We present a framework and control policies for optimizing dynamic control of various self-tuning parameters over lifetime in the presence of circuit aging. Our framework introduces dynamic cooling as one of the self-tuning parameters, in addition to supply voltage and clock frequency. Our optimized self-tuning satisfies performance constraints at all times and maximizes a lifetime computational power efficiency (LCPE) metric, which is defined as the total number of clock cycles achieved over lifetime divided by the total energy consumed over lifetime. Our framework features three control policies: 1. Progressive-worst-case-aging (PWCA), which assumes worst-case aging at all times; 2. Progressive-on-state-aging (POSA), which estimates aging by tracking active/sleep mode, and then assumes worst-case aging in active mode and long recovery effects in sleep mode; 3. Progressive-real-time-aging-assisted (PRTA), which estimates the actual amount of aging and initiates optimized control action. Simulation results on benchmark circuits, using aging models validated by 45nm CMOS stress measurements, demonstrate the practicality and effectiveness of our approach. We also analyze design constraints and derive system design guidelines to maximize self-tuning benefits.


A review of the literature of work carried out on dextransucrase production, purification, immobilization and reactions has been carried out. A brief review has also been made of the literature concerning general enzyme biotechnology and fermentation technology. Fed-batch fermentation of the bacteria Leuconostoc mesenteroides NRRL B512 (F) to produce dextransucrase has formed the major part of this research. Aerobic and anaerobic fermentations have been studied using a 16 litre New Brunswick fermenter which has a 3-12 litre working volume. The initial volume of broth used in the studies was 6 litres. The results of the fed-batch fermentations showed for the first time that yields of dextransucrase are much higher under the anaerobic conditions than during the aerobic fermentations. Dextransucrase containing 300-350 DSU/cm3 of enzyme activity has been obtained during the aerobic fermentations, while in the anaerobic fermentations, enzyme yields containing 450-500 DSU/cm3 have been obtained routinely. The type of yeast extract used in the fermentation medium has been found to have significant effects on enzyme yield. Of the different types studied, the Gistex Standard was found to be the type that favoured the highest enzyme production. Studies have also been carried out on the effect of agitation rate and antifoam on the enzyme production during the anaerobic experiments. Agitation rates of up to 600 rpm were found not to affect the enzyme yield, however, the presence of antifoam in the medium led to a significant reduction in enzyme activity (less than 300 DSU/cm3). Scale-up of the anaerobic fermentations has been performed at up to the 1000 litre level with enzyme yields containing more than 400 DSU/cm3 of activity being produced. Some of the enzyme produced at this scale was used for the first time to produce dextran on an industrial scale via the enzyme route, with up to 99% conversion of sucrose to dextran being obtained. An attempt has been made at continuous dextransucrase production. Cell washout was observed to occur at dilution rates of greater than 0.4 h-1. Dextransucrase containing up to 25 DSU/cm3/h has been produced continuously.


We present an approach for parallel distributed implementation of genetic programming, which is devoted to improve the computational performance of genetic programming by exploiting parallelism at the level of evaluation of the individuals. The approach is based on DCOM client-server model. Using the DCOM-paradigm offers the advantages of parallel distributed implementation of genetic programming, such as binary standardization, platform-, machine- and protocol-neutrality, and seamless integration with different Internet protocols. The developed implementation of genetic programming runs in LAN and/or Internet environments. The double-queued multi-threaded architecture of the DCOM-server, aimed to extend the functionality of the DCOM with features, such as asynchronous communications still implementing blocking-mode calls, and reduced communication overhead doing empty calls , is developed. The implementation of batching, directed towards the alleviation of communication overhead doing empty calls , is proposed. Analytically estimated and experimentally obtained performance evaluation results are discussed. The results show that clear super linear speedup can be achieved upon code growth in genetic programming.


Fifty-five years after its founding at the dawn of the cold war, North Korea remains a land of illusions. Isolated and anachronistic, the country and its culture seem to be dominated exclusively by the official ideology of Juche, which emphasizes national self-reliance, independence, and worship of the supreme leader, General Kim Jong Il. Yet this socialist utopian ideal is pursued with the calculations of international power politics. Kim has transformed North Korea into a militarized state, whose nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and continued threat to South Korea have raised alarm worldwide. This paradoxical combination of cultural isolation and military-first policy has left the North Korean people woefully deprived of the opportunity to advance socially and politically. The socialist economy, guided by political principles and bereft of international support, has collapsed. Thousands, perhaps millions, have died of starvation. Foreign trade has declined and the country's gross domestic product has recorded negative growth every year for a decade. Yet rather than initiate the sort of market reforms that were implemented by other communist governments, North Korean leaders have reverted to the economic policies of the 1950s: mass mobilization, concentration on heavy industry, and increased ideological indoctrination. Although members of the political elite in Pyongyang are acutely aware of their nation's domestic and foreign problems, they are plagued by fear and policy paralysis. North Korea Through the Looking Glass sheds new light on this remote and peculiar country. Drawing on more than ten years of research --including interviews with two dozen North Koreans who made the painful decision to defect from their homeland --Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig explore what the leadership and the masses believe about their current predicament. Through dual themes of persistence and illusion, they explore North Korea's stubborn adherence to policies that have failed to serve the welfare of the people and, consequently, threaten the future of the regime. Featuring twenty-nine rare and candid photos taken from within the closely guarded country, North Korea Through the Looking Glass illuminates the human society of a country too often mischaracterized for its drab uniformity --not a "state," but a community of twenty million individuals who have, through no fault of their own, fallen on exceedingly hard times.


Medical diagnosis is often made on the basis of information from visualisation instruments such as CT scanners. This information is currently used by medics only and, in most cases, browsed manually. This paper presents technical issues which are prerequisite to decision-support systems which analyse such data and provide new ways to present the data so as to make it most useful to clinicians, taking the domain of renal (kidney) cancer care as an example. In the long term such systems can also be used to improve communication between medics and patient, and may also enable communication with remote consultants.


Staining with CD14 and CD16 monoclonal antibodies will identify two monocyte subpopulations in human blood: a major population of regular monocytes, which strongly expresses the CD14 antigen (CD14++), and a minor population with weak expression of CD14 and expression of the CD16 antigen (CD14+/CD16+ cells). As shown herein, the latter cells account for 45 +/- 22 cells/microL and 9% +/- 5% of the monocytes in healthy control donors (n = 35). In septicemia patients, the CD14+/CD16+ cells can become a major population, with more than 50% of all monocytes in 3 of 18 patients and with more than 500 cells in 4 of 18 cases. There was no correlation of CD14+/CD16+ cells to any clinical parameter except for CD14+/CD16+ percentage and body temperature (P = .013). The CD14++ regular monocytes showed a substantial decrease in CD14 antigen density in 9 of 11 patients. Three-color immunofluorescence shows that the CD14+/CD16+ monocytes in septicemia patients when compared with the CD14++ monocytes exhibit a higher level of class II antigen and a lower level of CD11b and CD33 antigens, consistent with a more mature nature of the CD14+/CD16+ cells. Levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) were increased in septicemia patients; 3 of 5 patients with high numbers of CD14+/CD16+ cells (> 200/microL) had high levels of IL-6 (> 250/U/mL). These data suggest that septicemia may lead to substantial changes in blood monocyte composition and this may be related to elevated levels of cytokines such as IL-6.


In Sweden students' encounters with English in and out of school are very different. Spending around 20 hours per week in English-mediated environments outside of school, they are often engaged in richly meaningful activities. Consequently, many young people believe they learn as much of their English as a result of participation in English-mediated leisure time activities as they do from textbook-dominated classroom instruction. Drawing on emerging discussions on the ways in which learners' beliefs about the primacy of learning English in natural environments can have negative effects on learning behaviours in formal settings (e.g. Mercer & Ryan, 2010), and how learners' beliefs about the causes of success in language learning can impact on motivation (e.g. Hsieh, 2012), this chapter examines the ways in which such beliefs may impact on Swedish students' responses to classroom learning. Further, in view of the fact that beliefs about the context in which English is mostly acquired differ substantially between girls and boys, the chapter examines the ways in which gender differences in the nature of self-regulation can impact on students' beliefs.


The pediatrician is faced with a difficult challenge in providing recommendations for optimal nutrition in older infants. Because the milk (or formula) portion of the diet represents 35% to 100% of total daily calories and because WCM and breast milk or infant formula differ markedly in composition, the selection of a milk or formula has a great impact on nutrient intake.
 Infants fed WCM have low intakes of iron, linoleic acid, and vitamin E, and excessive intakes of sodium, potassium, and protein, illustrating the poor nutritional compatibility of solid foods and WCM. These nutrient intakes are not optimal and may result in altered nutritional status, with the most dramatic effect on iron status. Infants fed iron-fortified formula or breast milk for the first 12 months of life generally maintain normal iron status. No studies have concluded that the introduction of WCM into the diet at 6 months of age produces adequate iron status in later infancy; however, recent studies have demonstrated that iron status is significantly impaired when WCM is introduced into the diet of 6-month-old infants. Data from studies abroad of highly iron-deficient infant populations suggest that infants fed partially modified milk formulas with supplemental iron in a highly bioavailable form (ferrous sulfate) may maintain adequate iron status. However, these studies do not address the overall nutritional adequacy of the infant's diet. Such formulas have not been studied in the United States.
 Optimal nutrition of the infant involves selecting the appropriate milk source and eventually introducing infant solid foods. To achieve this goal, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be fed breast milk for the first 6 to 12 months. The only acceptable alternative to breast milk is iron-fortified infant formula. Appropriate solid foods should be added between the ages of 4 and 6 months. Consumption of breast milk or iron-fortified formula, along with age-appropriate solid foods and juices, during the first 12 months of life allows for more balanced nutrition. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that whole cow's milk and low-iron formulas not be used during the first year of life.


Electrolytic lesions were placed along the anteroventral wall of the third cerebral ventricle (AV3V region) in 10 albino rabbits (AV3V-X), and sham lesions were produced in 10 additional rabbits (SHAM). Two to 3 weeks later, all rabbits underwent unilateral nephrectomy and renal artery stenosis (clip I.D. = 0.508 mm). During a 1-week control period, and for 4 weeks after renal artery stenosis, measurements were made of mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate, body fluid compartment volumes, plasma electrolytes, and daily sodium, potassium, and water balances. Four weeks after renal artery stenosis (RAS), cardiovascular responses to norepinephrine (NE), angiotensin II (AII), saralasin, and autonomic blockade were obtained in the conscious animals. In SHAM rabbits, MAP rose from 77 to 117 mm Hg 4 weeks after RAS. In AV3V-X rabbits, MAP rose from 77 to only 92 mm Hg 4 weeks after RAS. Body fluid compartment volumes, plasma electrolytes, and fluid, sodium, and potassium balances showed similar modest changes in both groups of rabbits. Neither saralasin infusion nor autonomic blockade caused significantly different changes in MAP between SHAM and AV3V-X rabbits 4 weeks after RAS. However, pressor responses to both NE and AII were significantly less in AV3V-X rabbits at this time. It is concluded that one-kidney, one clip renal hypertension involves activation of neurohormonal pressor mechanisms originating in the forebrain, and that the expression of these pressor mechanisms in part includes an increase in cardiovascular reactivity.


Gamification is being applied more and more to information systems. Many developers apply similar strategies for the gamification of tasks. A benchmark conducted in 22 mobile apps containing gamification elements showed reward points as the most frequent design element. In a pilot user experiment, we analyzed the user perception of three gamification elements including reward points in the context of project management. Reward points are seen as motivating; in contrast a leader board was viewed more critically. It was shown that the judgment of elements depends on the game personality type. The gamer type Killer had a medium and significant correlation with a positive evaluation of the gaming elements. Only the gamer type Achiever had a positive and significant correlation with a positive judgment of rewards points.


As online fandom continues to grow, so do the public data created by fan creations and interactions. With researchers and journalists regularly engaging with those data (and not always asking permission), many fans are concerned that their content might end up in front of the wrong audience, which could lead to privacy violations or even harassment from within or outside of fandom. To better understand fan perspectives on the collection and analysis of public data as a methodology, we conducted both an interview study and a survey to solicit responses that would help provide a broader understanding of fandom's privacy norms as they relate to the ethical use of data. We use these findings to revisit and recommend best practices for working with public data within fandom.


Free Papers Abstract, The Annual Sessions of the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka and SAARC Surgical Care Society,13rd -17th August 2003 Kandy, Sri Lanka.


Through this article we draw on concepts of time and space to help us theorize on the uses of information and communication technologies in work and for organizing. We do so because many of the contemporary discussions regarding work and organization are usually, and too often implicitly, drawing on rudimentary understandings of these concepts. Our focus here is to advance beyond simplistic articulations and to provide a more conceptually sound approach to address time, space and the uses of information and communication technologies in work. We do this focusing on temporal and spatial relations as a means to depict time and space at work. We characterize work as varying by two characteristics: the degree of interaction and the level of individual autonomy. We then develop a functional view of information and communication technologies relative to their uses for production, control, coordination, access and enjoyment. We conclude by integrating these concepts into an initial framework which allows us to theorize that new forms of work are moving towards four distinct forms of organizing. We further argue that each of these four forms has particular spatial and temporal characteristics that have distinct and different needs for information and communication technologies.


The degradation of forests not only results in the loss of productive timber but also
many other socio-economic and ecological problems. Thus, rapid forest recovery of
the logged-over forest is important. Amongst the strategies that can be used to
establish productive forest are selection of plant species, methods of establishment
and subsequent vegetation management techniques. Therefore, the objectives of
this study are: 1) to identify suitable methods for rehabilitation of logged-over
forest and 2) to identify the most important soil parameters affecting seedling
growth.
The study was carried out on a degraded logged-over lowland tropical forest,
located in Pasoh Forest Reserve, Negeri Sembilan, Peninsular Malaysia. Four
rehabilitation methods tested were: Tl for line planting, with lines set from west to
east with a width of 3m, 5m and 10m and distance between lines was 10m; T2 for gap planting of 1 0m x 1 0m x 5/ha; T3 for gap planting of 20m x 20m x 5/ha; and
T4 for gap planting of 1 0m x 1 0m x 9/ha. The lines and gaps were planted with
three timber species namely Azadirachta excelsa, Hopea odorata, and Vitex
pubescens. The suitability of the methods was evaluated by measuring seedlings
survival, biomass production, changes in soil properties and cost establishment.
One year after planting, height increment of seedlings of Azadirachta excelsa and
Hopea odorata was measured. Vitex pubescens was not included because there was
no visible growth increment during the one-year period. Soil samples from the
surface soil were collected from the vicinity of the seedlings for the determination
of physical and chemical properties. Statistical analysis was conducted in order to
establish relationships between soil parameters and seedlings growth.
The results showed that there were no significant difference in the survival of the
seedlings of all species one-year after planting and they adapted quite well to
degraded soil conditions. This implies that all the rehabilitation methods and
species are suitable for rehabilitation of degraded logged-over forest in this area.
However, in term of biomass production Tl was found to be the best method of
rehabilitation but in term of cost T2 was found to be the cheapest. The simple regression equations between soil parameters and height increment
showed that the soil parameters limiting the growth of Azadirachta excelsa are
thickness of A-horizon, texture, penetration resistance, available water capacity,
organic matter, and exchangeable Ca and Mg. For Hopea odorata, the limiting growth factors are thickness of A-horizon, macro-pore space and penetration
resistance. However, the multiple linear regressions showed that the growth of
young seedlings Azadirachta excelsa, and Hopea odorata is affected not only by
single soil parameters but also by an interaction of several soil parameters.


Three proteins related to vitamin B12 metabolism in diatoms were quantified via selected reaction monitoring mass spectrometry: B12‐dependent and B12‐independent methionine synthase (MetH, MetE) and a B12 acquisition protein (CBA1). B12‐mediated interreplacement of MetE and MetH metalloenzymes was observed in Phaeodactylum tricornutum where MetH abundance was highest (0.06 fmol µg−1 protein) under high B12 and MetE abundance increased to 3.25 fmol µg−1 protein under low B12 availability. Maximal MetE abundance was 60‐fold greater than MetH, consistent with the expected ∼ 50–100‐fold larger turnover number for MetH. MetE expression resulted in 30‐fold increase in nitrogen and 40‐fold increase in zinc allocated to methionine synthase activity under low B12. CBA1 abundance was 6‐fold higher under low‐B12 conditions and increased upon B12 resupply to starved cultures. While biochemical pathways that supplant B12 requirements exist and are utilized by organisms such as land plants, B12 use persists in eukaryotic phytoplankton. This study suggests that retention of B12 utilization by phytoplankton results in resource conservation under conditions of high B12 availability. MetE and MetH abundances were also measured in diatom communities from McMurdo Sound, verifying that both these proteins are expressed in natural communities. These protein measurements are consistent with previous studies suggesting that B12 availability influences Antarctic primary productivity. This study illuminates controls on expression of B12‐related proteins, quantitatively assesses the metabolic consequences of B12 deprivation, and demonstrates that mass spectrometry‐based protein measurements yield insight into the functioning of marine microbial communities.


Data regarding the epidemiology and laboratory test results of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on twice per week hemodialysis in Indonesia remain limited. This study was conducted to describe the epidemiological and laboratory profiles of ESRD patients undergoing hemodialysis twice a week. This was a cross-sectional study in which the medical records data of all ESRD patients on hemodialysis at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in 2017. Of 145 subjects, 51% were male. The mean age was 50.1 (SD 13.5) years and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 23.1 kg/m2 (SD 4.8). The aetiology of ESRD in these patients was primarily hypertension (40.7%). There was a significant difference in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) before and after hemodialysis (p=0.001 and p<0.001) The mean estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 4.3 mL/min/1.73 m2 (SD 2.2) and significantly different between those <60 years old and ≥60 years old (p=0.004). In addition, there was an association between uric acid and post-hemodialysis SBP (p = 0.02). It is concluded that age and sex distribution played a significant role in determining epidemiological profile patients undergoing twice per week hemodialysis.


OBJECTIVES
Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a relatively novel noninvasive neurostimulation method that is believed to mimic the effects of invasive cervical VNS. It has recently been suggested that the effectiveness of taVNS can be enhanced by combining it with controlled slow breathing. Slow breathing modulates the activity of the vagus nerve and is used in behavioral medicine to decrease psychophysiological arousal. Based on studies that examine the effects of taVNS and slow breathing separately, this article speculates on some of the conditions in which this combination treatment may prove effective. Furthermore, based on findings from studies on the optimization of taVNS and slow breathing, this article provides guidance on how to combine taVNS with slow breathing.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A nonsystematic review.

RESULTS
Both taVNS and slow breathing are considered promising add-on therapeutic approaches for anxiety and depressive disorders, chronic pain, cardiovascular diseases, and insomnia. Therefore, taVNS combined with slow breathing may produce additive or even synergistic beneficial effects in these conditions. Studies on respiratory-gated taVNS during spontaneous breathing suggest that taVNS should be delivered during expiration. Therefore, this article proposes to use taVNS as a breathing pacer to indicate when and for how long to exhale during slow breathing exercises.

CONCLUSIONS
Combining taVNS with slow breathing seems to be a promising hybrid neurostimulation and behavioral intervention.


The Cronobacter malonaticus is a member of the genus Cronobacter which is considered an opportunistic pathogen. The significance of C. malonaticus has recently increased since it was documented to be involved in several serious neonatal infections. In addition, more than 40% of C. malonaticus in Cronobacter MLST-database was clinical or infant formula isolates. Unlike previous Cronobacter projects, this study is mainly focused on C. malonaticus and is aimed to investigate its physiological and virulence characteristics that enable this species to survive different stresses and cause adult and neonatal infections.

This project first used a collection of 51 clinical Cronobacter isolates which were not speciated. The 51 strains were predominated by C. sakazakii ST4 (63 %, 32/51) and C. malonaticus ST7 (33 %, 17/51). Interestingly, despite the high clonality of Cronobacter, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profiles differentiated strains within each sequence type into 15 pulsotypes. Furthermore, this study shows the value of applying multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to bacterial population studies with strains from two patient cohorts, combined with PFGE for further discrimination of strains.

Six sequence type 7 (ST7) strains were selected to represent the 5 C. malonaticus pulse types of the first part study and an additional 14 C. malonaticus strains were chosen from the Cronobacter MLST-database to represent different STs. C. malonaticus has shown ability to form biofilms, produce capsules, produce cellulose, express curli fimbriae, resist acid condition, survive human serum, produce siderophores, haemolysins, protease, and tolerate the used metals. The antibiotic sensitivity test revealed the sensitivity of C. malonaticus to the majority of antibiotics; however, C. malonaticus was resistant to tetracycline and some were resistant to chloramphenicol and intermediate resistant to cefotaxime. The presence of associated genes has been confirmed using the genomes of tested strains.

C. malonaticus showed an ability to adhere and invade Caco-2, HBMEC, A549 and T24 cell lines. Moreover, the result shows that certain strains of C. malonaticus (including 1827 and 2018) were able to persist in macrophages. However, ST7 strains 1827 and 2018 proved to be the most invasive strains among all used strains. The CDC strain 1569 (ST307) which was isolated from the blood of a fatal neonatal case showed also significant results in this study. The analysis of the genomes of tested strains revealed the presence of several virulence associated genes such as curli fimbrial genes, apaH, ompA, ompX, ygdP, papC, ppk1, ibeB, Hfh, OatA, Clp proteins and others.

Finally, the results of this project demonstrate the ability of C. malonaticus to overcome several stresses that could be faced either in the general environments or in the host body. Moreover, the findings of this study confirm the potential ability of C. malonaticus to cause serious infections in neonates or adults such as necrotising enterocolitis, meningitis, bacteremia, pneumonia and urinary tract infection.


The film follows two fishermen from the Greek village Skala Sikamineas, on the island of Lesvos, who were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in saving people crossing the waters from Turkey to Greece. Filmed during the period of relative calm in May 2016, following months where thousands of people passed through the village. Structured around everyday practices of these two fishermen, the film explores their experiences of frequently rescuing those attempting to cross the same waters they navigate daily for their work. These memories are intertwined with an observational approach to contemporary fishing practices, exploring how previous experiences of rupture in daily life continue to inflect and give meaning to these fisherman ́s relationship to the sea.


This paper argues that the comparison of labour policies in Taiwan and China has an important bearing on the interaction between state and society. The fact that labour policies have changed over time illustrates a process of bargaining between the state and society. The core question of this paper is whether the development of labour policies in Taiwan can provide China a good example to learn from. In order to answer this question more systematically, the first part of this paper provides theoretical reviews of the state-society relationship, while the second part aims to verify whether those labour-favouring policies in Taiwan have changed under a different party's governance. The third part of the paper further investigates labour policy in China; this section mainly focuses on the historical background to the new labour contract law. Based on the preceding two sections' literature review of the changing path of labour policies, the fourth section scrutinises fundamental issues reflected in the development of Taiwan's labour policies, then compares how those issues are reflected in the case of China. The conclusion of this paper is that although Taiwan, like China, formerly had a one-party system, the changes in Taiwan's labour policies are not completely comparable to China, though both societies had some similarities.


This dissertation examines the model of Church promoted in Liberation Theology with a view to anticipating the possibilities this unique ecclesial vision presents to the Catholic Church in Ireland. This branch of theology has its origins in the efforts of communities of the poor across Latin America to break free from the stranglehold of poverty and create a more equitable social order that reflects their needs and aspirations. Liberation Theology interprets the oppressive societal conditions that the poor have to endure in light of the liberating power of the Gospel message and provides the stimulus for those once consigned to the margins of society to become a collective force for change in the world. This thesis provides a probing analysis of the core theological convictions that underscore the activities of the 'Communidades Ecclesiales de Base' and reflects on the potential of this paradigm of Church to reverberate beyond the time and place of its genesis and generate a new momentum into the mission of the Church throughout the world.
The aim of this dissertation is two-fold; to provide greater theological legitimacy to each defining feature of a Base Christian Community and to ascertain a deeper insight into how this dynamic of Church can be adapted to an Irish context. This dissertation is structured in accordance with the stated aims and the focus moves from determining the theological basis to this model of Christian community to examining how this ecclesiological vision can give renewed meaning and purpose to the activity of the Church in Ireland today. The Literature Review is integral to the process of establishing a theological framework against which the activities of a Base Christian Community can be more clearly understood. The research then widens the lens of theological inquiry to encompass the views of Western progressivist theologians and Irish social justice activists on the themes explored in the literature review. Theological inquiry throughout this dissertation develops in correspondence with rather than in isolation from the distinctive dynamics of these communities. The inquiry identifies the recurring patterns that exist between these diverse theological perspectives and illustrates how they combine to further consolidate the identity of a Base Christian Community.
The research then explores how this paradigm of Church can be integrated into an Irish context. To achieve this, the researcher follows 3 distinct methodological routes; case studies with Irish social justice activists who call for a radical new departure for the
iv
Catholic Church in Ireland at this time, ethnographic research among members of Base Christian Communities here who have experienced first-hand the appeal of this emerging ecclesial dynamic and Action Research with a team of participants in Waterford who reflect on the process of initiating a Base Christian Community in the city. The goal of this phase of the inquiry is to give further clarity to the distinctive dynamics of a Base Christian Community and to devise specific strategies to advance the promotion of this model of Church in Ireland today. This research is built on the premise that reflection on action can provide the gateway to knowledge, and, as such, arrives at its conclusions in consultation with people who have direct experience of these grassroots Christian communities in Ireland. The researcher, in his role as reflective practitioner, adapts the findings that emerge through this stage of the inquiry to the activities of a Base Christian Community that he is actively involved in. This dialogue between theology and the lived expression of core theological principles grounds the inquiry in the practical considerations that are integral to the growth and development of these communities in Ireland.
The concluding chapter of this thesis provides a synthesis of the theological understanding that gives credence to the activities of Base Christian Communities around the world and reflects on the implications of this ecclesiological vision for the Catholic Church in Ireland today. The research indicates how the Base Christian Community provides a template for a new way of being Church in the world, one that is animated by the creative energies of the people as they discover meaningful ways of bringing the Gospel to life in their communities. The conclusions call for a new climate of dialogue and consultation between the hierarchy and the people so that those on the fringes of the traditional ecclesial paradigm become integral to the process of renewal in the Church here. The research emphasises how Christian communities synonymous with the promotion of social justice discover in their solidarity with those on the margins those very qualities needed to sustain them through each phase of their evolution. In summary, the research offers a probing appraisal of the need for a more inclusive and more compassionate model of Church and points towards the role those once sidelined in the Church can play in making this happen.


Water dissolved in ionic liquids garners particular attention in electrochemistry, as represented by the case where water molecules cannot be completely removed from ionic liquids. Nevertheless, the effects of such polarizable polar molecules on the energy efficiency of electrochemical devices remain elusive. Thus, we highlight the effects of the spatially varying dielectric response of water and ionic liquid near charged plates using a coarse-grained mean-field theory that simultaneously accounts for both the permanent and induced dipole moments of the species and the strong electrostatic correlation. We show that water can be adsorbed onto electrodes primarily because of the dielectric contrast between the species. Our results predict that linear-dielectric theory is inadequate to account for the correlation between the capacitance and dielectric contrast, which may be fitted by exponential functions. Electronic polarizability can enhance the capacitance. A higher-dielectric component preferentially solvates electrodes, but this effect competes with that of the charge screening. Our theory shows that strong electrostatic correlation causes the dipolar cation and anion to form alternating layers, which in turn yields substantial increases in the capacitance. Our results compare favorably with previous molecular dynamics simulations.


During the fourteenth century England was scarred by famine, plague and warfare. Through such disasters, however, emerged great feats of human endurance. Not only did the English population recover from starvation and disease but thousands of the kingdom's subjects went on to defeat the Scots and the French in several notable battles. Victories such as Halidon Hill, Neville's Cross, Crecy and Poitiers not only helped to recover the pride of the English chivalrous class but also secured the reputation of Edward III and the Black Prince. Yet what has been underemphasized in this historical narrative is the role played by men of more humble origins, none more so than the medieval mariner. This is unfortunate because during the fourteenth century the manpower and ships provided by the English merchant fleet underpinned every military expedition. The aim of this book is to address this gap. Its fresh approach to the sources allows the enormous contribution of the English merchant fleet to the wars conducted by Edward II and Edward III to be revealed; the author also explores the complex administrative process of raising a fleet and provides career profiles for many mariners, examining the familial relationships that existed in port communities and the shipping resources of English ports.


Videos play a very important role in today's communication and entertainment world. Many services are being developed based on the concept of video like video streaming, video calling etc. The increase in demand for such services made the service providers evince interest in investigating, monitoring and maintaining the quality that they provide for such services. Also it is a crucial point that a bad quality video will degrade the Quality of Experience felt by the user. In order to improve Quality of Experience, video quality evaluation is necessary. For this purpose many tools to evaluate the quality of a video have been designed. In this thesis EvalVid is evaluated, which is an open source video quality evaluation tool. We have evaluated a set of videos using this tool to compare the performance of quality evaluation metrics like Peak Signal to Noise Ratio and Structural Similarity Index Metric. Affirmation of the results is done using Matlab, by calculating PSNR and SSIM for the same set of videos which have been used in EvalVid. These two tools calculate the metrics in two different ways, which is revealed by the observed differences in the results. A set of particular observations allow further conclusion that EvalVid is less credible than Matlab for evaluating quality of videos.


With the rapid development of GPU (Graphics Processor Unit) in recent years, GPGPU (General-Purpose computation on GPU) has become an important technique in scientific research. However GPU might well be seen more as a cooperator than a rival to CPU. Therefore, we focus on exploiting the power of CPU and GPU in solving generic problems based on collaborative and heterogeneous computing environment. In this work we present a parallel processing paradigm based on CPU-GPU collaborative computing model to optimize the performance of task scheduling. In addition, we evaluate a new task scheduling algorithm using NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT compare with traditional task scheduling algorithm. The results show that our algorithm increase average performance of 26.5% compared with traditional algorithm. Based on our results and current trends in microarchitecture, we believe that efficient use of CPU-GPU collaborative environment will become increasingly important to high-performance computing.


Abstract. During the eXperimental Planetary boundary layer Instrumentation Assessment (XPIA) campaign, which was carried out at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO) in spring 2015, multiple-Doppler scanning strategies were carried out with scanning wind lidars and Ka-band radars. Specifically, step–stare measurements were collected simultaneously with three scanning Doppler lidars, while two scanning Ka-band radars carried out simultaneous range height indicator (RHI) scans. The XPIA experiment provided the unique opportunity to compare directly virtual-tower measurements performed simultaneously with Ka-band radars and Doppler wind lidars. Furthermore, multiple-Doppler measurements were assessed against sonic anemometer data acquired from the meteorological tower (met-tower) present at the BAO site and a lidar wind profiler. This survey shows that – despite the different technologies, measurement volumes and sampling periods used for the lidar and radar measurements – a very good accuracy is achieved for both remote-sensing techniques for probing horizontal wind speed and wind direction with the virtual-tower scanning technique.


The evaluation of transportation projects has traditionally been carried out in the context of economic efficiency, in terms of savings in travel time, vehicle operating cost, and safety. The wider and longer-term effects on economic development (i.e., job, income and business growth) are a concern of transportation planners and decision-makers but have been often overlooked due to the lack of a reliable impact estimation methodology and/or data. Information on economic development impacts is valuable for understanding the total effect of projects and therefore, for a more balanced justification of proposed transportation infrastructure investments. This study extends the traditional transportation impact framework by examining how different types of highway improvements that have been programmed for implementation in the State of Indiana can affect the state's economy, and how project- and location-specific factors interact to stimulate economic development. Temporal, spatial, and project characteristics are duly considered. The end product of this research is a quantitative tool that can be used at the project development phase by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) staff to estimate the economic development effects of different types of highway investments and make better decisions regarding highway investment. The study results provide a better understanding of the interrelationships among economic development, type of highway improvement and geographical location, and how investments in highway infrastructure can be ranked and prioritized based on sound economic development criteria. This study illustrates the types of data necessary to document these effects, and demonstrates how analysis can be carried out and ultimately improved. The study results can also assist INDOT to develop a quantitative approach to establish weights for the economic development criterion in a bid to rank and select projects based on their economic development potential and increase the efficiency of highway investment. Finally, the questionnaire survey targeted to transportation agencies and organizations across Indiana that have interests in economic development aspects could improve the understanding of economic development practices in the state. The survey results shed light into the circumstances under which economic developers and transportation agencies assess such effects, the measures that are or should typically be used, their associated weights, and the strategies/tools that are most often used.


Distribution and movement patterns of Antarctic blue whales Balaenoptera musculus intermedia at large temporal and spatial scales are still poorly understood. The objective of this study was to explore spatio-temporal distribution patterns of Antarctic blue whales in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, using passive acoustic monitoring data. Multi-year data were collected between 2008 and 2013 by 11 recorders deployed in the Weddell Sea and along the Greenwich meridian. Antarctic blue whale Z-calls were detected via spectrogram cross-correlation. A Blue Whale Index was developed to quantify the proportion of time during which acoustic energy from Antarctic blue whales dominated over background noise. Our results show that Antarctic blue whales were acoustically present year-round, with most call detections between January and April. During austral summer, the number of detected calls peaked synchronously throughout the study area in most years, and hence, no directed meridional movement pattern was detectable. During austral winter, vocalizations were recorded at latitudes as high as 69°S, with sea ice cover exceeding 90%, suggesting that some Antarctic blue whales overwinter in Antarctic waters. Polynyas likely serve as an important habitat for baleen whales during austral winter, providing food and reliable access to open water for breathing. Overall, our results support increasing evidence of a complex and non-obligatory migratory behavior of Antarctic blue whales, potentially involving temporally and spatially dynamic migration routes and destinations, as well as variable timing of migration to and from the feeding grounds.


Papillon-Lefevre syndrome (PLS) is an autosomal recessive condition with palmoplantar hyperkeratosis and aggressive periodontitis as cardinal features. The disorder is linked to mutations of the gene for cathepsin C, a lysosomal protease essential in activation of serine proteases in immune and inflammatory cells. The genetic background of the disorder has been identified, but its relation to phenotypic expression is obscure. The aims of the project were to explore phenotypic expression in young patients with PLS, and to investigate any correlation between clinical expression and identified genotype. Additionally, biochemical properties of gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) were investigated, and the result of an oral treatment protocol based on plaque control was evaluated. Major results and conclusions from the studies were:The severity of the skin lesions showed no correlation to patient's age or level of periodontal disease, supporting the concept that the two major components of PLS are independent of each other.Genotyping revealed two cardinal genotypes, but no correlation between the identified genotypes and expression of phenotypes could be found, suggesting that it is the interaction with environmental factors and/or other genes that is important in shaping the phenotype.Analyses of gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) from patients with PLS did not show any clear-cut pathognominic expressions with regard to content of cytokines, metalloproteinases or inhibitor of metallproteinase 1.The level of plasminogen activator inhibitor in GCF was significantly higher in PLS patients than in controls, indicating atypical activity of the plasminogen activating system with, possibly, disturbed epithelial function. This may affect the epithelial barrier function and its role in the innate defence system.Evaluation of a PLS oral treatment protocol showed treatment from an early age and compliance to the program to be important in preserving permanent teeth in PLS.


While the quantity of water used in the home is thought to be an important determinant of health, much of the evidence relies on using water access as a proxy for quantity. This review examines the health effects of household water quantity using studies that directly measured water quantity. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and article reference lists. Eligible studies included experimental and observational studies that measured a difference in water quantity and quantified an association between water quantity and health outcomes. 21 studies, divided into six of the many possible water-quantity associated outcomes, met the eligibility criteria. Due to heterogeneity in designs, settings, methods, and outcomes, a meta-analysis was inappropriate. Overall results showed a positive association between water quantity and health outcomes, but the effect depended on how the water was used. Increased water usage for personal hygiene was generally associated with improved trachoma outcomes, while increased water consumption was generally associated with reduced gastrointestinal infection and diarrheal disease and improved growth outcomes. In high-income countries, increased water consumption was associated with higher rates of renal cell carcinoma and bladder cancer but not associated with type II diabetes, cardiac-related mortality, or all-cause mortality.


In the recent past wireless sensor networks have increasingly attracted research interest due to their abilities to perform monitoring tasks. In the ideal case they would allow to be randomly deployed (ad-hoc) wherever they are needed, independent of surrounding terrain. They would constantly adapt to environmental changes and operate without further maintenance while being comparatively cheap. In case of a node failure a wireless sensor network is expected to heal itself by rerouting network traffic and changing network topology, if needed.
While al lot of effort has been made to fulfil theses goals, nearly nothing has been done to preserve data integrity in case of unforeseen malfunctions.
This work addresses some problems related to networks where distinct roles for each network member is choosen before deployment.


ABSTRACT This article posits the development of a healthier food choice app as a means of contributing to facilitating nutritionally superior food selection among indigenous Australians living in remote communities. A significant health gap exists between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Australia. Further, indigenous Australians living in remote communities carry a significant and disproportionate share of this gap. One contributor to poor health is poor nutrition: current food consumption in remote communities is a diet dominated by highly processed foods and characterized by high levels of sugar, refined cereals, and low intake of fruit and vegetables coupled with excessive sodium intake and deficiency in a number of micronutrients. Employing two marketing-based concepts, the dual processing model of nutritional labeling and habit, as the basis for the development of a healthier food app, we contend that a food choice app has the potential to disrupt habitual behavior and generate new learning about healthier food choices in remote indigenous communities. The app would be based on the George Institute's FoodSwitch app, which enables users to scan barcodes of food products at the point of purchase and determines if the food item is a healthy choice and otherwise suggests healthier alternatives. The proposed app would utilize existing imagery used by the Jimmy Little Foundation, a not-for-profit organization working in remote indigenous communities promoting healthier food and lifestyle practices, and would provide information in a culturally appropriate and clearly communicated form.


Serialized television drama (dianshiju), perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and contradictions of the post-revolutionary and pro-market period. Zhong Xueping's timely new work draws attention to the multiple cultural and historical legacies that coexist and challenge each other within this dominant form of story telling. Although scholars tend to focus their attention on elite cultural trends and avant garde movements in literature and film, Zhong argues for recognizing the complexity of dianshiju's melodramatic mode and its various subgenres, in effect "refocusing" mainstream Chinese culture.

Mainstream Culture Refocused opens with an examination of television as a narrative motif in three contemporary Chinese art-house films. Zhong then turns her attention to dianshiju's most important subgenres. "Emperor dramas" highlight the link between popular culture's obsession with emperors and modern Chinese intellectuals' preoccupation with issues of history and tradition and how they relate to modernity. In her exploration of the "anti-corruption" subgenre, Zhong considers three representative dramas, exploring their diverse plots and emphases. "Youth dramas'" rich array of representations reveal the numerous social, economic, cultural, and ideological issues surrounding the notion of youth and its changing meanings. The chapter on the "family-marriage" subgenre analyzes the ways in which women's emotions are represented in relation to their desire for "happiness." Song lyrics from music composed for television dramas are considered as "popular poetics." Their sentiments range between nostalgia and uncertainty, mirroring the social contradictions of the reform era. The Epilogue returns to the relationship between intellectuals and the production of mainstream cultural meaning in the context of China's post-revolutionary social, economic, and cultural transformation.

Provocative and insightful, Mainstream Culture Refocused will appeal to scholars and students in studies of modern China generally and of contemporary Chinese media and popular culture specifically.


This paper discusses some continued fractions in obtaining rational approximations to functions, emphasising those which are important in statistical applications_ It will be shown that continued fractions are valuable tools in the evaluation of certain cumulative distribution functions. The probabilities of several convergents were evaluated over a wide range of functions, to determine the effectiveness of the expansion. Also forward and backward methods were used. However in conclusion, the continued fraction method as a mean of obtaining rational approximations to probability distributions is a very powerful and effective technique.


In magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) we inject currents through electrodes placed on the surface of a subject and try to reconstruct cross-sectional resistivity (or conductivity) images using internal magnetic flux density as well as boundary voltage measurements. In this paper we present a static resistivity image of a cubic saline phantom (50 x 50 x 50 mm3) containing a cylindrical sausage object with an average resistivity value of 123.7 ohms cm. Our current MREIT system is based on an experimental 0.3 T MRI scanner and a current injection apparatus. We captured MR phase images of the phantom while injecting currents of 28 mA through two pairs of surface electrodes. We computed current density images from magnetic flux density images that are proportional to the MR phase images. From the current density images and boundary voltage data we reconstructed a cross-sectional resistivity image within a central region of 38.5 x 38.5 mm2 at the middle of the phantom using the J-substitution algorithm. The spatial resolution of the reconstructed image was 64 x 64 and the reconstructed average resistivity of the sausage was 117.7 ohms cm. Even though the error in the reconstructed average resistivity value was small, the relative L2-error of the reconstructed image was 25.5% due to the noise in measured MR phase images. We expect improvements in the accuracy by utilizing an MRI scanner with higher SNR and increasing the size of voxels scarifying the spatial resolution.


As reproductive health experts and advocates for women's health who work in conjunction with other obstetric and pediatric health care providers, obstetrician-gynecologists are uniquely positioned to enable women to achieve their infant feeding goals. Maternity care policies and practices that support breastfeeding are improving nationally; however, more work is needed to ensure all women receive optimal breastfeeding support during prenatal care, during their maternity stay, and after the birth occurs. Enabling women to breastfeed is a public health priority because, on a population level, interruption of lactation is associated with adverse health outcomes for the woman and her child, including higher maternal risks of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, and greater infant risks of infectious disease, sudden infant death syndrome, and metabolic disease. Contraindications to breastfeeding are few. Most medications and vaccinations are safe for use during breastfeeding, with few exceptions. Breastfeeding confers medical, economic, societal, and environmental advantages; however, each woman is uniquely qualified to make an informed decision surrounding infant feeding. Obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers should discuss the medical and nonmedical benefits of breastfeeding with women and families. Because lactation is an integral part of reproductive physiology, all obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers should develop and maintain skills in anticipatory guidance, support for normal breastfeeding physiology, and management of common complications of lactation. Obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers should support women and encourage policies that enable women to integrate breastfeeding into their daily lives and in the workplace. This Committee Opinion has been revised to include additional guidance for obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers to better enable women in unique circumstances to achieve their breastfeeding goals.


Book synopsis: Our mental lives are entwined with the world. There are worldly things that we have beliefs about and things in the world we desire to have happen. We find some things fearsome and others likable. The puzzle of intentionality — how it is that our minds make contact with the world — is one of the oldest and most vexed issues facing philosophers.

Many contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists have been attracted to the idea that our minds represent the world. This book explores an important assumption about representation, namely, that when we represent things in the world, we represent them as having properties, and in this way our representations have "propositional" structure. The contributors examine what the commitment to propositionalism amounts to; illuminate why one might find the thesis attractive (or unattractive); and consider ways in which one might depart from propositionalism. The hope is that this will lead towards a more complete understanding of how the mind and world are connected.


The current research on the relationship between pornography and sexual violence has produced mixed findings. Some studies show a connection between violent depictions and rape, while others examining nonviolent sexual material report inconsistent findings or no effects. This paper examines the potential connection between rape and rape proclivity and use of soft‐core pornography and three types of hard‐core pornography: nonviolent pornography, violent pornography, and rape pornography. Data collected from a sample of 515 college men indicated strong bivariate associations of rape and rape proclivity with use of almost all forms of pornography. Multivariate analysis indicated that the strongest correlates of sexual coercion and aggression, as well as rape proclivity, were exposure to hard‐core violent and rape pornography. Exposure to nonviolent hard‐core pornography displayed no association net of the other variables. Exposure to soft‐core pornography was positively associated with likelihood of sexual f...


We show that the global-scale environmental perturbations leading to the Selli OAE1a were clearly recorded in the middle Bedoulian Apulia carbonate platform at Borgo Celano, in the western Gargano Promontory (Southern Italy). The studied section (Bari Limestones), which is 72.45 m thick and spans the Late Barremian p.p. -latest Early Aptian time interval, has been logged with an average resolution of 3 samples per metre for chemostratigraphic analyses and up to 7 samples per metre for facies analysis in the aim of detailed paleocologic and paleoceanographic investigation. It contains the complete biosedimentary and chemostratigraphic record across the Selli OAE1a, as suggested by a consistent match of the observed isotope excursions with those documented in the Cismon pelagic reference section and the lack of significant non-depositional or erosional hiatuses within the chemostratigraphic Selli level: biostratigraphic and sedimentary-diagenetic analyses document a continuous record of fully subtidal conditions. Furthermore, the Borgo Celano section allows correlation of the shallow- and deep-water records without intervening stratigraphic breaks. Upper Barremian-Lower Bedoulian, chlorozoan-type carbonates showing subtidal-intertidal Milankovitch-type cyclicities characterize the lower part of the Borgo Celano section (C2 pro parte isotopic segment). Starting from the latest C2 segment, a remarkable Crisis Interval (CI) about 4 m thick shows an increasing frequency of bivalves ( Chondrodonta and requieniids), the disappearance of green algae and a reduced diversity of foraminiferal assemblages (foramol-type carbonates). This interval is sharply overlain by an interval, about 3.70 m thick, that is largely dominated by "out-of-balance" microbial limestones almost devoid of metazoans, apart from sparse, small-sized requieniids and Chondrodonta , which accompanies the C3-middle C4 isotope segment. It is interpreted to reflect a sharp hyperthermal and acidification event induced by excess p CO 2 . Starting from the upper C4 segment, less severe but still threatening environmental conditions permitted the deposition throughout the lower C5 segment of peculiar shallow-water tropical-like carbonates, which are dominated by oncoidal floatstones and microbial wackestone/packstone emphasizing the enduring influence of benthic cyanobacteria during the Selli OAE1a. Upsection guilds are dominated by foraminiferal and peloidal wackestones/packstones with sparse bivalves and green algae (upper C5-lowermost C7 isotope segments). Similarly to other carbonate platforms of the central Tethyan Realm (e.g., Apennine and Adriatic), the resilience of the Apulia carbonate platform inner shelf to the environmental perturbations that led to the coeval drowning of its margin, the starvation of its slope and to the deposition of black shales in the bounding Ionian basin is a striking supraregional feature. The inception of the resilience of the Apulia carbonate platform inner shelf is coincident with the lithostratigraphic boundary in between the Borgo Celano and Chondrodonta and requieniids members of the Bari Limestones and physically corresponds in the field with the base of a significant, 1 m thick, Chondrodonta -rich marker bed. These observations confirm the value of routinely applied field and laboratory studies for precise chemostratigraphic and bio-chronostratigraphic correlations on a regional scale. Furthermore, chemostratigraphic data presented here corroborate recent paleoceanographic and stratigraphic models proposed for the Lower Aptian across the transition between the Apulia carbonate platform and the bounding Ionian basin, and provide further elements for regional reconstructions of historical patterns.


This paper reports preliminary findings on what are current practices in the audit consideration of environmental matters in financial reports. It also reports on auditors' perceptions of their responsibility for verifying environmental matters and whether AGS 1010 has impacted on current audit practice. The preliminary findings indicate that auditors do not consider environmental matters as a key audit risk area despite their implications for the community and public interest. Environmental matters (provided they have a financial impact on the company's financial report) are considered mainly for those companies operating in a sector or industry that is exposed to significant environmental risk. Auditors depend on management in the client company to disclose information of any audit significance. They do not pro-actively search out environmental risk exposures for all their audit clients. The promulgation of AGS-1010 in 2001 apparently has little impact on how auditors take environmental matters into consideration when auditing financial reports.


ABSTRACT We reevaluate the taxonomic status of therocephalian fossils recovered from the lower Fremouw Formation (Lower Triassic) of the central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica. The material, which includes mostly fragmentary juvenile specimens, is reidentified using an apomorphy-based approach. We recognize the presence of three higher-level taxa: Eutherocephalia, Akidnognathidae, and Baurioidea. The only genus-level identification is for a partial lower jaw and pterygoid tentatively attributed to the baurioid, Ericiolacerta parva. An indeterminate theriodont partial skull is reassigned to the therocephalian family Akidnognathidae. The holotypes of Pedaeosaurus parvus and Rhigosaurus glacialis are represented by indeterminate juvenile baurioids and, in the absence of clear autapomorphies, are considered nomina dubia. The results of the taxonomic revision indicate that the therocephalian fauna of Antarctica lacks endemic genera and thus corresponds to that of the Triassic Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone fauna of South Africa's Karoo Basin. More generally, we consider the southern Gondwanan basins of South Africa and Antarctica to sample a broadly distributed Lower Triassic tetrapod fauna, although the latter basin documents the first occurrence of several taxa (e.g., Kombuisia, Palacrodon). More precise (i.e., species-level) identifications are needed to better constrain the biogeographic signal for therocephalians, but the presence of juveniles strongly suggests that this group of therapsids, like dicynodonts, were year-round high-latitude inhabitants during Early Triassic times.


This paper analyzes 'food sovereignty' and the movements that work for it at local, national, and supranational levels and at the intersection of markets, governments, and civil society. The goal is to illuminate potential aspects of post-growth socio-ecological systems management regimes. These aspects include: (a) socially and ecologically embedded and politically engaged market activity, as evidenced by 'peasant' modes of food production and distribution; (b) deliberative and 'agonistic' democratic models for policy construction, as evidenced by internal organizational processes within the transnational food sovereignty network La Vía Campesina; and (c) multi-sited 'relational' forms of understanding and institutionalizing sovereignty, as evidenced by the complex of institutions engaged by food sovereignty movements and the ways that 'power over' aspects of classical sovereignty are combined with more 'power with' and 'power to' conceptions emergent in food sovereignty. Although this case relates fundamentally to issues of food and farming, the resulting aspects may be applicable to other realms of post-growth economic regimes. Fundamentally, it is argued that politically engaged movements of producers, whose productive surpluses are invested into non-growth ends with support of governments, will construct post-growth economies.


Due to colossal financial losses in recent years, phishing has drawn attention of most of the individuals and organizations in the world of internet. Need for protection against phishing activities through fraudulent emails has increased remarkably. In this paper we propose a hybrid model to classify phishing emails using machine learning algorithms with the aspiration of developing an ensemble model for email classification with improved accuracy. We have used the content of emails and extracted 47 features from it. The processed emails are provided as input to various machine learning classifiers. Going through experiments, it is observed and inferred that Bayesian net classification model when ensemble with CART gives highest test accuracy of 99.32%.


In this work we explore how the heat kernel, which gives the solution to the diffusion equation and the Brownian motion, would change when we introduce quasiperiodicity in the scenario. We also study the random walk in the Fibonacci sequence. We discuss how these ideas would change the discrete approaches to quantum gravity and the construction of quantum geometry.


This thesis discusses the reasons for space exploration and space science. Space plasma physics is identified as an essential building block to understand the space environment and it is argued that observation and analysis of space plasma waves is an important approach.Space plasma waves are the main actors in many important processes. So-called broadband waves are found responsible for much of the ion heating in the auroral region. We investigate the wave properties of broadband waves and show that they can be described as a mixture of electrostatic wave modes. In small regions void of cold electrons the broadband activity is found to be ion acoustic waves and these regions are also identified as acceleration regions. The identification of the wave modes includes reconstructions of the wave distribution function. The reconstruction technique allow us to determine the wave vector spectrum, which cannot be measured directly. The method is applied to other wave events and it is compared in some detail with a similar method.Space plasma wave are also sensitive tools for investigations of both the fine-structure and the dynamics of space plasmas. Studies of whistler mode waves observed in the boundary layer on the magnetospheric side of the magnetopause reveal that the plasma is organized in tube-like structures moving with the plasma drift velocity. The perpendicular dimension of these tubes is of the order of the electron inertial length. We present evidence that each tube is linked to a reconnection site and argue that the high density of tube-like structures indicates patchy reconnection.


While human gut microbiomes vary significantly in taxonomic composition, biological pathway abundance is surprisingly invariable across hosts. We hypothesized that healthy microbiomes appear functionally redundant due to factors that obscure differences in gene abundance across hosts. To account for these biases, we developed a powerful test of gene variability, applicable to shotgun metagenomes from any environment. Our analysis of healthy stool metagenomes reveals thousands of genes whose abundance differs signifi-cantly between people consistently across studies, including glycolytic enzymes, lipopolysac-charide biosynthetic genes, and secretion systems. Even housekeeping pathways contain a mix of variable and invariable genes, though most deeply conserved genes are significantly invariable. Variable genes tend to be associated with Proteobacteria, as opposed to taxa used to define enterotypes or the dominant phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. These re-sults establish limits on functional redundancy and predict specific genes and taxa that may drive physiological differences between gut microbiomes. Impact Statement A statistical test for gene variability reveals extensive functional differences between healthy humanmicrobiomes.


Portrayals of history are never complete, and each description inherently exhibits a specific viewpoint and emphasis. In this paper, we aim to automatically identify such differences by computing timelines and detecting temporal focal points of written history across languages on Wikipedia. In particular, we study articles related to the history of all UN member states and compare them in 30 language editions. We develop a computational approach that allows to identify focal points quantitatively, and find that Wikipedia narratives about national histories (i) are skewed towards more recent events (recency bias) and (ii) are distributed unevenly across the continents with significant focus on the history of European countries (Eurocentric bias). We also establish that national historical timelines vary across language editions, although average interlingual consensus is rather high. We hope that this paper provides a starting point for a broader computational analysis of written history on Wikipedia and elsewhere.


This dissertation explores how rural Chinese female students at urban Chinese higher education institutions conceptualize and negotiate the urban-rural divide that often interplays with gender and the discourse of quality (suzhi) to shape their lives. A substantial body of literature discusses the profound inequalities that rural Chinese people encounter due to the urban-rural divide and household registration system (Chan & Zhang, 1999; Wang & Zuo, 1999; Loong-Yu & Shan, 2007; Tang & Yang, 2008; Whyte, 2010; Han, 2010). An increasing amount of literature also addresses the experiences of rural Chinese migrant women working in urban China (Gaetano & Jacka, 2004; Jacka, 2006; Gaetano, 2004; Gaetano, 2005; Yan, 2008). However, little research has been done on rural Chinese university women. The few articles that do exist tend to blame them or their culture for their failure or struggles (Ren, 2008; Xu, 2007; Wan, 2007), or else focus on the unequal power structures that victimize them (Yu, 2006); but none of these studies incorporates the perspectives of these women. My dissertation fills the scholarly gap by focusing on the voices and perspectives of a group of rural female higher education students who talked about their experiences of negotiating multiple and intersecting power structures. Qualitative methodology and feminist methodology informed this dissertation. To collect data, I conducted open-ended, in-depth interviews with 66 rural female students (51 undergraduates and 15 graduate students) at five public universities and one public college in northern China. This research revealed the profound inequalities that these students experienced in attaining higher education, such as urban primary and secondary schools' exclusion of rural students, overt and subtle forms of gender discrimination at home and school, regional discrimination reflected in higher education admission policies, and political control and punishment through the National Higher Education Entrance Examination. These had seldom been examined by previous studies. The students that I interviewed also encountered numerous obstacles to their integration into urban campuses; they felt marginalized from mainstream urban life because the dominant culture regarded urban life and people as superior to rural life and people. Despite all these barriers, these women did not allow themselves to be defeated; instead they became active agents by developing strategies to negotiate and resist the barriers when they could. Building upon the work of Daniel G. Solorzano and Dolores Delgano Bernal (2001) and of Tara J. Yosso (2006), I define such agency that my participants exhibited as the ability to navigate the institutional barriers and social norms that constrain their conditions of existence. Though my participants were constrained by the unequal structures of power, they were also aware of the inequalities. They responded by making decisions and devising strategies to become upwardly mobile through educational achievements. It may seem that by striving for educational success, they were merely conforming to the societal norm; but they were also in this way resisting marginalization arising from the dominant cultural capital and the discourse of quality that represents them as inferior or deficient. In response to the discourse of quality, they also exercised their agency by making meaning of their lived experiences with this discourse and/or developing counter-discourses to negotiate it. Furthermore, when they encountered different and sometimes contradictory forms of patriarchy across rural and urban contexts, they expressed their agency by shifting and reformulating their identities.


Food production causes losses of reactive nitrogen (N) to the detriment of the environment but the current level of losses per unit food leaves room for improvement. Due to feedback mechanisms a comprehensive analysis is needed and we developed a quantitative model of the whole food system to assess the effects of improvement measures on the required amount of N fertilizer and resulting N losses as function of food demand. For 2010 we calculate a total N loss from agricultural soils and ammonia volatilization of 172 Mt N y-1 and an amount of 32 Mt N y-1 entering households in food items. This implies a N loss ratio of 5.4 kg N lost per kg N purchased by households. Due to higher food demand and changed diet as projected for 2050, the N loss ratio increases to almost 6.0 if equal N use efficiencies are used as in 2010 and the total N loss amounts to 293 Mt N y-1. The effects of a number of improvement measures are explored, such as less animal-based products in the human diet and reduced N loss from agricultural soils. Single measures can reduce this ratio to as low as 3.8 but when all measures are combined, the ratio drops to 2.0 with a total N loss of 84 Mt N y-1 without affecting the projected food demand for 2050. Our results clearly illustrate that the effectiveness of measures cannot be realistically estimated without taking the whole system into account and that the N loss ratio is a better indicator to estimate environmental impacts of N use than N use efficiency.


A new theoretical treatment of the Anderson model of transition-metal or rare-earth impurities in a simple metal is presented. This study treats the impurity Coulomb correlation exactly and the host impurity coupling to lowest order in the sense of a self-consistent degenerate perturbation theory. The central result of this work is that if an impurity interconfigurational excitation energy (ICEE) is close to the Fermi energy in the atomic limit, a temperature-dependent shift of the ICEE is found for the interacting system. This temperature-dependent shift is shown to give a good description of the experimental observations on dilute magnetic alloys.


A novel technique for the terahertz (THz) tomography of a photo-induced carrier that is based on optical-pump THz-probe time-resolved reflection spectroscopy using counterpropagation geometry of the pump and probe pulses has been proposed. Transient reflection due to the photo-induced carrier provides information about the physical properties and spatial distribution separately. We have experimentally demonstrated this method using a silicon wafer. The obtained complex reflection can be reproduced by the exact solution of Maxwell's equations, assuming an exponential distribution of the photo-induced carrier density.


This study examined the distribution and localization of the neuropeptide arginine phenylalanine-amide (RF-amide) and GABAA receptors in the hypostomal and tentacular nerve net of the cnidarian polyp Hydra vulgaris. Immunohistochemical techniques were used to visualize two distinct anti-GABAA α-1 subunit positivereceptor ring structures, nerve cell bodies, neurites and epithelial cells, as well as an anti-RF-amide positive nerve ring, nerve cell bodies and neurites throughout the ectoderm of the hypostome and tentacles of ablated hypostomes. One proximal antiGABAA positive-receptor ring, exclusively labeling ectodermal effector cells, coinciding with an anti-α-tubulinpositive proximal nerve ring labeling nerve fibers is described. Another anti-GABAA receptorpositive ring, labeling nerve cell bodies and fibers that contributed to the anti-α-tubulinpositive distal nerve ring is also reported. Anti-GABAA receptors were also found on ectodermal effector and epithelial cells in the apex of the hypostome, in battery cell components in tentacles and at tentacle insertions, suggesting involvement of GABAA receptors in both tentacle and contraction pulse control. Anti-RF-amide positive nerve fibers and nerve cell bodies of the proximal nerve ring and ubiquitously in bi-polar and tri-polar nerve cells and nerve fibers throughout the hypostome as well as in ganglion cells, sensory cells and neurites of the tentacle were identified. This study provides the first evidence of the localized distribution of anti-GABAA α-1 subunit receptors in the nerves and effector cells of the hypostome of H. vulgaris. It also provides the first evidence of an intimate association between anti-GABAA receptor and anti-RF-amide among the effector and neuronal cells, suggesting a mutual interaction in the neuro-effector systems controlling hydra's


This paper derives a tax-adjusted discount rate formula with a constant proportion leverage policy, investor taxes, and risky debt. The result depends on an assumption about the treatment of tax losses in default. We identify the assumption that justifies the textbook approach of discounting interest tax shields at the cost of debt. We contrast this with an alternative assumption that leads to the Sick (1990) result that these should be discounted at the riskless rate. These two approaches represent polar cases. Each generates its results by using a different simplifying assumption, and we explain what determines the correct treatment in practice. We also discuss implementation of the valuation procedure using the CAPM.


It has recently been suggested that gravitomagnetic precession of the inner part of the accretion disk, possibly driven by radiation torques, may be responsible for some of the quasi-periodic X-ray brightness oscillations (QPOs) at 20 - 300 Hz, observed in some low-mass binary systems containing accreting neutron stars and black hole candidates. We have explored warp modes of geometrically thin disks in the presence of gravitomagnetic and radiation torques.
We have found a family of overdamped, low-frequency gravitomagnetic (LFGM) modes with precession frequencies lower than a certain critical frequency \omega_{crit}, which is ~ 1 Hz for a compact object of solar mass. A radiation warping torque can cause a few of the lowest-frequency LFGM modes to grow with time, but even a strong radiation warping torque has essentially no effect on the LFGM modes with frequencies > 10^{-4} Hz.
We have also discovered a second family of high-frequency gravitomagnetic (HFGM) modes with precession frequencies that range from $\omega_{crit}$ up to slightly less than the gravitomagnetic precession frequency $\omega_{gm,i}$ of a particle at the inner edge of the disk, which is 30 Hz if the disk extends inward to the innermost stable circular orbit around a compact object of 2 solar masses with dimensionless angular momentum cJ/GM^2 = 0.2. The highest-frequency HFGM modes are very localized spiral corrugations of the inner disk and are weakly damped, with Q values 2-50.
We discuss the implications of our results for the observability of Lense-Thirring precession in X-ray binaries.


China's Internet filtering and censorship regime has received considerable global attention. The Chinese government has successfully regulated access to Internet content at the national level through technical means. Although some researchers optimistically viewed the Internet as a liberating force in China's democratic development, the Chinese government has actually been using network technologies to control online information and grafting its own ideology to the Net. Digital technologies have become the government's tool to tamp down political threats. The rise of the Chinese model of Internet control prompts many interesting questions associated with Internet law scholarship. This Article uses Lawrence Lessig's pronouncement "code is law" as a lens for understanding the Internet filtering system in China. Through the application of Lessig's theory to the great firewall of China, we aim to illustrate the theory's new implications and the government's policy options in cyberspace.


The key question of this paper is whether social integration, both for minority (migrants) and majority groups (natives) in Western Europe, varies across contexts of exit (ethnic origins) and contexts of reception (Western European countries); and if so, how does religious identity and practice serve to mediate these contextual differences? To investigate this question I draw on the international comparative dataset EURISLAM which includes comparisons between Muslim migrants of ex-Yugoslav, Turkish, Moroccan and Pakistani origin with majority group members of Belgium, Britain, Germany and Switzerland. Social integration is measured through attitudes towards intermarriage across Muslim/non-Muslim lines. As results show, ethnic groups differ in their probabilities to approve of intermarriage. Especially migrants from the former Yugoslavia encounter a significantly lower approval of intermarriage by natives. However, approval of intermarriage is closely tied to religiosity. Once religiosity is controlled for, all migrant groups become significantly more positive about intermarriage than natives. Following theories on in-group favouritism and the homophily principle, we find that religious identity among migrants and practice among both natives and migrants are associated with reluctance to intermarry. Policy makers are advised to take note that contextual differences in perceived social integration of immigrant groups could be confounding other factors, including how differences in religiosity affect social integration. Migrants' significantly higher approval of intermarriage after controlling religiosity implies that policy makers may conceivably have to shift attention from migrants to natives and undertake some action in order to enable a greater intercultural understanding.


To assess the renal functional adaptation to reduced excretory capacity, we studied whole kidney and single nephron function in anesthetized volume-replete rabbits after unilateral (left kidney) nephrectomy (UNX), ureteral obstruction (UO), or ureteroperitoneostomy (UP). At 24 h, despite the absence of measurable hypertrophy of the contralateral (right) kidney, these procedures significantly increased p-aminohippurate clearance (45-54%) and inulin clearance (CIN) (64-110%) compared with sham-operated control animals. In each group, whole kidney sodium reabsorption increased in proportion to the rise in CIN. To determine whether the intrinsic transport capacity of proximal tubule segments is altered by these maneuvers, we measured fluid volume reabsorption rate (Jv) in isolated superficial proximal straight tubule (PST) segments perfused in vitro, comparing each control tubule (obtained by biopsy of the left kidney immediately before an experimental maneuver) with a corresponding tubule segment obtained 24 h or 7 d later from the contralateral kidney. Control tubule Jv in sham-24 h animals averaged 0.48 +/- 0.04 nl/(min X mm). Jv did not change significantly at 24 h or 7 d after sham maneuvers but increased significantly at 24 h after UNX [delta Jv = 0.13 +/- 0.03 nl/(min X mm)], UO [delta Jv = 0.10 +/- 0.04 nl/(min X mm)], and UP [delta Jv = 0.13 +/- 0.04 nl/(min X mm)]. Jv remained increased by similar amounts at 7 d after UNX and UO. To evaluate whether an increase in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) might be the stimulus to this augmentation in Jv values, methylprednisolone (MP) (15 mg/kg per d) was administered daily to sham-operated animals, a maneuver which induced a 73% rise in CIN by day 5. This procedure also produced a significant increase in Jv in PST at 5 d [delta Jv = 0.16 +/- 0.05 nl/(min X mm)]. The increase in Jv evident in each group at 5 or 7 d was paralleled by an equivalent change in tubule cell volume and apparent tubule luminal surface area in UNX-7d and MP-5d; no such increments in these indices, or in apparent tubule serosal surface area were evident at 24 h in any group. Thus, a 50% reduction in renal excretory function in the rabbit provokes adjustments in renal plasma flow rate and GFR in the contralateral kidney, which are evident by 24 h. The concurrent change in Jv in PST is closely related to CIN or some associated hemodynamic process, but does not appear to require an increase in tubule cell volume or apparent surface area. The ability to detect these small in vivo changes in Jv may derive from the enhanced sensitivity of paired-kidney experiments using tubule segments obtained by renal biopsy.


Science of Sport is a striking exhibition now on at the Science Museum, London, which promises children and parents a fun and energetic day out investigating the relevance of science and technology to sport. The exhibition is timely-2004 is a big year for sport and an ideal time to draw children into the joys of different sports.

When there is growing concern in the United Kingdom about childhood obesity and its impact on the future health of our nation, this exhibition highlights one way of tackling the bulging waistlines of the younger generation. It uses simulators and interactive displays to draw children into the games and get them excited about sport.

The most popular display is the 20 metre sprint station, where two visitors compete from the start line to see who sprints fastest, and this comes complete with action replay to check the …


In this article we want to analyze the function of the intestinal microbial flora. In the intestinal environment microorganisms "good" microorganisms coexist with "bad". The coexistence between good and bad bacteria is balanced by a mutual action of contrast that has the purpose of maintaining the intestinal microbial flora in a state of equilibrium. This condition is referred eubiosis. This article will attempt to analyze the beneficial role  carried out by eubiotic microbial flora  showing the negative effects of dysbiosis.


Believing that grants-in-aid to state and local governments disarm the opposition of local elites and are thus of dubious constitutionality, Professor Cover asserts that the federal government ought to do more itself. However, his admonition that the federal government "ought to do more" is very vague. Would Cover like to eliminate all grants-in-aid? If not, what principles would guide his choice? Are direct federal orders to the states with no accompanying subsidy funds really preferable to the regulatory strings attached to spending programs? When should federally funded and administered programs preempt state and local initiatives and when should they merely supplement them? I propose a way to think about these unanswered questions and suggest that Cover's concerns are misplaced. Ending "cooperative" federalism would be unlikely to increase the political accountability of federal politicians significantly and could have a number of detrimental effects.


The Gram-negative soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens is capable of infecting a large number of dicotyledonous plants, causing crown gall disease. During infection, a small DNA segment (T-DNA) from the tumor-inducing (Ti) plasmid of the bacterium is delivered via a VirB/D4 Type Four Secretion System (TFSS) into plant cells where it is integrated into the genome. The expression of genes on the T-DNA in transformed plant cells leads to uncontrolled cell division, and ultimately triggers plant tumor formation. Agrobacterium also transfers several virulence (vir) proteins (VirD2, VirD3, VirD5, VirE2, VirE3 and VirF) encoded by genes present in the vir region of the Ti plasmid to host cells via the same TFSS apparatus independently of the T-DNA. In this thesis, I mainly focused on the biological functions of one of these translocated virulence proteins called VirD5.


By transmitting texture and depth videos captured from two nearby camera viewpoints, a client can synthesize via depth-image-based rendering (DIBR) any freely chosen intermediate virtual view of the 3D scene, enhancing the user's perception of depth. During wireless network transmission, burst packet losses can corrupt the transmitted texture and depth videos and degrade the synthesized view quality at the client. In this paper, we propose a multiple description coding system for multi-path transmission of free-viewpoint video, with joint inter-view and temporal description recovery capability. In particular, we encode separately the even frames of the left view and the odd frames of the right view, and transmit them as one description on one path. The second description comprises the remaining frames in the two views and is transmitted over a second path. If the receiver receives only one description due to burst loss in the other path, the missing frames in the other description are partially reconstructed using our frame recovery procedure. First, we construct two recovery candidates for each lost pixel in a frame. The first candidate is generated via temporal super-resolution from its predecessor and successor frames in the same view. The second candidate is generated via DIBR from the received frame of the same time instance in the other view. Next, we select the best pixel candidates one patch at a time, where an image patch corresponds to a neighborhood of pixels with similar depth values in the 3D scene. Near-optimal source and channel coding rates for each description are selected using a branch-and-bound method, for given transmission bandwidth on each path. Experimental results show that our system can outperform a traditional single-description / single-path transmission scheme by up to 5.5dB in Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the synthesized intermediate view at the client.


The capability of serum samples from 423 human subjects to agglutinate rounded cells of Naegleria fowleri nN68 was assessed. Sera from the umbilical cords of seven infants failed to agglutinate N. fowleri cells. The median agglutination titer was 1:4 for sera from children through age 4 years, 1:8 for sera from juveniles 5 to 15 years of age, and 1:16 for sera from subjects 15 to 30 years old. The agglutination titers of sera from older adults decreased to a median of 1:8 for the 40- to 60-year-old age group and to 1:4 for the 60- to 90-year-old subjects. Serum samples from young adults agglutinated rounded cells of both N. fowleri and N. gruberi. The agglutination activity for N. fowleri was removed by absorption with N. fowleri but not with N. gruberi. Conversely, agglutination activity for N. gruberi was removed by absorption with N. gruberi but not with N. fowleri. The agglutinating activity for N. fowleri was immunoglobulin M. Serum samples from children displayed markedly disparate capabilities to agglutinate N. fowleri and N. gruberi. Only rounded cells of N. fowleri or N. gruberi were reliably agglutinated by human serum samples. Live or paraformaldehyde-killed cells could be used in the assay, but live N. gruberi cells returned to the amoeboid form, and these agglutinated poorly.


SUMMARY One of the basic questions of solar research is the nature of the Sun. We show here how the plasma nature of the Sun leads to the self-generation of solar activity. The release of magnetic, rotational, gravitational, nuclear energies and that of the gravity mode oscillations deviate from uniformity and spherical symmetry. Through instabilities they lead to the emergence of sporadic and localized regions like flux tubes, electric filaments, magnetic elements and high temperature regions. A systematic approach exploring the solar collective degrees of freedom, extending to ordering phenomena of the magnetic features related to Higgs fields, is presented. Handling solar activity as transformations of energies from one form to another one presents a picture on the network of the energy levels of the Sun, showing that the Sun is neither a mere "ball of gas" nor a "quiescent steady-state fusion-reactor machine", but a complex self-organizing system. Since complex self-organizing systems are similar to living systems (and, by some opinion, identical with them), we also consider what arguments indicate the living nature of the Sun. Thermodynamic characteristics of the inequilibrium Sun are found important in this respect and numerical estimations of free energy rate densities and specific extropy flows are derived.


Participation in Community-Based Free/Libre Open Source Software Development Tasks: The Impact of Task Characteristics Kangning Wei Shandong University Kevin Crowston Syracuse University U. Yeliz Eseryel East Carolina University Abstract Prior research on participation in FLOSS development has focused mainly on factors at the individual and/or project levels. In this research, we focus on task characteristics and explore their impacts on participation in FLOSS development tasks. Analyzing tasks from five projects in two categories, we find differences in participation related to different task triggers and task topics. Further, our results suggest the mediating role of number of participants in the relationship between task characteristics and the number of messages and the moderating role of project type in the relationships between task characteristics and the number of participants.


The use of vegetable oil as an electron donor to enhance the reductive dechlorination of chlori-nated solvents as an in situ remediation technology is gaining significant traction. Vegetable oil is a cost-effective slow-release electron donor with greater hydrogen-release efficiency than other electron-donor products. However, neat vegetable oil can inhibit distribution in aquifers due to the oil droplets blocking the flow of groundwater through the smaller pore spaces in the aquifer materials. This issue has been partially overcome by applying the vegetable oil as an oil-water emulsion, which typically is created in the field. However, the field preparation results in a mixture of droplet sizes, including larger droplets that can make the emulsions unstable and reduce the soil permeability by blocking soil-pore throats with oil. RNAS, Inc., has developed a kinetically sta-ble soybean oil emulsion ("Newman Zone") consisting of submicron droplets with less droplet-size variation than field-prepared emulsions. This product is composed of a blend of fast-release (sodium lactate) and slow-release (soybean oil) electron donors. The emulsion is produced in a stable factory environment in which it is pasteurized and packaged in sterile packaging. This ma-terial can be utilized as an electron donor without further treatments or amendments in the field. This article discusses factors associated with selecting electron donors and the development of vegetable oil–based products. A case study of an application of Newman Zone at a former adhe-sives manufacturing facility is then presented. The case study demonstrates the effect of Newman Zone in reducing chlorinated solvent concentrations in groundwater by both rapidly stimulating initial microbial activity and supporting long-term reductive dechlorination with a slow-release electron donor. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.