This presentation will present findings from two needs assessments (students and staff) regarding academic writing skills.

In our teaching we find that many students, across Divisions, are falling behind in the development of written communication skills. This is frustrating for both students and teachers because writing proficiency is a graduate attribute that is expected by employers and the community. Formal teaching of writing skills is largely confined to Foundation units and the Student Learning section of the TLC, but skills acquisition is limited by the multiple demands and uneven delivery of skills in Foundation units and by the large number of students unable to participate at TLC workshops. We seek to complement and extend existing methods with a web based delivery of writing skills that draws on the experience of the Student Learning Centre and web sites elsewhere. Access will be facilitated through WebCT, with links to each Division.

Outcomes:

 Further development of writing skills.
 Opportunities for students to compare and reflect their level of skills.
 Relevant opportunities to practice skills.
 A resource to which staff can direct students in need of help.
 Opportunities for staff to review their guidelines, requirements and standards in terms of best practice.

This web-delivery approach will provides students with an additional avenue to acquire writing skills; easy access to an increasingly preferred mode of study; and highly relevant content, derived from an examination of two preliminary needs assessment surveys.

The project involves cross discipline relations and encourages staff from all Divisions to reflect on their teaching practice. By providing staff with feedback from student and staff surveys, the project may identify practices within/between Units, Schools and Divisions that further discussion, reflection and awareness of the need to alter, vary or standardise practices.


Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), acting via its cognate receptor (GnRHR) is the primary regulator of mammalian reproductive function. Pituitary sensitivity to GnRH can be directly correlated with GnRHR levels on the surface of the pituitary gonadotrope cells, which can be regulated at transcriptional, post-transcriptional and post-translational levels. This study investigated mechanisms of transcriptional regulation of mouse GnRHR expression in two mouse gonadotrope cell lines, αT3-1 and LβT2, using a combination of endogenous mRNA expression studies, promoter-reporter studies, a two-hybrid protein-protein interaction assay, Western blotting, and in vitro protein-DNA binding studies. In the first part of the study, the role of two GnRHR promoter nuclear receptor binding sites (NRSs) and their cognate transcription factors in basal and Protein Kinase A (PKA)-stimulated regulation of GnRHR promoter activity was investigated in αT3-1 cells. The distal NRS was found to be crucial for basal promoter activity in these cells. While the NRSs were not required for the PKA response in these cells, results indicate a modulatory role for the transcription factors Steroidogenic Factor-1 (SF-1) and Nur77 via these promoter elements. The second part of the study focused on elucidating the mechanism of homologous regulation of GnRHR transcription in LβT2 cells, with a view to defining the respective roles of PKA and Protein Kinase C (PKC) in the transcriptional response to GnRH. In addition, the respective roles of the NRSs, the cyclic AMP response element (CRE) and the Activator Protein-1 (AP-1) promoter cis elements, together with their cognate transcription factors, in basal and GnRH-stimulated GnRHR promoter activity, were investigated. Homologous upregulation of transcription of the endogenous gene was confirmed, and was quantified by means of real-time RTPCR. The GnRH response of the endogenous gene and of the transfected promoter-reporter construct required PKA and PKC activity, and the GnRH response of the promoter-reporter construct was found to be dependent on a functional AP-1 site. Furthermore, GnRH treatment resulted in increased binding of phosphorylated cAMP-response element binding protein (phospho-CREB) and decreased expression and binding of SF-1 to their cognate cis elements in vitro, and stimulated a direct interaction between SF-1 and CREB, suggesting that these events are also required for the full transcriptional response to GnRH. This study is the first providing detail regarding the mechanism of transcriptional regulation of GnRHR expression in LβT2 cells by GnRH. Based on results from this study, a model has been proposed which outlines for the first time the kinase pathways, the promoter


We introduce the notion of "non-malleable codes" which relaxes the notion of error correction and error detection. Informally, a code is non-malleable if the message contained in a modified codeword is either the original message, or a completely unrelated value. In contrast to error correction and error detection, non-malleability can be achieved for very rich classes of modifications. We construct an efficient code that is non-malleable with respect to modifications that affect each bit of the codeword arbitrarily (i.e., leave it untouched, flip it, or set it to either 0 or 1), but independently of the value of the other bits of the codeword. Using the probabilistic method, we also show a very strong and general statement: there exists a non-malleable code for every "small enough" family F of functions via which codewords can be modified. Although this probabilistic method argument does not directly yield efficient constructions, it gives us efficient non-malleable codes in the random-oracle model for very general classes of tampering functions—e.g., functions where every bit in the tampered codeword can depend arbitrarily on any 99% of the bits in the original codeword. As an application of non-malleable codes, we show that they provide an elegant algorithmic solution to the task of protecting functionalities implemented in hardware (e.g., signature cards) against "tampering attacks." In such attacks, the secret state of a physical system is tampered, in the hopes that future interaction with the modified system will reveal some secret information. This problem was previously studied in the work of Gennaro et al. in 2004 under the name "algorithmic tamper proof security" (ATP). We show that non-malleable codes can be used to achieve important improvements over the prior work. In particular, we show that any functionality can be made secure against a large class of tampering attacks, simply by encoding the secret state with a non-malleable code while it is stored in memory.


Review: Nature's Northwest: The North Pacific Slope in the Twentieth Century By William G. Robbins and Katrine Barber Robbins, William G. and Barber, Katrine. Nature's Northwest: The North Pacific Slope in the Twentieth Century. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2011. 312 pp. ISBN 9780816529599, US$24.95, recycled, acid-free paper. In Nature's Northwest, William G. Robbins and Katrine Barber offer a narrative of the twentieth-century Pacific Northwest that goes beyond typical constraints. They show how the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana share similar histories of social inequality and resource development despite geopolitical borders. Robbins and Barber also highlight how international and national processes shaped regional interactions, as cultures collided and local fortunes shifted with the tides of outside markets. In doing so, they paint the Pacific Northwest as a place where natural abundance helps knit together the social landscape of the region and connect it to the rest of the world. Robbins and Barber start their story of the Pacific Northwest in the late-nineteenth century when optimism pervaded the region. They show how railroads linked local resource economies to the demands of distant cities and served as symbols of the Pacific Northwest's transition to the modern world. Cities, including Spokane, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, experienced rapid growth after railroads fostered greater access to timber, mineral, and agricultural wealth. Robbins and Barber further illustrate that these new connections between nature and industrial society created a host of consequences. Native Americans and First Peoples lost lands to speculators, immigrant laborers faced discriminatory local laws, and reformers and unionists clashed with large businesses. In other words, as the Pacific Northwest developed its resources it also developed social inequalities. Social and cultural developments connected to local resources as well as global processes throughout the twentieth century. The stock market crash in 1929 highlighted the region's dependence on natural resources and outside demands. World War Two contributed to a mid-century population and industrial production boom. Postwar literature reflected concerns of indigenous groups and Japanese-American internees. Paintings depicted clearcut forests and environmental transformation. For Robbins and Barber, regional and international forces and social and environmental influences intersected in the Pacific Northwest. …


Recently Iranian government planned to eliminate subsidies in order to manage consumption and allocation of natural resources. Thus, a cashing subsidy payment system has been applied since end of 2010. In first stage, subsidy removal of different kinds of energy and resources like water were considered. Government's plan was to pay cash subsidies directly to consumers. In this paper, we focused on the consequences of removing water subsidy in Tajan basin, an area in the north of Iran. We modeled different ways of water supply and demand in Tajan basin by system dynamics approach. In fact, we tried to show the effects of subsidy removal policy in municipal demand of water in Tajan and examined two kinds of implementing this policy. In the first strategy, water price is increased smoothly over modeling horizon which is considered to be 24 months. While in the second one, price is increased suddenly in the first month, exactly similar to the way the government has done. We designed third strategy in which no subsidy elimination happens and prices increase according to inflation. A water surplus indicator was considered for comparing these strategies which was calculated by decreasing water supply from its demand. First strategy was shown to be best one. (Younes Nazari, Hamid Amadeh, Mahdi Goldani, Mehdi Zamanipor. A System Dynamics Approach to Water Demand Management, Case Study of Tajan Basin. J Am Sci 2013;9(6):76-87). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.jofamericanscience.org . 10


IP networks can have difficulty coping with delay-sensitive VoIP traffics during emergency situations caused by fires and related disasters. During emergencies there is a huge increase in voice and video traffic, causing a huge strain on the network. The strain on the network is as a result of both essential and non-essential traffic. In such crisis situations, calls originating from or destined for rescue personnel, such as doctors and police, are considered essential. Any other calls from eyewitnesses and the public are considered non-essential, since they degrade the quality of service for the emergency response teams by consuming the scarce network resources. Providing the rescue team with the quality of service that they require necessitates network access restriction for non-essential traffic. In this paper, the authors present a voice and video service that uses Context-Awareness and Semantic Web technologies to restrict network access to privileged users during crisis situations. The service monitors the network for crisis conditions, enables the network to respond appropriately when a crisis occurs, detects the end of the crisis and reverts to its default state.


We present a novel approach for studying the kinetics of protein folding. The framework has evolved from robotics motion planning techniques called probabilistic roadmap methods (prms) that have been applied in many diverse fields with great success. In our previous work, we used a Prm-based technique to study protein folding pathways of several small proteins and obtained encouraging results. In this paper, we describe how our motion planning framework can be used to study protein folding kinetics. In particular, we present a refined version of our Prm-based framework and describe how it can be used to produce potential energy landscapes, free energy landscapes, and many folding pathways all from a single roadmap which is computed in a few hours on a desktop PC. Results are presented for 14 proteins. Our ability to produce large sets of unrelated folding pathways may potentially provide crucial insight into some aspects of folding kinetics, such as proteins that exhibit both two-state and three-state kinetics, that are not captured by other theoretical techniques.


The main objective of this article is to shed some light on the much-neglected area of translating gender between Persian and English. More specifically, it sets out to investigate the different strategies employed for translating the textual indicators of gender in the specified corpus of the study as well as the socio-cultural and ideological factors influencing them qualitatively. This objective is achieved through following a two-level methodology at descriptive and explanatory levels throughout the article and the following results are attained: 1) five broad categories of gender-translation strategies were identified in the corpus of the study; and 2) the aforementioned strategies were judged to be influenced by socio-cultural and ideological factors of different types.


Background Extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MFs) are classified as a possible carcinogenic factor (Group 2B). This study assessed the association between ELF-MFs and childhood cancer through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods Three databases were searched in January 2020. We conducted a meta-analysis for the association between the ELF-MFs exposure level and childhood cancer. Results A total of 33 studies were identified. Thirty studies with 186,223 participants were included in the meta-analysis. Children exposed to 0.2-, 0.3-, and 0.4-μT ELF-MFs had a 1.26 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.06–1.49), 1.22 (95% CI 0.93–1.61), and 1.72 (95% CI 1.25–2.35) times higher odds of childhood leukemia. In childhood brain tumors, children exposed to 0.2-μT had a 0.95 (95% CI 0.59–1.56) times higher odds, and those exposed to 0.4-μT ELF-MFs had a 1.25 (95% CI 0.93–1.61). Children exposed to 0.2- and 0.4-μT ELF-MFs had a 1.10 (95% CI 0.70–1.75) and 2.01 (95% CI 0.89–4.52) times higher odds of any childhood cancers. Conclusions Significant associations were observed between exposure to ELF-MFs and childhood leukemia. Furthermore, a possible dose-response effect was also observed.


The present report assesses women's and men's participation in coffee and cocoa value chains in Latin America in order to identify key considerations and next steps for the development of research, policy and practice on value chain upgrading for enhanced smallholder prosperity. In particular, the report analyzes the differential roles that women and men play and the benefits they perceive from their participation in coffee and cocoa value chains. It also considers the role of producer organizations in limiting or enhancing women's participation in and benefits from coffee and cocoa value chains. The report first reviews existing studies of gender and coffee and cocoa value chains in Latin American countries in order to identify principal trends; then, the paper focuses on Peru and Nicaragua as two country cases. In general, the report demonstrates that while factors such as labor burdens, access to productive resources, and socio-cultural norms can limit women's participation in and returns from coffee and cocoa value chains in comparison to that of men, varied initiatives have sought to address these restricting conditions via producer organizations. The extent and circumstances of their success in advancing gender equality in coffee and cocoa value chains will be an important area for future analysis.


The suspected presence of vast hydrocarbon deposits in the adjacent waters of the Senkaku/Diaoyu island group renders these features intrinsically valued for the maritime boundary to be drawn between Japan and China in the East China Sea. Given that offshore geographical features qualifying as islands in a legal sense may potentially generate extensive areas of seabed jurisdiction in the same manner as continents, the connection between the features' maritime generating capacity and the associated sovereign rights over surrounding seabed energy resources becomes self-evident. This paper considers the legal status of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea and the potential legal implications for the future maritime delimitation between China and Japan. In doing so, it reviews the relevant provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the regime of islands and applies this analysis to the case of the Senkaku/Diaoyu features in the East China Sea. It also considers the most recent South China Sea Arbitration Award on the interpretation and application of Article 121 of UNCLOS to the disputed South China Sea insular features. The paper concludes that whilst there has been no certain rule or consensus on how the said provisions of UNCLOS are to be interpreted and applied, it is highly doubtful that an international court or arbitral tribunal would find any of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands being an island in a legal sense.


Malaria is one among four main infectious diseases leading in death for the under-five children in Africa. This study aim to determine prevalence of malaria and social demographic factors related with children under-five in Tanzania. The study used cross section data extracted from Tanzania demographic health survey collected from 2015 to 2016. A sample of 9,322 under five children with malaria rapid diagnostic test results was obtained from 10,899 households. Complimentary log-log model was used to determine factors associated with malaria among children under five years. The study reveals that malaria prevalence increases with increase in age, varies with place and zone of residence, being highest to the rural areas compared to urban. Complementary log-log model estimates has also indicated that Western zone was having a highest mean occurrence of children with malaria compared to all other zones whereas Zanzibar (Adjusted Parameter estimates = -4.521, CI: -5.92,-3.13) was having a lowest mean occurrence compared to Western zone and all other zones. The risk of malaria among under-five children was positively related with family wealth index. The results show that malaria decreases with an increase in wealth. Other explanatory variables which include; child sex, mother's age, marital status and education level, as well as mosquito net ownership were not statistically significant associated with malaria at 5% level. Therefore children's age, place of residence, zone of residence and wealth index are significant predictors of malaria in Tanzania. Particular emphasis on education and interventions across the groups need to be prioritized for continued improvements in targeting high prevalent areas to reduce malaria risks, especially to the children under-five years.

 Key words: Malaria, children under five years, complementary log-log model.


In this article, we describe the case of a patient who, under the direction of a multidisciplinary case committee, underwent both an ablative cingulotomy and subsequent bilateral deep brain stimulation placement in the Cg25 area. Review of this case provides a means of comparing the two techniques and of illustrating what we feel are some important advantages to using stimulation in the treatment of major depression. This report also provides potential insight into common and unique mechanisms mediating the two procedures.


This thesis investigates some problems related to graph colouring, or, more precisely, graph re-colouring. Informally, the basic question addressed can be phrased as follows. Suppose one is given a graph G whose vertices can be properly k-coloured, for some k ≥ 2. Is it possible to transform any k-colouring of G into any other by recolouring vertices of G one at a time, making sure a proper k-colouring of G is always maintained? If the answer is in the affirmative, G is said to be k-mixing. The related problem of deciding whether, given two k-colourings of G, it is possible to transform one into the other by recolouring vertices one at a time, always maintaining a proper k-colouring of G, is also considered.
These questions can be considered as having a bearing on certain mathematical and 'real-world' problems. In particular, being able to recolour any colouring of a given graph to any other colouring is a necessary pre-requisite for the method of sampling colourings known as Glauber dynamics. The results presented in this thesis may also find application in the context of frequency reassignment: given that the problem of assigning radio frequencies in a wireless communications network is often modelled as a graph colouring problem, the task of re-assigning frequencies in such a network can be thought of as a graph recolouring problem.
Throughout the thesis, the emphasis is on the algorithmic aspects and the computational complexity of the questions described above. In other words, how easily, in terms of computational resources used, can they be answered? Strong results are obtained for the k = 3 case of the first question, where a characterisation theorem for 3-mixing graphs is given. For the second question, a dichotomy theorem for the complexity of the problem is proved: the problem is solvable in polynomial time for k ≤ 3 and PSPACE-complete for k ≥ 4. In addition, the possible length of a shortest sequence of recolourings between two colourings is investigated, and an interesting connection between the tractability of the problem and its underlying structure is established. Some variants of the above problems are also explored.


A semistructured cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programme for depression was adapted for use with Maori adult clients with depression. Adaptations were developed in consultation with an advisory group consisting of Maori clinical psychologists and kaumatua with experience working in mental health services. The programme was piloted with 2 participants who were clients of a Maori mental health service. The programme builds on a more traditional CBT treatment programme by integrating concepts such as whakatauki, whanaungatanga, whanau involvement, and whakapapa into the therapeutic context. Despite limitations the results demonstrate considerable promise. Depressive symptoms increased substantially in both cases and both clients reflected positively on the adaptations incorporated into therapy.


Over the last several centuries, we have been undergoing a profound sociocultural transformation, which relates to the recent emergence of international law. This transformation is every bit as fundamental as those that we once went through when first transitioning from hunter-gatherer forms of life (which did not yet have legal systems or engage a distinctive sense of legal obligation) to more sedentary forms of agricultural living (with larger population densities, incipient domestic legal institutions, and — ultimately — an emergent distinction between morality and law.) As in that earlier case, our present transformation is one of the most important ones within our natural history as a species. We have, however, failed to understand critical aspects of this transformation, and this is due in large part to three more basic failures: first, our failure to appreciate certain critical dimensions to the philosophical question whether international law is law; second, our failure to appreciate how our natural sense of obligation functions, and the sociocultural conditions under which a new and distinctive sense of international legal obligation can arise and function in our lives; and, third, our failure to recognize the distinctive and pervasive role that outcasting (as that phenomenon has been introduced and described by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro in their recent Yale Law Journal article of the same name) plays in international law as a functional substitute for physical sanctioning in domestic law.This Essay embeds Hathaway an Shapiro's main findings in Outcasting within a more general (and purely naturalistic) account of the psychology of obligation — as developed in my prior work on the Deep Structure of Law and Morality. I argue that the pervasive practices of outcasting that Hathaway and Shapiro have identified in the international arena should be understood as providing the 'evolutionary stability conditions' for a new and distinctive sense of international legal obligation in us; and that this shared sense of obligation provides one of the basic preconditions for the emergence of a genuine and distinctive de facto system of international law. These arguments thus place some of Hathaway and Shapiro's main claims about the existence of international law on a much firmer and more empirical foundation, while leading to the development of a distinctive and more accurate account of the relationship between outcasting and the emergence of international law.There is also a normative point to this Essay. It argues that, once we understand the specific types of sociocultural transformations that lead to the emergence of distinctive legal systems (along with the psychological attitudes that tend to animate them), we will also see that we are committed to a specific method for evaluating international law. This method shows why it may be appropriate to import certain familiar forms of evaluation from one domain where law has uncontroversially emerged (namely, the domestic arena) to another where it appears to be emerging (namely, the international arena). This method also cautions against the uncritical application of consequentialist standards to evaluate international law.


Historically, the process of nutrition transition begins with the shifts in demographic transition, moving away from high to low mortality, high to low fertility, high percentage of young population to high proportion of elderly population, high to low population growth rate; and short to long life expectancy at birth. The objective is to identify where Nepal is in demographic transition and whether demographic transition is considered as one of the proximate covariates of nutrition transition. Nepal's position in the demographic transition has been identified by using Popkin's framework which is scaled from Pattern I to Pattern V. The time series trends indicated that new patterns of demographic transition have been observed during 1995-2010, which is similar to the pattern IV of the nutrition transition as described by Popkin. Before 1970, the death rates were fluctuating around 30 to 50 deaths per thousand populations. The birth rate per thousand populations was more than 44, which was really high. Both fertility and mortality appear to start declining from 1970. During 1995-2010, birth rate declined from 38 to 24 per thousand populations. The time series trends indicated that new patterns of demographic transition have been observed during 1990-2010, which is similar to the transition between Pattern III and IV of the nutrition transition. Nepal is a country with faster declined in mortality followed by fertility decline, increasing life expectancy above 60 years, decreasing age-structure of below 15 years of population, increasing trends of urban population and beginning of large scale international migration. It may be concluded from above evidences that Nepal is across the new pattern of transition after 1990s in the demographic transition including the increasing risk of chronic diseases of elderly people related to excess consumption of fat, sugar and process foods.


We model dynamic mechanisms for a global commons. Countries benefit from both consumption and aggregate conservation of an open access resource. A country's relative value of consumption-to-conservation is privately observed and evolves stochastically. An optimal quota maximizes world welfare subject to being implementable by Perfect Bayesian equilibria. With complete information, the optimal quota is first best; it allocates more of the resource each period to countries with high consumption value. Under incomplete information, the optimal quota is fully compressed --- initially identical countries always receive the same quota even as environmental costs and resource needs differ later on. We show that this is true even when private information is negligible.


See https://www.unicode.org/charts/ for access to a complete list of the latest character code charts. See https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-15.1/ for charts showing only the characters added in Unicode 15.1. See https://www.unicode.org/Public/15.1.0/charts/ for a complete archived file of character code charts for Unicode 15.1. See https://www.unicode.org/charts/About.html#Conventions for conventions used in these code charts, and other general information.


It is important to include the contribution of the slamming-induced response in the structural design of large vessels with a significant bow flare. At the same time it is a challenge to develop rational tools to determine the slamming-induced loads and the prediction of their occurrence. Today it is normal practice to apply a standard sea-keeping procedure to determine the relative velocity distribution between the water surface and the hull and then to estimate the bottom slamming loads and the bow-flare slamming loads based on two-dimensional formulations similarly to water-entry problems. The pressure distribution as well as the total force is then determined by integration over a pseudo-three-dimensional presentation of the hull geometry. In this paper the evaluation of the slamming load is taken one step further by performing direct three-dimensional, fully non-linear numerical calculations in a realistic wave environment. Both the global and the local slamming loads are assessed numerically using a finite-volume formulation with the free surface captured by a volume-of-fluid technique. This numerical procedure is justified by comprehensive validation studies where numerically evaluated slamming pressures are compared with experimentally measured results. To obtain an insight into the three-dimensional flow effects the next step is to apply the validated numerical procedure to evaluate and compare the accuracy and performance of the traditionally used two-dimensional formulations by a comparison with three-dimensional numerical formulations for a fine-form Panamax container ship bow hitting a flat water surface at a constant trim angle. Finally, the slamming evaluation is carried out on the basis of a three-dimensional case study of the same container ship sailing in a head sea at half the service speed in a critical wave episode which is defined conditional on a given extreme response level of the hull girder bending moment.


The rules of the trade policy arena differ from those in academia. How can an economic researcher survive, let alone thrive, in what may appear to be a trade policy jungle? The purpose of this paper is not just to offer guidance in this respect but also to think through the factors that determine the supply and demand for timely, relevant policy-relevant insights into commercial policy matters. Understanding the latter provides much of the rationale for the former. Advice follows analysis, as it should do. Economic researchers have certain advantages that they can make immediate use of in the jungle and some baggage that they would do well to shed.


The anesthesia charts of adult patients undergoing dental surgery lasting >1 h (sinus lift, multiple implants, multiple wisdom teeth extractions) were retrospectively analyzed comparing meperidine/promazine (MEPPROM, 93 cases, 2018-20) to midazolam/fentanyl (MIDFENT, 415 cases, 2011-2020). Patients signed an informed consent, completed a health questionnaire; afer diazepam premedication and full monitoring sedation started with midazolam 1-2 mg: the group MEPPROM received the mixture according to weight, the group MIDFENT received additional midazolam and fentanyl 25-50 microgr. Midazolam for sedation or fentanyl for analgesia was allowed in both groups on demand, aiming at Ramsay score 2-3. Dental anesthesia (articaine or mepivacaine + epinephrine) followed, repeated as needed. The study variables were collected every 5 minutes on specially designed sheets:oxygen desaturation ( 120 bpm), hyper/hypotension (>180, 30% difference versus basal), sleep (Ramsay score 4), hypercapnia (etCO2> 40 mmg), nausea, vasovagal reactions, arrhythmias. Age (59), weight (KG 70), height (cm 167). ASA class (1-3), sex were equally distributed between the 2 groups; surgery was longer in the MEPPROM group (148 min vs 118) (averages). Hypertension incidence was similar, but 40 MIDFENT patients received clonidine vs 1 in the MEPPROM. Frequence (%) of hypotension (20 vs 2), tachycardia (15 vs 1), bradycardia (11 vs 4) were always greater in the group MEPPROM. Incidence of desaturation, hypercapnia, excessive sedation were similar. Side effects did not differ:nausea (2 MEPPROM, 4 MIDFENT but with frequent use of haloperidol), vasovagal syndromes (2 MEPPROM, 5 MIDFENT). All patients were discharged within 1 hr after surgery. Under careful titration MEPPROM offer clinical conditions similar to the established MIDFENT routine; however haemodynamic disturbances are more frequent and call for expert vigilance and continuous monitoring of vital signs.


Background To date, there are no formal guidelines or referral pathways for acute anterior uveitis (AAU) patients developed or endorsed by any international or national societies. The objective of our study was to develop and validate an assessment algorithm for referral from ophthalmologists of appropriate AAU patients to rheumatology that will aid the early diagnosis of the spondyloarthropathy (SpA). Methods All consecutive patients attending the emergency department of local ophthalmology hospital with AAU, but who did not have a known diagnosis of SpA, were eligible to participate in this study. Patients with any other known cause of AAU were excluded. Two independent cohorts were enrolled. Test algorithm and Dublin Uveitis Evaluation Tool (DUET) algorithm (revised form of test algorithm) were used in these cohorts to identify patients as SpA suspects and non-SpA controls, respectively. Results STUDY PHASE-1. ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT COHORT (n=101): After rheumatologic evaluation of the entire cohort, 41.6% (n=42) had undiagnosed SpA. Our test algorithm was noted to have: sensitivity 100% and specificity 53.5%. Further regression analysis resulted in the development of the DUET algorithm which made the following improvements: sensitivity 95%, specificity 98%, positive likelihood ratio (LR) 56.19, and negative LR 0.04. STUDY PHASE-2. DUET ALGORITHM VALIDATION COHORT (n=72): After rheumatologic evaluation of the cohort, 40% (n=29) were diagnosed with SpA, with the following performance of DUET algorithm—sensitivity 96%, specificity 97%, positive LR 41.5 and negative LR 0.03. Conclusions Approximately 40% of patients presenting with idiopathic AAU have undiagnosed SpA. A simple to apply algorithm is described with excellent sensitivity and specificity.


Magnetic nanoparticles (5–100 nm in diameter) offer the science community a new dimension in many key areas of research, notably nano-medicine. However, use as catalyst support material (including enzyme immobilization) has largely been overlooked despite the benefits of a facile catalyst separation post-reaction with reuse through the application of an external magnetic field. This is largely due to the high cost associated with magnetic nanoparticle synthesis in addition to enzyme operating costs. This can, however, be compensated for by effective catalyst recycling in the production of high value chemicals, particularly chiral drugs and their intermediates, circumventing laborious multi-stage separation and purification procedures in conventional synthesis. Indeed, enzymes (such as lipase) on magnetic carriers have shown prolonged activity in organic solvents, even after recycling, when compared with free enzymes. Further developments can be directed at multi-functional magnetic nanoparticles with the creation of a reactant-specific micro-environment to facilitate multi-stepped reactions. The potential of enzyme-magnetic nanoparticle hybrids is discussed and applications in the synthesis of fine chemicals, including precursors for drugs, are identified. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry


In a previous study, new approaches have been introduced in the CFD-RANS modelling, according to which the concentration time scales are estimated as a function not only of the flow turbulence time scales but also of the pollutant travel times. The new approaches have been implemented for the calculation of the concentration fluctuation dissipation time scale and the maximum individual exposure at short time intervals using the k-ζ model for turbulence parameterisation. The purpose of this study is to implement and validate again the new methodology using the widely known standard k-e model. The validation is performed using two selected trials of the MUST experiment under neutral conditions. Special emphasis is given on the selection of the constant value of the concentration fluctuation dissipation time scale when the k-e model is used. Also, an intercomparison of the results between the two turbulence models is performed with a view to identifying model strengths and limitations.


Rule updates, such as policy or routing changes, occur frequently and instantly in software-defined networks managed by the controller. In particular, the controller software can modify the network routes by introducing new forwarding rules and deleting old ones in a distributed set of switches, a challenge that has received lots of attention in the last few years. In this paper, we present a problem that consists of determining the appropriate point in the rule update where it is safe to garbage collect old rules. To illustrate the difficulty of the problem, we list the previously proposed assumptions, like the upper-bound on the transmission delay of every packet through the network, and we offer a solution that alleviates these assumptions and significantly reduces the rule update time with a guarantee that no data packet is lost due to the rule alteration through the use of dedicated clean-up packets that detect the absence of in-flight packets. We then prove that the proposed technique guarantees per-packet consistency, blackhole-freedom, and loop-freedom. Our evaluations, via network emulations and real deployment in an SDN testbed, demonstrate that by using the proposed garbage collection solution the rule update times of the two-phase rule update can be reduced by up to 99%.


In this paper, we analyze how self-employed and employed mothers in several Latin American countries allocate their time throughout the day in order to balance their family and work responsibilities. Using data from time-use surveys for Mexico (2009), Peru (2010), Panama (2011), Ecuador (2012) and Colombia (2012), we find that self-employed mothers devote less time to paid work and more time to unpaid work and child care, compared to employed mothers, in the five countries. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that working mothers may want to decrease the number of hours they devote to paid work, and devote more time to their household responsibilities, and that self-employment may be used as a tool for this purpose. Thus, self-employment in Latin American countries may be seen as an instrument to improve the work-life balance of mothers.


Book synopsis:"In the last twenty years or so there has been an upsurge in the study of Palaeozoic fishes for solving geological problems, both in areas of biostratigraphy and biogeography. This has resulted in an explosion of data, much of it so new that it will take years for all the recent discoveries to be published. This book has resulted to fill the need to provide up-to-date summaries of global work in progress showing the application of both macroscopic and microscopic remains of Palaeozoic vertebrates to geological correlations, and to refinement of global palaeogeographic reconstructions."--from the Preface.

This book offers the first detailed treatment of palaeozoic vertebrates for use in correlations and in biogeographic studies. With thirteen chapters of systematic analysis of biostratigraphic and biogeographic data, it includes invaluable summaries of current research as well as new and significant contributions to the fields of geology and evolutionary biology. With charts and figures that show many of the important fossils discussed in the text, as well as stratigraphic, location, and taxonomic indexes, the book will interest palaeontologists, stratigraphers, and other earth scientists concerned with the early history of life on earth.


The osmotic membrane bioreactor (OMBR) is a hybrid biological-physical treatment process that has been gaining interest for wastewater treatment and water reuse. The OMBR couples semi-permeable forward osmosis (FO) membranes for physiochemical separation with biological activated sludge process for organic matter and nutrient removal. The driving force for water production in OMBR is the osmotic pressure difference across the FO membrane between the activated sludge and a concentrated draw solution, which is made with inorganic or organic salts that have a high osmotic pressure at relatively low concentrations. The draw solution becomes diluted during OMBR treatment and may be reconcentrated using reverse osmosis, membrane distillation, or thermal distillation processes. The combination of processes in the OMBR presents unique opportunities but also challenges that must be addressed in order to achieve successful commercialization. These challenges include membrane fouling, elevated bioreactor salinity that hinders process performance, degradation of the draw solution by chemicals that diffuse through the FO membrane, and the potential for simultaneous water, mineral, and nutrient recovery. In this article, results from past and most recent OMBR studies are summarized and critically reviewed. Information about similar and more established technologies (e.g., traditional porous membrane bioreactors and FO) is included to help compare and contrast state-of-the-art technologies and the novel OMBR approach, and to elucidate practical configurations that should be considered in future OMBR research and development.


Based on feedback from attendees at an environmental summit who requested information about regional water sources, a team comprised of a local nonprofit, a state university, and a cooperative extension office created a community water education program. Undergraduate student interns worked with the author to develop a 20-minute science-based presentation that was delivered in 14 different venues in a three-county region of northwestern North Carolina. Following each presentation there was a discussion session that highlighted questions about how water works and community concerns about water availability and management. Program evaluations reflect that people believed they better understood the science related to water quantity and that the key messages in the program were important to their communities.

http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Cockerill_Kristan_2010_Communicating How Water Works.pdf


OBJECTIVE
To compare recent trends in cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes among men and women with diabetes with those in the nondiabetic population.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study using provincial health claims data to identify adults with (n = 670,602) and without (n = 9,190,721) diabetes living in Ontario, Canada, between 1 April 1992 and 31 March 2000. We compared changes in the annual age-/sex-adjusted rates and numbers of subjects admitted for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke and of deaths from AMI, stroke, and all causes between those with and without diabetes.

RESULTS
Over the 8-year period, the rate of patients admitted for AMI and stroke fell to a greater extent in the diabetic than the nondiabetic population (AMI: -15.1 vs. -9.1%, P < 0.0001; stroke: -24.2 vs. 19.4%, P < 0.0001). Diabetic patients experienced similar reductions in case-fatality rates related to AMI and stroke than those without diabetes (-44.1 vs. -33.2%, P = 0.1; -17.1 vs. -16.6%, P = 0.9, respectively). Declines in all-cause mortality were also comparable in the two populations. Over the same period, the number of diabetes cases increased from 405,471 to 670,602. Thus, while CVD rates fell, the number of events occurring in this population rose substantially (AMI: +44.6%, stroke: +26.1%, AMI deaths: +17.2%, and stroke deaths: +13.2%).

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings demonstrate a significant reduction in the rate of people affected by CVD within the diabetic population. However, as the number of people with diabetes rises, so may the absolute burden of CVD in our society.


This paper considers large-scale linear discriminative language models trained using a distributed perceptron algorithm. The algorithm is implemented efficiently using a MapReduce/SSTable framework. This work also introduces the use of large amounts of unsupervised data (confidence filtered Google voice-search logs) in conjunction with a novel training procedure that regenerates word lattices for the given data with a weaker acoustic model than the one used to generate the unsupervised transcriptions for the logged data. We observe small but statistically significant improvements in recognition performance after reranking N-best lists of a standard Google voice-search data set.


An autonomous robot surviving in the 3D world may sample its environment as a 2D image sequence, each image differing slightly from its predecessor as a result of robot/scene motion. Furthermore, such a system may not require specific identification of objects within a scene but rather be more "concerned" as to which objects pose a threat or obstacle to some future action, or to the recovery of information about the robot's own motion relative to the scene (the so called ego-motion). This document introduces the concept of 3D environmental structure and sensor motion recovery from 2D image sequences and more especially the concept of an optical flow field. Problems inherent in both sensor and optical flow field characteristics are described and their consequences discussed. By considering the informational content of variously derived flow fields the requirement for 3D environmental structure constraints is introduced. Specific algorithms are classified, detailed and reduced to a canonical format. A parametric noise model is proposed and accuracy bounds derived. Conclusions and further work are presented.


Two-sided platform firms serve distinct customer groups that are connected through interdependent demand, and include major businesses such as the media industry, banking, and the software industry. A well known result of tax incidence is that consumers of a more heavily taxed good pay a higher price and thus buy less of the good. The present paper shows that this result need not hold in a two-sided market. On the contrary, a higher ad valorem tax may lower end-user prices and spur sales. Thus, two-sided platform firms may not at all engage in tax shifting via price increases. We further show that a higher ad valorem tax may undermine a firm's incentive to differentiate its product from that of its competitors. Finally, we demonstrate that the effects of increasing specific taxes may be the opposite of those of increasing value added taxes.


The study aimed at developing improved methods based on remote sensing and GIS techniques to increase cultivated area under irrigation. Landuse / landcover mapping was considered as the key component to prioritize locations for constructing appropriate recharge structures. Joganbedi scheme was proposed for this study. Joganbedi is situated 13 km. from Khargone, district Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, India. Command area of the proposed scheme lies in Beda sub-basin which is a tributary of the Narmada River. This area is of hard rock terrain and is occupied by the Deccan basalt. The main objective of the study was surface water conservation and management via multi-spectral information resulting from remotely sensed data to increase irrigation. High resolution GeoEye1 stereo images were used for generation of DEM, contour, landuse/landcover mapping, lineaments and drainage mapping. DEM was used for canal alignment. and further, contours were used to determine catchment, submergence /FRL, and command areas. Landuse/landcover statistics of submergence area helped to identify different land classes within the study area. These parameters are required for scheme planning. Additionally, rainfall data, maximum drawdown level, and dam height were collected as supporting parameters. The study concludes that landuse/landcover mapping is useful in identification of surface water conservation and management plan for irrigation purpose. It also proves that implementation of Joganbedi scheme will increase the cultivated area under irrigation, facilitate the farmers for multi season cropping and help in improving their economic condition.


Through analysis of remotely sensed sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration data, we investigate the impact of winds related to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) on sea ice extent around Antarctica. We show that positive SAM anomalies in the austral summer are associated with anomalously cold SSTs that persist and lead to anomalous ice growth in the following autumn, while negative SAM anomalies precede warm SSTs and a reduction in sea ice extent during autumn. The largest effect occurs in April, when a unit change in the detrended summertime SAM is followed by a 1.8±0.6 ×105 km2 change in detrended sea ice extent. We find no evidence that sea ice extent anomalies related to the summertime SAM affect the wintertime sea ice extent maximum. Our analysis shows that the wind anomalies related to the negative SAM during the 2016/2017 austral summer contributed to the record minimum Antarctic sea ice extent observed in March 2017.


Fluorescent linear dendronized polyols (LDPs) were prepared in two steps involving a ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) followed by acid-catalyzed deprotection. The resulting water-soluble fluorophores are compact in size (<6 nm) and show similar photostability compared to previously reported crosslinked dendronized polyols (CDPs) and significantly improved photostability compared to the free fluorophores. In contrast to the synthesis of CDPs, the production of LDPs requires less preparation time, synthetic effort, and significantly less Grubbs catalyst. The photophysical properties, including the photostability and emission wavelength of LDPs, can be further fine-tuned by incorporating different combinations of dendronized monomers and fluorophores. Interestingly, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) was observed when two different kinds of fluorophores were incorporated into the LDPs. This provides a new type of fluorophore with a large Stokes shift allowing fluorescence detection with reduced background overlap. Cytotoxicity and fluorescence imaging studies confirmed the biocompatibility of these LDPs, which make them potential candidates for biological applications.


Nutritional status is essential for the determination of mammalian reproductive performance, and insulin is one of the main indicators for such condition. This hormone is able to interfere, directly or indirectly, with CL function, leading to alterations in steroidogenic capacity and cell development and, consequently, early embryonic development. The aim of this work was to identify CL histological alterations caused by different insulin plasma concentrations in superovulated ewes, as well as their interference in CL progesterone production. Santa Ines ewes (n = 24, 4 years old) were divided into 3 treatments: control (T1, n = 9); hypoinsulinemic (T2, n = 6), and hyperinsulinemic (T3, n = 9). In order to become hypoinsulinemic, ewes were treated with a single dose of alloxan monohydrate (50 mg kg-1 i.v; Sigma-Aldich, St. Louis, MO, USA) 48 h before the beginning of the superovulation protocol, whereas the hyperinsulinemic group was treated with administrations of 20 IU of NPH human insulin at every 12 h (Biolin-N; BIOBRAS, Montes Claros, Brazil). All animals were fed corn silage and minerals ad libitum. Animals had their estrus synchronized with vaginal pessaries containing medroxyprogesterone acetate (60 mg) and were superovulated with porcine FSH (250 IU, PLUSET®, Calier, Spain) and eCG (250 IU, Novormon®, Schering-Plough, Kenilworth, NJ, USA), in a 13-day protocol. After removal of vaginal pessaries, blood samples used for quantification of progesterone and plasmatic insulin by radioimmunoassay were collected daily at 0700 h until the day before embryo recovery. Hysterectomy was performed in all groups after embryo recovery (T1: n = 3, T2: n = 6, and T3: n = 4), and ovaries were placed in buffered formalin saline. CL histological sections were evaluated by hematoxylin/eosin staining. Results were assessed by SAS statistical analysis software, using the MIXED procedure (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Mean values were compared by Tukey's test. The mean CL number was lower in T2 (5.0 ± 2.7; P < 0.05) compared with T1 (10.2 ± 5.1) and T3 (11.3 ± 3.0) animals. No histological differences were observed between treatments T1 and T3. However, CL within the T2 group had a higher number of cells with picnotic nuclei and strongly contracted eosinophilic cytoplasm. Such alterations are suggestive of cellular apoptosis. The T2 group also differed for P4 production (P < 0.01) from the second (T2: 2.23 ± 0.71 ηg mL-1; T1: 5.42 ± 4.01 ηg mL-1; T3: 6.44 ± 2.76 ηg mL-1) to the sixth day post-estrus (T2: 7.58 ± 7.00; T1: 24.79 ± 8.40; T3: 32.07 ± 0.85 ηg mL-1). The mean insulin plasma concentration differed between treatments (P < 0.01); higher concentrations were obtained in the T3 group (20.05 ± 7.50 μIU mL-1), whereas the T2 group had lower concentrations (10.18 ± 3.57 μIU mL-1) compared to controls (T1: 14.52 ± 3.80 μIU mL-1). In conclusion, low plasma concentration of insulin may restrict the response to superovulatory treatment and cause CL histological changes, suggesting a reduction in cell activity due to premature cellular senescence.


This work describes an analytical modeling for predicting the stator heat transfer in a discoidal system of an electrical machine. The configuration consists of a rotor-stator system surrounded by a cylindrical cover. We aim to fully predict the stator heat transfer taking into account variable parameters namely the rotational Reynolds number, the gap size ratio and the surface temperatures. In the range of 4.19×104 ≤ Re≤ 4.19×105 and 0.00333 ≤ G ≤ 0.08, CFD simulations are implemented. Unlike the studies in the literature with the ambient temperature being considered as the reference temperature to evaluate the convective heat transfer coefficient, the average bulk temperature in the air gap is considered here. In this way, the mean Nusselt number correlation becomes independent of the ambient temperature. After that, a linear correlation between the bulk fluid temperature in the air gap and the surface temperature of the rotor, the stator and the cover is constructed. On the other hand, CFD simulations are carried out for different ranges of the rotational Reynolds number and the gap size ratio at various surface temperature values. Subsequently, with the aid of the least squares method together with the curve fitting procedure, the appropriate formulations for the mean Nusselt number of the stator surfaces are derived. It is found that the proposed correlation is quite versatile in predicting the convective heat transfer of the stator surface in the disk type electrical machines. The results show that there is a gap size ratio for which the average convective heat transfer for the stator facing rotor in the gap reaches a minimum.


Low global milk prices are placing dairy farmers under significant cash flow pressure. This article investigates the severity of these cash flow pressures, and the potential financial stability implications if the payout remains low for an extended period. Most farmers are estimated to make cash losses in the current season, compounding cash flow pressures experienced in the later part of the 2014-15 season. Despite some farms with high debts facing considerable difficulties, most farms are expected to remain viable over the medium term. Losses for the banking system as a whole are estimated to be manageable even under a severe stress scenario for the dairy sector.


The group of scientists that make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found in 2007 that the warming of Earth's climate is unequivocal and largely due to human activity. Earth's climate has changed in the past, though the recent magnitude and pace of changes are unprecedented in human existence. Recent decades have been warmer than at any time in roughly 120,000 years. Most of this warming can be attributed to anthropogenic activity, primarily burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) for energy. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases, also known as greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere. This warming cannot be explained by natural causes (volcanic and solar) alone. It can be said with confidence that human activities are primarily responsible for the observed 1.5 ˚F increase in 20th century temperatures in the Pacific Northwest. A warmer climate will affect this state substantially. In 2007, the Oregon State Legislature charged the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, via HB 3543, with assessing the state of climate change science including biological, physical and social science as it relates to Oregon and the likely effects of climate change on the state. This inaugural assessment report is meant to act as a compendium of the relevant research on climate change and its impacts on the state of Oregon. This report draws on a large body of work on climate change impacts in the western US from the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington and the California Climate Action Team. In this report, we also identify knowledge gaps, where we acknowledge the need for more research in certain areas. We hope this report will serve as a useful resource for decision-makers, stakeholders, researchers and all Oregonians. The following chapters address key sectors that fall within the biological, physical and social sciences in the state of Oregon.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the pain experience of seriously ill hospitalized patients and their satisfaction with control of pain during hospitalization. To understand the relationship of level of pain and dissatisfaction with pain control to demographic, psychological, and illness-related variables.

DESIGN
Prospective, cohort study.

SETTING
Five teaching hospitals.

PATIENTS
Patients for whom interviews were available about pain (n = 5,176) from a total of 9,105 patients in the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments (SUPPORT).

INTERVENTIONS
None.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Patients were interviewed after study enrollment about their experiences with pain. When patients could not be interviewed due to illness, we used surrogate (usually a family member) responses calibrated to patient responses (from the subset of interviews with both patient and surrogate responses). Ordinal logistic regression was used to study the association of variables with level of pain and satisfaction with its control. Nearly 50% of patients reported pain. Nearly 15% reported extremely severe pain or moderately severe pain occurring at least half of the time, and nearly 15% of those patients with pain were dissatisfied with its control. After adjustment for confounding variables, older and sicker patients reported less pain, while patients with more dependencies in activities of daily living, more comorbid conditions, more depression, more anxiety, and poor quality of life reported more pain. Patients with colon cancer reported more pain than patients in other disease categories. Levels of reported pain varied among the five hospitals and also by physician specialty. After adjustment for confounding variables, dissatisfaction with pain control was more likely among patients with more severe pain, greater anxiety, depression, and alteration of mental status, and lower reported income; dissatisfaction with pain control also varied among study hospitals and by physician specialty.

CONCLUSIONS
Pain is common among severely ill hospitalized patients. The most important variables associated with pain and satisfaction with pain control were patient demographics and those variables that reflected the acute illness. Pain and satisfaction with pain control varied significantly among study sites, even after adjustment for many potential confounders. Better pain management strategies are needed for patients with the serious and common illnesses studied in SUPPORT.


Online simulations have their purpose and they are economically efficient to conduct. Indeed, participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk will complete online studies for literally pennies. But these types of studies do not supply the type of evidence that is likely to affect the decisions made by legal professionals. If experimental simulations are to have a real-world impact, it is time for the field to ween off ecologically invalid experiments and invest more resources to better emulate the setting and conditions of a jury when studying the impact of neuro/genetic evidence on jurors.


This dissertation studies corruption and collusion with data derived from a laboratory experiment and household data. In Chapter 1 I study experimental procurement auctions with bribery and a public reserve to test for the tacitly collusive equilibrium described by Compte et al. (2005). Three sellers compete for 40 periods to sell a single item to a computerized buyer who accepts bribes and determines ties in bids and bribes randomly. In the closing periods, only 13.5% of auctions display the collusive equilibrium, but 58.7% of selling prices are noncompetitive. In comparison with simulated predictions for auctions that are corrupt but competitive, the mean selling price is 6.2% higher, efficiency is 35.2% lower, and the mean subject profit is 464% higher. Confusion leads to imperfect collusion, though some subjects learn to bid higher by observing bids. Men are more likely to bid the reserve. In Chapter 2 I present a method to detect corruption using only household data. I apply stochastic frontier (SF) analysis to measure the degree to which corrupt Chinese households underreport their income in comparison with other households, assuming the resultant differential is illegal income. Corrupt households on average underreport their income by 10%. I compare my results and method to those of Zhong (2018), who uses the same data but another method. Our results are similar, though only SF analysis 1) provides evidence of statistical significance, and 2) addresses endogeneity. My method provides an easy way to quantify the relative corruption between groups, regions, and countries. In Chapter 3 I apply the method of Chapter 2 to an Indonesian dataset. I find that the true incomes of public-sector households are, on average, about 50% higher than their reported income. I then divide the sample to support the findings of Martinez-Bravo et al. (2017), who exploit the fact that district mayors of the Suharto regime could finish their terms during the democratic transition, leading to exogenous variation in corruption exposure. When I restrict my sample to shorter-exposed districts, my measurement falls to 37.1%; when I restrict my sample to longerexposed districts, my measurement rises to 56.2%.


An emerging Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite with a flower-like microsphere structure has been synthesized by a solvothermal method using CTAB as a template agent. It is found that the obtained Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite showed a good catalytic performance for the hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol. The catalytic times of the conversion of up to 90% for the Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite, Bi2Se3 and BiOBr are about 5.0, 12.5 and 15.0 min, respectively. The enhanced catalytic activity of the Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite results from a synergistic effect of Bi2Se3 and BiOBr, probably owing to the unique structure, and the combination promotes the transfer of electrons. A self-assembling growth mechanism of the Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite is proposed by observing the morphology and composition of the products at different times. It is found that BiOBr microspheres first formed, then BiOBr microspheres gradually reacted with selenium powder to grow the Bi2Se3/BiOBr composite.


The impact of an aqueous extract of Bauhinia Blakeana leaves (AEBBL) in controlling the corrosion of mild steel in bore well water medium has been demonstrated by mass loss method and electrochemical measurements. The extract is characterized by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and the active ingredients present in the AEBBL are identified by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The surface morphology is examined with the help of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the surface roughness analysis is done by Atomic force microscopy (AFM). Weight loss method reveals that 8 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑣/𝑣 of the extract offers a maximum corrosion inhibition efficiency of 96.62 % . Potentiodynamic polarization study (PDP) and Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) are used to study the mechanistic aspects of corrosion inhibition. Both the double layer capacitance ( 𝐶 (cid:3031)(cid:3039) ) and corrosion current ( 𝐼 (cid:3030)(cid:3042)(cid:3045)(cid:3045) ) values decreases while the charge transfer resistance ( 𝑅 (cid:3030)(cid:3047) ) value increases with the increase in concentration of AEBBL. The potentiodynamic polarisation reveal that AEBBL acts as mixed type inhibitor with primarily cathodic effectiveness. SEM and AFM documented the development of shielding coating on the mild steel surface.


We investigate a spiking neuron model of multisensory integration. Multiple stimuli from different sensory modalities are encoded by a single neural circuit comprised of a multisensory bank of receptive fields in cascade with a population of biophysical spike generators. We demonstrate that stimuli of different dimensions can be faithfully multiplexed and encoded in the spike domain and derive tractable algorithms for decoding each stimulus from the common pool of spikes. We also show that the identification of multisensory processing in a single neuron is dual to the recovery of stimuli encoded with a population of multisensory neurons, and prove that only a projection of the circuit onto input stimuli can be identified. We provide an example of multisensory integration using natural audio and video and discuss the performance of the proposed decoding and identification algorithms.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the importance of the current global ecological overload (GEO) for the future of work in the twenty-first century and to propose a new understanding of what work is.

Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this purpose, the author uses qualitative methods to assess what is likely and what is possible. The author presents three broad-brush future scenarios, dubbed chaos, muddle and wisdom. The approach adopted depends on two basic normative principles, named Liveable Global Habitat and Necessities as of Right.

Findings
The neoliberal commitment to economic growth is a driver for GEO. A liveable future requires a decisive turn away from neoliberal values. As part of this, the author proposes a new understanding of work, disciplined useful activity, which differs radically from the current understanding. "Useful" means contributing to two basic principles: to maintain and enhance a civilised human society and a liveable global habitat for a rich variety of species; and to accord to all people, as of right, in practice and not merely in name, the basic necessities of a civilised life.

Social implications
AI and robots will probably continue to replace today's kinds of human employment. But this need not render any humans unemployed, whose work (in the new sense) will be wanted in, for two examples, caring (including self-care) and participatory democracy.

Originality/value
This paper offers a contribution to the resolution of the current and anticipated problems of GEO and of disruptive technologies.


emergency room with hematochezia. Apart from a low hemoglobin level (8.9 g/dL), laboratory findings were unremarkable. On colonoscopy, a large mass with a dark-stained surface was observed extending from the anus up to 3 cm above the anal verge (●" Fig. 1). When the mass was examined after retroflexion, it was noted that the ulcerating mass itself was surrounded by black pigmented mucosa (●" Fig. 2). Biopsy samples were taken from both the darkly stained mass and the pigmented mucosa. Histologic examination of the mass showed neoplastic cells with black pigmentation, which proved to be malignant melanocytes and were positive for HMB45 andMelan-A on immunohistochemical staining. The surrounding pigmented mucosa was shown to be simple melanosis (●" Fig. 3). In order to exclude the possibility of the mass being a metastatic lesion rather than a primary lesion, a thorough physical examination and imaging studies were carried out. There was no evidence of any other primary lesions or distant metastases. Therefore the anorectal mass was diagnosed to be primarymelanoma. The patient underwent abdominoperineal resection (●" Fig. 4), and the histologic report was consistent with the previous findings: primary malignant melanoma surrounded by black pigmented mucosa. The patient is currently on chemotherapy. Primary melanoma most frequently occurs in the skin and retina but it can also occur in the gastrointestinal tract, which is the third most common site. However, anorectal malignant melanoma is a rare neoplasm and has a poor prognosis [1]. It is important to rule out the possibility of the lesion being a metastasis rather than a primary focus. Although controversy still exists about the most appropriate therapeutic strategies, surgical excision remains the mainstay of treatment [2]. Adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy have not been proved to have a significant role in increasing survival.


Abstract Assessing the quality of the fossil record is notoriously hard, and many recent attempts have used sampling proxies that can be questioned. For example, counts of geological formations and estimated outcrop areas might not be defensible as reliable sampling proxies: geological formations are units of enormously variable dimensions that depend on rock heterogeneity and fossil content (and so are not independent of the fossil record), and outcrop areas are not always proportional to rock exposure, probably a closer indicator of rock availability. It is shown that in many cases formation counts will always correlate with fossil counts, whatever the degree of sampling. It is not clear, in any case, that these proxies provide a good estimate of what is missing in the gap between the known fossil record and reality; rather they largely explore the gap between known and potential fossil records. Further, using simple, single numerical metrics to correct global-scale raw data, or to model sampling-driven patterns may be premature. There are perhaps four approaches to exploring the incompleteness of the fossil record, (1) regional-scale studies of geological completeness; (2) regional- or clade-scale studies of sampling completeness using comprehensive measures of sampling, such as numbers of localities or specimens or fossil quality; (3) phylogenetic and gap-counting methods; and (4) model-based approaches that compare sampling as one of several explanatory variables with measures of environmental change, singly and in combination. We suggest that palaeontologists, like other scientists, should accept that their data are patchy and incomplete, and use appropriate methods to deal with this issue in each analysis. All that matters is whether the data are adequate for a designated study or not. A single answer to the question of whether the fossil record is driven by macroevolution or megabias is unlikely ever to emerge because of temporal, geographical, and taxonomic variance in the data.


[1] High-resolution time series of suspended-sediment profiles have been obtained using an acoustic backscatter system at an inner shelf site (North Carolina) where flows are dominated by wind-driven currents and waves. We analyzed the spatial and temporal structure of near-bed turbulence in particle-transporting flows and scalar-like fluctuations of suspended-sediment concentrations. An important element of our analysis is a new inertial dissipation method for passive tracers to estimate the shear stress acting on the seabed, using the spectral properties of suspended sediment concentrations observed by acoustic backscatter sensors. In flows that provide adequate separation of the scales of turbulence production and dissipation, a sufficiently thick constant stress wall layer, and significant sediment suspension, frequency (or associated wave number) spectra of near-bed sediment concentration exhibit a −5/3 slope in the inertial subrange that spans frequencies of order 1 Hz. This observation suggests that the suspended sediment is effectively a passive tracer of turbulent fluid motions. Inversion of the relevant, Kolmogorov scaling equations yields estimates of the shear velocity that agree reasonably well with other, independent and widely used measures. High- and low-frequency limits on application of the inertial dissipation method to sediment concentration are related to the inertial response time of sediment particles and the sediment settling timescale. We propose that, in future applications, the inertial dissipation method for passive tracers can be used to estimate either the shear velocity, effective settling velocity of suspended sediment (or equivalent particle size) or dynamic bed roughness if two of these three quantities are independently known.


The concepts of linear elastic fracture mechanics are applied to perform a fatigue evaluation of a pressurized water reactor vessel. The results of this work indicate that, for the types of flaws which could exist in a reactor vessel, fatigue crack growth due to normal operating conditions due the design life of the vessel is negligible. We have previously presented a simplified technique to approximate the potential for fatigue crack growth in the beltline region of a typical pressurized water reactor vessel during the forty-year design life of the vessel. The beltline region is the most critical from the standpoint of irradiation embrittlement of the material, and thus was the first to be considered. However, there are several areas in a reactor vessel which are more critically stressed during operation than the beltline region, and the crack growth in these regions must be considered before any general conclusions are drawn concerning the vessel. It this paper, the following four regions of the reactor vessel are considered separately: (1) the closure head, (2) the nozzle shell course, (3) the beltline region, and (4) the lower head. A fatigue crack growth analysis is performed on the most critically stressed location in each region. Initial flaw sizes are assumed which are conservative upper bounds of the types of flaws which could exist in the hardware. Crack tip stress intensity factors are estimated using continuous surface flaw expressions, after linearizing the thermal and pressure stress distributions through the thickness of the vessel. An estimate of the degree of conservation introduced by these two major approximations is included. Fatigue crack growth data from various sources were used. The sensitivity of the data to such variables as temperature, irradiation, and biaxiality is discussed. /Author/


The association of the herbaceous legume Arachis pintoi CIAT 17434with tropical grasses has a great potential to improve cattle production in grazing systems. This study was conducted to characterize the nutritional quality of these associations and to obtain useful information to improve the feeding strategies for cattle in the humid tropics of Costa Rica. The experiment was carried out at the La Balsa farm of the lnstituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, located in an area classified as Humid Tropic. Annual average rainfall in the zone is 3062 mm and average temperature is 26,7 C. Eight treatments conformed as a factorial arrangement of four grass/Arachis pintoi CINI 17494 associations and two stocking rates (3,0 and 1,5 A.U.) were evaluated. Grasses under evaluation were Cynodon nlemfuensis, Brachiaria dictyoneura CIAT 6133, Brachiaria brizantha CIAT 6780 and Brachiaria brizantha CIAT 664. Paddocks were grazed every 35 ciays for 5 to 7 days. Composed samples were taken at each grazing cycle and they were analysed for Crude Protein (AOAC 19g4, Neutral Detergent Fiber and Lignin (Van Soest y Robertson 1984), Non-Fiber Carbohydrates (Van Soest et al. 1991). Total Digestible Nutrients were estimated by the model developed by Weiss et al. (7992) and the Digestible and Metabilizable Energy contents by standard NRC (1989) procedures. Crude Protein content was higher (P<0.05) for Arachis pintoi than for the grasses evaluated (average levels were 79.4 and7.8/" respectively). Mean Neutral Detergent Fiber levels in grasses were 73.5: meanwhile in Arachis pintoi were 57.9"/", these values were significantly different (P<0.05 Lignin content was higher (P<0.05) in Arachis pintoi than in the grasses with which this legume was associated, mean values were 10.6 and 6.5% respectively. Arachis pintoi showed a mean value of Non-Fiber Carbohydrates of 28.9% which was significantly (P<0.05) higher than the level of 11.4% obtain for the grasses. Energy levels were higher (P<0.05) in the legume than in the grasses. Total Digestible Nutrients were 51.1 and 48.7%. Digestible Energy 2.25 and 2.15 Mcal/kg of DM. Metabolizable Energy 1.83 and 1.72 Mcal/kg of DM for Arachis pintoi and for the grasses with which the legume was associated, respectively, Arachis pintoi increases Crude Protein. Non-Fiber Carbohydrates and Energy contents of the legumegrass associations. This has important implications for cattle production based on grazing, since these are the most limiting nutrients in production systems based on tropical pastures.


Qucs-S is a spin-off of the Qucs cross-platform circuit simulator. "S" letter indicates SPICE. The purpose of the Qucs-S subproject is to use free SPICE circuit simulation kernels with the Qucs GUI. It merges the power of SPICE and the simplicity of the Qucs GUI. Qucs intentionally uses its own SPICE incompatible simulation kernel Qucsator. It has advanced RF and AC domain simulation features, but most of the existing industrial SPICE models are incompatible with it. Qucs-S is not a simulator by itself, but it requires to use a simulation backend with it. The schematic document format of Qucs and Qucs-S are fully compatible. Qucs-S allows to use the following simulation kernels with it:
Ngspice is recommended to use. Ngspice is powerful mixed-level/mixed-signal circuit simulator. The most of industrial SPICE models are compatible with Ngspice. It has an excellent performance for time-domain simulation of switching circuits and powerful postprocessor.
XYCE is a new SPICE-compatible circuit simulator written by Sandia from the scratch. It supports basic SPICE simulation types and has an advanced RF simulation features such as Harmonic balance simulation.
SpiceOpus is developed by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Ljubljana University. It based on the SPICE-3f5 code Qucsator as backward compatible.


The Republic of Uzbekistan is a large producer and exporter of cotton but must overcome a number of limitations. Soil salinity has rendered about 20 % of the cotton producing area unsuitable for continued production. Increasing susceptibility to pathogens and pests reduces the yield by 10 – 12 %. Defoliants and harvest aid chemicals increase the cost of production and affect the environment adversely. Certain protein molecular markers are correlated with salt tolerance while others are receptors of abscisic acid, a key hormone in dehiscence of cotton. Key enzymes regulate the synthesis of ethylene that regulates boll opening. A fragment of DNA containing a copy of the gene for chitinase synthesis, the main enzyme in resistance to pathogens, has been cloned. New active Bt toxins have been generated from melon seeds. A vector has been constructed to provide for the transfer of foreign genes to cotton cells and a method has been developed for the transformation of single cotton cells.


Abstract This longitudinal study followed students (n = 265) from kindergarten through seventh grade and examined early social and academic predictors of school performance at two normative school transitions. Questions addressed include: (a) are there changes in students' school performance over time, especially at school transition points; (b) are changes in school performance dependent on sociodemographic factors; and, (c) does early social and academic competence predict stability or change in school performance following transition? Early social and academic competence was assessed in kindergarten via teacher report and standardized tests. Days absent, discipline infractions, and mathematics and language arts letter grades obtained from school records served as outcome variables. Findings showed stability for outcomes with the exception of discipline; discipline infractions increased after the first transition. Sociodemographic factors predicted greater performance declines following transition. Early social competence predicted reduced discipline; students rated as more socially competent in kindergarten were less likely to show discipline increases during transition, after controlling for demographic factors. Findings emphasize behavioral and academic stability suggesting that early social competencies forecast fewer increases in discipline infractions at school transition points.


Since the early 1990s, Argentinean grain production underwent a dramatic increase in grains production (from 26 million tons in 1988/89 to over 75 million tons in 2002/2003). Several factors contributed to this "revolution," but probably one of the most important was the introduction of new genetic modification (GM) technologies, specifically herbicide-tolerant soybeans. This article analyses this process, reporting on the economic benefits accruing to producers and other participating actors as well as some of the environmental and social impacts that could be associated with the introduction of the new technologies. In doing so, it lends attention to the synergies between GM soybeans and reduced-tillage technologies and also explores some of the institutional factors that shed light on the success of this case, including aspects such as the early availability of a reliable biosafety mechanism and a special intellectual property rights (IPR) situation. In its concluding comments, this article also posts a number of questions about the replicability of the experience and some pending policy issues regarding the future exploitation of GM technologies in Argentina.


The article analyses the primary initiative of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafters to establish the judicial supervision of the Declaration provisions. This initiative was not implemented due to lack of consensus, although some latter proposals to establish the International Court of Human Rights were discussed. The Cold War prevented from discussions on improvement of human rights system and especially from establishing the International Human Rights Court. Some scholars even called this idea utopian, although on the other hand, many scholars criticising the current UN Human Rights system were suggesting to establish a judicial institution that would be granted the right to adopt decisions binding to all state parties on the basis of the human rights conventions. In late 2008, celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Switzerland came up with the proposal to form the Panel of Eminent Persons and to prepare the Agenda for Human Rights. The latter Agenda included the proposal to establish the International Human Rights Court. This initiative was the expansion of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights proposal to create a unified standing treaty body. Therefore, it must be noted that the scholars analysing the strength and weaknesses of the UN human rights system do not share similar point of view on the functions of the Court. Some scholars argue that new court should play the role of a court of appeal or a constitutional court. Moreover, some scholars (such as Manfred Nowak) think that the access of individual petitioners should be limited, as the court should be seemed as dealing with the cases having major importance to the development of the human rights law. However, it must be noted that despite the form it will acquire, the new institution most probably is going to face financial problems, as did some criminal tribunals. Moreover, it is not excluded that some states will refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the court and even to review their obligations under current human rights treaties.


Merck and the pharmaceutical industry are headline news today. Controversies over public safety, prices, and the ability of the industry to develop the new drugs and vaccines that society needs have been covered worldwide. Roy Vagelos, who was head of research and then CEO at Merck from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s, addresses these issues here. Success with targeted research started Merck on a path that would lead to a series of block-buster therapies that carried the firm to the top of the global industry in the 1990s and Vagelos into the top position at the company. Trained as a physician and scientist, he had to learn how to run a successful business while holding to the highest principles of ethical behavior. He was not always successful. He and his co-author explain where and why he failed to achieve his goals and carefully analyze where he succeeded.


Global biodiversity dynamics result in large-scale patterns of change in the variety of life on earth. One deceptively simple measure of global biodiversity is the total count of species or supraspecific taxa that have been described from each subinterval of the Phanerozoic record. These tallies usually are obtained from data compilations based on extensive literature searches supplemented with examination of collections in museums (Sepkoski 1993; Alroy et al. 2001). Such measures of global biodiversity dynamics are probably not meaningless, but it is difficult to understand what they mean. The number of taxa alive on Earth at any one time is a function of innumerable ecological factors acting at the full range of temporal and spatial scales (Willis and Whittaker 2002). Changes in global richness might result from increasing local richness as local communities become more complex (Valentine 1969; Bambach 1977). At the regional scale, changing oceanographic conditions, climate, and the relative positions of continents and shallow seas might alter global taxonomic diversity by changing the size and arrangement of biogeographic units (Valentine 1970). Therefore, the best hope for understanding global diversity patterns is to collect information on local assemblages. These hierarchically organized data can then be integrated to test alternate hypothetical mechanisms of change. Data compiled as the endpoints of stratigraphic or geographic ranges are useless for this purpose. This has been known at least since Bambach (1977) explored patterns of change in alpha diversity of level-bottom marine communities.


Within Yucca Mountain, the potential High Level Nuclear-Waste Repository site, there are large scale fault zones, most notably the Ghost Dance Fault. The effect of such high-permeability, large scale discontinuities on the flow and transport is a question of concern in assessing the ability of the site to isolate radio-nuclides from the biosphere. In this paper, we present a numerical study to investigate the role of the fault in affecting both the liquid and gas phase flows in the natural state at Yucca Mountain prior to waste emplacement, as well as after the waste emplacement when the fluid flow is strongly heat-driven. Our study shows that if the characteristic curves of the Ghost Dance Fault obey the same relationship between saturated permeability and capillary scaling parameter, as is observed from the measured data of Yucca Mountain welded and nonwelded tuffs. Apache Leap tuffs, and Las Cruces soil, then a large saturated permeability of the Ghost Dance Fault will play little role in channeling water into the fault, or inenhancing the flow of water down the fault. However, the Fault may greatly enhance the upward gas flow after emplacement of waste. This may have implications on the transport of gaseous radio-nuclides such as C{sup 14}. The results of this study also focus attention on the need for field measurements of fluid flow in the fault zones.


Despite their lower weight, cheaper production cost, and diminished demand of metals, Organic Photovoltaic Cells (OPVCs) have not replaced conventional solar cells. The reason for this is their relatively low power conversion efficiency that could be a consequence of a lack in understanding of the underlying physics. More specifically, the influence of processing conditions and microstructure morphology on OPVC performance is still an open research area. In a previous study, we presented a spectral density function (SDF)-based design framework to optimize material performance with respect to its quasi-random microstructure (such as an OPVC). However, to guarantee manufacturability, the influence of processing conditions to material performance needs to be considered. In this study we present a two-step inverse design scheme which first identifies the optimal key microstructure descriptor(s) and then the optimal processing conditions. Dividing the design problem in two steps greatly benefits tractability as it allows the use of SDF reconstruction to reduce the dimensionality of the processing conditions. Subsequently, fewer costly high fidelity coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations (or physical experiments) are required to identify the optimal processing conditions. We apply the introduced framework to optimize the performance of an OPVC with respect to volume fraction (i.e., chemical compositions) and annealing temperature. The inverse design approach results in a potential ten-fold decrease in the computational cost compared to direct process-performance optimization.


Large-scale protests have recently transformed urban common spaces into sites of resistance. Squares and urban places, monumentally designed as political and economic centres, have been reclaimed as places for discussion and decision-making, for increasing participation and intervention in the governance of the community. Through banners and signs, open assemblies, and other communicative practices in the encampments and interconnecting physical and virtual spaces, participants permanently reconfigure the spatial context discursively. The attempt to account for on-going social phenomena from the moment they first happen, and with an international perspective, undoubtedly represents a theoretical and methodological challenge. This special issue focuses on this complex interplay between social, spatial, and communicative practices, drawing on complementary and alternative methods. Keywords: Occupy; large-scale protests; urban spaces; social movements; sites of resistance; communicative practices; desterritorialisation; reterritorialisation


In the last decades the research community has shown an increasing interest in the engineering applications of fractional calculus, which allows to accurately characterize the static and dynamic behaviour of many complex mechanical systems, e.g. the non-local or non-viscous constitutive law. In particular, fractional calculus has gained considerable importance in the random vibration analysis of engineering structures provided with viscoelastic damping. In this case, the evaluation of the dynamic response in the frequency domain presents significant advan-tages, once a probabilistic characterization of the input is provided. On the other hand, closed-form expressions for the response statistics of dynamical fractional systems are not available even for the simplest cases. Taking advantage of the Residue Theorem, in this paper the exact expressions of the spectral moments of integer and complex orders (i.e. fractional spectral moments) of linear fractional oscillators driven by acceleration time histories obtained as samples of stationary Gaussian white noise processes are determined.


Classroom Observation Tasks shows how to use observation to learn about language teaching. It does this by providing a range of tasks which guide the user through the process of observing, analysing and reflecting, and which develop the skills of observation. It contains a bank of 35 structured tasks which are grouped into seven areas of focus: the learner, the language, the learning process, the lesson, teaching skills and strategies, classroom management, and materials and resources. This book is suitable for teachers, trainee teachers, teacher trainers and others involved in school-based teacher support, teacher development and trainer training. It has a comprehensive introduction to the tasks and a rationale covering the theoretical issues involved and places the responsibility for professional growth in the hands of the teacher.


Despite evidence of their positive impacts, United Nations peacekeeping operations continue to face budget cuts, cynicism in the political arena and concern over personnel physical safety. This context underpins the global and regional trends in multilateral peace operations in 2019. This SIPRI Fact Sheet gives a snapshot of multilateral peace operations in 2019, with statistics on personnel, country contributions and fatalities for operations conducted by the UN, regional organizations or alliances, and ad hoc coalitions of states. Global and regional trends in 2019 follow developments from recent years, including the downward trends associated with the reductions and closures of many UN peace operations since 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to host the majority of operations and personnel, although these numbers have decreased, while the Middle East and North Africa is drawing attention for increasing numbers of operations and personnel. Hostile death rates for 2019 are largely attributed to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, the deadliest operation since its establishment in 2013, with all other operations demonstrating relatively low numbers of fatalities.


Abstract.
 Manifera talaris, a voltzian conifer from the late early to middle Permian (ca. 270 Ma) of Texas, is the earliest known conifer to produce winged seeds indicative of autorotating flight. In contrast to autorotating seeds and fruits of extant plants, the ones of M. talaris are exceptional in that they have variable morphology. They bore two wings that produced a range of wing configurations, from seeds with two equal-sized wings to single-winged specimens, via various stages of underdevelopment of one of the wings. To examine the effects of various seed morphologies on aerodynamics and dispersal potential, we studied the flight performance of paper models of three morphotypes: symmetric doublewinged, asymmetric double-winged, and single-winged. Using a high-speed camera we identified the mode of descent (plummeting, gliding, autorotation) and quantified descent speed, autorotation frequency, and other flight characteristics. To validate such modeling as an inferential tool, we compared descent of extant analogues (kauri; Agathis australis) with descent of similarly constructed seed models. All three seed morphotypes exhibited autorotating flight behavior. However, double-winged seeds, especially symmetric ones, failed to initiate slow autorotative descent more frequently than singlewinged seeds. Even when autorotating, symmetric double-winged seeds descend faster than asymmetric double-winged ones, and descent is roughly twice as fast compared to single-winged seeds. Moreover, the relative advantage that (effectively) single-winged seeds have in slowing descent during autorotation becomes larger as seed weight increases. Hence, the range in seed wing configurations in M. talaris produced a wide variation in potential dispersal capacity. Overall, our results indicate that the evolutionarily novel autorotating winged seeds must have improved conifer seed dispersal, in a time when animal vectors for dispersion were virtually absent. Because of the range in wing configuration, the early evolution of autorotative flight in conifers was a functionally imperfect one, which provides us insight into the evolutionary developmental biology of autorotative seeds in conifers.