Time domain reflectometry (TDR) has become one of the standard methods for the measurement of the temporal and spatial distribution of water saturation in soils. Current waveform analysis methodology gives a measurement of the average water content along the length of the TDR probe. Close inspection of TDR waveforms shows that heterogeneity in water content along the probe can be seen in the TDR waveform. We present a comprehensive approach to TDR waveform analysis that gives a quantitative estimate of the dielectric permittivity profile along the length of the probe and, therefore, the distribution of water content. The approach is based on the combination of a multisection scatter function model for the TDR measurement system with the shuffled complex evolution Metropolis algorithm (SCEM‐UA). This combined approach allows for the estimation of the 40 parameters in the transmission line model using a series of simple calibration measurements. The proof of concept is given with measurements in a layered system consisting of air and water. Finally, TDR waveforms from layered soil samples were analyzed to estimate the distribution of the water content along the length of the probe. Results show that the proposed method provides much more reproducible results than obtained with the traditional travel time method. Because the proposed method can be fully automated, it increases the applicability of the TDR method, especially in applications where detailed (real‐time) data are required on heterogeneous infiltration.


- Novel ideas are the key ingredients for innovation processes, and Idea Management System (IMS) plays a prominent role in managing captured ideas from external stakeholders and internal actors within an Open Innovation process. By considering a specific case study, Lecce-Italy, we have designed and implemented a collaborative environment, which provides an ideal platform for government, citizens, etc. to share ideas and co-create the value of innovative public services in Lecce. In this study the application of IMS with six main steps, including: idea generation, idea improvement, idea selection, refinement, idea implementation, and monitoring, shows that this, remarkably, helps service providers to exploit the intellectual capital and initiatives of the regional stakeholders and citizens and assist service providers to stay in line with the needs of society. Moreover, we have developed two support tools to foster collaboration and transparency: sentiment analysis tool and gasification application.


In this paper we present a model for coalition formation and payoff distribution in general environments. We focus on a reduced complexity kernel-oriented coalition formation model, and provide a detailed algorithm for the activity of the single rational agent. The model is partitioned into a social level and a strategic level, to distinguish between regulations that must be agreed upon and are forced by agent-designers, and strategies by which each agent acts at will. In addition, we present an implementation of the model and simulation results. From these we conclude that implementing the model for coalition formation among agents increases the benefits of the agents with reasonable time consumption. It also shows that more coalition formations yield more benefits to the agents.


Abstract A critical debate in the race to develop, market, and distribute COVID-19 vaccines could define the future of this pandemic: How much evidence demonstrating a vaccine's safety and efficacy should be required before it is considered "essential"? If a COVID-19 vaccine were to be designated an essential medicine by the World Health Organization, this would invoke special "core" human rights duties for governments to provide the vaccine as a matter of priority irrespective of resource constraints. States would also have duties to make the vaccine available in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms, with assured quality and adequate information, and at an affordable price. This question is especially critical and unique given that COVID-19 vaccines have in many cases been authorized for use via national emergency use authorization processes—mechanisms that enable the public to gain access to promising medical products before they have received full regulatory approval and licensure. In this paper, we examine whether unlicensed COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use should ever be considered essential medicines, thereby placing prioritized obligations on countries regarding their accessibility and affordability.


We study heterogeneity among nodes in self-organizing smart camera networks, which use strategies based on social and economic knowledge to target communication activity efficiently. We compare homogeneous configurations, when cameras use the same strategy, with heterogeneous configurations, when cameras use different strategies. Our first contribution is to establish that static heterogeneity leads to new outcomes that are more efficient than those possible with homogeneity. Next, two forms of dynamic heterogeneity are investigated: nonadaptive mixed strategies and adaptive strategies, which learn online. Our second contribution is to show that mixed strategies offer Pareto efficiency consistently comparable with the most efficient static heterogeneous configurations. Since the particular configuration required for high Pareto efficiency in a scenario will not be known in advance, our third contribution is to show how decentralized online learning can lead to more efficient outcomes than the homogeneous case. In some cases, outcomes from online learning were more efficient than all other evaluated configuration types. Our fourth contribution is to show that online learning typically leads to outcomes more evenly spread over the objective space. Our results provide insight into the relationship between static, dynamic, and adaptive heterogeneity, suggesting that all have a key role in achieving efficient self-organization.


This paper proposes a sender-driven peer selection scheme, including estimation of packet loss propagation, evaluation of peers' contributions, and peer selection based on child-peers' contributions, for mesh-based peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming systems. The proposed packet loss propagation model takes into account the link packet drop rate, peer dynamics, and forward error correction protection to capture the heterogeneous packet loss behavior of individual substreams transmitted over a mesh network. The evaluation of candidate peers' contributions is modeled through Markov random fields to significantly reduce complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that our peer selection scheme significantly mitigates packet loss in a mesh-based P2P network, compared to other state-of-the-art schemes.


Internationally mandatory rules are rules relating to public policy which should be applied directly to certain international situations, regardless of the applicable law designated by the conflict of laws. For the first time in the history of Chinese private international law, the PRC passed the Act of the PRC on Application of Law to Foreign-Related Civil Relations, which defines the direct application of the internationally mandatory rules in Article 4. First, this essay introduces the basic legislation regarding the internationally mandatory rules of the PRC. Second, this article provides criteria to define internationally mandatory rules. Third, this essay explores the specific contract fields of the internationally mandatory rules in the judicial practice of the PRC. Finally, this article analyses how the Chinese internationally mandatory rules were extraterritorially recognized by the courts of the State of New York of the United States and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.


By 2000, over one-third of Silicon Valley's high-skilled workers were foreign-born, and overwhelmingly from Asia. These US-educated engineers are transforming developmental opportunities for formerly peripheral regions as they build professional and business connections to their home countries. In a process more akin to 'brain circulation' than 'brain drain', these engineers and entrepreneurs, aided by the lowered transaction costs associated with digitization, are transferring technical and institutional know-how between distant regional economies faster and more flexibly than most large corporations. This paper examines how Chinese- and Indian-born engineers are contributing to highly localized processes of entrepreneurial experimentation in their home countries, while maintain close ties to the technology and markets in Silicon Valley.


The purpose of this research is to compare modern American socioeconomic mythos to the real concrete situation in a fully neoliberalized society and economy. In particular this article examines the largely unquestioned presumptions that have become internalized and repeated by economists, politicians, journalists, and the average American. This is done through a survey of income, taxation, and social data, obtained through several large government and public databases, and one anecdotal example which consumes American socioeconomic nostalgic thought. Additionally, this article seeks to step outside the normal bounds of the overly sanitized language which has dominated academia since the 1970's, by using rhetorical moral and ethical questions to increase the vast chasm between reality and myth. This article uncovers and elaborates upon several points which have become 'common-sense' but have led to counter-intuitive limit-situations, given the internalized logic of American mythos.


Independent learning and critical thinking are perhaps equally blessed and cursed in the academe. As management academics we strive to foster these capabilities in our students, particularly our undergraduates, and we are often frustrated by our lack of success or impact. The thesis of this paper is that information literacy frameworks provide a 'way in' to constructing engaging, independent learning journeys as summative and formative assessment tasks. A model for doing this is proposed using the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework. A case study is then provided of how this approach was applied in an Operations Management subject at The Queensland University of Technology, Australia, in a partnership involving academics and library staff. Far from being merely about library skills, the conclusion of the paper is that information literacy offers a rich platform for fostering independent learning and critical thinking that has for too long been ignored or undervalued.


Creative exploration of realistic 3D facial animation is a popular but very challenging task due to the high level knowledge and skills required. This forms a barrier for creative individuals who have limited technical skills but wish to explore their creativity in this area. This paper proposes a new technique that facilitates users' creative exploration by hiding the technical complexities of producing facial expressions and animation. The proposed technique draws on research from psychology, anatomy and employs Autodesk Maya as a use case by developing a creative tool, which extends Maya's Blend Shape Editor. User testing revealed that novice users in the creative media, employing the proposed tool can produce rich and realistic facial expressions that portray new interesting emotions. It reduced production time by 25% when compared to Maya and by 40% when compared to 3DS Max equivalent tools.


The focus on digital data for improved management and quality of healthcare is paramount. In particular, the vast volumes of accumulated data in clinical systems have created high hopes for repurposing data to serve secondary purposes beyond the practices of direct clinical care, such as research, improvement and efficiency. This article contributes with an understanding of the pivotal, but often unnoticed "data-work" involved in such efforts. The article is based on a regional project in Danish healthcare, in which nine hospital departments were given the task of developing new indicators for quality to substitute the previous accountability regime based on Diagnosis-Related Groups. Using the concept of "friction," we analyze the challenges of turning clinical ideas into data-supported indicators and of collecting data from existing repositories. Especially, we turn attention to the interaction between clinicians and it-personnel to focus on the interdisciplinary and collaborative aspects of this work.


Nowadays industry has been experiencing a dramatic data growth. Not only this data has to be processed properly, but also it must be stored somewhere with smart strategy to be able to write and read with highest possible speed. Over the past decades, vendors have been motivated to migrate their brown-field database solutions to a distributed version through Partitioning/Sharding concepts. (In)appropriate shard keys have a great impact on the future performance of the whole application. The improper choices may cause SLA violation for enterprises and end up with business failure. In the first chapter, we introduce various approaches of data partitioning along with challenges that you may face. The second chapter explores the Sharding strategy utilised by two famous vendors. And, lastly we propose an automatic approach for detection of efficient Sharding Scheme and Sharding keys with a learning process on existing query logs of a database.


In the presence or absence of its regulatory factor, the monomeric glutamyl-tRNA synthetase from Bacillus subtilis can aminoacylate in vitro with glutamate both tRNAGlu and tRNAGln from B. subtilis and tRNAGln1 but not tRNAGln2 or tRNAGlu from Escherichia coli. The Km and Vmax values of the enzyme for its substrates in these homologous or heterologous aminoacylation reactions are very similar. This enzyme is the only aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase reported to aminoacylate with normal kinetic parameters two tRNA species coding for different amino acids and to misacylate at a high rate a heterologous tRNA under normal aminoacylation conditions. The exceptional lack of specificity of this enzyme for its tRNAGlu and tRNAGln substrates, together with structural and catalytic peculiarities shared with the E. coli glutamyl- and glutaminyl-tRNA synthetases, suggests the existence of a close evolutionary linkage between the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases specific for glutamate and those specific for glutamine. A comparison of the primary structures of the three tRNAs efficiently charged by the B. subtilis glutamyl-tRNA synthetase with those of E. coli tRNAGlu and tRNAGln2 suggests that this enzyme interacts with the G64-C50 or G64-U50 in the T psi stem of its tRNA substrates.


Rough terrain robotics is a new emerging research field that has stimulated a high number of works during recent years with the aim to provide more autonomy for outdoor vehicles. The talk will discuss the critical role of design and control in the development of autonomous off-road mobile robot. We will focus on articulated wheeled structure and particularly hybrid wheeled-legged locomotion, and show how they can be useful for autonomous outdoor applications, because articulated wheeled rovers offers both advantages of wheels and legs i.e. velocity for the first and obstacles crossing for the second. Their legs kinematics and compliance will be optimized for ensuring both reactive obstacle crossing and postural balance. High-level control will be also addressed by presenting recent advances in path planning and motion generation for mobile robots navigating autonomously over rough terrain. The main issue here is how we can obtain efficient prediction of rover stability and mobility for on-line path and motion planning.


This paper describes the initiatives to defend the environment and reduce pollution in Chimbote. This important industrial fishing port is considered the third most contaminated city in Peru due to the lack of urban environmental planning and regulation, and of any genuine leadership from local government. The paper includes an account of the work of the Association for the Defense and Conservation of the Environment of the Province of La Santa (ADECOMAPS), which started as an ecological movement for the protection and conservation of an important park. It then developed an environmental action plan (or Local Agenda 21) for Chimbote. The Association brings together 42 different institutions, including grassroots organizations, NGOs, universities, professional training institutions, politicians and government bodies. The paper also describes the reluctance of the provincial mayor to work with the Association.


Semicrystalline ionomers are an important class of polymers that are utilized in a wide range of applications. The particular end-use applications of these materials are determined by their chemical, physical, and thermomechanical properties which are directly related to their crystallization behavior. It is therefore critical to identify structure-property relationships for these materials. Sulfonated syndiotactic polystyrene (SsPS) is used as a model semicrystalline ionomer and two approaches are utilized to control the rate of crystallization of the SsPS ionomer in the presence of ionic aggregates. The first approach investigates the effect of the incorporation of nanoscale particles, montmorillonite clay, on the crystallization behavior of SsPS. The morphology of the ionomer clay hybrids were studies via TEM and WAXD while the crystallization behavior of SsPS in the presence of the clay was evaluated using DSC. It was found that the SsPS matrix containing 5 wt.% organically-modified clay crystallized more rapidly than the sPS homopolymer containing the same clay content. This behavior is attributed to the presence of homogenously dispersed nanoscale clay platelets that act as nucleation sites distributed throughout the ionomer matrix. The second approach that employed involved the manipulation of SsPS ionomer architecture via a controlled placement of the ionic sulfonate groups along the polymer backbone. A postpolymerization sulfonation technique was developed to place the sulfonate iii groups along the homopolymer backbone in a non-random fashion leading to a pseudoblock ionomer architecture. The crystallization behavior of the non-randomly sulfonated SsPS ionomer is compared to randomly sulfonated SsPS using differential scanning calorimetry. The morphologies of the two ionomers were studied using SALLS and SAXS. We have found that the non-randomly sulfonated SsPS ionomer crystallizes much more rapidly than the randomly sulfonated ionomer. The more rapid crystallization behavior of the non-random ionomer to the presence of longer sequences of unsulfonated homopolymer that are able to readily organize into crystalline structures than the random SsPS ionomer containing the same ionic content.


During recent years, concerns over the effects of poor indoor air quality (IAQ) have been increased and wide spectrums of symptoms/illnesses are related to indoor air pollution in many urban centers of the world. In India, it is estimated that about half a million women and children die per year due to indoor air pollution. Therefore, maintaining an acceptable IAQ is important in places such as schools, corporate office buildings, hospitals and houses. It is hypothesized that the higher indoor pollutant concentrations of the buildings located near busy traffic roads are mostly influenced by elevated outdoor vehicular pollutant concentrations. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze the indoor air quality of a naturally ventilated school building, Kendriya Vidyalaya, located in the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), Chennai, India. This building is located close to an urban road with heavy traffic flow, within a range of 100 m from the busy traffic junction. The indoor pollutants, namely carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), along with meteorological parameters such as temperature and relative humidity, have been measured inside the school building. The vehicular pollutant CO has also been measured at the road side to develop the indoor and outdoor CO relationship. Further, a questionnaire survey has also been conducted to evaluate the general environmental conditions (sick building syndrome) of the school building. The result indicated that hourly the CO2 concentration inside the school room is 927 ppm during morning working hours (10.00a.m). This concentration is close to standard value of 1000 ppm specified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), USA. The measured CO concentrations inside the school building are well within the standard. During www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 136, © 2010 WIT Press Air Pollution XVIII 275 doi:10.2495/AIR100241 peak hour traffic flow on the adjacent road, a high level CO concentration has been observed inside the school building. The questionnaire survey at school shows that nearly 50% of students are suffering from minor health problems.


Integrating information about the spatial distribution of carbon stocks and species diversity in tropical forests over large areas is fundamental for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. In this study, spatial models showing the distribution of carbon stocks and the number of species were produced in order to identify areas that maximize carbon storage and biodiversity in the tropical forests of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. We mapped carbon density and species richness of trees using L-band radar backscatter data as well as radar texture metrics, climatic and field data with the random forest regression algorithm. We reduced sources of errors in plot data of the national forest inventory by using correction factors to account for carbon stocks of small trees (<7.5 cm DBH) and for the temporal difference between field data collection and imagery acquisition. We created bivariate maps to assess the spatial relationship between carbon stocks and diversity. Model validation of the regional maps obtained herein using an independent data set of plots resulted in a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.28 and 0.31 and a relative mean square error of 38.5% and 33.0% for aboveground biomass and species richness, respectively, at pixel level. Estimates of carbon density were influenced mostly by radar backscatter and climatic data, while those of species richness were influenced mostly by radar texture and climatic variables. Correlation between carbon density and species richness was positive in 79.3% of the peninsula, while bivariate maps showed that 39.6% of the area in the peninsula had high carbon stocks and species richness. Our results highlight the importance of combining carbon and diversity maps to identify areas that are critical—both for maintaining carbon stocks and for conserving biodiversity.


This article gives an overview of the diverse range of teaching applications that can be realized using an interactive lattice Boltzmann simulation tool in fluid mechanics instruction and outreach. In an inquiry-based learning framework, examples are given of learning scenarios that address instruction on scientific results, scientific methods or the scientific process at varying levels of student activity, from consuming to applying to researching. Interactive live demonstrations on portable hardware enable new and innovative teaching concepts for fluid mechanics, also for large audiences and in the early stages of the university education. Moreover, selected examples successfully demonstrate that the integration of high-fidelity CFD methods into fluid mechanics teaching facilitates high-quality student research work within reach of the current state of the art in the respective field of research.


Conformationally flexible triacids H3tcpb and H3btab having ether and amine linkages, respectively, have been studied to examine the molecular and supramolecular similarities in their crystal structures and also in those of cocrystals and salts with bispyridyl molecules. Both the acids exhibited unsymmetrical but almost identical geometries in all the crystal structures studied here. In their crystal structures these molecules were found to exhibit one-dimensional isostructurality via acid–acid homo synthons. 1D-chains of H3tcpb and H3btab molecules assembled further via C–H⋯O and N–H⋯O hydrogen bonds, respectively, to form 2D-layers. The acid H3tcpb showed a lesser tendency to form single crystals of complexes (three) with bispyridyl molecules compared to H3btab (five). In all the complexes, acid–pyridine heterosynthons were found to play an important role in assembling the molecules. However, the homosynthon-I was observed in four out of eight complexes studied here and all from amine linked triacids (H3btab). Furthermore, the complexes of H3tcpb exhibited red shifted luminescence, whereas those of H3btab exhibited a blue shift (λex. = 330 nm) with respect to parent acids.


An untethered VR system with force feedback based on the use of air pressure gives the user the feeling of touching an object. The result is an untethered human interface that's easy to use in everyday life. The system uses a projection-based stereo display and optical position tracking. The user employs red and blue 3D glasses and a lightweight paddle. This article is available with a short video documentary on CD-ROM.


This article argues that naming can reveal personal ideologies, family connections, social interactions and changes in the concerns of the inhabitants of Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ethnic and religious differences are indicated by the differing naming practices used by the Gaelic Irish, Old English and New English, Scots and Welsh inhabitants of Ireland. Much can be divined about the symbolism underlying naming practice when the names given to children are compared with those of their parents, godparents, family members and other significant individuals. The associated importance of nicknames and by-names, wordplay about names, and the circumstances under which people might change their names are also considered.


Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide. The most commonly stated goal following stroke is to regain the ability to walk independently, resulting in a large amount of rehabilitation time focussed on gait retraining. Identification of key variables that relate to and affect gait function is important in order to understand the factors associated with impaired gait and to guide future intervention strategies. Reduced muscle strength has been proposed as a key contributor to physical limitations after stroke and is commonly assessed in clinical and research settings. The aim of this thesis was to examine the associations between lower limb isometric strength and gait following stroke. A systematic literature review was conducted for Study One in order to collate the results of previous research which reported on the correlations between muscle strength and gait velocity following stroke. The review identified 21 articles that had examined this association with varied results. The majority of the identified studies had a small sample size (n ≤ 30) and received low scores for methodological quality. The studies with a larger sample size and methodological quality revealed a trend which suggested the strength of the ankle dorsiflexors provides the strongest bivariate association with gait velocity. Due to the limitations of the included studies, further research is needed. Another important consideration of muscle function is not only the peak amount of force a muscle group can produce (muscle strength) but how quickly force can be produced (muscle power). The second study of this thesis examined the psychometric properties of a clinically accessible device, hand-held dynamometry, for assessment of isometric muscle strength and power. The results from Study Two showed that hand-held dynamometry demonstrated acceptable reliability across eight lower limb muscle groups for the assessment of isometric strength and power in a healthy and unimpaired cohort. Concurrent validity of hand-held dynamometry also demonstrated acceptable results for the majority of lower limb muscle groups when compared against a laboratory-based fixed dynamometer. The muscle groups of the ankle were found to have lower than expected validity, however this may be due to the ankle attachment used on the fixed dynamometer, which demonstrated larger measurement error. Nevertheless, hand-held dynamometry has shown promising results for assessment of strength and power for the muscles of the lower limb in a sample of adults without impairments. To expand on the results of the systematic review (Study One), Study Three provided a detailed analysis of the relationships between isometric strength and gait velocity following stroke, as well as examining a previously underutilised outcome measure in the stroke population, isometric muscle power. Study Three was undertaken to examine if isometric power provided additional value in the relationship with gait velocity over muscle strength and to determine which muscle group of the lower limb demonstrates the strongest relationship with gait velocity. Results revealed isometric strength provided significant additional value in the relationship with gait velocity over isometric power. Comparison of seven lower limb muscle groups revealed the strength of the ankle plantarflexors and hip flexors to explain the most variance in gait velocity. The final study of this thesis (Study Four) examined the relationship between isometric measures of strength and power, assessed with hand-held dynamometry, and joint power generation during gait following stroke. Ankle plantarflexor strength and power showed a significant relationship with peak ankle joint power generation during gait. Similar to Study Three, comparison between strength and power revealed ankle plantarflexor strength had a stronger relationship over ankle plantarflexor power. The program of research presented in this thesis found hand-held dynamometry provided psychometrically-sound measures of isometric strength and power. The relationship between hand-held dynamometry derived measures of strength and power with gait function revealed isometric strength provided additional value over isometric power. The strength of the ankle plantarflexors demonstrated a strong relationship with gait velocity and ankle power generation during gait. Future research may examine the ankle plantarflexors further to see if improved plantarflexor strength results in improved gait function following stroke. This thesis provides a substantial contribution to the knowledge in this field and may assist clinical decision making when considering gait function post-stroke as well as guiding future research in the design of intervention strategies aimed at improving gait.


We combine state-of-the-art techniques into a system for high-quality, interactive rendering of participating media. We leverage unbiased volume path tracing with multiple scattering, temporally stable neural denoising and NanoVDB [Museth 2021], a fast, sparse voxel tree data structure for the GPU, to explore what performance and image quality can be obtained for rendering volumetric data. Additionally, we integrate neural adaptive sampling to significantly improve image quality at a fixed sample budget. Our system runs at interactive rates at 1920 × 1080 on a single GPU and produces high quality results for complex dynamic volumes.


The study examines the effect of a narrative that featured an actor playing a counterattitudinal role. Participants read an online magazine interview with a popular comedian and then watched a sitcom in which this actor played a role that was either consistent or inconsistent with his personal views. Parasocial relationships with the actor moderated the effect of actor-character incongruence. Specifically, incongruence was associated with lower support for narrative-related attitudes, but only among viewers with weak parasocial relationships. These results provide evidence of the existence of vicarious cognitive dissonance, wherein witnessing another person's hypocritical behavior produces attitude change in the observer.


Mobile thin client computing is an enabler for the execution of demanding applications from mobile handhelds. In thin client computing, the application is executed on remote servers and the mobile handheld only has to display the graphical updates and send input from the user to the remote execution environment. To guarantee a high user experience in a mobile environment, a Service Management Framework is required to prevent users observing lower Quality of Experience due to changes in the available network, server and client resources. Therefore, the Service Management Framework monitors the environment and the Self Management component intervenes when necessary, e.g. by adapting the thin client protocol settings or moving a user session from one server to another. The design of the Self Management component is presented and the performance is evaluated.


Extensive international research points to an association between changed work arrangements, especially those commonly labelled as contingent work, with adverse occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes. Research also indicates these work arrangements have weakened or bypassed existing OHS and workers' compensation regulatory regimes. However, there has been little if any research into how OHS inspectors perceive these issues and how they address them during workplace visits or investigations. Between 2003 and 2007 research was undertaken that entailed detailed documentary and statistical analysis, extended interviews with 170 regulatory managers and inspectors, and observational data collected while accompanying inspectors on 118 'typical' workplace visits. Key findings are that inspectors responsible for a range of industries see altered work arrangements as a serious challenge, especially labour hire (agency work) and subcontracting. Though the law imposes clear obligations, inspectors identified misunderstanding/blameshifting and poor compliance amongst parties to these arrangements. The complexity of these work arrangements also posed logistical challenges to inspectorates.


Background—Epidemiological studies indicate a genetic contribution to ischemic stroke risk, but specific genetic variants remain unknown, with the exception of a few rare variants. Recent genome-wide association studies identified and replicated common genetic variants on chromosome 9p21 to confer risk of coronary heart disease. We examined whether these variants are associated with ischemic stroke. Methods and Results—We genotyped 6 common genetic variants on chromosome 9p21, previously associated with coronary artery disease in genome-wide association studies, in 2 population-based studies in southern Sweden, the Lund Stroke Register (n 1837 cases, 947 controls) and the Malmö Diet and Cancer study (MDC; n 888 cases, 893 controls). We examined association in each study and in the pooled dataset. Adjustments were made for cardiovascular risk factors and further for previous myocardial infarction in MDC. We found a modest increase in ischemic stroke risk for 2 common (minor allele frequencies 0.46 to 0.49) variants, rs2383207 (P 0.04 in Lund Stroke Register, P 0.01 in MDC) and rs10757274 (P 0.03 in Lund Stroke Register, P 0.03 in MDC), in each sample independently. The strength of the association increased when samples were pooled with an odds ratio of 1.15 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.25; P 0.002) for the strongest variant rs2383207. Results were similar after adjustment for clinical covariates. rs1333049 also showed significant association in MDC, which increased in the pooled sample (P 0.004). Conclusions—In this large sample (n 4565), we detected common genetic determinants for ischemic stroke on chromosome 9p21. Our findings indicate that ischemic stroke shares pathophysiological determinants with coronary heart disease and other arterial diseases and highlight the need for large sample sizes in stroke genetics. (Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2009;2:159-164.)


The fundamentals of an exchange economy, the preferences of individuals, can be identified from the competitive equilibrium correspondence, which associates equilibrium prices of commodities to allocations of endowments; the argument extends to production economies. The essential step is the identification of fundamentals from aggregate demand as a function of the prices of commodities and the distribution of income. The graph of the equilibrium correspondence or of the aggregate demand function satisfy non trivial restrictions. The identification of fundamentals allows for the prediction of the response of individuals and the economy to changes in the organization of production and exchange, while restrictions on the equilibrium correspondence or the aggregate demand function imply that general equilibrium theory has testable implications.


This volume of papers from the distinguished sociologist Anselm Strauss reflects his self-professed lifelong intention to create sociological awareness in his readers and students. As Irving Louis Horowitz notes in his foreword to the book, at the center of Strauss's effort has been the democratization of sociology. He has achieved this goal by making sure that relativities of status, power, and wealth are acknowledged in the conduct of everyday life, and by recognition that all collective life is subject to negotiation, rearrangement and reconstruction. Represented here is some of the work for which Strauss is best known, and the principal themes that have captured his imagination throughout his productive career. These include work, leisure, culture, illness, identity, and policy. All are linked by Strauss's "web of negotiation" by which organizational arrangements can be changed. The volume concludes with a selection of his work in problems of method, consultation, and teaching, affirming Strauss's commitment to passing along the sociological awareness reflected in this volume to a next generation. Squarely in the long tradition of the Chicago School of sociology, the work of Anselm Strauss represents the very best thinking in modem sociological and psychological analysis. Those interested in the development of his major conceptual frameworks, as well as those interested in the development of the specific subject areas to which Anselm Strauss has devoted his career will find this an essential volume. Professionals in the history of sociology, the sociology of knowledge, or medical sociology will find the book of particular interest.


This thesis presents a novel system for high resolution X-ray imaging in medical and industrial applications. Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is a standard technology used in most state of the art electronic systems including imagers. In addition, amorphous selenium (a-Se) is a photoconductor that is sensitive to a wide range of X-ray photon energies. Increasing the effective spatial resolution is one the primary goals of state of the art imaging systems. The objective of this thesis is to integrate the a-Se sensor and CMOS readout to make an ultra high resolution X-ray imager. Other features of the imager like noise, dynamic range, imaging speed, and fill factor are competitive with existing X-ray imaging systems. All of the signal reading circuitry is implemented on a custom CMOS chip and the a-Se sensor is deposited on top of it through post processing. This thesis also describe the design of external hardware and software needed to properly operate the imager. We demonstrate our imager with a 64 × 64 pixel array prototype containing 5.6 × 6.25 μm and 11.2× 6.25 μm pixel. Our results include characterization of the electronic and X-ray imaging performance of our system. We also show X-ray images with effective resolution down to 14 μm.


Although our physical abilities clearly decline as we age, cognitive decline in healthy old age is neither universal nor inevitable. In Nurturing the Older Brain, Pamela Greenwood and Raja Parasuraman show that scientific research does not support the popular notion of the inexorable and progressive effects of cognitive aging in all older adults. They report that many adults maintain a high level of cognitive function into old age and that certain experiential and lifestyle factors--including education, exercise, diet, and opportunities for new learning--contribute to the preservation of cognitive abilities. Many popular accounts draw similar conclusions and give similar lifestyle advice but lack supporting scientific evidence. Greenwood and Parasuraman offer a comprehensive review of research on cognitive and brain aging. They show that even the aged brain remains capable of plasticity -- the ability to adapt to and benefit from experience -- and they summarize evidence that brain plasticity is heightened by certain types of cognitive training, by aerobic exercise, and by certain diets. They also report on the somewhat controversial use of estrogen and cognition-enhancing drugs, on environmental adaptations (including "virtual assistants") that help older adults "age in place," and on genetic factors in cognitive aging. The past twenty years of research points to ways that older adults can lead rich and cognitively vital lives. As millions of baby boomers head toward old age, Greenwood and Parasuraman's accessible book could not be more timely.


Procedure Appropriateness Category Relative Radiation Level X-ray ankle Usually Appropriate ☢ Bone scan ankle Usually Not Appropriate ☢☢☢ US ankle Usually Not Appropriate O CT ankle without IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate ☢ CT ankle with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate ☢ CT ankle without and with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate ☢ MRI ankle without IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate O MRI ankle without and with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate O


From 1945 through 2004, the number of intercountry adoptions in the United States increased steadily as families increasingly considered ways to expand outside of biological relations. Initially, this phenomenon was linked to a more sentimentalized vision of childhood and the social chaos amid the aftermath of World War II. Although some postwar adoptees were of Japanese descent, most were of European descent and could be accepted as a "natural" part of the family. Two US organizations, the League for Orphan Victims in Europe (LOVE) and the American Joint Committee for Assisting Japanese-American Orphans, helped to create an infrastructure to address the needs of orphaned children, many of whom were fathered by US soldiers.Beginning in 1955, transracial adoptions began to take offas Korea, also recovering from the social chaos of war, placed more children for intercountry adoption than any other country. Despite these overwhelming trends, the last several years have seen the numbers of adoptions decline from a high of 22,991 in 2004 to only 11,058 in 2010.1 Also changed are the rationale for adoption, the countries sending children out for adoption, United Nations' and state legislation, and popular and scholarly understandings of adoption. Kristi Brian's compelling new book, Reframing Transracial Adoption: Adopted Koreans, White Parents, and the Politics of Kinship, focuses on "one form of transracial/transnational adoption-the adoption of Korean children by white American parents" (6). Known as Korean-American Adoption (KAA), this form of adoption has declined in numbers since the 1990s but has still resulted in 160,000 Korean children being placed in US families, most of whom are white. In interviews, Brian asks participants involved in the adoption process about how they navigate US understandings of race and kinship, and offers her reflections on the "formerly overshadowed and silenced participants" in this "quiet migration" (18).Over the last decade, scholars of intercountry adoption have analyzed adoption through post-colonial relationships, cultural identity, and understandings of race and power (e.g., Eng 2003, Volkman 2005, Dorow 2006, Kim 2010). Noting that "adoptive kin making in the United States must always contend with racialized social policies and legislation" (17), Brian utilizes a critical race feminist methodology that promises to probe the "micro level to better understand their dialectical relationship with social structures and hierarchies at the macro level" (16) and the ways in which "certain knowledge has been subjugated within adoption practices and discourse" (17). Brian lays bare the structural inequalities inherent in the transnational practice of KAA, including the "new racism of today...that preserves white supremacy in a mostly 'kinder and gentler' way" (175). Reframing Transracial Adoption ultimately argues that the "history of overseas adoption from Korea, which began with the lure of 1950s American prosperity, will hopefully come to a close through collaborative efforts to move beyond histories of denial, racialized rescue missions, and the privatization of the family" (176).Brian effectively analyzes the inherently political act of family building. In Chapter 1, she describes why adoption matters and also addresses the "matters" of adoption. Keeping the focus on KAA, she provides an important and comprehensive overview of the history of this form of transracial and transnational adoption. Beginning in the 1950s, Henry Holt institutionalized his child rescue mission rooted in notions of Christian salvation and the perceived "best interests" of children devastated by war and related catastrophe. These salvation narratives, combined with Holt's charisma, patriotism, and "New World optimism," led him to found an adoption agency and establish the formal networks that would enable the transfer of children from Korea to the US (13). KAA was made popular at a time in which the stigma of unwed motherhood, and the lack of reproductive services constituted an "adoption mandate. …


Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are one of the most practical methods for learning data distributions. A popular GAN formulation is based on the use of Wasserstein distance as a metric between probability distributions. Unfortunately, minimizing the Wasserstein distance between the data distribution and the generative model distribution is a computationally challenging problem as its objective is non-convex, non-smooth, and even hard to compute. In this work, we show that obtaining gradient information of the smoothed Wasserstein GAN formulation, which is based on regularized Optimal Transport (OT), is computationally effortless and hence one can apply first order optimization methods to minimize this objective. Consequently, we establish theoretical convergence guarantee to stationarity for a proposed class of GAN optimization algorithms. Unlike the original non-smooth formulation, our algorithm only requires solving the discriminator to approximate optimality. We apply our method to learning MNIST digits as well as CIFAR-10 images. Our experiments show that our method is computationally efficient and generates images comparable to the state of the art algorithms given the same architecture and computational power.


Humanoid robots will increasingly become a part of human everyday lives, but require more natural and simplified methods for control and humanrobot interaction. Our approach to addressing these challenges is to use biologically inspired notions of behavior-based control, and endow robots with the ability to imitate, so that they can be programmed and interacted with through demonstration and imitation. Our approach to the problem, based on neuroscience evidence, structures the motor system into a collection of primitives, which are then used to both generate the humanoid's movelnent repertoire and provide prediction and classification capabilities for visual perception and interpretation. Thus, what the humanoid can do helps it tmderstand what it sees, and vice versa. \'Ve describe the behavior-based background of our work and the neuroscience evidence on which our humanoid motor control and imitation model is based. Next we describe our use of human movement data as input and the huinanoid simulation test-bed for evaluation. We follow with a detailed discussion of three means of deriving primitives, the key component of our model, and describe implementations for each of them, as well as experimental results, demonstrated using human movement, captured with vision or magnetic markers, and imitated on a humanoid torso with dynamics, performing various movements from dance and athletics.


Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) models are used to predict residual chlorine, substrate and biomass concentrations in a Water Distribution System (WDS). ANN models with different architectures are developed: a one output ANN model (predicting chlorine, substrate and biomass individually), a two output ANN model (predicting chlorine + substrate, chlorine + biomass or substrate + biomass) and a three output ANN model (chlorine + substrate + biomass). This study is carried out for the Bangalore City and North Marin WDSs. Data for these WDSs is obtained from the multi-component reaction transport model. The models are compared using the correlation coefficient (R) and the Mean Absolute Error (MAE). The models developed are able to predict, reasonably well, the temporal variations in the chlorine, substrate and biomass concentrations. Error analysis is carried out to determine the robustness of the models.


Over the past decade, the Family Court of Australia has been asked with increasing frequency to authorise what the authorities refer to as a 'special medical procedure' for the treatment of children who have been diagnosed with 'gender identity disorder'. The Full Court of the Family Court decision in Re Jamie changed the legal landscape for Australia's transgendered children. Applying Marion's Case, the Full Court held that court authorisation is no longer required for stage one treatment and that stage two treatment can proceed without court authorisation provided the child is 'Gillick competent'. The article critiques the decision in Re Jamie, arguing that it fails to fully recognise the distinction made in Re Marion between therapeutic and non-therapeutic medical treatment.


PURPOSE
To examine whether components of body composition (size, fat mass, and fat-free mass) were related to physical activity.

METHODS
A random sample of 60 eligible sixth grade girls at each of 36 schools (six schools per region and six regions in total sample); complete measurements on 1,553 girls. Physical activity was assessed over 6 d in each girl using an accelerometer, and body composition was assessed using a multiple regression equation using body mass index and triceps skinfold. Minutes of moderate-to-vigorous and vigorous physical activity were estimated from accelerometer counts per 30 s above threshold values determined from a previous study.

RESULTS
Significant inverse relationships were found for all measures of body size and composition and all physical activity indices. The combination of fat and fat-free mass expressed as a weight and as an index (divided by height squared) along with race, SES, site, and school were most highly associated with physical activity in multiple regression analysis, accounting for 14-15% of the variance in physical activity. Fat mass was more closely related to moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and vigorous physical activity (VPA) than fat-free mass with higher standardized regression coefficients.

CONCLUSION
We conclude that both fat mass or fat mass index as well as fat-free mass or fat-free mass index make independent contributions in association with physical activity levels. These indices are recommended for future studies.


This article seeks to trace a history of Team X's experimentations on the issue of housing for the great number and more specifically around the theoretical background leading to the question of impermanence and indeterminacy in the architectural process. Through the writings of the Smithsons, Oskar Hansen, or John Voelcker, a theoretical framework will be defined and then put into perspective in a contemporary context. Two case studies will be discussed: Lacaton & Vassal, and Elemental. Connections will be made on the issue of indeterminacy and the concepts of "open structure" and "open aesthetics" will be promoted. These concepts presented here offer an alternative for some other possible formal developments around the question of indeterminacy. We will assess whether the pragmatism of these two contemporary architectural offices allow their proposals, beyond responding to specific situations, to claim the status of a reproducible model, such as one imagined during the 1960s.


Objective: The objective of this selective EMB review is to determine whether or not the use of glycolic acid is effective in the treatment of inflammatory and non-inflammatory acne. Study Design: The review of three randomized, double-blind, controlled trials all published in English language between the years of 2008-2010. Data Sources: Three randomized, double-blind, controlled trails comparing glycolic acid to a visually matched placebo or pharmaceutical therapy in improvement of acne. All articles were found using PubMed and EBSCO. Outcomes Measured: The improvement of inflammatory and non-inflammatory acne and tolerance/ safety of the intervention. Efficacy was measure via patients' preference/ assessment, Wilcoxon signed rank test, number of lesions, and Paired T-Test. Results: Abels demonstrated a significant improvement in the appearance of acne with monotherapy of oil-in-water emulsion and 10% glycolic acid verum. The patient and physician subjects' evaluations indicated the verum was both well tolerated and efficacious. The report showed no statistically significant difference between verum and placebo of oil-in-water emulsion without glycolic acid in reported adverse effects. I· LKNUR established a statistically significant decrease in the number of non-inflamed and inflamed lesions with glycolic acid peel. When compared to the amino acid fruit placebo peel, the report detailed a non-significant difference in improvement of non-inflamed and inflamed lesions. Kessler demonstrated glycolic acid peels as well as the visually matched therapy salicylic acid peels were significantly effective by the second treatment. Additionally, the differences in effectiveness between the two peels were found to be non-significant. The report detailed more adverse events reported with the glycolic acid peel. Conclusions: The results of these three studies show conclusive evidence that the use of glycolic acid is effective in the treatment of acne. Each study demonstrated both a significant quantitative and qualitative improvement. Varying reports of tolerability and adverse effects are possibly due to differing preparations and applications between studies. Most commonly these included reports of desquamation and erythema. The results do not encourage future research since no significant efficacy was found between glycolic acid and the comparable placebo or pharmaceutical therapy.


The present thesis is a critical examination of the two well-known post-Schachtian scholars of Hadith; James Robson and John Burton. Both scholars are major contributors to modern Hadith studies in the West. It assesses their main arguments and their methodological approaches to Hadith literature. It also provides a historical survey of the key arguments and works of their predecessors since the rise of the modern Western debates over the reliability of Hadith materials. This critical study points to the conclusion that Robson and Burton were heavily influenced by the sceptical attitude of Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht towards the historicity of Hadith. However, Robson is inclined to accept some aspects of the Muslim traditional view regarding the genesis of Hadith and its isnad system (chain of transmitters). Burton, on the other hand, expresses a sceptical stance towards the historicity of Hadith and argues that the development of Hadith originated from the exegesis of the Qur'an, having no historical basis in the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.


Despite their importance as stellar nurseries and the building blocks of galaxies, very little is known about the formation of the highest mass clusters. The dense clump G0.253+0.016 represents an example of a clump that may form an Arches-like, high-mass cluster. Here we present molecular line maps toward G0.253+0.016 taken as part of the MALT90 molecular line survey, complemented with APEX observations. Combined, these data reveal the global physical properties and kinematics of G0.253+0.016. Recent Herschel data show that while the dust temperature is low (∼19 K) toward its center, the dust temperature on the exterior is higher (∼27 K) due to external heating. Our new molecular line data reveal that, overall, the morphology of dense gas detected toward G0.253+0.016 matches its IR extinction and dust continuum emission very well. An anticorrelation between the dust and gas column densities toward its center indicates that the clump is centrally condensed with a cold, dense interior in which the molecular gas is chemically depleted. The velocity field shows a strong gradient along the clump's major axis, with the blueshifted side at a higher Galactic longitude. The optically thick gas tracers are systematically redshifted with respect to the optically thin and hot gas tracers, indicating radial motions. The gas kinematics and line ratios support the recently proposed scenario in which G0.253+0.016 results from a tidal compression during a recent pericenter passage near Sgr A*. Because G0.253+0.016 represents an excellent example of a clump that may form a high-mass cluster, its detailed study should reveal a wealth of knowledge about the early stages of cluster formation.


The paper explores the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in arbitral or judicial decision-making from a holistic point of view, exploring the technical aspects of AI, its practical limitations as well as its methodological and theoretical implications for decision-making as a whole. While this article takes the angle of international arbitration, it looks at examples and studies from a wide variety of legal areas and its conclusions are relevant for judicial decision-making more globally. The author assesses existing studies on decision outcome prediction and concludes that the methodology and assumptions employed put into doubt the claim these models might be used for ex ante outcome predictions. The article also discusses whether AI models, which are typically based on information extracted from previous input data, are likely to follow 'conservative' approaches and might not be adapted to deal with important policy changes over time. The paper further finds that a blind deferential attitude towards algorithmic objectivity and infallibility is misplaced and that AI models might perpetuate existing biases. It discusses the need for reasoned decisions which is likely to be an important barrier for AI-based legal decision-making. Finally, looking at existing legal theories on judicial decision-making, the paper concludes that the use of AI and its reliance on probabilistic inferences could constitute a significant paradigm shift. In the view of the author, AI will no doubt fundamentally affect the legal profession, including judicial decision-making, but its implications need to be considered carefully.


108 Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy 110 (2013)This essay takes a critical look at the tax fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor, which declared section three of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. The essay is important because, while other federal laws will apply to some same-sex couples some of the time, the federal tax laws are a concern for all same-sex couples all of the time. The essay is timely because it addresses the recently issued IRS guidance regarding the tax treatment of same-sex couples. In this essay, I first describe the path that led to the decision in Windsor. Then, I turn to describing the ways in which the post-Windsor tax terrain may actually be worse for same-sex couples than the bleak tax landscape that they faced before that decision. Under DOMA, same-sex couples already faced a debilitating level of uncertainty in determining how the federal tax laws applied to their relationships. Post-Windsor, same-sex couples will see this uncertainty multiply -- even after receiving guidance from the IRS on the implementation of the Windsor decision in the federal tax context. They will have to grapple not only with lingering questions surrounding the federal tax treatment of relationships that are not recognized, but also with new questions regarding whether and how their relationships will be recognized for federal tax purposes. Moreover, it seems that dispatching discrimination designed to erode the progress of same-sex couples toward formal equality has served only to entrench the privileged status of marriage in our federal tax laws rather than fostering the recognition of a broader array of human relationships.


According to the theory of G(enerative) P(honotactic) (elaborated in Singh 1984, 1990), a phonemic inventory and a list of the W(ell)-F(ormedness) C(onditions) in addition to three hierarchically arranged strategies (Assimilation/ Substitution > Epenthesis > Deletion) to repair the sequences that violate these WFCs represent the essentials of a phonological description. For instance, the phonology of Panjabi, Chittagonian and Walpiri has, each, a WFC which bans the cluster /sk/ in onset. If these languages must adapt the English loan word school, then, Panjabi and Chittagonian repair it with epenthesis. In Walpiri, the word becomes /kul/ through deletion because no syllable begins with a vowel in this language, and its phonemic inventory lacks fricatives (/f/, /s/, /z/, etc.). The present is an exhaustive account of the phonology of Bengali in the light of GP. Keywords: Well-formedness conditions; Epenthesis; Deletion; Substitution; Mechanism of repair DOI: 10.3329/dujl.v2i4.6901 Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics Vol.2(4) August 2009 pp.93-114


This article examines the Supreme Court's recent Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendment decisions constraining Congress's power to impose legal obligations on state governments. The context for this examination is the Court's consideration this Term of the constitutionality of the provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act authorizing individual suits against states by persons alleging they have been victimized by state disability discrimination. This article was written while the fate of the ADA case was unknown. But the Court issued its decision just as this article was going to press. A postscript has been added describing that decision and its implications. The article concludes that the Court's recent decisions, including the decision just issued respecting the ADA, represent a dramatic redefinition of both the Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendments, and a consequent diminution of congressional power to prevent discrimination by states against historically disadvantaged groups in our society.


This paper deals with plant invasions in the Transcarpathian region of the Ukraine. Within Solidago genus, one native (S. virgaurea) and one invasive (S. canadensis) species were studied by measuring contents of phenolics and tannins. The results support the enemy release hypothesis. Because the invasive species can save its energy by aborting the phenolics production, and use this energy for other processes like growth or reproduction.


We compare Pitkern-Norf'k and Palmerston narratives to each other and to narrative construction in other more well-known English dialects. This will demonstrate that narratives of these two beach community languages differ from the latter in many parallel ways. We discuss the narrative types 'historical stories' and 'tall tales' taken from the historical record and from our own fieldwork on Palmerston Island and Norfolk Island. Stories the islanders tell about themselves and their history will be the main focus as these illustrate the islanders' conception of their identity. Pertinent questions of historicity arise when multiple conflicting accounts of an event exist, or when the islanders' own oral histories differ from the information in the European colonial record.


Productivity of labour is particularly important especially in developing countries where most of the building work is still carried out on manual basis. Previous research has pointed out that productivity in the building industry is low and in some cases declining. Poor productivity of craftsmen is one of the causes of cost and time overruns on building projects. The objective of this research was to find the current state of efficiency of building craftsmen, the factors that affect labour productivity, and ways of improving labour productivity.

There are a number of philosophies that have been proposed to improve the performance of the building industry. Most of them have been borrowed from manufacturing industry. Literature indicates that even in developed countries improvement based on these concepts has been anecdotal. Most of them have not achieved success especially in developing countries.

Performance improvement for labour was addressed in this research by studying
the dimensions of efficiency, effectiveness, quality, quality of work life, profitability, productivity and innovation.

In order to find the state of efficiency of craftsmen, activity sampling was used.
Activity sampling performed on the major activities among building craftsmen shows that craftsmen use about 40 percent of available time on productive activities and of this only about 20 percent is used for making buildings grow. It further shows that building craftsmen spend about 33 percent of the time on nonvalue adding activities.

Results from a questionnaire survey indicate that ten of the most significant problems affecting labour productivity in Uganda are incompetent supervisors; lack of skills of the workers; rework; lack of tools/equipment; poor construction methods; poor communication; inaccurate drawings; stoppages because of work rejected by consultants; insecurity; tools/equipment breakdown; and harsh weather conditions.

It was found out that having an educated technically qualified workforce and having an experienced diverse workforce are regarded as the greatest enablers to innovation in building firms for driving forward productivity. The effect of design on construction and the level of tax regimes are regarded the greatest barriers to innovation in building firms. The level of training in science, engineering and technical education; and the level of research and development at the national level are looked at as the greatest enablers to innovation in building that will drive forward productivity. The size of the domestic market and the level of security are the worst barriers to innovation that lead to low productivity in the building industry in Uganda.

The factors that affect the effectiveness of building craftsmen have been identified and ranked. According to the survey of workers, the most critical factors to address are the level of financial rewards, inability to achieve personal goals and poor level of training. In addition, workers are not satisfied with the level of participation in decisionmaking. There is a need to find solutions in these grey areas in order to improve the organisational effectiveness of building firms.

To investigate the quality of work life, the degree of industrialisation was investigated. Case studies were used to assess the level of industrialisation in Uganda and the effect on productivity. The studies included the level of prefabrication; extent of use of mechanisation; degree of automation; use of robotics; reproduction; degree of standardisation; professionalised skilled labour; continuity of production; research and development (RD use of labour saving technologies; extensive use of forms and types of contract used. Results indicate that these are lacking and that the cost of labour is of the order of 30 to 40 percent of project costs and therefore labour is a significant factor in the cost of building.

The quality of work life was also reflected in accidents on work sites. The major causes of reportable accidents in Uganda are being hit by objects, falls, machine injuries, and cuts from tools and materials. Accidents cause about 37 percent permanent incapacity for those workers who are affected hence greatly reducing their productivity.

In order to look at the profitability and therefore the benefit they receive from clients, the roles of the client in having a more efficient building process were investigated. The three roles in which clients were found to be most defaulting are payment of contractors on time, lack of support on training and inadequate support for worker health and safety.

The barriers to waste minimisation efforts in the Uganda's context have been identified and a graphical aid is provided to enable decision makers to concentrate their efforts on the most influential (strongest), yet easy to overcome barriers. The barriers that were identified as strong but easy to overcome include lack of provision of inputs just when required i.e. pull driven scheduling, and inability of teams to maintain alignment with other teams.

These findings should be addressed by policy makers, practitioners and researchers in order to increase labour productivity. There is need for further research to improve productivity in the building industry.


During their holidays, tourists produce direct and indirect effects on local residents, which can either be positive or negative. In this paper we investigate how residents of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside resort hosting more than ten million national and foreign overnight stays every year, internalise such effects. We use a stated preference approach and, in particular, a discrete choice modelling technique; within this framework, we are able to test some conjectures about residents' welfare, by measuring their willingness to pay for alternative scenarios regarding the use of the territory. Tourist policies and public investments in the destination affect residents' welfare, and our results might suggest areas of potential synergies and trade-off, leading to important policy implications.


This research compared the effects of municipal wastewaters (i.e., primary and secondary treated) from the Christchurch Wastewater Treatment Plant (CWTP) in Christchurch, New Zealand (NZ) on microbial (microalgal-bacterial) biomass production, settleability, and quality as biodiesel feedstock. Inoculums consisted of native, mixed cultures from an oxidation pond and an activated sludge process. Growth of settleable biomass was encouraged by recycling settleable solids within laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) operated using a 24-hr cycle, 8-day hydraulic residence time (HRT), and controlled climate conditions. Generally, biomass concentrations of reactors fed with primary wastewater (i.e., 200/400 mg/L final mean for Cold/Warm conditions) were at least double those of secondary wastewater reactors (i.e., 70/210 mg/L final mean for Cold/Warm conditions) due to greater nutrient loading and microbial growth. Furthermore, primary wastewater reactors demonstrated much greater settling (i.e., 76 vs. 22% on average) indicating more efficient biomass harvesting. Lipid contents and types were comparable for all microbial cultures. The benefits of high carbon and bacterial concentrations in primary wastewater appeared to outweigh any disadvantage of reduced light penetration to microalgae from shading.


Abstract. This paper describes a comprehensive observational filter for satellite infrared limb sounding of gravity waves. The filter considers instrument visibility and observation geometry with a high level of accuracy. It contains four main processes: visibility filter, projection of the wavelength on the tangent-point track, aliasing effect, and calculation of the observed vertical wavelength. The observation geometries of the SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) and HIRDLS (High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder) are mimicked. Gravity waves (GWs) simulated by coupling a convective GW source (CGWS) scheme and the gravity wave regional or global ray tracer (GROGRAT) are used as an example for applying the observational filter. Simulated spectra in terms of horizontal and vertical wave numbers (wavelengths) of gravity wave momentum flux (GWMF) are analyzed under the influence of the filter. We find that the most important processes, which have significant influence on the spectrum are the visibility filter (for both SABER and HIRDLS observation geometries) and aliasing for SABER and projection on tangent-point track for HIRDLS. The vertical wavelength distribution is mainly affected by the retrieval as part of the "visibility filter" process. In addition, the short-horizontal-scale spectrum may be projected for some cases into a longer horizontal wavelength interval which originally was not populated. The filter largely reduces GWMF values of very short horizontal wavelength waves. The implications for interpreting observed data are discussed.


The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of supported employment in securing and maintaining competitive employment for people with autism spectrum disorder, a group that has typically been found to be underemployed or unemployed. This prospective study followed and collected data on 33 individuals with autism spectrum disorder as they progressed through a supported employment model, working one-on-one with an employment specialist. Of the 33 individuals included in the study, 27 successfully obtained competitive employment, with a total of 29 positions secured. The successful results were achieved through the use of a supported employment model and skilled employment specialists who were able to provide a high level of social supports and compensatory training strategies for skill acquisition. Specifically, employment specialists supported individuals through four steps of an individualized supported employment model: (a) the development of a jobseeker profile and assessment, (b) guiding the job development and career search, (c) conducting job site training, and (d) designing long-term supports to promote job retention. The multitude and variance of specific methods and strategies used in each case to execute these key steps of the supported employment model accurately reflect an emphasis on a highly individualized approach. Although the outcomes of this preliminary study were positive in terms of employment outcomes, further research remains to be conducted.


Investigations have been carried out into the occurrence and functions of acid hydrolases during plant cell division, differentiation and senescence using histochemical and biochemical procedures. Statistical analyses of histochemical data have shown that particles staining for naphthol AS BI phosphatase in dividing unfixed root cells of Vicia f aba do not act as a 'trigger 1 in the way suggested for animal cells, since there were significantly greater numbers of particles in mitotic cells as opposed to interphase cells in all 3 root tissues, apical initials, procortex and central cylinder. Increasing the length of incubation time markedly increased the number of particles in all 3 tissues.

The procedure for determining ft -glycerophosphatase activity in glutaraldehyde-fixed root tips was found to be unsatisfactory since cells in sections of tissues incubated without substrate contained lead-staining particles and in both test and control sections diffuse cytoplasmic and nuclear staining were apparent.

Using the histochemical reagents, naphthol AS D acetate and the diazonium salt, fast red violet LB salt, a biochemical study of non-specific esterases extracted from broad bean root tips, has shown that these enzymes have an estimated Km of 0.07 mM, a pH optimum of 5.5 and that they lose substantial activity when dialysed against distilled water as opposed to 5mM magnesium chloride and 10mM phosphate buffer. However, adding magnesium and/or chloride ions to the assay system reduced enzyme activity.

A combined cytochemical and biochemical analysis of non-specific esterases in differentiating root tissues of the broad bean showed that maximal enzyme activity, expressed on a per segment, per unit protein or per unit area of average-sized section basis, occurred within the zone of cell expansion, elongation and differentiation of procambial tissues.

Cytochemical studies showed that in glutaraldehyde-fixed roots activity was only slightly inhibited when compared with unfixed material, whereas biochemical studies revealed that only about ⅛ of the activity of enzyme extracted from unfixed roots was 8 present in homogenates of fixed roots.

In a study of non-specific esterases in soft fruit ripening and senescence, cytochemical studies demonstrated that enzyme activity was associated with subcellular structures in the pulp cells of the ripening strawberry. The fleshy mesocarp tissues of raspberry and blackberry, however contained no enzyme end-product at any of the stages of ripening examined.

In older strawberry receptacles, also examined biochemically, enzyme end-product was associated with large spherical lipid-dropletlike bodies absent in younger receptacles. Assays of non-specific esterases in immature, maturing and mature pulp tissues showed that these enzymes increased several fold during ripening when expressed on a per g fresh weight or per berry basis. Although esterase activity changed little during the transition from 'maturing 1 to 'mature 1 when expressed on either basis, the specific activity of the enzymes fell markedly. The Km values of enzyme extracts from the 3 stages of berry development decreased as ripening proceeded denoting an increased affinity of these enzymes for their substrates possibly due to the removal of an inhibitor or a change in iso-enzyme pattern. Esterases from the three ripening stages exhibited broad pH optima (pH 5-5 - 6.5) although limitations of the assay procedure prevented the detection of possible alkaline optima.

Ultrastructural studies showed that changes in the subcellular organelles of ripening strawberry pulp cells were similar to that reported for other senescihg.plant material, vesiculation of many organelles and loss of ribosomal material being the most characteristic. Attempts to localise esterases in fruit cells at the ultrastructural level were unsuccessful since electron dense end-product of diazotised lead phthalocyanin bound to a variety of structures even in the absence of the enzymes' substrate. In contrast the use of the diazotate of LPED in Vicia faba root cells was more promising in that in test tissue end-product was found in small vacuoles and rough endoplasmic reticulum, whilst control cells incubated in the absence of substrate lacked enzyme end-product.

The water-soluble epoxy resin, Durcupan, was assessed for its effect on plant cell organelle morphology by comparing similar tissue conventionally dehydrated in alcohol. No gross changes in ultrastructure were observed.


This thesis investigates how different variations of presentational performance feedback influences the motivation of a learner in a computer-assisted musical instrument tutoring context. Further, the thesis overviews methods to increase students' engagement with the learning process.

Positive and negative content balance in performance feedback is proposed through conducting user testing and evaluation. User testing was carried out using an online browser-based guitar tuition app developed for the purpose of this thesis. A custom-built application allowed full control over varying the balance of positive and negative content within performance feedback for different testing groups.
Last experiment was aimed to find aspects of gamification to promote and encourage users to better themselves and to keep learning.

A brief description of up-to-date technology used to design and develop the guitar tuition software product is described.

Despite the results being inconclusive they appear to indicate that presenting negative feedback is detrimental to the learners' motivation. Furthermore, gamifying the learning experience and introducing competitive nature of games into musical instrument tuition appear to increase learners' engagement, and prevent the learner drifting into boredom.


Lectures on Poetry [1833] James Montgomery 404pp Treatises on Poetry, Modern Romance, and Rhetoric being the Articles under those heads, Contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th Edition [1839] George Moir and William Spalding 383pp Imagination and Fancy [1844] Leigh Hunt 357pp Poetics: An Essay on Poetry [1852] Eneas Sweetland Dallas 302pp "The English Language" in the North British Review [1850] 25pp The Nature and Elements of Poetry [1893] E C Stedman 358pp "Sacred Poetry" in the Quarterly Review, xxxii, [1825] John Keble 21pp "On English Tragedy" in the Edinburgh Review [1828] 31pp "On English Poetry" in The Edinburgh Review [1825] 33pp "A Defence of Poetry" in The Edinburgh Review [1828] Brian Waller Proctor 20pp "Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics" in The London Review [1829] John Henry Newman 18pp "What is Poetry?" 10pp "The Two Kinds of Poetry" 10pp in the Monthly Repository [1833] John Stuart Mill "Theories of Poetry and a New Poet" in the North British Reviews,[1853] David Masson 47pp


We use cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations to study the kinematic signatures of cool gas accretion onto a pair of well-resolved galaxy halos. We find that cold-flow streams and gas-rich mergers produce a circumgalactic component of cool gas that generally orbits with high angular momentum about the galaxy halo before falling in to build the disk. This signature of cosmological accretion should be observable using background-object absorption-line studies as features that are offset from the galaxy's systemic velocity by ∼100 km s−1. In most cases, the accreted gas co-rotates with the central disk in the form of a warped, extended cold flow disk, such that the observed velocity offset will be in the same direction as galaxy rotation, appearing in sight lines that avoid the galactic poles. This prediction provides a means to observationally distinguish accreted gas from outflow gas: the accreted gas will show large one-sided velocity offsets in absorption-line studies while radial/bi-conical outflows will not (except possibly in special polar projections). Such a signature of rotation has already been seen in studies of intermediate-redshift galaxy–absorber pairs, and we suggest that these observations may be among the first to provide indirect observational evidence for cold accretion onto galactic halos. This cold-mode halo gas typically has ∼3–5 times more specific angular momentum than the dark matter. The associated cold-mode disk configurations are likely related to extended H i/extended UV disks that are seen around galaxies in the local universe. The fraction of galaxies with extended cold flow disks and associated offset absorption-line gas should decrease around bright galaxies at low redshift as cold-mode accretion dies out.


Soil ecosystems support a plethora of intertwined biophysical and biochemical processes. Soil structure plays a central role in the formation and maintenance of soil biological activity by providing a diversified habitat for soil organisms and determining the movement and transport of the resources on which they rely. At the same time, the formation and preservation of soil structure and fertility is also strongly linked to soil biological activity through feedback loops. In most soil ecosystems, soil biological activity and associated processes are concentrated in the soil located around living plant roots and influenced by root activity, an environment known as the rhizosphere. Consequently, among the wide array of soil life forms, plants play a dominant role in the regulation of many soil processes. In this paper, we illustrate the functional complexity of soil ecosystems using specific examples of root–soil interactions and associated processes. Through examples taken from the literature, we examine the origins and variations in soil physical, chemical, and biological properties and their impact on root growth. Next, we consider how the response of root systems to their environment affects resource acquisition by plants. Finally, we describe how the concept of root functional architecture can improve the integration of research advances from fields operating as independent disciplines and improve our understanding of soil ecosystems.


The complete reference guide to the hot technology of cloud computingIts potential for lowering IT costs makes cloud computing a major force for both IT vendors and users; it is expected to gain momentum rapidly with the launch of Office Web Apps later this year. Because cloud computing involves various technologies, protocols, platforms, and infrastructure elements, this comprehensive reference is just what you need if youll be using or implementing cloud computing.Cloud computing offers significant cost savings by eliminating upfront expenses for hardware and software; its growing popularity is expected to skyrocket when Microsoft introduces Office Web AppsThis comprehensive guide helps define what cloud computing is and thoroughly explores the technologies, protocols, platforms and infrastructure that make it so desirableCovers mobile cloud computing, a significant area due to ever-increasing cell phone and smartphone useFocuses on the platforms and technologies essential to cloud computingAnyone involved with planning, implementing, using, or maintaining a cloud computing project will rely on the information in Cloud Computing Bible.


The study was intended to analyze the determinants of group loan repayment performance of MSE's sectors a case of   Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company operating in the East Wollega Zone. The survey data was conducted by using the structured questionnaire in order to collect primary data from the purposively selected branches whereas secondary data were collected from published and unpublished documents. Out of 424 total number of groups owned of MSE's sectors 168 sample size were selected and only 162 of the respondents have filled the questionnaire properly by their respective enterprise's group leaders. The collected data were analyzed by employing descriptive statistics and ordered logit model by using STATA soft ware version 12. Result of this study shows that out of the predicting variables used in this study, group leaders education level, group leaders experience in similar business, the enterprise's beginning capital, loan repayment period,  loan follow up, Training offered by the loan officers of OCSSCO and  access to output market for the enterprises finished products were found to positively influence while the enterprises group size, additional loan they received, problem of information disclosure among members, the problem of financial statement recording experience in the business, loan interest rate, problem of power interruption and shortage of water supply around the enterprise working area  have negatively influenced the group loan repayment performance of MSE's sectors in the study area. Based on this result, the author recommended that OCSSCO has to  focus on the smaller the group size through which the problem of information disclosure would be resolved ,they has to give frequent training about the financial statement recording experience, they have to deal with the concerned body to solve the problem of power interruption as well as about the shortage of water supply around the enterprise's business area and encouraging them to increase their beginning capital at the enterprise start up that used to build confidence in their loan repayment performance in thestudy area. Keywords : Loan repayment performance, Micro and Small Scale Enterprises, Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-19-04 Publication date: June 30th 2020


Part I of this Essay shows that two central principles of the EC, namely mobility between Member States and decentralization of economic policies (subsidiarity), imply that Member States and other lower-level jurisdictions necessarily are in competition with one another (locational competition). Part II presents an outline of a theory of interjurisdictional competition that suggests, first, that only a competitive system of jurisdictions can be compatible with both decentralization and mobility and, second, that interjurisdictional competition may be a superior way of supplying public goods and services. Part III argues that the institutional structure of the EC has failed to take into account the dimension of locational competition among jurisdictions, thus leading to an often unwanted tendency to centralization. Alternatively, Part III suggests an integrated set of rules for competition that protects both competition among firms and interjurisdictional competition within the Community. V. THE DEREGULATION OF GLOBALIZING MARKETS INTERJURISDICTIONAL COMPETITION WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION Professor Dr. Wolfgang Kerber*


This paper describes an integrated model developed for the detailed characterization and simulation of piston ring pack behavior in internal combustion engines and the prediction of ring pack performance. The model includes comprehensive and coupled treatments of (1) ring-liner hydrodynamic and boundary lubrication and friction; (2) ring axial, radial, and (toroidal) twist dynamics; (3) inter-ring gas dynamics and blowby. The physics of each of these highly inter-related phenomena are represented by submodels, which are intimately coupled to form a design-oriented predictive tool aimed at the calculation of ring film thicknesses, ring motions, land pressures, engine friction, and blowby. The paper also describes the results of a series of analytical studies investigating effects of engine speed and load and ring pack design parameters, on ring motions, film thicknesses, and inter-ring pressures, as well as ring friction and blowby.


The nucleotide sequence of Korean ginseng (Panax schinseng Nees) chloroplast genome has been completed (AY582139). The circular double-stranded DNA, which consists of 156,318 bp, contains a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRa and IRb) with 26,071 bp each, which are separated by small and large single copy regions of 86,106 bp and 18,070 bp, respectively. The inverted repeat region is further extended into a large single copy region which includes the 5' parts of the rpsl9 gene. Four short inversions associated with short palindromic sequences that form stem-loop structures were also observed in the chloroplast genome of P. schinseng compared to that of Nicotiana tabacum. The genome content and the relative positions of 114 genes (75 peptide-encoding genes, 30 tRNA genes, 4 rRNA genes, and 5 conserved open reading frames [ycfs]), however, are identical with the chloroplast DNA of N. tabacum. Sixteen genes contain one intron while two genes have two introns. Of these introns, only one (trnL-UAA) belongs to the self-splicing group I; all remaining introns have the characteristics of six domains belonging to group II. Eighteen simple sequence repeats have been identified from the chloroplast genome of Korean ginseng. Several of these SSR loci show infra-specific variations. A detailed comparison of 17 known completed chloroplast genomes from the vascular plants allowed the identification of evolutionary modes of coding segments and intron sequences, as well as the evaluation of the phylogenetic utilities of chloroplast genes. Furthermore, through the detailed comparisons of several chloroplast genomes, evolutionary hotspots predominated by the inversion end points, indel mutation events, and high frequencies of base substitutions were identified. Large-sized indels were often associated with direct repeats at the end of the sequences facilitating intra-molecular recombination.


Aerobic fitness is associated with better memory performance as well as larger volumes in memory-related brain regions in children, adolescents, and elderly. It is unclear if aerobic exercise also influences learning and memory functional neural circuitry. Here, we examine brain activity in 17 high-fit (HF) and 17 low-fit (LF) adolescents during a subsequent memory encoding paradigm using fMRI. Despite similar memory performance, HF and LF youth displayed a number of differences in memory-related and default mode (DMN) brain regions during encoding later remembered versus forgotten word pairs. Specifically, HF youth displayed robust deactivation in DMN areas, including the ventral medial PFC and posterior cingulate cortex, whereas LF youth did not show this pattern. Furthermore, LF youth showed greater bilateral hippocampal and right superior frontal gyrus activation during encoding of later remembered versus forgotten word pairs. Follow-up task-dependent functional correlational analyses showed differences in hippocampus and DMN activity coupling during successful encoding between the groups, suggesting aerobic fitness during adolescents may impact functional connectivity of the hippocampus and DMN during memory encoding. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the influence of aerobic fitness on hippocampal function and memory-related neural circuitry using fMRI. Taken together with previous research, these findings suggest aerobic fitness can influence not only memory-related brain structure, but also brain function.


What is the recipe for good information policy? Hosman and Howard address this in an emerging economy context through case studies of six states that arose following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. These new nations pursued differing information policy paths that led to diverse outcomes. The authors find, in general, conventional positive outcomes supporting policies for privatization, liberalization, and competition; but at the same time discover many counterintuitive outcomes based on each country's unique circumstances. General rules are good, but in specific cases alternative paths can also lead to success.


We have generated an ultra-high-density genetic map for lettuce, an economically important member of the Compositae, consisting of 12,842 unigenes (13,943 markers) mapped in 3696 genetic bins distributed over nine chromosomal linkage groups. Genomic DNA was hybridized to a custom Affymetrix oligonucleotide array containing 6.4 million features representing 35,628 unigenes of Lactuca spp. Segregation of single-position polymorphisms was analyzed using 213 F7:8 recombinant inbred lines that had been generated by crossing cultivated Lactuca sativa cv. Salinas and L. serriola acc. US96UC23, the wild progenitor species of L. sativa. The high level of replication of each allele in the recombinant inbred lines was exploited to identify single-position polymorphisms that were assigned to parental haplotypes. Marker information has been made available using GBrowse to facilitate access to the map. This map has been anchored to the previously published integrated map of lettuce providing candidate genes for multiple phenotypes. The high density of markers achieved in this ultradense map allowed syntenic studies between lettuce and Vitis vinifera as well as other plant species.


Faults are important to the economic geologist in that they can either control the formation of some classes of ore deposits or modify the position and geometry of ore bodies. Fault rock classification is an important part of understanding the structural geology of an area. In this paper practical modifications are suggested to the most commonly used classifications of fault rock, to make it more applicable for the economic geologist. The system recommended is based in the first instance on the classification according to cohesiveness of the rock. The second defining attribute is whether the matrix is foliated or has a random fabric, providing the subdivision of cohesive fault rocks into the mylonitic and cataclastic series. The third attribute used to categorize fault rocks is the proportion of matrix to clasts, and differs in detail from those previously published. The terminology relating to crush breccias used by earlier systems is considered confusing and superfluous and has been eliminated.

Although of lesser importance to the economic geologist, the terminology evolving for mylonites and mylonitc gneisses is included and is based on internal fabrics and textures.

Application of this simplified classification to geological mapping in underground exploration development and logging of faults in core will enhance the geologist's ability to interpret the structure of ore deposits.