Since 2011, under the Thein Sein government, Myanmar has started to build financial institutions almost from scratch. Japan has played a leading role in this transition, writing off debt, opening the Yangon Stock Exchange, vying for the entry of Japanese banks, and laying out finance-related laws. As in other Southeast Asian countries, Myanmar's oligopolistic economic structure and colonial past present considerable challenges. There is a rich literature on the relationship between well-functioning financial institutions and economic growth, but the causality of this relationship remains inconclusive. This paper examines the preconditions for financial institutions to be a vehicle for Myanmar's development.


Few studies in population biology have documented how structure and diversity of pathogens evolve over time at local scales. With the historical samples of Verticillium dahliae available from lettuce, we investigated the structure and diversity of this pathogen in time and space. Three hundred twenty-nine V. dahliae isolates from lettuce fields collected over 18 years were characterized with polymorphic microsatellite markers and polymerase chain reaction tests for race and mating type. Genetic variation within and among commercial lettuce fields in a single season was also investigated using an additional 146 isolates. Sixty-two haplotypes (HTs) were observed among the 329 isolates. A single HT was frequently observed over multiple years and locations (61.40%). Genetic diversity, allelic richness, and private allelic richness suggested a relatively recent clonal expansion. Race 1 (93.63%) and MAT1-2-1 (99.69%) were overwhelmingly represented among the isolates. Linkage disequilibrium was significant (P < 0.001) for all populations, suggesting limited sexual recombination in the sampled populations from lettuce. Populations from 2006, 2009, and 2010 had higher numbers of unique HTs, implying a recent introduction of novel HTs. We conclude that V. dahliae population from lettuce evaluated in this study is expanding clonally, consistent with an asexually reproducing pathogen, and the movement of clonal genotypes locally occurs over time.


With fast developing and ever growing use of computer based technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI) plays an increasingly pivotal role. In virtual reality (VR), HCI technologies provide not only a better understanding of three-dimensional shapes and spaces, but also sensory immersion and physical interaction. With the hand based HCI being a key HCI modality for object manipulation and gesture based communication, challenges are presented to provide users a natural, intuitive, effortless, precise, and real-time method for HCI based on dynamic hand gestures, due to the complexity of hand postures formed by multiple joints with high degrees-of-freedom, the speed of hand movements with highly variable trajectories and rapid direction changes, and the precision required for interaction between hands and objects in the virtual world.
Presented in this thesis is the design and development of a novel real-time HCI system based on a unique combination of a pair of data gloves based on fibre-optic curvature sensors to acquire finger joint angles, a hybrid tracking system based on inertia and ultrasound to capture hand position and orientation, and a stereoscopic display system to provide an immersive visual feedback. The potential and effectiveness of the proposed system is demonstrated through a number of applications, namely, hand gesture based virtual object manipulation and visualisation, hand gesture based direct sign writing, and hand gesture based finger spelling.
For virtual object manipulation and visualisation, the system is shown to allow a user to select, translate, rotate, scale, release and visualise virtual objects (presented using graphics and volume data) in three-dimensional space using natural hand gestures in real-time. For direct sign writing, the system is shown to be able to display immediately the corresponding SignWriting symbols signed by a user using three different signing sequences and a range of complex hand gestures, which consist of various combinations of hand postures (with each finger open, half-bent, closed, adduction and abduction), eight hand orientations in horizontal/vertical plans, three palm facing directions, and various hand movements (which can have eight directions in horizontal/vertical plans, and can be repetitive, straight/curve, clockwise/anti-clockwise). The development includes a special visual interface to give not only a stereoscopic view of hand gestures and movements, but also a structured visual feedback for each stage of the signing sequence. An excellent basis is therefore formed to develop a full HCI based on all human
gestures by integrating the proposed system with facial expression and body posture recognition methods. Furthermore, for finger spelling, the system is shown to be able to recognise five vowels signed by two hands using the British Sign Language in real-time.


This thesis is a continuation of experimental work conducted by Pickup el al. (1997) analysing nickel resistant bacteria isolated from effluent discharged from a sewage outfall in the Lake District, Cumbria. Its aim is to further characterise the nickel resistance determinant ftom Enterobacter cloacae FBA30. FBA30 was found to harbour a 55-60 kb plasmid designated pFBA30 which confers nickel resistance on its host and in laboratory strains of E. coh. pFBA30 is transferable to enteric relatives, but not to non-enteric species and is considered to have a narrow host range. A 10.2kb Sad restriction fi7agment was cloned fi7om pFBA30, which exhibited constitutive nickel resistance both in its original host and in laboratory strains of Eschericia coli.
Further work on the 10.2 kb Sacl fragment localised the nickel resistance locus to an internal 2.3 kb PvuII restriction fragment exhibiting extensive homology to the nre determinant of plasmid pTOM9 (Schmidt and Schlegel, 1994). This fragment and a further 1.75 kb Smal fragment derived from it, were used as DNA probes to examine other bacterial strains isolated from the same site.
Six strains showing extensive homology were retained for further study (Pickup et al., 1997). The nickel resistance of the six strains appears to be chromosomally encoded. The strains were sorted into groups based upon their sampling date and size of restriction fragment homologous to the probe developed from pFBA30. Group A isolates carry a homologous Null fragment approximately 6.5 kb in size whereas group B isolates carry a 2.5 kb Null fragment. All strains display constitutive nickel resistance and are capable of expressing resistance under both anaerobic and aerobic growth conditions. Furthermore, each strain was discovered to be resistant to a spectrum of heavy metals and antimicrobial agents. Each group consists of a range of enteric bacterial species including Klebsiella, Citrobacter and Enterobacter species.


Plasma processes can present dicult control challenges due to time-varying dynamics
and a lack of relevant and/or regular measurements. Virtual metrology (VM) is the
use of mathematical models with accessible measurements from an operating process to
estimate variables of interest. This thesis addresses the challenge of virtual metrology
for plasma processes, with a particular focus on semiconductor plasma etch.
Introductory material covering the essentials of plasma physics, plasma etching, plasma
measurement techniques, and black-box modelling techniques is rst presented for readers
not familiar with these subjects. A comprehensive literature review is then completed
to detail the state of the art in modelling and VM research for plasma etch processes.
To demonstrate the versatility of VM, a temperature monitoring system utilising a
state-space model and Luenberger observer is designed for the variable specic impulse
magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) engine, a plasma-based space propulsion system. The
temperature monitoring system uses optical emission spectroscopy (OES) measurements
from the VASIMR engine plasma to correct temperature estimates in the presence of
modelling error and inaccurate initial conditions. Temperature estimates within 2% of
the real values are achieved using this scheme.
An extensive examination of the implementation of a wafer-to-wafer VM scheme to estimate
plasma etch rate for an industrial plasma etch process is presented. The VM
models estimate etch rate using measurements from the processing tool and a plasma
impedance monitor (PIM). A selection of modelling techniques are considered for VM
modelling, and Gaussian process regression (GPR) is applied for the rst time for VM
of plasma etch rate. Models with global and local scope are compared, and modelling
schemes that attempt to cater for the etch process dynamics are proposed. GPR-based
windowed models produce the most accurate estimates, achieving mean absolute percentage
errors (MAPEs) of approximately 1:15%. The consistency of the results presented
suggests that this level of accuracy represents the best accuracy achievable for
the plasma etch system at the current frequency of metrology.
Finally, a real-time VM and model predictive control (MPC) scheme for control of
plasma electron density in an industrial etch chamber is designed and tested. The VM
scheme uses PIM measurements to estimate electron density in real time. A predictive
functional control (PFC) scheme is implemented to cater for a time delay in the VM
system. The controller achieves time constants of less than one second, no overshoot,
and excellent disturbance rejection properties. The PFC scheme is further expanded by
adapting the internal model in the controller in real time in response to changes in the
process operating point.


Visual images are fundamental to the promotion of tourism destinations and convey critical aspects of destination image. As such, Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) have capitalised on the art of image making and disseminating place myths to capture the attention of consumers through mass media. However, the growing popularity of online networks has connected billions of active consumers, elevating word of mouth (WOM) into its electronic form, e-WOM, and causing a shift in the balance of power and knowledge — where DMOs are no longer solely responsible for the communication of a destination's image. Despite the growing number of studies surrounding e-WOM and user-generated content (UGC), few scholars have endeavoured to examine the capacity of user-generated images (UGI) as persuasive visual displays of WOM, and the role of their creators (consumers) as influencers able to spread marketing rhetoric; in particular aspects of destination image, through the visual mode.

Acknowledging the growing popularity of visual platforms and digital devices that allow consumers to articulate themselves creatively, this study introduces image-generated WOM (iWOM), and examines the value of UGI as visual manifestations of WOM, and its relevance to consumers, specifically sojourners (as skilled visual influencers), able to shape viewer perception and stimulate VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourism — a form of tourism that is a product of existing social relationships. Underpinned by the theories of visual rhetoric and emotional contagion, and building on studies in destination image, WOM and VFR tourism, this iterative sequential mixed-methods research comprises expert interviews, quantitative analysis of dyadic/paired survey data and a rhetorical visual analysis.

Key theoretical contributions of this research include: moving the emphasis of WOM from textual/verbal to visual forms of communication; and establishing the position of UGI as persuasive artefacts that can be used to stimulate VFR tourism, where studies in VFR tourism have neglected research in areas pertaining to online communications. In addition, this study demonstrates the difference in the intervening role of tie strength and relationship type (friend/relative) in viewer consumption of images received. This study contributes to practice by establishing the importance of sojourners as critical online ambassadors able to connect destinations, specifically conurbations with constrained resources that tend to fall outside popular tourism centres, to global VFR markets. Further, the rich contextual findings garnered from the visual analysis provide insights into interactions between sojourners and the destination that have implications for city planners, tourism and hospitality marketers.


The objective of this research is to analyze the thematic of international scientific production published during the 2006 – 2015 period on Knowledge Organization and Information Retrieval indexed in Web of Science an Scopus databases. This study develops a qualitative and exploratory research of a corpus of 100 papers that establishes a relationship between Knowledge Organization and Information Retrieval. The study also analyses the papers that are part of the corpus and classifies them into three categories, using the dimensions of Knowledge Organization that are considered themes in the Brazilian Congress on Knowledge Organization and Representation organized by the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO): epistemological dimension, applied dimension, social and political dimension. We found that most of the scientific production is concentrated in the applied dimension, which can be explained by the applied characteristic of Information Retrieval. The epistemological dimension is the second recurrent, and the social and political dimension has low incidence, which can be explained once the corpus is formed by the international scientific production and is not reflected in a dimension designed for a Brazilian Congress.


A new species from the Neotropical Region, Stilobezzia (Stilobezzia) pseudopunctulata Cazorla & Ronderos, is described and illustrated based on male and female adults and pupal exuviae. Adults were collected in the Argentinian provinces of Chaco, Formosa, Corrientes and Buenos Aires, and in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The pupa was collected from mats of floating aquatic macrophytes in a lagoon in Ilha da Marchanteria, in the vicinities of Manaus, Brazil. This new species is compared with its similar congener Stilobezzia punctulata Lane, from which it can be mainly distinguished by the wing with only two dark spots, the parameres longer and hook-shaped, the pupal respiratory organ with 11-12 pores and the very short apicolateral processes of the anal segment.


Forage halophytes such as saltbush (Atriplex spp) are being widely used to revegetate Australian saline land and can also provide a medium quality fodder source. There is widespread anecdotal evidence that sheep grazing on saltbush are leaner, tastier and juicer. This thesis investigated the potential to produce a high quality carcass with improved eating quality from grazing sheep on saltbush on saline land.

The first experimental chapter in this thesis details an animal house experiment investigating the carcass, eating and wool quality and physiological responses of sheep ingesting a 60:40 dried saltbush (Atriplex nummularia):barley grain (S+B), ration verses a 33:25:42 lupin grain:barley grain:oaten hay ration (Control, C) for 10 weeks prior to commercial slaughter (Chapter 4). Subsequently, two field experiments were conducted to examine the effects of grazing saltbush on saline land compared to dry senesced pasture on carcass and eating quality of lambs (Goomalling 2003) and hoggets (Wickepin 2004) (both chapter 6) for 14 weeks. Both chapters demonstrated that the ingestion of saltbush resulted in significantly less fat and in the 2 field experiments the ingestion of saltbush resulted in more lean on the carcass compared to sheep grazing a stubble/pasture (control) ration. These are positive findings for processors as costs of fat denudation are high so the lower the fat content and for farmers because less fat is deposited on the carcass per unit of liveweight gain. The decreased deposition of fat was attributed to the higher protein:energy ratio available for production, secondary compounds in saltbush and lower circulating insulin and higher growth hormone of the S+B fed sheep compared to the control fed sheep. Further work is needed to determine if these beneficial improvements in carcass composition can be achieved without compromising animal production. The long term grazing of saltbush did not result in commercially desirable hot carcass weights unless the sheep were supplemented with a high energy source such as barley. The low growth rates are attributed to a decreased availability of energy substrates, low feed intake and increased energy output of sheep fed high salt diets. The low energy intake of the S+B fed sheep also resulted in an a significantly lower percentage of unsaturated fat and unchanged levels of saturated fat in the fat depots compared to the C treatment.

Consumer taste tests conducted on meat from experiments in both chapter 4 and 6 indicated no difference between the treatments for any of the eating quality traits assessed. This can be considered a positive result as sheep can be finished on saltbush without any detriment to eating quality. High vitamin E levels in the meat may have also prevented the development of rancid flavours and aroma. It can be speculated that saltbush does not impart beneficial flavour and aroma volatiles as previously thought; instead the high vitamin E levels inhibit off-flavour and aroma development compared to meat from sheep grazed on dry pasture.

The long term ingestion of saltbush also resulted in significantly lower urine specific gravity (USG), muscle dry matter and higher urine weights suggesting that the saltbush fed sheep had a better hydration status compared to control fed sheep. However, this finding did not correspond with higher hot carcass weight or dressing percentages. The increases in muscle fluid content of the saltbush fed sheep were attributed to changes in body composition. The saltbush fed sheep had a higher lean and lower fat content which corresponded with a greater body fluid content as found in the animal house study.

Under conditions where the body composition of sheep remains the same, the use of short term strategic feeding of components of saltbush was investigated (mimicked in the form of salt and betaine) to reduce dehydration and subsequent reductions in carcass weight and dressing percentages (Chapter 7). Salt and or betaine were fed for 1 week either prior to a 48 h period of water deprivation or prior to 48 h commercial slaughter process where water was available in lairage from 24-48 h. Under both scenarios the diets did not result in improved dressing percentages, hot carcass weights, muscle dry matter or muscle weights. The ingestion of high salt diet prior to slaughter, did increase fluid retention in the extracellular spaces prior to slaughter however by 48 h both groups were at a similar physiological and therefore similar hydration status. Therefore similar levels of fluid were present in the muscles and no difference in carcass weight or dressing percentage could be expected. An important observation from the second experiment was that the high salt group drunk more water than the low salt fed sheep but the low salt group consumed fluid in lairage also. The low salt fed sheep may have been encouraged to drink water after observing the frequent drinking patterns of the high salt group.

This thesis has also shown that saltbush contains high levels of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) (193 mg/kg dry matter). As a result the concentration of alpha-tocopherol in plasma, liver and muscle of the saltbush fed sheep was elevated compared to those grazing dry pasture. The high muscle concentrations of vitamin E in the saltbush-grazed sheep resulted in improved meat colour stability. The high vitamin E levels did not influence the drip and cooking loss of the meat despite a decrease in the muscle dry matter of the meat. The browning of meat and increased drip loss results in large losses to the meat industry due to value deterioration at the supermarket. There is also great potential for the high vitamin E content in saltbush to be used for the prevention of nutritional myopathy instead of using expensive and labour intensive synthetic supplements.

In conclusion, this thesis has provided an insight into the carcass and eating quality of sheep grazed on saltbush based saline pasture systems. The most significant findings were that ingesting saltbush can reduce the carcass fat content, improve meat colour stability and not result in any detriment to eating quality. A potentially useful way to incorporate these results into an Australian farming system may be to use saltbush on a short term basis, not for the length of period grazed in this thesis. The short term use of saltbush should provide sufficient grazing time for an elevation of vitamin E levels in the muscle to improve meat colour stability, increase the amount of lean and decrease fat levels of a carcass all without changing eating quality and decreasing liveweight. Further work is needed to ensure that these benefits can be achieved without compromising animal production. The opportunity to utilise saltbush to produce leaner carcasses with better colour stability may encourage farmers to consider previously unproductive land planted to saltbush to be a highly useful enterprise.


Many socioeconomic constraints exist for biomass removals from federal lands in the western U.S. We examine several issues of importance, including biomass supply chains and harvesting costs, innovative new uses for bioenergy products, and the policy framework in place to provide incentives for biomass use. Western states vary greatly in the extent and utilization of forest resources, the proportion of land under federal ownership, and community and stakeholder structure and dynamics. Our research—which focused on the socioeconomic factors associated with biomass removal, production, and use—identified several important trends. Long-term stewardship projects could play a role in influencing project economics while being conducive to private investment. State policies are likely to help guide the growth of biomass utilization for energy products. New markets and technologies, such as biofuels, for use in the aviation industry, torrefied wood, mobile pyrolysis, and wood coal cofiring could greatly change the landscape of biomass use. Social needs of residents in wildland urban interfaces will play an important role, especially in an era of megafires. All of these trends—including significant unknowns, like the volatile prices of fossil energy—are likely to affect the economics of biomass removal and use in western forests.


Researchers have devoted little attention to the important issue of whether states monitoring incoming conflict observe clear accommodative thresholds below which they are unlikely to retaliate and might continue cooperation. Consequently, this study develops the concept of accommodation and studies its impact on the behavior of the USA and Soviet Union. Using COPDAB and WEIS data, this study tests a probit model and employs the derived parameters to calculate accommodative thresholds for the USA and Soviet Union towards their full set of interaction partners in the 1948-78 period and each other in the 1948-91 period. It concludes that both the USA and Soviet Union displayed accommodative tendencies, especially when a prior pattern of cooperation with a target was in place but that the USA was highly prone towards accommodation. The USA accommodated conflictive acts of varying intensity, from a wide range of states, under a variety of conditions, over lengthy time periods. The USA also accommodated conflict from the Soviet Union over long time periods in which the Soviets did not share the US penchant for accommodation. These findings generally support realist arguments that a preponderant position allows states to ignore low-level challenges from adversaries. They also provide some support for those who adopt foreign-policy approaches.


This thesis examines Libya-United States Relations from 1969 until 1986. The
period between the September 1969 Revolution and 1986 saw an important
development in the relationship between the two countries. The September
Revolution marked a shift in the pattern of Libya-United States relations as Libya
took a more independent approach to conducting its domestic affairs and
establishing foreign relations not only with the United States, but with other
countries as well. It was this shift in Libyan domestic and foreign policies that set a
new trend in its relations with the United States.
This study was based on a historical approach and the re-examination of secondary
documents such as books, newspaper clippings, official publications and my own
experience as a foreign affairs officer. The study discovered several important
developments and factors that shaped Libya-United States Relation between
1969-1986.
Firstly, relations between Libya and the United States deteriorated especially after
the September 1969 Revolution when the leadership of the former passed over to
Colonel Muammar Qadhafi, a military personnel, who brought in his personal style
of leadership that was backed by popular Libyan support. Qadhafi's attempt to
construct a new and truly independent Libya and make the country a key
international player in the region were strongly met with resistance, especially from the United States which had grown use to its increasingly dominant role in
the region and which had also gone unchallenged.
Secondly, Libya' s firm stand on its national independence and its actions to
remove foreign influences and domination triggered the start of a sour relation with
the United States. This turn of relation was not augmented by the fact that Libya
was also a strong proponent of the Arab nationalism and its undivided support for
pan-African nationalism. As Libya's began to take a more dominant role in the
region, the country was becoming increasingly viewed in negative light. United
States' perception of Libya was beginning to be couched in terms such as
"terrorists" or "sponsors" of terrorism on the international scale.
Thirdly, the deterioration in the bilateral relations between the two countries was
manifested by the trade volumes that plummeted especially in the post- 1 969
period. Before this period, relations between the two had been marked by friendly
relations and was demonstrated by the presence of not only the American military
personnel but also of a sizeable American business community, especially in
Tripoli.
Fourthly, the deteriorating relations between the two countries were attributed to
several factors such as the American perception of Libya as a state that supported
terrorists and terrorist acts and Libya's negative image that was being perpetrated
by the western media and prominent personalities that were close to the American
leadership.
Lastly, this study ended in 1986 because this period represented the lowest ebb in
Libya-United States relations. By this period, there was no formal relation as both
countries withdrew diplomatic representations in each other's capital. Signs of
better relations only seem to have resurfaced in the late 1990s. However, the extent
to which this might develop further to benefit the peoples of the two countries
remains to be seen. But this contemporary development in the Libya-United States
relations is not within the scope of this study.


The Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO) is the dominant component of the intraseasonal (30–90 days) variability in the tropical atmosphere. It consists of large‐scale coupled patterns in atmospheric circulation and deep convection, with coherent signals in many other variables, all propagating eastward slowly (∼5 m s−1) through the portion of the Indian and Pacific oceans where the sea surface is warm. It constantly interacts with the underlying ocean and influences many weather and climate systems. The past decade has witnessed an expeditious progress in the study of the MJO: Its large‐scale and multiscale structures are better described, its scale interaction is recognized, its broad influences on tropical and extratropical weather and climate are increasingly appreciated, and its mechanisms for disturbing the ocean are further comprehended. Yet we are facing great difficulties in accurately simulating and predicting the MJO using sophisticated global weather forecast and climate models, and we are unable to explain such difficulties based on existing theories of the MJO. It is fair to say that the MJO remains an unmet challenge to our understanding of the tropical atmosphere and to our ability to simulate and predict its variability. This review, motivated by both the acceleration and gaps in our knowledge of the MJO, intends to synthesize what we currently know and what we do not know on selected topics: its observed basic characteristics, mechanisms, numerical modeling, air‐sea interaction, and influences on the El Niño and Southern Oscillation.


Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.... William Buffer Yeats, "The Second Coming" What is a woman of color, a professor in Women's Studies and a scholar of Asian American literature, doing, quoting William Butler Yeats, a male Irish poet of the early twentieth-century? In my comments I wish to urge us toward a discourse in which the figures of falcon and falconer, Yeats's symbol of man's mastery of nature and of society, can be dismantled, even as, in the poet's word, "the rough beast" of the twentieth-century "slouches toward Bethlehem" to be born anew. In her introduction to Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Chandra Talpade Mohanty describes a different spatial vision of the world. Not the spiraling gym with its shattered center (of which one must ask, whose center, who is the falconer, who the falcon?), but the vision of "a world traversed with intersecting lines of power and resistance, a world which can be understood only in terms of its destructive divisions of gender, color, class, sexuality, and nation" (2). Mohanty calls for a new structure, evoked in Bettina Aptheker's words, of "a world which must be transformed through a necessary process of pivoting the center ... for the assumed center (Europe and the United States) will no longer hold" (2). It has been argued that there is now no center, or that the "pivoted" center is everywhere. But, as present insecurities demonstrate, even the paradigm of globalization advanced by theories on postmodern cultures and societies, acknowledges prevailing centers--for economics and finance, in fashion and entertainment, higher education and technology--that continue to aggregate influence and power. These centers, no doubt, are linked to their peripheries for their wealth and power. The chief economist of Deutsche Bank-Asia noted, in a different context, "Thailand and Malaysia are so small. So is Hong Kong. How can they trigger a global market crash? Because markets around the world are linked. The enormous bull run of the dollar has been central to pulling in the money to finance America's `Goldilocks' economy. In essence, America's boom has been financed with other people's money" (Thurow B7). But these linkages should not disguise the dominance of specific players. James Flanigan, Senior Economics Editor of the Los Angeles Times, observed, "The astounding world-wide stock market turmoil of [October 1997] signals ... a demand by global investors that all countries adapt their economies to the dictates of open markets." By "open markets," however, Flanigan explained that he meant "the triumph of the American economic system of open markets over state-run economies" (Flanigan A1). This slippage from the trope of "open markets" to the identification of American dominance is where one should pause to ask: what does the American system--of markets, of media entertainment, of political organization, of technological innovation--signify in the context of global feminism? The recent critiques of feminism as a Western-produced discourse offer an initial direction. Indeed, from outside white Euro-American academe, American women writers and scholars of color, such as Angela Davis, Judy Yung, and Chela Sandoval have introduced the categories of race and ethnicity, to focus attention on what I call "U.S. women's studies." Until recently, this field had elided the contributions of nonwhite women to social movements and neglected the study of their culture-specific, immigrant-history-specific struggles in the United States. Rebuttals to the new scholarship reveal the fears of the "balkanization" of American society, should race and ethnicity enter as analytical tools in the methodologies of the social sciences and humanities. My aim is to focus on the question of women's studies in order to make an alternative although not an oppositional argument. …


This paper develops a unified framework for the analysis of wage indexation and monetary policy in the presence of supply shocks. We first present simple formulae for the optimal wage indexation rule and for the optimal money supply rule. In order to set the stage for an evaluation of departures from the optimal policy rules we first analyse two extreme cases -- a rule that stabilizes employment and a rule that stabilizes the real wage. The analysis of these two extreme cases provides the ingredients for the evaluation of various rules for wage indexation and for monetary targeting. We examine the implications of indexing wages to (i) nominal GNP, (ii) the CPI and (iii) the value-added price index, as well as the implications of targeting the money supply to these alternative three indicators. It is shown that, the various indexation rules bear a dual relation to the various monetary targeting rules. The welfare ranking of the various rules depends on whether the elasticity of the demand for labor exceeds or falls short of the elasticity of labor supply. If the demand for labor is more elastic than the supply, then policy rules that stabilize employment produce a smaller welfare cost than policy rules that stabilize the real wage. In that case, indexing wages to nominal GNP results in a smaller welfare cost than indexing to value-added price index which, in turn, produces a smaller cost than indexation to the CPI. Because of the dual relation between monetary policy and wage indexation, it follows that under the same circumstances, monetary policy that targets nominal GNP produces a smaller welfare cost than policy that targets the value-added price index which, in turn, results in a smaller cost than the policy that targets the CPI. This ranking is reversed when the elasticity of the supply of labor exceeds the elasticity of demand.


This thesis focuses on the sources of tannin in Pinot Noir grapes. Tannins contribute to colour stability and mouth-feel in wine. Some tannins are more beneficial to the quality of red wines than others. Achieving the correct balance is particularly difficult in Pinot Noir wines due to their unusual polyphenolic profile. In practical terms the thesis considered the following questions: How do we know from which berry tissues wine tannins are extracted? Are some tannins more desirable than others from a wine composition and quality viewpoint? How can we get more of the desirable tannins into Pinot noir wines?
The study sought to gain a better understanding of the types of phenolic compounds that influence wine quality in terms of colour stability. Phenolic compounds are mainly derived from the skin and seed of the grapes. However the nature and proportion of phenolic compounds that are contributed by each tissue type, and ultimately become incorporated into the wine, was largely unknown prior to this study.
The trials reported in this thesis used micro-vinification vessels ranging in size from 0.25 to 20 L according to the detail of the experiment under investigation and the analyses applied. Maceration techniques that are practiced commercially were compared and showed that some of these are better suited to the production of Pinot Noir table wines than are others.
To ascertain why this might be so, the research went on to examine the specific role of individual berry tissues in determining the outcome of the phenolic composition of the wine. The value of each tissue type was accentuated by providing a surplus or a deficit of each tissue type in the grape musts. The research examined the specific role of individual berry tissues in determining the outcome of the phenolic composition of the wine. A novel maceration technique (Accentuated Cut Edges or ACE) that improved the extraction of colour pigments from grape skin was examined in detail and strong correlations between the phenolic profile of the wine and its sensory attributes were identified.
Finally, the spectral assessment of wine phenolic parameters from 15 individual experiments recognised six wavelengths by which phenolic components from skin and seed tissues could be distinguished. Using an existing rapid spectral assay, an index of phenolic quality was developed which has the potential to inform fermentation management strategies based on qualitative measures taken as the fermentation progresses.


This synthesis report provides an overview of successful chip seal practices in the United States, Canada, and overseas. Although not meant to be an exhaustive study, it covers the spectrum of chip seal practice and presents, where possible, the state of the art, as reported in the literature and survey responses. The report presents ways to assist in the development and implementation of pavement preservation programs by identifying the benefits of using chip seal as part of a preventive maintenance program. Innovative and advanced chip seal programs from around the world were identified with respect to critical factors that can be incorporated by other transportation agencies. Approximately 40 best practices were identified in the areas of chip seal design methods, contract administration, equipment practices, construction practices, and performance measures. The increased use of chip seals for maintenance can be a successful, cost-effective way of using preventive maintenance to preserve both low-volume and higher-volume pavements.


Part I of this Article will examine plain-text selections of legal language concerning mental competency from the constitutions, codes, or relevant decisions by the highest national courts, of three countries: the United States, Germany, and Japan. As three of the biggest economic powers on the planet, these countries merit consideration not just for their contrasting cultural and legal frameworks but also for their relative influence within the international arena during the latter half of the twentieth century. Part I's examination will focus on constitutional and code language for two important reasons: (1) these sources of law form the basis of the country's legal system, and serve as the foundation for other, more specific forms of legislation; (2), as the highest form of the country's primary law, they serve as the legal standard against which all the other laws are evaluated. Next, Part II will examining the relevant language and argue that a certain set of cognitive functions, social-cognitive functions, most likely underlie these strictly legal definitions. Finally, Part III will briefly examine how effectively these definitions convey the prevailing scientific standard and consider what changes, if any, could be made to the current definitions of mental competency in the United States to better reflect both these prevailing scientific standards and the foreign definitions.


I have felt sensibly there was a good deal of suffering among the saints in Nauvoo, as there has been amongst us, but the Lord God who has fed us all the day long, has his care still over us and when the saints are chastened enough, it will cease. I have ever believed the Lord would suffer a general massacre of this people by a mob. If ten thousand men were to come against us, and no other way was open for our deliverance, the earth would swallow them up (Journal History, 27 Sept. 1846). These were the words of Brigham Young to his Mormon followers at the first Sunday services held at Winter Quarters on a wind-swept rise of land on the west side of the city's proposed Main Street. Daniel H. Wells and William Cutler had brought the sobering news into camp just two days before that Nauvoo had been overrun in the skirmish known as the Nauvoo Battle. The subsequent sufferings of the dispossessed and starving citizens of Nauvoo spurred Brigham and his fellow apostles into even greater relief action than that already underway. "Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable," he reminded the Saints, "Till you, by yourselves or delegates. . . [can] rise up with his team and go straightway and bring a load of the poor from Nauvoo . . . [for] this is a day of action and not of argument (Journal History, 28 Sept. 1846). Original Publication Citation Eastward to Eden: The Nauvoo Rescue Missions. Dialogue Journal of Mormon Thought. Vol. 19 (Winter 1986): 1-18. This article awarded prize for best scholarly article in 1986. Used by permission. BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Bennett, Richard, "Eastward to Eden: The Nauvoo Rescue Missions" (1986). All Faculty Publications. 1206. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1206 Document Type Peer-Reviewed Article Publication Date 1986-12-01 Permanent URL http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/3036 Publisher Dialogue Journal of Mormon Thought Language English College Religious Education Department Church History and Doctrine Copyright Status © 1986 Richard E. Bennet Used by permission of Dialogue: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/contact-us/ Copyright Use Information http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/  Download


SUMMARY: A total of 26 effective trawl hauls using a remotely operated trawl cod-end closure system were carried out to determine whether samples collected in a rear section of the cod-end and in a front section of the cod-end were homogeneous, and can be used as reliable replicates for community sampling and resource assessment. Comparative analyses of these sample hauls and 25 other hauls that did not use the cod-end closure system were also performed. The results indicate certain technical difficulties in the practical operation of the system and that samples were not homogeneous either between the cod-end sections in the same haul or between hauls. The causes of the sample variability in catches from trawl surveys are discussed.


Context. Around 30 per cent of the observed exoplanets that orbit M dwarf stars are gas giants that are more massive than Jupiter. These planets are prime candidates for formation by disc instability.
Aims. We want to determine the conditions for disc fragmentation around M dwarfs and the properties of the planets that are formed by disc instability.
Methods. We performed hydrodynamic simulations of M dwarf protostellar discs in order to determine the minimum disc mass required for gravitational fragmentation to occur. Different stellar masses, disc radii, and metallicities were considered. The mass of each protostellar disc was steadily increased until the disc fragmented and a protoplanet was formed.
Results. We find that a disc-to-star mass ratio between ~0.3 and ~0.6 is required for fragmentation to happen. The minimum mass at which a disc fragment increases with the stellar mass and the disc size. Metallicity does not significantly affect the minimum disc fragmentation mass but high metallicity may suppress fragmentation. Protoplanets form quickly (within a few thousand years) at distances around ~50 AU from the host star, and they are initially very hot; their centres have temperatures similar to the ones expected at the accretion shocks around planets formed by core accretion (up to 12 000 K). The final properties of these planets (e.g. mass and orbital radius) are determined through long-term disc-planet or planet–planet interactions.
Conclusions. Disc instability is a plausible way to form gas giant planets around M dwarfs provided that discs have at least 30% the mass of their host stars during the initial stages of their formation. Future observations of massive M dwarf discs or planets around very young M dwarfs are required to establish the importance of disc instability for planet formation around low-mass stars.


An orthogonal form of a general three-term dispersion equation is presented which is useful for determination of the refractive index of transparent optical materials from measured spectral data. The orthogonal basis functions are dependent on the spectral range of the data and whether the spacing of the data is uniform with respect to wavelength or wavenumber. The application of the technique to the reduction of ellipsometric measurements of a single layer thin film of zirconia on a fused silica substrate is presented. The measured data were fit to a Conrady dispersion equation and to the corresponding orthogonal basis set. The convergence to the solution was an order of magnitude faster for the orthogonal form of the dispersion equation.


Abstract Objective To determine associations of diet, physical activity and television (TV) viewing time with obesity among aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth in conjunction with socio-economic variables. Design Cross-sectional study of differences between aboriginal and non-aboriginal groups and associations between lifestyle and socio-economic factors with obesity were examined. Setting Population data from the Canadian Community Health Survey Cycle 2·2 conducted in 2004 in the ten provinces of Canada. Subjects A total of 198 aboriginal and 4448 non-aboriginal Canadian youth aged 12–17 years. Results Compared to non-aboriginal youth, physical activity participation among aboriginal youth was higher, but consumption of vegetables and dairy products was lower, and more aboriginal youth were 'high' TV watchers. Low income adequacy was associated with decreased odds for obesity among aboriginal youth in contrast to higher odds among non-aboriginal youth. Non-aboriginal 'high' TV watchers consumed more soft drinks and non-whole-grain products than did 'low' TV watchers. Physical activity participation did not differ between 'high' and 'low' TV watchers for both groups, and was associated with lowered odds for obesity only among aboriginal youth. Conclusions Sociodemographic and lifestyle risk factors associated with obesity differ between aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth. These findings may be useful for guiding intervention efforts.


Mechanisms of pseudofeces voidance from the mantle were investigated in 3 of the 4 major bivalve particle processing systems using scanning electron microscopy, to determine what mechanisms permit the isolation of pseudofeces transport in bivalves presenting discrete mantle rejection pathways, and how this contrasts with species which do not possess such pathways. The entire mantle surfaces of Mytilus edulis (homorhabdic filibranch), Mya arenaria and Spisula solidissima (eulamellibranchs), and Placopecten magellanicus (heterorhabdic filibranch) were surveyed and photographed. In both the homorhabdic filibranchs and the eulamellibranchs, the mantle rejection tracts previously located using video endoscopy were characterized by cilia which were extraordinarily long compared to the cilia of the general pallial surface. These long cilia were grouped into closely adhering tufts, herein termed composite cilia. In M. edulis and M. arenaria, the general pallial surface presented shorter simple cilia, whereas in S. solidissima the general pallial surface presented simple cilia dorsally, long composite cilia ventrally, and an intermediate band of short composite cilia. These 3 species all possess a gill ventral particle groove; hence the site of pseudofeces production is the labial palp, and a discrete mantle rejection tract is necessary to transport pseudofeces to the inhalent siphon for expulsion. The long composite cilia within this tract may provide vertical isolation of pseudofeces from the general pallial surface; effective mucociliary transport using such long cilia can only be accomplished if they are grouped, as in all 3 species with mantle rejection tracts. In the heterorhabdic filibranch P magellanicus, no specialized cilia were observed on the mantle; this corresponds to the absence of a mantle rejection tract in this system, which does not possess a gill ventral particle groove and relies on valve adduction to expel pseudofeces. These results suggest that elevation above the surrounding mantle cilia is the rule in species relying on mantle rejection tracts for the voidance of pseudofeces. These results show the usefullness of cilia mapping in the study of bivalve suspension-feeding mechanisms.


Intralymphatic spread is common in solid cancers, but has been rarely studied in lymphomas. Review of 635 extranodal specimens from 475 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients revealed intralymphatic spread in 10 surgical resection specimens from 10 patients including 9 de novo DLBCLs and 1 Richter transformation. The prevalence in de novo DLBCL with extranodal involvements was 1.65%. The most common involved site of intralymphatic spread was the gastrointestinal tract, followed by the female genital tract and breasts. Lymphatic vessels, lined by D2-40-positive endothelial cells, were expanded by lymphoma cells, reminiscent of intravascular lymphoma or tumor emboli. None of the involved lymphatic vessels were located in the mucosa. Patients with intralymphatic spread had a trend of lower overall response rate and a trend of higher progressive disease than those without intralymphatic spread. Compared with patients without intralymphatic spread, those patients with intralymphatic spread had a shorter median overall survival (14.3 vs. 96.2 mo; P=0.004) and a shorter median progression-free survival (11.2 vs. 64.2 mo; P=0.01), respectively. Multivariate analyses showed that intralymphatic spread was an independent poor prognostic factor for overall survival (hazard ratio, 3.029; 95% confidence interval, 1.315-6.978; P=0.009), irrespective of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network-International Prognostic Index, B symptoms, and serum albumin levels. Among patients who underwent surgical resection, intralymphatic spread was still an independent prognostic factor. In conclusion, our study demonstrated extranodal intralymphatic spread in DLBCL. Inspiringly, this rare morphologic finding may serve as a new negative prognostic indicator in DLBCL with extranodal involvements.


textabstractAbstract. Economic growth in China has declined between 2008 and 2009. The global financial crisis of 2008/9 has shown a number of structural weaknesses in the Chinese economy, such as the functioning of its capital and labor markets and the substantial income differences between the developed eastern and less developed western provinces. Migration is the linchpin of China's development model; workers move from the western to the eastern provinces and back, in particular because of the crisis. How has China reacted to the financial crisis of 2008? After assessing the Chinese stimulus program and its negative effects on liquidity in general and the financial sector in particular some of the resulting issues, such as a dual development model for the eastern and western part of China and the development of the internal market at the expense of more export will be reviewed, before assessing which factors can still constrain China's ascent.


This thesis examines insect leaf herbivory and the insect herbivore community on two common mangrove species – Avicennia marina and Rhizophora stylosa, at two sites near Townsville, northern Queensland. Despite its widely recognised importance in other forested ecosystems, the role of insect herbivory in mangrove ecosystems is often downplayed and remains relatively unexplored. It is generally considered that mangroves lack a diverse and specialised insect herbivore fauna, and are populated with insects from adjoining habitats. It is also commonly believed that mangrove leaves are less palatable and nutritious than leaves of other tree species, and that herbivory levels are less than those found in other forest ecosystems.
Sixty-one insect species were confirmed feeding upon A. marina and R. stylosa at the study sites, more than doubling the number of published host records for Australian mangroves. Herbivore diversity on the two mangrove species was similar, but only four of the 61 herbivore species were in common between them and the composition of the two faunas was substantially different. The two faunas show a high degree of host-specificity and adaptation to their mangrove hosts and there were substantial similarities between the faunas found in this study and those of other Avicennia and Rhizophora species elsewhere in the world. The diversity of folivores on these two mangrove species was similar to that of other nearby non-mangrove trees and to that reported for other trees elsewhere in the tropics.
Nearly all mangrove herbivory studies have measured damage on discrete leaf samples collected at one point in time. This approach fails to detect entirely consumed leaves, or partly damaged leaves that have been abscised. These leaves can be accounted for by an alternative long-term method that makes repeated herbivory estimates on tagged leaves. Application of the long-term method in this study found herbivory to be 3-6 times higher than estimated by discrete measurements. R. stylosa had only 2-3% loss of leaf area in discrete samples but 7-13% loss in the long-term study. A. marina had 6-7% loss of leaf area in discrete samples but 28-36% loss in the long-term study. For both species, most herbivory occurred whilst the leaves were young. Once past the juvenile phase, R. stylosa leaves were rarely attacked. In contrast, mature A. marina leaves suffered significant insect damage and leaf loss. Herbivory reduced average leaf longevity of all leaves by 4-5% for R. stylosa and 12-13% for A. marina. In mangroves, loss of entire leaves is reported to be rare, but in R. stylosa and A. marina in this study, 4-5% and 19-29% of leaves, respectively, were either entirely consumed, or aborted due to insect damage. For both species, loss of leaf material through premature abscission of damaged leaves was as great as that actually consumed by insects, indicating a role for herbivory in promoting leaf fall.
Destruction of developing leaf buds by insects resulted in greater leaf losses than that suffered by emerged leaves. This was especially important for R. stylosa, which can only produce leaves from the apical bud. Damage to R. stylosa apical buds was common, frequently resulting in the loss of leaves before they emerged or, where damage resulted in the destruction of the apical bud, cessation of leaf production and death of that shoot. In some cases, new apical buds regenerated from suppressed lateral buds immediately below the destroyed apical bud. Death of existing shoots and regeneration from suppressed laterals are potentially major sources of architectural change to tree growth form. Damage to apical buds also resulted in the loss of developing inflorescences and lateral branches.
The chemical and physical nature of leaves changed significantly as they aged. Young leaves had a higher nutrient and chlorophyll concentration, but lower leaf thickness and leaf mass per unit area. Thus they were more nutritious and less tough for herbivores. These young leaves were especially prone to premature leaf fall because of insect damage. Leaves re-translocated over half of their nutrients prior to senescence but consumption or premature abscission of leaves before this process is complete may increase nutrient loss from the trees to microbial and detrital food chains on the forest floor. Thus herbivore-mediated leaf fall may also impact upon nutrient dynamics in mangrove forests.
This thesis demonstrates that: mangroves support a diverse and distinctive insect herbivore community; leaf herbivory is much higher than previously reported; there are additional mechanisms (eg, apical bud damage) by which herbivores affect leaf loss and other aspects of tree performance; and insects significantly affect leaf longevity, the timing of leaf fall and the quality of leaf litter. These results indicate that the role of herbivorous insects in mangrove ecosystems is more important than previously thought and that its evaluation needs to go well beyond simple static measures of leaf area missing from mature leaves.


The ambitions and activities of social housing providers in the UK today extend beyond those associated with the traditional landlord role. Providers are now aiming to address a range of complex and cross-cutting social issues to improve individual and community wellbeing. A recent advance in practice to support this broader service delivery has been the development and adoption of tools and approaches to measure the social value generated by such activities. This thesis aims to understand, firstly, the contextual drivers for the recent growth of this practice in the sector; and secondly, the most significant dynamics for successful implementation, from both the operational perspective of the individual organisation and the strategic perspective of the wider social housing sector. This is approached through qualitative interviews with programme architects and leading practitioners, drawing on a conceptual framework that combines a programme theory approach (realist evaluation) with an implementation theory formation (Theory of Change), within the analytic framework provided by the 'public value' paradigm. The thesis concludes by specifying a model for the
implementation of social impact measurement, which looks beyond the individual methods for impact measurement to assess the wider contextual factors and the specific inner workings of the complete process (including the
necessary organisational capabilities) that are required to successfully implement and embed the practice. This then provides a number of insights into the developments needed at an organisational and sector-wide level to
fulfil the positive outcomes anticipated from social impact measurement.


When should the United States and other members of the international community intervene to stop a government from harming its own citizens? Since World War II, the main standard for intervention has been the high bar of genocide, although the international community has rarely acted to stop it. The main alternative—the "responsibility to protect"—would set the bar so low that virtually every instance of anarchy or tyranny would create unbounded obligations beyond the capacity of states to fulfill. A new standard—the pragmatic standard of humanitarian intervention—can help guide decisionmakers on when to intervene to stop governments from targeting their own citizens. The standard has three requirements: (1) an ongoing campaign of mass homicide sponsored by the government; (2) a viable plan for intervention with reasonable estimates of low casualties for the intervening forces; and (3) a workable strategy for creating lasting local security for the threatened population. The pragmatic standard was met in the recent successful intervention in Libya as well as in other cases over the last twenty years, and it should become the basis for deciding which humanitarian crises justify international intervention in the future.


The purpose of this naturalistic, qualitative inquiry is to provide more information about how literature discussion as a reading instructional strategy can work in the secondary classroom. Elementary teachers have known about and incorporated literature discussion into their curriculum for years. However, high school classrooms tend to focus more on covering content using anthologies and whole-class reads rather than giving students the opportunity to talk about what they're learning by using a variety of teacher-selected texts. By observing three teachers' literature discussion groups, we learn more about the decisions they make both as instructors and group participants as well as the classroom environment needed for students to be successful during the unit. These teachers help us think about when to step in and out of students' conversations and how to create instructional materials that will aid them in their understanding of a text.


Composite polymer solid electrolytes (CPEs) containing ceramic fillers embedded inside a polymer-salt matrix show great improvements in Li+ ionic conductivity compared to the polymer electrolyte alone. Lithium lanthanum zirconate (Li7La3Zr2O12, LLZO) with a garnet-type crystal structure is a promising solid Li+ conductor. We show that by incorporating only 5 wt % of the ceramic filler comprising undoped, cubic-phase LLZO nanowires prepared by electrospinning, the room temperature ionic conductivity of a polyacrylonitrile-LiClO4-based composite is increased 3 orders of magnitude to 1.31 × 10-4 S/cm. Al-doped and Ta-doped LLZO nanowires are also synthesized and utilized as fillers, but the conductivity enhancement is similar as for the undoped LLZO nanowires. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies show that LLZO NWs partially modify the PAN polymer matrix and create preferential pathways for Li+ conduction through the modified polymer regions. CPEs with LLZO nanoparticles and Al2O3 nanowire fillers are also studied to elucidate the role of filler type (active vs passive), LLZO composition (undoped vs doped), and morphology (nanowire vs nanoparticle) on the CPE conductivity. It is demonstrated that both intrinsic Li+ conductivity and nanowire morphology are needed for optimal performance when using 5 wt % of the ceramic filler in the CPE.


We analyze fiscal policy and fiscal sustainability in Japan using a variant of the methodology developed in Blanchard (1990). We find that Japan can achieve fiscal sustainability over a 100-year horizon with relatively small changes in the tax-to-GDP ratio. Our analysis differs from more pessimistic analyses in several dimensions. First, since Japanese net debt is only half that of gross debt, we demonstrate that the current debt burden is much lower than is typically reported. This means that monetization of the debt will have little impact on Japan's fiscal sustainability because Japan's problem is the level of future liabilities not current ones. Second, we argue that one obtains very different projections of social security burdens based on the standard assumption that Japan's population is on a trend towards extinction rather than transitioning to a new lower level. Third, we demonstrate that some modest cost containment of the growth rate of real per capita benefits, such as cutting expenditures for shrinking demographic categories, can dramatically lower the necessary tax burden. In sum, no scenario involves Japanese taxes rising above those in Europe today and many result in tax-to-GDP ratios comparable to those in the United States.


This paper assesses the role that analogical reasoning played in Israel's decision making during the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah. Two analogies seemed to dominate internal deliberations: the "air power superiority" analogy which drew on more than a decade of developments in military theory and the air-based campaigns of the two Gulf wars and the Balkan wars of the mid-1990s and late 1990s; and the "Lebanese quagmire" analogy which drew on Israel's own traumatic experience of Israel following the its first war in Lebanon in 1982. The misuse of these analogies by the Israeli political–military leadership during the war produced a myopic approach which advocated an almost total reliance on air power rather than ground maneuver to win the war and refrained from using ground forces for fear of entering another bloody and unpopular war in Lebanon. The constraining power of these analogies prevented the consideration of alternative courses of action or the effective calculation of cost-benefit analysis during the war. Whereas previous studies of the war provided various explanations to singular decisions or episodes, this paper shows that the air power and quagmire analogies contained the conceptual boundaries of Israeli decision making during the war and thus best explain its attraction and limitations.


In this paper, we proposed a parallel IP address lookup architecture, which is a novel concept based on graphics processing unit (GPU) via Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). Device function in GPU only performs IP address lookup. Host function is exploited to construct and update the data structure of IP address lookup. Both host and device functions can be executed simultaneously to fully utilize computation resource. Accordingly, we propose an IPv6-capable data structure and implement the data structure with CUDA. One of experimental results shows that G92 GPU can achieve a throughput more than 1.3 billion packets per second (GPPS) on IPv4 routing tables with more than 350K prefixes, which signifies CUDA-based IP forwarding engine with the proposed approach has the capability of GPPS IP forwarding rate on a low-end CUDA device. By employing dual data structures, our implementation can support several hundred thousand updates per second. Furthermore, the proposed forwarding scheme is varied to be applied and compatible with other Internet schemes and devices.


In future smart grid scenarios, a greater involvement and active participation of customers are desirable in order to integrate renewable energy. Based on today's electricity tariff schemes an evolutionary process could lead to real-time pricing and a significantly higher frequency of supplier changes. If this becomes reality, the business-to-business processes and the corresponding data exchange processes require most likely adjustments. In this paper it is investigated if current data exchange processes for supplier change are suitable for application to shorter cancellation periods and much shorter contract period for final customer's energy contracts than today in Germany. Market actors and exchange processes are modelled as a multi-agent simulation and three different scenarios of aforementioned future contractual characteristics at the final customers' site are examined. Main focus is given to the processes at the business-to-business level; final customers only act as triggers by contracting new suppliers.


Digitalisation is fundamentally changing science and the paper lays out some of the opportunities, risks and major policy challenges associated with these changes. More specifically, the paper lays out a conceptual framework for open science. This framework incorporates access to data and information, as well as civil society engagement, in the different stages of the scientific research process. It is not meant to be prescriptive but should help different communities to decide on their own priorities within the open science space and to better visualise how these priorities link to different stage of the scientific process and to different actors. Such a framework can be useful also in considering how best to incentivise and measure different aspects of open science.


Problem statement: Reservoir compaction and shallow gas migration phenomena may cause offshore platform to experience deformation which if happens excessively will affect their structural integrity. Approach: Hence it is crucial to monitor and quantify the magnitude of the deformation especially if they are not uniform throughout the platform structure. However since mostly the offshore platforms are few hundreds kilometers away from shore, the precise monitoring of their deformation is limited to very few sophisticated instruments, in which GPS technology is one of them albeit using very special GPS data processing technique such as Long Baseline Relative Positioning. Results: Using this technique and employing GPS data observed on one of PETRONAS own platform, Pulai, its deformation magnitude will be determined with various options such as number of reference stations used, configuration and their geographic location. This study presents initial deformation processing result using scientific software GAMIT/GLOBK and their analysis utilizing postfit nrms and chi-squared statistics. The result indicated that for the period of two months there was displacement as big as 0.0094 m with standard deviation of 0.0106 m. However following congruency statistical test using t-student distribution with 95% confidence level, indicated that this displacement is insignificance. Analysis of the output result with postfit nrms also indicated that the data were of good quality, the processing procedure was correct and the output for each processing epoch is internally and externally consistent. Conclusion/Recommendations: It could be concluded with correct data processing strategy GPS data could be used to determine deformation magnitude which consequently could be utilized as input to assess structural integrity of an offshore platform.


Microclimate conditions in urban open spaces are directly linked to the configuration of street axes and building heights and their attributes. Within street canyons, public places, and open spaces, the local microclimate depends directly on the physical properties of the surrounding surfaces and objects, producing well-known effects that can decrease or increase thermal loads. All of these phenomena can greatly influence the comfort of a city and the thermal comfort of pedestrians. Thermal comfort is an indicator that cannot be easily converted into physical parameters. However, it may be defined more qualitatively as the range of climatic conditions in which most people feel comfortable. One well-recognized thermal comfort index used to measure comfort levels inside a space is the predicted mean vote (PMV). Fanger's PMV index has been widely used in the last ten years. It is based on six factors: air temperature, air speed, humidity, mean radiant temperature, metabolic rate, and clothing levels. The comfort equation establishes relationships among the abovementioned environmental variables, clothing type, and metabolic rate. The authors present results of PMV simulations using a multi-objective optimization tool (i.e., modeFrontier). ModeFRONTIER is an integration platform used to optimize and arrange PMV algorithms linked to urban geometry parameters (e.g., the height-to-width (H/W) ratio of urban streets). The optimization process employs given constraints, custom procedural algorithms, and genetic algorithms to examine a wide urban space and identify interesting relationships among the variables considered. Urban geometry, meteorological data, and latent influences are examined and negotiated quantitatively to improve outdoor thermal comfort.


Detailed computational fluid dynamics models of mineral insulated metal sheath thermocouples are discussed, and thermocouple readings in clean flames are verified against experimental thermocouple data for a Hencken burner flame available in the literature. Computational results present thermocouple temperature readings as a function of thermocouple insertion depth in three-dimensional directions. Computational temperature correlations are plotted against nondimensional insertion depth and insertion height above the burner. Overall predictions showed excellent agreement with experimental data. Deviations occurred as the thermocouple tip was moved further away from burner edges due to axial heat losses.


This paper reports an empirical study intended to provide detailed comparisons amongst and between the varieties of available measures of computer self-efficacy (CSE). Our purpose is to ascertain their relative abilities to isolate the CSE construct from other related constructs and to capture variance in performance attributed to changes in CSE level. In addition, we investigate the importance of ensuring the measure being used is sufficiently aligned with the task domain of interest. Finally, we explore the stability of CSE measures as they relate to the current state of evolution within the computing domain. Marakas, Yi, and Johnson (1998) proposed a framework for the construction of instruments intended to measure the CSE construct that we have adopted as a basis for this series of investigations. To that end, we advance and test a set of hypotheses derived from the Marakas et al. (1998) framework. Results of the analyses support the need for adherence to the tenets of the proposed framework as well as provide evidence that CSE measures suffer from degradation of their explanatory power over time. Further, this study brings forth the importance of appropriately validating measures of CSE using approaches intended for a formative rather than a reflective construct. These results suggest that the common practices of instrument validation and reuse of long-standing instruments to measure CSE may not be the most effective approach to the study of the construct. Implications for future research are discussed.


Because of their low viscosity and large gelling temperature range, precise 3D printing of agar hydrogels has not been achieved even though the agar double network hydrogels are tough and self-recoverable. In this work, a super tough agar double network hydrogel was precisely printed by adding alginate. The addition of alginate not only increases the ink viscosity and printable period, but also improves its rheological characteristics towards precise processing control. Moreover, the entanglement of the alginate chains with the agar double network hydrogel restricts the agar helical chain bundles from pulling out under stress, which toughens the hydrogel.


The study seeks to examine the espousal of the combined assurance model in South Africa's public sector, since there is not solitary autonomous unit that offers assurance in seclusion but various units add to the assurance progression. The study is grounded on stewardship theory in which various concepts of stewardship imply it to be a function of governments' accountability for the wellbeing of citizens. This research study followed a qualitative research approach in which data were analyzed qualitatively based on an interpretative philosophy which examined meaningful and symbolic content of qualitative data from general reports on the provincial audit outcomes for the period (2014-2015). It was concluded that the level of appreciation of the combined assurance model and assurance provision in South African public sector is commendable, although there is still a need to improve and fully implement the model so as to attain good governance through stewardship advance. To that end, the governing body in South Africa's public sector needs to augment its monitoring of harmonized and all inclusive approach in internal control systems, risk management and compliance issues. This serves in the best legitimate interests and expectations of the "inclusive stakeholders" via embracing of stewardship approach.


The chapter examines how a second language speaker of Japanese tells a disaster story to an L1 Japanese-speaking recipient in ordinary conversation. Drawing on Goodwin's (2013) notions of lamination and substrates, the study shows how the teller and recipient orient to the story as a stance object by selecting, assembling, and recycling different types of multisemiotic resources, including language forms, cultural references, prosody, ideophonic vocalizations, and embodied action such as gaze, facial expression, and gesture. By displaying emotions of different quality and intensity, and doing so with different configurations of semiotic practices, at different sequential moments, the participants show what they understand the current activity within the telling to be.


The Amazon Basin is the site of the Earth's largest land-based atmospheric convection centre, and acts as a large source of latent heat release, particularly during the summer months when the South American Summer Monsoon (SASM) is most developed. Convectional rainfall over the Amazon Basin therefore plays a fundamental role in the transport of heat to the higher latitudes, and the regulation of global climate. The Pleistocene moisture history of the Amazon Basin is comparatively poorly known. However, sediments from the Amazon Fan have the potential to record a basin-wide average of past changes in the effective moisture of the Amazon Basin within single, continuous sequences, which accumulate rapidly. Oxygen isotopes (6lsO) records were measured for five planktonic foraminifera species from ODP Site 942 on the Amazon Fan. Data were constrained by an age model constructed around 36 AMS radiocarbon dates, which were converted to calibrated calendar ages. Past changes in the outflow of the Amazon River were reconstructed by attempting to isolate the relative shift in 6I80942 brought about by freshwater-driven changes in salinity in the surface water over the Site. 6I80942 records were adjusted for fractionation effects associated with changes in global ice volume, however removing the sea surface temperature (SST) effect was more problematic. A6I80942 data implied that the Amazon Basin was more arid during the glacial stage relative to the Holocene. Co-variance with November-December insolation at 10 S implied that this was associated with insolation-driven variations in the intensity of the SASM. Particularly high-resolution records were measured for the last glacial-interglacial transition. Maximum aridity was reconstructed around the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) in the Northern Hemisphere, after which effective moisture levels exhibited an increasing trend thereafter throughout the period, correlating with a warming trend in Antarctica. A similarity between the A6I80942 data and the Vostock ice core temperature record (6D) suggests a possible Antarctic forcing over the climate of the Amazon Basin. It was hypothesised that Northern and Southern hemisphere temperature gradients exert independent control over the northerly and southerly limits of SASM convection over the Amazon Basin. An isotopic balancing model was used to attempt to semi-quantify the Amazon River outflow. Assuming a SST cooling of 2 to 3 C, the Amazon River outflow was modelled to have been reduced by up to -30-50% at the YD onset, and by up to -20-30% during the Last Glacial Maximum. However semi-quantified reconstructions are limited by the assumptions of the model.


In this chapter, we deal with the issue of security regarding components that are responsible for provisioning multi-domain network services, either automatically or through some form of administrator interaction. It is evident that a malicious compromise of such a component would have far-reaching implications for the stability of the network. Furthermore, trust between cooperating domains is a delicate issue, and each partner in the multi-domain federation has to have some guarantees that peers in the service are not going to be security compromised. We enumerate some of the related dangers and propose ways to limit the attack surface, reduce the intrusion possibilities, and guarantee the quick resolution of any successful violations. The issue of security is studied in two main parts: Inter-domain security, for the communication between domains and the successful negotiation of resource reservations, and intra-domain security, for the internal communications within a domain for the initiation of a resource reservation and its actual realization in the network devices. Resource reservation is studied both on the level of IP services based on Differentiated Services architectures, and on the level of dynamic circuit reservation based on Layer 2 technologies. The chapter is completed with a case study on the authentication and authorization framework designed in the context of a Pan-European network resource reservation service, in the Geant academic and research network. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-777-7.ch003


The French news media has framed "obesity" largely as a product
of corporate greed and social inequality. Yet, France has—like other nations
including the United States—adopted policies that focus on changing individual-level behavior. This article identifies several factors—including food
industry lobbying, the Ministry of Agriculture's rivalry with the Ministry of
Health and alliance with the food industry, and competition with other
policy goals—that favored the development of individual-level policy
approaches to obesity in France at the expense of social-structural ones. This
case points to the need to more systematically document inconsistencies
and consistencies between social problem framing and policies. It also shows
that national culture is multivalent and internally contradictory, fueling
political and social struggles over which version of national culture will prevail
at any given moment.


Abstract Latest Arikareean sediments of the upper Arikaree Group in southeastern Wyoming produced rare fossils of large, early Miocene amphicyonid carnivorans for field parties of the Frick Laboratory, American Museum, from 1932 to 1940. Recent geologic field investigations, including mapping, have discovered additional remains of these carnivorans, clarifying their geographic and stratigraphic distribution, and permitting a more informed description of the earlier collections. These carnivorans come from tuffaceous sandstones of the Upper Harrison beds, the terminal formation-rank unit of the Arikaree Group in southeastern Wyoming. A large species of the amphicyonid Daphoenodon (D. falkenbachi, n. sp.) occurs in northern Goshen and southeastern Platte Counties, Wyoming, and in the Niobrara Canyon, Sioux County, Nebraska. A smaller species of this genus (D. skinneri, n. sp.), probably ancestral to D. falkenbachi, is known from a single individual from southern Niobrara County, Wyoming. A third amphicyonid, Adilophontes brachykolos, n. gen., n. sp., is closely related to Daphoenodon, and is reported from northern Goshen County and east-central Platte County, Wyoming. The three species share a similar basicranial anatomy, including the form of the auditory bulla, and can be referred to the endemic North American amphicyonid subfamily Daphoeninae. They are found only in Upper Harrison strata in southeastern Wyoming and northwest Nebraska, and are presently unknown elsewhere in North America. Postcranial remains indicate that these large predators lacked the extreme digitigrade specializations of the feet and limbs encountered in living canids and large felids. They are characterized by relatively short lower-limb segments, and paraxonic feet with slightly spreading digits, which might be termed subdigitigrade. These skeletal traits and their carnassiform dentitions with prominent canines, premolars, and shearing carnassials indicate a carnivorous diet probably obtained by a rapid rush from cover and a short, powerful pursuit of ungulate prey in open grassland and riparian stream settings east of the Rocky Mountain uplifts. A new formal term, Anderson Ranch Formation, is proposed as a replacement for the Upper Harrison beds of Peterson (1909) that yielded the carnivores discussed in this study.


While the world's attention was fixated on Iraq, a more urgent crisis was brewing in Northeast Asia. In the midst of the protracted confrontation and war with Iraq, the deeply isolated, erratic, and unpredictable government of North Korea openly resurrected its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, and since then has taken serious strides toward the achievement of that objective. Iraq's nuclear weapons program was largely, if not entirely, destroyed by the United Nations as a consequence of UN inspection efforts during the 1990s, and there is presently no evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons in the immediate future. In contrast, Pyongyang currently possesses the nuclear infrastructure and materials to produce some nuclear weapons in a matter of months, if not weeks. If North Korea succeeds in doing so, one of the world's most troubling and frightening regimes will have joined the nuclear club. If this happens. US security will be jeopardized, Northe ast Asia will be less stable, and the world will be a more dangerous place. Because the timeline to nuclear acquisition is so short and the consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea are so adverse, this is the crisis that should have been at the top of the international agenda in the first months of 2003. This is not the first time that Pyongyang has provoked a nuclear crisis. Indeed, North Korea has been playing nuclear games for more than a decade. In 1985, the country acceded to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and hence voluntarily assumed an international legal obligation to forsake nuclear weapons. For a number of years thereafter, however, it failed to reach a safeguards agreement to allow its civilian nuclear facilities to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),as required under the NPT regime. Almost from the beginning of its membership in this regime, therefore, North Korea was in breach of its international obligations. When Pyongyang finally signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1992 and inspections of its facilities began, evidence soon emerged indicating that Pyongyang was engaged in illicit nuclear activities consistent with the pursuit of nuclear weapons. It appeared that North Korea was separating from its spent reactor fuel the plutonium necessary to build nuclear weapons. What ensued was a dangerous nuclear crisis far more serious than the public realized at the time. In 1993, the IAEA formally deemed North Korea to be in a state of noncompliance, a status it retains to the present day. Pyongyang was pressured to allay international concerns, but it refused to allow access to data and facilities that would reveal the extent of its illicit activities and restore it to full compliance with the NPT. Instead, in March 1993, North Korea announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT, a decision it later reversed. Pyongyang's dogged refusal to cooperate or comply with its NPT obligations collided with US President Bill Clinton's stern resolve to deny North Korea the ability to acquire nuclear weapons. This collision produced a mounting crisis during 1993 and 1994 that brought the two countries to the edge of war. According to knowledgeable accounts, the Clinton administration was prepared to use force to destroy North Korea's nuclear facilities even at the risk of a war on the Korean peninsula. Certainly, explicit coercive threats were directed at Pyongyang, and North Korea's leadership responded with its own threats of war. Out of this high tension and drama came a diplomatic resolution of the crisis, negotiated over the summer of 1994 and resulting in the signing of a document called the Agreed Framework on October 21, 1994. In this deal, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactors, freeze its nuclear activities, and put its nuclear assets under IAEA inspection. In return, North Korea received a pledge that a consortium of outside powers would build it two modern nuclear reactors and provide it with large shipments of oil. …


Segmentation of cell nuclei in microscopy images is a prevalent necessity in cell biology. Especially for three-dimensional datasets, manual segmentation is prohibitively time-consuming, motivating the need for automated methods. Learning-based methods trained on pixel-wise ground-truth segmentations have been shown to yield state-of-the-art results on 2d benchmark image data of nuclei, yet a respective benchmark is missing for 3d image data. In this work, we perform a comparative evaluation of nuclei segmentation algorithms on a database of manually segmented 3d light microscopy volumes. We propose a novel learning strategy that boosts segmentation accuracy by means of a simple auxiliary task, thereby robustly outperforming each of our baselines. Furthermore, we show that one of our baselines, the popular three-label model, when trained with our proposed auxiliary task, outperforms the recent StarDist-3D. As an additional, practical contribution, we benchmark nuclei segmentation against nuclei detection, i.e. the task of merely pinpointing individual nuclei without generating respective pixel-accurate segmentations. For learning nuclei detection, large 3d training datasets of manually annotated nuclei center points are available. However, the impact on detection accuracy caused by training on such sparse ground truth as opposed to dense pixel-wise ground truth has not yet been quantified. To this end, we compare nuclei detection accuracy yielded by training on dense vs. sparse ground truth. Our results suggest that training on sparse ground truth yields competitive nuclei detection rates.


ABSTRACT This paper is a case study in teaching archaeology as part of an honors curriculum. It uses the example of one course, The Legacy of Ancient Technology, and the general goals of an honors program to examine how discipline-specific knowledge can be taught to non-majors. This paper explores the differences between students learning about a field of study versus those learning to become practitioners in a discipline. It posits that courses can be successfully built from a disciplinary foundation and still serve a diverse body of honors students when seminars focus on non-foundational knowledge, collaborative learning, and a discipline's existing attempts at public outreach. ARCHAEOLOGY AND HONORS: SITUATING THE COURSE The University Honors Program (UHP) at the University of New Mexico is an independent academic unit within University College, which houses a diverse array of departments like the retention-focused Freshmen Learning Communities and the student-directed Bachelor of University Studies. The College's two missions are "to function as an academic home for incoming students and to provide an administrative structure for several important interdisciplinary programs" (University of New Mexico 2006: 579). UHP courses are meant to offer experiences not available to undergraduates in their traditional home departments and are "designed to increase opportunities for liberal arts education for highly motivated and academically committed undergraduates from all University of New Mexico colleges and schools" (University of New Mexico 2006: 589). To do this, in part, the UHP has a permanent cadre of professors tenured in Honors rather than the many and specific disciplines in which they were trained. Their courses are interdisciplinary examinations of specific topics as opposed to honors versions of standard classes. The Legacy of Ancient Technology is offered instead of an honors version of Archaeology 101. The instructor's primary role is not to serve majors but to "highlight the social and ethical dimensions of [the course], as well as help students understand connections among a variety of academic subjects" (University Honors Program 2006:2). In fact, the current section of this course has no enrolled anthropology or archaeology majors, and fewer than a quarter of the students are undeclared majors who might even consider majoring in the discipline. Students in The Legacy of Ancient Technology conduct hands-on experiments making and using technologies commonly encountered in the archaeological record. These range from firemaking by friction to stone tool manufacture, atlatl throwing, cordage weaving, and the casting and laying of adobe blocks (figures 1 through 3). The curriculum was developed by an instructor grounded in North American archaeology. Yet, as will be explained below, it is important to note that the syllabus includes a broad array of technologies tied to no single time period or geographic area. A full syllabus of this course was previously published in Honors in Practice (Lovata 2006). Briefly, the class is based on the practice of experimental ethnoarchaeology. Ethnoarchaeology is a form of archaeology through analogy. Its practitioners attempt to understand the archaeological record and the peoples who created it via the study of the contemporary manufacture, use, reworking or recycling, and disposal of material culture (Cunningham 2003:392). First-hand experiments with, and ethnographic observations of, contemporary people are meant to lend an understanding of the physical and cultural contexts in which tools operate (Stiles 1977:90). They also highlight the contrasts between contemporary scholars and both the past and present peoples they study. This process, then, exposes the ways in which knowledge is constructed. Students in The Legacy of Ancient Technology act at different times as both participant and observer. They are given the opportunity to see, and assigned the goal of seeing, the same behaviors from different perspectives. …


While thinking about traditional action-learning, I began to wonder what philosophy Reg Revans espoused back in the 40's in the coal mines of Wales and England. Perhaps "those who do the job are the best people to solve the problems" would have been his catch-cry. Interested in action-learning's recent progeny, anticipatory action-learning (AAL), I began to explore my own philosophy and values in relation to this work using the PATOP model (Whiteley 2001) as a guide to ensuring my philosophy, values, assumptions, theory, organising principles and practice were in alignment. This is important to me as my business values are "integrity, creativity and foresight". I need to check from time to time that I am walking my talk. PATOP stands for Philosophy (and values), Assumptions, Theory, Organising, and Practice. (Whiteley 2001) The discussion in this essay has been structured around the PATOP model.


Nematodes of the family Stilbonematinae are known for their highly specific association with ectosymbiotic bacteria. These worms are members of the meiofauna in marine, sulfide-rich sediments, where they migrate around the redox boundary layer. In this study, bacterial ectosymbionts of 2 species of marine nematodes, Stilbonema sp. and Laxus oneistus, were shown to be capable of the respiratory reduction of nitrate and nitrite (denitrification). The use of these alternative electron acceptors to oxygen by the bacteria allows the animals to migrate into the deeper, anoxic sediments, where they can exploit the sulfide-rich patches of the deeper sediment layers. The accumulation of thiols (sulfide, thiosulfate, sulfate and glutathione) in body tissues of the worms was determined following incubation in the presence of various electron donors (sulfide, thiosulfate) and acceptors (nitrate). In their chemoautotrophic metabolic potential, the ectosymbionts of the 2 nematode species were found to resemble the phylogenetically related, intracellular symbionts of macrofaunal hosts of deep-sea hydrothermal vents and other sulfide-rich habitats.


Gender equality and women's empowerment are high on the government and donor agendas in Sub-Saharan Africa, but have largely failed to have an impact. Rather than 'mainstreaming' gender, more attention to the variations in the position of women is necessary. In a series of three studies on gender policies and the feminisation of poverty in Mozambique, significant differences were found between the north and the south as well as between rural and urban areas. Such variations are essential to understand in order to design relevant policies and interventions for improving the conditions for women in the country.


For most of its history, the public figurehead of what is now the European Union has been the President of the European Commission. In this volume, the editors have for the first time assembled a complete collection of specially written concise political biographies of all eleven of the Presidents from Walter Hallstein (1958-1967) to Jose Manuel Barroso (2004-2014), exploring their successes, failures, impact and legacy. This portfolio of mini-biographies makes fascinating reading in its own right, and to this the editors have added a thematic overview, drawing out the many similarities and contrasts between the Presidents and providing some general conclusions about what one President, Roy Jenkins, termed 'an impossible job'. This is a book of relevance to all who are interested in the history of the EU and its institutions and wish to understand how it got to where it is today. And, as the EU confronts immense challenges under the new Commission presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker, it also provides many signposts and pertinent historical analogies for the future.


This paper presents recent work on solder paste printing for wafer-level bumping at sub 100mum pitch using Pb-free solder paste with IPC type-6 (15-5mum) particle size distributions. Consistent sized paste deposits have been produced onto wafers at such a pitch using stencil printing. Furthermore, a stencil printing evaluation has determined the impact that the print parameters have on the reproducibility of the deposits. With the reduction of pitch and aperture size, large volumes of paste are required during reflowing of the fine particle solder paste to allow sufficient stand-off between the flip chip device and substrate. This volume of pastes affects also the print consistency and uniformity of the bumps generated. Printing defects from a large number of printing trials have been examined statistically for several bump geometries. The best print parameters were then used to print paste deposits onto wafers containing bond pads for reflow. Stencil printing process at ultra fine pitch demands refinements to both solder paste design and stencil manufacturing technology. Advancements in stencil fabrication methods have produced 'state-of-the-art' stencils exhibiting highly defined shaped apertures with smooth walls at ultra fine pitch, thus allowing for improved solder paste release at very small pitch and aperture size dimensions. The engineering of the paste rheology in terms of shear thinning, tackiness and visco-elastic properties was carried out by varying the metal content and flux type. The design of new paste material has also be conducted alongside a design of experiments to adjust printing parameters such as printing speed, pressure, print gap and separation speed to allow for a practical process window