This paper addresses the domestically owned food-processing industry in Kenya and explores the sale of processed food products to the domestic 'modern' retail sector. Food processing represents a step up in the value chain compared to fresh food production and may thus, at least potentially, lead to economic development. In focusing on food-processing businesses and on domestic rather than global market sales, this paper distinguishes itself from studies on Sub-Saharan African suppliers to global value chains. The potential importance of domestic 'modern' retail formats to Kenyan food suppliers is underlined by the fact that after South Africa, Kenya is Africa's second largest market for 'formal' retail, mostly because of the growing Kenyan middle class (EIU, 2013; Business Daily, 2015). What is not clear, however, is the extent to which retailers in Kenya currently source processed food products locally and thus whether food processing – as opposed to fresh food exports – retains importance for suppliers as well as for the Kenyan economy. This paper aims to contribute knowledge to this subject on which very little research exists. Based on fieldwork, the paper shows that a variety of entry barriers exist for Kenyan food processors that attempt to supply the emerging 'modern' retail sector domestically. The paper also shows how the requirements that processors must meet, especially for larger domestic supermarkets, tend to resemble those commonly described in the export sector, calling into question the extent to which domestic retail is a viable alternative in the longer run.


Andrew Lang's ideas on the nature and sources of originality seem fated for renewed attention due to the ways they appear to have forecast or anticipated modern attempts to get beyond the celebration of individual creativity. But rather than simply illustrating recent theoretical truisms, Lang's formulations, whether developed in his writings on myth or in his texts devoted to literary topics, present subtle and not easily resolved challenges to attempts to dissolve individuality and agency into a greater communal whole. For Lang, because the effective use of material from the past to arrive at new forms is the measure of individual creativity, no work can ever make a claim to absolute originality. However, the prestige of the author, though hedged about by survivals from a lost past, is not for that reason lost. To recognize the tension between inherited material and new achievement is to begin to do justice to the historical place and conceptual force of the Andrew Lang effect.


In the larger Southeast Asian region, three important elements nurture and sustain, as well as cultivate the life of peoples within its territorial boundaries. These are 1) water, 2) rice, and 3) bamboo (Wessing, 1988). More than their prominence and abundance in the physical and material existence of the peoples in the entire region, these elements possess a distinct value and significance in their quality and way of life. Since the beginning, the bamboo (more than stone and other material elements), has been considered as a principal tool in the cultivation of the region's civilization. In the realm of human communication, particularly in the field of musical expression, the present writing deals with the value of bamboo as a societal medium in communing with the spirit world, nature, and the human species. The discussion focuses on two concepts about sounds produced through the materiality of the bamboo: 1) sounds that are measured in terms of their power to penetrate the spirit world, and 2) the sounds structurated through the use of technology and the physical laws in order to create meaningful structures and languages that are in harmony with his physical being and his natural environment.


The test method determining the efflorescence potential of brick is found in ASTM C67-08, Standard Test Methods for Sampling and Testing Brick and Structural Clay Tile. This test method is based upon the "wick tests" performed at the National Bureau of Standards in 1930 to determine the tendency for 684 brick to effloresce. Both Britain and Russia have also published efflorescence test methods for brick. From 1995 through 2006, Task Group C15.02.26 on Efflorescence, a subcommittee of ASTM C15.02 on Brick and Structural Clay Tile, evaluated the effectiveness of the ASTM C67-08 efflorescence test method. C15.02 is a subcommittee of committee C15 on Manufactured Masonry Units. The performance results for the ASTM, British, Russian and a modified ASTM C67-08 test on a standard brick were compared. This evaluation revealed that the ASTM C67-08 and the Russian efflorescence test methods were equally effective in predicting efflorescence potential of brick. The British test method was shown not to be effective in predicting efflorescence potential of brick. The efflorescence that developed on the types of brick rated as "effloresced" was more extensive and intense on the brick tested by the ASTM C67-08 method than the brick tested by the Russian method. In 1998, Task Group C15.05.15 on Efflorescence of Masonry Assemblies of ASTM subcommittee C15.05 on Masonry Assemblies prepared ASTM C1400-07, Standard Guide for Reduction of Efflorescence Potential in New Masonry Walls. C15.05 is a subcommittee of committee C15 on Manufactured Masonry Units. Subsequently, Task Group C15.05.15 began testing to obtain information to develop a test method to predict efflorescence potential in new masonry assemblies. The testing is ongoing. The various test methods evaluated to date include the following: (1) Open top plastic box with brick test specimen inserted in each face and filling of the box with a slurry of the test mortar ingredients; (2) open top brick masonry box constructed with the brick and mortar test specimens and filling of the box with water; (3) brick masonry wallettes constructed with the brick and mortar test specimens and placed in 1-in.-deep water and exposed to moving air from a fan; and (4) masonry cubes made from ground-up brick test specimens and mortar test specimens and placed in 1-in.-deep water and exposed to moving air from a fan. This paper presents the results of the evaluation of the ASTM C67-08 efflorescence test method by Task Group C15.02.26 and of the efforts made to date by Task Group C15.05.15 to develop an efflorescence test method for masonry assemblages.


In recent years, adversaries show the high intelligence to perform attacks against cyber-physical systems, such as power grids. They stay stealthily for a long period, learn physics about control systems, and use malicious commands crafted in legitimate formats to cause physical damage. Different from previous work, my research combines the knowledge of both cyber and physical infrastructures to detect the attacks and prevent the damage from happening. I designed network intrusion detection systems that use the physical model of power systems to detect malicious commands and a self-healing network to restore measurements from compromised power grid devices. In my current work, I propose Raincoat, which randomizes data acquisitions to disrupt attackers' knowledge. Meanwhile, we intelligently spoof measurements to mislead attackers into designing ineffective strategies. Based on experiments using large-scale power systems and six real wide area networks, Raincoat is effective against false data injection and control-related attacks with small overhead. At the end of this presentation, I will present my future work that targets different attack model and uses the "big volume of small data" model to increase the resilience design. Bio: Hui Lin earned his B.S. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2006 and his M.S. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010, both in electrical and computer engineering. He is currently working toward his Ph.D. degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include cyber security, intrusion detection systems, and software-defined networking (SDN). His Ph.D. research explores applying intrusion detection systems and SDN in critical cyber-physical systems, such as power grids, to increase their resilience against cyber attacks and accidental failures. He has successfully adapted Bro, a runtime network traffic analyzer, to support network protocols (e.g., DNP3) commonly used in power grid infrastructure. The DNP3 analyzer that he developed has been included in Bro and can be downloaded freely by utility companies. His current work focuses on applying SDN in cyber-physical systems; he intends to use SDN's network programmability to design flexible cyber-physical systems which can preemptively prevent cyberattacks from introducing physical damage. Tuesday, April 4, 2017 @ 11:00 am McAdams Hall, Room 110E For more information on all upcoming School of Computing Spring 2017 Seminars, please visit www.cs.clemson.edu/socseminar/s2017/


This review critically examines 15 empirical studies, conducted since the mid-1980s, on the effects of support, guidance, and orientation programs—collectively known as induction—for beginning teachers. Most of the studies reviewed provide empirical support for the claim that support and assistance for beginning teachers have a positive impact on three sets of outcomes: teacher commitment and retention, teacher classroom instructional practices, and student achievement. Of the studies on commitment and retention, most showed that beginning teachers who participated in induction showed positive impacts. For classroom instructional practices, the majority of studies reviewed showed that beginning teachers who participated in some kind of induction performed better at various aspects of teaching, such as keeping students on task, using effective student questioning practices, adjusting classroom activities to meet students' interests, maintaining a positive classroom atmosphere, and demonstrating successful classroom management. For student achievement, almost all of the studies showed that students of beginning teachers who participated in induction had higher scores, or gains, on academic achievement tests. There were, however, exceptions to this overall pattern—in particular a large randomized controlled trial of induction in a sample of large, urban, low-income schools—which found some significant positive effects on student achievement but no effects on either teacher retention or teachers' classroom practices. The review closes by attempting to reconcile these contradictory findings and by identifying gaps in the research base and relevant questions that have not been addressed and warrant further research.


Graphs are a prevalent tool in data science, as they model the inherent structure of the data. They have been used successfully in unsupervised and semi-supervised learning. Typically they are constructed either by connecting nearest samples, or by learning them from data, solving an optimization problem. While graph learning does achieve a better quality, it also comes with a higher computational cost. In particular, the current state-of-the-art model cost is $\mathcal{O}(n^2)$ for $n$ samples. In this paper, we show how to scale it, obtaining an approximation with leading cost of $\mathcal{O}(n\log(n))$, with quality that approaches the exact graph learning model. Our algorithm uses known approximate nearest neighbor techniques to reduce the number of variables, and automatically selects the correct parameters of the model, requiring a single intuitive input: the desired edge density.


OBJECTIVE
The relationship between lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and erectile dysfunction (ED) has recently received increased attention. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Alfa-5® association of Serenoa repens, Pinus massoniana Bark Extract (PMBE) and Crocus sativus (IDIProst® Gold) in improvement of patient's quality of life, when compared with Serenoa repens alone.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
All patients with clinical and instrumental diagnosis of LUTS due to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) and ED, attending 5 Italians Urological Institutions from May to December 2012 were enrolled in this prospective, multicentre, phase 3 study. Participants were assigned to receive oral capsules of IDIProst® Gold (one capsule q24 h) or Serenoa repens 320 mg (one capsule q24h) for 3 months. Clinical and instrumental analyses were carried out at the enrollment and at the end of therapy. IPSS, IIEF-5 and SF-36 questionnaires have been used. The main outcome measure was the improvement of quality of life at the end of the whole study period.

RESULTS
129 (mean age 45-71 ± 4.36) men were randomly allocated to IDIProst® Gold (n = 83) or Serenoa repens (n = 46). The baseline questionnaire mean scores were 17.1 ± 6.4, 14.9 ± 3.7, 96.3 ± 1.2 for IPSS, IIEF-5 and SF-36, respectively. At the follow-up examination, statistically significant differences have been reported in terms of IPSS (11.9 vs 13.8; p < 0.001), IIEF-5 and SF-36 mean scores (19.3 vs 16.1; 99.7 vs 96.3; p < 0.003; p < 0.001). Moreover, statistically significant differences were then reported between the two visits, in terms of IPSS, IIEF-5 and SF-36 scores (p < 0.003; p < 0.001; p < 0.001), only in the IDIProst® Gold group.

CONCLUSIONS
In conclusions, we found that IDIProst® Gold significantly improve the quality of life of patients affected by LUTS due to BPH and ED, specifically in terms of sexual function, highlighting that a better sexual quality of life is correlated with an higher overall quality of life regardless of the urinary function.


CONTEXT
Bone marrow (BM) biopsy is an integral part of staging work-up for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

AIMS
To study the characteristics of BM involvement in NHL with respect to incidence, histologic pattern and morphology of infiltration and its discordance with the histology of primary anatomic site.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN
Forty-nine cases of NHL in which BM biopsy was performed for staging were included in this study, the primary site being classified according to the WHO classification for NHL.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A prospective study of 49 cases was conducted. Bilateral BM biopsy was obtained from the posterior superior iliac spine. The biopsies were fixed in 10% buffered formalin solution and decalcified using 10% formal - formic acid for 4 - 6 h followed by routine processing. The serial sections were stained by hematoxylin and eosin and reticulin stains.

RESULTS
BM biopsy showed involvement by lymphoma in 27 cases (55.10%). Unilateral positivity was found in four cases (14.81% cases). The overall incidence of marrow involvement by NHL was 55.1%. The incidence of involvement was higher in T-cell lymphomas when compared with B-cell lymphomas and predominant pattern of involvement was mixed. Diffuse large B-cell lymphomas had the lowest incidence in all the B-cell lymphomas. A discordant histology between BM and primary anatomic site was found in 29.63% (8/27) of the cases, where it was seen more in follicular lymphomas and diffuse large B-cell lymphomas.

CONCLUSIONS
Critical examination of BM biopsies can increase the diagnostic accuracy, thereby contributing to the prognosis and appropriate treatment modalities.


Professor 'Abdallahi Na'im argues that there can be no conflict between religion and the state because religion and politics are part of different normative orders, and thus it is not conceivable that a conflict can arise between them. I argue that Na'im's solution to the problematic relationship of religion to state shares the same conceptual terrain as separationism in American constitutional law, a position which has grown increasingly untenable as a result of the increasing religious pluralism in the United States and the expansion of the government into areas of life in a manner that would have been inconceivable even one hundred years ago. More importantly, revealed religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam provide their adherents with their own conceptions of justice that sometimes do conflict with the results of secular lawmaking. I argue that instead of seeking a further separation of religion from the state, on the grounds that the former is irrelevant to the latter, it would be more useful to judge both the claims of religion and the claims of the state from the perspective of the normative concerns of justice. From this perspective, religion can serve as an important source of normative values that can criticize unjust political outcomes. At the same time, however, religion cannot claim for itself immunity from the claims of justice. Instead, a reflective equilibrium between the claims of religion and the claims of the state should be the goal. I conclude with a couple of examples from historical Islamic law illustrating both the resources that Islamic law provides in furthering a more just legal system, and interpretations of historical Islamic doctrines in a fashion that is consistent with the kind of reflective equilibrium that should be the goal of legal reflection in a politically liberal state.


A method is presented in satellite altimetry that attempts to simultaneously determine the geoid and sea surface topography with minimum wavelengths of about 500 km and to reduce the radial orbit error caused by geopotential errors. The modeling of the radial orbit error is made using the linearized Lagrangian perturbation theory. Secular and second order effects are also included. After a rather extensive validation of the linearized equations, alternative expressions of the radial orbit error are derived. Numerical estimates for the radial orbit error and geoid undulation error are computed using the differences of two geopotential models as potential coefficient errors, for a SEASAT orbit. To provide statistical estimates of the radial distances and the geoid, a covariance propagation is made based on the full geopotential covariance. Accuracy estimates for the SEASAT orbits are given which agree quite well with already published results. Observation equations are develped using sea surface heights and crossover discrepancies as observables. A minimum variance solution with prior information provides estimates of parameters representing the sea surface topography and corrections to the gravity field that is used for the orbit generation. The simulation results show that the method can be used to effectively reduce the radial orbit error and recover the sea surface topography.


Abstract We simulate cosmic chemical enrichment with a hydrodynamical model including supernova and hypernova feedback. We find that the majority of stars in present-day massive galaxies formed in much smaller galaxies at high redshifts, despite their late assembly times. The hypernova feedback drives galactic outflows efficiently in low mass galaxies, and these winds eject heavy elements into the intergalactic medium. The ejected baryon fraction is larger for less massive galaxies, correlates well with stellar metallicity. The observed mass-metallicity relation is well reproduced as a result of the mass-dependent galactic winds.


Heterogeneous systems promise to improve performance and endurance of power constrained systems, by utilizing computing elements of different power and performance characteristics. Such systems provide the possibility to trade number and types of core with Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) levels and core utilization rate to achieve optimal energy efficiency. Therefore by making smart decisions on application scheduling and mapping we can exploit and maximize the benefits of using heterogeneous processors. At the same time, the application level of parallelism can conveniently be exposed by dataflow Models of Computation (MoCs). In this paper we show an energy efficient execution approach for heterogeneous architecture. We demonstrate the approach on a real-life streaming application modelled with Parameterized and Interfaced Synchronous Dataflow (PiSDF). The presented solution shows how to integrate our approach in the workflow of a dataflow application prototyping tool. The obtained results demonstrate that, by using an optimal scheduling and mapping, more than 30% of energy reduction can be achieved on a single actor level.


Monitoring of cerebral diseases associated with a change of morphology (e.g., stroke) requires unprecedented accuracy for quantification of its morphological progression for each voxel. The purpose of this paper is to provide a technique [voxel-guided morphometry (VGM)] to quantify macroscopic anatomical differences. VGM consists of four steps: 1) coarse linear alignment by the extended principle axes theory (ePAT) generalized to affine movements; 2) a cross-correlation-based technique using a matrix-norm for fine linear alignment; 3) the applied high-dimensional multiresolution full multigrid method determines the nonlinear deformations, thereby achieving a complete exploitation of information and effective processing. The method measures a gray-value-guided movement of each voxel from source to target. The resulting high-dimensional deformation field is further processed by 4) determination of volume alterations for each voxel. Furthermore, the effect of linear registration errors on final morphometric measurements is discussed and the conditions for a bijective correspondence of voxels assuming small alterations are derived. To illustrate the technique the changing morphology of different subjects suffering from cerebral infarction is presented by using commonly available T/sub 1/-weighted magnetic resonance volumes. VGM visualizes that ischemic as well as remote regions are affected by stroke.


What is dialogue, anyway—language produced in alternating turns by two or more speakers? A way to collaboratively accomplish a task or transaction with an agent, whether human or computer? An interactive process by which two people entrain and coordinate their behaviors and mental states? A corpus that can be analyzed to answer a research question? The ways in which researchers conceptualize dialogue affect the assumptions and decisions they make about how to design an experiment, collect or code a corpus, or build a system. Often such assumptions are not explicit. Researchers may decide to characterize, stage, control, or entirely ignore such potentially key factors as the task two people are charged with, their identities, their common ground, or the medium in which dialogue is conducted. Such decisions, especially when left implicit, can affect the products and processes of dialogue in substantial but unanticipated ways; in fact, they can change the results of an experiment. As one example, spoken dialogue experiments often use a simulated partner or confederate in the role of speaker or addressee; just how the confederate is deployed reflects the researcher's explicit theory and implicit assumptions about the nature of dialogue. As another example, sometimes experiments place people in infelicitous situations; this can change the kind of language game people think they're playing. I will cover some implicit assumptions about the nature of dialogue that affect the risks researchers take, and highlight pairs of studies that have found different results, perhaps due to these assumptions. Speaker's Bio: Susan Brennan is Professor of Psychology in the Cognitive Science Program at Stony Brook University (State University of New York), with joint appointments in the Departments of Linguistics and Computer Science. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford University with a focus on psycholinguistics; her M.S. is from the MIT Media Lab, where she worked on computer-generated caricature and teleconferencing interfaces; and her B.A. is in cultural anthropology from Cornell University. She has worked in industry at Atari Research, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Apple Computer. Her research interests span language processing in conversation, joint attention, partner-specific adaptation during interactive dialogue, the production and comprehension of referring expressions, lexical entrainment, discourse functions of prosody and intonation, speech disfluencies, multimodal communication, social/ cognitive neuroscience, natural language and speech interfaces to computers, spoken dialogue systems, and repair in human and human-computer dialogue. She has used eye-tracking both as a method for studying the incremental comprehension and production of spontaneous speech and as a channel in computer-mediated communication. A currently funded project is "Communication in the Global University: A Longitudinal Study of Language Adaptation at Multiple Timescales in Nativeand Non-Native Speakers." She is temporarily on leave from Stony Brook University in order to serve as Program Director for NSF's oldest program, the Graduate Research Fellowship Program in the Division of Graduate


Book Description:
Crossing the Boundaries is a ground breaking new text for Children's Literature courses that draws on the disciplines of Arts and Education. As reflected in the title, Crossing the Boundaries analyses children's literature from a truly interdisciplinary perspective, with academics, authors and illustrators contributing to the book.

In this edited collection, a focus on Australian children's literature is balanced with studies and examples from international children's literature. The selection of contributors from US, Canada UK, South Africa and New Zealand helps provides the global coverage.

A genre-based and thematic approach is utilised throughout the book.


Background: Psoriasis is a widespread chronic disease affecting 1-3% of total population and in most cases, treated by topical application of corticosteroids. Though, the topical route is very demanding because of the physicochemical nature of diseased stratum corneum and so no, single treatment works for every patient. The oral route is evidence for harsh side effects because of systemic immunosuppression which can be avoided by topical route. Objectives: The objective of the present study is to design, develop, and evaluate nanoparticulate gel containing Cyclosporine A for the treatment of psoriasis. Methods: Cyclosporine loaded nanoparticles were formulated by the modified nanoprecipitation technique and characterized for particle size, encapsulation efficiency, morphological analysis, drugpolymer compatibility study, powder x-ray diffraction analysis. Optimized formulation of Cyclosporine nanoparticles further converted into the gel using Carbopol 934. Results: Cyclosporine loaded nanoparticles showed a spherical shape with smooth surface. In vitro antiproliferative activity proved that cell viability was not affected with blank nanoparticles, as there was no effect of concentration and types of surfactant on cell viability causing no cell death. The gel formulation hydrates the skin which helps in the higher permeation of Cyclosporine loaded nanoparticulate gel. Conclusion: In vitro anti-psoriatic study suggested that the developed Cyclosporine nanoparticulate gel formulation exhibits improved dermal delivery of Cyclosporine and also nanoparticles had a superior effect on cell growth as compared to the free Cyclosporine. Dermal pharmacokinetic study established that the amount of Cyclosporine reaching the viable layer is slightly high for nanoparticulate gel as compared to free Cyclosporine. Thus, Cyclosporine loaded nanoparticulate gel formulation might be the potential delivery system for the treatment of psoriasis.


ABSTRACT: This study was conducted to identify sediment movement within a strip intercropping system in southwestern Iowa during the third year of a three-year crop rotation. Soil loss, resulting from the application of simulated rainfall to a Monona silt loam soil, was measured from individual corn (Zea mays L.), soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr), and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) strips, and from multiple strips which included all three crops. Because of the crop rotation and residue management procedures used at the study site, a substantial amount of surface cover and vegetative mass was present on each of the strips. As a result, soil loss resulting from simulated rainfall applied for a one-hour duration at an intensity of approximately 64 mm/hr (2.5 in/hr) was less than or equal to 1.5 Mg/ha (0.67 tons/acre) from each of the individual and multiple strips. Thus, the strip intercropping system established on this highly erodible site provided effective erosion control.


Existing constructs for privacy concerns and behaviors do not adequately model deviations between user attitudes and stated user behaviors. While a number of studies have examined supposed deviations from rationality by online users, the true explanations for these stated behaviors may lie in factors not previously addressed in privacy concern constructs. This dissertation presents the results of an Agile, sprint-based longitudinal study of Social Networking Site users conducted over a twenty month period between April of 2009 and March of 2011.
Extending the base constructs of the Internet User Information and Privacy Concern model and Privacy Regulation Theory to an online survey of privacy attitudes and self-reported behaviors for social media use; this dissertation's findings have significant implications for the study of online privacy management. This study supports prior published observations that online users behave counterintuitively when disclosing personal information, while indicating that existing models of disclosure are inadequate, and that a new model of online privacy disclosure is required. This initial irrational disclosure behavior and subsequent tightening of privacy attitudes and behaviors indicate the importance of assessing temporality when considering models of privacy behavior.
By testing an evolving set of hypotheses through 'point in time' studies using a common test instrument, this study creates a harmonized longitudinal model for the manner in which individuals regulate their privacy boundaries. This model delineates how, in each privacy disclosure choice, individuals engage in a process of privacy boundary regulation and constantly mediate between privacy threats and threat mitigation strategies. The model developed and presented within this study offers a significant contribution to greater understanding of nuanced privacy disclosure behaviors among users.
Keywords: online privacy, privacy behavior, social media, social networking, security, privacy regulation.


SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES Studies in the Printing, Publishing and Performance of Music in the 16th Century. By Stanley Boorman. (Variorum Collected Studies Series.) Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. [xii, 362 p. ISBN 0-86078-970-5. $109.95.] Music examples, illustrations, plates, indexes. This collection of essays, all published between 1977 and 1995, demonstrates the astounding variety and the remarkable depth of Stanley Boorman's research. The volume forms a handy reference work for the reader, since each of the eleven essays appeared in a different source (a few of these rather obscure); they may also be seen as preliminary studies for the author's magisterial, recently published Ottaviano Petrucci: Catalogue Raisonne (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Boorman effectively groups the articles into three distinct areas of his interests, as indicated by the title: 1) "Printing" treats printing-house procedures as revealed in the books themselves; 2) "Publishing" deals with that end of the process; and 3) "Performance" moves beyond printed sources to manuscripts and implications for composition and performance practice. The first section-"Printing"-opens with "The 'First' Edition of the Odhecaton A." Here Boorman determines what bibliographers would refer to as the "sophisticated" nature of Petrucci's first publication (Venice, 1501) in the exemplar now at the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna. That is, through an analysis of changes in paper, staff patterns, text incipits, signature patterns, and the deterioration of capital letters, the book appears to exhibit sheets from four different settings of type and two distinct editions. The author concludes by noting variants among chansons from the Odhecaton A and northern Italian manuscript sources. The second article, "Petrucci's Type-Setters and the Process of Stemmatics," posits that two typesetters consistently employed distinct habits in Petrucci's Motetti de la Corona I (Fossombrone, 1514), particularly in their spelling of Latin, the use of minor color, proportion signs, and ligatures. Boorman contends that printed books went through most of the processes that were also involved in preparing a manuscript, and he concludes that the first typesetter had rigorous training in traditional notation, and the second more familiarity with current trends, much as a scholar would analyze a manuscript copied by two scribes. The next essay, "A Case of Work and Turn: Half-Sheet Imposition in the Early Sixteenth Century," highlights Boorman's interest in descriptive bibliography. He confirms Petrucci's first simultaneous printing in 1503 of text and staves, thus replacing the labor-intensive multiple-impression process with double-impression. In the same year, with further issues of the Odhecaton A along with the Misse Brumel and Misse Ghiselin, Petrucci began to use half sheets prepared separately and imposed for work and turn press work. In the wide-ranging "Printed Music Books of the Italian Renaissance from the Point of View of Manuscript Study," Boorman explores the technical evidence apparent in publications from Venice (and elsewhere), including Frottole libro sexto (Petrucci, 1506), Corfini's Motetti a 5-12 (Alessandro Gardano, 1581), Metallo's Magnificat a 4 & a 5 (Melchiorre Scotto, 1603), and Massaino's Opus 31 motets (Angelo Gardano, 1606). The printing anomalies observed here resolve questions as to the content of a musical edition, its provenance or authenticity, or the homogeneity or inconsistencies of its readings. The fifth essay, "The Salzburg Liturgy and Single-Impression Music Printing," provides intriguing evidence from missals with chant printed from the single-impression process around 1500 that foreshadows the widespread adoption of that process in printing polyphonic music from the 1520s onward. The second section-"Publishing"begins with "Early Music Printing: Working for a Specialized Market." Boorman states that sixteenth-century plainchant and music for the reformed churches raises several ecclesiastical, but few musical, questions, and the intended audience was known. …


For Asian Agri and other Indonesian palm oil producers, the future promised rising demand from fast-growing Asian populations, but also intensifying criticism from environmental groups. With the highest yield and lowest production cost of any edible oil, palm oil constituted an abundant, inexpensive source of food for Asian and, to a lesser extent, international markets. Its production had soared from 1970 to 2010, sparking concern from environmentalists over the conversion of high-value conservation land in Malaysia and Indonesia (where nearly 90% of palm oil was produced) into palm oil plantations. Critics had intensified their campaigns in recent years, urging - at times successfully - packaged food makers and investors to boycott palm oil suppliers accused of environmental mismanagement. While noting that some accusations were unjustified, palm oil producers argued the industry was making strides towards greater sustainability and cited the unique advantages of palm oil: it was free of unhealthy trans fats, for example, and required less land to produce more oil than any known substitute. Asian Agri, an established Indonesian palm oil grower and exporter, had thus far avoided public scrutiny. The company was a key source of employment in many rural communities, had extensive experience negotiating the complex Indonesian regulatory environment, and was moving to certify its operations according to industry-set sustainability guidelines. In 2010, Asian Agri appeared well positioned to capitalize on the growing palm oil market, but the broad-strokes vilification of the palm oil industry was a source of serious concern. In the face of great uncertainty, the management team needed to devise a strategy for the future.To evaluate a company's strategic options in the context of a booming, but controversial, industry environment.


This article explores whether conservatives, in particular classical or institutional conservatives, should support the radical tax reform currently being promoted by various elements of the Republican party, or should instead support continuation of progressive income taxation. The article looks first at the different types of conservative thought prevalent today, and then briefly reviews both the current progressive income tax system and the various, mostly consumption-tax based, reform proposals. The article then compares the current system and the proposed consumption-based reforms based on the main tenents of classical conservative thought as set forth by Russell Kirk. The article then argues that the progressive income tax is consistent with natural law; that it does not in practice promote a narrowing uniformity or a classeless society (and in fact does promote social peace); and that it does not destroy private property to any significantly greater extent than any other form of taxation. The article concludes by pointing out that tax reform advocates are all tradition-destroying utilitarian economists at heart, and that prudent institutional conservatives should thus resist change and support an institution, our current income tax, that successfully raises revenue and keeps the social peace.


In the diverse landscape of modern gaming it is rare to find specific games that are universally described in affectionate terms. Allegiances to form and genre identify the various tribes and often the divide between gaming sub-cultures runs deep. Passionate players pride themselves both by the longevity of their status and via signifiers of skill acquired. These traits typify what has become known as the "hardcore" player; in popular gaming culture the hardcore is often positioned contra the "casual" player with hours and type of game played as the main criteria for qualification. However these terms are ludicrous at best and fall short in describing the multitude of people who play digital games. The following is focussed on one particular Sony PSP game franchise that has received widespread critical acclaim, LocoRoco. This is a 2D platform game initially released in Europe in Summer 2006 and although it has not gone platinum  this title got to No 5 in the UK Charts and has won 2 BAFTA's for character design and children's game in 2006. LocoRoco 2 was released in the U.K. in November 2008. Sony's Tsutomu Kouno, the Director of LocoRoco, has stated that one of his design intentions was to make a game that appealed to those who didn't normally play games (Kouno, 2006). This statement is key in my selection of this game. As a hugely lucrative yet nascent industry, it is of interest to study the ways in which commercial developers attempt to attract new players to part with their hard-earnt entertainment dollar. My investigation looks to explicate game design decisions that entice a player into dialogue with the ongoing game experience. I will look at issues including pleasure and seduction within the action and reward cycle inherent to gameplay.


Recently, there have been several corporate scandals both in New Zealand and overseas involving unethical management behaviour that caused significant harm to a range of stakeholders. The literature on spirituality and mindfulness posits that each could enhance ethical praxis and management conduct if they were encouraged in organisations. To date, minimal work has been completed bringing these related constructs together and demonstrating how and why they might influence ethical decision-making and behaviour positively. This paper attempts such a combination. As part of a larger study, 14 managers from a variety of organisations were interviewed to determine how their spirituality influenced their ethical behaviour in the workplace. Using stories of real-life critical incidents and thematic analysis, this research found that managers bring a spiritual consciousness that is mindful of themselves, others and their context to their decisions and actions in complex and challenging ethical situations. Moreover, while these managers' spiritual mindfulness was cognisant of the immediate present, they also transcend their environments in ways that often led to enhanced moral praxis and conduct. Conversely, situations in which they failed to be spiritually mindful resulted in feelings of frustration, anxiety and loss. Based on these findings, a model of how spirituality and mindfulness might relate to produce ethical behaviour in organisations is provided. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for future research.


R. S. D'Lemos writes: Bremond d'Ars et al. 1992 propose a model for the Northern Igneous Complex of Guernsey whereby granitic members were generated by melting of the country rocks as a direct result of emplacement of the basic members, and present Rb-Sr data from which they proposed a c. 553 Ma age for the complex. I find these interpretations inconsistent with field, petrographic and isotopic data. Granite magma generation. The proposal that granitic rocks within the complex have a part crustal derivation is not new (e.g. D'Lemos 1987a; Brown et al. 1990). What Bremond d'Ars et al. propose is that the granite magmas (e.g. Cobo Granite) were formed by country rock melting due to emplacement of basic magma (e.g. St Peter Port Gabbro) into the chamber. With the exception of limited assimilation shown by a small number of gneissic rafts within the gabbro and a c. 6 cm wide zone of melting at the contact between a satellite body and Icart Gneiss (Roach et al. 1991), evidence for country rock melting is conspicuously lacking. Detailed petrographic and geochemical analyses (D'Lemos 1987a) reveal the Cobo Granite to be remarkably homogeneous, devoid of restite blocks or inhomogeneities that could be attributed to local partial melting, and to have a near eutectic (minimum melt) composition (e.g. SiO2 = 76%, n = 15). Textures typical of contact melting (e.g. adjacent to Tertiary centres of NW Scotland) are absent. Contacts between Cobo Granite and Perelle Quartz Diorite (Perelle Gneiss of Bremond d'Ars et al.)


This timely and significant book seeks to explain the deep-seated complexities of terrorism and insurgency in Southeast Asia. In the aftermath of 9/11, this region has been designated by the United States to be the 'second front' in the war on terrorism. Yet despite the emergence of this 'new' global terrorism, the authors argue that armed rebellion in Southeast Asia is a phenomenon that predates Al Qaeda and the global Jihadist movement and that much can be learned from the motivations behind it.


Although many details of an eventual Exascale machine remain unknown, we can safely make a couple of assumptions. Exascale machines will be composed of multicore nodes and will experience frequent failures. The latter means that effective resilience support is imperative to make Exascale machines usable. The former opens up opportunities for exploring new alternatives to provide resilience support. This paper examines a new fault tolerance protocol for multicore systems. The paper contains three major parts. In the first part, we start by showing evidence that a node (and not a core) is the appropriate unit of failure. When a crash hits a machine, it usually renders unusable a whole node. Rarely, the crash brings down more than one node. The second part describes a message logging protocol that tolerates the failure of whole nodes and uses an efficient shared memory scheme to minimize overhead. We present results on various clusters and scale the approach to 1024 cores with a stencil computation. The overhead is always lower than 4%. The third part performs an analysis of reliability to understand how robust the protocol is when failures affect several nodes. Using an analytical framework and the frequency of multiple-node failures, we find that our approach is able to survive more than 99% of the crashes.


White oat development and phosphorus availability affected by potassium silicate application Potassium silicate application in soil can increase phosphorus availability and influence white oat growth. This work had the objective of evaluating the effects of silicate doses applied to the soil on the white oat growth and on soil P availability. The experimental design was completely randomized, with six replications, analyzed as a 2 x 4 factorial. Treatments consisted of two P doses (20 and 200 mg dm -3 of P 2 O 5 ) combined with four Si doses (0, 150, 300 and 450 mg dm -3 ), applied at sowing. Dry matter of leaves+stems, panicles and total shoot were evaluated right after harvest. P and Si contents were evaluated in grains and panicle straw , previously separated, as well as in leaves+stems. Concentrations of Si and P in soil after harvest were also determined. Fertilization with potassium silicate increases Si levels in soil and increases P availability. Dry matter of leaves+stems is increased by silicate whenever initial P levels are low. Even considering the highest P dose, silicate application increases P availability in soil, and the plant P uptake. Si contents in panicle straw, leaves+stems and grains are influenced by the higher availability of this element in soil.


In this study, the age-dependent reproductive performance of 4th generation of hatchery-origin Black Sea trout (Salmo labrax Pallas, 1814) females was determined with the aim of understanding breeding characteristics of ideal broodstock management plan for Black Sea trout. The 2+, 3+, 4+ and 5+ years old females (n=131, 104, 63 and 28, respectively) with weights ranging from 919.45±36.22g to 2439.21±139.28g were used. Reproductive rates of females (2+, 3+, 4+ and 5+ years old) were determined as 22.14%, 60.30% and 17.56% for 2+, 17.47%, 72.82% and 9.71% for 3+, and 19.05%, 68.25%, and 12.70% for 4+ years old in November, December and January, respectively. Fertilization rates were obtained 94.31%, 95.02%, 96.03% and 93.39%, respectively. The total fecundity was positively correlated with the age and weight (r=0.84) but negatively with the relative fecundity (r=-0.24). The difference between 2+ and 3+ age groups' total fecundities was insignificant, and the 4+ and 5+ age groups were different from all groups. In addition, there was no significant difference in fertilization rates among all age groups' rates but the 5+ age group had slightly lower value (P<0.05). For ideal broodstock management in Black Sea trout production, based on the results of this study, it is recommended to use 3+ and 4+ years old females with high breeding efficiency and remove 5+ years and older females from the broodstock. with the first sexual maturity length of 44.76 cm in their natural environment in eastern parts of the Black Sea, they started to spawn in November and continued


The aim of this study was to determine the effect of peppermint and thyme essential oil mist on performance, blood parameters and lymphoid organ indices in broiler chickens. The experiment was conducted on 360 broilers raised until 42 days of age. One-day-old chicks were divided into three groups (n = 120): control group (C – misted with pure water) and two experimental groups (PO – misted with peppermint essential oil, and TO – misted with thyme essential oil) and placed in three separate experimental rooms. Growth performance (BW – body weight, WG – weight gain, FCR – feed conversion ratio), blood parameters (RBC – red blood cells, HGB – haemoglobin concentration, HCT – haematocrit levels, leukogram, serum protein and protein fractions), and lymphoid organ indices were assessed during the production cycle. Our results demonstrate that the use of EO mist does not exert adverse effects on broiler health, and that PO mist can increase BW and WG in broiler chickens. Mean RBC parameters at slaughter were higher in broilers exposed to PO mist. An analysis of blood parameters and lymphoid organ indices revealed that EO could positively influence the immune systems of birds. Higher values of gamma-globulin concentration as well as the weights and growth indices of lymphoid organs were noted in experimental groups. Keywords: Blood parameters, broilers, essential oils, lymphoid organs, performance


This Article challenges the conventional wisdom that public access and dissemination of criminal history information raise no special problems once a conviction occurs. The label "offender" burdens convicted individuals long after their debt to society has been paid. Numerous damaging effects labeled as mere "informal" collateral consequences of conviction go largely unquestioned. Contemporary debate revolves around partial remedial measures ("Ban the Box," sealing and expungement schemes, issuance of certificates of relief/rehabilitation). These narrow although important proposals largely miss the point. For different reasons, they fail to effectively curb the devastating stigma produced by the current system that creates huge obstacles to people's efforts to live law-abiding lives, and fosters unjust discrimination. How, when, and why criminal records should be generally accessible needs to be reconceived.Until the mid-1970s, conviction records were largely inaccessible except to public officials. There was near consensus that widespread dissemination is undesirable and inimical to reintegration of ex-offenders. Yet the ill-fated combination of uncoordinated factors has led over time to unplanned results. The Article contends that the current state of affairs is an unintended consequence of post-Watergate open records movement and emphasis on public safety in criminal justice policy, compounded by the development of information technology and the Internet, and the emergence of a private industry that trawls, sells, and often sensationalizes criminal records. Such industry has made access to criminal history information easy, cheap, ubiquitous, and unlimited in time. The Article argues for a reimagining of the way the criminal justice system and the legal system as a whole classify and use records of criminal convictions. In particular, it contends that the stigma that public access and dissemination entail must be reinvented as an ancillary criminal sanction that is ordered at sentencing, if at all, for a limited time as a deserved supplement to criminal sanctions imposed.


Short-term mine production scheduling optimization is developed as a single formulation where mining considerations, production constraints, uncertainty in the orebody metal quantity and quality as well as fleet availability are evaluated together to define a well-informed sequence of mining that results in high performance during a mine's operation. A stochastic integer program is developed for the above. However, it is noted that partlyinformed and ultimately costly decisions can be taken in the above development because of imperfect geological knowledge and information available during the actual ore control stage, affecting the performance of short-term schedules. To address this issue, orebody uncertainty models are updated by simulated future ore control data to account for local scale material type and grade variability affecting grade control classification of materials being extracted and sent to different ore/waste destinations. This updating leads to substantially improved short-term schedules accounting for better potential classifications of ore and waste materials. In general, the updating of multi-element orebody uncertainty models is based on the correlation of exploration data and past ore control data; the updated orebody uncertainty models are then used to optimize, while accounting for uncertainties, the short-term production scheduling, leading to better performance in terms of matching ore quality targets and delivering recoverable reserves anticipated. The above is demonstrated in a case study at an iron-ore deposit.


Traffic congestion is an increasing problem in many areas of Washington state. Efforts to control traffic flows and mitigate congestion must rely on the ability to accurately monitor the state of traffic flow on highways and arterials. We present a conceptual framework for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) development to monitor traffic conditions and show how this framework solves numerous high-level problems associated with ITS development. A sample instantiation, the Backbone project, demonstrates the viability of our unified ITS conceptual framework and shows that such a framework can be implemented at reasonable cost and with a high likelihood of successful operation.


We have investigated femtosecond multi-filamentation process in a mixture of gases controlling the concentration of atoms versus molecules in the gas cell. The experimental results show that this control could provide a new freedom degree to deterministic spatial distribution control of the multiple filaments. Our simulation indicates surprisingly that only difference of the gases nonlinearity (referred to as "synthesised nonlinearity") is sufficient to be responsible for this control. This study opens the way to provide few-cycle pulses spatial distributed source for spatially encoded measurements and experiments.


This chapter presents a software system created to allow to design complex robot tra- jectories in the cartesian space, used for tasks like milling or engraving with the aid of a robot. The experimental setup was created using an ABB (ASEA Brown Boveri) IRB 140 robot on which was mounted an engraving tool (which was equipped with a high frequency vibrating pin) or a drilling tool (an electric milling machine controlled with I/O signals) and a computer which is executing a CAD application allowing the design of the path that the robot must follow in order to execute the engraving/milling task. The robot job or task is defined by the set of surfaces of the raw object and of the object after being processed, by subtracting these two surfaces the robot task is given by the set of points resulted after the subtraction. The subtraction operation offers a set of points which must be connected in order to obtain the final trajectory, if the task is to engrave a shape then the tool will be normal to the object surface. The algorithm which is generating the surface is presented along with some experimental results.


In the past two decades, the fact that "small is different" has been established for a wide variety of phenomena, including electrical, optical, magnetic, and mechanical behavior of materials. However, one largely untapped but potentially very important area of nanoscience involves the interplay of electricity and mechanics at the nanoscale. In this article, predicated on both phenomenological approaches and atomistic calculations, we summarize the state-of-the-art in understanding electromechanical coupling at the nanoscale. First, we address flexoelectricity—the coupling of strain gradient to polarization. Flexoelectricity exists in both piezoelectric and nonpiezoelectric dielectrics. As a high-order spatial-dispersion effect, the flexoelectricity becomes more and more important with the reduction of the spatial scale of the problem. Exploitation of this phenomenon and the associated nanoscale size effects can lead to tantalizing applications, such as "piezoelectric nanocomposites without using piezoelectric materials." The second issue concerns electromechanical effects at the dielectric/metal interface. An interface in solids typically exhibits a lower symmetry compared to that of the associated adhering materials. This symmetry reduction can drastically affect the electromechanical and dielectric behavior of the material at the nanoscale.


Abstract Background: The American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) guideline recommends cholecystectomy for GB polyps of any size in patients with PSC without strong supporting evidence. Objective: Evaluate the predictors of malignancy and outcomes of PSC patients with GB polyps. Methods: We identified 86 patients with PSC and GB polyps at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN between January 1, 2000 and August 31, 2009 using a computerized record system. Twenty-six patients were excluded due to indefinite diagnosis or inadequate follow up data. Results: Of the 2281 patients with PSC, 60 patients (2.6%) were diagnosed as having GB polyps with a median age of 49.8 years; 67% were male. The median follow up from the diagnosis of GB polyps to the last follow-up was 3.5 years. Thirty-one patients (52%) subsequently underwent cholecystectomy and eight of 31 patients (25.8%) developed malignant GB lesions. Low-grade dysplasia of the GB was seen in two (6.4%). Twenty-nine patients without cholecystectomy had a median follow up of 4.8 years and none of them developed a malignant GB lesion during follow-up. By multivariable logistic analysis, the size of GB polyps at baseline was associated with malignant GB lesions or GB dysplasia (OR = 7.0; 95%CI 2.0-25.1). Conclusions: One third of GB polyps in patients with PSC who underwent cholecystectomy become malignant or developed dysplasia. A GB polyp at first diagnosis of at least 1 cm in size was a good predictor for malignant lesions of GB or GB dysplasia. In PSC patients with comorbidities who had GB polyp size at first diagnosis less than 1 cm, careful monitoring of the progression of GB polyp size over time with periodical assessment by ultrasound may be an option.


The human dignity of the human embryo: the debate thus far This article examines some recent arguments regarding the ethics of stem cell research as they are discussed in the various essays in the publication of Gruen et al. (2007), "Stem cell research: the ethical issues". Regarding the use of human embryos in stem cell research, these essays discuss among other things the potential of the human embryo, the moral status (human dignity) of the human embryo, the creation of chimeras, the sale of ocytes and other ethical issues in modern bioethics. Eventually the article draws attention to the main ethical problems at stake to be dealt with by Christian ethics using a deontological ethical theory. Christian ethics should focus on these problems in the on-going ethical debate regarding stem cell research.


Pressure ulcers heal slowly and this often results in prolonged hospitalization. Wound infection delays healing in decubitus ulcers and standard treatment include wound dressing and use of antibiotics. However, there is increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of ultraviolet radiation (UVB) on the healing of decubitus ulcers. The study was also designed to learn the effect of UVR (Type B) on bacteria. Methods: Ten subjects with ascertained bilateral pressure sores (6 at the gluteal region and 4 at the heels) on the left lower extremities were recruited for this study. The left limbs (experimental limbs) were radiated with UVR (B) coupled with normal wound dressing while the right (control) limbs only received normal wound dressing for 6 weeks. The data were analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric inferential statistics (Kruska Wallis test). Results: There was 78.9% decrease in the mean surface area of the decubitus ulcers of the experimental (left) limbs while there was only 37.4% decrease in the mean surface area of the decubitus ulcers of the control (right) limbs. Similarly, there was 74.7% decrease in the mean volume of the decubitus ulcers of the experimental (left) limbs while there was only 46.3% decrease in the mean volume of decubitus ulcers of the control (right) limbs. The result of the Kruska Wallis test showed that there was significant decrease in the growth of bacteria (X² = 37.01, P<0.00) and significant increase in the growth of epithelial cells (X² = 36.65, P< 0.00) in the decubitus ulcers that were irradiated with UVR. Conclusion: It was concluded that ultraviolet radiation (Type B) had significant effects in destroying bacteria and also promoting wound healing.


Amoebic gill disease (AGD) is the main disease affecting the Tasmanian salmonid industry and the condition has also been described in other major salmon and trout producing countries. AGD is caused by Neoparamoeba perurans, and outbreaks of the disease appear during the marine grow-out phase, in particular when water temperature rises. Some characterisation of the host immune response against the parasite has been achieved through gene expression studies and through others investigations which focused on antibody responses against N. perurans, particularly IgM. A variety of treatments have been tested, but currently the only treatment option widely used in Tasmania is freshwater bathing, which represent a high economic burden for the industry. Therefore, the development of a vaccine remains a high priority for salmon producers and different types of vaccines have been previously tested against AGD without success.
In order to develop a potentially successful vaccine strategy, a better understanding of the antibody immune response associated with the disease is necessary. To address this general objective, the followings aims were studied in this thesis:
 Investigate the mucosal and systemic immune response of Atlantic salmon against N. perurans, the causative agent of AGD.
 Investigate mucosal and systemic anti-N. perurans antibody responses to a recombinant putative attachment protein of the amoeba, first identified by the generation of a cDNA library from the parasite.
 Investigate vaccine formulations for AGD, using the recombinant protein described above.
 Investigate other mucosal components potentially involved in the host response against N. perurans.
This thesis presents the results obtained from several different experiments aimed at addressing the above stated aims. Firstly, an experiment where the immune responses of Atlantic salmon were assessed at transcription and antibody production levels, after repeated infections with N. perurans. Secondly, an experiment where immune responses were assessed after a single infection and fish were fed commercially developed diets containing immunostimulants. We showed that antibody levels do not always correlate with mRNA transcription levels identified in AGD gill lesions, which is possibly explained by weak correlations existing between protein and mRNA abundances in cells and tissues. Additionally, we demonstrated that the use of immunostimulants containing diets did not affect the levels of serum or skin mucus IgM and were unable to induce IgM and IgT transcription at the site of AGD infection.
Following from this experiment; the systemic and mucosal immune responses of Atlantic salmon were studied using two protein-hapten antigens. This study aimed at evaluating the best delivery method of antigens to be used in the testing of a vaccine candidate in subsequent experiments. The results showed that i.p. injection of immunogens emulsified in FCA was the best delivery method for inducing systemic and mucosal antibody responses.
We described the production of a recombinant protein named r22C03, identified as a mannose-binding protein-like (MBP-like) similar to attachment factors of other amoebae, and a putative attachment factor of N. perurans. This protein was capable of inducing systemic and mucosal antibody responses against the amoebae and both systemic and mucosal antibodies produced were able to bind the surface of formalin-fixed N. perurans. The recombinant protein was then tested as a vaccine candidate against AGD, following the rationale that by using functional antibodies present in mucosal surfaces, the putative attachment factor of N. perurans might be blocked and the severity of AGD could potentially be reduced. Fish were immunised with r22C03 using two different vaccination strategies and then challenged with the parasite. A strong antibody response against the recombinant protein was observed in serum and mucosal surfaces of vaccinated salmon, but no differences in survival curves or size of lesion in the gills were observed. However, a concurrent infection with Yersinia ruckeri was present during the experiment, and even though the simultaneous presentation of both pathogens could represent a situation more closely related to infection patterns observed on commercial farms, survival results obtained after the parasite challenge had to be examined with caution in the context of vaccine efficacy against N. perurans.
Following from the unsuccessful challenge, nanoLC-MS/MS and proteomics analyses were used on skin and gill mucus of AGD-affected fish, as a tool to identify the changes in the proteome of mucus after repeated infection with amoebae. Proteins that have been previously related to gene expression in AGD-affected gills as well as proteins that have not been previously described in AGD-affected fish were identified and it was proposed that future research should focus on better understanding the role these components play in the response against infection with N. perurans.
This thesis provided further understanding into the mucosal responses to AGD. However, the role mucosal antibodies play in responses against AGD cannot be completely comprehended until the study of IgT responses in AGD-affected fish can be completed, as it has been hampered by the lack of available reagents. Finally, adjuvants that have been designed specifically to elicit mucosal responses need to be fully tested in AGD vaccine formulations.


The presented research concerns the control of unmanned vehicles. The results introduced in this dissertation provide a solid control framework for a wide class of nonlinear uncertain systems, with a special emphasis on issues related to implementation, such as control input amplitude and rate saturation, or partial state measurements availability. More specifically, an adaptive control framework, allowing to enforce amplitude and rate saturation of the command, is developed. The motion control component of this framework, which works in conjunction with a saturation algorithm, is then specialized to different types of vehicles. Vertical take-off and landing aerial vehicles and a general class of autonomous marine vehicles are considered. A nonlinear control algorithm addressing the tracking problem for a class of underactuated, non-minimum phase marine vehicles is then introduced. This motion controller is extended, using direct and indirect adaptive techniques, to handle parametric uncertainties in the system model. Numerical simulations are used to illustrate the efficacy of the algorithms. Next, the output feedback control problem is treated, for a large class of nonlinear and uncertain systems. The proposed solution relies on a novel nonlinear observer which uses output measurements and partial knowledge of the system's dynamics to reconstruct the entire state for a wide class of nonlinear systems. The observer is then extended to operate in conjunction with a full state feedback control law and solve both the output feedback control problem and the state observation problem simultaneously. The resulting output feedback control algorithm is then adjusted to provide a high level of robustness to both parametric and structural model uncertainties. Finally, in a natural extension of these results from motion control of a single system to collaborative control of a group of vehicles, a cooperative control framework addressing limited communication issues is introduced.


This paper presents the experimental and finite element (FE) results of Reinforced Concrete (RC) rectangular beams in shear bonded externally using Carbon Fibre Fabric (CFF) reinforcement.  In the experimental study, all, except control, beams were strengthened/repaired with CFF reinforcement at laboratory environment.  These beams were tested under four point bending system for failure.  Moreover, to validate the obtained experimental results, the study used two-dimensional model to simulate the shear behaviour of the CFF repaired/strengthened beams using LUSAS finite element analysis software.  The experimental results confirm that the CFF repaired and initially strengthened beams attained a gain of 37.28% - 77.95% and 60.71% - 77.34% for shear span to effective depth ratio of 2.5 and 4.0, respectively.  The results of FE prediction were compared against the experimental results obtained from the experimental investigation.  It was generally found that the comparison between the predicted FE and experimental results show satisfactory correlation in terms of load-displacement profile.


Abstract. The VAHINE mesocosm experiment, conducted in the low-nutrient low-chlorophyll waters of the Noumea lagoon (coastal New Caledonia) was designed to trace the incorporation of nitrogen (N) fixed by diazotrophs into the food web, using large volume (50 m3) mesocosms. This experiment provided a unique opportunity to study the succession of different N2-fixing microorganisms (diazotrophs) and calculate in situ net growth and mortality rates in response to fertilization with dissolved inorganic phosphate (DIP) over a 23-day period, using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays targeting widely distributed marine diazotroph lineages. Inside the mesocosms, the most abundant diazotroph was the heterocyst-forming Richelia associated with Rhizosolenia (Het-1) in the first half of the experiment, while unicellular cyanobacterial Group C (UCYN-C) became abundant during the second half of the experiment. Decreasing DIP concentrations following the fertilization event and increasing temperatures were significantly correlated with increasing abundances of UCYN-C. Maximum net growth rates for UCYN-C were calculated to range between 1.23 ± 0.07 and 2.16 ± 0.07 d−1 in the mesocosms, which are among the highest growth rates reported for diazotrophs. Outside the mesocosms in the New Caledonia lagoon, UCYN-C abundances remained low, despite increasing temperatures, suggesting that the microbial community response to the DIP fertilization created conditions favorable for UCYN-C growth inside the mesocosms. Diazotroph community composition analysis using PCR targeting a component of the nitrogenase gene (nifH) verified that diazotrophs targeted in qPCR assays were collectively among the major lineages in the lagoon and mesocosm samples, with the exception of Crocosphaera-like phylotypes, where sequence types not typically seen in the oligotrophic ocean grew in the mesocosms. Maximum net growth and mortality rates for nine diazotroph phylotypes throughout the 23-day experiment were variable between mesocosms, and repeated fluctuations between periods of net growth and mortality were commonly observed. The field population of diazotrophs in the New Caledonian lagoon waters appeared to be dominated by Het-1 over the course of the study period. However, results from both qPCR and PCR analysis indicated a diverse field population of diazotrophs was present in the lagoon at the time of sampling. Two ecotypes of the Braarudosphaera bigelowii symbiont unicellular group A (UCYN-A) were present simultaneously in the lagoon, with the recently described B. bigelowii/UCYN-A2 association present at higher abundances than the B. bigelowii/UCYN-A1 association.


BACKGROUND: Scytalidium sp. is a filamentous (thread-like), saprobic fungus which affects soil and plants. It is currently considered a primary pathogen of the nail. The prevalence of nail infections caused by this fungus has been increasing in recent decades, although few published studies have been done on its epidemiology. OBJECTIVE: To study clinico-epidemiological data referring to patients with onychomycosis caused by Scytalidium spp. at a University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro. METHODS: We evaluated the clinical and epidemiological data of 30 patients with onychomycosis by Scytalidium sp. through an observational study of 1295 patients who underwent mycological nail tests over a period of 16 months. RESULTS: The majority of the patients were female (66.6%), with an average age of 56.7 years. 63.3% of them were nonwhite. 53.3% of the patients had attended elementary school and 36.6% referred a family income of 3 to 5 minimum wages. In 90% of cases, the toenails were affected, primarily with onycholysis (18 patients), and in 66% of the cases melanonychia was observed. In 43.3% of cases the disease had progressed for more than 5 years. 19 patients (63.3%) had undergone some medical treatment for their current condition. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that nail infection by Scytalidium sp. is chronic, affecting adults, particularly females (2:1). Clinically the disease resembles dermatophytosis. Prevalence of the disease in our sample was 4.86%, accounting for 26.92% of the positive tests


This thesis, discusses the implications of the social and private constructions of dyslexia for the individual with dyslexia and the dyslexic identity. In view of the difficulties inherent in higher education this study interviews people with dyslexia who successfully entered degree courses at university. It explores their experiences in an effort to gain an understanding of how people with dyslexia form an identity. Issues surrounding 'dyslexia' have increasingly focused on its credibility as a 'genuine' medical and disabling condition. The social expectations of the condition and the differing social and medical models of conditions warranting the label 'disability' have complicated issues further. Thus far, research into dyslexic issues has mainly focused on the causation and remediation of the condition and although studies have exposed certain tensions surrounding social expectation of those with conditions deemed to be disabling, how people who describe themselves as dyslexic identify with their dyslexia as adults has been largely ignored. In view of the tensions surrounding social expectations of and certain official definitions associated with dyslexia, this thesis explores how individual's identify with their dyslexia in view of dominant perceptions of dyslexia, which is further identified through media portrayals of dyslexia and their own experiences of living with this condition. The study consists of a discourse analysis of the representations of dyslexic issues in newspaper articles. Findings discuss how representations of dyslexia are described within the context of 'inability' and how individuals are often identified as 'victims' of the condition. The onus was often on finding a 'cure'. However, the study also includes accounts of individuals who referred to social barriers which had impacted on their learning. The study carries out a discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with students who are attending university and describe themselves as dyslexic, and investigates public representations of dyslexia informed through newspaper articles which refer to dyslexia and those labelled dyslexic. The findings reveal that media portrayals of dyslexia often associate it with inability or a lack of ability to achieve in reading and writing skills. However, many of the participants believed their dyslexia to be a benefit or gift, yet were often hesitant to disclose these beliefs to public scrutiny. The study also found that some of the men and women in the study often interpreted their experiences differently from each other and this pronipted an investigation into how social constructions of gender can provide insight into how some individuals with dyslexia re-form their identity with this condition.


Significant programs of speed enforcement have been in operation in a number of State and international jurisdictions for some time and many have been the subject of rigorous evaluation. Such programs aim to reduce crash frequency and/or injury severity through reductions in mean speed and/or changes to the speed distribution. In broad terms, the speed enforcement programs evaluated have been demonstrated to be beneficial in reducing road trauma. However, it is only in examining the individual characteristics of such programs that the mechanisms of effect become evident and information useful for the development of new speed enforcement programs can be obtained. This paper describes the speed enforcement program evaluations and the information concerning the relationship between enforcement intensity and program outcomes that they contain. Such analysis was conducted for all major speed enforcement modes, including mobile and fixed speed cameras operated overtly or covertly (including point-to-point average speed cameras), moving mode radar and hand-held laser speed detectors. An economic analysis of program outcomes was also conducted for each of these modes. This analysis was used to inform the development of a new speed enforcement strategy for Western Australia (WA) that can be expected to reduce road fatalities by 25 percent in a cost efficient way.


Prepn. of the title compd. (I) from starting materials CI4 and Ag[Al{OC(CF3)3}4](II) was performed with the complete exclusion of light and with carefully purified diiodine-free CI4, since CI4 decomps. within minutes in soln. in light with formation of I2 and other carbon iodides, and II reacts immediately with I2 to give yet unidentified decompn. products. With these precautions I was prepd. in quant. yield. According to calcns. at the MP2/TZVPP level and estn. of the sublimation and lattice enthalpies in a suitable cycle, we est. that the reaction is exothermic by -33 kJmol-1 in the gas phase and by -127 kJmol-1 in the solid state. In CH2Cl2 soln., I is dark blood red and in situ NMR reactions show only resonance signals for the CI3+ ion (d(13C)= 97 ppm; in SO2ClF: d(13C) = 95 ppm; calcd. value: d(13C) = 106 ppm) and the anion (d(13C) = 121.5 ppm (q); d(27A1)= 38.0 ppm). A CH2Cl2 soln. of I is stable for about 8 to 12 h at ambient temp. and much longer if stored at -30 or -78 DegC. Single crystals that appeared yellow as thin plates but black when thicker were grown at -78 DegC from cooled concd. CH2Cl2 solns. of I. The crystal structure detn. of a dark orthorhombic block of I showed that it contained isolated trigonal-planar CI3+ ions with a sum of I-C-I bond angles of 360.0 Deg (range: 118.8-122.1 Deg0) and Al{OC(CF3)3}4 ions. [on SciFinder (R)]


In this thesis I investigate the solution concept of Nash equilibrium. This thesis is composed of three articles, that cover pure and mixed strategies Nash equilibrium.
The aim of the first article is to provide an alternative characterization of Nash equilibrium in pure actions; The second article provides elementary methods to prove the existence of mixed symmetric Nash equilibria in symmetric bimatrix games; While the third article focuses on mixed actions Nash equilibrium of general finite games.
In the first article "Semi-Connected Games" we will briefly
present two relevant approaches to the study of Nash equilibrium: one approach consists in the search of progressive relaxation of the sufficient conditions established by Nash, the other approach consists in the application to the problem of existence conditions of the results of the algorithmic game theory [finite improvement property, weakly acyclic games ...]. Contributions from these two fields stimulated the discovery of conditions that are not only sufficient but also necessary to the existence of Nash equilibria in pure actions [Tian
(2009)]. We will reverse the line of investigation from previous literature, looking for the largest class of games which do not possess any equilibrium in pure actions, establishing the class of semi-connected games we prove that no games in that class can have a Nash equilibrium, moreover, we will show that only semi-connected games do not possess any Nash equilibrium in pure strategy.
Unfortunately this first result is not immediately applicable to the context of equilibria in mixed strategies, for which the problem of developing polynomial time algorithms is still an open question. As Gilboa and Zemel point out in their 1989 article, this may be imputed to the fact that no elementary proof of existence has been proposed. To try filling this gap we investigate both general games and symmetric games [in the third and in the second article respectively]. In the second article "Notes on Symmetric Bimatrix games", we investigate the existence of symmetric equilibria in symmetric games without assuming the presence of Nash equilibria. In particular, we propose two new methodologies to prove the existence of symmetric equilibria in symmetric bimatrix games, which is a finite symmetric game with only two players. The first one, based on the elementary proof of Sion's theorem, is applicable only to a special class of symmetric bimatrix games. The second one, based on Nessah and Tian's elementary proof of Fan's minimax inequality [in their article of 2013, revised in 2014 by Tian], covers all symmetric equilibria of all symmetric bimatrix games. Both methodologies are elementary and not purely existential. In the last article "Mixed strategy Nash equilibria in strategic form games" we provide a proof of the existence of mixed strategy Nash equilibria in finite normal form games applying results proposed in the second article. Thus we proposes a novel methodology, showing how Nash equilibria of general
games coincide with symmetric equilibria of appropriate
symmetric games.


The purpose of this paper is to describe results from the use of a set of Excel macros written to facilitate the comparison of image analysis (IA) and laser diffraction (LD) particle size analysis (psa) data. Measurements were made on particle systems of differing morphological characteristics including differing average aspect ratios, particle size distribution widths and modalities. The IA and LD psa data were plotted on the same graph treating both the weighting and the size unit of the LD psa data as unknowns. Congruency of the IA and LD plots was considered to indicate successful experimental determination of the weighting and size unit. The weighting of the resulting LD psa data (so-called volume-weighted) is shown to be better correlated with IA area-weighted data. The size unit of LD psa data is shown to be a function of particle shape. In the case of high aspect ratio particles characterized by approximately rectangular faces the LD psa data is shown to be a function of multiple particle dimensions being related to IA size descriptors through a simple variation of the law of mixtures. The results demonstrate that successful correlations between IA and LD psa data can be realized in the case of non-spherical particle systems even in the case of high aspect ratio particles; however, the inappropriateness of the application of the Equivalent Spherical Volume Diameter and the Random Particle Orientation assumptions to the interpretation of the LD psa results must first be acknowledged. Correlation permits cross validation of IA and LD psa results increasing confidence in the accuracy of the data from each orthogonal technique.


The main aim of this work was the synthesis and applications of functionalized-silica-supported gold nanoparticles. The silica-anchored functionalities employed, e.g. amine, alkynyl carbamate and sulfide moieties, possess a notable affinity with gold, so that they could be able to capture the gold precursor, to spontaneously reduce it (possibly at room temperature), and to stabilize the resulting gold nanoparticles. These new materials, potentially suitable for heterogeneous catalysis applications, could represent a breakthrough among the "green" synthesis of supported gold nanoparticles, since they would circumvent the addition of extra reducing agent and stabilizers, also allowing concomitant absorption of the active catalyst particles on the support immediately after spontaneous formation of gold nanoparticles. In chapter 4 of this thesis is also presented the work developed during a seven-months Marco Polo fellowship stay at the University of Lille (France), regarding nanoparticles nucleation and growth inside a microfluidic system and the study of the corresponding mechanism by in situ XANES spectroscopy. Finally, studies regarding the reparation and reactivity of gold decorated nanodiamonds are also described.
Various methods of characterization have been used, such as ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Field Emission Gun Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM-FEG), X-ray Photoionization (XPS), X ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS).


Planet Earth needs a self-help book, and this is it the future is happening to us far faster than we thought it would and this book explains why fifty years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture. The Medium is the Massage, Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that's redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the 'extreme present'. The Age of Earthquakes is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and 'mindsource' images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly's striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It's like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read. Welcome to The Age of Earthquakes, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn't just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it's also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.


Land cover classification from remotely sensed data is an important topic in remote sensing applications. This paper present an economical analysis of land covers in Mebok Estuary, Penang, Malaysia. This study investigated the potential of using digital camera for land cover mapping Mebok Estuary, Penang, Malaysia. Airborne digital imagery has proved to be an effective tool for land cover studies. A Kodak camera, model DC290, was used to capture images from an elevation of 2438.4 meter on board Cessna 172Q. The use of digital camera as a sensor to capture digital images is cheaper and economical compared to the use of other airborne sensor. This technique overcomes the problem of the difficulty in obtaining cloud-free scenes in the Equatorial region from a satellite platform. Supervised classification techniques were used in the classification analysis. Supervised classification technique (Parallelepiped with Maximum Likelihood as tie breaker classifier, PML, Maximum Likelihood, ML, Minimum Distance-to-Mean, MDM, and Parallelepiped, P) was applied to the digital camera spectral bands (red, green and blue) to extract the thematic information from the acquired scenes. The best supervised classifier was chosen based on the highest overall accuracy and Kappa statistic. The accuracy of the classified images was validated using a reference data set. The study revealed that the Parallelepiped with Maximum Likelihood as tie breaker classifier produced superior result and achieved a high degree of accuracy. The classified land cover map was geometrically corrected to provide a geocode map. The results produced by this study indicated that land cover features could be clearly identified and classified into a land cover map. This study suggested that the land cover types of Mebok Estuary, Penang, Malaysia can be accurately mapped.


Abstract Introduction: Breast cancer patients referred for external beam radiotherapy and who have large and/or pendulous breasts can present positioning and immobilisation challenges. Deep infra-mammary and/or lateral wrap skin folds can occur that can lead to unwanted radiation-induced skin toxicity. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the immobilisation techniques adopted for this subgroup of patients in order to inform best practice. Method: A survey aimed to identify the current clinical practice in radiotherapy centres throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland was undertaken. The email survey was distributed with support of the Radiotherapy Services Managers group. Results: Twenty-six of the 74 radiotherapy centres responded to the survey. Responses demonstrated that supine positioning with or without additional immobilisation was preferable. Of the eight different immobilisation techniques identified, patients positioned supine on a breast board wearing a bra was the most common. Only two of the centres reported using a prone technique. Conclusions: Immobilisation and reproducibility are key for successful external beam radiotherapy particularly when advanced treatment techniques are being employed. No single technique gained widespread acceptance as the optimum for the effective immobilisation of patients with large and/or pendulous breasts. Further evaluative research in the form of a multi-centre trial is warranted in order to clearly establish the most effective immobilisation methods/devices for this ever expanding, subgroup of cancer patients.


Calcium ions are involved in several processes occurring in the avian pineal, including the regulation of melatonin secretion. The aim of study was to investigate distribution of calcium ions in the pineal organ of domestic turkey at the level of electron microscopy. The study was performed on 12 female turkeys housed in a cycle of 12L : 12 D (light intensity 300 lux; 07:00 – 19:00), starting from the third week of life. At the age of 12 weeks, the birds were anesthetized with halothane and sacrificed by decapitation at 14:00 and at 02:00 (in darkness). The pineals were fixed using the potassium pyroantimonate method, which enables visualization of calcium ions in the form of electron dense precipitates. Extremely numerous, large precipitates of calcium pyroantimonate were observed between collagen fibres of the connective tissue surrounding the pineal follicles. The number of precipitates in the follicles was much lower than in the neighbouring stroma. Precipitates were numerous in intercellular spaces between cells forming the follicular wall. In contrast, they were infrequently observed in the follicular lumen. In pinealocytes, large amounts of precipitates were present in the nucleus, mitochondria and short, wide cisterns of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Precipitates were sparse in the apical prolongations of rudimentary-receptor pinealocytes. The content of precipitates did not differ prominently between individual pinealocytes. Precipitates in the cytosol of both rudimentary-receptor pinealocytes and secretory pinealocytes were much more numerous in the organs taken ex vivo during nighttime than during daytime. Supporting cells contained much fewer precipitates than pinealocytes.


This paper documents the climatological mean features of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) monthly mean tropospheric air temperature (ta, K) and specific humidity (hus, kg/kg) products as part of the Obs4MIPs project and compares them to those from NASA's Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) for validation and 16 models from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) for CMIP5 model evaluation. MERRA is warmer than AIRS in the free troposphere but colder in the boundary layer with differences typically less than 1 K. MERRA is also drier (~10%) than AIRS in the tropical boundary layer but wetter (~30%) in the tropical free troposphere and the extratropical troposphere. In particular, the large MERRA‐AIRS specific humidity differences are mainly located in the deep convective cloudy regions indicating that the low sampling of AIRS in the cloudy regions may be the main reason for these differences. In comparison to AIRS and MERRA, the sixteen CMIP5 models can generally reproduce the climatological features of tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity well, but several noticeable biases exist. The models have a tropospheric cold bias (around 2 K), especially in the extratropical upper troposphere, and a double‐ITCZ problem in the troposphere from 1000 hPa to 300 hPa, especially in the tropical Pacific. The upper‐tropospheric cold bias exists in the most (13 of 16) models, and the double‐ITCZ bias is found in all 16 CMIP5 models. Both biases are independent of the reference dataset used (AIRS or MERRA).


A cost-effective and smooth evolution scheme from a time-division multiplexing–passive optical network (TDM-PON) to a WDM-overlaid PON that can provide high-speed fiber-to-the-home service to a wide area with a high population density is proposed. Existing optical transmitters of TDM-PON optical network units (ONUs) are reusable by employing a wavelength-conversion node at the ONU site, which transforms the wavelength of each ONU to a predefined WDM wavelength. A specially designed optical router is needed at a remote node site; it should broadcast downstream signals to each ONU, routing upstream ONU signals to a wavelength-conversion node and passing the wavelength-converted signal to an optical line terminal. A simple but efficient remote node structure is proposed. A wavelength conversion node should be designed carefully since it repeats burst-mode signals from multiple ONUs. A 2R repeater-based wavelength conversion node is suggested. Performance of various schemes is analyzed and their measurement results are provided.


Groundwater is often a major component of lake water and chemical balances. Alteration in catchment subsurface water balances through land‐use change and pumping can affect lake biogeochemical cycles through changes in groundwater flow rates. We present a modern (~200 yr) sediment isotope record ( δ18Ocarb, δ13Ccarb, and δ13Corg) of changes to the water and carbon budget of Blue Lake, which is situated in karstic limestone in South Australia and is mostly fed by groundwater. The 3.5‰ decrease in δ18Ocarb and δ13Ccarb deposited in lake sediments since ~1850 reflects higher rates of groundwater through‐flow due to rainfall variability, land‐use change, and increased rates of pumping over the past 40 yr. Calculated water residence times, based on the isotopic data, were 23 ± 2 yr before 1850 and decreased by the late twentieth century to 8 ± 2 yr. Concomitant dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) residence times were 3.8 and 2.2 yr, respectively. Although burial rates of CaCO3 have increased by about threefold over the past 40 yr, there is no evidence that substantial changes in organic carbon deposition has occurred. The shorter DIC residence time is largely due to increased input and higher CO2 evasion rates. About 88% of Ccarb and ~96% of Corg generated within the water column is remineralized, but the isotopic composition is essentially unaltered in the sediments. The measured variations in δ13Ccarb and δ13Corg of sediments are thought to reflect changes to DIC residence time and increased CO2(aq) concentrations rather than changes in lake productivity.


The economic development of Greece and Rome hinged directly on the ability of commercial vessels to transport large volumes of goods across the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Archaeology has revealed the sizes, construction methods and cargos of these ships, but the navigational techniques that were employed to direct them from port to port remain unclear and elusive. In ancient literature, the oft-repeated themes of storm, shipwreck and death at sea led to the popular assumption among scholars that seafarers developed habits to minimize their exposure to this hostile element – hugging the shore to avoid the open sea, putting in at night, sailing only in summer, and using 'seafaring manuals' to help guide their way. While several recent studies have made some strides in overturning this overly simplistic view by highlighting aspects of navigation in certain areas and in certain periods, the 'standard model' lingers in both scholarly and popular imagination. This study offers a comprehensive review of the scattered textual and archaeological evidence pertaining to ancient seafaring and navigation, and a major reinterpretation of ancient commercial navigation in both periods. Chapters 2-3 explore the parameters of the maritime environment (coasts, winds, currents and visibility) and the human responses to them in the form of ships, seasonal rhythms and maritime corridors. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the ways in which Greek and Roman sailing masters accounted for the fundamental requirements of navigation – the determination of direction, position, speed and distance – using wind roses as a 'compass' and various stars and star groups at night. Chapter 6 treats the question of whether seafarers used written guides or experience, or both, to help determine their position. Chapter 7 explores the historical figure of the sailing master himself and integrates a wide range of evidence to reconstruct the navigational routines of the crews of Alexandrian grain ships during the Roman imperial era. My research concludes that both coastal and open-sea sailing were matters of routine in the commercial sector, that commercial seafarers did indeed sail at night and employ the stars to deduce navigational information, that winter sailing was a widespread practice, and that crews employed navigational strategies to weather storms, usually successfully.


Sphaeroma serratum is a marine isopod species that inhabits seashores from Europe to West Africa. The individuals live under stones in direct contact with reduced sediments and harbour a diverse bacterial community on the cuticle of their pleopods. We investigated the diversity of these epibiotic bacteria on male (pubescent and senescent) and female specimens with electron microscopic obser vations and molecular tools. The microbial community of S. serratum was shown to be composed of at least 5 bacterial morphotypes observed on the pleopodal cuticle in all male specimens. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, we identified 5 major phylogenetic groups (α-, β-, γ- and δ-Proteobacteria and Archaea) whereas denaturing gradient gel electro - phoresis (DGGE) of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA gene fragments of epibiotic bacteria revealed 50 bands. The bacterial community associated with S. serratum seems more diverse than in other marine crustaceans, such as Rimicaris. The relative diversity of this bacterial community was also studied in relation to the molt cycle. The comparison of DGGE band patterns of several individuals from female, pubescent male and senescent male groups revealed that the bacterial community diversity was dependent on the sex and the age of the individuals and more generally on the molt status.