ardiac therapy (CRT) improves cardiac performance, reverses myocardial remodeling, and improves survival in selected patients with advanced heart failure (HF) and a left bundle branch block (LBBB). 1–4 This improvement is seemingly related to reversal of mechanical and electric dyssynchrony as manifested by a ventricular conduction delay on ECG. Often combined with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (CRT-D), CRT is now widely used to treat patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class III-IV HF who have a QRS (cid:1) 120 ms and a left ventricular ejection fraction (cid:2) 35% while receiving optimal medical therapy. 5,6 Drs Tang and Francis advocate caution regarding early adoption of chronic resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients with mild heart failure (HF). Their thesis centers around the difficulties encountered in randomized, prospective study of this clinical question, such as the challenges of enrolling a representative population of patients, classifying HF events, and parsing out subgroups of patients who benefit most by CRT. However, these arguments are similar to most HF and other clinical trials. Patients in clinical trials are better treated and have superior outcomes compared with the general population. This does not mean that we should avoid (cid:3) -blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, or other beneficial drugs in this population. Rather, it challenges clinicians to improve their overall care, follow guidelines, and attempt to achieve similar outcomes. Classifying HF events is always challenging, but blinded, experienced event committees in these trials showed consistent and robust effects of CRT of a magnitude larger than observed in most other studies of accepted pharmacological therapy for HF. There are likely subsets of patients who will not benefit from CRT, and implantation of patients without left bundle branch block may not be approved. However, it is inconsistent with the basic tenets of clinical trials to withhold CRT in mild HF on the basis of retrospective or underpowered subgroup analyses. Such was the case after the initial studies of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and CRT in advanced HF. In this regard, RAFT, another randomized study evaluating CRT in mild HF, showed significant mortality reduction among class II HF patients implanted with a CRT device compared to ICD alone, likely as a result of the longer follow compared to MADIT-CRT and REVERSE. These findings confirm and extend the observations made in the previous trials and establish CRT as a life-saving procedure with similar rates of serious complications in the minimally symptomatic HF population.


The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between loss and retention of key employees in downsizing organisations and organisational performance. The purpose of this was to develop an understanding of the organisational performance that results when downsizing organisations are unable to retain their key workers. The secondary objective of the research was to examine the factors that make up a downsizing organisation's employee selection process in order to determine how these factors affect loss and retention of key workers. The research was guided by a theoretical framework developed by Kozlowski et al (1993) and Thornhill and Saunders (1998) and utilised a multi-method research approach suggested by Creswell (1994) and Eisenhardt (1989). The contextual issues in downsizing employee selection were examined through analysis of seven Western Australian case study organisations. The case studies, through structured interviews and secondary data, provided insight into the complexity of the employee selection process, enabled a rich contextual base which aided in understanding the downsizing process, informed the development of a survey instrument, and provided for triangulation of the data. Each organisation was analysed as a unique site. Cross-site analysis techniques, based on pattern analysis, provided a better understanding of the selection process (Miles and Huberman, 1984). The downsizing process for each organisation was mapped as a process model in order to compare the employee selection process across the organisations. Tlte_ survey sampling frame was based on the Kompass Australia (1999) data set, which included around 26,000 organisations. A random sample of the data set resulted in selection of 1860 Australian organisations for survey. The firms constituted a wide cross section of Australian private and public sector organisations and varied in size as well as type of company. Some 422 organisations responded to the survey for a response rate of 23%. Firms provided demographic information as well as data on the process used for employee selection, whether or not the firm lost key employees and managers, use of redundancy packages, use of selection strategies, and organisational performance subsequent to the downsizing. Factor analysis was used to develop a simplified classification system for organisational performance. This resulted in a reduction of the performance variables to two categories: employee performance and financial performance. The two factors of organisational performance were then used for cluster analysis in order to classify the organisations according to the two performance dimensions. The results of this stage of the analysis suggested that the best fit for modeling the groupings of performance was based on a three-cluster solution. It was discovered that most of the organisations, 52%, exhibited declines in both employee and financial performance. Additionally, only 33% of the ii organisations improved both financial and employee pelformance, and some 15% of the organisations improved financial pelformance despite declines in employee pelformance. The three groups of organisations were then examined for differences in loss and retention of key managers and employees. Using chi-square tests, it was discovered that 66% of the organisations that suffered declines in both financial and employee pelf ormance lost key employees during the downsizing process and that only 32% of those organisations that improved both financial and employee pelformance lost key managers. The results were statisticallly significant and supported the premise that loss and retention of key managers and key employees is closely associated with organisational pelformance in downsizing firms. The effects of the employee selection process on loss and retention of key managers and employees were next examined. It was discovered that larger organisations tended to lose a disproportionate level of both key managers and key employees, that the greater the proportion of staff that were shed the greater the probability of loss of key managers and employees, and that certain types of industries, such as mining companies, insurance and financial institutions, and utilities, demonstrated a high proportion of loss qf key managers. The factors influencing loss of key managers included transfers to lower paying jobs as a downsizing alternative to cost reduction, the use of delayering as a downsizing target, and use of a�ross-the-board staff cuts to achieve cost reduction. Strategies that resulted in retention of key managers included the use of a competitive selection process that utilised selection criteria such as skills and experience. Key employees were lost to organisations that transferred workers to lower paying jobs, reduced the number of working hours, downsized as a result of merger or takeover, downsized in order to achieve economic turnaround as the primary goal, closed specific work sites, and used voluntary redundancy as the primary downsizing strategy. It is argued that these results have significant implications for human resource management theory and practice, suggesting that employees must be valued as strategic assets not only in periods of expansion, but during organisational contraction.


The Holocene vegetation history of northern Norrland was studied by pollen analysis of sediement, peat and soil samples, with the aim to improve our knowledge about vegetation development in northern Norrland, and also about the history of man and the introduction of agriculture in the area. Earlier made pollen analyses from the four northernmost provinces were summarized and a series of new analyses from northern Norrland added. Pollen anlyses were conducted on sediment and peat profiles from four sites in the Lulealv valley, in Norrbotten, and from Kassjon in coastal Vasterbotten. Furthermore, the hypothesis was tested that pollen analysis of thin mor humus soils could be used to trace and identify ancient cultivated fields.When the interior parts of the Lulealv valley were deglaciated about 9500 BP, an open ecosystem formed dominated by shrubs and dwarf-shrubs. A few hundred years later Betula and Pinus invaded and rapidly formed forests, and by 9000 BP Alnus had immigrated and become common in most of Norrland. With climatic improvement Betula and Alnus increased in abundance, and nemoral broad-leaved trees colonized from south to north: between 6000-3500 BP Ulmus and Corvlus had become common as far north as Vasterbotten. In Norrbotten, however, Betula and Alnus were the dominant deciduous trees.Around 3400 BP Picea abies reached the coast of Norrland from Finland, established itself and within 300 years became the major forest tree along a coastal zone. It occupied the moist, fine sediment substrates in those areas which earlier had been mainly dominated by Alnus and Betula. Climatic deterioration resulted in a steady retreat of the more southerly forest elements, and by 2000 BP only small, remnant stands at isolated sites were left. Over the last 2000 years little natural change has occurred in the forest vegetation.Man invaded the area soon after the deglaciation. These first occupants were hunters and fishermen, however, and their impact on the vegetation development was minor and restricted to small camp clearings. Not until an agricultural economy became established, did the influence of man become pronounced. In coastal Vasternorrland and Vasterbotten, traces of agriculture and animal husbandry occurred between 4700-2500 BP, but these first cereal cultivations were temporary, short-lived and occurred primarily at coastal sites. In those areas, permanent cultivation developed due to changed settlement structure during the first centuries AD. In the Lulealv valley in Norrbotten, cereal cultivation and animal husbandry was introduced between 500-1000 AD, although the hunter/gatherer economy continued to dominate, as it did in most of interior Norrland. Concomitant with the general agricultural expansion in Vasternorrland and Vasterbotten between 1000-1200 AD, permanent fieldcultivation developed in the coastal parts of the Lulealv valley. In the interior of northern Norrland, however, agriculture did not become important until the 17th-19th centuries.


Abstract The issue considered by this research report revolves around the broad themes or questions such as: what are we adapting to?; who or what adapts?; and, how does adaptation occur? The challenge that these questions create is that the concept of an adapted settlement encompasses both 'visual' and 'process' dimensions. Therefore, there is a need to understand how the settlement will decide what it wants to look like in a climate adapted world, and how the settlement is going to achieve this successful adaptation response by (and beyond) 2030. Essentially, adaptation is not something that achieves an endpoint, but is ongoing and responsive to the various impacts that must be adapted to. Thus, there is a need for flexibility, and for adaptive capacity to be initiated and able to continue to change and evolve as required now and into the future. To explore the research questions, a mixed methods approach was undertaken. The work was divided into four parts, each with different methodology emphasis. These parts and methodologies were: Research part: Exploration of trends, Community consultations, Interstate workshops Research methodology: Exploratory research (Stebbins 2001); Literature review; Surveys; Web feedback; Workshops; Focus Groups; Case studies Research part: Achieving adapted settlements Research methodology: Triangulation (Hamlyn 1971); Grounded theory that builds a model based on a real world situation (Glaser and Strauss 1999); Economic modelling These parts represented different research approaches, both qualitative and quantitative in form, most of which could be understood as exploratory in nature. Exploratory research is a method of research in the social sciences that seeks better understanding of the issues at hand when there is not a lot of knowledge around the subject (Stebbins 2001). For the present research, the methodology was strengthened through the process of triangulation, where data was obtained from a number of data sources (Hamlyn 1971). For example, data was acquired from both community consultation and interviews with key community leaders. The findings from the Victorian case studies were then compared with the data from the interstate workshops. This research found that commonalities were found in all locations. The adaptation process was only at an early stage in each location, and was being undertaken in an environment of considerable uncertainty. While engagement with the local communities was taking place, there was a common need for a structure to assist adaptation decision-making. Such a structure would enable community decisions to be included in adaptation action and would allow for better communication and integration between the community and various levels of government. This structure would help to promote the sharing of ideas and experiences to achieve the best possible pathways to adaptation. Common principles which could be shared with other similar Australian settlements generally related to the process to assist adaptation, as each local adaptation outcome will be largely place-specific. Drawing on the Inverloch community consultation, a visual representation of what the community expressed in relation to adaptation is presented. Applying knowledge gained in the research process, the research team provided a framework of adaptation tasks that would fit with the proposed governance decision-making structure. Further examination of the timing of the task of adapting infrastructure was undertaken, using an established economic micro simulation model and regional data bases. e issue considered by this research report revolves around the broad themes or questions such as: what are we adapting to?; who or what adapts?; and, how does adaptation occur? The challenge that these questions create is that the concept of an adapted settlement encompasses both 'visual' and 'process' dimensions. Therefore, there is a need to understand how the settlement will decide what it wants to look like in a climate adapted world, and how the settlement is going to achieve this successful adaptation response by (and beyond) 2030. Essentially, adaptation is not something that achieves an endpoint, but is ongoing and responsive to the various impacts that must be adapted to. Thus, there is a need for flexibility, and for adaptive capacity to be initiated and able to continue to change and evolve as required now and into the future. To explore the research questions, a mixed methods approach was undertaken. The work was divided into four parts, each with different methodology emphasis. These parts and methodologies were: Research part: Exploration of trends, Community consultations, Interstate workshops Research methodology: Exploratory research (Stebbins 2001); Literature review; Surveys; Web feedback; Workshops; Focus Groups; Case studies Research part: Achieving adapted settlements Research methodology: Triangulation (Hamlyn 1971); Grounded theory that builds a model based on a real world situation (Glaser and Strauss 1999); Economic modelling These parts represented different research approaches, both qualitative and quantitative in form, most of which could be understood as exploratory in nature. Exploratory research is a method of research in the social sciences that seeks better understanding of the issues at hand when there is not a lot of knowledge around the subject (Stebbins 2001). For the present research, the methodology was strengthened through the process of triangulation, where data was obtained from a number of data sources (Hamlyn 1971). For example, data was acquired from both community consultation and interviews with key community leaders. The findings from the Victorian case studies were then compared with the data from the interstate workshops. This research found that commonalities were found in all locations. The adaptation process was only at an early stage in each location, and was being undertaken in an environment of considerable uncertainty. While engagement with the local communities was taking place, there was a common need for a structure to assist adaptation decision-making. Such a structure would enable community decisions to be included in adaptation action and would allow for better communication and integration between the community and various levels of government. This structure would help to promote the sharing of ideas and experiences to achieve the best possible pathways to adaptation. Common principles which could be shared with other similar Australian settlements generally related to the process to assist adaptation, as each local adaptation outcome will be largely place-specific. Drawing on the Inverloch community consultation, a visual representation of what the community expressed in relation to adaptation is presented. Applying knowledge gained in the research process, the research team provided a framework of adaptation tasks that would fit with the proposed governance decision-making structure. Further examination of the timing of the task of adapting infrastructure was undertaken, using an established economic micro simulation model and regional data bases. Please cite this report as: Stanley, J, Birrell, B, Brain, P, Carey, M, Duffy, M, Ferraro, S, Fisher, S, Griggs, D, Hall, A, Kestin, T, Macmillan, C, Manning, I, Martin, H, Rapson, V, Spencer, M, Stanley, C, Steffen, W, Symmons, M, Wright, W, 2013, What would a climate-adapted settlement look like in 2030? A case study of Inverloch and Sandy Point, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 221.


Trawling was carried out over sandy substrates in the shallow (5 15 m) and deeper (20 35 m) waters of four regions along 250 km of the lower west coast of Australia, during seven consecutive seasons. This yielded 32 752 individuals of the gerreid Parequula melbournensis, which constituted c. 42% of the total number of fish. Densities of P. melbournensis were greatest in the most southern region, reaching a seasonal maximum of 835 fish ha-1 at one site in that region. Since P. melbournensis is restricted largely to the southern coastline of Australia, it hits a temperate rather than subtropical or tropical distribution and thus is not a typical gerreid. Furthermore, unlike most other gerreids, it does not spend part of its life cycle in either estuaries or nearshore marine waters. The maximum total length of P. melbournensis was 175 mm, with the length at maturity (L50) being 115 mm in females and 121 mm in males. No clear monthly trends were exhibited by gonadosomatic indices, the prevalence of mature ovaries and the oocyte size frequency distributions of female P. melbournensis, and no clear and consistent modes were observed in length frequency data for this species. These strong indications that spawning occurs throughout the year were substantiated by the occurrence of post-ovulatory follicles in the ovaries of large fish in all months but August, and by the presence in that month of advanced yolk granule oocytes in some ovaries, which implies that spawning was imminent. The spawning of P. melbournensis throughout the year contrasts with the far more restricted spawning periods recorded for other teleosts in the same temperate Australian waters. In this respect, P melbournensis exhibits the characteristics of the essentially tropical family to which it belongs. Annuli, which could be detected on the otoliths of c. 40% of fish, suggest that the majority of P. melbournensis were <3 years old.


The northwestern coast of Sinai is home to many economic activities and development programs, thus evaluation of the potentiality and vulnerability of water resources is important. The present work has been conducted on the groundwater resources of this area for describing the major features of groundwater quality and the principal factors that control salinity evolution. The major ionic content of 39 groundwater samples collected from the Quaternary aquifer shows high coefficients of variation reflecting asymmetry of aquifer recharge. The groundwater samples have been classified into four clusters (using hierarchical cluster analysis), these match the variety of total dissolvable solids, water types and ionic orders. The principal component analysis combined the ionic parameters of the studied groundwater samples into two principal components. The first represents about 56% of the whole sample variance reflecting a salinization due to evaporation, leaching, dissolution of marine salts and/or seawater intrusion. The second represents about 15.8% reflecting dilution with rain water and the El-Salam Canal. Most groundwater samples were not suitable for human consumption and about 41% are suitable for irrigation. However, all groundwater samples are suitable for cattle, about 69% and 15% are suitable for horses and poultry, respectively.


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Pension systems have been expecting projected deficits and governments have been under pressure to increase the statutory retirement age. Fully funded pension system pillars have significant limitations, the recent attempts to adapt social insurance systems have not provided plausible results and empirically have not had strong political support to be fully implemented. Therefore, we created an incentive-based pension system extension that enables a gradual transition to a merit-based pay-as-you-go system. We present a mathematical model based on virtual accumulation of resources that works with full working, relaxed and retired phases, based on the individual decision when to enter them. We present calculations based on the parameters that are valid in the Czech Republic, but the model is designed as a general one, therefore the model variables can be adjusted according to parameters in any country withpublic pension system. Then we discuss the implications and possibilities related to the model, also in the context of changes that we see in the labour market, behavioural patterns of the older generation and the socioeconomic development in the 21st century.


Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) is an emerging technology which has attracted a lot of attention in the current electronic market and its contribution is going to play an important role it in the near future thanks to its wide variety of applications fields and to its interesting features. Ranging from consumer electronics to medical implants devices to robotics to automotive applications, this technology it is used to charge the battery of these devices without wiring connections. The major drawback of currently available wireless power systems is the relatively low efficiency (<70%) mainly because of the receiver AC-DC power conversion. This power conversion has been typically performed with a bridge rectifier because of its simplicity and low cost, but with considerable power losses because of the diodes voltage drop. The main target of this project is to develop a WPT receiver prototype with discrete hardware compliant to the Qi standard replacing these diodes by MOSFET transistors and implementing a switching control for them which increases the efficiency of the rectifier and makes the system reliable. The transmitter is also developed to analyze the whole WPT system and study its behaviour. Therefore, a contactless inductive power transfer is implemented for low (5W) and medium power (15 W) to reproduce the most recent rectifier techniques of the state of art. Two different rectifier control approaches has been performed based on the Zero-crossing Voltage Detection (ZVD) and the Zero-crossing Current Detection (ZCD) methods. With the help of a FPGA the rectifier power switches are controlled using the ZVD and ZCD information. Several experimental results compares the traditional simple rectifier, with the method implemented, showing increasing efficiencies from 68 % up to 83 % for 5 W output power. An even higher efficiencies (over 90 %) for low output power [1 - 2 W].


The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS) covers a long-term monitoring programme that examines the levels of pollutants in avian wildlife species in Britain.
It was instrumental in securing the phased withdrawals of the permitted uses of organochlorine insecticides and has since provided a measure of the effectiveness of regulatory bans in reducing the exposure of wildlife. The PBMS has expanded over the years and currently monitors carcasses and/or eggs of various (terrestrial, freshwater and marine) predatory birds for organochlorine (OC) pesticides and their metabolites, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury and second-generation rodenticides (carcasses only). Since 1974, the PBMS has been the subject of a series of contracts (known as the Wildlife & Pollution contracts) from the Nature Conservancy Council, as was, and subsequently from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). This enables the JNCC and country agencies to monitor trends and advise on the effectiveness of measures to restrict the use and entry into the environment of some of these compounds.

The concentrations of organochlorine pesticides in many predatory bird species have declined to levels below those likely to have toxic effects. As a result, concerns about the environmental hazards posed by these pesticides have, at least in part, been superseded by those posed by new groups of chemicals. In the last review of the work of the PBMS (Shore et al. 2002a), a number of possible new activities that could be incorporated into the PBMS were specified. Any such refocusing of the PBMS within existing resources would require revision of the current sampling intensity of organochlorine pesticides in order to free resources for new monitoring. The first objective of the current report was to assess the implications of reducing sampling intensity on the ability to detect long-term trends in the extent of wildlife contamination. This is described in Section 3.

The other objectives of the current report were to consider in greater detail some of the potential activities that had been outlined in the original review. These were specifically to: explore whether monitoring for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) could be incorporated into the PBMS (Section 4); describe how the link between environmental residue data and toxicity could be improved for PCBs (Section 5); demonstrate the ways in which the PBMS data can be used to identify hotspots of contamination and so provide information on potential sources (Section 6); examine the frequency with which unknown compounds occur in predatory birds and describe a strategy by which they might be identified (Section 7).

Statistical analyses of the trends in contaminants in Eurasian sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus, merlins Falco columbarius and barn owls Tyto alba suggest that such studies require annual sampling for probably a minimum of ten years to detect long-term changes. The sensitivity with which trends are likely to be detected is reduced if sampling is on a biennial or triennial basis or carried out for a shorter period. Implementation of new monitoring programmes designed to determine whether contaminant levels in birds are changing should therefore envisage a commitment of at least ten years. The data collected over this initial period can be used to determine whether there is evidence of any change, the power of the study to detect such change, and the likely impacts of subsequent changes in sampling frequency on ability to detect trends. Large-scale contaminant studies that are carried out over shorter periods of time or with lower sampling frequency are likely to have relatively low power and only reveal large changes.

Analysis of PBDEs and PAHs by the PBMS is feasible. PBDEs could be monitored in both livers and eggs of samples currently collected under the PBMS. PAH analysis would be better restricted to eggs. The costs of incorporating these analyses within the PBMS could be met within current resourcing if the sampling strategy of the scheme is revised.

Preliminary analysis of congener concentrations and associated Toxicity Equivalents Quotient (TEQ) values in sparrowhawk livers indicated that although there was some correspondence between total PCB concentrations and TEQ values, total PCB concentration was not necessarily a good predictor of TEQ. This is because the TEQ value is particularly influenced by the concentrations of the dioxin-like congeners (such as congeners 77 and 126) that have relatively high toxicity equivalency factor (TEF) values. Monitoring TEQ values as well as total PCB values in future would be worthwhile so that changes over time in PCB accumulation can be more clearly linked to likely toxicity. This could be done equally well for PCB monitoring in eggs as well as livers and may be more important when examining the eggs for some species, such as merlin and particularly white-tailed eagle Haliaeetus albicilla eggs, where PCB concentrations remain relatively high. The costs of doing this within the scheme would be relatively minor as all the congeners are determined simultaneously within the same analytical run and the only additional costs are relatively minor ones in terms of using extra standards and in data-handling and analysis.

Preliminary analysis of unknown peaks on chromatograms of sparrowhawk livers has demonstrated that up to 40 unknown compounds occur in individual samples. Individuals that have high concentration of total PCBs also have the highest number of unknown compounds. The frequency with which each unknown compound, as identified by its retention time, occurred in birds was highly variable and ranged from 3.7% to 85.7%. On average, each compound occurred in 18‑28% of birds. A strategy as to how to identify unknown compounds is outlined.

If PBDEs and PAHs are to be incorporated into the monitoring of the PBMS, it is recommended that this is done in the first instance using the species and samples that are currently collected. Sampling would be maintained on an annual basis but analysis would be carried out on a triennial (or equivalent) basis. This would mean that the sensitivity with which long-term trends could be detected would lower than if analysis was carried out on all samples but this strategy would allow PBDEs and PAHs to be monitored and PCBs to be reported on a congener and TEQ basis. Samples not analysed immediately would be archived for future use in other studies or future monitoring should there be a requirement to increase the number of samples analysed. It is also recommended that mercury, lead and cadmium residues are monitored by the PBMS as the additional costs of doing so are minimal. Sampling and analysis for rodenticides should continue unchanged.

Further investigation of unknown compounds in birds and identification of contaminant hotspots is also recommended. These studies would require additional, one-off, funding.


There are two main forces behind the large US current account deficits. First, an increase in the US demand for foreign goods. Second, an increase in the foreign demand for US assets. Both forces have contributed to steadily increasing current account deficits since the mid-1990s. This increase has been accompanied by a real dollar appreciation until late 2001, and a real depreciation since. The depreciation has accelerated recently, raising the questions of whether and how much more is to come, and if so, against which currencies, the euro, the yen, or the renminbi. Our purpose in this paper is to explore these issues. Our theoretical contribution is to develop a simple portfolio model of exchange rate and current account determination, and to use it to interpret the past and explore alternative scenarios for the future. Our practical conclusions are that substantially more depreciation is to come, surely against the yen and the renminbi, and probably against the euro.


Since its inception, underwater digital acoustic communication has required custom hardware that neither has the economies of scale nor is pervasive. We present the first acoustic system that brings underwater messaging capabilities to existing mobile devices like smartphones and smart watches. Our software-only solution leverages audio sensors, i.e., microphones and speakers, ubiquitous in today's devices to enable acoustic underwater communication between mobile devices. To achieve this, we design a communication system that in real-time adapts to differences in frequency responses across mobile devices, changes in multipath and noise levels at different locations and dynamic channel changes due to mobility. We evaluate our system in six different real-world underwater environments with depths of 2--15 m in the presence of boats, ships and people fishing and kayaking. Our results show that our system can in real-time adapt its frequency band and achieve bit rates of 100 bps to 1.8 kbps and a range of 30 m. By using a lower bit rate of 10--20 bps, we can further increase the range to 100 m. As smartphones and watches are increasingly being used in underwater scenarios, our software-based approach has the potential to make underwater messaging capabilities widely available to anyone with a mobile device. Project page with open-source code and data can be found here: https://underwatermessaging.cs.washington.edu/


Abstract We describe here the feeding habits of the Yellow-spotted River turtle (Podocnemis unifilis) (n  =  20), Geoffroy's side-necked turtle (Phrynops geoffroanus) (n  =  10), and Gibba turtle (Mesoclemmys gibba) (n  =  4) from central Peru, Pasco Department, and evaluate food overlaps among them. Podocnemis unifilis showed a generalist feeding habit, ingesting animal and plant matter, but tending to be herbivorous, because plant matter made up 62.9% of the volume vs. 3.9% for animal material. The most important items in P. unifilis diet were seeds from the Fabaceae (Leguminosae) family and bark. Podocnemis geoffroanus and M. gibba also had generalist feeding habits. The most important items for P. geoffroanus were insects, especially Libellulidae larvae, and plant material. Mesoclemmys gibba ingested insects, fish, crustaceans, unidentified plant matter, bark, leaves, stem, and algae, with plant matter being more representative by frequency and volume. Low dietary overlap was observed between P. unifilis and P. geoffroanus, and both species appeared to overlap with M. gibba. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative dietary study of Peruvian freshwater turtles, and the first diet analysis of wild M. gibba in the Amazon basin.


In addition to the Bantu conception of vital force as it influences human behavior; there are also other aspects of African life where the further conception of forces can be detected. This work will concentrate on force (ike) as conceived by Igbo Africans. Some of them, any way, are already contained in the Bantu notion of forces. They are:(i) Force as given by ancestors
(ii) Force from charms and magic
(iii) Force obtainable from sacrifices
(iv) Force in prayer, sacred objects and places
There is a conception of the Supreme Being as he who gives life, or he who gives force to other beings that are subordinate. Not only in Africa, all over the world, people have the belief that gods have power, force or energy (ike) over things that men cannot control or understand. These beliefs teach that gods are responsible for the creation of the world and the continuation of life in it, and that they control important events such as birth, death, disease and success. Gods, unlike men, do not die; they live forever and restore force to created things that lost theirs.


Abstract A dual coolant Pb-17Li (DCLL) blanket concept has been selected as reference design for the ARIES-CS compact stellarator power plant study. This configuration is characterized by helium cooled first wall and ferritic steel structures, and a self-cooled breeding zone. Flow channel inserts (FCIs) made of silicon carbide (SiC) composite are placed in the PbLi channels, serving both as thermal and electrical insulator. The goal is to optimize the Pb-17Li inlet and outlet temperatures for high power cycle efficiency while accommodating the material temperature limits, providing reasonable flow distribution and maintaining an acceptable pressure drop. A numerical study of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows in the poloidal channels that distribute the liquid metal in the breeder units has been carried out to assess the performance of such a concept with regard to the above mentioned goals and constraints. The analysis considers the electrical coupling between adjacent poloidal ducts and the influence of various parameters such as the electric conductivity of the SiC insert and the orientation of the magnetic field.


The social sciences have witnessed an explosion of interest in the body as a site of cultural meaning. Yet, to date few commentators have acknowledged the signifying quality of hair as one of the more malleable aspects to image and identity. Hairstyles invite judgements of the person to which they belong. They provide information about social class, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and age.

We draw on data gathered for a national study of older people's experiences of age discrimination. The project revealed the different forms of bias that older people face in contemporary Britain. Interest in experiences at the hairdressers stemmed from how well these particular service encounters illustrated the everyday forms of discrimination revealed by the project. Age was shown to be salient to these encounters with notions of age appropriateness a topic of active negotiation and sometimes pressure and coercion between worker and client.

How is a hairstyle selected and produced and what meanings are attached to it? What language do hairdressers and customers use to describe appropriateness? How does the hairdressing salon function as a site where images of old age are constructed and reproduced? And, what do hairstyles and styling tell us about the broader issue of image and appearance in later life?


The rabbit's anatomy of the nasolacrimal system is unique, with a single lacrimal punctum and a tortuous nasolacrimal duct. Inflammation of the nasolacrimal duct, dacryocystitis, can be caused by primary infection with bacteria from the respiratory tract, secondary to infectious conjunctivitis or nasolacrimal duct obstruction. The latter can occur due to the rabbit's anatomy features, the tears' high content of lipid, dental pathology, as a result of chronic inflammations, foreign bodies, neoplasms and hyperparathiroidism. Further investigations to reach a diagnosis and to treat the condition may require general anaesthesia. A 5 year-old Angora rabbit was presented with dacryocystitis. The nasolacrimal duct could not be flushed. Conjunctival bacteriological samples isolated Coryneform bacteria, Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas that were sensitive to tobramycine and gentamycine. Local treatment with tobramycine was initiated with no improvement. Radiographic investigations in order to assess dental malocclusion were declined. Clinical improvement was achieved with acetylcysteine nebulization therapy and regular flushing of the nasolacrimal duct followed by topical instillation of aqueous antibiotic solution.


BACKGROUND: The links between depression and increased mortality risk in older persons may depend on the severity of the depressive disorder and on gender. AIM: To investigate the links between severe and 'mild' depressive syndromes and excess mortality in elderly men and women, living in their own homes. METHOD: Depression (GMS-AGECAT) was assessed in 4051 older persons. After a period of six years we checked the official death registers to find out how many of theses persons had died. The mortality risk for neurotic and psychotic depression was calculated after adjustment for demographic variables, physical illness, cognitive decline and functional disabilities. RESULTS: At the six-year follow-up 75% of the men and 41% of the women with psychotic (severe) depression were found to have died. In both men and women psychotic depression was associated with significantly higher-than-normal mortality. Neurotic (mild) depression was associated with a 1.67-fold higher mortality risk in men only. CONCLUSIONS: In the elderly, severe depressive syndromes increase the risk of death in both men and women, whereas mild depression increases the risk of death only in men.


On-farm phosphorus (P) balances are of importance for identifying critical control points in P feeding and management. In this study, P mass balances were constructed on fourteen pasture-based dairy farms of Puerto Rico, using production and management data. The farms ranged in animal units (AU, 454.5 kg) density from 1.23 to 27.50, with a mean of 7.53 AU/ha. Dietary P concentrations ranged between 5.02 and 7.24 g P/kg dry matter intake (DMI), with a mean of 6.16 g P/kg. These dietary P concentrations averaged 87% higher than the National Research Council recommendation of 3.4 g P/kg DMI. High dietary P concentrations were not associated with higher milk yields (P > 0.05). Manure P concentration of 13.2 g/kg fecal dry matter was, unexpectedly, not related to dietary concentration or total P intake. Estimates of total annual P excreted per cow ranged from 23.9 to 36.9 with a mean of 30.3 kg. Phosphorus excretion levels were 55% higher than those recommended for maintenance and milk production. Soil test P (Olsen) levels showed that 87% of the paddocks receiving manure application exceed agronomic critical P levels of 35 mg/kg.The on-farm mass balance showed annual P surpluses that ranged from 15.0 to 472.9 with a mean of 156.2 kg/ha. Reducing the P concentration in the diet and in inorganic fertilizer applied to fields, and implementing best management practices, will have the greatest and most immediate impact on reducing the excess P present on dairy farms of Puerto Rico, and will contribute to the optimization of P use for eventual sustainable milk production and water quality maintenance.


Implementation of generators and parsers of header fields requires
certain information about those fields. Interoperability is most
likely when all such information is explicitly provided by the
technical specification of the fields. Lacking such explicit
information, implementers may guess, and interoperability may suffer.
This memo identifies information useful to implementers of header
field generators and parsers. This memo provides information for the
Internet community.


This study focuses on the management skills of respondents from Sahiwal, Pakistan, to see if gender and education can be significant factors in their technical, human and conceptual competencies. The results of 470 Pakistani adults show that there are significant differences in their management skills. No significant gender differences were found. In terms of the education variable, this study demonstrated that having a master's degree does not necessarily increase a person's human, technical or conceptual skills. Implications for educators, managers, and human resource professionals are presented.


Fifty-nine isolates of Staphylococcus aureus and a single strain of Staphylococcus intermedius were typed by arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR). To study reproducibility and discriminatory abilities, AP-PCR was carried out in seven laboratories with a standardized amplification protocol, template DNA isolated in a single institution, and a common set of three primers with different resolving powers. The 60 strains could be divided into 16 to 30 different genetic types, depending on the laboratory. This difference in resolution was due to differences in technical procedures (as shown by the deliberate introduction of experimental variables) and/or the interpretation of the DNA fingerprints. However, this did not hamper the epidemiologically correct clustering of related strains. The average number of different genotypes identified exceeded those of the more traditional typing strategies (F. C. Tenover, R. Arbeit, G. Archer, J. Biddle, S. Byrne, R. Goering, G. Hancock, G. A. Hebert, B. Hill, R. Hollis, W. R. Jarvis, B. Kreiswirth, W. Eisner, J. Maslow, L. K. McDougal, J. M. Miller, M. Mulligan, and M. A. Pfaller, J. Clin. Microbiol. 32:407-415, 1994). Comparison of AP-PCR with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) indicated the existence of strains with constant PFGE types but variable AP-PCR types. The reverse (constant AP-PCR and variable PFGE patterns) was also observed. This indicates additional resolution for combined analyses. It is concluded that AP-PCR is well suited for genetic analysis and monitoring of nosocomial spreading of staphylococci. The interlaboratory reproducibility of DNA-banding patterns and the intralaboratory standardization need improvement.


Author(s): Dybala, Kristen E.; Reiter, Matthew E.; Hickey, Catherine M.; Shuford, W. David; Strum, Khara M.; Yarris, Gregory S. | Abstract: An extensive network of managed wetlands and flooded agriculture provides habitat for migrating and wintering shorebirds in California's Central Valley. Yet with over 90% of historical wetlands in the region lost, Central Valley shorebird populations are likely diminished and limited by available habitat. To identify the timing and magnitude of any habitat limitations during the non-breeding season, we developed a bioenergetics model that examined whether currently available shorebird foraging habitat is sufficient to meet the daily energy requirements of the shorebird community, at either the baseline population size surveyed from 1992 to 1995 or double this size, which we defined as our long-term (100-year) population objectives. Using recent estimates of the extent of managed wetlands and flooded agriculture, satellite imagery of surface water, energy content of benthic invertebrates, and shorebird metabolic rates, we estimated that shorebird foraging habitat in the Central Valley is currently limited during the fall. If the population sizes were doubled, we estimated substantial energy shortfalls in the fall (late July–September) and spring (mid-March–April) totaling 4.02 billion kJ (95% CI: 2.23–5.83) and 7.79 billion kJ (2.00–14.14), respectively. We then estimated long-term habitat objectives as the minimum additional shorebird foraging habitat required to eliminate these energy shortfalls; the corresponding short-term (10-year) habitat objectives are to maintain an additional 2,160 ha (5,337 ac) of shallow (l10 cm) open water area in the fall and 4,692 ha (11,594 ac) in the spring. Because the Central Valley is one of the most important regions in the Pacific Flyway for migrating and wintering shorebirds, we expect that achieving these habitat objectives will benefit shorebirds well beyond the Central Valley. Our bioenergetics approach provides a transparent, repeatable process for identifying the timing and magnitude of habitat limitations as well as the most efficient strategies for achieving conservation objectives.


The physiotherapist-patient interaction is the medium through which physiotherapy is practiced. However, to date little physiotherapy research literature reports on physiotherapists' interactive behaviours in clinical practice. The objectives of this study were to explore, interpret and describe experienced cardiorespiratory physiotherapists' understandings of their interactive behaviours when treating chronically breathless patients and to make recommendations for practice.

The study is located in the interpretive research paradigm. It has adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological approach underpinned by a relativist ontological stance and Gadamerian philosophy (1975/2004).


In this completely updated and revised edition of Designing with the Mind in Mind, Jeff Johnson provides you with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that user interface (UI) design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list or rules to follow. Early UI practitioners were trained in cognitive psychology, and developed UI design rules based on it. But as the field has evolved since the first edition of this book, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In this new edition, you'll find new chapters on human choice and decision making, hand-eye coordination and attention, as well as new examples, figures, and explanations throughout. It provides an essential source for user interface design rules and how, when, and why to apply them. It arms designers with the science behind each design rule, allowing them to make informed decisions in projects, and to explain those decisions to others. It equips readers with the knowledge to make educated tradeoffs between competing rules, project deadlines, and budget pressures. It completely updated and revised, including additional coverage on human choice and decision making, hand-eye coordination and attention, and new mobile and touch-screen examples throughout.


What is the difference between an electron and a muon? The obvious answer is mass: the muon is about 200 times heavier than the electron. But as far as the standard model of particle physics is concerned, the electron and the muon, which are both leptons, behave the same. More specifically, the way they (and the third type of lepton, the tau particle) interact with other particles, either via the electromagnetic force or the weak force, is identical.


Citizen science (CS) contributes to the combined knowledge about species distributions, which is a critical foundation in the studies of invasive species, biological conservation, and response to climatic change. In this study, we assessed the value of CS for termites worldwide. First, we compared the abundance and species diversity of geo-tagged termite records in iNaturalist to that of the University of Florida termite collection (UFTC) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Second, we quantified how the combination of these data sources affected the number of genera that satisfy data requirements for ecological niche modeling. Third, we assessed the taxonomic correctness of iNaturalist termite records in the Americas at the genus and family level through expert review based on photo identification. Results showed that iNaturalist records were less abundant than those in UFTC and in GBIF, although they complemented the latter two in selected world regions. A combination of GBIF and UFTC led to a significant increase in the number of termite genera satisfying the abundance criterion for niche modeling compared to either of those two sources alone, whereas adding iNaturalist observations as a third source only had a moderate effect on the number of termite genera satisfying that criterion. Although research grade observations in iNaturalist require a community-supported and agreed upon ID below the family taxonomic rank, our results indicated that iNaturalist data do not exhibit a higher taxonomic classification accuracy when they are designated research grade. This means that non-research grade observations can be used to more completely map the presence of termite locations in certain geographic locations without significantly jeopardizing data quality. We concluded that CS termite observation records can, to some extent, complement expert termite collections in terms of geographic coverage and species diversity. Based on recent data contribution patterns in CS data, the role of CS termite contributions is expected to grow significantly in the near future.


This work explores the troubled relationship and unfinished intellectual dialogue between Paul Celan, regarded by many as the most important European poet after 1945, and Martin Heidegger, perhaps the most influential figure in twentieth-century philosophy. It centers on the persistent ambivalence Celan, a Holocaust survivor, felt toward a thinker who respected him and at times promoted his poetry. Celan, although strongly affected by Heidegger's writings, struggled to reconcile his admiration of Heidegger's ideas on literature with his revulsion at the thinker's Nazi past. That Celan and Heidegger communicated with each other over a number of years, and in a controversial encounter, met in 1967, is well known. The full duration, extent, and nature of their exchanges and their impact on Celan's poetics has been less understood, however. In the first systematic analysis of their relationship between 1951 and 1970, James K. Lyon describes how the poet and the philosopher read and responded to each other's work throughout the period. He offers new information about their interactions before, during, and after their famous 1967 meeting at Todtnauberg. He suggests that Celan, who changed his account of that meeting, may have contributed to misreadings of his poem "Todtnauberg." Finally, Lyon discusses their two last meetings after 1967 before the poet's death three years later. Drawing heavily on documentary material-including Celan's reading notes on more than two dozen works by Heidegger, the philosopher's written response to the poet's "Meridian" speech, and references to Heidegger in Celan's letters-Lyon presents a focused perspective on this critical aspect of the poet's intellectual development and provides important insights into his relationship with Heidegger, transforming previous conceptions of it.


ABSTRACT The marine dinoflagellate genus Dinophysis Ehrenberg is globally distributed in coastal and oceanic waters and can produce lipophilic toxins. These toxins can accumulate in filter-feeding shellfish and cause diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP). Between 2009 and 2011 the two most frequent and abundant Dinophysis species found in North Patagonian gulfs were Dinophysis tripos Gourret and Dinophysis acuminata Claparéde and Lachmann, and in 2015 D. tripos was the only toxic species found in moderate to high relative abundances when mouse bioassay results for DSP were positive. The positive results from mouse bioassay for DSP agree with moderate to high relative abundances of D. tripos and it was the only potentially toxic Dinophysis species found in the samples. The toxin profiles consisted mainly of pectentoxin-2 (PTX-2) followed by PTX-11 and PTX-2 seco acid. The toxin profiles of the samples could be associated with D. tripos, because the maximum proportion of D. acuminata did not exceed 1.3% of total Dinophysis cells in any of the samples. The results suggest that shellfish accumulated high levels of PTX when D. tripos was at a high abundance. To our knowledge, this is the first record of positive results in the mouse bioassay for DSP related to D. tripos and with closures of shellfish harvesting in North Patagonian gulfs.


A new multi-threaded memetic algorithm (genetic algorithm with local optimizations) for the ISO 3832 luggage packing standard is presented. Apart from producing high-quality results, the algorithm also exploits the highly parallel computer architectures that are becoming more common as well as packing more boxes than other state-of-the-art algorithms. We also provide the first comparison of state-of-the-art packing algorithms for a real world trunk geometry.


Approximately 85% of the global forest estate is neither formally protected nor in areas dedicated to intensive wood production (e.g., plantations). Given the spatial extent of unprotected forests, finding management approaches that will sustain their multiple environmental, economic, and cultural values and prevent their conversion to other uses is imperative. The major global challenge of native forest management is further demonstrated by ongoing steep declines in forest biodiversity and carbon stocks. Here, we suggest that an essential part of such management—supplementing the protection of large reserves and sensitive areas within forest landscapes (e.g., aquatic features)—is the adoption of the retention approach in forests where logging occurs. This ecological approach to harvesting provides for permanent retention of important selected structures (e.g., trees and decayed logs) to provide for continuity of ecosystem structure, function, and species composition in the postharvest forest. The retention approach supports the integration of environmental, economic, and cultural values and is broadly applicable to tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, adaptable to different management objectives, and appropriate in different societal settings. The widespread adoption of the retention approach would be one of the most significant changes in management practice since the onset of modern high‐yield forestry.


Introduction Performance is a major focus in research on alliances (Gulati 1998). Researchers have studied this issue both at the alliance level (e.g., Beamish 1994, Dussauge/Garrette 1995, Glaister/Buckley 1999, Lyles/Baird 1994) and at the partner level (e.g., Chan et al. 1997, Dyer 1996, Hagedoorn/Schakenraad 1994). The alliance-level studies are concerned with the performance of an alliance itself, whereas the partner-level studies are concerned with the outcomes of alliance participation brought to partner firms. Included in the partner-level studies are two important streams of research that examine the impact of alliance formation on firm value. One stream focuses on contractual alliances (e.g., Chan et al. 1997; Das/Sen/Sengupta 1998), while the other considers joint ventures (e.g., Koh/Venkataraman 1991, Madhavan/Prescott 1995). As previous studies have indicated, these two types of alliances tend to differ significantly in many aspects, including ownership and control, making it difficult to combine them into a single study. For this reason, this study aims to expand the first stream of research by examining the conditions under which contractual alliances create firm value in the global alliance context. Previous studies on contractual alliances have provided valuable insights into alliance formation and value creation for the alliance partners, but they appear to have made a limited contribution to the literature in the following senses. First, these studies seem not to be comprehensive and systematic in studying the conditions for value creation, although they examine some conditions like alliance type (i.e., technological vs. marketing: Das et al. 1998; horizontal vs. non-horizontal: Chan et al. 1997), uncertainty (Das et al. 1998), and industry globalization (Park/Kim 1999). Understanding such conditions more completely and systematically is likely to have important managerial implications for creating appropriate alliances in terms of partner selection and operational details to maximize firm value. Second, the previous studies examine each condition for value creation without controlling the effects of other conditions. Various conditions in fact exist simultaneously in an alliance and, thus, it seems important to examine each condition while holding the effects of other conditions constant. Third, the prior studies tend to focus primarily on the domestic alliance context. Considering the recent proliferation of global alliances caused by increased global competition (Park/Kim 1999), it is critical to investigate the effects of alliance formation on firm value in the global alliance context. To our knowledge, this issue has not yet been directly studied in the literature. We intend to address gaps in the literature mentioned above through a more systematic investigation of the determinants of value creation for partner firms in the global alliance context. Since the market value of a firm is captured in the stock price of the firm, value creation associated with global alliances means abnormal returns to partner firms. These abnormal returns are reflected in increases in stock prices over and above expected levels (Brown/Warner 1980). We argue that firm value is affected by global alliances on three levels of determinants: the alliance, partner, and contextual levels. The alliance characteristics that we examine include the scope of cooperation, equity holdings in partner firms, and the number of partner firms. The partner characteristics are relative size, relative performance, and the number of global alliances entered. The contextual characteristic we consider is cultural similarity. Specifically, we propose that the scope of cooperation, equity holdings in partner firms, and cultural similarity will have positive relationships with value creation for firms entering a global alliance, that the number of partner firms will have no association with value creation, and that all three partner characteristics will have negative relationships with value creation. …


The fine structure and morphological organization of non-myelinated nerve fibres were studied by ultra-thin sectioning and electron microscopy in peripheral nerves, autonomic nerves and dorsal roots. Several non-myelinated fibres share the cytoplasm of a Schwann cell. The Schwann cells of non-myelinated fibres form a syncytium. The fibres are incompletely surrounded by Schwann cell cytoplasm and are suspended in the cytoplasm by mesaxons formed by the plasma membranes of the Schwann cell. The various relationships of mesaxon and nerve fibre are described. Non-myelinated fibres which do not share a Schwann cell are seen very frequently in the sciatic nerve of a new-born mouse but become less common as myelination proceeds and are rare in adults. It is therefore suggested that in developing peripheral nerves, the non myelinated fibres that are destined to myelinate are not organized into groups within a single Schwann cell, even before their myelin sheath has appeared; they are, at least for the ages examined here, individuals in relation to a surrounding individual Schwann cell. It is also suggested that the non-myelinated fibres that will never acquire a myelin sheath are organized in a developing peripheral nerve in the same manner as in the adult nerve—several fibres sharing a single Schwann cell that is part of a syncytial system of Schwann cells. Thus, in a developing peripheral nerve, it appears that two types of non-myelinated fibres are present—one destined to myelinate and lying alone in its own Schwann cell and the other, destined to remain unmyelinated and sharing, along with other non-myelinated fibres of the same type, a Schwann cell. The significance of these observations is discussed in relation to the development of nerve fibres and possible physiological importance.


This Issue Brief (1) offers a descriptive portrait of the distribution of instructional paraprofessionals in all public elementary and secondary schools by instructional responsibility and selected school characteristics and (2) examines the educational attainment criteria used by school districts in hiring these paraprofessionals. Data for this analysis were drawn from the 2003–04 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The findings from this analysis indicate that 91 percent of public elementary and secondary schools in the United States had at least one instructional paraprofessional on staff in 2003–04. A greater percentage of traditional public schools than charter schools had instructional paraprofessionals and a greater percentage of elementary schools than secondary schools report having instructional paraprofessionals. Overall, 93 percent of schools were in districts that required paraprofessionals to have a high school diploma or the equivalent. The results also indicate that a greater percentage of Title I schools than non-Title I schools were in districts that required instructional paraprofessionals to have a high school diploma or the equivalent.


We present ISOPHOT_S, ISOSWS and 8 to 13 micron ground based observations of Centaurus A that show prominent PAH and silicate features. These and other data are used to construct a model for the infrared continuum. We find that in a nuclear sized aperture (~4 arcsec, ~60 pc) the SED is characteristic of emission from a starburst and AGN torus; in larger apertures an additional component of cirrus emission is required. Based on our model, the torus diameter is estimated to be 3.6 pc and the best fitting inclination angle of the torus is 45 degrees. This result has implications for the detectability of tori in low power AGN and in particular for the use of the IRAS 60/25 micron flux ratio as an indicator of the torus inclination.


Abstract. The investigation of hydroxyl radical (OH) chemistry during intensive field campaigns has led to the development of several techniques dedicated to ambient measurements of total OH reactivity, which is the inverse of the OH lifetime. Three techniques are currently used during field campaigns, including the total OH loss rate method, the pump–probe method, and the comparative reactivity method. However, no formal intercomparison of these techniques has been published so far, and there is a need to ensure that measurements of total OH reactivity are consistent among the different techniques. An intercomparison of two OH reactivity instruments, one based on the comparative reactivity method (CRM) and the other based on the pump–probe method, was performed in October 2012 in a NOx-rich environment, which is known to be challenging for the CRM technique. This study presents an extensive description of the two instruments, the CRM instrument from Mines Douai (MD-CRM) and the pump–probe instrument from the University of Lille (UL-FAGE), and highlights instrumental issues associated with the two techniques. It was found that the CRM instrument used in this study underestimates ambient OH reactivity by approximately 20 % due to the photolysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) inside the sampling reactor; this value is dependent on the position of the lamp within the reactor. However, this issue can easily be fixed, and the photolysis of VOCs was successfully reduced to a negligible level after this intercomparison campaign. The UL-FAGE instrument may also underestimate ambient OH reactivity due to the difficulty to accurately measure the instrumental zero. It was found that the measurements are likely biased by approximately 2 s-1, due to impurities in humid zero air. Two weeks of ambient sampling indicate that the measurements performed by the two OH reactivity instruments are in agreement, within the measurement uncertainties for each instrument, for NOx mixing ratios up to 100 ppbv. The CRM technique has hitherto mainly been used in low-NOx environments, i.e. environments with ambient NOx mixing ratios lower than a few ppbv, due to a measurement artifact generated by ambient NO inside the sampling reactor. However, this study shows that this technique can also be used under NOx-rich conditions if a NOx-dependent correction is carefully applied on the OH reactivity measurements. A full suite of 52 VOCs, NOx, and other inorganic species were monitored during this intercomparison. An investigation of the OH reactivity budget for this urban site suggests that this suite of trace gases can account for the measured total OH reactivity.


At runtime, an embedded control system can switch between alternative functional modes. In each mode, the system operates by using a schedule and controllers that exploit the available computation and communication resources to optimize the control performance in the running mode. The number of modes is usually exponential in the number of control loops, which means that all controllers and schedules cannot be produced in affordable design-time and stored in memory. This paper addresses synthesis of multi-mode embedded control systems. Our contribution is a method that trades control quality with optimization time, and that efficiently selects the schedules and controllers to be synthesized and stored in memory.


Debates about broadband adoption have gained a new urgency in the United States alongside concerns about the flagging economy and decreased global rankings in high-speed connectivity. Broadband adoption—the process of connecting approximately 100 million U.S. residents who are not online—has become a cause of anxiety and a call to action among policy makers in recent years. The United States currently leads in technology innovation, producing many of the world's most recognized companies, including Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, all of which rely on high-speed, always-on broadband connectivity. Yet, in many communities, major swaths of the population remain off the digital grid and unable to partake in broadband's many benefits. In the Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, at least a third of all residents cannot or do not go online using a residential fixed broadband connection.


"When analyzing the real estate market we should pay an attention to its actors. They are causative bodies, responsible for creating of the real estate system, who want to maximize their advantage or to satisfy their basic needs. In such an approach, real estateis agents, decide to participate in the real estate market taking under consideration their own needs, opportunities, expectations for market development and economic expertise - law. The decisions and actions they made are the outcome of rational premises. However, not all behaviors and processes can be classified as reasonable (and predictable). Market operators often active by an exclusion of participants awareness , in isolation from the economy, despite society expectations (needs). Such actions are called impulsive and they fit the behavioral trend of behavior taking place in the space of the real estate market. The article presents issues related to the rationality of the behavior of entities in the real estate market and their impulsive actions. Aim of this article is to show the duality of the behavior among real estate market participants. The practical part describes the behavior of participants in the property market by examining the ""certainty effect"", which is an integral part of prospect theory."


Background: Effective management of acne vulgaris in primary care involves support (usually provided over a number of consultations) and prescribing effective treatments. However, consulting and prescribing patterns for acne in primary care are not well described. Objective: To describe the rate of primary care consultations and follow-up consultations; prescribing patterns, including overall use of acne related medications (ARM) and initial and follow-up prescribing, for acne vulgaris in the UK. Methods: UK primary care acne consultations and prescriptions for ARMs were identified in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Annual consultation rates (between 2004 and 2013) by age and gender, new consultations and consultations in the subsequent year; prescribing trends, prescribing during a new consultation and over the subsequent 90 days and year were calculated, using number of registered patients as the denominator. Results: 65.9% of patients who had a new acne consultation had no further acne consultations in the subsequent year. 26.6%, 25.2%, 23.5% and 2.8% of patients were prescribed no ARM, an oral antibiotic, a topical antibiotic, or an oral plus topical antibiotic respectively during a new acne consultation. 59.9% and 38.5% of patients prescribed an ARM received no further ARM prescriptions in the following 90 days and one year respectively, despite most prescriptions being for 2 months or less. Prescribing rates for lymecycline and topical combined clindamycin/benzoyl peroxide increased substantially between 2004 and 2013. There were no important changes in consultation rates between 2004 and 2013. Conclusion: These data suggest that patients with acne are receiving sub-optimal initial choice of ARMs, longitudinal care and prescribing.


Emerging high-density wireless networks in urban area and enterprises offer great potential to accommodate the anticipated explosion of demand for wireless data services. To make it successful, it is critical to ensure the efficient utilisation of limited radio resources while satisfying predefined quality of service. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the spectrum and power optimisation problem for densely deployed access points (APs) and demonstrate the potential to improve network performance in terms of throughput and interference.

Searching the optimal channel assignment with minimum interference is known as an NP-hard problem. The increased density of APs in contrary to the limited usable frequencies has aggravated the difficulty of the problem. We adopt heuristic based algorithms to tackle both centralised and distributed dynamic channel allocation (DCA) problem. Based on a comparison between Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing, a hybrid form that combines the two algorithms achieves good trade-off between fast convergence speed and near optimality in centralised scenario. For distributed DCA, a Simulated Annealing based algorithm demonstrates its superiority in terms of good scalability and close approximation to the exact optimal solution with low algorithm complexity.

The high complexity of interactions between transmit power control (TPC) and DCA renders analytical solutions to the joint optimisation problems intractable. A detailed convergence analysis revealed that optimal channel assignment can strengthen the stability condition of TPC. Three distributed algorithms are proposed to interactively perform the DCA and TPC in a real time and open ended manner, with the ability to appropriately adjust power and channel configurations according to the network dynamics. A real network with practical measurements is employed to quantify and verify the theoretical throughput gain of their integration. It shows that the integrated design leads to a substantial throughput improvement and power saving compared with conventional fixed-power random channel allocation system.


Abstract. The evolution of organic aerosols (OAs) and their precursors in the boundary layer (BL) of the Colorado Front Range during the Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Éxperiment (FRAPPÉ, July–August 2014) was analyzed by in situ measurements and chemical transport modeling. Measurements indicated significant production of secondary OA (SOA), with enhancement ratio of OA with respect to carbon monoxide (CO) reaching 0.085±0.003 µg m−3 ppbv−1. At background mixing ratios of CO, up to  ∼  1.8 µg m−3 background OA was observed, suggesting significant non-combustion contribution to OA in the Front Range. The mean concentration of OA in plumes with a high influence of oil and natural gas (O&G) emissions was  ∼  40 % higher than in urban-influenced plumes. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) confirmed a dominant contribution of secondary, oxygenated OA (OOA) in the boundary layer instead of fresh, hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA). Combinations of primary OA (POA) volatility assumptions, aging of semi-volatile species, and different emission estimates from the O&G sector were used in the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) simulation scenarios. The assumption of semi-volatile POA resulted in greater than a factor of 10 lower POA concentrations compared to PMF-resolved HOA. Including top-down modified O&G emissions resulted in substantially better agreements in modeled ethane, toluene, hydroxyl radical, and ozone compared to measurements in the high-O&G-influenced plumes. By including emissions from the O&G sector using the top-down approach, it was estimated that the O&G sector contributed to  <  5 % of total OA, but up to 38 % of anthropogenic SOA (aSOA) in the region. The best agreement between the measured and simulated median OA was achieved by limiting the extent of biogenic hydrocarbon aging and consequently biogenic SOA (bSOA) production. Despite a lower production of bSOA in this scenario, contribution of bSOA to total SOA remained high at 40–54 %. Future studies aiming at a better emissions characterization of POA and intermediate-volatility organic compounds (IVOCs) from the O&G sector are valuable.


This report focuses on the use of innovative procurement in the health sector in the Nordic countries. It presents six Nordic cases demonstrating best practice within innovative procurement. The report argues that despite challenges particularly relating to navigating the legal framework, there are benefits associated with the use of innovative procurement. The use of dialogue between procurers and suppliers is highlighted as a key benefit in innovative procurement as it leads to increased knowledge of possibilities available in the market and hence better solutions. As innovative procurement practice is still relatively new across the Nordic countries, there is a need to disseminate best practices and to develop procurement guides to assist the implementation. The report has been prepared by DAMVAD. Innovative Public Procurement and Health Care


Essentials of Risk Management, Third Edition, by George L. Head and Stephen Horn II (Insurance Institute of America, 1997) Students should have great success with this two-volume set due to the many excellent design features that enhance the learning process. Each chapter begins with a set of clear educational objectives stated as specific; action oriented tasks students should be able to complete after studying the chapter. Next to the objectives are concise outlines of each chapter. The outlines provide a framework on which to build an understanding of the material, and provide a reference point for determining the breadth of coverage for each topic. The outlines are useful for seeing what is, and what isn't, covered. Significant sections within chapters begin with a small number of questions, prominently displayed in shaded boxes, specifying the issues to be addressed in that section. Exhibits are used liberally and with great effect. Many of the exhibits are taken from actual risk management situations, such as the risk management policy statements of General Mills and the State of Minnesota. Some of the exhibits would benefit from a sentence or two of explanation within the exhibits themselves, but overall, the exhibits help to illustrate important concepts and assist students' efforts to organize, integrate, and understand the material presented. Cross-referencing and repetition are used extensively to tie together material from one chapter to the next, reinforcing the "essentials" of risk management in various contexts. In this regard, good use is made of a comprehensive case study, introduced in chapter one, and referred to and expanded upon throughout the text. Despite occasionally erring on the side of too much redundancy to ensure that important points have been made, the writing style is straightforward and easy to follow. I did find the caveats relating to non-profit and governmental units in just about every chapter to be somewhat distracting, and I suggest the authors consider a separate chapter on such differences. The number of typographical errors disappointed me, several apparently resulting from the failure to track down all references to examples that were updated or changed from earlier editions. Most of the errors were minor, but could result in temporary confusion. Overall, however, Essentials of Risk Management is well designed to enhance student learning. There is a definite emphasis on the "management" side of risk management. The scope of risk management, as a subset of strategic management, is clearly defined in the overview of risk management in chapter one. The managerial emphasis is then reinforced throughout the entire book as the risk management "process" is applied in several different areas. Although briefly mentioned in the first chapter, I believe a more extended discussion of the nature of risk itself, how it is being defined, and how it may be measured, both by insurance companies and other businesses, may provide a better background for later discussions of the appropriate use of insurance as part of an overall risk management program. …


Given the large-scale socio-political transformation since the advent of democracy in South Africa, local cultures can be best regarded as change-oriented cultures. Humanity, however, never lives completely in the present and the ideologies of the superego (or the superego as a "vehicle") perpetuate the past and the traditions of the race, which yield gradually to the influence of the presence and to new developments. In our crime and victimological analyses, personal growth and communal change can therefore not be separated, nor can an identity crisis in individual life be separated from contemporary crises within historical context. Both these crises define each other and are thus relative to one another. This highlights furthermore the importance of a synthesis, or mutuality between traditional and modern cultures to arrive at both a meaningful collective and individual identity.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established treatment for several neurological conditions, and is most commonly used to treat Parkinson's disease by implanting electrodes in the basal ganglia. Despite the fact that circuits involved in eye movement control traverse the basal ganglia and are thus likely to be affected by DBS, studies combining DBS with eye movement analysis have been infrequent. This review focuses on recent research studies that examine the relationship between DBS and various types of eye movements and which highlight the potential of this approach.

RECENT FINDINGS
Recent work shows that DBS in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) can improve smooth pursuit in Parkinson's disease. STN DBS has also been shown to modulate visuospatial attention, and has provided experimental evidence backing a Bayesian model of basal ganglia function. DBS in the pallidum can improve antisaccadic performance in Parkinson's disease, suggesting improvement in higher control of oculomotor function, and implying retrograde striatal stimulation as part of the mechanism of action.

SUMMARY
These studies show that the combination of DBS with eye movement analysis is a powerful research tool. It may be used to study oculomotor physiology, basal ganglia pathophysiology, and the mechanism of action of DBS.


Aim: To investigate and compare the vertical marginal discrepancy and spread of excess cement after cementation with modified cementation technique and conventional technique. Materials and Methods: Ten implant analogs with prefabricated standard abutments of similar dimensions were mounted individually in self-cure acrylic blocks subcrestally. Forty ideal metal coping specimens were prepared by conventional lost wax technique. Measurement of the marginal discrepancy at the implant-crown interface was done using a stereomicroscope before cementation. Abutment replicas (ARs) were prepared for twenty specimens using cast copings and pattern resin. All forty copings were cemented according to the following cementation techniques and cement types, with ten specimens in each group. (1) Group 1: Half filling (HF) cementation technique using provisional cement. (2) Group 2: HF cementation technique using permanent cement. (3) Group 3: AR technique using provisional cement. (4) Group 4: AR technique using permanent cement. Specimens were subjected to measurement of marginal discrepancy and spread of excess cement using stereomicroscope after cementation procedure. Data were analyzed using paired t -test and unpaired t -test. Results: AR technique showed significantly less marginal discrepancy ( P = 0.000) and apical spread of excess cement ( P = 0.002) than conventional HF technique. Provisional cement showed significantly more marginal discrepancy (HF-P = 0.000 and AR-P = 0.001) and less apical spread of excess cement (HF- P = 0.023 and AR- P = 0.002) and among both technique. Statistical Analysis: Unpaired t -test. Conclusion: An alternative technique of using AR is effective technique to prevent peri-implant diseases.


Abstract The tensor of gravitation is traceless as the gravitational field of the Earth is harmonic outside the Earth's surface. Therefore, summation of the 2nd-order horizontal derivatives on its diagonal components should be equal to the radial one but with the opposite sign. The gravity field can be recovered locally from either of them, or even their combination. Here, we use the in-orbit diagonal components of the gravitational tensor measured by the gravity field and steady state ocean circulation explorer (GOCE) mission for recovering gravity anomaly with a resolution of 1°×1° at sea level in Ethiopia. In order to solve the system of equations, derived after discretisation of integral equations, the Tikhonov regularisation is applied and the bias of this regularisation is estimated and removed from the estimated gravity anomalies. The errors of the anomalies are estimated and their significance of recovery from these diagonal components is investigated. Statistically, the difference between the recovered anomalies from each scenario is not significant comparing to their errors. However, their joint inversion of the diagonal components improved the solution by about 1 mGal. Furthermore, the inversion processes are better stabilised when using errors of the input data compared with its exclusion, but at the penalty of degradation in accuracy of the estimates.


In this paper, we discuss the evolution of gravitationally unstable pre-galactic discs that result from the collapse of haloes at high redshift z ≈ 10 or so, which have not yet been enriched by metals. In cases where molecular hydrogen formation is suppressed, the discs are maintained at a temperature of a few thousand Kelvin. However, when molecular hydrogen is present, cooling can proceed down to a few hundred Kelvin. Analogous to the case of the larger-scale protogalactic discs, we assume that the evolution of these discs is mainly driven by angular momentum redistribution induced by the development of gravitational instabilities in the disc. We also properly take into account the possibility of disc fragmentation. We thus show that this simple model naturally predicts the formation of supermassive black holes in the nuclei of such discs and provides a robust determination of their mass distribution as a function of halo properties. We estimate that roughly 5 per cent of discs resulting from the collapse of haloes with M ≈ 10 7 M ⊙ should host a massive black hole with a mass M BH ≈ 10 5 M ⊙ . We confirm our arguments with time-dependent calculations of the evolution of the surface density and of the accretion rate in these primordial discs. The luminosity of the outer, colder disc is expected to be very low (in the range of a few thousand L ⊙ ), while the formation of the black hole is expected to produce a burst with a luminosity of a few times 10 9 L ⊙ . This mechanism offers an efficient way to form seed black holes at high redshift. The predicted masses for our black hole seeds enable the comfortable assembly of 10 9 -M ⊙ black holes powering the luminous quasars detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at z = 6 for a concordance cosmology.


This Master's thesis project studies the intersection of design and technology in its relation to those who are d/Deaf in a way that is both evaluative and critical. This was done in order to better understand the gaps that currently exist, both within projects and products as well as design processes. Design research, futuring, and technical explorations were used to better investigate this intersection. Through reviewing literature and existing precedents, there appear to be two major roles of products, correction or connection. A series of interviews with both deaf and non-deaf were conducted to understand the perspectives of both parties in order to better situate the approach taken throughout this project. A futuring workshop was used for creating and imagining new futures from the perspective of those within and closest to the Deaf community. A handful of technical explorations were conducted using current technologies as to better comprehend their capabilities. Ultimately, these explorations were used to reframe current trends in technology and create artifacts from the participants' futures. This project aims to raise more questions than necessarily propose solutions. It aims to provide a sort of case study and framework that can be used to question, or incorporate into, a designer's process. This study has researched and implemented several design processes including participatory design, futuring, speculative design, and inclusive design. As a result, this project proposes that the evolving and growing design practice of inclusive design begin to embrace futuring as a valuable aspect of the process.


In the traditional lab setting, it is reasonably
 straightforward to monitor student learning and provide ongoing
 feedback. Such formative assessments can help students identify
 their strengths and weaknesses, and assist faculty to recognize
 where students are struggling and address problems immediately. But
 in an online virtual lab setting, formative assessment has
 challenges that go beyond space‑time synchrony of online classroom.
 As we see increased enrollment in online courses, learning science
 needs to address the problem of formative assessment in online
 laboratory sessions. We developed a student team learning monitor
 (STLM module) in an electronic health record system to measure
 student engagement and actualize the social constructivist approach
 of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL). Using iterative
 Plan‑Do‑Study‑Act cycles in two undergraduate courses over a period
 of two years, we identified critical components that are required
 for online implementation of POGIL. We reviewed published research
 on POGIL classroom implementations for the last ten years and
 identified some common elements that affect learning gains. We
 present the critical components that are necessary for implementing
 POGIL in online lab settings, and refer to this as Cyber POGIL.
 Incorporating these critical components are required to determine
 when, how and the circumstances under which Cyber POGIL may be
 successfully implemented. We recommend that more online tools be
 developed for POGIL classrooms, which evolve from just providing
 synchronous communication to improved task monitoring and assistive
 feedback.


Mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene sequencing (DNA barcoding) of Ciona specimens from New Zealand (NZ) led to the first record of the solitary ascidian Ciona savignyi in the Southern Hemisphere. We sought to quantify C. savignyi COI genetic diversity around the NZ archipelago and to compare this with diversity within C. savignyi's native range in the north-west Pacific. Ciona savignyi specimens were collected from two NZ sites and from three sites around Japan. COI sequences (595 bp) were amplified and measures of genetic diversity were calculated. Based on differences between their COI sequences we developed a PCR-based assay to distinguish C. savignyi from the morphologically similar C. intestinalis. A total of 12 C. savignyi COI haplotypes were recovered from the 76 samples. Of the four haplotypes observed in NZ, two were unique. From the 10 haplotypes observed in the Japan samples, eight were unique. The C. savignyi populations in Japan were found to contain higher haplotype diversity when compared with those in NZ. The NZ samples contained only a small subset of the haplotype variation of the Japan samples, however, NZ samples did harbor two haplotypes not observed in the Japan samples. A PCR-based assay developed from the COI sequences was able to reliably discriminate the two Ciona species. The low COI genetic diversity within the two NZ C. savignyi populations sampled is consistent with a founder effect associated loss of genetic diversity. The robust PCR-based assay for distinguishing C. savignyi and C. intestinalis may find application in ecological and taxonomic studies and can be applied to both archival materials and live animals.


In his first novel to follow the publication of his enormous success, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck s vision comes wonderfully to life in this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California s back roads, transporting the lost and the lonely, the good and the greedy, the stupid and the scheming, the beautiful and the vicious away from their shattered dreams and, possibly, toward the promise of the future. This edition features an introduction by Gary Scharnhorst. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators."


Knowledge graph completion aims to perform link prediction between entities. In this paper, we consider the approach of knowledge graph embeddings. Recently, models such as TransE and TransH build entity and relation embeddings by regarding a relation as translation from head entity to tail entity. We note that these models simply put both entities and relations within the same semantic space. In fact, an entity may have multiple aspects and various relations may focus on different aspects of entities, which makes a common space insufficient for modeling. In this paper, we propose TransR to build entity and relation embeddings in separate entity space and relation spaces. Afterwards, we learn embeddings by first projecting entities from entity space to corresponding relation space and then building translations between projected entities. In experiments, we evaluate our models on three tasks including link prediction, triple classification and relational fact extraction. Experimental results show significant and consistent improvements compared to state-of-the-art baselines including TransE and TransH.


This paper presents a sum of squares (SOS) approach for modeling and control of nonlinear dynamical systems using polynomial fuzzy systems. The proposed SOS-based framework provides a number of innovations and improvements over the existing linear matrix inequality (LMI)-based approaches to Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy modeling and control. First, we propose a polynomial fuzzy modeling and control framework that is more general and effective than the well-known T--S fuzzy modeling and control. Secondly, we obtain stability and stabilizability conditions of the polynomial fuzzy systems based on polynomial Lyapunov functions that contain quadratic Lyapunov functions as a special case. Hence, the stability and stabilizability conditions presented in this paper are more general and relaxed than those of the existing LMI-based approaches to T-S fuzzy modeling and control. Moreover, the derived stability and stabilizability conditions are represented in terms of SOS and can be numerically (partially symbolically) solved via the recently developed SOSTOOLS. To illustrate the validity and applicability of the proposed approach, a number of analysis and design examples are provided. The first example shows that the SOS approach renders more relaxed stability results than those of both the LMI-based approaches and a polynomial system approach. The second example presents an extensive application of the SOS approach in comparison with a piecewise Lyapunov function approach. The last example is a design exercise that demonstrates the viability of the SOS-based approach to synthesizing a stabilizing controller.


The recession precipitated by the US financial crisis of 2007 accelerated the convergence of women's and men's employment rates, as men experienced disproportionate job losses and women's entry into the labor force gathered pace. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data for 2003-10, this study examines whether the recession also occasioned a decline in disparity in unpaid work burdens and provided impetus for overall progress toward equity in the workloads, leisure time, and personal care hours of mothers and fathers. Controlling for the prerecession trends, we find that the recession contributed to the convergence of both paid and unpaid work only during the December 2007-June 2009 period. The combined effect of the recession and the jobless recovery was a move toward equity in the paid work hours of mothers and fathers, a relative increase in the total workload of mothers, and a relative decline in their personal care and leisure time.