While Europe feels inundated by the 2015 refugee waves, the policy responses of the European Union and its member countries exhibit signs of helplessness. The Dublin system assigning responsibility to the country of first-entry has failed. Identifying true asylum seekers effectively and distributing them fairly across Europe requests loyalty to the once accepted humanitarian standards and solidarity with the principles of Europe. A turnaround of the European asylum policy is needed: Commonly organised registration, selection and distribution systems have to be followed by an early access of asylum seekers to the European labour markets.


ABSTRACT This paper investigates the application of artificial neural networks to the dynamic interrelations among major world stock markets. The database for this study consists of daily stock market indices of major world stock markets. These stock market indices are: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), and the world excluding US (World). Based on the criteria of Root Mean Square Error, Maximum Absolute Error, and the value of the objective function, it is found that Multilayer Perceptron models with logistic activation functions predict daily stock returns better than traditional Ordinary Least Squares and General Linear Regression models. Furthermore, it is found that a multilayer perceptron with five units in the hidden layer better predicts the stock indices for USA, France, Germany, UK and World than a neural network with two hidden elements. It is concluded that neural systems can be used as an alternative tool for financial analysis. JEL: C3, C32, C45, C5, C63, F3, G15 Keywords: Neural networks; Major stock markets; Dynamic interrelations; Forecasting I. INTRODUCTION Neural networks are powerful forecasting tools that draw on the most recent developments in artificial intelligence research. They are non-linear models that can be trained to map past and future values of time series data and thereby extract hidden structures and relationships that govern the data. Neural networks are applied in many fields such as computer science, engineering, medical and criminal diagnostics, biological investigation, and economic research They can be used for analysing relations among economic and financial phenomena, forecasting, data filtration, generating time-series, and optimization (Hawley, Johnson, and Raina, 1990; White, 1998; White 1996; Tema, 1997; Cogger, Koch and Lander, 1997; Cheh, Weinberg, and Yook, 1999; Cooper, 1999; Hu and Tsoukalas, 1999; Moshiri, Cameron, and Scuse, 1999; Shtub and Versano, 1999; Garcia and Gencay, 2000; and Hamm and Brorsen, 2000). This paper investigates the application of artificial neural networks to the dynamic interrelations among major world stock markets.' These stock market indices are: Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), and the world excluding US (World). Based on the criteria of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Maximum Absolute Error (MAE), and the value of the objective function the model is compared to other statistical methods such as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and General Linear Regression Model (GLRM). Neural networks have found ardent supporters among various avant-garde portfolio managers, investment banks and trading firms. Most of the major investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have dedicated departments to the implementation of neural networks. Fidelity Investments has set up a mutual fund whose portfolio allocation is based solely on recommendations produced by an artificial neural network. The fact that major companies in the financial industry are investing resources in neural networks indicates that artificial neural networks may serve as an important method of forecasting. Artificial neural networks are information processing systems whose structure and function are motivated by the cognitive processes and organizational structure of neuro-biological systems. The basic components of the networks are highly interconnected processing elements called neurons, which work independently in parallel (Consten and May, 1996). Synaptic connections are used to carry messages from one neuron to another. The strength of these connections varies. These neurons store information and learn meaningful patterns by strengthening their inter-connections. When a neuron receives a certain number of stimuli, and when the sum of the received stimuli exceeds a certain threshold value, it fires and transmits the stimulus to adjacent neurons (Soh1, 1995). …


Purpose: The study investigates if financial constraints help the ERP System success, and improve SMEs' financial performance. Design/Methodology/Approach: There are 100 eligible data to be analyzed by using SPSS and the Smart-PLS. Findings: The results indicate that financial constraints have a significant impact on the success of the ERP System and the Indonesian SMEs' performance. Furthermore, the ERP System helps to mediate between the financial constraints and the performance and the financial constraints are more crucial to improve the performance rather than the ERP system. Practical Implications: The financial constraints should be seen as an important instrument to improve the performance of both short and long-run periods of time. Then, it seems that in the future, the ERP will play an important role to improve the performance. Therefore, it needsl to prepare the implementation of the ERP system in a professionally way. Originality/Value: The study views the ERP system as an intervening variable, and as a new approach to mediate the financial constraints and the performance.


Since 2003, terbium(iii) bis-phthalocyaninato complexes have been recognised as acting as single molecule magnets (SMMs), propitiating multiple studies with the aim of better understanding the single metal-ion based magnetism with unusually high blocking temperatures. In the quest for novel applications, it became clear that if spintronic devices were made from SMM molecules, their confinement in the proximity of surfaces or electrodes would become difficult to circumvent. In this perspective article, we highlight the influence of the presence of different substrates on the magnetic performance of TbPc2-SMMs, in principle caused by, among other effects, electronic hybridization, dipole-dipole coupling and changing quantum tunnelling (QT) rates on the surface. We show that the improved comprehension of how SMMs interact and communicate with the environment finally leads to magnetic remanence and lower tunnelling rates, paving the way to novel classes of spintronic devices.


We evaluated geographical patterns in the abundance and distribution of Brown-headed Cowbirds (M&thus ater), and in the frequency of cowbird parasitism, across North America in relation to habitat fragmentation. We found no distinctive parasitism patterns at the national or even regional scales, but the species is most abundant in the Great Plains, the heart of their original range, and least common in the southeastern U.S. This situation is dynamic, because both the Brown-headed and two other cowbird species are actively expanding their ranges in the southern U.S. We focused almost entirely in this paper on the Brown-headed Cowbird, because it is the only endemic North American cowbird, its distribution is much wider, and it has been much more intensively studied. We determined that landscape is the most meaningful unit of scale for comparing cowbird parasitism patterns as, for example, in comparisons of northeastern and central hardwood forests within agricultural matrices, and suburbanized areas versus western coniferous forests. We concluded that cowbird parasitism patterns were broadly similar within all landscapes. Even comparisons between prominently dissimilar landscapes, such as hardwoods in agriculture and suburbia versus coniferous forest, display a striking similarity in the responses of cowbirds. Our review clearly indicated that proximity of feeding areas is the key factor influencing presence and parasitism patterns within the landscape. We considered intensity of landscape fragmentation from forest-dominated landscapes altered in a forest management context to fragmentation characterized by mixed suburbanization or agricultural development. Our review consistently identified an inverse relationship between extent of forest cover across the landscape and cowbird presence. Invariably, the variation seen in parasitism frequencies within a region was at least partially explained as a response to changes in forest cover. The most salient geographic aspect of cowbirds' response to landscape fragmentation is the time since fragmentation occurred. Eastern landscapes generally experienced 200 years ago the development and fragmentation that western landscapes experienced less than 75 years ago. Consequently, there is a broad east-west contrast in which more numerous human settlements and smaller unbroken forest stands are found in the East, a difference that permits cowbirds to be more pervasive and ubiquitous. The locality of suitable feeding areas is a hallmark trait of the cowbirds' strategy in exploiting specific forest fragments. Host abundance influences parasitism patterns only secondarily at the landscape scale. These two limiting factors come into play differently in different landscapes. For example, cowbird abundance in unbroken forested landscapes are limited primarily by the availability of foraging areas rather than by host density, whereas cowbirds are limited primarily by host availability in landscapes that are extensively fragmented with feeding areas.


Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the main cause of retinal damage due to fluid leakage from blood vessels. Automated diagnostic systems assist the ophthalmologists practice manual lesion detection techniques which are tedious and time-consuming. A Diabetic Retinopathy Lesion Discrimination (DRLD) model is proposed for abnormality identification followed by DR lesion detection based on identification of DR pathological symptoms. Shape, intensity and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features are extracted from the identified lesions, and exhaustive statistical analysis is performed for optimal feature selection. Overall accura-cies of 97.9% and 91.5% are obtained using multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers, respectively, for non-diseased versus diseased fundus image discrimination. MLPNN provides better performance for the fundus image discrimination approach, and further accuracy of 98.9% is obtained for DR lesion detection. When compared with other state-of-the-art techniques, the proposed approach provides better performance with significantly less computational complexity. A maximum accuracy improvement of 20.13% in fundus image discrimination and 5.90% in lesion categorization is achieved.


The 2030 Agenda sets out seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The educational goal is to promote the education of citizens on sustainable development, among other things. Educating today's digital citizens on sustainability means training them for justice and social activism, commitment and political engagement. However, research into the subject shows a lack of consistency in the education of university students. This paper presents a study of students of Education, on education on sustainability through the practice of active and critical digital citizenship. A quasi-experimental method was used to learn about the behaviours of digital citizens, and intervention was carried out by means of an SDG-focused workshop and observation of the final level of commitment. The results show a positive level of commitment and digital activism around content related to sustainable development, which can be addressed from the university syllabus in a cross-curricular way.


In astronomy education, it is important to give students the opportunity to enjoy an actual night sky in a natural environment in addition to reading texts. Recently, the Internet offers many sites about stars and astronomy, but most cannot support constellation observation in the actual night sky.

In this study, in cooperation with the Nagoya City Science Museum, we have developed a site called "online constellation" that not only offers online learning material by PC but also material appropriate for outdoor learning environments. Specifically, we developed teaching materials that support constellation observation with contents that can be carried outdoors.

However, much labor hour and time are necessary to develop suitable teaching materials for various devices and learning environments. So, we proposed an effective contents management system based on an astronomy education database and realized effective information distribution based on the learning environment.

We developed the effective web based education system by using a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment. Based on the database, the system can not only correspondent to multi-platform purpose, but also provide curator's knowledge effectively.


In this paper the main objective is to quantify and compare the instantaneous value of heart rate for normal breathing patterns during Meditation and Non Meditation conditions. This paper involves Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique for the analysis of the heart rate variability patterns during the meditative and non meditative states. The analysis is divided into three stages i.e. data acquisition, parameter estimation and comparison. The ECG signals are used as the input signals in given states. The features are then compared using ANOVA technique for HRV patterns. The HRV parameters were found to be better during meditation


Bandit convex optimization is a special case of online convex optimization with partial information. In this setting, a player attempts to minimize a sequence of adversarially generated convex loss functions, while only observing the value of each function at a single point. In some cases, the minimax regret of these problems is known to be strictly worse than the minimax regret in the corresponding full information setting. We introduce the multi-point bandit setting, in which the player can query each loss function at multiple points. When the player is allowed to query each function at two points, we prove regret bounds that closely resemble bounds for the full information case. This suggests that knowing the value of each loss function at two points is almost as useful as knowing the value of each function everywhere. When the player is allowed to query each function at d+1 points (d being the dimension of the space), we prove regret bounds that are exactly equivalent to full information bounds for smooth functions.


Inter-ocular suppression occurs when very different images are presented to each eye. Diplopia ensues if different images are superimposed and perceived. The brain removes this unfavourable viewing experience by suppressing one eye's input to enable clear single vision. Inter-ocular suppression during visual development occurs in response to sufficiently disparate images caused by strabismus (misalignment of the visual axis) or anisometropia (uncorrected difference in refractive error), and if persistent may result in amblyopia. This is reduced visual sensitivity, usually in one eye, to a range of visual functions that cannot be corrected by refraction. Furthermore, binocular vision is reduced or absent.

Depth and extent of suppression is measured across the central visual field in healthy participants with monocularly blurred vision, healthy participants with monocularly reduced luminance using neutral density (ND) filters, and participants with naturally disrupted binocular vision and/or amblyopia. Suppression of spatial stimuli defined by luminance (L) and luminancemodulated noise (LM) was compared to that measured for stimuli defined by contrast-modulated noise (CM), for which there is no change in mean luminance. For all stimuli suppression depth increased with increased imbalance of binocular input. Suppression was of a similar depth across the visual field with imposed blur and localised central suppression was found with ND filters. Microstrabismics showed central suppression, while strabismic amblyopes showed central in addition to hemifield suppression.

Suppression for all participants was measured to be deeper for CM spatial stimuli than for LM spatial stimuli. This is suggested to be a result of CM stimuli engaging more binocular mechanisms of processing, than LM stimuli, thereby becoming more sensitive to disruptions of binocularity such as those produced in the participants in the present study. CM stimuli are therefore more sensitive to detecting suppression, which is associated with amblyopia.


The physical principles that have been used to develop mixed-layer models for a surface layer of variable depth "h", are applied instead directly to the bottom layers of-the Nested Grid Model (NGM). This eliminates the need to predict h explicitly and greatly simplifies the application of these ideas. The principles are reviewed in section 2. Generation of turbulence by shear at the top of the mixed region is ignored in this first formulation. In section 3 the principles are expressed as integrals with respect to the sigma coordinate of the NGM, and the NGM history variables of potential temperature and specific humidity are related to the "buoyancy". Section 4 spells out the details of the numerical method as applied to the discrete sigma layers of the model. The numerical method determines how many layers (K) participate in the mixing for each column. It then produces a uniform (larger) value of buoyancy in layers 1 through (K-i), and determines the appropriate decrease in the buoyancy of the capping layer K. Section 5 shows how the changes in buoyancy derived in section 4 can be re-converted to changes in the NGM variables of potential temperature and specific humidity. An entrainment factor xm that describes the mixing between layers K-1 and K is used to effect this conversion. Section 6 describes how the mixing between layers K and K-1 could be modified when saturation occurs in layer K-1. Tests with the Nested Grid Model in winter of 1985-6 were made in which only mechanical stirring was effective over land, because the model did not contain sensible heat flux over land, nor radiation. The stirring increased the horizontal averaged temperature in the bottom layer of the model over land by about 1 deg/day. Changes as large as 10 deg/day were observed in regions of strong wind and stable air. The Appendix contains test results from computations with a single column using fixed values of surface heat flux and mechanical stirring. The functional dependence of the mixed layer depth with time agrees with well-known results from models that are formulated with an explicit mixed layer depth "h".


Transparent Ag and Eu(3+) co-doped oxyfluoride glasses with composition 50SiO(2)-20Al(2)O(3)-30CaF(2) were prepared by melt-quenching technique. The structural and luminescent properties of glasses, energy transfer mechanism between luminescent centers were systematically investigated. The missing nanoparticles signals in absorption spectra, XRD patterns and TEM images, the additional broad excitation band at 325-375 nm indicate that the broad emission band at 400-700 nm is originated from very small molecule-like, non-plasmonic Ag particles (ML-Ag-particles). A perfect white light emission was realized by combining intense red emission of Eu(3+) with broad band emission of ML-Ag-particles. These results suggest that Ag and Eu(3+) co-doped oxyfluoride glasses could be potentially applied as white light-emitting phosphors for ultra-violet LED chips.


We have developed a new on-axis digital holographic technique, heterodyne holography. The resolution of this technique is limited mainly by the amount of data recorded on two-dimensional photodetectors, i.e., the number of pixels and their size. We demonstrate that it is possible to increase the resolution linearly with the amount of recorded data by aperture synthesis as done in the radar technique but with an optical holographic field.


The present paper describes the design and performance of an attachment for the Cary model 14 recording spectrophotometer, which permits the accurate recording of absorption spectra in small areas. A special compartment built into the light path of the spectrophotometer holds a low-magnification microscope ("macroscope") consisting of two opposed quartz condensers, with which measurements can be made between 300 and 700 mμ in fields 0.1 to 1 mm in diameter. This can be replaced by a conventional microscope with which spectra can be measured from about 350–650 mμ in fields as small as 4 μ in diameter. These arrangements have been used to measure the absorption spectra of visual pigments in situ. With the macroscope, such measurements have been made in small areas of surviving retinas; and with the microscope, they have been made in single isolated outer segments of rods. The present paper contains examples of each type of measurement.


A main problem related to coal ash disposal is the heavy metal content of the residue. In this regard, experimental results of numerous studies have indicated that toxic trace metals may leach when fly ash and bottom ash contacts with water. In this study, fly ash and bottom ash samples obtained from Kemerkoy thermal power plant, located on the south-western coast of Turkey, were subjected to toxicity tests such as the extraction procedures (EP) and toxicity characteristic leaching procedures (TCLP) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), the so-called Method A extraction procedure of the American Society of Testing and Material (ASTM). When Pb and Cd concentrations, analysed according to EP and TCLP, were considered, Kemerkoy fly and bottom ash can be classified as a hazardous waste under the principles of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Based on the geochemical analyses carried out, it was also determined that several toxic trace elements, such as Pb, Zn, Cd, Cu and Co were enriched at the fly and bottom ash of Kemerkoy thermal power plant.


The human genome is segmented into Topologically Associating Domains (TADs), but the role of this conserved organization during transient changes in gene expression is not known. Here we described the distribution of Progestin-induced chromatin modifications and changes in transcriptional activity over TADs in T47D breast cancer cells. Using ChIP-Seq, Hi-C and 3D modelling techniques, we found that the borders of the ∼2,000 TADs in these cells are largely maintained after hormone treatment but that some TADs operate as discrete regulatory units in which the majority of the genes are either transcriptionally activated or repressed upon hormone stimulus. The epigenetic signatures of the TADs are coordinately modified by hormone in correlation with the transcriptional changes. Hormone-induced changes in gene activity and chromatin remodeling are accompanied by differential structural changes for activated and repressed TADs. In response to hormone activated TADs exhibit higher density of internal contacts, while repressed TADs show less intra-TAD contacts. Integrative 3D modelling revealed that TADs structurally expanded if activated and compacted when repressed, and that this is accompanied by differential changes in their global accessibility. We thus propose that TADs function as "regulons" to enable spatially proximal genes to be coordinately transcribed in response to hormones.


In this work both the interconnections and materials used in multi-chip modules (MCMs) at microwave frequencies have been investigated. The electrical behaviour of the
interconnections was studied using commercially available 2.SD and 3D electromagnetic simulators (HFSSTM, MDSTM and Momentum™). State-of-the-art conductive and dielectric
film materials used in the fabrication of multi-layer MCM structures were characterized using microstrip/wave guide resonator techniques.
The models chosen for simulation of interconnections are commensurate with those in current use in MCM technology. Crosstalk between microstrip conductors in multi-layer
MCM structures was simulated and new knowledge leading to new design rules was obtained.Typical elements in MCM interconnect structures, such as vias, bends and airbridges were also investigated. The principal features of these elements were simulated and the results were obtained in S-parameter form. Based on the simulated results, these parasitic elements were modelled in terms of their equivalent circuits which can be used in circuit simulators to aid more rigorous MCM circuit design.
A microstrip ring resonator, fabricated using the newly developed conductive material from Heraeus, was employed to measure the line loss.
New techniques have been developed to measure the permittivity and loss tangent of thin dielectric films. In the previous methods for the measurement of these films, the accuracy in measuring the relative permittivity is limited and there is no available technique to measure the loss tangent. A novel cavity perturbation method was developed to accurately measure both the relative permittivity and loss tangent of the films deposited on a supporting substrate.
An additional independent technique, derived from transmission line theory, for measuring the relative permittivity of dielectric film was also established. A particular feature of the new teclmiques, which led to high accuracy in measuring dielectric constant and loss tangent was the positioning of the dielectric film in the region of maximum electric field strength, thereby ensuring maximum interaction between the electric field and the film material. A rigorous error analysis was performed on the new techniques, which led to the establishment of practical measurement correction factors.
A simple and rigorous method has also been developed to accurately measure the loss tangent of dielectrics with known dielectric constant using a resonant cavity. The novel
method eliminates the need for any physical measurement of the dielectric sample. The new technique should permit the development of techniques for very high frequency
characterisation of dielectric materials.


An explicit starting point for this research is to give a voice to the experiences of the victims of safety crime. The accounts of such victims are missing from the criminal justice arena and academia. This research will attempt, in part, to fill the gap in the following ways. First, the longstanding separation between safety crime and 'real' or 'traditional' crime is both reflected and institutionalised through state responses to the offences committed by corporations. This research offers a critical analysis of the social, legal and political obstacles that victims of safety crime face. Second, the effect of this process on secondary victims is examined. The deaths of their loved ones are, in the first instance, framed as 'accidental'. The families are an obstacle to the corporations, as they seek to hide or manipulate the truth in the pursuit of their innocence. This is enabled by legal and political processes, which make justice an almost impossible achievement. The thoughts of the families and the long-term impact this has on their lives is explored in detail. The final part of this research is focused on the aims, nature and success of the various groups created in response to the reaction of the criminal justice system following a corporate killing. The visibility of the corporate accountability movement, mounted from the late 1980s against the victimisation of workers, raises questions for future research. It concludes with a discussion of how this situation has altered and the potential site for change in the future. Safety crime in the UK and worldwide, is a regular occurrence, yet popularly and politically, safety crimes are comparatively invisible. Through the experiences of secondary victims, who are neither represented nor treated as real victims, this thesis offers an original contribution to the understanding of how this happens, the effects and the response.


The main focus of this research is to synthesize and to optimize the properties of TiCh nanotube with its final applications as photocatalyst for degradation of dye water. The growth mechanism of self-organized TiCh nanotube formation that were prepared by anodization of Ti foil in an electrolyte containing F* ions were also proposed in this work.Various parameters were conducted and analyzed. These included the different voltage,
different anodization time, different pH, different electrolytes, and different annealing temperature. Since the morphological and structural properties were the main data that needed in order to understand the mechanism of TiCh nanotube formations,therefore
several characterization technique were used such as field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) with EDX for morphological and elemental studies, X-ray diffraction spectrometer (XRD) for structural and phase identification, and UV-VIS for optical study. The optimum parameters were finally gathered with well-organized and uniform distribution of TiC>2 nanotubes which were formed at 19 V for 30 min in pH 3 electrolyte which contained 0.7g NH4F and 100 ml NaSC>4. FESEM results, showed that the diameter of nanotubes changed directly proportional to the parameter control. For example as the voltage increased the diameter were increased. In here, the smallest diameter achieved was at 30 nm and the biggest diameter achieved was at 100 nm. The length of Ti02 nanotube were also changed and the highest length achieved was at 500
nm. However, FESEM images clearly shown that nanotubes were hollow in shape with mouth opening at the top end and closed at the bottom of the tubes. The EDX analysis showed that Ti, and O, elements were existed in the sample. Thus proved that TiC>2
nanotube were occurred. The XRD results showed that, for pure Ti foil and as-anodized sample only appeared strong peak of Ti and weak amorphous peak of TiC>2. However, the crystalline sharp peak were appeared at 400 °C to 800 °C. Whereby, the phase was transformed from anatase to mixture of anatase and rutile from at 500 °C. The TiCh nanotubes had shown a good result in photocatalytic activity under degradation of mixture of anatase and rutile (500 °C) at 19 V and pH 3 within 1 hour of methyl red degradation. TiCh nanotubes with thinner walls and longer tubes have a more pronounced photocatalytic activity as compared with non-uniform thicker wall and longer. The schematic diagram and detail discussion on growth mechanism were explained in Chapter
4.


The observations of phenotypic plasticity have stimulated the revival of 'epigenetics'. Over the past 70 years the term has come in many colors and flavors, depending on the biological discipline and time period. The meanings span from Waddington's "epigenotype" and "epigenetic landscape" to the molecular biologists' "epigenetic marks" embodied by DNA methylation and histone modifications. Here we seek to quell the ambiguity of the name. First we place "epigenetics" in the various historical contexts. Then, by presenting the formal concepts of dynamical systems theory we show that the "epigenetic landscape" is more than a metaphor: it has specific mathematical foundations. The latter explains how gene regulatory networks produce multiple attractor states, the self-stabilizing patterns of gene activation across the genome that account for "epigenetic memory". This network dynamics approach replaces the reductionist correspondence of molecular epigenetic modifications with concept of the epigenetic landscape, by providing a concrete and crisp correspondence.


The aim of this study is, first of all, to present a rhetorically oriented analysis of the central pericope of 3:1-14, with special reference to its pertinent oral-aural qualities. This forms the basis, in turn, for a comparative analysis of how this passage has been translated into Chewa in an old missionary-produced version (1922) in contrast to a more recent meaning-centered rendering (1998) as well as a special oral-poetic translation that was prepared as part of this study. Further attention is devoted to some of the conceptual challenges that this text, as an example of the Galatian epistle as a whole, poses for mother-tongue speakers due to their lack of an adequate biblical and hermeneutical frame of reference. Suggestions are offered as to how this significant cognitive disparity might be overcome through the use of a judicious selection of paratextual features, in particular, the incorporation of contextually relevant explanatory footnotes.


. ABSTRACT This study gathered the experiences and perceptions of participants of a university-based programme of free arts education for people who use mental health services, known as Converge. Seventy per cent of the authors have lived experience of mental health difficulties and attend Converge courses. A Participatory Action Research approach was taken, using Photo Elicitation to facilitate interviews with relatively new Converge participants. An inductive thematic analysis of the data identified four themes: establishing community; purpose; student not patient; and accessing valued, inclusive spaces . These reflected findings in the existing literature about the mental health benefits of the arts and factors important to the process of recovery. A major finding was the clear indication that locating courses in socially valued and inclusive venues is of very high importance to participants, and that this seems to amplify benefits they experience from attending. This suggests that forming partnerships between socially valued spaces and mental health services is worth energetically pursuing.


Vestibular schwannomas (VS) are benign brain tumors that can be treated with high-precision focused radiation with the Gamma Knife in order to stop tumor growth. Outcome prediction of Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) treatment can help in determining whether GKRS will be effective on an individual patient basis. However, at present, prognostic factors of tumor control after GKRS for VS are largely unknown, and only clinical factors, such as size of the tumor at treatment and pre-treatment growth rate of the tumor, have been considered thus far. This research aims at outcome prediction of GKRS by means of quantitative texture feature analysis on conventional MRI scans. We compute first-order statistics and features based on gray-level co- occurrence (GLCM) and run-length matrices (RLM), and employ support vector machines and decision trees for classification. In a clinical dataset, consisting of 20 tumors showing treatment failure and 20 tumors exhibiting treatment success, we have discovered that the second-order statistical metrics distilled from GLCM and RLM are suitable for describing texture, but are slightly outperformed by simple first-order statistics, like mean, standard deviation and median. The obtained prediction accuracy is about 85%, but a final choice of the best feature can only be made after performing more extensive analyses on larger datasets. In any case, this work provides suitable texture measures for successful prediction of GKRS treatment outcome for VS.


This Australian study seeks to better understand the disparity between the positive attitudes towards Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and the level of investment in SRI (Saulwick & Associates 2001; Watmore & Bradley 2001; Williams 2007; Arjalies 2010), by examining both the attitudes to SRI and the investment choices that are made. It is hypothesised that those who are more committed to religious belief principles are more likely to invest in SRI. To test this 322 people from two large Queensland organisations were surveyed in relation to their investment attitudes and preferences. Results show that those who are more religious are no more likely to invest in SRI, and that the level of importance placed on SRI and financial criteria are similar in most instances for the more and less religious. In addition, women who are religious place more importance on conservative general investment criteria than less or non-religious women.


Agriculture is the backbone of the Kenyan economy contributing 26% to GDP and 70% to employment. Majority of the farmers in Kenya are smallholder farmers possessing less than 3 acres of land. The agricultural sector in Kenya has been facing several challenges among them declining yields. While the decline in yields could be associated with several other factors, it could also be as a result of the effect of insecure land tenure systems which are little understood. This study examines the technical efficiency of alt ernative land tenure systems among smallholder farmers and identifying the determinant s of inefficiency with the objective of exploring land tenure policies that would enhance e fficiency in production. The study is based on the understanding that land tenure alone will not b e enough to indicate the levels of efficiency of individual farms, other socio economic factors such as gender, education and farm size would also be expected to be important determinants of ef ficiency. A stochastic frontier was used to estimate technical efficiency and relate it to land tenure and socio economic factors using data from 22 districts from the main agro‐ecological zon es. The study found that parcels with land titles have a higher efficiency level. Other factors such as education status of head, access to fertilizers, an d group participation were also found to significantly influence technical efficiency. The s tudy recommends that the process of land registration should be extended to other regions of the country but at the same time other factors such as access to inputs and improvement of educati on status should also be addressed.


We reported the clinical characteristics of a case series of 10 patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) aged from 1 year to 18 years. Seven patients had contact with confirmed COVID‐19 family members before onset. Fever (4 [40.0%]) and cough (3 [30.0%]) were the most common symptoms. No patient showed leucopenia and lymphopenia on admission. Pneumonia was observed in chest CT images in 5 (50.0%) patients. Five (50.0%) patients received antiviral treatment. No patient had severe complications or developed a severe illness in our study. Our study indicated that COVID‐19 children present less severe symptoms and have better outcomes.


Fatty acid synthases (primary metabolism), non-ribosomal peptide synthases and polyketide synthases (secondary metabolism) contain phosphopantetheinyl (Ppant)-dependent carrier proteins that must be made functionally active by transfer of the 4'-Ppant moiety from coenzyme A. These reactions are usually catalysed by dedicated Ppant transferases. Although rich in Ppant-dependent carrier proteins, it was previously shown that Pseudomonas aeruginosa possesses only one Ppant transferase, encoded by pcpS, which functions in both primary and secondary metabolism. Consistent with this notion are our findings that pcpS can genetically complement mutations in the Escherichia coli acpS and entD genes, encoding the apo-acyl carrier protein (ACP) synthase of fatty acid synthesis and a Ppant transferase of enterobactin synthesis, respectively. It also complements a Bacillus subtilis sfp mutation affecting a gene encoding a Ppant transferase essential for surfactin synthesis. A pcpS insertion mutant could only be constructed in a strain carrying the E. coli acpS gene on a chromosomally integrated element in trans, implying that the in vitro essentiality of pcpS is due to its requirement for activation of apo-ACP of fatty acid synthesis. The conditional pcpS mutant is non-fluorescent, does not produce pyoverdine and pyochelin, and does not grow in the presence of iron chelators. The data presented here for the first time confirm that PcpS plays an essential role in both fatty acid and siderophore metabolism.


The problem of estimating label imperfections and the use of the estimation in identifying mislabeled patterns is presented. Expressions for the maximum likelihood estimates of classification errors and a priori probabilities are derived from the classification of a set of labeled patterns. Expressions also are given for the asymptotic variances of probability of correct classification and proportions. Simple models are developed for imperfections in the labels and for classification errors and are used in the formulation of a maximum likelihood estimation scheme. Schemes are presented for the identification of mislabeled patterns in terms of threshold on the discriminant functions for both two-class and multiclass cases. Expressions are derived for the probability that the imperfect label identification scheme will result in a wrong decision and are used in computing thresholds. The results of practical applications of these techniques in the processing of remotely sensed multispectral data are presented.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the current learning methods that are typically used by special populations (an elderly subject group), and to explore their general level of effectiveness. The primary research questions explore how this subject group is currently learning to use the Internet and for what purposes, along with what the typical barriers are that this group experiences when seeking to use the Internet, together with factors that motivate them to participate in learning programs. This study has special relevance for elderly adults along with computer instructors who specifically train the elderly to learn to use the Internet. The findings may also be of interest to others who interact with other special populations, directly or indirectly, including web designers, healthcare professionals, librarians, and others. The project was prompted by the author's experience teaching and observing elderly adults learning to use the Internet, and his desire to develop a more effective teaching strategy for them. The thesis explores the basic principles of adult learning, including components from self-directed learning, the theory of multiple intelligences, ethnographic research and other theories and approaches that have the potential of contributing to teaching this subject group, including the use of language in describing their learning successes and failures. Data analysis consisted of observing over 200 older adults learning to use the Internet over a two-year period. The evaluation of participants was based on empirical (defined in the glossary) and subjective analysis of levels of participation, progress and other factors. To supplement the large-scale results with rich data, the author of this study also performed detailed interviews with 14 elderly Internet users along with five teachers of the elderly. Additional material was gathered from academic journal articles, online databases and other related sources. The author tested and applied several research methods to achieve the most effective outcome. This iii included participant observation from ethnographic research, along with empirical and basic quantitative research. The author also uses autoethnography in his research approach, an emerging qualitative research method that allows the researcher to write in a highly personalized style, drawing on his or her experience, as kind of a autobiographical personal narrative. The intent of auto-ethnography is to acknowledge the link between the personal and the cultural and to make room for non-traditional forms of inquiry and expression. In embracing personal thoughts, feelings, stories, and observations as a way of understanding the social context they are studying, these researchers are also shedding light on their total interaction with that setting by making their every emotion and thought visible to the reader. Auto-ethnography also gives researchers an opportunity to do primary research and draw data from their observations. An identifiable pattern that is reviewed in more detail in the Results section emerged from these different findings. The primary outcome that emerged is that there are many approaches to learning, and these methods need to be examined, tested and selectively adapted for each individual to achieve the maximum benefit. The widespread demand for Internet training has resulted in fragmented and inconsistent training schemes that are generally focused on classroom-based instruction. The author encourages a systematic self-testing by the subject group member (and their teachers) to explore currently available training methods and combine the elements that they find most effective towards a personalized approach to learning based on individual interests, aptitudes, and the availability of the local training resources. The percentage of the elderly using the Internet is rising rapidly, and the current training options are limited in some areas in the United States. Based on the author's empirical observations, the self-directed approach to learning appears to show the most promise for this elderly subject group, in the sense that they generate their own best learning schematics, while their instructor guides and facilitates the process. iv This thesis has made a primary contribution to the research in several ways. First of all, the author made a synthesis that has not been made previously. He combined the concept of self-directed learning with several methods of learning improvement, such as the use of assistive technology for the disabled, memory skill-building, and the application of symbols and metaphors to increase the ability of this subject group to comprehend the learning materials. This is arguably the best approach for adapting to this rapidly evolving subject group population. Additionally, he applied the concept of kaizen, a Japanese term from their manufacturing sector that represents continuous, ongoing improvement, to teach to members of this group the concept of self-monitoring and improvement. Additionally, the research was cross-disciplinary and used different methodologies, including ethnography, empirical and basic quantitative research. Several additional contributions and innovations are described later in the thesis.


We present optimized reaction conditions for the conversion of 2'-O-{[(triisopropylsilyl)oxy]methyl}(tom) protected uridine and adenosine nucleosides into the corresponding protected (3-15N)-labeled uridine and cytidine and (1-15N)-labeled adenosine and guanosine nucleosides. On a DNA synthesizer, the resulting 15N-labeled 2'-O-tom-protected phosphoramidite building blocks were efficiently incorporated into five selected positions of a hairpin bi-stable 32mer RNA sequence. By 2D-HSQC and HNN-COSY expts. in H2O/D2O 9:1, the 15N-signals of all base-paired 15N-labeled nucleotides could be identified and attributed to one of the two coexisting structures of 32mer RNA sequence. [on SciFinder (R)]


Abstract Vilaça Alves, J, Saavedra, F, Simão, R, Novaes, J, Rhea, MR, Green, D, and Machado Reis, V. Does aerobic and strength exercise sequence in the same session affect the oxygen uptake during and postexercise? J Strength Cond Res 26(7): 1872–1878, 2012—Concurrent training is a strategy employed in both general fitness and sports conditioning. The purpose of this study was to compare the responses of V[Combining Dot Above]O2 in different combinations of strength exercise with aerobic interval exercise. Eight men (23.6 ± 4.2 years, 178 ± 6.3 cm, 77 ± 7.9 kg, 7.67 ± 1.95% body fat) completed 3 combinations of strength training (ST) and aerobic training (AT) in a randomized order with a 7-day recovery period: AT before ST exercises, AT between 2 blocks of ST exercises, and AT after ST exercises. The ST comprised 4 exercises performed in 3 sets of 10 reps and 2 exercises, abdominal crunch and lumbar extension, performed in 3 sets of 30 and 20 reps, respectively. The AT consisted of a 20-minute interval cycling. There were no significant differences in the values of absolute or relative V[Combining Dot Above]O2, in the heart rate (HR) and in the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) when the 3 sessions (during + postexercise measurements) were compared (values are mean ± SD). Analyzing only ST in each session, differences were detected in the RER values (F = 4.714; p < 0.05; &eegr;2 = 0.308) between AT before ST and AT in the middle of ST (1.01 ± 0.97 vs. 1.11 ± 0.07, respectively). In all sequences, there was a significant increase (p < 0.05) in the values of relative and absolute V[Combining Dot Above]O2 and HR, and a significant decrease in RER values (p < 0.05) from the first to the second part of the ST session. The values of absolute or relative V[Combining Dot Above]O2, HR, and RER did not vary significantly among the 3 sessions as compared with the AT after ST. These data support the hypothesis that ST and AT, when performed in sequence in the same session, do not seem to affect the overall oxygen consumption during the exercise session. Therefore, training sessions may incorporate both modalities without apparent impact on aerobic exercise.


Traditional site remediation approaches often focus on reducing the contaminant levels to the risk-based levels at low cost in a short period of time. In contrast to a traditional remediation approach, green and sustainable remediation (GSR) is a holistic approach to remediation that also minimizes ancillary environmental impacts. The GSR approach addresses a broad range of environmental, social and economical impacts during all remediation phases. The objective of GSR is to achieve remedial goals through more efficient, sustainable strategies that conserve resources and protect air, water, and soil quality through reduced emissions and other waste burdens. GSR also simultaneously encourages the reuse of remediated land and increased long-term financial returns for investments. Though the potential benefits of GSR are enormous, many environmental professionals and project stakeholders do not utilize GSR technologies because they are unaware of methods for selection and implementation. However, with continued public awareness of sustainability issues, GSR will increasingly be pursued. This paper describes the decision framework including the metrics to assess sustainability of GSR, reviews the potential GSR technologies, and finally highlights the challenges in promoting GSR in practice.


Abstract The euphractine Macroeuphractus outesi, from the late Pliocene Chapadmalalan SALMA of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, is one of the largest dasypodids known. Its skull preserves features remarkable for an armadillo. Its complete dental arcade and large caniniform teeth have received attention in the literature as indicative of scavenging behavior. This report considers the degree of carnivory within the context of the generally omnivorous feeding behavior of euphractine armadillos through morphological and biomechanical analyses. Morphological analyses reveal that the main differences between M. outesi and other euphractines are the enlargement of the cranium, particularly of the temporal fossa; more prominent muscular scars for origin of the temporalis muscle; a more expanded rostrum, particularly in dorsoventral height; a more powerful anterior dentition, especially in the great enlargement and caniniform modification of M2; and a deeper and more robust zygomatic arch. Biomechanical analyses indicate that the moment arm of the temporalis musculature is greater than that recorded for other armadillos. These analyses indicate that the temporalis was probably larger and played a more important role in Macroeuphractus than in other euphractines, a pattern that is more usual for carnivorous mammals. Combined with the second upper molariform, which is caniniform, the features suggest that Macroeuphractus occupied an extreme position in the carnivorous-omnivorous feeding behavior of euphractines. Its large size indicates that it could have easily preyed on hare-sized vertebrates.


Abstract. River water-quality time series often exhibit fractal scaling, which here refers to autocorrelation that decays as a power law over some range of scales. Fractal scaling presents challenges to the identification of deterministic trends because (1) fractal scaling has the potential to lead to false inference about the statistical significance of trends and (2) the abundance of irregularly spaced data in water-quality monitoring networks complicates efforts to quantify fractal scaling. Traditional methods for estimating fractal scaling – in the form of spectral slope (β) or other equivalent scaling parameters (e.g., Hurst exponent) – are generally inapplicable to irregularly sampled data. Here we consider two types of estimation approaches for irregularly sampled data and evaluate their performance using synthetic time series. These time series were generated such that (1) they exhibit a wide range of prescribed fractal scaling behaviors, ranging from white noise (β  =  0) to Brown noise (β  =  2) and (2) their sampling gap intervals mimic the sampling irregularity (as quantified by both the skewness and mean of gap-interval lengths) in real water-quality data. The results suggest that none of the existing methods fully account for the effects of sampling irregularity on β estimation. First, the results illustrate the danger of using interpolation for gap filling when examining autocorrelation, as the interpolation methods consistently underestimate or overestimate β under a wide range of prescribed β values and gap distributions. Second, the widely used Lomb–Scargle spectral method also consistently underestimates β. A previously published modified form, using only the lowest 5 % of the frequencies for spectral slope estimation, has very poor precision, although the overall bias is small. Third, a recent wavelet-based method, coupled with an aliasing filter, generally has the smallest bias and root-mean-squared error among all methods for a wide range of prescribed β values and gap distributions. The aliasing method, however, does not itself account for sampling irregularity, and this introduces some bias in the result. Nonetheless, the wavelet method is recommended for estimating β in irregular time series until improved methods are developed. Finally, all methods' performances depend strongly on the sampling irregularity, highlighting that the accuracy and precision of each method are data specific. Accurately quantifying the strength of fractal scaling in irregular water-quality time series remains an unresolved challenge for the hydrologic community and for other disciplines that must grapple with irregular sampling.


BACKGROUND
Patients undergoing haemodialysis (HD) through a central venous catheter (CVC) are exposed to several risks, being a catheter-related infection (CRI) and a CVC lumen thrombosis among the most serious. Standard of care regarding CVCs includes their sealing with heparin lock solutions to prevent catheter lumen thrombosis. Other lock solutions to prevent CRI, such as antimicrobial lock solutions, have proven useful with antibiotics solutions, but not as yet for non-antibiotic antimicrobial solutions. Furthermore, it is uncertain if these solutions have a negative effect on thrombosis incidence.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the efficacy and safety of antimicrobial (antibiotic, non-antibiotic, or both) catheter lock solutions for preventing CRI in participants undergoing HD with a CVC.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Specialised Register up to 18 December 2017 through contact with the Information Specialist using search terms relevant to this review. Studies in the Register are identified through searches of CENTRAL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE, conference proceedings, the International Clinical Trials Register (ICTRP) Search Portal, and ClinicalTrials.gov.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included all randomised or quasi-randomised control trials (RCTs) comparing antimicrobial (antibiotic and non-antibiotic) lock solutions to standard lock solutions, in participants using a CVC for HD, without language restriction.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently assessed studies for eligibility, and two additional authors assessed for risk of bias and extracted data. We expressed results as rate ratios (RR) per 1000 catheter-days or 1000 dialysis sessions with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Statistical analyses were performed using the random-effects model.

MAIN RESULTS
Thirty-nine studies, enrolling 4216 participants, were included in this review, however only 30 studies, involving 3392 participants, contained enough data to be meta-analysed. Risk of bias was low or unclear for most domains in the majority of the included studies.Studies compared antimicrobial lock solutions (antibiotic and non-antibiotic) to standard sealing solutions (usually heparin) of the CVC for HD. Fifteen studies used antibiotic lock solutions, 21 used non-antibiotic antimicrobial lock solutions, and 4 used both (antibiotic and non-antibiotic) lock solutions. Studies reported the incidence of CRI, catheter thrombosis, or both.Antimicrobial lock solutions probably reduces CRI per 1000 catheter-days (27 studies: RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.53; I2 = 54%; low certainty evidence), however antimicrobial lock solutions probably makes little or no difference to the risk of thrombosis per 1000 catheter days (14 studies: RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.52 to 1.22; I2 = 83%; very low certainty evidence). Subgroup analysis of antibiotic and the combination of both lock solutions showed that both probably reduced CRI per 1000 catheter-days (13 studies: RR 0.30, 95% CI: 0.22 to 0.42; I2 = 47%) and risk of thrombosis per 1000 catheter-days (4 studies: RR 0.26, 95% CI: 0.14 to 0.49; I2 = 0%), respectively. Non-antibiotic antimicrobial lock solutions probably reduced CRI per 1000 catheter-days for tunnelled CVC (9 studies: RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.91) but probably made little or no difference with non-tunnelled CVC (4 studies: RR 0.93, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.81). Subgroup analyses showed that antibiotic (5 studies: RR 0.76, 95% CI 0.42 to 1.38), non-antibiotic (8 studies: RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.44 to 1.66), and the combination of both lock solutions (3 studies: RR 0.63, 95% CI 0.22 to 1.81) made little or no difference to thrombosis per 1000 catheter-days compared to control lock solutions.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Antibiotic antimicrobial and combined (antibiotic-non antibiotic) lock solutions decreased the incidence of CRI compared to control lock solutions, whereas non-antibiotic lock solutions reduce CRI only for tunnelled CVC. The effect on thrombosis incidence is uncertain for all antimicrobial lock solutions. Our confidence in the evidence is low and very low; therefore, better-designed studies are needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of antimicrobial lock solutions.


This book provides an introduction, discussion, and formal-based modelling of trust theory and its applications in agent-based systems This book gives an accessible explanation of the importance of trust in human interaction and, in general, in autonomous cognitive agents including autonomous technologies. The authors explain the concepts of trust, and describe a principled, general theory of trust grounded on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions. This provides a strong base for the authors discussion of role of trust in agent-based systems supporting human-computer interaction and distributed and virtual organizations or markets (multi-agent systems). Key Features: Provides an accessible introduction to trust, and its importance and applications in agent-based systems Proposes a principled, general theory of trust grounding on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions. Offers a clear, intuitive approach, and systematic integration of relevant issues Explains the dynamics of trust, and the relationship between trust and security Offers operational definitions and models directly applicable both in technical and experimental domains Includes a critical examination of trust models in economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and AI This book will be a valuable reference for researchers and advanced students focused on information and communication technologies (computer science, artificial intelligence, organizational sciences, and knowledge management etc.), as well as Web-site and robotics designers, and for scholars working on human, social, and cultural aspects of technology. Professionals of ecommerce systems and peer-to-peer systems will also find this text of interest.


BACKGROUND
Episodes of depression are the most frequent cause of disability among patients with bipolar disorder. The effectiveness and safety of standard antidepressant agents for depressive episodes associated with bipolar disorder (bipolar depression) have not been well studied. Our study was designed to determine whether adjunctive antidepressant therapy reduces symptoms of bipolar depression without increasing the risk of mania.

METHODS
In this double-blind, placebo-controlled study, we randomly assigned subjects with bipolar depression to receive up to 26 weeks of treatment with a mood stabilizer plus adjunctive antidepressant therapy or a mood stabilizer plus a matching placebo, under conditions generalizable to routine clinical care. A standardized clinical monitoring form adapted from the mood-disorder modules of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, was used at all follow-up visits. The primary outcome was the percentage of subjects in each treatment group meeting the criterion for a durable recovery (8 consecutive weeks of euthymia). Secondary effectiveness outcomes and rates of treatment-emergent affective switch (a switch to mania or hypomania early in the course of treatment) were also examined.

RESULTS
Forty-two of the 179 subjects (23.5%) receiving a mood stabilizer plus adjunctive antidepressant therapy had a durable recovery, as did 51 of the 187 subjects (27.3%) receiving a mood stabilizer plus a matching placebo (P=0.40). Modest nonsignificant trends favoring the group receiving a mood stabilizer plus placebo were observed across the secondary outcomes. Rates of treatment-emergent affective switch were similar in the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS
The use of adjunctive, standard antidepressant medication, as compared with the use of mood stabilizers, was not associated with increased efficacy or with increased risk of treatment-emergent affective switch. Longer-term outcome studies are needed to fully assess the benefits and risks of antidepressant therapy for bipolar disorder. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00012558 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).


Phenology, floral biology, the reproductive system, and pollination of the macauba palm, Acrocomia aculeata were studied in Central Brazil. The species is arborescent, single-stemmed, and reaches heights of up to 16 m. Flowering occurs between August and December, peaking between October and November. Fruit fall (harvest) is between June and March, with a peak in November. Inflorescences are androgynous with marked protogyny. The basic pollination syndrome is by beetles, with wind playing a secondary role. The principal pollinators are Andranthobius sp. (Curculionidae), Mystrops cf mexicana (Nitidulidae) and Cyclocephala forsteri (Scarabaeidae). Cross-pollination between different individuals (xenogamy) accounts for most of the reproductive system. However, the species is self-compatible, with geitonogamy accounting for a significant percentage of fruit set. The combination of two pollination strategies (wind and insects) with a flexible reproductive system (crossand self-pollination) suggests that A. aculeata can be highly successful in the colonization of new areas, as is evidenced by the ample distribution of species in the Neotropics.


1. Aggressive behaviour of top predators may have strong effects on the distribution and abundance of mesopredator species. Such interactions between predator species can reduce the intensity of predation on vulnerable prey. Suppression of mesopredators by top predators is a potentially important process that could protect small prey species from unsustainable predation.

2. There is some evidence that in Australia, the dingo
Canis lupus suppresses populations of the red fox Vulpes vulpes. This interaction could be significant to biodiversity conservation because while dingoes have been in Australia for several thousand years and coexist with a wide range of small mammals, the fox is a recent arrival which has caused declines and extinctions, and continues to
threaten many prey species.

3. However the strength of the effect of dingoes on foxes is unclear, and some published data have been interpreted as demonstrating no relationship between abundance of the two species. These data come from forested habitats in eastern Australia, and may suggest that negative relationships of dingoes and foxes do not occur in complex habitats.

4. We re-analyse published data on fox vs. wild dog (i.e. dingoes plus, potentially, feral dogs and hybrids) abundance in eastern forests. These data reveal a triangular relationship of fox to wild dog density: when wild dogs are abundant, foxes are consistently rare, while when wild dogs are rare, foxes may be abundant but are not always so. This suggests that the abundance of wild dogs sets an upper limit on the abundance of foxes, but does not fully determine fox abundance.

5. Standard regression and correlation methods are not appropriate for analysing such triangular relationships. We apply two statistical methods that can be used to characterize the edges of data distributions, and use these to demonstrate a negative relationship of maximum fox abundance to the abundance of wild dogs.

6. Synthesis and applications. Our analysis adds to evidence that dingoes may have negative effects on red foxes in a wide range of habitats, and therefore, that dingoes may be significant to conservation of mammal biodiversity in Australia. It also illustrates problems and solutions in the statistical analysis of abundance of one species as a function of the abundance of another species with which it has a strong interaction.


This article aims to shed light on the impact of an extended social context on the motivation for the figurative content of conventional metaphors. The article therefore compares conventional linguistic metaphors found in Inari Saami with conventional linguistic metaphors that are widespread among European languages, in order to reveal differences and similarities between what is deeply local and shared only by a restricted speech community, i.e. an indigenous culture without a literary tradition, and what is unquestionably spread across a large number of languages. The comparison first presents three animal concepts prominent in both Inari Saami and widespread idioms, wolf, hare and raven, followed by an investigation of animal concepts found only in one of these two data sets: reindeer in Inari Saami and crocodile, ostrich and lynx among the widespread idioms. It is demonstrated that Inari Saami metaphors typically draw their motivation from the concrete life-experience of the people, while the widespread idioms are to a large extent based on literary traditions. In both contexts we find metaphors drawn from or supported by folklore: fairy tales, mythology and superstition. Comparing these two data sets offers great possibilities to the study of metaphors: how we understand metaphors, and how they come into being, and what is the nature of vehicle development over extended time and space.


The Carnegie Report faults American legal education for focusing exclusively on doctrine and analytical skills and neglecting the formation of professional identity. According to the Report, law schools can fix this problem by enabling students to "encounter appealing representations of professional ideals, connect in a powerful way with engaging models of ethical commitment within in the profession, and reflect on their [own] emerging professional identity in relation to those ideals and models." The Report identifies pro bono work, clinics, and externships as sites for this sort of learning, where students can interact with members of the profession and reflect on the models of professionalism that they encounter. Taking the Carnegie Report's charge as a starting point, this article proposes an additional model for integrating a focus on professional identity into the law school curriculum. It profiles an experimental law school course that combined field work observations of practicing attorneys with in-class simulations of the work of a small law firm. The course was quite successful in prompting students to engage in an inquiry into what it is to be a lawyer and what kinds of lawyers they wanted to be. One student commented in a course evaluation, for example, that the course allowed him to see "a new vision for what being a practicing lawyer can be." That this sort of exposure to professional exemplars and reflection on professional identity was possible in a non-clinic course was an exciting discovery, suggesting new directions for curricular design as law schools continue to meet the challenges of the Carnegie Report.


The liver can regenerate after severe injury or surgery, even when up to 70% of the tissue has been removed. Lesurtel et al. report that in a mouse model, serotonin carried by platelets circulating in the blood plays a role in the regenerative process. Liver was found to express serotonin receptors. Mice with impaired platelet function had a reduced regenerative response, but when they were treated with a serotonin receptor agonist, hepatocyte proliferation was restored. Liver regeneration in mice lacking peripheral serotonin was also restored when their platelets were reloaded with serotonin. Therapeutic treatment with serotonin receptor agonists may thus be useful in tissue recovery. M. Lesurtel, R. Graf, B. Aleil, D. J. Walther, Y. Tian, W. Jochum, C. Gachet, M. Bader, P.-A. Clavien, Platelet-derived serotonin mediates liver regeneration. Science 312, 104-107 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The creation of 'buying power' through joint purchasing agreements is often seen as positive, with direct benefits for consumers in the form of lower prices. Even where joint purchasing agreements lead to the creation of a monopsonist, economic theory suggests that the welfare effects of monopsony power depend greatly on the market context, with some economists proposing that the probability of harm in cases involving monopsony power is considerably lower than in cases of a monopoly. Despite this view, section 4(1)(b) of the South African Competition Act classifies the 'fixing of a purchase or selling price or any other trading condition' by competitors as a per se prohibition. This implies that from a legal perspective purchasing agreements may be afforded the same draconian treatment as selling cartels. This paper considers whether this potentially punitive treatment of joint buying arrangements under section 4(1)(b) is warranted and indeed whether the equivalent treatment of joint buying and selling agreements under this section of the Act is appropriate.


Regional Economic Policy in Europe presents a tightly focused selection of policy, empirical and theoretical perspectives on contemporary dimensions of regional economic policy in the EU. It concentrates on three areas; the dissimilarities and resulting convergence of disparate regions within the EU; the localisation of economic activities and how regions can understand and manage them and, finally, the experiences and lessons that can be drawn from European regional policy. While exploring EU cohesion and regional development more widely, the book also examines Spanish, Belgian and Eastern European experiences on growth, human capital, foreign investment and technological spillovers.

This up-to-date and thoroughly researched study is one that will be appreciated by academics and researchers of European studies and regional economics in Europe. Policymakers will also find the conclusions reached within the pages of this book invaluable.


Why women leave the legal profession and do not re-engage is an important issue for the national profession and one which has been a priority for the Law Council of Australia. In 2013 the Law Council conducted the National Attrition and Re-engagement Study (NARS) research to obtain quantitative data and confirm trends in progression, attrition and re-engagement rates of female lawyers. The research also examined the qualitative reasons behind these trends. The survey was released in every Australian state and territory and surveyed both men and women who are current practising lawyers; lawyers who have never practised; and lawyers who are no longer practising. Following the collation and analysis of the data, a report has now been produced, including recommendations for legal associations and law practices, outlining practical measures which can be implemented to address the causes of high attrition rates among women lawyers, and to re-engage women lawyers who have left the profession. These recommendations encompass strategies targeted at different cohorts of women lawyers, including: • women working in small, medium and large law firms; • women in early, mid and later stages of their career as a legal practitioner; • former, current and aspiring women barristers; and • women who have left private practice (to encourage re-engagement with the legal profession).


ABSTRACT In this paper, the author incorporates his new conceptual scheme developed in an earlier book titled God as the Shadow of Man as a means of bridging between micro- and macro-criminology. The key concept is the mythogene, which is an ahistorical structure of longing and experience. He utilizes this concept to explain the recruiting process of the individual into crime. Then mythology, which is the sum total of all mythogenes in a given group, is utilized to understand the formation of criminal groups. Finally, the ethos, which is the conglomeration of mythologies, is utilized to explain, inter alia, the genesis of criminal societies such as the Third Reich of Germany. Conceptual clarification CRIMINAL AND DEVIANT behavior involve a relationship between certain forms of human behavior contrary to given social norms. Hence, criminal and deviant behavior are dualistic and associational. This relationship is the focal concern of criminologists and is not a unidimensional phenomenon as in psychology, which mostly studies the behavior of the human individual, or sociology, which focuses on human aggregates, or law, which deals in legal norms. Due to the perception that a relationship is the central subject of criminology, Walter Reckless studied the association between behavior and rules as early as 1961 (Reckless 1961). However, his ideas, grouped under the headline "Containment Theory," were largely ignored by the criminological establishment. Yet, in 1969 Travis Hirschi published his social bonding theory (Hirschi 1969), which is based largely on Reckless's theory and received almost universal acclaim from American criminologists. The gist of Hirschi's theory is that the lack of bonds of an individua l to other individuals, to his membership groups, or to restraining social norms, sometimes lead to delinquency. Hirschi, however, did not deal with the contents of the social bonds, nor with the individual's motivation to entertain them. This was carried out in the pioneering work of Claude Levi-Strauss, whose epoch-making studies in the Amazon River Basin of Brazil revealed that myths link nature and culture (Levi-Strauss 1964). Following in the giant footsteps of Strauss, I have demonstrated in a recent trilogy that myths may also serve as bonds between subject and object, human and non-human, and the individual and group (Shoham 2000a, 2000b, 2000c). Of course, one recognizes that much research and theory concerning these topics has occurred since the time of Reckless and Straus (See Agnew 1985; Cernkovich and Giordano 1987:299-300; Laub and Sampson 1988; Wells and Rankin 1988; Voorhis et al. 1988). However, having been a student of both Reckless and Levi-Strauss, I shall try presently to base myself on t he work of these two pioneers and provide a new framework for criminological theory. The first claim is that myths provide the motivational contents of the normative bonds of individuals to groups. However, I distinguish between "mythogenes," the motivational structures of experience and longings of individual human beings, and "myths," which are, according to Freud (1961:141-2), "the distorted vestiges of the wish-fulfillment fantasies of whole nations... the age-long dreams of young humanity." Freud actually raised his intrapsychic interpretation of dreams to the group level and claimed that the myth is an expression of the tribe's "social characters," the nation's or social aggregate's wishes and visions. Surely, the myth of the Flood was not dreamful wish fulfillment, but a projection of actual experiences with disastrous inundation by rivers, especially in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Myths are, therefore, also a projection of experiences and spectacular events borne by a group before written history. Hence, mythogenes are projected by individuals, whereas myths are projected by groups. Still, mythogenes are the building blocks of myths; mythology is the collective body of myths in a given social aggregate. …


Antilisterial activities of Thymbra capitata and Origanum vulgare essential oils were tested against 41 strains of Listeria monocytogenes. The oil of T. capitata was mainly constituted by one component, carvacrol (79%), whereas for O. vulgare three components constituted 70% of the oil, namely, thymol (33%), gamma-terpinene (26%), and p-cymene (11%). T. capitata essential oil had a significantly higher antilisterial activity in comparison to O. vulgare oil and chloramphenicol. No significant differences in L. monocytogenes susceptibilities to the essential oils tested were registered. The minimum inhibitory concentration values of T. capitata essential oil and of carvacrol were quite similar, ranging between 0.05 and 0.2 microL/mL. Antioxidant activity was also tested, the essential oil of T. capitata showing significantly higher antioxidant activity than that of O. vulgare. Use of T. capitata and O. vulgare essential oils can constitute a powerful tool in the control of L. monocytogenes in food and other industries.


Activin belongs to the TGFβ superfamily, which is associated with several disease conditions, including cancer-related cachexia, preterm labor with delivery, and osteoporosis. Targeting activin and its related signaling pathways holds promise as a therapeutic approach to these diseases. A small-molecule ligand-binding groove was identified in the interface between the two activin βA subunits and was used for a virtual high-throughput in silico screening of the ZINC database to identify hits. Thirty-nine compounds without significant toxicity were tested in two well-established activin assays: FSHβ transcription and HepG2 cell apoptosis. This screening workflow resulted in two lead compounds: NUCC-474 and NUCC-555. These potential activin antagonists were then shown to inhibit activin A-mediated cell proliferation in ex vivo ovary cultures. In vivo testing showed that our most potent compound (NUCC-555) caused a dose-dependent decrease in FSH levels in ovariectomized mice. The Blitz competition binding assay confirmed target binding of NUCC-555 to the activin A:ActRII that disrupts the activin A:ActRII complex's binding with ALK4-ECD-Fc in a dose-dependent manner. The NUCC-555 also specifically binds to activin A compared with other TGFβ superfamily member myostatin (GDF8). These data demonstrate a new in silico-based strategy for identifying small-molecule activin antagonists. Our approach is the first to identify a first-in-class small-molecule antagonist of activin binding to ALK4, which opens a completely new approach to inhibiting the activity of TGFβ receptor superfamily members. in addition, the lead compound can serve as a starting point for lead optimization toward the goal of a compound that may be effective in activin-mediated diseases.


Photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) is capable of mapping microvasculature networks in biological tissue and has demonstrated great potential for biomedical applications. However, the clinical application of the PAM system is limited due to the use of bulky and expensive pulsed laser sources. In this paper, a low-cost optical-resolution PAM system with a pulsed laser diode excitation has been introduced. The lateral resolution of this PAM system was estimated to be 7 µm by imaging a carbon fiber. The phantoms made of polyethylene tubes filled with blood and a mouse ear were imaged to demonstrate the feasibility of this PAM system for imaging biological tissues.


A new calcareous dinoflagellate cyst species, Tetratropis terrina sp. nov., with an apparent stratigraphically narrow range is described from the Upper Campanian Bostrychoceras polyplocum zone of the Lägerdorf chalk sequence (NW Germany). The electron microscopic and light microscopic analyses show that T. terrina has both a pithonelloid wall type with uniformly inclined wall crystallites and a reduced peridiniacean paratabulation pattern. The prominent morphological similarities of T. terrina to the other two Tetratropis species (T. patina and T. corbula) justify the affiliation of the new species to the genus. As a result of the extension of the morphological spectrum by the new species, the genus Tetratropis Willems, 1990 has been emended.


The development of therapeutic thermal ablative techniques become viable alternative method to treat patients who cannot be treated by surgery because of high surgical risk or unfavourable tumour location. Microwave ablation is the least invasive technique recently developed for cancer treatment because of its low cost, smaller antenna size and shorter recovery time. However, there are shortcomings of microwave ablation therapy needed to be fulfilled. Unsuccessfully ablated tumour and destruction of large portion of surrounding healthy tissues due to usage of exceptionally high input power which yields lack of control over heating encountered with previously proposed applicator designs. This work investigates the efficacy of using low power ultra-wide band (UWB) microwave applicator in cancer ablation. A novel Tear Drop Flared tipped (TDFT) antenna was proposed as microwave applicator for treating focal malignant tumours using low input power by the means of directed axial radiation. TDFT antenna is modelled and analysed in different surroundings such as saline, healthy and malignant tissue models. Semi-analytical numerical model is introduced to calculate current distributions required on antenna and consequent near-field distribution for achieving homogenous heating conformal to the targeted lesion to overcome nonuniform field distribution of omni-directional radiation. Electromagnetic simulations showed that TDFT antenna achieved minimum reflection stability of -25.89 dB over ultra-wide bandwidth. Electromagnetic and thermal simulations proved that directed axial radiation within targeted lesion produce confined uniform heating at significantly low input power. Moreover, 60 ℃ temperatures were attained for successful ablation and provided more control over heating within the targeted lesion. Highest SAR value attained of 967.3 W/kg for only 3W input power. Thermal analysis revealed that TDFT antenna can achieve a successful ablation of spherical cancerous lesions of diameters of 15.5 mm in 3 minutes for input power of 3W. TDFT antenna was fabricated and tested in egg-white solution and bovine liver. A good agreement between the measured and simulated results were observed where overall efficiency of 99.99% was recorded at the operating frequency. Ablation experiments were conducted in egg-white solution and bovine liver for 1W input power. Feasibility of TDFT antenna as a microwave coagulator was clearly observed in creating confined heating manifested in ablated lesions of 16×19.5×19.5 mm3 for 15-min ablation. Highly-directed End-fire radiation of TDFT antenna noticeably achieves confined heating that facilitates using only 60% of the lowest input power recorded in literature to attain successful ablation in standard radiation exposure time of 15 mins. This reduces power consumption of microwave applicator by almost 40% of the lowest input power used in literature.


ABSTRACT: There is no conflict of interest between a trade author and a trade publisher. The trade author's product is his text, and the trade publisher produces and sells it for him, so they can both make a fair profit. Both wish to protect their product from theft; both wish to restrict access to those have paid for it. Contrast this with the specialised scientific and scholarly research literature: The research has been funded by a governmental research supporting agency or a public institution of higher learning and the results are meant to be made publicly available, especially so that other specialists can read and build further research on it. Through this cycle of research/report/research, all of humanity benefits from the fruits of learned inquiry. But because of the substantial real cost of producing print on paper in the Gutenberg era, research publication had to adopt the same economic model as trade publication: Researchers, who were not writing to sell their words, and would gladly have given them away to reach the eyes of their fellow researchers the world over, in their joint enterprise of broadening human knowledge, were forced instead to make the "Faustian Bargain" of transferring copyright to their publishers, who would then try to recover their substantial expenses plus a fair profit by selling those words as if they had been produced for trade. Research libraries the world over paid the hefty price, purchasing all the important journals so that each individual article could find its own small, scattered readership in perpetuum. This era is now potentially over: The much lower cost and much broader reach of electronic publication can free research from the counterproductive access boundaries imposed by the trade model. Research grants can now easily afford to cover the minimal marginal cost of electronic publication, making the research literature free for all, as it was always meant to be, with the growth of human knowledge no longer needlessly restrained by the Faustian Bargain and humankind the greatest beneficiary.


Abstract This paper is an examination of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and the related conditions of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), fetal alcohol effects (FAE), and alcoholrelated birth effects (ARBE)3 as they pertain to the Canadian criminal justice system, and specifically to Aboriginal Canadian offenders. FASD is considered a problem for the criminal justice system in general, but the over-representation of Aboriginal persons at various levels of the Canadian system, in particular in the Prairie Provinces of Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) places an additional factor into any consideration of the issue. This is further complicated by the fact that, as suggested by Tait (2003), it is important to recognize the 'secondary disabilities' identified as part of FASD in the context of those social characteristics that are the result of colonialism and related policies of discrimination, attempts at forced assimilation and economic marginalization experienced by Aboriginal people. Thus the high incarceration rate of Aboriginal people which many see as an outcome of colonialism, combined with common stereotypes of the "drunken Indian" may lead one to assume that FASD is a major contributing factor to Aboriginal peoples' over-involvement with the criminal justice system. What is really the issue at hand is the relationship between FASD and incarceration of Aboriginal people, not as an indicator of the connection between alcoholism addiction and Aboriginals, but rather as a sign that incarceration of Aboriginal people is connected to discrimination, and broader health and social development issues (the outcome of colonialism) and which may also include FASD. The problems of identifying offenders with FASD in the criminal justice system (and in particular the prison system), presents as disproportionately a problem of Aboriginal people. This must be taken into account when developing policies and practices around FASD and criminal justice. Key Words: Aboriginal people, criminal justice, discrimination, fetal/foetal alcohol disorder/syndrome, health Introduction2 This paper will begin with a discussion of FASD and some of the problems encountered with identifying it in both young people and adults. It will then consider some of the challenges posed by FASD and the criminal justice system, challenges not unlike those presented by other persons with cognitive deficits. This will be followed by a discussion of the over- representation of Aboriginal persons in the criminal justice system. It will then examine briefly the literature on the health of Aboriginal people in Canada, and the connections between the impact of colonialism and health. FASD is an important aspect of the relationship between health issues for Aboriginal peoples and health research. The paper concludes by discussing policy and practice issues as they relate to identifying and providing support for those with FASD among Aboriginal peoples in the criminal justice system What is FASD? Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder covers a range of conditions resulting from foetal exposure to alcohol. It is: a serious neuro-developmental and/or physical disorder that can result in disabilities that have lifelong physical, mental, behavioural and social consequences. FASD is caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol. The amount of alcohol necessary to cause FASD remains unknown... Alcohol crosses freely through the placenta. The first 3 to 7 weeks after conception is the period when alcohol can cause the greatest physical abnormalities. However, alcohol continues to impact the foetus throughout gestation, particularly the developing brain (Stade, et al. 2004). Health Canada (Canada, 2003 ) follows the generally accepted view about the incidence of FAS. It is thought to occur in the range of 1 to 3 out of every 1000 live births. The range of alcohol-related disorders is estimated at 9.1 per 1,000. This rate is widely used to estimate the rate of FAE. …


Credit market imperfections have been blamed for the depth and persistence of the Great Depression in the USA. Could similar mechanisms have played a role in ending the East Asian miracle? After a brief account of the nature of the recent crisis, we use a model of highly levered credit-constrained firms due to Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) to explore this question. As applied to land-holding property companies, it predicts greatly amplified responses to financial shocks - like the ending of the land price bubble or the fall of the exchange rate. The initial fall in asset values is followed by the ?knock-on? effects of the scramble for liquidity as companies sell land to satisfy their collateral requirements - causing land prices to fall further. This could lead to financial collapse where - like falling dominoes - prudent firms are brought down by imprudent firms. Key to avoiding collapse is the nature of financial stabilisation policy; in a crisis, temporary financing can prevent illiquidity becoming insolvency and launching lifeboats can do the same. But the vulnerability of financial systems like those in East Asia to short-term foreign currency exposure suggests that preventive measures are also required.


The development, deployment, and control of groups of robots is a tedious process even for experienced roboticists. Particularly in heterogeneous systems a high granularity of control and visibility is difficult to achieve. The lack of standardized interfaces and communication protocols to interconnect robots from different manufacturers makes it very difficult to develop flexible robotic applications. We propose an efficient system suited to support heterogeneous robotic swarms that can be used as a toolkit for fast prototyping of robust distributed applications. This system offers a flexible interface allowing external users to remotely control the swarm over the internet by using standardized communication protocols such as Web Services.


BACKGROUND
The etiology of spontaneous rupture of the extensor pollicis longus tendon includes systemic or local steroid injections, wrist fracture, tenosynovitis, synovitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and repetitive wrist motions.

CASE REPORT
We encountered a case of extensor pollicis longus tendon rupture with an unusual etiology, cow milking. In this case, transfer of the extensor indicis proprius tendon was performed successfully. At 1 year after surgery, extension of the thumb was sufficient.

CONCLUSION
It appears that patients with occupations involving repetitive motions are at a high risk of closed tendon ruptures.


This book re-examines the relationship between language and national identity. Unlike many previous studies, it employs a comparative approach: France and Sweden have been chosen as case studies both for their similarities (e.g. both are member states of the European Union) as well as their important differences (e.g. France subscribes in principle to a civic model of national identity, whereas the basis of Swedish identity is undeniably ethnic). It is precisely differences such as these which allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the ethnolinguistic implications of some of the major challenges currently facing France, Sweden and other European countries: regionalism, immigration, European integration and globalization.The present volume benefits from the use of a multidisciplinary approach, and differs from others on the market because of the variety of methods of inquiry used. A series of societal analyses is complemented by an empirical component, bringing a more grounded understanding to the issue of language and national identity.


BACKGROUND
The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology is one of the main classification systems for thyroid nodules. It expects that 7% of all fine needle aspiration biopsies will be reported as atypia or follicular lesions of undetermined significance, and 5-15% of these undetermined nodules are malignant. Our study is a retrospective analysis of variables that may be associated with outcome in patients with indeterminate thyroid nodules.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Patients who underwent thyroidectomy in our institution between 2010 and 2014 were retrieved from the institutional records database. Patient demographics and medical histories were recorded. All ultrasonography reports were examined for nodule features and biochemical blood levels, hormone levels and complete blood counts were recorded.

RESULTS
A total of 103 patient cytopathology reports were regarded as belonging to the undetermined category. Some 35% of patients had malignant nodules. Median preoperative red cell distribution width (RDW) level was 13.6 inthe benign group, while it was 14.3 in patients with malignancy, demonstrating a significant correlation (p=0.003). Only calcification presence was significantly different between benign and malignant groups on ultrasonography (p=0.034).

CONCLUSIONS
Ultrasonography is one of the primary tools for this matter. RDW levels may become another promising tool to predict malignancy.


This chapter focuses on teachers' uses of pedagogical tasks in the classroom. It has long been recognised that the task-as-workplan inevitably changes once in process in the classroom (Breen, 1987). However, since relatively little empirical attention has been given to tasks in action in the classroom, we know remarkably little about how far workplans actually do change, and in what ways. This chapter highlights the role played by the teacher, intentionally and unintentionally, in making adjustments to the workplan prospectively in pre-lesson planning and dynamically while implementing the task in the classroom. To this end, I propose conceptualising the task as a succession of workplans, open to change at different phases of classroom use, and outline a framework for tracing those changes as the task unfolds in process. In the second part of the chapter, I apply this framework to the analysis of two teachers working with the same task. Drawing on teacher interviews, classroom transcripts and stimulated recalls, I show how one teacher appears to successively 're-task' the original workplan, while the other appears to unintentionally de-task it, and track the cumulative impacts of each change on the opportunities for language use created. I conclude the chapter with a brief consideration of how insights from a multidimensional approach to the workplan, such as the one proposed here, could be drawn on to support beginning teachers or those transitioning to TBLT.


Organizations have found that functional approach to business destroys flexibility and agility by gaining experience over the time. The main weakness with Task-based organizations is that they can hardly act flexibly and adapt themselves to the changing environment. In today's' dynamic and competitive business world, organizations focus significantly on managing and improving their business processes. Therefore, nowadays to be survived and successful, certainly, the process approach must be followed. In addition, organizations having such improvement and innovations are looking to create organizational wealth. In this regard, the present study is trying to identify and describe processes from reputable reference models in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and more importantly to design and streamline CRM processes effectively for organizations in order to improve processes and offer value to customers. In this paper, first, by identifying and explaining CRM reference models, three models were selected based on five criteria (flexibility, Understandability, comprehensiveness, Completeness, and Usability) using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique which is relative as follow: SAP, CCOR & PCF. Then, the processes of the three models were extracted and gathered in a comprehensive list to offer a united framework to design CRM processes. Finally, a case study will show the applicability of the proposed model. With this paper, we enrich research by a valuable process framework for developing well-designed reference models.