This guide provides information about locating datasets for use in the social sciences (with a bit about data in the humanities and big data in STEM fields). It also has resources on using datasets (including in teaching) and associated issues.


Palladium ion-exchanged zeolites (ZSM-5, mordenite, ferrierite, Y, beta) were tested to evaluate catalytic activity for selective reduction of nitric oxide with methane (CH4-SCR) and stability in the presence of 10% water vapor at a relatively high temperature of 500°C. Deactivation of the catalytic activity was inevitable on Pd/HZSM-5 with a Si/Al ratio of 19.8 under the reaction conditions. When the Si/Al ratio decreased, the durability was slightly enhanced. Among the zeolites tested, palladium supported on mordenite showed stable NO conversions. The addition of cobalt effectively stabilized the activity of Pd–H-zeolites, particularly with the addition of 3.3 wt% cobalt onto Pd/HZSM-5, of which no deactivation was noticeable for at least 50 h. Isolated Pd2+ cations on HZSM-5 were the active and selective sites for CH4-SCR. The isolated Pd2+ cations could not be exchanged by Na+ cations in NaCl titration test after the addition of 3.3 wt% cobalt, while NH4NO3 titration revealed that the isolated Pd2+ existed in the sample. This means that Co2+ changes the ion-exchange property of the isolated Pd2+, leading to a much higher stability than Pd/HZSM-5 with regard to durability. The effect of Co2+ on the stability of the isolated Pd2+ cations and their sitings in zeolite cavities is discussed.


Background: Dietary polyphenols, including phytoestrogens are abundantly present in a balanced diet. Evidence for their role in preventing non-communicable diseases is emerging. Methods: We examined the association between estimated habitual intakes of dietary phytoestrogens and hypertension in a cohort study. The baseline data included 1936 men and women aged 18 years and older. Intakes of total phytoestrogens, isoflavones, and lignans were calculated from validated food frequency questionnaire. Data on the polyphenols content in foods were retrieved from the Phenol-Explorer database. Results: Individuals in the highest quartile of dietary phytoestrogens intake were less likely to be hypertensive (OR: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.44–0.98); moreover, the association showed a significant decreasing trend. Isoflavones and lignans were not associated with lower odds of hypertension; however, some individual compounds, such as biochanin A and pinoresinol showed an independent inverse association with hypertension. Conclusions: Dietary phytoestrogens are associated with lower likelihood of hypertension in adults living in the Mediterranean area. Future studies are needed to confirm the present findings (i.e., prospective cohort studies) and to better understand the mechanisms underlying such associations.


Experimental fishing was conducted off the port of Quarteira (southern Portugal) from October 2016 to February 2017 using standard trammel nets and modified nets rigged with a guarding net. The commercial catches of trammel nets rigged with a guarding net were 46.1% and 38.0% less than those of the standard net in numbers and economic value. However, there were significantly fewer commercial discards in biomass in the modified trammel nets (68.2%) and by-catch abundance and biomass were also lower in the modified nets (41.8% and 17.3% less, respectively). For the two main fish by-catch species, the modified net caught 62.2% fewer longfin gurnards ( C. obscurus ) and 33.1% fewer greater weever ( T. draco ) than the standard nets. Timing the removal from the nets of the main by-catch and discards species revealed savings in time associated with the use of modified nets. However, net damage occurred twice as much as in the modified net, probably contributing to the reduced commercial catches. The results indicate that trammel nets with the guarding net reduce by-catch and discards and save time, but are unlikely to be adopted by fishers targeting soles due to the higher costs of the modified nets and losses in commercial catches and earnings.


Doxepin is a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) used as a pill to treat major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, chronic hives, and for short-term help with trouble remaining asleep after going to bed (a form of insomnia). As a cream it is used for short term treatment of itchiness due to atopic dermatitis or lichen simplex chronicus. The aim of the present study was to in vitro evaluate the antibacterial effects of doxepin using MIC, MBC and disk diffusion methods. The MIC and MBC was determined by dilution assay using different concentrations of doxepin on Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Disk diffusion assay were prepared under sterile conditions disks of drugs (three repeat for each concentration) containing three different doses (25, 50 and 150 μg) were prepared. MIC values of doxepin against Pseudomonas aeruginosa was 0.750 mg/ml, and MBC values was 4.5 mg/ml and MIC values of doxepin on Bacillus subtilis was 0.500 mg/ml, and MBC values was 4.5 mg/ml. The results obtained from disk diffusion assay supported that the doxepin has not antibacterial effect against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus subtilis . It can be said that doxepin does not have antibiotic effect against gram negative and gram positive bacterial strain.


Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is the most potent endogenous vasoconstrictor and is involved in several vascular disorders such as hypertension. Its strong interaction with other vasoactive hormone systems suggests that the ET-1 gene (EDN1) is a potential candidate molecule that influences the risk of developing hypertension. Recently, two single nucleotide polymorphisms in EDN1 have been reported to be associated with hypertension: Lys198Asn and 3A/4A (-134delA) located in the 5'-untranslated region. To determine the association of these two polymorphisms with hypertension, we genotyped patients and controls (N = 537) and compared the allele and genotype frequencies between groups. There was no significant difference in the genotype frequencies of these two polymorphisms between healthy controls and hypertension patients. Although previous reports have revealed a significant interaction between the END1 Lys198Asn (G/T) polymorphism and body mass index in association with hypertension, no such relationship was observed in the present study. Further, we compared blood pressure among hypertensive subjects and observed that neither systolic nor diastolic blood pressure was significantly associated with variations in the genotypes of the two single nucleotide polymorphisms. In summary, these two END1 polymorphisms do not appear to affect the development of hypertension in the Chinese population.


The attempt to specify precisely the criteria to be used by the economist to evaluate economic policy and institutions has led to the development of that specialized branch of analysis known as "welfare economics." Bypassing the problem of interpersonal comparisons of utility by invoking the "compensation principle," welfare economics proceeds to demonstrate that Pareto optimality--P = MC in all product markets; P = VMP in all factor markets--contributes to maximal efficiency in the use of resources, to maximal real social income. Implicit in this line of reasoning is a fundamental assumption consistent with the conception of economic activity carried along in scholastic social philosophy--i.e, the principle that the key defining function of an economic system is to provide the flow of commodities needed to satisfy human need. Such a conclusion shows how welfare economics can illuminate and clarify Thomistic teaching on (e.g.) the just price; on the principle that privately owned resources must be deployed so as to serve the common good; on the living wage. To deal with the problem of multiple Pareto optima, welfare economics invokes the concept of the Social Welfare Function. With this notion, welfare economics has rediscovered another key principle of scholastic teaching on economic justice--property ownership and income are to be distributed in a pattern that matches share received to the relative status of society's member. Keywords: commutative justice, Pareto optimality, Scholasticism, distributive justice ********** It is remarkable that, although economists have rarely shown themselves reluctant to hand down pronouncements on economic policy--e.g. to condemn monopoly or the tariff--it is mainly within the last quarter-century that specialists in economic science have made a serious attempt to delineate precisely the criteria in terms of which their discipline evaluates economic policy. This attempt has led to the development of that rather specialized body of analysis known as "welfare economics." (1) Given the interpretation most common among contemporary economists, welfare economics, however useful it may be as an exercise in economic analysis, is of little practical significance. At most, it merely illustrates how policy analysis which attempts a rigorous exclusion of explicit ethical principles manages surreptitiously to reintroduce and obscure implicit ones. However--and this is one of the issues to be considered in this paper--welfare economics is perhaps susceptible of an alternative interpretation. Given this alternative interpretation, welfare economics seems to be at least consistent with--and at most a carefully-deduced corollary of--Scholastic moral philosophy. (2) Furthermore, if welfare economics can be made to bear such an interpretation, its arguments seem but to re-emphasize, and perhaps clarify, conclusions with which Scholastic economists--i.e. those who consider the practical science of economics as an adjunct of the Thomistic ethical system would heartily agree. For welfare economics, after using the most elegant tools of economic analysis to elucidate precisely the criteria which govern economic policy decisions, establishes normative generalizations. Though the typical present day economist probably does not realize it, these generalizations do in fact imply that the primary concern of public economic policy is, after all, the achievement of justice. Careful consideration of these and related matters requires brief discussion of the origin of the so-called "New Welfare Economics." To retell an old story briefly, it was preoccupation with the problem of "interpersonal comparisons" which, in the latter 1930's, gave rise to the modern, post-Pigovian version of welfare economics. In his searching examination of the methodological problems of economic science, Lionel Robbins had revived the interpersonal comparisons problem. Insisting that there was really no scientific way to compare the amount of one person's satisfaction with that of another, he had concluded that there was no scientific justification for income re-distribution (Robbins 1932). …


This report provides a review of the academic literature relevant to the mandatory adoption of IFRS reporting for member countries of the European Union in 2005 and an empirical analysis of the associated capital-market effects. In the empirical analysis, we focus on the effects on firms' costs of capital and market liquidity. More specifically, we analyze the effect of mandated IFRS reporting on the implied cost of equity capital, percentage bid-ask spreads, the price impact of trades and the frequency of zero-return days. The analysis provides a mixed picture for the capital-market effects of mandatory IFRS reporting in the EU. For the mandatory IFRS period, we find some evidence that the cost of capital is lower for all firms reporting under IFRS and for those that adopted IFRS for the first time in 2005 (relative to non-IFRS firms). The effects are small in magnitude and depend on the choice of benchmark sample. However, it is possible that the results are weakened by anticipation effects in markets ahead of IFRS adoption. The liquidity proxies provide stronger results that are robust across different benchmarks. In particular, the findings for the price impact of trades and for the frequency of zero-return days suggest improvements in market liquidity after IFRS reporting becomes mandatory. The results for the bid-ask spreads point in the same direction, but are weaker. The results for all three liquidity proxies become statistically significant when we introduce firm-fixed effects. However, we caution to attribute the observed effects solely or even primarily to the adoption of IFRS itself. Recently many EU countries have changed their enforcement (and governance) regimes, which could play an important role in our findings.


The central problem for pragmatics is that sentence meaning vastly underdetermines speaker's meaning. The goal of pragmatics is to explain how the gap between sentence meaning and speaker's meaning is bridged. This paper defends the broadly Gricean view that pragmatic interpretation is ultimately an exercise in mind-reading, involving the inferential attribution of intentions. We argue, however, that the interpretation process does not simply consist in applying general mind-reading abilities to a particular (communicative) domain. Rather, it involves a dedicated comprehension module, with its own special principles and mechanisms. We show how such a metacommunicative module might have evolved, and what principles and mechanisms it might contain.


Slave trade affects regional economic development, degree of trust among individuals, community cohesion, and ethnic identity, which in turn have a bearing on the spatial distribution of civil conflict in Africa. Hence, ethnic homelands that have more slaves exported are expected to be more prone to conflict. By using a subnational dataset in Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) between 1997 and 2014, we find that slave trade in the colonial period significantly causes higher risks of civil conflict in the present. In order to reduce the concern of endogeneity, we employ the historical slave trade distances as instruments, which do not affect conflict except through their influence on slave trade.


Global climate models (GCMs) are routinely relied upon to study the possible impacts of climate change on a wide range of meteorological phenomena, including tropical cyclones (TCs). Previous studies addressed whether GCMs are capable of reproducing observed TC frequency and intensity distributions. This research builds upon earlier studies by examining how well GCMs capture the physically relevant relationship between TC intensity and SST. Specifically, the influence of model resolution on the ability of a GCM to reproduce the sensitivity of simulated TC intensity to SST is examined for the MRI‐AGCM (20 km), the GFDL‐HiRAM (50 km), the FSU‐COAPS (0.94°) model, and two versions of the CAM5 (1° and 0.25°). Results indicate that while a 1°C increase in SST corresponds to a 5.5–7.0 m s−1 increase in observed maximum intensity, the same 1°C increase in SST is not associated with a statistically significant increase in simulated TC maximum intensity for any of the models examined. However, it also is shown that the GCMs all capably reproduce the observed sensitivity of potential intensity to SST. The models generate the thermodynamic environment suitable for the development of strong TCs over the correct portions of the North Atlantic basin, but strong simulated TCs do not develop over these areas, even for models that permit Category 5 TCs. This result supports the notion that direct simulation of TC eyewall convection is necessary to accurately represent TC intensity and intensification processes in climate models, although additional explanations are also explored.


The Begonia flora of Southeast Asia comprises more than 540 species. This exceptional species diversity and the wide distribution of the genus in tropical rainforests offers the opportunity to address biogeographical questions and to investigate the processes which underlie modern patterns of biodiversity, but also poses major taxonomic challenges. Only few apomorphies characterising infrageneric taxa in this large genus have been identified and delimitation of Asian Begonia sections is highly problematic. A robust phylogenetic framework of Asian Begonia informing taxonomic monographs and facilitating biogeographical and evolutionary studies is currently lacking.

Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of plastid (ndhA intron, ndhF-rpl32 spacer, rpl32-trnL spacer; 115 taxa) and nuclear ribosomal (ITS; 89 taxa) sequence data were used to reconstruct the phylogeny of Southeast Asian Begonia and to determine whether major Asian sections are monophyletic. Morphological characters which are crucial in current sectional circumscriptions were mapped on the phylogeny to determine their degree of homoplasy and to assess their suitability in infrageneric classifications. Relaxed molecular clock analyses of a Cucurbitales-Fagales datatset (cpDNA: matK gene, rbcL gene, trnL intron, trnL-F spacer; 92 taxa; five fossil calibrations) and a Begoniaceae datatset (cpDNA: ndhA intron, ndhF-rpl32 spacer, rpl32-trnL spacer; 110 taxa; two alternative secondary calibrations), as well as ancestral area reconstructions were employed to elucidate temporal and spatial diversification patterns in Asian Begonia.

The results indicate that Asian and Socotran Begonia species form a well supported clade. Most major Asian sections are not supported as monophyletic and the strong systematic emphasis placed on single, homoplasious characters such as undivided placenta lamellae (section Reichenheimia) and fleshy pericarps (section Sphenanthera), and the recognition of sections primarily based on a plesiomorphic fruit syndrome and the absence of characteristic features of other taxa (section Diploclinium) has resulted in the circumscription of several highly polyphyletic sections. Ovary and fruit characters have traditionally played a major role in sectional delimitation, however the high level of homoplasy associated with these has obscured systematic relationships in Asian Begonia. Gene trees derived from separate analyses of the plastid and nuclear ribosomal data show congruent support for several major clades, but there is hard incongruence within the clades comprising species of the species-rich sections Platycentrum s.l. (including section Sphenanthera) and Petermannia s.l. (including section Symbegonia), indicating that hybridization might have had a significant impact on the evolution of the genus.

The molecular divergence ages and the biogeographical analyses indicate an initial diversification of Asian Begonia on the Indian subcontinent and in continental Southeast Asia in the Middle Miocene, and subsequent colonization of Malesia by multiple lineages. The predominant directional trend of the reconstructed dispersals between continental Asia and Malesia and within Malesia is from west to east including four independent dispersal events from continental Southeast Asia and the Malesian Sunda Shelf region to Wallacea dating from the Late Miocene to the Pleistocene. Dispersal across the ancient deep water channels separating intervening islands of the Sunda Shelf and Wallacea and subsequent successful colonisation of Wallacean islands seem to have been infrequent events during this period. This suggests that the water bodies which have separated the Sunda Shelf region from Wallacea have been distinct, yet porous barriers to the predominantly anemochorous dispersal in Begonia. The inferred timing of dispersals from the Sunda Shelf region to Wallacea is generally concordant with hypotheses about the geological history of the region, which indicate that the period from the Late Miocene onwards offered opportunities for dispersal to Wallacea and across Wallacea to New Guinea as substantial land masses emerged in Sulawesi and New Guinea, and newly emergent volcanic islands along the Sunda Arc, the Banda Arc and the Halmahera Arc formed potential routes for dispersal by island hopping.

The results further suggest that Begonia section Petermannia (>270 spp.) originated in the Malesian Sunda Shelf region, and subsequently dispersed to Wallacea, New Guinea and the Philippines. Lineages within this section diversified rapidly since the Pliocene with diversification peaking in the Pleistocene. The timing of diversifications coincides with orogenesis on Sulawesi and New Guinea, as well as pronounced glacioeustatic sea-level and climate fluctuations. It can be hypothesised that a complex interplay of extrinsic and intrinsic factors including the presence and formation of suitable microhabitats by orogenesis, cyclical vicariance by frequent habitat fragmentations and amalgamations caused by sea-level and climate fluctuations, as well as only weakly developed mechanisms to maintain species cohesion in fragmented habitats in Begonia could have driven speciation in allopatry and could have resulted in the remarkable Begonia species diversity found in Southeast Asia today.


Routine examination of the bird collections of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie reveals, from time to time, the presence of unnamed subspecies. Four of these, from the Moluccas and from New Guinea, are described here. I am well aware that the detached description of some new subspecies is not a very valuable contribution to systematic ornithology, and usually try to incorporate descriptions in larger papers and revisions. The subspecies concerned belong, however, to species that are well-known or have been revised recently, so that little would be gained by postponing their descriptions.
I am indebted to Dr. Dean Amadon for the loan of material of Ailurơedus buccoides stonii from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History.
Tanysiptera galatea boanensis subspecies nova Diagnosis. — Adult birds differ from the adjacent races T. g. nais G. R.
Gray and T. g. acis Wallace, in that the whole crown is azureous blue; moreover several feathers on the anterior part of the back have azureous edges.
In both nais and acis, the central and anterior parts of the crown are blueviolet, and the anterior part of the back is violet. The new race has the scapulars paler azureous in colour than the two other races.
Material. — ♂ ad., type of subspecies, RMNH regd. no. 35579; ♀ ad., ♀ juv., all collected in 1863 on Boano by D. S. Hoedt.
Distribution. — Confined to the island of Boano, off the north-west coast of Ceram.
Remarks. — These birds were compared with a large series of T. g. nais, but only a single adult male of T. g. acis was available for comparison. The


The Great Recession was the most severe economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression. Using newly available population-level achievement data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), we estimate the impact of the Great Recession on the math and English language arts (ELA) achievement of all grade 3-8 students in the United States. Employing a difference-in-differences strategy that leverages both cross-district variation in the economic shock of the recession and within-district, cross-cohort variation in school-age years of exposure to the recession, we find that the onset of the Great Recession significantly reduced student math and ELA achievement. Moreover, the recessionary effect on student achievement was concentrated among school districts serving more economically disadvantaged and minority students, indicating that the adverse effects of the recession were not distributed equally among the population of U.S. students. We also find that the academic impact of the recession was more severe for students who were older at the time of first exposure to the recession, compared to their younger counterparts. Finally, the recession's effects on student achievement were concentrated in districts with the largest reductions in teacher personnel, providing evidence that the effects we observe are driven, in part, by the recession's negative effects on school resources. We discuss the implications of and potential policy responses to economic shocks that adversely affect student achievement and widen educational inequality.


Global road traffic accidents (RTAs) account for around 1.2 million fatalities annually and alarmingly, 30-40% of these fatalities are children [24]. Even in the UK, 60% of child deaths are from RTAs. In Asia, up to one third of these deaths are due to two-wheelers [24]. Helmets can help reduce fatalities by 25% but studies show compliance as low as 20% in Indonesia. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES of the study were to find out why people don't wear helmets and how to prevent head injuries in Indonesia by assessing the knowledge and attitudes of the public. Observations and interviews were carried out in Jakarta after thorough ethical consideration by the University of Leeds and the Indonesian Ministry of Health. Three observational sittings at the same location recorded characteristics of helmet use with simple analysis. Interviews featured structured questions on the knowledge and attitudes of helmet safety of students and the public. RESULTS were then coded thematically. Observations showed low helmet use for females and children compared to adult males. Many non-wearers were also passengers. Interview results showed poor awareness of the regulations and compliance amongst the public, especially with young males, women, children, and at night. Barriers to compliance of children discussed included the overlying culture amongst Indonesians passed down by parents, the lack of enforcement by parents and police, and peer pressure. Unavailability of correctly fitting helmets for children also affected usage and police stated they were unsure and inconsistent about enforcement on children. FINDINGS on the cultural barriers were consistent with previous studies and emphasise the importance of injury prevention to reduce global child mortality. Recommendations discovered involved media campaigns to target children using influential members. To improve the reliability, further research should be carried out in other Asian countries targeting children directly. 0 Language: en


Although we have to welcome the renewed interest in socio-materiality in organization studies, I claim that we are yet to understand what taking matter seriously really means. The mistake we especially need to stop making consists of automatically associating matter to something that can be touched or seen, that is, something tangible or visible, an association that irremediably leads us to recreate a dissociation between the world of human affairs and the so-called material world. To address this issue, I mobilize a communication-centered perspective to elaborate that (1) materiality is a property of all (organizational) phenomena and that (2) studying these phenomena implies a focus on processes of materialization, that is, ways by which various beings come to appear and make themselves present throughout space and time. In the paper I conceptualize the contours of these materialization processes and discuss the implications of this perspective on materiality for organizational theory and research.


Abstract Speaker immersion is a tactic that uses multiple establishing operations to increase speaker behavior for individuals with limited mand and tact repertoires. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effects of speaker immersion on the number of independent mands, tacts, and autoclitics emitted by young children with verbal delays. In the first experiment, two children who emitted autoclitic mands in instructional settings, but not in non-instructional settings, participated in 60-minute speaker immersion sessions for three days. Results showed that speaker immersion was effective in increasing the number of independently emitted autoclitic mands in a non-instructional setting for both participants. In the second experiment, two children with independent mands, tacts, and autoclitics in instructional settings, but not in non-instructional settings, received daily, 10-minute speaker immersion sessions. Results showed that speaker immersion also resulted in increased mands, tacts, and autoclitics for these participants. Outcomes are discussed in terms of establishing operations and the utility of speaker immersion as an instructional tactic. Keywords: Establishing Operation, Mand, Tact, Speaker Immersion ********** In verbal behavior, speaker behavior consists of six basic verbal operants or functions defined by their effect on a listener, including echoics, mands, tacts, intraverbals, textual responses, and autoclitics. Mands are verbal operants controlled by conditions of deprivation or aversive stimulus control and reinforced by the item specified in the mand (i.e., saying "Cookie" is reinforced by receiving a cookie). Tacts are verbal operants controlled by the presence of environmental stimuli and maintained by generalized reinforcement (i.e., saying "Bird" is reinforced by affirmation from a listener). Autoclitics are verbal operants that further modify the mand or tact operant (i.e., "I want the chocolate cookie" or "That's a blue bird)" Independent or "spontaneous" speaker behavior consists of verbal operants such as mands or tacts that are emitted under non-verbal antecedent control, and possibly used in ways not previously reinforced. This unprompted speaker behavior further implies the presence of a generalized reinforcer, such as a response from a listener. Acquisition of independent speaker behavior is significant because some research indicates that it is one component of language development that distinguishes children with delayed verbal repertoires from children with typically-developing verbal repertoires. For instance, Hart and Risley (1995) found that after minimal verbal instruction, typically-developing children not only used more independent speech than their peers with verbal delays, but also applied acquired vocabulary to untrained or novel stimuli and spoke about more topics. In contrast, children with verbal delays tend to use less independent speaker behavior than their typically-developing peers (Hart & Risley, 1995), and may not use trained speaker behavior for untaught stimuli or verbal functions unless direct teaching is provided (Greer, 2002; Nuzzolo-Gomez & Greer, 2004; Twyman, 1996). Thus, a frequent goal of language training programs is to teach children to emit speaker behavior beyond the training setting, or to emit it "independently." To facilitate independent speaker behavior, verbal behavior training programs incorporate establishing operations (EO), which are contrived or naturally-occurring motivational conditions created by manipulating events or stimuli in a child's environment such that they change the reinforcing effectiveness of other variables and the frequency of responses associated with those variables (Michael, 1988). For example, deprivation involves reducing a child's access to a desired item, which consequently may increase the reinforcing effectiveness of the item and the frequency of responses associated with obtaining it. …


Changes in the elemental ratios of Cl/Na and S/Na in sea-salt particles are expected from the atmospheric reactions of sulfuric and nitric acids with these particles. Chloride depletion is expected to occur upon the liberation of HCl to the gas phase, with the particles remaining enriched in sulfate or nitrate. The elemental ratios of Ca/Na, Mg/Na and K/Na should remain constant during this process. Analysis of chloride depletion and sulfur enrichment was obtained for individual sodium-containing particles from the remote marine Pacific atmosphere in both the accumulation mode (0.06 ≤ Dp ≤ 1.0 μm, where Dp is the particle diameter) and the coarse mode (Dp > 1.0 μm) size range. Sodium-containing particles comprised close to 100% of the coarse mode and 11 to 31% of the accumulation mode by number. Aerosols were collected with a low-perssure impactor and examined with a transmission electron microscope (TEM) coupled with an energy-dispersive X ray (EDX) detector. The elemental ratios obtained from the atmospheric particles were determined by comparison with values obtained from laboratory-generated sea-salt, sodium chloride, and sodium sulfate particles of known size and chemical composition, which served as a calibration set. The elemental ratios of Ca/Na, Mg/Na, and K/Na were found to remain fairly constant between individual sea-salt particles of various sizes for more than 85% of the particles examined. Deviations in the ratio of Cl/Na and S/Na from that of reference seawater values were observed most commonly for the submicrometer sea-salt aerosol. The Cl/Na ratio was significantly (Student's t test, 99.9%) lower than that of reference seawater for 89% of the particles examined, while the S/Na ratios were higher for 100% of the particles. The Cl/Na ratio measured in 48% of the coarse sea-salt particles (1.0 < Dp ≤ 2.5 μm) reflected the ratio in bulk seawater, while the remaining particles had statistically lower ratios and qualitatively different morphologies. All but 3% of these coarse particles had enhanced S/Na ratios over that of bulk seawater. Estimates of non-sea-salt (nss) sulfate mass ranged from 216 to 1422 fg for particles of 0.50 μm in diameter to 861 and 5235 fg for particles of 0.80 μm in diameter, corresponding to 74 to 96% of the sea-salt particle mass. These values are compared with the recent measurements of Mouri and Okada [1993] as well as predictions from the atmospheric chemistry models of in-cloud sulfate production of Hegg et al., [1992] and estimations of S(IV) oxidation in sea-salt aerosol water by Chameides and Stelson [1992].


This paper considers the impact of lean working practices on employees' health at work, at home and in their communities. The research on which the paper is based examines the legacy of working life on people in their retirement or redundancy. The retirees and redundant workers in our sample were employed in five sectors; local government, housing, autocomponents, automotive assembly and the NHS. We assess the relationships between working practices, including lean production, workplace health and safety, and retirement or redundancy. Two crucial issues require close scrutiny. The first comprise the following interrelated concerns. To what degree do contemporary management practices impact upon employees' reasons for taking early retirement or redundancy? Did managers decide on criteria for redundancy, (Burchell et al 2002) and was this achieved in collaboration with trade unions. Alternatively, was it an individual preference? For this question we will be examining the relationship between chronic injury, and/or mental stress, and their affects on the severance or redundancy package obtained. Second, where people leave at the statutory retirement age, how has the nature of their previous work, together with workplace regime, affected the way in which they experience retirement? While there is some research, by Burchell et al (2002), associating new forms of work, including forms of flexibility, with the criteria management use for deciding on redundancies, there is an absence of publish research into the consequences of lean working on individuals' decisions to take redundancy and/or retirement. What was it like for them, for those who are forced out of employment earlier than they would have wished, or anticipated, and what methods were used to achieve management aims? Moreover, while of course we have considerable evidence highlighting the use of retirement as a means to achieve redundancy ( MacKenzie et al, 2006), we require research into how lean working regimes link to a political economy of redundancy and retirement with very particular effects upon people at home and in their communities. In other words, we are concerned not only with the origins and event of redundancy/retirement but with the continuities between experiences in and post work in respect of managerial ideology and the commoditisation central to lean cultures of consumption. This is one way to draw links between labour processes and the new productivist discourse of lean. Finally, all this is of particular importance because while trade unions have often been very effective were they can impact upon redundancy packages and employee protections, we know very little about what happens to people 'after lean'. The paper will seek to link employees' experiences of work regime, including their redundancy, or retirement experience, to what happens to them subsequently, in terms of their health and the quality of their lives at the end of their employment. Typically, the redundancy package is defined in monetary terms but where we understand more about the physical and psychological consequences of the end of an employees' working life, we will be better able to require that former employers pay more. For us, this is another way of saying that the redundancy package, together with a monetary compensation value, fails to recognise a specific, and hitherto unrecognised, physical value in terms of long term health costs. This is vital in beginning to raise the debate about who pays for the social and economic costs incurred in the creation of redundancies in the context of the lean society. We would argue that, typically, this is covered by the social wage in respect of NHS and other welfare agencies but this passing the buck has been too easily accepted. Knowing more about the consequences of lean working will allow us to argue for an agenda which places the cost of lean work more squarely on the employer. It could be seen to being analogous to the new environmental consensus, of making the polluter pay.


A growing literature has documented the role of firm heterogeneity within sectors for nominal income inequality. This paper explores the implications for household price indices across the income distribution. Using detailed matched US home and store scanner microdata, we present evidence that rich and poor households source their consumption differently across the firm size distribution within disaggregated product groups. We use the data to examine alternative explanations, propose a tractable quantitative model with two-sided heterogeneity that rationalizes the observed moments, and calibrate it to explore general equilibrium counterfactuals. We find that larger, more productive firms sort into catering to the taste of richer households, and that this gives rise to asymmetric effects on household price indices. We quantify these effects in the context of policy counterfactuals that affect the distribution of disposable incomes on the demand side or profits across firms on the supply side.


Throughout the history of Software Engineering (SE) it has been repeatedly found that the humans involved, i.e. the engineers and developers in addition to other stakeholders, are a key factor in determining project outcomes and success. However, the amount of research that focuses on human aspects has been limited compared to research with technology or process focus. With increasing maturity of the field, interest in agile methods and a growing dissatisfaction with the continued challenges of developing high-quality software on time, the amount of SE research putting human aspect in primary focus has increased. In this paper we argue that a synthesized view of the emerging human-focused SE research is needed and can add value through giving focus, direction and help identify gaps. Taking cues from the addition of Behavioral Economics as an important part of the area of Economics we propose the term Behavioral Software Engineering (BSE) as an umbrella concept for research that focus on behavioral and social aspects in the work activities of software engineers. We propose that a model based on three units of analysis can give structure and point to concepts that are important for BSE. To add detail to this model we are conducting a systematic review to map out what is currently known. To exemplify the model and the area we here present the results from a subset of the identified concepts.


The role of speculators in derivatives markets has been a source of considerable interest. One large category of speculative traders, hedge funds, has drawn considerable attention in recent years. Much of the attention has focused on the concern that hedge funds exert a destabilizing effect on these markets, which may ultimately lead to higher trading costs. Employing a unique dataset consisting of trader positions in U.S. energy futures markets, this article analyzes trading relationships between hedge funds and other groups of traders (e.g., hedgers and other speculators). Results show that on average hedge funds do not change their positions as frequently as other groups. Results also show that, on average, changes in hedge funds positions are triggered by position changes of other trader groups. The article finds that hedge funds are an important source of liquidity to the other participants and the hypothesis that hedge fund trading causes price volatility in energy futures markets is rejected.


U14 is one of several nucleolar small nuclear RNAs required for normal processing of rRNA. Functional mapping of U14 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae has yielded a number of mutants defective in U14 accumulation or function. In this study, we have further defined three structural elements required for U14 accumulation. The essential elements include the U14-conserved box C and box D sequences and a 5', 3' terminal stem. The box elements are coconserved among several nucleolar small nuclear RNAs and have been implicated in binding of the protein fibrillarin. New mutational results show that the first GA bases of the box C sequence UGAUGA are essential, and two vital bases in box D have also been identified. An intragenic suppressor of a lethal box C mutant has been isolated and shown to contain a new box C-like PyGAUG sequence two bases upstream of normal box C. The importance of the terminal stem was confirmed from new compensatory base changes and the finding that accumulation defects in the box elements can be complemented by extending the terminal stem. The results suggest that the observed defects in accumulation reflect U14 instability and that protein binding to one or more of these elements is required for metabolic stability.


The second edition of the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus is the perfect language resource, combining a dictionary and thesaurus text. This means that you only have to reach for one book when you need language help. In this edition the dictionary and thesaurus texts are integrated so that the thesaurus entry for a word follows the dictionary entry directly. This is based on market research into user preferences making the dictionary accessible, clear, and easy to use. New to this edition is a centre section for crossword enthusiasts and puzzle solvers, containing hundreds of thematic word lists. With 300,000 definitions, synonyms, and antonyms, this really is the ultimate tool for anyone who loves language-based quizzes and puzzles. The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus also features usage notes to help you deal with tricky vocabulary and improve your writing style. The ultimate reference tool for your shelf - but not designed to stay there! Explore our language resources on oxforddictionaries.com, Oxford's home for dictionaries and language reference. Updated regularly with the latest changes to words and meanings, the site provides hundreds of thousands of definitions, synonyms, and pronunciations in a range of languages. Access the highest quality language content, built from our extensive research, for free on your desktop or device.


Trajectory generation approaches for mobile robots generally aim to optimize with respect to a cost function such as energy, execution time, or other mission-relevant parameters within the constraints of vehicle dynamics and obstacles in the environment. We propose to add the cost of state observability to the trajectory optimization in order to ensure fast and accurate state estimation throughout the mission while still respecting the constraints of vehicle dynamics and the environment. Our approach finds a dynamically feasible estimation-optimized trajectory in a sequence of connected convex polytopes representing free space in the environment. In addition, we show a statistical procedure that enables observability-aware trajectory optimization for heterogeneous states in the system both in magnitude and units, which was not supported in previous formulations. We validate our approach with extensive simulations of a visualinertial state estimator on an aerial platform as a specific realization of our general method. We show that the optimized trajectories lead to more accurate navigation while eliminating the need for a separate calibration procedure.


Interferometry at grazing incidence allows one to perform macroscopic shape tests of rough surfaces with submicrometer precision. The highest measurement accuracy is achieved with a null test: the object wave front is adapted to the ideal surface under test through the use of diffractive optical elements. Deviations between the ideal and the real surface shape result in characteristic phase distributions at the interferometer output. Rod objects with rather arbitrary cross-section profiles are especially suitable for this type of measurement. The design of appropriate test wave fronts can be carried out by means of geometrical considerations. Expressions describing aberrations that are due to misalignments of the work piece can easily be derived. Misalignment aberrations and genuine surface deviations are separated by least-squares fitting.


It is widely accepted within the software engineering community that the support for integration is necessary for requirement models. Several methodologies, such as the role-based software development, that have appeared in the literature are relying on some kind of integration. However, current integration techniques and their tools support are insufficient. In this research, we discuss our solution to the problem. More precisely, we present a general integration approach for scenario-based models, particularly for UML Sequence Diagrams, based on the colimit construction known from category theory.
In our approach, Sequence Diagrams are represented by SD-graphs, a special kind of typed graphs. The merge algorithm for SD-graphs is an extension of existing merge operations on sets and graphs. On the one hand, the merge algorithm ensures traceability and guarantees key theoretical properties (e.g., "everything is represented and nothing extra is acquired" during the merge). On the other hand, our formalization of Sequence Diagrams as SD-graphs retains the graphical nature of Sequence Diagrams, yet is amenable to algebraic manipulations. Another important property of our process is that our approach is applicable to other kinds of models as long as they can be represented by typed graphs.
A prototype Sequence Diagram integration tool following the approach has been implemented. The tool is not only a fully functional integration tool, but also served as a test bed for our theory and provided feedback for our theoretical framework. To support the discovery and specification of model relationships, we also present a list of high-level merge patterns in this dissertation.
We believe our theory and tool are beneficial to both academia and industry, as the initial evaluation has shown that the ideas presented in this dissertation represent promising steps towards the more rigorous management of requirement models.
We also present an approach connecting model transformation with source transformation and allowing an existing source transformation language (TXL) to be used for model transformation. Our approach leverages grammar generators to ease the task of creating model transformations and inherits many of the strengths of the underlying transformation language (e.g., efficiency and maturity).


This video illustrates several widgets that help people maintain awareness of one another in shared workspaces. Many real-time distributed groupware systems provide a shared space where participants can see and manipulate work artifacts; however, these systems present only a fraction of the information that is available in a face-to-face setting. As a result, people are less able to keep track of where others are working, what they are doing, and what they are going to do next. The widgets in this video demonstrate two approaches that can help to solve this problem. First, overviews can be used to provide a highlevel picture of the workspace and the locations and activities of the people in it. Second, detail views can show the particulars of another person's work area, giving a closer look at their interaction with the workspace.


Unsolicited solicitations in the form of telemarketing calls, email spam and junk mail impose in aggregate a substantial negative externality on society. Telemarketers do not bear the full costs of their marketing because they do not compensate recipients for the hassle of say, being interrupted during dinner. Current regulatory responses that give consumers the all-or-nothing option of registering on the Internet to block all unsolicited telemarketing calls are needlessly both overand underinclusive. A better solution is to allow individual consumers to choose the price per minute they would like to receive as compensation for listening to telemarketing calls. Such a "name your own price" mechanism could be easily implemented technologically by crediting consumers'phone bills (a method analogous to the current debits to bills from 1-900 calls). Compensated calling is also easily implemented within current "don 'tcall" statutes simply by giving "don 't-call" households the option to authorize intermediaries to connect calls that meet their particular manner or compensation prerequisites. Under this rule, consumers are presumptively made better off by a regime that gives them greater freedom. Telemarketing firms facing higher costs of communication are likely to better screen potential contacts. Consumers having the option of choosing an intermediate price will receive fewer calls, which will be better tailored to their interests, and will be compensated for those calls they do receive. Giving consumers the right to be compensated may also benefit some telemarketers. Once consumers are voluntarily opting to receive telemarketing calls (in return for tailored compensation), it becomes possible to deregulate the telemarketers-lifting current restrictions on the time (no night time calls) and manner (no recorded calls). And faced with increasing caller resistance, we imagine that survey groups, such as the Gallop Poll, might welcome the opportunity to compensate survey respondents so that they might be able to produce more representative samples.


In this work, graphene self-assembled multilayers (SAMs) could be successfully employed to construct a surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF) system. The graphene films (GrFs) were firstly prepared on FTO glass by an electrochemical deposition method. The structures of the SAMs could form when the polyelectrolyte was electrostatically adsorbed, achieving control of the distance between the graphene and the fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) employed as the fluorophore. The enhanced efficiency was found to be strongly dependant on the type and surface morphology of graphene, and the number of polyelectrolyte film layers. A distance dependent increase in fluorescence quantum yield and a decreasing fluorescence lifetime could be observed. The films could achieve a maximum of an ∼5-fold increase in the fluorescence intensity of the CDs when the distance from the graphene surface to the CDs was approximately 3 PDDA/PSS bilayers. It was found that the sensitivity for detecting vitamin B12 (VB12) based on the GrFs was over 50 times that of the fluorophore not attached to the graphene surface. The established graphene-enhanced fluorescence system based on the SAMs shows highly sensitive sensing for VB12.


This paper examines two innovative educational initiatives for the Ecuadorian public health workforce: a Canadian-funded Masters programme in ecosystem approaches to health that focuses on building capacity to manage environmental health risks sustainably; and the training of Ecuadorians at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba (known as Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina in Spanish). We apply a typology for analysing how training programmes address the needs of marginalized populations and build capacity for addressing health determinants. We highlight some ways we can learn from such training programmes with particular regard to lessons, barriers and opportunities for their sustainability at the local, national and international levels and for pursuing similar initiatives in other countries and contexts. We conclude that educational efforts focused on the challenges of marginalization and the determinants of health require explicit attention not only to the knowledge, attitudes and skills of graduates but also on effectively engaging the health settings and systems that will reinforce the establishment and retention of capacity in low- and middle-income settings where this is most needed.


Classic Adaptive Optics (AO) is now a proven technique to correct turbulence for earth based astro- nomical telescopes. But the corrected Field of View (FoV) is however limited by the anisoplanatism e ect. Many concepts of wide field AO systems are now under study, especia lly for ELT's instruments. These systems allow a tomographic reconstruction of the turbulent volume thanks to the use of several WaveFront Sensors (WFS). They can provide for instance a correction in a specific direction (Laser Tomography AO system) with one Deformable Mirror (DM) or in a wide FoV (Multi Conjugate AO system) with several DMs conjugated to di erent altitudes. The performance optimization of such complex systems raises inevitably new questions in terms of calibration and control. We present our current developments on performance optimization of wide field AO system. We show that performance can be significantly improved with tom ographic control based on Linear Quadratic Gaus- sian control, compared to more standard methods. The associated calibration and system modeling strategy is described. The results presented here are the first experime ntal validations of LQG control in closed-loop MCAO and LTAO configurations. These tests have been performed on H OMER bench, recently developed at ONERA and devoted to MCAO and wide field AO laboratory research. Thi s bench implements two deformable mirrors and a wide field Shack-Hartmann WFS.


The structure of the 64-dimensional extended real Clifford-Dirac (ERCD) algebra, which has been introduced in our paper Phys. Lett. A. 375 (2011) 2479, is under consideration. The subalgebras of this algebra are investigated: the 29-dimensional proper ERCD algebra and 32-dimensional pure matrix algebra of invariance of the Dirac equation in the Foldy-Wouthuysen representation. The last one is the maximal pure matrix algebra of invariance of this equation. The different realizations of the proper ERCD algebra are given. The application of proper ERCD algebra is illustrated on the example of the derivation of the hidden spin (1,0) Poincare symmetry of the Dirac equation.


The twisting of polished cylinders beyond the elastic limit results in the formation of surface cracks in the smooth surface. These surface cracks scatter light in a characteristic way. For small plastic deformations, the light scattering properties of the surface depend linearly on the permanent twist angle. Therefore, light scattering may be used as a kind of strain gauge.


Focuses on the resourcing of organisations with people, this engaging text achieves a balance between academic rigour and practitioner relevance. This balanced approach, together with the breadth and versatility of the content, enables the book to be used effectively for modules based on the CIPD Professional Standards and other upper-level HRM modules. Substantially revised and updated to match new CIPD Professional Standards, this fourth edition promises to make the subject even more involving and understandable. Readable and clear, People Resourcing and Talent Management uses real life examples and case studies to examine how HR theory and concepts apply in practice. This book addresses a broad range of HR issues and covers all the activities that are essential for the acquiring, managing and retaining talent this from HR planning through to release from employment. It describes and analyses contemporary HR practice and puts it into context, covering the latest developments in people resourcing and talent planning. This text meets the knowledge and understanding requirements for the CIPD's Resourcing and Talent Management module.


Background: Blood transfusion is a vital component of the health care delivery system of every country. Though it is often delegated to a non-governmental organization, it is the responsibility of government to ensure adequate, safe supplies of blood, blood products and services to meet the needs of all patients in a timely, cost effective and efficient manner. Donor blood procurement from voluntary non remunerated donor has been considered the safest source of blood. Globally total safe blood supply was obtained from voluntary blood donors.
Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of blood donation among residents of Aman Sub-City, South West Ethiopia, from June 1-15/2015 G.C.
Methods: Community based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from June 1-15/2015. Simple random sampling method was employed to select study participants, data were collected through standardized and pre tested questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS and presented by using frequency distribution tables, graphs and deferent charts. Dissemination of results was made for respective bodies. Ethical clearance was obtained from college of health science.
Result: Among the total respondents 226(90.4%) knew about blood donation; from those respondents 190(76%) had good knowledge, while the rest had poor and average knowledge. More than 2/3 of our respondents 212(93.8%) had positive (good) attitude whereas, the rest had negative attitude. Even though most of the respondents have good knowledge and positive attitude only 66(26.4%) of them have practiced blood donation. Among these 34(51.2%) have donated only 3 times in their life time and 25(37.9%) was donated when needed and also 30(45.5%) of them donated for their relatives/friends as a replacement donor while only 18(27.3%) donated voluntarily.
Conclusion and recommendation: The study participants had good awareness and most of the respondents had positive attitude towards blood donation. However, they had low practice of donation. Therefore, zonal health office has to disseminate information on blood donation through mass Medias. Health professionals and Red Cross have to educate the community to increase the uptake of blood donation.


In this work a novel phenomenological model is proposed to study the liquid-to-solid phase change of eutectic and hypoeutectic alloy compositions. The objective is to enhance the prediction capabilities of the solidi…cation models based on a-priori de…nition of the solid fraction as a function of the temperature …eld. However, the use of models de…ned at the metallurgical level is avoided to minimize the number of material parameters required. This is of great industrial interest because, on the one hand, the classical models are not able to predict recalescence and undercooling phenomena, and, on the other hand, the complexity as well as the experimental campaign necessary to feed most of the microstructure models available in the literature make their calibration di¢ cult and very dependent on the chemical composition and the treatment of the melt. Contrarily, the proposed model allows for an easy calibration by means of few parameters. These parameters can be easily extracted from the temperature curves recorded at the hot spot of the Quick-Cup test, typically used in the Di¤erential Thermal Analysis (DTA) for the quality control of the melt just before pouring. The accuracy of the numerical results is assessed by matching the temperature curves obtained via DTA of eutectic and hypoeutectic alloys. Moreover, the model is validated in more complex casting experiments where the temperature is measured at di¤erent thermocouple locations and the metallurgical features such as grain size and nucleation density are obtained from an exhaustive micrography campaign. The remarkable agreement with the experimental evidence validates the predicting capabilities of the proposed model.


Today the increasing number of constant consumers is a strategic aim for any organization which is possible to be achieved only under condition of continuous perfection of organizational activity quality. If the service representation doesn't correspond to the consumers' expectations they lose their interest to the service organization, if it does correspond or surpass their expectations they probably would readdress to service provider. For this reason the service organization should more precisely reveal consumers requirements and expectations, namely provider should constantly measure its service quality. In the given work approaches by the Russian and foreign researchers in the field of quality management are studied and analyzed in details, namely: Approaches to the « service quality» definition; The basic components of service quality management process; Service organization quality model. The purpose of research work consists of ISQM (Innovation System of Quality Management) model creation taking into account features of TCS providing, which, in turn, is targeted on TCS company purposes achievement in the field of quality by means of: setting the control values of TCS quality indicators; measuring of the reached results and their comparison with expected results; effective management decision making as a result of carrying out the analysis of managerial activity in the field of quality on the basis of the report containing recommendations for the company activity improvement, prepared due to the results of measuring and collecting quality indicators.


Selective delivery of drugs to parasites via plasma membrane transporters offers an effective approach to specifically target pathogens. Using biochemical techniques, we have identified and characterised a number of purine nucleobase and nucleoside transporters in protozoan parasites such as Leishmania major, Leishmania mexicana, Trypanosoma brucei and Toxoplasma gondii. In one study, the uptake of [3H]adenine, [3H]hypoxanthine, and [3H]allopurinol, and antileishmanial hypoxanthine analogue, by Leishmania major promastigotes was investigated. The results showed that these compounds were all taken up by a single high-affinity transporter, LmajNBT1, with Km values of 4.6±0.9, 0.71±0.07, and 54±3 μM and Vmax values of 3.2±0.3, 2.8±0.6, and 0.24±0.06 pmol (107 cells)-1s-1, respectively. [3H]adenine transport was fully inhibited by the natural purines guanine and xanthine, with Ki values of 2.8±0.7 and 23±8 μM, respectively. Using purine analogues, an extensive inhibitor profile for LmajNBT1 was obtained, which allowed the construction of a quantitative model for the interactions between the transporter binding site and the permeant. The model predicts that hypoxanthine was bound through hydrogen bonds to N(1)H, N3, N7, and N(9)H of the purine ring, with a total Gibbs free energy of -39.5 kJ/mol. The interactions with adenine were similar, except for a weak hydrogen bond to N1 (unprotonated in adenine). The predicted model of substrate binding for LmajNBT1 was almost identical to that for the Trypanosoma brucei H2 (TbH2) transporter. It is proposed that the architecture of their respective binding sites is very similar and that LmajNBT1 can be named a functional homolog of TbH2. This thesis also reports the first identification and characterization of a purine nucleobase transporter in Leishmania amastigotes. Uptake of [3H]hypoxanthine by Leishmania mexicana amastigotes was mediated by a single high-affinity transporter, LmexNBT1, with Km and Vmax values of 1.6±0.4μM and 0.092 ± 0.057 pmol (107 cells)-1s-1 respectively, with high affinity for adenine, guanine, and xanthine, with Ki values of 4.2±0.8, 1.7±0.1, and 13±2 μM respectively, but low affinity for nucleosides and pyrimidine nucleobases. Allopurinol was apparently taken up by the same transporter (Km of 33.6±6.0 μM). All evidence was compatible with a model of a single purine nucleobase transporter being expressed in amastigotes. Using various purine nucleobase analogues, a model for the interactions between hypoxanthine and the transporter's permeant binding site was constructed and compared with previously obtained models for substrate recognition by nucleobase transporters, and found to be very similar to the models of the LmajNBT1 and TbH2 transporters, but markedly different from the human FNT1 transporter.


Since 2006, the interdisciplinary project "Leventina – Prehistoric Settlement Landscape", funded by the Swiss National Foundation, is being conducted under the coordination of the Department of Pre- and Protohistory of the University of Zurich with researchers from further disciplines. The project investigates prehistoric settlement and economy in various altitudinal zones of the Alpine Ticino valley. One of the aims is to reconstruct the agricultural, pastoral and forestal land use in the Bronze and Iron Ages, and to evaluate the influencing factors on the spatial distribution of subsistence economy areas. A wide range of spatial and archaeological data as well as literature and field data describing properties in particular of the ancient economic plants was available for the purpose. Based on these data, a factor analysis and a subsequent prediction were conducted in order to evaluate the variables with a likely impact on agricultural land use at prehistoric times, and to detect potential agricultural land. Additionally, using predictive modeling, we aimed at extracting factors with impact on the spatial distribution of Bronze age settlement sites and generating a potential map of areas used for settlement. Furthermore, a cost path analysis was conducted to investigate different traffic routes across the main ridge of the Alps in terms of travel time.


Autobiography, that 18th century neologism. has never had a fixed or stable meaning. having recently been replaced by the "memoir" label by commercial publishers, and folded into the umbrella term. "life writing." by an academic community interested in a broad assortmentof "personal" texts and documems (diaries. essavs, letters. poems, blogs, as well as traditional autobiographies). A compound of three Greek words--sell. life, writing--autobiography implies a narrative element. in the writing of a life. Thus by the mid-19th century. the term had come to designate the large-scale retrospective life -narrative in the tradition of. St. Augustine's comfessions By then, the self-reflexive tenor of the extended first-person life-narrative and its hermeneutic challenge of sell-knowledge had become problematic, as Leigh Hunt wryly observed about die revised edition of his autobiography, which firs appeared in 1850, revised in 1860: "I now semi it a second time. and with additional matter. into the world, under the sure and certain conviction, that every autobiographer must of necessity be better known to his readers than to himself" (448). By the time Hunt wrote his autobiography, the term had not only become part of the critical nomenclature but had also been embraced as a fictional device in novels such as Jane Eyre, subtitled "An Autobiography." David Copperfield, and Great Expertations. Indeed. the life and experiences of Copperfield are close enough in some regards to Dickens's own to warrant the label of "autobiographical novel," even if the opening sentence, "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show" (1) suggests the novelist more than the autobiographer. In the postmodern later 20th century. any necessary connection between text and life falls mostly by the wayside in a critical climate where the self itself becomes a textual fabrication or liction. Thus by 1980, William Spengemanm in The Forms of Autobiography includes Sartor Resatus, David Copperfield. and The Letter in the category of "poetic Autobiography," and in his recent book [Sex, Lies and Autobiogyaphy. 2006] James O'Rourke discusses Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Villelle, and Lalita as autobiographies. Twentieth century novelists too have capitalized on autobiographical fiction, to the point where. by mid-century. J.D. Salinger could make fun of "all that David Copperfield kind of crap" with Holden Caulfield's vernacular assertion. "I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything" (1) even as the first-person narrator presents a poignant autobiographical account of his recent misadventures. If die line between genuine and fictional autobiography has been blurred and become a source of scandal in the case of fraudulent memoirs pretending to be genuine, when autobiogragraphy is assimilated into the larger and more amorphous category, life-writing, the narrative dimension recedes and appears to be less of a requirement--at least once the definition of autobiography calls for something other than or different from an overarching retrospective life-narrative. Thus diaries, letters, and lyrical poems could be loosely construed. if not as "autobiography," then at least as autobiographical, especially if they contain narrative stretches or segments. Another kind of life-writing which Michel Beaujour has proposed as a separate genre, the "autoportrait," "distinguishes itself from the autobiography by the absence of a continuous narrative." Montaigne's Essais, Rousseau's Reveries, and Nietzsche's Ecce Homo eschew narrativity because "the operative formula of the autoportrait is ... "I will not. recount what I have done. but I am going to tell you who I am'" (8-9) While narrative in some form of life-writing is diminished, absent, or irrelevant., strictly speaking, the narrative element of autobiography is in some sense constitutive, recognized in recent theoretical treatments, notably by John Eakin in Living Autobiographically: How We Create Identity in Narrative (2008) and How Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (1999). …


ABSTRACT

Chemical compositions of particulate matter (PM) from traffic emissions vary by region and with time. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain local mobile source profiles of PM to support regional researches for vehicle emission control policy, source apportionment modeling, etc. In this study, PM2.5 and PM10 samples were collected from a highway tunnel in Xi'an in northwestern China. The chemical composition, specifically, the OC, EC, water-soluble ions, and elements, was analyzed in detail to (1) provide local PM profiles for a mixed vehicle fleet, (2) identify the origins of different elements in the tunnel environment, and (3) determine the associated factors influencing the profiles. The PM2.5 profiles in the tunnel were identified as OC (34.10%), EC (11.96%), water-soluble ions (18.22%), and elements (27.73%), while the PM10 profiles included OC (28.48%), EC (8.59%), water-soluble ions (14.17%), and elements (33.36%), respectively. The origins of the elements in the tunnel were classified into three categories by the receptor modeling approach: resuspended road dust and brake wear, vehicle exhaust and tire wear, and tailpipe emissions from diesel vehicles (DV). The mass fractions of OC, EC, and elements originating from resuspended road dust and brake wear were mainly affected by vehicle driving conditions (i.e., uphill/downhill and speed), whereas the mass content of bromine (Br) was influenced by the proportion of DV in the fleet.


The year is 2030. Scientists' warnings from 2019 went unheeded and the consequences of climate destruction are now apparent. You are summoned for jury duty at the people's court to decide responsibility for the ultimate crime against humanity and life on earth. Evidence is presented on the role of Governments, industry, the media, academia, art institutions and the citizenry, and in all cases the jury will consider the same question: "In light of what they knew in 2019, did they do enough, and if not, what should they have done?"

Part-theatre, part-art installation, part-people's court, this event on climate justice and accountability presented testimonies, along with visuals and video installations, brought this trial to life as an immersive experience. Overseen by a judge, it was up to the audience, the jury, to decide whether each party is guilty or not.

Curation by Amy McDonnell and Eva Sajovic. With climate litigation charity Plan B, Extinction Rebellion, visual arts organisation 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, People's Bureau, Name Theatre and massive thanks to Stinsensqueeze.


Glyoxal (CHOCHO) is produced in the atmosphere by the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Like formaldehyde (HCHO), another VOC oxidation product, it is measurable from space by solar backscatter. Isoprene emitted by vegetation is the dominant source of CHOCHO and HCHO in most of the world. We use aircraft observations of CHOCHO and HCHO from the SENEX campaign over the southeast US in summer 2013 to better understand the CHOCHO time-dependent yield from isoprene oxidation, its dependence on nitrogen oxides (NOx ≡NO+NO2), the behavior of the CHOCHO–HCHO relationship, the quality of OMI CHOCHO satellite observations, and the implications for using CHOCHO observations from space as constraints on isoprene emissions. We simulate the SENEX and OMI observations with the Goddard Earth Observing System chemical transport model (GEOSChem) featuring a new chemical mechanism for CHOCHO formation from isoprene. The mechanism includes prompt CHOCHO formation under low-NOx conditions following the isomerization of the isoprene peroxy radical (ISOPO2). The SENEX observations provide support for this prompt CHOCHO formation pathway, and are generally consistent with the GEOS-Chem mechanism. Boundary layer CHOCHO and HCHO are strongly correlated in the observations and the model, with some departure under low-NOx conditions due to prompt CHOCHO formation. SENEX vertical profiles indicate a free-tropospheric CHOCHO background that is absent from the model. The OMI CHOCHO data provide some support for this free-tropospheric background and show southeast US enhancements consistent with the isoPublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 8726 C. Chan Miller et al.: Glyoxal yield from isoprene prene source but a factor of 2 too low. Part of this OMI bias is due to excessive surface reflectivities assumed in the retrieval. The OMI CHOCHO and HCHO seasonal data over the southeast US are tightly correlated and provide redundant proxies of isoprene emissions. Higher temporal resolution in future geostationary satellite observations may enable detection of the prompt CHOCHO production under low-NOx conditions apparent in the SENEX data.


With the elimination of the federal deficit, the Bank of Canada, the Department of Finance, and financial market participants are examining ways to manage the reduction in the stock of marketable debt. This paper summarizes three different methods ¯ reverse auction, over-the-counter purchases, and conversions ¯ that could be used to buy back Government of Canada bonds before they mature. The relation between the size of bond benchmark issues and the liquidity of the government securities market is examined. It is argued that the consolidation of bond issues, as well as the maintenance of large benchmarks, tends to enhance market liquidity. Thus, in an environment where the government's marketable debt is shrinking, purchasing off-the-run bonds ahead of maturity and the maintenance of large bond benchmarks helps maintain, and possibly enhances, the liquidity of a government securities market. In discussing the buy-back mechanics, reverse auctions are shown to be similar to conventional bond auctions except that tenders are made for the sale rather than the purchase of securities. Following this, the paper examines two over-the-counter repurchase methods. The first is similar to the coupon-pass approach used by the Federal Reserve. The second is simply direct over-the-counter purchases in the secondary market. Finally, the mechanics that underlie conversions (switches) are shown to be similar to reverse auctions or coupon passes except that the investors receive a liquid bond issue in return for tendering the less-liquid issue.


Designed both for law student advocates and students enrolled in traditional evidence courses, this handbook provides full coverage of courtroom evidence procedures, rules, and law. It contains the Federal Rules of Evidence, including recent and pending amendments; offers rule-by-rule commentary, serving as a mini-treatise on federal rules; and covers objections and responses. It is indispensable for students participating in a mock trial, going to court as part of a clinical program, or trying to understand the law of evidence. It also helps students bridge the gap from understanding the law of evidence to understanding how to perform at trial.


Privacy of internet users is continuously on stack from various directions with the evolution of technology. Modern technology in the field of internet poses serious threats on the privacy of users. Unfortunately, while surfing on internet, we are careless about our privacy and allow intrusion of privacy to a great extent without objection. This facilitates advertisers in tracking user activities on web by third party cookies. Researchers have been conducting vigorous research on this topic and also have presented solutions to control the leakage of privacy without user consent. But surprisingly, major research activities confined to the desktop platform and little is known about web tracking on mobile devices. We survey current technologies and purpose a novel approach for android based mobile devices which control excessive tracking of users. Further, Mozilla Firefox add-ons and other related proposals dealing with cookies and privacy are also analyzed.


"It's one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." - New York TimesTwitter Tools To Enhance Your Business - Discover Free Twitter Tools That Will Help Boost Your Website's Traffic & Sales Dramatically. Many companies are using Twitter in innovative ways. Dell has sold over $500K in products via twitter. Zappos is forging stronger relationships with its customers on Twitter. It has over 100 of its employees actively using twitter including its president. Comcast, HR Block, Southwest Air and other progressive companies are using Twitter to improve customer service. Mzinga has had`press conferences online via twitter. The list of smart companies on Twitter goes on and on. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates.How can you use Twitter for business? In this book, you'll discover free Twitter tools you can use to help you to not only boost your websites' traffic but also your income. It covers what these tools are, but also how you can make use of these tools to gain an edge over your competitors.Twitter is one of the prominent social networking sites that allows you to connect with people around the world with similar interests and/or To Enhance Your Business - dramatically faster then other social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, etc.Similar to other social networking sites, you can sign up as a member of Twitter for free (and you can do so in less than 30 seconds as there are only 3 fields you need to enter in the sign-up page - your username, password and email address) and you can start using Twitter instantly.This book covers ways to use Twitter to Share Ideas, Show Repect, Engage Customers, Build your brand and Provide Customer Service.Learn How To* Get more people to follow you on Twitter - increasing your followers creates momentum* Have fun and let your personality shine because you are really conneting with people - not trying to slam "traffic" into "conversions"* Accelerate your presence on ALL your social networking sites and reap the benefits of more visitors.* Create a real business online by using these 100 Success Secrets.* Meet, connect with, and share ideas with other smart Tweeters. Follow and be followed and watch how these superstars take their business to the next level.* Use Twitter to start making money ON PURPOSE instead of by accident. This book will not only help you sharpen your business path - it will demand that you use the power of your laser focus to get results.


The main impact of the new South African Companies Act 71 of 2008 on close corporations may be summarised as follows. First, new close corporations are proscribed, which not only translates into the phasing out of close corporations, however gradual, but leaves small entrepreneurs with only one avenue for new incorporations and that is under the new Companies Act. Second, there is the clearly discernible tendency to subject the close corporation to more and more onerous administrative duties and arrangements. This is amply illustrated by the approach to supplant numerous arrangements of the Close Corporations Act by that of the new Companies Act, by repealing the first and incorporating large tracts of the latter by reference. It is unfair to expect the close corporation to perform optimally in a legal milieu for which it was not designed and to encumber it with duties and obligations contrary to its very nature and fundamental design philosophy. However, it seems as if officially the last thing that is hoped for of the current close corporation in the new dispensation is that it performs optimally.


Data sharing is increasingly mandated by health research funders and publishers. In the context of data collected in low-resource settings, concerns have been raised regarding inequitable opportunities to engage in secondary use of data between researchers in well-resourced and resource-limited settings. In this context, we present three case studies and their issues related to equity: the multicountry Antenatal Corticosteroid Trial, health research in the Dominican Repulic and the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network. These case studies were discussed at the 2018 Global Forum for Bioethics in Research in South Africa, focussing on the theme "The ethics of data sharing and biobanking in health research". The case studies provide concrete examples of real challenges such as lack of prior consent for data sharing, potential for misinterpretation of data by secondary users and limited capacity of researchers in low-resource settings to conduct secondary analyses. We conclude by suggesting ways forward. We stress the importance of capacity building and investments in data management and data science skills, and in data sharing platforms supporting poverty-related disease research. In addition, we recommend that there should be incentives to promote data sharing and that research groups and institutions establish their own data sharing policies  tailored to their context, data and community while persuing harmonization with existing policies as much as possible. We also think that international guidelines on authorship criteria should be revisited. For new studies, 1-3* 4* 5*


Clearance and ingestion rates, absorption efficiencies and respiration rates were measured in mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis Lmk of different lengths (53 to 89 mm) and age (10 to 24 mo) from cultivation rafts in the Ria de Arosa (Galicia, Spain). The experiments were carried out either in the laboratory, using monoalgal food (Isochrysis galbana) with an organic content of 91%, or under natural conditions of food availability in cultivation rafts with seston, the organic content of which ranged from 33 to 69%. Food concentrations ranged from 0.57 to 1.00 mg l -1 of total particulate matter (TPM), a load which is below the threshold for the production of pseudofaeces in Mytilus. These experiments proved that the ingestion rate (IR = mg TPM h -1 ) of food increases with the size of the mussel (measured as g of soft-tissue dry weight [DW]) according to the power equation IR = 12.661DW 0.619 , this model accounting for over 90 % of the variance of the IR. Behavioural patterns that tended to maintain constant IR regardless of the density of the food were observed. Absorption efficiency (AE) is positively related to the organic content (OC) of the food according to the following hyperbolic equation: AE = 1.015 - 0.163(1/OC) (r = 0.940). AE is independent of mussel size for most of the size range used in this study, but there is a critical length around 85 mm, above which there is a noticeable decrease of AE. Metabolic expenditure, measured in terms of oxygen consumption standarized per unit of dry weight of flesh, tends to increase with the age of the mussel. The results obtained led to the conclusion that physiological traits such as the regulation of ingestion or differences in AE between groups do not explain the differences in growth between mussels of the same age. These differences must therefore be due to the limited food and space available as a result of the large numbers of mussels on the cultivation rafts and the agglomeration of mussels on the cultivation ropes.


Numerous energy balance (EB) algorithms have been developed to use remote sensing data for mapping evapotranspiration (ET) on a regional basis. Adopting any single or combination of these models for an operational ET remote sensing program requires a thorough evaluation. The Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) was evaluated for its ability to estimate hourly ET rates of summer tall and short crops grown in the Texas High Plains by using 15 Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper scenes acquired during 2006 to 2009. Performance of SEBS was evaluated by comparing estimated hourly ET values with measured ET data from four large weighing lysimeters, each located at the center of a 4.3 ha field in the USDA‐ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory in Bushland, TX. The performance of SEBS in estimating hourly ET was good for crops under both irrigated and dryland conditions. A locally derived, surface albedo‐based soil heat flux (G) model further improved the G estimates. Root mean square error and mean bias error were 0.11 and −0.005 mm h−1, respectively, and the Nash–Sutcliff model efficiency was 0.85 between the measured and calculated hourly ET. Considering the equal or better performance with a minimal amount of ancillary data as compared to with other EB algorithms, SEBS is a promising tool for use in an operational ET remote sensing program in the semiarid Texas High Plains. However, thorough sensitivity and error propagation analyses of input variables to quantify their impact on ET estimations for the major crops in the Texas High Plains under different agroclimatological conditions are needed before adopting the SEBS into operational ET remote sensing programs for irrigation scheduling or other purposes.


To resolve the conceptual problem of the conflict between quantal and relativistic formulations of Quantum Physics, this paper proposes a new conceptual ontology, Emergent Aspect Dualism, that reconceptualizes the foundations of the field. Emergent Aspect Dualism is a philosophical approach that starts from the assumption is that the primary "material" of the universe is energy, which can be manifested as kinetic energy, potential energy or matter. The flow of such energy throughout the universe is described by the continuous Schrödinger Equation, but in order to account for the hierarchy of levels of organization reality, we need to invoke the concept of emergence, under which the operative principles of each level of organization of this energy are entirely dissociated from those of the levels below it, and, crucially, the functional emergence of the properties of the conscious mind that are dualistically dissociated from the underlying biochemical principles of brain organization. Rather than assigning probabilities to the quantal realm, Emergent Aspect Dualism treats probability as an operational concept that can be held only by a conscious mind, a philosophical category that incorporates the properties of a) the superposition of states and b) the collapse of this superposition once an observation is made.


The rapid demand for memory and computational resources by the emerging complex applications requires multi-core parallel systems capable to scale the execution of these applications. In this paper, we propose a distributed graph-theoretic framework for automatic parallelization in multi-core systems, where the goal is to minimize the data communication while accounting for intrinsic functional interdependence and balancing the workloads among cores to improve the overall performance. Specifically, we design a general and flexible greedy-based vertex cut framework for partitioning LLVM IR graphs into clusters while taking into consideration the data communication and workload balance among clusters. Then, we map the clusters generated by the vertex cut algorithms onto a non-uniform memory access multi-core platform. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed WB-Libra algorithm provides performance improvements of 1.56x and 1.86x over existing state-of-the-art approaches for 8 and 1024 clusters running on a multi-core platform, respectively.


This paper examines the effects of rural financial development, measured in terms of number of formal bank branches in a sub-district, on household poverty in Bangladesh. The analysis is based on a hybrid data set which we created by combining sub-district level information on bank branch availability and the presence of microcredit providers with household level information on poverty, assets, expenditure and so on. The latter was obtained from the nationally representative Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) for the year 2005 which sampled 6,400 rural households. We studied the effect of formal banks by estimating Least Square (OLS) regression models of household per capita expenditure and sub-district level headcount poverty. We found a statistically significant and positive relationship between the number of formal bank branches and household per capita expenditure and a negative association with the proportion of people living below the poverty line. These results were very robust to differences in household assets, occupation and demographic structure. In addition, differential access to NGO programs in the village and microfinance schemes at the sub-district level did not wash out the effects of formal banks on household expenditure. Formal banking coverage also remained negatively associated with headcount measures of poverty at the subdistrict level even after controlling for remoteness, vulnerability to natural disasters and access to microfinance schemes. Overall, our results suggest that policies that improve access to financial services (e.g. presence of formal banks) in rural areas can complement government efforts to reduce poverty and improve rural welfare in developing countries.


Background:  To address the structural food deficit and top down extension system that persisted for decades, the government of Ethiopia has introduced a new extension system, called Participatory Demonstration and Training Extension Systems, which serves more than 80% of the total population. As the program was streamlined to fit the different agro-climatic condition of the country, the extension approach practiced in the Tigray region (research area) was called Integrated Household Extension Program. Aim:  This article reports on research aimed at measuring the technical efficiency levels of extension participants and non-participants; measuring the impact extension service on technical efficiency. Setting:  The research was conducted in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is the main sources of livelihoods. Moisture is the most critical factor in the production system. The land holding size averages 0.5 ha per household compared to above three ha 30 years ago; indicating the high population pressure in the area. Methods:  A sample of 362 agricultural extension service participants and 369 non-participant farm households from the northern part of Ethiopia, participated in the study. The stochastic production frontier technique was used to analyse the survey data and to compute farm-level technical efficiency. Results:  The results showed an average level of technical efficiency of 48%. It is suggested that substantial gains in output and/or decrease in cost can be attained with the existing technology. All the variables included in the model to explain efficiency were found significant and with the expected sign, except education and number of dependants. Conclusion:  The research tried to assess the impact of a new extension service (participatory in nature) on farmers' productivity in a semi-arid zone, as compared with the conventional extension service and found in the literature areas with relatively better climatic conditions. Hence, if extension administrators could work to uplift the average and below average farmers into better performing farmers level, the overall production and living condition could improve substantially in the research area, and more or less in the rest part of the country.


This paper investigates the allocation decision of an investor with two projects. Separate managers control the mean return from each project, and the investor may or may not observe the managers' actions. We show that the investor's risk-return trade-off may be radically different from a standard portfolio choice setting, even if managers' actions are observable and enforceable. In particular, feedback effects working through optimal contracts and effort levels imply that expected terminal wealth is nonlinear in initial wealth allocation. The optimal portfolio may involve very little diversification, despite projects that are highly symmetric in the underlying model. We also show that moral hazard in one of the projects need not imply lower allocation to that project. Expected returns are generally lower than under the first-best, but the optimal contract shifts more of the idiosyncratic risk in the hidden action project to the manager in charge of it. The minimum-variance position of the investor's (net) terminal wealth would in most cases involve a portfolio shift towards the hidden action project, and there are plausible cases where this would dominate the overall effect on the second-best optimal portfolio when comparing with the first-best.


Sardine (Sardina pilchardus, Walb.) is one of the most important commercial species of the Adriatic Sea. Stocks of sardine, living in the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea, is shared between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. This assessment is relative to the sardine stock of the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea (GFCM GSA 17), pooling together data coming from Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. It has been carried out in the context of the AdriaMed-SP research programme. The annual catch of sardine for the three countries mentioned was obtained for the time interval 1975-2002. These quantities were distributed into fish age classes, so that catch-at-age data were available. That represented the basic input data of Virtual Population Analysis (VPA), employed for this stock assessment. Annual values of mid-year stock biomass at sea, annual values of the unweighted mean fishing mortality rate over the age class range 0-5, annual values of mid-year spawning biomass and corresponding ratios between catch and mid-year spawning biomass were obtained. In addition, annual exploitation rates were calculated and compared with a threshold derived from literature and suggested for small pelagics. Since decline of stock biomass is observed after the peak in the first half of the 1980s, and lowest values of this series only correspond to recent years, it would be unwise for fishing effort to be allowed to rise. An apparent increase in estimated biomass is observed in the last year, 2002: caution has to be taken when considering this, as VPA may have difficulties with incomplete cohorts ; in addition, change in discarding phenomenon (particularly for small size sardines) could play a role in an apparent increase such as the one described. Therefore, monitoring of discarded quantities, as well as pattern as a function of sardine size, is also suggested. Concerning the South Adriatic (GFCM GSA 18), not enough catch and effort data and biological data on the sardine is currently available to perform stock assessment. Data collection in the South Adriatic is being carried out in the framework of the AdriaMed-SP research programme ; the retrieval of past data is also going on. Therefore, in the near future, a joint stock assessment will also be possible in this area.


Abstract Sonoran Desert Tortoise (SDT; Gopherus morafkai) populations face threats from habitat loss and fragmentation. Effective management of SDTs in Arizona will require an understanding of the species' age-related habitat needs; however, no published research addresses habitat selection and use in juvenile SDTs. We investigated microhabitat selection of juvenile SDTs in the Mazatzal Mountains in central Arizona. Eleven juvenile SDTs were tracked with radiotelemetry from April 2010 to December 2011. To determine habitat selection, we compared microhabitat characteristics from 117 tracked-tortoise locations to an equal number of random locations during 2 seasons. The summer monsoon (July to September) was the season of greatest SDT activity, whereas winter (December to February) was a season of relative inactivity and hibernation. We found that juvenile SDTs selected enclosed shelters on rocky hillsides with high proportions of boulders and annual vegetation during summer monsoon, and enclosed shelters on steep slopes with a high amount of leaf litter during winter hibernation. Microhabitat selection by juvenile SDTs allowed us to develop a habitat suitability model in a geographic information system (GIS); our model correctly predicted 82% of juvenile tortoise locations in suitable habitat at our site. Results from this study, the first of its kind in the Sonoran Desert, identify key habitat features selected by juvenile SDTs in central Arizona and provide a framework to develop GIS tools to predict juvenile tortoise habitat.