Sensitivity in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), especially in solid-state NMR, has always been a challenging and important issue and thus a motivation for new developments. The magnetic field B0, the gyromagnetic ratios of the observed nuclei, as well as the preparation of the samples are important for optimizing the sensitivity. Often only a small amount of sample is available and the nuclei of interest have low gyromagnetic ratios, which makes solid-state NMR extremely time consuming and, in some cases, practically impossible. In addition, strong interactions can cause extensive line-broadening, thus making it difficult to excite or detect high resolution spectra. In this thesis two main aspects concerning sensitivity in solid-state NMR are addressed. The first part reveals the difficulties of the excitation and detection of quadrupolar nuclei, in particular of the highly abundant nucleus nitrogen-14, and presents an indirect detection method combined with a more efficient excitation and reconversion scheme using Delays Alternating with Nutations for Tailored Excitation (DANTE). The second part presents a new experimental set-up for Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP), which has evolved into a very successful method at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. It is shown in this work that the DNP method combined with solid-state NMR allows one to enhance NMR signal intensities by one or two orders of magnitude, thus opening the doors towards a great variety of new exciting applications. In solids spinning at the magic angle, the indirect detection of single-quantum (SQ) and double-quantum (DQ) 14N spectra (I = 1) via spy nuclei S = 1/2 such as protons can be achieved in the manner of heteronuclear single- or multiple-quantum correlation (HSQC or HMQC) spectroscopy. The coherence transfer is achieved by recoupling the heteronuclear dipolar interactions, i.e., with symmetry-based sequences. The line broadening caused by the homogeneous decay of the transverse terms of the spy nuclei S can be reduced by implementing suitable dipolar decoupling schemes during the evolution period. The lack of efficiency of the excitation and reconversion can be overcome by replacing the conventional rectangular pulses applied to the nitrogen-14 nuclei by a train of short rotor-synchronized pulses in the manner of DANTE. These pulse trains excite a large number of crystallites in the sample uniformly and allow one to efficiently excite magnetization over large bandwidths, limited only by the quality factor of the probe. When combining N interleaved DANTE schemes, obtained by applying N pulses per rotor period, leading to so-called "DANTE-N" sequences, one obtains methods that greatly improve the uniformity of the excitation and lead to higher signal intensity in less rotor periods than basic DANTE. Applications to nitrogen-14 with fast magic angle spinning (typically νrot ≥ 60 kHz), using either direct or indirect detection, are backed up by simulations that provide insight into the properties of basic and interleaved DANTE sequences. DNP exploits the polarization transfer, driven by microwave irradiation, from unpaired electrons, usually carried by polarization agents such as TEMPO or TOTAPOL, to the target nuclei. This transfer results in enhancements of the signal-to-noise ratios and thus opens many new possibilities for challenging samples. In this thesis the experimental requirements are demonstrated and important parameters like the temperature dependence are investigated. Various sample preparation methods are proposed, e.g., by attaching the radical directly to the molecules under investigation, instead of preparing a solution that should forma glass upon freezing. The combination of indirect detection of 14N with DNP improves the signal-to-noise ratio dramatically and shortens the recovery delay between subsequent experiments. Besides samples of biological interest, it was also shown that the NMR signals of molecules on surfaces of various materials can be greatly enhanced by DNP. A characterization of the distribution of surface binding modes and interactions in a series of functionalized materials could be demonstrated. The bonding topology of functional groups in materials obtained via a sol-gel process and in materials prepared by post-grafting reactions could be identified and compared. Furthermore, the remarkable gain in time afforded by DNP allows the facile acquisition of two-dimensional correlation spectra. The surfaces were characterized by transferring the polarization from protons to other nuclei such as 13C, 29Si and 27Al by means of cross-polarization.


Benjamin Cardozo's 1928 opinion in Meinhard v. Salmon that co-venturers owe each other "the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive" remains, 80 years later, a defining point for framing the discussion of fiduciary duty, still the most important issue in the law of business associations. This work develops the story of Messers. Meinhard and Salmon and their relationship with the very wealthy Livingston/Gerry family who owned the land in New York City at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street that gave rise to this long-running dispute. The context helps delineate the scope of fiduciary duty in a way that Cardozo's memorable language does not. This in turn leads to a discussion of the role of private ordering in structuring relationships where such a duty may not be desired and what this classic case may tell us about contracting out of fiduciary duty in a modern setting.


Two conceptions of the right to bargain collectively have influenced its protection in international law. In international labor law, the right historically has been conceived of as one of several workers' rights that protect domestic rights of workers from international competition. In international human rights law, the right is conceived of as a human right that protects a universal feature of what it means to be a human being. This paper examines the status of the right in both fields in light of economic globalization and transnational flexible production. Instead of a weakening of the right at the international level, both fields reveal a trend toward its enhanced protection. Economic globalization and transnational flexible production are also changing the normative relationship between international human rights law and international labor law. They have sparked a third conception of labor rights as international rights - as instruments that possess the potential to vest the international legal order with a measure of normative legitimacy by attending to state and non-state action that international law otherwise authorizes in the name of economic globalization or flexible production. Armed with this new conception, international labor law is realigning its relationship to international human rights law around a shared task of mitigating the distributional consequences of globalization and transnational flexible production - a task in which the right to bargain collectively performs a critical function.


Relationships between late Tertiary.-Quaternary (8-0 Ma) magmatic activity and regional shear zones in the central Mediterranean (southern Italy) are described. A magmatic shear system is thought to be present from the granite intrusion of Vercelli seamount (7.3 Ma) to Vesuvius volcano (0.8-0.13 Ma), and it may extend towards the Vulture. Another major tectonomagmatic lineation runs along the northern continental slope of Sicily connecting the early Pliocene (5 Ma), intra-plate volcanics of the Aceste seamount to the late Pleistocene (0.43-0.013 Ma) calc-alkaline rocks of Salina island. Progression of calcalkaline volcanism towards the east occurred along the two west-east trending structures of left-lateral strike-slip displacement. The calcalkaline products of the central sector of the Aeolian volcanic archipelago (the islands of Salina, Lipari and Vulcano) are associated with a NNW-SSE oriented shear zone of right lateral strike slip which runs perpendicular to the arc structure. The foreland is characterized by the intraplate volcanism of the Iblean plateau and Mt. Etna and by the important shear zone of the Malta escarpment which separates the continental domain of eastern Sicily from the Ionian oceanic lithosphere. This NNW-SSE oriented «hot» shear zone exhibits dextral strike-slip. Progression of magmatic activity along the regional fault systems towards the front of subduction is most likely related to different rates of roll-back which, in turn, are controlled by the characteristics of the foreland lithosphere: e.g. oceanic crust of the Ionian basin subducts quickly beneath the Calabrian arc, while the southern Apennines and Sicily are underthrusted slowly by thinned continental crust.


Management of yard waste is a significant challenge in the US, where in 2005 13.1% of the 245 million tons of municipal solid waste was reported to be yard waste. Approximately 61.9% of yard waste is recycled (http://www.epa.gov/garbage/pubs/mswchar05.pdf). Because of its volume and potential use as a soil amendment, the disposal of yard waste in lined landfills is banned in most states. Consequently, yard waste is frequently composted or mulched. Composting involves the aerobic biological degradation of yard waste to a soil-like material, whereas mulching involves size reduction and homogenizing without biological processes. Common uses of compost and mulch are on municipal parks, roadways, and horticultural purposes. Another common use of mulch is as landfill cover to avoid purchase of soil or alternative cover materials. This study investigates the use of mulch as daily and intermediate cover for landfills. Seven mulch samples were collected from different parts of Florida, and direct shear and hydraulic conductivity tests were conducted to evaluate their geotechnical and hydraulic properties. Mulch samples had internal friction angles in the range of 140-160 and had an interface friction angle with MSW in the range of 120-130. All mulch samples were cohesive and had some adhesive resistance against MSW. A slope stability analysis was carried out assuming both a linear plane of failure at the interface between the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and mulch used as daily and intermediate cover and a circular slip surface where mulch is used as daily and intermediate cover using the program Slope/W. Results for both intermediate and daily covers showed that all seven mulch covers used at a slope of 1:3 and 1:4 had factors of safety above 1.5; indicating a stable slope. All mulch samples had a hydraulic conductivity of 0.1 cm/sec with a porosity ranging from 0.56-0.64. The effects of temperature, moisture content and oxygen concentration on spontaneous ignition of mulch were investigated. Compacted shredded mulch (maximum dimension less than 2.5 cm) at various moisture contents and oxygen concentration were placed in a programmable oven and subjected to increasing temperature (30 C/min) to evaluate the auto-ignition temperature under different moisture contents and oxygen concentrations. The ignition temperature for mulch was found to be 2300 C; indicating the likelihood for spontaneous combustion in landfill to take place if mulch is applied as cover without mixing with soil.


We explore whether the introduction of trust based working hours is related to the subsequent innovation performance of firms. Employing a panel data set of over 5,000 German establishments, we implement a propensity score matching approach where we only consider firms that did not use trust based work contracts initially. Our results show that firms which adopt such contracts tend to be between 11 to 14 percent more likely to improve products. These results hold when we control for another form of flexible time work arrangements, namely working time accounts. Thus, the positive relationship between the adoption of trust based working hours and innovation seems to be driven by the degree of control and self-management over working days, rather than by merely allowing time flexibility.


The aim of this article is to conduct research on issues and common strategies to protect the privacy of patients when using dental photographs for educational and clinical purposes, and to prepare a specialized form of informed consent. Methods: 1. Documentary method; 2. Consultation with a legal expert; 3. Statistical method. Results: The results of the documentary and statistical survey are indicative of the need to implement the informed consent using dental photography in dentistry, to avoid bilateral ambivalent reactions. The informed consent form is consistent with the ethical and legal concepts of modern dentistry. Conclusion: The modern dental photography has a major role in the process of educating and qualifying dentists and the experts in dental medicine. The photographic documentation and its aspects, purposes and availability impose it as a modern method of comparing analysis when taking pictures of the patient before, during and after dental treatment. The obligation of dentists to present information for the rights of the patient when using dental photography is a major part of the modern medical treatment. The implementation and defence of the mentioned human rights, structured in the state constitution, depend mostly on the knowledge of the patients about dental photography and their DOI: 10.18044/Medinform.201742.531 Original Article MedInform I S S U E 1 , 2 0 1 7 532 MedInform own activity as participants in the process. The protection of this public interest is placed whit in the priorities of the professional organization in order to enforce its effective and guarantee dental care according to the best dental practice.


Jute (Corchorus olitorius L.) is the second most important fiber crop after cotton in terms of global production (3). In November 2011, symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection were observed on a seed crop of jute at the CRIJAF research farm, Barrackpore, West Bengal, India. The disease appeared as small, brown, circular spots, usually less than 5 mm in diameter on the leaves and some of the spots were surrounded by a yellow halo. The lesions on the stems were elongated and in some cases were found to girdle the stem. In the later stages of disease, brown sunken spots were found on the green capsules. Disease incidence varied from about 20% to 90% of the total plants in different affected fields at the CRIJAF research farm. Bacterial leaf spot of jute with similar symptoms was reported in 1957 from Sudan (4). Five symptomatic and three asymptomatic leaf samples were collected from different jute fields. Bacterial colonies isolated on nutrient agar medium from infected young leaves were Xanthomonas-like and pale yellow cream in color. Total DNA was extracted from symptomatic as well as asymptomatic leaf samples by using an improved salt concentration and simple sodium acetate CTAB method (2). Single bacterial colonies were transferred to nutrient agar (NA) medium plates and incubated at 28°C for 48 h. Pure colonies from plates were used directly for DNA extraction using the QIAGEN DNeasy Blood and Tissue kit. PCR was carried out with Xanthomonas campestris specific primers NZ8F3/NZ85R3 (1), which generated an amplicon of 530 bp from all the symptomatic leaf samples as well as pure cultures of the isolated bacteria. No amplification was obtained from asymptomatic leaves. The amplicons from the five symptomatic samples collected from the field were sequenced and showed 100% identity with one another, and one sequence (strain JB-CO-13) was deposited in GenBank (Accession No. KC342185). The BLASTn analysis revealed that bacterial strain JB-CO-13 had 100% identity with X. campestris pv. olitorii (EU285213). Nucleotide span and ORF finder (NCBI) analysis indicated the 530-bp PCR amplicon coded part of a gyrase B gene that had 100% identity with a translated gene product (Protein ID: ABX84334). Three leaves of five 1-month-old jute plants (cv. JRO 204) in pot culture were infiltrated each with a separate bacterial strain using suspensions (1 × 105 CFU/ml) in distilled water. The negative control consisted of leaves infiltrated with sterile distilled water. The plants were kept in a greenhouse with mean maximum and minimum temperatures of 28.96 and 21.8°C, respectively. The plants were covered with plastic bags to maintain high relative humidity (>80%). Typical bacterial lesions were recorded on all the inoculated plants after 1 week. No lesions were seen on the negative control. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of bacterial leaf spot on C. olitorius caused by X. campestris pv. olitorii from India. References: (1) J. Adriko et al. Plant Pathol. 61:489, 2012. (2) C. Biswas, et al. Lett. Appl. Microbiol. 56:105, 2013. (3) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Agricultural Commodities: Profiles and Relevant WTO Negotiating Issues. Online: http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/Y4343E/y4343e03.htm , 2003. (4) K. A. Sabet. Ann. Appl. Biol. 45:516, 1957.


Multiple system atrophy is characterized by autonomic failure along with motor symptoms of parkinsonism and/or cerebellar ataxia. There are differing reports on the influence of certain clinical features, including motor subtype (multiple system atrophy-parkinsonism versus multiple system atrophy-cerebellar ataxia), age of onset, gender, and early autonomic symptoms, on the survival in patients with multiple system atrophy. We sought to evaluate overall survival and predictors of survival in a large cohort of patients with multiple system atrophy seen at a single referral centre where objective autonomic testing is routinely performed for this indication. All cases of multiple system atrophy evaluated at Mayo Clinic, Rochester and assessed with an autonomic reflex screen between January 1998 and December 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. A total of 685 patients were identified; 594 met criteria for probable multiple system atrophy, and 91 for possible multiple system atrophy. Multiple system atrophy-parkinsonism was the predominant subtype in 430 patients (63%). Average age of onset was earlier in multiple system atrophy-cerebellar ataxia (58.4 years) compared to multiple system atrophy-parkinsonism (62.3 years; P < 0.001). Median disease duration from symptom onset to death was 7.51 years (95% confidence interval 7.18-7.78) while time from diagnosis to death was 3.33 years (95% confidence interval 2.92-3.59). There was no difference in survival between motor subtypes of multiple system atrophy (P = 0.232). An initial motor symptom was most common (61%) followed by autonomic onset (28%) and combined motor and autonomic symptoms (11%). The initial onset of either motor or autonomic symptoms did not influence length of survival. However, a number of clinical and autonomic laboratory features predicted unfavourable survival in a univariate analysis. A multivariate model retained the following unfavourable predictors of survival: (i) falls within 3 years of onset (hazard ratio 2.31, P < 0.0001); (ii) bladder symptoms (hazard ratio 1.96, P < 0.0001); (iii) urinary catheterization within 3 years of symptom onset (hazard ratio 1.67, P < 0.003); (iv) orthostatic intolerance within 1 year of symptom onset (hazard ratio 1.28, P < 0.014); (v) older age of onset (hazard ratio 1.02, P = 0.001); and (vi) degree of autonomic failure as measured by a validated composite autonomic severity score (hazard ratio 1.07, P < 0.0023). We conclude that carefully selected clinical features can be used to predict survival in patients with multiple system atrophy. Autonomic testing adds an additional, independent predictor of survival, demonstrating its value not only in the diagnosis of multiple system atrophy but also as prognostic marker.


What better way to see Kyoto than at dawn, when the back streets and alleys of this 1,200-year-old city are still under the spell of the past? Old folks fuss about with their bonsai and laundry poles, pausing to chat on their way to the neighborhood shrine with flowers and morning prayers. Knock-kneed white egrets stalk the stream beds for breakfast, and the giant bronze temple bells awaken the former capital of Japan every morning as they have done for centuries. Through wars, fires, famines, tyrants, and now rapid modernization, the old neighborhoods of Kyoto are the places where the customs and traditions of this fascinating city, with its confusing blend of old and new, have managed to survive. American writer and former Kyoto resident Diane Durston introduces seven must-see precincts of this ancient capital city, including four Historic Preservation Districts. Among them are the world-famous geisha quarter, the kimono textile neighborhoods, the sake-brewing area of Fushimi, and the tea-growing region of Uji. Durston weaves together local lore and historical sites to create a panoply of provocative walking tours that take the reader back in time to the elegance of earlier days. Accompanying each section is a full-color map and the fine photography of Katsuhiko Mizuno, a Kyoto native and one of the city's most famous photographers. Sections highlighting Kyoto crafts, cuisine, festivals, and tourist essentials round out this attractive volume, making it the perfect introduction -and guide- to one of the world's most evocative cities. FEATURES * Photographs by one of Kyoto's most renowned photographers * Locations of the most important Historic Preservations Districts * Detailed maps and suggested routes * Scenic and little-known walking paths * Completely revised and updated information


Communities in Chiapas are pioneers in fire management; for example, land users have to request burning permits from village organizations, following customary environmental management practices. This article reports on the cultural management of fire by indigenous Antelá and Tziscao communities in and around Lagunas de Montebello National Park, Chiapas, Mexico. It addresses territoriality, memory, regimes and management, and the integration of cultural knowledge and perspectives, with global relevance for all Indigenous peoples. This is the first published reference to the term "Pyrobiocultural" that the authors of this article (among others) have been developing over recent years.


Most existing learning to hash methods assume that there are sufficient data, either labeled or unlabeled, on the domain of interest (i.e., the target domain) for training. However, this assumption cannot be satisfied in some real-world applications. To address this data sparsity issue in hashing, inspired by transfer learning, we propose a new framework named Transfer Hashing with Privileged Information (THPI). Specifically, we extend the standard learning to hash method, Iterative Quantization (ITQ), in a transfer learning manner, namely ITQ+. In ITQ+, a new slack function is learned from auxiliary data to approximate the quantization error in ITQ. We developed an alternating optimization approach to solve the resultant optimization problem for ITQ+. We further extend ITQ+ to LapITQ+ by utilizing the geometry structure among the auxiliary data for learning more precise binary codes in the target domain. Extensive experiments on several benchmark datasets verify the effectiveness of our proposed approaches through comparisons with several state-of-the-art baselines.


There is a tendency by the international community to show indignation and revulsion when genocide is committed, followed by calls for sanctions against the perpetrators. In the last two decades, genocide was committed in Rwanda and Bosnia while the world looked on and not intervened out of respect for sovereignty. This article argues that the doctrine of state sovereignty has been stretched to a ridicu lous level insofar as the crime of genocide is concerned . Moreover, the ability of the international commun ity to prevent genocides is hampered by the power of ve to of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The article proposes that the int ernational community should take seriously the need for humanitarian military intervention in situation s of gross human rights violations that puts the li ves of innocent citizens at stake. In addition, there shou ld be a resolve to reform the veto power in the UN Security Council so that it is not exercised in the cases of genocide and other crimes against civilia n populations.


Drawing on discussions at various venues, we envision a publishing ecosystem for Internet science, supporting publications that are self-contained, interactive, multi-level, open, and collaborative. These publications, which we dub hyperpapers, not only address issues with reproducibility and verifiability of research in Internet science and measurement, but have the potential to increase the impact of our work and change how collaborations work in the field. This note announces initial experiments with Internet measurement hyperpapers with the help of common, tested technologies in data science and software development, and is a call to action to others to come build out this vision with us.


Abstract. Due to their remoteness, altitude and harsh climatic conditions, little is known about the glaciological parameters of ice caps on the Tibetan Plateau. This study presents a geodetic mass balance estimate of the Purogangri Ice Cap, Tibet's largest ice field between 2000 and 2012. We utilized data from the actual TerraSAR-X mission and its add-on for digital elevation measurements and compared it with elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The employed data sets are ideal for this approach as both data sets were acquired at X-band at nearly the same time of the year and are available at a fine grid spacing. In order to derive surface elevation changes we employed two different methods. The first method is based on differential synthetic radar interferometry while the second method uses common DEM differencing. Both approaches revealed a slightly negative mass budget of −44 ± 15 and −38 ± 23 mm w.eq. a−1 (millimeter water equivalent) respectively. A slightly negative trend of −0.15 ± 0.01 km2 a−1 in glacier extent was found for the same time period employing a time series of Landsat data. Overall, our results show an almost balanced mass budget for the studied time period. Additionally, we detected one continuously advancing glacier tongue in the eastern part of the ice cap.


Key management is a core mechanism to ensure the security of applications and network services in wireless sensor networks. It includes two aspects: key distribution and key revocation. Many key management protocols have been specifically designed for wireless sensor networks. However, most of the key management protocols focus on the establishment of the required keys or the removal of the compromised keys. The design of these key management protocols does not consider the support of higher level security applications. When the applications are integrated later in sensor networks, new mechanisms must be designed. In this paper, we propose a security framework, uKeying, for wireless sensor networks. This framework can be easily extended to support many security applications. It includes three components: a security mechanism to provide secrecy for communications in sensor networks, an efficient session key distribution scheme, and a centralized key revocation scheme. The proposed framework does not depend on a specific key distribution scheme and can be used to support many security applications, such as secure group communications. Our analysis shows that the framework is secure, efficient, and extensible. The simulation and results also reveal for the first time that a centralized key revocation scheme can also attain a high efficiency.


Are you looking for some great ideas or inspiration to manage your time better? This book contains 100 great ideas, extracted from leading companies and individuals from around the world.In an age when people of all levels are struggling to cope wiith the demands on their time, just one simple idea can be the catalyst to change that. This book can be that very catalyst. Each time management idea is succinctly described and is followed by advice on how it can be applied to the reader's own situation. A simple but potenitally powerful book for anyone seeking new inspiration and that killer application.


Employee engagement has been extensively studied for over 30 years. Whilst historically scholars have focused on the correlation between engagement and performance, recent research is shifting towards more pertinent questions and new methods to explore how employees experience engagement and how it is elicited.

The purpose of this dissertation is to carry out a holistic investigation to identify the drivers of employee engagement in a specific department of an organisation within the Securities Services Industry in Dublin; this study also explores how employees get value from the implementation of Human Capital Practices and how internal and external factors impact on their engagement.

The research uses a sequential multi-phase design and employs a deductive approach to measure employees' attitudes and behaviours, whilst qualitative strategies are adopted to explore the lived experience of the employees.

In line with the literature reviewed for this study, the research findings highlight that open communication and trust are the foundations of employee engagement; rewards are important at all levels; and opportunities for growth and progression are the key drivers for employee engagement in the department investigated. These findings are broadly in line with the "engagement drivers" identified in the extant research.

This study also demonstrates that an effective and successful implementation of Human Capital Practices is positively correlated to the level of employee engagement within the department selected for this research.

Offshoring and repetitive work emerge as the main factors that have a negative impact on employee engagement in the department chosen for this study.

This dissertation recommends that employers consider taking a participatory approach in the design and implementation of engagement activities to improve their effectiveness.

In particular, as suggested by Jenkins and Delbridge (2013), organisations should ensure that their HR practices are aligned with their business model and tap into the aspirations and ambitions of their employees.


In Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), pre-processing of the image is a crucial process in deciding the quality and performance of the system. Pre-processing is consists many stages as Segmentation, Enhancement, Binarisation, and Thinning. In this segmentation is one of the steps of pre-processing which differentiate foreground and background region of fingerprint images. Segmentation is the separation of the fingerprint region or extraction of the presence of ridges from the background of the initial image. Segmentation is necessary because it constructs the region of interest from the input image, reduces the processing time, increases the recognition or matching process performance, and reduces the probability of false feature extraction. A 100% accurate segmentation is always very difficult, especially in the very poor quality image or partial image filled with noise such as the presence of latent. Fingerprints are made of Ridge and Valley structure and their features are classified in three levels as Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Level 1 Features are singular macro details like ridge pattern and ridge flows. Level 2 is ridge local features like ridge bifurcation and ridge ending or simply minutiae points or ridge orientation. Level 3 is micro details like sweat pores, incipient ridges. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art techniques of fingerprint image segmentation and contribution of other researchers on segmentation. This paper also discusses a different class of segmentation algorithms with its measuring parameters, computational complexity, advantages, limitations, and applications.


The contents of mineral macronutrients (phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium) in forest soil samples, but also in samples of fruit bodies of dominant fungal taxa were analysed. The monitoring took place in three research plots in beech-dominated forests located near the aluminium plant at Žiar nad Hronom (Central Slovakia, Europe). The observed macrofungal taxa have different abilities of accumulating macronutrients. In forest soils, the terrestrial saprotrophic species Clitocybe nebularis accumulated phosphorus, attaining a maximum bioconcentration factor of 160 in the mineral A-horizon and 10.6 in the organic matter soil horizons (O-horizons). The ectomycorrhizal species Xerocomellus chrysenteron was rich in potassium in the A-horizon (181), but also in the O-horizons (18.8). The lignicolous saprotrophic species Polyporus varius accumulated calcium to a small extent in the A-horizon (9.36) and O-horizons (0.64), and magnesium in the A-horizon (14.2) and O-horizons (1.09).


Objectives Much of the literature on psychosocial burden of Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) relates to the mother. Yet, little is known about the psychological and behavioural outcomes of children exposed to maternal HG. One study linked in utero exposure of HG with long-term affective disorders in adulthood; however, how the severity of maternal vomiting relates to behaviours in early childhood is not clearly documented. Methods Data were obtained from the Growing Up in Singapore towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) study (n = 1247). Pregnant women of Chinese, Indian, and Malay ethnicity were recruited in their first trimester of pregnancy and 1172 with singleton pregnancies responded to a structured questionnaire at 26-28 weeks of gestation about first and second trimester nausea and vomiting. Medical records were utilized to confirm the severity of the vomiting, including antiemetic medications and admissions. Cases were categorised into 3 severity groups: 1) no vomiting (n = 296), 2) mild-moderate vomiting (n = 686), 3) severe vomiting (n = 190), of which 35% required hospital admission for rehydration. Children underwent at least 15 developmental assessment visits in their first 7 years of life. The outcomes of this study were behaviours from the 12-month Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA), total score from the 18-month Quantitative Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (Q-CHAT), cognitive score from the 24-month Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, T-scores from the 24-month Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and composite IQ score from the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (KBIT). Analyses were adjusted for gestational age, birthweight Z-scores, maternal age, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, smoking, baby gender, breastfeeding, antenatal and postnatal maternal anxiety and depression, and household income. Results Among the women in this Asian study, 22% had severe vomiting and 58.5% mild-moderate vomiting. After controlling for pregnancy, child, and maternal factors, the severity of vomiting (no, mild-moderate, severe) was predictive of socialemotional functioning of the child at 12 months (externalizing symptoms beta=0.117, P = 0.006; dysregulation beta=0.106, P = 0.005), autism symptoms at 18 months (beta=3.737, P = 0.036) and a variety of behavioural problems at 24 months (Total behavioural problem beta=5.552, P = 0.005 affective disorders beta=3.805, P = 0.003, sleep beta=2.423, P = 0.026, attention problem beta=3.511, P = 0.002, and poor emotional control beta=2.383, P = 0.017). Severity of vomiting did not predict cognitive and IQ skills in the Bayley Scales (beta=-2.360, P = 0.297) and KBIT-2 (beta=-2.639, P = 0.300), respectively. Conclusion HG is highly prevalent in this Asian cohort. Compared to no maternal vomiting, severe vomiting during pregnancy was associated with multiple child neurobehavioural problems and autism-related symptoms in early childhood.


A study examined the production of English apology strategies by Spanish speakers learning English, by analyzing the remedial move in native and non-native social interactions. To restore harmony when an offensive act has been committed, remedial exchanges are performed according to he rules of speaking and the social norms of the speech community; different cultural patterns in the act of apologizing will be reflected in the use of different apology strategies and their intensification during remedial work. Subjects were 29 native speakers of English from the United States and 29 native Peninsular Spanish speakers learning English, who were posed eight situations, each including an offensive action. Responses were elicited. The degree of severity of the offense, age of interactants, and degree of familiarity between interactants were systematically varied to4observe their effect on the apologies elicited. Results revealed cultural dissimilarities in the Peninsular Spanish and American English apology systems, and the subsequent transfer strategies of native rules of speaking to the target language. They also show different degrees of intensification between native and non-native responses. Implications for second language teaching are discussed. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Do We All Apologize the Same?--An Empirical Study on the ActZApologizing by Spanish Speakers Learning English


The objective of this research is to analyze the financial performance of local budgeting and expenditures (APBD) of Banjar regency govern-ment within the period of 2006 until 2010 based on region financial ratios. Data analysis technique used in this research is a descriptive quantitative technique analysis, which is a calculation based analysis in describing or revealing the level of financial capacity based on region financial ratios. The analysis process was started since field data collection. The collected data is in the form of financial statements. The financial statements are reviewed and categorized, to make it possible to be analyzed. Based on this research, the ongoing of five year budgeting a expenditures (APBD) of Banjar regency government showed a poor performance. It can be seen from the calculation and analysis of region financial ratios that shows a poor and tend to decrease percentage in each year. As the ratio of the percentage of revenue growth of 180.08 % in 2006 decreased to 31.95 % by the year 2010. It can be concluded that Banjar regency government has not been able to improve its financial performance for the region cons-truction and development. It is suggested to find a potential revenue source as a strategic policy to increase local government revenue in order to improve government performance, and it is suggested to have appropriate economic development strategies in order to achieve the development vision and mission of Banjar regency government.


This study investigates how posting information about the Zika virus on social media, and receiving information about Zika through the same platforms, are associated with personal, societal and global risk perceptions, and whether different types of risk perceptions are related to information seeking and preventive behavior intentions. A survey of U.S. participants (N = 958) revealed that posting information on social media is positively associated with personal and societal risk perceptions but not with global risk perceptions. Receiving information through social media, however, is positively associated with personal, societal and global risk perceptions. Personal and societal risk perceptions are associated with high information seeking intentions, which in turn leads to preventive behavioral intentions. The results suggest that so-called risk butterflies—those who frequently post information on social media—relate the health crisis to themselves and to their communities, and that these are important motivations for information-seeking and risk preventive behavior.


ver the last few decades, the concept of "authenticity" has commonly been used as a criterion for heritage conservation and management in various regions around the world. In 1994, ICOMOS adopted the Nara document on Authenticity as an international recommendation to draw the attention of policy and decision makers on the values of cultural heritage, stressing on interdisciplinary of approaches. Interdisciplinary research of heritage studies includes analysis and evaluation methods to redefine the theories and methodologies of heritage preservation and management in different contexts. But, when dealing with Archaeological Heritage Management, various difficulties emerge in the adoption of prescribed criteria for heritage conservation and management.
The aim of this research is to examine and evaluate the compatibility and potential adaptation of these significant criteria from the Heritage International practice (I.e. UNESCO), including the spheres of law and philosophy, in the Management of Archaeological Heritage. Consequently, this dissertation is articulating according to the following concepts:
1. UNESCO already prescribed parameters and criteria of conservation and management of cultural heritage, but their full applicability on Archaeological Heritage Management should be verified;
2. The level of similarities and differences between Cultural and Archaeological Heritage in the conservation and management process should be discussed to highlight potential new research channels;
3. Is the adoption of the concept of Authenticity as a criterion, prescribed in UNESCO Operational Guideline, compatible enough to be applied to the Management of Archaeological Heritage or not?
4. Archaeological practice as a source of information provides various data and parameters. Are these attributions determining the management?
This dissertation concludes that thematic divisions of heritage studies foster and formulate various models and concepts (implicitly and explicitly), which determine many substantial criteria and integrated factors for the sustainability of archaeological heritage. These criteria and factors give
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importance to the common theoretical and methodological research in archaeological heritage conservation theory and practice.


Calcarenites occur at several horizons in the lower part of the Ringerike Group (Sundvollen Formation) at Ringerike. Analysis of cross-stratification, composition and grain-size distribution enables the calcarenites to be inter preted as shallow marine deposits which formed near the mouths of large tida! estuaries. It is suggested that sedimentation in 'Stage' 9 was taking place to the south of these estuaries and that the calcarenites were derived from previously lithified carbonates in that area.


Most people want to do the "right thing." This is true in business as well as in life. It is the duty of business educators to provide a framework for students and peers to judge the operational, legal, and ethical rigor of managerial decisions. This article focuses attention on the human resource management function. The importance of human resource management (HRM) practices to the success of the firm is accepted by scholars and practitioners alike and will be assumed here. But human resource management practices are important not only because of their efficacy for the firm, but also because they directly affect people and, so, have the potential to bring significant good or significant harm to both individuals and to society. To better inform the debate over ethicality of HR practices, the authors suggest a re-examination human resource management through the lens of its historical and philosophical predecessors-the industrial relations school of thought.Contemporary disputations on the nature of the employment relationship are at times truncated, uninspired, and lifeless. America is not one big happy family and neither are business organizations. Nor should they be, as many in the human resources field would hold. Choices need to be made, some rooted in history, some novel to the present. Some are operationally sound, some are not. Some choices are legal, some are not, and some are morally defensible and others are not. A discussion about the appropriate structures and polices at work is in order. While business schools often avoid the historical and philosophical backdrop that give texture and substance to these decisions, an understanding of the intellectual antecedents of today's employment relationship, and their inherent tensions will afford business decision makers a framework from which to better judge the significance and the ethics of their actions.The article presents an industrial relations system model updated to reflect current business exigencies. It further offers a brief historical and philosophical journey into America's experience with the employee-employer relationship linking economic with moral theory and considering three alternative moral viewpoints on the industrial relations system. Next is a review of the treatment of human resource management issues in popular collegiate business ethics texts. The article concludes with implications for teaching business ethics in human resource management. The authors' purpose is not to promote their own views, but rather to frame the debate concerning the treatment of men and women in their working lives. The industrial relations model affords decision makers enormous flexibility with their human resource practices, work structures and process. The article identifies questions of concern. How they are answered is idiosyncratic to the business decision maker and, hopefully, rooted in sound moral reasoning.The Industrial Relations SystemStudents of business ethics rarely focus on America's industrial relations system, preferring instead to study macro socio-economic forces underlying systems of political economy such as capitalism, socialism, or communism or, alternatively, opting to investigate micro socioeconomic concerns such as price fixing, product safety, false advertising, employment discrimination, or bribery (Adler © Bigoness, 1992). Here, however, attention is directed to the institution of the employee - employer relationship and the control, authority and decision making relationships generated. These considerations are central to industrial relations system theory and lie on a middle stratum of the hierarchy of theoretical abstractions.An industrial relations system is a conceptual tool used to order one's beliefs, attitudes, and behavior about the manner in which people deal with one another at work. Its purpose is to provide an understanding of the development and operation of structures and processes involved in the production of goods and services as they relate to the parties involved and to the larger society. …


Water held in the soil between the field capacity and permanent wilting point is referred to as available soil water. The concept is based on the premise that the only factor affecting availability is the attraction of water for soil solid surfaces and the attraction of water molecules for each other. However, when excess amounts of soluble salts are present in the soil solution, these, too, impose a restraint on availability of water to the plant through the phenomenon referred to as osmotic potential. The effect of excess soluble salts on water availability can var with the amount and kind of soluble salt, the kind of crop, and the atmospheric conditions as they affect rate of evaporation of water from plants and the soil.


This study extends previous work on emotion communication across cultures with a large-scale investigation of the physical expression cues in vocal tone. In doing so, it provides the first direct test of a key proposition of dialect theory, namely that greater accuracy of detecting emotions from one's own cultural group-known as in-group advantage-results from a match between culturally specific schemas in emotional expression style and culturally specific schemas in emotion recognition. Study 1 used stimuli from 100 professional actors from five English-speaking nations vocally conveying 11 emotional states (anger, contempt, fear, happiness, interest, lust, neutral, pride, relief, sadness, and shame) using standard-content sentences. Detailed acoustic analyses showed many similarities across groups, and yet also systematic group differences. This provides evidence for cultural accents in expressive style at the level of acoustic cues. In Study 2, listeners evaluated these expressions in a 5 × 5 design balanced across groups. Cross-cultural accuracy was greater than expected by chance. However, there was also in-group advantage, which varied across emotions. A lens model analysis of fundamental acoustic properties examined patterns in emotional expression and perception within and across groups. Acoustic cues were used relatively similarly across groups both to produce and judge emotions, and yet there were also subtle cultural differences. Speakers appear to have a culturally nuanced schema for enacting vocal tones via acoustic cues, and perceivers have a culturally nuanced schema in judging them. Consistent with dialect theory's prediction, in-group judgments showed a greater match between these schemas used for emotional expression and perception. (PsycINFO Database Record


Human Capital and Institutions is concerned with human capital in its many dimensions and brings to the fore the role of political, social, and economic institutions in human capital formation and economic growth. Written by leading economic historians, including pioneers in historical research on human capital, the chapters in this text offer a broad-based view of human capital in economic development. The issues they address range from nutrition in pre-modern societies to twentieth-century advances in medical care; from the social institutions that provided temporary relief to workers in the middle and lower ranges of the wage scale to the factors that affected the performance of those who reached the pinnacle in business and art; and from political systems that stifled the advance of literacy to those that promoted public and higher education. Just as human capital has been a key to economic growth, so has the emergence of appropriate institutions been a key to the growth of human capital.


The article proposes a semiotic interpretation of the concept of biopolitics. Instead of a politics that takes "life itself " as its object and, as a result, separates life as an object from subjects, biopolitics is read as subjectification – a governmental rationality that constructs social ways of being and forms of life, that is, social subjectivities. The article articulates this position on the basis of two concepts: Jakob von Uexküll's umwelt and Michel Foucault's dispositive. While the former makes it possible to show that the process of life can be conceptualized as subjectification, the latter enables us to argue against an interpretation of biopolitics as a totalized structure of power intervening directly, without semiotic mediation, into "life itself ".


In recent years, central components of a new approach to linguistics, the Minimalist Program, have come closer to physics. In this paper, an interesting and productive isomorphism is established between minimalist structure, algebraic structures, and many-body field theory opening new avenues of inquiry on the dynamics underlying some central aspects of linguistics. Features such as the unconstrained nature of recursive Merge, the difference between pronounced and un-pronounced copies of elements in a sentence, and the Fibonacci sequence in the syntactic derivation of sentence structures, are shown to be accessible to representation in terms of algebraic formalism.


Grain crops in southern Australia are subject to attack by countless pests, with greater than 40 invertebrate species threatening seedling establishment. Control tactics for crop establishment pests rely heavily on the application of pesticides, especially in canola, which is the most susceptible crop to invertebrate damage. There is genuine interest in integrated pest management (IPM) among growers, but relatively little adoption of classical IPM in broadacre farming in southern Australia. The driving forces behind the lack of adoption are unknown, although over-reliance on broad-spectrum pesticides – which are inexpensive and often applied prophylactically as a means of negating the need to monitor crops – is undoubtedly a key factor. Recent control failures against important pests due to pesticide resistance, increased restrictions on pesticide applications, environmental concerns about pesticide applications and strong support for grain quality assurance programs by exporters, highlight the need to consider IPM principles as a means of reducing chemical inputs. IPM guidelines for broadacre farming systems are limited in scope and there is a need to develop practical management tools that encompass a whole system approach. This paper provides an overview of the main invertebrate pests affecting crop establishment and identifies gaps hindering the wide-scale adoption of IPM.


The inspection of material used in aerospace, nuclear or transport industry is a critical issue for the safety of components exposed to stress or/and corrosion. The industry claims for faster, more sensitive and cost-effective techniques. Technologies based on magnetic sensor with high sensitivity such as giant magneto- resistance (GMR) may be a good solution to improve the performances of the classical probes. The CEA has validated the performances of this technology for two kinds of applications in Eddy Current (EC) Non Destructive Testing. The first application deals with the detection of deeply embedded flaws. An EC probe based on GMR sensor has been developed and evaluated for the inspection of a 316 L stainless pipe section representative of the reactor residual heat removal (RHR) pipes. Cracks induced by thermal fatigue have been successfully detected under a ligament of 7 mm. In the second application, the very small size of the GMR sensitive element (smaller than 100μm) is used to perform a very high-resolution probe. A GMR array probe has been thus specially designed by the CEA to detect small surface breaking flaws (100μm).


Despite the exciting optical properties metamaterials exhibit, their implementation in technology is being hampered nowadays by the inherent losses of their metal constituents and the expensive and low-throughput procedures used. As an alternative, we present a new design of double fishnet metamaterials that can be easily realized combining two inexpensive and up-scalable techniques: nanosphere lithography and metallic electrodeposition. A monolayer of polystyrene spheres is used as a template for the infiltration of two symmetric gold layers separated by an air gap. The effective refractive index of the metamaterial can be easily tuned by the appropriate choice of the diameter of the spheres and the gap width between the metallic layers, varying its value from positive to negative. The good agreement between optical measurements and finite-difference time-domain simulations confirms the success of our process. Fishnet metamaterials with refractive index going from 1.5 until −1.0 in the near infrared range are demonstrated and the key parameters for these architectures provided.


The main aim of this thesis is to provide a voice to a marginalised community on the island of Inishbofin off the North West coast of Co. Donegal in Ireland. The film's usefulness lies in its portrayal of a small, indigenous, fragile community that clings to existence and its strength lies in giving voice to this minority in an attempt to correct perceptions of Irishness.

This thesis seeks to enrich the discourse surrounding the way Irish identity is reconciled through the moving image. The theme is explored through an investigation of a previously unseen film archive—The Martin Archive—alongside my own documentary film practice. Time within the context of the archive, the nation, the temporality of film, memory and nostalgia is used to structure this thesis exploration.

Within my research, the recognition of time and memory and the role these play in the construction of national identity have come to the fore. My documentary film work will intervene within this larger discourse to contribute to another way of thinking about and looking at Irish identity.

The ambiguity of historical time and the myth of authenticity are considered through an exploration of how the archive is assembled. My approach correlates with that of certain postcolonial theories, developed through an analysis of the writings of Homi K. Bhabha and Benedict Anderson.

In my original approach to this subject I have created a hybrid of two time frames by utilising both The Martin Archive and my own film work, in an attempt to question established notions of Irish national identity.

The research is a consideration of the constructed nature of narrative, exploring how a disruption in linear narrative and historical time can provide a new space of performativity, in which the spectator can explore Irish identity anew. By illuminating the multiplicities within the films, the multiple minor voices - that are concurrent in time - can be heard. This process enables the practice to disrupt the time of official history by showing the time of the other. My practice is a temporal bricolage that documents a vulnerable, indigenous, Gaelic speaking community in Co. Donegal. The film work is a poetics of time; memory and fragility, which explores the past, present and future of the community portrayed within the experimental film archive.

The structure of the practice as a temporal bricolage displays a fragmented, multiple, jumbled narrative, where chronology itself is disrupted. The fragmentary nature of the practice ensures that no complete meaning can be fixed. The interlocking of historical and personal time enables a plurality of voices to be heard, contesting any dominant historical linear narrative.


The research for tomorrow's oil reserves has directed the efforts of the energy industry to frontiers beyond the conventional exploration and production strategies. These frontiers are defined not by geography or geology but rather by technology. They are a collection of technologies-involving the use of thermal, gas and chemical means for producing more oil-that fall under the broad umbrella called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The results of successful application of this new technology will have a decisive impact on the energy conservation program of any oil producing country. A comprehensive national energy program is complex and to plan it represents a challenge. A unified and complete national program must encompass the consideration of all possible options. The potential of each need to be explored. One such option in Libya is to produce more oil, that is, to effect the enhancement of oil recovery from the nation oil fields. The planning of an EOR project demands a meticulous attention to many problems, thus requiring considerable lead time for studies, evaluations, project design and, most of all, the economics of these high cost EOR projects. The objective of this study is to conduct an economic analysis on one of the most representative candidate major field in Libya (D field) for application of the technically approved enhanced oil recovery methods. By performing economic sensitivity analysis on key input variables such as oil prices, the price of injection solvent, capital expenditures, operating expenses, and oil recovery, the aim is to develop sensitivity analysis graphs for each variable to assess future engineering planning with regard to the EOR projects economics in Libya. Economic optimization is the ultimate goal of reservoir engineering management. With estimated production, capital, operating expenses, and financial data, project economics are evaluated. Project finding could be applied to any EOR candidate reservoir worldwide.


This study examines the axial load capacity of circular Concrete Filled Steel Tube
columns using High Strength Concrete (CFST-HSC). Emphasis is drawn to the
enhanced axial capacity of short columns attributed to the lateral confinement of the
concrete infill provided by the steel encasement. The degree of confinement has been
found to be dependent on several geometric and mechanical parameters. At present,
significant discrepancies exist with respect to quantifying the effective strength confined concrete. Existing design models and codes are predominantly derived from
the characteristics of normal strength concrete and therefore may be inappropriate concrete filled steel columns utilising High Strength Concrete (HSC).
An extensive experimental program was initiated to examine the axial capacity of
CFST-HSC columns. The results of 62 concentrically loaded scale model columns filled
with High Strength Concrete (46-100 MPa) are presented. The principal experimental
parameters were concrete and steel strengths, tube diameter to wall thickness ratio, column slenderness ratio. The columns tested were classified as short thin walled
sections and were tested as isolated column elements under short term loading. The
results are compared with the predictions of several existing design procedures and
recommendations are proposed.


Abstract Repeat expansions in the C9orf72 gene are a common cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration, two devastating neurodegenerative disorders. One of the proposed mechanisms of GGGGCC repeat expansion is their translation into non-canonical dipeptide repeats, which can then accumulate as aggregates and contribute to these pathologies. There are five different dipeptide repeat proteins (polyGA, polyGR, polyPR, polyPA and polyGP), some of which are known to be neurotoxic. In the present study, we used BioID2 proximity labelling to identify the interactomes of all five dipeptide repeat proteins consisting of 125 repeats each. We identified 113 interacting partners for polyGR, 90 for polyGA, 106 for polyPR, 25 for polyPA and 27 for polyGP. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis of the proteomic data revealed that these target interaction partners are involved in a variety of functions, including protein translation, signal transduction pathways, protein catabolic processes, amide metabolic processes and RNA-binding. Using autopsy brain tissue from patients with C9orf72 expansion complemented with cell culture analysis, we evaluated the interactions between polyGA and valosin containing protein (VCP). Functional analysis of this interaction revealed sequestration of VCP with polyGA aggregates, altering levels of soluble valosin-containing protein. VCP also functions in autophagy processes, and consistent with this, we observed altered autophagy in cells expressing polyGA. We also observed altered co-localization of polyGA aggregates and p62 in cells depleted of VCP. All together, these data suggest that sequestration of VCP with polyGA aggregates contributes to the loss of VCP function, and consequently to alterations in autophagy processes in C9orf72 expansion disorders.


Cannabis sativa is one of the oldest herbal remedies known to man. Over the past four thousand years , it has been used for the treatment of numerous diseases but due to its psychoactive properties, its current medicinal usage is highly restricted . In this review, we seek to highlight advances made over the last forty years in the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the effects of cannabis on the human body and how these can potentially be utilized in clinical practice. During this time , the primary active ingredients in cannabis have been isolated, specific cannabinoid receptors have been discovered and at least five endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitters (endocannabinoids) have been identified. Together , these form the framework of a complex endocannabinoid signalling system that has widespread distribution in the body and plays a role in regulating numerous physiological processes within the body. Cannabinoid ligands are therefore thought to display considerable therapeutic potential and the drive to develop compounds that can be targeted to specific neuronal systems at low enough doses so as to eliminate cognitive side effects remains the 'holy grail ' of endocannabinoid research .


Radio frequency identification or RFID is a broad-based technology that impacts business and society. With the rapid expansion of the use of this technology in everything from consumer purchases to security ID tags, to tracking bird migration, there is very little information available in book form that targets the widest range of the potentialmarket.But this book is different! Where most of the books available cover specific technical underpinnings of RFID or specific segments of the market, this co-authored book by both academic and industry professionals, provides a broad background on the technology and the various applications of RFID around the world. Coverage is mainly non-technical,more business relatedfor the broadest user base, however there are sections that step into the technical aspects for advanced, more technicalreaders.


We empirically identify the lending standards applied by banks to small and medium firms over the cycle. We exploit an institutional feature of the Italian credit market that generates a sharp discontinuity in the allocation of comparable firms into credit risk categories. Using loan-level data, we show that during the expansionary phase of the cycle, banks relax lending standards by narrowing the interest rate spreads between substandard and performing firms. During the contractionary phase of the cycle, the abrupt tightening of lending standards leads to the exclusion of substandard firms from credit. These firms then report significantly lower production, investment, and employment. Finally, we find that the drying up of the interbank market is an important factor determining the change in bank lending standards. JEL classification: E32, E44, G21. Keywords: Credit Cycles; Financial Contracts; Credit Rationing; Real Activity.


Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy may decrease left ventricular (LV) loads and improve myocardial oxygenation. In this study, we investigated the effect of CPAP on LV diastolic function compared with sham treatment in patients with severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). This 3-month prospective single-centre randomised sham-controlled trial analysed 52 patients with severe OSA. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either CPAP or sham treatment for 3 months. The main investigator and patients were masked to the trial randomisation. The primary end-point was change of early diastolic mitral annular (e′) velocity over the 3-month period. Secondary end-points were pulse wave velocity (PWV), 24-h ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and variables of ventricular-vascular coupling at 3 months. After 3 months of follow-up, CPAP treatment significantly increased the e′ velocity, and was greater than the sham treatment (0.65±1.70 versus −0.61±1.85 cm·s−1, p=0.014). The PWV, 24-h mean diastolic BP, night-time diastolic BP, arterial elastance index and ventricular-vascular coupling index after 3 months of follow-up decreased significantly in the CPAP group. In patients with severe OSA, CPAP treatment for 3 months improved LV diastolic function more than sham treatment, and was accompanied by improvements in arterial stiffness and ventricular-vascular coupling. CPAP treatment for 3 months improved LV diastolic function more than sham treatment in patients with severe OSA http://ow.ly/kiYR30ggX5D


August 5, 1998: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is holding an amnesty hearing at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg. The hearing is a continuation of one held in May, concerning the events now remembered as the Shell House incident.2 In March 1994, security guards from the African National Congress headquarters at Shell House, an office building in the middle of Johannesburg, fired their guns at a large contingent of Zulu marchers, some armed with "traditional weapons": cow-hide shields, sticks, clubs, spears.3 Eight marchers died, and the guards have applied for amnesty. A witness, one of the marchers, is being quizzed on what happened. Mr. Mhlaba, in dark trousers and a bright blue team jacket, wearing glasses with a gold trim, is being questioned as to the meaning of the chant amandla! ngawethu! uSuthu! uSuthu!, which he is asked to utter, with accompanying gestures, before the members of the Amnesty Committee. Since official record-keeping is in the form of a transcript, the Chairman, Justice Hassen Mall, must summarize what he has witnessed: let it be noted that the witness chanted with raised fist, taking two steps forward and then one step back for each chant. The fist will have held a stick or a spear: ubhoko, umkhonto. The lawyer cross-examining Mhlaba on behalf of the guards has several questions in this regard. Isn't this a war chant? No, it is not a war chant; as he has said, it is the praise uttered, according to tradition, when you are going to see a king or a chief; the word uSuthu is part of the name Mangosuthu. The chant amandla! ngawethu! comes from Zulu tradition. It means power to us. The lawyer, who professes to know nothing about Zulu culture or tradition, insists: isn't uSuthu! a cry of warriors going into battle? Mhlaba tries another tack: I have never heard of warriors going into war chanting. When you go into war you do not make a noise. If you make a noise, the enemy will know where you are coming from. The lawyer returns several times to the same line of questioning, as if to confirm a prearranged passage of reasoning: Zulu therefore warrior therefore killer therefore ANC guards acted in self-defense. The right cultural explanation will be his first premise. As "native informant," Mhlaba has only to provide it in order to vindicate the guards and implicate himself. I sit in a cold pew, earphones on, hearing both Mhlaba's testimony, which is in Zulu, and the simultaneous translation into English. There are a few others in the church, mostly black, most also wearing earphones. Also sitting there are two black policemen, who, in spite of their regulation blue caps and jackets, are visibly cold. It is a relief afterwards to reemerge into the warm winter sunlight. This journal article is available in Law Text Culture: http://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol5/iss2/8 Interdisciplinarity as Reading: Truth Commission Journal and Notes 1


Two fundamental problems in unsupervised learning are efficient inference for latent-variable models and robust density estimation based on large amounts of unlabeled data. Algorithms for the two tasks, such as normalizing flows and generative adversarial networks (GANs), are often developed independently. In this paper, we propose the concept of {\em continuous-time flows} (CTFs), a family of diffusion-based methods that are able to asymptotically approach a target distribution. Distinct from normalizing flows and GANs, CTFs can be adopted to achieve the above two goals in one framework, with theoretical guarantees. Our framework includes distilling knowledge from a CTF for efficient inference, and learning an explicit energy-based distribution with CTFs for density estimation. Both tasks rely on a new technique for distribution matching within amortized learning. Experiments on various tasks demonstrate promising performance of the proposed CTF framework, compared to related techniques.


Background There are no cures or efficacious treatments for severe motor neuron diseases. It is extremely difficult to obtain naïve spinal motor neurons (sMNs) from human tissues for research due to both technical and ethical reasons. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are alternative sources. Several methods for MN differentiation have been reported. However, efficient production of naïve sMNs and culture cost were not taken into consideration in most of the methods. Methods/Principal Findings We aimed to establish protocols for efficient production and enrichment of sMNs derived from pluripotent stem cells. Nestin+ neural stem cell (NSC) clusters were induced by Noggin or a small molecule inhibitor of BMP signaling. After dissociation of NSC clusters, neurospheres were formed in a floating culture containing FGF2. The number of NSCs in neurospheres could be expanded more than 30-fold via several passages. More than 33% of HB9+ sMN progenitor cells were observed after differentiation of dissociated neurospheres by all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and a Shh agonist for another week on monolayer culture. HB9+ sMN progenitor cells were enriched by gradient centrifugation up to 80% purity. These HB9+ cells differentiated into electrophysiologically functional cells and formed synapses with myotubes during a few weeks after ATRA/SAG treatment. Conclusions and Significance The series of procedures we established here, namely neural induction, NSC expansion, sMN differentiation and sMN purification, can provide large quantities of naïve sMNs derived from human and monkey pluripotent stem cells. Using small molecule reagents, reduction of culture cost could be achieved.


This thesis explores and evaluates one-to-one, formal, supportive relationships of mentoring. More specifically, it focusses on the interaction between student mentors at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and their partnered mentees in various settings. The purpose of the thesis is to understand the social process of mentoring. This understanding takes place through identifying key characteristics of mentoring interaction. The aim of this thesis is to enhance understanding of the mentoring praxis.

The research framework adopts an interpretive methodological approach, incorporating qualitative methods in order to gain a detailed insight into the subjective experiences of the mentors and mentees. The methods included collecting 13 individual semi-structured interviews with nine mentors and four mentees currently enrolled within UCLan's 'Mentoring in the Community' module. In addition, the analysis includes three reflective portfolios completed by student mentors as part of their assessment at the end of the 2014/15 academic year. This provided a sample of 16 participants in total that have been involved in my research.

Findings are presented in a conceptual framework model encompassing key components of mentoring interaction. This model is representative of a two-way process where mentors and mentees interact, participate and build a relationship despite the differences in socio-economic grouping, background and character.

My study found a gradual shift in the relationship from one of apprehension into an attached and emotionally connected friendship. This shift coincides with a move from an expressive to an instrumental mode of mentoring (Clayden and Stein (2005:35). The initial expressive mode of mentoring establishes a friendship and a mutual connection between mentor and mentee, enabling the mentee to become accepting of the instrumental mode of mentoring without the need for great encouragement.

The findings from the research highlighted clear positive outcomes for both mentor and mentee, particularly when drawing closer to the termination stage of the relationship. Within the mentoring process mentees receive academic and personal achievements evidenced by better grades and improved attendance. The research revealed that the mentees' experiences also had a significant social impact, evidenced by improved relationships with family members, participation in extra-curricular activities and volunteering roles. Similarly, throughout the mentoring process mentors are developing key transferable skills, including enhanced confidence in working with people from all backgrounds, dealing with difficult situations with a confident, calm and effective manner, and improved problem solving skills.

It is evident from the research that each mentoring partnership is distinctive and unique. The mentee's needs are featured at the heart of the process, therefore, the length of the mentoring relationship varies from one partnership to another. This accentuates that the central aim is for mentors to 'make a difference for their mentee' and is not based on how long their mentoring relationship should last.

Finally, this empirical research details the key components of mentoring interaction that ensure an effective, connected and engaged mentoring relationship between mentor and mentee.


The overall morphology of an Arabidopsis plant depends on the behaviour of its meristems. Meristems derived from the shoot apex can develop into either shoots or flowers. The distinction between these alternative fates requires separation between the function of floral meristem identity genes and the function of an antagonistic group of genes, which includes TERMINAL FLOWER 1. We show that the activities of these genes are restricted to separate domains of the shoot apex by different mechanisms. Meristem identity genes, such as LEAFY, APETALA 1 and CAULIFLOWER, prevent TERMINAL FLOWER 1 transcription in floral meristems on the apex periphery. TERMINAL FLOWER 1, in turn, can inhibit the activity of meristem identity genes at the centre of the shoot apex in two ways; first by delaying their upregulation, and second, by preventing the meristem from responding to LEAFY or APETALA 1. We suggest that the wild-type pattern of TERMINAL FLOWER 1 and floral meristem identity gene expression depends on the relative timing of their upregulation.


In this paper, changing modes of regulation (hierarchy, self-regulation, and market) in health care systems are analyzed as well as how these changes affect health care financing and health care provision. The study shows that modes of regulation in different types of health care systems become more similar, for example with respect to the level of coverage, type of remuneration, the access of service providers to the health care market, or the benefit package. The empirical analysis of financing and service provision demonstrates that the mode of regulation matters above all with regard to the level of health care financing. Market-based systems as in the US show the highest level and the most dramatic increase of total health expenditure, SHI (social health insurance) systems as in Germany show also major problems in stabilizing costs while NHS (national health service) systems as in the United Kingdom proved to be most successful in keeping relative health expenditures in check. Comparing an index of health care provision with the level of health care expenditure, we find only a weak correlation. While some countries are able to provide an above average package of health care services with below average health care spending, some high spending countries are only able to offer a benefit package at or below the OECD average. Different modes of regulation can help to explain why some countries were more successful in translating monetary inputs in a high level of health care services than other countries.


MILSTEIN, CARL (2 May 1924 - 7 Nov. 1999) was a prominent developer and self-made millionaire who built homes in Brook Park in the 1950s and later built high-rise apartment complexes. Milstein was born in Cleveland to Ida (Rosen) and Morris Milstein, who ran a poultry business. He graduated from John Adams High School and briefly attended Ohio State University. After World War II, Milstein sold appliances to returning veterans until he started a home building business, Alvin Homes, with his childhood friend, Alvin Siegal. They built as many as 1,000 houses a year in Brook Park near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Alvin Homes became the third-largest builder in the country. In the mid-1960s, Milstein started Associated Management Corp., which developed high-rise apartment complexes in Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Summit and Portage counties. Most of these developments were subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. By 1975 Milstein, with an annual income of $15 million, was the largest developer backed by HUD in northeast Ohio. Milstein's activities with HUD came under scrutiny in the late 1970s. Subsequent charges and penalties interrupted his career and activities. Following this setback he resumed his career as a developer and manager. In 1980 Milstein founded Prestige Management, which developed Landerhaven, Miles Point, and other office parks. He turned over the day-to-day operations of his business interests to other partners in 1984. Milstein devoted most of his time after 1984 to the Northfield Park Race Track. After buying the track with business partner George Steinbrenner in 1984, Milstein leased the track for twelve years. When Northfield Park almost went out of business, he took over the management reins and converted it into one of the premier harness race tracks in the country. In the 1990s the Northeast Ohio Apartment Association inducted Milstein into its Hall of Fame.Milstein married Adeline (Zeman) in 1947. Together they had four children: Robert I., Susan M. (Friedman), Mark L., Ilene. Adeline and Ilene died when their car collided with a train in 1968. Milstein had four children as well with his second wife, Sandra M. (Neitzel): Brock E., Michelle R., Brooke L., and Brinah. Milstein died from complications following surgery and is buried at Lincoln Cemetery.


[1] We use imagery from the Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI) to search for aerosols generated by the Island of Nauru, an island located in the tropical western Pacific Ocean. Nauru frequently displays linear cloud trails for many kilometers downwind of the island, and this study was intended to investigate the presence of aerosols as an aid to understanding those features. The study had three components: (1) a search for specific aerosol plumes, (2) a comparison of downwind and upwind aerosol loading to look for asymmetries, and (3) application of matched filters to increase the visibility of aerosol plumes. The plume search resulted in the finding of three aerosol plumes, two of which are presented as imagery and also radiance profiles. The comparison of downwind and upwind reflectance spectra demonstrated that the radiance is slightly higher downwind of the island, and the residual spectra (downwind minus upwind) have a spectrum consistent with sea salt aerosol. Application of clutter-matched filters to MTI imagery accentuated the upper (near source) sections of an aerosol plume when utilizing a single-scatter albedo signature for coarse-grained sea salt aerosol. We combine our observations with models from the literature to describe a simple mechanism by which Nauru aerosols are created by wave breaking and wind tearing of sea spray and then entrained by island-influenced wind motions.


Efficient exploitation of exascale architectures requires rethinking of the numerical algorithms used in many large-scale applications. These architectures favor algorithms that expose ultra fine-grain parallelism and maximize the ratio of floating point operations to energy intensive data movement. One of the few viable approaches to achieve high efficiency in the area of PDE discretizations on unstructured grids is to use matrix-free/partially assembled high-order finite element methods, since these methods can increase the accuracy and/or lower the computational time due to reduced data motion. In this paper we provide an overview of the research and development activities in the Center for Efficient Exascale Discretizations (CEED), a co-design center in the Exascale Computing Project that is focused on the development of next-generation discretization software and algorithms to enable a wide range of finite element applications to run efficiently on future hardware. CEED is a research partnership involving more than 30 computational scientists from two US national labs and five universities, including members of the Nek5000, MFEM, MAGMA and PETSc projects. We discuss the CEED co-design activities based on targeted benchmarks, miniapps and discretization libraries and our work on performance optimizations for large-scale GPU architectures. We also provide a broad overview of research and development activities in areas such as unstructured adaptive mesh refinement algorithms, matrix-free linear solvers, high-order data visualization, and list examples of collaborations with several ECP and external applications.


In the last 5 years, clinical isolates of gram-positive bacteria with intrinsic or acquired resistance to glycopeptide antibiotics have been encountered increasingly. In many of these isolates, resistance arises from an alteration of the antibiotic target site, with the terminal D-alanyl-D-alanine moiety of peptidoglycan precursors being replaced by groups that do not bind glycopeptides. Although the criteria for defining resistance have been revised frequently, the reliable detection of low-level glycopeptide resistance remains problematic and is influenced by the method chosen. Glycopeptide-resistant enterococci have emerged as a particular problem in hospitals, where in addition to sporadic cases, clusters of infections with evidence of interpatient spread have occurred. Studies using molecular typing methods have implicated colonization of patients, staff carriage, and environmental contamination in the dissemination of these bacteria. Choice of antimicrobial therapy for infections caused by glycopeptide-resistant bacteria may be complicated by resistance to other antibiotics. Severe therapeutic difficulties are being encountered among patients infected with enterococci, with some infections being untreatable with currently available antibiotics.


Abstract:In the post–Cold War period, the democracies pursued a strategy of engagement with authoritarian states in the belief that this approach would yield mutual benefits and lead to political reform in the autocracies. Instead, authoritarian regimes have turned the tables on the democracies. Exploiting globalization and the opportunities presented by integration with the West, authoritarian states have set out to undermine the very international institutions that welcomed them by employing a malign mirror image of "soft power." Through the manipulation of the Internet, the establishment of pseudo–civil society organizations and "zombie" election monitors, as well as sophisticated state-run propaganda outlets, authoritarian trendsetters such as China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela have hijacked the concept of "soft power."


Background: The underrepresentation of women in academic medicine at senior level and in leadership positions is well documented. In the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) announced that eligibility for funding for Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) required at least Silver award status of the Athena SWAN Charter. However, the evidence base for monitoring gender equity (GE) in BRCs is underdeveloped. Methods: An exploratory online survey distributed to an entire population of NIHR Oxford BRC affiliates (N=683) who ranked the importance of 13 markers of GE on a five point Likert scale. Data were summarised using frequencies and descriptive statistics. Interrelationships between the markers and underlying latent dimensions (factors) were determined by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Thematic analysis was used to analyse open-ended comments. Results: The response rate was 36% (243 respondents). Respondents were more frequently female (55%, n=133), aged 41-50 years (33%, n=81), investigators (33%, n=81) and had been affiliated with the BRC for 2-7 years (39.5%, n=96). Participants ranked BRC senior leadership roles and organisational policies on gender equity, as very important, 58% (n=141) and 57% (n=139) respectively. The top two markers ranked as very important by female participants were organisational policies (64.7%, n=86/133) and recruitment and retention (60.9%, n=81/133), whereas male participants ranked leadership development (52.1%, n=50/96) and BRC senior leadership roles (50%, n=48/96) as being very important. The factor analyses showed two distinct latent dimensions: organisational markers and individual markers of GE in BRCs. Open ended comments suggested three key areas of actions: monitoring and benchmarking, organisational support for those with childcare responsibilities, and leadership and Institutional support for GE. Conclusions: The findings suggest a two-factor model of markers of achievement for GE with organisational and individual dimensions. Implementation and sustainability of gender equity requires commitment at senior leadership and organisational policy level.


Using the modified additivity rule (AR) approach, the total cross sections (TCSs) for electron scattering by large molecules C 4 H 8 O, C 5 H 10 O 2 , C 6 H 5 CH 3 and C 4 H 8 O 2 are calculated over a wide energy range from 50 to 5000eV by employing the experimental TCS results of electron scattering from atoms C, H and O. Here the atomic TCSs are derived from the experimental TCS results of simple molecules (H 2 , O 2 , CO). The quantitative TCSs are compared with those obtained by measurements and other theories wherever available. It is shown that there is excellent accordance between the theories obtained by the modified AR approach and the measurements even at energies of several tens of eV. And it is also shown that the problem that the log_log TCS curves obtained by the original AR approach are steeper than those obtained by the experiments, is introduced by the AR model itself. The intrinsic reason is that the mutual screening effects are not taken into consideration in the original AR approach at lower energies.


Ever since The New York Times published an article in October 2010 about the impending demise of the picture book, I have wanted to publish a short screed in its defense. I thought this was an opportune time because so many splendid picture books are featured in our spring issue. Let it be known that I am a devoted fan of children's picture books. I read them voraciously as an adult, and have done so for as long as I can remember. I collect them. I purchase them in stores and from online booksellers. I present them to friends and little ones as gifts. As a special collections librarian, I also purchase them to complement and strengthen our antiquarian collections. To my immense satisfaction, I am literally surrounded by them. I understand that my passion for picture books is intense, but picture books are essential to feeding the child's imagination and developing his or her critical thinking skills. A simple keyword search on the University of Alberta Libraries' online catalogue revealed numerous peer-reviewed articles about the ways that picture books open up imaginative worlds to children; with this richer understanding of stories, children gain a greater understanding of themselves and the world they live in. If we acknowledge that picture books encourage children to construct meaning about characters, events, settings, and so on, then it seems only natural to conclude that picture books are essential to preparing beginning readers for picture less chapter books. The author of the Times article reported that many parents are saying "My kid doesn't need books with pictures anymore", which is utterly shocking especially when we know the important role that pictures play in communication. When we introduce picture books to young readers, we allow them to make connections between their own life experiences and the illustrator's use of colour, imagery, perspective, characterization, and dramatization. Picture books can provide powerful learning opportunities for children. I am always astonished at how much there is to learn about reading pictures. Whenever I open a picture book, I take great delight in the interpretive process. Indeed, interpretation is the essence of picture books, which is why sharing picture books with children is one of the best ways to develop their critical thinking skills. Are picture books dying "a sad little death"? The answer is obvious. I think not. I hope you enjoy this issue and please do get in touch if you have comments or questions. Robert Desmarais, Managing Editor


U.S. antitrust law empowers enforcers to review pending mergers that might undermine competition. But there is growing evidence that the merger-review regime is failing to perform its core procompetitive function. Industry concentration and the power of dominant firms are increasing across key sectors of the economy. In response, progressive advocates of more aggressive antitrust interventions have critiqued the substantive merger-review standard, arguing that it is too friendly to merging firms. This Article traces the problem to a different source: the merger-review process itself. The growing length of reviews, the competitive restrictions merger agreements place on acquisition targets during review, and the targets' resulting loss of strength harm competition and consumers. As a result, an enforcement regime designed to protect competition is damaging it instead. The rise of antitrust reverse termination fees ("ARTFs")—payments from the acquirer to the target if the merger fails antitrust review—demonstrates the anticompetitive effect of the review process. This Article argues that these fees represent the parties' negotiated prediction of the competitive costs to the target of entering the merger agreement (and therefore the competitive gains to the acquirer and other rivals in the relevant market). ARTFs also indicate the possibility of anticompetitive manipulation of the merger-review process. Knowing that reviews sometimes take over a year to resolve, acquirers can enter a merger agreement and use an ARTF to buy competitive peace—even when they expect the merger will be rejected—all the while harming consumers. Reform proponents have suggested several ways potentially to shorten merger investigations, such as limiting enforcement agencies' discovery demands, but these modifications only reduce the problem at the margins. This Article proposes a more effective reform: a requirement that the antitrust enforcement agencies announce a group of highly concentrated markets in which they will challenge any proposed merger, unless one of the firms is failing. This strategy, which the antitrust agencies have employed in an ad hoc fashion in the past, will discourage anticompetitive mergers and eliminate lengthy reviews that harm consumers.


They were predicting storms for the end of the day but the sky stayed blue and the wind died down. I went to take a look in the kitchen - make sure things weren't getting clogged up in the bottom of the pot. Everything was just fine. I went out onto the porch armed with a cold beer and stayed there for a while, my face in the sun. It felt good. It had been a week now that I'd been spending my mornings in the sun, squinting like some happy idiot - a week now since I'd met Betty.' BETTY BLUE remains a cult book and film nearly twenty years since its first outing. The extraordinary story of an erotic, doomed love affair has transfixed hundreds of thousands of readers around the world.


For nearly 600 years, from the battles of the early fourteenth century to the dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, firearms derived from gunpowder and other chemicals defined the frightful extent of war. The apparatus and materials used in World War I would have been familiar to our remote ancestors. In this classic work, first published in 1960, James Riddick Partington provides a worldwide survey of the evolution of incendiary devices, Greek fire, and gunpowder. Greek fire, a composition Partington believes was made of a distilled petroleum fraction and other ingredients (but not saltpetre), was most famously used in the sieges of Constantinople and the Crusades. Partington moves from its antecedents--other incendiaries used in ancient warfare--to European gunpowder recipe books (The Latin Book of Fire, Bellifortis, and Feuerwerkbuch) and the history of infernal machines, mines, canon, small arms, and artillery. His book includes chapters on gunpowder and weapons in Muslim lands, India, and China--including fire books, the use of gunpowder as a propellant, the artillery of the Mughal Emperors, and the use of saltpetre in explosives. He traces the development of gunpowder to eleventh-century China and cites the first known mention and picture of a firearm in 1326. "The history of gunpowder and firearms has attracted many authors with varying interests. The general historian must take account of major inventions effecting revolutions in the life of nations. The historian of science is concerned mostly with the invention of gunpowder. The historian of technology examines the development in the manufacture of explosives and weapons, and the way in which gunpowder has found applications in the peaceful arts. The military historian deals mainly with the use of gunpowder as an explosive and a propellant ...and the development of firearms and their use in warfare. No recent book in English (or for that matter in any language) has attempted a concise survey of the subject."--from the Preface


The Kerr-nonlinear effect shows large potential for ultrafast all-optical signal processing and may be of great importance for future optical communication systems. A major limitation to its applicability is however the existence of two-photon absorption. This has already been discussed in literature for a homogeneous structure. In this paper, the effect of two-photon absorption on the operation of Kerr-nonlinear resonators is studied and the applicability of standard semiconductor systems for all-optical nonlinear switching is evaluated.