City Portraits and Caricatures Introduction Cities are a very rich source of data in order to understand how people organize themselves on different scales. The discourse on the visualization of cities offered different approaches, from more abstract to illustrative and figurative ones. In this chapter, we approach the visualization of cities in a less abstract, puristic way. Distancing ourselves from scientific visualization, we embrace what we call a figurative approach to visualization. With this approach we take a step back from the idea that visualization has to represent data only in the most direct and abstract way. The figurative approach extends the concept of portraits and caricatures into the realm of data, using visual metaphors and introducing visual distortions for emphasizing certain aspects of the data. This permissiveness enables us to build visualization artifacts that use playful analogies to better communicate the complex nature of cities to a nonacademic, general audience. This article will describe the process that took two visual-ization cases from a direct to a figurative approach, not entering into detailed technicalities, but tying it with a cogent discourse that presents and applies portraits and caricatures in the context of data visualization.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effects of Honokiol on cognitive function in mice with epilepsy.

METHODS
Kainic acid (38 mg/kg) was intraperitoneally injected in 5 weeks old male ICR mice to induce epilepsy. Honokiol at dose of 3, 10, 30 mg/kg was given to epilepic mice by intraperitoneal injection for 10 days. Fluoro-Jade B staining was used to assess neuronal death; Morris water maze and Y maze tests were used to measure cognitive function such as learning and memory; Western blot was performed to detect the expression of acetylated superoxide dismutase (SOD), microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3-Ⅱ (LC3-Ⅱ) and P62 in hippocampus tissue; thiobarbituric acid and WST-1 methods were used to detect malondialdehyde (MDA) and SOD.

RESULTS
Compared with control group, the levels of acetylated-SOD, MDA, LC3-Ⅱ, P62 and neuronal death increased, cognitive function and SOD decreased in model group (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Honokiol at the dose of 10 mg/kg and 30 mg/kg decreased SOD acetylation, MDA content, expression of LC3-Ⅱ and P62, as well as neuronal death, and the cognitive function was improved (P<0.05 or P<0.01), especially in 30 mg/kg Honokiol group.

CONCLUSIONS
Honokiol alleviates oxidative stress and autophagy degradation disorder, decreases neuronal death, and therefore improves cognitive function in epilepsy mice.


The objective of this article is to provide an overview and critical evaluation of the use of carbon nanotubes and related carbon-based nanomaterials for microchip chromatography. The unique properties of carbon nanotubes, such as a very high surface area and intriguing adsorptive behaviour, have already been demonstrated in more classical formats, for improved separation performance in gas and liquid chromatography, and for unique applications in solid phase extraction. Carbon nanotubes are now also entering the field of microfluidics, where there is a large potential to be able to provide integrated, tailor-made nanotube columns by means of catalytic growth of the nanotubes inside the fluidic channels. An evaluation of the different implementations of carbon nanotubes and related carbon-based nanomaterials for microfluidic chromatography devices is given in terms of separation performance and ease of fabrication.


In this article we examine the architecture of an entity used for automatic management and provisioning of resources for DiffServ networks. We examine the existing literature and implementations in this area, focusing on the design choices made, and we propose an architecture for the design of Bandwidth Brokers that combines an adaptive admission control algorithm for increased utilization of network resources and a mechanism for reducing the complexity overhead that intends to be both simple and effective. Specifically, we present a novel architecture for the admission control module that aims at achieving a satisfactory balance between maximizing the resource utilization for the network provider and minimizing the overhead of the module. We complement our theoretical discussion with extensive experimental simulations for the proposed Bandwidth Broker components and analysis of the results. The simulations study the possible configurations of the proposed algorithm and also compare it with alternative admission control policies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We study the enumeration of Hamiltonian cycles on the thin grid cylinder graph $C_m \times P_{n+1}$. We distinguish two types of Hamiltonian cycles, and denote their numbers $h_m^A(n)$ and $h_m^B(n)$. For fixed $m$, both of them satisfy linear homogeneous recurrence relations with constant coefficients, and we derive their generating functions and other related results for $m\leq10$. The computational data we gathered suggests that $h^A_m(n)\sim h^B_m(n)$ when $m$ is even.


Graphical information system (IS) models are used to specify and design IS from several perspectives. Due to the growing size and complexity of modern information systems, critical design information is often distributed via multiple diagrams. This slows search performance and results in reading errors that later cause omissions and inconsistencies in the final designs. We study the impact of large screens and the two promising visual integration techniques of elision and connecting lines that can decrease the designers' cognitive efforts to read diagrams. We conduct a laboratory experiment using 84 computer science students to investigate the impact of these techniques on the accuracy of the subjects' search and recall with entity-relationship diagrams and data flow diagrams. The search tasks involve both vertical and horizontal searches on a moderately complex IS model that consists of multiple diagrams. We also examine the subjects' spatial visualization abilities as a possible covariant for observed search performance. These visual integration techniques significantly reduced errors in both the search and the recall of diagrams, especially with respect to individuals with low spatial visualization ability.


As documented in part one of this series, the high school completion rate of blacks is currently at the highest it has ever been. This second installment turns to college entry and completion. The data show that blacks are starting—and finishing—college at higher rates than in the past, but they still lag far behind whites.


We present numerical and experimental results on inhibiting diffraction losses associated with the lowest order transverse electric (TE1) mode of a terahertz (THz) parallel-plate waveguide (PPWG) via the use of slightly concave plates. We find that there is an optimal radius of curvature that inhibits the diffraction for a given waveguide operating at a given frequency. We also find that introducing this curvature does not introduce any additional group-velocity dispersion. These results support the possibility of realizing long range transport of THz radiation using the TE1 mode of the PPWG.


The Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm is the world's largest offshore wind farm project (500MW) to move into the construction phase and will be built approximately 25 kilometers off the Suffolk coast of the United Kingdom (UK). The construction work started in summer 2009 and features 140 wind turbines each having a rated capacity of 3.6 MW. The turbines are mounted on steel monopiles and transition pieces in water depths between 24 and 34 meters. The selection of the optimal cathodic protection system was based on extensive computer modeling. The simulation campaign compared Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP), Sacrificial Anode Cathodic Protection (SACP) as well as combined approaches against operating parameters taking into account calcareous layer erosion, flow rate dependant polarisation behavior and layers with changing resistivity. In addition, the dissolution effects of the sacrificial anodes and remaining lifetime of the MMO anode pastilles have been simulated. This presentation details the results of the comparison study of the various cathodic protection systems as well as of the installed design.


Are communication technologies ushering in a wondrous new age of computer networks that connect people into worldwide virtual communities of like-minded individuals? Or are global computer networks isolating us from real relationships and from our society, as we stare into a screen instead of interacting face to face? In this eloquent and thoughtful book, Stephen Doheny-Farina explores the nature of cyberspace and the increasing virtualization of everyday life. He occupies a middle ground between these two extreme views of the net, arguing that electronic neighborhoods should be less important than geophysical neighborhoods in all their integrity, and that we must use the new technologies not to escape from our troubled communities but to reinvigorate them. Doheny-Farina offers a critical perspective on virtual reality and its social impact, showing us how people meet and converse on the net, how they teach and learn, and how they establish workplaces that can accompany them wherever they go. Along the way he reveals the advantages and hazards of making the computer the center of our public and private lives. Doheny-Farina argues that once we begin to divorce ourselves from geographic place and start investing ourselves in virtual communities, we further the dissolution of our real, dying communities. He speaks out in favor of a movement called civic networking, which promotes the proliferation of networks that originate locally to organize community information and culture and to foster pride in and responsibility to our neighborhoods.


Arunachal Pradesh, being a largest state of Northeast India, harbours great number of plant species which are endemic to region. The diversity and endemism of state has kept it in the category of biodiversity hot-spot. Though, in recent past, numbers of plant species are being listed as rare, endangered and threatened because of increasing threats from anthropogenic and other natural factors. In the list of threatened species, Livistona jenkinsiana Grifflocally called, Toko by the Adi tribe has also been mentioned. Based on the village and forest survey, initially it was observed that Toko is good in numbers and conserved by the tribal communities of Arunachal Pradesh. This dichotomy of Toko being reported as threatened and actual large number of population maintained by tribes has necessitated conducting the study in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The study was conducted during 2005-2008. East Sing and Adi tribe have been selected purposively. A sample of 303 male (138) and female (165) Adi members were chosen as the respondents of the study. The ecological attributes of the species, biocultural dimensions, gender role, institutional relation and conservation of species in varying habitats were studied. Using personal interview and PRA methods data were collected. Results indicate that Toko is conserved in jhum lands, Morang forest and home gardens at the larger scale. The women play a significant role in conservation of this species. Number of bioculturally important products is made out of the leaves and fruits of Toko. Indigenous institution has still great role to control overexploitation of this species and solve the dispute on Toko. This species is conserved at large scale on the individual ownership; however, the collective conservation of Toko in Morang forest by the Adi tribe is an appreciable effort. From six villages, total 33,026 numbers of trees were recorded in 2008 at the range of 110-180 m altitude.


Visual question generation aims at asking questions about an image automatically. Existing research works on this topic usually generate a single question for each given image without considering the issue of diversity. In this paper, we propose a question type driven framework to produce multiple questions for a given image with different focuses. In our framework, each question is constructed following the guidance of a sampled question type in a sequence-to-sequence fashion. To diversify the generated questions, a novel conditional variational auto-encoder is introduced to generate multiple questions with a specific question type. Moreover, we design a strategy to conduct the question type distribution learning for each image to select the final questions. Experimental results on three benchmark datasets show that our framework outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches in terms of both relevance and diversity.


We report the experimental results of the simultaneous reconstruction of absorption and scattering coefficient maps with ultrasound localization. Near-infrared (NIR) data were obtained from frequency domain and dc systems with source and detector fibers configured in transmission geometry. High- or low-contrast targets located close to either the boundary or the center of the turbid medium were reconstructed by using NIR data only and NIR data with ultrasound localization. Results show that the mean reconstructed absorption coefficient and the spatial distribution of the absorption map have been improved significantly with ultrasound localization. The improvements in the mean scattering coefficient and the spatial distribution of the scattering coefficient are moderate. When both the absorption and the scattering coefficients are reconstructed the performance of the frequency-domain systemis much better than that of the dc system.


BACKGROUND Reducing the spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospitals remains a challenge. Current methods are screening of patients, isolation, and adherence to hygiene measures among healthcare workers (HCWs). More specific measures could rely on a better characterization of the contacts at risk of dissemination. OBJECTIVE To quantify how close-proximity interactions (CPIs) affected Staphylococcus aureus dissemination. DESIGN Nested case-control study. SETTING French long-term care facility in 2009. PARTICIPANTS Patients (n=329) and HCWs (n=261). METHODS We recorded CPIs using electronic devices together with S. aureus nasal carriage during 4 months in all participants. Cases consisted of patients showing incident S. aureus colonization and were paired to 8 control patients who did not exhibit incident colonization at the same date. Conditional logistic regression was used to quantify associations between incidence and exposure to demographic, network, and carriage covariables. RESULTS The local structure of contacts informed on methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) carriage acquisition: CPIs with more HCWs were associated with incident MRSA colonization in patients (odds ratio [OR], 1.10 [95% CI, 1.04–1.17] for 1 more HCW), as well as longer CPI durations (1.03 [1.01–1.06] for a 1-hour increase). Joint analysis of carriage and contacts showed increased carriage acquisition in case of CPI with another colonized individual (OR, 1.55 [1.14–2.11] for 1 more HCW). Global network measurements did not capture associations between contacts and carriage. CONCLUSIONS Electronically recorded CPIs inform on the risk of MRSA carriage, warranting more study of in-hospital contact networks to design targeted intervention strategies. Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;36(8):922–929


ABSTRACT The Xolapa Complex of southern Mexico preserves evidence of its connection with the Chortís Block of Central America. Orthogneisses yielded U-Pb protolith ages from 172 to 169 Ma and paramigmatites are dated at 217 Ma. El Salitre and the Amatlán granitoids show crystallization ages of 65 and 59–57 Ma, respectively. In central Xolapa, diatexites have ages from 38 to 31 Ma, and granites were dated from 30 to 29 Ma. In the southeastern Xolapa, crystallization ages of 45 Ma and 23 to 21 Ma were obtained from migmatites and anatectic granites, respectively. Previous data indicate three diachronous stages of crustal melting along the Xolapa block. Structural data reveal that the Xolapa Complex is tectonically juxtaposed against the Acatlán Complex through ductile zones. Two mylonitic foliations are predominant in the northern boundary of the Xolapa Complex: (i) a sub-vertical NW-SE foliation with subhorizontal or low-plunging stretching lineation and left-lateral kinematics; and (ii) a subhorizontal NE-SW foliation with normal plunging stretching lineation and top-to-NE kinematics. The first mylonitic event related to the sinistral eastward motion of the Chortís Block occurred between 58 and 54–50 Ma. The second event took place in central Xolapa after or synchronous with the 38–31 Ma emplacement of diatexites. This event is related to an extensional phase that uplifts the Xolapa Complex with concerning the Acatlán Complex. In the southeastern region, deformation occurred after or synchronous with the emplacement of anatectic granites dated at 23–22 Ma. Our geochronological and structural data delineated an eastward decreasing age trend of migmatization, whereas the mylonitic deformation reported through the Xolapa Complex is consistent with a diachronous migration and detachment of the Chortís Block relative to the Acatlán Complex from Paleocene to early Miocene times.


This study's aim was to determine the resources used by rural low-income mothers' working non-standard schedules to manage stress and keep their families from a chaotic state. The Double ABCX theory of family stress guided this study. Resources identified were strong mental well-being, parental confidence and skills and large social support network. Data were collected from 51 rural low-income mothers who worked nonstandard schedules, by surveys and interviews three separate times. It was found that mothers who had the resources of strong mental well-beings, strong parental confidence and skills and large social support networks had lower stress levels when working non-standard schedules than mothers who did not have these resources. Mothers who lacked resources encountered higher levels of stress and depression, and lower levels of parental confidence and skills. Mothers with fewer resources were more likely to enter a state of chaos including unemployment, marital instability, and financial strain.


ABSTRACT In the era of mass tourism, phenomena such as sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, rural tourism, eco-tourism, pro-poor tourism and community-based tourism are now increasingly under the research microscope. If established and managed correctly, these alternative forms of tourism have the potential to contribute towards sustainable community development and provide visitors with unique experiences. Few scholars have qualitatively addressed the growth of community-based tourism in South-East Asia. This study investigated the value of a community-based tourism project at Banteay Chhmar in north-west Cambodia, specifically the discourse of the project's members and the broader community. The objective of the study was to provide an ethnographic account of the community member's attitudes, opinions and beliefs concerning the perceived value and contribution of the project towards community development in their locality. The study initially relied on a literature review to conceptualise community-based tourism. Unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 30 stakeholders of the Banteay Chhmar Community-Based Tourism Project. A narrative identifies the development of the project and provides samples of the respondents' discourses. Findings from a thematic analysis of stakeholder responses indicated support of tourism and the overall operation of the project. Opinions were divided concerning the future growth of tourism and likely negative impacts on resident livelihoods. While some felt the project was relatively insular and lacked transparency, most identified the project's value as enhanced social capital, pride and a better sense of community. The findings show the project has positively contributed towards community development; however, before it can be considered a best practice example of community-based tourism, its financial sustainability, business practices and community support need to improve. The overall study serves as a valuable insight into themes promoting the merits and complications of community-based tourism, specifically in South-East Asia.


Single-phase liquid cooling in microchannels and microgaps has been successfully demonstrated for heat fluxes of ∼1 kW/cm2 for silicon chips with maximum temperature below 100 °C. However, effectively managing localized hotspots in heterogeneous integration, which refers to the integration of various components that achieve multiple functionalities, entails further thermal challenges. To address these, we use a nonuniform pin-fin array. Single phase liquid-cooling performance of four silicon test chips, thermal design vehicles (TDVs), each with a nonuniform pin-fin array, are experimentally examined. We evaluate multiple combinations of hotspot and background heat fluxes using four background heaters aligned upstream to downstream, and one additional hotspot heater located in the center. We examine the thermal performance of cylindrical fin-enhanced TDVs and hydrofoil fin-enhanced TDVs, both with two designs: one with increased fin density around the hotspot only, and another with increased fin density spanning the entire width of the channel. The resulting heat flux ratio of the localized hotspot to background heaters varies from 1 to 5. TDVs with spanwise increased hydrofoil fin density (spanwise hydrofoil) exhibit the best thermal performance with 6% to 14% lower hotspot temperature than others. TDVs with spanwise increased cylindrical fin (cylindrical spanwise) maintain a balance between hotspot cooling performance and pressure drops. In general, as the temperature of the hotspot remains around 70 °C with a heat flux of 625 W/cm2, the nonuniform fin-enhanced microgaps appears to be a promising hotspot thermal management approach. The pressure drop of hydrofoil spanwise chip is highest among all the cases.


Passivation of surface states is known to reduce the onset photocurrent potential by removing the Fermi level pinning effect at the Helmholtz layer and enhance the photocurrent plateau by suppressing recombination loss in the space charge region. We report for the first time that metal ions can effectively passivate surface states in situ that improves the photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance of hematite electrodes. Among metal ions studied, Cr(iii), Mn(ii), Fe(ii), Co(ii), Cu(ii) and Zn(ii) were found to enhance the photocurrent by 30-300%; whereas photocurrent density significantly dropped by 90% in Ni(ii) solution after 90 min of illumination. We further hypothesized that the surface states might be the high affinity adsorption sites on hematite surfaces. Once the surface states are occupied by metal ions, along with the Schottky barrier effect at the hematite/electrolyte interface formed by adsorbed metal ions, the PEC performance is enhanced. Our results also enable the design of a potential PEC based water treatment method to extract additional energy, for example, in the brines (containing concentrated metal ions and electrolyte) of membrane processed wastewater.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Due to the uptake in the use of e-cigarettes (ECs), evidence on their health effects is needed to inform health care and policy. Some regulators and health professionals have raised concerns that the respirable aerosols generated by ECs contain several constituents of potential toxicological and biological relevance to respiratory health. Areas covered: We critically assess published research on the respiratory system investigating the effects of ECs in preclinical models, clinical studies of people who switched to ECs from tobacco cigarettes, and population surveys. We assess the studies for the quality of their methodology and accuracy of their interpretation. To adequately assess the impact of EC use on human health, addressing common mistakes and developing robust and realistic methodological recommendations is an urgent priority. The findings of this review indicate that ECs under normal conditions of use demonstrate far fewer respiratory risks than combustible tobacco cigarettes. EC users and smokers considering ECs have the right to be informed about the relative risks of EC use, and to be made aware that findings of studies published by the media are not always reliable. Expert opinion: Growing evidence supports the relative safety of EC emission aerosols for the respiratory tract compared to tobacco smoke.


Abuse of antibiotics in therapy has led to development of resistance in the target organisms. Failure of the current antibiotics to control infections makes it essential to discover alternative drugs. The pathogenicity in numerous bacteria is regulated by Quorum sensing (QS) signaling systems. The QS inhibition system may cause the reduction of virulence and defense against the bacterial infections. The QS is the main regulator of virulence and biofilm formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A variety of plants showed their effects on P. aeruginosa virulence. Extract of various plants control the regulatory QS genes and factors with marginal effects on bacterial growth. The quorum-quenching (QQ) mechanisms are unrelated to static or cidal effects. In fact, anti-QS have already shown promise in the battle against P. aeruginosa infections.


Sustainability is currently one of the most important issues to be integrated at all levels of teaching from kindergarten through to university up to lifelong learning activities of society as a whole. Specific disciplinary knowledge should be taught by adopting a holistic method, with a transdisciplinary approach towards the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability. The term "Sustainability Science" describes the corresponding concepts and methodologies. Within the career of Architecture and Architecture-related disciplines, new teaching formats are needed for this holistic approach for knowledge generation and transmission. Living Labs in architecture can be tools towards achieving a holistic approach in teaching sustainability, using real built environments for user-centred research and collaborative learning in a university campus. LOW3 is the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe solar house of UPC Barcelona Tech that since 2011 serves as Living Lab at the ETSAV campus at Sant Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona). As a Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB), Living Lab LOW3 allows active teaching, research and innovation activities in the field of sustainable architecture and lifestyle. The present article describes the different stages of implementation of Living Lab LOW3 at the campus, a first evaluation of teaching and applied research activities through questionnaires and interviews with the participants and a critical analysis of the overall project concept. It shows that after 2 years of step-by-step implementation, Living Lab LOW3 has greatly contributed to a holistic-based sustainability education at the ETSAV School of Architecture. The knowledge generated was broadly disseminated and important generic competences were fostered through the project. Living Lab LOW3 is an ongoing project, which aims to innovate in sustainability education. Its outcomes and lessons learned can serve as an example for similar activities at other universities.


Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models have become one of the workhorses of modern macroeconomics and are extensively used for academic research as well as forecasting and policy analysis at central banks. This book introduces readers to state-of-the-art computational techniques used in the Bayesian analysis of DSGE models. The book covers Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques for linearized DSGE models, novel sequential Monte Carlo methods that can be used for parameter inference, and the estimation of nonlinear DSGE models based on particle filter approximations of the likelihood function. The theoretical foundations of the algorithms are discussed in depth, and detailed empirical applications and numerical illustrations are provided. The book also gives invaluable advice on how to tailor these algorithms to specific applications and assess the accuracy and reliability of the computations. Bayesian Estimation of DSGE Models is essential reading for graduate students, academic researchers, and practitioners at policy institutions.


ABSTRACT The recognition of injury patterns can aid forensic nurses to identify victims of elder abuse. This study examined the mechanism of injury of bruises endured by physical elder abuse victims. A sample of 67 elders aged 65 years and older who reported to Adult Protective Services for physical elder abuse was included in the analysis. A research nurse conducted assessments and documented the presence and characteristics of all bruises. Data regarding the abusive incident were collected through victim descriptions and the Revised Conflicts Tactic Scales (CTS2) physical assault scale. The most common bruising locations were the lateral/anterior arms (n = 23, 34.3%), head and neck (n = 10, 14.9%), and posterior torso (n = 7, 10.4%). Victims' odds of having head and neck bruises were greater when reporting being choked (OR = 7.71, 95% CI [1.29, 45.90], p = 0.039), punched (OR = 13.53, 95% CI [2.55, 71.80], p = 0.001), and beaten up (OR = 5.60, 95% CI [3.26, 74.45], p = 0.001). The odds of having lateral/anterior arm bruises were eight times greater when the victim reported being grabbed (OR = 8.43, 95% CI [2.67, 26.65], p < 0.001). The findings suggest similarities between injuries experienced in elder abuse and those in intimate partner violence. Findings highlight injury patterns that elder abuse victims sustain and can be informative for forensic nurses.


This thesis is an investigation of phenomena at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, with the aim of arguing for a view of semantic interpretation as lexicallydriven yet contextually dependent. I examine regular, generative processes which operate over the lexicon to induce verbal sense shifts, and discuss the interaction of these processes with the linguistic or discourse context. I concentrate on phenomena where only an interaction between all three linguistic knowledge sources can explain the constraints on verb use: conventionalised lexical semantic knowledge constrains productive syntactic processes, while pragmatic reasoning is both constrained by and constrains the potential interpretations given to certain verbs. The phenomena which are closely examined are the behaviour of PP sentential modifiers (specifically dative and directional PPs) with respect to the lexical semantic representation of the verb phrases they modify, resultative constructions, and logical metonymy. The analysis is couched in terms of a lexical semantic representation drawing on Davis (1995), Jackendoff (1983, 1990), and Pustejovsky (1991, 1995) which aims to capture "linguistically relevant" components of meaning. The representation is shown to have utility for modeling of the interaction between the syntactic form of an utterance and its meaning. I introduce a formalisation of the representation within the framework of Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994), and rely on the model of discourse coherence proposed by Lascarides and Asher (1992), Discourse in Commonsense Entailment. I furthermore discuss the implications of the contextual dependency of semantic interpretation for lexicon design and computational processing in Natural Language Understanding systems.


Sustainability educators developed the concept of ecological literacy to provide a basis for understanding environmental problems and developing new capacities and critical skills to respond effectively. This paper presents a theoretical introduction to ecological literacy for design education. It starts with a philosophical overview of why ecological literacy is necessary, including details of some of the planet's vital signs. The paper then describes six ecological principles (networks, nested systems, cycles, flows, development and dynamic balance) along with associated design concepts (resilience, epistemological awareness, a circular economy, energy literacy, emergence and the ecological footprint). The final section explains why critical ecological literacy is necessary to make the work of transforming unsustainable conditions and designing sustainable ways of living possible.


The development of high resolution, room temperature semiconductor radiation detectors requires the introduction of materials with increased carrier mobility-lifetime (μτ) product, while having a band gap in the 1.4-2.2 eV range. AlSb is a promising material for this application. However, systematic improvements in the material quality are necessary to achieve an adequate μτ product. We are using a combination of simulation and experiment to develop a fundamental understanding of the factors which affect detector material quality. First principles calculations are used to study the microscopic mechanisms of mobility degradation from point defects and to calculate the intrinsic limit of mobility from phonon scattering. We use density functional theory (DFT) to calculate the formation energies of native and impurity point defects, to determine their equilibrium concentrations as a function of temperature and charge state. Perturbation theory via the Born approximation is coupled with Boltzmann transport theory to calculate the contribution toward mobility degradation of each type of point defect, using DFT-computed carrier scattering rates. A comparison is made to measured carrier concentrations and mobilities from AlSb crystals grown in our lab. We find our predictions in good quantitative agreement with experiment, allowing optimized annealing conditions to be deduced. A major result is the determination of oxygen impurity as a severe mobility killer, despite the ability of oxygen to compensation dope AlSb and reduce the net carrier concentration. In this case, increased resistivity is not a good indicator of improved material performance, due to the concomitant sharp reduction in μτ.


In both the rodent and primate, administration of progesterone elicits an acute surge-like release of LH in the setting of prior estrogen treatment. Whether these facilitative effects of estrogen and progesterone on gonadotropin secretion reside at pituitary or hypothalamic loci is not known. To further investigate the mechanisms by which estrogen combined with progesterone amplifies gonadotropin secretion, we studied the responses of seven estrogen-primed postmenopausal women to progesterone administration with or without cotreatment with a potent GnRH antagonist, [Ac-D2Nal1,D4ClPhe2,D3Pal3,Arg5,DGlu6(AA), DAla10]GnRH. Repetitive blood sampling for the later measurement of serum concentrations of LH, FSH, and PRL was begun 4 h before the administration of progesterone and continued for 36 h. We observed that progesterone administration after 72 h of priming with ethinyl estradiol resulted in a surge-like release of LH and FSH in all subjects. Concomitant administration of the GnRH antagonist abolished the surge-like release of both gonadotropins in all subjects. In contrast, administration of the antagonist had no effect on PRL release. These results indicate that endogenous GnRH action is an obligatory component of the progesterone-induced surge-like release of both gonadotropic hormones in the estrogen-primed human.


Abstract This paper presents three different kinds of stabilizing feedback control strategies for the nonholonomic integrator known in literature as Brockett's system. The first strategy presents piece-wise constant, states-dependent feedback control laws, and the method is based on the construction of a cost function V that is the sum of two semi-positive definite functions V1 and V2. The second strategy presents a time-varying feedback control law based on the model reference approach, where the trajectory of the extended system is chosen as the model reference trajectory. The controllers are designed in such a way that after each time period T, the trajectory of the nonholonomic integrator system intersects the trajectory of the model reference which can be made asymptotically stable. The third strategy presents a time-varying feedback control law based on the construction of a time-varying Lyapunov function.


Optical indices have been determined for thin films of all materials needed to model a typical electrochromic device. Two electrochromic materials, tungsten oxide and lithium nickel oxide, are widely used in electrochromic devices. The optical indices of the underlying transparent conductors as well as a polymer electrolyte were also analyzed. The optical data was obtained using a combination of variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry and spectrophotometry. The data was then fit to appropriate models of structure and dispersion in order to extract the optical indices of the materials. First, the optical indices of the transparent conductive substrates were obtained and fixed in the model. The best models correspond well to independent physical measurements of film structure, such as atomic- . force microscopy and surface profiling. Surface roughness, gradient composition and other. types of inhomogeneity are common in both the transparent conductors and electrochromic, resulting in particularly complex models. The polymer has a homogeneous structure, but obtaining optically smooth surfaces was a problem. Complete sets of data were produced over the entire solar spectrum for a range of colored states of the films. Using the data for each layer, a realistic electrochromic device was simulated.


Context: Patients in intensive care units have impaired ocular protective mechanisms, resulting in a high risk of developing eye complications. Various eye care protocols are being used, but none is proven to be absolutely effective. Aims: To compare the efficacy of using a combination of ocular lubricants and securing tape over the eyelids (Open chamber method), with use of swimming goggles and regular moistening of eyelids with gauze soaked in sterile water (Closed chamber method), to prevent corneal epithelial breakdown in the sedated and semiconscious intensive care adult patient. Settings and Design: A randomized clinical study was performed. Patients with Glasgow coma scale score of £ 10/15, admitted into the Medical ICU of a large teaching hospital, over a four month duration, were studied. Materials and Methods: Patients were examined daily by an Ophthalmologist, using a portable slit lamp and the patient's corneas were tested daily using 1% Fluorescein drops. Standard grading scales were used to record eyelid position and corneal and conjunctival changes. Statistical analysis used: Quantitative variables were described in terms of their relative frequencies in proportions. Null hypothesis was applied to derive the statistical significance of the observed variations in both the treatment groups. Chi-square test for relationships was used to assess the effect of specific variables on the development of keratopathy. Results: Sixty one patients (122 eyes) in the open chamber group and 63 (126 eyes) in the closed chamber group, were analyzed. Incomplete lid closure was seen in 74 eyes (30%). Exposure keratopathy was noticed in 39 eyes (32%) in open chamber group and ten (8%) in closed chamber group and was more severe in the former group. There was no difference in the incidence of conjunctival oedema in both groups. Incomplete lid closure and use of muscle relaxants, were significant risk factors for developing keratopathy. Conclusions: Use of swimming goggles and regular moistening of eyelids with gauze soaked in sterile water providing a moisture chamber, is more effective than using a combination of ocular lubricants and securing tape over the eyelids, in preventing corneal epithelial breakdown in sedated and semiconscious intensive care unit patients.


Inductance of superconducting thin-film inductors and structures with linewidth down to 250 nm has been experimentally evaluated. The inductors include various striplines and microstrips, their 90° bends and meanders, interlayer vias, etc., typically used in superconducting digital circuits. The circuits have been fabricated by a fully planarized process with 8 niobium layers, developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory for very-large-scale superconducting integrated circuits. Excellent run-to-run reproducibility and inductance uniformity of better than 1% across 200-mm wafers have been found. It has been found that the inductance per unit length of stripline and microstrip line inductors continues to grow as the inductor linewidth is reduced deep into the submicron range to the widths comparable to the film thickness and magnetic field penetration depth. It is shown that the linewidth reduction does not lead to widening of the parameter spread due to diminishing sensitivity of the inductance to the linewidth and dielectric thickness. The experimental results were compared with numeric inductance extraction using commercial software and freeware, and a good agreement was found for 3-D inductance extractors. Methods of further miniaturization of circuit inductors for achieving circuit densities> 106 Josephson junctions per cm2 are discussed.


Explosive volcanic eruptions constitute a major class of natural hazard with potentially profound economic and societal consequences. Although such eruptions cannot be prevented and only rarely may be anticipated with any degree of accuracy, better understanding of how explosive volcanoes work will lead to improved volcano monitoring and disaster mitigation. A major goal of modern volcanology is linking of surface-monitored signals from active volcanoes, such as seismicity, ground deformation and gas chemistry, to the subterranean processes that generate them. Because sub-volcanic systems cannot be accessed directly, most of what we know about these systems comes from studies of erupted products. Such studies shed light on what happens underground prior to and during eruptions, thereby providing an interpretative framework for post hoc evaluation of monitoring data. The aim of this review is to present some of the current petrological techniques that can be used for studying eruptive products and for constraining key magmatic variables such as pressure, temperature, and volatile content. We first review analytical techniques, paying particular attention to pitfalls and strategies for analyzing volcanic samples. We then examine commonly used geothermometry schemes, evaluating each by comparison with experimental data not used in the original geothermometer calibrations. As there are few mineral-based geobarometers applicable to magma storage regions, we review other methods used to determine pre-eruptive magma equilibration pressures. We then demonstrate how petrologically-constrained parameters can be compared to the contemporaneous monitoring record. These examples are drawn largely from Mount St. Helens volcano, for which there are abundant petrological and monitoring data. However, we emphasize that our approaches can be applied to any number of active volcanoes worldwide. Finally, we illustrate the application of these techniques to two different types of magmatic systems—large silicic magma chambers and small intermediate-composition magma storage regions—with particular focus on the combined evolution of melt …


The paper analyses the implementation of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive in four European Member States: UK, Germany, France and Italy.
The first part reviews the main trends, key differences and potential difficulties or unexpected consequences of the Directive. The paper then explores in more detail key substantive elements of the Directive, and how these have been dealt with by each of the surveyed states. This section includes an overview of the scope and format, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors to report on, the information to be provided, the notion of materiality, the verification process, the basis of reporting and the consequences of non-compliance. The paper also presents a comparative table and comprehensive analysis of the domestic transpositions of each of the four countries under review.
The Directive provides the first comprehensive framework for ESG reporting at the EU level but gives considerable leeway to Member states in the transposition process. Whilst generally the new EU-wide legislation has been a positive step, there are a number of gaps in the Directive itself, which have not been adequately addressed in the implementing legislation.


A secure, user-convenient approach to authenticate users on their mobile devices is required as current approaches (e.g., PIN or Password) suffer from security and usability issues. Transparent Authentication Systems (TAS) have been introduced to improve the level of security as well as offer continuous and unobtrusive authentication (i.e., user friendly) by using various behavioural biometric techniques. This paper presents the usefulness of using smartwatch motion sensors (i.e., accelerometer and gyroscope) to perform Activity Recognition for the use within a TAS. Whilst previous research in TAS has focused upon its application in computers and mobile devices, little attention is given to the use of wearable devices - which tend to be sensor-rich highly personal technologies. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the current state of the art in transparent and continuous authentication using acceleration and gyroscope sensors and a technology evaluation to determine the basis for such an approach. The best results are average Euclidean distance scores of 5.5 and 11.9 for users' intra acceleration and gyroscope signals respectively and 24.27 and 101.18 for users' inter acceleration and gyroscope activities accordingly. The findings demonstrate that the technology is sufficiently capable and the nature of the signals captured sufficiently discriminative to be useful in performing Activity Recognition.


Gertrude Stein's seminal essay "Composition as Explanation" analyzes the temporal and social factors contributing to the perception of beauty in a work of art. Readers processing Stein's text, composed of many repetitions of highly convoluted grammatical structures, find that they acquire the ability to comprehend the text through the very process of reading it. Thus, Stein's writing is closely linked to the Mere Exposure Effect (MEE), a psychological phenomenon related to implicit learning and conditioning. These two artistic and empirical bodies of knowledge constitute an interdisciplinary perspective from which we may challenge both the assumptions of the cognitive sciences concerning the "non-aesthetic" dimensions of experimental stimuli, and the premise that aesthetic value may be dissociated from the contingencies of production and distribution.


Objectives: Language development is often very slower in hearing impaired children compared with their normal peers. Hearing impairment during childhood affects all aspects of speech production and language acquisition. It seems that hearing impaired people suffer from language and speech impairments such as production of complex linguistic structures. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of nonlinguistic variables in production of the complex linguistic sentences in children with hearing impairment. Method: Twenty normal children, aged 6-7 years and twenty children with severe to profound hearing impairment, aged 8-12 years were selected in a simple random sampling from normal kindergartens and schools, and exceptional schools for hearing impaired people. This research was a case-control research. The confirmation of the audiologist in the exceptional schools for hearing impaired people and the information recorded in the history of these students were considered in order to determine the kind and degree of hearing loss, and other non-linguistic variables. The production of complex sentences was tested by Elicitation Test. The content validity of the production test was determined and then the reliability was confirmed with Cronbach Alpha Test. Data collected were analyzed by statistical tests such as Pearson's Correlation, Independent Samples T-Test and Mann-Whitney U Test and using SPSS software. Results: The results of this study showed that there was no correlation between the non-linguistic variables such as early detection and early intervention, and production of complex linguistic structures in hearing impaired children. Conclusion: In the first months of life, children have to deal with natural language to create the foundations for linguistic health and complete development of syntax. If language input is not rich and available during the critical period for learning a first language, the syntactic competence cannot grow naturally. Therefore, two non-linguistic variables, early identification and early intervention will be the main predictors for production of complex linguistic structures.


Arabidopsis adjusts the onset of flowering to the length of winters via an epigenetic mechanism. Some plants are adapted to wait through the winter before their genetic programs for flowering are initiated. But the duration of winter varies with location; thus, to avoid flowering too late into the summer or exposing blossoms to frost, the adaptation needs to hold the flowers off for just the right amount of time. Working with Arabidopsis thaliana, Coustham et al. identified a quantitative mechanism that "counts" off the duration of winter. FLC, a repressor of flowering, carries sequence polymorphisms that direct epigenetic events. Plants with fewer of these polymorphisms are adapted to short winters, and plants with all four polymorphisms are adapted to long winters. V. Coustham, P. Li, A. Strange, C. Lister, J. Song, C. Dean, Quantitative modulation of polycomb silencing underlies natural variation in vernalization. Science 337, 584–587 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The generation and fabrication of nanoscopic structures are of critical technological importance for future implementations in areas such as nanodevices and nanotechnology, biosensing, bioimaging, cancer targeting, and drug delivery. Applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in biological fields have been impeded by the incapability of their visualization using conventional methods. Therefore, fluorescence labeling of CNTs with various probes under physiological conditions has become a significant issue for their utilization in biological processes. Herein, we demonstrate a facile and additional fluorophore-free approach for cancer cell-imaging and diagnosis by combining multiwalled CNTs with a well-known conjugated polymer, namely, poly(p-phenylene) (PP). In this approach, PP decorated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) was noncovalently (π-π stacking) linked to acid-treated CNTs. The obtained water self-dispersible, stable, and biocompatible f-CNT/PP-g-PEG conjugates were then bioconjugated to estrogen-specific antibody (anti-ER) via -COOH functionalities present on the side-walls of CNTs. The resulting conjugates were used as an efficient fluorescent probe for targeted imaging of estrogen receptor overexpressed cancer cells, such as MCF-7. In vitro studies and fluorescence microscopy data show that these conjugates can specifically bind to MCF-7 cells with high efficiency. The represented results imply that CNT-based materials could easily be fabricated by the described approach and used as an efficient "fluorescent probe" for targeting and imaging, thereby providing many new possibilities for various applications in biomedical sensing and diagnosis.


We use monthly data on the US riskless yield curve for a 1982-2015 sample to show that mixing simple regime switching dynamics with Nelson-Siegel factor forecasts from time series models extended to encompass variables that summarize the state of monetary policy, leads to superior predictive accuracy. Such spread in forecasting power turns out to be statistically significant even controlling for parameter uncertainty and sample variation. Exploiting regimes, we obtain evidence that the increase in predictive accuracy is stronger during the Great Financial Crisis in 2007-2009, when monetary policy underwent a significant, sudden shift. Although more caution applies when transaction costs are accounted for, we also report that the increase in predictive power owed to the combination of regimes and of monetary variables that capture the stance of unconventional monetary policies is tradeable. We devise and test butterfly strategies that trade on the basis of the forecasts from the models and obtain evidence of risk-adjusted profits both per se and in comparisons to simpler models.


The smallest mass standard sold until now had a nominal value of one milligram. In order to address emerging needs, the joint LNECNAM metrology laboratory decided to produce and calibrate micromass standards with nominal values down to 100 μg. These standards were developed, then tested through multiple comparisons. They have since been qualified and calibrated through a weighing design, repeatedly and over an extended period of time, so as to establish their stability with respect to oxidation and harmlessness of the handling and storage procedures associated with their use. After five successive calibrations no significant drift was found. Finally, in order to enhance this development, the laboratory obtained an extension of its accreditation to perform mass calibration allowing the extension of the lower limit of the scope of accreditation from 1 mg down to 100 μg.


Abstract Development of the E × B shear stabilization model to explain the formation of transport barriers in magnetic confinement devices is a major achievement of fusion research. This concept has the universality needed to explain the H-mode edge transport barriers seen in limiter and divertor tokamaks, stellarators, and mirror machines; the broader edge transport barrier seen in VH-mode plasmas; and the core transport barriers formed in tokamaks with low or negative magnetic shear. These examples of confinement improvement are of considerable physical interest; it is not often that a system self-organizes to reduce transport when an additional source of free energy is applied to it. The transport decrease associated with E × B velocity shear is also of great practical benefit to fusion research. The fundamental physics involved in transport reduction is the effect of E × B shear on the growth, radial extent, and phase correlation of turbulent eddies in the plasma. The same basic transport reduction process can be operational in various portions of the plasma because there are a number of ways to change the radial electric field Er. An important theme in this area is the synergistic effect of E × B velocity shear and magnetic shear. Although the E × B velocity shear appears to have an effect on broader classes of microturbulence, magnetic shear can mitigate some potentially harmful effects of E × B velocity shear and facilitate turbulence stabilization. The experimental results on DIII-D and other devices are generally consistent with the basic theoretical models.


Within the next few decades, large underwater structures of thousands of wind turbines in the northern European shelf seas will substantially increase the amount of habitat available for mobile demersal megafauna. As a first indication of the possible effects of this large scale habitat creation on faunal stocks settling on hard substrata, we compared selected taxa of the mobile demersal megafauna (decapods and fish) associated with the foundation of an offshore research platform (a wind-power foundation equivalent) with those of five shipwrecks and different areas of soft bottoms in the southern German Bight, North Sea. When comparing the amount of approximately 5000 planned wind-power foundations (covering 5.1 106 m2 of bottom area) with the existing number of at least 1000 shipwrecks (covering 1.2 106 m2 of bottom area), it becomes clear that the southern North Sea will provide about 4.3 times more available artificial hard substratum habitats than currently available. With regard to the fauna found on shipwrecks, on soft substrata and on the investigated wind-power foundation, we predict that the amount of added hard substrata will allow the stocks of substrata-limited mobile demersal hard bottom species to increase by 25e165% in that area. The fauna found at the offshore platform foundations is very similar to that at shipwrecks. Megafauna abundances at the foundations, however, are lower compared to those at the highly fractured wrecks and are irregularly scattered over the foundations. The upper regions of the platform construction (5 and 15 m depth) were only sparsely colonized by mobile fauna, the anchorages, however, more densely. The faunal assemblages from the shipwrecks and the foundations, respectively, as well as from the soft bottoms clearly differed from each other. We predict that new wind-power foundations will support the spread of hard bottom fauna into soft bottom areas with low wreck densities. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Several recent articles and discussions in GIN, by Penman (2002), Thomann et al. (2003), Ridley (2003) and Sellers et al. (2003) highlight the importance of pore water pressure and suctions and in particular the difficulties associated with measuring suction. This article outlines some recent experience in measuring suctions, which were developed in cut slopes in a very stiff glacial till during the Dublin Port Tunnel (DPT) project in Ireland. A particular feature of the project was the execution of a fully instrumented 12 m deep trial excavation (Menkiti et al., 2004). Initially some background to the project and to the problem will be given. Then some details of the specification, installation technique and some examples of the measurements obtained will be Finally some conclusions will be made on the lessons learned and recommendations will be made for future similar applications.


Automated 3D building model generation continues to attract research interests in photogrammetry and computer vision. Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data with increasing point density and accuracy has been recognized as a valuable source for automated 3D building reconstruction. While considerable achievements have been made in roof extraction, limited research has been carried out in modelling and reconstruction of walls, which constitute important components of a full building model. Low point density and irregular point distribution of LIDAR observations on vertical walls render this task complex. This paper develops a novel approach for wall reconstruction from airborne LIDAR data. The developed method commences with point cloud segmentation using a region growing approach. Seed points for planar segments are selected through principle component analysis, and points in the neighbourhood are collected and examined to form planar segments. Afterwards, segment-based classification is performed to identify roofs, walls and planar ground surfaces. For walls with sparse LIDAR observations, a search is conducted in the neighbourhood of each individual roof segment to collect wall points, and the walls are then reconstructed using geometrical and topological constraints. Finally, walls which were not illuminated by the LIDAR sensor are determined via both reconstructed roof data and neighbouring walls. This leads to the generation of topologically consistent and geometrically accurate and complete 3D building models. Experiments have been conducted in two test sites in the Netherlands and Australia to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Results show that planar segments can be reliably extracted in the two reported test sites, which have different point density, and the building walls can be correctly reconstructed if the walls are illuminated by the LIDAR sensor.


Cellular automata make up a class of completely discrete dynamical systems, which have became a core subject in the sciences of complexity due to their conceptual simplicity, easiness of implementation for computer simulation, and their ability to exhibit a wide variety of amazingly complex behavior. The feature of simplicity behind complexity of cellular automata has attracted the researchers' attention from a wide range of divergent fields of study of science, which extend from the exact disciplines of mathematical physics up to the social ones, and beyond. Numerous complex systems containing many discrete elements with local interactions have been and are being conveniently modelled as cellular automata. In this book, the versatility of cellular automata as models for a wide diversity of complex systems is underlined through the study of a number of outstanding problems using these innovative techniques for modelling and simulation.


Mobile settings are not only physically and digitally mediated; they are also inhabited by people - a social space. We argue that careful design exposing the connections, gaps, overlays and mismatches within and between physical, digital and social space allow for a better understanding and thereby mastering of the resulting combined space. Two concepts are explored in MobiTip, a social mobile service for exchanging opinions among peers: intramedia seams concerning network coverage and position technology, and intermedia seams between digitally transmitted tips and the physical, social context surrounding the user. We introduce social positioning as an alternative and complement to the current strive for seamless connectedness and exact positioning in physical space.


The Community Assessment Tool (CAT) for Public Health Emergencies Including Pandemic Influenza (hereafter referred to as the CAT) was developed as a result of feedback received from several communities. These communities participated in workshops focused on influenza pandemic planning and response. The 2008 through 2011 workshops were sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Feedback during those workshops indicated the need for a tool that a community can use to assess its readiness for a disaster - readiness from a total healthcare perspective, not just hospitals, but the whole healthcare system. The CAT intends to do just that - help strengthen existing preparedness plans by allowing the healthcare system and other agencies to work together during an influenza pandemic. It helps reveal each core agency partners (sectors) capabilities and resources, and highlights cases of the same vendors being used for resource supplies (e.g., personal protective equipment [PPE] and oxygen) by the partners (e.g., public health departments, clinics, or hospitals). The CAT also addresses gaps in the community's capabilities or potential shortages in resources. This tool has been reviewed by a variety of key subject matter experts from federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. It also has been piloted with various communities that consist of different population sizes, to include large urban to small rural communities.


Neuronal networks within the spinal cord directly control rhythmic movements of the arms/forelimbs and legs/hindlimbs during locomotion in mammals. For an effective locomotion, these networks must be flexibly coordinated to allow for various gait patterns and independent use of the arms/forelimbs. This coordination can be accomplished by mechanisms intrinsic to the spinal cord, somatosensory feedback from the limbs, and various supraspinal pathways. Incomplete spinal cord injury disrupts some of the pathways and structures involved in interlimb coordination, often leading to a disruption in the coordination between the arms/forelimbs and legs/hindlimbs in animal models and in humans. However, experimental spinal lesions in animal models to uncover the mechanisms coordinating the limbs have limitations due to compensatory mechanisms and strategies, redundant systems of control, and plasticity within remaining circuits. The purpose of this review is to provide a general overview and critical discussion of experimental studies that have investigated the neural mechanisms involved in coordinating the arms/forelimbs and legs/hindlimbs during mammalian locomotion.


An on-line apparatus for accurate measurement of float-glass thickness and edge distortion was built and tested in industrial environments. The intelligent part of the sensor is a diffractive optical element. The theory and construction of the apparatus are described, and data from on-line measurements are presented.


Africa is experiencing reoccurrence of avian influenza outbreaks with huge negative impact on the economy of the continent as a result of high mortality rate and extreme contagiousness of the disease. The epidemiology of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Africa during the 2006-2008 outbreaks was complex and linked to movements of poultry commodities and wild birds. The peculiar risk factors, negative economic impact and the potential of being used as a biological weapon necessitates the development of a comprehensive control programme for the prevention or eradication of the disease. It is the opinion of this paper that development of new influenza vaccine technologies will provide affordable comprehensive control programmes for avian influenza prevention in Africa. To keep pace with the variability of the viruses, there is need for frequent redesign of avian influenza (AI) vaccines to match the circulating subtypes and on this is predicated the necessity of the development of influenza vaccine technology for a country, zone or region. The new vaccine technologies have been shown to have the potentials of giving vaccines with required criteria of purity, safety, efficacy, potency, low cost and short response time. The concept of most new vaccine technologies is biased towards removal of influenza virus from the system of vaccine development and at the same time obtaining more effective, potent and safe influenza vaccines. The new influenza vaccine technologies include gene-based, genomics-based, subunit, plant-based, VLPs and universal vaccine technologies. These technologies have the potential to provide vaccines that will not just be used as intervention strategies to lessen severity of the disease but as preventative vaccination. Also routine vaccination will not just be as a tool of last option in disease endemic areas, but one to prevent the disease.

 Key words: Technologies, avian influenza, vaccine, eradication, prevention, comprehensive, control, programme.


Given the integral role of English teachers in promoting quality English education, English language teaching in-service teacher education and training (ELT-INSET) plays a crucial role in developing quality and professional competence of English teachers. It is in this regard, when the inevitability of ELT-INSET is growing worldwide, our article identifies quality parameters of an ELT-INSET conducted in Bangladesh. This qualitative case study was conducted as part of a doctoral project employing semi-structured interviews with one ELT-INSET programme coordinator, three teacher trainers and 12 trainees (English teachers) of an ELT-INSET. The cross-case analysis of the interview data identified six factors adversely affecting the quality and efficacy of the ELT-INSET. The factors included the absence of needs analysis culture, an ineffective trainee selection mechanism and proper monitoring system, the quality issue of teacher trainers, contents and materials, the lack of required logistics support and finally, the bureaucratic power-coercive ELT-INSET management. The article, by shedding light on those findings, finally informs the policymakers with some implications with which to develop their policy and to enhance and ensure the quality and efficacy of ELT-INSET programmes. The implications might also be applicable irrespective of INSET for other subjects and polities with the same context beyond Bangladesh.


Romero, Raul F. M.S., Purdue University, August, 2010. Live Migration of Parallel Applications. Major Professor: Thomas J. Hacker. It has been observed on engineering and scientific data centers that the absence of a clear separation between software and hardware can severely affect parallel applications. Applications that run across several nodes tend to be greatly affected because a single computational failure present in one of the nodes often leads the entire application to produce incorrect results or to even die. This low observed reliability requires a combination of a proactive and reactive solution in order to preserve the state of parallel jobs running on degraded nodes; therefore it is possible to avoid runtime errors in parallel applications. This thesis addressed the critical problem of low reliability in parallel jobs by implementing a fault tolerance approach based on OpenVZ virtualization. By using virtual machines on which parallel applications were running, this study showed that it was feasible to make parallel jobs independent of any particular hardware/software implementation; therefore when a degraded node is detected, the virtual machine(s) running on this degraded node(s) may be migrated with its parallel jobs to a healthier node. This study examined the correctness and performance of implementing live migration on hosts loaded with parallel jobs, and determined that it is possible to efficiently save the state of parallel applications after live migration of virtual machines to a more reliable node.


If in many ways its aims are comparable to those of novelistic realism (a focus on ordinary characters and contemporary social issues), melodrama exhibits a form of realism all its own. This essay focuses on several elements of that form, especially on the workings of the tableau. At the moment of tableau, acting bodies suddenly freeze to make a silent and still stage picture whose significance can be interpreted. Though the critical history of the tableau is tightly related to genre painting, its formal operations within melodrama are more complex than the aim to offer verisimilitude in the depiction of ordinary life. Tableaux establish the melodramatic narrative form characterised by intermittent pictorialization. They interrupt the dramatic action, summing up the plot so far and adumbrating action to come; they form 'points' on which the suspense of dramatic unfolding might hang; and these sudden moments of silence and stasis carry affective and intellectual points as well. Using exemplary readings of melodramas across the English 19th century, this essay demonstrates the formal potentialities of the tableau, including the metatheatrical self-consciousness of its role in constructing melodramatic realism.


Polarity analysis has become a key aspect of market analysis. The number of companies that are interested in the general opinion of the crowd regarding the items that they sell is increasing everyday. Attribute-based polarity analysis is a fine-grained approach that computes if the opinion about an attribute of (a component of) an item is positive, negative, or neutral. The existing techniques have a number of problems, namely: they do not take into account the conditions expressed in the opinions (e.g., when they hold and when they do not), they do not generally use any contextual information (e.g., past user opinions on the same attribute), and they are not validated on big datasets (e.g., billions of messages). In this paper, we present Torii, which is an attribute-based polarity analysis technique that takes both conditions and contextual information into account; we also present our approach to validate it on big datasets.


Helical structures downstream of the breakdown-bubble of the Grabowski vortex profile at Reynolds numbers Re< or = 500 have been extensively studied through stability analysis in the literature. However, the low-frequency coherent structures inside the bubble, which have been observed in experiments, were not predicted by the stability approach. In the present work, asymptotic stabilities of the Grabowski vortex flow at Re < or = 1000 are carried out to compare against previous works, and then the linear optimal inflow perturbation and the corresponding outcome are studied to unveil the dynamics inside the bubble. It is found that low frequency inflow perturbations penetrate the bubble and are amplified to coherent structures, while high frequency perturbations are convected around the border of the bubble. These linearised results agree well with previous experimental observations and are validated by direct numerical simulations.


This study argues that the uniqueness of the agricultural industry justifies the development of agribusiness as an alternative degree major within traditional agricultural economics department. Successful curricula must focus on elements of decision making that are unique to agricultural business industries. In particular, agribusiness program should complement and not duplicate the curricula offered by business school. Special characteristics of agriculture were identified and presented as the conceptual framework for agribusiness programs. Using Oregon State University as a case study, the analysis examines in depth the experiences and lessons learned from its implementation of agribusiness management programs.


We report direct measurements of thermal diffusivity and conductivity at room temperature for 38 meteorite samples of 36 different meteorites including mostly chondrites, and thus almost triple the number of meteorites for which thermal conductivity is directly measured. Additionally, we measured porosity for 34 of these samples. Thermal properties were measured using an optical infrared scanning method on samples of cm‐sizes with a flat, sawn surface. A database compiled from our measurements and literature data suggests that thermal diffusivities and conductivities at room temperature vary largely among samples even of the same petrologic and chemical type and overlap among, for example, different ordinary chondrite classes. Measured conductivities of ordinary chondrites vary from 0.4 to 5.1 W m−1 K−1. On average, enstatite chondrites show much higher values (2.33–5.51 W m−1 K−1) and carbonaceous chondrites lower values (0.5–2.55 W m−1 K−1). Mineral composition (silicates versus iron‐nickel) and porosity control conductivity. Porosity shows (linear) negative correlation with conductivity. Variable conductivity is attributed to heterogeneity in mineral composition and porosity by intra‐ and intergranular voids and cracks, which are important in the scale of typical meteorite samples. The effect of porosity may be even more significant for thermal properties than that of the metal content in chondrites.


Engagement is a key factor in gaming. Especially, in gamification applications, users' engagement levels have to be assessed in order to determine the usability of the developed games. The authors first present computer vision-based game design for physical exercise. All games are played with gesture controls. The authors conduct user studies in order to evaluate the perception of the games using a game engagement questionnaire. Participants state that the games are interesting and they want to play them again. Next, as a use case, the authors integrate one of these games into a robot-assisted rehabilitation system. The authors perform additional user studies by employing self-assessment manikin to assess the difficulty levels that can range from boredom to excitement. The authors observe that with the increasing difficulty level, users' arousal increases. Additionally, the authors perform psychophysiological signal analysis of the participants during the execution of the game under two distinctive difficulty levels. The authors derive features from the signals obtained from blood volume pulse (BVP), skin conductance, and skin temperature sensors. As a result of analysis of variance and sequential forward selection, the authors find that changes in the temperature and frequency content of BVP provide useful information to estimate the players' engagement.


I created the installation Atlas of Dreams, a series of artistic maps and audio recordings, to portray the emotional traces left by 145 dreamers when they narrated their memorable dreams in the cities of the Bay Area of San Francisco. I present the designing of the maps, highlighting the use of derive, and art practice in the creation of an emotional landscape, and its contribution in making the ethnography interactive, emergent, and sensorial. Dream narration and its sharing became visible and social during the creation of the artwork and during the exhibits of the artwork.


Typhoons, floods, and other weather-related shocks can inflict suffering on local populations and create life-threatening conditions for the poor. Yet, natural disasters also present a development opportunity to upgrade capital stock, adopt new technologies, enhance the risk-resiliency of existing systems, and raise standards of living. This is akin to the "creative destruction" hypothesis coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1943 to describe the process where innovation, learning, and growth promote advanced technologies as conventional technologies become outmoded. To test the hypothesis in the context of natural disasters, this paper takes the case of the Philippines—among the most vulnerable countries in the world to such disasters, especially typhoons. Using synthetic panel data regressions, the paper shows that typhoon-affected households are more likely to fall into lower income levels, although disasters can also promote economic growth. Augmenting the household data with municipal fiscal data, the analysis shows some evidence of the creative destruction effect: Municipal governments in the Philippines helped mitigate the poverty impact by allocating more fiscal resources to build local resilience while also utilizing additional funds poured in by the national government for rehabilitation and reconstruction.


The Hedgehog (Hh) and Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling pathways play critical roles in pattern formation and cell proliferation in invertebrates and vertebrates. In this study, we demonstrate a direct link between these two pathways in Drosophila melanogaster. Hh and EGFR signaling are each required for the formation of a specific region of the head of the adult fruitfly. We show that hh and vein (vn), which encodes a ligand of the Drosophila EGFR (Schnepp, B., Grumbling, G., Donaldson, T. and Simcox, A. (1996) Genes Dev. 10, 2302-13), are expressed in adjacent domains within the imaginal primordium of this region. Using loss- and gain-of-function approaches, we demonstrate that Hh activates vn expression. We also show that Hh activation of vn is mediated through the gene cubitus interruptus (ci) and that this activation requires the C-terminal region of the Ci protein. Finally, we demonstrate that wingless (wg) represses vn expression, thereby limiting the domain of EGFR signaling.


The potential role of forests in reducing of global greenhouse gas emissions is attracting considerable interest from the international community. Deforestation and forest degradation is largely being driven by forces outside the forestry sector. Many of these forces are closely tied to agriculture. For this reason, an isolated sectoral approach focusing solely on forests cannot succeed in implementing REDD+ policies. This paper suggests maximizing synergies between sustainable agriculture and REDD+ and ensuring that food production and forestry do not compete for natural resources. To accomplish this, the best way to move forward would be to adopt a cross-sectoral 'landscape approach'. This approach would promote high carbon stock land uses in forests and in agricultural areas, and would contribute to halting both deforestation and forest degradation while meeting future demands for food and nutrition.


The authors demonstrate that marketing actions, such as pricing, can alter the actual efficacy of products to which they are applied. These placebo effects stem from activation of expectancies about the efficacy of the product, a process that appears not to be conscious. In three experiments, the authors show that consumers who pay a discounted price for a product (e.g., an energy drink thought to increase mental acuity) may derive less actual benefit from consuming this product (e.g., they are able to solve fewer puzzles) than consumers who purchase and consume the exact same product but pay its regular price. The studies consistently support the role of expectancies in mediating this placebo effect. The authors conclude with a discussion of theoretical, managerial, and public policy implications of the findings.


In the past decade, public pension plans and their outside investment advisers have been at the center of scandals involving bribery, blatant asset mismanagement, and widespread corruption. In response to this corruption, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and many state legislatures have adopted laws addressing "pay-to-play," the custom of making political contributions or other payments to state or local officials in return for an opportunity to "play"—invest the public pension fund money. This Note examines certain pay-to-play legislation enacted by state and local governments seeking to regulate investment advisers and public pension plans through the promulgation of lobbying regulations. As such, the Note will provide an in-depth analysis of the laws arising from the original governmental bodies to create this type of pay-to-play: New York City and the State of California. The Note will examine this trend in other states and look at another layer of regulations, coming not from states, but from public pension plans themselves. Finally, this Note will discuss the transaction costs associated with this trend and propose a compliance protocol for investment advisers, laying out the most efficient method by which investment advisers can attempt to comply with the multitude of pay-to-play regulations. 244 WILLIAM & MARY BUSINESS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 5:243


Time series forecasting is widely used in business intelligence, e.g., forecast stock market price, sales, and help the analysis of data trend. Most time series of interest are macroscopic time series that are aggregated from microscopic data. However, instead of directly modeling the macroscopic time series, rare literature studied the forecasting of macroscopic time series by leveraging data on the microscopic level. In this paper, we assume that the microscopic time series follow some unknown mixture probabilistic distributions. We theoretically show that as we identify the ground truth latent mixture components, the estimation of time series from each component could be improved because of lower variance, thus benefitting the estimation of macroscopic time series as well. Inspired by the power of Seq2seq and its variants on the modeling of time series data, we propose Mixture of Seq2seq (MixSeq), an end2end mixture model to cluster microscopic time series, where all the components come from a family of Seq2seq models parameterized by different parameters. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world data show the superiority of our approach.


The effort of the economist is to "see," to picture the interplay of economic elements. The more clearly cut these elements appear in his vision, the better; the more elements he can grasp and hold in his mind at once, the better. The economic world is a misty region. The first explorers used unaided vision. Mathematics is the lantern by which what before was dimly visible now looms up in firm, bold outlines. The old phantasmagoria disappear. We see better. We also see further. (119, emphases added)


This thesis analyses the culture of printed images during the Elizabethan period, particularly those images of a religious nature. Focusing on images which depict invisible beings (i.e. angels, God, demons etc.), the thesis addresses the assumption that Protestant England all but completely eradicated religious visual imagery from society. Examining images that were first created and printed in Elizabethan England as well as older images which had been recycled from earlier texts and others imported from Europe, the research offers an analysis of Protestant printed imagery between 1558 and 1603. Questions of how images were read, altered, augmented, copied and transmitted across time and space have been posed. What was depicted and how? How were religious images used? What was their understood role in early modern print culture? How did Protestants distinguish between church images to be destroyed and printed images to be read? In this, the images have been historically contextualised within both the theological and cultural milieu of Calvinist theology, the growing international marketplace of print and early modern English society. Attention has been paid to how images were received by readers and how they may have been seen. Emphasis is placed upon the role of the printed image as both a representation and an agent of culture, as well as an integral aspect of the printing industry. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to explain how printed images were employed and utilised by both printer and reader in the context of an iconoclastic English Reformation.


Anyone exploring the sexually transmitted diseases section of one of Britain's few remaining medical bookshops will encounter a rampant overgrowth of publications on every aspect of HIV infection and AIDS but will be lucky to find more than a meagre selection of books about the rest of genitourinary medicine. Unfortunately, this reflects what is available. In particular, some of the better British reference and undergraduate books are currently out of print, so that my principal recommendations are all American. The differences between American and British practice are particularly apparent in the advice on management and the assumptions about microbiological support.

\***| Sexually Transmitted Diseases. 2nd edn. K K Holmes, P A Mardh, P F Sparling, P J Weisner. (pounds sterling89.50.) McGraw-Hill, 1989. ISBN 0 07 029677 4

* Sexually Transmitted Diseases. G W Csonka, J W Oates. (pounds sterling62.) Balliere Tindall, 1990. ISBN 0 7020 1258 0

* A Colour Atlas of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. A Wisdom. (pounds sterling24.50.) Wolfe, 1989. ISBN 0 7234 1592 7

** Work Roles and Responsibilities in Genitourinary Medicine Clinics. I Allen, D Hogg. (pounds sterling17.95.) Policy Studies Institute, 1993. ISBN 0 85374 570 6

With 1200 pages one can expect Holmes et al …


Abstract:Under the sign of Libitina, the Roman goddess of burials and funerals invoked in Horace's Ode 3.30, this essay provides a celebratory introduction to the work of the Polish Jewish poet Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917–44), situating her within the cultural history of commemoration and consecration of the dead in Poland and the painful confrontation with the unburied dead of the Holocaust, of whom Ginczanka is one. Her best-known poem, a bitter parody of Juliusz Słowacki's "My Testament," turns the Horatian notion of poetry as the most precious and enduring legacy on its head by construing the author's meager household possessions, looted after her denunciation to the Nazis in wartime, as the only offering her fellow citizens will cherish, while the text itself was actually brought as evidence in a postwar trial of the Polish woman she accuses in the poem and contributed to a conviction for collaboration. Using historian Thomas Laqueur's terms necro-sociability and necronominalism as competing impulses in a seemingly intractable struggle, this essay argues that it is possible to find in Ginczanka's joyful defiance of traditional accounts of body and spirit the point of departure for a poetics that claims a new freedom of imagination in the attempt to transcend the most stubborn of memory wars.


This paper examines how and why individuals distance themselves from the prescribed professional role that – like the 'ideal worker' image – centres on long work hours. Our study of audit and law professionals demonstrated that although many people complied with the professional role, some came to distance themselves from the professional role centred on long work hours. We develop a model of role distancing as consisting of two interrelated microprocesses: apprehension, involving a cognitive and emotional shift as individuals start envisaging their professional role as provisional and potentially changeable, and role redefinition, private and/or public, where individuals modify their work practices. In the firms we studied, although both men and women redefined their roles for themselves (private role redefinition), women were more likely than men to also redefine the professional role for external audiences (public role redefinition). Together, these findings highlight the importance of apprehension and role redefinition for role distancing, offer new insights into the role of emotions and material constraints, and thus enrich theory on role distancing.


Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are rare cell populations in cancers but play an important role in cancer development and could be associated to all malignant processes of cancer. Effective in vitro expansion of CSCs would greatly help the studies on CSCs by providing greater numbers of these cells and a defined native-like niche where their interactions with other cells and molecules can be examined. We have previously shown that kinetic and static alternating cell culture systems (KSACCS) can effectively improve the growth of multiple cell types. In the current study, we demonstrate that KSACCS with the proper program can significantly increase the expansion efficiency of lung cancer stem cells in comparison with static culture and absolute kinetic culture. The KSACCS expanded CSCs maintained the ability to form tumors in immune deficient mice and to gain some features of the corresponding lung cancer cells in immunology and anti-cancer drug sensitivity


Introduction: Central post stroke pain is a variety of neuropathic pain that occurs after stroke as a result of dysfunction of either spino-thalamic tract or thalamo-cortical sensory pathway. Hyperirritability in surviving cells along the affected pain pathways found with changes in inhibitory pathways, spinal and cortical reorganization and central sensitization. Aim: Clinical features like character of pain and other sensory features with neuroimaging findings of central post stroke pain for a part of Indian population were analyzed in this study. Materials and Method including analysis: 120 numbers of patients, who developed new onset pain symptoms after stroke, attending outpatient and inpatient department of a neurology department during a whole year were examined with history including extensive sensory symptoms analysis; sensory examinations including assessment of pain score and other neurological examinations were done and rechecked by neurologists. All were investigated by neuroimaging with either MRI or CT scan or both. Neuro imaging was interpreted by experienced neuroradiologist and corroborated by neurologists and pain physician. Results: 45% of the lesions were in Thalamus when 75% of the lesions were detected as infarction. 57.5% symptoms started within 3 months. Ataxia found with 60%, increased threshold to warm and cold were seen in 40% of patients, burning sensation was seen in 40% followed by numbness with 20%, dysesthesia found with 60%, reduced sensation to temperature changes found with 40% patients. Conclusion: CPSP patients may presents with various sensory symptoms beside pain. Distribution of sensory symptoms may be with any part of the body as well as over one half of the body. Most common trigger factor was mechanical; while thalamic lesions found in 45%, extra thalamic lesions werefound with 55% of patients.


In this study, a series of novel 1,3,4-oxadiazole-benzimidazole derivatives were designed and synthesized. Their cytotoxic activities against five cancer cell lines, including A549, MCF-7, C6, HepG2, and HeLa, were evaluated by the MTT assay. The compounds 5b,c showed satisfactory potencies with much higher anticancer activity in comparison to the reference drug doxorubicin against the studied cancer cell lines. In vitro, enzymatic inhibition assays of aromatase (ARO) enzymes were performed. Molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations, and binding free energy analyses were used to better understand the structure–activity connections and mechanism of action of the aromatase inhibitors. Two types of satisfactory 3D-QSAR (CoMFA and CoMSIA) models were generated, to predict the inhibitory activities of the novel inhibitors. Molecular docking studies were also carried out to find their binding sites and types of their interactions with the aromatase enzyme. Additionally, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to explore the most likely binding modes of compounds 5b,c with CYP19A1.


Background Prognosis in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains poorly understood due to a lack of unbiased data on the natural history of treated PD. The CamPaIGN study has been the first to prospectively track disease evolution from diagnosis in an unselected population-representative incident cohort. We now report the 10-year follow-up data, focusing on three key irreversible milestones: postural instability (Hoehn and Yahr 3), dementia and death. Methods The cohort was collected between December 2000 and 2002. Those meeting diagnostic criteria (n=142) were followed-up until 1 January 2012. Clinical, neuropsychological and genetic testing were performed. Progression to key milestones was evaluated using Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression survival analyses. Results At 10 years, 55% had died, 68% had postural instability and 46% dementia. 23% had a good outcome at 10 years (surviving free of dementia/postural instability). Death rate was comparable with the UK population (standardised mortality ratio 1.29 (0.97–1.61)). Death certificates indicated PD was a substantial contributor in only 20%, with pneumonia being the commonest cause of death. Age, non-tremor-dominant motor phenotype and comorbidity predicted earlier postural instability. Baseline predictors of dementia were age, motor impairment, 'posterior-cortical' cognitive deficits and MAPT genotype. Conclusions (1) outlook in PD is heterogeneous, with most dying or developing dementia or postural instability by 10 years from diagnosis, but a quarter still doing well, with preserved mobility and intact cognition; (2) death is not directly related to PD in the majority; (3) baseline clinical and genetic variables are predictive of outcome and may be helpful in selecting patients for clinical trials.


This article argues that the prevailing dichotomization of organizational studies into voluntarist and deterministic orientations is too simple, and that this simplicity has dangerous consequences for accounts of strategic choice. Determinism has been equated exclusively with the operation of environmental constraint, with the implication that the agency necessary for strategic choice can be secured simply by the removal of this constraint. This focus on external constraint has obscured the continuing influence of 'action determinist' positions, in which action is determined by mechanisms internal to the actor him/herself. This article argues that many recent theorists of strategic choice have relied too much on the interpretive voluntarist dissolution of environmental structure and neglected to safeguard themselves from the action determinism latent in the Carnegie tradition. the article proposes an alternative Realist account that, by contrast with interpretive voluntarism, incorporates environmental structure as an essential precondition to actors' internal and external capacities for strategic choice.


Millennium Development Goal indicators in context of maternal and child health can be met with a robust Health Management Information System (HMIS )in India .To achieve this the web based HMIS was started in 2008 to capture public health data from health institutions across the country. Standard formats were prepared, rationalized and e‐enabled in HMIS web portal, a change from the manual reporting. Further, it is necessary that staff involved in data collection and management be aware of the interpretations of different indicators used in HMIS format for its effective use. The current study was conducted in one district each of two states, to assess understanding of the health functionaries in the field regarding data collection and use of health indicators. The observations indicate that some indicators for maternal and child health in format of monthly reports, are difficult to comprehend by system, no norms for analysis and use of data, and incomplete switchover from use of old to new formats leading to duplication. Efforts needed to address these for optimum functioning


In Khaling Rai, a number of lexemes have been found which can be considered ideophones, according to Dingemanse's ( 2012 : 654) definition of the latter as "marked words depictive of sensory imagery." This article will describe the different types of ideophones found in Khaling. These ideophones not only manifest a range of different morphological patterns, they cover the entire spectrum of sensory modalities found in Dingemanse's implicational hierarchy ( 2012 : 663), namely sound, movement, visual patterns, other sensory perceptions (such as texture and taste) and cognitive states. The more than 400 ideophones collected to date in Khaling present a sound symbolic landscape which appears to be considerably richer than that found in other Kiranti languages with which the author is familiar.


We report the first record of a Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris tigris, in eastern Nepal in 2020 based on photographic evidence. We documented this evidence at 3,165 m a.s.l., which makes it the highest elevation record of a tiger in Nepal. We recorded this evidence in one of 46 trail cameras deployed for monitoring Red Pandas in the Panchthar-Ilam-Taplejung (PIT) area. The PIT area, which has non-protected status, borders India in the east. Our finding supports the importance of transboundary conservation, which will benefit local and flagship wildlife in the PIT area.