A method for learning knowledge from a database is used to address the bottleneck of manual knowledge acquisition. An attempt is made to improve representation with the assistance of experts and from computer resident knowledge. The knowledge representation is described in the framework of a conceptual schema consisting of a semantic model and an event model. A concept classifies a domain into different subdomains. As a method of knowledge acquisition, inductive learning techniques are used for rule generation. The theory of rough sets is used in designing the learning algorithm. Examples of certain concepts are used to induce general specifications of the concepts called classification rules. The basic approach is to partition the information into equivalence classes and to derive conclusions based on equivalence relations. In a sense, what is involved is a data-reduction process, where the goal is to reduce a large database of information to a small number of rules describing the domain. This completely integrated approach includes user interface, semantics, constraints, representations of temporal events, induction, etc. >


Technological constraints severely limit the rate at which analog-to-digital converters can reliably sample signals. Recently, Tropp et al. proposed an architecture, termed the random demodulator (RD), that attempts to overcome this obstacle for sparse bandlimited signals. One integral component of the RD architecture is a white noise-like, bipolar modulating waveform that changes polarity at a rate equal to the signal bandwidth. Since there is a hardware limitation to how fast analog waveforms can change polarity without undergoing shape distortion, this leads to the RD also having a constraint on the maximum allowable bandwidth. In this paper, an extension of the RD, termed the constrained random demodulator (CRD), is proposed that bypasses this bottleneck by replacing the original modulating waveform with a run-length limited (RLL) modulating waveform that changes polarity at a slower rate than the signal bandwidth. One of the main contributions of the paper is establishing that the CRD, despite employing a modulating waveform with correlations, enjoys some theoretical guarantees for certain RLL waveforms. In addition, for a given sampling rate and rate of change in the modulating waveform polarity, numerical simulations confirm that the CRD, using an appropriate RLL waveform, can sample a signal with an even wider bandwidth without a significant loss in performance.


Postoperative handover of patients has been described as a complex work process challenged by interruptions, time pressure and a lack of supporting framework. The purpose of this study was to investigate involved personnel's experiences with the quality of patient handovers between the operating room and the postoperative anesthesia care unit (PACU) before and after implementation of a structured tool for communication. The study was conducted in a hospital in South-eastern Norway. Personnel completed a questionnaire before (n=116) and after (n=90) implementation of the Identification-Situation-Assessment- Recommendations (ISBAR)- tool. Analysis included summative statistics, t-tests and generalized linear regression analysis. Statistical significance assumed at P<0.05. The overall impression of quality in handovers improved significantly after implementation of the ISBAR (P=0.001). Personnel's experiences were improved in relation to that handovers followed a logical structure, available documentation was used and all relevant information was communicated (P<0.001). Moreover, personnel found it easier to establish contact at the beginning of the handover, ambiguities were resolved and documentation was more complete (P=0.001). Profession was associated with seven of the statements, relating to whether relevant information is clearly communicated, whether possible risks and complications are discussed, contact easily established, and to completeness of documentation and information. In addition, findings indicate significantly more negative experiences among receiving personnel both pre- and post-implementation. Implementation of a structured tool for communication in patient handovers, may improve quality and safety in patient handovers between the operating room and the PACU. Research is needed to define optimal patient handovers and to determine the effect of handover quality on patient outcomes.


The Political Resource Curse The paper studies the effect of additional government revenues on political corruption and on the quality of politicians, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a version of the career concerns model of political agency with endogenous entry of political candidates. The evidence refers to municipalities in Brazil, where federal transfers to municipal governments change exogenously according to given population thresholds. We exploit a regression discontinuity design to test the implications of the theory and identify the causal effect of larger federal transfers on political corruption and the observed features of political candidates at the municipal level. In accordance with the predictions of the theory, we find that larger transfers increase political corruption and reduce the quality of candidates for mayor. JEL Classification: D72, D73, H40, H77


BACKGROUND
Pulmonary barotrauma is a potentially fatal complication of positive pressure ventilation. We previously found that barotrauma occurred in patients with radiographic hyperinflation, but few objective data define the relationships among hyperinflation, objective chest radiograph (CXR) measurements, ventilator parameters, and development of barotrauma.

OBJECTIVES
We sought (1) to assess the relationships among hyperinflation, objective CXR findings, mechanical ventilator parameters, and development of barotrauma. (2) To compare radiographic hyperinflation, ventilator parameters, and incidence of barotrauma in a current group of ICU patients with historical control subjects.

SETTING
Medical and surgical ICU patients in a university hospital.

DESIGN
Prospective blinded observational study; comparison of current series with historical control subjects.

METHODS
One hundred two prospectively enrolled mechanically ventilated medical and surgical ICU patients each received portable supine CXRs that were reviewed independently by three radiologists who made objective measurements and subjectively determined the likelihood of hyperinflation. Ventilator parameters were recorded at the bedside at the time each CXR was obtained. CXR measurements and ventilator parameters were then related to the development of barotrauma during the course of ventilation and compared with findings of a prospective study at our institution 1 year earlier.

RESULTS
Radiographically recognizable hyperinflation occurred in 18 of 102 mechanically ventilated ICU patients (18%) and correlated with lung length (24.7 vs 19.8 cm; p<0.05) and the anterior rib number that intersects the hemidiaphragm (5.4 vs 4.7; p<0.05). Patients with hyperinflation were ventilated at higher tidal volume per kilogram (VT/kg) (11.0 vs 9.4; p=0.0081), but peak airway pressure, plateau pressure, and positive end-expiratory pressure were similar. There were significant decreases in VT (810 vs 739 mL; p=0.015) and VT/kg (11.0 vs 10.1 mL/kg; p<0.001) in these mechanically ventilated ICU patients in comparison to hospital control subjects evaluated during the previous year. Paralleling these changes was a decrease in the frequency of CXR hyperinflation (p=0.003) and the incidence of ventilator-associated barotrauma (6.5% vs 0.98%; p=0.048).

CONCLUSIONS
Ventilation at higher VT/kg is associated with a higher incidence of CXR hyperinflation. Radiographic hyperinflation is associated with lung length > or =24.7 cm and visualization of the sixth anterior rib. Patients with hyperinflation may be at greater risk for developing barotrauma or volutrauma. Ventilatory strategies utilizing lower volumes are associated with a lower incidence of such trauma in the current sample as compared with historical control subjects.


Ubiquitousness of smartphones, when combined with the power of crowdsourcing, enables radically novel application scenarios, where a massive amount of mobile users scattered over wide geographical regions cooperate towards a single goal. Nevertheless these new possibilities come at the cost of additional complexity, such as the presence of humans in the control loop, scarce resources of mobile devices, increased management costs due the large number of users. In this paper we report and discuss the lessons learned from the design, implementation and management of Portolan, a smartphone-based crowdsourcing system aimed at monitoring large-scale networks.


Life-threatening infections caused by bacteria that have developed resistance to common antibiotics, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), have become a serious problem in hospitals and other areas all over the world. Thus, the development of an effective class of antibiotics against these bacteria is an urgent subject. Herein, we report a step-economical and diversity-oriented synthesis of a series of 2-arylidenehydrazinyl-4-arylthiazole and 2-arylidenehydrazinyl-5-arylthiazole analogues that utilizes C–H coupling methodologies. A library of 54 new congeners were synthesized and tested for their biological potential. Moreover, new knowledge regarding the structure–activity relationships (SARs) of these heterobiaryl compounds was collected.


Rectified diameters and albedo estimates of 1517 main-belt asteroids selected from IRAS and the Mid-Course Space Experiment asteroid photometry catalogs are derived from updated infrared thermal models, the Standard Thermal Model and the Near-Earth Asteroid Thermal Model (NEATM), and Monte Carlo simulations, using new Minor Planet Center compilations of absolute magnitudes (H values) constrained by occultation- and radar-derived parameters. The NEATM approach produces a more robust estimate of albedos and diameters, yielding albedos of pv (NEATM mean) =0.081 ± 0.064. The asteroid beaming parameter (η) for the selected asteroids has a mean value of 1.07 ± 0.27, and the smooth distribution of η suggests that this parameter is independent of asteroid properties such as composition. No trends in η due to size-dependent rotation rates are evident. Comparison of derived values of η as a function of taxonomic type indicates that the beaming parameter values for S- and C-type asteroids are identical within the standard deviation of the population of beaming parameters.


Understanding what drives the interannual variability (IAV) of the land carbon sink is crucial for improving future predictions of this important, yet uncertain, component of the climate system. While drivers of global and hemispheric-scale net ecosystem exchange (NEE) IAV have been investigated, our understanding of the drivers of NEE IAV at regional scales (e.g. sub-continental, biome-level) is quite poor. Here we explore the biome-level attribution and drivers of North American NEE using inverse estimates derived from a dense network of atmospheric CO2 observations. We find that deciduous broadleaf and mixed forests are the primary regions responsible for North American NEE IAV, which differs from the ecoregions identified for the globe and Northern Hemisphere. We also find that a suite of terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) do not agree on the dominant biome contributing to NEE IAV, with TBMs falling along an apparent spectrum ranging between those with IAV dominated primarily by forested ecosystems to those with IAV dominated by non-forested ecosystems. Furthermore, this regional trade-off in TBM NEE IAV is found to be linked to differing regional responses to environmental drivers among TBMs. This work displays the importance of extra-tropical forests in driving continental NEE IAV and also highlights the challenges and limitations of using TBMs to inform regional-scale carbon flux dynamics.


Next generation sequencing produces large volumes of short sequences with broad applications. The noise due to sequencing errors led to the development of several correction methods. The main correction paradigm expects a high (from 30-40X) uniform coverage to correctly infer a reference set of subsequences from the reads, that are used for correction. In practice, most accurate methods use k-mer spectrum techniques to obtain a set of reference k-mers. However, when correcting NGS datasets that present an uneven coverage, such as RNA-seq data, this paradigm tends to mistake rare variants for errors. It may therefore discard or alter them using highly covered sequences, which leads to an information loss and may introduce bias. In this paper we present two new contributions in order to cope with this situation. First, we show that starting from non-uniform sequencing coverages, a De Bruijn graph can be cleaned from most errors while preserving biological variability. Second, we demonstrate that reads can be efficiently corrected via local alignment on the cleaned De Bruijn graph paths. We implemented the described method in a tool dubbed BCT and evaluated its results on RNA-seq and metagenomic data. We show that the graph cleaning strategy combined with the mapping strategy leads to save more rare k-mers, resulting in a more conservative correction than previous methods. BCT is also capable to better take advantage of the signal of high depth datasets. We suggest that BCT, being scalable to large metagenomic datasets as well as correcting shallow single cell RNA-seq data, can be a general corrector for non-uniform data. Availability: BCT is open source and available at github.com/Malfoy/BCT under the Affero GPL License.


In a component-based development process the selection of components is an activity that takes place over multiple lifecycle phases that span from requirement specifications through design to implementation-integration. Automated tool support for component selection would be very helpful in each phase. In this paper we introduce a framework that supports the selection of COTS components in the requirements phase. The framework lays on a tool that builds and solves an optimization model, whose solution provides the optimal COTS component selection. The selection criterion is based on cost minimization of the whole system while assuring a certain degree of satisfaction of the system requirements. The output of the model solution indicates the optimal combination of single COTS components and assemblies of COTS that satisfy the requirements while minimizing costs


Research has shown that L1 speakers can routinely generate mental imagery corresponding to sentence meaning in reading comprehension. This may reflect an efficient process of semantic integration in which information from the input combines with an individual's linguistic and real world knowledge to form a semantic representation of a sentence. Semantic integration in L2 reading has received limited attention. The present study attempted to examine the activation of mental imagery in reading among L2 speakers and thus to assess the efficiency of semantic integration during L2 reading. L2 Korean learners were tested on a sentence-based picture recognition task in which they were asked to respond to a picture immediately after reading a sentence related to the picture. Results showed that L2 Korean learners resembled native Korean speakers in their ability to generate mental imageries that reflected subtle semantic differences in sentence input.


Examining narratives, the authors analyze the hegemonic conceptions about the modes of production, circulation and appropriation of knowledge. These modes are characterized by a certain nonchalance as for the use and consequences of knowledge. The exhaustion of these concepts is revealed by the present paradigmatic crisis, which will ultimately propose new modes of knowledge production in the scientific world. The authors assume a subject is constituted by language and knowledge itself. The concept of knowledge as a transmittable thing is thus replaced by the view that knowledge constitutes through discursive processes. The authors propose the importance of memory, narratives and interlocution in these processes where subject and knowledge are closely intertwined.


In their book Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri develop a narrative about the transition from the mediaeval to the modern, secular, world, showing that there were two projects of modernity at first, but that one prevailed over the other. The prevailing modern worldview did not do away with a  transcendental form of control. Instead, it offered a post-mediaeval view of transcendence, which was then imported into politics, leading to the state as a transcendental apparatus of control. This article applies their thesis to the analysis of the development of political thought on international relations. It is argued that modern international thought was constrained and enabled by the project of modernity which prevailed. It is far from clear whether contemporary international thought can rid itself of the notion of the Westphalian state as the transcendental apparatus of control, yet it is reluctant to accept the notion of a world state as the ultimate, natural, implication of the transcendental grounds for the modern state.


In recent technologies, various optical signal processing systems have been reported. In many of these applications, highly nonlinear fibers (HNLFs) are used as key parts. Especially, low loss and low dispersion slope are critical features of the HNLFs. In this paper, their design and characteristics, packaging technology, and applications are introduced.


In 1968, the United States Supreme Court proffered a new Track Two test, via Texas v. Johnson, with the ability to constitutionally validate government regulations that incidentally burdened free speech rights. Over the past fifty years, this "incidental regulation test" has volleyed back and forth between being either a pro-plaintiff or a go-to government doctrine. In the 2010 Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project case the Court refused to apply the incidental regulation test despite the government's request and the test's relevance to the matter at issue. The Court's departure from the incidental regulation test's current evolutionary status and generally accepted constitutional principles was incorrect and inappropriate. As a result, more questions than answers have been generated as to the incidental regulation test's future utility and application. I. INTRODUCTION The United States Constitution's First Amendment guarantees are the most highly prized, coveted, and guarded of fundamental rights. (1) When government-enacted regulations, whether local, state, or national, infringe upon these freedoms, litigation becomes inevitable. (2) The standard upon which the regulation is analyzed is determined by whether the regulation is content-based or content-neutral. (3) This track-based tug-of-war becomes the determinative factor as to the level of contravention one's First Amendment rights will suffer. (4) First, this article explores the factual and procedural history of U.S. v. O'Brien, (5) which spawned the incidental regulation test. (6) A brief discussion of the incidental regulation test's progression from inception to 1989 follows. (7) This note then details the factual and procedural history of Texas v. Johnson, (8) which refined the incidental regulation test's applicability. (9) It continues with a detailed survey of cases that explore the incidental regulation test's development post-Johnson. (10) Next, the article details the factual and procedural history of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. (11) The article's second section provides an analysis of the test's refinement and conversion from a government-preferred to a plaintiff-captured doctrinal standard. (12) A discussion as to the improper application of the incidental regulation test, including whether the test's proper application would have changed Holder s ultimate holding, follows. (13) Additionally, this note will illustrate the proper application of the incidental regulation test to the Holder facts and how, in its appropriate function, it would have facilitated a stronger plaintiff position. (14) II. BACKGROUND A. U.S. v. O'BRIEN: THE CREATION OF THE INCIDENTAL REGULATION TEST David Paul O'Brien, along with three colleagues, burned his Selective Service registration form on the South Boston Courthouse steps on March 31, 1966. (15) The crowd that witnessed the burning subsequently attacked O'Brien and his friends. (16) Three Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") agents were among the crowd members and assisted O'Brien to safety within the courthouse. (17) O'Brien informed the FBI "that he had burned his registration certificate because of his beliefs, knowing that he was violating federal law." (18) O'Brien was indicted under Title 50, App., United States Code, section 462(b). (19) This statute had been amended in 1965, with its added language rendering O'Brien's registration card burning illegal. (20) Specifically, the amendment made it an offense for any person "who forges, alters, knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates, or in any manner changes any such certificate." (21) At trial, O'Brien challenged the amendment on free speech grounds. (22) "O'Brien argued that the 1965 Amendment prohibiting the knowing destruction or mutilation of certificates was unconstitutional because it was enacted to abridge free speech, and because it served no legitimate legislative purpose. …


US—Russian nuclear arms control efforts should seek to limit not just numbers of weapons but nuclear missions as well, the most dangerous being "counterforce," or an attack on enemy nuclear weapons before they can be launched. Giving up the counterforce mission means giving up the capability and all its dangerous requirements, including high alert rates. To eliminate counterforce, the United States and Russia will have to reduce both the capability and the vulnerability of their nuclear weapons. Once nuclear weapons are essentially invulnerable to attack, a small number will be enough to deter any potential attacker.


Peer-to-peer file-sharing systems are responsible for a significant share of the traffic between Internet service providers (ISPs) in the Internet. In order to decrease their peer-to-peer related transit traffic costs, many ISPs have deployed caches for peer-to-peer traffic in recent years. We consider how the different types of peer-to-peer caches - caches already available on the market and caches expected to become available in the future - can possibly affect the amount of inter-ISP traffic. We develop a fluid model that captures the effects of the caches on the system dynamics of peer-to-peer networks, and show that caches can have adverse effects on the system dynamics depending on the system parameters. We combine the fluid model with a simple model of inter-ISP traffic and show that the impact of caches cannot be accurately assessed without considering the effects of the caches on the system dynamics. We identify scenarios when caching actually leads to increased transit traffic. Our analytical results are supported by extensive simulations and experiments with real BitTorrent clients.


A new approach is reported for determining the composition of multicomponent organic aerosols using FT-IR spectroscopy. In this study, laboratory-generated aerosol particles are thermally evaporated and the resulting vapor is immediately analyzed using FT-IR spectroscopy. The composition of the aerosol is determined by fitting the vapor spectrum to a linear combination of reference spectra of the individual components. Application of the method to the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, changes in aerosol composition, and analysis of diesel fuel is demonstrated.


Background: Multiple large epidemiologic studies have examined the relationship between smoking and prostate cancer incidence and mortality only to arrive at contradictory results. In this series, we studied the effect of smoking on pathologic outcomes and biochemical recurrence in a cohort of men undergoing radical prostatectomy. Methods: We identified 630 men who underwent radical prostatectomy between 1989 and 2005 who had detailed smoking histories. There were 321 smokers and 309 nonsmokers. Pathologic outcomes included prostate weight, volume of cancer, volume of high grade cancer, margin status, seminal vesicle involvement, extraprostatic extension, perineural invasion, angiolymphatic invasion, and the presence of nodal metastasis. Biochemical recurrence was defined as a postoperative PSA 0.1 ng/ml. Univariate analysis and multivariate linear and Cox regression were used to study the impact of smoking on these outcomes. Results: The volume of cancer (2.54 vs. 2.16 ml, P 0.016) and the volume of high grade cancer (0.58 vs. 0.28 ml, P 0.004) were greater in smokers compared with nonsmokers. Smoking independently predicted greater volumes of cancer and high grade cancer in multivariate analysis. Heavy smokers (20 pack-year history) had a greater risk of biochemical recurrence on univariate survival analysis. Smoking also predicted a greater risk of biochemical recurrence on Cox regression, the magnitude of which was approximately 1% per pack-year smoked. Conclusions: Smoking is associated with adverse pathologic features and a higher risk of biochemical recurrence in men undergoing radical prostatectomy. If confirmed by additional studies, smoking history may need to be included into risk assessment models. © 2013


BACKGROUND
Millions of older individuals cope with physical limitations, cognitive changes, and various losses such as bereavement that are commonly associated with aging. Given increased vulnerability to various health problems during aging, work displacement might exacerbate these due to additional distress and to possible changes in medical coverage. Older Americans are of increasing interest to researchers and policymakers due to the sheer size of the Baby Boom cohort, which is approaching retirement age, and due to the general decline in job security in the U.S. labor market.

AIMS OF THE STUDY
This research compares and contrasts the effect of involuntary job loss and retirement on the mental health of older Americans. Furthermore, it examines the impact of re-employment on the depressive symptoms.

METHODS
There are two fundamental empirical challenges in isolating the effect of employment status on mental health. The first is to control for unobserved heterogeneity--all latent factors that could impact mental health so as to establish the correct magnitude of the effect of employment status. The second challenge is to verify the direction of causality. First difference models are used to control for latent effects and a two-stage least squares regression is used to account for reverse causality.

RESULTS
We find that involuntary job loss worsens mental health, and re-employment recaptures the past mental health status. Retirement is found to improve mental health of older Americans.

DISCUSSION
With the use of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study surveys and the adoption of proper measures to control for the possibility of reverse causality, this study provides strong evidence of elevating depressive symptoms with involuntary job displacement even after controlling for other late-life events. Women suffer from greater distress levels than men after job loss due to business closure or lay-off. However, women also exhibit better psychological well-being than men following retirement. The present study is the first to report that the re-employment of involuntary job-loss sufferers leads to a recapturing of past mental health status. Additionally, we find that re-entering the labor force is psychologically beneficial to retirees as well.

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVISION
It is well established that out-of-pocket expenditures on all forms of health care for seniors with self-diagnosed depression significantly exceeds expenditures for seniors with other common ailments such as hypertension and arthritis in the U.S. Thus, our research suggests that re-employment of older Americans displaced from the labor force will be cost-effective with regard to personal mental health outcomes.

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES
That re-employment of involuntary job loss sufferers leads to a recapturing of past mental health status illuminates one potential policy trade off - increased resources dedicated to job training and placement for older U.S. workers could reap benefits with regard to reduced private and public mental health expenditures.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Further research could more clearly assess the degree to which the mental health benefits of employment among older Americans would warrant the expansion of job training and employment programs aimed at this group.


Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a relatively uncommon condition triggered by severe physical and/or emotional stress. It is characterized by transient ventricular wall dysfunction in the absence of coronary artery disease (CAD). Herein, we report a case of a 59-year-old female who had three episodes of recurrent Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. On each occasion, she presented with symptoms of acute coronary syndrome accompanied by left ventricular wall motion abnormalities; however, repeat cardiac catheterization failed to show CAD. Each recurrence resulted in resolution of her symptoms and recovery of left ventricular function. While emotional triggers were identified, on two occasions, the patient presented with ventricular fibrillation for which an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) was ultimately placed. We encourage clinicians to no longer look at Takotsubo cardiomyopathy as a benign, reversible disease process, but rather as a pathological entity with real, life-threatening complications that may be managed with ICD placement. J Med Cases. 2018;9(3):98-102 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jmc3011w


6th Annual NRF Research Administrators Workshop, 30th September - 2nd October 2015, Summerstrand Hotel, Port Elizabeth.

Theme: Optimising research partnerships for a sustainable future


The Sixth Amendment is aptly described by Akhil Amar as the "heartland of constitutional criminal procedure." It is a major part of the Framers' designed to ensure a fair trial and provides the opportunity for the accused to challenge the prosecution's case and to demonstrate innocence. However, as woeful inadequate funding for indigent defense undercuts the reality of the constitutional right to counsel and as trials become more and more rare, a broader focus is needed. In a time in which it is painfully obvious that we have limited resources available to meet public needs and a reticence to extend legal doctrines, those interested in progressive reform should look beyond developing new legal doctrine. The fundamental Sixth Amendment interest in fairness can be furthered by administrative mechanisms and aided by actors in the criminal justice system beyond defense attorneys. The victories may not be stirring or draw public note, but for the individuals not prosecuted or incarcerated erroneously, they can be extraordinarily significant and fulfill the basic promise of the Sixth Amendment.


Modern applications in industry, navigation and medicine demand small and sensitive magnetic field sensors. In this thesis we have developed a new planar micro fluxgate magnetometer. High resolution, low power consumption and orthogonal fields detection makes it suitable for portable compass applications. The developed sensor is a fully integrated device based on CMOS process that provides driving and readout electronics, plus the metallization layers for the excitation and pickup coils. A soft amorphous ferromagnetic material is bonded and structured, using an additional, postprocess implemented on a whole 6 inch wafer to form sensor core on the surface of the chip. The single core principle was selected with the intention to elongate the core, reduce the power consumption and increase sensitivity. We employed a new extraction method, based on the detection of mean value of the induced voltage peaks in the pickup coil, which carry the information on the external field. Several models and tools for the optimization of the core geometry, excitation, as well as pickup coils have been developed. For the first time, the effect of perming has been investigated. Perming is manifested as a change in sensor offset after the magnetic shock. A model was developed, which uses equivalent magnetic pole pieces to account for the contribution of the "frozen" domains not affected by the excitation. Model shows that the effect is predominantly dependent on the level of the core saturation. The electronics has been integrated in a conventional 1 µm CMOS process. Apart from the excitation, a single electronic circuit is used for both axes in order to decrease the power consumption, reduce the chip size, and obtain better matching. The signal extraction principle is accomplished using a box-car circuit. To reduce the influence of the 1/f noise of the amplifiers, we implemented a modulation technique, using an additional modulator. Modulated signal is amplified and finally demodulated using the correlated double sampling demodulator. We have implemented a new digital feedback, for the first time applied on the excitation coils. It consists of comparator, 8-bit U/D counter and current sources to create magnetic field for contra action. The output of the counter represents the digital information on the external field and is transmitted using I2C communication block integrated on chip. The fabricated sensor works from a single 2.5 V power supply and consumes 8.5 mW in open loop mode and 10 mW with a feedback. With the excitation at 350 kHz, the magnetometer exhibits the sensitivity of 2950 V/T and 8 kHz bandwidth. Equivalent noise spectral density at 1 Hz is equal to 12 nT/√Hz. When used as a compass, the sensor has the angular error of ± 1° without and ± 3° using feedback. Measured perming is equal to 1.4 µT, after the shock of 200 mT. Performance of the developed micro-fluxgate is better in terms of noise, angular error, perming, operational voltage, as well as power consumption, than any other fully integrated micro fluxgate presented up to date. In addition, the fabrication is based on the batch and low cost CMOS technology and compatible post-process so we can expect commercialisation in the near future.


By the year 2020 land degradation may pose a serious threat to food production and rural livelihoods, particularly in poor and densely populated areas of the developing world. Appropriate policies are required to encourage land-improving investments and better land management if developing countries are to sustainably meet the food needs of their populations. The authors investigate the impact of land degradation on global agricultural production.However, land degradation could have dramatic effects in specific countries and subregions in the form of (1) Nutrient depletion; (2) Salinization; (3) Agrochemical pollution; (4) Soil erosion; (5) Vegetative degradation of rangelands and ; (6) Agriculture-induced deforestation by 2020. The brief identifies strategies to reduce land degradation. and makes policy recommendations.


This thesis examines the role of emotions in morality and in particular their relation to moral judgements. Despite the emerging view in philosophy that the long-standing perceived antagonism between reason and emotion is unjustified, metaethical theories are still largely informed by the Cartesian understanding of the mind: if moral judgements are the exercise of a rational capacity they must preclude emotions. One consequence of this view is a distorted view of moral agents' capacity for motivated, emotion-elicited, moral knowledge and action. The account of emotion I develop here aims to do justice to their epistemic as well as motivating role. Moral motivation has been commonly understood with reference to Humean psychology: motivation is analysed either in terms of desire-like states, where emotions are not sufficiently distinguished from desires, or in terms of beliefs, where emotions either have no explanatory significance or, if they do, they are identified with intuitions or a kind of evaluative judgement. This thesis defends the view that the emotions are irreducible to either desires or beliefs, where this requires challenging the Humean-Davidsonian theory of mind and action explanation. Thus a promise of this thesis is to offer a positive contribution by providing a motivational analysis which looks beyond the Humean-Davidsonian belief-desire model. A standard objection to externalist metaethical theories which claim that motivation is 'external' to moral judgements is that they are committed to an implausible explanation of the reliable connection between good-willed agents' moral judgements and their motivations. The account of emotion this thesis develops helps build a novel, non-Humean, externalism about the 'reliable connection'. I argue that although emotions are not necessary for moral judgements, the 'reliable connection' is partly explained by emotional moral efforts.


Problem: Paramedic educators have a short time frame (840 didactic/laboratory plus 500 clinical/internship hours) and limited resources to prepare their students to have competent clinical skills, safe medical practice, and appropriate leadership and teamwork skills. New learning approaches including simulation, audiovisual feedback, and structured debriefing have been suggested as a way to meet this challenge within paramedic education. While some individual components have been studied, no study has examined these three technologies together in paramedic training programs. The overarching research question that guided this study was: What and how do paramedic students learn in a high-fidelity healthcare simulation program that includes audio/video and instructor-facilitated feedback? Method: The investigation was a mixed methods study; however, the study tended towards qualitative methods primarily using intrinsic case study methodology based on the work of Yin and Stake. The investigation reviewed the outcomes achieved through the use of high-fidelity healthcare simulation coupled with audio-visual feedback, when implemented within a paramedic education program. A variety of data was collected including audio-visual recordings of briefs, simulations, and debriefs, multiple student documents and logs, and copious researcher notes and documents. Results: The simulation laboratory was a realistic, safe, controlled setting allowing students to make autonomous decisions without potential harm to human life as a consequence of errors. Simulation technology augmented traditional clinical experiences by providing more uniformity of experiences between students, providing less familiar clinical experiences, and acting as a time-efficient method for achieving deficit competencies. In evaluating student skill performance, simulation provided better quantified measures and observation accuracy. Leadership skills were developed in simulation by taking advantage of safe learning aspects; an environment to learn from mistakes which used leadership skill autonomous practice. Participation as a leader and follower allowed the learner a better understanding of the leadership role when exposed to well-crafted scenarios. Simulation was a unique methodology facilitating safe learning from errors committed by students, a result of knowledge gaps within individual learning. Simulation was unlike traditional learning methods such as lecture, laboratory, or clinical experiences. The facilitator/debriefer assisted the paramedic in learning within the simulation environment by: creating a safe learning environment, helping learners identify what knowledge was needed, reinforcing identified needed learning, assisting participants to identify correct actions in response to individualized errors, and promoting learner reflection. A debriefing provided the environment whereby the bulk of learning took place in the simulation experience. The simulation environment contributed to student growth in three domains (cognitive, psychomotor and affective) of learning identifying knowledge or performance gaps for students in the specific practice of assessment, leadership, treatments, planning, evaluation, situational awareness, communications, and teamwork. Simulation provided an alternate method for achieving clinical experiences not available in the actual setting. During the debriefing, the audio-visual feedback and interactive probing procedures worked together to promote student learning. The audio-visual component provided a "big picture" viewpoint for the learner used by the debriefer during interactive probing to help students identify errors and alternate actions. A learning model was constructed which represented how students learn. The use of simulation allowed the participant to determine unknown knowledge gaps from previous learning through processes of simulation experience, identification during debriefing, and reflection on alternate-decision pathways. Learning occurred in learning process conclusion: the application of alternate pathways in behavior. The learning process has been summarized in a simulation learning model presented in this study. The simulation learning model is applicable for cognitive, affective, and psychomotor elements. Within the study, analysis developed emergent themes. Emergent themes included: Context Is Vital, We Often Don't Know What We Don't Know, Learning From Mistakes, Learners Must Have a Safe Learning Environment, Learning Lessons From Other Industries, and Teaching Leadership Challenges for Paramedics. Conclusions and Recommendations: Students often don't know what they don't know in individualized previous learned knowledge; thus, a learning mechanism is required, such as simulation with facilitated debriefing interactive audiovisual feedback. Simulation technology acts as a safe and non-threatening environment to allow learning from mistakes without a human cost. Valid fidelity healthcare simulations augment traditional clinical experiences by providing unfamiliar virtual realities in a uniform way to strengthen the participants' overall experience repertoire. This study recommends that the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) industry, educators, and policy makers establish standards requiring simulation learning within initial training programs to decrease the potential for loss of human lives as a result of human error.


: Purpose: The purpose of the article is an attempt to answer the question about the current shaping of attitudes of European academic youth towards the idea of sustainable development. Design/Methodology/Approach: The C&RT classification tree model was used, which allowed systematizing the factors differentiating attitudes towards the idea of sustainable development of 1175 students from over 30 European countries. Findings: The work focuses on the role of education in understanding and perceiving the idea of sustainable development. It was not only a factor in the first division of the tree but also one of the more important predictors in the ranking generated by the C&RT model. The tree structure showed that school education and family's influence were the overriding criteria for differentiating students' attitudes towards the idea of sustainable development. Practical Implications: In the conducted analysis of education, it appeared both as an indirect and direct factor - through meetings with sustainable everyday life and proper understanding of this concept. Also, some respondents indicated that in comparison to other actors and stakeholders addressed to recipients and implementers of the idea of development is precisely the idea of school. Originality/value: The value of the research is extensive statistical material that enabled the use of an innovative research method - the classification model of C&RT trees.


In Jazz, Morrison explores the transferential relation between book and reader, invoking Kleinian object relations, Gates's Talking Book, and her characters' search for lost mothers to drive the reader into his or her own psychoanalytic search for origins. Joe, Violet, and Dorcas have been scarred by maternal abandonment, suicide, or early death. Joe and Violet share an object relation with Golden Gray, the white-raised son of Hunter's Hunter who is present at Joe's birth. Golden is also the boy who haunts Violet's childhood, as True Belle tells Violet stories about him when she raises Violet after the death of Violet's mother. At the same time, Joe and Violet have never met Golden Gray and cannot locate this particular object relation: it exists within the novel's subconscious, recognizable only to narrator and reader. Jazz itself becomes the reader's transitional object, Gates's Signifyin(g) Monkey; and the narrator's own "unreliability" reflects on the black-authored text's "distrust" of the (white) American reader, a Kleinian "paranoid defence" against allowing the possibility of love to overcome hatred. As the talking book that is Jazz finds its Derridean "trace" in Wild, the narrator accomplishes what Joe Trace could not. Locating her own origins in Wild's "chamber of gold," the narrator discovers the ways in which reading itself can become a site within which to work through "paranoid" feelings and to arrive at reparation.


The effect of superposed dc and ac applied voltages on two types of spatially periodic instabilities in nematic liquid crystals, flexoelectric domains (FD), and electroconvection (EC) was studied. The onset characteristics, threshold voltages, and critical wave vectors were determined. We found that in general the superposition of driving with different time symmetries inhibits the pattern forming mechanisms for FD and EC as well. As a consequence, the onset extends to much higher voltages than the individual dc or ac thresholds. A dc-bias-induced reduction of the crossover frequency from the conductive to the dielectric EC regimes and a peculiar transition between two types of flexodomains with different wavelengths were detected. Direct measurements of the change of the electrical conductivity and its anisotropy, induced by the applied dc voltage component, showed that the dc bias substantially affects both parameters. Taking into account the experimentally detected variations of the conductivity in the linear stability analysis of the underlying nematohydrodynamic equations, a qualitative agreement with the experimental findings on the onset behavior of spatially periodic instabilities was obtained.


In this paper we shall study the proportions of the financial assets in optimal portfolios, where the portfolio is optimized by the maximization of its expected utility with respect to a given utility function. Our main goal is to investigate the magnitude of the proportions of the assets in optimal portfolios provided that the assets' distributions display a certain type of stochastic dominance, which means that one asset is better in a certain sense than the other. Our main question is to understand why people buy more of an asset than of another one. For this, we introduce and study new notions of stochastic dominance which can be appropriate candidates for the study of the proportions. Based on these notions we derive new versions (and a generalization) of the results of Hadar and Seo [1], where, in case of independent asset returns, the stochastic dominance of the returns implies that the dominant asset has a larger proportion in the optimal portfolio. Our results apply to not necessarily independent returns as well. We give several realistic examples in which these new types of stochastic dominance are fulfilled.


Hybrid nanomaterial-based drug delivery systems (HNDDSs) consisting of carbon nanotubes and linear–dendritic copolymers linked to anticancer drugs were synthesized and characterized. Polycitric acid–polyethylene glycol–polycitric acid (PCA–PEG–PCA) linear–dendritic copolymers were used to solubilize and functionalize multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by noncovalent interactions. There are two key features of HNDDSs: (a) functionalized MWCNTs as a biocompatible platform for the delivery of therapeutic agents and diagnostics, (b) PCA–PEG–PCA linear–dendritic copolymers as water soluble, biocompatible and highly functional hybrid materials with a linear PEG block and two dendritic PCA blocks that improve the solubility and functionality of MWCNTs respectively. In this work, cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (CDDP)—a platinum-based chemotherapy drug) was conjugated to the carboxyl functional groups of the dendritic blocks of PCA–PEG–PCA linear–dendritic copolymers and then the prodrugs interacted with the MWCNTs noncovalently and HNDDSs were obtained. To prove the efficacy of the synthesized HNDDSs, they were subjected to endocytosis and released CDDP molecules inside murine colon adenocarcinoma tumor C26 cancer cells. Then it was proved that HNDDSs are able to kill cancer cells effectively. Release of the anticancer drug from HNDDSs was also investigated.


This paper is focused on Saharan dust transport to Central Europe/Poland; we compare properties of atmospheric Saharan dust using data from NAAPS, MACC, AERONET as well as observations obtained during HyMountEcos campaign in June 2012. Ten years of dust climatology shows that long-range transport of Saharan dust to Central Europe is mostly during spring and summer. HYSPLIT back-trajectories indicate airmass transport mainly in November, but it does not agree with modeled maxima of dust optical depth. NAAPS model shows maximum of dust optical depth (~0.04–0.05, 550 nm) in April–May, but the MACC modeled peak is broader (~0.04). During occurrence of mineral dust over Central-Europe for 14% (NAAPS) / 12% (MACC) of days dust optical depths are above 0.05 and during 4% (NAAPS) / 2.5% (MACC) of days dust optical depths exceed 0.1. The HyMountEcos campaign took place in June–July 2012 in the mountainous region of Karkonosze. The analysis includes remote sensing data from lidars, sunphotometers, and numerical simulations from NAAPS, MACC, DREAM8b models. Comparison of simulations with observations demonstrates the ability of models to reasonably reproduce aerosol vertical distributions and their temporal variability. However, significant differences between simulated and measured AODs were found. The best agreement was achieved for MACC model.


Gamification, an emerging idea for using game design elements and principles to make everyday tasks more engaging, is permeating many different types of information systems. Excitement surrounding gamification results from its many potential organizational benefits. However, few research and design guidelines exist regarding gamified information systems. We therefore write this commentary to call upon information systems scholars to investigate the design and use of gamified information systems from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and theories, including behavioral economics, psychology, social psychology, information systems, etc. We first explicate the idea of gamified information systems, provide real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful systems, and, based on a synthesis of the available literature, present a taxonomy of gamification design elements. We then develop a framework for research and design: its main theme is to create meaningful engagement for users; that is, gamified information systems should be designed to address the dual goals of instrumental and experiential outcomes. Using this framework, we develop a set of design principles and research questions, using a running case to illustrate some of our ideas. We conclude with a summary of opportunities for IS researchers to extend our knowledge of gamified information systems, and, at the same time, advance existing theories.


" Striking In" provides the first detailed look at the artistic beginnings of one of America's most accomplished writers. Chronicling James Dickey's close scrutiny of a wide variety of literary, philosophical, and anthropological works, his extensive experimentation with the possibilities of language, and his projected outlines for poems, stories, and novels, the notebooks serve as a critical tool in understanding Dickey's literary apprenticeship during the fifties. Although the notebooks identify the influence of writers such as George Barker, Hart Crane, and Dylan Thomas, they primarily present a man endeavoring to chart his own artistic course or destination. The entries depict the process by which Dickey developed the ideas and images that characterize what he himself has labeled his "early motion," revealing the origin of "Into the Stone, Drowning with Others, " and "Helmets, " his first three published books of poetry, and suggesting the material and techniques of later volumes.The introductions by Gordon Van Ness place each notebook in a biographical context and assess its individual significance, and an appendix lists all of Dickey's poems published in the fifties. Extensive footnotes provide further information on many of the specific references within Dickey's entries. Of special importance is the inclusion of ten never-before-published poems as well as fourteen others never collected in Dickey's books.These notebooks show a young man obsessively committed to improving his creative and critical practice. By providing a direct glimpse into Dickey's mind before he achieved notoriety, "Striking In" sheds important new light on Dickey's struggle to discover a style and subject matter uniquely his own and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the complexities of Dickey's literary career.


This qualitative study seeks to enrich the understanding of migrants' perceived experience in running small businesses in Auckland, New Zealand. The study will also examine what motivated migrants into business, their experiences in labour market as well as the challenges they faced in running a business. The study focuses on African migrant small business owners excluding South Africans as this population has been extensively researched and documented (Meares et al., 2011; Warren, 2003). The theoretical foundation of the study rests on labour disadvantage and cultural theories. In-depth open ended face-to face interviews between 11-20 participants selected through purposive sampling will be used to collect data. Thematic analysis will be used to analyse data collected.


OF DISSERTATION TOXICITY OF ENGINEERED NANOMATERIALS TO PLANT GROWTH PROMOTING RHIZOBACTERIA Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) have become ubiquitous in consumer products and industrial applications, and consequently the environment. Much of the environmentally released ENMs are expected to enter terrestrial ecosystems via land application of nanoenriched biosolids to agricultural fields. Among the organisms most likely to encounter nano-enriched biosolids are the key soil bacteria known as plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). I reviewed what is known concerning the toxicological effects of ENMs to PGPR and observed the need for high-throughput methods to evaluate lethal and sublethal toxic responses of aerobic microbes. I addressed this issue by developing high-throughput microplate assays which allowed me to normalize oxygen consumption responses to viable cell estimates. Oxygen consumption is a crucial step in cellular respiration which may be examined relatively easily along with viability and may provide insight into the metabolic/physiological response of bacteria to toxic substances. Because many of the most toxic nanomaterials (i.e. metal containing materials) exhibit some level of ionic dissolution, I first developed my methods by examining metal ion responses in the PGPR, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens GB03. I found this bacterium exhibits differential oxygen consumption responses to Ag+, Zn2+, and Ni2+. Exposure to Ag+ elicited pronounced increases in O2 consumption, particularly when few viable cells were observed. Also, while Ni2+ and Zn2+ are generally thought to induce similar toxic responses, I found O2 consumption per viable cell was much more variable during Ni2+ exposure and that Zn2+ induced increased O2 utilization to a lesser extent than Ag+. Additionally, I showed my method is useful for probing toxicity of traditional antibiotics by observing large increases in O2 utilization in response to streptomycin, which was used as a positive control due to its known effects on bacterial respiration. After showing the utility of my method for examining metal ion responses in a single species of PGPR, I investigated the toxicity of silver ENMs (AgENMs) and ions to three PGPR, B. amyloliquefaciens GB03, Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011, and Pseudomonas putida UW4. The ENM exposures consisted of untransformed, polyvinylpyrrolidone coated silver ENMs (PVP-AgENMs) and 100% sulfidized silver ENMs (sAgENMs), which are representative of environmentally transformed AgENMs. I observed species specific O2 consumption responses to silver ions and PVP-AgENMs. Specifically, P. putida exhibited increased O2 consumption across the observed range of viable cells, while B. amyloliquefaciens exhibited responses similar to those found in my first study. Additionally, S. meliloti exhibited more complex responses to Ag+ and PVP-AgENMs, with decreased O2 consumption when cell viability was ~50-75% of no metal controls and increased O2 consumption when cell viability was <50%. I also found the abiotically dissolved fraction of the PVP-AgENMs was likely responsible for most of the toxic response, while abiotic dissolution did not explain the toxicity of sAgENMs. My work has yielded a straightforward, cost-effective, and high-throughput method of evaluating viability and oxygen consumption in aerobic bacteria. I have used this method to test a broad range of toxic substances, including, metal ions, antibiotics, and untransformed and transformed ENMs. I observed species specific toxic responses to Ag+, PVP-AgENMs, and sAgENMs in PGPR. These results not only show the clear utility of the methodology, but also that it will be crucial to continue examining the responses of specific bacterial strains even as nanotoxicology, as a field, must move toward more complex and environmentally relevant systems.


High quality perovskite manganites, La1-xAxMnO3 (A = Ca, Sr, Ba) are very attractive materials due to their great application potential for magnetic memory, uncooled infrared (IR) microbolometer and spintronics devices. This thesis presents studies of the growth and material characterization (including structural, electrical, magnetic and noise) of epitaxial manganite films on Si and GaAs. Furthermore, investigations about strain effect on structural and electrical properties of manganites, and finally fabrication of self-supported free standing microstructures for uncooled IR bolometer are also demonstrated. To obtain high quality epitaxial manganite films on semiconductor substrates at room temperature, using a combination of La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) and La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO) compounds, La0.67(Sr,Ca)0.33MnO3 (LSCMO) films were successfully grown on Si substrates with Bi4Ti3O12(BTO)/CeO2/YSZ buffers by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. Crystallographic relations between layers shows cube-on-cube for BTO/CeO2/YSZ/Si and diagonal-on-side for LSCMO films on BTO layer. 4.4 %K-1 maximum temperature coefficient of resistivity (TCR = 1/ρ·dρ/dT) and 2.9 %kOe-1 colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) were obtained at room temperature. Assuming of a prototype of temperature sensor, 1.2 μK/√Hz of noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) and 2.9×108 cm√Hz/W of detectivity are expected to achieve at 294 K, 30 Hz. For GaAs substrates, using MgO buffer layer, LCMO films shows 9.0 %K-1 of TCR at 223 K while LSMO exhibits 2 %K-1 at 327 K. Systematic strain effects on structural and electrical properties of La0.75Sr0.25MnO3 LSMO) films on BTO/CeO2/YSZ-buffered Si, Si1-xGex/Si (compressive strain, x = 0.05-0.20) and Si1-yCy/Si (tensile, y = 0.01) were investigated. The strain induced from Si1-xGex/Si and Si0.99C0.01/Si has a tendency to decrease the roughness of CMR films compared to Si sample. High resistivity and low TCR values are observed for Si0.8Ge0.2/Si and Si0.99C0.01/Si samples due to excessive strains whereas Si0.9Ge0.1/Si and Si0.95Ge0.05/Si show slight improvements of films quality and TCR value. To fabricate LSCMO manganite bolometer on Si, wet etching with KOH and BHF and dry etching methods with Ar ion beam etching (IBE) were studied. For KOH wet etching, LSCMO films show high chemical resistance with lower than 0.2 nm/min of etch rate. BHF wet etching shows high etching selectivity over photoresist mask and silicon substrates. The etch rates for LSCMO and BTO layers are 22 and 17 nm/min. For Ar IBE, LSCMO films and oxide buffer layers show similar etch rates, 16-17 nm/min that are lower compared to 24 nm/min for Si. Free standing, self-supported heteroepitaxial LSCMO/BTO/CeO2/YSZ membranes for bolometer pixels on Si was successfully fabricated by Ar IBE and ICP etching techniques using a preannealed photoresist. The structural investigation by TEM revealed the sharp interfaces between layers. The electrical property of the free standing membrane was slightly degraded due to strain release and multi-step etching effect. These results demonstrate feasibility to use heteroepitaxial oxide structures as a thermally isolated membrane with conventional photoresist patterning.


Inside Solaris 9 gives administrators the information they'll need to upgrade to Solaris 9 and maximize the new features. Author Bill Calkins begins by laying the foundations of Solaris, then explains how to get set up with Solaris 9 (including any potential pitfalls). Next, system maintenance issues are covered such as setting up user accounts, managing file systems and processes, system security, monitoring and tuning, and backup and recovery. Solaris networking and service management issues round out the book, along with some excellent resources and a glossary.


Decreasing tolerances on parts manufactured, or inspected, on machine tools increases the requirement to have a greater understanding of machine tool capabilities, error sources and factors affecting asset availability. Continuous usage of a machine tool during production processes causes heat generation typically at the moving elements, resulting in distortion of the machine structure. These effects, known as thermal errors, can contribute a significant percentage of the total error in a machine tool. There are a number of design solutions available to the machine tool builder to reduce thermal error including, liquid cooling systems, low thermal expansion materials and symmetric machine tool structures. However, these can only reduce the error not eliminate it altogether. It is therefore advisable, particularly in the production of high value parts, for manufacturers to obtain a thermal profile of their machine, to ensure it is capable of producing in tolerance parts. This paper considers factors affecting practical implementation of condition monitoring of the thermal errors. In particular is the requirement to find links between temperature, which is easily measureable during production and the errors which are not. To this end, various methods of testing including the advantages of thermal images are shown. Results are presented from machines in typical manufacturing environments, which also highlight the value of condition monitoring using thermal analysis.


The engine concept partially premixed combustion (PPC) has proved higher gross indicated efficiency compared to conventional diesel combustion engines. The relatively simple implementation of the concept is an advantage, however, high gas exchange losses has made its use challenging in multi-cylinder heavy duty engines. With high rates of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) to dilute the charge and hence limit the combustion rate, the resulting exhaust temperatures are low. The selected boost system must therefore be efficient which could lead to large, complex and costly solutions. In the presented work experiments and modelling were combined to evaluate different turbocharger configurations for the PPC concept. Experiments were performed on a multi-cylinder engine. The engine was modified to incorporate long route EGR and a single-stage turbocharger, however, with compressed air from the building being optionally supplied to the compressor. Experimental combustion heat release rates and boundary conditions were used to validate a simulation model. This model was then used to compare three different turbochargers: two single-stage turbochargers and one two-stage. The whole speed and load range was covered in the simulations to determine the engine performance. The influence of high EGR rates as well as the effect of charge air and EGR cooler gas outlet temperatures were also investigated. The simulation results showed that the two-stage turbocharger was able to give the highest load over the whole speed range with a brake mean effective pressure of 25.6 bar, whereas the two single-stage turbochargers reached 22.2 and 23.1 bar respectively. The average brake efficiency was 39.3, 39.7 and 40.2 %. It was found that decreasing the inlet temperature is critical for obtaining high loads and system efficiencies. Finally, it was shown that the optimal amount of EGR was dependent on the turbocharger efficiency and cooler temperatures.


Background & Objective: Administration of anesthetic substances to chickens requires careful consideration for the safe delivery of the agent to the bird. The research objective was to evaluate several drug combinations for intramuscular anesthesia in chickens for physiologic, nutritional, pharmacological and other investigations. Meterial & Methods: Sixty healthy chickens were randomly assigned in six treatment groups and received Ketamine in combination with Xylazine, Midazolam or Acepromazine. Heart and respiratory rate, induction time, duration of surgical anesthesia and light anesthesia were measured. Results: Induction of anesthesia was significantly longer following Acepromazine- Ketamine and Midazolam- Ketamine compared to other groups (P<0.05). Duration of surgical anesthesia was longest with Xylazine- Midazolam- Ketamine and shortest with Midazolam-Ketamine and Acepromazine-Ketamine (P<0.05). Conclusion: In conclusion, the most effective drug combinations resulting in longer duration of surgical anesthesia, were Xylazine- Acepromazine- Ketamine and Xylazine- Midazolam- Ketamine. Other combinations did not produce appropriate surgical anesthesia, but they make slight changes in physiological data.


The complete assembly of the entire human genome sequence by Venter et al. confirms recent estimates that the total number of human protein coding genes might be less than 30,000 -- only one-third more that the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Claverie points out that such a low gene number could drastically modify our understanding of organism complexity and evolution as well as our current interpretation of transcriptome analyses. He suggests that there may be severe consequences for the long-term sustainability of the biomedical industry in the postgenomic era. Courseaux and Nahon analyze the structural organization, pattern of expression, and origin of two genes that have emerged during primate evolution by a combination of retrotransposition of an RNA sequence, sequence mutations, and de novo creation of splice sites in adjoining sequences. These findings shed light on the first steps in the origins of new genes, and offer clues to the process by which humans and their close primate relatives diverged genetically from other mammals. Cells are continually exposed to environmental and endogenous insults that damage DNA. Left unrepaired, this damage would eventually lead to genome instability, with devastating consequences for both the cell and the organism. Wood et al. have surveyed the human genome sequence and compiled a comprehensive list of genes that help the cell recognize and repair DNA damage. Ongoing studies of how the products of these repair genes interact with one other promises to shed new light on fundamental cellular control mechanisms that go awry in cancer, as well as in normal aging. Comparison of the proteins coded in the human genome with those from the fruit fly and worms (nematodes) confirms that, in the course of evolution, the process of programmed cell death, or apoptosis, has become more complex. Aravind et al. found that nematode cells function with just one protein in the NACHT family of nucleoside triphosphatases in their apoptotic arsenal. The human genome, however, shows no fewer than 18 proteins that belong in this family and that are related to NAIM (neuronal apoptosis inhibitory protein), a protein defective in spinal muscle atrophy. Oddly, homologs of proteins in the human apoptotic machinery are found in some bacteria, suggesting that there has been relatively recent transfer of such genes between these organisms. Once gene sequences are determined, the next question is often, how do these data relate to expression? Caron et al. describe the integration of existing serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) data, which shows the level of messenger RNA expression, with the human gene map to show the pattern of genome-wide expression. This Human Transcriptome Map (HTM), created from both normal and diseased tissue types, indicates that highly expressed genes tend to be clustered in specific chromosomal regions, or RIDGEs. This finding is contrary to analyses in yeast and suggests that the human genome is organized in a higher order structure. J. C. Venter, M. D. Adams, E. W. Myers, P. W. Li, R. J. Mural, G. G. Sutton, H. O. Smith, M. Yandell, C. A. Evans, R. A. Holt, J. D. Gocayne, P. Amanatides, R. M. Ballew, D. H. Huson, J. R. Wortman, Q. Zhang, C. D. Kodira, X. H. Zheng, L. Chen, M. Skupski, G. Subramanian, P. D. Thomas, J. Zhang, G. L. Gabor Miklos, C. Nelson, S. Broder, A. G. Clark, J. Nadeau, V. A. McKusick, N. Zinder, A. J. Levine, R. J. Roberts, M. Simon, C. Slayman, M. Hunkapiller, R. Bolanos, A. Delcher, I. Dew, D. Fasulo, M. Flanigan, L. Florea, A. Halpern, S. Hannenhalli, S. Kravitz, S. Levy, C. Mobarry, K. Reinert, K. Remington, J. Abu-Threideh, E. Beasley, K. Biddick, V. Bonazzi, R. Brandon, M. Cargill, I. Chandramouliswaran, R. Charlab, K. Chaturvedi, Z. Deng, V. Di Francesco, P. Dunn, K. Eilbeck, C. Evangelista, A. E. Gabrielian, W. Gan, W. Ge, F. Gong, Z. Gu, P. Guan, T. J. Heiman, M. E. Higgins, R.-R. Ji, Z. Ke, K. A. Ketchum, Z. Lai, Y. Lei, Z. Li, J. Li, Y. Liang, X. Lin, F. Lu, G. V. Merkulov, N. Milshina, H. M. Moore, A. K Naik, V. A. Narayan, B. Neelam, D. Nusskern, D. B. Rusch, S. Salzberg, W. Shao, B. Shue, J. Sun, Z. Y. Wang, A. Wang, X. Wang, J. Wang, M.-H. Wei, R. Wides, C. Xiao, C. Yan, A. Yao, J. Ye, M. Zhan, W. Zhang, H. Zhang, Q. Zhao, L. Zheng, F. Zhong, W. Zhong, S. C. Zhu, S. Zhao, D. Gilbert, S. Baumhueter, G. Spier, C. Carter, A. Cravchik, T. Woodage, F. Ali, H. An, A. Awe, D. Baldwin, H. Baden, M. Barnstead, I. Barrow, K. Beeson, D. Busam, A. Carver, A. Center, M. L. Cheng, L. Curry, S. Danaher, L. Davenport, R. Desilets, S. Dietz, K. Dodson, L. Doup, S. Ferriera, N. Garg, A. Gluecksmann, B. Hart, J. Haynes, C. Haynes, C. Heiner, S. Hladun, D. Hostin, J. Houck, T. Howland, C. Ibegwam, J. Johnson, F. Kalush, L. Kline, S. Koduru, A. Love, F. Mann, D. May, S. McCawley, T. McIntosh, I. McMullen, M. Moy, L. Moy, B. Murphy, K. Nelson, C. Pfannkoch, E. Pratts, V. Puri, H.Qureshi, M. Reardon, R. Rodriguez, Y.-H. Rogers, D. Romblad, B. Ruhfel, R. Scott, C. Sitter, M. Smallwood, E. Stewart, R. Strong, E. Suh, R. Thomas, N. N. Tint, S. Tse, C. Vech, G. Wang, J. Wetter, S. Williams, M. Williams, S. Windsor, E. Winn-Deen, K. Wolfe, J. Zaveri, K. Zaveri, J. F. Abril, R. Guigó, M. J. Campbell, K. V. Sjolander, B. Karlak, A. Kejariwal, H. Mi, B. Lazareva, T. Hatton, A. Narechania, K. Diemer, A. Muruganujan, N. Guo, S. Sato, V. Bafna, S. Istrail, R. Lippert, R. Schwartz, B. Walenz, S. Yooseph, D. Allen, A. Basu, J. Baxendale, L. Blick, M. Caminha, J. Carnes-Stine, P. Caulk, Y.-H. Chiang, M. Coyne, C. Dahlke, A. D. Mays, M. Dombroski, M. Donnelly, D. Ely, S. Esparham, C. Fosler, H. Gire, S. Glanowski, K. Glasser, A. Glodek, M. Gorokhov, K. Graham, B. Gropman, M. Harris, J. Heil, S. Henderson, J. Hoover, D. Jennings, C. Jordan, J. Jordan, J. Kasha, L. Kagan, C. Kraft, A. Levitsky, M. Lewis, X. Liu, J. Lopez, D. Ma, W. Majoros, J. McDaniel, S. Murphy, M. Newman, T. Nguyen, N. Nguyen, M. Nodell, S. Pan, J. Peck, M. Peterson, W. Rowe, R. Sanders, J. Scott, M. Simpson, T. Smith, A. Sprague, T. Stockwell, R. Turner, E. Venter, M. Wang, M. Wen, D. Wu, M. Wu, A. Xia, A. Zandieh, X. Zhu, The sequence of the human genome. Science 291, 1304-1351 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text] J.-M. Claverie, What if there are only 30,000 human genes? Science 291, 1255-1257 (2001). [Full Text] A. Courseaux, J.-L. Nahon, Birth of two chimeric genes in the Hominidae lineage. Science 291, 1293-1297 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. D. Wood, M. Mitchell, J. Sgouros, T Lindahl, Human DNA repair genes. Science 291, 1284-1289 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text] L. Aravind, V. M. Dixit, E. V. Koonin, Apoptotic molecular machinery: Vastly increased complexity in vertebrates revealed by genome comparisons. Science 291, 1279-1284 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text] H. Caron, B. van Schaik, M. van der Mee, F. Baas, G. Riggins, P. van Sluis, M.-C. Hermus, R. van Asperen, K. Boon, P. A. Voûte, S. Heisterkamp, A. van Kampen, R. Versteeg, The human transcriptome map: Clustering of highly expressed genes in chromosomal domains. Science 291, 1289-1292 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) oversees the United States' energy-related affairs. The department prepares an annual budget by evaluating its fiscal position: the amount of federal funds it received each of the last three to five years, its expenditures' relationship to these appropriations, and the factors causing its financial situation. Then, since the recent sequestration reduced departments' federal appropriations, the DOE must critically prioritize its most effective programs and amend or terminate others. This paper's format follows this budgeting process and analyzes four policies' costs and benefits. The findings suggest the department recommend that Congress retain or reinstate enhanced loan guarantee programs, strengthen and reestablish the advanced energy manufacturing tax credit, maintain and fortify the renewable energy production tax credit, and eliminate the three to eight costliest fossil fuel tax expenditures for companies whose revenues surpass a defined threshold.


Although consent determinations play a key role in native title law, little scholarly attention has been given to their operation. This article synthesises judicial commentary in this area to argue that claimed differences between judges as to the circumstances in which it will be 'appropriate' to give effect to a consent determination reached between the parties are more apparent than real. Nevertheless, and for the avoidance of confusion, this article propounds a new model for the 'appropriateness' test in sections 87 and 87A of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), based upon key values drawn from the Federal Court's collective jurisprudence. Demonstrating the importance of this model, the article then considers the practical uncertainty arising from the use of 'generic extinguishment clauses' in response to the difficulties posed by tenure analysis. Cautioning that the use of such clauses may prove counterproductive, this article encourages negotiating parties to adopt current tenure analysis.


In this article, I draw on ethnography in the particular zone of engagement between anthropologists, on the one hand, and human rights lawyers who are skeptical of the human rights regime, on the other hand. I argue that many problems anthropologists encounter with the appropriation and marginalization of anthropology's analytical tools can be understood in terms of the legal character of human rights. In particular, discursive engagement between anthropology and human rights is animated by the pervasive instrumentalism of legal knowledge. I contend that both anthropologists who seek to describe the culture of human rights and critical lawyers who critically engage the human rights regime share a common problem - that of the iron cage of legal instrumentalism. I conclude that an ethnographic method reconfigured as a matter of what I term circling back - as opposed to cultural description - offers a respite from the hegemony of legal instrumentalism.


Background General practitioners (GPs) often refer patients to complementary and alternative medicine practitioners. One of the more popular yet controversial therapies for patients to request is homeopathy. Objectives To assess GP/primary care physician involvement with and attitudes towards homeopathy. Methods Seven electronic databases were searched to identify all relevant UK surveys of GPs/primary care physicians conducted between 1995 and 2013. Data extraction of all included trials was conducted by three independent reviewers. Results Thirteen surveys (from 15 articles) met the inclusion criteria. Less than 10% of GPs treated patients with homeopathy directly; referral rates ranged from 4-73%. Views on the effectiveness of homeopathy ranged from 29-48.7%, and opinions on whether it should be funded by the UK National Health Service ranged from 19-64%. Three surveys reported on GP professional training levels in homeopathy and two investigated GP knowledge of the evidence base of homeopathy. Conclusions Homeopathy is currently being utilised by the UK medical profession to a minor degree. Referral rates vary considerably nationally but, on average, are low. © 2013 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.


Reverse iontophoresis is a relatively new technique for non-invasive drug monitoring in the body. It involves a small electrical current being passed through the skin to facilitate the movement of small charged ions and polar molecules on the skin's surface where the amount of drug can then be measured and hence an accurate estimate of the blood concentration can be made. In vivo studies for several molecules show that initially large amounts of drug are extracted from the body, which are unrelated to the magnitude of the blood concentration; over time the fluxes of extraction decrease to a level proportional to the steady state blood concentration. This suggests that, at first, the drug is being extracted from some source other than the blood; one such candidate for this source is the dead cells which form the stratum corneum. In this paper, we construct two related mathematical models; the first describes the formation of the drug reservoir in the stratum corneum as a consequence of repeated drug intake and natural death of skin cells in the body. The output from this model provides initial conditions for the model of reverse iontophoresis in which charged ions from both the blood and the stratum corneum reservoir compete for the electric current. Model parameters are estimated from data collected for lithium monitoring. Our models will improve interpretation of reverse iontophoretic data by discriminating the subdermal from the skin contribution to the fluxes of extraction. They also suggest that analysis of the skin reservoir might be a valuable tool to investigate patients' exposure to chemicals including therapeutic drugs.


Bunchgrasses are one of the most important plant functional groups in grassland ecosystems. Reproductive allocation (RA) for a bunchgrass is a hierarchical process; however, how bunchgrasses adjust their RAs along hierarchical levels in response to nutrient addition has never been addressed. Here, utilizing an 11-year nutrient addition experiment, we examined the patterns and variations in RA of Agropyron cristatum at the individual, tiller and spike levels. We evaluated the reproductive allometric relationship at each level by type II regression analysis to determine size-dependent and size-independent effects on plant RA variations. Our results indicate that the proportion of reproductive individuals in A. cristatum increased significantly after 11 years of nutrient addition. Adjustments in RA in A. cristatum were mainly occurred at the individual and tiller levels but not at the spike level. A size-dependent effect was a dominant mechanism underlying the changes in plant RA at both individual and tiller levels. Likewise, the distribution of plant size was markedly changed with large individuals increasing after nutrient addition. Tiller-level RA may be a limiting factor for the adjustment of RA in A. cristatum. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine plant responses in terms of reproductive allocation and allometry to nutrient enrichment within a bunchgrass population from a hierarchical view. Our findings have important implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying bunchgrass responses in RA to future eutrophication due to human activities. In addition, we developed a hierarchical analysis method for disentangling the mechanisms that lead to variation in RA for perennial bunchgrasses.


Kaijanaho, Antti-Juhani The extent of empirical evidence that could inform evidence-based design of programming languages. A systematic mapping study. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2014, 243 p. (Jyväskylä Licentiate Theses in Computing, ISSN 1795-9713; 18) ISBN 978-951-39-5790-2 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-5791-9 (PDF) Finnish summary Background: Programming language design is not usually informed by empirical studies. In other fields similar problems have inspired an evidence-based paradigm of practice. Central to it are secondary studies summarizing and consolidating the research literature. Aims: This systematic mapping study looks for empirical research that could inform evidence-based design of programming languages. Method: Manual and keyword-based searches were performed, as was a single round of snowballing. There were 2056 potentially relevant publications, of which 180 were selected for inclusion, because they reported empirical evidence on the efficacy of potential design decisions and were published on or before 2012. A thematic synthesis was created. Results: Included studies span four decades, but activity has been sparse until the last five years or so. The form of conditional statements and loops, as well as the choice between static and dynamic typing have all been studied empirically for efficacy in at least five studies each. Error proneness, programming comprehension, and human effort are the most common forms of efficacy studied. Experimenting with programmer participants is the most popular method. Conclusions: There clearly are language design decisions for which empirical evidence regarding efficacy exists; they may be of some use to language designers, and several of them may be ripe for systematic reviewing. There is concern that the lack of interest generated by studies in this topic area until the recent surge of activity may indicate serious issues in their research approach.


The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explain the development of preservice agriculture teachers' PCK for the concept of plant fertilizers within a content-focused methods course. The emergent central phenomenon was an overall lack of PCK development for plant fertilizers, highlighted by five main themes that impeded the development. Preservice teachers felt less selfefficacious in horticulture content knowledge and possessed a greater desire for horticulture content knowledge over pedagogical knowledge. Additionally, the preservice teachers exhibited development of horticulture content knowledge and mathematics content knowledge through the unit. Finally, the lack of a content knowledge foundation inhibited the development of PCK in preservice teachers, despite the purpose of the course and vision of the instructor. Recommendations include more purposeful integration of PCK at the preservice level, utilization of tools like the CoRe rubric (Loughran, Mulhall, & Berry, 2004) during lesson planning, increased field experience imbedded in the teacher preparation program, and a more careful examination of the preservice teachers' pre-existing content knowledge base prior to enrollment in the contentfocused methods course.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the feasibility and diagnostic reliability of asynchronous telepsychiatry (ATP) consultations in Spanish and ATP consultation with Spanish-to-English translation.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Twenty-four interviews of Spanish-speaking patients were videorecorded by a bilingual clinician who also collected patient history data and gave the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) to each patient. The ATP data (video of the interview and patient history) were forwarded for psychiatric consultation and a diagnostic assessment by the investigators. The ATP data were then examined separately by two Spanish-speaking psychiatrists, before being translated into English and then re-examined by two English-speaking psychiatrists. Agreement between the expert diagnoses of the investigators and the diagnoses from the Spanish consultations, the Spanish-to-English translated consultations, and the SCID-I results was assessed using kappa statistics.

RESULTS
We found acceptable levels of agreement for major diagnostic groupings among the Spanish- and English-speaking psychiatrists. Kappa values for diagnostic agreement between the expert and the translated consultations, the original language consultations, and the SCID-I were at least 0.52 (percentage agreement, 79%) and higher.

CONCLUSIONS
ATP consultations in Spanish, and those translated from Spanish to English, are feasible, and broad diagnostic reliability was achieved. The ATP process allows for rapid language translation. This approach could be useful across national boundaries and in numerous ethnic groups. Cross-language ATP may also offer significant benefits over the use of real-time interpreting services and has the potential to improve the quality of care by allowing for the addition of culturally relevant information.


Background: Placental malaria(PM) is a serious public health concern especially in endemic areas among primigravidae. This form of malaria does not just affect the woman but the foetus. It has been identified as the leading cause of complications and high morbidity during delivery in the tropics. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving 181 randomly selected pregnant women at the point of delivery. Placental samples were collected from a healthy pericentic area, fixed in 10% neutral buffered formal saline, processed into paraffin wax and 5µm thin sections stained by Haematoxylin & Eosin(H&E) and Giemsa's method and then viewed microscopically. A standard questionnaire was also administered at the point of delivery and analysed. Other information collected at point of delivery include vital status at birth, birth weight, sex, malformation(if any) and placental weight. Results: Placental malaria was recorded in 30(16.6%) of the subjects, while only 13.3% of those with PM had babies with low birthweight. 97.8% of the women were on prophylactic drugs and about the same percentage attend Antenatal care(ANC). Conclusion: Our study shows that if pregnant women attend ANC and are placed on prophylactic drugs, placental malaria may not lead to low birthweight and other complications associated with the infection.


We propose a time-adaptive sampling method and demonstrate a sampling-time-adaptive single-photon compressive imaging system. In order to achieve self-adapting adjustment of sampling time, the theory of threshold of light intensity estimation accuracy is deduced. According to this threshold, a sampling control module, based on field-programmable gate array, is developed. Finally, the advantage of the time-adaptive sampling method is proved experimentally. Imaging performance experiments show that the time-adaptive sampling method can automatically adjust the sampling time for the change of light intensity of image object to obtain an image with better quality and avoid speculative selection of sampling time.


The archives of the Anthropocene: Wildlife mockumentary and decolonisation of natureThe present article is set in the context of the discussion about the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch of Earth and the period of human dominance over nature. This debate is focused mainly on the relationships between scientific discoveries and politics. However, critics of the Anthropocene have pointed out the era of unprecedented exploitation of natural resources is accompanied by such forms of representing nature in scholarly discourse and popular culture which sanction the human dominance on Earth. In this context the text concentrates on wildlife documentary as one of the typical representational forms of the Anthropocene. However, the main thematic focus is on critical and parodic representations of documentary discourse, gathered under umbrella term 'mockumentary'. Such parodic elements can be identified already in a canonical mockumentary The Falls dir. P. Greenaway, 1980, which subversively quotes the methods of archiving natural anomalies after an ecological catastrophe. However, the latter part of the article is devoted to those films which manifestly depart from anthropocentric perspective. Their critical potential results from the dismantling of traditional conventions of representing nature, in order to introduce other, non-human points of view. In this context the text offers a comparative analysis of two thematically and formally linked mockumentaries Farce of the Penguins and Surf's Up, both 2007 which refer to a renowned French wildlife documentary March of the Penguins 2005. The comparison demonstrates the possible scope of the critique of the Anthropocene in popular culture.


The study provides a baseline of the performance of Community-based Ecotourism (CBET) ventures in Eswatini using primary data collected from 186 participants. The data was collected through face-to-face interviews amongst across five CBET sites. Descriptive and thematic analysis were used to identify; the benefits of CBET accrued to host communities, challenges communities experience in providing goods and services to CBET ventures, and the factors preventing broad based participation. Frequencies of responses were used to determine the perceptions and attitudes of host communities towards CBET. The study finds that many of the promises of CBET have not been fully met in Eswatini. Economic benefits have not been widespread and remain minimal, with approximately 42 jobs in total. Participants receive an average monthly income of E1457.40 ± 933.80, an indication of high disparities in monetary incentives amongst participants. The study finds that CBET has been a catalyst for infrastructural development within rural landscapes and provides participants with additional intangible benefits such as a sense of empowerment and belonging. Poor infrastructural maintenance, inadequate marketing and declining tourist visitations are major threats to the sustainability of CBET ventures. Efforts to augment the performance of CBET in Eswatini should focus on investment in research and monitoring of present and potential new CBET ventures. The study recommends integrated and inclusive policies that will promote and allow for expanded local production in the tourism supply chain, partnerships between host communities and industry experts, and local capacity enhancement to reignite CBET within the tourism sector as a serious contender for economic growth.


Fires have influenced atmospheric composition and climate since the rise of vascular plants, and satellite data have shown the overall global extent of fires. Our knowledge of historic fire emissions has progressively improved over the past decades due mostly to the development of new proxies and the improvement of fire models. Currently, there is a suite of proxies including sedimentary charcoal records, measurements of fire-emitted trace gases and black carbon stored in ice and firn, and visibility observations. These proxies provide opportunities to extrapolate emission estimates back in time based on satellite data starting in 1997, but each proxy has strengths and weaknesses regarding, for example, the spatial and temporal extents over which they are representative. We developed a new historic biomass burning emissions dataset starting in 1750 that merges the satellite record with several existing proxies and uses the average of six models from the Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP) protocol to estimate emissions when the available proxies had limited coverage. According to our approach, global biomass burning emissions were relatively constant, with 10-year averages varying between 1.8 and 2.3 PgC yr-1. Carbon emissions increased only slightly over the full time period and peaked during the 1990s after which they decreased gradually. There is substantial uncertainty in these estimates, and patterns varied depending on choices regarding data representation, especially on regional scales. The observed pattern in fire carbon emissions is for a large part driven by African fires, which accounted for 58% of global fire carbon emissions. African fire emissions declined since about 1950 due to conversion of savanna to cropland, and this decrease is partially compensated for by increasing emissions in deforestation zones of South America and Asia. These global fire emission estimates are mostly suited for global analyses and will be used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations.


This collection of 17 training plans from world-class cycling coach Gale Bernhardt is sure to prepare cycling enthusiasts and first-time riders alike for their biggest and best rides. Anyone looking to participate in a charity ride, multi-day tour, or team cycling event can count on "Training Plans for Cyclists" to help reach their goal. Detailed training plans work toward goals and events that range from 30 to 100 miles for road and mountain bike cyclists. Adventuresome cyclists can get fit for tours, from 3 days of 25 miles each to a week of 80-mile days. Off-road cyclists will find the preparation they need for epic weekend trail rides and mountain bike races. With chapters devoted to the basics of fitness, nutrition, stretching, and strengthening, this book is an essential guide for anyone who participates in cycling events or wants to break out of weekend-warrior status with a balanced training plan. Whatever the cyclist's agenda, "Training Plans for Cyclists" has a straightforward, sensible plan that promises to deliver more rewarding rides. This is a paperback with tables and charts throughout.


Drowning is a leading cause of death among children in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia, but current data greatly underestimate mortality due to drowning. This is due to the way drowning data is collected, classified and reported as well as the difficulty in correcting and adjusting the data. The sum of all the biases and uncertainties has masked the fact that drowning is a leading cause of child death in LMICs in Asia. Cost-effective, affordable and sustainable interventions appropriate for LMICs are available to address this newly recognized and significant killer of children. Large numbers of these deaths could be prevented annually if these drowning interventions were included in current country programmes. When implemented at national scale and as an integral part of country programmes, the prevention of these drowning deaths, which mostly occur in early childhood, would result in a rapid decrease in early childhood mortality and contribute to meeting Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4). In older children, where drowning is a leading cause of death before adolescence, it would allow a larger proportion of children to reach adulthood.


Enhanced sensation of reality from multimedia contents can be achieved by creating realistic multimedia environments, using visual, auditory, and olfactory information. Although the affective information from video and audio has been extensively studied, the olfactory sense has received less attention. A way to assess human experience from audio, video or odors, is by investigating physiological signals. In this study, 23 subjects experienced pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral odors while their electroencephalogram (EEG), and electrocardiogram (ECG) were recorded. Two independent three-class classifiers were trained and tested, using EEG or ECG features. The results reveal a significant increase in the classification performance when EEG features were used (Cohen's kappa k = 0.44 ± 0.14; p <; 0.001). The results also indicate that it is possible to automatically classify the perception of unpleasant odors using EEG signals, but the classification performance decreases significantly when classifying between pleasant and neutral odors. Among the EEG features, the Wasserstein distance metric estimated between trial and baseline power achieved the highest classification performance. Features from ECG signals did not result in a significantly non-random performance.


In China, unlike in Western cinema, documentary film, rather than fiction film, has been the dominant mode since 1949. In recent years, documentary TV programmes have experienced a meteoric rise. Arguing that there is a gradual process of 'democratization' in the media, in which documentaries play a significant role, this book discusses various types of Chinese documentaries, under both the planned and the market economy. It especially explores the relationship between documentaries and society, showing how, under the market economy, although the government continues to use the genre as propaganda to promote its ideologies and policies, documentaries are being used as a medium where public concerns and alternative voices can be heard.