In Onflow, Ralph Pred supplies an account of the nature of consciousness that grapples with "the raw unverbalized stream of experience." Unlike other recent philosophical accounts of consciousness, Pred's analysis deals with the elusive and commonly neglected continuities in the stream of consciousness. Pred offers a general characterization and analysis of experience as well as a highly detailed interpretation of experience from within. Determined to make "conceptual contact" with the immediacy of actual experience, Pred carries forward the radical empiricism pioneered by William James (who coined the term "stream of consciousness") and draws on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.To help readers apprehend the formation of conscious thoughts, the intertwining of perception and action, and the working of consciousness in onflowing experience, Pred applies methods of analysis developed in John Searle's theory of intentionality to James's views, thereby showing how intentional states are embedded in the stream of consciousness. Then, calling on Whitehead's treatment of lived moments as acts of experience, Pred provides an account of consciousness that at once deals with conscious thoughts as they emerge from and function in embodied, socialized experience and illustrates how language distorts our understanding of experience and subjectivity. Finally, he details striking parallels between this account and Gerald Edelman's biological theory of consciousness, and, in contrasting the two, argues for a revitalized version of the experiental monism originally formulated by James.


VOLUME ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH Introduction - Mike Imms and Gill Ereaut What Is Qualitative Market Research? Characteristics of Qualitative Market Research as a Commercial Practice What Do Organizations Get from Qualitative Market Research? What Does the Qualitative Market Research Industry Look Like? Defining the Problem and Designing the Project How Local and International Qualitative Market Research Projects Work Ethics and Professional Standards VOLUME TWO: INTERVIEWING GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS IN QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH Introduction - Joanna Chrzanowska The Inside Story of a Focus Group The Nature of Qualitative Market Research Interviewing Implicit and Explicit Theories about What Qualitative Market Research Can Discover Implicit and Explicit Theories That have Influenced the Practice of Qualitative Market Research The Interviewing Relationship Planning an Interview or Group Discussion Interviewing Skills Enhancing the Interview with Stimulus Material and Projective Techniques 'Informed Eclecticism' Choosing and Using Interview Approaches VOLUME THREE: METHODS BEYOND INTERVIEWING IN QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH Introduction - Philly Desai The Interview in Social and Market Research Observation and Ethnography Research, Creativity and the Future Research and Consultation in the Public Sector Semiotics and Cultural Analysis Qualitative Market Research and the Internet Conclusions VOLUME FOUR: ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION IN QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH PART ONE: CONTEXT - Gill Ereaut Introduction The Status of Analysis and Interpretation in Qualitative Market Research Qualitative Research as a Commercial Activity Frameworks for Thinking Eclecticism, Pragmatism and Theory PART TWO: PROCESSES IN ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION The Experience of Analysis and Interpretation in Commercial Qualitative Research Processes of 'Analysis' Processes of 'Interpretation' I The Micro-Level Processes of 'Interpretation' II The Macro-Level Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis - CAQDAS PART THREE: ISSUES OF QUALITY Quality, Validity and Value in Qualitative Market Research What Is 'Best Practice' in Analysis and Interpretation? VOLUME FIVE: DEVELOPING BRANDS WITH QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH Introduction - Jon Chandler and Mike Owen The Nature of Brands Brands and the Human Dimension Branding and Brand Modelling Why Use Qualitative Research to Look at Brands and Branding? Research and Brand Development Process The Structure of Brand Research The Content of Brand Research Developing Brands through Qualitative Research VOLUME SIX: DEVELOPING ADVERTISING WITH QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH Introduction - Judith Wardle Why Qualitative Research? What Is Advertising? How Advertising Works The Planning Process and the Role of Research The Research Process From Briefing to Fieldwork The Research Process From Analysis and Interpretation to Presentation Representations of the Advertising The Politics of Advertising Research International Advertising Research VOLUME SEVEN: DELIVERING RESULTS IN QUALITATIVE MARKET RESEARCH PART ONE: CONTEXT - Geraldine Lillis Introduction What Does Qualitative Market Research Deliver? The Changing Business Environment The Changing Business of Qualitative Market Research PART TWO: DELIVERY Defining Roles and Skills Defining the Problem Constructing the Story Delivering the Goods Which Method? The Debrief or Presentation Other Research Output


South Africa is facing a crisis with not being able to produce enough graduates in the scarce skills areas to sustain economic growth. The crisis is fuelled by a school system that does not produce enough potential students with Mathematics, Accounting and Science. Since the introduction of the new school curriculum in 2008, there is no longer an option to take pure maths on a standard grade level. Instead, only two mathematical subjects are offered: pure maths (which is on par with higher grade maths) and mathematical literacy. It is compulsory to take one or the other. As a result, lees student finishes Grade 12 with pure mathematics every year. This national problem needs urgent attention if South Africa is to make any headway in critical skills development as mathematics is a gateway to scarce skills professions. Higher education institutions initiated several initiatives in an attempt to address the above, including preparatory courses, bridging programmes and extended curricula with foundation provisions. In view of the above, and government policy directives to broaden access in the scarce skills areas to increase student throughput, foundation provision was introduced for Commerce and Information Technology programmes at the Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of North-West University (NWU) in 2010. Students enrolling for extended programmes do not comply with the minimum prerequisites for the normal programmes. The question then arises as to whether these programmes have the intended impact? This paper reports the results of a two year longitudinal study, tracking the first year academic achievement of the two cohorts of enrolments since 2010. The results provide valuable insight into the structuring of an extended programme and its potential impact. Keywords—Access, extended programmes, foundation provision, mathematics.


Many medical applications utilise distributed/parallel computing in order to cope with demands of large data or computing power requirements. In this paper, we present a new version of the XtremWeb-CH (XWCH) platform, and demonstrate two medical applications that run on XWCH. The platform is versatile in a way that it supports direct communication between tasks. When tasks cannot communicate directly, warehouses are used as intermediary nodes between "producer" and "consumer" tasks. New features have been developed to provide improved support for writing powerfull distributed applications using an easy API.


Two saturated sands, Monterey No. 0/30 and Enewetak coral, tested undrained under one-dimensional strain loading, were found to have values of the pore pressure parameter C, less than unity. The C parameter for Monterey No. 0/30 sand, determined to be unity at an effective consolidation stress of 86 kPa, decreased with increasing effective consolidation stress and increasing relative density. A similar behavior was observed for the Enewetak coral sand. These trends are similar to those reported by other researchers for the pore pressure parameter B. The decrease in C parameter values for saturated specimens appears to be a direct result of increasing skeleton stiffness due to increases in effective stress and density. A theoretical analysis of skeleton stiffness based on porosity and pore pressure response predicts similar trends.


To achieve the goal of poverty reduction, as encapsulated within the Millennium Development Goals, the collection, analysis, and use of geographic information as it relates to the multidimensionality of poverty offers a starting point. The spatial handling of poverty is an emerging paradigm for which researches on the spatial modelling of poverty are required. Attempting to contribute to a better understanding of poverty mapping, this paper examines GIS suitability for use in poverty application areas. GIS analysis functions most appropriate for use in specific poverty mapping tasks are examined. The uses are identified as data integration of socio-economic, environmental, cultural data, etc.; delineation of areas lying within a specified threshold distance from selected features or places; deriving further data from spatial analysis for multivariate analysis of poverty; deriving straight-line and network distances; visualisation and presentation of the results of poverty analysis. Special emphasis is placed on ways in which GIS is being used and its suitability for poverty reduction tasks to help draw out some relevant methodological and policy lessons.


The research reported in this study is based on a detailed observation study of pupils carrying out investigative work in primary and secondary schools. The thesis examines the question of the type and level of understanding of scientific evidence which is employed in a number of different types of tasks associated with two underlying substantive concepts. The results suggest that the characteristics of each task make different demands on pupils of different ages and show that some pupils, in both primary and secondary schools, are capable of applying and synthesising ideas about evidence effectively in a problem-solving situation. Most pupils, however, even in Year 9, show a weak understanding of the application of many of these ideas, such as repeatability, range and interval or the most appropriate type of graph. It is argued that if pupils are to understand scientific evidence, then these ideas need to be taught and their synthesis in investigative work regularly reinforced. The procedural understanding demonstrated by pupils in practical investigations is compared with the understanding revealed orally in an interview situation and in written tasks. While some pupils appear to use tacit understanding in practical tasks which cannot be accessed readily in other ways, the results also show that most pupils who can express ideas about evidence explicitly are more likely to apply and synthesise them in a problem-solving situation. It is likely that if ideas about evidence were taught explicitly, then the ability of pupils to apply and synthesise them in a problem-solving situation would improve. It is also argued that, because problem-solving skills are required by employers in science-based industry and because understanding evidence is important in everyday life, then these ideas need to be formally taught and assessed within science education.


The state regulates sexual activity through a combination of criminal and civil sanctions and the award of benefits, such as marriage and First Amendment protections, for acts and speech that conform with the state's vision of acceptable sex. Although the penalties for non-compliance with the state's vision of appropriate sex are less severe in intellectual property law than those, for example, in criminal or family law, IP law also signals the state's views of sex. In this Article written for the Stanford symposium on the Adult Entertainment industry, I extend my consideration of the law's treatment of sex after Lawrence v. Texas to the context of intellectual property.Sex has long played a role in determining the scope of IP protection, especially in the context of copyright and trademark law. At common law, works, inventions, and marks deemed sexually explicit or simply suggestive were denied the protection of the law. Even today they remain disfavored in some contexts. In this Article, I consider and critique some of the ways IP law continues to devalue and channel sex. Part I of the article considers trademark law's explicit and implicit disfavoring of sexual content. This is most evident in trademark dilution law, where courts have read in an explicit prohibition on using marks or colorable imitations in sexual contexts. Part II analyzes the ways that copyright law continues to treat works with sexual content differently and sometimes less favorably than other works. Finally, Part III situates IP law's treatment of sex in a broader critique of the law's sex exceptionalism and normativity. Using copyright and trademark to channel sex provides yet another avenue for the law (and in this case art and commerce) to shape a vision of sex that is narrow, discriminatory, pejorative, and exclusionary. A consideration of the treatment of sex in IP highlights some of the dangers of the differential treatment of sex in general and also some of the pitfalls of using the IP system to further goals unrelated to its core missions. Ultimately, works, marks, and uses of them should not be disfavored solely because they have sexual content nor should courts be in the business of assessing what constitutes good or bad sex.


The Northern Permian Basin is located in the offshore area SSW of Norway, NNW of Denmark and east of Scotland. This basin is filled mainly by Lower Permian aeolian desert sediments and volcanics, plus Upper Permian evaporitic sediments. The aeolian sandstone is an excellent reservoir rock and is generally capped by thick layers of salt that potentially form a tight cap rock. The highest risk in the petroleum exploration of the Palaeozoic Northern Permian Basin is linked to the presence of source rocks. Palaeozoic source-rock candidates in the Northern Permian Basin area may be present among Lower Palaeozoic marine sediments, within Devonian–Carboniferous lacustrine/deltaic pre- and syn-rift sediments and as Permian marine shales. This study investigates Lower Palaeozoic marine shales, lacustrine Devonian mudstones, Carboniferous mudstones and coals and marine Permian shales in order to assess the thermal maturity, source-rock potential and distribution of Palaeozoic sediments in the Northern Permian Basin region. The majority of the investigated samples were within the oil window in terms of thermal maturity. Lower Palaeozoic marine sediments may have generated both oil and gas, while Upper Palaeozoic coals and mudstones are dominantly gas-prone source rocks. Middle Permian marine shales (Kupferschiefer) are a good oil-prone source rock. Generation and expulsion of hydrocarbons from Lower Palaeozoic source rocks in the eastern parts of the Northern Permian Basin probably began in the Upper Silurian, with peak oil generation in Carboniferous times. Upper Palaeozoic rocks in the same area matured rapidly in Early Triassic times. The likely presence of multiple Palaeozoic source rocks suggests that hydrocarbons were generated in the Northern Permian Basin.


Incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is a critical parameter for modelling ecosystem productivity. An algorithm for estimating instantaneous PAR from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data was developed earlier; however, daily-integrated PAR is more meaningful than instantaneous PAR in many cases because many land surface models require a daily or coarser temporal resolution. This paper compares two different algorithms (adjusted sinusoidal interpolation and look-up table) for estimating daily-integrated PAR from instantaneous PAR values. Statistical analysis of the validation results indicates that the look-up table method more accurately estimates daily-integrated PAR than the use of adjusted sinusoidal interpolation. We also investigated how window size, daytime length and the number of overpass counts per day affect bias and the relative error of estimation. Validation using field measurements, and comparison with the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites PAR product, demonstrates that data collected by MODIS can be used to provide reliable estimates of daily-integrated PAR.


A compact imaging spectrometer (COMIS) is currently under development for use in the STSAT3 microsatellite. COMIS images the Earth's surface and atmosphere with ground sampling distances of ${\sim}30m$ in the $18{\sim}62$ spectral bands ( $4.0{\sim}1.05{\mu}m$ ) for the nadir looking at an altitude of 700 km. COMIS has an imaging telescope and an imaging spectrometer box into which three electronics PCBs are embedded. These are designed into a single assembly with dimensions of 35(L) $\times$ 20(W) $\times$ 12(H) $cm^3$ and a mass of 4.3 kg. Optomechanical design efforts are focused on manufacturing ease, alignment, assembly, testing and improved robustness in space environments. Finite element analysis demonstrates that COMIS will survive in launch and space environments and perform the system modulation transfer function (MTF) in excess of 0.29 at the Nyquist frequency of the CCD detector (38.5 lines-per-mm).


The threat of malicious insider activity continues to be of paramount concern in both the public and private sectors. Though there is great interest in advancing the state of the art in predicting and stopping these threats, the difficulty of obtaining suitable data for research, development, and testing remains a significant hinderance. We outline the use of synthetic data to enable progress in one research program, while discussing the benefits and limitations of synthetic insider threat data, the meaning of realism in this context, as well as future research directions.


Forested mountain watersheds provide essential resources and services (e.g., water supply) to downstream ecosystems and human communities. Fast-growing mountainside residential development not only modifies the terrestrial system but also aquatic systems by changing the nutrient input from the terrestrial to aquatic. However, the impacts of mountainside residential development on stream ecosystems are complex because interactions between instream process and hillslope soils control in-stream nutrient dynamics, and it is difficult to experimentally study these interactions at broad spatial scales. In my dissertation research, I first developed models for leaf decomposition in a forested headwater stream by synthesizing several important ecological concepts, including ecological stoichiometry, microbial nutrient mining, and microbe-substrate interaction. I then extended the single stream model to a stream network model and further linked the stream network model with a terrestrial model that simulates nutrient processes and hydrology in hillslope soils. With this complete modeling framework, I conducted a global sensitivity analysis to evaluate the importance of terrestrial nutrient input versus in-stream processes in modifying nitrogen export. I also conducted a simulation to investigate the impacts of housing density, buffer zone protection, and stream travel distance from the residential development to the catchment outlet on nitrogen export at the local and regional scale. The model for leaf decomposition performed better for predicting detritus decay and nutrient patterns when microbial groups were divided into immobilizers and miners and when leaf quality was included as a variable. The importance of terrestrial nutrient input versus iii in-stream nutrient processes greatly depended on the level of terrestrial nutrient input. When terrestrial nitrate input was low, nitrogen export was more sensitive to in-stream net microbial nitrogen flux (mineralization immobilization) than nitrate input. However, when terrestrial nitrate input was high, nitrate input was more important than in-stream net nitrogen flux. Greater impacts, i.e., higher nitrogen export at the local scale or greater change in nitrogen export at the regional scale, were associated with higher residential density, a lack of buffer zone protection, and shorter stream travel distance from the residential development to the catchment outlet. Although subject to model assumptions and further validation through field experiments, this research provides a general modeling framework for in-stream processes and aquatic-terrestrial linkages and expands an understanding of interactions between terrestrial and in-stream nitrogen dynamics and the impacts of mountainside development on stream ecosystems, identifies directions for further research, and provides insights for land and river management in mountainous areas.


The study describes a "Village Adoption Scheme" as a model for energising the rural economy in India and to slow down rural urban migration which research has shown to be harmful to both; rural and urban people of India and their regions. The model presented here is designed to use the resources existing in social, traditional, cultural, legal, ethnic, religious, economic and political layers of the rural society and seeks to enable the region to build upon them to generate resources. The thesis describes implementation of the scheme in one region of rural India and suggests the conditions, which would be needed to prevail if the approach were to be extended. The study describes the scale of the project and also the lessons learnt from the endeavour, which would help those who plan to use the model described. The author participated in the project as a member of the GVSP's steering committee and is in a position to give first hand information of the project works. Thesis Supervisor: Professor John deMonchaux Title: Professor of Architecture and Planning, Director of Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies


A total of 320 bacteria isolated from marketable size and diseased mud crab (Scylla
serrata) at a commercial farm. The isolated bacteria were Aeromonas spp. n = 70,
Edwardsiella tarda n = 50, Vibrio alginolyticus n = 40, Vibrio parahaemolyticus n = 20,
Salmonella spp. n = 70 and Klebsiella spp. n = 70. All the bacterial isolates were tested
for antibiotic susceptibility against 16 types of antibiotics by using disk diffusion
method. The antibiotics tested in this study were nalidixic acid (30 µg/disk), oxolinic
acid (2 µg/disk), compound sulphonamides (300 µg/disk), doxycycline (30 µg/disk),
tetracycline (30 µg/disk), novobiocin (30 µg/disk), chloramphenicol (30 µg/disk),
kanamycin (30 µg/disk), sulphamethoxazole (25 µg/disk), flumequine (30 µg/disk),
erythromycin (15 µg/disk), ampicillin (10 µg/disk), spiramycin (100 µg/disk),
oxytetracycline (30 µg/disk), amoxycillin (25 µg/disk) and fosfomycin (50 µg/disk).
Heavy metal resistance pattern of the present bacterial isolates was also characterized
against mercury (Hg2+), chromium (Cr6+), copper (Cu2+), and Zinc (Zn2+) by using
two fold agar dilution method. The percentage of antibiotic sensitivity of the present
bacterial isolates was ranged from 12.5 % to 100 % in which most of the present
bacteria isolates were not sensitive to ampicillin whereas all the bacteria isolates were
sensitive to nalidixic acid, flumequine and oxytetracycline. Overall, the total of
antibiotic sensitive case was reported as 72.7% whereas antibiotic resistance and
intermediate sensitive case was recorded as 19.7% and 7.4 %, respectively. The
Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) values were range of 0.03 to 0.29 in which
Aeromonas spp (0.29) showed the highest value of MAR. This was followed by
Salmonella spp. (0.21) and Klebsiella spp. (0.21), Edwardsiella tarda (0.20), Vibrio
alginolyticus (0.09) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus (0.03). The MAR value indicated that
the commercial S. serrata were not contaminated to the test antibiotics. Furthermore,
low resistance activity of the present bacterial isolates to the tested heavy metals (Cr6+:
20.7 % to 30.8 %, Zn2+: 0 % to 40 %, Cu2+: 18.8 % to 25 % and Hg2+: 30 % to 33.3
%) was observed.


Using three months of data from financial diaries tracking daily cash flows of a group of microfinance borrowers in two urban slums in Karnataka, India, we show that the burgeoning microfinance sector faces a number of constraints. These households are borrowing from multiple sources, specifically multiple MFIs. Secondly, a large fraction of each household's budget is spent servicing loans with the two largest components of budget being loan repayment and food expenditure. Finally, households are observed to recycle their debts with over 27 per cent of fresh borrowings being spent on existing debts. These households in the urban slums of Ramanagaram are organizing their lives around multiple MFI memberships, multiple group meetings in a week and numerous repayment schedules. Apart from the stress to MFI clients of managing debts of small amounts from various MFIs, the Indian MFI sector will have to learn to grapple with the fallout of multiple memberships.


We develop and calibrate an analytical growth model in the neo-Kaleckian tradition with an endogenous wealth distribution and differential returns to wealth between workers and capitalists. We show that a long-run equilibrium allows for non-zero wealth owned by workers, even as the model contains the "triumph of the rentier" predicted by Piketty's r > g as a special case. The model's calibration to ten European countries shows that the distribution of wealth is likely to become more unequal in all cases, barring political countermeasures.


Language models (LMs) are pretrained to imitate internet text, including content that would violate human preferences if generated by an LM: falsehoods, offensive comments, personally identifiable information, low-quality or buggy code, and more. Here, we explore alternative objectives for pretraining LMs in a way that also guides them to generate text aligned with human preferences. We benchmark five objectives for pretraining with human feedback across three tasks and study how they affect the trade-off between alignment and capabilities of pretrained LMs. We find a Pareto-optimal and simple approach among those we explored: conditional training, or learning distribution over tokens conditional on their human preference scores given by a reward model. Conditional training reduces the rate of undesirable content by up to an order of magnitude, both when generating without a prompt and with an adversarially-chosen prompt. Moreover, conditional training maintains the downstream task performance of standard LM pretraining, both before and after task-specific finetuning. Pretraining with human feedback results in much better preference satisfaction than standard LM pretraining followed by finetuning with feedback, i.e., learning and then unlearning undesirable behavior. Our results suggest that we should move beyond imitation learning when pretraining LMs and incorporate human preferences from the start of training.


Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ?body image
constructions? in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus
and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ?body image constructions? used to
describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ?jealousy?, ?envy?, and ?covetousness? in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a
?moving body?, a pychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide
good clues to understanding the cultural construction of emotions both emotions and the body.


Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and is estimated to be responsible for approximately one-fifth of man-made global warming. Per kilogram, it is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time horizon -- and global warming is likely to enhance methane release from a number of sources. Current natural and man-made sources include many where methane-producing micro-organisms can thrive in anaerobic conditions, particularly ruminant livestock, rice cultivation, landfill, wastewater, wetlands and marine sediments. This timely and authoritative book provides the only comprehensive and balanced overview of our current knowledge of sources of methane and how these might be controlled to limit future climate change. It describes how methane is derived from the anaerobic metabolism of micro-organisms, whether in wetlands or rice fields, manure, landfill or wastewater, or the digestive systems of cattle and other ruminant animals. It highlights how sources of methane might themselves be affected by climate change. It is shown how numerous point sources of methane have the potential to be more easily addressed than sources of carbon dioxide and therefore contribute significantly to climate change mitigation in the 21st century.


With the rapid growth of Internet and social networking websites, various services are provided in these platforms. For instance, Facebook focuses on social activities, Twitter and Plurk (which are called microblogs) are both focusing on the interaction of users through short messages. Millions of users enjoy services from these websites which are full of marketing possibilities. Understanding the users can assist companies to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the target market. In this paper, a social recommendation system based on the data from microblogs is proposed. This social recommendation system is built according to the messages and social structure of target users. The similarity of the discovered features of users and products will then be calculated as the essence of the recommendation engine. A case study included in the paper presents how the recommendation system works based on real data from Plurk.


While public management has become widely spoken of, its identity and character is not well-defined. Such disparity is an underlying problem in developing public management within academia, and in the eyes of practitioners. In this book, Michael Barzelay tackles the challenge of making public management into a true professional discipline. Barzelay argues that public management needs to integrate contrasting conceptions of professional practice. By pressing forward an expansive idea of design in public management, Barzelay formulates a fresh vision of public management in practice and outlines its implications for research, curriculum developm


This dissertation uses the National Security Archive as the unit of study to examine the roles and impact of archives in mechanisms of accountability for past human rights violations in Latin America. The National Security Archive, a research institution based at the George Washington University, collects declassified U.S. government documents related to foreign policy. The Archive's documentation and research about U.S. policy in Latin America during the Cold War has uncovered the planning and implementation of counterinsurgency operations by Latin American dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. It has also documented the U.S. government involvement and knowledge of these operations. These records have become vital to transitional justice mechanisms, particularly truth commissions and criminal prosecutions. The National Security Archive has been an active participant in these processes. This research examines the roles of the National Security Archive in mechanisms of past human rights abuses. Through case study research, it performs an analysis of documents, including court decisions, news, and resources from NSA. Semi-structured interviews were also performed. Particular attention is given to the Archive's work in Guatemala.


The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a perfect storm of negative social and economic impacts with inevitable geopolitical consequences The policy adopted by President Joko Widodo in accelerating the management of Covid-19 at this time is the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (Large-Scale Social Restrictions) The Presidential Decree Number 7/2020 concerning the Establishment of Task Force for the Acceleration of Covid-19 Handling was then amended by the Presidential Decree Number 9/2020 to expand the scope and composition of the Task Force which involves the ministries/agencies involved in accelerating the management of Covid-19 In its implementation, the Task Force has not been able to function optimally due to the lack of community participation, specifically the lack of community arrangements to deal with a pandemic Therefore, it needs to involve RT/RW in the unit of Task Force officers so that they can be directly involved in the community of the smaller unit The participation of RT and RW in breaking the Covid-19 chain is very vital since RT and RW are community institutions which are directly linked to the village community They are the mouth and ears of the government which have for conveying the policies of the government at local (village)/kelurahan, regional, and national level As the first recipients of the community's aspirations, they are the heart of community conflicts so that it is them who better understand the extent of the problems and conflicts that arise in the community This study aimed to support the head of the RT and the head of the RW for optimally strengthening their role in the prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic by informing of the presence of a patient or suspect suffering from an epidemic, assisting in the proper execution of epidemic control efforts, and motivating the community to overcome the epidemic


It is well recognized that the quality of host plants affects the development and survival of plant-feeding arthropods. The effects of two leafy vegetable crops, amaranth, Amaranthus cruentus L. (Caryophyllales: Amaranthaceae) and nightshade, Solanum macrocarpon L. (Solanales: Solanaceae) were examined on the development and demographic parameters of the spider mite, Tetranychus ludeni Zacher (Acari: Tetranychidae). This mite was recently identified as a pest of the two leafy vegetables which are widely used in West Africa. The experiments were conducted at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Benin, West Africa, in a growth chamber at 27°C, 70% ±10% RH and 12:12 (L:D). Immature development of T. ludeni was shorter on A. cruentus than on S. macrocarpon, whereas female longevity was the same on the two vegetable crops. Total fecundity per female was higher on A. cruentus than on S. macrocarpon, largely due to longer survival of adult female T. ludeni on the former; however, no differences were observed in the daily fecundity of T. ludeni on the two plant species. The comparison of intrinsic rates of natural increase (rm), the net reproductive rates (Ro) and the survival rates of adult stage of T. ludeni on the two vegetable crops suggests that T. ludeni performs better on S. macrocarpon than on A. cruentus. Reasons for the lower rate of population growth observed on amaranth should be studied in more details as this could be used in IPM strategies such as intercropping to reduce pest density and in developing biopesticides for use against T. ludeni in vegetable farms in Africa.


Objective: To formulate and optimise stable caries removing gel using naturally extracted papain and clove, for non– invasive chemo–mechanical removal of dental caries. Methodology: Gel formulation was prepared using natural polymer such as pectin along with other excipients and optimized for desired level of papain activity and viscosity for effective application on carious tooth using 32 factorial design. Optimized formulation was evaluated for its physicochemical properties, in–vitro antibacterial activity and ex-vivo chemo-mechanical performance. Results: FTIR and DSC studies confirmed compatibility of papain with other excipients. Formulation with ratio of 2.5: 2.5: 0.225 pectin : propylene glycol : triethanolamine was found to give stable gel with viscosity of 7800cp, proteolytic activity of 91.64% with satisfactory in-vitro antibacterial activity and ex-vivo chemomechanical performance. Conclusion: Papain and clove containing chemo-mechanical caries removing gel can serve as potential alternative to other invasive caries removing techniques which will also reduce chances of microbial infection at the site of application with symptomatic pain relief. Key words: Clove, Chemomechanical removal, Dental caries, ex-vivo performance, Papain.


Political party organizations play large roles in democracies, yet their organizations differ widely, and their statutes change much more frequently than constitutions or electoral laws. How do these differences, and these frequent changes, affect the operation of democracy?

This book seeks to answer these questions by presenting a comprehensive overview of the state of party organization in nineteen contemporary democracies. Using a unique new data collection, the book's chapters test propositions about the reasons for variation and similarities across party organizations. They find more evidence of within-country similarity than of cross-national patterns based on party ideology. After exploring parties' organizational differences, the remaining chapters investigate the impact of these differences. The volume considers a wide range of theories about how party organization may affect political life, including the impact of party rules on the selection of female candidates, the links between party decision processes and the stability of party programmes, the connection between party finance sources and public trust in political parties, and whether the strength of parties' extra-parliamentary organization affects the behaviour of their elected legislators. Collectively these chapters help to advance comparative studies of elections and representation by inserting party institutions and party agency more firmly into the centre of such studies.

Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.

The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.


Boreal bogs are important stores and sinks of atmospheric carbon whose surfaces are characterised by vegetation microforms. Efficient methods for monitoring their vegetation are needed because changes in vegetation composition lead to alteration in their function such as carbon gas exchange with the atmosphere. We investigated how airborne image and waveform-recording LiDAR data can be used for 3D mapping of microforms in an open bog which is a mosaic of pools, hummocks with a few stunted pines, hollows, intermediate surfaces and mud-bottom hollows. The proposed method operates on the bog surface, which is reconstructed using LiDAR. The vegetation was classified at 20 cm resolution. We hypothesised that LiDAR data describe surface topography, moisture and the presence and depth of field-layer vegetation and surface roughness; while multiple images capture the colours and texture of the vegetation, which are influenced by directional reflectance effects. We conclude that geometric LiDAR features are efficient predictors of microforms. LiDAR intensity and echo width were specific to moisture and surface roughness, respectively. Directional reflectance constituted 4–34 % of the variance in images and its form was linked to the presence of the field layer. Microform-specific directional reflectance patterns were deemed to be of marginal value in enhancing the classification, and RGB image features were inferior to LiDAR variables. Sensor fusion is an attractive option for fine-scale mapping of these habitats. We discuss the task and propose options for improving the methodology.


An exhibition by 19 students from the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany, ranging from photography and experimental media to performance art.

Outcome of Wiebke's annual Lectureship at Essen for the Integration of Theory and Practice (April 2008-March 2009).

Asked to consider Roland Barthes' 1972 essay 'The Grain of Voice' as a leitmotif in the production of works that consider photography as performative. How the photographer becomes involved in an active engagement with the question of what a photographic voice can be and how it can relate to ideas of authorship in the making of and the thinking about photography.

Questions in the process of producing the work included: Who is speaking? And who is looking? What is the character of the author? Is there an element of fictional self portraiture? What kind of timbre does a visual voice have? What do we imagine off frame? Attempting to find a gesture in the making of the work that reached out to the viewer.

Colin Penno, Felix Gienger, Linda Nau, Sander Uitdehaag, Christoph Esser, Oha Ben Shimon, Sabrina Neef, Philip Ullrich, Anne Lochmann, Anna-Lena Michel, Dorothee Kletzsch, Katrin Reinike, Ute Klein, Magdalena Bitniok, Valerie Schmidt, Johanna Kopp, Carolin Ebbert, Stephanie Ebbert, Philipp Gallon.

Catalogue: 'The Grain of the Voice' (2009), 40 pages, unpaginated, with introductory text, 2009, 5000 copies given out as part of exhibition.
Course: The Impossibility of Neutrality; Fotografie nach dem Tod des Autoren (2008/09, 2 semesters).
Subject: Integration of theory and practice / artistic research.


Wave-induced hydroelastic response of a circular plastic collar used as a floater of a net cage in aquaculture is studied by means of theory, model tests and numerical simulations. A low-frequency linear slender-body theory for vertical radiation loads on an elastic semi-submerged torus based on matched asymptotic expansions is developed. Low frequency means that the corresponding wavelength is long relative to the cross-sectional radius. Linear vertical excitation load is calculated by either solving the diffraction problem with a cross-sectional averaged vertical incident wave velocity along the torus or by using a generalized Haskind relation. A curved beam equation with tension effects is used to predict the vertical wave-induced response of a semi-submerged torus in the frequency domain. The theory is verified by comparing with WAMIT. The analysis shows that three-dimensional flow, strong hydrodynamic frequency dependency and hydroelasticity are essential for the considered vertical wave loads and responses of the torus. Model tests of both an elastic and a nearly rigid torus were performed in regular waves of different wave periods and steepness in order to validate the low-frequency slender-body theory. The bending stiffness of the elastic model was Froude scaled. Vertical accelerations along the torus, mooring line forces and the free-surface elevation at four positions in the wave tank were measured. Overtopping and out of water of parts of the torus models occurred in steep waves. Experimental precision errors and bias errors, for instance, due to tank-wall interference are discussed. There is reasonable agreement between experiments and theoretically/numerically predicted linear response. The agreement between numerical methods and experiments is generally unsatisfactory for the nonlinear response. The two sets of experimental results show that the second, third and fourth harmonic vertical accelerations of the torus matter and cannot be explained by a perturbation method with the wave steepness as a small parameter.


This chapter explores the effect that the turn to history has had on the field of international law. The publication of Martti Koskenniemi's history of the international legal profession, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, is often presented as representing a moment at which the field of international law took a 'turn to history', or more precisely, a turn in its mode of writing history. Of course, international law has always had a deep engagement with the past. Past texts and concepts are constantly retrieved and taken up as a resource in international legal argumentation and scholarship. Thus the 'turn to history' trope marks a turn to history as a critical method, rather than a turn to history as a substantive engagement with the past. Koskenniemi himself introduced The Gentle Civilizer as a 'move from structure to history in the analysis of international law' and 'a kind of experimentation in the writing about the disciplinary past'. In later work, however, he became much conventional in his exposition of history as method, arguing against the 'sin of anachronism' and urging critical scholars to focus on the meaning of texts for their authors' 'contemporaries'. A similar turn to history as method more broadly begin to shape new writing about international law over the decade following The Gentle Civilizer's publication. This chapter suggests that the turn to history as method that followed in the wake of The Gentle Civilizer was an abandonment of the critical potential of that initial work. What marked out The Gentle Civilizer as a singular achievement was Koskenniemi's attempt to hold together the history of international law, the sociology of international law, and the practice of international law. If the attempt to hold together those genres is abandoned, the critical potential of historical work in international law is lost. The chapter concludes by exploring what the historicizing of international law as a critical gesture might mean for the field going forward.


Abstract
Background: Despite the growing health needs of adolescents due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, health services in developing countries are not prepared to provide appropriate care due to inadequate awareness of adolescent health needs, and inadequate training and capacity of the service providers.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey, to assess adolescents' health service utilization pattern, their attitudes towards the existing health services and their preferences was conducted in selected schools in Addis Ababa using an anonymous self-administered questionnaire.
Results: A total of 2,647 students from 13 high schools participated in the study. Of these, 1,177(44.5%) were males and 1,470(55.5%) were females. Considerable proportion of the adolescents reported that existing health services are inaccessible (30.5%), unaffordable (20.2%) and unacceptable (24.2%). The major barriers to utilizing reproductive health services are feeling of embarrassment (72.0%) and fear of being seen by parents or people who know them (67.8%). Adolescent's preference regarding the service place and person serving varies widely; but the majority prefers special service hours designated for adolescents (70.1%), and a discounted price or free service (80.0%). Disclosing reproductive health problems and mental stress to parents, and seeking appropriate medical care for these problems is much less likely compared to other non-reproductive physical health problems.
Conclusion: Adolescents are less likely to utilize existing health services when facing reproductive health problems and suffering from mental stress. Innovative and youth friendly approaches with due consideration of the heterogeneity of their needs should be adapted in order to increase accessibility and utilization of appropriate health services. [Ethiop.J.Health Dev. 2005;19(1):29-36]


The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of Therapeutic Faradic Stimulation in patients with Myofascial Pain Syndrome of theTrapezius and Levator Scapula musculature. This study was a quantitative pilot placebo controlled clinical trial. The sample size used was 60 patients selected from the Durban Metropolitan Area. Only patients between the ages of 30 and 50, who were office workers and were diagnosed with active trigger points in either the Trapezius and/or the Levator Scapula muscles were accepted into this study. The sample was divided into 3 groups of 20. One group received Faradic Stimulation in the form of the Transeva, another group received Placebo Transeva and the third group received Pulsed Ultrasound. Each patient received 2 research treatments with a maximum of 72 hours between treatment 1 and 2, and the third free Chiropractic treatment being a week later. Data (both subjective and objective) were obtained from the patients at the first and second consultations, prior to treatments and at the third follow up before treatment. Subjective data were obtained with the Short form McGill pain questionnaire, the Numerical Pain Rating Scale and the CMCC Neck Disability Index. Objective data were obtained from the Pressure Algometer and the CROM Cervical Range of Motion Instrument. Statistical Analysis of the data was conducted using the SPSS (version 9) software suite. This Statistical software program was manufactured by SPSS Inc, 444N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Various Descriptive and Inferential Statistical techniques were used. The Descriptive procedures used were various tables and graphs and a few summary statistics including but not limited to means, proportions and percentages. Inferential Statistics included iv various Hypothesis testing techniques. Due to the size of our samples, namely 20 in each group, non-parametric Statistical Tests were used. All the tests were set at type 1 error at 5%, or mentioned differently = 0.05. If our p value as reported was less than 0.05 we declared a significant result and our Null Hypothesis was rejected. Evaluation of the statistical analyses revealed significant improvements with regards to subjective and objective data for mostly the Attenuated Faradic Treatment (Transeva) group. Although significant Placebo and Ultrasound effects were obtained initially after the first treatment, the Transeva group showed more favourable results between consultations two and three, giving a good indication of the progression of the treatment regimen. Comparison between groups showed a significant difference with regards to CMCC Neck Disability Index scores, NPRS 101 questionnaires, CROM extension and right lateral flexion readings and Algometer readings. It was concluded that the Transeva is an effective form of treatment for the active trigger points of Myofascial Pain Syndrome of the Trapezius and Levator Scapula musculature in terms of both subjective and objective clinical findings. Suggestions were made to double-blind further studies as this will aid in reducing researcher bias toward a favoured treatment protocol. This study and observations made by the author with respect to Myofascial Transeva treatment are hoped to contribute to the limited literature available on this modality.


Developing innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula that elicit student excitement for learning is a continuous challenge for K-12 STEM teachers. Generating these lessons while meeting conflicting pedagogical objectives and constraints of time, content, and cost from various parties is truly a challenging task for any teacher. Recognizing the parallel between curricular design and engineering design, we posit that the engineering design process (EDP) can be used as an innovative, effective, and logical means for formalizing the development of K-12 STEM lessons. The use of the EDP as an instructional development (ID) model is firmly based on the existing literature theory of how people learn; in particular, identifying the students and teachers as clients for the design process is a learner-centered approach, and problem-based learning (PBL) encourages active learning of STEM concepts in the context of authentic problems. To develop this process in practice, we collaborated with 15 middle school teachers over three years to create active learning curricular modules to teach over 2,000 students difficult STEM concepts. This article describes the practice of how teachers can utilize the EDP to develop problem-based curricular units and in doing so become more comfortable with the EDP themselves. We also report on the evaluation of this project.


The paper analyses the phenomenon of abortion both from the theoretical aspect and empirically analysing the reasons for choosing abortion by a group as well as the need for prevention. The statistical data confirm that the problem of abortion is pertinent to Lithuania therefore it is important to dedicate the appropriate attention. In some EU states the complex assistance (psychological, social, juridical, and material) to pregnant women, who find themselves in a crisis and intend to terminate the pregnancy, is legitimized and it can be an example of good practise for our country. The empirical research has shown that there is a necessity of both primary and secondary prevention, i.e. sexual education of both children and adults and overall counsel-educative assistance, as well as the need for complex services to the family. KEY WORDS: abortion, social, educational and psychological help, sexuality education, prevention, pre-abortion counselling.


We consider the quantum Calogero model, which describes N non-distinguishable quantum particles on the real line confined by a harmonic oscillator potential and interacting via two-body interactions proportional to the inverse square of the inter-particle distance. We elaborate a novel solution algorithm which allows us to obtain fully explicit formulae for its eigenfunctions, arbitrary coupling parameter and particle number. We also show that our method applies, with minor changes, to all Calogero models associated with classical root systems.


With direct talks starting between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a range of different issues are on the table – and will need to be negotiated if a complete agreement is to be achieved within the proposed one-year deadline. One of those will be the question of the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. To date there has been plenty of ink spilled over where the border should be located. The sources of contention include the issue of land swaps between the two sides, the presence of settlements, and the status of Jerusalem – with both sides claiming it as their capital. Underpinning this discussion are two crucial factors that need to be taken into account: on one hand, there exist differing visions for the border and therefore differing approaches favoured by each side; and, on the other hand, there is the question of governance of the future boundary (i.e. whether it should be managed between the two sides or with the support of a third party).


Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have important physiological functions and may offer select benefits for athletic performance and recovery. The purpose of this investigation was to assess dietary and whole blood omega-3 PUFAs among collegiate athletes. In addition, a brief questionnaire was evaluated as a valid tool for quantifying omega-3 PUFA intake. Fifty-eight athletes (9 males, 49 females) completed a 21-item questionnaire developed to assess omega-3 PUFA intake and provided dried whole blood samples to quantify α-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and the HS-Omega-3 Index. Geometric means (95% confidence intervals) for the HS-Omega-3 Index were 4.79% (4.37-5.25%) and 4.75% (4.50-5.01%) for males and females, respectively. Median dietary intakes of ALA, EPA, and DHA were all below 100 mg. Among females, several dietary omega-3 PUFA variables were positively associated with whole blood EPA, with total EPA (rho = 0.67, p < .001) and total DHA (rho = 0.69, p < .001) intakes showing the strongest correlations. Whole blood DHA among females showed positive associations with dietary intakes, with total EPA (rho = 0.62, p < .001) and total DHA (rho = 0.64, p < .001) intakes demonstrating the strongest correlations. The HS-Omega-3 Index in females was positively correlated with all dietary variables except ALA. Among males, the only significant correlation was between food and whole blood EPA (rho = 0.83, p < .01). Collegiate athletes had relatively low intakes of omega-3 PUFAs. A 21-item questionnaire may be useful for screening female athletes for poor omega-3 PUFA status.


The detection of metabolic syndrome (MS) is use ful for identifying individuals at risk for type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. The objectives of the study were to describe the prevalence of MS in employees 40-65 years old, utilizing different definitions and to analyze the relation with educational level and gender by means of cross-sectional and multicenter study of different regions of Argentina. Compared MS definitions were: International Diabetes Federation, American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and National Cholesterol Education Program - Adults Treatment Panel III. Fulfilled the protocol 2806 cases. It was observed a prevalence of 0.31, 0.30 and 0.26 respectively, more frequent in men (p = 0.0000). There was no significant difference between sexes in the group 60 to 65 years old. After adjusting to age, sex, physical activity, family history of diabetes and menopause, the women with low educational level (<12 years) had more risk than men, OR = 1.95 (CI 95% 1.49-2.55) p = 0.000 compared with OR = 1.36 (CI 95% 1.10-1.69) p = 0.005, respectively. The low educational level in women, adjusted for confounders, was a predictor of four components of MS: central obesity, low C-HDL, glucose > or =100 mg/dl and hypertriglyceridemia; in men was only a hard predictor of hypertriglyceridemia. The results alert about the need of education of the population for the control of risk factors and adoption of healthy habits.


The CAP reform process has been a central issue for agricultural economics research in recent years, and is gaining further attention in view of the post-2013 perspectives. The objective of this paper is to assess ex-ante the effect of different post-2013 CAP and market scenarios on the demand of productions factors. The paper is based on the use of farm household dynamic programming models maximising the net present value with a time horizon until 2030. A representative model has been implemented for 18 different farming systems in 8 EU countries. Changes in marginal values of selected resource constraints (land, labour and capital) are used to assess the potential effect of different scenarios on farm-household demand of production factors. Results highlight that both policy and market conditions change strongly the demand of productive factors.


Recrystallisation annealing, a repeated heat treatment between different stages of cold rolling of martensitic chromium steel strip, is successful when neither high rolling forces nor wear of the working rolls occur during the subsequent cold rolling. Mechanical properties as tensile strength, yield, elongation or hardness have been, by tradition, the criteria that described the quality of the annealing process. In recent years, the development of the measurement equipment in the rolling mills and of the instruments for material investigations has accentuated more and more the role played by the microstructural properties in the evaluation of the heat treatment. Two microstructural characteristics of the degree of annealing are, firstly and most important, the recrystallisation degree, and, secondly, the secondary carbide density. The sample manufacturing and heat treatment, modelling and microstructure investigations by light optical- (LOM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) described in this article were carried out at Sandvik Materials Technology's R&D Department and Bell Furnace Line in Sandviken, Sweden, while microstructure investigations and evaluation by scanning electron microscopy with field emission gun (FEG-SEM) and electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD) were done at the Corrosion and Metals Research Institute (KIMAB) in Stockholm, Sweden. The first part of this work shows that, in contrast to the traditional methods LOM and SEM, that use chemical etching for the preparation of the samples, EBSD can successfully characterise recrystallised structures in annealed martensitic chromium steels. Unlike conventional microscopy with LOM and SEM, EBSD is able to reveal the grain geometry, as well as to separate and identify the different phases in this kind of steels (ferrite, M23-, M6-carbides). Important parameters such as grain size, particle size and recrystallised fraction can be measured with high accuracy. This information can be used to understand, evaluate, control and even predict the recrystallisation annealing of martensitic chromium steel. The second part of this work presents how the results from microstructure description by EBSD can be directly used in relatively simple empirical models for determination of recrystallisation degree as function of the annealing parameters and the deformation history. EBSD was applied to evaluate the degree of recrystallisation in a series of annealing tests, with the purpose to model recrystallisation temperature in two types of martensitic chromium steel strip, a traditional one and one alloyed with molybdenum, cold rolled with different amounts of reduction and annealed with different temperatures, soaking times and heating rates. The empirical quadratic models were built with Umetrics' software for experimental design, MODDEO 8.0 and they defined the recrystallisation degree (limits for LAGB and HAGB were set to 1.5° and 7.5° for the first grade and 2.5° and 10° for second one) and the secondary carbides density as functions of annealing temperature, soaking time and cold reduction (the factor heating rate was removed as nonsignificant). To be observed that these empirical models were fit much better for the recrystallisation degree than for the secondary carbides density. The modelling work described above, together with the implementation of online physical temperature models in the bell annealers may lead to an increased productivity in the production plant by shortening the annealing cycle and minimising scrap and thus to an economical gain of ca 1,5 MSEK per year at Sandvik Materials Technology.


A national telephone survey was conducted in the United States in April 2002 to study the consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods. Attitudes toward GM foods were examined through the use of a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), analyzing the interrelationships among many categorical variables. This method was combined with a cluster analysis to construct a typology of consumers' attitudes. Four distinct classes of attitudes were finally extracted, denoted as: Proponents, Non-Opponents, Moderate Opponents, and Extreme Opponents. It was estimated that only 35% of the surveyed population was opposed to GM foods.


Seasonal events such as Halloween and Christmas repeat every year and initiate several temporal information needs. The impact of such events on users is often reflected in search logs in form of seasonal spikes in the frequency of related queries (e.g. "halloween costumes", "where is santa"). Many seasonal queries such as "sigir conference" mainly target fresh pages (e.g. sigir2011.org) that have less usage data such as clicks and anchor-text compared to older alternatives (e.g.sigir2009.org). Thus, it is important for search engines to correctly identify seasonal queries and make sure that their results are temporally reordered if necessary. In this poster, we focus on detecting seasonal queries using time-series analysis. We demonstrate that the seasonality of a query can be determined with high accuracy according to its historical frequency distribution.


Can age-related declines in cognition be reversed? Previous research has used two fundamentally different approaches for addressing this theoretical question, mentally stimulating activities and aerobic exercise. The current study extends this prior research by combining these two approaches through the use of aerobic dance with steps of varying cognitive difficulty. The cognitive performance of three groups of older adults was measured before and after engaging in six weekly dance classes. One group completed an aerobic dance class with simple steps intended to create little cognitive demand. A second group completed an aerobic dance class involving more complex, cognitively challenging choreography. A final group did not receive any dance training between pre- and post-testing. It was hypothesized that the two dance groups would show more gain than the no-dance group with the most gain observed for participants in the cognitively challenging dance class given its combination of mental and physical exercise. Neither of these hypotheses was supported. Both methodological and theoretical explanations for this failure to find training gains are discussed.


I. INTRODUCTION Republican appointed justices became a super majority on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2001. (1) During his four years in office, Governor Paul Cellucci (R) was presented with the extraordinary opportunity to completely reshape the highest tribunal of Massachusetts. (2) In just two years, Governor Cellucci appointed four of the seven justices of the Supreme Judicial Court. (3) While not every one of Governor Cellucci's appointees was a registered Republican, all of his nominees shared a conservative judicial ideology that the governor favored. (4) In the three years prior to Cellucci's term as the Governor of Massachusetts, Governor William F. Weld (R) appointed three justices to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. (5) Two of those justices remained on the court after Governor Cellucci's appointments, creating a Republican appointed majority of six on the seven-member court. (6) In 1996, Democratic governors had appointed five out of the seven justices on the court. (7) In just five years, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had apparently gone from one ideological extreme to the other. This study is intended to demonstrate trends in how the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided non-unanimous or divided criminal cases over an eight-year period. This study aims to answer two questions about how those criminal appeals were decided. First, how frequently did the court and its justices side with the defendant in those cases? Second, how frequently did individual justices agree with their colleagues in those cases? The super majority existed during the first seven years of this study. In the last year of the study, the composition of the court changed slightly with an appointment of a justice by a Democratic governor. (8) Accordingly, this change in membership will also be explored to determine what impact this appointment had on the way that the court decides criminal appeals when the court is divided. The study will be organized as follows: Part II provides some background information on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, including general information regarding composition, tenure, and the appointment process. Additionally, a brief history of the membership of the court is provided. Part III describes the methodology utilized in this study. Specifically, it explains the reasoning behind examining only non-unanimous cases, how those cases were selected, and how the data from those cases was collected and analyzed. Part IV discusses how frequently the justices and court sided with the defendant in divided criminal cases. Part V discusses how successfully individual justices are in getting their colleagues to agree with their written opinions in these cases. Part VI discusses some recent developments and offers concluding remarks on the effect of the most recent appointment on divided criminal cases. Appendix A provides the complete findings from this study. Appendix B contains the observations and data collected from individual cases. II. THE MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT A. Generally The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court "consist[s] of six associate justices and one chief justice." (9) Only four justices need be present for a quorum necessary to decide all matters to be heard by the court. (10) The justices of the court "are appointed by the Governor [to] life terms," (11) but are subject to mandatory retirement upon reaching the age of seventy. (12) The Governor's Council must confirm appointees in order for them to take office. (13) The Governor's Council consists of eight members and the Lieutenant Governor. (14) The eight members are elected to two-year terms from special districts. (15) The legislature has no formal role in the judicial selection process, and has virtually no opportunity to influence the decisions of that process. (16) Outside rare newspaper articles, the selection process receives little attention in the legislature or the media. …


In this study an explicit Finite Difference Method (FDM) based scheme is developed to solve the Maxwell's equations in time domain for a lossless medium. This manuscript focuses on two unique aspects – the three dimensional time-accurate discretization of the hyperbolic system of Maxwell equations in three-point non-staggered grid stencil and it's application to parallel computing through the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPU). The proposed temporal scheme is symplectic, thus permitting conservation of all Hamiltonians in the Maxwell equation. Moreover, to enable accurate predictions over large time frames, a phase velocity preserving scheme is developed for treatment of the spatial derivative terms. As a result, the chosen time increment and grid spacing can be optimally coupled. An additional theoretical investigation into this pairing is also shown. Finally, the application of the proposed scheme to parallel computing using one Nvidia K20 Tesla GPU card is demonstrated. For the benchmarks performed, the parallel speedup when compared to a single core of an Intel i7-4820K CPU is approximately 190x. AMS subject classifications: 35Q61, 65M06, 65Y05


The present study aims to determine the roles of color and other surface properties (e.g., texture, brightness) in rapid natural scene categorization. Six natural scene categories were adopted as stimuli. Each stimulus was in three versions: color photographs, grayscales, and line-drawings, with a resolution of 320 * 240 pixels. The line-drawings were produced by trained artists through tracing contours in the color photographs (see Walther et al., 2011). Each image was flashed for 13 ms, and then followed by 80 ms of masks and 500 ms of a blank. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the image and the mask was 13, 27, 40 or 200 ms at random. On each trial, participants were asked to make a choice among the six categories by pressing a corresponding key, during which EEGs were recorded. Each block included 84 trials. There were 12 blocks, for a total of 1008 trials. The behavioral results showed that accuracy was lower for grayscales than for line-drawings or color photographs in each SOA, meanwhile accuracies were higher for line-drawings than for color photographs in short SOAs of 13, 26, 40 ms. For correct trials, the ERP results revealed that there were no significant differences for amplitudes of posterior P1, N1, and P2 between grayscales and color photographs, but amplitudes of anterior P2, N2, and P3b were larger for color photographs than for grayscales. That is, color does not increase the difficulty of feature analysis, but contributes to decision making later. In addition, although amplitudes of posterior P1, N1, and anterior P2 were greater for grayscales than for line-drawings, conversely, amplitudes of posterior P2 and anterior N2 and P3b were larger for line-drawings than for grayscales. That is, although other surface properties increase the difficulty of feature analysis, they impair decision making for correct classification. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Background and Methodology Pancreatic beta cells show intercellular differences in their metabolic glucose sensitivity and associated activation of insulin production. To identify protein markers for these variations in functional glucose sensitivity, rat beta cell subpopulations were flow-sorted for their level of glucose-induced NAD(P)H and their proteomes were quantified by label-free data independent alternate scanning LC-MS. Beta cell-selective proteins were also identified through comparison with rat brain and liver tissue and with purified islet alpha cells, after geometrical normalization using 6 stably expressed reference proteins. Principal Findings All tissues combined, 943 proteins were reliably quantified. In beta cells, 93 out of 467 quantifiable proteins were uniquely detected in this cell type; several other proteins presented a high molar abundance in beta cells. The proteome of the beta cell subpopulation with high metabolic and biosynthetic responsiveness to 7.5 mM glucose was characterized by (i) an on average 50% higher expression of protein biosynthesis regulators such as 40S and 60S ribosomal constituents, NADPH-dependent protein folding factors and translation elongation factors; (ii) 50% higher levels of enzymes involved in glycolysis and in the cytosolic arm of the malate/aspartate-NADH-shuttle. No differences were noticed in mitochondrial enzymes of the Krebs cycle, beta-oxidation or respiratory chain. Conclusions Quantification of subtle variations in the proteome using alternate scanning LC-MS shows that beta cell metabolic glucose responsiveness is mostly associated with higher levels of glycolytic but not of mitochondrial enzymes.


The Byzantine World presents the latest insights of the leading scholars in the fields of Byzantine studies, history, art and architectural history, literature, and theology. Those who know little of Byzantine history, culture and civilization between AD 700 and 1453 will find overviews and distillations, while those who know much already will be afforded countless new vistas.
Each chapter offers an innovative approach to a well-known topic or a diversion from a well-trodden path. Readers will be introduced to Byzantine women and children, men and eunuchs, emperors, patriarchs, aristocrats and slaves. They will explore churches and fortifications, monasteries and palaces, from Constantinople to Cyprus and Syria in the east, and to Apulia and Venice in the west. Secular and sacred art, profane and spiritual literature will be revealed to the reader, who will be encouraged to read, see, smell and touch. The worlds of Byzantine ceremonial and sanctity, liturgy and letters, Orthodoxy and heresy will be explored, by both leading and innovative international scholars.
Ultimately, readers will find insights into the emergence of modern Byzantine studies and of popular Byzantine history that are informative, novel and unexpected, and that provide a thorough understanding of both.
[Publisher description]


Hip arthroscopy has become increasingly common worldwide as advances have been made in the understanding of the pathophysiology of hip injuries as well as technological advances in arthroscopic surgical techniques and instrumentation. In evaluating a patient with hip pain, it is important to obtain a detailed history and to perform a comprehensive physical examination, and then arrange appropriate radiographic and other special tests. Radiography, CT scan and MRI/MR arthrogram are frequently useful in diagnosing hip pathology, but are not all necessary. Intra-articular injection of an anaesthetic with or without steroid should be considered for diagnostic and potentially therapeutic purposes if intra-articular sources of hip pain are part of the differential diagnosis. Conditions which were previously treated with open surgery are now frequently managed with arthroscopic intervention, such as removal of loose bodies, chondral injury, labral injury, femoroacetabular impingement, snapping hip and gluteus medius tears. Complication rates of hip arthroscopy are relatively low (<5%), and the future of hip arthroscopy is bright with foreseeable developments which are likely to include further advances in surgical tools, expansion of indications and probable development of computer-assisted technology and navigation. Further still, there will most likely be advances in biological investigations and treatments such as the usage of serum and joint biomarkers to evaluate chondral injury, and cellular therapies to treat cartilage loss.


Infancy research demonstrating a facilitation of visual category formation in the presence of verbal labels suggests that infants' object categories and words develop interactively. This contrasts with the notion that words are simply mapped "onto" previously existing categories. To investigate the computational foundations of a system in which word and object categories develop simultaneously and in an interactive fashion, we present a model of word learning based on interacting self-organizing maps that represent the auditory and visual modalities, respectively. While other models of lexical development have employed similar dual-map architectures, our model uses active Hebbian connections to propagate activation between the visual and auditory maps during learning. Our results show that categorical perception emerges from these early audio-visual interactions in both domains. We argue that the learning mechanism introduced in our model could play a role in the facilitation of infants' categorization through verbal labeling.


In this paper we use a large panel of individuals from Consumer Credit Panel dataset to study the timing of homeownership as a function of credit constraints and expectations of future house price. Our panel data allows us to track individuals over time and we model the transition probability of their first home purchase. We find that in MSAs with highest quartile house price growth, the median individual become homeowners earlier by 5 years in their lifecycle compared to MSAs with lowest quartile house price growth. The result suggests that the effect of expectation dominates the effect of credit constraints and high price growth leads individuals to purchase home earlier. We further study other credit/loan behaviors around first-home purchases for young and old buyers. We find that younger buyers make more adjustments in their finances after the purchase– taking out more debt/credit, and yet they do not appear to experience larger increase in delinquency than older buyers.


In "The Story of England Michael Wood" tells the extraordinary story of one English community over fifteen centuries, from the moment that the Roman Emperor Honorius sent his famous letter in 410 advising the English to look to their own defences to the village as it is today. The village of Kibworth in Leicestershire lies at the very centre of England. It has a church, some pubs, the Grand Union Canal, a First World War Memorial - and many centuries of recorded history. In the thirteenth century the village was bought by William de Merton, who later founded Merton College, Oxford, with the result that documents covering 750 years of village history are lodged at the college. Building on this unique archive, and enlisting the help of the current inhabitants of Kibworth, with a village-wide archeological dig, with the first complete DNA profile of an English village and with use of local materials like family memorabilia, the story of Kibworth is the story of England itself, a "Who Do You Think You Are?" for the entire nation. "Better than any historian for decades, [in "In Search of England"] Wood brings home not just the ways in which buildings, landscapes and written texts may be read, but the sensual beauty of encounters with them". ("TLS"). Michael Wood was born and educated in Manchester. He was an open scholar in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he held a Bishop Fraser scholarship in Medieval History as a postgraduate. He has made a number of internationally successful tv series, including "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great", and four of his books have been UK non-fiction number one bestsellers. His highly acclaimed book of essays on early English history, "In Search of England", was published by Penguin in 1999.


Abstract. Meteorological in situ observational data comes with a variety of errors and uncertainties. Any further usage of this data requires a sophisticated quality control to detect, quantify and possibly eliminate or at least to reduce errors and to increase the value of the information. It must be assumed, that each observational value Ψobs is contaminated by errors Ψerr so that the true state Ψtrue is not known. Different kinds of errors can be identified. Each of them has different characteristics and therefore has to be detected through appropriate methods. For years, various methods as a self consistency test, clustering and nearest neighbour techniques have been implemented in the complex quality control scheme of the Vienna Enhanced Resolution Analysis (VERA). Thereby former elaborations adressed the elimination and treatment of gross errors. In successioon the present investigation adresses the determination of stochastic and deterministic perturbations. In a first step we implemented the method to split up the observational value to smooth out the stochastic errors to the best and retain deterministic perturbations thereafter. Through controlled experiments on two dimensions the performance and limitations of the complex quality control scheme has been investigated. The treatment of errors and signals on different scales and the limit of the usability of this property is the main focus of the presented investigation. We highly recommend to use the method for data quality control within a high resolution model analysing spatially distributed data in highly complex terrain.


PURPOSE
Ultrasound presents a fast, volumetric image modality for real-time tracking of abdominal organ motion. How-ever, ultrasound transducer placement during radiation therapy is challenging. Recently, approaches using robotic arms for intra-treatment ultrasound imaging have been proposed. Good and reliable imaging requires placing the transducer close to the PTV. We studied the effect of a seven degrees of freedom robot on the fea-sible beam directions.

METHODS
For five CyberKnife prostate treatment plans we established viewports for the transducer, i.e., points on the patient surface with a soft tissue view towards the PTV. Choosing a feasible transducer pose and using the kinematic redundancy of the KUKA LBR iiwa robot, we considered three robot poses. Poses 1 to 3 had the elbow point anterior, superior, and inferior, respectively. For each pose and each beam starting point, the pro-jections of robot and PTV were computed. We added a 20 mm margin accounting for organ / beam motion. The number of nodes for which the PTV was partially of fully blocked were established. Moreover, the cumula-tive overlap for each of the poses and the minimum overlap over all poses were computed.

RESULTS
The fully and partially blocked nodes ranged from 12% to 20% and 13% to 27%, respectively. Typically, pose 3 caused the fewest blocked nodes. The cumulative overlap ranged from 19% to 29%. Taking the minimum overlap, i.e., considering moving the robot's elbow while maintaining the transducer pose, the cumulative over-lap was reduced to 16% to 18% and was 3% to 6% lower than for the best individual pose.

CONCLUSION
Our results indicate that it is possible to identify feasible ultrasound transducer poses and to use the kinematic redundancy of a 7 DOF robot to minimize the impact of the imaging subsystem on the feasible beam directions for ultrasound guided and motion compensated SBRT. Research partially funded by DFG grants ER 817/1-1 and SCHL 1844/3-1.


Dairy farmers have been able to use sexed semen from dairy breeds to pre-determine the sex of calves since 2000, sexed semen from beef bulls is not currently commercially available, but is expected within 2 years. A survey of a stratified random sample of suckler cow farmers is used to identify the potential uptake of sexed semen when it becomes available using a logistic limited dependent variable model to identify different characteristics between farmers who intend to use sexed semen and those who do not. Herd size, the perception of the quality of bulls used to produce sexed semen, anticipated problems using AI, concern over conception rates, the cost and profitability of using sexed semen and herd replacement policy are found to be the major factors that will influence uptake. The relative importance of each constraint is shown, and approaches to reduce these constraints discussed.


This article argues that nagid indicates divinely sanctioned leader of Israel in 1 Samuel 9:1-10:16 and 11:1-11. The use of nagid is intricately interplayed with that of melek in the context of 1 Samuel 8-12. In the Saul tradition (1 Sm 9:1-10:16; 11:1-11) nagid signifies the leadership of Saul as a divinely sanctioned kingship, unlike in the context of the Deuteronomistic History (DH). The royal ideology of the ancient Near East (ANE) provides an ideological background of the kingship of Saul.


The one-step π-extension of corannulene was achieved using a palladium-catalyzed C–H coupling reaction. The X-ray crystal structure and photophysical properties of the thus formed phenanthro[9,10-a]corannulene (1) were investigated, and the structural properties of 1 were examined by density functional theory calculations. In contrast to dibenzo[g,p]chrysene, the most stable structure of 1 was a butterfly-shaped structure, resulting from the bowl-shaped distortion of the corannulene moiety.


The present work aims at reflecting upon the future of agricultural research in Brazil, having as a background numerous changes that are taking place in the organization of such sector. It is based on a qualitative methodological strategy, the data survey being carried out by means of semistructured interviews. The interviewees were people linked to the agricultural sector in the State of Santa Catarina, namely, researchers, extension activity personnel, directors of research companies and rural extension, representatives of producers associations, former state secretaries of agriculture, government advisors, amongst others. From the analysis of the interview contents, the main issues raised are related to the role of the State, the participation of the producers in the definition of research goals and policies, the interests of private initiative, and the uprising of the figure of a "new researcher". Such issues reveal new demands from the society, urging the conception of new research models, which, on the one side, are tuned with those demands, and on the other side, promote a more critical integration of the agricultural research and the logic of the economy globalization.


Automatic indexing has been used by libraries to index their collections for many years. Recent technological advances have allowed for a refinement of automatic indexing, providing quicker and more accurate results.
In 2016, the National Library Board (NLB) embarked on a Named Entity Recognition (NER) project which leveraged on natural language processing techniques to extract names of entities such as people, organisations and places that are found in documents such as articles. Articles from NLB's Infopedia (eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia) and HistorySG (eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history) were identified for extraction. This has since enabled users to search for related resources in NLB's vast collections.
In late 2017, the NER project was extended to include extraction of topics mentioned in articles and metadata records. This automated indexing was done using NLB's controlled vocabularies such as Events, Historical Events, Programmes, Legal Acts, Awards, Time, and SingHeritage. Data from other agencies, National Archives of Singapore (NAS) and National Heritage Board (NHB) collections were also included. A smaller scope of the project includes running the documents against external vocabularies such as GeoNames and Wikidata.
This paper will discuss the process, the method used to evaluate the accuracy of the named entities extracted, the NER issues discovered across the collections, and the challenges faced in ensuring that the extraction process is improved after verification. Lastly, the paper will also discuss how the NER results are used to support NLB's digital cataloguing, for example, by adding the extracted entities to the subject field in the metadata records without manual cataloguing for collections with minimal or no subject headings. This allows the collections to be searched by subjects in NLB's OneSearch platform (search.nlb.gov.sg), where metadata from 3 cultural institutions (library, archive and heritage) are aggregated via an integrated interface to enable a single search. The NER results are also used to support NLB's Linked Data services such as the Linked Data widget that identifies entities from the website articles and links them to relevant resources from other collections. In this way, we supplement manual indexing by creating additional access points to the articles, while at the same time creating links to our catalogue records. Implemented in NLB's Infopedia and HistorySG websites, this service is being explored for future implementation in other websites such as NAS' Archives Online (nas.gov.sg) and NHB's RootsSG website (roots.sg).


Life Science is developing into one of the largest e- Infrastructure users in Europe, in part due to the ever-growing amount of biological data. Modern drug design typically includes both sequence bioinformatics, in silico virtual screening, and free energy calculations, e.g. of drug binding. This development will accelerate tremendously, and puts high demands on simulation software and support services. e-Infrastructure projects such as PRACE/DEISA have made important advances on hardware and scalability, but have largely been focused on theoretical scalability for large systems, while typical life science applications rather concern small-to-medium size molecules. Here, we propose to address this with by implementing new techniques for efficient small-system parallelization combined with throughput and ensemble computing to enable the life science community to exploit the largest next-generation e-Infrastructures. We will also build a new cross-disciplinary Competence Network for all of life science, to position Europe as the world-leading community for development and maintenance of this software e-Infrastructure. Specifically, we will (1) develop new hierarchical parallelization approaches explicitly based on ensemble and high-throughput computing for new multi-core and streaming/GPU architectures, and establish open software standards for data storage and exchange, (2) implement, document, and maintain such techniques in pilot European open-source codes such as the widely used GROMACS & DALTON, a new application for ensemble simulation (DISCRETE), and large-scale bioinformatics protein annotation, (3) create a Competence Centre for scalable life science software to strengthen Europe as a major software provider and to enable the community to exploit e-Infrastructures to their full extent. This Competence Network will provide training and support infrastructure, and establish a long-term framework for maintenance and optimization of life science codes.


The extraordinary uprisings since December 2010 represented the long-prepared transformation from fatalism to people power. The online–offline dialectic allowed the revolution to be mediated with global ramifications - from Wisconsin to Barcelona to Athens. This techno-social nexus forms a crucial element of the overall push and pull factors and this contribution reassess the "Net Worth" from a critical perspective. The fetishizing flora and fauna labels from earlier hyped political-techno events --"Cedar", "Green", or "Orange" revolutions-- that coincided with particular geo-political algorithms, were initially copied and pasted as emblematic solicitations. But whether Wikileaks or the Palestine Papers, and YouTube videos or blogs disclosing practices of torture and corruption—opinions have been shaped and decisions were mediated by online technologies. This piece demonstrates the overflow of YouTube music clips through the prism of the Tunisian revolution. I will look at these dynamics through the lens of Palestine as an informative ethnographic comparison because it helps indicate the power structure behind technology and allows me to assess the multiplicity of internet politics and argue that online activities and offline power structures do not exist in isolation and are unequally mediated.


We develop a sequential Monte Carlo approach for Bayesian analysis of the experimental design for binary response data. Our work is motivated by surface electromyographic (SEMG) experiments, which can be used to provide information about the functionality of subjects' motor units. These experiments involve a series of stimuli being applied to a motor unit, with whether or not the motor unit res for each stimulus being recorded. The aim is to learn about how the probability of ring depends on the applied stimulus (the so-called stimulus response curve); One such excitability parameter is an estimate of the stimulus level for which the motor unit has a 50% chance of ring. Within such an experiment we are able to choose the next stimulus level based on the past observations. We show how sequential Monte Carlo can be used to analyse such data in an online manner. We then use the current estimate of the posterior distribution in order to choose the next stimulus level. The aim is to select a stimulus level that mimimises the expected loss. We will apply this loss function to the estimates of target quantiles from the stimulus-response curve. Through simulation we show that this approach is more ecient than existing sequential design methods for choosing the stimulus values. If applied in practice, it could more than halve the length of SEMG experiments.


The article deals with the new paradigm of constitutional law which has replaced the one inherited from the Soviet and early post-Soviet period. This new paradigm is characterised by, inter alia, the elevation of the acts of the Constitutional Court to the level of sources of constitutional law; elimination from the system of sources of constitutional law of all other sources except the original Constitutional document (as later amended) and the acts of the Constitutional Court. This paradigm is enforced by the arguments that the Constitution is not a text but that what is behind the respective text and what this text represents. The Constitution, perceived in such way, is free of gaps. Examples from the Constitutional Courts jurisprudence are provided.


The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus has been promoted in recent years as an intersectional concept designed to improve planning and regulatory decision-making across the three sectors. The production and consumption of water, energy and food resources are inextricably linked across multiple spatial scales (from the global to the local), but a common feature is competition for land which through different land management practices mediates provisioning ecosystem services. The nexus perspective seeks to understand the interlinkages and use systems-based thinking to frame management options for the present and the future. It aims to highlight advantage and minimise damaging and unsustainable outcomes through informed decisions regarding trade-offs inclusive of economic, ecological and equity considerations. Operationalizing the WEF approach is difficult because of the lack of complete data, knowledge and observability – and the nature of the challenge also depends on the scale of the investigation. Transboundary river basins are particularly challenging because whilst the basin unit defines the hydrological system this is not necessarily coincident with flows of food and energy. There are multiple national jurisdictions and geopolitical relations to consider. Land use changes have a profound influence on hydrological, agricultural, energy provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. Future policy decisions in the water, energy and food sectors could have profound effects, with different demands for land and water resources, intensifying competition for these resources in the future. In this study, we used Google Earth Engine (GEE) to analyse the land cover changes in the Zambezi river basin (1.4 million km2) from 1992 to 2015 using the European Space Agency annual global land cover dataset. Early results indicate transformative processes are underway with significant shifts from tree cover to cropland, with a 4.6 % loss in tree cover and a 16 % gain in cropland during the study period. The changes were found to be occurring mainly in the eastern (Malawi and Mozambique) and southern (Zimbabwe and southern Zambia) parts of the basin. The area under urban land uses was found to have more than doubled during the study period gearing urban centres increasingly as the foci for resource consumption. These preliminary findings are the first step in understanding the spatial and temporal interlinkages of water, energy and food by providing reliable and consistent evidence spanning the local, regional, national and whole transboundary basin scale. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. 16 F. F. Gomo et al.: Case of the Zambezi basin