The Glaciated Interior Plains historically supported a broad variety of wetland types, but wetland losses, primarily due to agricultural drainage, range from 50% to 90% of presettlement area. Wholesale land use change has created one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth, but wetland conversion has also led to the loss of the ecosystem services they provide, particularly water quality improvement, flood de-synchronization, carbon sequestration, and support of wetland-dependent species (biodiversity). Nearly three-quarters of the Glaciated Interior Plains fall within the Mississippi River drainage basin, where the combination of extensive tile drainage and fertilizer use has produced watersheds that contribute some of the highest nitrogen yields per acre to the Mississippi River. Wetland conservation practices implemented under Farm Bill conservation programs have established or involved management of nearly 110 000 ha of wetlands, riparian zones, and associated ecosystem services over the period 2000-2007. We estimated the cumulative ability of these conservation practices to retain sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus in Upper Mississippi River Basin watersheds. Estimated retention amounts to 1.0% ,1 .5% ,a nd 0.8% of the total N, sediment, and P, respectively, reaching the Gulf of Mexico each year. If nutrient reduction is estimated based on the quantity of nutrients exported from the Glaciated Interior Plains region only, the numbers increase to 6.8% of N, 4.9% of P, and 11.5% of sediment generated in the region annually. On a watershed basis, the correlation between the area of wetland conservation practices implemented and per-hectare nutrient yield was 0.81, suggesting that, for water quality improvement, conservation practices are successfully targeting watersheds that are among the most degraded. The provision of other ecosystem services such as C sequestration and biodiversity is less well studied. At best, implementation of wetland and riparian conservation practices in agricultural landscapes results in improved environmental quality and human health, and strengthens the rationale for expanding conservation practices and programs on agricultural lands.


Just about every digital image requires sharpening since softness is inevitably introduced during the image digitizing process, and oftentimes with digital photography, images are sharpened badly. This second edition of the definitive book by the late Bruce Fraser teaches readers all they need to know about sharpening, including when to use it, why it's needed, how to use the camera's features, how to recognize an image that needs sharpening, how much to use, what's bad sharpening, and how to fix oversharpening.Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom, Second Edition is written by Fraser's friend and renowned photographer Jeff Schewe. It adds essential coverage of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, since many of the key sharpening functions have migrated from Photoshop to those tools since the first edition of the book was published.The book shows readers how to: recognize the kind of sharpening that each image needs; become acquainted with the full arsenal of sharpening tools built into Photoshop, Lightroom, and Camera Raw; sharpen part of an image selectively; create a complete sharpening workflow that allows sharpening images optimally for different uses; balance the contradictory demands of sharpening and noise reduction; and more.


Curiosity is an important construct for educators as it is connected with knowledge and higher-order thinking, goal-oriented behavior, motivation, and persistence. It is also negatively correlated with boredom and anxiety. While research documents this strong connection between learning and curiosity, no studies existed exploring curiosity in a technology-rich learning environment. The purpose of this study is to identify and examine whether students demonstrate curiosity in a sixth grade mathematics classroom with technology-integrated learning and if so, how and why. Technology-rich work was designed for students and included in the study to examine students' demonstrations of curiosity while learning mathematical procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge and problem solving knowledge. A case study methodology was used with 13 students purposefully selected from a Title I sixth grade class to participate. Data were collected from interviews using a semi-structured interview protocol and triangulated with observations and students' reflective writings. Interviews were transcribed and coded. A total of 60 codes and four categories were identified. Three themes emerged: 1) digital play; 2) welcome and unwelcome scaffolds; and 3) action is power; power follows ideas. These themes identified ways in which students demonstrated curiosity in the sixth grade mathematics classroom and thus can inform educators.


Aristocratic Vice examines the outrage against-and attempts to end-the four vices associated with the aristocracy in eighteenth-century England: duelling, suicide, adultery, and gambling. Each of the four, it was commonly believed, owed its origin to pride. Many felt the law did not go far enough to punish those perpetrators who were members of the elite. In this exciting new book, Andrew explores each vice's treatment by the press at the time and shows how a century of public attacks on aristocratic vices promoted a sense of "class superiority" among the soon-to-emerge British middle class. "Donna Andrew continues to illuminate the mental landscapes of eighteenth-century Britain...No historian of the period has made greater or more effective use of the newspaper press as a source for cultural history than she. This book is evidently the product of a great deal of work and is likely to stimulate further work."-Joanna Innes, University of Oxford


The purpose of the study was to examine intercenter variability in the interpretation of Gram-stained vaginal smears from pregnant women. The intercenter reliability of individual morphotypes identified on the vaginal smear was evaluated by comparing them with those obtained at a standard center. A new scoring system that uses the most reliable morphotypes from the vaginal smear was proposed for diagnosing bacterial vaginosis. This scoring system was compared with the Spiegel criteria for diagnosing bacterial vaginosis. The scoring system (0 to 10) was described as a weighted combination of the following morphotypes: lactobacilli, Gardnerella vaginalis or bacteroides (small gram-variable rods or gram-negative rods), and curved gram-variable rods. By using the Spearman rank correlation to determine intercenter variability, gram-positive cocci had poor agreement (0.23); lactobacilli (0.65), G. vaginalis (0.69), and bacteroides (0.57) had moderate agreement; and small (0.74) and curved (0.85) gram-variable rods had good agreement. The reliability of the 0 to 10 scoring system was maximized by not using gram-positive cocci, combining G. vaginalis and bacteroides morphotypes, and weighting more heavily curved gram-variable rods. For comparison with the Spiegel criteria, a score of 7 or higher was considered indicative of bacterial vaginosis. The standardized score had improved intercenter reliability (r = 0.82) compared with the Spiegel criteria (r = 0.61). The standardized score also facilitates future research concerning bacterial vaginosis because it provides gradations of the disturbance of vaginal flora which may be associated with different levels of risk for pregnancy complications.


In the last few decades, worsening environmental problems have attracted attention to sustainable development practices. In this respect, product recovery, which aims to regain the value in end-of-life products and, thus can be regarded as an implementation towards sustainable development at the firm level, has gained importance. This dissertation addresses two interrelated decisions in the context of product recovery systems: at the strategic level, we analyze the impact of environmental policy as a coercive force on product recovery undertakings of firms; and at the tactical level, we explore the disposition decisions of a firm who is already engaged in product recovery. First, we focus on one of the main motivators of recovery practices; environmental legislation, and investigate its effectiveness in encouraging manufacturers for product recovery and redesign. We find that initial investment requirements may have a serious impact on the legislation's effectiveness. We, then, focus on two common forms of take-back legislation (tax and rate models) and compare them from the perspective of different stakeholders. We observe that in terms of the profitability of the two forms, there are some misalignments between the incentives of different stakeholders (the social planner, the manufacturers and the environment). Furthermore, we consider the decisions of a firm engaged in recovery operations and investigate the associated disposition decisions. We address this problem employing a common revenue management technique of bid price controls. As a result of our numerical experiments, we find that a dynamic approach based on bid price controls significantly outperforms a static one.


Maneveldt G.W. and van der Merwe E. 2012. Heydrichia cerasina sp. nov. (Sporolithales, Corallinophycidae, Rhodophyta) from the southernmost tip of Africa. Phycologia 51: 11–21. DOI: 10.2216/11-05.1 A new species of Heydrichia (Sporolithales), Heydrichia cerasina sp. nov., is described, found only on pebbles in the low intertidal zone along a 10 km stretch of the South African south coast from Cape Agulhas to Struisbaai. The species is characterized by the following suite of features that distinguish it from the other two species of Heydrichia found in South Africa: (1) unusual cherry-red colour when freshly collected; (2) uniformly warty growth form; (3) relatively thin crust (up to 1400 µm thick); (4) tetra/bisporangial sori comprised of mostly single sporangial chambers; and (5) unbranched spermatangial structures distributed on the floor, walls, and roof of the mature male conceptacle. The species appears to be most closely related to Heydrichia homalopasta from Australia. This study has affirmed that the distribution of spermatangial structures within male chambers is a feature that cannot be used to separate Heydrichia from Sporolithon, the only other genus in Sporolithales, although features of thallus construction and tetra/bisporangia continue to distinguish the genera. A key to the southern African species from the order Sporolithales is provided.


We propose a distributed inverse agreement control law for multiple kinematic agents that forces the team members to disperse in the workspace. Both the cases of an unbounded and a circular, bounded workspace are considered. In the first case, we show that the closed-loop system reaches a configuration in which the minimum distance between any pair of agents is larger than a specific lower bound. It is proved that this lower bound coincides with the agents' sensing radius. In the case of a bounded circular workspace, the control law is redefined to force the agents to remain within the workspace boundary. Moreover the proposed control design guarantees collision avoidance between the team members in all cases. The results are supported through relevant computer simulations.


The quality of medical imaging is an important factor that can directly affect on the results of different medical imaging tests which routinely being used for various clinical studies and related research. The existence of any type of image imperfection such as different noise and artifacts can make some difficulties for the correct analyzing and consequent interpretation of medical imaging test results and even may impact on the overall decision of the performed clinical procedure. Due to this issue, there is always a motivation for the quality enhancement of medical imaging that needs to be done by correcting for the different image degradation that typically arise during medical image capture or reconstruction. Computational compensated imaging provides a useful, cheap and easy solution for the quality enhancement of different types of medical imaging when it compares to the similar hardware-based compensation methods. A computational compensated medical imaging basically aims to recover a compensated (true) image from degraded medical measurement that is affected by the different types of acquisition/reconstruction image degradation. Compensating for each single image degradation issue can be useful for the quality improvement of medical imaging. Having a computational compensated imaging framework to jointly correct for multiple acquisition/reconstruction degradation issues can improve the functionality of current existing compensated imaging frameworks as they mostly account only for a single specific type of degradation issue. This work presents a novel probabilistic based computational compensated medical imaging which is able to jointly account for several acquisition/reconstruction degradation issues from the different domains in a unified computational framework. The developed computational cross-domain compensated medical imaging specifically takes advantage of a stochastically fully connected conditional random field (SFC-CRF) model in its framework which improves the performance of the proposed compensated medical imaging in producing of a desired compensated medical image. A compensated optical coherence tomography (C-OCT) imaging is developed within the framework of proposed computational cross-domain compensated medical imaging and with aiming to jointly compensate for the degradation due to the optical aberrations and speckle noise in OCT imaging. The developed C-OCT imaging is expanded to design a compensated super resolution OCT (C-SR-OCT) imaging framework which is able to generate a super resolution OCT (SR-OCT) image of higher quality from multiple OCT measurements. The proposed computational cross-domain compensated medical imaging is also used to develop a compensated magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) framework which aims to improve the quality of MR imaging from different modalities by jointly correcting


The galvanising purpose of Federation was the creation of the Commonwealth and the distribution of power between it and the former colonies, simultaneously elevated to Statehood. But beyond this simple fact, consensus about Australian federalism has traditionally been elusive and is, if anything, only increasingly so. While the contemporary political debate over federal reform proceeds from a shared sense that our existing arrangements have manifest shortcomings, there is far from unanimity as to which of its particular features are strengths, and which are deficiencies. The structure of this paper is as follows. In Part II, the range of understandings as to the character of the federal relationship between Australian governments is canvassed. Consideration is given to the views of the Constitution's Framers and commentators, but most centrally to members of the High Court since these have brought about great change in federal arrangements. The significance of the Court's marked preference for adhering only to constitutional structure and its inability or unwillingness to develop 'a federal jurisprudence' is examined in two respects. First, the effect of the Court's arid Engineers' Case methodology has been to reject any suggestion that fidelity to a concept of 'federal balance' is consistent with both the contents and purpose of the Constitution and also the principles of divided government. Particular consideration is given to the limitations of a commitment to federalism in only a structural sense, as revealed by the judicial reasons of the majority and dissenting judges in the recent case of New South Wales v Commonwealth. Second, the tension between competing assumptions of the kind of federal system established by the Commonwealth Constitution has produced an unstable and uncertain environment for the development of cooperative schemes between the Commonwealth and States. In Part III we consider how an attempt to 'constitutionalise' the relationship between the tiers of government as one underpinned by cooperation and respect would impact on the Court's approach. Drawing on foreign constitutions, and adapting these in light of Australia's politico-legal conditions and history, we suggest how a commitment to cooperative federalism might best be shaped for possible inclusion in the Commonwealth Constitution.


The contours of Article III are notoriously ill-defined. Yet, nowhere is this opacity more evident than when viewed through the lens of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. This Essay explores Article III's injury-in-fact requirement in the context of affirmative action jurisprudence from Bakke to Fisher and concludes – as have many commentators – that the Supreme Court should have dismissed Fisher's complaint for want of standing. Uniquely, however, this Essay reasons that Fisher should have lacked standing even assuming arguendo that Bakke was rightly decided. Specifically, in Associated General Contractors v. Jacksonville, the Court cited Bakke for the proposition that failure to put an individual on "equal footing" is an injury that triggers Article III standing. This Essay excoriates Jacksonville's flawed analysis and concludes that the "injury" the Court invented lacks a mooring in precedent, the text of Article III, and logic.


An interchip free-space optical interconnection module is investigated to solve the pin-input-output bottleneck at the interface of silicon integrated circuits. The scalability of the photonic circuit is theoretically analyzed by use of the minimum feature size requirement of each diffractive element used. The study showed that interconnection densities of 1000-2000 channels/cm is possible for a 40-mm interconnection length with a 3-mm-thick optical substrate. Diffraction-limited imaging capability has been demonstrated using a fabricated prototype, confirming its applicability for interchip free-space interconnections. Photonic circuit insertion losses of -23.4 dB for TE polarization and -25.9 dB for TM polarization as well as a polarization-dependent loss of 2.5 dB are found to be caused primarily by a pair of binary linear gratings used for beam deflections. Design modifications aiming at insertion loss reduction and further improvement of tolerance capabilities are also discussed.


Researchers increasingly need to integrate the disposition, management, and curation of their data into their current workflows. However, it is not yet clear to what extent faculty and students are sufficiently prepared to take on these responsibilities. This paper articulates the need for a data information literacy program (DIL) to prepare students to engage in such an "e-research" environment. Assessments of faculty interviews and student performance in a geoinformatics course provide complementary sources of information, which are then filtered through the perspective of ACRL's information literacy competency standards to produce a draft set of outcomes for a data information literacy program.


Over the past 30 years research on Entrepreneurship Orientation (EO) has provided valuable information regarding strategy, entrepreneurship and aspects of performance at the firm-level. In the entrepreneurial universe, microenterprises play a very special role in the business context of the economy. However, they have not been relatively present in the EO research. This paper studies the EO-performance relationship in a group of microenterprises in Mexico and includes the Dominant Logic (DL) as a variable that moderates this relationship. The results indicate that risk taking, proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness variables from the EO influence the microenterprise performance. In addition, the external DL conceptualization moderates the EO-performance relationship. This paper shows the conclusions of the investigation as well as the limitations and identifies future research methods.


EmiliaRomagnaStartup (ERSU) is one of the pillars of the Emilia-Romagna  regional policy to promote innovative business creation. Launched in 2011, it  represents nowadays one the most developed regional instruments at EU level to  support start-up creation through information, orienteering, services provision and  networking opportunities. The initiative is coordinated by ASTER, the regional  Consortium for Innovation and Technology Transfer. Designed by ASTER Start-up  Dept on the basis of an intensive benchmark activity to provide up-to-date services,  today it is constantly improving the variety and the quality of its offer which is  directed to start-ups and business projects, but also to the various regional actors  that are part of its network. Initiatives such as sector-focused acceleration programs (e.g. on Green or  Creative sectors), opportunities to go global (through, for instance, the partnership  with the Tech Venture Launch Program in Silicon Valley) and planning of new  services through the participation in EU projects, represent the key added value  ERSU can offer to its community of users.


The peridural membrane (PDM) is a well‐defined structure between dura mater and the wall of the spinal canal. The spine may be viewed as a multi‐segmented joint, with the epidural cavity and neural foramina as joint spaces and PDM as synovial lining. The objective of this investigation was to determine if PDM has histological characteristics of synovium. Samples of the PDM of the thoraco‐lumbar spine were taken from 23 human cadavers and analyzed with conventional light microscopy and confocal microscopy. Results were compared to reports on similar analyses of synovium in the literature. Histological distribution of areolar, fibrous, and adipose connective tissue in PDM was similar to synovium. The PDM has an intima and sub‐intima. No basement membrane was identified. CD68, a marker for macrophage‐like‐synoviocytes, and CD55, a marker for fibroblast‐like synoviocytes, were seen in the lining and sub‐lining of the PDM. Multifunctional hyaluronan receptor CD44 and hyaluronic acid synthetase 2 marker HAS2 were abundantly present throughout the membrane. Marked presence of CD44, CD55, and HAS2 in the well‐developed tunica muscularis of blood vessels and in the body of the PDM suggests a role in the maintenance and lubrication of the epidural cavity and neural foramina. Presence of CD68, CD55, and CD44 suggests a scavenging function and a role in the inflammatory response to noxious stimuli. Thus, the human PDM has histological and immunohistochemical characteristics of synovium. This suggests that the PDM may be important for the homeostasis of the flexible spine and the neural structures it contains.


This paper examines the generational aspect of the current Medicare system and some stylized reforms. We find that the rates of return on Medicare for today's workers are higher than those for Social Security and that the Medicare system is shifting a greater share of the burden on future workers than is Social Security. Nonetheless, the rates of return on Medicare, using the Medicare Trustees assumptions, are still not that high--roughly 2 percent for today's youngest workers. But forecasting future Medicare expenditures is quite difficult. Under an alternative higher-cost baseline, which we consider plausible, rates of return for today's youngest workers will exceed 3 percent. Putting Medicare on a sustainable basis by raising the payroll tax or reducing benefits would greatly reduce the rate of return for today's workers. Under the Trustees assumptions, for example, the payroll tax would have to be increased by 2.0 percent of payroll to put the Medicare system in balance in perpetuity. This policy would reduce the rate of return on today's youngest workers to about 1.3 percent.


This small exploratory study investigated the inferencing processes of skilled first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers for two academic tasks. The goal was to examine possible effects of language and task, or reading purpose, on the frequency and distribution of inferences. Participants (n = 10) were native speakers of German enrolled at a large university in Hessen, Germany in a B.Ed. program. Participants read two expository texts (one written in German and the other written in English) in two task conditions: summary and position-paper. Think-aloud protocols while reading and stimulated recall immediately after reading were recorded, transcribed, coded, and the results were compared quantitatively and qualitatively across tasks and languages. The statistical analyses indicated that there were task effects on inferencing processes, and that they were stronger in L2. When reading for a summary purpose, inferencing processes differed across languages which was not the case for the position-paper task. Readers' inferencing processes differed significantly across tasks in L2, but not in L1. The results suggest that skilled readers strategically inference based on academic task demands, but that transfer of strategic inferencing skills from L1 to L2 is not complete even with advanced L2 readers. Findings raise questions about the explicit instruction of strategic inferencing for academic tasks in L2 reading classrooms.


Based on the Bureau of Economic Research (BER's) 2005 HIV/AIDS survey, this paper provides a snapshot view of the nature and the extent of the impact of HIV/AIDS on companies of different sizes in South Africa, as well as their response to the epidemic. Whereas the focus of most of the previous workplace surveys has been on "evaluating workplace responses", the present study also considers the economic impact of HIV/AIDS. This study provides evidence of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the largest sample of small, medium and large companies in South Africa to date. The survey results suggest that employer responses are strongly linked to company size, with the majority of medium and large companies indicating that they have an HIV/AIDS policy in place and small companies having done little in the way of action against the epidemic. Copyright (c) 2006 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2006 Economic Society of South Africa.


Abstract. GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars), on board the European platform ENVISAT launched in 2002, is a stellar occultation instrument combining four spectrometers and two fast photometers which measure light at 1 kHz sampling rate in the two visible channels 470–520 nm and 650–700 nm. On the day side, GOMOS does not measure only the light from the star, but also the solar light scattered by the atmospheric molecules. In the summer polar days, Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC) are clearly detected using the photometers signals, as the solar light scattered by the cloud particles in the instrument field of view. The sun-synchronous orbit of ENVISAT allows observing PMC in both hemispheres and the stellar occultation technique ensures a very good geometrical registration. Four years of data, from 2002 to 2006, are analyzed up to now. GOMOS data set consists of approximately 10 000 cloud observations all over the eight PMC seasons studied. The first climatology obtained by the analysis of this data set is presented, focusing on the seasonal and latitudinal coverage, represented by global maps. GOMOS photometers allow a very sensitive PMC detection, showing a frequency of occurrence of 100% in polar regions during the middle of the PMC season. According to this work mesospheric clouds seem to be more frequent in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. The PMC altitude distribution was also calculated. The obtained median values are 82.7 km in the North and 83.2 km in the South.


Objective. To evaluated possible clinical and instrumental, natural history and prognostic divergences in women and men with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM).
Patients and Methods. From 1988 to 2012, we evaluated 803 consecutive patients with IDCM recorded in the Heart Muscle Disease Registry of Trieste (Italy). All patients had serial follow-up evaluations at 6, 12, and 24 months, and subsequently every two years, or more frequently if clinically indicated.
Results. Two hundred and twenty-seven patients (28%) were female. At first evaluation women were significantly older (48 vs. 45 years old, p = 0.008); presented more frequently left bundle branch block at ECG (38% vs. 28%, p = 0.01), smaller left ventricular end-diastolic indexed volume at echocardiography (85 vs. 93 ml/m2, p <0.002) and more frequently moderate to severe mitral regurgitation at Doppler (43% vs. 33%, p = 0.015). No differences in NYHA class, medical treatment and device implantation rates were found. During a median of 108 months follow-up, women showed a significantly lower ten-year total mortality/heart transplantation (20% vs. 32% respectively, p = 0.001) and cardiovascular mortality rates (9% vs. 15%, p = 0.024) despite a less marked clinical and echocardiographic improvement.
Conclusions. In our population of patients with IDCM, women showed a better long-term prognosis notwithstanding a presentation with a more advanced disease and a lower clinical-instrumental improvement on optimal medical therapy compared to men.


Objective: Unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms appears to be common in Huntington's disease (HD), but the clinical correlates of unawareness are unclear. Identifying predictors of unawareness is important for improving diagnosis of neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive impairment, specifically executive impairment, may be a potential important predictor of unawareness. The authors examined whether unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms is more common in early HD compared to premanifest HD, and whether executive task performance was associated with awareness, independent of demographic, motor or mood variables. Method: One hundred thirty-two gene-positive participants (60 premanifest and 72 early diagnosed) from the multicenter TRACK-HD study were included. Participants and their informants completed self and informant versions of the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale, which measures executive dysfunction, apathy, and disinhibition symptoms. Awareness was measured as the discrepancy between self- and informant-reports across premanifest and early HD groups. Participants' executive task performance was then assessed as a predictor of unawareness across the whole group. Results: Premanifest participants reported higher levels of executive dysfunction, apathy and disinhibition than their informants, whereas early HD participants reported less executive dysfunction and apathy than their informants, indicating that unawareness is more common after diagnosis. Impaired executive task performance was related to unawareness of executive dysfunction and apathy, independent of demographic, motor and mood variables. Conclusions: Executive impairment is a useful early predictor of unawareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms in HD. Clinicians should closely monitor HD patients with executive impairment for unawareness, and consider this when assessing neuropsychiatric symptoms in HD and providing education to patients and families.


Recent studies proposed news about future technology growth as the main driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. The identification of these news through stock prices in SVARs has been criticized in the past. Therefore, I propose a series of experiments to test that hypothesis by examining its implications. If business cycles are mainly driven by news then these shocks should be captured by other time series as well. I find that news shocks identified through S&P 500 prices exhibit the same dynamics as news identified through a broader stock price index, patent applications, the relative price of investment or shocks to the real interest rate. The common theme among these identifications is a technological change in productivity that demands time to build, economic activity and natural resources to come into effect.


Structural fibre-reinforced composites based on brittle matrices such as epoxy resins may be subject to short-term subcritical matrix damage that develops with time to the point where it may compromise the integrity of the structure. Currently, components that have been damaged at the microscale are usually inspected and, depending on the extent of the damage, repaired with patches or entirely replaced. Self-healing functionality would prevent development of such damage by repairing it as soon as it appears, thereby increasing the service life of the material. Among the many potential methods for introducing self-healing capacity to epoxy resins, incorporation of solvent-filled capsules is particularly promising. Cracks cause the capsules to break, releasing a solvent that is able to swell the crack faces and induce reaction of residual monomer and/or crosslinkable functional groups intentionally left by under-curing the matrix. Thus, a model system based on ethyl phenylacetate (EPA) has been shown to provide up to approximately 90% efficiency in recovering fracture toughness, and to effectively block fatigue crack propagation in pure epoxy resin. The present thesis focuses on the integration of a EPA solvent capsule-based healing system into a glass fibre-reinforced epoxy and the assessment of its effectiveness in repairing static interply damage. EPA-filled capsules with diameters in the range of 90-250 IŒm were produced using an oil-in-water emulsion technique and characterized in terms of their thermal stability and mechanical properties. Pure urea-formaldehyde (UF) as well as polyurethane/urea-formaldehyde (PU/UF) double wall capsule shell materials were analysed, showing that the wall thickness of pure UF capsules is independent of their diameter, whereas that of PU/UF capsules is 4 to 6 times greater and scales with the capsule diameter until a saturation value. The modulus of these shell materials was quantified using compression test and an analytical model, and found to range from 1 to 4 GPa depending on the amount of PU content in the shell composition. Bursting forces varied from 5 to 25 mN depending on the shell composition and diameter, thus providing a range of shell compositions to select from in order to tune the capsule behaviour. The integration of the capsules into the composite was carried out by dispersing them manually onto the reinforcement textile prior to processing. During this phase, the optimum capsule size range, position and concentration could be selected to fit in the interstices and survive textile packing. Textile packing properties were tested in compression; the presence of capsules led to a decrease of the reinforcement volume fraction at a given applied load value, in particular at low packing loads, and affected the usual power law behaviour of a textile in compression, up to the rupture of the capsules. Longitudinal permeability was also increased by a factor of 6 to 8 in presence of capsules for a given reinforcement volume fraction, whereas the transverse permeability was not greatly affected. A capsule-containing fibre-reinforced epoxy material was then produced using a suitably adapted processing protocol. Vacuum assisted resin infusion moulding (VARIM) was chosen as an industrially relevant, yet adaptable processing route. Priority was given to industrially relevant fibre volume fractions of approximately 50% and to optimizing processing parameters such as the lay-out and vacuum etc.


The ubiquitin proteasome pathway is the most significant intracellular proteolytic pathway. The target proteins are usually ubiquitinated prior to degradation by the proteasome; however, ubiquitin-independent targeting mechanisms have also been reported (e.g., the antizyme-mediated degradation of ornithine decarboxylase). Aberrations in the components of the ubiquitin proteasome pathway are commonly observed in many cancers, and uncontrolled growth of cancer cells can result either from stabilization of oncoproteins (e.g., c-jun) or increased degradation of tumor suppressor proteins (e.g., p53). In addition, due to the pleiotropic functions of the ubiquitin proteasome pathway in cells, there is great interest in developing inhibitors to specifically block this pathway for cancer treatment. This review summarizes the recent literature and several patented inventions on the ubiquitin proteasome pathway with respect to its role in cancer development and treatment.


From the Publisher:
Should you watch public television without pledging?...Exceed the posted speed limit?...Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the so-called "prisoner's dilemma," a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner's dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science, an idea that has influenced leaders across the political spectrum and informed our views of conflicts ranging from the Cuban missile crisis to the Persian Gulf War. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann--father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century--to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery. Called the "prisoner's dilemma," it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. Introduced shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb, the prisoner's dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann and Bertrand Russell joined military and political leaders in rallying to the "preventive war" movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the United States entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy--alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them. A masterful work of science writing, Prisoner's Dilemma weaves together a biography of the brilliant and tragic von Neumann, a history of pivotal phases of the cold war, and an investigation of game theory's far-reaching influence on public policy t


Turkey is the seventh-richest country in the world in geothermal potential. The first geothermal researches and investigations in Turkey started by the Turkey Mineral Research and Exploration Institute (MTA) in the 1960s. Upon this, 170 geothermal fields have been discovered by MTA, in which 95% of them are low-medium enthalpy fields, which are suitable mostly for direct-use applications. The overall geothermal potential in Turkey is about 38,000 MW. Of this potential, around 88% is appropriate for thermal use (temperature less than 473 K) and the remainder is appropriate for electricity production (temperature more than 473 K). Turkey has extended its involvement in geothermal energy projects, supported by loans from the Ministry of Environment, and geothermal energy is expected to increase substantially in the coming years. Overall, Turkey has an estimated 4,500 MW of geothermal power production potential.


Introducing spin onto organic ligands that are coordinated to rare earth metal ions allows direct exchange with metal spin centres. This is particularly relevant for the deeply buried 4f-orbitals of the lanthanide ions that can give rise to unparalleled magnetic properties. For efficacy of exchange coupling, the donor atoms of the radical ligand require high-spin density. Such molecules are extremely rare owing to their reactive nature that renders isolation and purification difficult. Here, we demonstrate that a 2,2′-azopyridyl (abpy) radical (S = 1/2) bound to the rare earth metal yttrium can be realized. This molecule represents the first rare earth metal complex containing an abpy radical and is unambigously characterized by X-ray crystallography, NMR, UV-Vis-NIR, and IR spectroscopy. In addition, the most stable isotope 89Y with a natural abundance of 100% and a nuclear spin of ½ allows an in-depth analysis of the yttrium–radical complex via EPR and HYSCORE spectroscopy. Further insight into the electronic ground state of the radical azobispyridine-coordinated metal complex was realized through unrestricted DFT calculations, which suggests that the unpaired spin density of the SOMO is heavily localized on the azo and pyridyl nitrogen atoms. The experimental results are supported by NBO calculations and give a comprehensive picture of the spin density of the azopyridyl ancillary ligand. This unexplored azopyridyl radical anion in heavy element chemistry bears crucial implications for the design of molecule-based magnets particularly comprising anisotropic lanthanide ions.


The major objectives of this thesis involve the development of both dynamic and interactive applications aimed at complementing traditional engineering and science coursework, laboratory exercises, research, and providing users with easy access by publishing the applications on Wolframs Demonstration website. A number of applications have been carefully designed to meet cognitive demands as well as provide easy-to-use interactivity. Recent technology introduced by Wolfram Mathematica called CDF (Computable Document Format) provides a resource that gives ideas a communication pipeline in which technical content can be presented in an interactive format. This new and exciting technology has the potential to help students enhance depth and quality of understanding as well as provide teachers and researchers with methods to convey concepts at all levels. Our approach in helping students and researchers with teaching and understanding traditionally difficult concepts in science and engineering relies on the ability to use dynamic, interactive learning modules anywhere at any time. The strategy for developing these applications resulted in some excellent outcomes. A variety of different subjects were explored, which included; numerical integration, Green's functions and Duhamel's methods, chaotic maps, one-dimensional diffusion using numerical methods, and two-dimensional wave mechanics using analytical methods. The wide range of topics and fields of study give CDF technology a powerful edge in connecting with all types of learners through interactive learning.


What can facilitate at-risk children's involvement in treatment planning and assessment? We examine this question by investigating the perceptions, attitudes, and characteristics of Israeli social workers. We examine whether their seniority, views on the importance of children's participation, and their attitudes toward parents are related to their report of at-risk children's involvement in treatment planning and placement decisions. At-risk children's involvement includes preparing them to appear before the committees that handle placement decisions for youth and the social workers' willingness to consider children's opinions. Eighty coordinators of these committees in social services departments in Israel participated. Our findings indicate that, based on the coordinators' answers, at-risk children are more likely to be involved in treatment planning and assessment committees when the child protection officers prepare parents prior to participating in the committee meetings, and when the coordinators assigned the case are more senior. The influence of children's opinions on the decisions of the committees was predicted by the weight their parents' opinions carried and whether their parents received any relevant materials prior to the committee meetings. Our findings highlight the importance of involving parents in treatment planning and assessment committees' decision making.


The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 created a new political landscape and a new era of warfare. Language, Symbols, and Media offers insights into the impact and influence of 9/11 upon our cultural, social and political life. The book opens with an introductory chapter on communications, media language, and visual symbolism in the immediate wake of the attacks. The second chapter considers the challenge to religious pluralism, analyzing the grounds for the immediate backlash against Islam. Chapter 3 reviews several crucial historical and contemporary Supreme Court rulings relevant to the limitations of free speech in times of war and national crises. The consideration of First Amendment rights is continued in chapter 4, which places the Patriot Act in historical context by comparing the legislation and its interpretation of it to other legislation passed in response to past American crises. The immediate aftermath of the attacks witnessed many calls for an end to "the age of irony" and a return to "traditional values." Chapter 5 considers some contrarian responses and analyzes the impact of irony as a rhetorical device in American culture. The unifying role of sport in the post-9/11 healing process in America is examined in chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines the reactions and responses of young adults to the events of 9/11 one year later. Chapter 8 demonstrates how New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani and California representative Gary Condit received a public "makeover" or reframing of their careers and reputations. Chapters 9 explores the impact of 9/11 on the rhetoric of advertising, while chapter 10 focuses more closely on how it affected the tourism industry. A concluding chapter examines several instances of media self-censorship and its implications for the policy making process during times of crisis. As historians and other analysts work towards greater understanding of the event that triggered our "war on terror," the role and function of language and communications will take on greater urgency. This volume will be of interest to cultural studies specialists, sociologists, journalists, political scientists, historians, as well as general readers.


Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is a promising foaming agent for the production of polymeric foams, representing an environmentally friendly alternative for the foaming agents currently used. During the expansion phase of the scCO2-foaming process, temperature plays an essential role. This study focuses on relating the effects of temperature and pressure profiles on the foaming process and the resulting foam morphology. Therefore, several experiments have been performed in a high pressure reaction calorimeter (RC1e) that can be set to three different modes: isothermal, adiabatic, and isoperibolic. It has been observed that the foaming could be divided into four stages: nucleation, slow cell growth, fast cell growth, and shrinkage. The degree of shrinking that occurs is for a great deal dependent on the exposure to higher temperatures at the end of the foaming process. Since shrinkage does not occur in the adiabatic mode, this mode gives the best control on the foam morphology. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2007


In 2011, in Snyder v. Phelps, the military funeral protest case involving the Westboro Baptist Church, the United States Supreme Court again warned that courts needed to protect speech broadly, lest judges become what the Court called "inadvertent censors."1 In the opinion, the Court touched upon what might be appropriate news, though the case only tangentially involved journalism. In a paragraph that specifically mentioned newsworthiness, the Court reminded readers that a matter of public concern2 would be any matter that related to political, social, or other concerns of the community, regardless of its inappropriateness or controversial nature.3The Snyder opinion is filled with related citations to the Court's earlier, famous First Amendment jurisprudence upholding media rights to report or publish, including a case that refused to hold a newspaper liable for publishing the name of a rape victim,4 a case in which a magazine published a photo spread fictionalizing in part a family's terror at the hands of captors,5 and a case in which minister Jerry Falwell was parodied in a particularly tasteless way by Hustler magazine.6The Snyder case, therefore, was obviously not the first time the Justices had tried their hand at defining newsworthiness. They had been doing so for well more than a century, in fact, and long before those famous cited decisions, sometimes acting more directly as after-the-fact editors and sometimes mentioning news value in a dicta-like fashion. In this way, the Supreme Court has decades of experience acting as a kind of a super news editor.To better understand this role and why it matters, it is important to understand what non-judicial news editors do. Within any newsroom, news editors have tremendous power and responsibility. They ultimately decide what news and information is appropriate public fodder and what news and information, though true, is better left unwritten or unsaid.7 A news editor, for example, might decide that certain truthful information is too private or too embarrassing or too harmful to be part of a news story, even if the information might be relevant to some readers. A politician's affair, for example, might be withheld if reporters or editors ultimately decide that it has little to do with the politician's political life.8 Given the journalistic ethics standard for public persons, such information about a private person would likely never be published by a mainstream news source because, in any journalist's estimation, there would be nothing newsworthy for the public in the revelation.And this is where the judicial system comes in. Should similarly private information be published about a public or private figure, and should the person sue for a privacy invasion, courts and juries are ultimately left to decide whether the public value of the news item should trump the person's right to privacy. The Restatement, for example, describes the balance this way:One who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that(a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and(b) is not of legitimate concern to the public.9A definition for news, then, becomes highly relevant in privacy causes of action, among others, because a fact finder deciding a privacy claim is called upon to act as a news editor in deciding whether such information was of a type appropriate for public dissemination - whether it was "of legitimate public concern" or not. Legitimate public concern is not based upon any public need to know, however. The Restatement offers a broad definition, suggesting that matters of legitimate public concern include accidents, rare diseases, preteen pregnancy, and multiple other matters of "more or less deplorable, popular appeal."10I have suggested previously that lower courts have lately been more accepting of the publication of private-facts tort and related privacy-like causes of action. …


Early medieval interactions with the dead did not stop after the funeral. The graves were often reopened at a later time to examine and manipulate their contents. Archaeologists frequently interpret this phenomena as grave robbery, an economically motivated criminal practice. But many aspects of the graves in question do not align with this hypothesis. Martine van Haperen studied over 1300 graves from 11 cemeteries in the Netherlands and Belgium with surprising results. It became clear that the diggers left many objects behind in the reopening pits and prioritized men's graves even though these contained fewer valuable materials. Instead, they focused on removing object types with crucial symbolic roles in the funerary ritual and early medieval society at large. The high percentage of reopened graves (41%) suggests this was a socially accepted practice. Van Haperen therefore argues that reopenings were part of the normal interactions between the living and the dead, for instance in the form of an ancestor relic cult and as a way of dealing with unquiet dead.


The ionospheric Alfvén resonator (IAR) is found in dynamic power spectrum of the geomagnetic field variations as spectral resonance structures in the frequency range 0.1–10 Hz. The first observations of IAR were reported by Belyaev et al. [1989, 1990] by using induction magnetometers installed at a mid-latitude station, Gorkii (L~2.65). Since then, studies of IAR have been focused on events at mid and high latitudes. To date, observations of IAR at low latitude are only made at Crete by Bösinger et al. [2002, 2004] and not sufficient enough to reveal its general characteristics. We therefore installed an induction magnetometer at Muroto, Japan (24.40° geomagnetic latitude, −155.56° geomagnetic longitude), in December 2013 to investigate low latitude IAR in greater detail. Its dipole L value is 1.206 and smaller than that of Crete (L~1.3). Cadence of observations is 64 Hz. We analyze data from the induction magnetometer for the period from 28 December 2013 to 13 August 2016. From the statistical analysis of IAR observed at Muroto, we find that its occurrence probability is (1) dominant during nighttime with a gradual increase from the dusk sector to midnight and a broad maximum at 00–05 LT followed by a sudden decrease at the dawn sector, (2) slightly higher during May through September (in summer and fall), and (3) independent to the Kp index. We also find that (4) IAR at Muroto has frequency separation between the harmonics (Δf) of 0.1–0.5 Hz with a peak at 0.200–0.275 Hz. It has been considered that IAR is caused by Alfvén waves trapped in the ionospheric cavity bounded by the conductive E layer and a steep gradient of Alfvén velocity above the F2 layer. We calculate the resonant frequency and the Q factor of the ionospheric cavity, using analytical equations proposed by Polyakov and Rapoport [1981] with the IRI-2012 and IGRF-12 models. Results of comparison between the observations and the model calculation will be discussed. PEM14-P27 JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2017


In the Paris Agreement, it is stated that country's vulnerability to climate change is a key factor to decide where and how to allocate adaptation funds. However, the distribution of available funds continues to be a controversial point of discussion. To inform this discussion, we look at how policy makers could be differentiating regions for financing countries adaptation needs. We synthesize the results of global vulnerability assessments and conclude that in spite of some agreement between global vulnerability distribution and current funding allocation based on income groups, climate vulnerability remains a nuanced and problematic concept. In a search for increased transparency to inform adaptation financing, we analyze the new risk approach brought forward in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. A main advantage of this new formulation is a clearer distinction between physical hazards and vulnerability, where vulnerability is solely driven by societal factors. Notwithstanding, the risk approach comes with some shortfalls, not least in terms of scale mismatches. This confirms that more efforts could be devoted in exploring appropriate scales (from both climatological and societal perspectives) and methodologies for embedding the vulnerability approach in a risk framework. However, a prevalent disconnect between science and policy on issues of adaptation financing has so far impeded the shift from earlier formulation of vulnerability to a risk concept in the policy arena. The IPCC has a pivotal role to play in filling this gap by leading a country‐level assessment that can serve as a basis for prioritizing adaptation financing. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e447. doi: 10.1002/wcc.447


An air transport climatology is derived for subtropical southern Africa (Africa south of 15°S) by classifying daily synoptic situations into predominant circulation types. The annual variation of these provides the basis for determining month-by-month transport. Percentage zonal transport in easterly and westerly directions, levels of transport, and times of transit are derived from forward trajectory analyses using European Centre for Medium- range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data for a 7-year period.

It is shown that semi-permanent subtropical continental anticyclones, transient mid-latitude ridging anticyclones and mid-latitude westerly disturbances produce major transport into the south-western Indian Ocean in the Natal plume. Only quasi-stationary tropical easterly waves result in appreciable transport into the tropical South Atlantic Ocean in the Angolan plume. Total transport is a function of circulation type and frequency, as well as plume dimensions. Transport in continental highs follows an annual cycle reaching peak values in excess of 70 per cent in winter. That in easterly waves also exhibits an annual cycle, but one peaking in summer, when up to 55 per cent transport may occur in north-western regions. Transport in ridging highs and westerly perturbations is much less and occurs throughout the year, with a slight tendency to peak in spring. Recirculation of air is shown to be considerable when anticyclonic conditions prevail.

Monthly, seasonal, and annual mass fluxes over and out of southern Africa are determined from transport fields, frequency of occurrence of circulation types and from measurements of aerosol concentrations. An annual mass flux of aerosols some 134 Mtons is generated over the subcontinent. About 60 Mtons year−1 are deposited, and approximately 29 Mtons year−1 are exported westward over the Atlantic Ocean and 45 Mtons year−1 eastward over the Indian Ocean. Twenty-six million tons of the 74 Mtons of aerosols exported annually to the adjacent oceans on each coast are a product of recirculation. Deposition within 10° latitude of the coast is nearly 10 times greater on the east than on the west coast.


Fungal laccases have high activity in degrading various persistent organic pollutants. However, using enzymes in solution for water treatment has limitations of nonreusability, short enzyme lifetimes, and high cost of single use. In this study, we developed a new type of biocatalyst by immobilizing fungal laccase on the surface of yeast cells using synthetic biology techniques. The biocatalyst, referred to as surface display laccase (SDL), had an enzyme activity of 104 ± 3 mU/g dry cell (with 2,2-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate (ABTS)). The SDL retained over 90% of the initial enzyme activity after 25 days storage at room temperature, while, in contrast, activity of free laccase declined to 60% of its initial activity. The SDL could be reused with high stability as it retained 74% of initial activity after eight repeated batch reactions. Proof-of-concept evaluations of the effectiveness of SDL in treating contaminants of emerging concern were performed with bisphenol A and sulfamethoxazole. Results from contaminant degradation kinetics and the effects of redox mediator amendment provided insights into the factors affecting the efficacy of the SDL system. This study reports, for the first time, the development of a surface display enzyme biocatalyst as an effective and renewable alternative for treating recalcitrant organic micropollutants.


Super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging (SOFI) achieves three-dimensional super-resolution by computing higher-order spatio-temporal cross-cumulants of stochastically blink-ing fluorophores. In contrast to localization microscopy, SOFI is compatible with weakly emitting fluorophores and a wider range of blinking conditions. The main drawback of SOFI is the nonlinear response to brightness and blinking heterogeneities in the sample, which limits the use of higher cumulant orders. We present a balanced SOFI algorithm for mapping molecular parameters and for linearizing the brightness response and we outline a MATLAB toolbox for two- and three-dimensional SOFI analysis. We show super-resolved three-dimensional cell structures imaged with a multi-plane wide-field microscope. The simultaneous acqui-sition of several focal planes significantly reduces the acquisition time and helps limiting the photo-bleaching of the marker fluorophores.


A field experiment was conducted under rain-fed conditions on the research farm of Savanna Agricultural Research Institute, Nyankpala, during the 2007 and 2008 seasons. The objective was to study the response of three new groundnut varieties (Jenkaar, Kpanieli and Nkosuor) to row intercropping with maize. The experiment was laid in randomized complete block design with four replicates. Treatments comprised sole groundnut, sole maize, single row groundnut alternated with single row maize (G1M1), single row groundnut alternated with double row maize (G1M2), double row groundnut alternated with single row maize (G2M1) and double row groundnut alternated with double row maize (G2M2). The population densities of groundnut and maize in the intercrops affected their yield performance. Row intercropping arrangement that encouraged large leaf area in groundnut supported the formation of more pods per plant and subsequently larger dry pod yield. The highest groundnut and maize yields in the intercrop in both years were obtained respectively from G2M1 and G1M2. The G1M1 and G1M2 row intercropping arrangement was therefore the most advantageous in both years, achieving a land equivalent ratio values greater than 1. Combinations of the Kpanieli variety and maize which achieved land equivalent ratio greater than 1 was also more advantageous than intercropping maize with the Jenkaar and Nkosuor varieties in both years.

 Key words: Guinea savanna, rain-fed, row intercropping, yield performance, land equivalent ratio.


Nowadays, due to the competitive conditions of global market, corporations try to outsource their extraneous processes to third-party suppliers. So, selecting a proper supplier play a significant role in organization success. The supplier selection problem can be viewed as a group decision-making problem with multiple criteria. Since in previous researches the inter relationship between criteria and sub-criteria lacks attention, this paper presents a new model which considers these relationship. Firstly, this model has determined interrelationships between criteria through Interpretive Structural Modeling(ISM), and then calculated the relative weights of each sub-criterion by considering their interactions and using the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP). Finally, the optimal supplier has been selected by applying obtained relative weights to calculate performance score of candidate suppliers in each sub-criterion and using fuzzy Choquet integral (a non-additive fuzzy integral) to remove the effects of sub-criteria interactions on performance score. A case study of an automotive brake system manufacturer in selecting its machining outsourcing suppliers is illustrated to demonstrate our model applicability in practical cases. The analytical results of this case study demonstrate the capability of the proposed model for solving group decision-making problems.


Abstract In transitioning to a renewable material-based bio economy, growing public and industry interest is apparent for using wooden multistory construction (WMC) as a sustainable urban housing solution in Europe, but its business implications are not well understood. In our study, we evaluate, which internal and external factors of competitiveness are shaping the future of WMC, especially in the context of Finland and Sweden. Based on a multi-level perspective of socio-technical transitions, we conducted a three-stage dissensus-based Delphi study. The identified internal and external factors affecting the future competitiveness of the WMC business emphasize the importance of skilled architects and builders and the role of standardized building systems. Based on our results, the key aspects influencing the future competitiveness of WMC in the region are related to the development of technical infrastructure and project-based business networks, while additional changes in regulatory framework are perceived as less important. We conclude that towards 2030, the strong cognitive rules founded in the concrete-based building culture in these countries is likely to inhibit the dynamics of the socio-technical regime level. A change is also needed in the WMC business culture towards more open cross-sectoral collaboration and new business networks between different-sized players.


Learners who cannot decode alphabetic script have been left out of the SLA research enterprise, at considerable cost to our understanding of the human capacity for language learning. This book offers research evidence documenting the significant impact of low literacy skill on adolescents' processing of oral L2 input and acquisition. Together with a large body of closely related research in cognitive psychology, the findings lead to a startling conclusion: language processing skills that have been assumed to be universal human traits appear instead to be a product of learners' experience with alphabetic print literacy.


The rapid growth and development of urban areas in the South have resulted in an increase in the number of urban archaeology projects required by federal and state agencies. These projects provide opportunities not only to investigate marginal areas between the town and countryside but also to recover information long buried beneath the earliest urban structures. Such projects have also created a need for a one-volume update on archaeology as it is practiced in the urban areas of the southeastern United States. "Archaeology of Southern Urban Landscapes" will assist practitioners and scholars in the burgeoning fields of urban and landscape archaeology by treating the South as a distinctive social, geographic, and material entity and by focusing on the urban South rather than the stereotypical South of rural plantations. The case studies in this volume span the entire southeastern United States, from Annapolis to New Orleans and from colonial times to the 19th century. The authors address questions involving the function of cities, interregional diversity, the evolution of the urban landscape, and the impact of the urban landscape on southern culture. By identifying the relationship between southern culture and the South's urban landscapes, this book will help us understand the built landscape of the past and predict future growth in the region. The volume includes: Introduction: Urban Archaeology in the South, Amy L. Young Southern Town Plans, Storytelling, and Historical Archaeology, Linda Derry Mobile's Waterfront: The Development of a Port City, Bonnie L. Gums and George W. Shorter Jr. Urbanism in the Colonial South: The Development of Seventeenth-Century Jamestown, Audrey J. Horning Archaeology at Covington, Kentucky: A Particularly "Northern-looking" Southern City, Robert A. Genheimer Charleston's Powder Magazine and the Development of a Southern City, Martha A. Zierden Archaeology and the African-American Experience in the Urban South, J. W. Joseph Ethnicity in the Urban Landscape: The Archaeology of Creole New Orleans, Shannon Lee Dawdy Developing Town Life in the South: Archaeological Investigations at Blount Mansion, Amy L. Young The Making of the Ancient City: Annapolis in the Antebellum Era, Christopher N. Matthews Urban Archaeology in Tennessee: Exploring the Cities of the Old South, Patrick H. Garrow Archaeological Views of Southern Culture and Urban Life, Paul R. Mullins and Terry H. Klein "


This study adopts a discrete choice modelling methodology to evaluate individuals' preferences over planning alternatives for an urban site of environmental interest. Since such projects involve some uncertainty and irreversibility, a special attention is devoted to the estimation of the quasi-option values which are associated to project development. Two distinct measures for the quasi-option value are estimated, and both coefficients indicate that the public places a significant value on reduction of the possibility of adverse irreversible effects: a more prudent development strategy is valued about four times more than a procedure that provides a lesser hedge against undesired outcomes. Furthermore, the study involved elicitation of intertemporal preferences over projects with different time spans, and estimation of the implicit discount rates: the values obtained seem high if compared to standard discount rates applied to public projects, but not far from current interest rates on consumption.


Based on an analysis of the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, this article sets forth a Confucian justificatory theory of private property. I argue that such a theory is a pluralist theory, simultaneously based on numerous theoretical bases or strands. First, it justifies property based on a theory with utilitarian overtones – namely, that people will be better off in a private property regime as it will lead to a more stable, harmonious, and orderly society. Second, a Confucian theory of property justifies a private property regime as essential in allowing individuals to fulfill, express, and/or practice key, specific Confucian virtues, which in turn allows for full moral development (we might understand this conceptually as a Confucian version of a personhood/human flourishing theory of property). Third, it justifies property based on an economy efficiency theory – that is, private property is key to the smooth functioning of a trade-based economy. All three strands are linked together by a common concern for the moral development of the individual. This article is important for two major reasons: first, it serves as a corrective to the often heard stereotype that Confucianism is not supportive of property rights; and second, it can contribute to the field of property theory as a whole by offering a coherent and integrated theory which weaves different justificatory property theories together.


BACKGROUND: In the Caucasus region country of Georgia, no data on public opinion regarding tobacco sales restrictions have been available until now. The aim of the study is to provide data from a nationally representative sample including non-smokers, ex-smokers and current smokers, on their level of support for restricting tobacco sales. METHODS: 1,588 people aged 13-70 were interviewed at home about their level of agreement with eight possible tobacco sales restrictions, which were combined to create a dichotomous scale indicating low agreement (agree with none to three of eight restrictions) or high agreement (agree with four or more of eight restrictions). Levels of agreement were analyzed by demographic segments defined by age, gender, education and income and by tobacco use status. RESULTS: Across all eight forms of tobacco sales restrictions, the average support for tobacco sales restrictions was 85.2% which is a high level of support. Among smokers, 71% of women and 87% of men indicated a high level of agreement for restricted tobacco sales; among occasional smokers 54% and 55% respectively. Above 95% of female and male ex-smokers and never smokers expressed high level of agreement with sales restrictions. After adjustment for other predictors, agreement was significantly associated with age (more agreement with higher age) and smoking status (more agreement among never-smokers, less in current smokers), while there were no significant differences in agreement by gender, education, and income. DISCUSSION: It is of high importance for Georgia to fully implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, including strong sales restrictions, and there is good evidence of public support for doing so. CONCLUSION: The present findings indicate to Georgian public health authorities that the support for tightened tobacco sales restrictions is high. KEYWORDS: tobacco; tobacco control; tobacco control policy; public attitude; sales restriction; tobacco sales restriction; youth access; law; FCTC.


In vitro propagation of pineapple produces uniform and disease-free plantlets, but requires a long period of acclimatization before transplanting to the field. Quicker adaptation to the ex vitro environment and growth acceleration of pineapple plantlets are prerequisites for the production of a greater amount of vigorous, well-rooted planting material. The combination of humic acids and endophytic bacteria could be a useful technological approach to reduce the critical period of acclimatization. The aim of this study was to evaluate the initial performance of tissue-cultured pineapple variety Vitoria in response to application of humic acids isolated from vermicompost and plant growth-promoting bacteria (Burkholderia spp.) during greenhouse acclimatization. The basal leaf axils were treated with humic acids while roots were immersed in bacterial medium. Humic acids and bacteria application improved shoot growth (14 and 102 %, respectively), compared with the control; the effect of the combined treatment was most pronounced (147 %). Likewise, humic acids increased root growth by 50 %, bacteria by 81 % and the combined treatment by 105 %. Inoculation was found to significantly increase the accumulation of N (115 %), P (112 %) and K (69 %) in pineapple leaves. Pineapple growth was influenced by inoculation with Burkholderia spp., and further improved in combination with humic acids, resulting in higher shoot and root biomass as well as nutrient contents (N 132 %, P 131 %, K 80 %) than in uninoculated plantlets. The stability and increased consistency of the host plant response to bacterization in the presence of humic substances indicate a promising biotechnological tool to improve growth and adaptation of pineapple plantlets to the ex vitro environment.


Magnetotelluric data, collected from 30 stations on Spitsbergen as part of a reconnaissance geothermal resource assessment along a profile with 0.5–3-km spacing in 0.003–1000-s period range, were used to develop a lithospheric-scale two-dimensional (2D) resistivity model, heretofore unavailable for the region. Inverting the determinant of the impedance tensor in 2D, we found the smoothest model fitting the data within a specified tolerance level. We justified the model by perturbing it, performing sensitivity analysis and re-running the inversion with a different algorithm and starting models. From our final model, we constructed a crustal-scale stratigraphic framework, using it to estimate the depth of major geological features and to locate structural deformations. The 2D resistivity model indicates a shallow low resistive (<100 Ωm) Paleozoic–Mesozoic sedimentary sequence, varying laterally in thickness (2–4 km), obstructed by a gently dipping Permian–Carboniferous succession (>1000 Ωm) east of the Billefjorden Fault Zone. Underneath, a (possibly Devonian) basin is imaged as a thick conductive anomaly stretching >15 km downwards. Beneath a deformed Paleozoic–Mesozoic successions, an uplifted pre-Devonian shallow basement (>3000 Ωm) is revealed. We estimated a thin lithosphere, in the range of ca. 55–100 km thick, that could explain the area's elevated surface heat flow (ca. 60–90 mW/m2), consistent with the calculated depth of thermal lithosphere heat-base boundaries for a partially melting mantle. The model indicates a possible replenishment pathway of upward heat transport from the shallow convective mantle to the composite crustal conductive units. This is encouraging for low-enthalpy geothermal development.


A clustered randomized trial in Bangladesh examines alternative strategies to reduce child marriage and teenage childbearing and increase girls' education. Communities were randomized into three treatment and one control group in a 2:1:1:2 ratio. From 2008, girls in treatment communities received either i) a six-month empowerment program, ii) a financial incentive to delay marriage, or iii) empowerment plus incentive. Data from 19,060 girls 4.5 years after program completion show that girls eligible for the incentive for at least two years were 22% (-9.9ppts, p<0.01) less likely to be married under 18, 14% (-5.2ppts, p<0.01) less likely to have given birth under 20, and 21% (5.6ppts, p<0.05) more likely to be in school at age 22. Unlike other incentive programs that are conditional on girls staying in school, an incentive conditional on marriage alone has the potential to benefit out-of-school girls. We find insignificantly different effects for girls in and out of school at baseline. The empowerment program did not decrease child marriage or teenage childbearing. However, girls eligible for the empowerment program were 12% (3.1ppts, p<0.05) more likely to be in-school and had completed 2.9 months (0.24 years, p<0.10) of additional schooling.


We propose two new ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) schemes where the access policy is defined by AND-gate with wildcard. In the first scheme, we present a new technique that uses only one group element to represent an attribute, while the existing ABE schemes of the same type need to use three different group elements to represent an attribute for the three possible values (namely, positive, negative, and wildcard). Our new technique leads to a new CP-ABE scheme with constant ciphertext size, which, however, cannot hide the access policy used for encryption. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a new CP-ABE scheme with the property of hidden access policy by extending the technique we used in the construction of our first scheme. In particular, we show a way to bridge ABE based on AND-gate with wildcard with inner product encryption and then use the latter to achieve the goal of hidden access policy. We prove that our second scheme is secure under the standard decisional linear and decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumptions.


This paper provides a central limit theorem for a consistent estimator of population eigenvalues with large multiplicities based on sample covariance matrices. The focus is on limited sample size situations, whereby the number of available observations is comparable in magnitude to the observation dimension. An exact expression as well as an empirical, asymptotically accurate, approximation of the limiting variance is derived. Simulations are performed that corroborate the theoretical claims.


Plutarch's vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs are a major source of our knowledge about the rise and fall of this remarkable Greek city-state between the sixth and third centuries BC. Through his "Lives of Sparta's leaders" and his recording of memorable "Spartan Sayings", he depicts a people who lived frugally and mastered their emotions in all aspects of life, who also disposed of unhealthy babies in a deep chasm, introduced a gruelling regime of military training for boys, and treated their serfs brutally. Rich in anecdote and detail, Plutarch's writing brings to life the personalities and achievements of Sparta with unparalleled flair and humanity.


In 2009, nearly 2.4 million adults in California reported having seriously thought about suicide during their lifetimes. Among these adults, more than half a million had thought seriously about suicide sometime during the past year. Members of sexual minorities were almost three times as likely as all adults in California to have had suicidal thoughts during the past year. This policy brief, based on data from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), presents a comprehensive overview of risk factors associated with suicidal thoughts among adults ages 18 and older and highlights differences in suicidal ideation among demographic groups and geographic regions in California.


Abstract Previous studies for electrochemical reduction using uranium oxide have shown that reduction was completed within several tens of hours when particles or powders of oxide were used for the cathode material. In the case of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel prepared for fast reactors, there are two significant differences with respect to uranium oxide fuel for light water reactors. The MOX fuel contains ~30% Pu and a small amount of Am. The density of the uranium oxide pellet and MOX pellet is ~98% and ~85% with respect to theoretical values, respectively. These differences decrease the electroconductivity of oxide and the reaction rate. Also, the behavior of transuranic elements has not been certified. In the present study, electrochemical reduction of MOX pellets was performed by setting the pellets directly on the cathode in a molten lithium chloride bath. Reduction was completed after ~15 h, even when using MOX pellets. This value compares closely to the previous values for uranium oxide particles or powders. Current efficiency was varied at ~60%, which is slightly higher than in the previous study. The lower density of MOX allows better diffusion of the molten salt into the pellet and contributes to efficient electrolysis. Concerning actinide behavior during electrolysis, the uranium and plutonium concentrations in the molten salt bath were lower than their detection limits. Although a small amount of americium was dissolved in the molten salt bath and gradually accumulated, the amount was <1% with respect to the initial amount. The oxygen concentration in the molten salt decreased gradually during electrolysis. These variations in the salt hardly affected the current efficiency and the actinide recovery ratio. These observations indicate that the electrochemical reduction of MOX pellets is applicable to industrial processes.


The dominant interpretation of Roman imperialism in the provinces of Arabia and then Palaestina Tertia holds that the Empire was seeking to combat external military threats from nomads. This interpretation is based on archaeological evidence of Roman military sites forming a static defensive system linked by a road network. Recent scholarship in Jordan has questioned this interpretation. Alternative hypotheses have been advanced proposing that these sites acted as points of provincial control or were situated to maintain routes for long distance trade. It is proposed here that these interpretations of imperial control are flawed, either because of poorly realised explanatory models or improperly sampled datasets. In contrast, this study achieves an integration of textual and archaeological data through the conceptual framework of landscape. This approach stresses the spatial correlates of human behaviour and allows an alternative interpretation of imperial control to be validated. This study proposes the hypothesis that the aim of Roman imperialism in this area was to control directly imperial material resources. It does not present a historical reconstruction but demonstrates the power of a landscape approach over other models in the interpretation of Roman imperial control in southern Jordan. A rigorous review of existing textual and archaeological evidence from southern Jordan to establish military spatial and temporal development concludes that the scale of military fluctuations to support the hypothesis of a desert frontier sy~tem has been exaggerated. To test this conclusion primary data from the Dana Archaeological Survey (DAS), a three-year survey project directed by the author, was rigorously correlated with existing datasets. By strictly defining military sites and emphasising these monuments as part of wider settlement pattern, the survey demonstrated that military variability was in fact highly conservative and cannot support the hypothesis of frontier defence or provincial control. The DAS data was then used to test an alternative hypothesis that military variation is linked to the control of trade and wider socio-economic integration. This was achieved by correlating military sites with the wider settlement hierarchy through patterns of ceramic continuity. However, contrary to previous interpretations showing highly variable settlement change, the results proved that the correlation with military sites is not exact. These results were then compared with critically evaluated data from four other surveys (Wadi Hasa Survey, Southern Ghors and North Arabah Survey, Limes Arabicus survey and the Kerak Plateau Survey), which broadly supported the DAS results. This study makes clear that there is a spatial correlation between the existence of imperial estates, industrial centres and military sites. Archaeological evidence of an imperial estate in the DAS project area is presented and is contrasted with the different spatial and temporal features of a civilian estate. This imperial estate can be spatially correlated with several military sites. A review of the historical and textual evidence for imperial .estates in Arabia suggests a provincial-wide pattern. This re-interpretation of the imperial landscape in southern Jordan views the location of military sites and the road network as a part of a vast integrated resourcing system of the Eastern Empire.


In this thesis solid state NMR experiments on a variety of minerals and glasses are
described with the aim of studying the dependence of their structure on the chemical composition.
Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the subject.
Chapter 2 describes 23Na and 27Al NMR experiments on a number of alkali
fluoroaluminates. These substances consist of AIF6 octahedra which can be linked together
to form a variety of structures, similar to the way in which Si04 and AI04 tetrahedra are
linked together in aluminosilicates. The 23Na and 27Al chemical shifts correlate well with the
type of structure. AIF3 is a network structure and has the most negative 27Al chemical shift
(-16 ppm). The chemical shift increases from -3 and -1 ppm in the sheet structure chiolite
(NasAI3F14) to 0 ppm in cryolite (N~AIF6)' The 23Na chemical shift is dependent of the
number of fluorines coordinating Na: Na in an NaF6 group has a more positive chemical
shift than Na in NaFs. Additionally, 27Al chemical shifts for oxides are shown to be at least
20 ppm less shielded than those in similar fluorides.
Chapter 3 studies pentameric (Si,Al)s016 groups with (almost) straight intertetrahedral
AI-O-Si angles in a zunyite with excess Al and in harkerite. The excess Al in the zunyite
lattice is shown to occupy the central tetrahedral Si(l) site. The 27Al chemical shift correlation
with the AI-O-Si angle is extended to 1760
Chapter 4 reports the first application of off-resonance nutation spectroscopy to five
alkali aluminosilicate glasses. These glasses have a chemical composition similar to that of
a granite, with the alkali's replaced by Li, Na, K, Rb, and Cs. Off-resonance nutation
spectroscopy, newly developed at the HF-NMR facility in Nijmegen, proves to be very
powerful in determining the quadrupole interaction and subsequently the isotropic chemical
shifts for Al in these glasses. The quadrupole interaction and the chemical shift decrease
when the size of the charge-balancing counterion increases. The correlation of the 27Al
chemical shift with the AI-O-Si angle for framework aluminosilicate structures (see also
chapter 3) is used to show, that the size of the alkali ion determines the size of the rings
building up the glasses. Since the quadrupole interaction for Al is linearly correlated with
the polarising power of the alkali ion, the aluminium and the alkali ions are believed to be
closely bound. This is supported by a theoretical ionic model predicting this correlation.
Chapter 5 investigates the use of corundum (a-AI20 3 ) as a standard in quantatative
NMR measurements. As AI is a quadrupolar nucleus, a number of requirements have to be
fullfilled in order to obtain reliable results. Most importantly, only the central transition is
excited by using a very short rf pulse in order to be in the region of linear response. The
intensities of five natural and synthetic corundum samples are compared. Despite the fact
that all experimental conditions are identical and in the linear region, the intensities differ
considerably. A synthetic corundum obtained by heating Al(OH)3 has the highest intensity,
close to the expected value, but the other samples have much too low intensities. Relaxation
effects are shown to be responsible for this. It is proposed, that only in case of a wellcharacterized
corundum sample without impurities a-A120 3 can be used as a standard for
quantitative NMR measurements.


Height-for-age z-scores (HAZs) and stunting status (HAZ<−2) are widely used to measure child nutrition and population health. However, accurate measurement of age is nontrivial in populations with low levels of literacy and numeracy, limited use of formal birth records, and weak cultural norms surrounding birthdays and calendar use. In this paper we use Demographic and Health Surveys data from 62 countries over the period 1990–2014 to describe two statistical artifacts indicative of misreporting of age. The first artifact consists of lower HAZs for children reported to be born earlier in each calendar year (resulting in implausibly large HAZ gaps between January- and December-born children), which is consistent with some degree of randomness in month of birth reporting. The second artifact consists of lower HAZs for children with a reported age just below a round age (and hence implausibly large HAZ gaps between children with reported ages just below and just above round ages), which is consistent with survey respondents rounding ages down more than they round ages up. Using simulations, we show how these forms of misreporting child age can replicate observed patterns in the data, and that they have small impacts on estimated rates of stunting but important implications for research that relies on birth timing to identify exposure to various risks, particularly seasonal shocks. Moreover, the misreporting we identify differs from conventional age-heaping concerns, implying that the metrics described above could constitute useful markers of measurement error in nutrition surveys. Future research should also investigate ways to reduce these errors.


The formation of a meso-scale anti-cyclonic (warm core) eddy of the Leeuwin Current off Perth, Western Australia in May 2006 was the subject of intensive investigation during a 25-day multi-disciplinary research voyage. Using satellite-tracked drifters, neuston, bongo and opening and closing EZ nets, eddy–induced crossshelf transport of finfish and invertebrate larvae (e.g. rock lobster phyllosoma) was examined. Lagrangian flow characteristics of the anti-cyclonic meander of the Leeuwin Current indicated that it remained attached to the main current with flow returning back onto the shelf during the period of field investigation. In addition, a trend of decreasing drift speed from the perimeter of the meander to the centre was identified. Spatial distributions of fish larvae within and between water masses showed greatest concentrations to be located in shelf waters and within the meander. Vertical stratification of fish larvae revealed the greatest concentrations to occur within the well mixed layer to a depth of 100 m. Patterns in vertical distributions of fish larvae suggest an interaction between oceanography and larval behaviour. Linking vertical distributions of larvae with corresponding depthstratified current velocities (ADCP data) will enable quantification of the cross-shelf transport of larvae.


Background— Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive, fatal disease with no cure. Parenteral and inhaled prostacyclin analogue therapies are effective for the treatment of PAH, but complicated administration requirements can limit the use of these therapies in patients with less severe disease. This study was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the oral prostacyclin analogue treprostinil diolamine as initial treatment for de novo PAH. Methods and Results— Three hundred forty-nine patients (intent-to-treat population) not receiving endothelin receptor antagonist or phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibitor background therapy were randomized (treprostinil, n=233; placebo, n=116). The primary analysis population (modified intent-to-treat) included 228 patients (treprostinil, n=151; placebo, n=77) with access to 0.25-mg treprostinil tablets at randomization. The primary end point was change from baseline in 6-minute walk distance at week 12. Secondary end points included Borg dyspnea index, clinical worsening, and symptoms of PAH. The week 12 treatment effect for 6-minute walk distance (modified intent-to-treat population) was 23.0 m (P=0.0125). For the intent-to-treat population, 6-minute walk distance improvements were observed at peak (26.0 m; P=0.0001) and trough (17.0 m; P=0.0025) plasma study drug concentrations. Other than an improvement in the combined 6-minute walk distance/Borg dyspnea score, there were no significant changes in secondary end points. Oral treprostinil therapy was generally well tolerated; the most common adverse events (intent-to-treat) were headache (69%), nausea (39%), diarrhea (37%), and pain in jaw (25%). Conclusions— Oral treprostinil improves exercise capacity in PAH patients not receiving other treatment. Oral treprostinil could provide a convenient, first-line prostacyclin treatment option for PAH patients not requiring more intensive therapy. Clinical Trial Registration:— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00325403.


Studies on the practice of Buddhism in the West clearly show that, ever since the 1960s, Buddhism has won a significant following from individuals of Jewish background. This article explores the links between Jewish adoption of Buddhism (as a form of spiritual practice, philosophy, therapy or overarching religion) and the pains of Jewish history, and proposes that conversion may be an attempt to disassociate one's self not only from her or his own Jewishness, but from the entire Abrahamic religious model. At the same time, the trend is confronted by its countertrend, by which the disassociation from Judaism for the sake of engagement with Buddhism often seems to be temporary, partial, or both. It is argued that in such instances, engagement with Buddhism may serve post-Holocaust needs for spiritual convalescence while at the same time instilling a pluralistic spirit that holds vicarious ramifications for Jewish attitudes towards and relations with other faiths, Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic alike.


Countryside recreation is hugely popular and demand is on the rise. Whilst participation
should be encouraged, sensitive management is required to reduce associated
environmental impacts. This thesis investigates current and future patterns in countryside
recreation at multiple spatial scales, from national to site, to explore the potential impacts
on biodiversity and enhance the evidence base for conservation interventions.
A national-level recreation model is developed from a unique and massive data set
of georeferenced recreational visits collected over 3 years, which predicts the probability
of visitation as a function of land cover composition and accessibility to and within a site,
whilst controlling for source population and socio-demographic differences. Land cover
types were subdivided into proportion designated and non-designated for high nature
value, using Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) as a proxy. Probability of visitation
to preferred land covers, coast and freshwater, decreased when SSSI designated, with no
effect for broadleaved woodland. Therefore general recreational use by the public did not
represent an important ecosystem service of protected high-nature-value areas. The model
was employed to create national- and county-level spatially-explicit predictions of
countryside recreation under present and future conditions, the conservation implications
of which are discussed.
As species conservation requires knowledge of how recreational pressure is
distributed throughout a site, a novel methodology was developed using Thetford Forest as
a case study. GIS-based Network Analysis was combined with statistical modelling to
predict the number of disturbance events from recreationists for all path sections
throughout the site. This tool was able to test the consequences of altering site access on
the number of hypothetical new woodlark territories likely to become occupied.
This study contributes to a relatively small body of work on the importance of
biodiversity for recreation and provides novel spatial approaches for quantifying demand
and testing conservation interventions.


This paper conducts a double-edged reading of Candy Gourlay's two children's novels, Tall Story (2010) and Shine (2013). It argues that on the one hand, these two award-winning books empower the "invisible" community of Filipinos in the UK by foregrounding the "subalterns" and narrating (with subtle social commentaries) their migrant motivations and woes. These narratives are further enriched by folkloric and supernatural twists that orient global audiences as well as younger generations of Filipinos abroad on Filipino cultural heritage. On the other hand, the representations embedded in these narratives contain traces of self-orientalism, reinforcing essentializing binary divisions where Filipinos or "Orientals" are stuck with the negative attributes and the "happy endings" also push the minority group further into the margins vis-a-vis the privileged British center. Hence, the kind of visibility accorded to the Filipinos by these market-approved children's novels may be deemed problematic and the role of Gourlay as an immigrant writer bearing the burden of representation is then explored.


Primary mesenteric Liposarcoma is a rare neoplasm and only few documented cases are there in literature that too in adults. We report a case of giant primary mesenteric Liposarcoma in an adolescent male. Our patient is a 17 yrs old male who presented with gradual abdominal distension and was found to have huge multilobated and heterogeneous abdominal tumor arising from transverse mesocolon on imaging. The excised tumor weighed 19 kg and was reported as well differentiated Liposarcoma (WDLPS) on histomorphology. Atypical Lipomatous Tumor and WDLPS are synonyms describing lesions that are identical morphologically, karyotypically and in terms of biological potential. In deep visceral sites where wide excision margin are difficult to attain, the term WDLPS is preferred. Myxoid Liposarcoma is the most common variant of LPS seen in children and young adults with lower extremities being commonest site of occurrence. Our case is unique in rarity of lesion, its dimensions, location and uncommon histomorphology for age.