 vaccines) along with the rationale, current status and future prospects of influenza vaccination in infants, children and adolescents.


This thesis studies the phenomenon of the production of tragedy in Greece during the period 1919-1967 in relation to the constitution of Greek culture during this period and the ideologem of hellenikotita. It argues that theatre in Greece through the productions of tragedy proposed an aesthetic framework of performances of tragedy that could be recognised as 'purely Greek' within which the styles of productions moved. The whole issue is discussed using Bourdieu's model of the development of the 'field of cultural production'. Particularising this model in the field of theatre, the thesis argues that, due to the lack of Greek dramatic plays rich in symbolic capital, the productions of tragedy became the area where the 'sub-field of theatrical restricted production' was developed in Greece. This development, however, presupposed that the field of performance had to meet the two crucial challenges that Greek culture faced during this period. The first one consisted of the cultural appropriation of tragedy within the frame of the aesthetic ideology of the capitalist class which claimed the continuity of the Greek nation through the ages placing emphasis on the use of demotiki and the Byzantine and more recent phases of what is considered 'Greek' culture. The second consisted of the unavoidable reference to the European theatrical tradition in such a way that it would lead to styles of performances that could be characterized as 'purely Greek' and face Europe as a rival. Both these issues touched heavily on the issue of hellenikotita, which during this period consisted of a principal qualitative criterion to assess the symbolic capital of cultural products. The main argument of the thesis is discussed in relation to the work of five directors, the Sikelianoi, that is, Aggelos Sikelianos and his wife Eva Palmer-Sikelianou, Fotos Politis, Dimitris Rondiris and Karolos Koun. These directors are the main representatives of what is considered in this thesis to be the first and the second phase in the history of the 'sub-field of restricted theatrical production' in Greece. It is argued that these directors proposed aesthetic styles of performances renegotiating, on the one hand, the European theatrical tradition in Greek cultural terms and creating, on the other, a 'Greek' aesthetic style/s of performance by drawing from the entirety of what was considered to be 'Greek' culture. The body of the productions of tragedy during that period in combination with the articles and other material, for example speeches, provided by the directors themselves constitute a discourse on hellenikotita and Greek performance. Within that framework it is argued that Greek theatre through the productions of tragedy participated equally and dynamically as other cultural field in the constitution of Greek culture during that period.


Adaptive function allocation, in which the control of tasks dynamically shifts between humans and machines, has been proposed as an alternative to traditional static allocation, in which task control is assigned during system design and remains unchanged during operations. Understanding adaptive allocation and its effects on operator performance and workload is limited by sparse systematic research and an underdeveloped theoretical framework for implementation. The purpose of this research was to determine the efficacy of adaptive allocation by implementing adaptive allocation in a multiple task aviation simulation based on a taxonomy with facets of invocation philosophy and allocation strategy. Pilot performance was evaluated to determine benefits and costs for the implementation of adaptive allocation in a multitask aviation simulation with tracking, system monitoring, and target identification tasks. The results provide support for the implementation of adaptive allocation based on a hybrid model comprising elements of operator performance and mission relevant variables. Implementation of adaptive allocation was an effective countermeasure to the predictable decrease in tracking performance associated with the initial presentation of a surface target. Benefits were also identified for monitoring task performance despite the fact that the monitoring task was not modified by the implementation of automation. Secondary benefits included improved time estimates. Potential costs of adaptive allocation included performance variability in the tracking when task partitioning was the adaptive strategy. Implications of results for design, philosophy, and theory are presented.


Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a central tool for analyzing data and social media data in particular. Typically, the data is projected on the first two PCs to obtain a twodimensional view, and trends and patterns are being examined. A key to making sense of the projected data is the semantic interpretation of the new axes (the PCs). To label the PCs, one usually looks at the top k vector entries in absolute value and assigns meaning according to them. The choice of k is done by "eyeballing" the vector. In this work we provide a computational framework to support this process and suggest an interpretability score, which measures how sensitive the interpretation step could be to the choice of k. Furthermore we give a visual method to choose the optimal k. We study our methodology in four social media platforms and discover that in two of them, Twitter and Instagram, interpretation can be done in a carefree manner, but in Steam and LinkedIn there is no natural labeling of the axes. This separation is clearly reflected in the interpretability score that each dataset received.


Introduction. Reviewed the features of the work of the pile on Permian claystones with the help of numerical and field experiments, analytical calculations. Materials and methods. Numerical modeling was performed in the Plaxis 3D and Midas GTS NX software packages. Full-scale tests of driven piles are made in accordance with the requirements of GOST 20276-2012. The obtained results are compared with the results of analytical calculations according to SP 24.13330.2011. Results. The scientific novelty of the investigation consists in a comparative analysis of the results of numerical modeling of the interaction of a driving pile with claystones with the results of field tests and analytical calculations. Finite element analysis in software package Plaxis 3D using Hardening Soil model shows higher values of settlement (up to 6 times) in relation to stabilized settlement of full-scale pile tests. Calculations in the software package Midas GTS NX showed overestimated values of pile settlements in relation to full-scale pile tests (13-24 times). Analytical calculations in accordance with SP 24.13330.2011 also showed overestimated (up to 3 times) values of the maximum pile settlement in relation to the stabilized settlement during full-scale pile tests. Conclusions. The calculations by the finite element method in the package Plaxis 3D and Midas GTS NX, by the analytical method according to SP 24.13330.2011, show overestimated values of settlement in relation to the stabilized settlement of piles on claystones. Using the Linear-Elastic model for claystones in numerical calculations in Plaxis 3D provides a value close to the settlement of full-scale pile. However, the use of this model is not fully justified for claystones due to the presence of residual deformations and the nonlinear character of pile settlement during loading. Necessary to correct the existing numerical and analytical methods for calculating pile foundations on claystones. It is necessary to continue the work on the further generalization of the experience of arranging piles on weathered claystones in order to evaluate the long-term work of not only a single pile, but also a pile foundation.


In this paper we studied the interpretation of sentences with the Dutch universal quantifiers alle (all) and elke (each) in collective, distributive and cumulative situations. In the first experiment, 25 adults and 30 children from 5 and 6 years old performed a truth-value judgement task. Adults and children show similar interpretations for collective and distributive, but perform different for cumulative. As a follow-up we performed a preference task. Participants gave their preferences for the three situations for both quantifiers. Children, regardless of the quantifier, prefer the distributive situation. Adults have a strong preference for distributive for elke, showing a wider range of interpretation for alle. These data clearly indicate that Dutch children do not yet have acquired the full range of restrictions for the quantifiers alle and elke.


For ethical and economic reasons, it is essential to optimise the energy consumption of a
waste water treatment plant. Indeed, a WWTP is a very high energy consumer: innovative
technologies need to be implemented regularly. The concept of energy efficiency, which
gathers all the actions and systems that can be implemented to optimise the energy
consumption, fits perfectly the framework of water networks.
As an expert in water engineering, Aqualogy has an energy efficiency offer in its portfolio that
includes several products and services. This project is aimed to understand the energy
efficiency offer and to find out how to adapt it to the UK market.
First of all, the project describes all the processes of the urban water cycle, including the
operation of a WWTP. This part of the project is focused particularly on how an aeration
system operates, since it is the highest energy consumer in a waste water treatment plant.
Secondly, each product of the Aqualogy's energy efficiency offer is presented: what is the
product? How does it work? How can the customer benefit from it? Once the offer is globally
explained, market studies are executed for each product of the offer to see if it can be
profitable to implement them in the UK.
The last part of the project is a very detailed market study of one specific product of the
energy efficiency offer. It is a platform to optimise the aeration system in WWTPs, developed
by Aqualogy's partner Sisltech. The market study highlights the technical characteristics of
the product, establishes the customer profile for this product, explains the economical
assessment and finalises with an analysis about the competitors, their strengths and
weaknesses with respect to Aqualogy's product.
After the 6month project, the aeration system offer is ready for the UK market: the technical
aspects of the product are well understood, and several customers are already identified and
interested in the product.


The Vermont Supreme Court's 1999 ruling in Baker v. State was a watershed decision, holding that same-sex couples in Ver111011t were entitled to the same benefits and protections as opposite-sex married couples. While Baker is extremely important as a matter of substantive law, and as a contribution to the national discussion of the issues surrounding marriage of same sex-couples, it also provides an excellent lens through which to consider principles of state constitutional law and the New Judicial Federalism. This Article demonstrates how Baker is illustrative of major themes in state constitutional law, including the use of state constitutional history and textual analysis, distinctions between federal equal protection approaches and independent state constitutional equality doctrines, and plaintiffs' choice of state forum and state constitutional claims. The Article also shows how Baker highlights the application of a new, developing state constitutional rights jurisprudence.


Reverse migration (urban to rural) to areas rich in outdoor recreation amenities has created a cultural phenomenon with serious implications for parks and recreation administration in the United States. The influx of ex-urban immigrants to rural areas creates unique challenges for parks and recreation managers. To understand and address these challenges managers need a detailed understanding of how exurban migrants change local socio-demographics and outdoor recreation demands. In this paper we use a case study in Teton Valley to address this need. Three hypotheses were tested related to the wildland urban interface: 1) ex-urban immigrants bring higher education levels, higher incomes, and more liberal political stances to their new communities; 2) ex-urban immigrants participate in more appreciative outdoor recreation activities (e.g., birding, hiking, camping) and fewer non-appreciative activities (e.g., hunting, fishing, all terrain vehicle [ATV] use) than natives and more rural immigrants; and 3) ex-urban immigrants threaten the ability to meet recreation demands by being more likely to build or buy their home in wildlands than natives or ex-rural immigrants. The survey results (n = 416, sampling error ± 4.8 percent), generally support these hypotheses. Ex-urban immigrants had significantly higher education levels than all other groups (H = 36.17, p < 0.001). Ex-urban and ex-town immigrants were nearly twice as likely to be Democrats (ex-urban = 36 percent, extown = 28 percent), and half as likely to be Republicans (ex-urban = 29 percent, ex-town = 29 percent), as natives and ex-rural immigrants (natives = 14 percent Democrat, 47 percent Republican; ex-rural = 14 percent Democrat, 43 percent Republican). Ex-urban migrants participated more in appreciative recreation (e.g., birding, hiking), and less in non-appreciative recreation (e.g., hunting, ATV use) than natives and immigrants with rural backgrounds. Ex-urban immigrants were almost twice as likely (37 percent) as other groups (ex-town immigrant = 21 percent, ex-rural immigrant = 21 percent, native = 18 percent) to build or buy a home in wildlands that controlled access to outdoor recreation areas (e.g., adjacent to public land or rivers). These results suggest parks and recreation managers face an ironic challenge: ex-urban migration to the wildland urban interface represents increased political will for publicly funded efforts to preserve open space and protect access to recreation areas, and the greatest threat to those objectives. Managers have several tools available to protect open space and access to recreation areas in these contexts including zoning changes, land trusts, and transferable development rights.


ABSTRACT The multifunctional transcription factor TFII-I is tyrosine phosphorylated in response to extracellular growth signals and transcriptionally activates growth-promoting genes. However, whether activation of TFII-I also directly affects the cell cycle profile is unknown. Here we show that under normal growth conditions, TFII-I is recruited to the cyclin D1 promoter and transcriptionally activates this gene. Most strikingly, upon cell cycle arrest resulting from genotoxic stress and p53 activation, TFII-I is ubiquitinated and targeted for proteasomal degradation in a p53- and ATM (ataxia telangiectasia mutated)-dependent manner. Consistent with a direct role of TFII-I in cell cycle regulation and cellular proliferation, stable and ectopic expression of wild-type TFII-I increases cyclin D1 levels, resulting in accelerated entry to and exit from S phase, and overcomes p53-mediated cell cycle arrest, despite radiation. We further show that the transcriptional regulation of cyclin D1 and cell cycle control by TFII-I are dependent on its tyrosine phosphorylation at positions 248 and 611, sites required for its growth signal-mediated transcriptional activity. Taken together, our data define TFII-I as a growth signal-dependent transcriptional activator that is critical for cell cycle control and proliferation and further reveal that genotoxic stress-induced degradation of TFII-I results in cell cycle arrest.


Fourteen seismic refraction traverses with a total length of (3255) m were distributed in the nearby area of the western part of Mosul dam in its downstream side. The aim of the survey is to investigate the possibility of presence of shallow غئاصلا دیمح لیبن و يسیرجلا زیزع راشب ٨٢ subsurface channels that led to the formation of five sinkholes in the area and to establish the source of the channels' water. The survey indicates the possibility of the presence of a shallow subsurface channel. The depth of the upper part of this channel ranges between (2 and 5) m below the ground surface. The shape of this channel represents a curved line bends across the western end of the dam body and joined the five sinkholes. The study showed that the source of the water is Mosul Dam Lake, where the landing boat area represents the main water intake and discharge to the Tigris River in the downstream side of the dam causing many sinkholes in the area. ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ــــــــــــــــــــــ


We construct a publicly available atlas of children's outcomes in adulthood by Census tract using anonymized longitudinal data covering nearly the entire U.S. population. For each tract, we estimate children's earnings distributions, incarceration rates, and other outcomes in adulthood by parental income, race, and gender. These estimates allow us to trace the roots of outcomes such as poverty and incarceration back to the neighborhoods in which children grew up. We find that children's outcomes vary sharply across nearby tracts: for children of parents at the 25th percentile of the income distribution, the standard deviation of mean household income at age 35 is $4,200 across tracts within counties. We illustrate how these tract-level data can provide insight into how neighborhoods shape the development of human capital and support local economic policy using two applications. First, we show that the estimates permit precise targeting of policies to improve economic opportunity by uncovering specific neighborhoods where certain subgroups of children grow up to have poor outcomes. Neighborhoods matter at a very granular level: conditional on characteristics such as poverty rates in a child's own Census tract, characteristics of tracts that are one mile away have little predictive power for a child's outcomes. Our historical estimates are informative predictors of outcomes even for children growing up today because neighborhood conditions are relatively stable over time. Second, we show that the observational estimates are highly predictive of neighborhoods' causal effects, based on a comparison to data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment and a quasi-experimental research design analyzing movers' outcomes. We then identify high-opportunity neighborhoods that are affordable to low-income families, providing an input into the design of affordable housing policies. Our measures of children's long-term outcomes are only weakly correlated with traditional proxies for local economic success such as rates of job growth, showing that the conditions that create greater upward mobility are not necessarily the same as those that lead to productive labor markets.


In the recent decades history textbooks attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. The pioneers in the field began in 1949 at Georg Eckert Institute in Germany by amassing a huge library collection, establishing wide international collaboration, and stimulating research on national and European identities. (1) The blooming interest towards the ideological power of history textbooks evokes Gellner's concept of education as self-reproducible "common conceptual currency." (2) Many factors contributed to this shift in the scholarly attention. First, the advanced processes of European integration prompted more awareness to education, re-examination of common historical past, collective and historical memory in promoting intercultural understanding and democratic citizenship. Second, the 1989 revolutions brought up additional reasons for re-evaluating the history textbooks: in Eastern Europe this was motivated by the urgent need for re-examination of the communist monochromatic interpretation of the past and justification of the new geopolitical re-orientation as return to the European home. In addition, the wealth of research on nationalism, postcolonial studies, and social constructivism in the last three decades attracted the attention to the school textbooks as means of control over the shared past, memory constructions and their multiple interpretations. (3) Within this broad framework the Bulgarian historians became involved in the actual re-writing the textbooks after 1989, but the research on the history schoolbooks lagged. It is in the mid and late 1990s that two research projects on history textbooks began: the idea of the "Other" in the Balkans and the initiative undertaken by the "Southeast European Joint History Project" supported by the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. (4) However, in both cases attention is primarily paid to the ethnocentric representation of national history, biased interpretation of the Balkan past and ambiguous treatment of the European history. This paper will focus on history textbooks, written in the post-1989 period, as one of the modes for re-shaping the Bulgarian national identity as return to the natural home--Europe. The period of Ottoman domination is the foil against which the "Europeanness" of Bulgaria is being constructed. (5) The fifth centuries of foreign rule are conceptualized to attest the "kidnapping" of the Bulgarians from their natural development and belonging but at the same time the relationships with Europe (Western Europe) were kept alive and inherent Bulgarian "Europeanness" remained untarnished. More specifically, the paper will analyze the usage of European travel accounts as primary sources and will examine the selectivity of quotes from the travelogues that provide vivid narrative of coherent relationship with Europe. The paper will ask how and why foreigners' points of views are incorporated into the official narrative of national identity. I will argue that there is continuity in the search for European validation in constructing the national identity, which began in the 19th century by nationalist elites and some old rhetorical strategies are revived in the post-1989 textbooks. The paper will first provide a brief survey of the 19th century strategies; next it will analyze selected themes in the post-1989 textbooks that highlighted external (Western European) perspective and used extensively travel excerpts to prove uninterrupted European interest, and finally, it will examine some of the expected and unintended outcomes of these ideological operations for the fashioning of national self-image. History of the History Textbooks For the period between 1830s up to the Bulgaria's liberation 12 (8 new) textbooks on Bulgarian and 14 (10 new and multiple editions) translations on general history were published. (6) This ratio is interesting from various perspectives. It reveals almost equal interest among the Bulgarians in both national and general past. …


Throughout the course of United States history, the Declaration of Independence has played an outsized role in constitutional development. For each generation of Americans, the document has reflected the historical reason for independence and the idyllic statement of representative government. On the one hand, it is not part of the formal Constitution, on the other, it informs constitutional interpretation. For a time, until ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was the nation's only formal acknowledgment of human equality.The Supreme Court has paid scant attention to the Declaration's overarching statement on national governance and its mandates to protect individual rights while securing the people's "Safety and Happiness." The early record of lawmaking in the United States, on the other hand, demonstrates the influence of the Declaration's normative statement from the country's inception. From the nation's founding, Americans' constitutional understandings have been shaped by the Declaration of Independence's statements on human rights and mandates for just government. The judiciary has not adequately followed the will of the people to rely on the Declaration in developing constitutional interpretation.


Beautiful women are more revered, more desirable, and often times more employable than average-looking women. Despite an everincreasing awareness of women's issues today, little progress has been made to reverse the objectification of women's bodies. This Note asserts that various courts are helping deconstruct the idea that beautiful women should receive preferential treatment in the workplace, simply because they are beautiful. This Note contends that the law progressively is challenging social assumptions that favor traditionally beautiful women by telling employers that they can no longer demand a certain level of female attractiveness in certain contexts. By deemphasizing the general importance of the female body, the law implicitly is doing women of all shapes and sizes, races and skin tones, a favor immeasurable by any scale.


Many colleges and universities offer their commitment to partnering with local communities, and often do so with the goal of addressing societal needs. A growing field, such engagement between higher education institutions and community partners continues to evolve, including the purpose and rationale for this work, how engagement is accomplished, theoretical contexts, and how success is viewed by stakeholders. A qualitative case study was undertaken with the following questions at the fore: how does a self-described "engaged" university center function when viewed through the prism of an ethic of care? What are the characteristics of engagement efforts undertaken by staff, faculty and community partners associated with this center? What is a cultural description for the work associated with this center? The case studied was the Center for Community Research and Engagement (CCRE) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Data collection included a combination of participant-observation, document analysis, and open-ended interviews. Overall findings point toward many aspects of an ethic of care that can be understood to be prominent characteristics of CCRE, including the dynamic of relationships, longevity, and a focus on needs and attention paid. Further, acknowledgement of care is not one-directional, with undergraduate students, and by proxy the university, recipients of care. Findings suggest that relationships are the tough work, easily overlooked because they are difficult to quantify and capture in forms other than the perceived experience between people. The challenge of funding is also an ever-present reality, and contributions by university staff is a new and novel finding given the previous focus on faculty and students. A description of CCRE necessitates an understanding of context, core center efforts, and additional cultural dynamics that include a changing university. Findings from this research contribute to the theoretical development of engagement through the consideration of Care Theory, and also deepen understanding of community-university engagement by describing the complexity of human relationships.


Silurian and Devonian strata are widely distributed on the islands of the Severnaya Zemlya and Sedov archipelagos. The Silurian is represented by fossiliferous shallow-water carbonates underlain by variegated sandstones and siltstones of Ordovician age. The Devonian consists mainly of various red sandstones, siltstones and argillites, with carbonates only in some intervals. The best sections available for study are located in the river valleys, and in the cliffs along the coastline of islands. Type sections of most of the stratigraphical units identified are located on the Matusevich River, October Revolution Island. As the Quaternary cover is poorly developed on Severnaya Zemlya, the Palaeozoic strata can be easily traced also outside the sections.


Fe2O3/Al2O3 catalyst was prepared and the catalytic oxidation of toluene over the catalyst was investigated. The catalyst was prepared by wet impregnation of commercial alumina support. The support was impregnated with an aqueous solution of iron nitrate. The wet support was dried and calcined at 600-800 °C. The catalytic property of the catalyst was measured by the light-off curve of CO2 yield. All these catalysts were active for total oxidation of toluene above 250 °C. The catalytic activity of catalyst calcined at 600 °C was better than those of catalysts calcined at 700 and 800 °C.


Mutation testing is an effective test adequacy assessment technique. However, it suffers from two main issues. First, there is a high computational cost in executing the test suite against a potentially large pool of generated mutants. Second, there is much effort involved in filtering out equivalent mutants, which are syntactically different but semantically identical to the original program. Prior work has mainly focused on detecting equivalent mutants after the mutation generation phase, which is computationally expensive and has limited efficiency. In this paper, we propose a technique that leverages static and dynamic program analysis to guide the mutation generation process a-priori towards parts of the code that are error-prone or likely to influence the program's output. Further, we focus on the JavaScript language, and propose a set of mutation operators that are specific to web applications. We implement our approach in a tool called MUTANDIS. We empirically evaluate MUTANDIS on a number of web applications to assess the efficacy of the approach.


Connectionist models have had a profound impact on theories of language science, but researchers have only recently started to explore the implications of these models in second language acquisition. In this chapter we first provide a review of connectionism and second language acquisition. We then discuss models that focus on the complex interactive dynamics involved in learning a second language, with special reference to the effects of age of acquisition on lexical representation and the competition that is engaged during the learning and representation of two languages. We show that connectionist approaches provide significant insights into long-standing debates, including mechanisms of organization and plasticity in the development of two competing linguistic systems.


As clean energy that solves energy resources, many wind turbine generator systems have developed up to now, in Japan. The generation capacity of wind power is above 1 million kW, and the construction also continues from now on. The wind turbine generator systems are built in the good place of the wind condition, and those many are built on the coast of the Japan Sea. However, the coast of the Japan Sea is known as a place with much winter lightning, and wind turbine generator systems also often suffer the damage by winter lightning. The authors observed the lightning current that strikes through the wind turbine generator systems directly, in order to establish on the lightning protection of them.The authors acquired dozens of data as a result of observation in Akita Japan for 17 months. Based on these data, some considerations were performed about the performance of winter lightning that struck through the wind turbine generator systems. As the result of consideration, we found some interesting knowledge following sentence. It made clear anew that the tower which is a place of high position from the ground and on the windward has much number of lightning flash and many total flash charges. The lightning stroke current divided the tower pipe and ground leads. About 70% of the observed lightning current flowed to the tower pipe, and about 30% is divided into two grounding leads connected to the leg of tower. All of steep current that is on a wave front flow a tower side, it dose not flow to a grounding leads side. The distributions of lightning parameters between our observation results and past one are in good conformity.


The research is based on the investigation of Muslim male behavior during ablution and the existing design of ablution station (ablution tub). Ablution is part of compulsory ritual of washing process to cleanse oneself from small impurities. The ablution ritual is a spiritual washing for all Muslims before performing the prayers and this ritual has been recorded in the Holy Quran. Based on previous research, the ablution process normally requires about six to nine litres of water, however about only half to two liters of water is enough to be applied on the compulsory body parts. Since, this ritual involves the use of water, the Muslims introduced ablution station in the mosque for the congregation to perform the ablution. Based on the observation in this study, the ablution tub design has many design variations based on its geography, ethnography and sociology. From these variations, it also symbiotic with behavior that influences the way people performs the ablution ritual significantly. Behavioral differences affected the efficiency of water usage that led to water wastage. A survey at Masjid Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah (MSSAAS), Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia was conduct on the ablution ritual among Muslim male congregation. From the survey, the correlation between human behaviour and the consumption of water during ablution ritual was determined to be the design of
ablution tub. The existing design does not help the Muslim male to perform ablution ritual in efficient manner. Through the design study approach, the existing ablution design tub was enhanced. These enhancements manage to control the human behavior
and the usage of water was reducing significantly. Finally, symbiotic between ablution ritual and the enhanced ablution tub design was successfully established.


This paper investigates aspects of adjectival modification in Romance and Greek of Southern Italy. In Italiot Greek, prenominal adjectives obey restrictions that do not exist in Standard Modern Greek, where all types of adjectives are allowed in prenominal position. As far as postnominal adjectives are concerned, in the textual tradition of Calabria Greek there is evidence of postnominal adjectives systematically articulated in definite nominal structures (henceforth DP s), in a structure similar to the so-called polydefinite construction that is typical of Standard Modern Greek (and of Greek in general since ancient times). Some residual evidence of such a construction is also found in Salento. Yet, in the varieties currently spoken in the two areas, postnominal adjectives are never articulated. The paper explores these patterns, with particular attention to the mechanisms potentially responsible for the loss of polydefiniteness.


The information technology domain is a dynamic and expansive component that is essential to todays organizational structure. The diffusion of information technology through every industry worldwide has dramatically increased the demand for multidisciplinary and comprehensive research to address the successes, pitfalls, opportunities, challenges, as well as the behavioral, social, economic, and interpersonal impacts, of widespread IT implementation. Managing Worldwide Operations and Communications with Information Technology compiles unique perspectives from the world s leading authorities on the impact of information technology on diverse industries, and the challenges and obstacles that management must face in order to maximize the success of information technology integration into their organizations. These proceedings from the 18th Annual Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) Conference provide authoritative knowledge on leading trends and applications of information technology and management. With this depth and breadth of coverage of the most current research understanding of the global information technology environment, this collection is essential to any library s efforts to provide up-to-date content on these topics.


Version 3.1 of the ISRIC-WISE database (WISE3) was compiled from a wide range of soil profile data collected by many soil professionals worldwide. All profiles have been harmonized with respect to the original Legend (1974) and Revised Legend (1988) of FAO-Unesco. Thereby, the primary soil data ─ and any secondary data derived from them ─ can be linked using GIS to the spatial units of the ... digitized Soil Map of the World as well as more recent digital Soil and Terrain (SOTER) databases through the soil legend code. WISE3 holds selected attribute data for some 10,250 soil profiles, with some 47,800 horizons, from 149 countries. Individual profiles have been sampled, described, and analyzed according to methods and standards in use in the originating countries. There is no uniform set of properties for which all profiles have analytical data, generally because only selected measurements were planned during the original surveys. Methods used for laboratory determinations of specific soil properties vary between laboratories and over time; sometimes, results for the same property cannot be compared directly. WISE3 will inevitably include gaps, being a compilation of legacy soil data derived from traditional soil survey, which can be of a taxonomic, geographic, and soil analytical nature. As a result, the amount of data available for modelling is sometimes much less than expected. Adroit use of the data, however, will permit a wide range of agricultural and environmental applications at a global and continental scale (1:500 000 and broader)


Aluminium metal matrix composite displays enhanced materialistic and abrasive materialistic properties. Apart from space and automotive applications, metal matrix composites (MMC) finding its position in prototyping, electronics substrates components, space vehicles, sports equipment due to its upgraded properties and improved performance. Certain design properties such as quality, cost reduction, uniform distribution, mechanical properties, and tribological properties of the composites depends on fabricating method adopted, fiber orientation and type of particles used. The association of pertinent reinforcements with the MMC have shown attractive mechanical properties. Influence of better embedded particles on metal matrix composite improves corrosion, friction behaviour and wear resistance with modified specific strength possessing exceptional tribological properties. Distinctive attainment of properties can be remarkably attained by fabricating the composite specimen by stir casting method. Right selection and combination of parameters influence the processing of composites decide the performance of the materials. Metallographic investigations examined by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) ensures the existence and fine dispersion of particles within the matrix element beyond the clustering the particles. Aluminium composite exhibits improved wear resistance and enhanced mechanical properties suitable for automobile and space craft applications. Wear characterization is mostly measured with the weight loss of samples, by varying the conditions such as sliding distance, sliding velocity and loading conditions.


Despite its increasing popularity, the most promising value of MOOCs is not derived from what they are, but from what they may transform into, that is, the positive derivatives that have already started to flourish and are very much related to the open and flexible character of learning advocated by MOOCs (Yuan and Powell, 2013). These capabilities arise from their very nature, namely the modularity, scalability and (re) combinable nature, thus enabling the transition towards personalised learning pathways that are also more adjusted to individual competences and preferences. This is the rationale underlying the concept of learning and participation communities highlighted in this article by CSEV and underpinned by the creation of a new "umbrella" platform that brings together initiatives already implemented (like UnX) and new ones that are now being incorporated.


General principles in development and application of hydrological models are discussed and related to the confidence in the results. The presentation is mainly based on the experience from the work with the HBV and PULSE models at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute between 1971 and 1990 but has also been influenced by other modelling work. It covers a discussion on the optimal complexity of models, use of observations, calibration, control and sensitivity analysis. Special attention is given to the uncertainties encountered when using hydrological models for the simulation of extreme floods and long-term scenario simulations. Finally a few ethical problems in modelling are mentioned.


For energy developers, the geological formation known as the Marcellus Shale represents a rich new source of natural gas. For environmental engineer Paula Mouser and geochemist Shikha Sharma, it represents a potentially rich source of new microbes. The two researchers are part of a pioneering effort to explore what is living in the deep layers of rock—and how the gas drilling boom might affect long-isolated ecosystems. "Next to nothing is known about the biodiversity of shale deposits," says Simon Malcomber of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., which is funding the work. And scientists aren9t the only ones interested in filling that gap; drilling companies also want to know about deep-dwelling microbes, which can corrode equipment, clog pipes, and even produce contaminants that lower the value of natural gas.


In the field of Text Mining, a key phase in data preparation is concerned with the extraction of terms, i.e. collocation of words attached to specific concepts (e.g. Philosophy-Dissertation). In this paper, Term Extraction is formalized as a supervised learning task, extracting a ranking hypothesis from a set of terms labeled as relevant/irrelevant by the expert. This task is tackled using the evolutionary algorithm ROGER, optimizing the area under the ROC curve attached to a ranking hypothesis. Empirical validation on two real-world applications demonstrates outstanding improvements compared to state-of-art interestingness measures in Term Extraction. The approach is found robust across domains (Molecular Biology, Curriculum Vitae) and languages (English, French).


Endoscopic stenting of malignant biliary strictures offers a relatively safe and cost effective treatment for unresectable malignancies. Jaundice and pruritis can be relieved and this is accompanied by an improved quality of life. The main problem with endoscopic stents is their tendency to block with time. Attempts to extend their useful life have been made by modifying the shape and composition of plastic stents and more successfully, by the introduction of wide bore metal stents. The need to drain all areas of biliary obstruction has been questioned and the role of preoperative biliary drainage has been explored by meta-analyses of previous trials. Palliative intervention for obstructive jaundice in pancreatic and biliary cancer may involve ERCP with stenting or surgery. The available evidence does not indicate a major advantage to either alternative so the choice may be made depending on clinical availability and patient or practitioner preference. Predicted survival The technical skills to perform ERCP are widely available and this modality may be preferred to surgery in some cases due to the lower overall resource utilization and shorter hospitalization. The above paragraph is taken from the United States National Institute of Health State Of The Art Conference Statement on the role of ERCP and diagnosis therapy published in June 2002. SA Gastroenterology Rev. Vol.1(2) 2003:9-11


While the scientific community has established a fairly clear consensus on the threat of climate change, policymakers and journalists often suggest that the economic community lacks a consensus view on climate change risks and appropriate policy responses. We conducted a survey of 1,103 experts on the economics of climate change – all those who have authored an article related to climate change in a highly ranked economics or environmental economics journal since 1994 – and our results reveal several areas where expert consensus exists, and others where more research is necessary. In casting a wider net than many previous surveys of economists on climate change, we avoid many of the pitfalls of previous studies. Of the 1,103 experts that received the survey, 365 responded – a response rate of approximately 33%. Though the response rate varied from question to question – particularly for open-ended questions – it never dipped below 20%. There are several key takeaways from our results, particularly with respect to the magnitude of the social cost of carbon. Economic experts believe that climate change will begin to have a net negative impact on the global economy very soon – the median estimate was "by 2025." On average, economists also predict far higher economic impacts from climate change than the estimates found in landmark surveys from the 1990s (Nordhaus, 1994; Schauer, 1995). Also while experts on climate economics did not support a constant discount rate calibrated to market rates – the current methodology employed to estimate the US social cost of carbon –respondents recommended rates lower than (or roughly equal to the lower ranges of) those used by the U.S. government in these calculations. Given these results, it is unsurprising that our findings revealed a strong consensus that the SCC should be greater than or equal to the current $37 estimate. While these results indicate a growing consensus that current damage and SCC impacts are too low, the high variance of our results indicate that considerable work is still necessary to improve the values used for discount rates and climate impact assumptions. From a policy perspective, our findings also strongly suggest that U.S. policymakers should be concerned about a lack of action on climate change. Experts believe that the United States may be able to strategically induce other nations to reduce GHG emissions by adopting policies to reduce U.S. emissions. Respondents also support unilateral emission reductions by the United States, regardless of the actions other nations have taken. These results appear to confirm an economic consensus that domestic climate policies should be enacted immediately to address climate change.


The quantum optical Fredkin gate is an indispensable resource for networkable quantum applications. Its performance in practical implementations, however, is limited fundamentally by the inherent quantum fluctuations of the pump waves. We demonstrate a method to overcome this drawback by exploiting stimulated Raman scattering in fiber-based implementations. Using a Sagnac fiber-loop switch as a specific example, we show that high switching contrast can be maintained even in the presence of significant pump fluctuations. This unique feature of self-stabilization, together with high-speed and low-loss performance of such devices, point to a viable technology for practical quantum communications.


Objective This study aims to compare the complications, oncological outcomes, cosmetic satisfaction, and quality of life experienced by women with vulvar cancer undergoing video endoscopic inguinal lymphadenectomy (VEIL) versus conventional open inguinal lymphadenectomy (COIL). Patients and Methods Forty-eight consecutive patients with vulvar cancer who underwent COIL (n = 27) or VEIL (n = 21) at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China between 2003 and 2016 were included in this retrospective cohort study. The perioperative data, postoperative complications, oncological outcomes, cosmetic satisfaction, and quality of life of the COIL and VEIL groups were compared. Results Twenty patients (74.1%) in the COIL group and 19 patients (90.5%) in the VEIL group returned for follow-up after the operation. The median follow-up time was 73 months (8–162 months) for the COIL group and 28 months (8–58 months) for the VEIL group. The inguinal lymph node yield in the VEIL group was comparable with that in the COIL group (15 ± 5 vs 18 ± 6, P = 0.058). The VEIL and COIL groups had a similar 2-year recurrence rate (10.5% vs 10%, P = 0.957) and 2-year disease-specific survival rate (95.5% vs 93.3%, P = 0.724). The wound complication rate was significantly lower in the VEIL group than the COIL group (4.8% vs 55.6%, P = 0.000). The VEIL group had higher body image scores (16.27 ± 1.20 vs 13.16 ± 0.87, P < 0.0001) and cosmetic scores (20.13 ± 0.98 vs 16.92 ± 0.72, P < 0.0001) than the COIL group. The patients in the VEIL group had higher life quality scores on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy—Vulvar questionnaire than those in the COIL group (165.9 ± 6.3 vs 160.5 ± 6.0, P = 0.026). Conclusions Compared with COIL, VEIL can effectively reduce postoperative wound complications and improve patients' cosmetic satisfaction and life quality without compromising therapeutic efficacy. Hence, we believe that VEIL is a good alternative to COIL for vulvar cancer patients when surgical expertise is available.


We tested whether Hooded Warblers (Wilsonia citrina) avoided abrupt forest edges by radiotracking males breeding in small, isolated forest patches (0.5–2.0 ha) in northwest Pennsylvania. Because territory edges were synonymous with abrupt forest edges in all cases, we compared space use patterns with males radiotracked in a nearby continuous forest (150 ha), where we defined edge from territorial boundaries. Based on the proportion of edge to core area, males in both habitats avoided the area within 20 m of the edge, implying that males responded to the presence of territory edge rather than forest edge. Surprisingly, however, males in isolated fragments used the edge area significantly more than males in continuous forest, even when measured against the relative amount of edge area within each territory. Elevated levels of edge use were not related to distance of nests to edges, nest stage, or time of day. We conclude that the presence of physical edges is not the sole determinant of territorial space use in this species and there are likely additional social factors influencing occupancy rates in small, isolated woodlots. Therefore, definitions of forest-interior species based on edge use need to be reconsidered.


This article contends that two key factors were always likely to exert a restraining influence on the use of the Human Rights Act 1998 in family law cases: (i) a strong resistance to rights-based reasoning in the family law context; and (ii) the fact that the legal regulation of family life often gives rise to sensitive questions of public policy, traditionally regarded as the responsibility of Parliament rather than the courts. The article thus reviews the post-implementation case-law to determine how, if at all, these two key factors have influenced judicial reasoning in a number of leading family law cases. It is concluded that, as predicted, a prevailing mistrust of rights among family lawyers and problematic public policy issues in the family law context have made a significant contribution to the emerging overall picture of judicial caution and restraint in the use of the Human Rights Act 1998 in family law cases.


In this study, three different HTPB (hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene) based composite propellants were developed by varying the aluminium (Al) content 16, 18, and 20 %; and the effect of aluminium content variation on burning rate, P-K relationship, viscosity, heat of explosion, density, and hardness of the propellants developed were investigated. Propellants were cured at 65°C for 7 days, and then applied to the small test motors and kept at three different temperatures (−42, −15, and 50°C) for a night (8 h) before testing. Tests on the small motors were performed with three different K values (200, 250, and 300) statically. As a result of this, two relationships were determined, and the coefficients of those relationships are also given in Table 1. First relationship: P = d Ky (1), where P = pressure; y = K index; d = P-K relationship constant; and K = Propellant-area ratio. This relationship shows that pressure is highly affected by K values at 50°C in each of three compositions. Second relationship: r = a Pn (2), where P = pressure; r = burning rate; a = burning rate constant; and n = combustion index. This relationship also shows that burning rate has the lowest value in the propellant containing 20 % Al. Therefore; it was observed that the burning rate exponent (n) was below the safety limit value of 0.4 in three compositions, which shows that Al content should not exceed 18 %. These results also indicate that viscosity and hardness remain constant, density increases, and heat of explosion decreases with increasing Al content in the three compositions.


This report describes RRS Discovery Cruise 230, designed as a repeat of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) survey section 4, roughly from Cape Finisterre (Spain) to Cape Farewell (Greenland). IGY 4 was first surveyed in 1957, so this repeat gives a 40–year look at decadal variability in the North Atlantic from the eastern boundary regime via the junction of subtropical and subpolar gyres to the western boundary regime. Additional short sections were measured (a) midway between Cape Farewell and Denmark Strait, (b) across Denmark Strait and (c) from Iceland to Scotland in order (i) to assess the spatial variability of the western boundary regime up the east Greenland coast to Denmark Strait, (ii) to assess the exchange between the northern North Atlantic and the Nordic Seas, (iii) to create a large scale North Atlantic closed box for evaluation of the circulation, and (iv) to continue the long time series of Rockall Trough sections. Sections were measured with stations for CTD, LADCP and tracer chemistry (CFCs, oxygen, nutrients, CO2). Continuous measurements of high precision position and heading navigation data were made; also of VM–ADCP, depth and TSG. Continuous high–quality meteorological measurements were made, with a view to assessing Ekman fluxes, and comparing with fluxes inferred from Irminger Basin float data. This cruise is a UK contribution to the World Ocean Circulation Experiment.


Welcome to CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 Pearson uCertify Courseand Labs and Textbook Bundle CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 Pearson uCertify Course and Labs is an easy-to-use online course that allows you to assess your readiness and teaches you what you need to know to pass the CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 exam. Master all of the CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 exam objectives in the framework of CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 Cert Guide, Academic Edition interactive eBook. The interactive eBook includes informative text, tables, step-by-step lists, images, video instruction, interactive exercises, glossary flash cards, and review activities. The course comes complete with extensive pre- and post-assessment tests. In total there are over 430 practice questions. The award-winning uCertify Labs help bridge the gap between conceptual knowledge and real-world application by providing competency-based, interactive, online, 24x7 training. uCertify Labs simulate real-world networking hardware, software applications and operating systems, and command-line interfaces. The 60+ labs are supplemented with videos demonstrating lab solutions. Students can feel safe working in this virtual environment resolving real-world operating system and hardware problems. All of the contentthe complete Cert Guide, video instruction, the practice questions, the exercises, and the labsis focused around the official CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 exam objectives. Learn, prepare, and practice for CompTIA Security+ SY0-501 exam success with this full-colorCompTIA Authorized Cert Guide, Academic Edition from Pearson IT Certification, a leader in IT Certification learning. This book includes access to four complete practice tests, chapter summaries, and case studies including simulations and hands-on video exercises to reinforce the learning. Master CompTIAs Security+ SY0-501 exam topics Assess your knowledge with chapter-ending quizzes Reinforce your knowledge of key concepts with chapter review activities Practice with realistic exam questions Includes complete video solutions to hands-on labs Plus interactive simulations on key exam topics Work through Flash Cards in Q&A and glossary term format Includes free access to the Premium Edition eBook


VIII. Summary
1.
The effect of temperature on virus development in haemagogus mosquitoes was studied by the inoculation in mouse groups of individual mosquitoes at regular intervals after the infectious meal and by the titration of pools of mosquitoes. It was found that there was an initial period of virus loss, followed by a period of virus gain, the rates in both cases depending on the temperature. The period of virus loss lasted for 5 days at 20°, 3–4 days at 25° and 2 days at 30°. At 20° the level of virus seemed to remain stable after the period of loss, there being no demonstrable increase over a 22 day period. At higher temperatures the rate of gain seemed to be a direct function of the environmental temperature.
2.
The percentage of mosquitoes becoming infected and the length of the incubation period seemed also to be a function of the amount of virus ingested with the infectious meal. On the basis of titer of virus in circulation at the time of feeding, experiments can be divided into 4 arbitrary categories: trace of virus (serum of source animal not infecting adult mice in dilutions greater than 1:10); small amount of virus (no infections in dilutions above 1:103); moderate amount of virus (no infections in dilutions above 1:105) and large amount of virus (infections in dilution of 1:106 or more). In the first category, virus has in no case been recovered from haemagogus; in the second, occasional individuals become infected; in the third, the majority of the mosquitoes show virus; in the fourth, virus is regularly recovered from 90 per cent or more of the mosquitoes. The minimum incubation period after the ingestion of a "moderate amount of virus" is 13 days at 30°. This may be shortened to 10 days where a "large amount of virus" has been ingested. There is some evidence that infection at a given temperature and given virus dosage depends in part on the characteristics of the individual mosquito.
3.
Experiments were undertaken with pantropic virus strains modified by serial passage (6 consecutive passages) in mice. It was difficult to infect haemagogus on saimiri monkeys inoculated with these modified virus strains; with the evidence at hand it is impossible to decide how much this was due to the lower titers of virus circulated by such monkeys, and how much to possible modification of the ability of the virus particles to invade mosquito tissue.
4.
Attempts were made to define the incubation period in mosquitoes by large numbers of tests for transmission with individual mosquitoes using 3-day-old mice as test animals. It was found that there was considerable variation among individual mosquitoes of the same lot in the time at which they became infective, but that once a mosquito became infective it remained so for life. The minimum incubation period was found to be 28 days at 25°; 23 days in mosquitoes kept for 20 hours daily at 25° and 4 hours daily at 30°; 12 days for a similar alternation of 25°–35°; and 10 days at a constant temperature of 30°. Results were unsatisfactory at a constant temperature of 35°, but no transmissions were obtained in 28 attempts at periods between 5 and 12 days.
5.
The very favorable results obtained with mosquitoes alternated between 25° (20 hours) and 35° (4 hours) suggest that relatively short exposures to high temperatures in nature may greatly accelerate virus development.


Dynamic deformation and fracture of solids are known to be the multiscale processes. Mesolevel-1 relates to deformation modes inside the structure elements while mesolevel-2 is self-consistent motions of conglomerates of the elements. Shock experiments and molecular dynamics simulation show a presence of local strain rate fluctuations (dispersion) which sensitively depend on the non-equilibrium of deformation process. Velocity dispersion at the mesolevel-1 (D 2 m1 ) characterizes a relaxation of local stresses while the dispersion at the mesolevel-2 (D 2 m2 ) is responsible for fragmentation of material. When D m1 = D m2 fragmentation is suppressed and material reveals maximum strength. At the unsteady stages of straining the particle velocity acquires defect of velocity which characterizes an intensity of energy exchange between scale levels. In the present paper the energy exchange is considered from the position of spallation. For five kinds of steel it is shown that spall-strength is maximum when the velocity dispersion at the mesolevel equals defect of the average velocity. Criterion for spallation takes into account the energy exchange between scale levels.


The Proceedings of the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Annual International Conference include scholarly work associated with construction education and research. This conference is a resource for ASC member institutions to publish their scholarly endeavors. However, the relative impact of the annual proceedings is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to explore the trends associated with the annual conference proceedings from 2004-2019, including a comparison of papers published by author and institution, international and collaborative efforts, and the type of research that is being published. This paper demonstrates that the demand to publish at the ASC annual conference continues to increase. Alternative and innovative solutions to accommodate this continued growth should be considered. Over the past 16 years, the annual conference proceedings have been a publishing resource for 1,212 unique authors, representing 276 different institutions. International and collaborative efforts have been reasonably strong and appear to be one of the strengths of the conference. Although the international presence seems to help validate the importance of the conference in construction related research, there also appears to be room to continue to grow this aspect of the conference.


This article considers key ethical, legal, and medical dilemmas arising for people with disabilities in the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlight the limited application of existing frameworks of emergency planning with and for people with disabilities in the COVID-19 pandemic, explore key concerns and issues affecting the health care of people with disabilities (i.e., access to information and clinician-patient communication, nondiscrimination and reasonable accommodations, and rationing of medical goods), and indicate possible solutions. Finally, we suggest clinical and public health policy measures to ensure that people with disabilities are included in the planning of future pandemic-related efforts.The devastation evoked by the COVID-19 pandemic raises challenging dilemmas in bioethics. It also speaks to social justice issues that have plagued historically marginalized communities in the United States.Responses to the pandemic must be bound by legal standards, principles of distributive justice, and societal norms of protecting vulnerable populations-core commitments of public health-to ensure that inequities are not exacerbated, and should provide a pathway for improvements to ensure equitable access and treatment in the future. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print August 20, 2020: e1-e5. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.305837).


Different cognitive-psychological assessments in higher education can help students to understand their own thinking and behavior patterns and help them to plan and have a successful career. In the 1970's Mintzberg drew attention to two different styles on thinking: the use of the left side of the brain versus the right side of the brain. According to Mintzberg the analytical side of brain, which is the left side, focuses on planning. The holistic side of brain is the right side and it focuses on management. Until the 1970's the trend in business was to favor analytical thinking as opposed to holistic thinking. However, since Mintzberg's observations the educational community has attempted to balance the business curricula to accommodate both the left and right sides of the brain, in order to develop and produce business graduates that have the ability to use both sides of the brain. The objective of the study is to ascertain the cognitive style differences between students that major in the different business disciplines: accounting, finance, marketing and management and suggest institutional and classroom accommodations. An inventory instrument, which measures left and right brain preferences, was used to gather information about different business majors. Additional variables are included in the study such as grade point average, age, and gender to explain demographic differences.


We discuss risk and return implications of incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations in an investment strategy and argue that ESG exposures may be informative about the risks of individual firms. We show empirically that stocks with worst ESG exposures have volatility that is up to 15% higher, and betas up to 3% higher, than stocks with the best ESG exposures. We also find that ESG scores may help forecast future changes to risk estimates from a traditional risk model. Controlling for the contemporaneous risk model estimates, we show that poor ESG exposures predict increased future statistical risks.


Summary Clinical and biological features were assessed in 114 consecutive previously untreated adult acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients whose diagnosis was based on FAB criteria and detailed immunophenotyping. All patients received standard intensive chemotherapy. The main purpose of this study was to establish the prognostic value, if any, of terminal transferase (TdT) expression in myeloid leukaemia. TdT positive cells (7–80% of total blast cells) were detected in 40% of the cases. Among clinical characteristics, a low lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (<250I.U.) (P=0·003), a low initial white blood cell count (<10 × 109/l) (P=0·002), and an absolute neutrophil count (<5 × 109/l) (P=0·02) were associated with TdT‐positivity. FAB classification was not predictive of TdT expression, and there was no difference in the distribution of FAB subtypes between the groups. Multivariate analysis combining clinical and laboratory data indicated that a low expression of the monocytic antigen CD14 was predictive of TdT positivity in AML (P=0·01). Karyotyping showed no difference in the pattern of occurrence of specific abnormalities between the TdT+ and the TdT− group. When clinical and immunophenotype data were included in a prognostic model, the patient's age was highly predictive of response (P<0·001), and only the CDw65 antigen contributed to the response model (P=0·07). TdT+ patients with a low expression of CD11b achieved a higher frequency of response at a borderline level of significance (P=0·06). Frequency of response to chemotherapy, the response duration or overall survival were not influenced by TdT expression.


The p-center problem is a relatively well known facility location problem that
involves locating p identical facilities on a network to minimize the maximum
distance between demand nodes and their closest facilities. The focus of the
problem is on the minimization of the worst case service time. This sort of
objective is more meaningful than total cost objectives for problems with a time
sensitive service structure. A majority of applications arises in emergency service
locations such as determining optimal locations of ambulances, fire stations and
police stations where the human life is at stake. There is also an increased
interest in p-center location and related location covering problems in the contexts
of terror fighting, natural disasters and human-caused disasters. The p-center
problem is NP-hard even if the network is planar with unit vertex weights, unit
edge lengths and with the maximum vertex degree of 3. If the locations of the
facilities are restricted to the vertices of the network, the problem is called the
vertex restricted p-center problem; if the facilities can be placed anywhere on the
network, it is called the absolute p-center problem. The p-center problem with
capacity restrictions on the facilities is referred to as the capacitated p-center
problem and in this problem, the demand nodes can be assigned to facilities with
single or multiple allocation strategies. In this thesis, the capacitated p-center
problem under the multiple allocation strategy is studied for the first time in the
literature.
The main focus of this thesis is a modelling and algorithmic perspective in
the exact solution of absolute, vertex restricted and capacitated p-center problems.
The existing literature is enhanced by the development of mathematical
formulations that can solve typical dimensions through the use of off the-shelf
commercial solvers. By using the structural properties of the proposed formulations,
exact algorithms are developed. In order to increase the effciency of the
proposed formulations and algorithms in solving higher dimensional problems,
new lower and upper bounds are provided and these bounds are utilized during
the experimental studies. The dimensions of problems solved in this thesis are
the highest reported in the literature.


Attachment of live cells of Shewanella putrefaciens strain CN-32 to the surface of hematite (α-Fe(2)O(3)) was studied with in situ ATR-FTIR spectroscopy at variable pH (4.5-7.7) and contact times up to 24 h. The IR spectra indicate that phosphate based functional groups on the cell wall play an important role in mediating adhesion through formation of inner-sphere coordinative bonds to hematite surface sites. The inner-sphere attachment mode of microbial P groups varies with pH, involving either a change in protonation or in coordination to hematite surface sites as pH is modified. At all pH values, spectra collected during the early stages of adhesion show intense IR bands associated with reactive P-groups, suggestive of preferential coordination of P-moieties at the hematite surface. Spectra collected after longer sorption times show distinct frequencies from cell wall protein and carboxyl groups, indicating that bacterial adhesion occurring over longer time scales is to a lesser degree associated with preferential attachment of P-based bacterial functional groups to the hematite surface. The results of this study demonstrate that pH and reaction time influence cell-mineral interactions, implying that these parameters play an important role in determining cell mobility and biofilm formation in aqueous geochemical environments.


One drawback with using plan recognition in adversarial games is that often players must commit to a plan before it is possible to infer the opponent's intentions. In such cases, it is valuable to couple plan recognition with plan repair, particularly in multi-agent domains where complete replanning is not computationally feasible. This paper presents a method for learning plan repair policies in real-time using Upper Confidence Bounds applied to Trees (UCT). We demonstrate how these policies can be coupled with plan recognition in an American football game (Rush 2008) to create an autonomous offensive team capable of responding to unexpected changes in defensive strategy. Our real-time version of UCT learns play modifications that result in a significantly higher average yardage and fewer interceptions than either the baseline game or domain-specific heuristics. Although it is possible to use the actual game simulator to measure reward offline, to execute UCT in real-time demands a different approach; here we describe two modules for reusing data from offline UCT searches to learn accurate state and reward estimators.


Abstract Situated about 130 km northeast of Tabriz (northwest Iran), the Mazra'eh Shadi deposit is in the Arasbaran metallogenic belt (AAB). Intrusion of subvolcanic rocks, such as quartz monzodiorite-diorite porphyry, into Eocene volcanic and volcano-sedimentary units led to mineralisation and alteration. Mineralisation can be subdivided into a porphyry system and Au-bearing quartz veins within andesite and trachyandesite which is controlled by fault distribution. Rock samples from quartz veins show maximum values of Au (17100 ppb), Pb (21100 ppm), Ag (9.43ppm), Cu (611ppm) and Zn (333 ppm). Au is strongly correlated with Ag, Zn and Pb. In the Au-bearing quartz veins, factor group 1 indicates a strong correlation between Au, Pb, Ag, Zn and W. Factor group 2 indicates a correlation between Cu, Te, Sb and Zn, while factor group 3 comprises Mo and As. Based on Spearman correlation coefficients, Sb and Te can be very good indicator minerals for Au, Ag and Pb epithermal mineralisation in the study area. The zoning pattern shows clearly that base metals, such as Cu, Pb, Zn and Mo, occur at the deepest levels, whereas Au and Ag are found at higher elevations than base metals in boreholes in northern Mazra'eh Shadi. This observation contrasts with the typical zoning pattern caused by boiling in epithermal veins. At Mazra'eh Shadi, quartz veins containing co-existing liquid-rich and vapour-rich inclusions, as strong evidence of boiling during hydrothermal evolution, have relatively high Au grades (up to 813 ppb). In the quartz veins, Au is strongly correlated with Ag, and these elements are in the same group with Fe and S. Mineralisation of Au and Ag is a result of pyrite precipitation, boiling of hydrothermal fluids and a pH decrease.


The consumption of a diet rich in certain flavonoids, including the flavanol sub-class, has been associated with a reduced risk for vascular disease. We evaluated the effects of the regular consumption (14 d) of a flavanol-containing milk chocolate (FCMC) or cocoa butter chocolate (CBC) on variables related to vascular disease risk, oxidative stress and physical activity. Twenty-eight free-living, young (18–20 years old) male soccer players consumed daily 105 g of FCMC (168 mg of flavanols) or CBC (<5 mg of flavanols), as part of their normal diet. The consumption of FCMC was significantly associated with a decrease in diastolic blood pressure (-5 mm Hg), mean blood pressure (-5 mm Hg), plasma cholesterol (-11%), LDL-cholesterol (-15%), malondialdehyde (-12%), urate (-11%) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity (-11%), and an increase in vitamin E/cholesterol (+12%). No relevant changes in these variables were associated with CBC consumption. No changes in the plasma levels of (-)-epicatechin were observed following analysis of fasting blood samples. In conclusion, FCMC consumption was associated with changes in several variables often associated with cardiovascular health and oxidant stress. The presence of significant quantities of flavanols in FCMC is likely to have been one of the contributing factors to these results.


In the present study, 328 carcasses from wild red deer, roe deer, and chamois hunted in fall 2011 were examined for total viable counts (TVC) and Enterobacteriaceae (as indicators of fecal contamination). For this purpose, surfaces of skinned carcasses originating from six small-scale abattoirs were sampled by swabbing. For the examined animal species, TVC mean values ranged from 4.0 to 4.2 log CFU cm-2. The proportion of Enterobacteriaceae positive carcasses was 87.5%, 89.3%, and 90.0% for hunted red deer, roe deer, and chamois, respectively. Enterobacteriaceae mean values accounted for 2.3 (red deer) and 2.6 (roe deer, chamois) log10 CFU cm-2. On the other hand, TVC and Enterobacteriaceae results of carcasses from various abattoirs differed by several orders of magnitude. The low values obtained in certain abattoirs show that carcasses from hunted wild ruminants can be of good hygienic status. To avoid contaminations and to prevent foodborne pathogens from entering the food chain, strict compliance with good hunting and hygiene practices during any step from shooting, through evisceration on
the field, to dehiding, and processing is therefore of central importance.