Countering the current view of many environmental activists that sovereign nations cannot provide effective environmental governance, The State and the Global Ecological Crisis offers analyses and case studies that explore the prospects for "reinstating the state" as a facilitator of progressive environmental change rather than a contributor to environmental destruction. The authors recognize that, despite the new pressures of global economic competition and rapid technological change, the state remains the preeminent institution with the capacity and authority to secure environmental protection. The book explores the possibilities for the "greening" of the state, domestically and internationally, looking at states both as individual governments and in multilateral or regional regimes. It examines cases in North America, Europe, Australia, and the Philippines and analyzes the broader theoretical implications. The first part of the book focuses on domestic environmental governance, with both single and comparative case studies that range from the potential emergence of an "ecological state" paralleling the development of the welfare state to the theory and practice of environmental justice in the United States. The book's second part addresses the role of the state in transnational environmental governance and looks at topics including environmental rights in the European Union, hybrid forms of governance involving both state and nonstate actors, and an alternative foundation for global environmental governance. Each chapter not only offers a critical analysis of current developments but also identifies new initiatives and opportunities that may accelerate environmental progress.


In order to meet emission targets for 2050 in Europe transport needs to be executed more efficiently. A promising way to make transport more efficient is synchromodal transport. When the service provider has more flexibility to arrange transport, the utilization and use of intermodal transport, such as rail, can be increased and emissions per unit transported are reduced. Synchromodal transport requires a large change in way of working for shippers and logistics service providers that may seem insurmountable. In this article a maturity model is developed for synchromodal transport that breaks this large change down into several stages that companies go through when developing synchromodal transport. In a case study, executed for several companies situated in Northwestern Europe the maturity model is applied in practice to identify enablers and inhibitors of synchromodal transport.


Using the debate around the "Hole in the Wall" experiment for children as a starting point, we ask a set of related questions around unrestricted PC access and learning, but in the context of adult non-information workers from low-income backgrounds in emerging market settings. Our central interest in this exploration is to understand whether and how free access to and unrestricted usage of a shared-access PC and the Internet at the workplace, translates to a variety of meaningful changes and welfare gains among the support staff at an urban corporate facility in southern India. Over the first five weeks of the intervention, we find usage increasing over time, though differentially among various support staff subgroups. Entertainment-related applications (games, multimedia) and websites ("YouTube", "raaga") constitute the dominant content accessed by the staff. There is evidence of both intense individual exploratory usage by novices, along with extensive group usage and peer learning dynamics. The degree of personalization of the PC by users (changes to desktop background almost at every session) indicates a sense of ownership of the device. Preliminary measurements and feedback point to increases in worker morale and self-esteem over the course of the intervention. We highlight these observations as we propose additional questions going forward in this study.


Abstract : While human tutoring and mentoring are common teaching tools, current US Army standards for training and education are group instruction and classroom training, also known as one-to-many instruction. Recently, the US Army has placed significant emphasis on self-regulated learning (SRL) methods to augment institutional training where Soldiers will be largely responsible for managing their own learning. In support of the US Army Learning Model and to provide affordable, tailored SRL training and educational capabilities for the US Army, the US Army Research Laboratory is investigating and developing adaptive tools and methods to largely automate the authoring (creation), delivery of instruction, and evaluation of computer-regulated training and education capabilities. A major goal within this research program is to reduce the time and skill required to author, deliver, and evaluate adaptive technologies to make them usable by a larger segment of the training and educational community. This research includes 6 interdependent research vectors: individual learner and unit modeling, instructional management principles, domain modeling, authoring tools and methods, architecture, and evaluation tools and methods. This report (1 of 6 interdependent research outlines) focuses on research to reduce the time and skills required to author adaptive instruction with the goal of guiding learning in militarily relevant training and educational domains.


Abstract A field emission-type scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) for observation of irradiated fuels and materials was installed at the Reactor Fuel Examination Facility at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. A cell with remote-handling systems only for the FE-SEM was made to enable safe manipulation of highly radioactive samples. Some parts of the FE-SEM were modified for the remote handling outside the cell. The energy dispersive spectrometer modified for the samples was also equipped on the FE-SEM to determine element compositions of the observed samples. After the modifications, characterization tests were carried out using deposited gold film and uranium rock samples that were unirradiated. In results of the tests, high-resolution images of those specimens were obtained with high magnification above 10 000. From those results, it was expected that the FE-SEM kept the high performance even after the modifications and would be utilized for radioactive samples.


Lai ( Durio kutejensis Becc.) is an indigeneous germplasm of Kalimantan which has some superiorities compared to its close-relative, durian ( Durio zibethinus Murr.). Genetic exploration of lai is important to support its breeding program. According to rapid development in molecular biology, genetic exploration effort of lai will be easier. One of significant step in any molecular biology activities is DNA isolation to produce high quality DNA for further analysis. Leaves of lai, as other perennial crop, contain of high concen-tration of polysaccharides and polyphenol which will be co-extracted with the DNA. These compounds can interfere enzymes activities in subsequent molecular analysis. The aim of this study was to establish an optimal and effective DNA extraction method to obtain high-quality DNA from mature leaf of lai. An established extraction buffer and its modification were used in this study. The result showed that modification 4 could produce high quality DNA, and was considered to be the most effective DNA extraction method for mature leaf of lai.


Since the emergence of the 'acrylic art movement' which came out of Papunya in the Western Desert of Australia in the 1970s, Aboriginal art and cultures have become intertwined in public discourse, through government policy, and in visual art worlds. It is arguably through their artworks that Australian Aboriginal people have become increasingly known both within Australia and overseas (Merlan 2001; cf. Fourmille 1994).i Indeed, in many ways, Aboriginal art has come to represent Aboriginal people and their culture (Myers 2002). But what kind of art is acceptably deemed Aboriginal in mainstream art worlds, by Australian Aboriginal people, and why? What does this mean personally, socially and economically for those Aboriginal artists who are located in the south-eastern parts of Australia which were first colonised? For the most part these people are deemed by the mainstream population to have 'lost their culture'. More than this, they are spoken of by some other Aboriginal people from the more remote and later colonised parts of the continent in similar terms. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with the Barkindji people of Wilcannia, a small country town in the south-east of Australia, this paper explores the role of art making and art talk and the ways in which these are implicated in the politics of culture, in cultural subjectivity, and in the consolidation and (re)creation of cultural identity.


Abstract Marine invertebrate borings are very rare in crystalline rocks, providing evidence of particular strategies producers use to colonise these unfavourable substrates. In the Sorbas Basin (Almería, southern Spain), Upper Miocene transgressive successions contain blocks of metamorphic and igneous rocks of the Nevado–Filabride Complex of the Betic Cordillera. Ichnological analysis of the embedded blocks shows the presence of two types of macroborings located in gneiss boulders, revealed to be an extraordinary case worldwide. The most abundant are regular hemispherical depressions ascribed reservedly to the well-known, mostly bivalve boring Gastrochaenolites. The second one is a pouch-like depression, tapering downward, elliptical in outline, and clearly different to other non-circular-in-outline, pouch-shaped macroborings. Thus, a new ichnogenus and ichnospecies Cuenulites sorbasensis has been defined. According to the overall shape, an endolithic or semi-endolithic bivalve using chemical means to bore is suggested as the tracemaker. Colonisation could be determined by sea-level coastal dynamics, with decreasing energy during advancing transgression allowing boring, which was then stopped due to supply of fine-grained sediment that killed the borers.


The high tropical Andes host one of the richest alpine floras of the world, with exceptionally high levels of endemism and turnover rates. Yet, little is known about the patterns and processes that structure altitudinal and latitudinal variation in plant community diversity. Herein we present the first continental-scale comparative study of plant community diversity on summits of the tropical Andes. Data were obtained from 792 permanent vegetation plots (1m2) within 50 summits, distributed along a 4200 km transect; summit elevations ranged between 3220 and 5498 m.a.s.l. We analyzed the plant community data to assess: (1) differences in species abundance patterns in summits across the region, (2) the role of geographic distance in explaining floristic similarity, and (3) the importance of altitudinal and latitudinal environmental gradients in explaining plant community composition and richness. On the basis of species abundance patterns, our summit communities were separated into two major groups: Puna and Paramo. Floristic similarity declined with increasing geographic distance between study-sites, the correlation being stronger in the more insular Paramo than in the Puna (corresponding to higher species turnover rates within the Paramo). Ordination analysis (CCA) showed that precipitation, maximum temperature and rock cover were the strongest predictors of community similarity across all summits. Generalized Linear Model (GLM) quasi-Poisson regression indicated that across all summits species richness increased with maximum air temperature and above-ground necromass and decreased on summits where scree was the dominant substrate. Our results point to different environmental variables as key factors for explaining vertical and latitudinal species turnover and species richness patterns on high Andean summits, offering a powerful tool to detect contrasting latitudinal and altitudinal effects of climate change across the tropical Andes.

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Interaction between agents representing real world actors in computational models must be informed by knowledge about interaction processes occurring amongst real world actors. We propose the use of endorsements to implement the cognitive processes underlying the decisions that lead to interactions among agents. The main advantage in applying the idea of endorsements lies in the fact that they allow for combining the efficiency properties of numerical measures with the richness and subtleties of non-numerical measures of interest or belief. We demonstrate the expediency of our approach with two evidence-driven agent-based models. From these case studies we derive suggestions for suitable extensions of the endorsement concept.


We prove some theorems on the existence, uniqueness, stability and compactness properties of solutions to inhomogeneous transport equations with Sobolev coefficients, where the inhomogeneous term depends upon the solution through an integral operator. Contrary to the usual DiPerna-Lions approach, the essential step is to formulate the problem in the Lagrangian setting. Some motivations to study the above problem arise from the description of polymeric flows, where such kind of equations are coupled with other Navier-Stokes type equations. Using the results for the transport equation we will provide, in a separate paper, a sequential stability theorem for the full problem of the flow of concentrated polymers.


What function does accountability serve in public–private partnerships where one partner has no authority over others and no control over results? This article aims to shed light on this question by studying participants of partnerships formed between K-12 public schools and private and/ or nonprofit organizations. Findings support the notion that accountability plays a greater role in public management than indicated by the idea of answerability. Five potential functions of accountability are identified: mapping and manifesting expectations, mobilizing and motivating (ex-ante), monitoring and measuring progress and performance, modifying, and mobilizing and motivating (ex-post).


ABSTRACT As the use of diagnostic assessment systems transitions from research applications to large-scale assessments for accountability purposes, reliability methods that provide evidence at each level of reporting are needed. The purpose of this paper is to summarize one simulation-based method for estimating and reporting reliability for an operational, large-scale, diagnostic assessment system. This assessment system reports the results and associated reliability evidence at the individual skill level for each academic content standard and broader content strands. The system also summarizes results for the overall subject using achievement levels, which are often included in state accountability metrics. Results are summarized as measures of association between true and estimated mastery status for each level of reporting.


Objective To appraise and synthesise research on the impact of physician assistants/associates (PA) in secondary care, specifically acute internal medicine, care of the elderly, emergency medicine, trauma and orthopaedics, and mental health. Design Systematic review. setting Electronic databases (Medline, Embase, ASSIA, CINAHL, SCOPUS, PsycINFO, Social Policy and Practice, EconLit and Cochrane), reference lists and related articles. Included articles Peer-reviewed articles of any study design, published in English, 1995–2017. Interventions Blinded parallel processes were used to screen abstracts and full text, data extractions and quality assessments against published guidelines. A narrative synthesis was undertaken. Outcome measures Impact on: patients' experiences and outcomes, service organisation, working practices, other professional groups and costs. results 5472 references were identified and 161 read in full; 16 were included—emergency medicine (7), trauma and orthopaedics (6), acute internal medicine (2), mental health (1) and care of the elderly (0). All studies were observational, with variable methodological quality. In emergency medicine and in trauma and orthopaedics, when PAs are added to teams, reduced waiting and process times, lower charges, equivalent readmission rate and good acceptability to staff and patients are reported. Analgesia prescribing, operative complications and mortality outcomes were variable. In internal medicine outcomes of care provided by PAs and doctors were equivalent. Conclusions PAs have been deployed to increase the capacity of a team, enabling gains in waiting time, throughput, continuity and medical cover. When PAs were compared with medical staff, reassuringly there was little or no negative effect on health outcomes or cost. The difficulty of attributing cause and effect in complex systems where work is organised in teams is highlighted. Further rigorous evaluation is required to address the complexity of the PA role, reporting on more than one setting, and including comparison between PAs and roles for which they are substituting.


Outputs from the application of a simple storm wave generation model using real wind data for several years in the 1980s are compared with simulations representing conditions of a 10% higher wind strength and a 1 m sea-level rise. A numeric wave propagation model (combined refraction-diffraction) is also used to calculate propagation coefficients for waves approaching the Montevideo coast under 2 different scenanos. The first one (baseline scenario) describes the current situation, while the second one reflects a 1 m rise in sea level. The analysis of propagation coefficients is carried out for all directions of the wind waves approaching the Montevideo shoreline, using the most representative wave period and height in each case. As a general conclusion it is observed that, under such a climate change scenario, storm waves would increase in height, while their angle of incidence would remain unchanged.


The current approach in web searching, i.e., using centralized search engines, rises issues that question their future applicability: 1) coverage and scalability, 2) freshness, and 3) information monopoly. Performing web search using a P2P architecture that consists of the actual web servers has the potential to tackle those issues. In order to achieve the desired performance and scalability, as well as enhancing search quality relative to centralized search engines, semantic overlay networks (SONS) connecting peers storing semantically related information can be employed. The lack of global content/topology knowledge in a P2P system is the key challenge in forming SONS, and this paper describes an unsupervised approach for decentralized and distributed generation of SONS (DESENT). Through simulations and analytical cost models we verify our claims regarding performance, scalability, and quality.


Only recently recognised, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) is a large, prevalent collection of illnesses resulting from mast cells (MCs) which are inappropriately activated but which, in contrast to the (collectively rare) forms of mastocytosis, are not significantly proliferating. Due to the diversity of direct and indirect, local and remote effects of the menagerie of mediators released by MCs, likely due to highly heterogeneous sets of mutations in MC regulatory elements, MCAS typically presents as chronic, persistent or recurrent, waxing/waning or slowly progressive, generally inflammatory multisystem polymorbidity. Initial manifestations often occur in childhood but are non-specific; in fact, virtually all of the syndrome's manifestations are non-specific, leading to decades of mysterious illness complicated by incorrect or superficial diagnoses often poorly responsive to empiric therapies. Diagnosis is further challenged in detecting specific biomarkers of MC activation other than serum tryptase levels, which usually are elevated in systemic mastocytosis but normal in MCAS. MCAS therapy aims to inhibit mediator production/release and block/ ameliorate mediator action. Although patient-specific optimal therapy is not presently predictable, a methodical, persistent, trial-and-error approach usually finds helpful therapy. Lifespan with MCAS approximates normal, but quality of life can be significantly impaired without correct diagnosis and effective treatment.


Background:

The concept of the 24hr comic book was conceived in 1990 when comic theorist Scott McCloud challenged Illustrator Steve Bisette to create a 24 page comic book alone over 24 hours. The work Bisette made was documented in the comic Cerberus and the concept began to gain momentum within the comic book community in the USA. On April 24th 2004, the first group event took place in comic book stores across North America, successfully fostering the creation of thousands of pages of comics and by 2007 24hr comic book events were taking place in 18 countries, involving over 1,200 artists.

In May 2011 Plymouth University supported Tom Barwick's participation in a 24hr Comic Book project at the Eden Project, the experience encouraged him to organize a similar event in collaboration with Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University, this event 'The Leviathan' took place on the 19th Sept 2012 and was judged to be a real success by the illustration team, leading to a further event in Oct 2013 at Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery devised by BA Illustration course leader Ashley Potter, in which the 24 hours were split into two twelve hour sessions.

Researchers Tom Barwick and Dean Owens noted after both of these events that all of the students who took part, showed a greater level of confidence and created a larger and more comprehensive body of work, than in their normal day-to-day studio activities. The level of productivity was incredible, students were producing work that would of taken six weeks of studio time in a fraction of the time, and the standard of ideas and image making was of almost the same level of professional finish.

Preparation for professional life inherently involves 'pedagogies of uncertainty' (Shulman 2005), given that professional environments require not only epistemological grounding in the form of expert knowledge, but also ontologically informed and cognitively creative responses to unknown demands and social situations. In the professional illustration workplace, practitioners are required to have the knowledge and capacity to produce creative responses to client demands under conditions of, often acute, time pressure and as part of a collaborative team. While the need to prepare students holistically for such vocational demands is largely accepted in higher education through an increasing prioritisation of 'employability', very little is known about pedagogic practices which can effectively pursue these outcomes, particularly in illustration, where group work and intense time pressure are common in combination.


In clinical trials it is not uncommon to face a multiple testing problem which can have an impact on both type I and type II error rates, leading to inappropriate interpretation of trial results. Multiplicity issues may need to be considered at the design, analysis and interpretation stages of a trial. The proportion of trial reports not adequately correcting for multiple testing remains substantial. The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to multiple testing issues in clinical trials, and to reduce confusion around the need for multiplicity adjustments. We use a tutorial, question-and-answer approach to address the key issues of why, when and how to consider multiplicity adjustments in trials. We summarize the relevant circumstances under which multiplicity adjustments ought to be considered, as well as options for carrying out multiplicity adjustments in terms of trial design factors including Population, Intervention/Comparison, Outcome, Time frame and Analysis (PICOTA). Results are presented in an easy-to-use table and flow diagrams. Confusion about multiplicity issues can be reduced or avoided by considering the potential impact of multiplicity on type I and II errors and, if necessary pre-specifying statistical approaches to either avoid or adjust for multiplicity in the trial protocol or analysis plan.


Research on the sexual health of trans women (male-to-female spectrum transgender people), has focused primarily on sexual response and satisfaction after initiating hormone treatment or undergoing genital surgery, or on HIV-related sexual risk among trans women sexually active with cisgender (cis, i.e., non-trans) men. Given that these situations are not representative of the majority of trans women at most points in the lifecourse, a broader discussion is needed to provide sex educators, therapists, clinicians, and researchers, as well as trans women and their partners, with information needed to promote sexual health. Drawing on the theoretical constructs of cisnormativity and cissexism, as well as previously published and new data from Trans PULSE, a community-based study of trans health in Ontario, we discuss the social context and sexual realities of trans women's lives.


In this paper we present the state of development of DIGRAMA, a system of electronic dictionaries and grammars of Portuguese. We describe briefly the general characteristics of the system, concentrating then on the analysis of two dictionary modules: DIGRAS and DIGRAF. The former is a dictionary of simple words, the latter is a dictionary of inflected forms. To each lexical entry of DIGRAS has been associated a code corresponding to the formal description of the morphological properties of the entries. This information constitutes the basis for a program of automatic generation of inflected forms. DIGRAF is made up of all the inflected forms from the words of DIGRAS.


There has been an ongoing debate on the changing geographical organization of the financial sector and the decreasing importance of regional financial centres. Our contribution explores a fresh perspective on this issue by looking at knowledge and risk management in different parts of the financial sector with an empirical focus on private equity in Germany. The argument we put forward is that the ways in which providers of finance manage knowledge and risk shape their organizational and geographical structure. In our analytical framework we distinguish between three ideal-type modes of knowledge management: the relationship, the data and the network mode. These modes differ in the types of knowledge exchanged, the actors involved and in the role and nature of relevant contacts and relationships. The shift from relationship to data mode in credit provision in Germany serves an example of how a new mode of knowledge management is associated with changes in the geographical organization of financial actors and activities. To illustrate the network mode we then focus on knowledge management in private equity in Germany, which involves a variety of different actors and links both regional and interregional networks. Our empirical research shows that the resulting organizational and geographical structures are rather complex and have nodes in regional financial centres. While these centres benefit from private equity activities, their chances for re-vitalization and a re-regionalization of financial expertise on the basis of private equity are nonetheless limited. So far, Munich seems to be the (only) one location where private equity – cross-fertilized by other local financial actors – has initiated a self-supported development which strengthens Munich as a financial centre.


Giambattista Bodoni, Manual of Typography — Manuale tipografico (1818). Stephan Füssel, editor. Taschen, 2010. 1208 pp. Hardcover, US$69.99. ISBN 978-3-8365-0553-6 One of the aims of Unicode is to make possible and relatively straightforward to create, for example, an English text with quotes in German, Arabic, Hebrew, and many other languages. A typesetter understands, however, that it is not enough to have a uniform digital representation of the "letters": one also should have a font (or collection of fonts) with letterforms for all these scripts. Therefore an important task for font designers is to create fonts with large collections of glyphs for different scripts. Only when this is done can we say that we can make multi-language books with truly harmonious and beautiful pages. One may think that this task became relevant only in recent times. Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) is a great reminder that this impression is just wrong. Typophiles may remember Bodoni for his great Latin fonts, which still are widely used today, or for his influential editions of classics. However, another aspect of Bodoni's heritage becomes increasingly more important in today's interconnected world: his extensive work on non-Latin scripts. These scripts interested Bodoni throughout his career. Starting at the age of eighteen Bodoni worked with the exotica division of the Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana where his work spanned Arabic, Tibetan and many other scripts. Later, in Parma, he published a collection of bridal poems in 25 Oriental languages with Latin translations (1775). As a mature typographer, Bodoni published Oratio Dominica, the Lord's prayer in 155 languages (1806). He personally cut 55,000 matrices for his multi-language books. Bodoni strived to combine calligraphic traditions of these scripts with the beauty and clarity of his superb typography. TEX users may want to take a look at GFS Bodoni fonts (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/gfsbodoni) with full support for Greek, Latin and math. They are included in TEX Live and MiKTEX, as well as being available directly from CTAN. The book Manuale Tipografico is a major work of the great typographer. He did not live to see it printed: his widow Margherita and his foreman Luigi Orsi completed the edition and published it five years after the master's death. The first volume of the manual contains a huge collection of samples of Latin fonts: roman, italic and cursive, with variants, weights, sizes. Margherita wrote in her preface that Bodoni considered it necessary for good typography to carry a collection of main fonts large enough so the difference between the adjacent sizes is not easily seen by a trained eye — a feat almost unheard of before the advent of digital typography. The second volume has an extensive collection of Greek and Cyrillic fonts, along with a huge number of other scripts: Hebrew, Tibetan, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Georgian and many, many others (curiously enough, black letter is also considered to be an "exotic script" and put in the second volume as "Tedesco", German — between "Malabarico", Malayalam, and "Russo", Russian). Bodoni himself in his preface evidently takes a considerable pleasure in listing the fonts, carefully observing the difference between Square Hebrew and Rabbinical Hebrew, and noting that in Arabic writing . . . the intricate Sulsi letter is employed in frontispieces and beginning, the hanging Tajik is very fashionable in Persia, while Turks love the reverse Divân. The preface also contains important musings by Bodoni about the fundamental of typographic art. The book also includes many pages of astronomical, mathematical and medical symbols, decorative rules, ornaments and even musical sheets in several styles. Besides being a huge source of invaluable information, the book is a pleasure to read; just turning its pages may make a great evening for a typophile. Since its publication in 1818 the Manuale became a very rare book. In 1965 it was reprinted in 900 numbered copies, which, of course, immediately became a prized rarity themselves. Thus a new mass market edition by Taschen is a very welcome project. A well preserved copy from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is reproduced here in all its glory. For those readers who are not fluent in Italian the book contains a booklet in a pocket glued to the inside cover with the translation of the texts and a very interesting preface by Stephan Füssel, director of the Institute of the History of the Book at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and the editor of the publication (most of the facts about Bodoni's biography cited above can be found in this erudite and well-written foreword). The book is printed on a good thick paper and is well bound. Probably in order to keep the price lower this edition contains both volumes of the original Manuale in one large book (albeit with two tassels). This makes it rather heavy (about nine pounds) and somewhat difficult to handle. However, the binding allows one to open the book at any place without much problem. This book is a must for a font specialist or a typographer. Its relatively low price and beauty make it a good addition to a library of a book lover.


This study explores the relationship between travel satisfaction and destination loyalty intention. The research was conducted with 486 tourists visiting Arade, a Portuguese tourist destination. Taking as the basis the use of structural equation modelling (SEM), the results substantiate the importance of tourism satisfaction as a determinant of destination loyalty. Also, a categorical principal components analysis (CATPCA) provides a detailed analysis of this cause-effect relationship by establishing that greater levels of satisfaction (measured by overall satisfaction in terms of holiday experience, destination attributes and met expectations) result in increased likelihood of future repeat visits and a keen willingness to recommend the destination to others. Clusters of tourists were also identified and characterized in relation to satisfaction levels and loyalty intentions. These analyses provide a useful background in the planning of future tourist marketing strategies.


ScatterWeb, a distributed, heterogeneous platform
 for the ad-hoc deployment of sensor networks offers hardware together with open, fully documented software for the deployment of embedded sensor networks. Already low power by design, the sensor nodes offer additional energy conservation mechanisms and support energy efficient routing, such as, e.g., solar-aware routing. In order to enable a battery-free operation, the nodes implement permanent power sensing and start the transmission if and only if the energy stored in a capacitor is sufficient for the complete transmission plus the reception of an acknowledgement. Energy-aware routing takes the current incoming power of environmental energy sources into account. Depending on the current power generated by, e.g., solar cells, traffic is always forwarded by the nodes having sufficient power. Together with additional power saving, autoconfiguration, and remote reprogramming techniques, these mechanisms enable ScatterWeb nodes to survive many years in real-life scenarios without any on-site maintenance.


Countries participating in REDD+ schemes are required to establish a national monitoring system that keeps track of forest carbon changes over time. Community-based monitoring (CBM) can be useful for tracking locally driven forest change activities and their impacts. In this paper, we review some of the key issues regarding CBM and options to link CBM and national forest monitoring systems. More specifically, we highlight the importance of local drivers of deforestation and degradation and, thus, the relevance of community involvement in REDD+ implementation and monitoring; we review the scientific literature to better define the role and technical conditions under which CBM can contribute to national level monitoring; we develop a conceptual framework for linking local and national monitoring; and we analyze and synthesize 28 REDD+ country approaches to CBM. Finally, we provide recommendations for integrating CBM data into national monitoring systems.


The desire to tailor our immigration system to the economic interests of our nation is as old as its founding. Yet after more than two centuries of regulatory tinkering, we seem no closer to finding the right balance. Contemporary observers largely ascribe this failure to conflicts over immigration. Shifting the focus, I suggest here that longstanding disagreements in the world of economic regulations — in particular, tensions over the government's role in regulating labor conditions and employment practices — also explains much of the difficulty behind formulating a policy approach to immigration. In other words, we cannot reach a political consensus on how to regulate immigration in part because we cannot agree on the role that the government should play in labor and employment regulations. This essay argues that labor and employment regulations have traditionally imagined government intervention in three distinct ways. Each envisions government intervention at a different level in the national economy. Each adheres to a different view about what kind of employment terms the government should set, if any. As political and ideological frameworks, these three approaches offer insights into how economic regulations pertaining to labor and employment, including those regulations pertaining to immigration. Indeed, these three approaches have not only shaped the historical development of our nation's immigration laws, but also continue to divide efforts toward comprehensive reform today.


In steady state, the central nervous system (CNS) houses a variety of myeloid cells, such as microglia, non-parenchymal macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs), and granulocytes. Most of these cells enter the CNS during embryogenesis and are crucial for proper CNS development. In adulthood, these resident myeloid cells exert crucial homeostatic functions. In neuroinflammatory conditions, like multiple sclerosis (MS), both lymphoid and myeloid cells from the periphery infiltrate the tissue and cause local damage. Although lymphocytes are undeniably important players in MS, CNS-resident and CNS-infiltrating myeloid cells have recently gained much-deserved attention for their roles in disease progression. Here, we will review significant advances made in recent years delineating myeloid cell functions within the CNS both in homeostasis and MS. We will also discuss how these cells are affected by currently employed therapeutics for MS patients.


Tiny snail‐like conchs of Pelagiella Matthew are important in discussions of lophotrochozoan and mollusc origins in the Cambrian evolutionary radiation (CER). The limited morphological features of Pelagiella conchs have led to the 'Pelagiella problem': (1) poorly distinguished Pelagiella species; (2) an exceptional genus range across all Cambrian palaeocontinents and climate belts; (3) an unparalleled genus‐lifespan (c. 31 myr) in the early Palaeozoic; and (4) the assumption that all Pelagiella spp. are gastropods, which compromises lophotrochozoan and mollusc phylogenies. The type species P. atlantoides is a gastropod, but we show that so‐called Pelagiella species with sub‐to‐triangular apertures and turbiniform conchs are not referable to the genus. Re‐evaluation of spectacular specimens of Pelagiella exigua Resser & Howell show it to be a polychaete with two apertural paleal chaetae fan arrays. Given that some modern sedentary polychaetes have paleal fan arrays, P. exigua is regarded as a likely member of the Sabellida Levinsen and is assigned to Pseudopelagiella gen. nov. Other Pelagiella spp. and forms with similar conchs are probably polychaetes not relevant to syntheses of early mollusc diversification. Pelagiellidae fam. nov. should be restricted to the late early Cambrian (c. 508 Ma) P. atlantoides. Pseudopelagiella exigua was unattached, probably benthic and lived with the apical conch surface on the sea floor, a mode of life similar to that of another family of the Sabellida, the sessile spirorbids that are cemented to substrate. Among numerous crown groups, the late early Cambrian eve of the CER included the polychaete Pseudopelagiella exigua and gastropod P. atlantoides.


Objective: The goal of this concise review is to provide an overview of some of the most important resuscitation and monitoring issues and approaches that are unique to burn patients compared with the general intensive care unit population. Study Selection: Consensus conference findings, clinical trials, and expert medical opinion regarding care of the critically burned patient were gathered and reviewed. Studies focusing on burn shock, resuscitation goals, monitoring tools, and current recommendations for initial burn care were examined. Conclusions: The critically burned patient differs from other critically ill patients in many ways, the most important being the necessity of a team approach to patient care. The burn patient is best cared for in a dedicated burn center where resuscitation and monitoring concentrate on the pathophysiology of burns, inhalation injury, and edema formation. Early operative intervention and wound closure, metabolic interventions, early enteral nutrition, and intensive glucose control have led to continued improvements in outcome. Prevention of complications such as hypothermia and compartment syndromes is part of burn critical care. The myriad areas where standards and guidelines are currently determined only by expert opinion will become driven by level 1 data only by continued research into the critical care of the burn patient.


Hardware acceleration can revolutionize robotics, enabling new applications by speeding up robot response times while remaining power-efficient. However, the diversity of acceleration options makes it difficult for roboticists to easily deploy accelerated systems without expertise in each specific hardware platform. In this work, we address this challenge with RobotCore, an architecture to integrate hardware acceleration in the widely-used ROS 2 robotics software framework. This architecture is target-agnostic (supports edge, workstation, data center, or cloud targets) and accelerator-agnostic (supports both FPGAs and GPUs). It builds on top of the common ROS 2 build system and tools and is easily portable across different research and commercial solutions through a new firmware layer. We also leverage the Linux Tracing Toolkit next generation (LTTng) to enable low-overhead real-time tracing and benchmarking of accelerated ROS 2 systems. To demonstrate the acceleration enabled by this architecture, we use it to deploy a ROS 2 perception computational graph on a CPU and FPGA. We also employ our integrated tracing and benchmarking to analyze bottlenecks, uncovering insights that guide us to improve FPGA communication efficiency. In particular, we design an intra-FPGA ROS 2 node communication queue template and use it in conjunction with FPGA-accelerated nodes to achieve a 24.42% speedup over a CPU.


In the current competitive industrial context, enterprises must react swiftly to market changes. In order to face this problem, enterprises must increase their collaborative activities. This implies at one hand high communication between their information systems and at the other hand the compatibility of their practices. An important amount of work must be performed towards proper practices of standardization and harmonization. This is the concept of Interoperability. Interoperability of enterprises is a strategic issue, caused as well as enabled by the continuously growing ability of integration of new legacy and evolving systems, in particular in the context of networked organisations. of the reconciliation of the communicated business semantics is crucial to success. For this, non-disruptive re-use of existing business data stored in "legacy" production information systems is an evident prerequisite. In addition the integration of a methodology as well as the scalability of any proposed semantic technological solution are equally evident prerequisites. Yet on all accounts current semantic technologies as researched and developed for the socalled Semantic Web may be found lacking. Still, semantic technology is claimed about to become mainstream, as it is pused by enterprise interoperation needs and increasing availability of domain specific content (for example ontologies) rather than pulled by basic technology (for example OWL) providers. In this paper we present a methodology which has resulted in the implementation of a highly customizable collaborative environment focussed to support ontology-based enterprise interoperability. The main benefit of this environment is its ability to integrate with legacy systems, rescuing enterprises from having to adapt or upgrade their existing systems in order to interoperate with their partners.


This work was performed between 1979 and 1985 when there was great interest in the role of the recently identified prostacyclin in vascular function and disorders. The discovery of this substance with its powerful vasodilatory and platelet anti-aggregatory powers raised the hypothesis that prostacyclin might be involved in the pathogenesis of portal hypertension, its associated hyperdynamic circulation and typically catastrophic haemorrhage from bleeding oesophageal varices. Partial portal vein ligation in a rat model of portal hypertension was used because of its simplicity and absence of hepato-cellular dysfunction. This model was found to result in short lived hypertension with return to normal pressure by two weeks. Anatomical studies (using venography and corrosion casting) of the changes to the portal venous circulation after partial portal vein ligation, revealed the development of a dominant portosystemic collateral draining into the left renal vein via the left anterior lumbar vein. Ligation of this collateral at the same time as partial portal vein ligation gave a reliable model of permanent portal hypertension. Accurate measurement of prostacyclin proved to be difficult. Initially a bioassay of prostacyclin-like activity was used with success. The rat was found to produce high levels of prostacyclin well within the range of accurate measurement of this assay. Prostacyclin production was shown to increase directly with pressure increase in the portal vein. This direct relationship was confirmed in the acute model where prostacyclin production fell as the portal pressure returned to normal; in the model of chronic portal hypertension, prostacyclin production remained permanently elevated. A radioimmunoassay for 6 ketoPGFIα, the stable breakdown product of prostacyclin, was developed to allow measurement of prostacyclin in human tissue and serum samples (at this time there were no commercially available RIA kits). Initially the Wellcome antiserum was used with accurate measurement in incubated human tissue samples. These studies confirmed greater intrinsic prostacyclin activity in normal mesenteric and portal vein compared to peripheral venous tissues but failed to show any difference in tissue or plasma levels of portal hypertensive compared to normal patients. A second antiserum, the Cardeza antiserum, was then used in the radioimmunoassay. Unlike the Wellcome assay, this antiserum did not require a prostanoid extraction process. Comparison of the two assays in identical samples revealed major differences with large quantities of 6 ketoPGFIα being measured using the Wellcome antiserum with its extraction step compared to virtually none detected using the Cardeza antiserum. The extraction step was resulting in production of cross-reacting prostanoid substances giving falsely high readings. Both radioimmunoassays were abandoned at this stage because of the inaccuracy of the first, and the inability of the second to detect the low levels of 6 ketoPGFIα in human plasma. The human studies were continued using a highly specific and sensitive assay of 6 ketoPGFIα, namely gas chromatography/negative ion chemical ionisation mass spectroscopy (GC/NICIMS). At the time of this work, this methodology was complex, cumbersome, with limited access and the numbers studied were small. Very low levels of 6 ketoPGFIα were found in peripheral blood of normal and portal hypertensive patients who were not bleeding from oesophageal varices, in patients without portal hypertension, portal blood levels of prostacyclin were higher compared to peripheral levels, confirming the finding in the rat and pig that prostacyclin activity is higher in the normal portal circulation compared to peripheral vein. Significantly elevated prostacyclin production was found in both the peripheral and portal blood of portal hypertensive patients who were actively bleeding from oesophageal varices. Portal prostacyclin production was found to be significantly higher in patients with portal hypertension who were actively bleeding compared to normal patients undergoing laparotomy for other conditions. These findings in bleeding patients support the hypothesis that prostacyclin activity is increased in portal hypertension and may play a role in the severity of haemorrhage. In both the animal and human studies a clear effect of surgical intervention on increased prostacyclin production was found. These studies demonstrated for the first time increased prostacyclin production in both developing, and established portal hypertension in both the experimental animal situation and in man. High levels of prostacyclin production were found in the portal circulation of portal hypertensive patients undergoing surgery for uncontrolled variceal bleeding.


Courses emphasizing systemic design are taught in the Communication Management and Design program at Ithaca College for undergraduate students who seek to positively impact organizations and society through communication and learning. In a first-year course, students engage in a wide variety of learning activities and challenges through which they come to a basic understanding of systems thinking, design, and systemic design. This understanding creates a broad foundation for, and begins to develop connecting threads across, their studies of corporate communication, and workplace learning and performance. Then in their senior year capstone course students engage in a systemic design inquiry, which combines research and design in an attempt to address a critical current issue in organizations. Described here is the pedagogical approach for these courses, including underlying assumptions, links to strategy, and a rich set of concepts and tools that promote systems thinking in design, and which have potential applications beyond pedagogy. Also described is how these have all been informed by research.


Abstract. Ice sheets extending over parts of the East Siberian continental shelf have been proposed for the last glacial period and during the larger Pleistocene glaciations. The sparse data available over this sector of the Arctic Ocean have left the timing, extent and even existence of these ice sheets largely unresolved. Here we present new geophysical mapping and sediment coring data from the East Siberian shelf and slope collected during the 2014 SWERUS-C3 expedition (SWERUS-C3: Swedish – Russian – US Arctic Ocean Investigation of Climate-Cryosphere-Carbon Interactions). The multibeam bathymetry and chirp sub-bottom profiles reveal a set of glacial landforms that include grounding zone formations along the outer continental shelf, seaward of which lies a  >  65 m thick sequence of glacio-genic debris flows. The glacial landforms are interpreted to lie at the seaward end of a glacial trough – the first to be reported on the East Siberian margin, here referred to as the De Long Trough because of its location due north of the De Long Islands. Stratigraphy and dating of sediment cores show that a drape of acoustically laminated sediments covering the glacial deposits is older than ∼ 50 cal kyr BP. This provides direct evidence for extensive glacial activity on the Siberian shelf that predates the Last Glacial Maximum and most likely occurred during the Saalian (Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6).


BBC Audience Council NI has engaged with a range of young people in Northern Ireland to understand their views about the BBC's proposals to close BBC Three as a linear channel alongside a range of other changes to BBC services. Working through a number of youth organisations in the voluntary, charitable and education sectors, Council members hosted ten discussion events with young people aged between14- 30 years, from different parts of Northern Ireland and from across the social demographic spectrum. Using this audience engagement programme as a basis for its evidence with which to advise the BBC Trust, this document outlines key areas that the Trust may wish to consider in more depth, as part of its public value test of the BBC Three (plus) proposals.


The purpose of this study is to investigate if the class teachers believe that their education has given them enough knowledge about dyslexia in order to succeed a successful education for these pupils. It will present what four class teachers and two special education teachers has answered what they know about dyslexia. The study aims to find out if class teachers believe that they have enough knowledge to determine whether a pupil has dyslexia. If they have knowledge of appropriate methods and if they know how to prevent that pupils fall behind in their literacy and also what factors they believes makes it problematic to implement a literacy for these pupils. I propose the following questions:Do the class teachers consider that their education has given them sufficient knowledge of dyslexia and its characteristics?What methods does the class teachers and special education teachers considers as useful for pupils with dyslexia?What does the class teachers consider can prevent that pupils with dyslexia fall behind in their reading and writing skills?What factors consider class teachers and special education teachers is problematic to to succeed a reading and writing education for pupils with dyslexia?This study is based on a qualitative method and my theoretical approach is based on Hoien and Lundberg established view of what dyslexia is. The results show that teacher's university studies do not provide sufficient knowledge about dyslexia and appropriate methods. This problem is also described in the research I have used. Attributed to this it is obvious that class teachers have enough knowledge what dyslexia is and they could tell which methods that are good to use. They could also declare how to prevent that pupil's with dyslexia fall behind in their reading and writing education. This means that a teacher in grade F -3 has sufficient knowledge to be able to implement a teaching adapted for pupils with dyslexia.


Photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar water splitting is a promising approach to convert solar energy into sustainable hydrogen fuel using semiconductor electrodes. Owing to their visible light absorption properties, oxynitrides have shown to be attractive photocatalysts for this application. In this study, the influence of the preparation method of CaNbO2N particles on their morphological and optical properties, and thereby their PEC performance, is investigated. The best performing CaNbO2N photoanode is produced by ammonolysis of Nb-enriched calcium niobium oxide. The enhanced photoactivity arises from an enlarged surface area and superior visible light absorption properties. The photoactivity of this photoanode was further enhanced by photodeposition of CoPi cocatalyst and by the atomic layer deposition of an Al2O3 overlayer. A photocurrent density of 70 μA cm–2 at 1.23 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode was achieved. The observed enhancement of the PEC performance after CoPi/Al2O3 deposition is the com...


Abstract. Southeast Asian seas span the largest archipelago in the global ocean and provide a complex oceanic pathway connecting the Pacific and Indian oceans. The Southeast Asian sea regional sea level trends are some of the highest observed in the modern satellite altimeter record that now spans almost 2 decades. Initial comparisons of global sea level reconstructions find that 17-year sea level trends over the past 60 years exhibit good agreement with decadal variability associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and related fluctuations of trade winds in the region. The Southeast Asian sea region exhibits sea level trends that vary dramatically over the studied time period. This historical variation suggests that the strong regional sea level trends observed during the modern satellite altimeter record will abate as trade winds fluctuate on decadal and longer timescales. Furthermore, after removing the contribution of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) to sea level trends in the past 20 years, the rate of sea level rise is greatly reduced in the Southeast Asian sea region. As a result of the influence of the PDO, the Southeast Asian sea regional sea level trends during the 2010s and 2020s are likely to be less than the global mean sea level (GMSL) trend if the observed oscillations in wind forcing and sea level persist. Nevertheless, long-term sea level trends in the Southeast Asian seas will continue to be affected by GMSL rise occurring now and in the future.


While sound is a signal modality widely used by many animals, it is very susceptible to attenuation, hampering effective long-distance communication. A strategy to minimize sound attenuation that has been historically used by humans is to use acoustic horns; to date, no other animal is known to use a similar structure to increase sound intensity. Here, we describe how the use of a roosting structure that resembles an acoustic horn (the tapered tubes that form when new leaves of plants such as Heliconia or Calathea species start to unfurl) increases sound amplification of the incoming and outgoing social calls used by Spix's disc-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor) to locate roosts and group members. Our results indicate that incoming calls are significantly amplified as a result of sound waves being increasingly compressed as they move into the narrow end of the leaf. Outgoing calls were faintly amplified, probably as a result of increased sound directionality. Both types of call, however, experienced significant sound distortion, which might explain the patterns of signal recognition previously observed in behavioural experiments. Our study provides the first evidence of the potential role that a roost can play in facilitating acoustic communication in bats.


Our main report, Good Ideas from Successful Cities: Municipal Leadership in Immigrant Integration, explores these themes through a selection of nearly 40 profiles of municipal practice and policies from cities across Canada, the US, Europe and Australasia. In this companion report, Germany: Good Ideas from Successful Cities, we present an additional snapshot of municipal leadership and excellence in immigrant integration from cities in Germany. Each of these five city profiles includes a selection of related international city practices to encourage comparative perspective and enriched learning.


A Third of a Century of Paramagnetic Relaxation and Resonance.- N.M.R. Studies of Glasses and Related Crystalline Solids.- Charge Distributions in Ionic Crystals from the N.M.R. and N.Q.R. of Na and Cu.- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in the Non-cubic Metals.- Hyperfine Interactions and Associated Properties of Alkali Metals.- Spin-Lattice Relaxation, Unstable Lattice Modes, and Critical Fluctuations.- An Information Theory of Line Shape in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Rapidly Rotating Solids.- Multiple-pulse N.M.R. Experiments and Averaging Effects.- Spin-flip Scattering of Electrons from Atoms Embedded in Metals.- Electron Spin Resonance in Dilute Magnetic Alloys.- E.P.R. Study of Nuclear Radiation Effects in CaWO4.- Optical, Paramagnetic and Endor Spectra of some Rare-earth Ions in CaF2.- Paramagnetic Resonance of Electronic States of Crystal Defects.- Gas-phase Electron Resonance Spectra of Linear Triatomic Free Radicals.- Studies of Rate and Equilibrium Processes by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy.- Proton-decoupled Carbon-13 Magnetic Resonance.- On Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Nematic Liquid Crystal Solvents.- Nuclidic Mass Measurement by Ion Cyclotron Resonance and Isotopic Abundance-ratio Measurement by Proton Resonance Satellites.- The Symposium Papers.


We analyze a reweighted version of the Kikuchi approximation for estimating the log partition function of a product distribution defined over a region graph. We establish sufficient conditions for the concavity of our reweighted objective function in terms of weight assignments in the Kikuchi expansion, and show that a reweighted version of the sum product algorithm applied to the Kikuchi region graph will produce global optima of the Kikuchi approximation whenever the algorithm converges. When the region graph has two layers, corresponding to a Bethe approximation, we show that our sufficient conditions for concavity are also necessary. Finally, we provide an explicit characterization of the polytope of concavity in terms of the cycle structure of the region graph. We conclude with simulations that demonstrate the advantages of the reweighted Kikuchi approach.


Abstract Modern nuclear criticality safety analysis places great reliance on calculations performed using computer codes, in particular, those employing the Monte Carlo method of solution. In the United Kingdom the acknowledged standard Monte Carlo code for criticality safety assessment is MONK. The accuracy achievable with MONK is ultimately governed by the accuracy of the nuclear data employed and their representation within the code nuclear data library. The U.K. industry uses JEFF-based libraries, taking advantage of modern nuclear data evaluations. Following the release of a frozen version of the library (JEF2.2), a program of work was undertaken in the United Kingdom to develop nuclear data libraries for use in reactor physics, shielding, and criticality application codes and to provide benchmark evidence to support their use. For criticality, this involved developing a hyper-fine-group energy library for the MONK code and undertaking a large program of comparison calculations for selected international experiments. A significant contribution to this validation effort has been the high-quality experimental data from the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) International Handbook of Evaluated Critical Safety Benchmark Experiments. This paper summarizes the work involved in arriving at the current stage whereby the use of MONK in conjunction with a JEF2.2-based library is accepted within the U.K. nuclear industry. Specific examples are given, where ICSBEP has provided experimental evaluations for application areas previously unsupported by more traditional experimental data sources.


Accumulating evidence points to the validity of fear of failure (FF) score interpretations for the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI); however, the temporal stability of scores has not been established previously. Female and male college students participating in exercise activity classes (N = 356) completed long- and short-form versions of the PFAI on 4 occasions over a 3-week period. An evaluation of the factor structure, latent mean stability, and individual differences in change of PFAI scores was performed using longitudinal factorial invariance (LFI) and latent growth curve (LGC) analyses. Evidence was obtained for LFI of all first-order factors on the long form and the general FF factor (long and short forms). Differential stability estimates for 6 time intervals ranging from 2 to 21 days exceeded conventional minimum values for all factors. A small decrease in latent mean scores due to a skills test and a possible habituation effect was observed after the first occasion for several factors.


The promotion of genetic engineering research and GM crops can help to overcome the future deficit of food production in India. Hunger, poverty, malnutrition etc. are significant problems that still need to be addressed. 'The National Food Security Act, 2013' is expected to resolve some of these challenges. Agricultural GDP needs to be augmented by an increase in food crop production. Policy and social considerations related to GM crops continue to be a popular debate in the country. The regulation of transgenic plant research is guided by several legislations in the country. Regulatory agency approvals impact commercialization of transgenic crops. As greater capacity continues to develop in transgenic research on plants in Asia one of the prime considerations is whether Indian legislation and regulation adequately promote transgenic plant research. The present study maps and analyses various legislations that are involved in the research and commercialization of transgenic crops. The framework suggested will serve as a ready reckoner for firms practicing in this area.


Hydrologic analysis is a critical part of transportation design because it helps ensure that hydraulic structures are able to accommodate the flow regimes they are likely to see. This analysis is currently conducted using computer simulations of water flow patterns, and continuing developments in elevation survey techniques result in higher and higher resolution surveys. Current survey techniques now resolve many natural and anthropogenic features that were not practical to map and, thus, require new methods for dealing with depressions and flow discontinuities. A method for depressional analysis is proposed that uses the fact that most anthropogenically constructed embankments are roughly more symmetrical with greater slopes than natural depressions. An enforcement method for draining depressions is then analyzed on those depressions that should be drained. This procedure has been evaluated on a small watershed in central Iowa, Walnut Creek of the South Skunk River, HUC12 # 070801050901, and was found to accurately identify 88 of 92 drained depressions and place enforcements within two pixels, although the method often tries to drain prairie pothole depressions that are bisected by anthropogenic features.


Recent NLP studies reveal that substantial linguistic information can be attributed to single neurons, i.e., individual dimensions of the representation vectors. We hypothesize that modeling strong interactions among neurons helps to better capture complex information by composing the linguistic properties embedded in individual neurons. Starting from this intuition, we propose a novel approach to compose representations learned by different components in neural machine translation (e.g., multi-layer networks or multi-head attention), based on modeling strong interactions among neurons in the representation vectors. Specifically, we leverage bilinear pooling to model pairwise multiplicative interactions among individual neurons, and a low-rank approximation to make the model computationally feasible. We further propose extended bilinear pooling to incorporate first-order representations. Experiments on WMT14 English⇒German and English⇒French translation tasks show that our model consistently improves performances over the SOTA Transformer baseline. Further analyses demonstrate that our approach indeed captures more syntactic and semantic information as expected.


In August, 2010, the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission issued new Guidelines for assessing horizontal mergers under the antitrust laws. These Guidelines were long awaited not merely because of the lengthy interval between them and previous Guidelines but also because enforcement policy had drifted far from the standards articulated in the previous Guidelines. The 2010 Guidelines are distinctive manly for two things. One is briefer and less detailed treatment of market delineation. The other is an expanded set of theories of harm that justify preventing mergers or reversing mergers that have already occurred. The 2010 Guidelines reflect a growing belief that in markets where product differentiation is minimal competition tends to be robust and the structural presumptions stated in previous Guidelines were too harsh. By contrast, where product differentiation is substantial the Guidelines' approach tended to define markets too broadly, overlooking significantly anticompetitive possibilities. Under the 2010 Guidelines unilateral effects analysis relevant markets can be very small, often limited to three or four firms, and excluding some obvious substitutes. Markets in merger analysis are not defined for their own sake, however, but rather to ascertain whether a particular alteration in market structure covered by the merger provisions will be likely to facilitate a price increase. The 2010 Guidelines address four substantive merger concerns: exclusion, restraints on innovation, unilateral effects, and coordinated effects. The Guidelines have a separate section on mergers limiting "innovation and product variety," treated mainly in the category of unilateral effects. The 2010 Guidelines are more flexible than previous Guidelines and also more catholic about the types of harms that mergers might cause and the techniques that can be used to assess them. Older Guidelines were excessively wed to methodologies that were at the forefront of applied merger analysis when they were drafted, but that tended to make the Guidelines obsolete as new methodologies became available. Not only do methodologies change, they are also specific to the situation. Further, they tend to be well developed in the literature and accessible to experts consulted by those defending a merger as well as to the government economists who employ them. To be sure, there is a tradeoff between flexibility and guidance. Often we can have more of one only by giving up some of the other, and that tradeoff is clearly present in the 2010 Guidelines.


Accessing online Social Network Services (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ from mobile devices (e.g., Smart phones) has become a daily activity to many users. With the powerful and rich capabilities of recent mobile devices, users can produce heterogeneous content such as photos, videos, audio, and share them with their social groups. From the users' perspective, mobile devices are no longer simple client-side medium to acquire content from online content providers, but they have become content providers as well. Embedded Web server enhances the usefulness of mobile devices in terms of content sharing. With embedded Web server, mobile devices can provide various mobile Web services (MWS). Moreover, users are capable of establishing a new form of social network in the mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) manner, in which a group of proximal users, who whether they know one another or not, can perform various SNS activities within the same wireless network. The term-Mobile Social Network in Proximity (MSNP) has been used in this thesis to illustrate such an environment. MSNP is a composite social network environment in which MSNP participants can either share content data directly from their MWS or they can simply conduct their MWS to provide links that redirect content requesters to retrieve content from the providers' SNS spaces. In recent years, realising MSNP became an interested topic to many researchers. Since the fundamental infrastructure of MSNP is based on mobile P2P network, enabling MSNP inherits many common challenges of mobile P2P applications in terms of mobility issues, hardware resource constraint issues, security-related issues, and so on. While the existing MSNP-related works were designed for particular applications and platforms, this thesis aims to provide a solution to enable a generic service-oriented MSNP environment, in which the mobile users can participate in the environment using heterogeneous devices and platforms. In this thesis, two related major challenges service discovery and resource management of MSNP have been addressed. Service discovery in MSNP faces latency issues which are caused by the long makespan of service discovery and identification of trustworthiness of the service providers. The issues have been analysed in this thesis. Corresponding solutions: context-aware proactive service discovery for MSNP and the lightweight trustworthy service discovery for MSNP are presented, together with experimental evaluation. Since MSNP is a composite environment, in which local services in mobile device and remote online Web services are involved, resource management becomes a crucial task in service discovery and also in other MSNP activities. The hardware resource of mobile device and the availability of remote online Web services, can influence the efficiency of how a mobile device performs its activities in MSNP. This thesis has analysed the challenge in resource management of MSNP and proposed a corresponding mediation framework: Adaptive Mediation Framework for MSNP (AMSNP) that applied workflow technique and Enterprise Service Bus architecture to manage resources dynamically and let the mobile device automatically choose a feasible approach to perform its activities according to the situational changes of resources. A prototype has been implemented and evaluated based on several case studies.


In western Montana, phosphorus is one of the most common contaminants found in rivers and streams, threatening the health of aquatic ecosystems. In response to growing water quality concerns and new regulatory requirements, a three-stage treatment wetland was recently constructed at the Ennis National Fish Hatchery to treat wastewater generated by raceway cleaning operations. Currently only the first two stages of this system are complete and over the first two months of operation have removed over 98% of influent chemical oxygen demand, 99% of total suspended solids, 59% of total nitrogen, and 95% of total phosphorus. However, the effluent phosphorus concentration is expected to increase as organic matter accumulating in the wetland mineralizes and the phosphorus adsorption capacity of the wetland media is saturated. To maintain long-term phosphorus removal, the treatment wetland was designed with a filter unit to be filled with media capable of adsorbing large quantities of phosphorus. The purpose of this research is to choose the optimal media for this filter unit, comparing three manufactured materials (lightweight aggregate, juniper biochar, and lodgepole biochar) and four natural materials (limestone, dolomite, shale, and gravel). Batch adsorption experiments were conducted with coarse media in deionized water, coarse media in Blaine Spring Creek water, and fine media in deionized water. The difference between these batch experiments showed that water chemistry and particle size significantly affect phosphorus adsorption for a given material. Based on their high performance in batch experiments, lightweight aggregate and lodgepole biochar were tested in continuous flow columns, along with gravel to provide a baseline performance comparison. Gravel and lightweight aggregate removed more phosphorus in continuous flow columns than in batch experiments, likely due to ongoing precipitation with calcium ions in the influent. Lightweight aggregate was the top performing media in all experiments, and is recommended for use in the filter units at the Ennis National Fish Hatchery treatment wetland. Based on its phosphorus removal capacity in column experiments (1200 mg P kg-1 lightweight aggregate), the filter beds will be saturated in 14 months if the current effluent phosphorus concentration of 2.3 mg L-1 is maintained.


Woodlands in Ethiopia are under heavy pressure and shrinking overtime. Despite the woodland's economic and ecological importance's, little attention has been given to monitor the condition of the resources through time. The aim of this study is to assess the status of western dry woodlands of Ethiopia by analyzing land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics and recommend their future sustainable management and development in view of their multi-functions, climate change mitigation potentials as well as local livelihood improvement. Remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Positioning System (GIS) were used to assess the LULC dynamics in three regional states (Amhara, Tigray, and Benshangul-Gumz). Three study sites: Metema, Kafta-Humera and Sherkole were selected, respectively. In all study sites the classes of agricultural land and bare land have expanded at an average rate of 2322.9 and 726.6 ha/year, respectively. On the other hand, the woodland cover in the three districts was decreasing at an average rate of 2833.8 ha/year in the past 25 years (1985-2010). The woodland cover was transformed mainly to agriculture at an average rate of 2057.9 ha/year.


To what extent should banks, insurance companies and employers be allowed to use personal information about the people whom they lend to, insure or employ in setting the terms of the contract? Even when different treatment is motivated by profit not prejudice, banning discrimination (when combined with mandatory protection against failure) may well be the best way of effecting redistribution of income. Unlike income taxation, this policy achieves its goals without much adverse effect on incentives. Public provision of low-powered incentive contracts issued on generous terms is also a potent instrument of efficient redistribution. This is true even if the government cannot observe type but the private sector can.


The growth and dissolution behaviour of detrital, metamorphic and magmatic monazite and zircon during granulite-facies anatexis in pelitic and psammo-pelitic granulites and in garnetiferous granite from the southern margin of the Central Indian Tectonic Zone (CITZ) have been investigated using reconstructed metamorphic reaction history, monazite electron microprobe dating and sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) U–Pb zircon geochronology. Whereas the pelitic granulites record medium-pressure granulite-facies metamorphism (BM1 stage), the psammo-pelitic granulite reached ultrahigh temperatures (TMax > 880°C at 8·7 kbar). The meta-psammite additionally records two stages of granulite-facies recrystallization (BM2 and BM3). Irrespective of variations in the bulk-rock compositions and peak metamorphic conditions, monazite is highly reactive during the BM1 event, producing complex, chemically zoned crystals. Textural, compositional and chemical ages of these grains indicate the stability of six compositional domains (CD1 to CD6 in the paragenetic sequence), of which CD1 represents pre-metamorphic detrital cores of Paleoproterozoic age. CD2 and CD3 (combined mean age of 1612 ± 14 Ma) mark two stages of recrystallization of detrital monazite cores during prograde events. Rims of CD4 monazite (ages between 1615 ± 14 and 1586 ± 14 Ma) on partially to completely equilibrated cores indicate melt crystallization at, or immediately following, peak BM1P metamorphism. CD5 monazite (age of 1574 ± 7 Ma) is restricted to the psammo-pelitic granulites, and marks final melt crystallization at the solidus during post-peak cooling (BM1R stage, where R represents retrograde metamorphism). The metamorphic rim of CD6 monazite (age of 1539 ± 24 Ma) around partially resorbed CD5 domains is linked to the decomposition of BM1 garnet during the terminal hydration event as part of a granulite-facies recrystallization event. Compositionally homogeneous monazite and rims of chemically zoned monazite grains in granite together record a magmatic crystallization age of 1604 ± 9 Ma. SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating of the psammo-pelitic granulite and garnetiferous granite indicates detrital or inherited cores of Paleo- to Neoarchean age (3584 ± 3 to 2530 ± 3 Ma), which have been variously recrystallized and overgrown by new zircon: (1) at 1658 ± 12 Ma; (2) between 1595 ± 5 and 1590 ± 6 Ma; (3) at 1574 ± 9 Ma. These zircon dates are correlated with the timing of the following: (1) the protoliths of precursor sediments of the metasedimentary granulites, deposited between 2530 and 1658 Ma; (2) a short-lived high-grade event ∼65–70 Myr before the culmination of the BM1 granulite-facies event; (3) a high-T anatectic event, corresponding to the peak BM1P metamorphism at TMax > 900°C; (4) final crystallization of anatectic melt at the solidus (cf. BM1R metamorphic stage). These chronological constraints from monazite and zircon, when integrated with the metamorphic reaction history and published geochronological data, allow recognition of three episodes of granulite-facies metamorphism in the CITZ at 1658 Ma (pre-BM1 event), between 1612 and 1574 Ma (BM1 event), and between 1572 and 1539 Ma (combined BM2 and BM3 events), as part of a latest Paleoproterozoic to Early Mesoproterozoic orogenic event. This orogeny is linked to the growth of the Proto-Greater Indian Landmass.


Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls Robert Trivers "one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought." Stuart West, a professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, recently described Trivers as "one of the most influential evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin." And in 1999, Time named Trivers one of the 20th century9s 100 greatest thinkers and scientists. In the 1970s, Trivers penned a series of landmark papers that have been cited thousands of times and opened up the study of human relationships to biology. Looking at interactions between friends, lovers, and parent and child, he helped to lay the foundations for sociobiology, or a "Darwinian social theory," as he called it. Then he disappeared from view, only to reemerge in the 1990s. His latest effort, a book called The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, might well introduce him to a larger audience.


This study reports the regulation and purification of b-glucosidases from a thermotolerant Aspergillus terreus AN1 strain, previously reported for efficient deinking of composite paper waste. The differential expression of four beta-glucosidase isoforms, in response to carbon sources in production medium, was studied by electrophoretically resolving proteins by polyacrylamide gel electro-phoresis analysis (PAGE) and developing zymograms using methylum-belliferyl b-D glucoside as substrate. Three b-glucosidases (bGI, bGII & bGIII) were purified using chromatographic techniques. SDS-PAGE revealed the respective molecular masses of bGI, bGII, and bGIII, as 29, 43, and 98 KDa, and isoelectric point (pI) to be 2.8, 3.7, and 3.0. The b-glucosidases exhibited diverse pH and temperature optima as well as stability. b-Glucosidase I (bGI) specifically recognized pNP-b-glucopyranoside (pNPG) as a substrate, whereas, b-glucosidase II (bGII) and III (bGIII) also showed activities against cellobiose and salicin. In contrast to bGII and bGIII, the activity of bGI was positively influenced in the presence of hexoses/pentoses and alcohols. Km and Vmax for hydrolysis of pNPG by bGI, bGII, andbGIII were found to be 14.2 mM and 166.9 µmol -1mg protein -1, 4.37 mM, and 34.7 µmol -1mg proteins -1, and 11.1 mM and 378.7µ mol -1 mg protein -1, respectively.


A novel approach was developed to recognize vowels from continuous tongue and lip movements. Vowels were classified based on movement patterns (rather than on derived articulatory features, e.g., lip opening) using a machine learning approach. Recognition accuracy on a single-speaker dataset was 94.02% with a very short latency. Recognition accuracy was better for high vowels than for low vowels. This finding parallels previous empirical findings on tongue movements during vowels. The recognition algorithm was then used to drive an articulation-to-acoustics synthesizer. The synthesizer recognizes vowels from continuous input stream of tongue and lip movements and plays the corresponding sound samples in near real-time.


Rock abrasivity is very much influenced by the petrographic and physico-mechanical properties of rock and hence its assessment from common geomechanical rock properties is helpful for rock engineers in estimating excavation costs. In this paper LCPC and CERCHAR abrasivity tests, as well as a complete suite of mechanical and physical rock properties tests, were conducted on 51 rock samples collected from different locations in Pakistan. Moreover, petrographical studies of 48 rock specimens were performed along with the computation of Schimazek's F-value (F-value) and Rock Abrasivity Index (RAI). For the analysis of test results least square regression was employed. Initially the LCPC abrasivity coefficient (ABR) values were correlated with CERCHAR abrasivity index tests and reasonable relationships were observed. Statistically meaningful relationships were found between ABR and geotechnical wear indices (F-value and RAI). Possible correlations of LCPC test results with rock properties are also discussed. Finally multiple regression analysis was applied to find statistically significant correlation of ABR with petrographical and physico-mechanical rock properties. Test results show that RAI, Brazilian tensile strength and mean quartz grain size (Ø-qtz) prove to be the statistically best predictors of ABR from the rock properties determined. The developed correlations are specifically intended for rock engineers involved in designing excavation projects.


Recent food science research on packaging at the University of Alberta has focused on the use of biological agents (biopreservatives) to extend meat shelf life. This potential technology involves the introduction of microbial organisms into food packages to control or inhibit the growth of disease causing organisms such as Escherichia coli (commonly associated with hamburger disease). Biopreservatives are not yet in commercial use. The study evaluated Western Canadian consumers' preferences regarding the potential use of biopreservatives in fresh red meat packages (beef and pork). The study also assessed the effect of product origin on consumers' purchasing decisions; in particular, whether there is an increasing or decreasing probability of purchase if a fresh meat product is labeled as a product of Alberta, product of Canada, product of United States or if no origin is displayed. The research objectives were achieved through the collection and analysis of data from mailed survey questionnaires that included stated preference and scaling methodologies. The study used multinomial nested logit models to examine the potential effect of the identified product characteristics on the probability of a product being purchased. It is found that in aggregate, the potential use of biopreservatives in fresh meats packages is currently not acceptable to consumers, although many consumers are not opposed to research in this area. The price reductions required for consumer acceptance of a product packaged with a biopreservative are not currently feasible. The study also finds that Western Canadian consumers are generally loyal to meat products from Alberta and Canada as a whole, relative to fresh meat products sourced from the US or products without any indication of origin. For high quality beef products, Alberta is seen as a preferred source compared to other sources in Canada. Simulation results suggest that the price of beef cuts from other Canadian sources need to be reduced before consumers will be indifferent between that product and a beef cut from Alberta. On average, a price reduction of about 15 percent is required for a high quality beef product from other Canadian sources before consumers are indifferent to a Canadian labeled product versus an Alberta product. For a high quality pork cut and for ground beef, the study results indicate that consumers generally are indifferent between products from Alberta and products from other Canadian sources. Branding Alberta pork for export to other provinces does not appear to provide benefits at this time. A comparison of a US product and a product from Alberta suggests that the US product price would have to be reduced by at least 35 percent, whether for a beef cut or a pork cut, before consumers would be indifferent between these products from the two sources. There is a strong bias towards purchase of local product in meat consumption by Western Canadian consumers as long as the domestic product is perceived to be of the same quality as the US fresh meat product.


CV. Aneka Produsi is a private firm that active in textile field. The writer made research in CV. Aneka Produksi which had the quite high job stress of employee due to the work load have to be accomplished, and also the numerous claim among the individuals in the contradiction state did highly affect the mind and need the great responsibility on the job, so it causes psychological stress and affects the physical condition leading to exhaustion. The quite high of job stress affected the quite high turnover intentions level of employee, according to the 2016 data there were 38 employees resigned of 88 employees. Job satisfaction of the employees of CV. Aneka Produksi was good enough if viewed from the salary system applied which have already been appropriate with the government acts and the very conducive work environment due to supported by the adequate facilities. This research had the purpose to analyse the effect of job stress on the turnover intentions through job satisfaction as the mediation variable. The sample used were as large as 60 employees of production division which constitute of respondent numbers investigated. Data analysis used the assistance of SmartPLS 3.0. The results of the research indicated thats job stress had the positive and significant effect on the turnover intentions. The case backed up by the quite high work load indicator may cause employees undergo job stress that may implicate the turnover intentions occurrence. Job satisfaction had the negative and significant effect on turnover intentions, this case indicated that the better the job satisfaction, the lower the turnover intentions level. Job satisfaction capable to mediate between the effect of job stress on turnover intentions. This mediation relationship was indicated by the presence of phenomenon happened in CV. Aneka Produksi, that is, the employees who underwent job stress psychologically may cause job dissatisfaction, the employees did not enthusiastic in working so that implicate to commit the turnover intentions. Keywords: Job Stress, Turnover Intentions, Job Satisfaction.


In this study, we investigated the effect of the long-term (10 days) application of a defined and uniform level of fluid flow (uniform shear stress of 1.2 x 10(-3) N/m(2)) on human bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) cultured on different substrates (i.e., uncoated glass or calcium phosphate coated glass, Osteologictrade mark) in a 2D parallel plate model. Both exposure to flow and culture on Osteologic significantly reduced the number of cell doublings. BMSC cultured under flow were more intensely stained for collagen type I and by von Kossa for mineralized matrix. BMSC exposed to flow displayed an increased osteogenic commitment (i.e., higher mRNA expression of cbfa-1 and osterix), although phenotype changes in response to flow (i.e., mRNA expression of osteopontin, osteocalcin and bone sialoprotein) were dependent on the substrate used. These findings highlight the importance of the combination of physical forces and culture substrate to determine the functional state of differentiating osteoblastic cells. The results obtained using a simple and controlled 2D model system may help to interpret the long-term effects of BMSC culture under perfusion within 3D porous scaffolds, where multiple experimental variables cannot be easily studied independently, and shear stresses cannot be precisely computed.


Background: Considering the assumptions of cognitive load theory and using its reduction and optimization strategies in the design and development of instructional content is one of the main requirements for achieving effective learning. This study examined the effectiveness of instructional multimedia based on reducing the extraneous cognitive load in English language learning among Nursing students. Methods: In this study, pretest-posttest design with control group was used. The population included all the undergraduate students of Nursing at Alborz University of Medical Sciences in the academic year 2015-2016. Of these, 36 students were selected through a convenience sampling procedure and were randomly assigned to either of two groups in the study: control (n=17) and experimental (n=19). The instruments included instructional multimedia lessons and English grammar tests (pretest and posttest). For data analyses, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was applied. Results: The results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the posttest. This indicated that the instructional multimedia designed based on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load enhanced the learning rate of experimental group when compared to that of the control group. Conclusions: Using instructional multimedia based on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load helps improve learning by lowering the extraneous cognitive load learners experience during the process of learning.


In Trinidad, negative attitudes towards mental health and unwillingness to access mental health care because of cultural restrictions and stigma deter some women with somatization disorder and experiences of domestic violence from seeking help (Hadeed & El Bassel, 2006; Kassiram & Maharajh, 2010; Maharajh, 2010). Several theoretical explanations for these interrelated issues are discussed in this thesis; grounded in considerations of the influence of culture and ethnicity. Somatization disorder appears to be more prevalent among Asian populations, and has a higher comorbidity with domestic violence within this ethnicity (Bhui, 2002; DSM-IV-TR, 2002; Fernando, 2002; Hardin, 2002) with some even stating that somatization disorder may be a culture bound ailment (Kassiram & Maharajh, 2010; Schrag & Trimble, 2005; Samelius, Wijma, Wingren & Wijma, 2008). In many Asian cultures emotional distress is still stigmatized compared to medical problems, resulting in delayed help-seeking (Hardin, 2002). To date, no research has been conducted regarding the possible links between somatization disorder, domestic violence experiences and help-seeking in Trinidad. This thesis utilized a mixed methods approach to explore the occurrence of somatization disorder and domestic violence among Indo- and Afro-Trinidadian women and their help-seeking choices. Drawing on data gathered from a combination of questionnaires (250; 150 with women and 100 with religious leaders and medical doctors) and interviews (12 participants; employing an Interpretative Phenomenological Approach) the key findings were that Indo-Trinidadian women were three times more likely to have symptoms associated with somatization disorder if they had domestic violence experiences compared to Afro-Trinidadian women. Both Indo-and Afro-Trinidadian women appear to internalize their distress as a means of coping. The women also reported mixed opinions about assistance received from both religious leaders and medical doctors when they sought help for their somatic symptoms and domestic violence experiences. Finally, despite medical doctors being more knowledgeable and reporting that they possessed better resources for assessing and intervening for both somatization disorder and domestic violence compared to religious leaders, they were less inclined to explore these intersecting issues with women patients. These findings are congruent with international research: culture emerged as the crucial component for the manifestation, reporting, and assistance sought for both somatization disorder and domestic violence experiences specifically in Trinidad, West Indies.


Sharing similar cognitive structures among team members is one key element for the collective to solve problems and work more efficiently (DeChurch & Mesmer-Magnus, 2010). Research has shown that team cognition is positively associated with team performance in both organizational and educational settings. Team shared cognition constructs are relatively new constructs and have been identified in the literature as team mental models, shared mental models, information sharing, transactive memory systems, cognitive congruence, and group learning. Cannon-Bowers and Salas (2001) called for better measures of shared cognition to be developed, partially through the integration of shared cognition measures across disciplines. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to look at these six team cognition constructs in an effort to help identify which measure, if any, results in predicting team performance best. Results indicated that information sharing was statistically significant compared to team mental memory and group learning, and marginally significant compared to transactive memory systems. Additionally, shared mental models and cognitive congruence showed higher associations with performance compared to team mental models, group learning, and transactive memory systems.


Although physicians and hospitals are receiving incentives to use electronic health records (EHRs), there is little emphasis on workflow and process improvement by providers or vendors. As a result, many healthcare organizations end up with incomplete product specifications and poor adoption rates. Process Improvement with Electronic Health Records: A Stepwise Approach to Workflow and Process Management walks you through a ten-step approach for applying workflow and process management principles regardless of what stage your organization is in its EHR journey. Introducing workflow and process mapping as essential elements in healthcare improvement, it includes detailed guidance, helpful tools, and case studies in each chapter. It also: Compares EHR workflow and process management to other continuous quality improvement methodologies Highlights the processes that need to be addressed in EHR workflow and process redesign Describes the level of detail necessary for workflow and process mapping to be effective Explains how to create change agents and offers time-tested change management tools The book describes the process for getting stakeholders to create, document, and validate new workflows and processes. Using case studies to illustrate the unique requirements of health information technology (HIT) and EHR acquisition, this reference provides you with simple yet powerful toolsalong with step-by-step guidancefor the effective use of workflow and process mapping within healthcare.