The soluble (S), loosely bound (LB) and tightly bound (TB) extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) were extracted from sludge flocs of a membrane bioreactor to evaluate their characteristics and adsorptive fouling. The degrees of adsorptive fouling by the EPS fractions were in the order S-EPS < TB-EPS < LB-EPS. The images of atomic force microscopy showed the membrane fouled by LB-EPS was rougher than that fouled by the other fractions. The adsorbed EPS layer, which was sensed by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, was found to be more rigid and compact for LB-EPS, compared with the other EPS fractions. The excitation-emission matrix and Fourier transform infrared techniques were also used to characterize the individual EPS fractions. Compared with S-EPS and TB-EPS, the LB-EPS contained a larger amount of aromatic protein and less carbohydrates and lipids, exhibiting characteristics of greater aromaticity and hydrophobicity. These characteristics should be responsible for more severe fouling, and the stiffer and more compact structure of the adsorbed layer.


Bananas, perhaps the most recognisable of fruits, are nowhere more genetically diverse than in the southwest Pacific, where parthenocarpic fruit originated according to recent biomolecular evidence. In the wider Indo-Malesian area, homeland of the genus Musa L., understanding the domestication of bananas must include consideration of a much greater range of Musa species than just the few implicated in the parentage of the modern cultivars with seedless fruit. Despite ethnobotanical evidence that the genus has been valued for many more products than the edible fruit, the role of other products in the process of domestication is seldom considered. As well as documenting the development and spread of seedless cultivars, we need to develop models of the fundamental Indo-Malesian practices through which the greater range of species and products, seeds and all, were managed in diverse socio-cultural and environmental circumstances.


Spending on electricity energy-efficiency programs was responsible for most of the growth (and decline), and almost all of the energy savings from U. S. utility demand-side management (DSM) programs between 1990 and 1998. As a result of restructuring, utilities may never again assume such an important role in promoting electricity energy efficiency. However, as governments consider future domestic policies to promote energy efficiency in response to global environmental commitments, the potential of large-scale energy efficiency programs will likely be discussed. This article presents new information on a critical issue that will surely arise in these discussions: how much does it cost to save energy through programs that use monetary incentives and targeted information to influence individual customer decisions? We present findings from a detailed examination of the complete costs and measured energy savings from the largest commercial sector DSM programs operated by U.S. electric utilities in 1992. We extend the methodological considerations first identified by Joskow and Marron (1992) regarding differences among utility cost accounting conventions and savings evaluation methods. We quantify the impact of missing and incomplete data and, to the extent they can be assessed, demonstrate that our assumptions to address them are conservative in that they err on the side of overstating the apparent cost of saved energy. We find that the programs, as a whole, have saved energy at a cost of 3.2c/kWh. When compared to the cost of the energy they allowed the sponsoring utilities to avoid generating or purchasing (in the absence of these programs), we find that the programs, as a whole, are cost effective.


Background: the first generation of biotechnology drugs is reaching, or has already reached, the patent expiry and a large number of biosimilars is entering the Italian pharmaceutical market. The objective of the analysis was to evaluate the economic impacts of biosimilars on the national health expenditure in Italy between 2014 and 2020. Methods: Based on the information deriving from consumption per standard unit and equivalent patients, it was estimated monthly expenditure for some of the biological drugs currently available in Italy that have had or will have a patent expiry within the analysis period (infliximab, etanercept, adalimumab, insulin glargine, trastuzumab, rituximab, bevacizumab and insulin aspart). Pharmaceutical expenditure was calculated on hospital sales prices net of transparent discounts required by law and visible from the AIFA database. Three alternative scenarios have been developed based on the perceptions of a board of clinical experts, pharmacologists and pharmacoeconomists involved in the study. The experts involved analyzed the estimates of treated patients between 2014 and 2017 and reports their hypothetical biosimilar penetration during the period 2018-2020. The results were represented as the difference between the estimated expenditure in the absence of biosimilars and the estimated expenditure in the presence of biosimilars with the real or hypothetical biosimilar penetration. Results: considering the standard units dispensed for each year, the economic model estimate an annual expenditure in 2014 equal to € 1.47 billion for the molecules considered in the analysis. These estimates rise to € 1.54, € 1.50 billion and € 1.51 billion during 2015, 2016 and 2017 in the scenario without biosimilar introduction. Biosimilar introduction generates cost savings between € 3.8 million in 2015 and € 32.9 million in 2017 if compared with the scenario without. Assuming an increasing biosimilar penetration between 2018 and 2020, scenario analysis estimates a cumulative cost reduction equal to € 597 million. Conclusions: Overall, biosimilar penetration generates important cost reduction that could be re-invested in the National Health Sistem.


textabstractThis dissertation focuses on the ongoing interactions that take place between buyers and sellers of business services after the contract has been signed. This ongoing interaction is important since services are produced and consumed simultaneously; therefore, both buyer and seller have to make an effort to ensure that the ongoing service exchange is successful. The Interaction Model originally developed by the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group for studying buyer-supplier interactions in marketing and purchasing of industrial goods, is adopted and adapted to business services. As such, a classification is brought forward that differentiates between various business services and the required customer-supplier interface and interaction patterns on the basis of how the service is used in the buying company's business process. The classification distinguishes four types of services: component, semi-manufactured, instrumental and consumption services.
The usability and validity of this classification is investigated in two subsequent series of theory-building case studies at various buying companies. As such, distinctive effective patterns of interaction were developed for the different types of services. Subsequently, theory testing research is conducted to investigate whether these effective patterns represent necessary conditions for successful ongoing service exchange. Furthermore, the usefulness of the classification for providers of business services is explored, and a link between ongoing interaction and initial purchasing is established.


Anisakiasis is caused by a fish parasite of the Nematode family. This kind of rare helminthozoonosis can mainly be found in countries where consumption of raw fish is traditionally high like Japan, the Netherlands, Pacific Islands, South Europe, Scandinavia, USA, and Canada. Man is the wrong hoste. Clinical manifestation depends on the localisation of penetration in the GI tract. In Japan, predominantly the stomach is affected in 97 % of cases, probably due to hypo- and achlorhydria; whereas mainly intestinal anisakiasis occurs in Europa. We report on a 67-year-old male patient with a gastric infestation of anisakiasis. The patient was on proton pump inhibitor which migh have caused the localisation of the infestation. The anisakis was an accidental endoscopic finding in a patient for control of an H. p.-positive gastric ulcer. Otherwise the patient was free of pain. The helminth (larva III) was endoscopically extracted. Thereafter, the patient remained in good health. Anisakis serology as well as repeated differential blood counts were without finding. The uneventful medical history and the normal blood findings indicate that our patient had a very early stage of infestation of anisakiasis. The patient reported no stay outside of Austria within the last years. However, he consumed on a regular basis "rolled pickled herring" produced by a well-known Viennese company for canned fish. This is the first documented case of this rare helminthozoonosis acquired in Austria.


The framework of normalizing flows provides a general strategy for flexible variational inference of posteriors over latent variables. We propose a new type of normalizing flow, inverse autoregressive flow (IAF), that, in contrast to earlier published flows, scales well to high-dimensional latent spaces. The proposed flow consists of a chain of invertible transformations, where each transformation is based on an autoregressive neural network. In experiments, we show that IAF significantly improves upon diagonal Gaussian approximate posteriors. In addition, we demonstrate that a novel type of variational autoencoder, coupled with IAF, is competitive with neural autoregressive models in terms of attained log-likelihood on natural images, while allowing significantly faster synthesis.


Extreme Programming (XP) as a methodology for software development is now widely known. There are numerous case studies and reports of it's successful application in real world projects as well as in the academic sector. But it is equally important to experience and report things that went wrong. This paper is about problems and pitfalls that can occur when introducing XP. They are explained in detail, analyzed, and possible solutions are suggested.


Received: April 05, 2019 Accepted: May 15, 2019 Published: May 31, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 3 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.3.2 The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of an ancient Mesopotamian civilization that its protagonist, Gilgamesh in many aspects is comparable with Rostam, the protagonist of Iranian mythology, and Shahnameh which is known as The Book of Kings written by Ferdowsī. Comparing both characters, we encounter loads of similarities that can be considered as archetypes that are untrained tendency to experience things in a certain way and contain images and phenomena from their ancestors. The similarities in both epic heroes show that the heroic mythology—though very different in detail—have explicitly common structural and infrastructural analogies. Although archetypal heroes are different in details, the more they are recognized, the more their structural and infrastructural similarities come to light. They all follow a global pattern that suggests the existence of examples in the collective subconscious mind of two authors. The human mind digests events of the world, imagines, and interprets the myths as the mystery. Thus, the ability to arouse humankind against the phenomena is the beginning of humanity's attempt to learn myths. KEYWORDS


When maintaining the biodiversity and ecological integrity of forests is a goal of
management, a primary requirement is to assess the status, condition, conservation
value of each forest, and change in forest conditions over time. GIS procedures were
used here to compare different map-based surveys and look in detail at changes in
woodlands of the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, from 1970 to 2000. The
maps from the 1970s and 1980s generated by Silsoe College did not compare well
with the map from the 1990s produced by the Forestry Commission and no
meaningful changes could be measured. This was attributed to difficulties with
comparison of different interpretations and classification schemes used by the two
organisations. A series of landscape surveys using the same minimum mapping unit,
classification scheme, and methodology in general is needed.
The potential changes in broadleaved and scrub woodland area were modelled based
on the two most extreme climate change scenarios, termed the Low and High
scenarios. Temperature and rainfall models formed the basis for logistic regressions of
woodland type and distribution. A declining trend in probability of presence for both
woodland types from the present sites was shown under the UKCIP98 High climate
change scenario. The results emphasized the conceptual difficulties in using
fragments of woodland within the realised niche rather than the fundamental niche as
the basis for environmental modelling of plant community distributions.
GIS based models were generated to address the key question in the biodiversity
action plan process of where should new woodland be created or plantations restored.
Ecological criteria were developed to identify the priority areas for native woodland
expansion taking into account of the requirements for successful woodland expansion
from the nature point of view and specific policy aims. The results were interesting
and suggested that there is ample land potentially suitable in Snowdonia for new
native woodland. The models could be used to aid decision-making for new native
woodland in the National Park.
A further extension of GIS-based modelling was developed for the prediction of
individual NVC types and BAP priority woodland types. The environmental spaces
occupied by the fragments of NVC woodland types currently present in Snowdonia
were defined and used as templates to produce maps of potentially suitable sites for
the occurrence of each NVC type. The results were not as clear-cut as had been hoped
because of overlaps in the predicted occurrences of various woodland types.
Independent verification of the predictions using non-spatial data for 24 sites revealed
that the model produced was very poor. This was not, however, a fault of the
modelling but a reflection of the fact that some of the environmental data were at too
coarse a scale and that NVC types are not solely determined by environmental factors.
In spite of some weaknesses in the data, the use of GIS for modelling these scenarios
proved useful. Nowadays, forest policies in Wales, Europe and elsewhere are
changing rapidly to meet modified global, national, and local objectives. GIS is, and
will increasingly be so, proving to be a useful and flexible tool for translating forest
policy into practical application on the ground.


In earlier work, I explored the role of fiduciary duties in the bankruptcy trustee's administration of a debtor's estate, noting the absence of any explicit demarcation of those duties in the Bankruptcy Code. In this piece, I report the highlights of that analysis and see to what extent (if any) fiduciary duties can inform policy prescriptions for the issue of bankruptcy claims trading, colorfully referred to by some as the world of "bankruptcy M&A." My initial take is pessimistic. Fiduciary duties, at least as traditionally conceived in bankruptcy, are unlikely to provide much help. But there is still a source of optimism. Namely, the structural and procedural institutions of the Bankruptcy Code and court system may, through a transparent, courtsupervised litigation process, achieve many of the same conflict-checking functions with which fiduciary duty law concerns itself.


This book offers an ethnography of the beliefs and practices of Vodu, as they relate to daily life in an ethnic Ewe fishing community on the coast of southern Togo.


The classical multivariate theory has been largely based on the multivariate normal distribution (MVN): the scarcity of alternative models for the meaningful and consistent analysis of multiresponse data is a well recognised problem. Further, the complexity of generalising many non-normal univariate distributions makes it undesirable or impossible to use their multivariate versions. Hence, it seems reasonable to inquire about ways of transforming the data so as to enable the use of more familiar statistical techniques that are based implicitly or explicitly on the normal distribution. Techniques for developing data-based transformations of univariate observations have been proposed by several authors. However, there is only one major technique in the multivariate (p-variable) case by Andrews et. al. [1971]. Their approach extended the power transformations proposed by Box & Cox [1964] to the problem of estimating power transformations of multiresponse data so as to enhance joint normality. The approach estimates the vector of transformation parameters by numerically maximising the log-likelihood function. However, since there are several parameters to be estimated, p(p+5)/2 for multivariate data without regression, the resulting maximisation is of high dimension, even with modest values of p and sample size n. The purpose of the thesis is to develop computationally simpler and more informative statistical procedures which are incorporated in a package. The thesis is in three main parts: - A proposed complementary procedure to the log-likelihood approach which attempts to reduce the size of the computational requirements for obtaining the estimates. Though computational simplicity is the main factor, the statistical qualities of the estimates are not compromised, indeed the estimated values are numerically identical to those of the log-likelihood. Further, the procedure implicitly produces diagnostic statistics and some useful statistical quantities describing the structure of the data. The technique is a generalisation of the constructed variables method of obtaining quick estimates for transformation parameters [Atkinson 1985]. To take into account the multiresponse nature of the data and, hence, joint estimates, a seemingly unrelated regression is carried out. The algorithm is iterative. However, there is considerable savings in the number of iterations required to converge to the maximum likelihood (MLE) estimates compared to those using the log-likelihood function. The technique is refered to as the Seemingly Unrelated Regressions/Constructed Variable (SURCON) analysis, and the estimates obtained are the Surcon estimates. - The influence of individual observations on the need for transformations is quite crucial and, hence, it is necessary to investigate the data for any spurious or suspicious observations, outliers. The thesis also proposes an iterative technique for detecting and identifying outliers based on Mahalanobis distances computed from sub-samples of the observations. The results of the analysis are displayed in a graphical summary called the Stalactite Chart, hence, the analysis is refered to as the Stalactite Analysis. - The development of a userfriendly microcomputer-based statistical package which incorporates the above techniques. The package is written in the C programming language.


The development of Cyber-Physical Systems benefits from better methods and tools to support the simulation and verification of hybrid (continuous/discrete) models. Acumen is an open source testbed for exploring the design space of what rigorous-but-practical next-generation tools can deliver to developers. Central to Acumen is the notion of rigorous simulation. Like verification tools, rigorous simulation is intended to provide guarantees about the behavior of the system. Like traditional simulation tools, it is intended to be intuitive, practical, and scalable. Whether these two goals can be achieved simultaneously is an important, long-term challenge. This paper proposes a design principle that can play an important role in meeting this challenge. The principle addresses the criticism that accumulating numerical errors is a serious impediment to practical rigorous simulation. It is inspired by a twofold insight: one relating to the nature of systems engineered in the real world, and the other relating to how numerical errors in the simulation of a model can be recast as errors in the state or parameters of the model in the simulation. We present a suite of small, concrete benchmarks that can be used to assess the extent to which a rigorous simulator upholds the proposed principle. We also report on which benchmarks Acumen's current rigorous simulator already succeeds and which ones remain challenging.


Geminivirus infecting pepper: symptom variation and transmission study Infection of geminiviruses has been reported to cause signz3cantyield loss on various crops. Polymerase chain reaction was able to detect geminivirus infection on pepper samples around Bogor and Cipanas, West Java. Symptom variation and transmission of the geminivirus infectingpepper was studied using five solanaceae plants with three dzgerent transmission mannec i.e. mechanical inoculation, side grafirng, and insect vector. The transmission study showed that mechanical inoculation was not able to transmit the geminivirus, while side grafting and insect vector, Bemisia tabaci, caused infection with symptoms varies from yellow mosaic, leaf curl leafdistortion, to stunting of the plant. Higher infection was observed on pepper var. Hot Chilli through B. tabaci (8009) and side grafting (71.4%) than those on chilli pepper and tomato. DNA fiagment of - 1.7 kb was amplified wing PCRfim those plants showing symptoms, but no DNA fiagment was observedfrom symptomless eggplant and tobacco var. White Burley. Thus it can be concluded that the last two kina3 ofplants were resistant to the geminivirus infectingpepper.


Understanding the meaning of text often involves reasoning about entities and their relationships. This requires identifying textual mentions of entities, linking them to a canonical concept, and discerning their relationships. These tasks are nearly always viewed as separate components within a pipeline, each requiring a distinct model and training data. While relation extraction can often be trained with readily available weak or distant supervision, entity linkers typically require expensive mention-level supervision – which is not available in many domains. Instead, we propose a model which is trained to simultaneously produce entity linking and relation decisions while requiring no mention-level annotations. This approach avoids cascading errors that arise from pipelined methods and more accurately predicts entity relationships from text. We show that our model outperforms a state-of-the art entity linking and relation extraction pipeline on two biomedical datasets and can drastically improve the overall recall of the system.


Attitudes have been described for different languages, with varying labels or contexts of occurrence for same labels. It renders cross-cultural comparison uncertain. A corpus was designed to bypass these limitations. This paper focuses on USA English produced by L1 and L2 speakers. The best performances in 9 attitudes are used in a forced-choice test, in both audio and visual modalities. Results show that 6 categories group the presented attitudes in coherent sets. The cultural origin affects marginally the categorisation of the expressions. An acoustic analysis of the fundamental frequency and intensity allows to test the predictions of two theoretical propositions – the Frequency code and the Effort code. It concludes to a main coherence of cross-language expressivity, and discusses differences. For negative expressions of imposition, L1 speakers follow the Frequency code – and L1 listeners expect this; L2 speakers use the Effort code in the same situations, leading to confusions in the audio-only modality. Differences for seduction and irony are also discussed.


ABSTRACT Modern sediments of the James River estuary have been studied to characterize the lithofacies and to relate the facies pattern to estuary morphology and the energy regime. The estuary was formed by Holocene drowning of a river valley incised in Cenozoic coastal plain deposits. Morphologic analysis of sinuosity, width-depth ratios, and convergence characteristics reveals three compartments: 1) bay-mouth, 2) estuary funnel and 3) meander zone. Each compartment exhibits a characteristic lithofacies reflecting different proportions of wave, tidal and fluvial energy. These lithofacies form a longitudinal tripartite pattern, i.e., sand-mud--sand, with coarse-grained sediment at the energetic ends of the system. The seaward facies boundary is transitional as a result of mixing fluvial and ma ine sediment. In contrast, the landward boundary is abrupt as a result of a rapid seaward decrease in the river flood bedload which is partly attenuated by the tide. The tripartite facies develop in a transgressive wedge filling the path of the pre-Holocene fluvial drainage. A model is proposed for recognizing the sequence of ancient transgressive estuarine facies. The sequence fines upward except at the mouth and reflects the seaward evolution of environments from fluvial to fluvial estuarine, estuarine and marine estuarine.


The genus Cuscuta (dodders, Convolvulaceae) is one of the most significant lineages of parasitic plants from economic, conservation, and anthropogenic perspectives. Members of the genus are twining stem parasites with no roots, lacking almost completely chlorophyll or its function, and gather required nutrition from their host via specialized haustorial connections. While there are almost 200 described species, problems with species identification exist because many diagnostic characters are restricted to their tiny flowers. Probably contributing to this identification difficulty is the fact that the group has not received taxonomic attention for over 75 years; even knowledge of its basic reproductive biology is sparse. Together these conditions have had negative consequences for applied research on this group. More recently, Cuscuta have witnessed a scientific rejuvenation. Molecular phylogenies have been published for 2 of the 3 major infrageneric lineages, 5 of the 15 clades of subg. Grammica have received taxonomic revisions, and work on their basic reproductive ecology has gained momentum. Still lacking, however, are reliable morphological characters that are able to support molecular phylogenies, aid in the description of new sections or species, or provide a solid morphological framework within which ecological variables can be compared. This work presents a thorough survey of the structural diversity of two of the most important, and systematically relevant, reproductive structures in Cuscuta: pollen and the gynoecium. While a number of characters were initially considered, a total of 15 qualitative and 14 quantitative characters were included in analysis. A reclassification of pollen and stigma morphology was required to better account for the variation that is ii present in these structures. Character states were coded using Thiele's gap-weighting, and many of the characters were optimized onto a phylogenetic supertree that resulted from the combination of three large-scale phylogenies based on plastid trnL-F and nuclear ITS sequences. Key results are discussed in terms of their ecologic, systematic, taxonomic, cytological or developmental significance.


Over the past decade, I have been involved with an "Exposure and Dialogue Program" (EDP), which literally exposes analysts and policy makers to the lived reality of poor women's lives by getting them to spend a few days experiencing that life. After each EDP, participants are encouraged to write up their experiences in the form of "personal" and "technical" notes. This compendium brings together the personal notes I did for my five exposures.


Easy to understand and to the point, PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT SCIENCE uses an active-learning approach and realistic problems to help you understand and take advantage of the power of spreadsheet modeling. With real examples and problems drawn from finance, marketing, and operations research, you will easily come to see how management science applies to your chosen profession and how you can use it on the job. The authors emphasize modeling over algebraic formulations and memorization of particular models. The essentials resource website, whose access is available with every new book, includes links to the following add-ins: the Palisade Decision Tools Suite (@RISK, StatTools, PrecisionTree, TopRank, RISKOptimizer, NeuralTools, and Evolver); and SolverTable, which allows you to do sensitivity analysis. All of these add-ins have been revised for Excel 2010.


The journal of Lourens Lourenszoon is a brief original description of his observations of seven years among the Arocouro Indians. He gives a detailed description of his stay among these Indians and their way of life. The arrival of many European traders on the Guiana coasts at the beginning of the 17th century form the starting point of intensive trading activities between European seafarers and South American Indians at the lower Oyapock River. European-made ware and tools from this early historic period have been found at late precolonial and protohistoric archaeological sites forming archaeological evidence of contacts between the Dutch and the Indian tribes of what is now eastern French Guiana and northern Amapa state, in Brazil. The journal of Lourens Lourenszoon mentions that various Indian tribes are part of a political alliance under the leadership of the Arocouros. Eventually, this alliance vanished during the 17th century due to continuing warfare and decimation of several ethnic groups. The remnants of these populations grouped together and gave birth to the present day Palikur.


In the highly competitive gig-economy, companies are constantly trying to leverage whatever they can to gain a competitive advantage over competitors. One method of doing so is saving on employment costs by classifying workers as independent contractors. There are two ways to accomplish this: (1) structure the business as an internet-based marketplace or platform; or (2) structure the relationship between the business and the worker in a way that ensures the worker remains classified as an independent contractor under either the common law control test or the economic realities test. Both Uber and Lyft have faced accusations of intentionally misclassifying their workers to utilize this competitive advantage. Taking an in-depth look at Uber's and Lyft's business models reveals that both companies have failed to accomplish either of the two methods above, indicating their workers may in fact be misclassified. TaskRabbit's model, on the other hand, has key distinguishing characteristics that make it more of a marketplace than Uber or Lyft while also allowing for proper classification of its workers as independent contractors under both the common law control and the economic realities tests. Therefore, TaskRabbit's model allows the company to legally enjoy the benefits of classifying its workers as independent contractors, providing it a competitive edge in the gig-economy.


Phenylephrine is often used to treat intraoperative hypotension. Previous studies have shown that the FloTrac cardiac monitor may overestimate cardiac output (CO) changes following phenylephrine administration. A new algorithm (4th generation) has been developed to improve performance in this setting. We performed a prospective observational study to assess the effects of phenylephrine administration on CO values measured by the 3rd and 4th generation FloTrac algorithms. 54 patients were enrolled in this study. We used the Nexfin, a pulse contour method shown to be insensitive to vasopressor administration, as the reference method. Radial arterial pressures were recorded continuously in patients undergoing surgery. Phenylephrine administration times were documented. Arterial pressure recordings were subsequently analyzed offline using three different pulse contour analysis algorithms: FloTrac 3rd generation (G3), FloTrac 4th generation (G4), and Nexfin (nf). One minute of hemodynamic measurements was analyzed immediately before phenylephrine administration and then repeated when the mean arterial pressure peaked. A total of 157 (4.6 ± 3.2 per patient, range 1–15) paired sets of hemodynamic recordings were analyzed. Phenylephrine induced a significant increase in stroke volume (SV) and CO with the FloTrac G3, but not with FloTrac G4 or Nexfin algorithms. Agreement between FloTrac G3 and Nexfin was: 0.23 ± 1.19 l/min and concordance was 51.1 %. In contrast, agreement between FloTrac G4 and Nexfin was: 0.19 ± 0.86 l/min and concordance was 87.2 %. In conclusion, the pulse contour method of measuring CO, as implemented in FloTrac 4th generation algorithm, has significantly improved its ability to track the changes in CO induced by phenylephrine.


Aim: To evaluate the antioxidant potential and free scavenging activity of T. zeylanicum powdered root extract. Material and Methods: The plant extract (50mg) obtained by soxhlet extraction method was dissolved separately in 50ml of methanol and the resultant solution serially diluted to concentrations 0.5, 0.25, 0.125 and 0.0625 mg/ml. The antioxidant potential and free radical scavenging activity were analysed using reducing power assay and hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity methods. Phytochemical analysis was performed on the plant extract to detect the presence of phytoconstituents. Results and Discussions: Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of phenolics, alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids and tannins. The flavonoids content were found to be 6.28±0.06 mg/gram of the dried extract. The reducing power assay showed that reducing ability of the extract were significantly increased with increasing concentration and were higher compared to the standard ascorbic acid. Methanolic extract of T. zeylanicum also showed good scavenging ability compared to the standard ascorbic acid. The IC?? values were found to be 0.122 mg/ml compared to standard ascorbic acid 0.717mg/ml. At a concentration of 1mg/ml, the scavenging percentages were 74.82 and 48.12 for T. zeylanicum extract and standard respectively. Conclusion: The result indicates the potential of T. zeylanicum as a source of antioxidants relevant to wound treatment.


To determine the cause of a characteristic zonal chlorosis of ʻHoneycrisp' apple (Malus ×domestica Borkh.) leaves, we compared CO 2 assimilation, carbohydrate metabolism, the xanthophyll cycle and the antioxidant system between chlorotic leaves and normal leaves. Chlorotic leaves accumulated higher levels of nonstructural carbohydrates, particularly starch, sorbitol, sucrose, and fructose at both dusk and predawn, and no difference was found in total nonstructural carbohydrates between predawn and dusk. This indicates that carbon export was inhibited in chlorotic leaves. CO 2 assimilation and the key enzymes in the Calvin cycle, ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, NADP-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, phosphoribulokinase, stromal fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, and the key enzymes in starch and sorbitol synthesis, ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, cytosolic fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, and aldose 6-phosphate reductase were signifi cantly lower in chlorotic leaves than in normal leaves. However, sucrose phosphate synthase activity was higher in chlorotic leaves. In response to a reduced demand for photosynthetic electron transport, thermal dissipation of excitation energy (measured as nonphotochemical quenching of chlorophyll fl uores- cence) was enhanced in chlorotic leaves under full sun, lowering the effi ciency of excitation energy transfer to PSII reaction centers. This was accompanied by a corresponding increase in both xanthophyll cycle pool size (on a chlorophyll basis) and conversion of violaxanthin to antheraxanthin and zeaxanthin. The antioxidant system, including superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase and the ascorbate pool and glutathione pool, was up-regulated in chlorotic leaves in response to the increased generation of reactive oxygen species via photoreduction of oxygen. These fi ndings support the hypothesis that phloem loading and/or transport is partially or completely blocked in chlorotic leaves, and that excessive accumulation of nonstructural carbohydrates may cause feedback suppression of CO 2 assimilation via direct interference with chloroplast function and/or indirect repression of photosynthetic enzymes.


A tree farm, in simple terms, is an area of land that has been planted with seedlings of a
single timber species to be harvested for its wood. An agricultural farm can be defined as
land planted with food crops or pasture for grazing animals. From a visual perspective a
farmscape evokes historic, nostalgic notions of the pastoral landscape; whereas a tree farm
is silent, moody, ambiguous, and unintelligible.
A consideration of the impacts, both positive and negative, of timber plantations on farming
districts and the environment provides the context for this investigation. Discourses of
geography and land use, biology, economics and industry contribute to a multivalent
viewpoint. I use painting to represent the removal of pasture and the reforestation of the
farmscape where traditional crops are replaced by monocultural plantings of trees.
Repetitive flora motifs of Eucalyptus nitens leaves symbolise the plantations enveloping
former pasture. Common farming items are utilised as artefacts, remnants of a history lost.
The modular, multi-panelled format employed is informed by Imants Tillers; with particular
reference to Kangaroo Blank 1988 and his series Nature Speaks 1998-2000. Dividing the
picture plane into a grid facilitates the removal of random sections, enabling the images to
be broken down; with the empty pockets of space providing ambiguity, mystery and a
sense of demise. Other artists referenced include David Keeling and Ray Arnold who take
decisive political standpoints in their Tasmanian landscapes; Patrick Grieve and his highly
stylised farmscapes; Richard Wastell and his portrayal of the vulnerability of the land; and
Megan Walch, whose hauntingly dark depictions of tree branches in Skeletal 2010 pares
back into their dark, grotesque beauty. Edward Hopper's Gas 1940 was a pivotal painting
presenting the eerie, foreboding, cipher-like characteristics of plantation pine forests.
The significance of the effects that tree farms have on the transformation of the rural
landscape has proved a valuable topic for theoretical and visual research. Initially I paid no
heed to the existence of tree farms in my local area, but gradually over the course of the
project I began to question the impact on and changes to the rural community. Timber
plantations loom large over the traditional agricultural landscape, superficially disrupting the
pastoral and the picturesque while, as this project has identified, also impacting upon the
environment and rural communities.


In yeast, many tandemly arranged genes show peak expression in different phases of the metabolic cycle (YMC) or in different carbon sources, indicative of regulation by a bi-modal switch, but it is not clear how these switches are controlled. Using native elongating transcript analysis (NET-seq), we show that transcription itself is a component of bi-modal switches, facilitating reciprocal expression in gene clusters. HMS2, encoding a growth-regulated transcription factor, switches between sense- or antisense-dominant states that also coordinate up- and down-regulation of transcription at neighbouring genes. Engineering HMS2 reveals alternative mono-, di- or tri-cistronic and antisense transcription units (TUs), using different promoter and terminator combinations, that underlie state-switching. Promoters or terminators are excluded from functional TUs by read-through transcriptional interference, while antisense TUs insulate downstream genes from interference. We propose that the balance of transcriptional insulation and interference at gene clusters facilitates gene expression switches during intracellular and extracellular environmental change. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03635.001


This drawing was part of a body of drawings that explored the development of post-colonial modern day Alberta.  Through historical research of our pioneering past into the fragmented lives of those who came to our province to build what we have today, these images were meant to symbolize the struggle those individuals would have had in our largely patriarchal and imperialistic society. Like the conflicts faced by of many feminists  in our province, the fight for individual identity and autonomy is sometimes a compromise made in order to survive. In this case, the image of a man is used, but his distinguishing characteristics are concealed with the political symbol of Canada, as if he was nothing but a vessel to enact the ideas of others. He is both supporting the power of his country while being crushed under the weight of it, a double edge that continues to be examined by those who have the power to question and change our post-colonial society.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a case study that identifies the practical issues and implications of employer engagement through course design, delivery and employee commitment in a higher education course delivered in the financial services sector.Design/methodology/approach – Using a case study the paper draws on the course team (employer and university) experience of a higher education course delivered at a financial services institution over a two cohort period. Student application data and student feedback are used to identify the practical issues arising from course.Findings – The paper emphasises the importance of understanding the business of the employer, bespoke delivery models and employee commitment for increasing employer participation in higher skills in the work place, particularly for employers not traditionally engaging with universities for course delivery at undergraduate level.Originality/value – The paper explores issues for employers and universities for design, ...


Abstract Background: This study determined the profile of women seeking termination of pregnancy (TOP) in the Free State and whether TOP was used as a family planning method. Methods: Seven hundred and fifty women (15–47 years old) seeking TOP at the Reproductive Health Unit of the National Hospital in Bloemfontein were included in this cross-sectional study. The women who gave verbal consent completed a questionnaire during counselling. Results: The median age of the participants was 24 years and 77.3% were single. Most participants (73.3%) were not using any family planning method at the time of the study. One-fifth (19.1%) had previously had at least one TOP, while for 80.9% of the participants it was their first visit. Some participants (16.6%) considered TOP a family planning method, 39.7% were unsure and 43.7% indicated that TOP is not a family planning method. Thirty-nine women failed to answer this question. When asked the reason for TOP, 3.5% chose the option "contraceptive method". Conclusions: The relatively high percentage of participants who consider TOP a contraceptive method or are unsure, associated with the fact that most were young, single, not using contraception and had applied for induced abortion just because the conception represented an unwanted pregnancy, implies that some of our population is not aware that termination of pregnancy is not a family planning method.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of tibial stem geometry on stress shielding of the tibia for patients with a total knee replacement. Finite element analysis was used to study different tibial stem geometry types, as well as a vast array of different geometric sizes. Both a peg and stem type geometry were analyzed and compared in order to determine what type geometry causes the least amount of stress shielding. A static loading condition with a dynamic loading factor of three was used for the system and the stress responses were analyzed at regions of interest at various depths. Regions of interest include the posterior and medial regions, at depths ranging from the resurfaced tibial surface to 100 mm below the surface. It was found that the smallest stem/peg sizes produced the least amount of stress shielding, indicating that the less amount of foreign material within the tibia, the more natural the bending and stress response of the tibia. It was also concluded that for the loading conditions used in this study, peg type geometry yields a decreased amount of stress shielding when compared to stem type geometry. This is due to the fact that the peg type geometry allowed for more natural bending and a distributed loading transfer between two pegs rather than one long central stem. Further studies should be completed on other geometry types in order to understand how to best replicate the natural bending of the tibia.


This qualitative paper describes different pathways substance users experience as they decide whether to link to treatment or not after being assessed in a centralized intake unit in a Midwestern city. The narratives of 16 participants who did not link with treatment were compared with the narratives of 20 participants who did. Narratives from both groups described similar themes that were experienced differently. Nonlinkers were characterized by pretreatment abstinence, a negative experience with previous treatment, little previous engagement in a treatment career, and meaningful social support coming from AA. Linkers were more likely to continue using drugs before treatment entry, yet they described more readiness for treatment and were more engaged in a treatment career. The treatment careers approach provides a broader framework for understanding linkage versus nonlinkage to treatment.


Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) potently inhibits cholinergic signaling at the neuromuscular junction. The ideal countermeasures for BoNT exposure are monoclonal antibodies or BoNT antisera, which form BoNT-containing immune complexes that are rapidly cleared from the general circulation. Clearance of opsonized toxins may involve complement receptor-mediated immunoadherence to red blood cells (RBC) in primates or to platelets in rodents. Methods of enhancing immunoadherence of BoNT-specific antibodies may increase their potency in vivo. We designed a novel fusion protein (FP) to link biotinylated molecules to glycophorin A (GPA) on the RBC surface. The FP consists of an scFv specific for murine GPA fused to streptavidin. FP:mAb:BoNT complexes bound specifically to the RBC surface in vitro. In a mouse model of BoNT neutralization, the FP increased the potency of single and double antibody combinations in BoNT neutralization. A combination of two antibodies with the FP gave complete neutralization of 5,000 LD50 BoNT in mice. Neutralization in vivo was dependent on biotinylation of both antibodies and correlated with a reduction of plasma BoNT levels. In a post-exposure model of intoxication, FP:mAb complexes gave complete protection from a lethal BoNT/A1 dose when administered within 2 hours of toxin exposure. In a pre-exposure prophylaxis model, mice were fully protected for 72 hours following administration of the FP:mAb complex. These results demonstrate that RBC-targeted immunoadherence through the FP is a potent enhancer of BoNT neutralization by antibodies in vivo.


26 CAD/CAM 3 2017 It appears that there is still a great divide between those who utilise 3-D technology for dental implant planning and surgical placement of dental implants and those who do not. Clearly, decisions as to how to diagnose and treatment plan our patients may be the difference between success and failure. Recently an internet advertisement promoting an educational programme stated that 'Implant surgery is not complicated, easier than most other dentistry, and every dentist has the skills to surgically place implants. If you can take teeth out, you can put a dental implant in! You don't need expensive equipment for brain-guided surgery, you can learn it with no initial investment!' Implant dentistry has become one of the most predictable and successful treatment modalities in all of dentistry. If the only imaging modality utilised is a two-dimensional panoramic or periapical radiograph how can a clinician really know if a procedure will be complicated?


Dr. Lands expertly explains how curative/treatment interventions have unsuccessfully prevented diseases by ignoring the initial dietary causes of disease and death. With years of clinical and dietary expertise, he uses clear examples and current data to demonstrate how a moderate, balanced diet is the key to long-term good health. This edition includes an expanded glossary of words and concepts to help readers recognize how specific nutrient imbalances in our normal diets can contribute to disease and death. Also new to this edition are dietary tables showing the link between diet choices and the levels of healthy omega-3 in the body. As Dr. Lands eloquently states, "Curiosity is the beginning of understanding, and a steady pursuit of our questions seems to always lead us into new adventures and new understandings." The second edition of Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health reaffirms that the essential fatty acids in the foods we eat form hormones that have powerful effects on human life. While many find it hard to believe that a simple change of diet can affect so many aspects of their lives, this book aims to shift prevailing attitudes about the relationship between foods and disease.


This essay responds to Omri Ben-Shahar's review of my book, Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law (Princeton 2013). Ben-Shahar's review (available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2255161) unfortunately does not convey the nature of this book to possible readers. His preconceptions – reflecting primarily what I call "old-school Chicago"--apparently caused him to believe that some strong version of "autonomy" was the focus of my book. Instead, the book's purpose is to gather together a broad range of ideas relevant to boilerplate, in order to encourage readers to consider opportunities for improving our theory and practice. It makes detailed suggestions for improving our treatment of boilerplate, including chapters on how judges could improve on unconscionability and public policy decisions, how market initiatives might be harnessed to cabin boilerplate excesses, and how bad boilerplate might be regulated by tort law rather than contract law. Boilerplate does investigate the disjuncture between contract theories' various commitments to voluntariness and the realities of contemporary practice with respect to mass-market boilerplate; but it does so as backdrop to its main purpose.


Differential equations parameterized by neural networks become expensive to solve numerically as training progresses. We propose a remedy that encourages learned dynamics to be easier to solve. Specifically, we introduce a differentiable surrogate for the time cost of standard numerical solvers, using higher-order derivatives of solution trajectories. These derivatives are efficient to compute with Taylor-mode automatic differentiation. Optimizing this additional objective trades model performance against the time cost of solving the learned dynamics. We demonstrate our approach by training substantially faster, while nearly as accurate, models in supervised classification, density estimation, and time-series modelling tasks.


Legislation introduced for Queensland and New South Wales Coal mines provides different levels of prescription regarding specification of mine seals – generally in relation to capacity to withstand overpressure. In Queensland, the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation (2001), Section 341 (d) places a further onus on the statutory ventilation officer to 'ensure all ventilation control devices at the mine are properly constructed and maintained' and that the ventilation officer 'must ensure a ventilation control device mentioned in the regulation … and installed at the mine meets the design criteria stated' for the 'type of device'. There is limited or no prescription in regard to: • standards and methods for design; • standards and methods for testing of seals in the 'lab' and relating results to field conditions (albeit limited recognised standard test facilities exist); • standards and methods for testing of seals in the field; • requirement to consider specific product types in light of the particular application and specific locational environment; • site selection for the seal; • consideration of the operational environment of the seal; • consideration of potential water head applied to the seal; • control and state of the ground surrounding the seal; • testing/acceptance criteria for a given seal, identification of defects in installation eg filling voids, etc (other than generic product tests in regard to overpressure/leakage, which may or may not bear relevance to the specific coal mine application, environment and service duty); • seal leakage limits (although NSW uses the term 'airtight'); • requirement for and systems to maintain the seal, whether at design rating or otherwise; • guidance in regard to criteria for decisions to repair or identify the need to replace seals; • acceptable and effective methods to complete repair of seals; and • need for methods to assess effectiveness of repair in regard to both leakage and overpressure rating. Based on the experience of the author, it appears that risk management and life cycle approach to seals has not been adopted to the same extent as for other aspects of operations. Further, because of the number of disciplines and personnel involved that may influence various factors affecting seal integrity, the opportunity for oversight or unclear allocation of responsibility is considerable. While suppliers can provide explosion or design rated seals, this should only be a starting point for application of the product in a coal mine. Application is often considered by mine planning staff (taking into consideration mine environment parameters such as water, control of gas, spontaneous combustion risk, etc) in conjunction with the colliery ventilation officer, and then construction completed by contractors under supervision of operational staff. After construction, seals often are managed by operational personnel with input from the ventilation officer. Input of the geotechnical engineer into pillar design, roadway opening size, ground support specification and most stable seal location is also required. The need for a customised design approach for each seal site is proposed in order to take into account the many and variable factors that may influence a site so that improved seal performance reliability and predictability can be developed. A program of quantitative as well as qualitative monitoring of performance and triggers for rectification or maintenance action is required, and would provide support to the aforementioned proposal. Many mines rely on visual/audible inspection and periodic bag sampling as the primary means of assessment. Other significant factors such as seal material properties, rib degradation, convergence, floor heave, effects of water on both structural integrity of the seal as well as the air tightness of the seal do not generally receive the same level of attention. Based on the above observations, the author has compiled a reference checklist in regard to the above matters, including aspects of and approaches to mine and pillar design, geotechnical modelling and data collection, civil engineering design, site evaluation and practical options available. It is apparent that while some research has in isolation examined issues such as overpressure resistance, leakage performance, seal materials, rib sealing, effects of longwall mining and assessment of seal construction and integrity, further research may be required to deliver answers to many of the issues identified above to assist the industry and service providers develop and improve standards.


Adaptive educational hypermedia (AEH - a branch of web-based learning) systems seek to personalise the learning experience for their users. User modelling can be performed using various criteria, such as prior ability or domain-specific knowledge, in systems such as WHURLE [1], AHA! [2] and MOT [3]. These user preferences, forming a user profile, are usually stored in a database, and integrated with the AEH learning environment. The learner is then presented with material that is best suited to them, with adaptation occurring at either the content or link level, or both.

WHURLE (Web-based Hierarchical Universal Reactive Learning Environment) is an AEH system that has been used with many types of students, from secondary schools to those in Higher Education. It is a hypermedia-rich educational tool, suitable for all subjects, that seeks to address the pedagogical limitations of existing commercial Virtual Learning Environments. Its current user model is broadly based upon domain-specific knowledge. Investigations are under way to implement a user model based on learning style theory. This may be integrated with the early user model, or developed simply as a stand-alone module. Uniquely, WHURLE can change the user model used, as it is not a 'hard-wired' part of the system, but rather a component that can easily be interchanged.

Learning style theory advocates that since individuals are all different, they should learn in different ways; this suggests a natural integration with the principles of adaptive educational tools. There are many different learning styles in use around the world, such as the Dunn and Dunn model, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, Kolb's theory of experiential learning and Riding and Rayner's Cognitive Styles Analysis. We will be discussing how we have implemented the Felder- Silverman Inventory of Learning Styles [4] into the WHURLE architecture in an attempt to enhance the learning experience for users.


A novel class of NMR expts., based on the systematic variation of 3 time variables, permits both the identification of exchange networks and the direct measurement of the corresponding rate consts. in soln. Linear combinations of cross sections taken from 2 dimensional spectra allow a straightforward anal. of nonexponential recovery behavior by identifying normal modes. The line widths of the resulting Lorentzian line shapes provide a direct measure of the rate consts. of various dynamic processes, such as chem. exchange, transient Overhauser effects, and spin-lattice relaxation. [on SciFinder (R)]


In this paper we performed steady-state and time-resolved near-field scanning optical spectroscopy on GaN/AlN quantum dot (QD) structures and InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs). The morphology of the QD sample is composed of islands in the 500-1000 nm range on the top of which dots nucleate. These islands are separated by slightly smaller structures showing less intense luminescence. Time-resolved photoluminescence mapping (spatially and spectrally resolved) of InGaN/GaN MQW structures revealed bright and dark spots with nearly constant peak energy and time decay. The results suggest that the bright and dark spots of the samples correspond to islands with higher and lower absolute number of QD-like regions where the excitons are localized.


The CARES Act forgives federal student loan payments with due dates between March 27, 2020 and September 30, 2020 and suspends the minimum required distribution rules for distributions otherwise due during the 2020 calendar year. The CARES Act also provides cash flow relief for qualified individuals with savings and retirement benefits by enhancing provisions for direct loans and indirect loans (repayable distributions) of such benefits.

Guidance is needed to address at least six major issues. Who are qualified individuals, and how may they may be determined? What notices are required pertaining to the enhanced loan provisions, and to the enhanced distribution provisions? What is the DOL position with respect to fiduciary responsibility requirements pertaining to the enhanced direct and to the indirect loan provisions? Must plans defer loan payment due dates by qualified individuals for due dates between March 27 and December 31, 2020 in the same manner as IRS Notice 2020-23 requires plans to do so for all participants and beneficiaries for due dates between April 1 and July 14, 2020 How do plans determine the new amortization schedule for those deferring such payments? Must plan administrators give qualified individuals the right to avoid withholding on the enhanced distributions that the Act calls coronavirus-related distributions in the same manner that plan administrators must do so for all participants and beneficiaries on the distributions that would be 2020 required minimum distributions, absent the CARES Act? May qualified individuals repay all or only some coronavirus-related distributions within three years to an eligible retirement plan?

The longer this guidance is delayed, particularly with respect to the definition and the determination of a qualified individual, the longer will the relief to individuals needing such relief be delayed and the longer will those individuals be unaware of the available relief.


Virtual bidding is a type of transaction introduced into wholesale electricity markets to improve competition and pricing. This paper analyzes the theory behind virtual bidding and describes circumstances under which it does not work as advertised. The case for virtual bidding is predicated on an oversimplified model of the multi-settlement market design. The complexity of the unit commitment and optimal power flow problems forces the actual market algorithms to make compromises with the theoretical model. These compromises create situations in which virtual bidders can profit without improving system performance. Indeed, in these situations, virtual bidding can add real costs to system operation. The paper illustrates this with a specific case study of virtual bidding in California, and with a matching numerical illustration. The paper explains the general nature of the problem with experiences in other regions and other situations. The fault with virtual bidding identified in this paper needs to be incorporated into any assessment of the costs and benefits of virtual bidding.


Abstract Background: Snakebites remain a source of considerable morbidity and mortality in many countries, with an estimated global true incidence of envenomation exceeding five million a year, with about 100 000 of these cases developing severe sequelae. Despite the availability of polyvalent snake antivenom, inappropriate first aid, regional effects of envenomation and inappropriate use of antivenom result in significant and at times potentially avoidable morbidity and mortality, particularly in children. The study was undertaken in Lephalale (previously Ellisras) Hospital, Limpopo Province, due to the frequency of snakebites managed at the hospital. Methods: This was a record-based retrospective study in which patient files with the diagnosis of snakebite were reviewed. The objective of this study was to document the management of snakebites at Lephalale Hospital, a rural hospital in South Africa. The hospital files of all patients managed at the hospital for snakebites from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2001 were reviewed. Results: Seventy patients were treated for snakebites during the study period. The results showed a male preponderance (60%) and a mean age of 27.3 years among the reported cases. Twenty-nine patients (41.1%) were bitten between dusk and dawn (18:00 and 06:00), 43 (61.4%) were bitten on the lower limb and the mean duration of admission in the wards was 4.2 days. Twenty-one bites (30%) were attributed to known poisonous snakes, 22 (31.4%) patients received polyvalent antivenom, 42 (60%) received promethazine, which has not been shown to prevent anaphylactic reactions, 12 (17.1%) developed complications and two died (a case fatality rate of 2.9%). None of the patients was given tetanus toxoid as prophylaxis, as no previous tetanus immunisation was documented. Conclusions: The findings of this study highlight gaps in the management of snakebites at this rural hospital where they were treated frequently. It is crucial for primary care physicians to be familiar with the most common venomous snakes in South Africa and the management of their bites in humans. Elevation of the affected limb, administration of intravenous fluids and administration of analgesia, with close monitoring of patients during and after antivenom administration, form the basis of most clinical protocols on the management of snakebites.


Locally produced metallurgical grade silicon (MG-Si ~ 97%) was upgraded by using wet-milling process. This is including milling of MG-Si in presence of 2M HCl solution for different time periods up to 60 min. The effect of milling time in HCl solution was studied. Soaking of the milled products (at optimum milling time 15 min) with continuous stirring in the same solution of 2M HCl for interval time up to 240 min also were investigated. Finally, the effect of addition of 2M HF to the milled product was discussed. The leached samples were investigated by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). It was found that, 99.92% purity of MG-Si was achieved after 15 min milling time with 2M HCl followed by addition 2M HF for 240 min with continuous stirring. About 97 % removal efficiency of the impurities was obtained.


At times,' writes Golo Mann, 'the Germans seem a philosophical people, at others the most practical and most materialistic at times the most peaceful, at others the most domineering and brutal. Time after time they have surprised the world by things least expected of them.' It is this quality of paradox, even of mystery, in the German nation that the distinguished historian renders with such subtlety and penetration in this celebrated study. It traces the whole sweep of intellectual development in Germany since the French Revolution. As well as chronicling historic events, the book deals in detail with the contributions of philosophers, poets and novelists alongside those of parliamentarians and generals.


The spatial pattern of lichen species richness was analyzed in a forest ecosystem impacted for 50 years by industrial emissions from a steelworks. Geostatistical tools were used to characterize the spatial pattern of the number of lichen species and multiple regression analysis was used to identify factors influencing it. Spatial analysis showed high variation of lichen species richness on a local scale, caused by patchiness of natural habitat factors (species composition of trees, their age, shade, etc.). On a large spatial scale, species richness differentiated the western from the eastern part of the forest. The western part, closer to the sources of pollution, had fewer species (average 6–10 per locality) than the eastern part (10–15 per locality). Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationships between the species richness of lichens and several environmental variables: input of ions with bulk precipitation (SO42−, NO−3, Cl−, Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe3+, Zn3+, Pb2+, Cd2+), distance to forest edge, tree stand age, and number of species per locality. Regression analysis was preceded by factor analysis for the input of ions to obtain uncorrelated variables. Regression explained 53% of the variation of lichen species richness. Highly significant predictor variables were the factor connected with the input of pollutants (Fe3+, Zn2+) emitted by the steelworks (negative effect) and the number of trees per locality (positive effect). Species richness was also affected by the age structure of the tree stand; more species were recorded in old forests.


Differences in preferences for unions between youths and adults in Canada are analysed based on a survey of approximately 1500 persons. The results indicate that the preferences of youth for unionisation are strongly influenced by social factors such as familial union status and the attitudes of close peers. Preferences for unionisation are also shaped by the perceived costs and benefits of unionisation to deal with a wide range of workplace issues such as merit pay, voice, fair treatment, opportunities for advancement, layoffs, seniority, and a lack of progressive HRM and legislative protection at the workplace. The different preferences of youths and adults are generally consistent with the divergent effects that unions would have on youths and adults with respect to these issues. Youths have a stronger preference than do adults for unions in general. Most of that stronger preference reflects the stronger desire of youths to have unions deal with workplace issues, than it reflects the exposure of youths to these issues. The fact that preferences of youths for unionisation are strongly shaped by social capital factors such as union membership in the family and the attitudes of family and friends towards unions, highlights the cumulative and inter-generational effects that are involved in the unionisation process. Possible substitutes for unionisation such as progressive HRM practices and legislative protection exert a powerful negative effect on preferences for unionisation, especially for youths. The implications of these and other findings for the future of unionisation are also discussed.


Abstract. The growth of mega-cities leads to air quality problems directly affecting the citizens. Satellite measurements are becoming of higher quality and quantity, which leads to more accurate satellite retrievals of enhanced air pollutant concentrations over large cities. In this paper, we compare and discuss both an existing and a new method for estimating urban-scale trends in CO emissions using multi-year retrievals from the MOPITT satellite instrument. The first method is mainly based on satellite data, and has the advantage of fewer assumptions, but also comes with uncertainties and limitations as shown in this paper. To improve the reliability of urban-to-regional scale emission trend estimation, we simulate MOPITT retrievals using the Weather Research and Forecast model with chemistry core (WRF-Chem). The difference between model and retrieval is used to optimize CO emissions in WRF-Chem, focusing on the city of Madrid, Spain. This method has the advantage over the existing method in that it allows both a trend analysis of CO concentrations and a quantification of CO emissions. Our analysis confirms that MOPITT is capable of detecting CO enhancements over Madrid, although significant differences remain between the yearly averaged model output and satellite measurements (R2 =  0.75) over the city. After optimization, we find Madrid CO emissions to be lower by 48 % for 2002 and by 17 % for 2006 compared with the EdgarV4.2 emission inventory. The MOPITT-derived emission adjustments lead to better agreement with the European emission inventory TNO-MAC-III for both years. This suggests that the downward trend in CO emissions over Madrid is overestimated in EdgarV4.2 and more realistically represented in TNO-MACC-III. However, our satellite and model based emission estimates have large uncertainties, around 20 % for 2002 and 50 % for 2006.


The mitochondrial DNA variation of 295 Berber‐speakers from Morocco (Asni, Bouhria and Figuig) and the Egyptian oasis of Siwa was evaluated by sequencing a portion of the control region (including HVS‐I and part of HVS‐II) and surveying haplogroup‐specific coding region markers. Our findings show that the Berber mitochondrial pool is characterized by an overall high frequency of Western Eurasian haplogroups, a somehow lower frequency of sub‐Saharan L lineages, and a significant (but differential) presence of North African haplogroups U6 and M1, thus occupying an intermediate position between European and sub‐Saharan populations in PCA analysis. A clear and significant genetic differentiation between the Berbers from Maghreb and Egyptian Berbers was also observed. The first are related to European populations as shown by haplogroup H1 and V frequencies, whereas the latter share more affinities with East African and Nile Valley populations as indicated by the high frequency of M1 and the presence of L0a1, L3i, L4*, and L4b2 lineages. Moreover, haplogroup U6 was not observed in Siwa. We conclude that the origins and maternal diversity of Berber populations are old and complex, and these communities bear genetic characteristics resulting from various events of gene flow with surrounding and migrating populations.


This document presents an object-oriented information model for representing Quality of Service (QoS) network management policies. This document is based on the IETF Policy Core Information Model and its extensions. It defines an information model for QoS enforcement for differentiated and integrated services using policy. It is important to note that this document defines an information model, which by definition is independent of any particular data storage mechanism and access protocol.


Lung surfactant is a complex mixture of lipids and proteins that enables normal breathing by reducing the surface tension at the alveolar air-water interface, and additionally provides the first line of defense against inhaled microbes in the lungs. Surfactant protein B (SP-B) is an indispensable component of lung surfactant system and absolutely essential for the survival of mammals. SP-B is thought to function by facilitating large-scale rearrangements of lipid structures at various stages of the breathing cycle. However, neither the structural mechanisms for this ability nor the physiological ramifications of the lipid rearrangements are yet understood, in part because a high-resolution structure of SP-B has not been determined. As is generally the case for membrane and other lipid-associated hydrophobic proteins, the production of an SP-B sample for structural studies has been very challenging and unsuccessful to date. Interestingly, synthetic fragments of SP-B retain substantial biological activity when compared to the full-length protein. This Ph.D. research has applied solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods to three SP-B-based peptides to reveal at least some of the critical structural features and lipid/protein interactions that presumably underlie the functional mechanisms of SP-B in physiological conditions. -- The high-resolution structure of Mini-B, an N-terminal - C-terminal construct of SP-B that exhibits even better performance than the full-length protein in rat models, is determined in the presence of surfactant lipid-mitnetic sodiumdodecylsulfate (SDS) micelles. Mini-B consists of two a-helices with a projecting tryptophan anchor and displays a strikingly amphipathic surface. The structure of Mini-B appears very well-suited for making strong interactions with surfactant phospholipid analogues. Indeed, Mini-B binds both anionic and zwitterionic micelles composed of SDS, dodecylphosphocholine (DPC), lysomyristoylphosphatidylcholine (LMPC), lysomyristoylphosphatidylglycerol (LMPG) and mixed LMPC/LMPG, and induces substantial rearrangements of the micelle structures. To prepare a foundation for directly probing the interaction between Mini-B and surfactant protein A (SP-A), the conformation and lipid interactions of SP-A are investigated separately in the presence of micelles composed from the same model surfactant lipids. SP-A also binds both zwitterionic and anionic micelles. Surprisingly, in the presence of micelles, SP-A exists predominantly as smaller oligomers, in sharp contrast to the octadecamers observed when in an aqueous environment, and the form in which SP-A has long been presumed to function. Mini-B appears to interact with SP-A in all micelle systems, although the interaction is indirect and the degree of the interaction is dependent on the type of detergent/lipid headgroup. Next investigated are the changes to SP-B's structure and lipid interactions brought about by tryptophan oxidation, a modification which is thought to be a major contributor to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Replacement of tryptophan by one of its oxidized forms, kynurenine, substantially disrupts the helical structure of SP-B8-25, an N-terminal fragment of SP-B, and also affects its interactions with the micelles. Lastly, as a step towards the determination of the structure of full-length SP-B, the overall conformation of Maxi-Bcr, the C-terminal half of SP-B, has been investigated in the organic solvent hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) and SDS micelles. -- SP-B is indispensable for life, but the molecular basis for its activity is not yet understood. The findings of this Ph.D. research contribute to the ongoing endeavor in characterizing SP-B's structure-function relationships and its mechanisms of lipid/protein interactions that are crucial for lung surfactant function. This work also provides a strong foundation for future studies on the conformation and interactions of full-length SP-B.


A time-dependent conjugate conduction/convection numerical study of four electronic component configurations that differ in material composition and distribution of internal heat generation is conducted in parallel PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) for laminar and transitional Reynolds numbers. Both material composition and concentration of heat generation are found to affect the spatial distribution of temperature, heat flux, and Nusselt number along the solid-fluid interface. Furthermore, it is found that the distribution of internal heat generation strongly affects the convective resistance at the solid-fluid interface of the componient This leads, for the configurations with local heat generation, to a non-monotonic relationship between the convective heat transport and the Reynolds number for the range of parameters investigated. It is found that conjugate heat transfer can significantly affect the temperature distribution.


Short day (SD) treatment is used as a dormancy induction in forest tree seedling nurseries in the boreal forest zone. However, SD treatment has caused early bud burst in the following spring, which may expose the seedlings to spring frosts. Because the mechanisms affecting earlier bud burst in SD treated seedlings are not fully understood yet, here we have studied the effect of SD treatment on the structure of buds in Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst.] seedlings. Seedlings were exposed to SD treatments or natural (CTRL) light and photoperiod in July in a nursery in Central Finland. The experiments included two lots of seedlings over two summers and the analyses were done under a stereo microscope. SD treatment advanced initiation of bud scales and formation of needle primordia, and thus the formation period was shorter in CTRL seedlings. In mature buds, no differences in primordial shoots were found between the treatments, whereas notable differences were found in bud scales. The SD buds had fewer and shorter bud scales than the CTRL buds. This led to significantly shorter bud scale complex and, consequently, to shorter buds in SD than in CTRL seedlings. Buds and needles matured earlier in SD treated seedlings. In the following spring, the primordial shoots started to elongate in both treatments around mid-May, when the SD buds started to break down, whereas CTRL buds started to break down in late May. The fewer number and shorter height of protective bud scales may expose buds to harsh winter temperatures and early loss of scales may predispose the SD buds to spring frosts.


Imposters are grammatically third-person expressions used to refer to the first-person speaker or second-person addressee (e.g. 'the present authors' when used to refer to the first-person writer, or 'yours truly' when used to refer to the speaker.) I present novel data illustrating seemingly puzzling agreement behavior of the first-person Finnish imposter meikalainen (refers to the speaker, can be roughly translated as 'yours truly'). This form, on its imposter use, only allows first-person pronoun agreement in possessives that have overt possessive pronouns and lack possessive suffixes, although it permits both first and third person agreement in possessives with possessive suffixes and also in reflexives. I propose that these agreement patterns can be derived once we combine insights about (i) differences in the semantic binding properties of the two possessive constructions that exist independently of imposters and are correlated with the presence/absence of an overt possessive pronoun, and (ii) the interpretational properties of imposters.


This paper provides a review and commentary on the past, present, and future of numerical optimization algorithms in the context of machine learning applications. Through case studies on text classification and the training of deep neural networks, we discuss how optimization problems arise in machine learning and what makes them challenging. A major theme of our study is that large-scale machine learning represents a distinctive setting in which the stochastic gradient (SG) method has traditionally played a central role while conventional gradient-based nonlinear optimization techniques typically falter. Based on this viewpoint, we present a comprehensive theory of a straightforward, yet versatile SG algorithm, discuss its practical behavior, and highlight opportunities for designing algorithms with improved performance. This leads to a discussion about the next generation of optimization methods for large-scale machine learning, including an investigation of two main streams of research on techniques that diminish noise in the stochastic directions and methods that make use of second-order derivative approximations.


George Sand's play Gabriel illuminates the view that gender is both constructed
and essential. Sand's eponymous heroine was born an aristocratic female but is raised as
a Renaissance prince in conjunction with the wishes of her despotic and paternalistic
grandfather, Prince Bramante. Under the guise of doing what is politically appropriate to
adhere to the laws of primogeniture, Bramante, via a preceptor, educates Gabriel in a
traditional male fashion, introduces her to masculine forms of recreation and inculcates
within her the belief that she is male. However, Gabriel's physical sex is revealed to her
in a dream. After she acknowledges that biologically she is female, she performs as both
a man and a woman and can be codified as an androgyne.
It is no coincidence that Sand's dramatic heroine takes her name from the angel
Gabriel. I argue that Gabriel's androgynous nature is equivocal to the androgyny of
angels and sublimates her to a cherubic status. As an androgyne, Gabriel cannot exist
within her milieu autonomously. As an ethereal being, she is not at home in the physical
world and must return to the heavens. Gabriel must embrace death as the liberating
vehicle which will remove her from an isolated, liminal state and take her to a realm
wherein she will be met with acceptance and exist harmoniously and autonomously.


This article addresses how the doctrine of constructive expropriation can be accommodated in the South African legal system. Case law has not yet provided clear guidelines and the possibility of expanding the parameters of expropriation by adopting the uniquely Canadian approach to the issue of constructive expropriation, is explored. Canadian jurisprudence recognises that expropriation is a matter involving both fact and law and that when the loss to the aggrieved party is accompanied by a form of appropriation by the expropriating authority, compensation becomes payable. Constructive expropriation could apply in South Africa if the range of appropriation were to be extended to regard any form of gain or benefit at the expense of the property owner's core competence in relation to the property, as an acquisition by the expropriator.


Organizational politics can affect the performance of the organization both positively or negatively. Through this paper researcher tries to examine the factors affecting organizational politics in the education sector of Pakistan. Data was collected, for this purpose, through self-administered questionnaires and previous studies were critically reviewed. Faculty members of different colleges and universities of Lahore were the respondents and for that purpose 300 questionnaires were distributed out of which 240 completed questionnaires were received with a response rate of 75.0%. Non probability convenient sampling technique was used for the collection of the data. Pearson product moment correlation and regression analysis were used to study the factors affecting the organizational politics. Findings indicated that workplace spirituality and trust climate affect the organizational politics negatively while job role ambiguity relates positively with organizational politics in the education sector of Pakistan.


The success of training accurate models strongly depends on the availability of a sufficient collection of precisely labeled data. However, real-world datasets contain erroneously labeled data samples that substantially hinder the performance of machine learning models. Meanwhile, well-labeled data is usually expensive to obtain and only a limited amount is available for training. In this paper, we consider the problem of training a robust model by using large-scale noisy data in conjunction with a small set of clean data. To leverage the information contained via the clean labels, we propose a novel self-paced robust learning algorithm (SPRL) that trains the model in a process from more reliable (clean) data instances to less reliable (noisy) ones under the supervision of well-labeled data. The self-paced learning process hedges the risk of selecting corrupted data into the training set. Moreover, theoretical analyses on the convergence of the proposed algorithm are provided under mild assumptions. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that our proposed approach can achieve a considerable improvement in effectiveness and robustness to existing methods.


[1] The mosaicking of global planetary data sets allows for the examination of local, regional, and global scale processes on all planetary bodies. Processing techniques that allow us and other users to crate mosaics of tens of thousands of images are documented along with the associated errors introduced by each image-processing algorithm. These techniques (e.g., non-uniformity correction, running contrast stretches, line and row correlated noise removal, and random noise removal) were originally developed for the 2001 Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) infrared multispectral imager data but can be adapted and applied to other data sets by the alteration of input parameters. The techniques for mosaicking planetary image data sets (e.g., image registration, blending, and normalization) are also presented along with the generation of qualitative and quantitative products. These techniques are then applied to generate THEMIS daytime and nighttime infrared, Viking, Context Imager (CTX), and Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) visible mosaics using a variety of input and output types at a variety of scales. By creating mosaics of the same area using different data sets such as those that illustrate compositional diversity, thermophysical properties, or small-scale morphology, it is possible to view the surface of the planet and geologic problems through many different perspectives. In addition to the techniques used to create large-scale seamless mosaics, we also present the THEMIS daytime and nighttime relative temperature global mosaics, which are the highest resolution (100m/pixel) global scale data sets available for Mars to date.


Context: With the view to reorient both STI/HIV/AIDS prevention and
adolescents pregnancies, this research study aims at evaluating cognitive and
behavioral acquisitions, as well as the process of interactive sex education
participatory approach among adolescents in Kinshasa high schools. Methods:
Based on a "pre and post" virtually experimental design, two crosswise surveys
were conducted in Kinshasa, for six months in 2011-2012 on 484 high school
students (pre-survey) and on 441 high school students (post-survey), whose age
range from 14 - 19 years including both sexes. Two participatory educational
talks (PET) "A" and "B", covered weekly in two different schools, were compared
to a control group school. The PET "A" consisted of interactive interpersonal
communication sessions given by an external expert as a substitute for the life
education course in one school. The PET "B" carried out in another school,
included more educational talk sessions, led by the external expert and
supplemented by a close follow-up of teenagers divided into small groups of 10
participants. The subjects' assessment was based on their knowledge, attitudes
and practices relating to STI/HIV/AIDS dual prevention as well as to unwanted
pregnancies. Results: The subjects involved in the PET "B" displayed a
better/higher performance based on their knowledge, attitudes and practices
related to STI/HIV/AIDS dual prevention and unwanted pregnancies. Broadly speaking, knowledge has been improved 6 times with
the PET "B" (OR = 6, 10, IC 95%) (3.24 - 11.9), and 3 times with the PET "A"
(OR = 3, 45, IC 95%) (1.79 - 6.81), compared to control school. Similarly,
findings on subjects' attitudes show an improvement rated 12 times with the
PET"B" (OR = 11, 99, IC 95%) (5.67 - 27.38) and 5 times for the PET "A" (OR =
5.51, IC 95%) (2.54 - 12.87). As far as the subjects' practices are concerned,
an improvement of 6 more times of protected sexual intercourses with the PET
"B" compared with the control school group (OR = 6, 52, IC 95%) (3.60 - 12.0).
The process assessment records a spontaneous involvement of schools enhanced by
the positive contribution of Life Education and Biology teachers; add a massive
participation of adolescents who requested permanent PET program. Conclusion:
The results of this study suggest that school sexual education programs can be
improved to increase the quality of apprenticeship. The use of interactive
methods and the consideration of the adolescents' specific needs that take into
account the gender approach may bring about beneficial advantages on both
educational outcomes and reproductive health of adolescents.


Auditory information is widely used throughout the animal kingdom in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Some marine species are dependent on reefs for adult survival and reproduction, and are known to use reef noise to guide orientation towards suitable habitat. Many others that forage in food-rich inshore waters would, however, benefit from avoiding the high density of predators resident on reefs, but nothing is known about whether acoustic cues are used in this context. By analysing a sample of nearly 700,000 crustaceans, caught during experimental playbacks in light traps in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, we demonstrate an auditory capability in a broad suite of previously neglected taxa, and provide the first evidence in any marine organisms that reef noise can act as a deterrent. In contrast to the larvae of species that require reef habitat for future success, which showed an attraction to broadcasted reef noise, taxa with a pelagic or nocturnally emergent lifestyle actively avoided it. Our results suggest that a far greater range of invertebrate taxa than previously thought can respond to acoustic cues, emphasising yet further the potential negative impact of globally increasing levels of underwater anthropogenic noise.


The first nationwide comparison of how much states are paying for Medicaid managed care shows more than a two-fold variation in the rates set by 36 states. Of the 36 states responding to the survey, the highest managed care capitation rates occur in Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia; the lowest rates occur in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Capitation rates refer to the amount per Medicaid enrollee that the state pays to the managed care plan per month. The survey found several reasons why rates vary.


Background The use of cochlear implants has been a remarkable success in reducing disabilities in those with impaired hearing, which have made a significant change in the patients' quality of life. Only by relying on cochlear implants, disabilities cannot be eliminated in the hearing impaired, and, alongside this intervention, rehabilitation practices such as through family and community support are necessary. Aim To explain the needs of parents of children with cochlear implants to increase the quality of rehabilitation services and family-based interventions. Methods A descriptive phenomenology study was performed with the participation of 16 people, including eight mothers, three fathers, and five experts involved with the rehabilitation of children aged 2–7 years with cochlear implants. The research setting was centers with speech therapy service providers for hearing-impaired children in the city of Shiraz (Iran) in 2015. Information was gathered through in-depth interviews with participants and analyzed by using Colaizzi's nine-step analysis method and MAXQDA (Ver10) applications. Results The mean age of participants was 34 years, and the average age of diagnosis of hearing problems in children was 12 months. The obtained data from the analysis of interviews about the needs of parents of children with cochlear implants were categorized into 19 sub-contents and five contents, as follows: the need for access to health care services; psychological needs; mood-related needs of a child; educational needs and financial requirements. Conclusion Parents of children with cochlear implants have numerous needs, and they encounter problems based on their situation and experiences. The results indicate the necessity of close cooperation among different professionals such as an audiologist, pediatrician, psychologist, and speech therapist for the program's success.


ERA-Interim/Land is a global land surface reanalysis data set covering the period 1979–2010. It describes the evolution of soil moisture, soil temperature and snowpack. ERA-Interim/Land is the result of a single 32-year simulation with the latest ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) land surface model driven by meteorological forcing from the ERA-Interim atmospheric reanalysis and precipitation adjustments based on monthly GPCP v2.1 (Global Precipitation Climatology Project). The horizontal resolution is about 80 km and the time frequency is 3-hourly. ERA-Interim/Land includes a number of parameterization improvements in the land surface scheme with respect to the original ERA-Interim data set, which makes it more suitable for climate studies involving land water resources. The quality of ERA-Interim/Land is assessed by comparing with ground-based and remote sensing observations. In particular, estimates of soil moisture, snow depth, surface albedo, turbulent latent and sensible fluxes, and river discharges are verified against a large number of site measurements. ERA-Interim/Land provides a global integrated and coherent estimate of soil moisture and snow water equivalent, which can also be used for the initialization of numerical weather prediction and climate models.


I review recent machine trends and algorithmic developments for dynamical lattice QCD simulations with the HMC algorithm for Wilson-type fermions. The topics include the trend toward multi-core processors and general purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing, and improvements on the quark determinant preconditioning, molecular dynamics integrator, and quark solvers. I also discuss the prospect on the use of these techniques on the forthcoming petaflops machines.


The paper focuses on city comedies by one of the most notable playwrights of Jacobean England, Thomas Middleton (1580-1627), which usually take place in London and reflect ordinary London life. The majority of Middleton's characters are morally twisted individuals who are lustful, greedy and dishonest. They do not have any deep relationships; they cheat and lie and long only for sex and money. These "goods" most often lay the foundations of London marriages. But can there actually be a true love? A love that is pure, honest and lustless? This paper explores several couples from Middleton's city comedies and claims that a true love exists even in Middleton's London. Making use of the examples of Moll Yellowhammer and Touchwood Junior (A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, 1613), Mary Fitzallard and Sebastian Wengrave (The Roaring Girl, 1607), Joyce and Theodorus Witgood (A Trick to Catch the Old One, 1605), and Katherine and Fitsgrave (Your Five Gallants, 1607), the paper argues that in Middleton's London it is possible to find a real love, free from cheating, lying, and mere satisfying sexual and financial needs. However, such a love is hindered by immoral characters, be it family members, or another suitors, who want to abuse the lovers for their own selfish urges. With these couples, Middleton shows that even in London there is still purity and hope, although even these couples do not use the most honest ways to overcome all the obstacles.


[1] Volcanic plumes deposit magmatic pyroclasts and SO2 frost on the surface of Io. We model the plume activity detected by Galileo at the Pillan and Pele sites from 1996 to 1997 assuming that magmatic eruptions incorporate liquid SO2 from near-surface aquifers intersecting the conduit system and that the SO2 eventually forms a solid condensate on the ground. The temperature and pressure at which deposition of solid SO2 commences in the Ionian environment and the radial distance from the volcanic vent at which this process appears to occur on the surface are used together with observed vertical heights of plumes to constrain eruption conditions. The temperature, pressure, and density of the gas–magma mixtures are related to distance from the vent using continuity and conservation of energy. Similar eruption mass fluxes of order 5 × 107 kg s−1 are found for both the Pillan and the Pele plumes. The Pele plume requires a larger amount of incorporated SO2 (29–34 mass %) than the Pillan plume (up to ∼6 mass %). Implied vent diameters range from ∼90 m at Pillan to ∼500 m at Pele. The radial extents of the optically dense, isothermal, incandescent parts of the eruption plumes immediately above the vents are ∼100 m at Pillan and ∼1300 m at Pele. Gas pressures in the vents are ∼20 kPa at Pillan and ∼2 kPa at Pele and the eruption conditions appear to be supersonic in both cases, though only just so at Pele.