This Special Issue usefully analyses the links between statistics, knowledge, policy making and politics, and uncovers intended and unintended consequences of using indicators to frame policy. Many civil society organizations (CSOs) were actively involved in the Open Working Group, and some have continued their advocacy into the ongoing process of developing the SDG indicator framework. Some indicators are being reconsidered; but despite repeated efforts there is still no indicator to measure inequality between countries. There is a recognized need for innovative ways to supplement already existing data. The use of proxy measurements is already underway, and initiatives such as a collaboration between some UN agencies and Gallup. The active public engagement in the process that determined the SDGs may help to resist the reductionism often evident in translating from the goals to the targets to the indicators. The 2019 meeting of the High‐Level Political Forum (HLPF) will be an essential occasion to address some of these issues and to chart a correction course.


In recent years, an increasing number of publications have shown the negative effects of anesthetics on the developing brain and have made inquiries about anesthesia for pediatric patients in practice. Anesthesia is applied to millions of children for surgery, imaging, and other invasive procedures; the issue is very serious and concerns. In this chapter, experimental and clinical studies about the issue have been summarized. As a result, anesthetic drugs except alpha-2 adrenergic agonist anesthetic (NMDA antagonist or a GABA agonist) used in pediatric patients (especially if there is no painful situation) have potential neurotoxicity. Particularly, if anesthesia exposure was applied in the fragile period (the first 4 years) and if used at higher concentrations or repeated anesthesia application, adverse effects of anesthesia exposure on the developing brain have been claimed. But, the issue is not fully clarified yet.


A c-axis oriented single-domain Sm–Ba–Cu–O bulk superconductor 36 mm in diameter was magnetized by the pulsed field magnetization (PFM) method at 30, 35 and 77 K. The trapped field distributions after applying pulsed fields with different amplitudes were measured by scanning a Hall sensor 0.5 mm above the surface of the sample. We also measured the time evolution of magnetic fields during the PFM by using an oscilloscope connected to two Hall sensors mounted on the bulk superconductor surface. Fluxes are found to penetrate into the bulk superconductor and to escape from it by choosing passes through the direction inclined at 45° to growth sector boundaries (GSBs) of the sample. At 35 K, the temperature rise of the sample caused by heat generation due to flux motion becomes more substantial than that at 77 K. Thus, flux jumps occurred through the passes and assisted magnetic fluxes to reach rather easily the centre of the bulk superconductor. As a result, the magnetic field necessary for PFM is lower than that to fully magnetize the sample by means of the static zero-field-cooling magnetization method. The optimized multi-PFM with reducing amplitudes, which was specifically referred to as the IMRA technique, turned out to be very effective in achieving excellent trapped field characteristics by PFM at low temperatures. We could achieve a maximum trapped field of 3.6 T together with a well conical trapped field distribution at 30 K.


This thesis is a comparative study analysing the development of intellectual property (IP) harmonisation in the EU and ASEAN. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a need for ASEAN to harmonise its IP laws at a regional level and, if there is the need, what would be a feasible way for ASEAN to achieve a greater level of IP harmonisation and further develop a harmonised regional IP system. ASEAN had a strong commitment to deepen and broaden economic integration through the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which enables the free flow of goods, services, capital and workers. The establishment of the AEC in 2015 is considered to be a milestone in ASEAN's history of moving towards a highly integrated community. Consequently, a harmonisation of the IP laws of the ASEAN members has become more necessary in order to ensure a well-functioning common market and a move towards a highly competitive economic region. IP harmonisation has been prioritised as one of the essential tasks that needs to be accomplished. Notwithstanding, due to the disparities of the member states' backgrounds, especially in economic, social, and legal aspects, standardising the IP laws of the member states remains challenging.

To examine the prospect of ASEAN achieving a higher degree of IP harmonisation, and thereby be able to propose an appropriate solution for ASEAN to develop a regional IP regime, a comparative approach is required and inevitable, while using the EU as a point of reference. The major factors which are impeding and delaying an IP harmonisation process in ASEAN, the disparities in IP standards among the ASEAN members, the development gap between the older and newer members, and ASEAN's practice and institutional structure, are discussed. At the end, a strategic plan providing a framework for developing an ASEAN regional IP system is proposed. Firstly, it is suggested that the traditional 'ASEAN Way' should be modified in order to serve as facilitator of regional cooperation. Secondly, more assistance from well-off countries in helping less developed members to catch up with the rest of ASEAN is needed to promote prosperity of the region as a whole. Thirdly, national IP laws of the member states should be approximated to be in line with international standards. Fourthly, an ASEAN-wide IP system should be incrementally developed through the combined use of hard and soft laws. Finally, a regional IP court should be established to move towards a more rule-based organisation. This would help ASEAN finally move towards achieving its goals of establishing a well-functioning common market and deepening regional economic integration.


The search for fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is one of the most important topics in modern cosmology, since their detection would reveal a great many details about the early universe and, in particular, the nature of the primordial density perturbations giving rise to the galaxies and clusters of galaxies seen in the universe today. However, the search for such anisotropies is not trivial- none have been detected as yet - largely as a consequence of the fact that all radiative astrophysical sources can give rise to anisotropic foregrounds which confuse the search for genuine cosmological signals. In this thesis, a detailed study is made of the contribution of such foregrounds to searches for CMB fluctuations. After Chapter 1 summarises the theoretical and observational status of the subject, Chapters 2, 3 and 4 consider the foreground resulting from the Galaxy. It is found that frequencies in excess of 20 GHz are required to reduce the Galactic Synchrotron Radiation to a level where genuine anisotropies might be detected (the synchrotron emission is almost certainly responsible for a previously claimed detection), and that dust emission, especially if very cold dust exists which is unseen and possibly untraced by the dust responsible for the emission seen in the IRAS 100µm passband, can seriously constrain high frequency searches. In Chapter 4 a model is derived for the overall Galactic foreground including a separation of the thermal and non-thermal radio emission in the Galactic plane. Comparison with observations at 10 and 15 GHz suggests that the model is ~ 10%- 20% accurate on average at these frequencies, and maps of the predicted emission at the COBE frequencies 31.5, 53, and 90 GHz are provided. .4. search is made for a frequency window and sky region which minimises the Galactic contribution to the fluctuation measurements: highly sensitive, high resolution searches should be designed with these values in mind. Chapter 5 investigates the anisotropies resulting from discrete extragalactic sources, in particular, the far-infrared emission from dust in spiral galaxies and the integrated radio emission due to radio galaxies, QSOs etc. A frequency window of ~ 30 - 100 GHz is found to minimise both Galactic and extragalactic foreground anisotropies. Chapter 6 considers several cosmological models which could generate the recently observed large-scale structure in the galaxy- distribution: these are constrained by CMB anisotropy limits. It is concluded that genuine cosmological variations in the CMB temperature are now close to detection if the observed galaxy- structures are real. Chapter 7 indicates some future projects which should help in the detection and interpretation of CMB fluctuations.


Objective: This is a formative study aiming to identify the main barriers to the provision and uptake of quality postpartum family planning (PPFP) services at the supply, access, demand and policy levels in Burkina Faso. Design & Methods: A combination of three methods was used: a review of relevant literature, policy and clinical guidelines; observations of client-provider interactions in government-run primary health care centres in and around the city of Bobo-Dioulasso; and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and key informants, including service providers and users. Results: At the supply level, this study reveals that there are substantial shortfalls in the availability of quality postpartum family planning (PPFP). Individual counselling and the quality of information provided are often inadequate and occasions to advise women on family planning are wasted, resulting in low uptake of contraception during routine postnatal care. Providers appear to have an ambivalent and largely resigned attitude towards the possibility of enabling women to make informed choices, and towards the potential involvement of men. Services offer a limited range of methods due to a variety of factors including the lack of competent staff, stock issues, and provider biases. Furthermore, legal barriers are in place which prevent the majority of maternity staff from providing long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). The accessibility of services is limited by geographical and cost barriers. Cultural traditions and practices and high desired family size place limits on the demand for modern contraception, which is not well understood or acceptable to many people. Notable policy gaps exist in relation to user fees and to authorising maternity staff to provide LARC, and some national clinical guidelines are in need of improvement. However, most of the difficulties observed in the provision of PPFP services are in fact due to the failure to translate largely sound policies and guidelines into practice. Conclusions: This study contributes to identifying priority areas and makes recommendations for improvement in order to respond to unmet need for family planning in the postpartum. Furthermore, it suggests that there may be a margin for the expansion of demand, and that improving quality of care could play a role in this.


This essay investigates different registers of embedded and fragmentary focalizations in war cinematography on the Iraq War (2003–11), focusing primarily on The Hurt Locker (2008) and the HBO mini-series Generation Kill (2008), but also addressing American Sniper (2014) and the Abu Ghraib scandal. I argue the "extreme close-up" that focuses almost unilaterally on the men on the ground during the Iraq War implicates a "bigger picture": a larger frame of discourse put forward by the corporate media and the government. This is primarily achieved through recursive narrative structures and through the use of diegetic ocular apparatuses, which are embedded on screen. These renditions of mise en abyme implicate, renegotiate, and even argue with the wide-angle perspective which frames the Iraq War.


One of the difficult tasks in the social sciences is integrative, interdisciplinary work. There are many commonalities across the social sciences in method, theory, and policy. The study of gangs has a tradition in the U.S. that dates back nearly 100 years, with an emerging focus in Europe and other parts of the world. This Research Note argues that there is considerable overlap between the study of gangs and that of radicalized groups. Both fields examine violence conducted largely in a group context. Group structure, demographics, marginalization, strength of membership bonds, leaving the group, and the role of prison in expanding membership are all issues the two have in common. There are lessons those who study radicalized groups can take from the long tradition of gang research. This Research Note identifies eleven lessons learned (mistakes and successes) from the study of gangs that have relevance to the study of radicalized and extremist groups.


We present BOFFIN TTS (Bayesian Optimization For FIne-tuning Neural Text To Speech), a novel approach for few-shot speaker adaptation. Here, the task is to fine-tune a pre-trained TTS model to mimic a new speaker using a small corpus of target utterances. We demonstrate that there does not exist a one-size-fits-all adaptation strategy, with convincing synthesis requiring a corpus-specific configuration of the hyper-parameters that control fine-tuning. By using Bayesian optimization to efficiently optimize these hyper-parameter values for a target speaker, we are able to perform adaptation with an average 30% improvement in speaker similarity over standard techniques. Results indicate, across multiple corpora, that BOFFIN TTS can learn to synthesize new speakers using less than ten minutes of audio, achieving the same naturalness as produced for the speakers used to train the base model.


We investigate the fine structure of graphene on iridium, which is a model for graphene weakly interacting with a transition metal substrate. Even the highest quality epitaxial graphene displays tiny imperfections, \textit{i.e.} small biaxial strains, ca. 0.3%, rotations, ca. 0.5°, and shears over distances of ca. 100 nm, and is found incommensurate, as revealed by X-ray diffraction and scanning tunneling microscopy. These structural variations are mostly induced by the increase of the lattice parameter mismatch when cooling down the sample from the graphene preparation temperature to the measurement temperature. Although graphene weakly interacts with iridium, its thermal expansion is found positive, contrary to free-standing graphene. The structure of graphene and its variations are very sensitive to the preparation conditions. All these effects are consistent with initial growth and subsequent pining of graphene at steps.


Oxidatively modified low-density lipoprotein is present in atherosclerotic lesions and has been proposed to play an important role in atherogenesis through its biologic effects on vascular cells. This study examined the effects of minimally oxidized preparations of LDL (MM-LDL) on tissue factor (TF) expression by cultured human endothelial cells. Low-density lipoprotein purified from normal donors was modified by exposure to iron or by prolonged storage, resulting in levels of thiobarbituric acid-reacting substances of approximately 2.5 to 4 nmoles/mg cholesterol. Preparations had less than 2.5 pg of endotoxin per microgram LDL and had no intrinsic procoagulant activity. This form of modified but not native LDL induced TF expression in endothelial cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. Peak TF coagulant activity in cells exposed to 40 micrograms/ml MM-LDL were observed at 4 to 6 hours, and ranged from 50 to 500 pg/10(5) cells, compared with less than 10 pg/10(5) cells exposed to native LDL. Northern blot analysis showed TF mRNA levels to increase approximately 30-fold with exposure to MM-LDL for 2 hours. Induction of TF activity was dependent on the concentration of MM-LDL from 1 microgram/ml to 80 micrograms/ml, a range in which cell viability and morphology were unaffected. The findings suggest that minimally oxidized LDL may be a local mediator promoting thrombosis in atherosclerotic lesions.


Sodium alginate was selected as film-forming polymer because of its water solubility and low cost. Metronidazole tablets were coated to mask their bitter taste. The present work was carried out by initially developing aqueous film coating formulae with various concentrations of sodium alginate (4, 6 and 8% w/v). Secondly, the properties of the cast films were evaluated. When compared with dilute solutions, concentrated solutions gave thick films, as the density was more. UV light transmission, water vapour transmission and gas permeability of the films decreased with the increase in the thickness of the films. They were freely soluble in distilled water and simulated intestinal fluids but precipitated in simulated gastric fluid. Thirdly, 2 kg of tablets were coated using solutions of the above concentrations. Some tablets were withdrawn after application of 400, 600 and 800 ml of coating solutions, respectively. Coated and uncoated tablets were evaluated for weight variation, hardness and friability, which were all within the acceptable limits. Coating increased hardness and decreased friability. All the coated and uncoated tablets disintegrated within 10 min in water and complied with the USP and BP limits for the assay. The rate of drug release decreased as the concentration of sodium alginate increased. Only 400, 600 and 800 ml coats of 4% w/v solution and 400 ml coats of 6% and 8% w/v solutions In buffer pH 1.2 met USP dissolution requirements. Based on the results of above work along with statistical analysis and accelerated stability studies, 400 ml coat of 6% w/v solution was chosen as the best.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the frequency of remission in psoriatic arthritis (PsA), to describe the characteristics of remission in PsA, and to identify features associated with remission in PsA.

METHODS
Patients with PsA are followed prospectively according to a standard protocol. Only patients with > or =3 visits and those with peripheral arthritis were included in this study. Patients who sustained remission, defined as no actively inflamed joints on at least 3 consecutive visits, were compared to patients with persistent inflammation throughout the followup period (nonremission).

RESULTS
Among 391 patients with peripheral arthritis and > or =3 visits, 69 patients sustained remission and 178 had persistent inflammatory activity. The frequency of remission was thus 17.6%. The average duration of remission was 2.6 years. However, 52% of the patients experienced flare after a mean of 1.8 years. Univariate analyses revealed that male sex, fewer actively inflamed and damaged joints, and better functional class at presentation to clinic were associated with remission.

CONCLUSION
Remission does occur in PsA and may be prolonged. There are clinical characteristics of patients at their first clinic visit that are associated with future remission.


Philip Davis, Shakespeare Thinking. London: Continuum, 2007. Cognitive theories of the embodied mind have energized many areas of the humanities, sparking responses that range from welcoming to skeptical. For some scholars, neuroscience promises a scientific foundation for humanist research, transcending the mind-body dichotomy by connecting psychic processes to the brain's physical structures. But as David Hawkes's provocative article on neuroscience as the "new materialism" demonstrates, others are far less sanguine about brain science's incursions into the humanities. (1) Hawkes challenges humanists engaged in cognitive studies to answer a question: "Is it true that human beings have no soul?" (21). For Hawkes, the "eliminative materialism" of neuroscience inevitably answers in the affirmative (11). The search for the physical origins of thought reduces humanity to nothing but matter, discarding the human subject as an illusion. Hawkes argues that if humanists accept the embodied mind as truth, the consequences could be devastating, and not only for humanities departments subject to "colonizatiorf' by the natural sciences (21). Neuroscience, he contends, is aligned on a metaphysical level with the capitalist project of endless commodification: it reduces humanity to another type of matter to be monetized and consumed. Hawkes's essay engendered a series of vigorous, erudite responses, all recently published by the online journal Early Modern Culture. Given the influence of cognitive science on humanities research and the stakes involved, the discussion amongst Hawkes and his interlocutors is passionate, enlightening, and wide-ranging. It is unfortunate, however, that none of the participants took notice of Philip Davis's Shakespeare Thinking, a short but exciting work on the creative cognitive properties of language. In this book, Davis outlines a method of literary analysis that incorporates cognitive science while remaining sensitive to poetic subtleties and the dynamic relationship between mind and brain. Davis argues that Shakespeare's dramatic verse reveals bits and pieces of "an original text or background script for the creation of life" (1). "Shakespearean thinking" is the name Davis gives to this script. Despite the materiality of the textual metaphor Davis employs, he is interested in action rather than substance. Speed is the most important feature of Shakespearean thinking, which jumps suddenly and unpredictably from place to place like a flash of electricity; it is a "quicker, more physically dispersed form of mentality" that expresses the almost pre-linguistic experience of life as it is in action, before the hardening of experience into memory and its inevitable second-order revisions (2). Rather than examining the content of thought, then, Davis attempts to trace thinking in motion, finding evidence of its passing in the transformations wrought upon language by the electrical flash of thought's sudden leaps and connections. For the language to analyze such an elusive and ephemeral phenomenon, Davis draws on an eclectic array of sources, most notably a tradition of process philosophy that begins with William Hazlitt and moves through Charles Darwin to John Dewey, William James, and Henri Bergson. Contemplating reality as fluid motion rather than fixed substances, these thinkers provide Davis with a nascent philosophical language to "hold open the momentary" and describe life and thought in action prior to the illusory separation of subject and object and to the fixing of experience in settled concepts (10). It is these moments and motions "between," says Davis, that Shakespeare attempts to capture in verse: the generative processes of thinking as living energies collide with one another. In a series of subtle and elegant close readings, Davis demonstrates the methodological implications of a focus on thinking over thought. Since Shakespearean thinking exists only when performed, it is not "in" the text. …


Casalini Libri started cataloguing in the 1960s to ensure that bibliographic information for new scholarly publications in our areas of expertise (works from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Malta and Greece) were available to academic libraries worldwide, and we now have a staff of 25 cataloguers. As a member of the Program of Cooperative Cataloguing, Casalini started with day 1 of RDA, April 1, 2013, producing authority records in the format as well as updating existing records. Now, all the bibliographic records we provide are in RDA, approximately 500 books every week, and some of our staff have even worked on the Italian translation of RDA. Casalini Libri is also a contributor to NACO and SACO, submitting subject headings (in RDA) and call numbers, to the revision of the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress.


This paper examines some of the determinants of total factor productivity growth using a sample of 216 large U.K. firms observed over the period 1974-90, and then using three further samples which were used to check the robustness of the results. The main focus of the paper is on identifying the size of agglomeration economies and technology spillovers between firms. Both types of externality should drive the productivity growth rates of individual firms together (and, in the second case, link them to the incidence of innovation). The overwhelming feature of the data, however, is that productivity growth rates, at the level of the firm, are very idiosyncratic. Not only are they extremely hard to predict using their own history, but they are also very difficult to predict using information on the productivity growth or innovative activity of their rivals. We conclude that agglomeration economies and technological spillovers are, at best, of very modest size.


Aim To determine how pharmacists respond to requests for over‐the‐counter (OTC) medicines by patients on a methadone maintenance programme. Design Postal self‐administered questionnaire distributed to all Greater Glasgow Health Board (GGHB) pharmacies. Participants Community pharmacists involved in the GGHB methadone maintenance programme. Findings Pharmacists are consulted most frequently for advice about colds/flu and gastrointestinal symptoms. Analgesics (by specific brand) were found to be the most often requested OTC product. Most requests (either for advice or sale of a product) were dealt with personally by the pharmacist. In most instances, pharmacists were suspicious of these requests and were reluctant to make a supply. The most common product for which sales were refused was Nytol (diphenhydramine), a sedative antihistamine. Although no statistical difference was found between gender, a greater proportion of those denying sales were female. However, no difference was found in pharmacist propensity to deny or allow a sale and their age (determined by year of registration). Conclusion This study has given an insight into how community pharmacists deal with OTC medication requests and the nature of such requests. Pharmacists were found to be cautious when dealing with methadone patients, although requests for OTC products from this group were few in number.


Even simple superconducting logic gates can contain tens of inductors, resistors and Josephson junctions. In order to increase the yield and reliability of such suboptimal circuits to acceptable levels, it is often neededto adjust all the element values. The search space is therefore very large, and genetic algorithms have been used with remarkable success to optimize such gates.


A tax on the harmful elements of finance — a tax on systemic risk — would raise revenue and also lower the likelihood of future crisis. Financial institutions, which pay the tax, would try to minimize its cost by lowering their systemic risk. In theory, a tax on systemic risk is perfect policy. In practice, however, this perfect policy is unattainable. Tax laws need clear definitions to be administrable. Our current understanding of systemic risk is too abstract and too metaphorical to serve as a target for taxation.

Despite the absence of a clear definition of systemic risk, academics and policy makers continue to propose special taxes on finance. The most prominent proposal is the financial transaction tax (FTT), which has some possibility of being adopted in the European Union. The FTT and other similar proposals levy their taxes on proxies for systemic risk (for example, the volume of financial transactions or the size of financial institutions). While these proposals would raise revenue, they would fail as regulatory measures (and could even be counterproductive). While transaction volume and institutional size might be correlated with systemic risk, they are not causes of systemic risk. By exploring each of these issues in depth, this article provides a useful starting point for the discussion on taxing the financial sector.


Abstract. We performed nitrogen (N) budgets in the photic layer of three
contrasting stations representing different trophic conditions in the western
tropical South Pacific (WTSP) Ocean during austral summer conditions
(February–March 2015). Using a Lagrangian strategy, we sampled the same
water mass for the entire duration of each long-duration (5 days) station,
allowing us to consider only vertical exchanges for the budgets. We
quantified all major vertical N fluxes both entering (N 2 fixation,
nitrate turbulent diffusion, atmospheric deposition) and leaving the photic
layer (particulate N export). The three stations were characterized by a
strong nitracline and contrasted deep chlorophyll maximum depths, which were
lower in the oligotrophic Melanesian archipelago (MA, stations LD A and LD B)
than in the ultra-oligotrophic waters of the South Pacific Gyre (SPG, station
LD C). N 2  fixation rates were extremely high at both LD A
(593  ±  51  µ mol N m −2  d −1) and LD B
(706  ±  302  µ mol N m −2  d −1) , and the diazotroph
community was dominated by Trichodesmium. N 2  fixation rates
were lower (59  ±  16  µ mol N m −2  d −1) at LD C, and
the diazotroph community was dominated by unicellular N 2 -fixing
cyanobacteria (UCYN). At all stations, N 2  fixation was the major source
of new N ( >  90 %) before atmospheric deposition and upward nitrate
fluxes induced by turbulence. N 2 fixation contributed circa 13–18 %
of primary production in the MA region and 3 % in the
SPG water and sustained
nearly all new primary production at all stations. The e  ratio
( e  ratio  =  particulate carbon export  ∕  primary production) was
maximum at LD A (9.7 %) and was higher than the e  ratio in most studied
oligotrophic regions (  5 %), indicating a high efficiency of the WTSP
to export carbon relative to primary production. The direct export of
diazotrophs assessed by qPCR of the nifH gene in sediment traps
represented up to 30.6 % of the PC export at LD A, while their
contribution was 5 and  0.1 % at LD B and LD C, respectively. At the
three studied stations, the sum of all N input to the photic layer exceeded
the N output through organic matter export. This disequilibrium leading to N
accumulation in the upper layer appears as a characteristic of the WTSP
during the summer season.


Research Background: Bent Circuits is an interactive installation that offers 'hands-on' exploration of sounds hidden in technology. The technologies include electronic toys and an instrument that makes no sound of its own. Participants are asked: can you coax sound from all three? Two have been modified to extend capability beyond presupposed use. The third is a mixing desk, which would usually be used to balance and adjust sound. However, the outputs of this mixing desk have been connected to its inputs, which leads to audible feedback; with careful twiddling the hidden 'voice' of the mixer can thus be brought to the fore.
Research Contribution: Hidden sounds and the appropriation and reuse of existing objects is at the foreground of this project, which comments upon the prevalent cultural assumption that technology should offer fast and effortless gratification. The work presents familiar objects, which involve sound, but their new functionality is either hypersensitive to touch or requires careful activation at specific times and in a specific order. At Tyalgum Music Festival and Listening Museum III some participants struggled to operate the devices. Those that persevered figured out how to 'touch' or otherwise operate the instruments and many were able to elicit sound in a surprisingly virtuosic manner. Overall, this project reminds us that a saxophone or violin being difficult to master is culturally acceptable and suggests that a similarly open-ended and non-reductionist approach to technology may improve our relationship with it.
Research Significance: Bent Circuits was created as part of Hidden Sounds 2018, a series of 7 sound installations curated by Clocked Out with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. Hidden Sounds have appeared as part of National Science Week and the Eco-Acoustics International Conference, been installed at Tyalgum Music Festival, and presented at The Listening Museum III in association with Clocked Out and Urban Arts Project.


In a study of intramuscular injection of quinine eight adults with moderately severe falciparum malaria resistant to chloroquine were treated with quinine dihydrochloride, being given a loading dose of 20 mg salt (16.7 mg base)/kg followed by three or four eight hourly maintenance doses of 10 mg salt (8.3 mg base)/kg injected into the anterior thigh. All patients responded to treatment. Fever and parasite clearance times (mean (SD) 60 (23) h and 53 (22) h respectively) were comparable with those obtained with intravenous quinine. The mean peak plasma quinine concentration of 11.0 mg/l (34.4 mu mol/l) [corrected] was reached a median of five hours after administration of the loading dose. In all patients plasma quinine concentrations exceeded the high minimum inhibitory concentration for Plasmodium falciparum malaria prevalent in Thailand within four hours of the start of treatment but did not cause toxicity other than mild cinchonism. When intravenous infusion is not possible an intramuscular quinine loading dose is an effective means of starting treatment in patients with moderately severe falciparum malaria who cannot swallow tablets.


A controlled launch for plasmons To create nanophotonic devices, engineers must combine large-scale optics with tiny nanoelectronics. Plasmons, the collective light-induced excitations of electrons at a metal's surface, can bridge that difference in size scales. Alonso-Gonzalez et al. placed structured gold "antennas" on top of a graphene layer to launch and propagate plasmonic excitations into the graphene. By carefully designing the antennas, the researchers could engineer the wavefronts of the plasmons and control the direction of propagation. This approach illustrates a versatile approach for the development of nanophotonics. Science, this issue p. 1369 Structured gold antennas are used to launch plasmons into graphene, engineer their wavefronts, and control their propagation. Graphene plasmons promise unique possibilities for controlling light in nanoscale devices and for merging optics with electronics. We developed a versatile platform technology based on resonant optical antennas and conductivity patterns for launching and control of propagating graphene plasmons, an essential step for the development of graphene plasmonic circuits. We launched and focused infrared graphene plasmons with geometrically tailored antennas and observed how they refracted when passing through a two-dimensional conductivity pattern, here a prism-shaped bilayer. To that end, we directly mapped the graphene plasmon wavefronts by means of an imaging method that will be useful in testing future design concepts for nanoscale graphene plasmonic circuits and devices.


Research surveys of the field of entrepreneurship suggest that the maturation and institutionalization of entrepreneurship as a research field brings about both new opportunities and constraints from established thoughts and practices. In this chapter we explore some commonly applied questions and methodological dogmas in the field. In doing so we argue that research in entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly institutionalized with regard to different issues: successively scholarship, research questions, areas/units of analysis, as well as research tools used. When draw upon insights from philosophy of science and research on discovery of research ideas to discuss whether we as researchers pose questions that help us better understand entrepreneurship, its role in society and the way it affects society. We conclude the chapter by using the philosophy of Pragmatism to discuss how Entrepreneurs are pragmatic agents that draw upon a multitude of skills, experiences, repertoires of themselves and of others to reach their goals. Perhaps entrepreneurship research could benefit from learning from such an approach?


Compressive sensing (CS) is a novel sampling methodology representing a paradigm shift from conventional data acquisition schemes. The theory of compressive sensing ensures that under suitable conditions compressible signals or images can be reconstructed from far fewer samples or measurements than what are required by the Nyquist rate. So far in the literature, most works on CS concentrate on one-dimensional or two-dimensional data. However, besides involving far more data, three-dimensional (3D) data processing does have particularities that require the development of new techniques in order to make successful transitions from theoretical feasibilities to practical capacities. This thesis studies several issues arising from the applications of the CS methodology to some 3D image processing tasks. Two specific applications are hyperspectral imaging and video compression where 3D images are either directly unmixed or recovered as a whole from CS samples. The main issues include CS decoding models, preprocessing techniques and reconstruction algorithms, as well as CS encoding matrices in the case of video compression.
Our investigation involves three major parts. (1) Total variation (TV) regularization plays a central role in the decoding models studied in this thesis. To solve such models, we propose an efficient scheme to implement the classic augmented Lagrangian multiplier method and study its convergence properties. The resulting Matlab package TVAL3 is used to solve several models. Computational results show that, thanks to its low per-iteration complexity, the proposed algorithm is capable of handling realistic 3D image processing tasks. (2) Hyperspectral image processing typically demands heavy computational resources due to an enormous amount of data involved. We investigate low-complexity procedures to unmix, sometimes blindly, CS compressed hyperspectral data to directly obtain material signatures and their abundance fractions, bypassing the high-complexity task of reconstructing the image cube itself. (3) To overcome the "cliff effect" suffered by current video coding schemes, we explore a compressive video sampling framework to improve scalability with respect to channel capacities. We propose and study a novel multi-resolution CS encoding matrix, and a decoding model with a TV-DCT regularization function.
Extensive numerical results are presented, obtained from experiments that use not only synthetic data, but also real data measured by hardware. The results establish feasibility and robustness, to various extent, of the proposed 3D data processing schemes, models and algorithms. There still remain many challenges to be further resolved in each area, but hopefully the progress made in this thesis will represent a useful first step towards meeting these challenges in the future.


The potential of the Acoustic Emission (AE) method in real-time predictions of remaining useful life (RUL) has been a topic of interest for several decades now. The expectation in nondestructive and structural health monitoring applications of AE is that since it is a passive approach it has the advantage of being capable of providing at the very least trends of data that could be related to other information sources, for example mechanical loading and other monitoring devices. The challenge in actually extracting practical information related to RUL is associated often with the dual need of quantifying the progressive damage in the material/component. Hence, the issue of RUL estimations using AE has often being posed through the corresponding problem of material/structural state description. Technical issues that prevent the application of such a predictive scheme based on AE are related to the inherent characteristics of the acquired signals that typically include various forms of signal conditioning and are definitely influenced by extraneous factors, typically characterized as noise. To overcome such challenges several acquisition and post-processing schemes have been developed that include novel sensors and sensor arrangements, location algorithms that enable real time and post mortem filtering of recorded signals, as well as elaborate deterministic and statistical/probabilistic treatments of acquired AE datasets to extract reliable information on the developing damage, especially under dynamic loading conditions. Despite of this state-of-the-art, the applications in which AE has been successfully implemented for RUL estimations or predictions is rather limited or is driven by commercial applications and therefore lacks generality as well as robustness. In this context, this article describes a route for material agnostic RUL estimations based on fatigue tests in various stress amplitudes and in several classes of materials. Efforts to identify AE feature trends that are repeated among different tests and are supported by mechanical and other nondestructive information, primarily using full field optical methods, are presented. The success in computing RUL estimates is quantified by observing the 25% and 50% of the total life of the specimens tested. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/300


There is a growing need to educate future engineers in the multidisciplinary aspects of bioengineering systems design that go beyond the traditional senior design experience. Faculty in Engineering, Education, and Psychology at the University of Denver (DU), collaborated with faculty at the Denver Health Medical Center and received a grant from the National Science Foundation to address this need and develop projects that would aid persons with disabilities. Our approach is to educate the students in an elective course called Bioengineering System Design in the first quarter of the senior year to develop interview skills, interact with medical professionals, identify potential customers, and develop initial design requirements. Our course is then followed by the required senior design sequence in the second and third quarter. The lessons we learned while creating and delivering this course will be described in this paper.


Maternal brain adaptations occur in response to pregnancy, but little is known about how parity impacts white matter (WM) microstructure and WM ageing trajectories later in life. Utilising global and regional brain-age prediction based on multi-shell diffusion MRI data, we investigated the association between previous childbirths and WM brain age in 8,895 women in the UK Biobank cohort (age range = 54 - 81 years). The results showed that a higher number of previous childbirths was associated with lower WM brain age, in line with previous studies showing less evident grey matter (GM) brain ageing in parous relative to nulliparous women. Both global WM and GM brain age estimates showed unique contributions to the association with previous childbirths, suggesting partly independent processes. Corpus callosum contributed uniquely to the global WM association with previous childbirths, and showed a stronger relationship relative to several other tracts. While our findings demonstrate a link between reproductive history and brain WM characteristics later in life, longitudinal studies are required to understand how parity influences women's WM trajectories across the lifespan.


Many attempts have been made to reproduce theoretically the stress–strain curves obtained from experiments on the isothermal deformation of highly elastic 'rubberlike' materials. The existence of a strain-energy function has usually been postulated, and the simplifications appropriate to the assumptions of isotropy and incompressibility have been exploited. However, the usual practice of writing the strain energy as a function of two independent strain invariants has, in general, the effect of complicating the associated mathematical analysis (this is particularly evident in relation to the calculation of instantaneous moduli of elasticity) and, consequently, the basic elegance and simplicity of isotropic elasticity is sacrificed. Furthermore, recently proposed special forms of the strain-energy function are rather complicated functions of two invariants. The purpose of this paper is, while making full use of the inherent simplicity of isotropic elasticity, to construct a strain-energy function which: (i) provides an adequate representation of the mechanical response of rubberlike solids, and (ii) is simple enough to be amenable to mathematical analysis. A strain-energy function which is a linear combination of strain invariants defined by ϕ(α) = (a1α+a2α+a3α–3)/α is proposed; and the principal stretches a1, a2 and a3 are used as independent variables subject to the incompressibility constraint a1a2 a3 = 1. Principal axes techniques are used where appropriate. An excellent agreement between this theory and the experimental data from simple tension, pure shear and equibiaxial tension tests is demonstrated. It is also shown that the present theory has certain repercussions in respect of the constitutive inequality proposed by Hill (1968a, 1970b).


Take the mystery out of digital photography and join the fun! You don't need to be a professional photographer or a technology expert to take great digital photos! This down-to-basics guide makes it easy to choose the right camera, understand all its dials and controls, take good pictures, make them look even better with your computer, and print them or share them online for friends and family to enjoy. Do your homework compare camera features to choose those you need at the price you can afford Practice, practice, practice learn to use camera settings, how to compose good shots, and how light affects a picture The darkroom is now digital use free software to organize and edit your photos Learn to share print your pictures at home or through a service, e-mail them to friends, set up an online photo album, or show them off in a digital picture frame Open the book and find: How to pick the camera that best fits your budget and needs Tips for taking great travel photos Accessories you might want for your camera How to get really good pictures of kids and pets Easy ways to get photos from your camera to your computer Tips and tricks for editing pictures on a computer Good reasons for putting your pictures online


Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana L.) is reducing grassland productivity across much of the Great Plains. Control methods include broadcast prescribed fire, herbicides, cutting, and individual tree ignition. All methods have disadvantages when used alone. Fire can be ineffective against larger trees. Intensive methods can be too expensive for low-productivity grasslands. The objectives of this research were to determine the effects of broadcast prescribed fie alone as measured at 3 weeks after fire; to compare the effects of picloram herbicide application with or without fire, sawing with or without fire, and individual tree ignition with fire; and to compare all treatment costs. Treatments were applied at a central Nebraska rangeland site in 1993 and 1994. Fire mortality was 77% in 1993 and 67% in 1994. Either picloram or cutting after fire provided nearly 100% control of trees < 3 m tall, but cutting was more effective for trees > 3 m tall. Total mortality due to treatment combinations generally was higher in 1993, when burning conditions were more favorable. Burning, at an estimated cost of $4.96 ha-', before picloram application or cutting reduced total costs by nearly half. Picloram application costs were reduced from $90.10 ha-' to $47.95 ha-', and cutting costs from $62.92 ha-' to 39.26 ha-'. Burning frst also reduced cutting time from 362 min ha-' to 184 min ha-', but did not significantly decrease picloram application time. Prescribed fire should precede intensive treatment applications if possible, both to reduce costs and improve total effectiveness. Because the costs and effectiveness of burning followed by either picloram or cutting are similar, managers should choose the method most suitable to individual circumstances.


The spectroscopic properties of Er3+ ion in tellurite glass of molar composition 76TeO2∙10ZnO∙9.0PbO∙1.0PbF2∙3.0Na2O∙1.0Er2O3 was investigated experimentally. The three phenomenological intensity parameters Ωk (k = 2, 4, 6) were determined from the absorption spectral intensities using the Judd-Ofelt (J-O) theory. Several radiative properties such as spontaneous transition probabilities, fluorescence branching ratios and radiative life times were determined by using these intensity parameters. The special attention was attributed to the visible emissions that could be obtained by pumping using a blue laser diode. The stimulated emission cross-section and CIE chromaticity coordinates were calculated. The latter were used to evaluate green light emitting by Er:TZPPN glass. Subsequently, the stimulated emission cross-section, around 1.5 μm, was calculated from McCumber theory. Gain cross-section for laser transition 4I13/2→ 4I15/2 of Er3+-ions was obtained. In comparison with other Er-doped laser glasses, the calculated parameters show that Er:TZPPN glass satisfies the fundamental spectral condition for laser emission around 1.5 μm. Moreover the Raman gain coefficient of the present glass was obtained from Raman scattering experiments using 532 nm excitation [(532 nm Laser type Diode-pumped, solid state (DPSS)]. The developed glass showed the widest bandwidths of gain cross section from 249 to 1,106 cm−1.


We consider the interpretation of some theoretical and experimental work regarding electromigration voiding in nanoindented, single crystal aluminum lines. A recently suggested voiding criterion of a critical accumulated flux divergence is found, in fact, to be identical to the widely accepted critical stress criterion. The inclusion of the stress dependence of the atomic diffusion coefficient is shown to be vital when the steady state is characterized by J≠0, such as in the case of a void growing at a constant rate. It is found, for example, that the stress required for steady void growth, within single crystal Al lines, is probably significantly smaller than previously suggested.


his paper examines the importance of achieving high agricultural growth as a means of accelerating Ethiopia's economic transformation. The conclusions are that a high rate of agricultural growth has farreaching positive implications for increasing employment and accelerating poverty reduction. An agricultural GDP of six percent is feasible through a high growth rate in agricultural productivity; however, reforms are needed to accelerate growth in seed production and distribution, and in fertilizer distribution and application.


Component-based software engineering denotes the practice of building software from pre-existing smaller products, in particular when this is done using standardized software component models. The main expected benefits of this practice over traditional software engineering approaches are increased productivity and timeliness of development projects. While the use of software component models has become common for desktop and server-side software, this is not the case in the domain of embedded real-time systems, presumably due to the special requirements such systems have to meet with respect to predictable timing and limited use of resources. Much research exists that aims to define new component models for this domain, typically focusing on source code components, static system configuration, and relatively narrow application domains.This dissertation explores the alternative approach of using components based on binary code, allowing dynamic configuration, and targeting a broader domain. A study of a general purpose component model shows that the model is compatible with real-time requirements, although putting some restrictions on its use may be necessary to ensure predictability. A case study demonstrates how the model has been used with advantage in an industrial control system. The dissertation furthermore proposes an approach for extending the component model with run-time services for embedded real-time systems. It presents a prototype tool for supporting such services, along with two empirical studies to evaluate the approach and the tool as well as the component model itself. One study shows that both the component model and the services provided by the tool result in very modest and predictable run-time overheads. The other study, evaluating the effects on productivity and quality of using the approach in a software development project, did not produce quantitative evidence, but concludes that the approach is promising and identifies possible adjustments to it and opportunities for further studies.


Many researchers have dealt with potential selectivity bias in developing country wage equations by employing Heckman's (1979) two-step method or related techniques, despite the potential for such methods to produce misleading results if the assumptions on which they are based are incorrect. This paper argues that the results produced even by parametric, easy-to-implement selectivity bias-correction methods can inspire more confidence than the typical applications to date when model selection testing is used to select (from a specified, diverse set) assumptions for which there is support in the data, and when sensitivity analysis is used to identify parameters whose estimates are robust across a wide range of assumptions. In particular, it highlights the importance of allowing for (the nonlinearities implied by) selection rule heteroskedasticity. There is economic reason to suspect heteroskedasticity and econometric reason to believe that the nonlinearities it introduces into the first stage will improve the performance of two-stage estimators. In an application to urban Peru, homoskedasticity is strongly rejected, and, in models allowing for heteroskedasticity, selection rule normality is no longer rejected, and estimates of key parameters become more robust to changes in other statistical assumptions. Because the nonlinearities appear to be captured well by the inclusion of quadratic terms in the first stage, the results suggest that researchers may have much to gain by including quadratic terms in standard probit selection rule estimation.


The Institute of Applied Environmental Research (ITM) in Sweden was assigned by theSwedish Environmental Protection Agency, Naturvardsverket (NV), to organize a projectwith the purpose to compare results of analyses from different laboratories regarding metals infish liver and mercury in fish muscle. The analyses should be made on samples from perchfrom one of the national monitoring program lakes in southern Sweden, and the invitedlaboratories should primarily be laboratories that are potential performers in the program. TheContaminant Research Group at the Swedish Museum of Natural History was at the sametime assigned to organize a similar project, regarding organic pollutants in fish muscle.


BackgroundIntraoperative access to radiographic images is essential for the accurate diagnosis, operative planning and surgical treatment of many musculoskeletal conditions. Traditionally, hardcopy radiographs have been readily available for this purpose. Recently, however, hardcopy radiographs have become less accessible because many hospitals have transitioned to digitally-based picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). Typically, PACS is available in hospital clinics, emergency rooms, and radiology departments but not, as in our institution, in the operating room. The purpose of this study was to determine the merits of implementing and having access to PACS in the operating room. MethodsAll hardcopy radiographs generated solely for use in orthopaedic surgery cases at our institution were prospectively tracked for 3 months. The annualized costs associated with these hardcopy images (film, production, storage, technical time) were compared with the projected cost of acquiring, mounting, and maintaining PACS monitors in the orthopaedic surgery operating room. ResultsComparative cost analysis determined that the initial 12-month cost for orthopaedic surgery PACS in the operating room would be realized at 9 months after implementation; the projected PACS net savings for our institution would be approximately $500,000 at 10 years after implementation. ConclusionsIn addition to improved efficiency in patient care, a clear cost benefit exits of implementing PACS in the orthopaedic surgery operating room.


Reciprocal interactions between cancers and the surrounding microenvironment have an important role in tumour evolution. In this study, our data suggested that through thrombospondin 1 (TSP1), tumour-associated microvessel provides a dormant niche to sustain inactive status of breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) cells. TSP1 levels in the tumour stroma were negatively correlated with vascular indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) in IDC tissues. IDO1 is an intracellular enzyme initiating the first and rate-limited step of tryptophan breakdown. Lower stromal TSP1 levels and positive tumour vascular IDO1 staining seems to associate with poor survive of patients with IDC. IDC cells induced a significantly increase in IDO1 expression in endothelial cells (ECs). IFNγ exerts a similar effect on ECs. We hypothesized a tryptophan starvation theory that since tryptophan is essential for the synthesis of TSP1, IDO1 induce a decrease in tryptophan availability and a reduction in TSP1 synthesis in ECs, leading to overcoming the dormancy state of IDC cells and exacerbating conditions such as tumour invasion and metastasis. These findings identify a non-canonical role of IFNγ/IDO1/TSP1 axis in microvascular niche-dominated dormancy of breast invasive ductal carcinoma with a solid foundation for further investigation of therapeutic and prognostic relevance.


Using historical data on early settlers to the United States, this paper tests and confirms the "Culture of Honor" hypothesis by socio-psychologists Dov Cohen and Richard Nisbett (1994, 1996). This hypothesis argues that the high prevalence of homicides in the US South stems from the fact that it was a frontier region settled by people whose economy was based on herding: the Scotch-Irish. Herding societies develop cultures of honors for reasons having to do with their precariousness: violence is a necessary condition to preserve a reputation for toughness and deter animal theft. Using historical census data on waves of settlers from Europe and relating contemporaneous violence to early Scotch-Irish settlers, this paper provides a test of the link between Scotch-Irish settlers and the culture of honor. The results confirm that high numbers of Scotch-Irish immigrants to the US South by 1790 are associated with higher homicide rates today, including homicides by white offenders. Similar results do not hold for different origins of migrants or other violent crime or offenses. The effect is stronger in counties with high headcounts of pigs and sheep in the 19th century, confirming the herding origin of the culture of honor. An important contribution of this paper is to suggests an instrument for violence, based on past economic occupations and ecological suitability for herding vs. farming.


We develop a sovereign debt model with official and private creditors where default risk depends on both the level and the composition of liabilities. Higher exposure to official lenders improves incentives to repay but carries extra costs, such as reduced ex-post flexibility. The model implies that official lending to sovereigns takes place in times of debt distress; carries a favorable rate; and can displace private funding even under pari passu provisions. Moreover, in the presence of long-term debt overhang, the availability of official funds increases the probability of default on existing debt, although default does not trigger exclusion from private credit markets. These findings help shed light on joint default and debt composition choices of the type observed during the recent sovereign debt crisis in Europe. JEL-Code: F340, H630.


Classical Lie group theory provides a universal tool for calculating symmetry groups for systems of differential equations. However Lie's method is not as much effective in the case of integral or integro-differential equations as well as in the case of infinite systems of differential equations. This paper is aimed to survey the modern approaches to symmetries of integrodifferential equations. As an illustration, an infinite symmetry Lie algebra is calculated for a system of integro-differential equations, namely the well-known Benney equations. The crucial idea is to look for symmetry generators in the form of canonical Lie-Bäcklund operators.


The aim of this article is to aid in the diagnosis of burns and also to act as a guide to the initial management of a burn. Before one administers first aid, the location, severity and cause of the burn must be assessed and evaluated. The burn must then be treated accordingly. However, if in doubt, treat the burn as a severe or major burn, especially if the cause is unknown. First aid administered within the first 20 minutes can be life saving and prevent major complications.


OBJECTIVE: In 2010, the National Children's Study launched 3 alternative recruitment methods to test possible improvements in efficiency compared with traditional household-based recruitment and participant enrollment. In 2012, a fourth method, provider-based sampling (PBS), tested a probability-based sampling of prenatal provider locations supplemented by a second cohort of neonates born at a convenience sample of maternity hospitals. METHODS: From a sampling frame of 472 prenatal care provider locations and 59 maternity hospitals, 49 provider and 7 hospital locations within or just outside 3 counties participated in study recruitment. During first prenatal care visits or immediately postdelivery at these locations, face-to-face contact was used to screen and recruit eligible women. RESULTS: Of 1450 screened women, 1270 were eligible. Consent rates at prenatal provider locations (62%–74% by county) were similar to those at birth locations (64%–77% by county). During 6 field months, 3 study centers enrolled a total prenatal cohort of 530 women (the majority in the first trimester) and during 2 months enrolled a birth cohort of an additional 320 mother-newborn dyads. As personnel became experienced in the field, the time required to enroll a woman in the prenatal cohort declined from up to 200 hours to 50 to 100 hours per woman recruited. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated that PBS was feasible and operationally efficient in recruiting a representative cohort of newborns from 3 diverse US counties. Our findings suggest that PBS is a practical approach to recruit large pregnancy and birth cohorts across the United States.


This research examined the potential utility of a parental control technique to prevent adolescent drunk driving by identifying parent and teen sources of resistance to an ignition interlock system. The research also examined the theoretical issue of parental control over adolescents by identifying factors parents consider when deciding to use a control technique. Parent and teen receptivity to the interlock was examined in relation to teen drunk driving. General parental control orientations (controlling vs. permissive) were examined in relation to the factors that influence parental decisions to implement such a control technique. Factors related to sources of reluctance to use the device were also examined. The findings revealed that parents were generally ambivalent toward the interlock. In contrast, teens responses varied, with approximately 20% of the sample reporting favorable attitudes toward having an interlock installed in the their cars. In addition, both parents and teens expressed concern about how the interlock would affect their relationship with each other. Finally, controlling parents tended to place less emphasis on the perceived effectiveness of the control technique when forming their attitudes toward its implementation compared to permissive parents. The findings are discussed in the context of prevention efforts for adolescent drunk driving.


Flexibility and Interactivity in the Context o f Web-based Curriculum: Managing Change Wong Wai Man, Joseph The research for this thesis involves a case study about the development of a Web-based Curriculum (WBC) in the Institute of Vocational Education of Hong Kong (IVE), based on a WBC Change Model which provides a research framework emphasizing the importance of managing change in relation to the flexibility and interactivity in the context of the WBC. Previous research studies on Web-based education about its effectiveness on learning outcomes are found to be highly controversial. There is an assertion that the failure to fully use technology in education may be due to academic and technical divide. With regard to this, the study gives a balanced consideration to both educational and technological issues. It shows how the flexibility provided by the addition of WBC contributes to student learning and serves the new needs in the IVE. It also explains how strict control can stifle the growth of the WBC. It is found that human interactions and interactive elements of the WBC are likely to improve student performance as compared with non-human and static elements respectively. The study explores the highly complicated effects of different types of virtual interaction on student learning. The overall effect can be zero or destructive if one or more components dominate the others. If this is the case, the theory of 'no-significant difference' prevails but eventually fails to reflect the true picture. The thesis provides further evidence to support the theory of additional learning benefits for different types of interaction on the Web. This research uniquely addresses the distinct characteristics of language barriers for the native Chinese students in Hong Kong especially when the Internet is primarily designed for native English users. Finally, the study explains why and how the failure of the WBC in IVE is related to the curriculum and academic structure. It depicts the conditions to support the development of a unified WBC and illustrates why the educational institutions are slow to respond to technological change. It also identifies those critical success factors related to technology and explains why a mixed strategy on information technology (IT) is suitable for effective implementation of the WBC. The results of this study have significant and far-reaching effects on the formulation of academic policy, organization structure and IT strategy especially for higher and tertiary institutions in Hong Kong.


Robot-aided physical therapy should encourage subject's voluntary participation to achieve rapid motor function recovery. In order to enhance subject's cooperation during training sessions, the robot should allow deviation in the prescribed path depending on the subject's modified limb motions subsequent to the disability. In the present work, an interactive training paradigm based on the impedance control was developed for a lightweight intrinsically compliant parallel ankle rehabilitation robot. The parallel ankle robot is powered by pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs). The proposed training paradigm allows the patients to modify the robot imposed motions according to their own level of disability. The parallel robot was operated in four training modes namely position control, zero-impedance control, nonzero-impedance control with high compliance, and nonzero-impedance control with low compliance to evaluate the performance of proposed control scheme. The impedance control scheme was evaluated on 10 neurologically intact subjects. The experimental results show that an increase in robotic compliance encouraged subjects to participate more actively in the training process. This work advances the current state of the art in the compliant actuation of parallel ankle rehabilitation robots in the context of interactive training.


This paper presents design and development of a new intelligent controller consisting of three software agents for the control of parametric and functionally uncertain multi-modal systems. First the development of a stable parallel controller scheme will be discussed. Then, Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) based agent design and the adaptive law formulation will be detailed. Further, the design details of a fuzzy multiple model generator and the algorithmic development and the pseudo codes are illustrated. The importance of the proposed control scheme is assessed by applying it for the position control of a single link robotic manipulator. It has been found that the proposed scheme is stable and produced precision tracking of the position trajectory in the presence of parametric and functional uncertainty in manipulator model.


This essay examines the representation of French women in two of Shakespeare's history plays, King John and Henry V . French women appear more often in Shakespeare's plays than women of any other European nationality. They also hold some of the largest speaking parts for women in his plays. Comparing the women of King John and Henry V to Shakespeare's earliest depictions of French women, in the Henry VI plays, the essay argues that French women were subject to a range of representations across the history plays. Characters like Queen Margaret, Constance of Brittany, and Katherine of France are either domesticated or estranged by Shakespeare according to a complex set of cultural negotiations that operate both within and beyond their respective plays.


Objective. To develop, implement, and evaluate a course-based, cross-cultural student interaction using real-time videoconferencing between universities in Canada and Qatar. Design. A professional skills simulation practice session on smoking cessation was run for students in Qatar (n=22) and Canada (n=22). Students role played cases in small group situations and then interacted with colleagues from the other country regarding culturally challenging situations and communication strategies. Assessment. Students were assessed on analytical content and communication skills through faculty member and peer evaluation. Cultural competency outcomes were assessed using a postsession survey. Overall, 92.3% of respondents agreed that learning was enhanced through the cross-cultural exchange, and 94.9% agreed that insight was gained into the health-related issues and needs of people from another culture. Conclusion. A course-based, cross-cultural interaction was an effective method to incorporate cultural competency principles into student learning. Future initiatives should increase direct student interaction and focus on culturally sensitive topics.


The multi-physics simulation of coupled fluid-structure interaction problems, with disjoint fluid and solid domains, requires one to choose a method for enforcing the fluid-structure coupling at the interface between solid and fluid. While it is common knowledge that the choice of coupling technique can be very problem dependent, there exists no satisfactory coupling comparison methodology that allows for conclusions to be drawn with respect to the comparison of computational cost and solution accuracy for a given scenario. In this work, we develop a computational framework where all aspects of the computation can be held constant, save for the method in which the coupled nature of the fluid-structure equations is enforced. To enable a fair comparison of coupling methods, all simulations presented in this work are implemented within a single numerical framework within the deal.ii [1] finite element library. We have chosen the two-dimensional benchmark test problem of Turek and Hron [2] as an example to examine the relative accuracy of the coupling methods studied; however, the comparison technique is equally applicable to more complex problems. We show that for the specific case considered herein the monolithic approach outperforms partitioned and quasi-direct methods; however, this result is problem dependent and we discuss computational and modeling aspects which may affect other comparison studies.


We undertake the first New Zealand-based pilot study to investigate the use of ancient precariously balanced rocks (rocks that are unstably balanced on top of a pedestal) as a criteria for testing estimates of earthquake shaking from probabilistic seismic hazard models for long-return periods. To date, research to test seismic-hazard models in New Zealand has been restricted to the short historical record of earthquakes. Our survey of five sites in the South Island of New Zealand has yielded a total of 28 precariously balanced rocks which, on the basis of established methodology, are used to provide estimates of the maximum ground motions that could have occurred at the sites since the rocks became precarious. Age estimates for the precariously balanced rocks (40,400 to 55,300 years for central Otago schist rocks, and 77,300 years for northwest Nelson granitic rocks) are made from a limited number of cosmogenic dates obtained from bedrock removed from the pedestals of the rocks. Comparisons of the maximum peak ground accelerations and ages of the precariously balanced rocks with seismic-hazard curves derived from the New Zealand national seismic-hazard model show that the rocks indicate considerably lower hazard than the seismic-hazard model at sites located within 5 km of active faults, whereas the agreement is favorable for sites located away from active faults. The variability about the median estimates of peak ground acceleration for the fault sources and/or the median accelerations for the fault sources assumed in the seismic- hazard model may therefore be overestimated for the sites near active faults.


This study demonstrates the feasibility of using GIS in the assessment of landscape visual quality. Based on the digital elevation model achieved by processing the 1:5000 scale topographic plans, Viewshed analysis application was performed for 5 observation points of the territory, which were selected by objective criteria. We tried to quantify the landscape values of Piatra Neamt administrative territory through an objective analysis of the reality on the ground reflected from the observation points, taking into consideration also the human perception regarding these aspects (a hardly accepted domain by the scientific community). The analysis can lead to precise values of the landscape, yet the only element more difficult to quantify remains human perception. The application was possible starting from the mathematical interpretation of the landscape proposed by Neuray G. in 1987, but a great importance in achieving the expected results is held by the specific GIS techniques mentioned above. The main purpose is to highlight the landscape potential of the area of study, noting that this analysis can be applied to any other area.


Leading up to and in the wake of national welfare reform, commentators, scholars, and advocates debated one of the key ingredients in the 1996 legislation: devolution of responsibility for the design and administration of welfare from the federal government to the states. Pro-devolutionists argued that devolution would create 50 state welfare experiments, would result in welfare programs tailored to the unique needs of individual states, and would lead to a race to the top in the quality of welfare programs. Anti-devolutionists argued that devolution would encourage states to compete to repel welfare recipients, to avoid becoming welfare magnets, and, ultimately, to race to the bottom in the quality of welfare services. These polar positions defined - and continue to define - much, if not all, of the welfare devolution debate. But these arguments are really just two sides of the same coin - polar positions rooted in the same fundamental assumption - and this universe of rhetoric is thus unduly constrained. To see this point, this article attempts to trace the predominant arguments in the devolution debate to a common intellectual root, neo-Tieboutian jurisdictional competition. Viewed in this light, the article argues that the predominant rhetoric reflects just one dimension of what ought to be a much more diverse debate. By expanding the debate to include such considerations as political participation, community, and equality and justice, the article suggests that the debate - and, indeed, options for welfare federalism - can and ought to be much richer.


The new scenarios of malicious attack prompt for their deeper consideration and mainly when critical systems are at stake. In this framework, infrastructural systems, including power systems, represent a possible target due to the huge impact they can have on society. Malicious attacks are different in their nature from other more traditional cause of threats to power system, since they embed a strategic interaction between the attacker and the defender (characteristics that cannot be found in natural events or systemic failures). This difference has not been systematically analyzed by the existent literature. In this respect, new approaches and tools are needed. This paper presents a mixed-strategy game-theory model able to capture the strategic interactions between malicious agents that may be willing to attack power systems and the system operators, with its related bodies, that are in charge of defending them. At the game equilibrium, the different strategies of the two players, in terms of attacking/protecting the critical elements of the systems, can be obtained. The information about the attack probability to various elements can be used to assess the risk associated with each of them, and the efficiency of defense resource allocation is evidenced in terms of the corresponding risk. Reference defense plans related to the online defense action and the defense action with a time delay can be obtained according to their respective various time constraints. Moreover, risk sensitivity to the defense/attack-resource variation is also analyzed. The model is applied to a standard IEEE RTS-96 test system for illustrative purpose and, on the basis of that system, some peculiar aspects of the malicious attacks are pointed out.


Background There is accumulating evidence for the role of fronto-striatal and associated circuits in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) but limited and conflicting data on alterations in cortical thickness. Aims To investigate alterations in cortical thickness and subcortical volume in OCD. Method In total, 412 patients with OCD and 368 healthy adults underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans. Between-group analysis of covariance of cortical thickness and subcortical volumes was performed and regression analyses undertaken. Results Significantly decreased cortical thickness was found in the OCD group compared with controls in the superior and inferior frontal, precentral, posterior cingulate, middle temporal, inferior parietal and precuneus gyri. There was also a group x age interaction in the parietal cortex, with increased thinning with age in the OCD group relative to controls. Conclusions Our findings are partially consistent with earlier work, suggesting that group differences in grey matter volume and cortical thickness could relate to the same underlying pathology of OCD. They partially support a frontostriatal model of OCD, but also suggest that limbic, temporal and parietal regions play a role in the pathophysiology of the disorder. The group x age interaction effects may be the result of altered neuroplasticity.


In a hybrid hydraulic vehicle, the hydraulic accumulator is used as the secondary power source in addition to the engine to propel the vehicle. Since the accumulator is a passive power source, it will be only used to compensate the difference between the power demand and the power delivery by the engine. Obviously, the main energy consumption is the engine. Hence a straightforward strategy to improve the fuel economy is to reduce the engine operating period. In contrast, because of the low energy density characteristic, the accumulator can only afford the required power in a short period. As a consequence, the hydraulic hybrid vehicle has been concluded only suitable for start-stop-and-go driving pattern. This paper present different rule-based control schemes for a 3.5- ton series hydraulic hybrid truck. The simulation results indicate that by applying suitable control scheme, the proposed series hydraulic hybrid system offers improvements of fuel economy for both urban and highway driving condition. The improvement is of 42.67% and 36.56% for urban and highway driving conditions, respectively in comparison with the corresponding conventional vehicle.


Strong-gravitational lens systems with quadruply imaged quasars (quads) are unique probes to address several fundamental problems in cosmology and astrophysics. Although they are intrinsically very rare, ongoing and planned wide-field deep-sky surveys are set to discover thousands of such systems in the next decade. It is thus paramount to devise a general framework to model strong-lens systems to cope with this large influx without being limited by expert investigator time. We propose such a general modelling framework (implemented with the publicly available software lenstronomy) and apply it to uniformly model three-band Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 images of 13 quads. This is the largest uniformly modelled sample of quads to date and paves the way for a variety of studies. To illustrate the scientific content of the sample, we investigate the alignment between the mass and light distribution in the deflectors. The position angles of these distributions are well-aligned, except when there is strong external shear. However, we find no correlation between the ellipticity of the light and mass distributions. We also show that the observed flux-ratios between the images depart significantly from the predictions of simple smooth models. The departures are strongest in the bluest band, consistent with microlensing being the dominant cause in addition to millilensing. Future papers will exploit this rich data set in combination with ground-based spectroscopy and time delays to determine quantities such as the Hubble constant, the free streaming length of dark matter, and the normalization of the initial stellar mass function.


The Cannington Ag-Pb-Zn deposit is located in the southeastern area of the Palaeoto Mesoproterozoic Mount Ise lnlier, northwest Queensland. The orebody is totally concealed beneath 1060m of flat-lying, semi-lithified Cretaceous to Recent sediments of the Eromanga Basin. The deposit constitutes an economic resource of 43.8 million tonnes (Mt) at 11.6% Pb, 4.4% Zn and 538g/t Ag, and currently the mine is the world's largest Pb and Ag producer. The deposit has been classified as a classic Broken Hill-type (BHT) Pb-Zn deposit based on remarkably similar geochemical, mineralogical and host rock affinities to the giant -280Mt Broken Hill deposit in New South Wales, Australia; the holotype of the BHT classification. Conjecture over the genesis of the Cannington deposit has arisen because of two disparate lines of thought. Metamorphogenic models assume that ore textures, mineralogies and chemistries are a record of the primary ore formation process, whereas syngenetic models consider that the same characteristics have been extensively modified by post-depositional deformation and metamorphism. As a result, premetamorphic and metamorphic-metasomatic models have been proposed. This thesis contributes to this debate by integrating geological, paragenetic, geochemical and isotopic constraints to identify the most plausible genetic model. Cannington is hosted by migmatitic gneiss with intercalated pegmatites, amphibolites, minor quartzites and rare Fe-Mn silicate (± sulphide) units. Various lines of evidence indicate that the gneiss represents metamorphosed, immature, siliciclastic sediments that were deposited during the early stages of intracontinental rifting ca. 1675 Ma. The migmatitic gneiss grades into a 250m-wide sillimanite-garnet schist and garnetiferous quartzite ore envelope that is interpreted to be a metamorphosed hydrothermal alteration halo genetically related to ore formation. Gahnite-bearing schists are a less common, but important component of the envelope. The host succession was subjected to polydeformation and high-P/low-T metamorphism related to dominantly west-vergent folding and thrusting during the lsan Orogeny between ca. 1600-1480 Ma. Using a combination of mineral equilibria and cation exchange thermobarometers, M 1 -M2 metamorphism is characterised by an anti-clockwise P-T-t path, with peak metamorphic conditions (M i ) of -730-750°C and 5-6kbar; consistent with upper amphibolite to transitional granulite facies conditions. It was during M I that substantial anatectic partial melting of the host metasedimentary succession occurred ca. 1580 Ma. This was followed by a retrograde M2 event that involved the ingress of metamorphically-derived, acidic fluids and the development of characteristic secondary sillimanite shear fabrics (S2). Third generation recumbent folding and thrusting resulted in the development of the Cannington Synform and Footwall Shear; an interpreted fold-thrust pair. The Cannington Synform controls the gross geometry of the deposit, resulting in repetition of ore lenses in the structural hanging wall and footwall. The Footwall Shear truncated ore lenses in the lower, attenuated limb of the Cannington Synform. A fourth generation of deformation (D4) appears to be related to a transient thermal perturbation (M3) initiated by the intrusion of voluminous granitic melts of the Williams-Naraku Batholith ca. 1520 Ma. D4 has a moderate effect on the geometry of the deposit, and is manifested by an open, upright synform. D5 represents a change in deformation style to a brittle regime. Two generations of subvertical faults overprint the orebody and locally offset ore lenses by up to 50m. The youngest of these generations comprises a conjugate fault set. Mineralised rocks can be divided into graphitic, Fe-Mn silicate and siliceous types, based on differing mineralogies, metal zonation and Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn concentrations. Textures are extremely variable depending on the ore type, and include: i) laterally continuous, millimetre to centimetre-scale compositional banding; ii) granoblastic sulphide-silicate textures with spheroidal sulphide inclusions in silicate minerals; iii) durchbewegt textures; iv) anastonnosing mylonitic zones in fluorite-magnetite-rich ores, and; v) quartz-sulphide breccias. The paragenesis of the deposit has been divided into three principal stages based on mineralogical assemblages and temporal relationships to deformation and metamorphic events recorded in the host metasediments and proximal garnetiferous alteration halo. Stage peak metamorphic assemblages comprise anhydrous minerals in sulphide-bearing graphitic, olivine and hedenbergite ores; Stage Ha: retrograde synto post-D2 metasomatism associated with IV The Cannington Ag-Pb-Zn deposit anhydrous alteration assemblages (hedenbergite-garnet-quartz-pyroxferroite) and silicification; Stage Ilb: amphibole veining and alteration, and minor sulphide deposition; and Stage Ilc: synto post-M3 pyrosmalite-magnetite alteration associated with abundant secondary sulphides, sulphosalts and antimonides; Stage ///: syn to post-D5 quartz-carbonate-chlorite alteration, temporally and spatially associated with two generations of subvertical faulting. The Stage Ila hedenbergite-garnet-quartz metasomatism and silicification produced a range of protolith-dependent metasomatic ore types such as siliceous Pb-Zn-Ag and siliceous Zn ore breccias. Overall, synto post-D2 metasomatism resulted in reworking and zone-refining of the deposit via localised solution-associated remobilisation of sulphides. Granoblastic sulphide-silicate textures and spheroidal sulphide inclusions in Stage I olivines and magnetite are consistent with the presence of sulphides prior to peak metamorphism. The presence of pseudomorphic bow-tie textures and relic inclusion trials (Si) in garnet porphyroblasts in graphitic ores, indicate that the timing for ore formation can be traced back through prograde metamorphism to preIsm Orogeny times. This is supported by cation exchange thermometric estimations that record the prograde evolution of the ores. Compared to migmatitic gneiss, sillimanite-garnet and gahnite-bearing schists have higher K/Na ratios and anomalous Mn, Pb and Zn concentrations. The most significant mass changes associated with alteration of gneissic protolith to sillimanite-garnet and gahnite-bearing schist involved mass gains in K, Mn, Pb, Zn and Rb, and losses in Si, Fe, Mg, Na, Sr and Ba, with average, absolute net mass gains of 0.8g/100g and 5.9g/100g respectively. On the basis of immobile elements (Ti, Zr, Al) graphitic ores contain a pelitic detrital component. Mass balance calculations between an average pelitic gneiss precursor composition and graphitic ores indicate absolute net mass gains between 25.0g/100g for samples that contain the highest proportion of pelitic detritus, to >1000g/100g that contain the least. Such large net mass changes can be explained by the presence of hydrothermal components in the ores, in addition to pelitic detritus. Chondrite-normalised REE signatures are characterised by LREEenrichment and strong positive Eu anomalies, similar to hydrothermal fluids and chemical sediments proximal to mid-ocean ridge hot springs. Calculated hydrothermal REE signatures are characterised by strong positive Eu anomalies when normalised to the local host gneiss. The data are consistent with the interpretation that graphitic ores are metamorphosed chemogenic sediments. 6 13C signatures of graphite in graphitic ores range between -27%. to -25%., consistent with a biogenic origin. The preservation of carbon is best accounted for by an anoxic environment if a synsedimentary origin is assumed. The data do not support a retrograde metasomatic model for ore formation. Paragenetically constrained Pb isotope signatures were determined on various ore types, and host rocks. Stage I and II galenas plot as a distinct linear cluster oriented along the machine fractionation trend, but within the limits of the precision ellipse. Most of the data plot just below the average crustal growth curve, and compared to other Proterozoic sediment-hosted Pb-Zn deposits in northern Australia (e.g. McArthur River and Mount lsa), have more primitive p values similar to other BHT deposits, such as Pegmont (30km west of Cannington) and Broken Hill in New South Wales. A strong correlation between Pb isotope signatures from Stage I and II galenas indicates that synto post-D3 metasomatic fluids sourced Pb from pre-existing Stage I ores and that significant exotic Pb was not introduced. Stage III galena and amazonite in lode pegmatites inherited their Pb isotopic signatures from pre-existing galena, as well as from radiogenic Pb in gneissic and garnetiferous rocks. The Pb isotope data also reveals that Stage I Pb was not sourced from the nearby granites, or the host metasediments. The available evidence suggests a more primitive, exotic source that is not exposed in the region. Development of a terrain-specific Pb isotope model for the Mount Isa region suggests that mineralisation was deposited at -1675 Ma. This age coincides with maximum depositional ages of ca. 1680 Ma (zircon U-Pb SHRIMP date). It provides further evidence that the orebody formed in a synsedimentary environment. Ore textures, thermobarometric estimates, 8 13C, Pb isotope systematics and geochemical affiliations, combined with U-Pb zircon ages, provide firm evidence for a synsedimentary timing for ore formation. This is further supported by the fine-scale laterally continuous and compositionally diverse banding in graphitic ores that are interpreted to represent chemogenic sediments with a variable detrital pelitic component. Precursor authigenic hydrothermal assemblages are likely to have been dominated The Cannington Ag-Pb-Zn deposit by variable proportions of Fe-Mn carbonates (manganoan siderite and ankerite), fluorapatite, fluorite, magnetite, Fe-Mn chlorites (chamosite, greenalite) and clays,


This thesis examines the port of Liverpool, its merchant community, and the growth of the raw cotton trade from its initial rise c. 1770 to the end of the Napoleonic period in 1815. By constructing a large database from Liverpool import lists published in Lancashire newspapers, combined with surviving cotton planter, merchant, and manufacturer papers, this thesis analyses: first, the rise of Liverpool as a major British cotton port and the geographical shifts in the port's cotton supply from the West Indies to Guyana, Brazil, and the United States; then second, the organisation of Liverpool's cotton trade in the Atlantic basin and at home. The port's cotton trade and the form of cotton procurement developed out of the pre-existing trading conditions prior to the cotton boom between Liverpool and each cotton cultivation region, and underwent major re-organisation in the early nineteenth century. Liverpool's cotton trade attracted new merchants who specialised in the import-export trade with one major region. Therefore, as cotton cultivation expanded from the West Indies to northern South America and the southern United States, the Liverpool market underwent a de-concentration from an oligopoly in the hands of few large cotton merchants to a more competitive market with many cotton importers. Ultimately, greater specialisation of Liverpool's cotton merchant and brokerage community resulted in increased efficiency in the importing, marketing, and selling of cotton on the British market, while a de-concentration of the Liverpool market provided the right market conditions to ward off artificially high prices, fostering the development of a cheap supply of raw cotton needed to sustain industrialisation of the British cotton industry in the nineteenth century.


The objective of this study was to upgrade a facultative pond (FP) unit operating at the domestic wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the municipal area of Sakhnin, which is located in the North of Israel (latitude 32.869155 and longitude 35.316570). For this aim, six experimental units of the intermittent trickling biofilters (ITBFs), with different design and operation characteristics, were established in April 2005 as a pilot plant system at the bank of the WWTP. The experimental units were operated under controlled conditions parallel to the full-scale FP of the WWTP for over 12 months, and the influent and effluent qualities were analyzed on a regular basis. With the ITBF units, the average removal efficiency of the system on sCOD, total suspended solids, NH4-N, and PO4-P reached up to 79.7, 91, 76.9, and 74.8%, while the average removal efficiencies of the same parameters in the reference FP were: 6.7, 16.3, 3.6, and 18.1%, respectively.


The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact of financial and corporate sector restructuring programs on nonfinancial corporate fixed investment in Korea since the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s. More specifically, the paper aims to examine the extent to which post-crisis policy-induced 'financialization' – increasing financial payments of nonfinancial corporations to financial markets and their excessive reliance on portfolio management – has negative impacts on real fixed investment of nonfinancial and manufacturing firms. Using both standard OLS and GMM econometric tests based on both macro (1976-2009) and firm level micro data (1Q2001-2Q2011), the paper finds that there has been statistically significant negative correlation between the measured financialization and nonfinancial and manufacturing corporate fixed investment in Korea. This observation raises important policy questions and provides a new angle through which we can critically evaluate the IMF's austerity-oriented financial restructuring programs. From a theoretical point of view, this paper can also contribute to the existing body of Post Keynesian financialization and corporate finance literature that is broader in scope than New Keynesian partial emphasis on information asymmetry.


Happiness, or subjective well-being, was measured on a birth-record-based sample of several thousand middle-aged twins using the Well-Being (WB) scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire Neither socioeconomic status, educational attainment, family income, marital status, nor an indicant of religious commitment could account for more than about 3% of the variance in WB From 44% to 52% of the variance in WB, however, is associated with genetic variation Based on the retest of smaller samples of twins after intervals of 4 5 and 10 years, we estimate that the heriability of the stable component of subjective well-being approaches 80%


Steen et al. report identification of tyrosine phosphorylated peptides and the specific phosphorylated residues using a new method called phosphotyrosine-specific immonium ion (PSI) scanning. Cells treated or not treated with epidermal growth factor (EGF) provided models in which to test the technique. Steen et al. identified tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins and residues already implicated in EGF signaling. In addition, they discovered novel proteins and residues phosphorylated in response to EGF. To their surprise, several of these novel residues were not predicted to be phosphorylated by any of several phosphorylation detection algorithms [Scansite (http://scansite.mit.edu/), ProSite (www.expasy.ch/prosite/), and NetPhos (www.cbs.dtu.dk/)]. Thus, this technique has the power to uncover unexpected and presently unpredictable phosphorylation events. H. Steen, B. Kuster, M. Fernandez, A. Pandey, M. Mann, Tyrosine phosphorylation mapping of the epidermal growth factor receptor signaling pathway. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 1031-1039 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]