Over the past decade or so, major public-sector reforms have been implemented in many western democracies. Most of these changes have been driven by the perceived need to shift from traditional, bureaucratic, rules-oriented approaches to a results-centered model. In the United States they have been embodied in the so-called reinventing government movement (Kamensky, 1996), and more widely in the model known as new public management (Hood, 1990, 1991). Both approaches have sought to make the public sector more "efficient" and "accountable." In New Zealand, this remodeling has been more radical than in most other countries and has attracted considerable international attention. As Schick (1996, 2) observes, "In its emphasis on managerial discretion and accountability, New Zealand's approach resembles reforms introduced in Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and several other OECD countries. But the more closely one examines New Zealand's progress, the more it becomes evident that it has ventured far beyond what has been tried elsewhere." These reforms have been one element in a program of wide-ranging social and economic policy changes, driven by a market-liberal political agenda based on the theoretical frameworks of neoclassical economics (Easton, 1997; Kelsey, 1995; Rudd and Roper, 1997). As part of this package changes in the New Zealand state sector were directly informed by ideas drawn from management theory, new institutional economics (namely, agency theory and transactions costs analysis), and from public choice explanations of political and bureaucratic behavior (Boston, Martin, Pallot, and Walsh, 1996; Schick, 1996). These "economistic" approaches have been designed to make the public sector look more like the business sector. But they have not addressed the ethical dimensions of public service in anything like the rigorous way that they have concentrated on instrumental issues of efficiency and "productivity." As Caiden (1994, 128) says in regard to American public administration, the reformers "want to show the long-suffering public just how much better government can perform if [it is] allowed to ... [but] ... whatever happened to the virtues of public interest, guardianship, integrity, merit, accountability, responsibility, and truth?" Perhaps partly because of reformist tunnel vision a forum held by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as expressed concern about what it perceives to be declining confidence in government: This so-called "confidence deficit" has been fueled by well publicized "scandals," ranging from inappropriate actions on the part of public officials, to full-scale corruption. Few, if any, member countries have escaped the taint, if not the reality of wrongdoing. As a result, ethics or standards in public life have become an important public and political issue (OECD, PUMA, 1997, 1). Although the two types of corruption are interrelated, the present discussion mainly concerns behavior that might be labeled personal as distinct from political corruption. Personal corruption constitutes malfeasance driven by an individual's calculation of personal gain or benefit in ways that offend the rules and regulations binding his or her official work.(1) Political corruption relates to those forms of behavior, such as the surreptitious leaking of official documents, which are commonly understood to constitute unethical behavior on the part of public servants. The term "ethical probity," as used here, refers to personal corruption.(2) Not only have the reforms not focused on issues relating to ethical probity, to the extent that they are based largely on the assumption that governmental officials cannot be trusted to act in the public interest, they may also tend to diminish standards of ethical probity in public service, to subvert an ethos of public service as public trust. The New Zealand experience suggests that reinventing government and new public management nostrums need to be balanced by more thought about their impacts on the ethical dimensions of public service. …


We cannot simply listen to our urban past. Yet we encounter a rich cultural heritage of city sounds presented in text, radio and film. How can such 'staged sounds' express the changing identities of cities? This volume presents a collection of studies on the staging of Amsterdam, Berlin and London soundscapes in historical documents, radio plays and films, and offers insights into themes such as film sound theory and museum audio guides. In doing so, this book puts contemporary controversies on urban sound in historical perspective, and contextualises iconic presentations of cities. It addresses academics, students, and museum workers alike. With contributions by Jasper Aalbers, Karin Bijsterveld, Carolyn Birdsall, Ross Brown, Andrew Crisell, Andreas Fickers, Annelies Jacobs, Evi Karathanasopoulou, Patricia Pisters, Holger Schulze, Mark M. Smith and Jonathan Sterne.


The composition of forests in Western North America is changing. The decline in the shadeintolerant Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana var. garryana) is attributed to increased competition with the tall-growing Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) as a result of widespread fire exclusion. In a warmer, drier future, both species will experience increased water stress, and their distribution will depend on ecophysiological adaptations to water limitation, of which little is known for Q. garryana. Here, we report a suite of new ecophysiological observations to better understand the oak's water-limitation tolerance, in order to predict its fate in a changing climate. Our study site in the Central Belt of the Franciscan Formation in the Northern California Coast Ranges receives almost no rain in the leaf-on growing season and has limited subsurface water storage capacity. In spite of low pre-dawn water potentials (Ψ; to below 3.0 MPa), mature trees maintained high rates of sapflow. Sapflow continued due to a high Ψ gradient ( 1.6 MPa on average) at mid-day between shoots and the subsurface (inferred from pre-dawn measurements) throughout the dry season. Depletion and recharge of stored water in stem tissue and leaves helped to sustain transpiration. Leaves experienced low Ψ (below 4 MPa), and declining hydraulic conductance yet remained functional. Pressure–volume curve analyses revealed that the maintenance of positive turgor pressures in leaves at low Ψ may be attributable to dynamic adjustment due to changes in cell wall elasticity. The turgor loss point may be of limited use in delineating ecophysiological limits to growth and reproduction, as transpiration and apparently normal physiological behavior continued after pre-dawn water potentials declined below turgor loss limits inferred from rehydrated leaves. These findings indicate that Q. garryana is a water-limitation-tolerant tree species that maintains hydraulic function as subsurface water supply and atmospheric demand conditions exceed the ranges at which P. menziesii can operate. These observations can be used to explain Q. garryana's extant species range and anticipate its likely resilience in


Retrieval of land surface emissivity and temperature from microwave brightness temperature data is a complex problem. The diurnal variation of temperature due to the diurnal cycle of solar radiation and weather conditions makes this problem even more challenging. In this paper, we use solar radiation in modeling the temporal variation of the brightness temperature state of the surface. Solar insolation modeling is used to estimate the diurnal variation of land surface brightness temperature. Solar radiation and brightness temperature are linked through temperature of the surface which is derived based on the radiation balance equation. The temperature state model behaves consistent to the measured temperature data. The root-mean-square (rms) error of the model and measured temperature during 1999 is 1.47 K with a correlation of 0.98. Brightness temperature is calculated as a product of physical temperature and emissivity. This relationship is used to transform the temperature state model into the temporal model of the brightness temperature. The model is validated using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) brightness temperature observations at 10.65-GHz vertical polarization. The rms error of the modeled and measured brightness temperature during 1999 is 2.15 K with a correlation of 0.98. Physical and brightness temperature models are ordinary differential equations that are solved numerically to estimate model parameters. The model parameters are related to geophysical characteristics that modulate the temporal variation of the physical and brightness temperature. These parameters provide new insight into the thermal characteristics of the land surface. Brightness temperature model is used to retrieve emissivity from TMI measurements. Images of emissivity and other model parameters are spatially coherent and reflect ground geometrical and dielectric conditions. The results confirm that incident solar radiation is an important input in modeling the temporal variation in the physical temperature and brightness temperature.


ABSTRACT Aims and Objectives: This quality improvement project aimed to understand the impact of a quiet time protocol on nurses and patients in the neurocritical care unit (NCCU) by comparing pretest and posttest outcomes, taking decibel readings, and abstracting chart information. Background: Sleep is essential for maintaining a healthy life. Patients in the NCCU often do not get adequate amounts of sleep. Quiet time studies have focused on implementing periods of reduced noise levels to improve patient sleep. However, the perceptions of the caregivers about the protocols have not been taken into consideration, leading to difficulty in implementing these protocols if it impedes with the routine work of the caregivers. Methods: This was a prospective quality improvement project, with a quiet time protocol in the novel setting of the NCCU with caregiver feedback on the protocol. The quiet protocol involved decreasing light, noise, and patient interactions between 11:30 PM and 2:30 AM. There were 16 nurses who consented to the study and provided feedback via self-report questionnaires. Results: Implementation of this protocol did not suggest a decrease in nurse enjoyment with their job (P = .51). There were significant improvements in patient sleep quality and quantity (P < .0001). In addition, there was some evidence of decrease in the noise level and number of patient disruptions. Conclusions: The results of this single-site project suggest that, by implementing a quiet time protocol in the NCCU, patients obtained higher levels of sleep quality and quantity. The implementation of this protocol did not impact nurses' job satisfaction, suggesting that the quiet time protocol is possible, improves patients care, and does not hinder nurses' job satisfaction.


Aquaculture development has been identified as a key process to meeting the demand for cheap and readily available source of protein. The resultant has been the springing up of cages along the Volta Lake with most farmers producing Nile tilapia. However, the sector faces an array of challenges which needs urgent attention. A study was undertaken to ascertain the production systems and dissemination channel of Nile tilapia among farmers along selected coastal regions in Ghana. A survey of 190 farmers representing the fish farming community in the area was used -these comprised 187 males and 3 females. Pond culture and cage culture were the most common holding facilities used constituting 58.8% and 28.9% respectively. The production of all-male tilapia was popular among farmers and constituted 66.8% of production, while the production of mixed sex tilapia formed 25.8 %. The study revealed that the high prices of fish feed and lack of access to finance were the top ranking financial challenge facing fish farmers in the area corresponding to 73.2% and 51.1% of the response respectively. Other factors such as distance to hatchery and price of fingerling was a significant factor affecting the choice of source of fingerling for stocking (P<0.05) for farmers who used dugout ponds. There was no clearly laid down protocol for dissemination the tilapia. Farmers (16%) who undertook dissemination directly supplied fingerlings and broodstock to other farmers. Investment of capital into tilapia production can improve productivity and profitability.


We describe an approach for unsupervised learning of a generic, distributed sentence encoder. Using the continuity of text from books, we train an encoder-decoder model that tries to reconstruct the surrounding sentences of an encoded passage. Sentences that share semantic and syntactic properties are thus mapped to similar vector representations. We next introduce a simple vocabulary expansion method to encode words that were not seen as part of training, allowing us to expand our vocabulary to a million words. After training our model, we extract and evaluate our vectors with linear models on 8 tasks: semantic relatedness, paraphrase detection, image-sentence ranking, question-type classification and 4 benchmark sentiment and subjectivity datasets. The end result is an off-the-shelf encoder that can produce highly generic sentence representations that are robust and perform well in practice.


How do organized elements of social systems respond when component sub-units such as communities are devastated? This is, on what do extra-community agencies and organizations focus, to what do they give priority, where do problems arise, and how are they solved when a particular geographic area undergoes massive destruction of live and property as a result of a sudden catastrophe? If it is true that the structure and functioning of social systems, as well as of individuals, can be more clearly discerned in extreme situations, knowledge of actual group responses in such situations should contribute to an understanding of the fundamentals of social life. What is ignored and what is singled out when groups from non-impacted areas converge on a destroyed community? Where are the sources of the problems encountered by converging organizations; how do they handle their difficulties?


The legal framework for educating students with mild to moderate disabilities in the general education setting requires districts to shift towards a more inclusive model of education; however, many districts continue to educate students with mild to moderate disabilities in separate classrooms. This qualitative research study explores the constructs oflearner engagement and students' perceived levels ofengagement in both self contained and general education settings through open-ended interviews. Questions focused on indicators of engagement and the students perceived levels of academic, cognitive, behavioral, and psychological engagement across settings. Student responses were analyzed and themes emerged indicating greater levels of engagement in inclusive settings and the need for further development ofeffective inclusionary practices. The findings suggest that while general education settings provide higher expectations and academic learner engagement for students with mild to moderate disabilities, they are not offering students the accommodations and individualized instruction that would foster a comfortable learning environment and strong psychological engagement. The findings also suggest that while self-contained settings provide students psychological engagement, they offer low academic learner engagement and expectations.


Influenza highlights the relevance of One Health, where experts in animal, human and environmental health combine to solve inter-related problems. Human disease due to pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza and avian and human disease due to influenza A/H5N1 are recent examples of new zoonoses with significant global impact. Management and prevention of influenza and other emerging infectious diseases requires the expansion and continuing support of collaborations between human and animal health experts at the clinical, diagnostic laboratory, public health, research and training levels.


The rapid increase of rice imports in sub-Saharan Africa under the unstable situation in the world rice market during the 2000s has made it an important policy target for the countries in the region to increase self-sufficiency in rice in order to enhance food security. Whether domestic rice production can be competitive with imported rice is a serious question in East African countries that lie close, just across the Arabian Sea, to major rice exportingcountries in South Asia. This study investigates the international competitiveness of domestic rice production in Uganda in terms of the domestic resource cost ratio. The results show that rainfed rice cultivation, which accounts for 95% of domestic rice production, does not have a comparative advantage with respect to rice imported from Pakistan, the largest supplier of imported rice to Uganda. However, the degree of non-competitiveness is not serious, and a high possibility exists for Uganda's rainfed rice cultivation to become internationally competitive by improving yield levels by applying more modern inputs and enhancing labour productivity. Irrigated rice cultivation, though very limited in area, is competitive even under the present input-output structure when the cost of irrigation infrastructure is treated as a sunk cost. If the cost of installing irrigation infrastructure and its operation and maintenance is taken into account, the types of irrigation development that are economically feasible are not large-scale irrigation projects, but are small- and microscale projects for lowland rice cultivation and rain-water harvesting for upland rice cultivation.


From Texas tycoon T. Boone Pickens to former corporate conglomerate Enron, grandiose schemes to profit from large-scale, transbasin water transfers have proliferated in the past decade. Reactions range from outrage at the commoditization of this precious resource to support for letting the market and its pricing signals move water to the most efficient use. The long-standing prohibition against speculation in water is an impediment to commoditization and, consequently, water marketing in the western United States. By contrast, acquiring real estate, grain, art, and other types of property in hopes of profiting from future market fluctuations is not at all unusual. If speculation in water were allowed, speculators could buy water rights, not for the purpose of immediately using or selling the water or products derived from it, but rather to hoard the water with the hope that its value will increase over time. But locking up scarce and essential water resources from use by individuals and communities who have an immediate need to slake their thirst or grow crops on which to sustain themselves is deemed a mortal sin under western water law. This article determines that the anti-speculation doctrine continues to serve an important public purpose. It curbs the worst potential abuses of market forces by forcing transacting parties to articulate how and when the water will be applied to actual, beneficial uses, and by providing an administrative or judicial "check" on speculative transactions that adversely affect third parties and ecological needs by depriving them of water. Moreover, exceptions for municipal planning, Indian reserved rights, and instream flow protection operate as an effective safety valve to liberate collaborative initiatives for certain specified uses that serve important, contemporary public purposes.


Mental health services suffer the substantial limitation of helping only those who seek their assistance. Previous research has demonstrated that mental health stigma, including social and self-stigma, is one of the most significant barriers to an individual seeking available mental health services. Additionally, low levels of social proximity to mental illness may be a significant factor in increased social and self-stigma. Informed by ecological systems theory, this research examined demographic (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, university) and social proximity factors (i.e., level of familiarity with mental illness and mental health services) that contributed to the mental health stigma associated with seeking mental health services within a university population. Web-based survey responses from 410 undergraduate students at two universities were obtained. A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that while controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, and university, having personally received mental health services predicted lower levels of mental health self-stigma. Consistent with previous findings, a significant predictive quality of social stigma towards self-stigma was also found. However, none of the models utilizing social proximity factors to predict social stigma were significant. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.


Debates about social capital usually focus on its presumed positive consequences. Although this expectation has been corroborated empirically, in many instances some less benign consequences of social capital have also been uncovered. Several explanations for the emergence and consequences of these "dark sides" of social capital are briefly presented here and, subsequently, put to empirical testing. The contributors to this issue of American Behavioral Scientist have a common understanding of these dark sides of social capital. Conceptualizing them as negative consequences or outcomes, the authors use various research strategies to scrutinize the nature of the effects of social capital in various situations. In each analysis, however, particular focus is placed on the importance of the contextual setting. Special attention is paid to the degree of democratization, the postcommunist legacy, different welfare state regimes, the saliency of political cleavages, and types and interconnectedness of voluntary associations. The findings suggest that the specific consequences of social capital largely depend on political and social conditions.


Energy efficiency is nowadays one of the biggest concerns worldwide. It has become one of the critical matters to any country and industry particularly in South Africa. Because of the complexities and challenges found in industries and especially in foundry, many strategies have been established to measure and regulate more efficiently the energy. Many studies have been conducted in steelmaking process and electrical arc furnace using foaming slag to reduce energy consumption. As such, in this case study, the experiment will be conducted in a small foundry metal casting laboratory using an Induction Furnace (IF), which will reduce energy usage by using the foaming slag and as well pointing out the importance and the impact of carbon rate change on the foaming creation. After experiments all results show that the melting time can be reduced from 42min to 35 min, which is 20% time saving, the electrical energy consumption also has been reduced from 13.93kWh to 10kWh which is 39.3% saving. On the other hand, the foaming slag optimum height was reached at 1 cm. Therefore, a simple modelling has been designed and calculations have been made on heat transfer at the surface opening of the Induction Furnace and temperature loss has been reduced from 878°C to 870°C, with heat transfer loss reduced from 27.99kW to 26.38kW which was 6.10% of energy saving.


Current iterated learning experiments use meaning spaces that are discrete, finite, prespecified, and low-dimensional. Such meaning spaces are poor representations of the world. For this reason, we have conducted two experiments to look at the cumulative cultural evolution of category structure in an infinite meaning space. In the first experiment, the number of words used to describe the stimuli collapses dramatically after only a few generations. Within a few more generations, a system emerges that arbitrarily divides the space into a small number of categories pertaining primarily to the size and shape of the stimuli. In the second experiment, we apply an artificial constraint which prevents the size of the languages from collapsing. This constraint was implemented to model the pressure for expressivity that exists in languages when they are used functionally for communication. We predicted that this would allow compositional structure to emerge so that the space could be carved up in more finely grained and/or higher dimensional ways using a compressible linguistic system. However, there was little sign of compositionality emerging under the parameters of this experiment. Although the meaning space presented here is a simple one, we hope that this project represents a first step towards thinking about how iterated learning experiments deal with the problem of discrete infinity. We briefly discuss the background literature, then present the methods and results for this project, and end with some discussion about how the results relate to our research questions.


Abstract Objective: The aim was to determine receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) waist circumference (WC) cut-off points best associated with metabolic syndrome (MetS) in a cohort of South African teachers. Design: Target population study. Setting and subjects: Four hundred and nine urban black (Africans) and white (Caucasians) from the Kenneth Kaunda district in North West province, between the ages of 25 and 65 years old, were stratified according to gender and age (25–45 years and 46–65 years). Outcome measures: Anthropometric, fasting overnight urine and biological markers for MetS. Results: ROC analysis determined pathological WC cut-off points of 91 cm for African men and 84 cm for African women. It is recommended that WC cut-off points should be 97 cm for Caucasian men and 84 cm for Caucasian women. Pathological WC cut-off points significantly predicted MetS in all ethnic-, gender- and age- specific groups, especially in male groups, with odds ratios of 7.6 [95% confidence interval (CI): 3.4–17.1, p-value = 0.00) for African men and 6 (95% CI: 3–12.1, p-value = 0.00) for Caucasian men. Conclusion: ROC-developed WC cut-off points were found to be good predictors of MetS in a South African cohort, especially in the men. Further research in prospective cohort studies is warranted to verify our findings.


This report presents in summary work done in the period from
1959 to 1963 at the Hypersonic Research Project, Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories California Institute of Technology, on some theoretical aspects of the dynamics of ionized gases. The objective of this work was
to set up a system of conservation equations when no magnetic field or complicated chemical effects are present. Emphasis is placed on the gross exchange processes among species at a point, rather than the
gradient transport mechanisms (e. g. , viscosity and heat conduction); in the past this point of view was often called "Gaseous Electronics". In subordinatipg the magnetic field and the chemistry to the dynamics
it has been possible to explain a gratifying number of commonplace physical phenomena from first principles and to demonstrate the intimate connection between gaseous electronics and aerodynamics.

The conservation equations needed for a neutral-ion-electron
mixture were derived with the aid of the elementary integral transport (Maxwell-Chapman) theory exactly as used for any ternary mixture. Departures made necessary because of the ionization include (a) the collisionless ("Vlasov") approximation, (b) a reformulation of the
Chapman-Enskog prosedure to include electric forces and (c) a convenient recourse to the inverse-fifth-power interparticle force law. Even so the resulting equations are merely a re-statement of the formidable problem
of plasma physics. "Inviscid" equations are therefore written as counterparts of the inviscid (ideal) equations of aerodynamics. To illustrate where mathematical difficulties first appear, practical problems are
solved with the aid of further approximations.

These problems, as well as the physical departures mentioned
above, are relegated to Appendices.


The maximum current that an overhead transmission line can continuously carry depends on external weather conditions, most commonly obtained from real-time streaming weather sensors. The accuracy of the sensor data is very important in order to avoid problems such as overheating. Furthermore, faulty sensor readings may cause operators to limit or even stop the energy production from renewable sources in radial networks. This paper presents a method for detecting and replacing sequences of consecutive faulty data originating from streaming weather sensors. The method is based on a combination of (a) a set of constraints obtained from derivatives in consecutive data, and (b) association rules that are automatically generated from historical data. In smart grids, a large amount of historical data from different weather stations are available but rarely used. In this work, we show that mining and analyzing this historical data provides valuable information that can be used for detecting and replacing faulty sensor readings. We compare the result of the proposed method against the exponentially weighted moving average and vector autoregression models. Experiments on data sets with real and synthetic errors demonstrate the good performance of the proposed method for monitoring weather sensors.


There is growing interest in managing southern pine forests for both carbon sequestration and bioenergy. For instance, thinning otherwise unmerchantable trees in naturally regenerated pine-dominated forests should generate biomass without conflicting with more traditional forest products. However, we lack the tools to accurately quantify the biomass in these submerchantable size classes. To help remedy this, we destructively sampled 54 small-diameter loblolly pines (Pinus taeda L.) from stands on the Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF) in southeastern Arkansas. After harvesting, each tree was divided into stemwood, foliage and branch, and taproot components, then oven-dried and weighed. We then fit an exponential equation based on the National Biomass Estimator (NBE) to predict aboveground oven-dry biomass as a function of diameter at breast height (d.b.h.). The resulting model fit the sample data well (pseudo-R2 = 0.996). Comparing the CEF local biomass model with the pine submodel of the NBE suggested that the NBE would consistently underestimate small-diameter loblolly pine biomass on the CEF. While this difference appeared small, its cumulative effect could be appreciable. For example, in a young loblolly pine stand averaging 5 cm d.b.h. and 5,000 stems ha-1, the NBE would predict almost 9 percent less biomass than the new CEF biomass model—a difference of nearly 2 metric tons ha-1. Such locally derived equations offer silviculturists opportunities to better assess the potential of naturally regenerated pine stands to produce fiber and thus may be worth the investment of time and resources to develop.


The granite-pegamatites of the northern areas of Pakistan are well-known for hosting of various types of gemstones such as the aquamarine, topaz, bi-and tri-colored tourmalines, apatite fluorite etc. The Shigar valley pegmatites are also one of these that hold a variety of gemstones, This valley is about 32 km northeast of Skardu, the headquarter of Baltistan, northern Pakistan and it provides a route to K2 mountains.

Both meta-igneous and meta-sedimentary rocks of the Asian plate and Kohistan-Ladakh island arc, are exposed in the Shigar valley. The Main Karakoram Thrust is passing through the center of this valley, separating the meta-sediments of the Asian plate from the meta-igneous and meta-sediments of Kohistan-Ladakh island arc Multiphase metamorphism and deformation has occurred in this area, therefore, the meta-sediments to the north of the Northern Suture are collectively known as the "Karakoram Metamorphic Complex". The grade of metamorphism varies from greenschist to amphibolite grade facies. Besides, the multi phase metamorphism and deformation, igneous intrusions of both the pre-and post-collisions are also exposed in the valley. The last phase of post-collisional igneous intrusion is present in the form of leucogranites and gem-bearing pegmatites (the focus of present study).

The pegmatitic rocks need special attention to understand their petrogenesis because these are of dual nature. They occur either the off shoots of near by plutonic bodies or separate magmatic pulses due to direct anataxis. There are series off different processes involving the emplacement of plutonic units, the formation of pegmatile, and their host gemstones and the rare element-hearing minerals. The present study is being carried out to understand the petrogenetic evolution of the Shigar valley pegmatites and the formation different types of gemstones in these pegmatites.

A reconnaissance field work was carried out in the study area and the samples were collected from different pegmatite bodies for petrographic, geochemical studies and mineral chemistry. On the basis of field features and petrographic studies, the pegmatites of the Shigar valley are broadly classified into two types: gem-bearing and gem-barren pegmatites. The gem-bearing pegmatites are generally zoned having three or four zones, while the gem-barren pegmatites are simple both in mineralogy and internal structure. Symmetrical zoning is the common feature of the gem-bearing zoned pegmatites, while some of the dykes exhibit asymmetrical zoning. Besides this, on the basis of presence or absence or the relative proportion of the accessory mineral phases, these pegmatites are further classified into four suh-classes. These four suh-classes are: 1. muscovite-schorl-beyl-garnet pegmatites,2. muscovite-schorl pegmatites. 3. biotite ± garnet± muscovite pegmatite and 4. muscovite-biotite ± garnet pegmatite."

The petrographic and mineral chemistry data of the studied rocks and gemstones indicate that no rare element-bearing mineral phases have been identified in these pegmatites. This suggests that these pegmatites belong to the miarolitic pegmatite class instead of rare element pegmatite class. The gemstones found in the Shigar valley are mainly aquamarine, topaz, fluorite, apatite, tourmaline, axinite, zoisite and clinozoisite etc. Field study suggests that all the gemstones are not of pegmatitic origin but some of them, such as axinites, zoisites, and clinozoisites are either metasomatic or metamorphic in origin. It is also noticed that the gemstones of pegmatitic origin are mostly found either at the core-margin zone or in the intermediate zone of the zoned pegmatites. In case of internal evolution of the Shigar valley pegmatites, grain size increases from the margin towards core, which indicates that the crystallization starts from margin toward,' core. The presence of vugs/cavities of the gemstones near the core zone also supports the above crystallization sequence.

The geochemical data of the studied pegmatites shows that these pegmatites are mostly peraluminous and granitic in character. The mqjor, trace and rare earth element characteristics of these pegmatite." exhibit that these belong to the post-collisional tectonic settings. Keeping 'in view the results obtained for the studied pegmatites and the prevailed models for the generation and propagation of granitic pegmatites, it is evident that these pegmatites have been formed by the direct ana taxis of a meta-sedimentary protolith instead of heing the off shoots either of Baltoro or Mango Gusar plutons, which are exposed to the northeast of the Shigar valley. On the basis of radiometric dates for the host rocks of the Shigar valley pegmatite, it is concluded that the Shigar valley pegmatite, are not older than 5 Ma. This is in correspondence with the youngest leucogranites of the High Himalayas, which are generally of 5-JO Ma, The Shigar valley pegmatites , share many characteristics with the other post-collisional leucogranite of rthe High Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan regions. Like the post-collisional leucogranites of High Himalayas, the Shigar valley pegmatites also have tourmaline as a ubiquitous mineral phase, suggesting a similar source rock for these pegmatites. In addition, the presence of topaz, fluorite and apatite in the Shigar valley pegmatites indicates that the source rock was rich in boron. fluorine, chlorine, water and other volatiles. Moreover, the absence of lithium and rare-metal bearing mineral phases in the pegmatites of Shigar valley indicates that the source rock might have been depleted in these metals.


Visual Abstract The pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis learns conditioned taste aversion (CTA) and consolidates it into long-term memory (LTM). One-day food-deprived snails (day 1 snails) show the best CTA learning and memory, whereas more severely food-deprived snails (5 d) do not express good memory. However, previous studies showed that CTA-LTM was indeed formed in 5-d food-deprived snails (day 5 snails), but its recall was prevented by the effects of food deprivation. CTA-LTM recall in day 5 snails was expressed following 7 d of feeding and then 1 d of food deprivation (day 13 snails). In the present study, we thus hypothesized that memory recall occurs because day 13 snails are in an optimal internal state. One day of food deprivation before the memory test in day 13 snails increased the mRNA level of molluscan insulin-related peptide (MIP) in the CNS. Thus, we further hypothesized that an injection of insulin into day 5 snails following seven additional days with access to food (day 12 snails) activates CTA neurons and mimics the food deprivation state before the memory test in day 13 snails. Day 12 snails injected with insulin could recall the memory. In addition, the simultaneous injection of an anti-insulin receptor antibody and insulin into day 12 snails did not allow memory recall. Insulin injection also decreased the hemolymph glucose concentration. Together, the results suggest that an optimal internal state (i.e., a spike in insulin release and specific glucose levels) are necessary for LTM recall following CTA training in snails.


Abstract. The first International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Core-Log-Seismic
Integration at Sea (CLSI@Sea) workshop, held in January–February 2018,
brought together an international, multidisciplinary team of 14 early-career
scientists and a group of scientific mentors specialized in subduction zone
processes at the Nankai Trough, one of the Earth's most active
plate-subduction zones located off the southwestern coast of Japan. The goal
of the workshop was to leverage existing core, log, and seismic data
previously acquired during the IODP's Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone
Experiment (NanTroSEIZE), to address the role of the deformation front of the
Nankai accretionary prism in tsunamigenic earthquakes and slow slip in the
shallow portion of the subduction interface. The CLSI@Sea workshop was
organized onboard the D/V Chikyu concurrently with IODP Expedition
380, allowing workshop participants to interact with expedition scientists
installing a long-term borehole monitoring system (LTBMS) at a site where the
workshop's research was focused. Sedimentary cores from across the
deformation front were brought onboard Chikyu, where they were made
available for new description, sampling, and analysis. Logging data, drilling
parameters, and seismic data were also available for investigation by
workshop participants, who were granted access to Chikyu laboratory
facilities and software to perform analyses at sea. Multi-thematic presentations facilitated knowledge transfer between the
participants across field areas, and highlighted the value of
multi-disciplinary collaboration that integrates processes across different
spatiotemporal scales. The workshop resulted in the synthesis of existing
geophysical, geologic, and geochemical data spanning IODP Sites C0006,
C0007, C0011 and C0012 in the NanTroSEIZE area, the identification of key
outstanding research questions in the field of shallow subduction zone
seismogenesis, and fostered collaborative and individual research plans
integrating new data analysis techniques and multidisciplinary approaches.


In An Aqueous Territory Ernesto Bassi traces the configuration of a geographic space he calls the transimperial Greater Caribbean between 1760 and 1860. Focusing on the Caribbean coast of New Granada (present-day Colombia), Bassi shows that the region's residents did not live their lives bounded by geopolitical borders. Rather, the cross-border activities of sailors, traders, revolutionaries, indigenous peoples, and others reflected their perceptions of the Caribbean as a transimperial space where trade, information, and people circulated, both conforming to and in defiance of imperial regulations. Bassi demonstrates that the islands, continental coasts, and open waters of the transimperial Greater Caribbean constituted a space that was simultaneously Spanish, British, French, Dutch, Danish, Anglo-American, African, and indigenous. Exploring the "lived geographies" of the region's dwellers, Bassi challenges preconceived notions of the existence of discrete imperial spheres and the inevitable emergence of independent nation-states while providing insights into how people envision their own futures and make sense of their place in the world.


Empirical data document that while domestic violence victims face high risk of recurring abuse, batterers' lawyers may be privy to information that could avert further harm. Attorneys owe a duty of confidentiality to their clients that can be breached only in extraordinary circumstances, such as when counsel learns her client plans to commit a crime. To resolve the tension between client confidentiality and victim safety, this Article argues that, in the context of domestic violence cases, lawyers have an affirmative duty to (1) screen battering clients who have indicated a likelihood of harming others, (2) attempt to dissuade them from carrying out planned violent crimes, and (3) warn identifiable abuse victims whom their clients have threatened. Using doctrinal and normative analyses, the Article posits that attorneys who fail to take these preemptive actions may be held liable in tort for their omissions. In addition to clarifying the lawyer's obligations, this Article provides guidance as to the steps necessary for avoiding tort liability while increasing victim safety. It concludes with specific recommendations for remedial statutory changes consistent with fundamental precepts of a lawyer's professional responsibility.


Venomous snake bites are rare in Romania, where live only 3 of the 15 species of vipers known in Europe. They can be serious, even fatal, if not timely established the symptomatic treatment aimed at correcting hemodynamic, hematological and respiratory disorders and the specific treatment consisting in antiviperin serotherapy. A possible complication, more common in children than in adults, is the emergence of a compartment syndrome, which involves the abnormal increase of pressure in an osteoaponeurotic lodge with consecutive muscular ischaemia, which is irreversible if one does not intervene in time by making a fasciotomy. We present the case of a child who after a viper bites developed this syndrome and besides standard treatment for decompression fasciotomy required lodge, with a favorable evolution finally.


Introduction The purpose of this research is to investigate how mathematical knowledge can be applied to space planning in design. To begin, it is useful to know how mathematics was utilized in the past to reach creative and logical design solutions. The design process is a multilayered and multifaceted investigation and it aims to find an optimized solution for a defined problem. Since optimization is a mathematical term, it is reasonable to assume many design problems can be solved using mathematical models. Mathematics and design were inseparable from the beginning. In ancient civilizations people build houses and temples facing north. However, without a compass, how would one know which direction is true north? "North" was a decision. Our ancestors decided to call north the direction to which the shortest shadow of the day points (Evans 1998, 28). However, it is difficult to tell where the shadow is shortest. Our ancestors used simple tools such as a stick and a string to draw an arc on the ground. They observed and marked the shadow where it first intersects with the arc and also where it last intersects with the arc. They would draw a line between the points and find the middle point. What our ancestors really cared about was their relationship with the sun and exposure to sunlight. Although it is very easy for a modern person to understand this ancient method, it is not easy to reach this solution independently if the answer has not been given. The orientation of a building is a design problem and it was solved by simple mathematical deductions by our ancestors. A good designer cannot be ignorant about the various aspects of science related to design. For example, design decisions for space planning—location of the fire exit, travel distance, orientation of the building—can be calculated using mathematical models, especially optimization problem solving. A typical question in calculus illustrates how mathematics can be applied to design problem solving (Tsishchanka 2010). A farmer has 2400 ft. of fencing and wants to fence off a rectangular field that borders a straight river. He needs no fence along the river. What are the dimensions of the field that has the largest area? The mathematical model is: Maximize: A = xy Constraint: 2x+y = 2400 Research Nevertheless, many design problems are more sophisticated. In this research a case study of a space planning project for an extension of an existing out-patient hospital is conducted. The goal of this case study is to find mathematical models for achieving optimal solutions of (1) overall travel distances in one day and (2) numbers and locations of exits. A patient's travel distance is defined as the total distance traveled by the patient inside the hospital from the entrance to the exit. This research began by looking at the importance of the center, shapes of a building and locations of entrances and exits. The objective was to understand how decisions on those design elements affect the total travel distance, and then to identify applicable mathematical formulas to minimize travel distance in one day. In order to apply any mathematical formula the designer first needs to establish the constraints, constants and variables. In this research, the project requirements such as numbers of visitors, numbers of rooms, functions of rooms and hierarchy of spaces and adjacencies are based on similar projects and are hypothetically established. There are two levels in this outpatient hospital. This research focuses on the ground level, in which the designer needs to do space planning to accommodate Internal Medicine, Emergency, Radiology and Imaging, Pharmacy and Intravenous Therapy Departments. Preliminary research revealed that Emergency should have its own entrance that should be close to the parking lot for easy access. Pharmacy, Radiology and Imaging, and Intravenous Therapy are shared functions of other medical departments—especially Pharmacy, which 90% of patients use just before leaving the hospital. 10% of patients from Internal Medicine will need to do an x-ray, CT or MRI with the Imaging Department, while 35% of patients from Emergency will need to use the Imaging Department. The question is where each department should be located to minimize travel. The existing site conditions such as the location of the new entrance, parking location and city traffic are arbitrarily decided to support the research. The project requirements have not themselves been verified for optimization. The arbitrary decisions may not reflect true human needs, but in any case they affect the calculated results. However, they would not affect the validity of this research because it depends on inherent mathematical logic. It is worth noting that the focus of this research is purely on functionality and individual topics. The goal of this research is to offer insight into how simple mathematical formulas could help solve design problems. However, these formulas can never offer a fully-fledged creative design solution, because all the problems are infinitely more sophisticated than a controlled scenario, especially when aesthetics are concerned. Conclusion Design is often considered to be an applied art rather than an applied science in today's world. In recent history, designers were separated from engineers and builders. When a beautiful freehanded line can communicate everything on paper, the need of knowing the radius and tangency became less important. In addition, the knowledge required to understand mathematical formulas is often beyond designers' reach. For example, many designers may not be able to fully comprehend Milutin Milankovitch's arch theory of masonry construction, even though it has significance in civil engineering and architecture (Foce 2008). Designers often are disengaged with rapid developments in science and leave them to civil engineers or mechanics. Nonetheless, this disengagement isolates designers from the rest of the team and makes them less effective. In order to rediscover design, new approaches are needed. This research reestablishes the connection between mathematic and design through space planning, and seeks to offer some different perspectives of what design really is. References Evans, James. 1998. The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford University Press. Foce, Federico. 2008. "Milankovitch's Theorie Der Druckkurven: Good Mechanics for Masonry Architecture." In Nexus Network Journal, edited by Kim Williams, 9,2:185–209. Nexus Network Journal. Birkhauser Basel. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8699-3_3. Tsishchanka, Kiryl. 2010. "Optimization Problems." Courant Institute of Mathematical Science of NYU. Accessed October 04, 2015. https://cims.nyu.edu/ ∼ kiryl/Calculus/Section_4.5–Optimization%20Problems/Optimization_Problems.pdf


Haftad-Gholleh protected area located in the central plateau of Iran host one of the mountainous vipers, Levantine viper (Macrovipera lebetina), which can be regarded as west and northeastern subspecies. Habitat destruction and illegal live trapping to extract venom can be considered as some of the essential factors which threats the species viability. To determine the most critical factors which affect the species habitat use, I tried to use to modeling approaches of MaxEnt and Logistic regression, focusing on the eight different independent variables and 15 locations of the species present. Both models with high validation criteria (AUC> 0.98) indicated that around one percent of the protected area could be regarded as a potential habitat for the target species. Two distal factors acted in the reverse direction as distance from the Human related landuse (7 km) showed the highest priority. In contrast, the distance from traffic roads indicated the lowest effect on the species habitat usage. Two other most significant variables which affect the species habitat selection were distance to the water resources and altitude. The present work's outputs can be used in the species protection in Haftad-Gholleh protected area.


Movie violent content detection e.g., for providing automated youth protection services is a valuable video content analysis functionality. Choosing discriminative features for the representation of video segments is a key issue in designing violence detection algorithms. In this paper, we employ mid-level audio features which are based on a Bag-of-Audio Words (BoAW) method using Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs). BoAW representations are constructed with two different methods, namely the vector quantization-based (VQ-based) method and the sparse coding-based (SC-based) method. We choose two-class support vector machines (SVMs) for classifying video shots as (non-)violent. Our experiments on detecting violent video shots in Hollywood movies show that the mid-level audio features provide promising results. Additionally, we establish that the SC-based method outperforms the VQ-based one. More importantly, the SC-based method outperforms the unimodal submissions in the MediaEval Violent Scenes Detection (VSD) task, except one vision-based method in terms of average precision.


Hurricane Irma occurred in the Atlantic Ocean in 2017. It has developed to Category 5, the maximum wind speed is about 82.7 [m/s], minimum central pressure is about 914 [hPa]. Because there is concern that the risk of storm surge due to global warming is increasing, it is important to predict storm surge for prevention of the disasters. For that purpose, it is important to construct a method that can predict local area phenomena. Therefore, in this study, to achieve that purpose, a methodology of downscaling the mesoscale data is developed by using the STOC-ML and WRF, and the applicability is verified to the storm surge due to Irma. In addition, wave set up is also estimated using SWAN and the characteristics of Irma is considered.


Employing the maximum entropy method (MEM) algorithm, we fit interstellar extinction measurements that span the wavelength range 0.125-3 μm. We present a uniform set of MEM model fits, all using the same grain materials, optical constants, and abundance constraints. In addition, we are taking advantage of improved UV and IR data and better estimates of the gas-to-dust ratio. The model fits cover the entire range of extinction properties that have been seen in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds. The grain models employed for this presentation are the simplistic homogeneous sphere models (i.e., those of Mathis, Rumpl, & Nordsieck in 1977) with two (graphite, silicate) or three (graphite, silicate, amorphous carbon) components. Although such usage is only a first step, the results do provide interesting insight into the use of grain size as a diagnostic of dust environment. We find that the SMC bar extinction curve cannot be fitted using carbon grains alone. This is a challenge to the recent observational result indicating little silicon depletion in the SMC.


Readings in Discipline-based Art Education: A Literature of Educational Reform Ralph A. Smith, Editor (2000). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association. 429 pages. ISBN 1-890160-12-1.When I began reading Ralph Smith's compilation, I was struck by a strong sense of nostalgia, as well as by the comprehensiveness of his anthology. Readings in Discipline-based Art Education is a book that art educators should own as a reference for intellectual history of art education in the late 20th century. The book is organized into seven sections: (1) interpretations of DBAE, (2) the disciplines of DBAE as contexts of understanding, (3) curriculum issues, subdivided into chapters on teaching and learning and chapters on implementation and evaluation, (4) artistic and aesthetic development, (5) professional development, (6) issues facing DBAE including the artist-teacher, elitism, feminist criticism of DBAE, and postmodernism (one chapter each), and (7) art museums and museum education. Each section includes a list of recommended readings to supplement the authors' reference lists; thus, this book is valuable as a guide to DBAE literature. Readers should, however, be aware of two issues: first, the power of an editor to shape what is available as the defining literature of the field; and, second, Smith's belief in the specialness of art and its privileged status outside of politics.Smith's major contributions to aesthetic education have included his ability to summarize sophisticated philosophical arguments and explain their relevance to art education. One can regard this edited collection as a capstone to Smith's career. Although many art educators seem, like weathervanes, to shift rationales with each change in the educational winds, Smith has been a steady compass needle consistently pointing toward what he believes is true north. This anthology shows us Smith's perspective on the northern exposure of DBAE, chilly perhaps to those raised in the sunny south of creativity and self-expression, but bracing. As a compass needle, Smith provides not only a guide for those heading due north, but also a point of comparison for those steering in other directions.Autobiographical Context1My personal involvement with Discipline-based Art Education (DBAE) began in the spring of 1984. I attended a presentation by Leilani Lattin Duke, Director of the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, a branch of the J. Paul Getty Trust, at the National Art Education Association annual conference in Miami. In a hotel meeting room packed to standing room only with other art educators, all murmuring about the fact that a wealthy foundation was taking an interest in the status and condition of our professional field, I listened to Duke's description of plans to support "a new, more comprehensive approach" to art education (Duke, p. 17). During the conference the late Vincent Lanier introduced me to Dwaine Greer (pp. 207-214), who invited me to Los Angeles to observe the second summer of the Los Angeles Getty Institute. As my week of observations drew to a close, Ron Silverman interviewed me regarding my impressions and what I had learned from talking with the elementary classroom teacher participants. In the course of our conversation, he asked if I thought I could teach what I had observed. With the hubris of youth, I responded that, although my own university classes were small, I thought I could lecture as I had been watching Harry Broudy (pp. 20-26, 188-192), Michael Day (pp. 195-206, 323-331, 351-356) and Mary Erickson (pp. 162-170), among others, do during the Institute.In January 1985, I was invited to a Texas meeting where artists, art critics, art historians, and philosophers of art discussed how their disciplines could contribute to art education as part of K-12 general education. George Geahigan (pp. 171-179) and I were among the art educators asked to facilitate discussion among the discipline experts and to listen to their emerging ideas. …


This article examines the family types identified by the French population census and by the Famille et Logements (family and housing) survey, drawing on and comparing all the information about family relations yielded by these two sources. Although the census in its current form (a rolling series of annual surveys) meets its remit of counting the number of persons living in France, taking the household as its observation unit, it is less good at describing families, especially when a housing unit is shared by several families, several generations, non-relatives and/or individuals living alternately in more than one household. This comparison sheds light on the causes of the divergences between the two sources. They stem from the differing objectives of the two data collection exercises, from the census data coding principles, which are based on the concept of the nuclear family, and from inaccurate declarations, each cause requiring its own solution. Despite the exhaustive nature of the census count, the international recommendations it follows do not allow marginal and/or emerging family forms to be adequately described, justifying the resumption of the Famille surveys coupled with the census.


2020 was an eventful year for the whole world, as a public health and economic crisis raged, bringing to the fore the perennial challenge of how to craft and use Intellectual Property (IP) institutions, law, policies and practices, collectively 'IP frameworks' to add to efforts to achieve sustainable development, and to consider recovery paths for economies. This coincided with intensified efforts to boost intra-African trade and enhance regional integration through the Agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which has been ratified at the fastest rate, to date, of any African Union (AU) instrument. The US entered into negotiations for a bilateral FTA with Kenya, which, if successful, would be the first in Southern Africa and the first since the coming into force of the AfCFTA Agreement. This book engages with this challenge in its six chapters. The introductory Chapter One includes a brief overview of the AU, its member states, its institutions and legal norms to emphasise both the context and the diversity of the continent. It introduces and links STI and IP within a knowledge governance context as the analytical lens through which the book's further discussions are framed. The international and African development agendas are also explained and distinguished from each other to foreground the following chapters. Chapter Two considers the global IP framework with an account of minimum standards in international agreements. Chapter Three turns to the African continent and provides a commentary on national and regional IP frameworks, as contrasted with the global framework. It considers plurilateral and bilateral agreements including the possibilities and significance of the US-Kenya FTA. It reprises the IP instruments of the regional IP organisations and the Regional Economic Communities. Chapter Four considers STI and sustainable development, paying specific attention to the creation of an enabling environment for STI and also to how STI policies interface with IP. Chapter Five reiterates the trade and sustainable development context of IP as the foundation to a consideration of examples of how openness is being leveraged to meet current developmental challenges through STI on the continent. It spotlights some entries at the COVID-19 Innovation Challenge held during the Africa Innovation and Investment Forum 2020 together with the continent's commitment to Open Science. Against the background of the preceding chapters, Chapter Six discusses the continental IP institutional reform and policy rejuvenation that would come from the operationalisation of PAIPO and the conclusion of the AfCFTA IP Protocol. It concludes with some policy legislative implications for IP and STI at continental level, that ought to be borne in mind as states calibrate their IP frameworks.


Empty names present Millianism with a well-known problem: it implies that sentences containing such names fail to express (fully determinate) propositions. The present paper argues that empty descriptions present Millianism with another problem. The paper describes this problem, shows why Millians should be worried, and provides a Millian-friendly solution. The concluding section draws some lessons about how all this affects Millianism and the problem of empty names.


Many modern networked applications require specific levels of service quality from the underlying network. Moreover, next-generation networked applications are expected to adapt to changes in the underlying network, services, and user interactions. While some applications have built-in adaptivity, the adaptation itself requires specification of a system model. This paper presents Sapphire, an experimental approach for systematic model generation for application adaptation within a target network. It employs a nearly-automated, statistical design of experiments to characterize the relationships of both application and network-level parameters. First, it applies the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method to identify the most significant parameters and their interactions that affect performance. Next, it generates a model of application performance with respect to these parameters within the ranges of measurements. The key benefit of the framework is the integration of several well-established concepts of statistical modeling and distributed systems in the form of simple APIs so that existing applications can take advantage of it. We demonstrate the usefulness and flexibility of Sapphire by generating a performance model of an audio streaming application. We show that many existing multimedia and QoS-sensitive applications can exploit a statistical modeling approach such as Sapphire to incorporate application adaptivity. The approach can also be used for feedback control of distributed applications, tuning network and application parameters to achieve service levels in a target network.


In neoclassical economics institutions are considered to be givens or mere constants in agricultural production and development. There is now a new field of economics that argues that institutions are not givens in agricultural production but have a role to play in determining the agricultural performance of households. This study develops a framework for analyzing the relationship between institutions, agricultural performance, household characteristics and other neo-classical variables. The study investigates the factors that affect the productivity and profitability of households using data collected from dry-land and irrigation areas. Discriminant analysis was used to identify the institutional and non-institutional factors that have an impact on the profitability and productivity of households. It emerged from this study that the agriculture performance of households is determined by a wide variety of factors that include household characteristics, institutional factors, resource endowment factors and crop production factors. The results of this study are consistent with the emerging literature that institutions are not constants in production. The study also contributes to the growing body of evidence that institutions do have an impact on agricultural production of households.


Abstract Microanalytical data on Plio-Pleistocene sediments from a Salton Sea Geothermal Field well define the evolution of textures and mineral assemblages from sediment to metamorphic rock in an open hydrothermal system. At shallow depths detrital grains occur within a fine-grained matrix of I-S and illite. As depth and temperature increase, grains lose their detrital characteristics; they subsequently form a continuous intergrown array of irregular domains, with phyllosilicates occupying the progressively decreasing pore space. Illite and chlorite are authigenic phyllosilicates down to 2500 m, where biotite occurs. Authigenic phyllosilicates occur as subhedral crystals (200 -600 A Å thick). Alkali feldspar has end-member compositions, implying exchange of alkalis with convected fluids. Changes in texture imply dissolution of detrital phases and neocrystallization of authigenic phyllosilicates directly from pore fluids. Changes with depth are not time-dependent for phyllosilicates: they formed simultaneously at all depths as a result of a single hydrothermal event in an open system.


In recent years, awareness has risen surrounding the crucial role of insects in providing ecosystem services and on the acute decline of many of them. However, significant gaps in knowledge still remain. In this context, the European Commission has undertaken to fund the European Red List of Grasshoppers, Crickets and Bush- Crickets, which provides the first ever comprehensive assessment of the extinction risk of all Orthoptera species native to Europe. On the basis of the evaluation of 1,082 species, this assessment highlights that 25.7% of Orthoptera species are threatened with extinction in Europe.


Cell adaptation to hypoxia requires activation of transcriptional programs that coordinate expression of genes involved in oxygen delivery (via angiogenesis) and metabolic adaptation (via glycolisis). During migration and invasion of normal and pathological tissues, cells may encounter different oxygen levels, due to poor or altered vascularization, and recent evidence has suggested that chemotaxis is a cell function which may be affected by oxygen availability.

 This thesis describes how oxygen avaibility is a determinant parameter in the setting of chemotactic responsiveness to Stromal-Derived Factor 1 (SDF-1, CXCL12). Low oxygen concentration induces high expression of the CXCL12 receptor CXCR4, in different cell
types (monocytes, monocyte-derived macrophages, tumor associated macrophages, endothelial cells, cancer cells and dendritic cells) as both mRNA and protein expression, which is paralleled by increased chemotactic responsiveness to its specific ligand. Furthermore, preliminary results on dendritic cells (DC) show that hypoxia may affect their maturation (CCR7low/CCR5high) and functions. In particular, hypoxia-derived DC do not migrate in response to the CCR7 ligand CCL 19, while they do express higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-12, TNF-α), as compared to normoxia-derived DC. CXCR4 induction by hypoxia is dependent on both activation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1α) and transcript stabilization. Our data identify the hypoxia/HIF-1/CXCR4 pathway as a relevant molecular circuit in the functional tuning of the chemokine system and provide novel insights into the mechanisms controlling cell migration in hypoxic regions, with potential relevance in the pathogenesis of human diseases, including chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer.


Traditional library practice focuses on print collections and developing collections of materials that have been published, which means the documents have gone through some kind of review or vetting process. This practice leaves a wide swath of potential knowledge out of the collection. For example, indigenous knowledge, beliefs, and experience are different, in that they do not undergo the same review or vetting process; we might refer to these types of content as wisdom. Non-print collections, such as collections of recorded oral histories, represent less traditional forms of knowledge. Human libraries push the boundaries further in the quest to integrate wisdom and lived experience into library collections. This paper delineates the relationship between wisdom and knowledge that arose during a phenomenological study of the everyday information practices of Kenyan university women. The women were asked to photograph everyday events from their life and describe what they saw. One finding was a divergent presentation of wisdom and knowledge. Because the women were describing this in relation to their education, we assert that this demonstrates a need to reconsider positivist assumptions in library science, bringing what the women called wisdom into the stacks. How, though, can wisdom be stored and shared?


Hypertext interfaces typically involve navigation, the act (and interaction) of moving from one piece of information to another. Navigation can be exploratory, or it may involve backtracking to some previously-visited node. While backtracking interfaces are common, they may not reflect differences in readers' purposes and mental models. This paper draws on some empirical evidence regarding navigation between and within documents to suggest improvements on traditional hypertext navigation, and proposes a time-based view of backtracking.


Cardiac troponin T (cTnT) and I (cTnI) levels are considered as important diagnostic tools in acute coronary events. They could be of predictive value in hemodialysis (HD) patients. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of increased cTnI and cTnT in HD patients and their prognostic relevance to all-cause mortality. We measured cTnT and cTnI at baseline in 145 asymptomatic HD patients. We used three different cut-off criteria to define elevated cardiac troponin levels as follows: the 99 th percentile of a reference population, the lowest concentration to give a 10% imprecision [10% coefficient of variation (10% CV)] and the relative operating characteristic (ROC) curve-determined value optimized for diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for detection of myocardial injury (MI). These concentrations were 0.01 ng/mL, 0.03 ng/mL and 0.1 ng/mL for cTnT and 0.2 ng/mL, 0.6 ng/mL and 1 ng/mL for cTnI, respectively. Patients were followed for all-cause mortality (median follow-up 551 days). Kaplan-Meier survival curves, log-rank test and Cox models were employed to determine whether baseline cTnT and cTnI levels were predictive of mortality. Greater percentages of patients had an increased cTnT versus cTnI at each cut-off as follows: 99 th percentile, 90.3% versus 35.2%; 10% CV, 73.1% versus 2.1%; and ROC, 20.7% versus 0.7%. During follow-up, 40 patients died. Elevated cTnT levels above the ROC concentration were associated with increased mortality, although it was not significant after adjustment for other risk factors. Univariate and adjusted hazard ratios were 2.3 [confidence intervals (CI), 1.2-4.5; P = 0. 01] and 1.9 (CI, 0.9-3.9; P = 0.07). No differences were found for cTnI levels. Diabetes mellitus was also an independent predictor of mortality. There is a high prevalence of positive cTnT and cTnI in asymptomatic HD patients, with a greater number of patients having an increased cTnT. Elevated troponin T, but not cTnI, seems to be associated with poor prognosis.


Background: The management of patients who are receiving warfarin therapy and have musculoskeletal problems that require treatment with a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) is problematic because NSAID use may increase the risk for bleeding. Cyclooxygenase-2 selective NSAIDs such as celecoxib may be less likely to promote gastrointestinal bleeding; however, there are concerns that they could potentiate the anticoagulation effect of warfarin. Objective: To determine whether celecoxib potentiates the anticoagulant effect of warfarin, as measured by the international normalized ratio (INR). Methods: We performed a randomized, controlled, crossover trial to assess the effect on INR of celecoxib versus codeine (control treatment) in 15 patients who were receiving warfarin therapy and required analgesic treatment for osteoarthritis. During Phase 1 of the study, patients were randomly allocated to receive celecoxib 200 mg/day or codeine phosphate 7–15 mg 3–4 times daily for 5 weeks. During Phase 2 of the study, patients stopped the first study medication and started the other study medication; there was no drug-free interval between phases. Weekly INR testing was performed during the 10 week study period. Adopting the intent-to-treat principle, we used generalized estimating equations to analyze the data. Results: There was no significant difference in the mean INR values during each 5 week treatment period when patients received either celecoxib or codeine. There was, therefore, insufficient evidence to reject the hypothesis that these 2 treatments had an equal effect on the INR (mean difference [95% CI] 0.10 [-0.04 to 0.24]; p=0.16) based on mean imputation. This finding was confirmed after we repeated the analysis with multiple imputations (mean difference [95% CI] 0.093 [-0.16 to 0.35]; p = 0.47). Conclusions: Our results suggest that treatment with celecoxib does not potentiate the INR when taken with warfarin. Larger randomized trials are warranted to address the effects of coadministered warfarin and celecoxib on clinical outcomes.


China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 came after lengthy negotiations. More than 160 WTO member countries granted nondiscriminatory tariff treatment to China's exporters. For its part, China agreed to carry out numerous steps to open itself to global trade and investment markets. In return for its agreement to abide by certain rules that normally govern a market economy, China was led to believe that trading partners like the United States would officially revoke its nonmarket economy status in December 2016. The battle is about to begin over whether the United States and other countries will deliver on their earlier implicit promise. This Policy Brief examines whether granting China market economy status reduces the US government's access to special trade policies to address imports from China in a way that might result in a sudden surge in imports from China. The answer is likely no, due to a recent US policy decision to begin use of countervailing duties (CVDs) against China. Most US antidumping duties applied against China since 2007 have been accompanied by a simultaneous CVD. A change in China's nonmarket economy status that reduced the size of applied antidumping duties may thus result in only a modest increase in imports.


This paper considers the investigation of smart technology integration into EFL teaching and assessment at the non-linguistic higher school. The purpose of the paper is to develop, theoretically substantiate and assess the usage of smart technology in EFL teaching at a non-linguistic higher school. The model for integration of smart technologies into the course of «Business Communication» for the students majoring in Economics in an English language learning environment is presented. Some possible blocking factors, challenges educators can face in the educational arena are revealed. The authors highlight didactic characteristics and functions that can be taken into account for smart technology integration. It is noted that understanding of the concept of smart technology integration into EFL teaching, finding an optimal balance between students' needs and teachers' professional competence can lead to significant language learning outcomes.


Understanding the spatial variability in plant litter processes is essential for accurate comprehension of biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem function. We assessed spatial patterns in litter processes from local to regional scales, at sites throughout the wet tropical rain forests of northern Australia. We aimed to determine the controls (e.g., climate, soil, plant community composition) on annual litter standing crop, annual litterfall rate and in situ leaf litter decomposability. The level of spatial variance in these components, and leaf litter N, P, Ca, lignin, α‐cellulose and total phenolics, was determined from within the scale of subregion, to site (1 km transects) to local/plot (~30 m2). Overall, standing crop was modeled with litterfall and its chemical composition, in situ decomposability, soil Na, and topography (r2 = 0.69, 36 plots). Litterfall was most closely aligned with plant species richness and stem density (negative correlation); leaf decomposability with leaf‐P and lignin, soil Na, and dry season moisture (r2 = 0.89, 40 plots). The predominant scale of variability in litterfall rates was local (plot), while litter standing crop and α‐cellulose variability was more evenly distributed across spatial scales. Litter decomposability, N, P and phenolics were more aligned with subregional differences. Leaf litter C, lignin and Ca varied most at the site level, suggesting more local controls. We show that variability in litter quality and decomposability are more easily accounted for spatially than litterfall rates, which vary widely over short distances possibly in response to idiosyncratic patterns of disturbance.


In recent years there has been increasing interest in conserving fish habitats. However, fish-habitat associations, particularly nursery habitat for early juvenile stages, are poorly known for most reef fishes. Using mark-recapture techniques, I examined among-habitat variation in settlement, post-settlement growth, and persistence, and movement in 3 large, vulnerable, and commercially important reef fishes: the humphead wrasse Cheilinus undulatus, the squaretail coralgrouper Plectropomus areolatus, and the camouflage grouper Epinephelus polyphekadion. Both the humphead wrasse and the coralgrouper appeared to utilize specific nursery habitats. Settlement, growth, and persistence of humphead wrasse were highest in branching coral structures mixed with bushy macroalgae (BCMA). Of all tagged C. undulatus recaptured in intermediate or adult habitats, 80% were tagged post-settlement in BCMA. Early juvenile P. areolatus were found almost exclu- sively in coral rubble habitats on the slopes of tidal channels, at a narrow depth range of 5 to 7 m. This dependence on one habitat type could render this species vulnerable to shipping or dredging opera- tions or other forms of coastal development. E. polyphekadion appeared to be a habitat generalist, and no specific nursery habitat could be identified. In summary, spatial management (e.g. implemen- tation of marine protected areas) should prioritize habitats for conservation according to their value as essential nursery or spawning habitats for target species needing protection.


This study aimed to build on theory and practice regarding the combinations of conditions that influence water service sustainability when external partners are involved. The study investigates 26 well projects that have been implemented in developing countries with the assistance of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA). Using past literature on sustainable water service delivery in developing communities, emergent coding techniques with project documents, and surveys with EWB-USA team members, this study identifies a set of project conditions to conduct fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Findings show that the presence of a water committee cannot alone account for project sustainability. Additional conditions, such as technology and construction processes, project governance, and community engagement practices must also be considered for project sustainability. The relationship between construction quality and financial sustainability is also discussed. Overall, the findings from this research contribute to sector theory and reveal distinct pathways towards sustainable water services. These findings informed recommendations for EWB-USA well project implementation and management, and demonstrate the utility of fsQCA as a tool to navigate the complexities of water service delivery by external partners and improve understanding to increase water service sustainability.


On 6 February 2018, anMw 6.4 earthquake struck near the city of Hualien, in eastern Taiwan with a focal depth of 10.4 km. The earthquake caused strong shaking and severe damage to many buildings in Hualien. The maximum intensity during this earthquake reached VII (> 0:4g) in the epicentral region, which is extreme in Taiwan and capable of causing damage in built structures. About 17 people died and approximately 285 were injured. Taiwan was one of the first countries to implement an earthquake early warning (EEW) system that is capable of issuing a warning prior to strong shaking. In addition to the official EEW run by the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), a low-cost EEW system (P-alert) has been deployed by National Taiwan University (NTU). The P-alert network is currently operational and is capable of providing on-site EEW as well as a map of expected ground shaking. In the present work, we demonstrate the performance of the P-alert network during the 2018 Hualien earthquake. The shake maps generated by the P-alert network were available within 2 min and are in good agreement with the patterns of observed damage in the area. These shake maps provide insights into rupture directivity that are crucial for earthquake engineering. During this earthquake, individual P-alert stations acted as on-site EEWsystems and provided 2–8 s lead time in the blind zone around the epicenter. The coseismic deformation (Cd) is estimated using the records of P-alert stations. The higher Cd values (Cd > 2) in the epicentral region are very helpful for authorities for the purpose of responding to damage mitigation.


In the Old Testament, there are countless incidences and record of experiences and conditions that led many into depression. People with debilitating diseases like leprosy (Lev.13), loathsome sores (Job 2) and other 'strange' diseases suffered considerably. Their pains included not only the effect of the affliction but the attitude of the people among whom they lived which involved stigmatization and rejection. Just like those who became hopeless as a result of health complication and disease, many in the Old Testament Jewish society suffered quite remarkably. In juxtaposition with the contemporary Nigerian society, the condition of the aforementioned group seems to be very similar. Now and then, disasters, religious and ethnic riots, militant insurgence, youth unrest etc have left many Nigerians in utter hopelessness. Terminally ill patients and others with serious health problems have not faired any better in our society today. Many are in a very deplorable state with shattered hope of survival. It is based on the foregoing submissions that this work has among other salient things, dialectically examined the efficacy of hope in the lives of the hopeless. Suggestions on how the therapeutic cum 'placating' concept (hope) could be harnessed and utilized became one of the major thrusts of this paper.


Sustained participation by contributors in opensource software is critical to the survival of open-source projects and can provide career advancement benefits to individual contributors. However, not all contributors reap the benefits of open-source participation fully, with prior work showing that women are particularly underrepresented and at higher risk of disengagement. While many barriers to participation in open-source have been documented in the literature, relatively little is known about how the social networks that open-source contributors form impact their chances of long-term engagement. In this paper we report on a mixed-methods empirical study of the role of social capital (i.e., the resources people can gain from their social connections) for sustained participation by women and men in open-source GitHub projects. After combining survival analysis on a large, longitudinal data set with insights derived from a user survey, we confirm that while social capital is beneficial for prolonged engagement for both genders, women are at disadvantage in teams lacking diversity in expertise.


Conceived by a team of authors with decades of classroom and laboraory experience, the Color Atlas of Medical Bacteriology includes more than 730 brilliant, four-color images of common pathogenic bacteria and descriptions of the methods used to identify them, including microscopic and phenotypic characteristics, colonial morphology, and biochemical properties.
Each chapter, organized by pathogen and taxonomic group, begins with a brief introduction that provides a contextual framework for the images. This second edition embraces the latest developments in molecular biology methodology in the diagnostic laboratory with a new chapter examining the breadth and possibilities of these new techniques. Also, in light of the alarming emergence of antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial susceptibiliy testing is addressed in another new chapter. The final chapter on stains, media, and reagents details the most common menthods and biochemical reactions used in the identification of pathogenic bacteria. The book's hundreds of illustrations, of typical stains, colony morphologies, and biochemical reactions of bacteria most frequently encountered in the clinical laboratory, have been thouroughly updated.
A valuable illustrative supplement for lectures and laboratory presentations, this easy-to-use atlas was written for laboratorians, clinicians, students, and anyone interested in the field of diagnostic medical bacteriology.The Color
Atlas of Medical Bacteriology is a good reference book that is fairly
complete with wonderful images. It would be a welcome addition to the
bookshelves of any teaching institution or clinical microbiology
laboratory. – Clinical
Infectious Diseases review of the first edition, written in 2006
Hardcover, 366 pages, color illustrations, index.


The proposed automation solution for waste water treatment plant involves the use of a series of small control systems that run the facility, PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) continuously monitor the operation of pumps, closures and other devices, collect and execute commands coming from the higher levels, while programmable controllers (PLC) are used to control various processes based on the data and the built-in algorithm. According to the given specifications, a control panel was created in a suitable SCADA software for the control and monitoring of waste water treatment, which requires the communication between the SCADA application and local PLC controller is necessary. A program that provides the appropriate behavior of the valve, placed at the entrance and the control of the pumps was written in a ladder diagram. The alarm and monitoring system is of the highest importance. It covers the most significant facilities of the waste water treatment plant having pumping stations, reservoirs and supply lines and shows that the plant as a whole works well. If something unexpected happens ? such as a failure or a malfunction of a vital facility ? the system should register and alerts the staffs who work there.


Conservation easements are a common tool for protecting important habitat and migration corridors from development across increasingly fragmented western rangelands. Spatially-explicit land market transaction data to evaluate and target easements, however, is sparse or non-existent in many western states. We demonstrate a propensity score matching (PSM) model using available assessment data to estimate unobservable future residential values and probability of habitat loss associated with agricultural parcels. Combined with available parcel-level biological benefits data, the PSM model's estimates of residential value and probability of loss can be used to target conservation easements cost-effectively.


The territories ruled by the Syrian opposition are being reorganised. The leaderless revolution has given way to a seizure of power by vanguardist and ideological organisations, be it the PYD in the northeast or HTS, the former local branch of AQ, in Idlib. However, these organisations cannot resist the regime's military threat to reconquer the territories or the Turkish intervention by themselves. They need to manage the internationalisation of the conflict to protect themselves and find space in the broader strategic game around Syria. This is the strategy of HTS. After emerging from the matrix of AQ's global jihad, since 2017 HTS has sought to 'institutionalise' the revolution by imposing its military hegemony and full control of the institutions of local governance. The group has thus marginalised the revolutionary milieu, other Islamists and the threat posed by AQ supporters and IS cells in Idlib. HTS's domination was followed by a policy of gradual opening and mainstreamisation. The group has had to open up to local communities and make concessions, especially in the religious sphere. HTS is seeking international acceptance with the development of a strategic partnership with Turkey and desires to open dialogue with Western countries. Overall, HTS has transformed from formerly being a salafi jihadi organisation into having a new mainstream approach to political Islam.


As demands for high-fidelity physics-based animations increase, the need for accurate methods for simulating deformable solids grows. While higherorder finite elements are commonplace in engineering due to their superior approximation properties for many problems, they have gained little traction in the computer graphics community. This may partially be explained by the need for finite element meshes to approximate the highly complex geometry of models used in graphics applications. Due to the additional perelement computational expense of higher-order elements, larger elements are needed, and the error incurred due to the geometry mismatch eradicates the benefits of higher-order discretizations. One solution to this problem is the embedding of the geometry into a coarser finite element mesh. However, to date there is no adequate, practical computational framework that permits the accurate embedding into higher-order elements. We develop a novel, robust quadrature generation method that generates theoretically guaranteed high-quality sub-cell integration rules of arbitrary polynomial accuracy. The number of quadrature points generated is bounded only by the desired degree of the polynomial, independent of the embedded geometry. Additionally, we build on recent work in the Finite Cell Method (FCM) community so as to tackle the severe ill-conditioning caused by partially filled elements by adapting an Additive-Schwarz-based preconditioner so that it is suitable for use with state-of-the-art non-linear material models from the graphics literature. Together these two contributions constitute a general-purpose framework for embedded simulation with higher-order finite elements. We finally demonstrate the benefits of our framework in several scenarios, in which second-order hexahedra and tetrahedra clearly outperform their first-order counterparts.


Objective: Evaluating the abilities of emergency medical services (EMS) staff who are in the frontline of the diseases could be an excellent reflection of the accuracy of curriculum both before and after graduation. This study was done to determine the clinical competencies of Guilan EMS staff in responding to emergency conditions using Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Methods: In this descriptive study, 70 EMS staff from selected Emergency Centres in Guilan were recruited. Data were collected using a questionnaire and a checklist which included 9 different skills. Validity of the checklist was assessed by obtaining the opinions of 10 experts. The content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) of the checklist were 0.7 and 0.8, respectively. The reliability of the checklist was obtained using the test-retest method (r=0.89). In order to collect data, observations were done using the designated checklist. Data were analysed using SPSS software version 22 and descriptive statistical tests. Results: Findings showed that 56.3% of the paramedics got good scores for trauma competency but the mean scores for two competencies of spinal cord immobilization and vehicle extrication were low, indicating major skills problem. There was a statistically significant relationship between education (P=0.02) and work experience (P=0.03) as well as clinical skills in confronting trauma. Conclusion: Although the EMS staff had an acceptable range of performance in most of the skills, it seems that there is a need for training of performance-based competencies in which paramedics had a poor performance.


Beamforming schemes have been proposed to exploit the spatial characteristics of multiple-input single-output (MISO) wireless radio channels. Several algorithms are available for optimal joint beamforming and power control for the downlink. Such optimal beamforming minimizes the total transmission power, while ensuring an individual target quality of service (QoS) for each user; alternatively the weakest QoS is maximized, subject to a power constraint. Herein, we consider both formulations and some of the available algorithms are generalized to enable indefinite quadratic shaping constraints on the beamformers. By imposing such additional constraints, the QoS measure can be extended to take other factors than the customary signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) into account. Alternatively, other limitations such as interference requirements or physical constraints may be handled within the optimization. We also consider a more general SINR expression than previously analyzed, which allows for more accurate modeling, e.g., of nonzero self-interference in code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems. Several applications for indefinite equality or inequality constraints are suggested and evaluated. For example, it is shown how such constraints may be used to ensure a minimum level of path diversity in a CDMA system. Other applications include limiting intercell interference in decentralized systems


Meat samples with known levels of androstenone and skatole were used for sensory evaluation by trained panel and were characterized with an AlphaMOS Fox 4000 electronic nose. In case of skatole women tended to be more sensitive than men. In contrast, for androstenone the sensitivity was independent of sex. Results obtained with PanelCheck V.1.3.2. soft ware show that the panellists were more sensitive to the samples with both substances, than the samples with only androstenone or skatole. Discriminant Factor Analysis (DFA) model classification based on electronic nose sensory data shows 100% correct classification of the samples with only androstenone and only skatole. With using of all samples except control samples in development of discriminant analysis (DF) model, three groups were classified with 80% success: only androstenone, only skatole and the different combination of androstenone and skatole levels. Groups with slight or definite odour were classified successfully with discriminant analysis based on data obtained with two characteristic sensors (81.3% in cross validation). The preliminary results reported in this paper show that measurements of compounds with an AlphaMOS device might be a useful technique for boar taint evaluation.


Maternal Newborn Nursing Care Plans, Third Edition teaches students and practicing nurses how to assess, plan, provide, and evaluate care for pregnancy, delivery, recovery, abnormal conditions, and newborn care. Featuring more than 65 of the most common and high-risk care plans for nursing care using the nursing process approach, it includes NIC interventions, discussions on collaborative problems, key nursing activities, signs and symptoms, and diagnostic studies. Using a progressive approach, the text begins with generic care plans that address all patient situations regardless of the patient diagnosis or condition before moving on to more complicated and specific care plans. The Third Edition offers new rationales for nursing actions based on scientific principles, a new breastfeeding care plan added to the normal newborn care chapter, new information on obesity in pregnancy, evidence-based practice boxes throughout to highlight current research, and updated references and research. Also included are new guidelines, practice changes, new standards, and evidence changes. * Consistent organization based on commonly encountered nursing diagnoses * Comprehensive coverage of normal pregnancy and common complications of pregnancy * Individualized and collaborative care plans cover both actual and potential problems and conditions * Content in concert with the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) mandate to improve the quality and safety of patient outcomes