Identifying trends in aspects of meteorology is becoming increasingly important to understanding how climate can be expected to change, and how those affected may plan contingencies. Analyzing spatial patterns of precipitation trends allows for associations to be discovered to better understand regional climatology. For this study, daily precipitation data were collected from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) at stations across the continental United States, with selection based on distance from each other within a state, as well as percent completeness of observation data. Two stations per state were selected, with some exceptions for smaller states. The data were organized by year, and six different variables were examined for each station. Mean annual precipitation per event, annual standard deviation, frequency of days with more than 0.5 inches of precipitation, frequency of days with more than 1.0 in. of precipitation, annual 90th percentile value, and frequency of days with precipitation amount greater than the 90th percentile value for the entire period were tested for trends with a Mann-Kendall trend test. The stations were then mapped to identify the regions where trends were identified. Over 546 trend tests, there were 122 positive trends and 11 negative trends detected. Hot spots in both positive and negative trends were detected, and there were statistically hot spots in each of the six variables.


Using recurrent gestures as the model, this essay considers how an inside-looking-out view of speech-gesture production reflects the interactive-social exterior. The inside view may appear to ignore the social context of speaking and gesture, but this is far from the truth. What an exterior view sees as important appears in the interior but in a different way. The difference leads to misunderstandings of the interior view and what it does. It is not a substitute for the exterior. It is the interior reflecting the social exterior and shaping it to fit its own demands. Topics are: recurrent gestures; gesture-speech co-expressivity; expunged real-world goals; "in-betweenness"; phenomenological "inhabitance" and material carriers; metaphoricity and imagery; social deixis and social relations; realizations of the self; world-views; and lastly the want of mutual outside and inside intellectual perceptions and what can be done about it.


The purpose of this article is to advance understanding of the role that federal court rulemaking has played in litigation reform. For that purpose, we created original data sets that include (1) information about every member of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules who served from 1960 to 2013, and (2) every proposal for amending the Federal Rules that the Advisory Committee approved for consideration by the Standing Committee during the same period and that had implications for private enforcement. We show that, beginning in 1971, when a succession of Chief Justices appointed by Republican Presidents have chosen committee members, the committee shifted toward being dominated by federal judges, that those appointments shifted in favor of judges appointed by Republican Presidents, that practitioner appointments shifted toward corporate and defense practitioners, and that the committee's proposals became increasingly anti-plaintiff (and hence anti-private enforcement).Since the bold rulemaking reforms of 1993 were very nearly blocked by Congress, it has seemed that the important lessons for some rulemakers had to do with the epistemic deficits or overreaching of proposed reforms, while for others the lessons focused attention on the locus of partisan control in Congress. The former group may have learned from the Court's strategy of incrementalism – death by a thousand cuts – in litigation reform involving the interpretation of federal statutes. The latter group may regret, if not the loss of leadership in procedural lawmaking, then the loss of leadership in retrenchment, which some rulemaking critics have seen signaled in the Court's recent use of decisions effectively to amend the Federal Rules.


Junot Diaz's new collection, This Is How You Lose Her, is a collection of linked narratives about love - passionate love, illicit love, dying love, maternal love - told through the lives of New Jersey Dominicans, as they struggle to find a point where their two worlds meet. In prose that is endlessly energetic and inventive, tender and funny, it lays bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of the human heart. Most of all, these stories remind us that the habit of passion always triumphs over experience and that 'love, when it hits us for real, has a half-life of forever'.


The mechanisms of agglomeration and defluidization and fluidization characteristic of iron oxide particles were investigated based on the theory of surface diffusion, interface reaction, surface nano/microeffect, and phase transformation. Moreover, a mathematical model was developed to predict the high-temperature defluidization behavior by the force-balance and plastic-viscous flow mechanism, and the fluidization phase diagram was obtained. On these bases, a control method of defluidization and its inhibition mechanism were proposed. As a result, the theoretical system of agglomeration/defluidization in the gas-solid fluidization was developed, and thus afforded theory support and techno-logical bases for the solution of defluidization in industrial fluidized-bed reactors.


The constructed and contingent nature of state borders raises a host of ethical questions regarding their legitimacy and the moral standing of the consequences they engender. This 'ethical dimension' is frequently central to how people living in border regions regard both the border and those living on either side of it. Studying border practices as ethical action offers important insights into borderland subjectivities and the factors underpinning the success or failure of cross-border cooperation. This argument is advanced with reference to the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle, a transnational arrangement which has been argued to herald the inception of the 'borderless world'. Although in reality the region remains highly 'bordered', notions of 'borderlessness' endure as a normative ethical good for inhabitants of Indonesia's Riau Archipelago. Their ethical stance subverts satisfying collaborations with Singaporeans in the fields of education and maritime security, and ironically works to propagate a sense of national cultural difference.


Quantifying the uncertainty sources in assessment of climate change impacts on hydrological processes is helpful for local water management decision-making. This paper investigated the impact of the general circulation model (GCM) structural uncertainty on hydrological processes in the Kaidu River Basin. Outputs of 21 GCMs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (i.e., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), representing future climate change under uncertainty, were first bias-corrected using four precipitation and three temperature methods and then used to force a well-calibrated hydrological model (the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, SWAT) in the study area. Results show that the precipitation will increase by 3.1%–18% and 7.0%–22.5%, the temperature will increase by 2.0 °C–3.3 °C and 4.2 °C–5.5 °C and the streamflow will change by −26% to 3.4% and −38% to −7% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Timing of snowmelt will shift forward by approximately one to two months for both scenarios. Compared to RCPs and bias correction methods, GCM structural uncertainty contributes most to streamflow uncertainty based on the standard deviation method (55.3%) while it is dominant based on the analysis of variance approach (94.1%).


Americans living in the mid-20th century saw momentous change. A decade of severe economic depression in the 1930s was followed by the largest-scale war the world had ever seen. The Allies' victory in World War II brought formal peace and new prosperity but also the beginning of a tense and long-lasting cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Women's lives in the United States reflected and helped to shape these world changes. The importance of their contributions became obvious during the war, when production demands drew women into manufacturing jobs and broadcast the image of Rosie the Riveter. When the hot war ended the cold war began, marriage and birth rates began to accelerate, resulting in the famous postwar Baby Boom. Women were encouraged to give up their jobs to the returning veterans and resume their tasks as wives and mothers, and there was a mass migration to the suburbs. Thousands of women lost well-paying jobs, but many remained in the work force. Whether they were college-educated homemakers working to elevate the job of housewife to a respected career, working-class women struggling to preserve the gains of wartime, or African-American women leading the struggle for civil rights, women of all backgrounds pushed the limits of their circumstances, paving the way for the social movements of the 1960s and the feminist gains that would follow. Pushing the Limits tells the stories of ordinary women and their efforts to make a better life for themselves and their children.


We present a novel distributed temperature sensor that uses the temperature dependence of the frequency at which the loss is maximized in the interaction between a cw laser and a pulsed laser. With a 32-km sensing length, a temperature resolution of 1°C has been achieved; it is also shown that a spatial resolution of 5 m may be obtained.


This paper is analysing and summarising the impact of globalisation on social and cultural values of India. For this, a number of research papers have been reviewed, presented and corroborated in this paper. In this paper social and cultural issues like gender inequality, equal opportunities, family structure and values, social security net, life style, administration, education, technology, healthcare system, festivals, language, music, literature, cinema, television and drugs and trafficking been discussed on the basis of prior research works. The findings from those works have been summarized and presented in this paper.


Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) three-ply plywood was manufactured from veneer obtained from silviculturally different stands. Panels from each site were assembled with four different veneer grade arrangements and tested in wet and dry conditions. Stiffness properties in both the wet and dry conditions and strength properties in the dry condition were all significantly affected by silvicultural practice ; veneer grade arrangement also showed significant differences. Shear strength and bending properties (MOR and MOE) were most favorable with panels manufactured from all A-grade veneer (AAA). Strength properties were found to be very similar between panels manufactured with A-grade veneer on one face and C-grade veneer on the other face and in the core (ACC), and A-grade veneer on both faces and C grade veneer in the core (ACA).


This article attempts to extend the study of rock-art beyond the visual to include the non-visual experiences and perceptions of human beings. It is argued that there is 'more than meets the eye' when interpreting rock-art. Rather than restricting interpretation to the visual, the relationship between rock 'art', rock-art 'site' and the wider landscape is considered as articulated within a socially and historically specific Neolithic (ca. 4000-500 BC) hunter-gatherer 'mindscape'. An audio-visual perspective is argued, where the auditory sense and visual experience of the landscape combine in a vital interplay that is essential to the interpretation of 25 out of about 80 known rock-engraving sites in northern Scandinavia (ca. 33%). These sites have in common a strong water-centric focus; in particular noisy, running water. This approach provides a more profound understanding of these rock-art sites and the prehistoric use of 'images' as transmitters of different kinds of knowledge from the mundane to the esoteric. It is argued that the ebb and flow of water and human breath are analogous within a frame of enquiry that also considers shamanistic practice in approaching and experiencing these rock-engraving sites.


SUMMARY: Thirty three male albino rats, weighing 180-200 g were included in this experiment. Control animals consisting of 11 rats, were fed with a normal lab diet for a period of 12 weeks and the rest of the animals were fed with a diet containing 1% cholesterol for the same period. At the end of the experimental period, plasma cholesterol level (mean ± SD) was 134.04 ± 21.11 mg/dl in the cholesterol group and 72.72 ± 10.5 mg/dl in the control group. After feeding cholesterol group, eleven of the rats from the cholesterol group were transferred to the normal diet for 4 weeks (Normocholesterolemic group). The computerized spectral analysis of EEG records from parietal lobes of normal, hypercholesterolemic and normocholesterolemic rats by using the TRFC (Transient response-frequency characteristics) method showed that there was an obvious depression in the brain waves of hypercholesterolemic and normocholesterolemic animals.


Paternity uncertainty seems to have shaped humans' differential investment in kin. I examined sex differences in communication among nuclear kin to expand inquiry on this matter and address some methodological limitations in prior work. I analyzed data from national surveys in the USA and Spain and a study of mobile phone communication in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Respondents communicated mildly to moderately more with mother than father and more with sister than brother. The differences in communication with mother and father appeared in both subjective survey data and objective mobile telephone records. Across communication modes and studies, women and men did not differ consistently in overall frequency of communication. Matricentric and sororicentric tendencies were larger for the modes likely to involve dyadic communication (such as telephone calling and texting) than modes which often involve communication in group settings (face-to-face). The tendency to communicate more with female than male kin also appeared to be stronger in women respondents than in men. These results are consistent with paternity uncertainty as an ultimate evolutionary cause of differential investment in kin.


This book analyzes the Central Asian economies of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, from their buffeting by the commodity boom of the early 2000s to its collapse in 2014. The book examines the countries' relations with external powers and the possibilities for development offered by infrastructure projects as well as rail links between China and Europe. The transition of these nations from centrally planned to market-based economic systems was essentially complete by the early 2000s, when the region experienced a massive increase in world prices for energy and mineral exports. This raised incomes in the main oil and gas exporters, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; brought more benefits to the most populous country, Uzbekistan; and left the poorest countries, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, dependent on remittances from migrant workers in oil-rich Russia and Kazakhstan. The book considers the enhanced role of the Central Asian nations in the global economy and their varied ties to China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States. With improved infrastructure and connectivity between China and Europe (reflected in regular rail freight services since 2011 and China's announcement of its Belt and Road Initiative in 2013), relaxation of UN sanctions against Iran in 2016, and the change in Uzbekistan's presidency in late 2016, a window of opportunity appears to have opened for Central Asian countries to achieve more sustainable economic futures.


Genetically modified (GM) plants are grown on more than 67 million hectares in 18 countries worldwide. A major trait used in GM crops is plant resistance to insects; this trait is based on several Bt proteins. The benefits accruing to farmers growing Bt crops are substantial across a number of geographies and economic strata, especially in developing countries. These benefits include increased crop yields, reduced pesticide use, less environmental damage, less fungal contamination, and reduced labor. Constraints to broader use of GM traits in a wider variety of food crops and in a larger range of countries include the lack of regulatory bodies in some countries, access to credit, support institutions such as extension or seed company technical advisors, and public acceptance, especially as it relates to international trade.


Roger and Sandra Plachy offer an innovative approach to a critical but often tedious and unproductive task: writing job descriptions. Their results-oriented method has revolutionized standard job descriptions, transforming them from mere "laundry lists" of duties or general descriptions of work processes to powerful tools for improving employee performance. Because results-oriented job descriptions emphasize the results desired from performing a particular job and explain why the work is important to the organization, employees better understand the true value of their work and are more committed to fulfilling goals. More Results-Oriented Job Descriptions provides 226 brand new job descriptions in 26 categories, from accounting and finance to warehousing and distribution, that you can use as is or adapt to fit your needs. It also offers guidelines and worksheets for writing original job descriptions, exercises that will improve your writing skills, and explanations of relevant employment laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.


Filariasis carried by mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus. Filariasis cause elephantiasis sequelae that often lower the sufferers productivity . Eradication of the disease is difficult, then , an attempt to do is to control the vector. The other way is to use insecticide vector control plant. Basil (Ocimum sanctum Linn) which contain fiavonoids, saponins, and eugenol has been shown in the laboratory have larvicidal effect. This study aimed to determine the larvicidal effects from Ethanol extract 96% of basilleaf (Ocimum sanctum Linn) against third instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus. This is an laboratory experimental methods with Post test only control group design. The Ethanol extract of basil leaf (Ocimum sanctum Linn) diluted to a concentration of 5000 ppm, 4500 ppm, 4000 ppm, 3500 ppm, 3000 ppm, 2000 ppm, 1500 ppm, 1000 ppm. The experiments were repeated three times. Each experiment included a control ie Tween 20 of 0.25% in distilled water. Statistical analysis was performed with Kruskal-Walls test and probit analysis to determine LC50 and LC90. In the analysis result of Kruskal Walls (CI: 95%) it obtained the results that each test group had a significant difference (p=0,005) in mortality of third instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus.The results of probit analysis showed that the ethanol extract of basil leaf give the concentration LC50 and LC90 2281.931 ppm and 5016.314 ppm. Ethanol extract 96% of basilleaf (Ocimum sanctum Linn) has an larvicidal effect on third instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus. Keywords: Culex quinquefasciatus - larvicidal - ethanol extract - Basilleaf (Ocimum sanctum Linn).


Economic losses from natural disasters pose significant challenges to communities and to the insurance industry. Natural disaster mitigation aims to reduce the threat to people and assets from natural perils. Good decisions relating to hazard risk mitigation require judgments both about the scientific and financial issues involved, i.e., the efficacy of some intervention, and the ethical or value principles to adopt in allocating resources. A framework for selecting a set of mitigation options within a limited budget is developed. Project selection about natural disaster mitigation options needs to trade off benefits offered by alternative investments (e.g., fatalities and injuries avoided, potential property and infrastructure losses prevented, safety concerns of citizens, etc.) against the costs of investment. Such costs include capital and on-going operational costs, as well as intangible costs, such as the impact of the project on the visual landscape or the loss of societal cohesion in the event of the relocation of part of a community. Furthermore, dollar costs of any potential project will need to be defined within some prescribed budget and time frame. Taking all of these factors into account, this paper develops a framework for good natural hazard mitigation decision making and selection.


Unilateral-modification clauses give one party the unfettered right to amend or reject the underlying contract, often with neither notice to nor consent from the other party. State and federal courts are divided on the issue of whether employment arbitration agreements subject to such clauses are enforceable (and the courts holding the arbitration agreements are unenforceable are divided on which of several contract law doctrines apply). The majority of courts refuse to compel arbitration when the employer's unilateral-modification rights create a lack of consideration, a non-mutual agreement, an illusory promise to arbitrate, or an unconscionable agreement. A minority of courts find that the promise of continued employment is adequate consideration and that arbitration agreements containing unilateral-modification clauses are enforceable. This article argues that an employer's promise of continued at-will employment is illusory and therefore, by itself does not supply consideration for an employee's promise to arbitrate. The article also argues that under existing contract law doctrines, arbitration agreements subject to unrestricted unilateral-modification provisions should not be enforceable. However, courts should permit employers to retain the ability to unilaterally modify arbitration agreements so long as the agreements provide employees with (1) adequate notice of changes, (2) sufficient consideration for the promise to arbitrate, and (3) conscionable arbitration terms. Courts can overlay this three-step framework onto existing contract doctrines to fairly and consistently analyze the enforceability of unilateral-modification clauses in employment arbitration agreements.


Summary and Conclusions
Ten individuals infected with Balantidium coli responded very satisfactorily to terramycin. In all instances, symptoms disappeared quickly, and stools became negative within four days. There was no drug intolerance which necessitated discontinuance of therapy. One relapse (possible reinfection) was noted among the ten patients; this was in a 12 year old boy whose intimacy with pigs unfortunately continued after completion of his treatment. Terramycin obviously is an excellent therapeutic agent against human balantidiasis.


High-quality epitaxial SrVO3 (SVO) thin films of various thicknesses were grown on (001)-oriented LSAT substrates by pulsed electron-beam deposition technique. Thick SVO films (~25 nm) exhibited metallic behavior with the electrical resistivity following the T2 law corresponding to a Fermi liquid system. We observed a temperature driven metal-insulator transition (MIT) in SVO ultrathin films with thicknesses below 6.5 nm, the transition temperature TMIT was found to be at 50 K for the 6.5 nm film, 120 K for the 5.7 nm film and 205 K for the 3 nm film. The emergence of the observed MIT can be attributed to the dimensional crossover from a three-dimensional metal to a two-dimensional Mott insulator, as the resulting reduction in the effective bandwidth W opens a band gap at the Fermi level. The magneto-transport study of the SVO ultrathin films also confirmed the observed MIT is due to the electron-electron interactions other than localization.


This article proposes an approach to family law decision-making tailored to assist families plagued by substance abuse. Substance abuse is linked to social, health, and economic problems facing Americans today and is a factor for a substantial number of family law litigants. By failing to address substance abuse issues, the family repeatedly may need to seek court intervention. The unified family court model is the concept of a single court that coordinates the work of independent agencies and tribunals, each with some limited role in resolving the problems incident to a family's legal matters. Professor Babb has created an interdisciplinary framework for a unified family court, based on therapeutic jurisprudence and the ecology of human development, to help judges and other court professionals consider the many influences on human behavior and family life, thereby empowering the system to offer more pragmatic and effective solutions to contemporary family legal issues. The authors use the Family Division of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland, as a case study to illustrate the proposed model. The authors describe the court structure, role of court personnel, and court services. Among the court services are substance abuse resources for litigants. If a judge and/or other court personnel are concerned about substance abuse, they may refer the litigant to a court clinical social worker, who evaluates litigants for substance abuse, prepares a court report, and refers family members to treatment as necessary. For this system to work, expertise in addiction and substance abuse is imperative. The authors conclude that all family justice systems must make a commitment to address substance abuse issues, both by understanding how these issues affect family law cases and by developing policies and procedures to effectively respond to the problem.


The complexity of today's data communication networks necessitates complete, realistic and sophisticated testing grounds for verifying and validating their functionality. Network testing grounds are restricted to laboratories and environments isolated from real life scenarios. Testing in production and commercial networks is typically forbidden since they present a high degree of risk factors for service availability. Additionally, the majority of today's communication network testbeds lack the scale and flexibility needed to properly represent a true networking environment. Before deploying live networks there is a need to have a network testing environment scalable and flexible enough where issues such as: network design, vendor interoperability, endurance, multiprotocol layer interconnectivity, a vendor's specific implementations of standards and network design viability have been verified to meet the requirements. In this paper a design and implementation of a next generation network is described, where both testing and production traffic coexist. NCIT*net 2 is an optical transmission network supporting end-to-end services over technologies such as Ethernet, SONET, MPLS and DWDM. The paper also discusses key technology aspects related to the functionality of equipment and network from a service point of view. These include the physical layer and network operation, as well as architecture and control. The testbed network is used for the deployment of networking services over the above technologies in order to verify service implementation, provisioning and assurance of quality of service requirements. This network also allows testing and evaluating systems, subsystems and components from different vendors in various interconnections. The paper goes further to describe, as an example, the tests designed and implemented for the analysis of MPLS based services over next generation networks.


After the drought of the 1970s in West Africa, the variability in rainfall and land use changes mostly affected flow, and recently flooding has been said to be an increasingly common occurrence throughout the whole of West Africa. These changes have raised many questions about the impact of climate change on the flood regimes in West African countries. This paper investigates whether floods are becoming more frequent or more severe and to what extent climate patterns have been responsible for these changes. We analyzed the trends in the floods occurring in 11 catchments within West Africa's main climate zones. The methodology includes two methods for sampling flood events, namely the AM (annual maximum) method and the POT (peak over threshold), and two perspectives of analysis are presented: long-term analysis based on two long flood time series and a regional perspective involving 11 catchments with shorter series. The Mann–Kendall trend test and the Pettitt break test were used to detect nonstationarities in the time series. The trends detected in flood time series were compared to the rainfall index trends and vegetation indices using contingency tables in order to identify the main driver of change in flood magnitude and flood frequency. The relation between the flood index and the physiographic index was evaluated through a success criterion and the Cramer criterion calculated from the contingency tables. The results show the existence of trends in flood magnitude and flood frequency time series, with two main patterns. Sahelian floods show increasing flood trends and one Sudanian. catchment presents decreasing flood trends. For the overall catchments studied, trends in the maximum 5-day consecutive rainfall index (R5d) show good coherence with trends in flood, while the trends in normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) do not show a significant agreement with flood trends, meaning that this index has possibly no impact on the behavior of floods in the region.


Online learning is growing at a rapid rate across the United States (Durrington, Berryhill & Swafford, 2006; Tabatabaei, Schrottner, & Reichgelt, 2006). However, course evaluation systems have not kept up with these changes and are often inadequate for evaluating the unique expectations and demands faced by online instructors. Typically, online instructors are evaluated using instruments designed for face-to-face classroom instruction (Mandernach, Donnelli, Dailey, Schulte, (2005). As a result, important indicators of effective teaching in an online format are not evaluated by students. Key competencies for online instruction can include instructor response rate and availability, frequency and quality of instructor presence, community building, assessment, and overall management of the course (Luck, 2001; Firch & Montambeau, 2000). Evaluation specific to online instructors is beneficial in informing online instructors of how their specific behaviors are viewed by students, providing data to administrators for faculty evaluation purposes (Tobin, 2004), and useful for planning and providing professional development opportunities (Mandernach, Donnelli, Dailey, Schulte, (2005). This study describes the comparison of two faculty evaluations. The traditional evaluation required by the university in all classes regardless of the type of delivery (face-to-face, hybrid, online) is compared to an evaluation (Online Instructor Evaluation) designed specifically to evaluate online teaching competencies. Subjects identified the Online Instructor Evaluation as providing the most useful and relevant feedback for evaluating online instructors.


The Radical Open Access Collective (ROAC) is a community of scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other open access (OA) projects. The collective promotes a progressive vision for open access based on mutual alliances between the 45+ member presses and projects seeking to offer an alternative to commercial and legacy models of publishing. This article presents a case study of the collective, highlighting how it harnesses the strengths and organizational structures of not-for-profit, independent and scholar-led publishing communities by 1) further facilitating collective efforts through horizontal alliances, and by 2) enabling vertical forms of collaboration with other agencies and organizations within scholarly publishing. It provides a background to the origins of the ROAC, its members, its publishing models on display and its future plans, and highlights the importance of experimenting with and promoting new forms of communality in not-for-profit OA publishing.


It may be a bad idea to waste resources, but is it illegal? Legally speaking, what does "waste" even mean? Though the concept may appear completely subjective, this Article builds a framework for understanding how the law identifies and addresses waste. Drawing upon property and natural resource doctrines, the Article finds that the law selects from a menu of five specific, and sometimes competing, societal values to define waste. The values are: 1) economic efficiency, 2) human flourishing, 3) concern for future generations, 4) stability and consistency, and 5) ecological concerns. The law recognizes waste in terms of one or a combination of these values. After identifying waste, the law seeks to eliminate it via targeted anti-waste provisions, which follow one of three approaches. First, "usage-veto" measures empower selected parties to halt perceived wasteful changes to resource uses. Second, "market-facilitating" measures prevent economic waste by encouraging and correcting markets. Third, "sustainability" measures proscribe wasteful overconsumption of resources fundamental to human and ecosystem flourishing. Through this framework, the Article synthesizes seemingly disparate property and resource doctrines into a coherent legal approach to the idea of waste. This overarching understanding of legal waste explains how individual anti-waste provisions originate and operate. Further, the waste framework serves as a practical tool for analyzing whether anti-waste laws remain in touch with current resource contexts and societal preferences. Finally, it offers theoretical insight about how anti-waste provisions work cumulatively to inject a necessary adaptability into property law.


Health disparities represent a significant strand in the fabric of racial injustice in the United States, one that has proven exceptionally durable. Many millions of dollars have been invested in addressing racial disparities over the past three decades. Researchers have identified disparities, unpacked their causes, and tracked their trajectories, with only limited progress in narrowing the health gap between whites and racial and ethnic minorities. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the movement toward value-based payment methods for health care may supply a new avenue for addressing disparities. This Article argues that the ACA's requirement that tax-exempt hospitals assess the health needs of their communities and take steps to address those needs presents a valuable opportunity to engage hospitals as partners in efforts to reduce racial health disparities. Whether hospitals will focus on disparities as they assess their communities' health needs, however, is uncertain; preliminary reviews of hospitals' initial compliance with the new requirement suggest that most did not. Relying on Professor Derrick Bell's interest-convergence theory, this Article explores how hospitals' economic interests may converge with interests in racial health justice. It presents two examples of interventions that could reduce disparities while saving hospitals money. The Article closes by identifying steps that health justice advocates, the federal government, and researchers should take to help, in Professor Bell's words, "forge [the] fortuity" of interest convergence between hospitals and advocates for racial justice, and lead to progress in eliminating racial health disparities.


A new family of luminescent and stable silicon-based nanoparticles (NPs), silica cross-linked pluronic F127 (PF127) micelles loaded with decyl capped silicon nanoparticles (decyl-SiNPs), were synthesized in aqueous media. The decyl-SiNPs were prepared by first liberating hydride terminated SiNPs (H-SiNPs) from a porous silicon matrix followed by their functionalization via hydrosilylation with 1-decene under photochemical activation. The silicon-based NPs exhibit bright photoluminescence (PL) with a quantum yield of ∼3.8% and peaking at ∼2.0 eV, which lies within the transmission window that is useful for biological imaging. They display a hydrodynamic size of ∼25 nm with exterior polyethylene oxide (PEO) blocks stretching out in aqueous media. Chloroform was found to quench the excitation at energy above 4.9 eV by shielding the incident light or relaxing the charge carriers, which highlights that caution against solvent interference should be taken when performing the studies on PL origin and luminescence efficiency of SiNPs. For PF127, the blocks of hydrophilic PEO participate in the PL quenching, while poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) does not. The colloidal solution displays excellent PL stability against salt (NaCl) and temperature but is susceptible to basic solution at pH above 9.


Test-Driven Development (TDD) is a software development approach where test cases are written before actual development of the code in iterative cycles. Context: TDD has gained attention of many software practitioners during the last decade since it has contributed several benefits to the software development process. However, empirical evidence of its dominance in terms of internal code quality, external code quality and productivity is fairly limited. Objective: The aim behind conducting this controlled experiment with professional Java developers is to see the impact of Test-Driven Development (TDD) on internal code quality, external code quality and productivity compared to Test-Last Development (TLD). Results: Experiment results indicate that values found related to number of acceptance test cases passed, McCabe's Cyclomatic complexity, branch coverage, number of lines of code per person hours, number of user stories implemented per person hours are statistically insignificant. However, static code analysis results were found statistically significant in the favor of TDD. Moreover, the results of the survey revealed that the majority of developers in the experiment prefer TLD over TDD, given the lesser required level of learning curve as well as the minimum effort needed to understand and employ TLD compared to TDD.


The analysis of indirect inspection data is a critical factor in conducting a successful ECDA process. This paper covers two lessons learned recently when dealing with bonded pipelines along common rightsof-way and also with equalization currents. The "old" challenge of differentiating between "threat" related versus "tool" related indications will be also discussed. Topics like attributing a coating holiday to the "right" pipeline in a common right-of-way, differentiating a magnesium anode profile from an equalization current signature and "double dipping" in a DCVG indication are reviewed in detail in this paper.


The article provides a case study of Szatmárnémeti (Satu Mare, today in Romania) during World War II by using the concept of economic nationalizing. I investigate the motifs behind the de-Jewification and re-Hungarianization of the city and show that by 1944 the Hungarian leaders were convinced not only that the seizure of Jewish property would significantly improve their own situation, but also that the gradual implementation of this policy was the key reason for its previous failure. The article also discusses the ways in which the Hungarian elite aroused expectations among the Hungarian public that Jewish property would be redistributed as a "national gift" and the eagerness of members of practically all sectors of Hungarian society to acquire property that had been left behind by the deported Jews. I thereby argue that the relatively strong local support behind the deportation of Jews was driven, above all, by the economic interests of the local Hungarian community. The entire economy of the city was de-Jewified and re-Hungarianized when the Jews were deported in the summer of 1944. However, I also show that, ambitious plans for social redistribution notwithstanding, major redistribution of assets took place primarily within the housing sector. In general, the gains of the beneficiaries were sharply exceeded by the human and material losses for the city as a whole.


Freezing and thawing may alter element turnover and solute fluxes in soils by changing physical and biological soil properties. We simulated soil frost in replicated snow removal plots in a mountainous Norway spruce stand in the Fichtelgebirge area, Germany, and investigated N net mineralization, solute concentrations and fluxes of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and of mineral ions (NH4+, NO3−, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+). At the snow removal plots the minimum soil temperature was −5 °C at 5 cm depth, while the control plots were covered by snow and experienced no soil frost. The soil frost lasted for about 3 months and penetrated the soil to about 15 cm depth. In the 3 months after thawing, the in situ N net mineralization in the forest floor and upper mineral soil was not affected by soil frost. In late summer, NO3− concentrations increased in forest floor percolates and soil solutions at 20 cm soil depth in the snow removal plots relative to the control. The increase lasted for about 2–4 months at a time of low seepage water fluxes. Soil frost did not affect DOC concentrations and radiocarbon signatures of DOC. No specific frost effect was observed for K+, Ca2+ and Mg2+ in soil solutions, however, the Na+ concentrations in the upper mineral soil increased. In the 12 months following snowmelt, the solute fluxes of N, DOC, and mineral ions were not influenced by the previous soil frost at any depth. Our experiment did not support the hypothesis that moderate soil frost triggers solute losses of N, DOC, and mineral ions from temperate forest soils.


Throughout the Holocene, northern peatlands have both accumulated carbon and emitted methane. Their impact on climate radiative forcing has been the net of cooling (persistent CO2 uptake) and warming (persistent CH4 emission). We evaluated this by developing very simple Holocene peatland carbon flux trajectories, and using these as inputs to a simple atmospheric perturbation model. Flux trajectories are based on estimates of contemporary CH4 flux (15–50 Tg CH4 yr−1), total accumulated peat C (250–450 Pg C), and peatland initiation dates. The contemporary perturbations to the atmosphere due to northern peatlands are an increase of ∼100 ppbv CH4 and a decrease of ∼35 ppmv CO2. The net radiative forcing impact northern peatlands is currently about −0.2 to −0.5 W m−2 (a cooling). It is likely that peatlands initially caused a net warming of up to +0.1 W m−2, but have been causing an increasing net cooling for the past 8000–11 000 years. A series of sensitivity simulations indicate that the current radiative forcing impact is determined primarily by the magnitude of the contemporary methane flux and the magnitude of the total C accumulated as peat, and that radiative forcing dynamics during the Holocene depended on flux trajectory, but the overall pattern was similar in all cases.


We present a robust method for capturing articulated hand motions in realtime using a single depth camera. Our system is based on a realtime registration process that accurately reconstructs hand poses by fitting a 3D articulated hand model to depth images. We register the hand model using depth, silhouette, and temporal information. To effectively map low‐quality depth maps to realistic hand poses, we regularize the registration with kinematic and temporal priors, as well as a data‐driven prior built from a database of realistic hand poses. We present a principled way of integrating such priors into our registration optimization to enable robust tracking without severely restricting the freedom of motion. A core technical contribution is a new method for computing tracking correspondences that directly models occlusions typical of single‐camera setups. To ensure reproducibility of our results and facilitate future research, we fully disclose the source code of our implementation.


Since 2010, Singapore citizens and permanent residents have been encouraged to utilise the Lasting Power of Attorney, otherwise known as the LPA, to protect their interests but many in Singapore are still uncertain or unaware about it. Unfortunately, less than 2% of Singaporeans have done an LPA. This book seeks to encourage more people to do the LPA by explaining in clear terms how you can complete the LPA Form 1. Not just a book about the what and how, it first sets out its importance, why it is needed and the dire consequences of not having one. It also dispels myths and misconceptions about LPAs. The book provides interesting cases studies of real-life situations to illustrate the function of the LPA and contains references to other countries and how the LPA and equivalents operate in those jurisdictions.


This research is based on the study of part timer-workers at Ni Hao restaurant. Ni Hao restaurant is different from other restaurants. It is divided into two parts, namely : wok and ala carte restaurant. The capacity is very huge especially for the wok restaurant, around 600-700 seats. It requires a lot of workers both part timers and full timers. This condition creates two major "concerned cost", food and beverage cost, and labor cost. Labor issues are still the number one concern of most restaurant owners and managers. Food and beverage costs can still held in check through price adjustments, portion controls and through purchasing efficiencies. But on the other hand, labor costs are not controlled by paying low wages. This is very controverting with the demand of every restaurant, minimizing the labor cost. Solving the problems an employing part-time workers can be an efficient way to keep costs down which is can be controlled through scheduling and improving labor productivity. Considering the point, in this dissertation the writers will conduct a research about "How to control labor (part-timer) cost by determining labor productivity". The aim of this research is to find how many part timers do actually the restaurant needs to cover guests in one day. The writers conduct an observation regarding to 5 elements which determine labor productivity which are labor cost percentage, sales per labor hour, labor euro per guest served, guest served per labor euro and guest served per labor hour. The data is collected in 3 weeks period by observing each of part-timers and will be analyzed by quantitative and qualitative methods. After calculating, the estimated number of part timers needed will be found both in weekday and weekend. Therefore, some recommendations should be made in order to improve labor productivity.


Dynamic vapor microextraction (DVME) is a new method that enables rapid vapor pressure measurements on large molecules with state-of-the-art measurement uncertainty for vapor pressures near 1 Pa. Four key features of DVME that allow for the rapid collection of vapor samples under thermodynamic conditions are (1) the use of a miniature vapor-equilibration vessel (the "saturator") to minimize the temperature gradients and internal volume, (2) the use of a capillary vapor trap to minimize the internal volume, (3) the use of helium carrier gas to minimize nonideal mixture behavior, and (4) the direct measurement of pressure inside the saturator to accurately account for overpressure caused by viscous flow. The performance of DVME was validated with vapor pressure measurements of n-eicosane (C20H42) at temperatures from 344 to 374 K. A thorough uncertainty analysis indicated a relative standard uncertainty of 2.03-2.82% for measurements in this temperature range. The measurements were compared to a reference correlation for the vapor pressures of n-alkanes; the deviation of the measurements from the correlation was ≤2.85%. The enthalpy of vaporization of n-eicosane at 359.0 K was calculated to be ΔvapH = 91.27 ± 0.28 kJ/mol compared to ΔvapH(corr) = 91.44 kJ/mol for the reference correlation. Total measurement periods as short as 15 min (3 min of thermal equilibration plus 12 min of carrier gas flow) were shown to be sufficient for high-quality vapor pressure measurements at 364 K.


The central scientific objective of this thesis was to take a broad multidisciplinary approach to make use of the full potential information to battle EDs, utilizing an interactive and translational approach running from basic science through to the clinic. In our studies we assessed a.) clinical factors and comorbidity [namely substance use in EDs (Studies 1 to 3)], b.) psychosocial, behavioural and environmental correlates of EDs (Studies 4 to 7) and c.) treatment effectiveness of specific forms of ED interventions (Studies 8 to 9). Our first line of investigation comprised Studies 1 to 3 and assessed the comorbidity of substance use in EDs. The results of these studies suggest that compared to healthy controls, substance use was higher in individuals with EDs (Studies 1 and 3), that the presence of a family history of alcohol dependence was associated with the comorbidity of EDs and substance use (Study 2) that substance use was particularly prevalent in patients with bulimic characteristics (Studies 1 to 3) and that EDs and substance abuse may represent expressions of a fundamental predisposition to addictive behaviour possibly related to the genetically influenced traits such as novelty seeking (Study 2). Furthermore, we revealed some significant differences for the specific forms of drugs in people with EDs (Studies 1 and 3), which emphasize the significance of assessing various drug types in EDs. Finally we also observed cross-cultural differences across various European countries in the prevalence of substance use in EDs and healthy controls (Study 3). The second research area was labelled psychological, behavioural and environmental correlates of EDs. In our animal study (Study 4) we found that contextual conditioning of eating response was more effective when high than low density caloric food was used. This result indicates that animal models are useful for analyzing and identifying human-animal links in feeding related behaviours. Studies 5 and 6 assessed which early individual and family eating patterns play a role in the development of EDs. Our findings agree with the growing body of research indicating that a variety of environmental and social factors are associated with dysfunctional individual and family eating patterns (e.g. food used as individualization, control and rules about food) during the first years of life and which if not detected on time could lead to a subsequent ED. Conversely, healthy eating (including eating breakfast) was negatively linked to the development of a subsequent ED. Only a few differences across ED subtypes were observed. Finally some cross-cultural differences also emerged (Study 6). In Study 7 we compared anger expressions in individuals with EDs and healthy controls and explored the relation among ED symptoms, comorbid psychopathology, personality traits and impulsive behaviours. The results indicated that individuals with EDs obtained significantly higher scores than controls on maladaptive anger expressions. When different purging methods were assessed independently, the frequency of laxative use was associated with anger suppression. ED symptoms and specific personality traits were also positively associated to different anger expressions. At last, we observed that inappropriate anger expressions were related to self-harming behaviours. Finally our last research line assessed the effectiveness of various treatments for EDs. In Study 8 we compared full and subthreshold BN in terms of personality, clinical characteristics and short-term response to a psychoeducational therapy. The results showed that full-BN and sub-BN share common psychopathological symptoms and personality traits. Furthermore, no differences in therapy outcome were observed in terms of general ED symptomatology and psychopathology. In Study 9 we described and assessed a non-symptom oriented CBT treatment in a congenitally blind women. A dramatic reduction in ED symptoms was observed after the maintaining and triggering factors had been reduced. To conclude, relatively little research has been performed towards understanding the aetiology of EDs. The findings from our investigations represent a major enhancement in the state of the art of EDs, and lead to the development of a new overall etiological model of EDs. The model we propose is a general understanding of how various ED predisposing and precipitating factors might eventually lead to EDs, and maintain the course of a disorder. Future work should address the effects of genes, environment and gene-environment interaction on the development and maintenance of EDs. Of specific interest is the query of which of these factors are non-specifically related to mental disorders and which factors may be more explicit factors that predispose an individual to EDs and related states, but not to mental disorders in general. The answers to these questions should hopefully become perceptible in the next couple of years.


Background: The dimension of maxillary sinus is dynamic and might complicate the dental practice. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze maxillary sinus dimension with respect to different ages, genders, tooth sites, and relationships between root of posterior maxillary teeth (RPMT) and adjacent maxillary sinus floor, using cross-sectional images from cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Methods: The 320 qualified cross-sectional posterior maxillary images of CBCT from 50 patients retrieved from the database were used to analyze the maxillary sinus area. Five types of relationship between RPMT and adjacent maxillary sinus floor were classified accordingly. The associated factors, such as age, genders, and tooth sites, were also examined. The one-way analysis of variance with Tukey's post hoc test was performed to compare the maxillary sinus cross-sectional area in different classifications of RPMT relative to adjacent maxillary sinus floor. Results: There were significant differences of mean maxillary sinus area between different genders (P < 0.001) and age groups (P = 0.01). The mean sinus area measured from cross-sectional images was greater in Type 3 classification of RPMT relative to maxillary sinus, compared to Type 2, Type 1, and Type 0 (P < 0.001). Conclusions: The RPMT relative to adjacent sinus floor may be associated with area of maxillary sinus. The maxillary sinus with greater area in cross-sectional images of CBCT would be closer to the RPMT and might complicate the dental practice.


In recent years, western pragmatism has been prevalent on the campuses of Chinese universities. Its direct result is the emergence of such a trend in fine arts teaching which attaches high importance to the pragmatic side of the art learning and disregards fostering the humanistic qualities of the students. One of the most serious phenomena of this trend is that cultivating college students' humanistic qualities has been duly neglected. This paper attempts to discuss the possible causes of this phenomenon from both subjective and objective perspectives, illustrating the great importance of western fine arts appreciation course on cultivating students'character. It attempts to unite cultivating college students' humanistic qualities and art education together theoretically and practically in order to change the present situation of art teaching, some solutions and suggestions concerning course arrangement and teaching are also offered.


Invasive mycoses represent a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with malignancy or undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Recently it has been shown that the Toll-like receptor system could play an important role in the development of invasive aspergillosis in patients receiving chemotherapy or after HSCT, and there is evidence suggesting that the involvement of Toll-like receptors during Aspergillus fumigatus infection is influenced by the immunological status of the host. The upper and lower respiratory tracts represent the most frequent locations of A. fumigatus infection in all patient categories and age groups. Among echinocandins, caspofungin has been approved for salvage therapy in patients with invasive aspergillosis, since it has been demonstrated to be well-tolerated and with a 39% response in patients with refractory infections. However, in this study as in other salvage therapy trials, the need for salvage therapy was established in the presence of progression of disease or failure to improve clinically despite receiving at least 7 days of "standard therapy" (mainly amphotericin B deoxycholate, liposomal amphotericin B, or itraconazole). The degree of immunosuppression and the status of the underlying disease could represent very important factors acting upon a patient's survival. For example, in the voriconazole study, success was observed in 63% of neutropenic patients receiving chemotherapy but in only 32% of recipients of allogeneic HSCT.


Understanding physical and chemical processes that guide the formation and evolution
of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) has important implications for the formation of stars.
GMCs dominantly consist of molecular hydrogen, but there are more than 200 chemical
species of various combinations of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms. Together, these
species control the cooling ability with the thermal and dynamical evolution of the
gas cloud. In order to overcome the restrictions encountered by most previous models
of molecular cloud formation due to the complexity of chemical reaction networks
and its inclusion in hydrodynamical codes, we have implemented detailed treatment
of atomic/molecular cooling and hydrogen chemistry into state-of-art high resolution
hydrodynamical simulations. The main focus of our study is on the influence that
choosing between different cooling functions and turbulent driving has on the formation
and evolution of molecular gas. In that manner, we study the influence of the nature of
the turbulence on the formation of molecular hydrogen by examining both solenoidal
(divergence-free) and compressive (curl-free) turbulent driving. The obtained results
we use to test a simple prescription suggested by Gnedin et al. (2009) for modelling
the influence of unresolved density fluctuations on the H2 formation rate in largescale
simulations of the ISM. We also investigate the properties of the dense clumps
formed within our model of the molecular cloud formation in converging flows and
directly compare the results obtained using the simple, parametrized cooling function
introduced by Koyama & Inutsuka (2002) and used by a number of converging flows
studies with the results of the detailed calculation of the non-equilibrium chemistry
and thermal balance of the gas. Finally, we study C I and CO emission from molecular
clouds in comparison to their column densities and the total column density, as we
look for the way to trace the structure of the cloud.


This research investigates the relationship between the success of a regional economy –
particularly that of the Yorkshire and the Humber region - and the adequacy or otherwise of its logistics infrastructure and services, in order to determine how regional competitiveness can be enhanced through the provision of effective logistics services.

The theory of business cluster formation and development has been employed as a linking point between logistics and regional development. The research undertaken for the literature review and in the later stages of the original investigations has led to the identification of a number of knowledge gaps in the assessment of the transport and logistics implications of cluster development for the regional economy.

Data collection encompassed two questionnaire surveys of users and providers of freight
transport and logistics services in Yorkshire and the Humber, followed by a series of case studies. These original investigations contributed to the extension of an existing supply chain mapping technique by incorporating a regional or spatial dimension for the first time and the development of a Regional Index of Supply Chain Activity (RISCA).

The information gathered, analysed and evaluated in all stages of this research (the literature review, the surveys and case studies), when considered in its entirety, presents a conceptual framework (which can also be regarded as a decision-support tool) for identifying a best practice approach to achieving improved regional economic competitiveness through logistics. This enables regional governments to develop a much
improved understanding of the extent to which supply chains add their maximum possible value to the economies of their regions and to put in place adequate business support measures to ensure that the regional freight and logistics providers are delivering services more closely aligned to the diverse and often specialised needs of users.


Bayesian inference is an important branch in statistical sciences. The subject of this thesis is about Bayesian inference in models for a vast number of dependent objects. The fundamental scheme used for the inference in this thesis is Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. However, conventional MCMC approaches are not feasible for resolving issues resulting from intractable normalizing constants. Several methods, such as the single auxiliary variable method and the exchange algorithm, can avoid computer-intensive calculations of intractable normalizing constants, but they are merely applicable to the case without latent variables. Based on Markov random fields (MRFs), we propose two different strategies to overcome the difficulty as the result of noisy observations. The first strategy named simulation strategy I combines the exchange algorithm with MCMC techniques to simulate from the distribution of interest. For the second strategy called simulation strategy II, we use more auxiliary variables with block updates, and adopt partially ordered Markov models (POMMs) to approximate the proposal distributions in order to get rid of high dimensional calculations. We empirically compare these two strategies according to the diagnostics of convergence, mixing and CPU time requirements coming from our simulation examples. For the mixing assessment, we use the Effective Sample Size (ESS). Simulation strategy II using block updates can generate stationary Markov chains having better mixing within fewer number of iterations (≤ 200), and maximum ratio of ESS in simulation strategy II to ESS in simulation strategy I is 6.27. Simulation strategy I uses less CPU time per iteration irrespective of convergence to stationarity or simulations of equilibrium samples, but simulation strategy I needs more iterations (> 200), and for large absolute values of parameters it produces poor mixing compared with simulation strategy II.


This study investigated the impact of work-Family conflict on hospitality industry workers in Izmir Province. This study tries to identify the variables that hospitality organizations can take to help their employees resolve their work–family challenges. A total of 248 respondents were selected for the study using simple sampling technique. The Instrument used for data collection is Work-Family conflict scale which was developed by Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996). Demographic characteristics and Logistic Regression Analysis were used to test hypotheses that were generated for the study at 0.05 alpha levels. Finding reveals that there was a significant level of work-family conflict in the hospitality industry in Izmir province. Also, it was found that a significant difference exists between age groups, Title of the employee, genders, having children, married and single respondents` experience of work-family conflict. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the level of family responsibilities of the employees need to be considered before assigning responsibilities.


Aim: To studybiofilm production by Pseudomonas aeruginosaon endotracheal tubing in the presence of bacteriophage and sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem.Methods and Results: A total of 20 clinical isolates of P.aeruginosa obtained from endotracheal samples were taken for this study. Bacteriophages were obtained from sewage samples from sewage water treatment plant. Biofilm assay was performed by modified O'Toole and Kolter method wherein a piece of sterile 0.5cm 2 ETTwas incorporated into the microtitre plate wells. Student's unpaired t test, Kruskal Wallis, ANOVA and HSD Tukey's test were used to analyse data with SPSS 17.0 European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 02, 2021 1999 software. P value of ˂0.05 was considered statistically significant.Of the 20 isolates, only four (20%) of the isolates were resistant to imipenem. In the presence of bacteriophage, the biofilm production was very less in comparison to biofilm production in the presence of sub-inhibitory concentration of imipenem or in plain broth (p = 0.004). Conclusions: Bacteriophages effectively reduced the biofilm production by P. aeruginosa on catheter tip. Significance and Impact:The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of using bacteriophage as a biofilm reducing agent. Further studies are required to prove the use of bacteriophage coated ETT to curb hospital acquired infections.


The improvement of mechanical properties of spruce galactogluco-mannan (GGM)-based films was sought by blending GGM with each of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH), corn arabinoxylan (cAX), and konjac glucomannan (KGM). The blend ratios were 3:1, 1:1, and 1:3 (w/w), and in addition films were made from each of the polymers alone. Glycerol was used as plasticizer. Adding other polymers increased the elongation at break of GGM blend films. The tensile strength of films increased with increasing amount of PVOH and KGM, but the effect of cAX was the opposite. Dynamic mechanical analysis showed two separate loss modulus peaks for blends of GGM and PVOH, but a single peak for all other films. Optical and scanning electron microscopy confirmed good miscibility of GGM with cAX and KGM. In contrast, films blended from GGM and PVOH showed phase separation when examined by microscopy.


This issue of the Journal marks an important event in the history of the Geological Society. It is the first product of the Geological Society Publishing House which was set up by Council last year. The Publishing House will give the Society more control over the production of this Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology, the Special Publications, Memoirs, Special Reports and the occasional other publications and it will provide the Society with a greater share of the income from these publications. To this end, office and warehouse premises have been purchased in the west of England. The address is: Geological Society Publishing House, Unit 7, Brassmill Enterprise Centre, Brassmill Lane, Bath BA1 3JN, and visitors will be welcome. Mr Roger Cooper has been appointed as Publications Manager to be responsible to the Publications Board of the Society for the sales, promotion and technical aspects of publishing and the day-to-day running of the Publishing House. MS Angharad Hills, the Publications Secretary, has moved her office from Burlington House to Bath and all correspondence should be addressed to her there. Now that copy-editing, address- labelling and mailing schedules for the Journal are done on Society premises, publication 'turn round' time should be speeded up. At present, the interval from acceptance of a paper to its publication is six to seven months. The review and particularly the revision time has been very variable: from two months to a year or more. Despite all this, we are sad to be reducing our


Android is an operating system which currently has over one billion active users for all their mobile devices, with a market impact that is influencing an increase in the amount of information that can be obtained from different users, facts that have motivated the development of malware by cybercriminals. To solve the problems caused by malware, Android implements a different architecture and security controls, such as unique user ID (UID) for each application, system permissions, and its distribution platform Google Play. It has been shown that there are ways to violate that protection, and how the complexity for create a new solutions are increased while cybercriminals improve their skills to develop malware. The developer and researchers community has been developing alternatives aimed at improving the level of safety, some solutions have been proposed: analysis techniques, frameworks, sandboxes, and systems security. Most solutions have adopted a cloud computing model with different tools and analysis techniques, one of the most promising ways is the implementation of artificial intelligence solutions for malware analysis. This work proposes a new module that implements a static analysis framework with six algorithms of machine learning for detect malware for Android.


This report presents the fndings from the process evaluation of Fit for Work. Fit for Work was an occupational health assessment and advice service looking to address long-term sickness absence. The assessment service was for employees who were on (or at risk of entering) long-term sickness absence, defned as four weeks or more, via a referral through their General Practitioner (GP) or their employer. Participation was entirely voluntary. Employees giving their consent took part in a biopsychosocial assessment, which were primarily conducted by telephone. After assessment, a Return to Work Plan (RtWP) would be produced, with recommendations for self-care, workplace adjustments, and/or signposting to further specialist support and therapy services to assist the employee's return to work. With the employee's consent, the RtWP could be shared with their employer and/or GP. The service was funded by the Government and was delivered in England and Wales by Health Management Limited (HML) and in Scotland via an agency agreement with the Scottish Government.
The process evaluation aimed to determine whether the Fit for Work service had been implemented as designed, and whether the design met the policy intent to provide support for those on long-term sickness absence to stay in employment.

The research programme was conducted between September 2015 and May 2017 and consisted of: an analysis of management information; 72 in-depth qualitative interviews with employees, employers and GPs; a telephone survey of 504 employers that had had contact with the service; a telephone survey of 1,045 employees that had been discharged from the service and a follow-up survey of 492 of them (only those who received an assessment and who gave permission to be re-contacted for further research). Management information was analysed for employees referred to and discharged from the Fit for Work service between October 2015 and December 2016 inclusive. As this analysis did not cover the whole period of the service, fndings could differ from the overall management information. In some instances, due to small sample sizes, apparent differences between groups (e.g. between countries) may not be statistically signifcant and therefore should be viewed with caution. Following very low referrals, it was announced that the Fit for Work assessment service would come to an end in England and Wales on 31 March 2018 and 31 May 2018 in Scotland. However, employers, employees and GPs will continue to have access to the same Fit for Work helpline, website and web chat, which offer general health and work advice as well as support on sickness absence.

This process evaluation was undertaken before the decision was taken to close the service.


Most successful among the non-human primates in terms of geographical distribution and adaptability to ecological habitats, macaques have existed for many thousands of years in close contact with modern humans, the only primate more successful than them. Centuries-old literary works attest to the fact that macaques have always been an intrinsic part of human lives and imaginations. In their interactions with human, macaques play multiple roles that often transcend the boundaries of categorization. They are often, simultaneously, wildlife and domestic pets, sentient beings and experimental subjects, crop-raiding pests and religious symbols. In many parts of the tropics, macaques are an economic resource for human communities, as they provide meat and money through tourism and the animal trade. Equally, they cause much damage and bring about great economic losses due to their crop and house-raiding tendencies. A more recent cause for alarm has been the possibility of transmission of diseases to humans due to contact with macaques. Across Asia, macaques, perhaps more than any other animal species, exemplify the multiple facets of synurbization and the conservation problems of commensal species.


Guidelines The Czech Society for Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Czech Medical Association of J E Purkyně issues this opinion in connection with statements of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international authorities regarding the concerns about COVID-19 infection in pregnancy The impact of this year's coronavirus COVID-19 infection on pregnant women seems to be less severe than in previous years of H1N1 influenza type A, SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV From the information published so far it was not possible to prove the transmission of infection from mother to fetus It also seems that there is no risk of vertical transmission during breastfeeding This opinion does not replace the recommendations and opinions issued by governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Health and others, and concerns solely consultation of pregnant women


Recent research advocates applying sampling to accelerate microarchitecture simulation. Simple random sampling offers accurate performance estimates (with a high quantifiable confidence) by taking a large number (e.g., 10,000) of short performance measurements over the full length of a benchmark. Simple random sampling does not exploit the often repetitive behaviors of benchmarks, collecting many redundant measurements. By identifying repetitive behaviors, we can apply stratified random sampling to achieve the same confidence as simple random sampling with far fewer measurements. Our oracle limit study of optimal stratified sampling of SPEC2K benchmarks demonstrates an opportunity to reduce required measurement by 43x over simple random sampling. Using our oracle results as a basis for comparison, we evaluate two practical approaches for selecting strata, program phase detection and IPC profiling. Program phase detection is attractive because it is microarchitec- ture independent, while IPC profiling directly minimizes stratum variance, therefore minimizing sample size. Unfortunately, our results indicate that: (1) program phase stratification falls far short of optimal opportunity, (2) IPC profiling requires expensive microarchitecture- specific analysis, and (3) both methods require large sampling unit sizes to make strata selection feasible, offsetting reductions in sample size. We conclude that, without better stratification approaches, stratified sampling does not provide a clear advantage over simple random sampling.


Rights and power in modern American constitutionalism are conceptually interdependent: "We have no way of thinking about constitutional rights independent of what powers it would be prudent or desirable for government to have." In an era where substantive boundaries on federal power seem ephemeral, this suggests that what we call rights may be primarily fair weather or illusory barriers to the exercise of power.From a majoritarian perspective, the shifting boundary between rights and powers, and the capacity of power to consume rights, may be unproblematic and even attractive. If the exercise of plenary power reflects majority will, then this exercise renders a balance between rights and powers that best reflects our current problems, ambitions, and fears. Indeed we might view the alternative of a more formalist structure, in which constitutional language imposes (at least until formally changed) solid and frustrating substantive boundaries on power, to be foolishly inflexible.But this majoritarian critique masks a core danger that is revealed when the issue is viewed from a minority perspective. From a minority perspective the view that conceptually unlimited federal power renders the balance between rights and power that best reflects our current needs is paradoxical at best. Critical race theorists have argued that America's unfailingly majoritarian doctrinal, political, and social framework presents a multitude of dangers and problems that are principal barriers to racial reform. From these critiques, we can understand that dissolving power boundaries might coincidentally produce results beneficial to minority interests (and in the case of 1960s civil rights laws [*1557] vitally important results) but will not predictably yield the balance of rights and powers that minorities would consider prudent, necessary, or attractive. The dilemma and danger for minorities is that plenary power tethered merely by majoritarian preferences and necessities leaves minorities simply to gamble on the direction of future swings in the mood of the majority.This this Article 1) constructs the position that the conceptual interdependence of rights and powers in a plenary power environment (a) renders rights illusory, and (b) tethers power to majoritarian preferences and necessities 2) tests the assertion of a rights-corroding plenary power constitutionalism, by examining three provisions of the Bill of Rights that in the modern era have been disparaged, ignored, and essentially cast out of the Constitution - the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments, and 3) argues that the illusion of rights in plenary power constitutionalism can only be maintained convincingly where the right is grounded in values that are nominally independent of the principle of limited federal power. The perceived and relative absence of such independent values in the three outcast provisions, their more direct dependency on the principle of limited power and pervasive conflict with plenary power, explains their condition as outcasts. That condition, I contend, is evidence of a plenary power constitutionalism that can only feign to respect rights where it is possible to submerge their dependency on the principle of limited power.


This research posits that a domain ontology developed using text-coding technique contributes in conceptualizing and representing state-of-the-art as given by published research in a particular domain. The motivation behind this research is to provide means for creating a better understanding among the researchers through ontology that would present a clearer picture of any domain of interest. However, a general observation on ontology engineering methods is the domination of personal perspective of ontology developer and/or expert in the resultant ontology. Current ontology engineering methods bestow a primary role to ontology developer. Ontology thus developed is heavily biased towards the domain expert's personal understanding of the domain. However, ontology stands a better chance of being unbiased if it is derived from established research such that it is closely linked to the text of the published research, i.e. entities and their relationships are obtained directly from data through coding. Therefore, this new methodology has been proposed(Grounded Ontology GO) for deriving an ontology directly from published research texts. An ontology developed using this method can enhance visibility of what others have already done and ensure that research efforts in a domain are directed to new vistas instead of being wasted in duplicating the efforts.


The thermodynamics of Zn(2+) binding to three peptides corresponding to naturally occurring Zn-binding sequences in transcription factors have been quantified with isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). These peptides, the third zinc finger of Sp1 (Sp1-3), the second zinc finger of myelin transcription factor 1 (MyT1-2), and the second Zn-binding sequence of the DNA-binding domain of glucocorticoid receptor (GR-2), bind Zn(2+) with Cys(2)His(2), Cys(2)HisCys, and Cys(4) coordination, respectively. Circular dichroism confirms that Sp1-3 and MyT1-2 have considerable and negligible Zn-stabilized secondary structure, respectively, and indicate only a small amount for GR-2. The pK(a)'s of the Sp1-3 cysteines and histidines were determined by NMR and used to estimate the number of protons displaced by Zn(2+) at pH 7.4. ITC was also used to determine this number, and the two methods agree. Subtraction of buffer contributions to the calorimetric data reveals that all three peptides have a similar affinity for Zn(2+), which has equal enthalpy and entropy components for Sp1-3 but is more enthalpically disfavored and entropically favored with increasing Cys ligands. The resulting enthalpy-entropy compensation originates from the Zn-Cys coordination, as subtraction of the cysteine deprotonation enthalpy results in a similar Zn(2+)-binding enthalpy for all three peptides, and the binding entropy tracks with the number of displaced protons. Metal and protein components of the binding enthalpy and entropy have been estimated. While dominated by Zn(2+) coordination to the cysteines and histidines, other residues in the sequence affect the protein contributions that modulate the stability of these motifs.


We carried out an international online survey about changes in everyday mobility during the COVID-19 outbreak in 21 languages, collecting more than 11,000 responses from more than 100 countries. In this paper, we present our analysis about commuting travels of the responses between 23 March and 12 May 2020 from the fourteen countries with 100 or more responses, namely Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, and the UK. Home office is used typically by between 40% and 60% of working respondents. Among people with workplaces with possibility for home office, the percentage is between 60% and 80%. Among people with workplaces where presence is essential, the percentage does not typically go beyond 30%. This result potentially implies an ultimate magnitude of a strong home office measure. Among those who continued to commute but switched commuting transport modes from public transport to others, the COVID-19 infection risk in public transport is the reason that is most often referred to, but many of those who changed to private cars and to bicycles report reduced travel time, too. Measures to encourage the use of active travel modes where possible are strongly recommended, as this would potentially mitigate undesirable modal shift towards private motorized modes triggered by perception of infection risks while travelling with public transport.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the prevalence of dental fluorosis among schoolchildren subjected to different fluoride concentrations in the public water supply of their cities.

METHODS
The sample comprised 386 seven-year-old schoolchildren living in two municipalities in the State of São Paulo that practiced external control over the fluoridation of the water from 1998 to 2002: one with homogenous fluoride concentration and the other with oscillating concentration. Dental fluorosis was determined by dry examination of the upper permanent incisors using Dean's index. Scores classified as questionable were considered to represent fluorosis. Sociodemographic variables and questions regarding oral health were assessed using a structured questionnaire sent to the children's parents or the adults responsible for these children. Correlates of fluorosis were assessed using multivariate logistic regression (p<0.05).

RESULTS
Both municipalities presented a mild degree of fluorosis. The prevalence of fluorosis in the municipality with oscillating fluoride content in the water was 31.4%, and it was 79.9% in the municipality with homogenous fluoride content. The prevalence of fluorosis was associated with the municipality with homogeneous fluoride levels in the water (OR=8.33, 95% CI: 5.15;13.45) and with not owning a car (OR=2.10, 95% CI: 1.27;3.49).

CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of dental fluorosis was higher in the city with better control of fluoride levels in the water supply, however, this higher prevalence was not related with children's satisfaction with the appearance of their teeth.


Since 2008, sharia courts were postulated that they may be positive for the English law and for English justice in general, to facilitate for a more pluralist legal system in which people can choose which law they wish to comply with, religious or English one. This idea was recognized as very controversial. Anyway the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, supposed to operate within a civil jurisdiction, was established already in 2007. MAT is treated as any other alternate dispute resolution tribunal, what means that parties can consent to have their disputes decided by a third party and that these decisions are recognized in an English court. It is very important that abuse has, until fairly recently, often been seen as a matter of private rather than public law within the English system and this delineation between public and private family matters has been maintained by Muslim law to a large extent. The concern raised by the use of private arbitration in the field of domestic violence is that it undermines the role of the state to prosecute offences which a society find particularly abhorrent. A possible safeguard for victims of domestic violence in the face of Sharia or Jewish the Beth Din jurisdiction is the requirement of independent legal advice for both parties before acquiescing to Sharia as the Beth Din.


We present several improvements to the standard Trotter-Suzuki based algorithms used in the simulation of quantum chemistry on a quantum computer. First, we modify how Jordan-Wigner transformations are implemented to reduce their cost from linear or logarithmic in the number of orbitals to a constant. Our modification does not require additional ancilla qubits. Then, we demonstrate how many operations can be parallelized, leading to a further linear decrease in the parallel depth of the circuit, at the cost of a small constant factor increase in number of qubits required. Thirdly, we modify the term order in the Trotter-Suzuki decomposition, significantly reducing the error at given Trotter-Suzuki timestep. A final improvement modifies the Hamiltonian to reduce errors introduced by the non-zero Trotter-Suzuki timestep. All of these techniques are validated using numerical simulation and detailed gate counts are given for realistic molecules.


ATP‐binding cassette transporter A7 (ABCA7) is expressed in the brain and, like its closest homolog ABCA1, belongs to the ABCA subfamily of full‐length ABC transporters. ABCA1 promotes cellular cholesterol efflux to lipid‐free apolipoprotein acceptors and also inhibits the production of neurotoxic β‐amyloid (Aβ) peptides in vitro. The potential functions of ABCA7 in the brain are unknown. This study investigated the ability of ABCA7 to regulate cholesterol efflux to extracellular apolipoprotein acceptors and to modulate Aβ production. The transient expression of ABCA7 in human embryonic kidney cells significantly stimulated cholesterol efflux (fourfold) to apolipoprotein E (apoE) discoidal lipid complexes but not to lipid‐free apoE or apoA‐I. ABCA7 also significantly inhibited Aβ secretion from Chinese hamster ovary cells stably expressing human amyloid precursor protein (APP) or APP containing the Swedish K670M671→N670L671 mutations when compared with mock‐transfected cells. Studies with fluorogenic substrates indicated that ABCA7 had no impact on α‐, β‐, or γ‐secretase activities. Live cell imaging of Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing APP‐GFP indicated an apparent retention of APP in a perinuclear location in ABCA7 co‐transfected cells. These studies indicate that ABCA7 has the capacity to stimulate cellular cholesterol efflux to apoE discs and regulate APP processing resulting in an inhibition of Aβ production.


Substance identification N-Ethylnorpentylone (IUPAC name: 1-(2H-1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-2-(ethylamino)pentan-1-one) is a ring-substituted synthetic cathinone analog. It originally emerged in the 1960s during pharmaceutical drug development efforts. Another common name used widely is N- ethylpentylone. On the streets, N-ethylnorpentylone is most likely available as the racemic mixture and it might be obtained from Internet retailers. In the United States of America (USA), this substance was detected for the first time in 2014 but began to emerge more prominently in 2016 both in the USA and other UN Member States. Seizures indicate that N-ethylnorpentylone is available in powder, crystal, rock, capsule, and tablet forms. Examples exist where this drug has been surreptitiously sold as 'ecstasy'/MDMA. WHO Review History N-Ethylnorpentylone has not been previously pre-reviewed or critically reviewed. Chemistry There is no specific information available about the routes of synthesis employed for the N- ethylnorpentylone products circulating on the drug market but straightforward methods for its preparation exist without requiring access to precursors that are controlled internationally. Ease of convertibility into controlled substances There is no specific information available but it appears unlikely that N-ethylnorpentylone is converted into a substance currently controlled under the UN conventions. Similarity to known substances / Effects on the central nervous system The information currently available suggests that N-ethylnorpentylone is a psychomotor stimulant and that its molecular mechanism of action is also shared by other ring-substituted synthetic cathinones of the pyrovalerone type, such as MDPV (1-(2H-1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-2-(pyrrolidin-1- yl)pentan-1-one) and α-PVP (1-phenyl-2-(pyrrolidin-1-yl)pentan-1-one), which are both listed in Schedule II of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971. General pharmacology The number of systematic studies available at this time is limited but it seems clear that N- ethylnorpentylone is a psychomotor stimulant. In vitro, it has been demonstrated to block the reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin using rat brain synaptosomal preparations with preference for the dopamine system, thus, behaving cocaine- and MDPV-like rather than amphetamine-like. Animal studies confirmed that N-ethylnorpentylone increases locomotor activity and that it substituted for methamphetamine and cocaine in drug discrimination studies. Toxicology The LD50 value for N-ethylnorpentylone in the mouse (route of administration not reported) was determined at 240 mg/kg. Adverse reactions in humans The detection of N-ethylnorpentylone in biological fluids collected from cases involving adverse effects (including deaths) confirmed that this drug is circulating on the market and used recreationally. Not all of the reported adverse effects could be causally linked to N- ethylnorpentylone alone but there are indications that the observed effects are consistent with those seen with other psychomotor stimulants. The fact that N-ethylnorpentylone has been identified in products believed by users to represent 'ecstasy'/MDMA means that users may be unaware of the additional risks of harm (e.g. potential exacerbation of a psychostimulant toxidrome) associated with the consumption of N-ethylnorpentylone either alone or in combination with other drugs. Dependence potential No studies carried out in humans or animals could be identified. Abuse potential In rodents, N-ethylnorpentylone fully substituted for methamphetamine and cocaine when using the drug discrimination paradigm. Mechanistically, results obtained from in vitro investigations confirmed that N-ethylnorpentylone inhibited the reuptake of the monoamines dopamine, norepinephrine and, to a lesser extent, serotonin, which is consistent with closely related pyrovalerone-type synthetic cathinones and cocaine with known abuse liability. The currently available data suggest that N-ethylnorpentylone might be liable to abuse. Therapeutic applications / usefulness N-Ethylnorpentylone is not known to have any therapeutic uses. Listing on WHO Model List of Essential Medicines N-Ethylnorpentylone is not listed. Marketing authorizations N-Ethylnorpentylone is not known to have any marketing authorizations. Industrial use N-Ethylnorpentylone is not known to have any agricultural, industrial or cosmetic uses even though it is available for purchase as a 'research chemical'. Non-medical use The mode of use may involve the combinational use (intentionally or unintentionally) of other drugs and users may be unaware of the exact dose or compound being ingested (by whatever route). The information currently available suggests that N-ethylnorpentylone has been found in products sold as 'ecstasy'/MDMA but there have been instances where other drugs have been detected in addition to N-ethylnorpentylone. N-Ethylnorpentylone may also be available in its own right and is advertised for sale by Internet retailers. Nature and magnitude of public health problems Use of N-ethylnorpentylone appears to be limited to recreational substance users rather than the general population. The mode of use may involve the combinational use (intentionally or unintentionally) of other drugs and users may be unaware of the exact dose or compound being ingested (by whatever route). The fact that N-ethylnorpentylone has been identified in products believed by users to represent 'ecstasy'/MDMA means that users may be unaware of the additional risks of harm (e.g. potential exacerbation of central nervous system effects resulting in a psychostimulant toxidrome) associated with the consumption of N-ethylnorpentylone either alone or in combination with other drugs. Licit production, consumption, and international trade N-Ethylnorpentylone is not known to have any agricultural, industrial or cosmetic uses even though it is available for purchase as a 'research chemical'. Illicit manufacture and traffic A dramatic increase in seizures and reports linked to the detection of N-ethylnorpentylone has been predominantly reported in the USA from 2016 onward. Purchase and importation of N- ethylnorpentylone is unproblematic in UN Member States that do not exercise legislative control measures. Increasing numbers of reports have appeared that document the detection of N- ethylnorpentylone on the drug market where it has been sold in the form of 'ecstasy'/MDMA-like products. Current international controls and their impact N-Ethylnorpentylone is not controlled under the 1961, 1971 or 1988 United Nations Conventions. Current and past national controls N-Ethylnorpentylone is controlled in some UN Member States.


A brief analysis of the nonresonant-coupled parallel resonant converter is performed. The converter is modeled and a reference classical analog controller is designed and simulated. Infrastructure required for digital control of the converter (including anti-aliasing filters and a modulator) is designed and a classical digital controller is designed and simulated, yielding a ~30% degradation in control bandwidth at the worst-case operating point as compared with the analog controller. Based on the strong relationship observed between low-frequency converter gain and operating point, a gain-scheduled digital controller is proposed, designed, and simulated, showing 4:1 improved worst-case control bandwidth as compared with the analog controller. A complete prototype is designed and built which experimentally validates the results of the gainscheduled controller simulation with good correlation. The three approaches that were investigated are compared and conclusions are drawn. Suggestions for further research are presented. Marko Vulovic TABLE OF CONTENTS iii Table of