"Against Theory," the title essay in this volume, challenges the notion that literary theory has any real work to do, or any results to show. This challenge-issued by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels in "Critical Inquiry" (8:4)-strikes some critics as scandalous, others as provocative and productive. The argument is directed against both sides of the current debates in literary theory, criticizing theoretical "objectivists" like E. D. Hirsch, Jr., on the one hand, and proponents of indeterminacy like Paul de Man on the other. The attack is not just on a particular way of doing theory but on the entire project of literary theory. The challenge is not only to a way of thinking and writing but to a way of making a living. The resulting controversy has drawn so much attention among literary critics that it has been collected in a single volume so that the debate can be followed from start to finish. This collection includes the essay "Against Theory," seven responses to it, and a rejoinder by Knapp and Michaels (originally published in "Critical Inquiry" 9:4); in addition, there are two new statements plus a final reply by Knapp and Michaels. The debate chronicled in this volume raises the most fundamental issues in the theory of meaning and the practice of interpretation. Are Knapp and Michaels confronting literary theory with a new "pragmatic" form of theory? Or are they (as some of their respondents suggest) arguing for a new form of nihilism? "If it is a nihilism," writes editor W. J. T. Mitchell, "it is one that demands an answer, not easy polemical dismissal, one that calls for theory to clarify its claims, not to mystify them and the easy assurance of intellectual fashion and institutional authority." It is the intention of "Against Theory" to aid in that clarification.


The enhanced properties and increased application of a natural hemp fibre-reinforced polymer (HFRP) composites have emphasized the need for an innovative and a deeper understanding of their machinability in order to further improve their functionality and applicability. Hence, this paper presents a comparative and experimental investigation of the effects of a dry conventional drilling (CD) and hybrid ultrasonically-assisted drilling (UAD) techniques on both hemp fibrereinforced/polycaprolactone and vinyl ester (HF/PCL and HF/VE) composite samples. The results obtained depict that HF/PCL composite sample of 19 aspect ratio (AR) has a minimum values of peak thrust force of 90N and 75N during UAD and CD respectively, with the lowest machining time of 30seconds for both techniques, among other ARs. These values produced an optimum drilling and best quality drilled holes, in terms of lowest thrust force and resultant drilling-induced damage. It is observed that there was a very little or no thrust force reduction between UAD and CD when drilling the HF/PCL composites. Consequently, PCL was replaced with VE, to produce another sample of HF/VE composites. Therefore, a substantial reduction in drilling forces (thrust force and torque) was obtained during HF/VE drilling, using UAD technique, when compared with the dry CD technique. Comparatively, the percentage of the forces reduction is approximately 70. The quality of the drilled sample depended on these primary forces. In addition, a significant lower ply delamination defect, burr formation, fibre-uncut/pull-out and surface roughness were observed, as well as an improved chip expulsion, hole roundness, material removal rate and surface finish (hole quality) were obtained with UAD, when compared with CD technique. Evidently, a non-traditional hybrid machining technique, UAD, has enhanced machinability (drilling) of HF/VE composite compared with the CD and HF/PCL composite samples.


Abstract The limited water resources of arid zones are a main constraint on economical development. This is especially true for the Aral Sea disaster zone. Some 1.2 million people are living in the Bukhara oasis, the oldest irrigated zone of Uzbekistan. Irrigation practice in the more than 230,000 ha of land consumes more than 5 km3 of Amu Darya river water. The future development of irrigated agriculture and the environmental situation in the Aral Sea Basin requires analysis of current water management in the irrigated areas of Uzbekistan. Until the 1960s, Bukhara Oasis received water for irrigation from the Zarafshan River, which originates in Tajikistan, flows through Tajikistan, three provinces of Uzbekistan. The Zarafshan River supplied water around 1.2 to 1.5 million hectares of irrigated areas of upper located three provinces of Uzbekistan and for industrial and communal needs of second biggest city of Uzbekistan-Samarqand. Increasing irrigated areas in upper and middle reach of Zarafshan River has impacted the water supply to Bukhara oasis. In the beginning of 1960s, water shortage in the irrigated agriculture of Bukhara Oasis reached its apogee, composing 50 to 55 percent from annual water requirement. As a solution to the water shortage problem of Bukhara oasis, a canal was built from Amu Darya—the largest water body of Central Asia. In the beginning of the 1970s, canal Amu-Bukhara was finished and Bukhara Oasis began to receive water from more reliable source. Further development of the irrigated agriculture in Bukhara Oasis from 1970s fully depended on water supply from Amu-Bukhara canal. The irrigated agriculture of the oasis began to receive more water supply per unit of land, and some new areas have been developed. In the end of the 1980s, Bukhara Oasis faced serious water-environmental problems such as land salinity and water-logging. The land and water productivity declined as an affect of above-mentioned negative impacts of irrigated agriculture. The solutions to the water-environmental problems of the Bukhara Oasis can be only developed through detailed analysis of the past of irrigated agriculture and water management system. This research paper describes stages of development of irrigated agriculture and water management system of Bukhara oasis, tries to analyze general trends, water use, and management changes in the different stages.


This comparative study presents two different higher education accreditation systems which are carried out by the Yemeni Accreditation Council (YAC) and the German Accreditation Council (GAC) in the two countries, Yemen and Germany. After an examination of the Yemeni Accreditation Council and the German Accreditation Council's literature, their recently developmental accreditation systems and practical methods are subject to entirely detailed analysis. As a result, the findings of the two councils' literature analysis reveal that there is a large gap between the Yemeni and the German Higher Education Systems in the implementation of accreditation. Accordingly it is strongly recommended that the Yemeni Accreditation Council should benefit from the positive elements of the German Accreditation Council for example, appointments of accreditation agencies, expert groups and the German accreditation system procedures, the accreditation of accreditation agencies, the internal review and the external review which may help the YAC to create the necessary mechanisms for the quality assessment improvement within the Yemeni higher education institutions.


This article uses the case of India to suggest that the explanations of North and his colleagues of open access orders do not fit well with contemporary developing countries. The political system of India after independence was mainly based on the British model, with influences from the US and French models. Despite India's practice of Western style of democracy, its economic and human development record remained poor, until at least the late 1970s. In the 1980s, however, India started to liberalise the economy. Focusing on open access to economic organisations and activities has led to better institution building. While India still has a long way to go in terms of institutional development, it has now devoted more resources to the development of institutions in the areas of property rights protection and contract enforcement, the financial market, the rule of law, and human resource accumulation. This study of India argues that if a developing country has difficulty in achieving open access to both political organisations and activities and economic organisations and activities, prioritising open access to economic organisations and activities is likely to produce better economic and human development consequences.


Starting with a terminological and phenomenological perspective on the question "What is an emotion?", particularly as developed by Aaron Ben Zeʾev , the kiling scene in the book of Judith (Jdt 12:10–13:9 is analysed. This crucial scene in the book's plot reports the intense emotions of Holofernes but nothing is said about any emotions on the part of of Judith. The only emotional glimpse occurs in Judith's short prayers in the killing scene. The highly emotional Holofernes and the unemotional Judith together reveal that Holofernes is already made "headless" by his own emotions, whereas the unemotional Judith, unencumbered by emotions, is able to behead the "headless" Holofernes.


Water is fundamental to our quality of life, to economic growth and to environment. Rainwater is one of the primary sources of all usable water in the planet. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is an ancient practice of capturing rain runoff from roofs and other surfaces and storing it for later purposes. A variety of issues, such as: i) Urban growth, ii) Limited water supplies, iii) Ageing stormwater infrastructure and iv) Environmental sustainability, have prompted a renewed interest in this practice, which has become common in the developed countries such as Germany, Japan, and Australia and in developing countries such as India and Malaysia. In this study, we use Tangki NAHRIM software to calculate the captured rainwater volume, optimum rainwater tank size; quantify the impact of rainwater demand, captured rainwater volume, and tanks in managing institutional water demand at IUKL Campus in Selangor, Malaysia. This project achieves several goals such as: i) Promote environmental awareness through actively participating in storm water management, ii) Utilizing rainwater collected from building's roof as a catchment area which deliver relatively clean water source, iii) Reduce reliance and consequently the pressure on municipal water resource and iv) Avoiding the use of relatively expensive water source for toilet flushing within nonpotable category application.


Brain magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) was performed in three consecutive COVID-19 patients, as part of a pilot investigation of the pathophysiological processes underlying the brain involvement by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. These included one with necrotizing leukoencephalopathy, one after recent PEA cardiac arrest without leukoencephalopathy, and one without frank encephalopathy or recent severe hypoxic episode. The MRSI findings were compared to those of two patients with white matter pathology not SARS-CoV2 infection related, and a control patient without clinical encephalopathy. The N-acetyl-aspartate reduction, choline elevation, and glutamate/glutamine elevation found in the COVID necrotizing leukoencephalopathy patient and, to a lesser degree, the COVID post-cardiac arrest patient, follow a similar pattern as seen with the delayed post-hypoxic leukoencephalopathy patient. Lactate elevation was most pronounced in the patient with COVID necrotizing leukoencephalopathy.


The impetus for this research was the endangered status of a salient keystone species, the cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, and its habitat, the complex forest mosaics of North Queensland, Australia. The more encompassing objective of the dissertation which gave particular direction and focus to the research was to provide a critical analysis of the nature of the cassowary-human environment interface in this rapidly changing region of the world and the implications of such an analysis for the management of this endangered species.

This dissertation is concerned with the fundamental but persistent obstacle to effective endangered species recovery, the distressingly familiar problem of adequately allotting quality research effort to both biological and human population dimensions of an endangered species recovery process. Accompanying this has been a reluctance in the past to address research problems of diverse and sometimes conflicting studies, limited interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, ineffectual integration endeavours and the unwillingness of many scientists to break down the unfortunate dichotomies of "pure" and "applied" research and the "biological" versus the "social" in the environmental research and management arena. The emergence of a relatively new field of science, which unites traditionally academic disciplines with the applied traditions of environmental management, conservation biology, provides the perspective and rationale for the holistic, multidisciplinary approach of this research project. At a conceptual level, an attempt is made to bring together and review theories, models and concepts, which address natural-human environment relationships that have been or can be employed to help understand the human connection to the loss of species.

Two independent studies were conducted. The first involved an exploratory investigation of the biology of the cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, a large flightless bird which inhabits the wet tropical biogeographical region of North Queensland and isolated forest patches of Cape York. Cassowaries are currently listed as "vulnerable" under the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992 (Commonwealth), and "endangered" (southern or Wet Tropic's population) and "vulnerable" (northern or Cape York population) under the Nature Conservation (Wildlife) Regulation 1994 (State of Queensland). The second of the empirical studies involved community surveys of three adjacent human communities, differing in their day to day contact and impact on cassowaries. The research findings relating to the human population characteristics of these three North
Queensland communities and their respective attitudes, beliefs, values, concerns, and environmental/conservation behaviours are presented.

Evidence from the endangered species, environmental psychological and environmental management literatures, together with the present studies on the cassowary and human populations, clearly supports the notion that managing the environment or a particular species primarily involves managing people. Essentially this is because major changes in the ecological setting of cassowaries are due to humans and has resulted in an interface between cassowary and human populations that corresponds to high mortality for cassowaries. Furthermore, the social structure and territorial nature of adult birds, their need to regularly access food and water, their movement patterns, and the need for subadults to disperse from natal areas, suggests they will not, in the long-term, adapt to situations that substantially impact on these fundamental requirements. In addition, the results from this research (which evidences substantial male parental investment, low chick survivorship and low annual productivity), suggest that cassowaries would be unable to re-establish a devastated local population after a major disaster, natural or unnatural, or to rapidly recolonise an area from which a population has been eliminated.

The research also showed that a strong public support base for environmental issues and particularly cassowaries exists amongst the communities surveyed. Elements essential to encouraging participation of community members in protection of the environment and cassowaries included the need for managers to work with rather than in isolation of the community and to work with individuals as well as groups. This suggests that restricting collaboration to an advisory group only runs the risk of failing to address the interests of the "silent" majority who do not belong to any particular group. The public's emotional connection to the natural environment and particularly cassowaries appeared to play an important role in their perceptions, representations and understandings of this species.

Such a result emphasises the importance of utilising emotional content in strategies used to enhance the public's positive evaluation and appraisal of the natural environment and cassowaries rather than relying on the transmission of ecological information alone. It also emphasises the need for managers to be aware of the role emotion will play in any public involvement in decision-making.
Finally, this dissertation situates these two research studies in the broader context of biological and social science literatures and theory on the effective environmental management of endangered species and examines the relative and unique contributions of both the biological and human studies to the recovery process. The analyses allow for a systematic consideration of where and how environmental management authorities and agencies can more effectively address, monitor and intervene in the recovery of the cassowary, and with respect to Wet Tropics conservation in North Queensland, Australia.


This paper uses monthly returns from 1802-2010, daily returns from 1885-2010, and intraday returns from 1982-2010 in the United States to show how stock volatility has changed over time. It also uses various measures of volatility implied by option prices to infer what the market was expecting to happen in the months following the financial crisis in late 2008. This episode was associated with historically high levels of stock market volatility, particularly among financial sector stocks, but the market did not expect volatility to remain high for long and it did not. This is in sharp contrast to the prolonged periods of high volatility during the Great Depression. Similar analysis of stock volatility in the United Kingdom and Japan reinforces the notion that the volatility seen in the 2008 crisis was relatively short-lived. While there is a link between stock volatility and real economic activity, such as unemployment rates, it can be misleading.


Excerpt] This paper explores welfare to work policy in the UK and sets out ways in which the delivery of that policy could become more efficient and effective by making small but significant changes to the approach. Employers and intermediaries must reposition disability from an issue to do with incapacity, doctors, damage and cost – to one concerned with capability, the workplace and investment in human potential. Employers, disabled people and intermediaries must all engage – and have high expectations of each other. We set out the case for an employer engagement strategy that supports welfare to work and maximises impact on employer behaviour by: • Repositioning the employer from 'problem' and 'target' (i.e. people whose attitudes must be changed) to valued 'end user', customer and potential partner. • Streamlining the 'disability to work supply chain' so that it more efficiently delivers suitable disabled candidates to employers equipped and supported to hire them on the basis of their capability, to retain them and to develop their potential. We believe it is necessary to reframe the welfare to work challenge as a supply chain challenge and outline 6 fundamental principles that should underpin any welfare to work policy.


The study was done to examine competitive advantages and challenges in the capital market in Tanzania the case being Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE). This was conducted in Dar es Salaam city, where the largest number of commercial banks, listed companies, and regulatory agencies are located. This was primarily a descriptive study where both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to conduct the study. The objectives of the study were to examine the extent to which size of instruments traded at DSE and problems of liquidity relate to efficiency performance of DSE, and whether or not conditions, rules and procedures set by DSE affects efficiency of Dar es Salaam Stock exchange. Furthermore the study examined the extent to which information accessibility affects performance of DSE. The finding of the research study reveals that there is lack of instruments or product diversification in the DSE relative to income investors. Moreover, the study found out that DSE listing conditions are too stringent for many companies to comply. Finally, the study reveals that there is lack of adequate financial security education to investors in the capital market. It was found out lack of instrument diversification does not provide incentive for investing in the DSE. From the study it is recommended to introduce new instruments at DSE for capital market development in Tanzania. Furthermore it is recommended that the government should come with the new policy of repositioning Tanzania for the gas economy, whereby TPDC will be allowed and helped out to go for IPO. Approximately, 750,000 Trillions of Tanzanian shillings will be raised through IPO and sought to contribute significantly to the efficiency of DSE.


State‐and‐transition simulation models (STSMs) provide a general framework for forecasting landscape dynamics, including projections of both vegetation and land‐use/land‐cover (LULC) change. The STSM method divides a landscape into spatially referenced cells and then simulates the state of each cell forward in time, as a discrete‐time stochastic process using a Monte Carlo approach, in response to any number of possible transitions. A current limitation of the STSM method, however, is that all of the state variables must be discrete. Here we present a new approach for extending a STSM, in order to account for continuous state variables, called a STSM with stocks and flows (STSM‐SF). The STSM–SF method allows for any number of continuous stocks to be defined for every spatial cell in the STSM, along with a suite of continuous flows specifying the rates at which stock levels change over time. The change in the level of each stock is then simulated forward in time, for each spatial cell, as a discrete‐time stochastic process. The method differs from the traditional systems dynamics approach to stock‐flow modelling in that the stocks and flows can be spatially explicit, and the flows can be expressed as a function of the STSM states and transitions. We demonstrate the STSM‐SF method by integrating a spatially explicit carbon (C) budget model with a STSM of LULC change for the state of Hawai'i, USA. In this example, continuous stocks are pools of terrestrial C, whereas the flows are the possible fluxes of C between these pools. Importantly, several of these C fluxes are triggered by corresponding LULC transitions in the STSM. Model outputs include changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of C pools and fluxes across the landscape in response to projected future changes in LULC over the next 50 years. The new STSM‐SF method allows both discrete and continuous state variables to be integrated into a STSM, including interactions between them. With the addition of stocks and flows, STSMs provide a conceptually simple yet powerful approach for characterizing uncertainties in projections of a wide range of questions regarding landscape change.


The question of losses in metamaterials that are based upon magnetic resonances deriving from split-ring arrays is addressed through the use of active inclusions designed from diode arrays. A full discussion of the way in which the current-voltage characteristics of the inclusions are deployed to produce gain is given, and the question of the overall stability of the new material is investigated in a quantitative way that is linked to absolute and convective instability. It is shown that instability associated with the inclusion of negative resistance devices can be avoided through a scheme that is approximately scalable from gigahertz to at least the low terahertz regimes. Furthermore, absolute instabilities that potentially complicate any active gain media can be controlled through a suitable choice of the system parameters. The latter step reduces the working frequency window over which spatial gain is available, leading to the need for compromise. Full numerical details are given with the conclusion that construction of such arrays of diode inclusions is possible and that a practical gain window is accessible.


This study characterizes the household food-away-from-home (FAFH) expenditure pattern in Egypt. Specifically, a standard Tobit model was estimated to quantify the responsiveness of Egyptian household FAFH expenditures to changes in their income and selected household demographic characteristics. We found that the proportion of households with a positive FAFH expenditure is small, at 36% to 38% of the total number of households. These households spent 5% to 8% of their total expenditure on FAFH. Households that are located in urban areas, with more family members, and whose household head is young and male had generally higher levels of FAFH expenditure. The estimated conditional income elasticity is only 0.02, and the unconditional income elasticity is 0.52, suggesting that most of the growth in this sector will be driven by new households participating for the first time in FAFH expenditures. These elasticity estimates are relatively low when compared to those of other countries. However, preliminary estimates from more recent data seem to suggest a higher income elasticity, which is consistent with the expansion of the sector of hotels, restaurants, and other institutions in Egypt.


Uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change will increasingly characterize humanitarian threats in the foreseeable future. These threats may range from the prospect of the 320-meter asteroid 99942 Apophis crashing into the Pacific rim in 2035 to Himalayan snow meltdown that would leave an estimated 300 million South Asians without water. Regardless of the particular event, the effects of such potential catastrophes are essential but almost too cataclysmic to contemplate. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Those responsible for preventing and responding to large-scale crises face a monumental challenge. They have to contemplate possible futures and drive toward solutions. And yet responses to such recent disasters as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, avian influenza, the Darfur conflict, and the 2005 Niger food crisis offer little assurance that organizations' anticipatory and adaptive capacities are adequate to meet the challenge. Across the wide spectrum of governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental organizations, few have shown sustained interest in predicting catastrophic trends and their consequences. Even fewer have attempted to incorporate these trends into organizational strategies and operational activities. Far fewer still have demonstrated any inclination to adjust organizational behavior to become more agile, innovative, and flexible. These are challenges for all, especially for the UN institutions that will be directly and indirectly involved in large-scale catastrophes in the future. These challenges will test how the United Nations determines its priorities and how far it is willing to abandon self-serving but outmoded assumptions. At the same time, they also will be a test for member states, who must ultimately commit to a UN role that individual states cannot perform alone. The Rise of UN Humanitarianism In November 1970, 250,000 Bengalis lost their lives in a matter of six hours as a cyclone from the Bay of Bengal swept across the flat coastline of what was then East Pakistan. UN Secretary-General U Thant was determined to respond to this catastrophe. He was warned off, however, by the representative of the Soviet Union, who stated categorically that "disaster relief" was not the United Nations' responsibility. Indeed, until the mid-1980s, humanitarian issues--disaster and emergency prevention, preparedness, and response--were at most peripheral concerns for the United Nations and at the least an unwelcome interference with the core functions of "peace and security." Over the last 20 years, however, humanitarianism has moved from the periphery to the center of UN concerns due to four intersecting factors. First, media technology brought the plight of the increasingly disaster-prone developing world into the living rooms of richer nations, triggering the consciences of many political constituencies. The 1984 drought affecting 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa underscored the need for the United Nations to become more attuned to the political and public relations implications of mobilized public conscience. Second, there were more humanitarian crises. The impact of poverty, the erosion of infrastructure, and the inability of many countries to maintain minimal social safety nets meant that an ever-widening swath of human population was vulnerable to disasters and emergencies. Whether the so-called "disaster agents" were earthquakes, floods, volcanic explosions, or mudslides, their effects clearly demonstrated that vulnerability was inversely related to wealth. Humanitarian intervention has become more necessary. Third, in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, superpowers paid less attention to former client states. This also contributed to the growing centrality of humanitarian affairs within the United Nations. The support that had sustained many governments declined in the late 1980s. "Development aid"--whether military assistance, institution building, or agricultural and rural development--was on the decline. …


ABSTRACT The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is the synapse between motoneurons and skeletal muscle, and is responsible for eliciting muscle contraction. Neurotransmission at synapses depends on the release of synaptic vesicles at sites called active zones (AZs). Various proteins of the extracellular matrix are crucial for NMJ development; however, little is known about the identity and functions of the receptors that mediate their effects. Using genetically modified mice, we find that integrin-α3 (encoded by Itga3), an adhesion receptor at the presynaptic membrane, is involved in the localisation of AZ components and efficient synaptic vesicle release. Integrin-α3 also regulates integrity of the synapse – mutant NMJs present with progressive structural changes and upregulated autophagy, features commonly observed during ageing and in models of neurodegeneration. Unexpectedly, we find instances of nerve terminal detachment from the muscle fibre; to our knowledge, this is the first report of a receptor that is required for the physical anchorage of pre- and postsynaptic elements at the NMJ. These results demonstrate multiple roles of integrin-α3 at the NMJ, and suggest that alterations in its function could underlie defects that occur in neurodegeneration or ageing. Summary: Adhesion receptor integrin-α3 is involved in presynaptic differentiation, synaptic maintenance and nerve terminal anchorage at the neuromuscular synapse.


The present study was done in order to study the impact of cognitive- behavioral skills training on improvement of marital satisfaction and martial burnout. Statistical population in this study consisted of studying married teachers of kish state schools in 2015-2016 academic year that 60 teachers were selected using the screening method and were placed in two groups as experimental group and control group. The used tools include the job burnout Questionnaire and Sanaei marital satisfaction Questionnaire. This study was a semi- pilot design and its research design (plan) was the pretest - posttest with control group. The data analysis was performed by the Single-Variable Covariance Analysis Test and Multi-Variable Covariance Analysis. The results showed that cognitive-behavioral skills training have a significant effect and positive on the marital satisfaction and reduced job burnout in married teachers of experimental group. The difference between experimental and control group was significant. In other words, cognitive-behavioral skills training results in the improvement of marital satisfaction and reduced martial burnout in teachers of experimental group.


When Origen of Alexandria presents numerous extensive quotations from Heracleon, whom he explicitly presents as a follower of Valentinus, one might expect a uniformly adversarial attitude toward this "Valentinian" sectarian. Instead, Origen's stances are found to vacillate significantly from general renunciation and emphatic criticism, via considered disagreement and hypothetical approval, all the way to agreement and praise. The fascinating interplay between the stance taken and the dogmatic and philological matters in view implies that while dogmatic issues at stake are decisive for whether Origen agrees or disagrees with Heracleon, the full range of variance in Origen's stances is determined by Heracleon's philological methodology and presentation of evidence. Origen's responses to Heracleon reveal that he viewed this predecessor not simply as a heterodox teacher, but also as a colleague in interpreting the New Testament using methods from Greco-Roman literary criticism.


Motivation The ability to simulate epidemics as a function of model parameters allows insights that are unobtainable from real datasets. Further, reconstructing transmission networks for fast-evolving viruses like HIV may have the potential to greatly enhance epidemic intervention, but transmission network reconstruction methods have been inadequately studied, largely because it is difficult to obtain "truth" sets on which to test them and properly measure their performance. Results We introduce FAVITES, a robust framework for simulating realistic datasets for epidemics that are caused by fast-evolving pathogens like HIV. FAVITES creates a generative model to produce contact networks, transmission networks, phylogenetic trees, and sequence datasets, and to add error to the data. FAVITES is designed to be extensible by dividing the generative model into modules, each of which is expressed as a fixed API that can be implemented using various models. We use FAVITES to simulate HIV datasets and study the realism of the simulated datasets. We then use the simulated data to study the impact of the increased treatment efforts on epidemiological outcomes. We also study two transmission network reconstruction methods and their effectiveness in detecting fast-growing clusters. Availability and implementation FAVITES is available at https://github.com/niemasd/FAVITES, and a Docker image can be found on DockerHub (https://hub.docker.com/r/niemasd/favites).


We present an experience-based planning framework called Thunder that learns to reduce computation time required to solve high-dimensional planning problems in varying environments. The approach is especially suited for large configuration spaces that include many invariant constraints, such as those found with whole body humanoid motion planning. Experiences are generated using probabilistic sampling and stored in a sparse roadmap spanner (SPARS), which provides asymptotically near-optimal coverage of the configuration space, making storing, retrieving, and repairing past experiences very efficient with respect to memory and time. The Thunder framework improves upon past experience-based planners by storing experiences in a graph rather than in individual paths, eliminating redundant information, providing more opportunities for path reuse, and providing a theoretical limit to the size of the experience graph. These properties also lead to improved handling of dynamically changing environments, reasoning about optimal paths, and reducing query resolution time. The approach is demonstrated on a 30 degrees of freedom humanoid robot and compared with the Lightning framework, an experience-based planner that uses individual paths to store past experiences. In environments with variable obstacles and stability constraints, experiments show that Thunder is on average an order of magnitude faster than Lightning and planning from scratch. Thunder also uses 98.8% less memory to store its experiences after 10,000 trials when compared to Lightning. Our framework is implemented and freely available in the Open Motion Planning Library.


This case is intended to be part of a first-year MBA marketing course, or a second-year elective in advertising, integrated marketing communications, market research, or marketing analytics. The case provides students with examples of two real advertising experiments and the challenges involved in executing the experiments. It allows for a discussion of the need for advertising experiments, and also, at a more general level, the need to measure the return on marketing. Biases surrounding the field experiments allow for a discussion of the problems with establishing a causal relationship between advertising and sales.


Brush-border membrane vesicles prepared from midguts of Manduca sexta larvae were incorporated into planar phospholipid bilayers. Addition of Bacillus thuringiensis delta-endotoxin to the buffered salt solutions bathing these bilayers resulted in large irreversible increases in conductance. At pH 9.6, the smallest toxin-dependent increase in bilayer conductance observed was 13 nS. Similar conductance increases were never observed in the absence of delta-endotoxin or in delta-endotoxin-treated bilayers not containing components of insect brush-border membranes.


IEEE 802.11s mesh networking standard supports Mesh Coordinated Channel Access (MCCA) to provide better quality of service (QoS) through channel reservation during the MAC layer channel access. According to the current QoS specifications, network traffic can be broadly classified into four classes-voice, video, background and best effort. However, MCCA does not directly support the standard service differentiation that is essential for service level QoS assurance. Further, assuring fairness among the flows of similar service classes is required for effective bandwidth utilization. Providing service differentiation along with the fairness is challenging in a distributed environment due to their non-linearity and non-additive properties. This paper uses the concept of (α, p)-proportional fairness to design a distributed method for providing service differentiation with minimum fairness guarantee. An admission control mechanism is designed over standard mesh protocols to manage the minimum service guarantee for existing flows in the network. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is analyzed using experimental results from an IEEE 802.11n+s mesh networking testbed. The scalability and performance bound of the proposed scheme is further analyzed using simulation results.


When thinking about radicalization today, other concepts immediately pop into mind: Islam, violence, indoctrination, terrorism, etc. The concept of radicalization has been media hyped and is widely imbedded in public discourse today. However, the way we comprehend and approach radicalization is not an objective notion of the concept but rather a subjective understanding that has gradually been attributed to it. Over the past decade and a half, some dominant narratives and understandings on radicalization have been constructed and spread in policy circles as well as in the public sphere. In this paper, we aim to critically reflect on the body of ideas and explanations on radicalization that are generally accepted. Reflecting on these dominant narratives is crucial, since policy responses to radicalization – one of the main security priorities in a great deal of Western countries today – are based on how we understand the concept.


Petroleum source rock expulsion efficiency classification based solely on geochemical characteristics can be misleading. Source rock permeability characteristics are also important, especially where petroleum expulsion occurs as a separate phase flow. Thermal and maturity history reconstructions and overpressure development, simulated with the TEMISPACK model of the Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP) using two-phase (water, petroleum) Darcy flow, illustrates the importance and influence of bulk source rock permeability for expulsion efficiency. Poor dispersed type III Mahakam pelagic shales, rich marine type II Bakken shales and Paris Basin Lower Liassic source rocks, including both rich Lower Toarcian shales and underlying, less rich Hettangian–Lotharingian marls, illustrate how strongly expulsion efficiency is controlled by bulk rock permeability. Simulation of overpressures in Mahakam and Bakken shales requires very low bulk permeabilities, in the nD range. This is too low to allow significant expulsion. These rocks are inferred not to be hydraulically fractured, despite the overpressures, such that expulsion would not be assisted by this mechanism. Lack of overpressures and regional hydrodynamic models suggest that Paris Basin Lower Liassic sources are at least 10 to 100 times more permeable than Mahakam or Bakken sources. Improved permeabilities can be attributed possibly to tectonic fracturing. This facilitates expulsion both into overlying Dogger reservoirs and underlying Keuper reservoirs, consistent with inferred expulsion efficiencies and oil saturation profiles.


In this paper, an amorphous core transformer is highlighted. Configuration of amorphous C-core and its magnetisation characteristic (B-H) are described. Factors affecting the design are also discussed as a comparison with a conventional transformer. It is concluded that, advantages with amorphous core transformers are - low core losses, low magnetising current, less zero sequence current, less noise, higher efficiency and longer life; however the disadvantages are higher inrush current, more harmonic problem, bigger size and higher initial cost. The problem of third harmonic may be eliminated by adopting zig-zag connection in place of star connection. Purpose of this article is to provide a knowledge base about amorphous core transformers, to students of transformer design, by discussing some necessary issues.


TECHNOLOGIES OF VIOLENCE explores the critical relations between art and the contemporary production of violence and the digital technologies, as well as the techniques that power uses to impose itself through violence. Technology, as a system used to organise, service and control power, finds, in its machines, in Internet and electronic systems, tools for world dominance that, after World War Two and during the Cold War, led to the emergence of a "new era in political security", according to Ralf Fucks, director of Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung, in a publication entitled Hich-Tech-Kriege (High-Tech Wars). Control of the air and cyberspace and "control of terror", identified by theorists like Peter Sloterdijk, Marc Auge, Jutta Weber, Herfried Munkler, Constanze Kurz and Paul Virilio, is the goal of the great powers, including governments, companies and terrorist groups, which use sophisticated technology to establish their war zones, generate chaos and seize local and global dominance: anonymous, remote controlled killing by electronic operations; advanced development of cameras, drones and sensors; autonomous computer combat systems; satellite surveillance; and preventive security policies, police control, the killing and forced displacement of people. TECHNOLOGIES OF VIOLENCE meditates on the shape that violence takes in the collective imagination, on the iconography and symbology of the media and entertainment industry, and the different ways in which the war industry produces, consumes and uses images (cartoons, video games, software and so on). Moreover, taking up the ideas of Foucault, Achille Mbembe and Subhabrata Banerjee about biopolitics, "necropolitics" and "necrocapitalism" as a global system of death production, the exhibition also looks at the forms of insubordination that artists have worked on since the 2000s, as well as the so-called GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) and the implosion of the neocapitalist system after the failure of the great systems of ideological "redemption". Participating artists: PEGGY AHWESH MAJA BAJEVIC ALICIA FRAMIS REGINA JOSE GALINDO MARIAM GHANI ELNAZ JAVANI ENRIC MAURI TIM PARCHIKOV PAOLO PEDERCINI MOLLEINDUSTRIA LARISSA SANSOUR SEAN SNYDER EDDO STERN THOMSON & CRAIGHEAD ZHOU XIAO HU


Self-care, capability in performing certain activity in maintaining well-being in daily life, is regarded important especially among people with long-term condition such as diabetes. Locus of control and religion are regarded as important factors in influencing such particular activity in day to day basis. Indeed, among Javanese people the lingering culture cannot be separated from religion, influencing how they perceive any factors that might play into role in managing any ill-health condition. Utilizing a mixed methods study design, with the deployment of two screening tools for further semi-structured interviews (the Summary of Diabetes Self-care Activity and the Muslim Piety questionnaires), this study was aimed to explore further into the perceptions and experiences of Javanese Muslim with diabetes in utilizing religion with embedded cultural aspects, in managing their daily self-care activity. Subsequent to this, the study sought further into barriers and opportunities in performing self-care. A convenient sample of 100 participants has filled the questionnaires, and 24 participants from various gender and age groups were purposively collected to gain a richer perspective for further interviews. The study identified the moderate self-care practices as a separate notion, instead of an integrated and comprehensive concept. The study has also found that the act of surrendering or nerimo ing pandum among Javanese people, as a representation of external locus of control, is paramount in maintaining self-care. The state of surrendering has been shown in the belief in Allah as the determinative factor in managing self-care, and in how they were surrendering to the lacking of adequate access to healthcare services. Social support can be served as a hindrance in self-care, as well as supporting factor. The later notion has been shown in the role of Pengajian, a social religious activity, and Persadia, a peer support group, which have been performing more of a social hub in supporting not only in enhancing capability, but also psychological support.
The role of external locus of control and the lack of healthcare access have been served as an opportunity in conducting an individualized approach in educating the Javanese Muslim in enhancing the capability and capacity in self-caring themselves, with collaborative work between the healthcare professional and the Muslim cleric.


The purpose of this study was to acquire spectra using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with a long echo time (TE) to measure clinically important brain metabolites in normal subjects. We aimed to determine whether these metabolites vary across brain regions and between men and women. The results of this study will constitute a normative database that will be used as a reference for MRS studies of patients with neurological disease. Single voxel proton ( 1 H) spectra were acquired in seventy-two subjects ranging in age from twenty to forty-four years. Ten brain regions were examined. Six gray matter sites in the cerebrum included four cortical areas in the frontal, parietal, tempora l, and occipital lobes, and two deep nuclear sites in the basal ganglia and the thalamus. Two cortical white matter regions were in the parietal and the frontal lobes. Two posterior fossa sites included the pons and the cerebellum. For each spectrum, the metabolites N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr) and choline (Ch) were identified. Ratios of NAA/Cr and Ch/Cr were calculated for each brain region. A multifactorial analysis of variance was performed with the two metabolic ratios as dependent variables and with brain region and gender as independent variables. Post-hoc statistical analysis consisted of the Scheffé's F statistic for significant difference between pairs of brain regions for both metabolic ratios. There was significant regional variation fo r both the NAA/Cr ratio (p < .0001) and the Ch/Cr ratio (p < .0001). The NAA/Cr ratio was consistent within cortical gray and white matter but differed between cortical gray (smaller ratio) and white matter (larger ratio). The Ch/Cr ratio was variable in the gray matter, differed between some but not all gray and white matter regions, but was consistent within cortical white matter regions. There was no difference between men and women for either metabolic ratio. requisite normative values to use single voxel, long TE MRS in adult patients with


THE FUTURE OF THE SINO-JAPANESE relationship will have broad implications for regional and global security. In the past, Japan's policy toward China has been aimed at building up politically stable relations and expanding economic ties. While these goals will continue to be important in the coming years, new features of Japanese foreign policy are emerging that are likely to influence the nature of the Sino-Japanese relationship. As Japan takes a more active role in regional and global political and security issues, it will redefine its policy goals and priorities in order to meet post-Cold War challenges. Japan-US relations, Japan's role in the Asia Pacific region, and Japan's contribution to the United Nations are already the subjects of such redefinition. Japan's policy toward China is likely to undergo a similar transformation. In the coming years, as Japan pursues more activist political goals in the Asia Pacific region and around the globe, Japan's China policy must emphasize making Sino-Japanese relations productive for these new goals and priorities. To date, Japan and China have concentrated attention on developing politically stable bilateral relations and on expanding economic ties. Building up stable relations with China, a victim of Japanese aggression in the past and a potential threat to Japanese security in the future, has been an important aim of Japan's post-World War II foreign policy. Japan has also sought the expansion of bilateral trade and economic relations, and in recent years, China has provided valuable sites for investment to Japanese businesses. For China, the normalization and improvement of relations with Japan after World War II had at least two strategic advantages. First, it strengthened China's position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Second, it helped attain Japanese financial and technological support for the development of China's economy. Japan's process of improving relations with China has not always been smooth. China is particularly sensitive to Japanese attitudes toward Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, and Chinese vigilance on Japanese adherence to the "One China" policy has often strained relations. In addition, China's claim on the Japanese islets in the East China Sea (the Senkaku islands) has also caused public contention between the two countries. Nevertheless, political will on both sides always worked to prevent these problems from adversely affecting cooperation in the economic field, and the two governments often made highly political decisions in order to save the relationship from damaging confrontations. This overtone of "friendship" emphasized by the Japanese and Chinese governments has worked favorably for regional security and has contributed to the tacit Chinese recognition of the stabilizing role of the Japan-US Security Treaty. Furthermore, Japanese economic assistance to China and the growth of economic interdependence between the two countries has helped open the Chinese economy and society to the outside world. And, as demonstrated in the developments in the 1980s and 1990s, this opening enhanced the Chinese people's awareness of the value of individual rights and freedom and of the need for political reform. Such developments have profound long-term implications for security in East Asia. Japan has also cooperated with China on some foreign policy issues outside the framework of bilateral relations. Japan worked in close cooperation with China for the restoration of peace in Cambodia, and the Japanese government is in close contact with the Chinese government for the common purpose of preventing North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Economic relations will remain the mainstay of Sino-Japanese relations. Chinese economic growth will continue to require close economic ties with Japan, although Chinese needs for Japanese financial and technological assistance might become smaller as many other countries come to invest in China. …


Twenty-five years after the start of the feminist sex wars, pornography remains a flashpoint issue, with feminists locked in a familiar argument: Are women victims or agents? In At Home with Pornography, Jane Juffer exposes the fruitlessness of this debate and suggests that it has prevented us from realizing women's changing relationship to erotica and porn. Over the course of these same twenty-five years, there has been a proliferation of sexually explicit materials geared toward women, made available in increasingly mainstream venues. In asking "what is the relationship of women to pornography?" Juffer maintains that we need to stop obsessing over pornography's transgressive aspects, and start focusing on the place of porn and erotica in women's everyday lives. Where, she asks, do women routinely find it, for how much, and how is it circulated and consumed within the home? How is this circulation and consumption shaped by the different marketing categories that attempt to distinguish erotica from porn, such as women's literary erotica and sexual self-help videos for couples? At Home with Pornography responds to these questions by viewing women's erotica within the context of governmental regulation that attempts to counterpose a "dangerous" pornography with the sanctity of the home. Juffer explorers how women's consumption of erotica and porn for their own pleasure can be empowering, while still acting to reinforce conservative ideals. She shows how, for instance, the Victoria's Secret catalog is able to function as a kind of pornography whose circulation is facilitated both by its reliance on Victorian themes of secrecy and privacy and on its appeals to the selfish pleasures of modern career women. In her pursuit to understand what women like and how they get it, Juffer delves into adult cable channels, erotic literary anthologies, sex therapy guides, cyberporn, masturbation, and sex toys, showing the varying degrees to which these materials have been domesticated for home consumption. Representing the next generation of scholarship on pornography, At Home with Pornography will transform our understanding of women's everyday sexuality.


Nonlinear differential dynamic model of the relation between the branches of production was proposed. Mathematically, this model is expressed as a system of first-order ODE. Dynamic variables of the model - the value of the output of each branch of production. Each differential equation of the system includes independent growth and diminution of finished goods; growth and decline of production related to the production of allied industries. Two models were proposed: a model with Malthusian products growth (model with no restrictions on the amount of product), the model with the Verhulst limiting of the growth of output. The equilibrium points of dynamical systems, system stability were determined as well as the qualitative analysis of dynamic systems was made.


This research was carried out on peach cubes preserved in sweeteners (sucrose and glucose) with
different concentration followed by oven dehydration. Samples with different sweeteners solution i.e.
sucrose, glucose individual and in combination with different concentration such as sucrose (40, 50, 60)
°brix and sucrose+glucose (40, 60) °brix were prepared. The peach cubes were kept in sweeteners
solution for 24 hours and stored at 20-25°C. The treatments were PC0 (peach cubes+distilled water),
PC1 (peach cubes+40 °brix sucrose solution+0.1% citric acid+0.067% potassium metabisulphite), PC2
(peach cubes+50 °brix+0.1% citric acid+0.067% potassium metabisulphite), PC3 (peach cubes+60
°brix+0.1% citric acid+0.067% potassium metabisulphite), PC4 (peach cubes+40 °brix sucrose and
glucose+0.1% citric acid+0.067% potassium metabisulphite), PC5 (peach cubes+60 °brix sucrose and
glucose+0.1% citric acid+0.067% potassium metabisulphite. All the samples were analyzed physic
chemically i.e. for total soluble solid (°brix), acidity (%), ascorbic acid (mg/100g), sugar acid ratio,
reducing sugar (%), non-reducing sugar (%) and pH. During this research work increased was
observed in TSS (total soluble solid) from 10.89 to 16.78 °brix, acidity from 0.61 to 0.71%, reducing
sugars from 9.75 to 11.83, similarly decreased was observed in pH from 3.47 to 3.30 sugar acid ratio
from 23.56 to 17.69, ascorbic acid from 9.93 to 4.09, non-reducing sugar from 15.23 to 14.01. During
sensory evaluation treatments PC3, PC2 was found best during storage period. Statistical analysis
demonstrated that applied treatments and storage intervals had significant (P<0.05) consequences on
physicochemical analysis of intermediate moisture Prunus persica L. cubes.


Climatic disasters are increasing as temperatures climb and rainfall intensifies. A rise in small- and medium-scale disasters is a particularly worrying trend. Yet even extreme weather need not bring disasters; it is poverty and powerlessness that make people vulnerable. Though more emergency aid is needed, humanitarian response must do more than save lives: it has to link to climate change adaptation and bolster poor people's livelihoods through social protection and disaster risk reduction approaches.


After a brief summary of the basic methods for secure transmission using optical chaos, we report on most recent achievements, namely, on the comparison between the standard two-laser and the three-laser schemes and on the network architecture for multiuser secure transmission. From our investigations, we found that while both the basic twolaser and the three-laser schemes are suitable to secure data exchange, the three-laser scheme offers a better level of privacy due to its symmetrical topology. Moreover, while transmission based on optical chaos is usually restricted to point-to-point interconnections, a more advanced solution, derived from the well-known public key cryptography, allows for private message transmission between any couple of subscribers in a network.


Bomb-produced radiocarbon has been used in the past as an important tracer of ocean circulation and as a valuable tool for calculating CO2 air-sea exchange. However, previous studies of the ocean's time-varying bomb 14C record have been confined exclusively to analyzing banded corals, and thus their application has been limited to the lower latitudes. The first time history of bomb 14C from the high-latitude North Atlantic Ocean is obtained from a 54-year-old mollusc specimen, (Bivalvia) Arctica islandica, which was collected live from Georges Bank (41°N) in 1990. The annual growth bands of its shell were analyzed for Δ14C using accelerator mass spectrometry, producing a Δ14C time history from 1939 to 1990. The depleted condition of the Georges Bank bomb 14C signal relative to two coral-derived North Atlantic Δ14C time histories suggests a significant deepwater source for the waters on Georges Bank. Supported by previous work linking the origin of waters on Georges Bank to the Labrador Sea, the Δ14C budget on Georges Bank is modeled as Labrador Sea water, which largely becomes confined to the shelf and partially equilibrates with the atmosphere during a 1-year transit time from the Labrador Sea to Georges Bank. This model is also used to estimate a time history of bomb 14C for the Labrador Sea. Prebomb Δ14C values calculated for the surface Labrador Sea suggest that a greater inventory of bomb 14C has accumulated here than has previously been reported. However, the estimated prebomb average Δ14C (−70.6‰) for this period is nearly identical to the −70‰ previously calculated for the prebomb source of North Atlantic Deep Water and is in agreement with Transient Tracers in the Ocean subsurface tritium data from the central Labrador Sea. Deduced variations in the ventilation and/or 14CO2 uptake rates in the Labrador Sea correspond with observed changes in surface salinity of the Labrador Sea, suggesting a reduction in deepwater formation during the late 1960s and 1970s.


Taken into consideration that the central idea of the "Itinerarium" is the pilgrimage, the ascent of the contemplative soul "in Deum", the author maintains that the scheme of the bonaventurian work is made up of three successive movements. The ascent towards God through contemplative illumination is followed by the descent with Christ towards the profundity of the Cross, which at the end generates the definitive passage "in Deum" through ecstatic rapture. The first movement is described in the first six chapter, the seventh chapter, which makes on complete whole with the Prologue. The contemplative soul, represented symbolically by the stigmatized St. Francis, shares with Christ his paschal return to teh Father.


In the adaptive information gathering problem, a policy is required to select an informative sensing location using the history of measurements acquired thus far. While there is an extensive amount of prior work investigating effective practical approximations using variants of Shannon's entropy, the efficacy of such policies heavily depends on the geometric distribution of objects in the world. On the other hand, the principled approach of employing online POMDP solvers is rendered impractical by the need to explicitly sample online from a posterior distribution of world maps.  We present a novel data-driven imitation learning framework to efficiently train information gathering policies. The policy imitates a clairvoyant oracle – an oracle that at train time has full knowledge about the world map and can compute maximally informative sensing locations. We analyze the learnt policy by showing that offline imitation of a clairvoyant oracle is implicitly equivalent to online oracle execution in conjunction with posterior sampling. This observation allows us to obtain powerful near-optimality guarantees for information gathering problems possessing an adaptive sub-modularity property. As demonstrated on a spectrum of 2D and 3D exploration problems, the trained policies enjoy the best of both worlds – they adapt to different world map distributions while being computationally inexpensive to evaluate.


Dislocations of total hip prostheses cause pain and patient dissatisfaction. Recurrent dislocations are difficult to treat mainly when the acetabular metal shell is well-fixed. The purpose of this article was to describe the surgical technique used for the treatment of a bilateral recurrent posterior dislocation after a cementless total hip prosthesis, caused by excessive inclination of acetabular components, in a 72-year-old patient. On both sides, acetabular metal shell, porouscoated, was well-fixed. Revision of the entire acetabular component could be an appropriate therapeutic option because it was malpositioned. Nevertheless, a conservative operation was performed. The metal shell was left in situ and the preexisting polyethylene liner was removed and replaced by a new undersized cross-linked polyethylene liner, then, cemented into the shell and properly oriented. An acetabular cemented augmentation reinforced by 3 cortical screws was associated with the reconstruction. This report suggests that cementation of new liner into a malpositioned well- fixed metal shell associated with an acetabular cemented augmentation is a simple and safe technique for the management of recurrent hip dislocation, for elderly patients in which it is advisable to avoid a major revision hip surgery by medical comorbidities. Nonetheless, further studies with medium-and long-term follow-up are needed to validate this technique.


A pixel-based methodology has been established for automatic identification of icebergs in
satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images acquired during different seasons and for different seaice
conditions. This includes, in particular, smaller icebergs (longitudinal axis 100m to 18.5 km).
Investigations were carried out for two test regions located in theWeddell Sea, Antarctica, using images
of the Envisat Advanced SAR (ASAR) at HH polarization and of the European Remote-sensing Satellite-2
(ERS-2) SAR (VV-polarized). From the former, a sequence of Image Mode and Wide Swath Mode data
are available for the whole of 2006. The ERS data were acquired around the tip of the Antarctic
Peninsula in spring and summer months of the years 2000–03. The minimum size of icebergs that could
be identified in the IM images was <0.02km2. Radar backscattering coefficients of icebergs, sea ice and
open water were determined separately.We demonstrate that the error in separating icebergs from their
surroundings (sea ice or open water) depends on meteorological, oceanographic and sea-ice conditions.
Also the pre-processing of the SAR images (e.g. speckle reduction) influences iceberg recognition.
Differences in detection accuracy as a function of season could not be substantiated for our test sites,
but have in general to be taken into account, as results of other investigations indicate.


Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed Ray Rankins Paul Bertucci Chris Gallelli Alex T. Silverstein Includes full coverage of SQL Server 2008 in addition to R2 coverage This is the industrys most comprehensive and useful guide to SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2. It presents start-to-finish coverage of SQL Servers core database server and management capabilities, plus complete introductions to Integration, Reporting, and Analysis Services, application development, and much more. Four expert SQL Server administrators, developers, and consultants have packed this book with real-world information, tips, guidelines, and samples drawn from their own extensive experience creating and managing complex database solutions. Writing for intermediate-to-advanced-level SQL Server professionals, they focus on the products most complex and powerful capabilities, and its newest tools and features. For example, youll find invaluable information on administering SQL Server more efficiently, analyzing and optimizing queries, implementing data warehouses, ensuring high availability, and tuning performance. The accompanying CD-ROM contains an extraordinary library of practical tools and information including sample databases and all code examples. Whether youre responsible for SQL Server 2008 analysis, design, implementation, support, administration, or troubleshooting, no other book offers you this much value. Understand the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 environment, R2s newest features, and each editions capabilities Manage SQL Server 2008 more effectively with SQL Server Management Studio, the SQLCMD command-line query tool, and Powershell Efficiently manage security, users, backup/restore, replication, Database Mail, and database objectsfrom tables and indexes to stored procedures and triggers Increase availability with clustering, database mirroring, and other features Use new Policy-Based Management to centrally configure and operate SQL Server throughout the organization Use SQL Server Profiler to capture queries and identify bottlenecks Improve performance by optimizing queries, design more effective databases, and manage workloads with the new Resource Governor Develop applications using SQL Server 2008s enhancements to T-SQL and SQLCLR, .NET integration, LINQ to SQL, XML, and XQuery Make the most of Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Servicesespecially Microsofts new R2 reporting improvements Improve data security using Column-level and Transparent Data Encryption Ray Rankins, president of Gotham Consulting Services, has worked with Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server for more than 23 years and is coauthor of Sybase SQL Server Unleashed, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Unleashed. Paul Bertucci, founder of Database Architechs, has more than 30 years of experience in database design, architecture, replication, tuning, integration, and high availability. Chris Gallelli, president of CGAL Consulting Services, specializes in database administration, tuning, and programming. Alex T. Silverstein is managing principal and chief architect of Unified Digital Group, LLC, a developer of custom SQL Server and Microsoft .NET solutions. CD-ROM includes: 15 additional chapters Code samples, scripts, and databases utilized within the book Free version of SQL Shot (performance & tuning software) Category:Database / Microsoft SQL Server Covers:Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 User Level:IntermediateAdvanced


Improved understanding of the psychological impact on children following natural disasters is needed to assist with psychological recovery. The purpose of this exploratory study was to compare the disaster experiences and psychological symptoms of children, ages 8 to 17, following the Chilean earthquake and tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. Over one-third of all students (N = 827) met the symptom cut-off for mental health referral. Two one-sided test (TOST) procedures revealed similar symptom levels among the Chilean and Hurricane Katrina samples and similar numbers of reported disaster experiences. Interestingly, the Chilean earthquake and tsunami sample reported more direct disaster related losses and the Hurricane Katrina sample reported more recovery related issues. The findings suggest that even with cultural and type of disaster experience differences, children's responses to disasters are similar across cultures and that mental health services are needed to support recovery.


Printed Circuit compact heat exchangers that are increasingly being used for viscous media thermal processing applications have semicircular flow channels. But due to some manufacturing constraints, these become semi elliptical in nature. In practice, these channels have very small hydraulic diameters and relatively large (L/dh). Because of length scales and the viscous nature of the fluids being handled, the flows are generally laminar and both hydro dynamically and thermally fully developed. At first, fully developed laminar flow and heat transfer in straight circular smooth duct under constant heat flux has been studied using FLUENT and fanning friction factor, Nusselt no. and Colburn factor have been calculated to check the accuracy of the solution using this package. Then following the same procedure, fully developed laminar flow and heat transfer in three-dimensional, periodic straight duct as well as sinusoidal duct with semiellptic cross section with different aspect ratios are considered. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) using FLUENT is used to investigate the effect of Reynolds number (50 ≤ Re ≤ 500), aspect ratio of semi elliptical cross-sections for straight duct and amplitude to wavelength ratio(A/L=0.3 & 0.5) for sinusoidal channel(with L/D=4.5) on heat transfer enhancement and pressure drop for steady, incompressible, constant property, air (Pr=0.7044) flows under the constant wall heat flux boundary conditions. Velocity, temperature fields, Fanning friction factor, Colburn factor, good ness factor are being studied. Due to the interruption of the boundary layers formed near the solid surface and replacement of the boundary layer with the fluid from the core, thus creating a new boundary layer with an increased temperature gradient, the overall heat transfer coefficient as well as the pressure drop penalty in case of sinusoidal ducts increase as compared to straight ducts. Finally correlations between the Fanning friction factor and Colburn factor with Reynolds number and geometrical parameters have been found out for the above geometries.


IL-33 and its receptor ST2 induce a postnatal switch from coupled to uncoupled respiration in beige and brown adipocytes. Brown adipose tissue burns energy and generates heat (a process called thermogenesis) to maintain body temperature through uncoupled mitochondrial respiration mediated by uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). White adipose tissue normally stores energy, but various stimuli, such as cold exposure or adrenergic stimulation, trigger the formation of beige adipose tissue. In this process, which is called "browning," white adipocytes take on some of the characteristics of brown adipocytes, primarily the induction of Ucp1 expression. This process can be induced in adult mice by interleukin-33 (IL-33), a cytokine that is released by various cell types in response to stress or damage and that activates type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). Odegaard et al. (see also Mathis) found that IL-33 and its receptor ST2 were required to switch beige and brown adipocytes from coupled to uncoupled respiration perinatally. In response to cold exposure, UCP1 abundance and thermogenesis increased in the inguinal white adipose tissue of 8-week-old wild-type mice but not in this fat depot in Il33–/– mice. However, beige adipocyte formation was not reduced in Il33–/– mice. Compared with its effects in wild-type mice, norepinephrine stimulation increased oxygen consumption to a lower extent in Il33–/– mice, suggesting a defect in brown fat thermogenesis. Consistent with the reduced thermogenic capacity of both white and brown fat depots, fewer 8.5-week-old (or younger) Il33–/– mice survived cold exposure. Ex vivo analysis showed that similar to beige adipose tissue, UCP1 protein was absent in brown adipose tissue from Il33–/– mice, which also consumed less oxygen than that from wild-type mice. Ucp1 mRNAs were present in brown adipose tissue from Il33–/– mice but showed a different splicing pattern from that of wild-type mice. These mRNAs included two variants, B and C, which used cryptic splice junctions between exons 4 and 5 and of which C was present in wild-type mice. However, Il33–/–- mice did not have splice variant A, which used the normal splice junctions between these exons and constituted most of the Ucp1 mRNA in wild-type mice. The switch in coupled to uncoupled respiration required ST2 because the beige and brown fat of Il1rl1–/– mice (Ilrl1 encodes ST2) did not contain UCP1, and cold exposure was fatal to these mice at 4.5 weeks of age. The switch in coupled to uncoupled respiration did not require ILC2s or MyD88, an adaptor protein that is downstream of ST2 in immune cells, suggesting that IL-33 and ST2 mediate the switch through a pathway that is yet to be determined. Thus, IL-33 and its receptor ST2 enable beige and brown adipocytes to act as thermoregulatory tissues by inducing a postnatal switch from coupled to uncoupled respiration through changes in the splicing of Ucp1 mRNA. J. I. Odegaard, M.-W. Lee, Y. Sogawa, A. M. Bertholet, R. M. Locksley, D. E. Weinberg, Y. Kirichok, R. C. Deo, A. Chawla, Perinatal licensing of thermogenesis by IL-33 and ST2. Cell 166, 841–854 (2016). [PubMed] D. Mathis, IL-33, imprimatur of adipocyte thermogenesis. Cell 166, 794–795 (2016). [PubMed]


For handwritten signature verification, signature images are typically represented with fixed-sized feature vectors capturing local and global properties of the handwriting. Graph-based representations offer a promising alternative, as they are flexible in size and model the global structure of the handwriting. However, they are only rarely used for signature verification, which may be due to the high computational complexity involved when matching two graphs. In this paper, we take a closer look at two recently presented structural methods for handwriting analysis, for which efficient matching methods are available: keypoint graphs with approximate graph edit distance and inkball models. Inkball models, in particular, have never been used for signature verification before. We investigate both approaches individually and propose a combined verification system, which demonstrates an excellent performance on the MCYT and GPDS benchmark data sets when compared with the state of the art.


ABSTRACT As the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs; postsecondary institutions that enroll 25% or more Latinx students) in the United States increases annually, so does the need to theorize about what it means to have an HSI organizational identity. Using interview data from a multiple case study of three institutionally diverse HSIs in the Midwest, the purpose of this study was to apply the theoretical notions laid out in the Typology of HSI Organizational Identities about what it means for members to construct an organizational identity for serving Latinx students beyond the HSI federal designation. We utilized the typology to guide this study, seeking to better understand the misalignment between an ideal and currently constructed HSI identity. Findings confirm that the way members make sense of both an ideal HSI identity and a currently enacted identity are connected to outcomes and cultural indicators of what it means to serve Latinx students. Yet the ideal and the current identities do not always align, suggesting an HSI identity is transitional. Moreover, findings suggest that an HSI identity is likely connected to unique institutional missions and characteristics, which means it will vary across HSIs. Theoretical implications are discussed.


This presentation will draw upon data from two studies to represent the child with cerebral palsy's voice. Firstly, from a pilot study that explored the effects of adapted cycling, where 35 children kept a diary of their cycling activities and took part in 2 interviews. Interviews were developed utilizing a Mosaic approach where a variety of creative methods were applied. Some responded to puppets and used drawings to illustrate what cycling meant to them. The data were analysed using a template approach and 2 researchers reviewed the emergent themes. As this was a mixed methods study, qualitative data added to the statistical findings: the children who cycled, their quadriceps muscles got stronger. Without collecting this additional qualitative perspective, the emotional impact of such a 'Fun' recreational activity would have been missed. The children voices would not have been heard without this trustworthy, method.

Secondly, 2 case studies will be presented using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as an approach to explore what 'Participation' in recreational activities means to them. This data represents 2 females aged 9 and 21 years. This includes data analysis of a digital story, 2 interviews and a 3 month diary. The analysis here utilises a descriptive, conceptual and linguistic dimension. This multi-dimensional view uses metaphors as a means of explaining the child and young person's experiences. A particular metaphor relates to a 'Dragon' being slain as surgery slays 'Spasticity'. The hybridity of childhood cerebral palsy, with its multi-faceted management, is described from a child and young person's perspective.
These findings suggest a 'wheel of participation' where the different contexts of 'Participation' can support or hinder the disabled child's inclusion. To provide a choice of recreational activities can promote physical health and emotional well-being outcomes. By hearing the voices of disabled children and young people, healthcare practitioners can fulfil their 'moral imperative' to listen to the disabled child. Other health and social care policy makers can also respond to their voices by considering their physical health and emotional well-being needs. The aim being to enable the child or young person to self-manage their long term health condition into adulthood.


Global-scale grids provide a massive source of processing power, providing the means to support processor intensive parallel applications. The strong burstiness and unpredictability of the available processing and network resources raise the strong need to make applications robust against the dynamics of grid environments. The two main techniques that are most suitable to cope with the dynamic nature of the grid are dynamic load balancing (DLB) and job replication (JR). In this paper, we analyze and compare the effectiveness of these two approaches by means of trace-driven simulations. We observe that there exists an easy-to-measure statistic Y and a corresponding threshold value Y*, such that DLB consistently outperforms JR when Y > Y*, whereas the reverse is true for Y < Y*. Based on this observation, we propose a simple and easy-to-implement approach, throughout referred to as the DLB/JR method, that can make dynamic decisions about whether to use DLB or JR. Extensive simulations based on a large set of real data monitored in a global-scale grid show that our DLB/JR method consistently performs at least as good as both DLB and JR in all circumstances, which makes our DLB/JR method highly robust against the unpredictable nature of global-scale grids.


Comparision between pulping of canola stalks with dimethyl formamide and diethylene glycol was studied in order to investigate the effects of cooking temperature (190˚C, 210˚C, and 230˚C), cooking time (120 min, 150 min, and 180 min) and dimethyl formamide or diethylene glycol (50%, 60%, and 70%) on the properties of pulp and paper. SCAN viscosity was applied to estimate the extent of cellulose degradation. Responses of pulp and handsheet properties to the process were analyzed using statistical software (MINITAB 15). The results showed that DMF pulp of canola was better than DEG pulp of Canola under the same conditions of cooking and organosolv ratio. In DMF pulping and DEG pulping, cooking temperature is a significant factor affecting paper properties. Analysis of results revealed that DMF pulp canola obtained at 230 °C, 180 min, and 70% DMF had a low kappa number (25) , indicating that the desired properties of the final product dictated the optimized pulping conditions.


The motions of small-scale magnetic flux elements in the solar photosphere can provide some measure of the Lagrangian properties of the convective flow. Measurements of these motions have been critical in estimating the turbulent diffusion coefficient in flux-transport dynamo models and in determining the Alfvén wave excitation spectrum for coronal heating models. We examine the motions of internetwork flux elements in Hinode/Narrowband Filter Imager magnetograms and study the scaling of their mean squared displacement and the shape of their displacement probability distribution as a function of time. We find that the mean squared displacement scales super-diffusively with a slope of about 1.48. Super-diffusive scaling has been observed in other studies for temporal increments as small as 5 s, increments over which ballistic scaling would be expected. Using high-cadence MURaM simulations, we show that the observed super-diffusive scaling at short increments is a consequence of random changes in barycenter positions due to flux evolution. We also find that for long temporal increments, beyond granular lifetimes, the observed displacement distribution deviates from that expected for a diffusive process, evolving from Rayleigh to Gaussian. This change in distribution can be modeled analytically by accounting for supergranular advection along with granular motions. These results complicate the interpretation of magnetic element motions as strictly advective or diffusive on short and long timescales and suggest that measurements of magnetic element motions must be used with caution in turbulent diffusion or wave excitation models. We propose that passive tracer motions in measured photospheric flows may yield more robust transport statistics.


Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto's path breaking book "Leaving College" has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with "Completing College", Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion. Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions for enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. He shows that, especially during the early years, students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action. Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and "Completing College" carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.


SUMMARY
Traditionally, research into antecedents, characteristics, and outcomes of supplier integration has mainly focused on integrating suppliers into new product development. What is urgently needed is a more comprehensive analysis of supplier integration activities. This research, which is based on responses from 173 industrial firms as well as supplementary interviews with purchasing executives, develops the notion of a phase-differentiated approach toward supplier integration. It further provides insights into supplier integration in the development phase and supplier integration in the industrialization phase with respect to, for example, the degree of integration, the distinct managerial approaches, and the benefits sought by the buyer and the supplier. Additionally, results of an industry-level analysis examine how various industries approach supplier integration.


This essay reviews the book, Free Market Environmentalism, and finds it wanting on several counts. The proponents of free market environmentalism (Privateers) hold an atomistic view of of society, glorify market exchanges, discount market failures, and decry governmental intervention. They indict the democratic process for being dominated by rent-seeking interest groups and claim that public dialogue can never subsume private preferences. Yet privateers ignore the fact that most environmental resources are incapable of being accurately priced. This essay explains how external cost, collective goods, and free rider problems ensure that the marketplace systematically overvalues polluting activities and resource consumption while undervaluing clean air and water and other environmental goods, thus creating significant inefficiencies. The essay also points out that enforcing market-based preferences requires public enforcement, which is itself costly. Reliance on common law remedies like nuisance produced spectacular inefficiences and unfairness in the past. The authors of Free Market Environmentalism offer no prescriptions of how to avoid these mistakes in the future. Because Free Market Environmentalism fails to acknowledge that markets persistently fail to produce ecological and health information necessary to allocate environmental resources efficiently, it is a deeply flawed book. Privateers also unwisely assume the wisdom of current preferences and the fairness of existing wealth distribution. And they carve out a significant role for the judiciary, the least representative branch of government, to allocate environmental resources. While there may be a role for markets in the implementation of environmental policy, particularly in supplying incentives to comply with environmental requirements, thereby reducing both fiscal and psychic costs, the market is a poor place in which to make environmental policy. The values which shape environmental policy are better identified through the dialogue of democracy, through public hearings and legislative determination, and with the participation of both the landed and the landless.


Human cytomegalovirus uses a host-encoded antiviral protein to its own advantage. Viperin is an interferon-inducible protein that is directly induced in cells by human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection. Why HCMV would induce viperin, which has antiviral activity, is unknown. We show that HCMV-induced viperin disrupts cellular metabolism to enhance the infectious process. Viperin interaction with the viral protein vMIA resulted in viperin relocalization from the endoplasmic reticulum to the mitochondria. There, viperin interacted with the mitochondrial trifunctional protein that mediates β-oxidation of fatty acids to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This interaction with viperin, but not with a mutant lacking the viperin iron-sulfur cluster–binding motif, reduced cellular ATP generation, which resulted in actin cytoskeleton disruption and enhancement of infection. This function of viperin, which was previously attributed to vMIA, suggests that HCMV has coopted viperin to facilitate the infectious process.


Dark mudstones are widely distributed in the Upper and Lower Sub-members of the Na1 Member and the Na2 Member of the Tertiary Nadu Formation in the Eastern Depression of the Baise Basin, with a cumulative thickness of 200–1000 m. There is more than 1% organic carbon in these three sets of dark mudstones in most areas of the Eastern Depression, indicating that they are good source rocks. The kerogen of these three sets of effective source rocks is mainly of Type IIA, but also with Types IIB and III. Distribution of the kerogen type was controlled by sedimentary environment. Ro values of the Na1 Member mudstones are 0.4–0.65%, showing that the organic matter is at the immature to low-mature stage, while those of the Na2 Member, which are deeper, are 0.7–0.8% or even higher, showing that the organic matter is at the early mature stage. The facies of thicker dark mudstones in the Depression suggest a semi-deep lake environment, and the areas with higher organic carbon and Ro values – the depositional centre and the subsiding centre of the basin – coincide with the hydrocarbon generation centre. The Na2 Member should be the most effective source rock in this area because of its maturity, thickness, the sedimentary environment, and the organic abundance and type. The Tiandong Sedimentary District, with its larger area, greater thickness of mudstone, wider range of semi-deep lacustrine environment, higher organic carbon amount, better organic matter type and higher maturity, has a greater potential for hydrocarbon generation and expulsion than the Tianyang Sedimentary District.


Between May 1996 and June 1998, 210 members of a cohort of 1,667 hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐infected injection drug users (IDUs) were selected for liver biopsy procedure after stratification based on 2 consecutive serum alanine transaminase (ALT) levels. Liver histology, which could be fully evaluated for 207 subjects, was classified by using the modified Ishak scores. At the time of biopsy, the median age of subjects was 41.3 years and the median estimated duration of HCV infection was 20.7 years; 94% were African American; 78% men; 31% were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seropositive; and 76% had HCV genotype 1a or 1b. Total modified histologic activity index (MHAI) scores ranged from 0 to 9, and 26.6% had a total MHAI score of 5 or greater. Persons with a total MHAI score of 5 or greater were more likely to be HIV infected (P = .04). Higher fibrosis, indicated by Ishak modified fibrosis scores of 3 to 6, was present in 10.1% of subjects and was found more often in those older than 46 years of age (the highest quartile) (P < .01). Both fibrosis scores of 3 or greater and total scores of 5 or greater were associated with elevated ALT, aspartate transaminase (AST), and γ‐glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) levels (P < .01). When serial values were considered, the results of liver enzyme testing could reduce the probability of an IDU having a fibrosis score of 3 or greater from 10% to 3%. In conclusion, these data indicate that severe liver disease is uncommon in this urban, HCV‐infected IDU cohort, especially in younger persons and those with repeatedly normal liver enzymes.


The National Bioenergy Investment Model is a scenario model that simulates the decisions of domestic and international investors on whether to invest in biofuel enterprises in a developing country. In the model, investors compare the profitability of different biofuel feedstock and fuel operations using a riskadjusted discount rate – taking market, currency, country and sector risks into account. Prices for biofuels and feedstocks are determined in part through exogenous international prices and in part through a dynamic, equilibrium-seeking price adjustment mechanism. The model is intended to be used within a participatory scenario exercise, and can be run interactively.


Economic analysis has said little about how an individual's cognitive skills (CS's) are related to the individual's preferences in different choice domains, such as risk-taking or saving, and how preferences in different domains are related to each other. Using a sample of 1,000 trainee truckers we report three findings.
First, we show a strong and significant relationship between an individual's cognitive skills and preferences, and between the preferences in different choice domains. The latter relationship may be counterintuitive: a patient individual, more inclined to save, is also more willing to take calculated risks. A second finding is that measures of cognitive skill predict social awareness and choices in a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma game. Subjects with higher CS's more accurately forecast others' behavior, and differentiate their behavior depending on the first mover's choice, returning higher amount for a higher transfer, and lower for a lower one. After controlling for investment motives, subjects with higher CS's also cooperate more as first movers. A third finding concerns on-the-job choices. Our subjects incur a significant financial debt for their training that is forgiven only after twelve months of service. Yet over half leave within the first year, and cognitive skills are also strong predictors of who exits too early, stronger than any other social, economic and personality measure in our data.
These results suggest that cognitive skills affect the economic lives of individuals, by systematically changing preferences and choices in a way that favors the economic success of individuals with higher cognitive skills.


We propose and investigate the use of slanted surface-relief gratings with nonbinary profiles as high-efficiency broadband couplers for light guides. First, a Chandezon-method-based rigorous numerical formulation is presented for modeling the slanted gratings with overhanging profiles. Then, two typical types of slanted grating couplers--a sinusoidal one and a trapezoidal one--are studied and optimized numerically, both exhibiting a high coupling efficiency of over 50% over the full band of white LED under the normal illumination of unpolarized light. Reasonable structural parameters with nice tolerance have been obtained for the optimized designs. It is found that the performance of the couplers depends little on the grating profile shape, but primarily on the grating period and the slant angle of the ridge. The underlying mechanism is analyzed by the equivalence rules of gratings, which provide useful guidelines for the design and fabrication of the couplers. Preliminary investigation has been performed on the fabrication and replication of the slanted overhanging grating couplers, which shows the feasibility of fabrication with mature microfabrication techniques and the perspective for mass production.


A significant proportion of the counselling that people receive takes place within informal, situated encounters between service users and practitioners in fields such as nursing, medicine, teaching and social work. However, almost all of the research that has been carried out into the process and outcomes of counselling consists of studies of formal, contracted counselling and psychotherapy based in therapy clinics and offices. The competent and effective delivery of counselling that is embedded in a primary professional role, such as that of nurse, teacher or social worker, presents considerable challenges for practitioners. Research evidence around the process and outcomes of embedded counselling represents a valuable resource that has the potential to enhance the quality of counselling conversations enacted by practitioners in health, education, social work and other professions. An overview is provided of different types of research that has been carried out into informal and embedded counselling, and of the main themes that have emerged from these studies. Suggestions are made for the further development of this field.


Osteoporosis is a major public health threat affecting millions of individuals in the United States. Bisphosphonate therapy is currently recognized as a first-line treatment of osteoporosis through the inhibition of osteoclast activity. Concerns have been raised about potential oversuppression of bone turnover and the development of atypical skeletal fragility associated with long-term use of bisphosphonates. A number of case reports in the literature have documented atypical insufficiency fractures in patients on long-term bisphosphonate therapy. This case outlines what we believe is the second documented atypical tibial insufficiency fracture in a patient on long-term bisphosphonate therapy, and highlights the need for increased awareness of atypical insufficiency fractures as well as the need for more data concerning the long-term effects of bisphosphonate therapy.