Linguistic varieties in Northern England and Scotland have always been closely related, as a result of their shared history and geographical proximity. Older Scots and Northern Middle English were divided from other Middle English dialects by a major dialect boundary, and this division survived into modern times, separating Scots and far Northern English dialects on the one hand from Southern and Midland English dialects on the other. Cutting across this dialect unity, the Scottish-English Border has further shaped the relationship between linguistic varieties on either side of it. This has caused dialects in Northern England and Scotland to look in different directions and, as traditional dialect boundaries have faded, the Scottish-English Border appears to have become increasingly important as a linguistic divide. Thus we cannot begin to understand the meaning of 'Northern English' without considering the relationship between linguistic varieties in Scotland and Northern England, and the extent to which the Scottish-English Border constitutes a linguistic boundary between them.


Semiconductors have become an inevitable part of human life. The beginning of the modern electronic technology goes back to the invention and elaboration of the semiconductor-based transistor by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley in 1948. Thereafter, electronics industry has grown and become one of the world's largest commercial establishments. The increasing demands for smaller electronic devices with improved performance at lower costs drive the conventional silicon-based technology to its limits. To satisfy the requirements from the industry and to extend the applications of semiconductor devices, new materials and fabrication techniques have to be used. The development, specification and quality control of these materials often require a very delicate crystal growth process and specific characterizations, which will be critical to a successful design of an electronic device. The knowledge of structural, electrical and mechanical properties of materials is essential for making use of them in various electronic devices.
 The operating abilities of a large part of modern technological hardware are based on active and/or passive crystalline core pieces. The fabrication of such crystals is normally connected with the well established growth methods such as Bridgman, Czochralski, Verneuil, zone melting, top seeded solution growth (TSSG), re-crystallization techniques, etc. Bulk crystal growth techniques are used to grow large crystals from which substrates are sliced. Substrate availability is a critical component in the success of a technology. Hence, even in this era of thin films and epitaxial layers, bulk crystal growth from melt still upholds its significance and plays an important role in the development of semiconductor-based technologies.
 Solar cell technology, as a sustainable source of energy, has shown a tremendous growth in recent years. The most widely used commercial solar cells are made from single crystalline silicon and have efficiencies up to 26.5%. However, such single crystalline solar cells are relatively expensive with the silicon itself making up to 20-40% of the final cost. In the search for low-cost alternatives to crystalline silicon, a great deal of work is being carried out in tailoring the applicability of compound semiconductor materials, which offer advantages over silicon. Indium monotelluride (InTe) is a III-VI layered semiconductor, which is particularly suitable for photovoltaic use, because of its suitable band gap (1.16 eV), optical and transport properties. In addition, its cleaved surfaces do not need any additional treatment for p–n junction formation and are chemically inert under ambient conditions. The crystal structure of InTe is tetragonal with lattice parameters, a = b = 8.454 A, and c = 7.152 A. The direct nature of transition supports the maximum efficiency of the InTe based opto-electronic devices.
 Indium monotelluride (InTe) crystals have been crystallized using directional freezing technique by employing a two zone horizontal furnace. The compound charge used for the growth was synthesised from its constituent elements (In and Te). The structural and chemical investigations of the grown samples were performed using powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and energy dispersive analysis by x-rays (EDAX). The dielectric constant, loss factor, AC conductivity and optical band gap of the grown InTe crystals were estimated from the capacitance measurements in the temperature range, 35-140?C. The frequency dependence of these dielectric parameters has been studied to understand the mechanism behind conduction. The mechanical strength of the cleaved samples of indium monotelluride was investigated using Vickers microhardness tester in the load range, 5-50 g, and the results obtained are discussed.
 The present research work titled 'Growth and characterization of indium monotelluride crystals' has been organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction about the concepts of nucleation with regard to the crystal growth of semiconducting materials. The effects of thermodynamical parameters on the growth of crystals are explained. The theories of crystal growth along with the factors affecting the crystallization phenomenon are described in chapter 2. The principle behind the different crystal growth processes is outlined. An account on the various crystal growth techniques highlighting their special features is also given. A review of the present national / international status on the growth and characterization of InTe is presented. The description of directional freezing method, experimental procedure and the various characterization techniques used for the study are presented in chapter 3. Chapter 4 covers the results and discussions of the research findings. It ends with a reference section, wherein the literature reviews used are listed as per the international standards and the order of its appearance in the text.


Portability of a spoken dialogue system (SDS) to a new domain or a new language is a hot topic as it may imply gains in time and cost for building new SDSs. In particular in this paper we investigate several fast and efficient approaches for language portability of the spoken language understanding (SLU) module of a dialogue system. We show that the use of statistical machine translation (SMT) can reduce the time and the cost of porting a system from a source to a target language. For conceptual decoding, a state-of-the-art module based on conditional random fields (CRF) is used and a new approach based on phrase-based statistical machine translation (PB-SMT) is also evaluated. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed methods for a fast and low cost SLU language portability. In addition, we propose two methods to increase SLU robustness to translation errors. Overall, it is shown that the combination of all these approaches can further reduce the concept error rate. While most of the experiments in this paper deal with portability from French to Italian (given the availability of the Media French corpus and its subset manually translated into Italian), a validation of our methodology is eventually proposed in Arabic.


This paper examines security design in imperfectly competitive markets in which assets clear separately rather than jointly. Derivatives are generally nonredundant even with zero asset supply. We characterize the scope for introducing nonredundant derivatives and examine the welfare effects of new assets. We compare welfare effects of derivatives vs. innovation in trading technology.


This thesis comprises of the analysis of a commercial three way catalyst (TWC), as well as the discovery, development and analysis of a novel environmental pollution control catalyst for the abatement of automobile exhaust gases (namely CO by oxidation, HC (propane) by oxidation and NOX by reduction. All work was undertaken in collaboration with Blackthorn Autocatalysts, Chichester, West Sussex. The commercial TWC work comprised of two parts: (i) catalytic poisoning effects on the commercial TWC by metal compounds used in lead replacement petrol on activity of CO oxidation and HC oxidation. (ii) platinum group metal losses from the commercial TWC during laboratory simulation of an automobile exhaust gas during normal driving conditions. Here the author finds that (i) is more significant than (ii). The work on the novel catalyst also comprises of two parts: (i) The activity of a Keggin-type catalyst of the form [AlO4Al12(OH)24(H2O)12]7+ was compared to that of the TWC with respect to CO oxidation, HC oxidation and NOX reduction with varying Fe3+/Al3+ and Au3+/Fe3+/Al3+ substitutions. Comparisons of various preparative methods are made. Selected catalysts are characterised and probed in depth. (ii) A spinel-type catalyst of the form %Au/CoXFe3-XO4 was selected and activity with respect to CO oxidation, HC oxidation and NOX reduction with varying values of x and Au3+ loadings were compared to the TWC. It was characterised in full. Fe substituted Keggins-type catalysts proved to compare favourably with a commercial TWC in HC oxidation, but no CO oxidation and proved to be thermally unstable at the high temperatures experienced by TWCs. 1% Au containing cobalt-ferrite spinel-type catalysts of the form COXFe3-XO4 were x = 1.5 proved to compare very favourable when compared to the commercial TWC. Achieving lower LOTs for CO and HC oxidation under stoichiometric conditions. It was also found to be very active in NOX reduction under net reducing conditions. These Au/CoXFe3-XO4 catalysts were readily supported on pre-calcined Fecralloy at a level of 0.2 wt%, but more work is required to achieve higher loadings and higher activities. The application of such materials to the catalysis of environmental pollution control could be significant.


The subject of this thesis is the development of an accurate, general and robust numerical method capable of predicting the flow behavior of two-phase immiscible fluids, separated by a well defined interface. In the quest of an accurate and robust numerical method for the modeling of two-phase flows, one has to keep in mind the intrinsic properties and difficulties associated with the problem: (i) those flows are mostly three-dimensional, (ii) some flows are steady, others unsteady, (iii) the interface might encounter a lot of topology changes (like merger or break-up), (iv) large jumps of density and viscosity might exist across the interface (e.g. ratio of density of 1/1000 for water and air), (v) surface tension forces may play a very important role in the interface dynamics. Hence, the influence of this force should be accurately evaluated and incorporated into the model, (vi) mass conservation is of primary importance. All these issues are addressed in this thesis, and special techniques are proposed for their treatment, which enables to construct the desired computational method. The chosen computational method combines a pressure stabilized finite element method for the Navier Stokes equations with a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for the level set equation. Such a combination of those two numerical methods results in a simple and effective algorithm that allows to simulate diverse flow regimes presenting large density and viscosity ratios (ratio up to 1/1000).


Over the last decade, the reach of the internet to the mobile platforms has redefined the usage of the mobile devices from voice-centric to data-centric. Parallel to this trend, location is becoming significantly more native to the mobile devices. This can be attributed mainly to the increasing prevalence of GPS-empowered handsets. Nowadays, Location-based Services (LBS) feature many useful consumer services like navigation, location-based search, and location-based advertising. With the increased integration of high-end GPS units in mobile devices, combined with the integration of orientation sensors like digital compasses and accelerometers, a new class of mobile Location-based Services (LBS) is emerging: the viewer-centric mobile services. With focus on viewer-centricity, viewer-centric mobile services aim at providing the user with information and services that are not only relevant to her current location, but also relevant to her field-of-view. Therefore, a viewer-centric service where a restaurant is located in her viewing range, what food menu it is offering etc., all by pointing the mobile device to scan the surrounding objects. The main goal of this thesis is to develop a framework for viewer-centric mobile services and a query model, with main focus on modeling viewer-centric queries from the GPS and orientation sensors existing in modern mobile devices. As these sensors, regardless of their fabrication quality, do suffer from runtime uncertainties, e.g. blockage of GPS signal by buildings, distortion of magnetic field due to nearby metallic structures, a key concept of the proposed framework, iVu.KOM, is to recognize the effects of such uncertainties on the overall accuracy of the modeled queries and to offer a means to correct the queries, when needed. As the view of the user is also affected by obstacles, e.g. buildings, that exist in the user's surrounding and limit the viewing range, the framework aims as well at efficient execution of the viewer-centric queries against the world geometry model. For this purpose, the proposed iVu query model suggests to include in the query result both the retrieved points of interest and a simplified description of the surrounding geometry. This query model allows executing the queries promptly on the client and with minimal need to contact the server, even when the visibility changes due to user's motion. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed framework and model, a prototypical implementation of iVu.KOM was realized for a modern mobile platform featuring the required sen


This paper discusses mathematical models for the response of a small air bubble in water to an ultrasound pulse, a context that arises in the modern treatment for kidney stones. The paper reviews Rayleigh's 1917 theory for bubble response, applies asymptotics to describe large-amplitude solutions of Rayleigh's equations, and briefly discusses effects neglected in the simple model. The style is expository, intended both to introduce this application to mathematicians and to illustrate the use of asymptotic methods to nonmathematicians.


We describe a new species of glassfrog assigned to the genus Cochranella (Amphibia: Anura: Athesphatanura: Centrolenidae) from the Foothill Evergreen forests on the southeastern Andean slopes of Ecuador and northeastern Andean slopes of Peru. The new species is characterized by its moderate-sized body (25.4–26.9 mm in adult males), medium-sized eyes (eye diameter/third disc width  =  1.4–1.9), distinctive coloration in life (olive green with light spots) and in preservative (grayish lavender with pale spots), dorsal skin covered with flat warts and low tubercles, parietal peritoneum mostly white (covered by iridophores), thick ulnar folds, and extensive hand and foot webbing. In addition, we provide the first record of Nymphargus posadae from Peru, found in sympatry with the new species at the Cordillera del Cóndor.


We study the spontaneous emission of a four-level atom with two transitions coupled to a reservoir that has a photonic bandgap near the band edge. Moreover, the transition from the upper level to an auxiliary level is driven by a laser. Considering the different detuning of the external driving field, we discuss some effects, such as a laser-induced dark line, a laser-induced line splitting, and a laser-induced pushing of a dressed state out of the bandgap, which originate from the quantum interference effect and control of the external driving field.


In order to feed a growing global population projected to increase to 9 billion by 2050, food production will need to increase from its current level. The bulk of this growth will need to come from smallholder farmers who rely on generational knowledge in their farming practices and who live in locations where weather patterns and seasons are becoming less predictable due to climate change. The expansion of internet-connected devices is increasing opportunities to apply digital tools and services on smallholder farms, including monitoring soil and plants in horticulture, water quality in aquaculture, and ambient environments in greenhouses. In combination with other food security efforts, internet of things (IoT)-enabled precision smallholder farming has the potential to improve livelihoods and accelerate low- and middle-income countries' journey to self-reliance. Using a combination of interviews, surveys and site visits to gather information, this research presents a review of the current state of the IoT for on-farm measurement, cases of successful IoT implementation in low- and middle-income countries, challenges associated with implementing the IoT on smallholder farms, and recommendations for practitioners.


Since the publication of [1] three additional burrow casts, unknown to the author, were located in the Natural History Museum, London (NHM) collection by George Beccaloni. These casts were provisionally identified as Gryllotalpa ?vineae. In order to establish whether this identification was correct a literature survey of the casts of mole crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae) was conducted. Through this process a standardised terminology for mole cricket burrows has been established. The application of eccentricity measurements to burrow structures has identified measurements that can potentially be used to discriminate those species for which suitably detailed burrow descriptions have been made available. It is demonstrated that the eccentricity of the restrictions on either side of the bulb, as well as the eccentricity of the horn opening, are useful diagnostic characters.


OBJECTIVES
There are very few researches on North Korea's academic activities. Furthermore, it is doubtful that the available data are reliable. This study investigated research activities and knowledge structure in the field of Preventive Medicine in North Korea with a network analysis using co-authors and keywords.

METHODS
The data was composed of the North Korean Journal of preventive medicine ranged from Vol. 1 of 1997 to Vol. 4 of 2006. It was the matrix of 1,172 articles by 1,567 co-authors. We applied R procedure for keywords abstraction, and then sought for the outcome of network forms by spring-KK and shrinking network.

RESULTS
To comprehend the whole networks explicitly demonstrated that the academic activities in North Korea's preventive medicine were predisposed to centralization as similar as South Korea's, but on the other aspect they were prone to one-off intermittent segmentation. The principal co-author networks were formulated around some outstanding medical universities seemingly in addition to possible intervention by major researchers. The knowledge structure of network was based on experimentation judging from keywords such as drug, immunity, virus detection, infection, bacteria, anti-inflammation, etc.

CONCLUSIONS
Though North Korea is a socialist regime, there were network of academic activities, which were deemed the existence of inducive mechanism affordable for free research. Article keywords has laid greater emphasis on experiment-based bacterial detection, sustainable immune system and prevention of infection. The kind of trend was a consistent characteristic in preventive medicine of North Korea having close correlation with Koryo medical science.


Context: Prostate cancer (PCa) incidence rates (IRs) are highly variable worldwide. Aims: The aim was to evaluate the period prevalence (PP) and IRs of PCa in Isfahan/Iran. Materials and Methods: Data from March 24, 2011, to March 19, 2015, were obtained from the Isfahan Cancer Registry. PCa was distinguished by the related established topography code (C61). IRs and PP were calculated and expressed per 100 000 males. Statistical Analysis Used: The statistical analyses of dBase were performed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS version 20 (IBM Corp., Chicago, IL, USA) for windows. Results: Over a period of study, there were 1648 males that were identified with PCa. For the total population, the PP was calculated as 65.2/100,000 males. Histologically, of the total population studied, 99% reported adenocarcinoma that majority of them had mild or moderate gleason score. According to available information monographic code M with no definition regarding to subtype showed code 81140 as generally named adenoma (n = 1156), code 8000 generally named neoplasm (n = 468), transitional cell papilloma (n = 9), and acinar cell adenoma (n = 5). IRs were calculated for each year, that is, 2011–2012, 2012–2013, 2013–2014, and 2014–2015, as 14.5, 17.4, 15.5, and 17.8 (per 100,000 males), respectively. The mean (standard deviation, min-max) age of the patients was 72.0 (10.6, 16–110) years. In relation to the age of the study population, PCa occurred in 84% of patients aged >60 years. Conclusions: The number of deaths versus alive in patients with PCa was 583 versus 1065, respectively. Further studies toward pharmacotherapy management and genetic and environmental factors in PCa carcinogenesis recommended to be clarified in Iran.


Background The present study aimed to determine serum markers for cervical cancer (CC) and to provide valuable references for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Material/Methods Serum samples were collected from age-matched healthy control women, and from female CC patients before and after surgery. Serum biomarkers were selected by comparing serum peptides profiles among the 3 groups by magnetic bead-based weak cation – exchange chromatography fractionation combined with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry. Probable serum biomarkers for cervical cancer were then further identified by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry system and the identified proteins were verified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Three peptide biomarkers were identified for distinguishing CC patients from normal individuals, and distinguishing preoperative CC patients from postoperative CC patients. Of these 3 identified protein peptide regions, 2 peptide regions – TKT (Peak 2, 2435.63 m/z, 499–524) and FGA (Peak 4, 2761.79 m/z, 603–629) – were identified as upregulated markers, and peptide region of APOA1 (Peak 9, 2575.3 m/z, 245–260) was identified as a downregulated biomarker in preoperative CC patients compared with healthy women. Conclusions The present study provides a new method for identifying potential serum biomarkers for CC patients.


This paper develops improved estimates of benefits and costs of the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy from 2005/6 to 2010/11. It sets out principles and purposes for Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) for the programme and applies them to develop a relatively formal partial equilibrium methodology for BCA that distinguishes between real income gains to subsidy recipients, other producers, and consumers. This allows differential multipliers to be applied to these income gains to allow simple analysis of wider equilibrium and dynamic effects of the subsidy programme.
Benefit cost analysis faces difficulties due to lack of reliable data on the number of farm households in Malawi and on cropping parameters needed for estimation of the programmes' impact on production. Nevertheless the modified benefit cost analysis leads to increased estimates of returns to the subsidy programme. The benefit cost ratio averaged across 2005/6 to 2010/11 was previously estimated at 1.22, with an average fiscal efficiency of 0.31, using moderate assumptions regarding prices and yield responses to fertiliser and improved maize seed. Precise estimate of returns to the programme are difficult due to a variety of methodological and data quality difficulties, but with the revised methodology the average benefit cost ratio is estimated at around 1.6, with fiscal efficiency of around 0.45.
The analysis provides important pointers to ways in which programme design and implementation can be improved to make the programme more effective and efficient. It also suggests that with good implementation the programme can provide returns that are comparable to and exceed those achievable from alternative and complementary investments in infrastructure, education and agricultural research. The programme therefore has an important role as a critical element in a strategy of balanced government investments promoting poverty reducing growth in Malawi.


The  Journal of Atomic, Molecular, Condensate and Nano Physics  (JAMCNP) is an on-line journal as well as in print form, which publishes research articles and reviews. The main aim of this journal is to make available most complete and reliable source of information on current developments especially in the fields of Atomic-Molecular, Optical Physics, Laser Physics, Chemical Physics, Bose-Einstein Condensation, Nano Photonics including other branches of Nano-Science. To ensure speedy publication, only articles which are sufficiently well presented, containing significant results and not required major revisions will be considered.  Papers are accepted only after peer review . Editorial decisions on acceptance or otherwise are taken within 4 to 12 weeks (three months) of receipt of the paper. The journal will also publish survey articles giving details of research progress made during the last three decades in a particular area. The scientists and researchers will be the most frequent users of the journal who wish to have knowledge and get information regarding latest developments in this field. All published articles will be deposited immediately upon publication in at least one widely and internationally recognized open access repository, therefore providing the maximum exposure to the articles.


Abstract The development of offshore wind energy is often connected to expectations that the public will be positive about or at least indifferent to the technology. Because turbines are placed at sea—out of sight, out of mind—they are expected to avoid the public resistance experienced with respect to onshore installations. This paper examines offshore wind scientists' constructions of the public(s) by identifying narratives in the research communities. It is based on twenty-six semistructured interviews with scientists at two national research centres on offshore wind energy and technology in Norway. It finds that, although the dominant narrative of these scientists conveys a positive public, expectations of public resistance and constructions of public sentiment as NIMBY ('not in my backyard') are present in the research environments. This continued presence of narratives of irrational public resistance in the scientists' imaginings could be understood as an act of othering the public, with the possible implication of a disembedded technology development. The paper concludes by asking whether the persistence of constructions of resistant publics mirrors a pessimistic engineering mindset.


Abstract. During an intensive campaign at the high alpine research station Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, in February/March 2006 ice particle residuals within mixed-phase clouds were sampled using the Ice-counterflow virtual impactor (Ice-CVI). Size, morphology, chemical composition, mineralogy and mixing state of the ice residual and the interstitial (i.e., non-activated) aerosol particles were analyzed by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Ice nuclei (IN) were identified from the significant enrichment of particle groups in the ice residual (IR) samples relative to the interstitial aerosol. In terms of number lead-bearing particles are enriched by a factor of approximately 25, complex internal mixtures with silicates or metal oxides as major components by a factor of 11, and mixtures of secondary aerosol and carbonaceous material (C-O-S particles) by a factor of 2. Other particle groups (sulfates, sea salt, Ca-rich particles, external silicates) observed in the ice-residual samples cannot be assigned unambiguously as IN. Between 9 and 24% of all IR are Pb-bearing particles. Pb was found as major component in around 10% of these particles (PbO, PbCl 2 ). In the other particles, Pb was found as some 100 nm sized agglomerates consisting of 3–8 nm sized primary particles (PbS, elemental Pb). C-O-S particles are present in the IR at an abundance of 17–27%. The soot component within these particles is strongly aged. Complex internal mixtures occur in the IR at an abundance of 9–15%. Most IN identified at the Jungfraujoch station are internal mixtures containing anthropogenic components (either as main or minor constituent), and it is concluded that admixture of the anthropogenic component is responsible for the increased IN efficiency within mixed phase clouds. The mixing state appears to be a key parameter for the ice nucleation behaviour that cannot be predicted from the sole knowledge of the main component of an individual particle.


The study presents one of anesthesia techniques, the inhalation anesthesia, frequently used in veterinary medicine. The tested substance is a general anesthetics whose role is to act selective or at global mode, above one kind of structures form central nervous system, producing specific effects for his team. There have been observed the anesthetic effects of Izofluran dosed through mask induction and maintained with tracheal sonde at 5 dogs from different species and weights on a private clinic. There have been recorded the hematological and biochemical values of every patient, and also evaluated the vital constants: cardiac frequency, respiratory frequency, temperature, induction time, wake up time, metabolisation time and seconds products eliminating. There have been monitored the effects on cardiovascular, respiratory, neuromuscular, renal systems and live. In order to find the best inhalator there have been made comparative tests between Izofluran and Sevofluran. After inhalation administration of Izofluran it was observed a nesemnificative clinical grow of enzymatic activity for aminotransferase (GOT/AST), alaninaminotranferase (GPT/ALT), gama glutamil transferase (GGT), total amylase, glycaemia, creatinine, urea and compared with initial moment. There were not recorded major differences between initial moment and after anesthesia. The steps of anesthesia have characterized through induction of anesthetic in one moderate time (10-15 minutes) with respiratory complications (apnea, larynx spasm and cough), passing from anesthesia was done in 15-25 minutes. Secondary reactions (vomit, convulsions or events) were not present at anesthetized cases with Izofluran, and the temperature, cardiac frequency, respiratory frequency and oxygen saturation of peripheral tissues were on normal parameters. The phases of anesthesia have been characterized with a longer time of induction and waking up against Sevofluran with some respiratory complications.


In this report we describe findings that imply dysregulation of several fibroblast growth factor (FGF) system transcripts in frontal cortical regions of brains from human subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD). This altered gene expression was discovered by microarray analysis of frontal cortical tissue from MDD, bipolar, and nonpsychiatric control subjects and was verified by quantitative real-time PCR analysis and, importantly, in a separate cohort of MDD subjects. Furthermore, we show, through a separate analysis of specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)-treated and non-SSRI-treated MDD subjects that the observed changes in expression of FGF transcripts are not secondary to drug treatment. Rather, changes in specific FGF transcripts are attenuated by SSRIs and may thus be partially responsible for the mechanism of action of these drugs. We also make available the gene-expression profile of all of the other growth factors and growth factor receptors detected in these postmortem samples.


In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has gained traction in humanitarian communication through its utopian promises of copresence, experiential immediacy, and transcendence. I analyze three communication texts that engage with the Syrian refugee crisis. Two were made using immersive technology, and one is a traditional documentary. The article argues that VR brings new techniques of experiential immediacy to the practice of humanitarian communication, but it also uses meaning-making codes in the simulations of other peoples and spaces. Therefore, VR remains subject to the operations of dominant ideologies. Comparing these artifacts, the article demonstrates that although immersive technologies foreground the primacy of nonmediation, ignoring the structures of representation defangs the political possibilities of humanitarian communication.


In this paper we present a method for experimental lifetime measurements of sensor networks. Despite the importance of experimental validation, none of the lifetime models proposed so far has been validated experimentally. One of the reasons for the absence of practical validations might be the long lifetime of batteries which make the validation of the proposed models non-trivial and time consuming. Our solution enables validation of lifetime models within a reasonable amount of time. We also use our method to validate a simple mathematical model that provides bounds on the lifetime of sensor networks.


In the span of just six quarters between 2007 and 2009, nonfarm business output declined by $753 billion and 8.1 million jobs were lost. This period, known as the Great Recession, was the worst American recession since the Great Depression. The U.S. economy has been recovering from this historic decline for 7 years and is now in the midst of the one of the longest business cycles of the post–World War II (WWII) era. At this point, there are enough data for us to see how this business cycle is shaping up compared with past cycles, and we may ask, "How well, exactly, are we doing?" and "How much have we recovered, up to this point in this cycle?" The productivity measures published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are very useful in addressing these questions, because they make connections between important economic indicators, including output, employment, labor hours, worker compensation, and inflation. With regard to labor productivity itself, it has become clear that the United States is in one of its slowest-growth periods since the end of WWII. This issue of Beyond the Numbers analyzes the historically slow U.S. labor productivity growth observed during the current business cycle and addresses the implications for the U.S. economy.


[Abstract]:
This research investigated whether the formation of audit committees and their characteristics are associated with improved financial reporting quality. Modified versions of the models developed by Jones (1991) and Dechow and Dichev (2002) provided three measures of earnings quality, which were used to proxy for financial reporting quality. The audit committee characteristics investigated were: independence, expertise, activity, size and tenure.
Several contributions to knowledge are made by this research. First, this research examined the association between audit committee formation and financial reporting quality. This could not be done in many of the prior studies that used data on companies in the United States (Klein 2002a; Xie, Davidson and DaDalt 2003a; Bedard, Chtourou and Courteau 2004; Vafeas 2005; Yang and Krishnan 2005; Dhaliwal, Naiker and Navissi 2006), where audit committees have been mandatory for companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1978. A large number of public and private sector groups have recommended mandatory audit committee establishment for all Australian listed companies. However, there has been a lack of empirical support for these recommendations and this research provides evidence regarding this association.
Second, audit committees are more heavily regulated in the United States than Australia. Given the relative lack of audit committee regulation for Australian companies, Australia represented a richer empirical setting for the examination of the association between audit committee characteristics and financial reporting quality. The use of Australian company data for the selected time period, avoided the confounding effect of regulation on this association.
Third, this research used both a modified version of the traditional Jones (1991) discretionary accruals model and the more recently developed accrual estimation error model from Dechow and Dichev (2002) to estimate proxies for financial reporting quality. Most of the prior studies predominantly used the Jones (1991) model, which has been subject to criticism in the literature. Therefore, the use of multiple models provides more powerful tests of the association between audit committees and financial reporting quality. Finally, this research included changes tests in addition to cross-sectional tests to reduce the likelihood of problems with omitted variables.
Several conclusions can be drawn from the results. First, there was some evidence that earnings quality measured using the modified Jones (1991) model significantly reduced in the year following audit committee formation, thus providing some support for the notion that the formation of audit committees improves financial reporting quality. However, a comparison of these results with those of tests using earnings quality measures based on Dechow and Dichev (2002) indicates that audit committees appear more effective at reducing opportunistic earnings management, rather than total accrual estimation errors. Second, there was little evidence of a significant association between the characteristics of audit committees and improved financial reporting quality. Consequently, it can be suggested that, once audit committees are established, variations in their characteristics do not significantly affect financial reporting quality.
These conclusions provide support for the mandatory audit committee requirement under the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listing rules, which became effective from 1 January 2003. However, there are doubts over the usefulness of several aspects of the ASX Corporate Governance Council's recommendations concerning the composition and size of audit committees.


The research documented in this thesis is the written part of a practice based exploration into the surface qualities of concrete. The issue researched has been to uncover the possibilities of using concrete as a design material. By exploiting its ability to change from fluid state into a solid after curing. Therefore assuming the shape and textures of mould materials and to incorporate other materials into it's surface.

This was done in a workshop environment using 6 developing methods of putting materials and concrete together.

These were;
* Casting concrete onto a material
* Adding the material to a wet concrete surface
* Mixing the material into the wet concrete
* Sections of concrete joined with a material
* Brushing the wet concrete onto a material
* Shaping the concrete with a material

The samples created acted as the data and analysed through a set of criteria;

• Variety and boldness of texture
• The interaction of material and concrete
• Design potential
• My feelings for the surfaces
• Judgements about the process

Results were collected and organised in a project journal which contained photographs of the samples, the materials and procedures used to make them. Also a discursive annotation using the criteria for analysis as the framework. This written work came in the form of notes, mind maps and drawings. The journal also contained recipes and methods used to make the samples.

The research has grown out of an interest in material manipulation and a current trend in using concrete in more exciting ways.

This work contributes to knowledge
* by showing that concrete is an adaptable material that can be used to create surfaces with texture and character.
* that concrete is relevant to current ways of viewing what surface design can achieve
* and by demonstrating concrete can be used to create surfaces that engage and excite people.


Assistance in modern agricultural technology is the implementation of the government's strategic policy to improve people's welfare. However, policy implementation can work effectively if a comprehensive evaluation program has been conducted. Therefore, this study evaluates an agricultural technical assistance program through the aspiration of legislative members of Yogyakarta in 2014-2016.The objectives of this research are: (1) to map the distribution of aid to the community; (2) to describe the results of the evaluation of agricultural technology assistance program for community empowerment with indicators of program understanding, responsiveness, effectiveness, efficiency and the impact of the program.The research was done by qualitative-quantitative method (mix methods). Data were collected by interview and questionnaires from 98 respondents in Yogyakarta.The results showed that the mapping of agricultural technology program assistance is required in four areas, namely coastal, forestry, rice fields/fields, and mountains area. The implementation of aid programs can be channeled to the community as a kind of beneficiary issue. Meanwhile, the evaluation of the tested program, based on the results of the hypothesis testing, is accepted.


Statistical identification of isochore structure, the variation in large-scale GC composition (proportion of DNA bases that are G or C as opposed to A or T), of mammalian genomes is a necessary requirement for understanding both the evolution of base composition and the many genomic features such as mutation and recombination rates, which covary with base composition. We have developed a Bayesian method for isochore analysis that we demonstrate to be more accurate than the commonly used binary segmentation approach implemented within the program IsoFinder. The method accounts for both fine-scale and large-scale structure. We adapt direct simulation methods to allow for iid samples from the posterior distribution of our model, and provide an accurate approximation to this that can analyze data from a chromosome in a matter of seconds. We apply our method to human chromosome 1. The resulting estimate of how GC content varies across this region is shown to be a better predictor of local recombination rates than IsoFinder, and we are able to detect regions consistent with the classic definition of isochores that cover 85% of the chromosome. We also show a measure of relative GC content to be particularly predictive of local recombination rates.


ABSTRACT Question: Does the seed density of invasive species affect establishment by native species in a bare ground context (following invasive species control efforts), and is it possible to promote transition to a native species dominated state by manipulating sowing density of the native community? Location: Experimental wetland basin in Chanhassen, Minnesota, USA. Methods: A mesocosm experiment investigated the influence of Phalaris arundinacea (invasive species) propagule pressure on establishment of native wet meadow species in the context of a newly restored wetland. Mesocosms were sown with P. arundinacea (0, 10, 50, 100, or 500 seeds/m2) and a mix of native species (3000 or 15000 seeds/m2). Results: When planted at densities > 100 seeds/m2, P. arundinacea increased suppression of native species. Also, high native seed density suppressed P. arundinacea biomass production. This effect was more pronounced when P. arundinacea seed density was high (> 100 seeds/m2), but high native seed density (15000 seeds/m2) did not suppress recruitment of P. arundinacea from seed. Conclusions: The transition from post-control bare ground (a common result of efforts to control invasive species) to native species establishment depends on both native species and invader seed density. These results suggest that a threshold of P. arundinacea propagule pressure exists, beyond which transition to a native community is less likely without management intervention. P. arundinacea can establish in the presence of a newly developing native plant community, even at very low densities of P. arundinacea seed. Invader control (following initial site clearing efforts) is essential to native species establishment. Nomenclature: Gleason & Cronquist (1991).


Educational Course Half Day Over the past century and an half, human brain mapping consisted in pinning small functionally responsive areas within the brain. However the real extent of these areas and their eventual overlap remains unknown. The challenge now facing neuroscience is to define boundaries for functionally responsive areas at the group and the individual level. Many approaches parcellating the brain in areas with different features became recently available including post-mortem and in vivo architectonics, tractography-based connectivity, functional coactivation, and resting state functional connectivity. However, what these methods really measure and what conclusion can be drawn, are not yet fully clear to the scientific community. This course addresses this need and is intended for a large audience of research scientist (e.g. from beginner to advanced level).


There is an anomalous specificity to all our experience in space, a scandal of particularity, by which God burgeons up or showers down into the shabbiest of occasion ... This is all we are and all we ever were; God kam nicht anders [knows nothing else].... This process in time is history; in space, at such shocking random, it is mystery ... ... Who shall stand in his [sic] holy place? There is no one but us ... ... Are there holy grapes, is there holy ground, is anything here holy? There are no holy grapes, there is no holy ground, nor is there anyone but us. (1) --Annie Dillard Introduction My moral and theological work in the shape-shifting terrain of place is interdisciplinary, crossing borders burgeoning with particularities, borders that include cultural and environmental studies, diaspora studies, geographies, ethics, theologies, religious studies, ecofeminisms, and ecospiritualities. Seeking holiness performing as justice, following curves of thought that dissent from disciplinary separations of "social" and "environmental," I am bold to query a notion of ecofeminism as a separate feminism. Inspired by the nature writing of Annie Dillard, the critical race analysis of bell hooks, the geographic imagination of Yi-Fu Tuan, and environmental insights of Giovanna di Chiro, this article poses a constructive query of theology that is not green, and environmental ethics which are not in conversation with social ethics. The notion of place is the axis of my querying. Place is a heuristic tool that begins with, or moves from, embodiment, where one wheels, sits, stands, walks in space and time. In this conceptual frame, persons and communities are "implaced" or located in particular socio-historical and physical (ecological and geographic) locations. (2) Place is a fragrance or touch or gaze that includes both physical and social factors. Physical or environmental aspects of place include land, air, water, plant and animal lives and habitats, architecture and infrastructure of human habitats. Social and cultural aspects of place include politics, economics, histories including hidden or subjugated histories, worldviews, moral and religious imagination, the arts. These environmental and cultural factors spur the practices and spatial patterning of place and world-making, and are constitutive particulars, if you will, of place. The notion of "place" is multivocal in its address of what could be called a veritable "scandal of particularities." The rubric of place, without blush, spans to embrace spiritual geography, interrogate identity and senses of "who belongs" and "where," and interrupts colonial, globalizing economic displacements of race and ethnicity, class, gender, species, habitats. Critical race theorist and feminist cultural studies scholar bell hooks, for example, turns to "place" and spatiality in her analysis of economic ruses which separated or dis/placed black farmers from their lands in the U.S. south during the great migration period. There has been little or no work done on the psychological impact of the "great migration" of black people from the agrarian south to the industrialized north. Toni Morrrison's novel The Bluest Eye attempts fictively to document the way moving from the agrarian south to the industrialized north wounded the psyches of black folk. The motivation for black folks to leave the south and move north was both material and psychological. Black folks wanted to be free of the overt racial harassment that was a constant in southern life and they wanted access to material goods--to a level of material well-being that was not available in the agrarian south where white folks limited access to the spheres of economic power. Of course, they found that life in the north had its own perverse hardships, that racism was just as virulent there, that it was much harder for black people to become landowners. Without the space to grow food, to commune with nature, or to mediate the starkness of poverty with the splendor of nature, many black people experience profound depression. …


The study of causality has drawn the attention of researchers from many different fields for centuries.
In particular, nowadays causal inference is a central question in neuroscience and an entire body of research, called brain effective connectivity, is devoted to detecting causal interactions between distinct brain areas.
Brain effective connectivity is typically studied by the statistical analysis of direct measurements of the neural activity. The main purpose of this work is on methods for studying time series causality. More in details, we focus on a well-establish criterion of causality:
the Granger criterion, which is based on the concepts of temporal precedence and predictability.
Firstly, we consider the standard parametric implementation of the Granger criterion that is based on the multivariate autoregressive model, where we face the problem of model identification. For this purpose, we present a new Bayesian method for linear model identification and we explore its capability of modeling the sparsity structure of the signals. As a second contribution, we look at the causal inference through the lens of machine learning and we propose an approach based on the concept of learning from examples. Thus, given a set of signals, their causal interactions are estimated by a classifier that is trained on a synthetic dataset generated by a parametric model.
This approach, that we call supervised parametric approach, is implemented by adopting the Granger criterion of causality and compared with the standard parametric measure of Granger causality. Moreover, the roles of the feature space and the generative model of the training set are investigated through a simulation study. Additionally, we show an example of application on rat neural recordings.
Finally, we focus on the bias introduced by parametric methods when applied in a real context, i.e. the inability of having a fully realistic generative model.
For this purpose, we analyze how the supervised parametric approach can help in making the inference more application-dependent, by exploiting a physiologically plausible generative model.


Abstract The structural analysis of existing bridges is not widely covered by the various codes and standards, resulting in the insecure and, in some cases, critical condition of this type of structure. Regarding national regulation, few states include compulsory codes that define the methods and procedures of inspection, assessment, maintenance and retrofitting of bridges. Although an accurate retrofitting procedure can prolong the life of an existing bridge, the more accurate management of national infrastructure assets can result in financial savings in the long term. This article deals with: (a) the assessment step-level procedure, (b) suggestions for bridge load tests and bridge categories, (c) bridge material analysis, (d) structural testing analysis, and (e) the main retrofitting interventions to prolong the life of existing steel and steel composite bridges. Furthermore, a representative case study is analysed and discussed, including examples of the retrofitting solutions implemented to prolong the service life of the bridge.


Evening ensemble in orange and taupe crepe. The sleeveless, full-length dress is of taupe crepe, and has a "V" neckline in front and a deep "V" in back. Around high waist is a wide band of orange crepe outlined in gold braid and oval simulated pearls. The band is heavily beaded in faux coral and turquoise beads in various patterns and floral motifs. The bodice of the dress gathers into the front of the band, and has a zipper and hook-and-eyes closure at left side. The Bolero jacket is of the orange crepe. The cropped jacket has a rounded neckline and long sleeves. The neckline, center front opening, and lower hem is heavily beaded to match the band on the dress, with added faux turquoise beading in floral forms on the front panels of the jacket. No labels in either garment.


A potential undesirable effect of multistage testing is differential speededness, which happens if some of the test takers run out of time because they receive subtests with items that are more time intensive than others. This article shows how a probabilistic response-time model can be used for estimating differences in time intensities and speed between subtests and test takers and detecting differential speededness. An empirical data set for a multistage test in the computerized CPA Exam was used to demonstrate the procedures. Although the more difficult subtests appeared to have items that were more time intensive than the easier subtests, an analysis of the residual response times did not reveal any significant differential speededness because the time limit appeared to be appropriate. In a separate analysis, within each of the subtests, we found minor but consistent patterns of residual times that are believed to be due to a warm-up effect, that is, use of more time on the initial items than they actually need.


This thesis presents the first-ever compile-time method for allocating a portion of a program's dynamic data to scratch-pad memory. A scratch-pad is a fast directly addressed compiler-managed SRAM memory that replaces the hardware-managed cache. It is motivated by its better real-time guarantees vs. cache and by its significantly lower overheads in access time, energy consumption, area and overall runtime. Dynamic data refers to all objects allocated at run-time in a program, as opposed to static data objects which are allocated at compile-time. Existing compiler methods for allocating data to scratch-pad are able to place only code, global and stack data (static data) in scratch-pad memory; heap and recursive-function objects (dynamic data) are allocated entirely in DRAM, resulting in poor performance for these dynamic data types. Runtime methods based on software caching can place data in scratch-pad, but because of their high overheads from software address translation, they have not been successful, especially for dynamic data.
In this thesis we present a dynamic yet compiler-directed allocation method for dynamic data that for the first time, (i) is able to place a portion of the dynamic data in scratch-pad; (ii) has no software-caching tags; (iii) requires no run-time per-access extra address translation; and (iv) is able to move dynamic data back and forth between scratch-pad and DRAM to better track the program's locality characteristics. With our method, code, global, stack and heap variables can share the same scratch-pad. When compared to placing all dynamic data variables in DRAM and only static data in scratch-pad, our results show that our method reduces the average runtime of our benchmarks by 22.3%, and the average power consumption by 26.7%, for the same size of scratch-pad fixed at 5% of total data size. Significant savings in runtime and energy across a large number of benchmarks were also observed when compared against cache memory organizations, showing our method's success under constrained SRAM sizes when dealing with dynamic data. Lastly, our method is able to minimize the profile dependence issues which plague all similar allocation methods through careful analysis of static and dynamic profile information.


The growing number of Web Services technologies and their use have revolutionized the web. Web Services will play an important role in the next web generation (i.e. Semantic Web) together with Semantic Web technologies. As a matter of fact, Web Services and Semantic Web are two building blocks to provide machine process-able services. One of the biggest challenges in both Web Services and Semantic Web is privacy issues. Privacy means which part of information should be hidden and which should be visible. In the web services context, no matter if it is a simple or a complex service, the requester and provider of the service has to disclose information for handshaking, so privacy issues will always exist . In the utilization of web services, there exist exchange and storage of information, so the protection of personal information is very important. To acquire any service, one has to disclose personal information (e.g. home address, DoB, mobile number, credit card information etc.) so as to fulfill the requirement and utilize the service properly. But the problem arises when the submitted information is shared with a third party. In collaborative environment, where different people are interacting with each other and also the information is being shared among different people, the sharing of information without exposing unrelated information becomes a difficult task. The problem statement and its solution explained in this paper are focused in the domain of health information systems, but they can be used in a collaborative enterprise environment. In this paper we have introduced ontology-based user data privacy in the web services domain using the semantic desktop's (SemanticLIFE) SOPA framework.


Rainfall partition on paved urban surfaces is governed to a great extent by depression storage. This is especially the case for small rainfall events, which are often ignored in urban hydrology. If storage, infiltration and evaporation (important for urban heat island mitigation), rather than storm water run-off, are of interest, high-resolution simulations with exact values for depression storage capacities are required. Terrestrial laser scanners deliver fast, high-resolution surveys of pavement surface morphology. The depression storage capacity can be quantified from 3D points by generating digital elevation models and applying cut-and-fill algorithms in a geographic information system. The method was validated using a test model. It was possible to quantify depressions with a depth of at least 1.4 × 10(-3) m and a surface of at least 15 × 10(-6) m(2) with an uncertainty below 30%. Applying this method, the depression storage capacities for 11 ideal, typical pavement designs were found to vary from 0.07 to 1.4 mm. Realistic urban pavements must also be surveyed, as cracks and puddles from their use history can have a major impact on the depression storage capacities and thus on infiltration, evaporation and, finally, the annual run-off.


Forestry development in Indonesia has given many advantages to the
Indonesian economy. However, some provinces which are rich in forest
products are not receiving maximum impact of the sector. Many number of
research projects have shown that the presence of this sector was unable to
stimulate the growth of downstream industries and has been disadvantageous to
regional development.
The East Kalimantan has a large area of forest, covering more than 76% of
the total land area. This province leads in the forestry activity in Indonesia. In
1997, there were 72 FCRs, 28 plywood mills, 116 sawmills, and 49 other wood
industries. This study aims to identify the impact of the forestry sector on the
regional economy of East Kalimantan with regards to its GDRP, multipliers,
linkages, and regional leakage using 1-0 analysis. This study also analyses
several alternative policies and inter-sectoral linkages in the forestry sector.
The experimental results indicate that the contribution of forestry in East
Kalimantan in 1995 to GORP amounted to 11.70% (rank 3 out of 10 sectors) after
Mining and Quarrying (34.10%) and Manufacturing Industry (24.10%). This
contribution can be increased further through various government policies.
The forestry sector has a high value of multipliers, namely 1.8211 (total
output), 1.5388 and 1.8416 (Type I and Type II income multipliers), 1.4196 and
1.5997 (Type I and Type II employment multipliers). Plywood and sawntimber
industries are the two forestry activities that have good prospects. This sector
has high value of output backward linkage (1.8211), low value of output
forward linkage (0.8014), low value of income backward and forward linkage
(0.8550 and 0.6494), and low value of employment backward and forward
linkage (0.9755 and 0.8529). The level of regional leakage of the forestry sector
in this province is high (ranks 4 out of 10 sectors). Plywood and sawntimber
have the highest value of regional leakage among all of the forestry activities.
To increase the role of the forestry sector in the future, fourteen policy
scenarios of exports have been incorporated in this study. The selection of the
policy scenarios are dependent on the forest potential in this province. Intersectoral
linkage needs to be more developed to obtain value- added. incentives need to be provided to promote the development of integrated woodbased
industrial complexes, including ways to overcome constraints and
bottlenecks in the input- supplying sector, and development of small and
medium scale enterprises (SMES).


Complex facial expressions provide critical social signals about nuanced social emotional behavior (Baron-Cohen et al. 1997). Given the increasing evidence of heightened sensitivity to social signals during adolescence, we evaluated the influence of adolescent development, and pubertal development specifically, on emerging perceptual sensitivity to detect complex expressions. Using an existing model (Scherf et al, 2012), we hypothesized that pubertal development would disproportionately influence sensitivity to perceive complex compared to basic emotional expressions. To evaluate this hypothesis, we tested prepubescent children (6-8 years), adolescents matched on age who varied in pubertal development (11-14 yrs), and sexually mature adults (18-25 yrs) in a perceptual sensitivity paradigm to determine the just noticeable difference in expression between two versions of the same face identity. For each of four expressions (two positively and two negatively valenced), we created 13 morphed versions of the face that included increasingly more perceptual cues to the expression. Participants were presented with pairs of faces (original face vs. morphed face) in a staircase procedure and they determined which of the two faces was more expressive. For both positively and negatively valenced expressions, pre-pubescent children and early pubertal adolescents exhibited higher thresholds for the complex compared to the basic expressions (see attached figure), meaning that they required significantly more perceptual cues to detect complex than basic expressions. However, age-matched adolescents in later puberty and sexually mature adults exhibited comparable thresholds for both types of expressions. These findings support our hypothesis that emerging perceptual sensitivity to detect complex expressions is fundamentally influenced by pubertal development. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


The feminist movement purports to improve conditions for women, and yet only a minority of women in modern societies self-identify as feminists. This is known as the feminist paradox. It has been suggested that feminists exhibit both physiological and psychological characteristics associated with heightened masculinization, which may predispose women for heightened competitiveness, sex-atypical behaviors, and belief in the interchangeability of sex roles. If feminist activists, i.e., those that manufacture the public image of feminism, are indeed masculinized relative to women in general, this might explain why the views and preferences of these two groups are at variance with each other. We measured the 2D:4D digit ratios (collected from both hands) and a personality trait known as dominance (measured with the Directiveness scale) in a sample of women attending a feminist conference. The sample exhibited significantly more masculine 2D:4D and higher dominance ratings than comparison samples representative of women in general, and these variables were furthermore positively correlated for both hands. The feminist paradox might thus to some extent be explained by biological differences between women in general and the activist women who formulate the feminist agenda.


Combined the global and the vowel structure features, a novel method of utilizing modified quadratic discriminant function (MQDF) on emotional features extraction in speech signals is proposed in this paper. After 3000 emotional sentences involved such four emotions as happiness, anger, surprise and sadness were collected, the new method was used to analysis the features of the time, amplitude, pitch and formant construction. The experimental results show that the presented method in our paper can provide an effective performance in emotional recognition.


In previous work we have presented an approach to monitor non- functional properties of systems modeled in terms of domain specific visual lan- guages using observers. In this work we present an approach to decouple the defi- nition of observers behavior and systems behavior. Having a library with different kinds of observers behavior, and having the behavioral definition of the system, weaving links can be established among them in order to include observers in the system behavioral specification.


In this work a known philosopher offers an analysis of the hidden assumptions that lie at the heart of contemporary social ideology. Robert John Ackermann argues that all social life is intrinsically heterogeneous and that such homogeneous constructs as race, gender, class, nation and state are necessarily artificial. In the course of his inquiry, he discusses what we mean when we invoke these terms and explores the intellectual implications and concrete consequences of their everyday use. Although Ackermann's approach is philosophical, his arguments are grounded in his personal experience - from encounters with the subtle workings of racism and sexism to active participation in local government. He urges his readers to draw on their own experiences to test the validity of his conclusions. In his view, only by breaking down the traditional distinction between private perception and public authority, "subjective" and "objective" knowledge, can the insights of philosophy prove useful in promoting meaningful social change. In a final chapter, Ackermann stresses the need to combine social theory with political practice. Against the advocates of universal rationalism on the one hand, and the champions of multiculturalism on the other, he makes the case for a genuinely democratic politics of inclusion.


In Writing After War, John Limon develops a theory of the relationship of war in general to literature in general, in order to make sense of American literary history in particular. Applying the work of war theorists Carl von Clausewitz and Elaine Scarry, John Limon argues that The Iliad inaugurates Western literature on the failure of war to be duel-like, to have a beautiful form. War's failure is literature's justification. American literary history is demarcated by wars, as if literary epochs, like the history of literature itself, required bloodshed to commence. But in chapters on periods of literary history from realism, generally taken to be a product of the Civil War, through modernism, usually assumed to be a prediction or result of the Great War, up to postmodernism which followed World War II and spanned Vietnam, Limon argues that, despite the looming presence of war in American history, the techniques that define these periods are essentially ways of not writing war. From James and Twain, through Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and even Hemingway, to Pynchon, our national literary history is not hopelessly masculinist, Limon argues. Instead, it arrives naturally at Bobbie Ann Mason and Maxine Hong Kingston. Kingston brings the discussion full circle: The Woman Warrior, like The Iliad, appears to condemn the fall from duel to war that is literature's endless opening.


Posterior sampling for reinforcement learning (PSRL) is an effective method for balancing exploration and exploitation in reinforcement learning. Randomised value functions (RVF) can be viewed as a promising approach to scaling PSRL. However, we show that most contemporary algorithms combining RVF with neural network function approximation do not possess the properties which make PSRL effective, and provably fail in sparse reward problems. Moreover, we find that propagation of uncertainty, a property of PSRL previously thought important for exploration, does not preclude this failure. We use these insights to design Successor Uncertainties (SU), a cheap and easy to implement RVF algorithm that retains key properties of PSRL. SU is highly effective on hard tabular exploration benchmarks. Furthermore, on the Atari 2600 domain, it surpasses human performance on 38 of 49 games tested (achieving a median human normalised score of 2.09), and outperforms its closest RVF competitor, Bootstrapped DQN, on 36 of those.


Studying the legal profession poses several challenges. The evolution of law has moved lawyers away from a generalist practice towards increased specialization. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to compare lawyers across different practice areas meaningfully and to provide a comprehensive assessment of the legal profession. Judges are well situated to provide such an evaluation, given their experience and scope of cases. This article reports the responses of federal and state judges to a survey we conducted in 2008. The questions relate to their perceptions of the quality of legal representation, generally and in criminal and civil cases; how the quality of legal representation influences how they and juries decide cases; and their recommendations for change in the profession. We find that judges perceive significant disparities in the quality of legal representation, both within and across areas of the law. In many instances, the underlying causes of these disparities can be traced to the resources of the litigants. The judges' responses also suggest that they respond differently from juries to these disparities, and that the effect of these disparities on juries may be more pronounced in civil than in criminal cases.


'A sumptuous illustrated catalog.' Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune Serge Diaghilev (1872 - 1929) was an extraordinarily gifted impresario, curator, director and animator of the arts. He was perfectly at home driving the wave of creative energy that pushed theatrical performance to the cutting edge of cultural activity in the early twentieth century. A roll call of the Ballets Russes' collaborators and circle bears witness to their impact on modernism and later twentieth-century art; Picasso, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Bakst, Goncharova, Matisse, Chanel, Prokofiev, Man Ray and Cocteau all worked with Diaghilev - and their work is discussed and illustrated here. This beautiful book draws on new research to explore Diaghilev's life, work and cultural milieu. It pulls together the music, pictures, costumes, archives and art of the Ballets Russes to illustrate Diaghilev's working process, accomplishments and society.


This study investigated the differences between novice and experienced non-native English-speaking English-as-a-foreignlanguage (EFL) teachers' cognitions about EFL curriculum design principles and their own roles in designing an EFL curriculum. The challenge these teachers faced in their roles and the support system they needed were also explored. Data were collected from 40 nonnatives English-speaking EFL teachers using a questionnaire and open-ended questions. The results show that the observed differences between the two groups' cognitions about EFL curriculum design principles were not statistically significant. Results also reveal that both groups believed they lacked the required theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and time and financial resources to develop the classroom-based EFL curriculum and assumed the role of material adapters for themselves. Teachers asserted that they tried to accommodate their students' needs, interests, and other contextual factors through teaching strategies. They expressed aspirations for ongoing support from local scholars and experienced teachers to update their theoretical knowledge and to meet the challenges arising from their teaching contexts. Implied in the teachers' responses was their need for developing a classroom-based EFL curriculum. In light of the findings, we recommend initiating school-university partnership for developing responsive teacher education programmes for preservice as well as in-service teacher education.


Osteoarthritis (OA) mainly affects the articular cartilage covering the bones. In this thesis we investigated the relation between levels of inflammatory mediators, genes involved in their regulation and the disease status of OA. We investigated the role of genetic variation at the interleukin(IL)-1 gene cluster in the innate bio-availability of IL-1beta. A haplotype that associated to low innate bio-availability also associated to higher hand OA scores. Although this is counterintuitive with respect to the generally accepted hypothesis that a pro-inflammatory status is detrimental to the cartilage it underlines a complex relationship between inflammation and OA. For the C-reactive protein we identified a haplotype associated to high CRP levels as well as to severe hand OA, which is more in line with expected directions of associations. Analysis of baseline cytokine and chemokine levels indicated that chemokine levels associated to hand OA scores, again with low levels associated to high OA scores. In a follow up functional genomic analysis of a previously identified OA susceptibility gene (DIO2) in our studies we show that the risk allele of this gene is transcribed at higher levels as compared to the non-risk allele. Furthermore, we showed increased DIO2 protein presence in OA affected cartilage.


In this point/counterpoint exchange, Professors Paul Cassell and Amos Guiora debate the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona. Cassell challenges the decision, arguing that it has had harmful effects on American law enforcement efforts. Cassell cites evidence that the decision led to reduction in crime clearance rates and urges that the restrictions in the decision be replaced by a requirement that the police videotape interrogations. Cassell urges prosecutors to consider arguing that modern tools like videotaping creates a legal regime that allows the technical Miranda rules to be regarded as superseded relics of an outmoded and harmful prophylactic regime. Guiora responds that the Miranda decision was required to protect vulnerable suspects during inherently coercive police interrogation. Guiora reviews the language Chief Justice Warren used in the Miranda decision, noting that Warren was concerned to ensure that a suspect's basic constitutional rights were respected by law enforcement while conducting custodial interrogation. Guiora concludes that the decision remains as important today as it was when handed down in 1966.


The productive and reproductive performance of, as well as income generated by Afrino, Dorper and Merino sheep at two localities in the False Upper Karoo region were evaluated. A total of 1242 ewe reproductive records was available, while data of respectively 772 and 405 lambs were analysed for the growth traits and slaughter traits. Percentage of lambs weaned per ewe in the flock was 132.0%, 100.0% and 93.7% for Afrino, Dorper and Merino ewes at Grootvlei, respectively. Corresponding values for Twistkraal were 153.3%, 114.7% and 96.4%, respectively. Body weights of 52.3 ± 1.4 kg, 56.6 ± 1.4 kg and 43.4 ± 1.4 kg were recorded for Afrino, Dorper and Merino ewes, respectively. Merino ewes produced on average 1.3 kg more clean wool, of a 0.6 μm stronger diameter than Afrino ewes. At each locality Dorper lambs were the heaviest at weaning, followed by Afrino and then by the Merino lambs. Dorper lambs were slaughtered earlier than Afrino lambs, with Merino lambs taking the longest interval to reach slaughter weight. A definite seasonal effect was also evident, where the autumn-born lambs reached slaughter weight earlier than spring-born lambs in all breeds. With the current wool and mutton prices, Afrino sheep had the highest gross income per ewe, followed by Merino and Dorper ewes respectively. However, Merino sheep had the highest gross income per hectare at both localities, followed by Afrino and then Dorper sheep. The combination of low ewe body weights, high wool production and a relatively high reproductive rate, resulted in Merino sheep generating the highest income per hectare, compared to Afrino and Dorper sheep. Reproductive rate, mature body weight and fibre production are the primary factors determining profitability of a specific sheep enterprise. These parameters should thus be considered when changing from one breed or commodity to another. Keywords : Body weight; wool production; slaughter traits; income South African Journal of Animal Sciences Vol. 35 (2) 2005: pp.98-108


We analyze the mechanism of seeded growth reactions used to synthesize colloidal core/shell nanocrystals. Looking at the formation of CdSe/CdS and CdSe/ZnSe using both zinc blende and wurtzite CdSe seeds with a different surface termination, we show that the formation rate of the shell material does not depend on the presence of the seed nanocrystals. This suggests that shells grow by inclusion of CdS or ZnSe initially formed in the reaction mixture, possibly under the form of reactive monomers, and not by successive adsorption and reaction of metal and chalcogen precursors. This insight makes balancing homogeneous nucleation and heterogeneous growth of the shell material key to suppressing spurious secondary nucleation. Through a combination of experimental work and reaction simulations, we argue that this can be effectively achieved by raising the monomer solubility through the concentration of carboxylic acid used in the seeded growth reaction.


Contemporary impacts of anthropogenic climate change on ecosystems are increasingly being recognized. Documenting the extent of these impacts requires quantitative tools for analyses of ecological observations to distinguish climate impacts in noisy data and to understand interactions between climate variability and other drivers of change. To assist the development of reliable statistical approaches, we review the marine climate change literature and provide suggestions for quantitative approaches in climate change ecology. We compiled 267 peer‐reviewed articles that examined relationships between climate change and marine ecological variables. Of the articles with time series data (n = 186), 75% used statistics to test for a dependency of ecological variables on climate variables. We identified several common weaknesses in statistical approaches, including marginalizing other important non‐climate drivers of change, ignoring temporal and spatial autocorrelation, averaging across spatial patterns and not reporting key metrics. We provide a list of issues that need to be addressed to make inferences more defensible, including the consideration of (i) data limitations and the comparability of data sets; (ii) alternative mechanisms for change; (iii) appropriate response variables; (iv) a suitable model for the process under study; (v) temporal autocorrelation; (vi) spatial autocorrelation and patterns; and (vii) the reporting of rates of change. While the focus of our review was marine studies, these suggestions are equally applicable to terrestrial studies. Consideration of these suggestions will help advance global knowledge of climate impacts and understanding of the processes driving ecological change.


Purpose The foveal avascular zone (FAZ) is altered in numerous diseases. We assessed factors (axial length, segmentation method, age, sex) impacting FAZ measurements from optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography images. Methods We recruited 116 Caucasian subjects without ocular disease, and acquired two 3 × 3 mm AngioVue scans per each right eye (232 total scans). In images of the superficial plexus, the FAZ was segmented using the AngioVue semiautomatic nonflow measurement tool and ImageJ manual segmentation. In images from the full retinal thickness, the FAZ was segmented using the AngioAnalytics automatic FAZ tool. Repeatability, reliability, and reproducibility were calculated for FAZ measurements (acircularity, area). Results FAZ area (mean ± SD) for manual segmentation was 0.257 ± 0.104 mm2, greater than both semiautomatic (0.231 ± 0.0939 mm2) and automatic (0.234 ± 0.0933 mm2) segmentation (P < 0.05). Not correcting for axial length introduced errors up to 31% in FAZ area. Manual area segmentation had better repeatability (0.022 mm2) than semiautomatic (0.046 mm2) or automatic (0.060 mm2). FAZ acircularity had better repeatability with automatic than manual segmentation (0.086 vs. 0.114). Reliability of all area measurements was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.994 manual, 0.969 semiautomatic, 0.948 automatic). Reliability of acircularity measurements was 0.879 for manual and 0.606 for automatic. Conclusion We identified numerous factors affecting FAZ measurements. These errors confound comparisons across studies and studies examining factors that may correlate with FAZ measures. Translational Relevance Using FAZ measurements as biomarkers for disease progression requires assessing and controlling for different sources of error. Not correcting for ocular magnification can result in significant inaccuracy in FAZ measurements, while choice of segmentation method affects both repeatability and accuracy.


Purpose
This study aims to examine relationships between corporate social responsibility (CSR) toward two key stakeholder groups – patients and society and hospital brand advocacy, and the mediating role of trust and patient-hospital identification (PHI) and the moderating role of hospital type on these associations.

Design/methodology/approach
The sample of 455 hospital patients was surveyed in Vietnam.

Findings
The results suggest that both CSR toward society and patients are positively related to brand advocacy. The influence of CSR toward patients on brand advocacy was stronger for private hospitals than public hospitals. Trust and PHI independently and partially mediate relationships between both stakeholder groups of CSR and brand advocacy with the exception of the trust, which fully mediates the relationship between CSR toward society and brand advocacy. Trust and PHI serve as serial mediators.

Practical implications
Hospitals can promote patients' organic word of mouth through CSR initiatives and focusing on the reliability, safety and quality of care.

Originality/value
This study examines the mediation effects of trust and PHI and moderating role of hospital type in the relationships between two components of CSR effort and hospital brand advocacy.


This volume of original work comprises a modest challenge, sometimes direct, sometimes implicit, to the mainstream Anglo-American conception of the discipline of medical ethics. It does so not by trying to fill the gaps with exotic minority interest topics, but by re-examining some of the fundamental assumptions of the familiar philosophical arguments, and some of the basic situations that generate the issues. The most important such situation is the encounter between the doctor and the suffering patient, which forms one of the themes of the book. The authors show that concepts such as the body, suffering and consent - and the role such concepts play within patients' lives - are much more complicated than the Anglo-American mainstream appreciates. Some of these concepts have been discussed with subtlety by Continental philosophers (like Heidegger, Ricoeur), and a secondary purpose of the volume is to apply their ideas to medical ethics. Designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students with some philosophical background in ethics, Reconceiving Medical Ethics opens up new avenues for discussion in this ever-developing field.


STUDY DESIGN
Prospective case series.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the relation between improved disability and changes in abdominal and lumbar multifidus (LM) thickness using ultrasound imaging following spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) in patients with low back pain (LBP).

BACKGROUND
Although there is a growing body of literature demonstrating physiologic effects following the application of SMT, few studies have attempted to correlate these changes with clinically relevant outcomes.

METHODS
Eighty-one participants with LBP underwent 2 thrust SMT treatments and 3 assessment sessions within 1 week. Transversus abdominis (TrA), internal oblique (IO), and LM muscle thickness was assessed during each session, using ultrasound imaging of the muscles at rest and during submaximal contractions. The Modified Oswestry Disability Index was used to quantify participants' improvement in LBP-related disability. Stepwise hierarchical multiple linear regression and repeated-measures analysis of variance were performed to examine the multivariate relationship between change in muscle thickness and clinical improvement over time.

RESULTS
After controlling for the effects of age, sex, and body mass index, change in contracted LM muscle thickness was predictive of improved disability at 1 week (P = .02). As expected, larger increases in contracted LM muscle thickness at 1 week were associated with larger improvements in LBP-related disability. Contrary to our hypothesis, significant decreases in both contracted TrA and IO muscle thickness were observed immediately following SMT; but these changes were transient and unrelated to whether participants experienced clinical improvements.

CONCLUSION
These findings provide evidence that clinical improvement following SMT is associated with increased thickening of the LM muscle during a submaximal task.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Prognosis, level 4.


On 28 September 1995, Jiang Zemin delivered one of the most important speeches in his tenure as the General Secretary of the CCP in the Fifth Plenum of 14 CCP Congress, which is entitled "To Handle Correctly Certain Relationships in the Process of Socialist Modernization Construction". On the top of the agenda was the relationships between reform, development and stability. To him, reform, in particular economic reform, must be pursued; development is the enhancing of national strength and stability is the pre-condition of development. Indeed, it is the equilibrium of these three sets of relationships that the CCP leadership strove for that shaped the major forces of dynamics of Chinese politics in the 1990s. The leadership's overriding concern was stability of the regime. Economic reform, with a temporary haul in the early 1990s, was accelerated and culminated in the accession to the WTO, resulting increasing absorption into world economy. Political reform was considered secondary to economic reform and it was perceived to be an inherently destabilizing process and any measures that would cause controversies within the Party were to be shelved. Learning the lessons from the 4 June crackdown, ideological control was exercised unrelentingly and dissidents intellectuals were punished severely. Administrative streamlining was carried out two times in the 1990s. Grass-root democracy was instituted and anti-corruption drives waged but organized opposition was crushed mercilessly. So were the ideological debates within the Party. The result was that China's economic growth attained admirable figures and it was rapidly becoming a powerful economic house. However, behind the growth phenomena, lies the abject poverty of the peasantry, massive unemployment, labor unrest, frustrated intellectuals and rampant corruption. Among the liberal intellectuals, the consensus was that only a genuine political reform program could alleviate the problems that the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao new leadership is encountering. Despite the political reform in several important area, however, China political reform programs have not surpassed the speech on cadre and leadership by Deng Xiaoping in 1980, supposedly the most comprehensive political reform blueprint in the reform era.


The aim of this paper is to examine the extent and impact of the global financial crises on position of the banking sector of Western Balkans covering both pre-crisis and crisis period as well as to provide an explanation for these trends.This paper deals with cross-country comparison analysis of banking in Western Balkans before and during crises. Although, depth of the crisis in the banking sector of Western Balkans is not yet fully evident, selected indicators in this paper point to its direction. The research alone has determined the paper's structure which consist an analysis of the impact of the global financial crisis on recent occurrences in the banking of the region.Impact of global financial crises has been transmitted on the position banking sector selected countries through several sources, especially through: impact profitability, credit growth has dropped significantly and asset quality has deteriorated markedly.Although the economies of Western Balkan countries in crisis period performed differently the results of the comparison show that the global financial crisis has a substantial impact on the banking sector of the region.


The goal of the project was to establish a low-tech cheap sustainable food production system that combines traditional fish farming with hydroponics (cultivating plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil), in a symbiotic environment. We used local fish and plants species only. The project was conducted in two different stages: "construction" stage and "fish" stage. The goal of the start-up stage was to build the grow bed for the plants, to establish the water circuit, to set the lights and to prepare the fish tank for the fishes. For the "fish" stage we used local fish species (carp and caras). The goal of the stage was to build the nitrogen-fixing bacteria colonies in order to provide a constant NO3 I rich water (around 50 mg/l), with as low as possible traces of NH3 / NH4 + and NO2 I (below 0,5 mg/l). This was established by testing the NH3 / NH4 + , NO2 I and NO3 I values under several environmental changes (pH, temperature, lighting, quantity of fish in the tank etc.) in order to identify the best combinations to achieve the goal. Upon completion of the second stage we'll test different local species of plants with the already established system. The goal of the project is to find the best combinations of fish, plants and environmental conditions in order to have a cheap, sustainable symbiotic food production system, easy to be replicated by anyone.


Fluorescence spectroscopy enables fast and sensitive analysis of environmental samples containing various organic matter constituents. However, to retrieve valuable information from fluorescence spectra, robust techniques for data analysis should be employed. Here, different multivariate analysis methods and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were applied for decomposition and calibration of fluorescence excitation–emission matrices (EEMs). This is the first paper summarizing the application of different data mining methods, from multiway analysis to ANNs, for fluorescence EEMs technique employed to characterize organic matter properties and removal in the field of drinking water treatment. Fluorescence analysis was carried out on municipal water treatment samples of raw and partially‐treated water. Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) method and self‐organizing maps were used to analyse EEMs, extract information on the organic matter constituents and reduce the dimensionality of the data to enhance the efficiency of calibration methods. Partial least squares (PLS), multiple linear regression (MLR) and neural network with back‐propagation were employed for calibration of fluorescence data with actual total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations. All models except PARAFAC‐MLR produced consistent results with correlation coefficient R2 = 0.93 for validation dataset. This is the first such comparative analysis of fluorescence data modelling that clarifies fundamental fluorescence data analysis questions regarding the suitability of different decomposition and calibration methods. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


NOTE: This is a repeat of the session with the same title offered on Tuesday, but with a different set of faculty panelists.  The framework for both sessions is the same, but there will be unique perspectives and ideas shared, so there is benefit to attending both sessions.
As Mason expands our fully-online programs and courses, we (faculty) need to learn about best practices for online teaching, and how to apply these best practices and strategies to our own online teaching in our courses and disciplines. Online teaching takes much time and effort, particularly when teaching online for the first-time or when teaching a new course online. What can we do to better support each other, and particularly support faculty who are new to online teaching? Communal learning, such as mentoring, coaching, and faculty learning communities, all can have positive effects on online teaching development (Wright, 2016), with new & experienced faculty sharing ideas, strategies, practices and experiences in a supportive environment. In this session, we will provide participants with an opportunity for communal learning, by featuring a Mason faculty panel who will share their "online teaching survival tips", i.e., practical tips, strategies and solutions for a successful online course and online teaching experience. The multidisciplinary panel consists of Mason faculty with a range of online teaching experience, from very experienced to those who have just started teaching online. This session will consist of three components:(1) Q & A Discussion with Mason Faculty Panel; (2) Breakout sessions to discuss online teaching strategies & practices; and (3) Participant Feedback on Stearns Center Online Teaching Resources. Mason Faculty Panel (communal learning): Panel members will share & discuss their online teaching tips guided by the format of how an online course progresses through the semester, i.e., tips for the start of a course; tips during a course; and tips for wrapping up/ending a course. "Online teaching survival tips" will emphasize strategies for managing time and workload while teaching online. The panel also will address specific questions from the session participants about online teaching strategies. Breakout Groups will allow participants to discuss and share online teaching strategies and practices with panelists. Participant Feedback (conclusion & next steps): The session will conclude with panelists and participants discussing what resources are recommended to better support online teaching at Mason. What can Stearns Center-Digital Learning do to support faculty teaching online? And how can online faculty support each other? Participants will be provided with link to survey to share their recommendations for Stearns Center resources for online teaching. CITED Wright, M. 2016. Evidence-Based Principles for Online Faculty Development. EDUCAUSE Review® (November 14, 2016). https://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/11/evidence-based-principles-for-online-faculty-development (accessed 2/26/2020).


Amino sugars and amino acids, including the bacterial biomarkers muramic acid and D‐amino acids, were measured to investigate the diagenetic alterations of and microbial contributions to detrital organic matter in the Amazon River system. Three size fractions of detrital material were analyzed: coarse and fine particulate organic matter (CPOM and FPOM), and ultrafiltered dissolved organic matter (UDOM). CPOM was depleted in amino sugars and had high percentages of total N as amino acids (32‐37%), consistent with relatively fresh plant debris being a major source of CPOM. FPOM had the highest percentages of total C as amino acids (5‐8%), and its composition appeared to be influenced by the preferential sorption of N‐containing molecules. UDOM had the highest percentages of total N as amino sugars (up to 2.3%) indicating the relatively important contributions from microorganisms. A consistent trend of increasing proportions of D‐amino acids among detrital size fractions, CPOM < FPOM < UDOM, suggests this parameter is a useful diagenetic indicator. About 4‐17% of the C and 17‐37% of the N in FPOM and CPOM were of bacterial origin based on D‐alanine and D‐glutamic acid yields. Similar bacterial contributions to UDOM were evident from the biomarker data, but they were not quantified due to insufficient information about representative yields of source biomarkers. Relationships between biomarker N and total N suggest that microbial activity influences the N content of detrital material. Bacterial contributions to detrital material were primarily as cellular remnants rather than living cells.


"Devising Theatre" combines a critical analysis of contemporary devised theatre practice with descriptions of selected companies, and suggestions for any group devising theatre from scratch. After identifying the unique nature of this type of performance, the author examines how devised theatre is perceived by professional practitioners, and provides an historical overview illustrating how it has evolved since the 1960s. She looks at the particular working practices and products of a number of professional companies, including a Reminiscence theatre for the elderly and a theatre-in-education group, and offers ideas and exercises for exploration and experimentation.