Due to the penetration of alternative renewable energies, the stabilization of the electrical power network relies on the off-design operation of turbines and pump-turbines in hydro-power plants. The occurrence of cavitation is however a common phenomenon at such operating conditions, often leading to critical flow instabilities which undercut the grid stabilizing capacity of the power plant. In order to predict and extend the stable operating range of hydraulic machines, a better understanding of the cavitating flows and mainly of the transition between stable and unstable flow regimes is required. In the case of Francis turbines operating at full load, an axisymmetric cavitation vortex rope develops at the runner outlet. The cavity may enter self-oscillation, with violent periodic pressure pulsations. The flow fluctuations lead to dangerous electrical power swings and mechanical vibrations, dictating an inconvenient and costly restriction of the operating range. The present paper reports an extensive numerical and experimental investigation on a reduced scale model of a Francis turbine at full load. For a given operating point, three pressure levels in the draft tube are considered, two of them featuring a stable flow configuration and one of them displaying a self-excited oscillation of the cavitation vortex rope. The velocity field is measured by two-dimensional (2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV) and systematically compared to the results of a simulation based on a homogeneous unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) model. The validation of the numerical approach enables a first comprehensive analysis of the flow transition as well as an attempt to explain the onset mechanism.


The Ingenious Narrator of Poe"s Dupin Mysteries Tim Wirkus Department of English, BYU Master of Arts Scholarship on Edgar Allan Poe"s Dupin stories consistently focuses on the stories" influence on the genre of detective fiction. One of the foundational genre elements pioneered by Poe in these tales is the sidekick/narrator. Throughout detective fiction, the less-intelligent sidekick has become a standard fixture, a convenient trope in foregrounding the brilliant machinations of the detective"s mind. The attention the literature gives to the narrator of the Dupin tales is almost universally in terms of the sidekick/narrator figure as a trope of detective fiction; in this way, it seems that Dupin"s companion has come to be read in terms of what he has in common with his successors, the Watsons and Archie Goodwins of mystery stories, rather than more strictly on the terms of what makes him unique. This thesis examines the ways in which the narrator alternately highlights (in subtle ways) and attempts to obfuscate (in equally subtle ways) his role as the fictional author of the tales. The narrator"s role as writer complicates the reading of Dupin as the autonomous master of his own narrative, and as the narrator himself as a generic, dim-witted sidekick. In this way, Dupin and the narrator occupy flip sides of the same narrative coin—Dupin serves as the showman, and the narrator, the invisible author. As contrasting, complementary doubles of one another, they perform the function of collaborative authors, each one equally essential to the production of the tales. Similarly, this reevaluation of the narrator/sidekick as an author figure brings out ways in which the narrator"s genius parallels and matches the genius of Dupin.


This technical report provides a formal model for detecting semantic conflicts between aspects. The presented model abstracts from any AOP approach specifics. In we make a preliminary instantiation of this formal model for the Composition Filter approach, we do plan to extend this work with an instantiation for AspectJ. The document starts with an example of a semantic conflict, next our approach is informally explained and finally the formal model is presented.


This paper presents a study that examined desired functionality, content, and design of a mobile application for young Czech adults living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The study was structured around a high-fidelity prototype developed for the corresponding user group in Norway. Both groups were active on social media and willing to contribute to designing an application promoting a healthy lifestyle and well-being. Adopting the content analysis, the study first compared the social content shared within the Facebook communities in the Norwegian and Czech user groups that were active. Regardless of the similarities, the Czech group expected that solutions regarding main functionalities and content should stand out from other competitive applications offered on the market. Most of all, they would like to see healthcare staff being engaged in content creation by providing credible information, especially regarding new treatments and clinical trials. Enhanced interaction between all the stakeholders (patients, and healthcare providers) would add value and relevance to the content already provided by social media.


HANDS-ON-NETWORKING FUNDAMENTALS, Second Edition, helps you learn network administration from the ground up. Designed to provide a solid foundation in essential concepts and methods, this detailed introduction requires no previous experience, covering all of the critical knowledge and skills information technology professionals need to work with network operating systems in a network administration environment. Like other textbooks in the Hands-On series, this highly practical guide features a variety of projects in every chapter, with activities integrated closely with core material to facilitate understanding, reinforce learning, and build essential skills at every step. Now thoroughly revised to reflect the latest advances in network technology, HANDS-ON-NETWORKING FUNDAMENTALS,Second Edition includes up-to-date coverage of key network operating systems, wireless and cellular networking, network protocols, and other important innovations in the field. Equally useful for students beginning to explore network administration and professionals preparing for certification, this book is a reliable, effective resource for networking success.


The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States made an impact on the beef industry. Determining how the BSE outbreak was framed by the news media is significant because research indicates that media shape public perceptions. This study examined how several key newspapers framed the 2003 outbreak of BSE in the United States. Determining how the media framed this issue can help communicators ensure bias-free media coverage of similar issues in the future. The study followed established framing analysis categories identified from the literature. There were 149 articles identified in The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, and USA Today for investigation in this study. Findings showed that the BSE issue was framed as an industry crisis and that the tone of the articles and headlines portrayed the beef industry negatively. When compared to the other two newspapers, USA Today framed the issue differently, with economic calamity being the dominant frame. The most heavily cited sources in the articles were government officials. This study recommends that media professionals avoid framing an issue for the public, focusing instead on reporting news in an objective and unbiased manner. Further research is recommended to examine the impact of tone and frame on specific audiences. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This research is available in Journal of Applied Communications: http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol90/iss2/5 Journal of Applied Communications, Vol. 90, No. 2, 2006, 29-46 ©ACE The Cow That Stole Christmas: Framing the First U.S. Mad Cow Crisis Marcus A. Ashlock, D. Dwayne Cartmell II, and Danna B. Kelemen


There are a great number of models and theories described by authors like Kotler & Armstrong (1996) and Hutt & Speh (1989) about distribution channels. However the models and theories are quite abstract and not branch specific. The size of the Internet is growing in an incredible speed and new possibilities with the Internet are being invented every day. The new technologies make it possible to use the Internet in many different businesses (Statskontoret, 1997). One such business is the telecommunication business and the technique of Internet telephony. With these both statements above I ask myself: How can Internet telephony be distributed? The question is if existing distribution channels on the market are suitable for the Internet telephony products, and what channels must telecommunication companies use to be competitive on the new combined tele- and datacommunication market. The purpose of this research is to contribute to an increasing knowledge in how Internet telephony can be distributed. Further the purpose is to identify and evaluate different options of distribution and find important factors that affect the choice and management of the distribution channel. Because of a lack of information in literature describing distribution channels for Internet telephony products, I decided to do a qualitative study in order to get a hold of relevant information. Since I wanted to study a such new and specific area as distribution channels for Internet telephony products and as I wanted to have the possibility to come back with supplementary questions, I chose a case study with complementary interviews as my method. This research has shown that there are a number of options to distribute Internet telephony products. There are also a number of intermediaries which are relatively new on the market and are not described in detail in any literature. New kinds of value- added resellers and system integrators with good competence are quite common on the tele- and datacommunication market today. They do not only resell products but also add value in form of hardware, software or service. When doing a choice of distribution channel both manufacturers and channel members want to have a close long term relationship. This can be done with common objectives and strategies or with partnerships in different forms. In evaluating a choice of distribution channel, criterias like cost, control and adaptivity, should be taken in concern. A multichannel or horizontal distribution approach is also quite common on the tele- and datacommunication market. Manufacturers need to use different channels to reach different customer segments. To manage a good relationship in a channel the manufacturer have to motivate, handle conflicts and support the channel members.


Over the past two decades there has been much written in the literature about the importance of reading and the importance of teaching students reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension. Reading is one of the most important academic tasks encountered by students. In higher education, students are exposed to a number of texts and textbooks that require independent reading. At this level they are expected to comprehend what they read so that they can analyse, critique, evaluate and synthesize information from various sources. Many students entering higher education are not adequately prepared to meet these challenges. This article highlights the literacy situation in South Africa with a particular focus on reading both in school and in higher education. In addition, the article highlights the importance of teaching students reading strategies across the curriculum in order to improve their reading comprehension, thereby enhancing their chances of academic success. The implications of this research for policy makers and academics in higher education institutions are outlined and some suggestions are made.


Information quality has been proposed as one of the determining factors for perceived information system success. Fehrenbacher and Helfert have studied contextual factors of information system use (e.g. different user types, types of business activities supported, etc.) that influence the perceived importance and the trade-offs of information quality criteria. In this paper, we will use their framework in a discussion of the findings from a study we conducted on the implementation of an electronic messaging system (emessaging) in Norwegian health care aimed at supporting collaboration between different health-care actors. The system has a high perceived success even though the information quality of the message content offers room for improvement according to health-care personnel using the system.


This study assessed whether and how self-explanation reading training, provided by iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking), improves the effectiveness of comprehension processes. iSTART teaches students how to self-explain and which strategies will most effectively aid comprehension from moment-to-moment. We used RSAT (Reading Strategy Assessment Tool) to assess how iSTART changes the relation between important self-explanation reading strategies—bridging and elaboration—and online comprehension, and how often they are produced. College and high school students received iSTART and were administered RSAT prior to and post-training. Results from three experiments showed that iSTART primarily benefits bridging inferences when self-explaining. The frequency of bridging inferences was higher post training than prior to training, but only in the experiments involving college students. Additionally, prior to exposure to iSTART, RSAT bridging scores did not predict comprehension performance, whereas they did after iSTART, suggesting that iSTART may improve comprehension processes by teaching students how to appropriately use self-explanation to address comprehension difficulties. Finally, the results from this study suggest that RSAT may provide a valuable computer-based assessment of the effectiveness of self-explanations that could be used in conjunction with iSTART and in future research on self-explanation.


This article analyses the mobility motivations of an under-studied stream of intra-European migrants, namely that of cross-border commuters between two or more European states—or 'Euro-commuters'. Based on in-depth interviews with high-skilled, professional Euro-commuters between the Republic of Ireland and other European Union (EU) states, I ask whether Euro-commuting is a mobility strategy to mitigate the longer-term separations more conventional migrations entail. I show how this migrant group display several shared characteristics (socio-economic, class, age and occupational backgrounds) but that they are far from a homogenous social group. I outline how Euro-commuters' migration motivations fall into three main categories: first, the 'select', whose motivations correlate broadly with issues to do with lifestyle; second, the 'strivers', whose motivations reflect aspirations primarily around social mobility; and third, the 'survivors', whose motivations reflect complex livelihood strategies, with Euro-commuting affording a means to earn a living, but, equally, also offsetting the threat of social demotion from the Irish middle class. The analysis presented here is significant, first, because it illuminates our understanding of this little-studied aspect of contemporary intra-European mobility. Second, and more significantly, amid intensifying intra-EU mobilities, it illustrates the inherent, vexed tensions across the EU between mobile and sedentary lives, mobilities and immobilities.


Al0.26Ga0.74N∕AlN∕GaN heterostructures with a 1nm-thick AlN interfacial layer were grown on epitaxial AlN/sapphire templates by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy, and they exhibited excellent film qualities and very high electron mobilities, such as over 2100cm2∕Vs at room temperature and over 25 000cm2∕Vs at 15K with a two-dimensional electron-gas (2DEG) density of approximately 1×1013∕cm2. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy images revealed that the thin AlN layer with a thickness of 1nm is continuously grown between AlGaN and GaN layers with atomically abrupt and flat interfaces. The experimental and calculated results for 2DEG transport properties indicated that an AlN interfacial layer between AlGaN and GaN layers effectively suppresses alloy disorder scattering and that epitaxial AlN/sapphire templates largely contribute to the high electron mobility because they allow for the realization of a high-quality GaN channel with a low dislocation density and a smooth interface.


During fingerprint comparisons, a latent print examiner visually compares two impressions to determine whether or not they originated from the same source. They consider the amount of perceived detail in agreement or disagreement and accumulate evidence toward same source and different sources propositions. This evidence is then mapped to one of three conclusions: Identification, Inconclusive, or Exclusion. A limitation of this 3‐conclusion scale is it can lose information when translating the conclusion from the internal strength‐of‐evidence value to one of only three possible conclusions. An alternative scale with two additional values, support for different sources and support for common sources, has been proposed by the Friction Ridge Subcommittee of OSAC. The expanded scale could lead to more investigative leads but could produce complex trade‐offs in both correct and erroneous identifications. The aim of the present study was to determine the consequences of a shift to expanded conclusion scales in latent print comparisons. Latent print examiners each completed 60 comparisons using one of the two scales, and the resulting data were modeled using signal detection theory to measure whether the expanded scale changed the threshold for an "Identification" conclusion. When using the expanded scale, examiners became more risk‐averse when making "Identification" decisions and tended to transition both the weaker Identification and stronger Inconclusive responses to the "Support for Common Source" statement. The results demonstrate the utility of an expanded conclusion scale and also provide guidance for the adoption of these or similar scales.


Parallel corpora extracted from online repositories of movie and TV subtitles are employed in a wide range of NLP applications, from language modelling to machine translation and dialogue systems. However, the subtitles uploaded in such repositories exhibit varying levels of quality. A particularly difficult problem stems from the fact that a substantial number of these subtitles are not written by human subtitlers but are simply generated through the use of online translation engines. This paper investigates whether these machine-generated subtitles can be detected automatically using a combination of linguistic and extra-linguistic features. We show that a feedforward neural network trained on a small dataset of subtitles can detect machine-generated subtitles with a F1-score of 0.64. Furthermore, applying this detection model on an unlabelled sample of subtitles allows us to provide a statistical estimate for the proportion of subtitles that are machine-translated (or are at least of very low quality) in the full corpus.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of low-dose neuroleptic medication and monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) antidepressant medication in continuation pharmacotherapy of patients with borderline personality disorder.

METHOD
The authors conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled study comparing continuation therapy with a neuroleptic (up to 6 mg/day of haloperidol), an MAOI antidepressant (up to 90 mg/day of phenelzine), and placebo in 14 men and 40 women with borderline personality disorder. Continuation medication trials lasted 16 weeks, following 5 weeks of acute therapy.

RESULTS
Continuing haloperidol demonstrated efficacy only for the treatment of irritability. Higher levels of depression, hypersomnia, and leaden paralysis were noted in the patients who received haloperidol than in those who received phenelzine and those who received placebo. The dropout rate during the first 8 weeks of the continuation study was significantly higher for the patients receiving haloperidol (64%) than for those receiving placebo (28%). Continued phenelzine demonstrated only modest efficacy for the treatment of depression and irritability. An activating effect of phenelzine was shown on measures of excitement and reactivity.

CONCLUSIONS
No evidence of efficacy was found for continuation therapy with haloperidol in the treatment of borderline personality disorder other than in the treatment of irritability. Little evidence of efficacy was found for continuation therapy with phenelzine for borderline personality disorder other than modest improvements in irritability and depressive symptoms. There is currently no clear pharmacological treatment of choice for the continuation therapy of borderline personality disorder.


The literature on morphological causatives has tended to concentrate on prototypical causativity, that is, on situations where the argument structure of a predicate is expanded by the addition of a causer. Extended uses of causative morphology, affecting argument structure in various non-prototypical ways or showing different types of metaphorical extension of the causative relationship, have been mentioned in the literature but hardly any detailed studies are available. The present article focuses on non-prototypical causatives in Latvian. Three factors leading to extended use of causative morphology are discussed: metaphorical extension, different types of argument-backgrounding, and the use of frame elements in addition to arguments of the base verb in order to satisfy the valency requirements of the causative construction.


We study BIC-like model selection criteria and in particular, their refinements that include a constant term involving the Fisher information matrix. We perform numerical simulations that enable increasingly accurate approximation of this constant in the case of Bayesian networks. We observe that for complex Bayesian network models, the constant term is a negative number with a very large absolute value that dominates the other terms for small and moderate sample sizes. For networks with a fixed number of parameters, d, the leading term in the complexity penalty, which is proportional to d, is the same. However, as we show, the constant term can vary significantly depending on the network structure even if the number of parameters is fixed. Based on our experiments, we conjecture that the distribution of the nodes' outdegree is a key factor. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the constant term can have a dramatic effect on model selection performance for small sample sizes.


Deficiencies in clearance of apoptotic cells predispose to the development of autoimmune disease. This is evident in mice lacking the receptor tyrosine kinases Tyro3, Axl, and Mer. Deficient mice exhibit an increased abundance of apoptotic cells in tissues and manifest diverse autoimmune conditions. To test these mice for the presence of autoantibodies to apoptotic cells, we generated spontaneous splenic B cell hybridomas and used a novel microscopy screen to detect Ab binding to apoptotic Jurkat cells. From hybridomas secreting IgG Abs reactive with apoptotic cells, we selected one that recreated the major serum specificity for apoptotic cells. The Ab LHC7.15 bound to an Ag that is differentially distributed between the nucleus and the cytoplasm in live and apoptotic cells. In late apoptotic cells, the Ag coalesces into aggregates that bleb from the cell surface. Immunopurification of the Ag, followed by mass spectrometry, identified a protein of 69 kDa whose partial sequence matched heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein P2. This multifunctional protein binds DNA, RNA, and several known ribonucleoprotein autoantigens. Our observations indicate that a ribonucleoprotein complex, formed and translocated to the cell surface in apoptosis, represents a potent stimulus for breaking tolerance and inducing systemic autoimmunity in mice with defective clearance of cell remnants.


Infrared spectra have been obtained for the liner and T‐shaped isomers of CO2–HCN using the optothermal detection method. These spectra correspond to the intramolecular C–H stretching vibration in each isomer. The infrared results are consistent with the structures determined previously from microwave spectroscopy and provide additional data that is helpful in making meaningful comparisons with theory. Ab initio calculations have also been carried out for this system using three different basis sets. The agreement between the experimental and calculated structures is good for all three basis sets, while the vibrational frequency shifts (scaled to the monomer) and the intermolecular stretching force constants are much more basis set dependent. Nevertheless, the overall agreement between experiment and ab initio theory is very good.


Asking questions is an integral part of learning. Asking questions can clarify concepts, test hypotheses, add missing information, or provide additional knowledge to facilitate learning. The last item motivates the work described in this paper. By asking questions, our system obtains information that serves as background knowledge for a base learner, enabling the base learner to make useful generalizations even with few training examples. In previous work, we developed static strategies for question asking. Here, we extend that work with a learning approach for acquiring question-asking strategies that better accommodates the interdependent nature of questions. We present experiments validating the approach and showing its usefulness for acquiring efficient, context-dependent question-asking strategies.


Nearly 57 million acres were irrigated across the United States in 2007, about 7.5 percent of all agricultural cropland and pastureland. However, expanding water demands to support population and economic growth, environmental flows, and energy-sector growth, combined with supply-and-demand shifts expected with climate change and Native American waterright claims, will present new challenges for agricultural water and conservation, particularly for the 17 Western States that account for nearly three-quarters of U.S. irrigated agriculture. While the number of irrigated acres continued to expand over the 2002-07 period, the regional distribution of irrigated agriculture changed as irrigated acres were added and dropped. Of the States adding irrigated acreage, Nebraska led with nearly 1 million acres added in the mid-2000s. California and Florida led States experiencing declines in irrigated acreage.


N-Methylolacrylamide is a cross-linking agent used in adhesives, binders for paper, crease-resistant textiles, resins, latex film, and sizing agents. Toxicology and carcinogenesis studies were conducted by administering N-methylolacrylamide (98% pure) in water by gavage to groups of F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice of each sex for 16 days, 13 weeks, or 2 years. In vitro genetic toxicology studies were conducted in Salmonella typhimurium and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells; an in vivo bone marrow micronucleus test was performed with B6C3F1 mice. Neurobehavioral assays were performed during the 13-week studies. Sixteen-Day Studies: The doses of N-methylolacrylamide used ranged from 25 to 400 mg/kg. All rats that received 400 mg/kg died within 4 days, and 3/5 male rats that received 200 mg/kg also died before the end of the studies. Compound-related clinical signs seen with 200 mg/kg included ataxia, muscle tremors, and hyperirritability. Ataxia after dosing was observed from day 7 to the end of the studies for rats that received 100 mg/kg. The final mean body weight of male rats that received 100 or 200 mg/kg was 10% or 27% lower than that of the vehicle controls. The final mean body weight of female rats that received 200 mg/kg was 20% lower than that of the vehicle controls. Compound-related lesions in rats included hyperplasia of the bronchiolar and tracheal epithelium, dysplasia of the nasal and tracheal epithelium, centrilobular hepatocellular necrosis, lymphoid depletion of the spleen, and myelin degeneration of the lumbar ventral spinal nerve. All 5 male and 4/5 female mice that received 400 mg/kg N-methylolacrylamide died on the second day of the 16-day studies. The surviving female mouse in the 400 mg/kg group and the male and female mice in the 200 mg/kg groups were ataxic after they were dosed, starting on day 2. Weight changes were inconsistent among dose groups. Bronchial epithelial hyperplasia (mild) appeared to be dose related in males and females. Sinusoidal congestion of the liver and vacuolar degeneration of myocardial fibers were seen in males and females given 400 mg/kg. Thirteen-Week Studies: The doses of N-methylolacrylamide used ranged from 12.5 to 200 mg/kg. All rats that received 100 or 200 mg/kg died before the end of the studies. Rats that received 100 or 200 mg/kg had hind limb ataxia, which progressed to hind limb paralysis. Rats that received 50 mg/kg had hind limb ataxia beginning at week 8, which progressed to hind limb paresis by week 11. The final mean body weight of rats that received 25 or 50 mg/kg was 8% or 16% lower than that of the vehicle controls for males and 6% or 10% lower for females. In neurobehavioral assessments, decreased forelimb and hind limb grip strength was seen at doses as low as 25 mg/kg for female rats and at doses as low as 12.5 mg/kg for male rats. A decreased startle response was seen for females at doses as low as 25 mg/kg. The landing foot spread was significantly increased for male and female rats that received 50 mg/kg. Axon filament and myelin sheath degeneration of the brain stem, spinal cord, and/or peripheral nerves was seen in rats at increased incidences at 25 mg/kg and higher doses. Inflammation and/or hemorrhage and edema of the urinary bladder mucosa were seen with doses of 25 mg/kg or more in a few rats that had distended bladders at gross examination. All mice that received 200 mg/kg N-methylolacrylamide died before the end of the studies. Final mean body weights of dosed and vehicle control mice were similar. A decreased relative testis weight was observed for mice that received 12.5 mg/kg or more. The relative kidney weights for male mice receiving 50 or 100 mg/kg were greater than that for vehicle controls. Neurobehavioral studies indicated decreased forelimb grip strength in male and female mice at doses as low as 25 mg/kg. An exaggerated startle response was seen for female mice given 100 mg/kg. A reduction in rotarod performance was seen for male and female mice receiving 100 mg/kg and for male mice receiving 25 mg/kg. Hepatocellular necrosis anmale mice receiving 25 mg/kg. Hepatocellular necrosis and thymic lymphocytic necrosis were compound-related effects in mice given 200 mg/kg N-methylolacrylamide. Hemorrhage, necrosis, and mineralization of the zona reticularis of the adrenal gland were present in 3/10 female mice given 200 mg/kg, and cytoplasmic vacuolization of the adrenal cortex was seen with lower doses. Based on the results of these short-term studies, 2-year studies were conducted by administering 0, 6, or 12 mg/kg N-methylolacrylamide in water by gavage, 5 days per week for 103 weeks, to groups of 50 rats of each sex. Groups of 50 mice of each sex were administered 0, 25, or 50 mg/kg on the same schedule. Body Weight and Survival in the Two-Year Studies: Mean body weights of dosed rats were within 6% of those of vehicle controls throughout most of the studies. Mean body weights of dosed mice were as much as 25% greater than those of vehicle controls for females and as much as 13% greater for males. The survival of female rats given 25 mg/kg per day was lower than that of vehicle controls after day 550, but survival of female rats given 50 mg/kg per day was not different from that of vehicle controls (vehicle control, 35/50; low dose, 22/50; high dose, 33/50). No differences in survival were observed between any other groups of rats or mice of either sex (male rats: 28/50; 22/50; 27/50; male mice: 30/50; 20/50; 21/50; female mice: 41/50; 35/50; 33/50). Nonneoplastic and Neoplastic Effects in the Two-Year Studies: In rats, no biologically important nonneoplastic or neoplastic lesions were attributed to administration of N-methylolacrylamide. Higher doses might have increased the sensitivity of the studies to determine the presence or absence of a carcinogenic response. In mice, the incidences of adenomas of the Harderian gland were increased in males given either dose of N-methylolacrylamide and in females given the top dose (male: vehicle control, 1/48; low dose, 14/49; high dose, 29/50; female: 5/47; 8/45; 20/48). The incidences of carcinomas of the Harderian gland were not significantly increased by N-methylolacrylamide administration (male: 1/48; 0/49; 2/50; female: 0/47; 3/45; 2/48). The incidences of hepatocellular adenomas were increased in male and female mice given 50 mg/kg N-methylolacrylamide (male: 8/50; 4/50; 19/50; female: 3/50; 4/50; 17/49). The incidences of hepatocellular carcinomas were also marginally increased in dosed male mice (male: 6/50; 13/50; 12/50; female: 3/50; 3/50; 2/49). Hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas (combined) occurred with positive trends, and the incidences in male and female mice receiving 50 mg/kg were increased compared with those in the vehicle controls (male: 12/50; 17/50; 26/50; female: 6/50; 7/50; 17/49). Chronic inflammation and alveolar epithelial hyperplasia of the lung were observed at increased incidences in mice given N-methylolacrylamide. Sentinel mice were seropositive for Sendai virus at 18 months. The incidences of alveolar/bronchiolar adenomas (3/49; 6/50; 11/50) and carcinomas (2/49; 4/50; 10/50) were increased in male mice given 50 mg/kg. Alveolar/bronchiolar adenomas or carcinomas (combined) occurred with a positive trend in male mice (5/49; 10/50; 18/50). The incidence of alveolar/bronchiolar adenomas or carcinomas (combined) was increased in female mice given the top dose of 50 mg/kg (6/50; 8/50; 13/49). Ovarian atrophy was observed at increased incidences in female mice receiving N-methylolacrylamide (3/50; 39/45; 38/47). The incidences of benign granulosa cell tumors were also increased in the dosed groups (0/50; 5/45; 5/47). The incidence of adenomas of the pars distalis in high dose female mice was significantly lower than that in vehicle controls (13/49; 5/14; 4/43). Genetic Toxicology: N-Methylolacrylamide was not mutagenic in S. typhimurium strains TA97, TA98, TA100, or TA1535 when tested with or without exogenous metabolic activation. N-Methylolacrylamide induced both sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) and chromosomal aberrations in CHO cells with and without metabolic activation. No increase in micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (PCEs) was observed in the bone marrow of B6C3F1 mice after intraperitoneal injection of N-methylolacrylamide. Conclusions: Under the conditions of these 2-year studies, there was no evidence of carcinogenic activity of N-methylolacrylamide for male or female F344/N rats receiving doses of 6 or 12 mg/kg per day by aqueous gavage. There was clear evidence of carcinogenic activity of N-methylolacrylamide for male B6C3F1 mice, based on increased incidences of neoplasms of the Harderian gland, liver, and lung. There was clear evidence of carcinogenic activity of N-methylolacrylamide for female B6C3F1 mice, based on increased incidences of neoplasms of the Harderian gland, liver, lung, and ovary. In rats, because no biologically important toxic effects were attributed to N-methylolacrylamide administration, somewhat higher doses could have been used to increase the sensitivity of these studies for determining the presence or absence of a carcinogenic response. In female mice, ovarian atrophy was compound related. Synonyms: N-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide; N-(hydroxymethyl)-2-propenamide; N-methanolacrylamide; monomethylolacrylamide


We consolidate what is currently known about packing densities of 4-point permutations and in the process improve the lower bounds for the packing densities of 1324 and 1342. We also provide rigorous upper bounds for the packing densities of 1324, 1342, and 2413. All our bounds are within $10^{-4}$ of the true packing densities. Together with the known bounds, this gives us a fairly complete picture of all 4-point packing densities. We also provide new upper bounds for several small permutations of length at least five. Our main tool for the upper bounds is the framework of flag algebras introduced by Razborov in 2007.


This is a case study of the problems in coordinating business functions (R&D and manufacturing) among firms engaged in a joint venture for new product development (NPD). The study focused on relationships across organisational boundaries, that is among the joint venture organisation and the two partner companies. A conceptual framework, based on the new product development and strategic alliance literatures, served as a guide in developing specific propositions from the interview data. The findings indicate that a partnership's task and task environment, specifically cross-company subunit interdependencies, produce requirements for inter-functional coordination between firms. Certain partner characteristics, however, hamper attaining the required coordination. These characteristics include the relative degree of concurrency of the partners' NPD processes and a partner's difficulty in establishing external information technology linkages. Aspects of the partners' relationship, specifically perceived appropriability risks, also hinder achieving the necessary coordination. The relative degree to which each partner has management control over the relationship influences perceived risks. These findings are put into perspective through a comparison of new product development in a partnership and in a single business unit.


Overview Australia is considered to be one of the world's major 'immigration nations'(together with New Zealand, Canada and the USA). Since 1945, when the first federal immigration portfolio was created, over 7.5 million people have settled here and Australia's overseas-born resident population—estimated to be 28.2 per cent of the population in June 2015—is considered high compared to most other OECD countries. Permanent migrants enter Australia via one of two distinct programs—the Migration Program for skilled and family migrants or the Humanitarian Program for refugees and those in refugee-like situations. Each year, the Australian Government allocates places, or quotas, for people wanting to migrate permanently to Australia under these two programs. Until recently, the United Kingdom (UK) had always been the primary source country for permanent migration to Australia. However, for the first time in the history of Australia, China surpassed the UK as Australia's primary source of permanent migrants in 2010–11. Since then, China and India have continued to provide the highest number of permanent migrants. New Zealand (NZ) citizens also feature highly in the number of settler arrivals, but they are not counted under Australia's Migration Program unless they apply for (and are granted) a permanent visa. Over the decades, migration program planning numbers have fluctuated according to the priorities and economic and political considerations of the government of the day. However, it is important to note that the Australian Government's immigration policy focus has changed markedly since 1945, when attracting general migrants (primarily from the UK) was the priority, to focussing on attracting economic migrants and temporary (predominantly skilled) migrants. Currently the planning figure for the Migration Program is 190,000 places (it has remained at this record high level since 2012–13), with skilled migrants comprising the majority. One of the most significant developments in the dynamics of migration to Australia since the late 1990s has been the growth in temporary migration. The net migration gain from long-term temporary movement exceeded that from permanent movement in 1999–00 and there were record numbers of temporary entrants in 2000–01. Many of these entrants arrived on either student or Temporary Work (Skilled) (subclass 457) visas. Unlike the permanent Migration Program, the level of temporary migration to Australia is not determined or subject to quotas or caps by Government, but is demand driven. The 457 visa also provides a pathway for skilled workers and their dependants to apply for permanent residence and many students are also eligible to apply for permanent visas under the Migration Program at the completion of their courses. The largest contribution to net overseas migration (NOM) in recent years has been from people on temporary visas—mostly comprised of overseas students and temporary skilled migrants and the rate of Australia's population growth has increased significantly over the few years largely driven by an increase in NOM.


Exploratory laparotomy and a search for gastrinomas was performed in 52 patients with the Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES). Gastrinoma tissue was resected in 11 patients (21%), 6 (12%) of whom appear to have been cured. After surgery, serum gastrin levels in these six patients have remained normal from 10 months to 10 years. In the 46 other patients, tumor was unresectable because of metastases or multiple primary tumors (21 patients; 40%) or inability to find the tumor at laparotomy (21 patients; 40%). Multiple pancreatic islet cell adenomata were found in six of seven patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN), indicating that patients with this condition usually have diffuse involvement of the pancreas. The results of CT scans correlated with findings at laparotomy in 13 of 16 patients. The smallest tumor detected by CT scans was 1 cm in diameter. CT technology is more accurate in finding gastrinomas now than in the past and has a useful role in pre-operative evaluation. The possibility of resection should be seriously considered in every patient with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Abdominal CT scans, transhepatic portal venous sampling, and laparotomy should be used to find the tumor and to determine whether it is resectable. Using presently available methods, it should be possible to cure about 25% of patients with gastrinomas who do not have MEN and over 70% of those without MEN who appear to have a solitary tumor. Total pancreatectomy may be necessary to cure some patients with MEN, but that operation is rarely justified. The morbidity and mortality of surgical attempts at curing this disease have become minimal; we have had no deaths or serious complications following such operations in over 10 yrs. Total gastrectomy and indefinite use of H2-receptor blocking agents are the therapeutic options for patients with unresectable gastrinomas. Because H2-receptor blocking agents fail to control acid secretion in many patients after several yrs of therapy, total gastrectomy is indicated in a large proportion of patients whose tumors cannot be resected. Total gastrectomy in patients with ZES is also safe using current techniques; our last death following this operation for ZES occurred 15 yrs ago.


During last decades the consumer trust in food quality has drastically decreased, mainly because of the growing ecological awareness and several food scandals like Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), dioxins and bacterial contamination. It has been found that intensive conventional agriculture could introduce contaminants into food chain, first of all nitrates and nitrosamines, residues of pesticides, antibiotics and growth hormones. Consumers started to look for safer and better controlled foods, produced in more environmentally friendly, authentic and local system. Organically produced foods are widely believed to satisfy the above demands, providing better environment and higher nutritive values. Several research studies conducted in many European countries have partly confirmed this opinion. Organic crops contain fewer nitrates and nitrites and fewer residues of pesticides than conventional ones. They contain as a rule more dry matter, more vitamin C and B-group vitamins, more phenolic compounds, more exogenous indispensable amino acids and more total sugars; however the level of β carotene is often higher in conventional plant products. Organic crops contain statistically more iron, magnesium and phosphorus, and they have usually better sensory quality. Vegetables, potatoes and fruits from organic production show better storage quality during winter keeping. Farm animals from organic herds show less metabolic diseases like ketosis, lipidosis, arthritis, mastitis and milk fever. Small experimental mammals (rats, rabbits) fed organically grown feed show better health and fertility parameters.
 However, there are also some negatives: plants cultivated in organic system have as a rule 20 % lower yield than conventionally produced crops. Milk and meat yield is also lower in organic animal production, partly because parasitic afflictions are more frequent.
 Several important problems need to be investigated and settled in coming years: environmental contamination of the organic crops (heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and aromatic hydrocarbons), bacterial and fungi contamination (Salmonella, Campylobacter, mycotoxins). Last but not least, the impact of the organic food consumption on human health and well being still remains unknown and needs explanation.


The problem of creditor conduct in distressed firms — for which policymakers ought to have the economically-sensible repositioning of the distressed firm as a central goal — has vexed courts for decades. Because courts have not come to coherent, stable doctrine to regulate creditor behavior and because they do not focus on using doctrine to facilitate the sensible repositioning of the distressed firm, social costs arise and those costs may be substantial. It's easy to see why developing a good rule here has been hard to achieve: A rule that facilitates creditor operational intervention going beyond ordinary collection on a defaulted loan can induce creditors to intervene perniciously, to shift value to themselves even at the price of mismanaging the debtor. But a rule that confines creditors to no more than collecting their debt can allow failed managers to continue mismanaging the distressed firm, with the only real managerial alternative — the creditor — paralyzed by judicial doctrine.The doctrinal difficulty and the potential for creditor paralysis arise from unclear and inconsistent judicial doctrine. Some courts hold that it's the creditor's inequitable control of the debtor that is the characteristic that leads to creditor liability. Others rule that the creditor contract rights go beyond simply suing and collecting, fully allowing the creditor to condition its own forbearance from suing on the debtor complying with the creditor's wishes, even if the conditions are costly to the firm's other creditors. Worse for encouraging positive creditor engagement, the doctrinal standard via which courts shift from protected contract rights to perniciously-exercised control is obscure. Leading cases have the same basic facts, sometimes even the same court, but sharply differing results. Creditor control is the key doctrinal metric; but the creditor's goal is the better metric for judicial focus.Here we show, first, that there is often no on-the-ground, operational difference between these two standards — pernicious control and free-wheeling contract enforcement — and that this lack of sharp difference helps to explain why the judicial results are vexing, contradictory, and costly. We next show how similar problems are dealt with differently in corporate law settings — by courts evaluating the questioned transaction for business judgment deference to boards of directors . Then we show how putting a layer of basic corporate duties — entire fairness for conflicted transactions and business judgment rule deferential review for non-conflicted transactions — atop the creditor intervention doctrines clarifies the creditor in control problem and lights up a conceptual way out from the problem. A safe harbor for creditors is plausible — if courts could reduce the extent of creditor conflict for critical decisions — and would both encourage constructive creditor intervention and discourage detrimental value-shifting creditor intervention. And then we show that modern financial markets yield a practical way out, using this corporate doctrine as the map: Modern capital markets' capacity to build options, credit default swaps, and contracts for equity calls provides new mechanisms that, when combined with the classic corporate doctrinal overlay, can better inform courts and parties on how to evaluate and structure creditor entry into managerial decisionmaking. The capital markets and corporate doctrine combination can create a doctrinal conduit to better incentivize capital market players to improve distressed firms than the current doctrines regulating creditor conduct.


Corticosteroids, such as dexamethasone, are routinely used as palliative care in neuro-oncology for their anti-inflammatory benefits, however many patients experience dose limiting side effects caused by glucocorticoid response element (GRE)-mediated transcription. The purpose of this study was to use a murine model to investigate a new steroid alternative, vamorolone, which promises to reduce side effects through dissociating GRE-mediated transcription and NF-κB -mediated anti-inflammatory actions. To compare vamorolone to dexamethasone in reducing pro-inflammatory signals in vitro, murine glioma cells were treated with dexamethasone, vamorolone or vehicle control. Changes in mRNA expression were assessed using the nanostring inflammatory platform. Furthermore, drug efficacy, post-treatment behavioral activity and side effects were assessed by treating two cohorts of brain tumor bearing mice with dexamethasone, vamorolone, or vehicle control. Our investigation showed that treatment with vamorolone resulted in a reduction of pro-inflammatory signals in tumor cells in vitro similar to treatment with dexamethasone. Treatment with vamorolone resulted in a better safety profile in comparison to dexamethasone treatment. Vamorolone- treated mice showed similar or better activity and survival when compared to dexamethasone-treated mice. Our data indicate vamorolone is a potential steroid-sparing alternative for treating patients with brain tumors.


Critics of national injunctions are lining up. Attorney General Jeff Sessions labeled these injunctions "absurd" and "simply unsustainable." Justice Clarence Thomas called them "legally and historically dubious," while Justice Neil Gorsuch mockingly referred to them as "cosmic injunctions." Scholars in leading law reviews have called for their demise. Critics argue that national injunctions encourage forum shopping, unfairly burden the federal government, and depart from the history of equity. They also claim that national injunctions contradict the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Mendoza to exempt the federal government from offensive nonmutual issue preclusion—a doctrine that permits nonparties to benefit from a prior finding against a party from an earlier case.

Critics are right to identify the connection between national injunctions and nonmutual preclusion. Both of these doctrines describe when judgments can benefit nonparties. But critics are wrong to see Mendoza as an argument against national injunctions. For one thing, the rise of nonmutual preclusion that prompted Mendoza undercuts crucial arguments against national injunctions by offering an alternative explanation for the absence of analogous injunctions in the history of equity. For another, Mendoza was not preordained; instead, it was a highly policy-driven decision. And Mendoza's policy arguments were dubious when it was decided and even more dubious today. Scrutinizing these arguments should make us less comfortable in extending Mendoza to a new context—as the Supreme Court may be poised to do.

Indeed, this Article goes one step further. The Supreme Court or Congress should take advantage of the attention on nonparty relief to reconsider, and overrule, Mendoza. Federal-government litigants do not deserve special treatment with respect to preclusion in every case, and the existing rules of preclusion adequately protect the interests purportedly at stake in Mendoza. Moreover, rejecting Mendoza has feedback effects for the national-injunctions debate. Overruling Mendoza would not only reduce the need for national injunctions (because preclusion could do some of the work) but also provide a framework for limiting national injunctions without eliminating them completely. This is especially important given recent decisions that make relying on class actions a tenuous response. More generally, overruling Mendoza would create a system that is fairer to governmental and nongovernmental litigants alike while reaffirming each branch's role in the making of national policy.


This research will attempt to discover if there is a rhetorical challenge due to whiteness within Elizabeth City State University's (ECSU) Blackboard (Bb) online education system when it is utilized by African American (AA) students whose dominant dialect is African American Vernacular English (AAVE). This study will gather data through the implementation of a survey and follow-up interviews. The analysis of the two sets of data will attempt to identify if this segment of the AA student body is hesitant to take online courses via Bb if they have a stronger inclination for the need for call-response tonal semantics and non-verbal cues in their communication experiences when compared to the other participants and if their need for these communication elements has an impact on their approach to online classes at ECSU.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the independent and cumulative effects of past-year exposure to several different types of child victimization (peer victimization, witnessing family violence, community violence, sexual assault, and maltreatment) on suicidal ideation in a nationally representative sample of adolescents.

DESIGN
The study used 2 waves of longitudinal data from the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence.

SETTING
Conducted in 2008 and 2010 on the telephone with respondents from the contiguous United States.

PARTICIPANTS
National sample of 1186 youth aged 10 to 17 years in wave 1.

MAIN EXPOSURES
Peer victimization, sexual assault, witnessing family violence, exposure to community violence, and maltreatment by a parent/caregiver.

OUTCOME MEASURE
Self-report suicidal ideation in the past month.

RESULTS
Controlling for demographic characteristics, internalizing disorder diagnoses, and wave 1 suicidal ideation, findings showed independent effects of peer victimization, sexual assault, and maltreatment by a parent/caregiver on suicidal ideation at wave 2. The risk of suicidal ideation was 2.4 times greater among youth who experienced peer victimization in the past year, 3.4 times greater among those who were sexually assaulted, and 4.4 times greater among those exposed to maltreatment, relative to children who were not exposed to these types of victimization. Findings also showed substantial effects of polyvictimization (exposure to 7 or more individual types of victimization in the past year), with polyvictims almost 6 times more likely to report suicidal ideation.

CONCLUSION
Findings point to the importance of recent victimization in increasing risk of suicidal ideation in adolescents and suggest the need for victimization assessments among all youth who are believed to be at risk for suicidal ideation.


DARWIN2.3 is the reference package used for fuel cycle applications in France. It solves the Boltzmann and Bateman equations in a coupling way, with the European JEFF-3.1.1 nuclear data library, to compute the fuel cycle values of interest. It includes both deterministic transport codes APOLLO2 (for light water reactors) and ERANOS2 (for fast reactors), and the DARWIN/PEPIN2 depletion code, each of them being developed by CEA/DEN with the support of its industrial partners. The DARWIN2.3 package has been experimentally validated for pressurized and boiling water reactors, as well as for sodium fast reactors; this experimental validation relies on the analysis of post-irradiation experiments (PIE). The DARWIN2.3 experimental validation work points out some isotopes for which the depleted concentration calculation can be improved. Some other nuclides have no available experimental validation, and their concentration calculation uncertainty is provided by the propagation of a priori nuclear data uncertainties. This paper describes the work plan of studies initiated this year to improve the accuracy of the DARWIN2.3 depleted material balance calculation concerning some nuclides of interest for the fuel cycle.


In the past decades, due to the low design cost and easy maintenance, text-based CAPTCHAs have been extensively used in constructing security mechanisms for user authentications. With the recent advances in machine/deep learning in recognizing CAPTCHA images, growing attack methods are presented to break text-based CAPTCHAs. These machine learning/deep learning-based attacks often rely on training models on massive volumes of training data. The poorly constructed CAPTCHA data also leads to low accuracy of attacks. To investigate this issue, we propose a simple, generic, and effective preprocessing approach to filter and enhance the original CAPTCHA data set so as to improve the accuracy of the previous attack methods. In particular, the proposed preprocessing approach consists of a data selector and a data augmentor. The data selector can automatically filter out a training data set with training significance. Meanwhile, the data augmentor uses four different image noises to generate different CAPTCHA images. The well-constructed CAPTCHA data set can better train deep learning models to further improve the accuracy rate. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the accuracy rates of five commonly used attack methods after combining our preprocessing approach are 2.62% to 8.31% higher than those without preprocessing approach. Moreover, we also discuss potential research directions for future work.


Outgrowth virus phylogeny suggests that most of the long-lived, replication-competent HIV-1 reservoir is formed near the time of therapy initiation. Au revoir HIV reservoir? Curing HIV requires eliminating the latent viral reservoir. To better understand how this reservoir is formed, Abrahams et al. examined longitudinal samples from nine South African women with HIV. HIV was grown from resting CD4+ T cells isolated after several years of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and compared to viral sequences from longitudinal samples collected before ART. They found that in most subjects, reservoir viral sequences were related to viruses present at the time of ART initiation. These results suggest that the majority of the latent reservoir is seeded in response to therapy and likely is not continually formed prior to ART. HIV treatment and cure efforts could potentially exploit this information to limit the size of the reservoir when treatment is initiated. Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective at suppressing HIV-1 replication, the virus persists as a latent reservoir in resting CD4+ T cells during therapy. This reservoir forms even when ART is initiated early after infection, but the dynamics of its formation are largely unknown. The viral reservoirs of individuals who initiate ART during chronic infection are generally larger and genetically more diverse than those of individuals who initiate therapy during acute infection, consistent with the hypothesis that the reservoir is formed continuously throughout untreated infection. To determine when viruses enter the latent reservoir, we compared sequences of replication-competent viruses from resting peripheral CD4+ T cells from nine HIV-positive women on therapy to viral sequences circulating in blood collected longitudinally before therapy. We found that, on average, 71% of the unique viruses induced from the post-therapy latent reservoir were most genetically similar to viruses replicating just before ART initiation. This proportion is far greater than would be expected if the reservoir formed continuously and was always long lived. We conclude that ART alters the host environment in a way that allows the formation or stabilization of most of the long-lived latent HIV-1 reservoir, which points to new strategies targeted at limiting the formation of the reservoir around the time of therapy initiation.


We propose and demonstrate an integrated long- reach passive optical network (PON) and in-house graded-index plastic optical fiber (GI-POF) network architecture for hybrid community antenna television (CATV) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals transmission. By reasonably multiplexing the OFDM and CATV signals into a CATV transmitter, both signals originated from a central office (CO) are successfully transmitted over a span of 60 km single mode fiber (SMF) and another span of 25 m GI-POF to consumers' devices. Although the SMF and GI-POF have different core sizes and attenuation features, no any bridge circuit or wavelength converter is utilized in the proposed architecture resulting in a transparent platform for the Internet service providers (ISPs) to directly manage their long-distance services toward suburban or rural areas. Since the optical signal generated at the CO can be transmitted straightforward to the consumers' devices, the average packet delay and packet overhead size can be greatly reduced and the quality of services (QoS) can be maintained easier. Good experimental performances of the CATV and OFDM signals transmission proof the practice and efficiency of this proposal to extend multimedia services from metro areas to suburban and rural areas.


Forty-one isolates of Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli were characterized based on physiological and biochemical aspects. All isolates induced typical symptoms of fruit blotch on seedlings, plants and fruits of melon (Cucumis melo) and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus).  The Scott-Knott test (P = 0.05) separated the isolates for disease index in 5 and 7 groups, respectively, for melon and watermelon seedlings, and 2 groups for plants of these two hosts.  In fruits, all isolates were separated in 3 and 10 groups for the variable diameter of extern lesion, and 2 and 9 groups for lesion depth, respectively, for melon and watermelon. All isolates induced hypersensitivity in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum); utilized the composites asparagine, L-leucine and DL-acid lactic; produced enzymes lipolytic and phytohormone indoleacetic acid.  None of the isolates studied showed pectinolytic, amylolytic, cellulolytic or proteolytic activity, nor produced polysaccharide levan and toxin syringomycin; showed sensitivity to copper oxychloride (120 µg mL-1), cuprous oxide (120 µg mL-1), copper hydroxide (138.2 µg mL-1), streptomycin sulfate (25 µg mL-1) and Agrimaicin 500 (428 µg mL-1); and resistance to kasugamycin (87 µg mL-1), agrimicin (200 µg mL-1), erythromycin (15 µg), gentamicin (10 µg), amoxicilin (10 µg), neomycin (30 µg) streptomycin (10 µg), norfloxacin (10 µg) and rifampicin (5 µg). With regard to tetracycline (30 µg), variability was found among the 41 isolates, with 41.5% considered resistant, 46.3% moderately sensitive and 12.2% highly sensitive.


Schools have increasingly been targeted as appropriate sites for mental health promotion and teachers are considered well placed to identify issues concerning students' social and emotional well-being. Whilst teachers are now expected to be responsive to a wide range of student needs and circumstances, they receive little in their pre-service and subsequent teacher education to adequately prepare them for such realities. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated teacher perspectives on student mental health and mental health education, including their sense of self-efficacy in relation to promoting and supporting children's mental well-being in schools. These findings highlight a complex interplay between teachers' constructions of 'mental health', the importance they place on mental health promotion in schools, issues of teacher confidence, role identity conflict and school culture, as well as teachers' own sense of mental well-being. The discussion signals a need to pay close attention to the assumptions, values, beliefs and attitudes of teachers in relation to children's mental health since these are integral to their confidence and skill in supporting children's social and emotional well-being.


In a recent article on the interplay between international law and politics, Marti Koskenniemi wrote that "much about the search for political direction today takes the form of jurisdictional conflict, struggle between competing expert vocabularies, each equipped with a specific bias" and that "[p]olitical intervention is today often a politics of re-definition, that is to say, the strategic definition of a situation or a problem by reference to a technical idiom so as to open the door for applying the expertise related to that idiom, together with the attendant structural bias." The "war on terror" in the first decade of the Twenty First Century exemplifies such political struggles over the governing legal paradigm. Not only is the meaning of the term "terrorist" itself controversial; the legal framework governing the fight against terrorism is also highly contested, and features an intense struggle between a human rights centered "law enforcement" paradigm and a more aggressive humanitarian law based "armed conflict" paradigm. Describing the paradigm struggle in Koskenniemic terms not only reveals, once again, the potential for the strategic use of the law; it also exposes the meta-differences between human rights law and humanitarian law. The considerable political capital and legal efforts invested in jockeying between the two competing paradigms casts doubt on the increasingly common narrative of the growing merger between human rights law and humanitarian law and the irrelevance of distinguishing between the two. Moreover, it is now clearer than before that the ideological tensions between the two camps supporting the competing paradigms cannot be avoided even if a mixed paradigm were to be developed to govern the fight against terror (as is increasingly alleged). Such a development may simply lead to the channeling of the same ideological struggles that had been held over the choice of paradigm to disagreement on the contents and direction of the new mixed paradigm. In Part One of this Chapter, I describe the jurisdictional struggle between the two principal legal paradigms that purport to regulate the international fight against terror: The law enforcement and the armed conflict paradigms. Arguably, many disagreements concerning the lawfulness of specific counter-terrorism, such as targeted killings or detention without trial, are actually disagreements on the applicable legal framework and the stories on the nature of the threat of terrorism that is being offered. In Part Two, I consider the emergence of a mixed paradigm which borrows contents from both human rights law and humanitarian law. I argue that such normative cross-over illustrates the difficulty of maintaining rigid paradigmatic distinctions in light of the complexities of the fight against terror; but also that some key differences in emphasis between the two paradigms nonetheless remain. Most significantly, I argue that the development of a new mixed paradigm merely re-contextualizes preexisting jurisdictional struggles over the proper legal framework to govern the fight against terror. Part Three concludes.


Few studies have tested how unionid mussels affect benthic substrates in streams. We tested effects of burrowing by live mussels on sediment stability in an artificial stream facility. We added 25 live mucket (Actinonaias ligamentina) and 25 live kidneyshell (Ptychobranchus fasciolaris) mussels in 0.5 m 2 cells (100 mussels/m 2 ) and used adjacent cells without mussels as a control. Sediment cohesion (sediment shear strength and compression) was measured before and every 1-2 weeks after mussels were added to the cells. Sediment erosion was measured on Weeks 1 and 4 during high flow events created by increasing flow rates to 15 cm/s for 2.75 h. Streambed sediments were destabilized when mussels were burrowing, but sediments were stabilized when mussels were sessile. Unionid mussels decreased shear strength in Week 1 as they repositioned themselves in the cells. However by Week 4, shear strength was 24 % higher and compression was 31 % higher in cells with embedded mussels than in control treatments. Mussel presence had no detectable effect on amount or grain size of sediments that were eroded during high flow events. These results suggest that physical characteristics of the streambed can be altered by high density mussel beds, which may impact benthic biotic communities.


Thermal issues are one of the primary challenges in 3-D integrated circuits. Thermal through-silicon vias (TTSVs) are considered an effective means to reduce the temperature of 3-D ICs. The effect of the physical and technological parameters of TTSVs on the heat transfer process within 3-D ICs is investigated. Two resistive networks are utilized to model the physical behavior of TTSVs. Based on these models, closed-form expressions are provided describing the flow of heat through TTSVs within a 3-D IC. The accuracy of these models is compared with results from a commercial FEM tool. For an investigated three-plane circuit, the average error of the first and second models is 2% and 4%, respectively. The effect of the physical parameters of TTSVs on the resulting temperature is described through the proposed models. For example, the temperature changes non-monotonically with the thickness of the silicon substrate. This behavior is not described by the traditional single thermal resistance model. The proposed models are used for the thermal analysis of a 3-D DRAM-μP system where the conventional model is shown to considerably overestimate the temperature of the system.


Current curriculum initiatives in mathematics call for the development of classroom communities that take communication about mathematics as a central focus. In these proposals, mathematical discourse involving explanation, argumentation, and defense of mathematical ideas becomes a defining feature of a quality classroom experience. In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive and critical review of what it is that mathematics teachers actually do to deal with classroom discourse. Synthesizing the literature around a number of key themes, the authors critically assess the kinds of human infrastructure that promote mathematical discourse in the classroom and that allow students to achieve desirable outcomes. From the findings, they conclude with implications for teachers.


Objective: Phenytoin is a widely used, lipophilic antiepileptic agent. As a result of its narrow therapeutic index, toxicity is not rare. Currently, there is no specific antidote for phenytoin. Therefore, we need a low-cost supportive therapeutic agent that can easily be applied in emergency conditions. The rationale for conducting our study was to evaluate the efficacy of the lipid emulsion to the high levels of phenytoin in an animal model.
Methods: We randomly divided 28 rats into 4 groups: Control group (received no treatment); phenytoin group (received 75 mg/kg phenytoin intraperitoneally); lipid emulsion group (received 4 ml/kg 20% lipid emulsion intravenously); phenytoin+lipid emulsion group (received 75 mg/kg phenytoin intraperitoneally and 4 ml/kg 20% lipid emulsion intravenously). We performed blood analysis twice in each group.
Results: Lipid emulsion significantly decreased the phenytoin level in the treatment group in comparison with the control group (p=0.035 and p=0.026, respectively).
Conclusion: We demonstrated the efficacy of lipid emulsion in reducing serum phenytoin levels in our animal model. Lipid emulsion is a promising method for treatment of phenytoin intoxication.


The Mekong is the archetypal dissevered river basin, separated, divided into parts and broken up by ambiguous and undefined terms in the 1995 Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin. The treaty9s text generalizes and redefines the concept of a river basin in which tributaries are marginalized and headwaters are excluded, yet on paper the 1995 Mekong Agreement creates the legal fiction of a holistic water resources management paradigm primarily by focusing on the 'imported' (Affeltranger, 2005, p. 54) concept of sustainable development. In effect, transboundary tributaries in the Mekong legal regime are managed by each state unilaterally through application of the limiting language embodied in Article 5(A) which emphasizes hydro-sovereignty. The modern trend and badge of responsibility are to provide a legal framework for the entire watercourse, defined as including its tributaries, and to promote basin-wide governance. Analysis of selected legal regimes and case law demonstrates that ironically, despite their volumetric contributions to flow, tributaries remain at the margin of many legal regimes of international and interstate watercourses including the Mekong. The Lower Mekong River Basin states should consider use of joint development agreements (JDAs), sub-compacts or subsidiary agreements for negotiating and dealing with intrabasin water use and interbasin water diversions on tributaries.


Ergot (caused by Claviceps africana Frederickson, Mantle & de Milliano) of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] recently has become a global disease problem and is a major threat to hybrid seed production. Host-plant resistance is one option for control; however, the genetic and physiological bases for ergot resistance are poorly understood. The objective of this study was to evaluate resistance to C. africana in 18 genetically diverse sorghum lines, including cultivated landraces and wild accessions, as well as in potential alternate hosts, including grassy weeds and range grasses commonly found in sorghum-producing areas in the central Great Plains of the USA. These entries were evaluated for ergot resistance in the greenhouse following spray inoculation with conidial suspensions during flowering. The results of this analysis indicated that only Sorghum ssp. were susceptible to ergot; however, within the sorghum germplasm pool, several wild accessions were identified with resistance to ergot. Two of these resistant entries, IS14131 and IS14257, were characterized further in male-sterile (A3 cytoplasm) genetic backgrounds to evaluate the physiological basis for their resistance. Parent lines, male-sterile hybrids, and susceptible checks were evaluated for ergot resistance following spray inoculation with ergot in experiments in a winter nursery at Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, and in a greenhouse at Manhattan, KS, during the winter and spring of 2000. The expression of ergot resistance in IS 14131 and IS14257 and in corresponding male-sterile hybrids suggests that these sorghums may harbor genes for resistance to ergot.


In Argentina, ethnomedicine has been recognized for more than five hundred years. Only a small amount of vegetables with medicinal active ingredients have been studied to date. The present work reviews the possible components and the mechanisms of action of an infusion prepared with a vegetable from this area of Gobernador Gregores, Santa Cruz, Argentina, (48.75 S - 70.24 W) which local residents call "paico "(Chenopodium ambrosioides). Said infusion is made using the aerial part of the vegetable and is mainly used as a digestive. The objective of this trial was to find "in vitro" the pharmacological properties of the infusion of "paico" ("I.P."). As biological material, paico leaves and seeds collected in autumn, totally crushed in mortar with pylon, were used. The water used was always distilled. Egg white was also used. The reagents used were: Hydrochloric acid (0.1 N HCl), commercial albumin (BSA) from Lab. Biorgen and Biuret and casein reagent from Lab. Francisco Walz. The following tests were carried out in the School Laboratory of the Agricultural School No. 1 in order to estimate the activity of the infusion: 1 - Hydro-distillation of the essential oil. 2 - Biuret reaction. 3 - Action of the ("I.P.") on the pH of a protein solution. 1-Hydro-distillation of essential oil. The equipment was assembled in a similar way to the Clevenger distiller. The crushed paico leaves and seeds were worked. Careful heating to boiling with adequate reflux began for 90 minutes with the addition of water distilled by the lock to always maintain the original water level. The apparatus was allowed to cool slightly and the water and oil were collected in an Erlenmeyer flask. This procedure was repeated numerous times. 2-Biuret reaction. The Biuret reaction is a characteristic reaction of the protein search. In the procedure of this test, the raw egg white was stirred in one liter of cold water and brought to a boil, without stirring. It leaked. The liquid obtained is a fine suspension of denatured albumin (albumin). On the other hand, ("I.P.") was prepared. Placed in 100 ml of water, 5 g of crushed paico leaves and seeds were brought to a boil for 2 minutes and allowed to cool down later. It was left to stand for 12 minutes and filtered. The following mixtures were prepared in four test tubes: Tube 1.- 6 ml of albumin + 6 ml of water. Tube 2.- 6 ml of albumin + 1.5 ml of water + 4.5 ml of HCl, 0.1 N. Tube 3.- 6 ml of albumin + 1.5 ml of ("IP") + 4.5 ml of HCl1, 0.1 N. Tube 4. - 6 ml of albumin + 1.5 ml of ("IP") + 4.5 ml of water. 2 ml of Biuret's reagent was placed in all tubes. Then the tubes were placed in a water bath, at 40 ° C. A few minutes later, the tubes take on a pinkish-purple color, only in Tube 3 did a rinsing occur, this is a consequence of the activity of the ("IP ") That, in an acidic medium, has hydrolyzed albumin. 3-Action of the ("I.P.") on the pH of a protein solution. A third test was carried out using commercial albumin and casein as protein sources to which the ("I.P.") was added. 1 gram solutions of the two protein sources were prepared separately in beakers, to which was added 40 ml of distilled water. 5 ml of the ("I.P.") was placed into each solution thus prepared. In another glass, he placed 1 g casein and 40 ml of distilled water, in the next 1 g of commercial albumin and 40 of distilled water and in the last beaker ("I.P."). Immediately in all the beakers the pH was continuously measured for 15 minutes. The results of the tests were: in the hydro-distillation of the essential oil a few drops of the essential oil were obtained, approximately 0.5 ml for each test. They are reserved for after several tests and having collected about 10 ml, send to a laboratory with a chromatograph.


Artificial intelligence techniques, such as neural networks, are modeling tools that can be applied to analyze urban runoff quality issues. Artificial neural networks are frequently used to model various highly variable and nonlinear physical phenomena in the water and environmental engineering fields. The application of neural networks for analyzing the performance of combined permeable pavement and earth energy systems is timely and novel. This paper presents the application of back-propagation neural networks and the testing of the Levenberg-Marquardt, Quasi-Newton, and Bayesian Regularization algorithms. The neural networks were statistically assessed for their goodness of prediction with respect to the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), ammonia-nitrogen, nitrate-nitrogen, and ortho-phosphate-phosphorus by numerical computation of the mean absolute error, root-mean-square error, mean absolute relative error, and the coefficient of correlation for the prediction compared with the corresponding measured data. The three neural network models were assessed for their efficiency in accurately simulating the effluent water quality parameters from various experimental pavement systems. The models predicted all key parameters with high correlation coefficients and low minimum statistical errors. The back-propagation and feed-forward neural network models performed optimally as pollutant removal predictors with regard to these two sustainable technologies.


Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by progressive decline in renal function; if left untreated, it ultimately results in end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a condition that demands either dialysis or kidney transplant for survival. CKD and ESRD are associated with a multitude of complications ranging from increased hospitalization to accelerated cardiovascular events and mortality. Currently, type-2 diabetes and hypertension are the two major risk factors for CKD. With the increasing incidence and prevalence of these conditions globally, the patient population with CKD is expanding worldwide. According to local sources, CKD affects about 13% of Qatar's population, and the prevalence of ESRD, the advanced phase of CKD, in Qatar was found to be 212 per million patients. The increased risk of complications associated with CKD in conjunction with its high prevalence in Qatar and in the rest of the world, necessitates its prevention and management as a high national and international priority. Elevated urinary albumin excretion (commonly referred to as proteinuria) is not only a hallmark of renal disease, but also strongly associated with the development and progression of CKD. Albuminuria is thought to induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, consequently triggering AKT pathway and resulting in inhibition of AMP-activated kinase (AMPK). AMPK, a fuel sensor present in cells, is primarily involved in the regulation of fatty acid oxidation and ATP synthesis. Inactivation of AMPK was found to trigger mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, and subsequently inhibit autophagy (a defense mechanism) and induce epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). These signaling changes eventually accelerate renal cell apoptosis, and manifest into CKD. Thus, the objectives of this study are: 1) to standardize and characterize an in vitro model of albumin-induced renal cell injury using normal rat kidney proximal tubular (NRK-5E) cells, and 2) to explore the effect of AMPK activation on ER stress, AKT, mTOR, EMT, autophagy and apoptosis that are thought to mediate renal cell injury during proteinuria using the developed in vitro model of albumin-induced renal cell injury. Methods: NRK-52E cells were grown to 60% confluency and then serum-starved for 24 hours to arrest cell proliferation. Cells were then exposed to albumin, at concentrations ranging from 1 to 30 mg/ml, for 24 to 72 hours. At specific endpoints, cells were assessed for induction of ER stress and alterations in the status of AKT, AMPK, mTOR and autophagy and changes in cellular senescence via x-galactosidase (an enzyme that is expressed in senescent cells) staining. Following standardization of albumin-induced renal cell injury model, studies were performed in the presence and absence of AMPK activator metformin (1 mM) for 24 to 72 hours. Cells were then assessed for alterations in the status of AMPK, AKT and mTOR, and the markers of ER stress, EMT, autophagy and apoptosis. Results: Exposure to albumin for 72 hours caused a dose-dependent increase in cellular senescence in NRK-52E cells. In contrast, cells exposed to albumin for 24 and 48 hours did not reveal any marked changes in cellular senescence. A 4-fold induction in ER stress marker CHOP and the EMT marker a-SMA was noted. Moreover, higher concentrations of albumin, particularly 30 mg/ml, caused severe induction of ER stress and EMT, marked by 20-fold increase in CHOP and 6-fold increase in a-SMA respectively. Similarly, the phosphorylation of AKT and P70S6K (a downstream target of mTOR) was increased by more than 1.5-fold in cells subjected to albumin treatment. In addition, albumin treatment caused a dose-dependent reduction in AMPK phosphorylation and about 66% decrease in the expression of autophagy marker LC3-II. The above changes were observed in conjunction with prominent dose-dependent induction of apoptotic markers - caspase-3 and caspase-12 ranging between 1.5 to 3.5-fold and 3 to 5-fold respectively in cells exposed to albumin. In contrast, metformin co-treatment restored the levels of phosphorylated AMPK, and suppressed activation of AKT and P70S6K in NRK-52E cells exposed to albumin. Notably, metformin also prevented albumin-induced EMT; this was marked by a 50% decrease in a-SMA and a 60% increase in E-cadherin expression. In addition, 2.5-fold increase in LC3-II expression was noted. Intriguingly, the pro-apoptotic protein CHOP was induced following treatment with metformin; nonetheless, the expression of apoptotic markers caspase-12 and caspase-3 was reduced by 80% and 70% respectively, indicating that metformin protected the cells against albumin-induced apoptosis. Conclusion: Albumin treatment induces ER stress, and activates AKT, EMT and apoptosis, with concomitant decreases in autophagy and inactivation of AMPK in renal tubular cells. Activation of AMPK via metformin treatment suppresses AKT and mTOR activation, and prevents EMT and apoptosis, but increases autophagy and ER stress in renal tubular cells. Further studies are required to understand the mechanisms by which metformin differentially modulates ER stress and apoptosis in renal cells under proteinuria. Together, our findings suggest that AMPK activation via metformin could serve as a potential therapeutic strategy to prevent and/or treat the development of CKD in patients with established proteinuria.


Santayana's Life of Reason, published in five books from 1905 to 1906, ranks as one of the greatest works in modern philosophical naturalism. Acknowledging the natural material bases of human life, Santayana traces the development of the human capacity for appreciating and cultivating the ideal. It is a capacity he exhibits as he articulates a continuity running through animal impulse, practical intelligence, and ideal harmony in reason, society, art, religion, and science. The work is an exquisitely rendered vision of human life lived sanely. In this second book, Santayana analyzes several distinctive forms of human association, from political and economic orders to forms of friendship, to determine what possibilities they provide for the life of reason. He considers, among other topics, love and the affinity for the ideal, the family, aristocracy and democracy, the constituents of genuinely free friendship (including that of husband and wife), patriotism, and the ideal society of kindred spirits. This Critical Edition, volume VII of The Works of George Santayana, includes a chronology, notes, bibliography, textual commentary, lists of variants, and other tools useful to Santayana scholars. The other four books of the volume include Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, and Reason in Science.


Institutions of higher learning dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and committed to diversity should be exemplars of workplace equity. Sadly, they are not. Their failure to take appropriate action to protect employees from inequity, discrimination, bullying, and retaliation amounts to institutional betrayal. The professional code of ethics for sociology, a discipline committed to the study of inequality, instructs sociologists to "strive to eliminate bias in their professional activities" and not to "tolerate any forms of discrimination." As such, sociologists should be the leaders on our campuses in recognizing institutional betrayals by academic administrators and in promoting workplace equity. Regrettably, we have not accepted this charge. In this address, I call for sociologists to embrace our professional responsibilities and apply our scholarly knowledge and commitments to the reduction of inequality in our own workplace. If we can't do it here, can we do it anywhere?


Functionally, a vertically split fovea should confer an advantage to the processor. Visual stimuli arriving to each eye would be vertically split and the two parts sent to different hemispheres, obeying the crossed nature of the visual pathways. I test the prediction of a functional advantage for the separate lateralisation of text processing from the two eyes. I explore this hypothesis by means of psycholinguistic experimentation and cognitive modelling. I employed a haploscope to show foveated text to the two eyes separately, controlling for location and presentation duration, and guaranteeing that each eye could not see the other eye's stimuli. I carried out a series of experiments, based on this novel paradigm, to explore the effects of a vertically split fovea on correctness of word perception. The experiments showed: (i) words presented exclusively to the contralateral hemifoveas are more correctly reported than words presented exclusively to the ipsilateral hemifoveas; (ii) the same full word shown to both eyes and available for fusion led to better perception; (iii) word endings with fewer type-count neighbours were more accurately reported, as were beginnings with larger type-count neighbours; (iv) uncrossed-eye stimuli were better perceived than crossed-eye stimuli; (v) principled roles in a model of isolated word recognition for lexical and sublexical neighbourhood statistics, syllabicity, hemispheric fineand coarse-coding differences, sex of the reader, handedness, left and right eye, and visual pathways. Finally, I propose a connectionist model of visual word recognition that incorporates these findings and is a basis for further exploration.


This article describes Japan's adoption of the sound material‐cycle society (SMC Society) as a key goal in its pursuit of sustainable development. An SMC Society is defined in Japanese law as a society wherein the consumption of natural resources is restrained and the environmental load is reduced as far as possible, through promotion of the 3Rs—reduction, reuse, and recycling—as well as the environmentally sound disposal of solid waste. The Fundamental Law for Establishing an SMC Society, enacted in 2000, requires the government to formulate a plan, two of which have been developed to date. The Fundamental Plans set quantitative targets for three indicators: resource productivity, cyclical use rate, and final disposal amount. Initial results indicate that resource productivity has increased because the increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) has been accompanied by a decrease in direct material input (DMI), the cycle use rate has increased–mainly because of the growth in the recycling rate of industrial waste–and the final disposal amount has been decreasing. These goals have also been pursued on a global scale through the Group of Eight (G8) process known as the 3R Initiative.


This mixed methods study examines the experiences of two groups of administrators who participated in the online course, "School Library Advocacy for Administrators," respectively, in the summer of 2005 and the fall of 2006. The course was offered through Mansfield University in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. It was developed to educate administrators about school library media programs and the role of the library media specialist, and to subsequently create administrative advocates for school libraries. The purpose of this study is to explore how these administrators perceive that the course made a difference in what they know about school library media programs and how the information impacted their perspectives and actions in relationship to the library media programs in their buildings. Employing a mixed methods approach, this study makes use of standardized responses and descriptive/phenomenological methods to examine the experiences of the participants through interviews. Findings indicate that the Mansfield University online course provides an impetus for participating administrators to change their perceptions toward library media programs and make changes in their school library programs to some degree. Based on these findings, the Mansfield online course appears to offer a viable solution for informing educational administrators about school library programs.


Primates are ecologically flexible and generalist feeders yet selective in choice of diet. Insufficient information on the plants consumed by primates hinders appropriate and deliberate conservation measures. I therefore seek to identify the plants species, dominant part consumed in Pandam Wildlife Park (PWLP). Direct observation method was adopted along 2km line transect to record food plants species and part consumed by primates for a period of 6 months. Proximate composition of food plants were determined using standard procedures. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistic and ANOVA at (p<0.01). Feeding sites were identified along riparian strata, savanna woodland and the swampy strata and four primates species belonging to one family (Cercopithecidae) were encountered, which include Cercopithecus mona, Erythrocebus patas, Papio anubis and, Chlorocebus tantalus, all primates were observed to feed in group. Seventeen food plants beonging to 14 families, one grass species (Andropogon gayanus), four invertebrates (Lumbrucis terrestris, Eurymerodesmus spp and Chinocectes opilio) and two crop plants (Zea mays and Sorghum vulgare) were identified. Plant parts consumed by primates include fruit, (75%) and leaves (25%). Among the food plant species, the highest crude proteins (11.86±0.07a), fats/oil (13.57±0.06a), ash (10.67±0.03a), moisture (13.63±0.07a), and crude fiber (27.85±0.48a) where obtained in Piliostigma thonningii, Rafia sundanica, Piliostigma thonningii, Stryhtinos spinose, and Tamarindus indica. Primates in the study area fed on variety of food items, predominantly on fruits irrespective of the season. Their frugivorous tendency has far ranching ecological implication with attendant effect on seed dispersal, seed treatment, seed predation, food predation, food competition, food provision, food scarcity among other sympatric animals that have fruits constituting a portion of their diet.Key words: Feeding, behavior, primates, ecology


Fair resource allocation is essential to ensure that all resource requesters acquire adequate resources and accomplish tasks. We propose solutions to the fairness problem in multi-type resource allocation for multi-robot systems that have multiple resource requesters. We apply the dominant resource fairness (DRF) principle in our solutions to two different systems: single-tasking robots with multi-robot tasks (STR-MRT) and multi-tasking robots with single-robot tasks (MTR-SRT). In STR-MRT, each robot can perform only one task at a time, tasks are divisible, and accomplishing each task requires one or more robots. In MTR-SRT, each robot can perform multiple tasks at a time, tasks are not divisible, and accomplishing each task requires only one robot. We present centralized solutions to the fairness problem in STR-MRT. Meanwhile, we model the decentralized resource allocation in STR-MRT as a coordination game between the robots. Each robot subgroup is formed by robots that strategically select the same resource requester. For a requester associated with a specific subgroup, a consensus-based team formation algorithm further chooses the minimal set of robots to accomplish the task. We leverage the Deep Q-learning Network (DQN) to support requester selection. The results suggest that the DQN outperforms the commonly used Q-learning. Finally, we propose two decentralized solutions to promote fair resource allocation in MTR-SRT, as a centralized solution already exists. We first propose a task-forwarding solution in which the robots need to negotiate the placement of each task. In our second solution, each robot first selects resource requesters and then independently allocates resources to tasks that arrive from the selected requesters. The resource-requester selection phase of the latter solution models a coordination game that is solved by reinforcement learning. The experimental results suggest that both approaches outperform their baselines. MULTI-TYPE FAIR RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR DISTRIBUTED MULTI-ROBOT SYSTEMS by Qinyun Zhu B.E., Harbin Institute of Technology, 2009 M.S., Syracuse University, 2011 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer and Information Science and Engineering. Syracuse University May 2018 Copyright c © Qinyun Zhu 2018 All Rights Reserved


Extracted from text ... SA Fam Pract 2004;46(10) 7
Dear colleagues, Academy members,
and friends.
It gives me great pleasure to deliver my
first and 2004 National Academy Chairman's
Annual Report to you, here in
Gauteng, this afternoon. Special thanks
to Bruce Isley, the Gauteng Provincial
Chairman for hosting this year's AGM.
In my acceptance speech last year, I
highlighted the challenges as well as
opportunities coming our way in the
coming years. Sponsorship of our meetings
remains a problem but in spite of
that, Western Cape branch continued
with its programme of monthly CPD meetings
and a mini-congress in May this
year. I ..


The Athena+ X-ray mirror will provide a collecting area of 2 m^2 at 1 keV and an angular resolution of 5 arc seconds Half Energy Width. The manufacture and performance of this mirror is of paramount importance to the success of the mission. In order to provide the large collecting area a single aperture of diameter ~3 m must be densely populated with grazing incidence X-ray optics and to achieve the high angular resolution these optics must be of extremely high precision and aligned to tight tolerances. A large field of view of ~40 arc minutes diameter is possible using a combination of innovative technology and careful optical design. The large collecting area and large field of view deliver an impressive grasp of 0.5 deg^2 m^2 at 1 keV and the angular resolution will result in a source position accuracy of better than 1 arc second. The Silicon Pore Optics technology (SPO) which will deliver the impressive performance of the Athena+ mirror was developed uniquely by ESA and Cosine Measurement Systems specifically for the next generation of X-ray observatories and Athena+ represents the culmination of over 10 years of intensive technology developments. In this paper we describe the X-ray optics design, using SPO, which makes Athena+ possible for launch in 2028.