We assess the relative importance of statistical residual-based measures of discrimination in determining indigenous Australians. perceptions of discrimination in the labour market. We find that statistical measures are largely unrelated to discrimination reports among males and negatively related to discrimination reports among females.Our results further indicate that the discrepancy between statistical and self-reported measures of discrimination is larger among individuals with stronger indigenous cultural identity. Our findings point at the potential significance of .nonstatistical. evidence of discrimination, and underscore the importance of asking indigenous people directly about their experiences when addressing the issue of indigenous labour market disadvantage.


The CURIOS project investigates how digital archives can support local interest in local heritage and, in doing so, can contribute to community regeneration and strengthened community cohesion. Software tools that utilise semantic web/ linked data technology are being developed to build a general, flexible and "future proof" software platform to assist remote rural communities to collaboratively maintain and present information about their cultural heritage. Under this broad programme of research we are investigating how online cultural communities are transforming the ways in which local history is 'written' and remembered. Empirically, we focus on digital cultural heritage resources managed by community groups in remote and rural parts of the UK. Researching community-led initiatives enables us to explore how locally managed digital heritage resources can support sustainable rural areas.


Job training programs for vulnerable youth are the main response of Latin American governments to address the problem of inadequate employment opportunities for young people. Despite its importance, knowledge about these programs is scarce. This study contributes to filling this gap in the literature by presenting new evidence on the effectiveness of six of these programs operating or that were implemented in Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Dominican Republic. This analysis uses the results of impact evaluations of these programs and the results of qualitative surveys of young participants and employers, and in-depth interviews to training centers, employers and policy makers. The main results confirm the limited evidence available, namely, that these programs have little impact on the probability of getting a job (although there is a high heterogeneity in these impacts), but a significant impact on job quality. From this analysis, we propose a research agenda to improve knowledge on the functioning and impact of these programs, and provide a series of recommendations to improve the design and increase the effectiveness of youth training programs.


Corporate structures differ among the advanced economies of the world. We contribute to an understanding of these differences by developing a theory of the path dependence of corporate structure. The corporate structures that an economy has at any point in time depend in part on those that it had at earlier times. Two sources of path dependence--structure driven and rule driven--are identified and analyzed. First, the corporate structures of an economy depend on the structures with which the economy started. Initial ownership structures have such an effect because they affect the identity of the structure that would be efficient for any given company and because they can give some parties both incentives and power to impede changes in them. Second, corporate rules, which affect ownership structures, will themselves depend on the corporate structures with which the economy started. Initial ownership structures can affect both the identity of the rules that would be efficient and the interest group politics that can determine which rules would actually be chosen. Our theory of path dependence sheds light on why the advanced economies, despite pressures to converge, vary in their ownership structures. It also provides a basis for why some important differences might persist.


The Nordic power market presents a unique opportunity for testing the nature and degree of market power in storage behavior due to preciseness of data on market fundamentals determining hydro resource use. We develop an explicit model of dynamic imperfect competition mapping the primitive distributions to market outcomes as a function of the market structure. We estimate the market structure that best explains the main behavioral patterns in pricing, storage, and production in years 2000-05. Exceptional events in the data allow us to identify a pattern for market power. We simulate the expected effiency loss from the pattern and limited scope for social losses. Market power however increases expected reservoir and price levels, and also implies an increase in price risk.


This thesis examines ethical decision making in nursing. The impact of Kohlberg's theory is contrasted with those of Gilligan, Noddings, Diekelmann, and Benner. The influence of these theorists on nurse researchers to develop their own theories based on nurses' ways of knowing is explored. More specifically the thesis critiques the debate between the "ethic of justice" and "ethic of care". An ethic of care is more congruent with the nature of the nurse-patient relationship and the goals of the nursing profession than previously used paradigms. The thesis contends that nurses respect a fundamental commitment to an ethic of justice in their practice but an ethic of care provides the framework that determines their relationship with their patient. This thesis examines the ethics competency in Health: Nursing: Program of Study 180.A0 ., the new curriculum for nursing programs in Quebec, in relationship to the nursing literature on the teaching and learning of ethics. Storytelling, seen as an effective strategy to enhance moral thinking and behaviour, is included as a way to achieve the ethics competency, but its significance could be overlooked if the teacher is not familiar with the literature. A bibliography, which the curriculum does not contain, could remedy this potential problem.


Contraceptive practices entail a wide spectrum of concepts, namely, contraceptive methods, the use of contraceptives, the discontinuation of such use, and the non-use of contraceptives or failure to use them. The use of contraceptives and contraceptive services is influenced by a number of factors that either motivate or demotivate women to use contraceptives effectively. The aim of this literature review is to identify and describe factors impacting on the contraceptive practices of women. The discussion includes factors impacting positively or negatively on contraceptive practices in terms of age-related issues, education and status, religion, socio-cultural beliefs, values and norms, knowledge about contraceptives, contraceptive providers and the accessibility of contraceptive services.


Health care reform has resulted in changes throughout the health system, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirement that hospitals conduct community health needs assessments, taking into greater consideration the public health of their respective communities. This has led to growing strategies to develop partnerships between hospitals and public health (PH) as a way to meet these needs1. Meantime, there is a need for data on Hospital-PH partnerships, due to the growing emphasis that these types of partnerships get implemented in practice. In this paper we analyze a secondary data set to explore how hospitals and public health have engaged in partnerships prior to the ACA. We asked "How amenable have hospitals and public health agencies been to forming partnerships?" We found that while Hospitals traditionally have fewer partners, contribute fewer resources, and report fewer outcomes, they tend to report high perceptions of value and more frequent, complex partnerships. The impact of these results are important to efforts to build an evidenced-based foundation by which hospital and public health personnel can develop skills to manage these complex relationships.


The relationship between music and the Internet is a site of perceived possibility and volatility. Stories of music theft, illegal downloads, unresolved court cases, and anti-piracy technologies, are now prominent. Conversely, stories about the creation of real-time music composition, music's increasing accessibility, the regeneration of music collecting, and the development of virtual music communities have also become prominent. This paper introduces a fascinating suite of articles that originally appeared in First Monday on music's evolving relationship with the Internet, and are now included in Special Issue: Music and the Internet.


The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi-billion dollar infrastructure investment project, is heralded as a game changer for Pakistan's economy and for regional cooperation more generally. As a crucial part of the major development initiative led by China, known as 'One Belt, One Road' (OBOR), to connect Asia with Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the CPEC is widely linked to hopes, interests, as well as regional and global geopolitics. However, such a megaproject also raises numerous questions, especially with regards to the feasibility of its implementation, the impact on the region and, India's stance vis-a-vis the endeavour. Therefore, this Research Paper seeks to shed light on involved interests and challenges, potential impact on regional development and makes special reference of India's role in it.


In human-robot collaborative scenarios human workers operate alongside and with robots to jointly perform allocated tasks within a shared work environment. One of the basic requirements in these scenarios is to ensure safety. This can be significantly improved when the robot is able to predict and prevent potential hazards, like imminent collisions. In this paper, we apply a recurrent neural network (RNN) to model and learn human joint positions and movements in order to predict their future trajectories. Existing human motion prediction techniques have been explored in a pseudo scenario to predict human motions during task execution. Building upon previous work, we examined their applicability to our own recorded dataset, representing a more industrial-oriented scenario. We used one second of motion data to predict one second ahead. For better performance we modified the existing architecture by introducing a different output-layer, as opposed to common structures in recurrent neuronal networks. Finally, we evaluated the artificial neuronal network performance by providing absolute positional errors. Using our method we were able to predict joint motion over a one second period with less than 10 cm mean error.


Procedural justice scholarship shows that perceptions of judicial fairness can strongly influence a court participant's satisfaction with judicial outcomes, as well as the perceived legitimacy of the dispute resolution forum. What is largely unknown, however, is how procedural justice plays out in transnational contexts. Most previous studies focus on adjudication in domestic forums. Here, drawing on 622 semi-structured interviews with victims in cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC), we document how four core procedural justice principles–voice, neutrality, trust and respect–are interpreted differently in transnational rather than in national contexts. We also identify additional factors–including participants' concerns over physical safety and lengthy judicial processes–that condition participants' subjective evaluations of procedural fairness. These empirical findings force us to rethink the meaning of core principles of procedural justice in transnational settings and shed light on the subjective experiences of victim participants in international criminal proceedings.


Neutralization of vascular endothelial growth factor by its soluble receptor provides guidance cues during sprouting angiogenesis. Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) is required for the de novo formation of blood vessels as well as the formation of vascular networks that connect the original (or parent) blood vessels, a process known as sprouting angiogenesis. Flt-1 (Fms-related tyrosine kinase 1) is a VEGF-A receptor that has a membrane-localized form (mFlt-1) and a soluble form (sFlt-1). sFlt-1 had been previously shown to inhibit angiogenesis, leading Chappell et al. to investigate its role in sprouting angiogenesis. In an in vitro model of vessel formation that used mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, wild-type cells formed sprouts that were oriented 50° to 90° relative to the parent vessel, were located 75 μm or farther from other sprouts, and had tip filopodia that were in line with the sprout axis. Sprouts from flt-1–/– cells, in contrast, were oriented at more acute angles, formed closer to other sprouts, and had tip filopodia that were randomly directed. The guidance defects in sprouts derived from flt-1–/– ES cells were rescued by endothelial cell reexpression of sFlt-1 but not mFlt-1. Injection of a Flt-1–neutralizing antibody into mouse retinas increased the number of bifurcated sprouts, filopodia, and randomly oriented filopodia from sprouting retinal vessels. flt-1 expression (as assessed by activity of a β-galactosidase reporter linked to the flt-1 locus) and Flt-1 protein abundance were higher in the cells immediately adjacent to sprouts compared with that in cells within the sprout. Mosaic vessels were generated from mixtures of wild-type and flt-1–/– ES cells, which were differentiated by β-galactosidase activity. Sprouts that were derived from wild-type ES cells and were surrounded by flt-1–/– cells displayed signs of aberrant sprout directionality, effects that were rescued by expression of a transgene encoding sFlt-1 but not one encoding mFlt-1. The authors propose that by acting as a ligand sink for VEGF-A in areas adjacent to the sprout path, sFlt-1 is a key component of the local guidance system for sprouting blood vessels. J. C. Chappell, S. M. Taylor, N. Ferrara, V. L. Bautch, Local guidance of emerging vessel sprouts requires soluble Flt-1. Dev. Cell 17, 377–386 (2009). [PubMed]


Biodegradation of the graphene-based materials is an emerging issue due to their estimated widespread usage in different industries. Indeed, a few concerns have been raised about their biopersistence. Here, we propose the design of surface-functionalized graphene oxide (GO) with the capacity to degrade more effectively compared to unmodified GO using horseradish peroxidase (HRP). For this purpose, we have functionalized the surface of GO with two well-known substrates of HRP namely coumarin and catechol. The biodegradation of all conjugates has been followed by Raman, dynamic light scattering and electron microscopy. Molecular docking and gel electrophoresis have been carried out to gain more insights into the interaction between GO conjugates and HRP. Our studies have revealed better binding when GO is functionalized with coumarin or catechol compared to control GOs. All results prove that GO functionalized with coumarin and catechol moieties display a faster and more efficient biodegradation over GO.


Winner of: - The Black Caucus of the American Library Association Nonfiction Book Award- The Tampa Bay Historical Society's D. B. McKay Award- The Florida Historical Society's Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History"This is the definitive account of slavery in Florida. It covers all aspects of the institution and the lives of those who were its victims. Especially revealing are its thorough examination of the slave family and its detailed account of the relations between black slaves and Seminole Indians. I know of no other state study that does as much so well."--George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor, Stanford University"Applying the results of extensive research in the primary and secondary sources to a broad conceptual framework, Larry E. Rivers has written a comprehensive social history of slavery in Florida."--Jerrell H. Shofner, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Central Florida"A highly significant study. . . . Rivers has brought Florida up to date in the field of American slavery. This study, well-written and based on a variety of sources, is balanced and informative."--William W. Rogers, professor emeritus of history, Florida State University"Rivers has filled a tragically neglected gap in Florida's published history. The evolution and complexities of slavery unfold from an easily readable narrative in a manner that will move the reader and shed new light on a key element of southern and African American history."--Canter Brown, Jr., historian in residence, Tampa Bay History CenterThis important illustrated social history of slavery tells what life was like for bond servants in Florida from 1821 to 1865, offering new insights from the perspective of both slave and master. Starting with an overview of the institution as it evolved during the Spanish and English periods, Larry E. Rivers looks in detail and in depth at the slave experience, noting the characteristics of slavery in the Middle Florida plantation belt (the more traditional slave-based, cotton-growing economy and society) as distinct from East and West Florida (which maintained some attitudes and traditions of Spain). He examines the slave family, religion, resistance activity, slaves' participation in the Civil War, and their social interactions with whites, Indians, other slaves, and masters.Rivers also provides a dramatic account of the hundreds of armed free blacks and runaways among the Seminole, Creek, and Mikasuki Indians on the peninsula, whose presence created tensions leading to the great slave rebellion, the Second Seminole War (1835-42)."Slavery in Florida" is built upon painstaking research into virtually every source available on the subject--a wealth of historic documents, personal papers, slave testimonies, and census and newspaper reports. This serious critical work strikes a balance between the factual and the interpretive. It will be significant to all readers interested in slavery, the Civil War, the African American experience, and Florida and southern U.S. history, and it could serve as a comprehensive resource for secondary school teachers and students.Larry Eugene Rivers, President of Fort Valley State College and professor of history, is the author of numerous works, and the recipient of the Arthur W. Thompson Award from the Florida Historical Society and the Carter G. Woodson Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.


Since the passage of and amendments to the Local Government Records Act, school districts and local governments are beginning to find themselves with a multitude of resources to accomplish its mandates. Records management software has come a long way in meeting the needs of the local manager. Networks of regional record managers are becoming prevalent and have proven to be a great source for information. More and more record managers are no longer being burdened with other tasks; their efforts are devoted entirely to records management. Of course, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission continues to provide districts and local governments with outstanding support. Since the implementation of the Local Government Records Act, many Texas schools have moved from casual records management to the implementation of highly organized, efficient systems. Records management must provide the necessary guidelines and procedures to keep the district on legal grounds, and it must provide a service for its customers. Records management programs should exist for no other reason. Keeping an organization on solid ground requires one to keep current on all state and local guidelines. Districts must have a procedural manual outlining procedures and time constraints. In addition, districts must adopt the state's retention schedule, or create their own control schedule. Service is the primary reason for the existence of the records management program at the Arlington Independent School District (ISD). Imperative goals for this system include the ability to retrieve records in a relatively short time period, and to deliver them upon request. It is also very important that the records owner feel confident that his or her records are being maintained in a safe and orderly manner. Shifting Records The Arlington ISD Records Management Center originated with one person and a single personal computer handling the task of managing the entire district's records. Various record managers assigned to each school or department were not an option then. One department supervisor demonstrated the need for records management reform as she revealed the condition in which she maintained her inactive records. The documents were stored in a large, non-air-conditioned warehouse, and consisted of 40 pallets stacked four high. She had a pretty good feel for where the records were located, and would instruct the forklift operator to start moving pallets until she found the one that might have her record in it. This hit and miss task generally required all day. However, over the course of seven years, the records management program has been upgraded so that each record has a specific location and each container is clearly marked with information relating to that record. The Arlington Records Management Center tracks, archives and manages 400 types of inactive records, as well as every type of record associated with the district's various schools and departments. The Records Management Center now tracks over 200,000 inactive individual student records, 8,000 inactive professional personnel service records, 7,500 inactive auxiliary personnel records, and 8,480 special education records. In addition, 800 of the containers are classified as permanent. The program currently chronicles records for 101 departments and schools, with documents located in two current centers and 26 other locations. Many schools in the district keep some inactive records on campus, which are documented in the database. This practice proves beneficial because it prevents losing track of records at other locations as personnel move to other jobs or leave the district. The existing climate controlled Records Management Center has a capacity of 6,000 standard size containers, plus accommodations for diskettes and cassette tapes. Due to the district's success and satisfaction with the management system, expansion of storage facilities is underway in order to accommodate an additional 7,500 containers. …


The ICT-ISVISION Joint Research & Development Laboratory (JDL) for Face Recognition has constructed the CAS-PEAL face database supported by the National Hi-Tech Program and ISVISION Technologies Co., Ltd. The goals to create the PEAL face database include (1) providing the worldwide researchers of FR community a large-scale face database for training and evaluating their algorithms; (2) facilitating the development of FR by providing large-scale face images with different sources of variations, especially Pose, Expression, Accessories, and Lighting (PEAL); (3) advancing the state-of-the-art face recognition technologies aiming at practical applications especially for the oriental. Currently, the CAS-PEAL face database contains 99,594 images of 1040 individuals (595 males and 445 females) with varying Pose, Expression, Accessory, and Lighting (PEAL). For each subject, 9 cameras spaced equally in a horizontal semicircular shelf are setup to simultaneously capture images across different poses in one shot. Each subject is also asked to look up and down to capture 18 images in another two shots. We also considered 5 kinds of expressions, 6 kinds accessories (3 glasses, and 3 caps), and 15 lighting directions. This face database is now partly made available (a subset named by CAS-PEAL-R1, contain 30,900 images of 1040 subjects) for research purpose only on a case-by-case basis only. JDL is serving as the technical agent for distribution of the database and reserves the copyright of all the images in the database.


Notwithstanding the increasing importance of technology, the practice of corporate law is — and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future — a human capital business. As a result, law firms must continue to attract, develop, and retain talented lawyers. Unfortunately, the traditional approach, which divides responsibility for professional development among law schools, which are supposed to teach students to think like a lawyer; law firms, which are expected to train associates to "be" lawyers; and corporate clients, whose job it is to foot the bill, is no longer well aligned to the current realities of the marketplace. In this Article, we document the causes for this misalignment and propose a new model of professional development in which law schools, law firms, and corporate clients collaborate to train lawyers to be lifelong learners in the full range of technical, professional, and network-building skills they will need to flourish throughout their careers. We offer specific proposals for how to achieve this realignment and confront the resistance that will inevitably greet any attempt to do so.


OBJECTIVES
Exposure assessment is a major challenge faced by studies that evaluate the association between pesticide exposure and adverse health outcomes. The objective of this study was to investigate the reliability of information that farmers self-report regarding their pesticide use.

METHODS
Twenty five items based upon existing questionnaires were designed to focus on pesticide exposure. In 2009 a self-administrated survey was conducted on two occasions four weeks apart among 205 farmers residing in Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces. For a reliability measure, we calculated the percentage agreement, the kappa statistics and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the two reports according to the characteristics of the subjects.

RESULTS
Agreement for ever-never use of any pesticide was 96.4% (kappa 0.61). For both 'years used' and 'age at the first use' of overall pesticides, high agreement was obtained (ICC: 0.88 and, 0.78, respectively), whereas those of 'days used' and 'hours used' were relatively low (ICC: 0.42 and, 0.66, respectively). The kappa value for the use of personal protective equipment ranged from 0.46 to 0.59, and hygiene activities came out at 0.19 to 0.37. The agreement for individual pesticide use ranged widely and there was relatively low agreement due to the low response rates. The reliability scores did not significantly vary according to gender, age, the education level, the types of crop or the years of farming.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results support that carefully designed, self-reported information on ever-never pesticide use among farmers is reliable. However, the reliability of data on individual pesticide exposure may be unstable due to low response rates and needs to be refined.


Scarification is a mechanical site preparation technique designed to create microsites that will favor the growth of planted tree seedlings after clearcutting. However, the positive growth response of black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.) to scarification varies across different sites. We hypothesized that this was due to different forms of physiological stress induced by different climates or by the severity of competition from ericaceous shrubs. We thus compared the effects of scarification on black spruce needle gas exchange and other foliar properties, as well as on indices of soil water and nitrogen availability, in relatively warm-dry (Abitibi) vs. cool-humid (Côte-Nord) climates in the province of Québec (Canada). We found a similar positive effect of scarification on tree height in Abitibi and Côte-Nord. Scarification reduced soil moisture in both climatic regions, but increased soil N mineralization in Côte-Nord only. Accordingly, scarification increased the instantaneous water use efficiency in both climate regions, but decreased photosynthetic N use efficiency in Côte-Nord only. In both regions, we found a positive relationship between foliar δ18O and δ13C on scarified plots, providing further evidence that increased growth due to scarification depends on a decrease in stomatal conductance. We conclude that scarification increases total evapotranspiration of trees evenly across the east-to-west moisture gradient in the province of Québec, but also improves long-term soil nutritional quality in a cooler-humid climate.


The ferritin level in serum was investigated in 9 patients with myocardial infarction, all with a history of chest pain of less than 4 hours before admission. A significant rise in serum ferritin level was found in 8 patients. The rise was generally smaller than that seen in acute infection and not significantly correlated to the size of infarction, as estimated from changes in serum levels of myoglobin, ASAT and LDH. The rise started after a mean of 30 hours, the peak being reached within a week (M 4.3 days). Serum ferritin then fell to 120--300% (M 190) of the initial level, where it remained. An initial rise in serum iron levels was unexpectedly seen within 12 hours in 7 patients.


Young people's constructions of the relationship between language and ethnic identity is discussed, drawing on data from 60 British-Chinese complementary school attendees, and 38 young people of Chinese/mixed heritage that constructed themselves as not being able to speak Chinese. Those young people attending Chinese complementary school strongly foregrounded fluency in heritage language as essential to Chinese identity. Indeed some of these young people drew on moral and nationalistic discourses to challenge the possibility of identification as 'Chinese' without fluency in 'mother tongue'. However, it was also found that, for those young people not able to speak the language, this did not preclude their identification as Chinese: these young people drew on a range of signifiers of Chinese culture, connection, and engagement to position themselves as wholly or partly 'Chinese'. The impact of the different diasporic family histories for the two sample groups is discussed in relation to the young people's different constructions, and theoretical implications of the findings considered. It is argued that, despite discourses that produce idealised notions of 'essential' features of Chinese culture, in practice young people demonstrate agency in their diverse productions and understandings of 'Chineseness'.


In coastal waters around the world, the dominant primary producers are benthic macrophytes, including seagrasses and macroalgae, that provide habitat structure and food for diverse and abundant biological communities and drive ecosystem processes. Seagrass meadows and macroalgal forests play key roles for coastal societies, contributing to fishery yields, storm protection, biogeochemical cycling and storage, and important cultural values. These socio-economically valuable services are threatened worldwide by human activities, with substantial areas of seagrass and macroalgal forests lost over the last half-century. Tracking the status and trends in marine macrophyte cover and quality is an emerging priority for ocean and coastal management, but doing so has been challenged by limited coordination across the numerous efforts to monitor macrophytes, which vary widely in goals, methodologies, scales, capacity, governance approaches, and data availability. Here, we present a consensus assessment and recommendations on the current state of and opportunities for advancing global marine macrophyte observations, integrating contributions from a community of researchers with broad geographic and disciplinary expertise. With the increasing scale of human impacts, the time is ripe to harmonize marine macrophyte observations by building on existing networks and identifying a core set of common metrics and approaches in sampling design, field measurements, governance, capacity building, and data management. We recommend a tiered observation system, with improvement of remote sensing and remote underwater imaging to expand capacity to capture broad-scale extent at intervals of several years, coordinated with stratified in situ sampling annually to characterize the key variables of cover and taxonomic or functional group composition, and to provide ground-truth. A robust networked system of macrophyte observations will be facilitated by establishing best practices, including standard protocols, documentation, and sharing of resources at all stages of workflow, and secure archiving of open-access data. Because such a network is necessarily distributed, sustaining it depends on close engagement of local stakeholders and focusing on building and long-term maintenance of local capacity, particularly in the developing world. Realizing these recommendations will produce more effective, efficient, and responsive observing, a more accurate global picture of change in vegetated coastal systems, and stronger international capacity for sustaining observations.


Fatty deposits formed on arterial walls lead to atherosclerosis but it is the interplay between these deposits and the vessel walls which govern the growth of plaque formation. Crucially however the vast majority of acute coronary syndromes such as, myocardial infarction, and sudden ischaemic cardiac death are caused by atherosclerotic plaque rupture and not from a stenosis growing and blocking the blood flow. In fact, atherosclerotic plaques expand into the vessel wall during much of their existence and this can make their detection problematic. However inflammation within the necrotic core of the plaque, can be used to detect which plaques may be vulnerable. Thermal mapping of arterial walls can help identify the most likely sites for plaque rupture. This paper aims to provide a direct link between the geometry of these deposits and their thermal properties in order that non-invasive imaging techniques could be used to spot vulnerable plaques. We will discuss a methodology for estimating the thermal conductivity which utilises self-similarity properties using fractal analysis and renormalisation. The selfsimilar microstructure is captured by a family of random fractals called shuffled Sierpinski carpets (SSC). The thermal conductivity of the SSC can then be predicted both from its box counting fractal dimension and via a generalised real space renormalisation method. This latter approach also affords an analysis of the percolation threshold of two phase fractal media.


The work by Gatys et al. [1] recently showed a neural style algorithm that can produce an image in the style of another image. Some further works introduced various improvements regarding generalization, quality and efficiency, but each of them was mostly focused on styles such as paintings, abstract images or photo-realistic style. In this paper, we present a comparison of how state-of-the-art style transfer methods cope with transferring various comic styles on different images. We select different combinations of Adaptive Instance Normalization [11] and Universal Style Transfer [16] models and confront them to find their advantages and disadvantages in terms of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Finally, we present the results of a survey conducted on over 100 people that aims at validating the evaluation results in a real-life application of comic style transfer.


The paper presents a study on asymmetric faults with explicit reference to smart grids. The kinds of faults examined are: single phase ground fault, double phase ground fault, phase-phase short circuit, three-phase short circuit and single phase interruption. As a matter of fact, the complexity of smart grids requires new targets for protective systems in terms of reliability, timeliness and security. In comparison with traditional methods, the digital protections of the latest generation are very effective, versatile and programmable, allowing to simulate all network components effortlessly and therefore exactly. This new scenario also requires a revisitation of the theories underlying power system protection, so as to target them to the latest requirements. The results of a case study concerning a single-phase fault clearing and subsequent, automatic network reconfiguration are reported and illustrated.


The Abruzzi Pliocene Basin covers the outer part of the present Central Apennines chain-foredeep-foreland system and records the last deformation phases associated with the migration of the Apenninic orogen. This basin is divided into four main sectors characterized by successions with different stratigraphic evolution. From the innermost to the external ones, they are: Villadegna-Cellino Anticline, Atri Basin, Coastal Structure and Adriatic Foreland. Facies stacking patterns, geometric relationships and types of processes associated with the formation of unconformities together allow subdivision of the sedimentary fill into eight depositional sequences, detectable along the whole basin and recognizable with different features along different sectors. These sequences represent the response of the main evolutionary stages of the Pliocene Abruzzi Basin, referable to Incipient Foredeep, Foredeep and Piggy-back stages. The Incipient Foredeep stage characterizes the area at the base of the Pliocene; it forces physiographic changes, and records increasing tectonic subsidence rates and deposition of condensed successions. The Foredeep stage develops diachronously from Lower Pliocene p.p. to Upper Pliocene, moving from the internal sectors to the Adriatic Foreland; it is characterized by the maximum development of the depocenter with the highest rates of tectonic subsidence and with the deposition of thick turbiditic successions. The Piggy-back stage involves the internal sectors of the Pliocene Abruzzi basin starting from Lower Pliocene p.p. and develops diachronously within the main depocenter; it is characterized by the decrease of tectonic subsidence rates and by the progressive shallowing upward signature of sedimentary successions. This research shows the migrating behaviour of major and minor stratigraphic-structural elements; that is realized through the progressive involvement of different sectors during the evolution and is locally controlled by the presence of pre-existing paleogeographic elements and by the transversal and longitudinal propagation of thrusts.


Environmental medicine generally addresses environmental factors with a negative impact on human health. However, emerging scientific research has revealed a surprisingly positive and overlooked environmental factor on health: direct physical contact with the vast supply of electrons on the surface of the Earth. Modern lifestyle separates humans from such contact. The research suggests that this disconnect may be a major contributor to physiological dysfunction and unwellness. Reconnection with the Earth's electrons has been found to promote intriguing physiological changes and subjective reports of well-being. Earthing (or grounding) refers to the discovery of benefits—including better sleep and reduced pain—from walking barefoot outside or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems that transfer the Earth's electrons from the ground into the body. This paper reviews the earthing research and the potential of earthing as a simple and easily accessed global modality of significant clinical importance.


The last decades of research led to a change in understanding of lichens that are now seen as self-sustaining micro-ecosystems, harboring diverse microbial organisms in tight but yet not fully understood relationships. Among the diverse interdependencies, the relationship between the myco- and photobiont is the most crucial, determining the shape, and ecophysiological properties of the symbiotic consortium. Roughly 10% of lichens associate with cyanobacteria as their primary photobiont, termed cyanolichens. Up to now, the diversity of cyanobionts of bipartite lichens resolved by modern phylogenetic approaches is restricted to the filamentous and heterocytous genera of the order Nostocales. Unicellular photobionts were placed in the orders Chroococcales, Pleurocapsales, and Chroococcidiopsidales. However, especially the phylogeny and taxonomy of the Chroococcidiopsidales genera remained rather unclear. Here we present new data on the identity and phylogeny of photobionts from cyanolichens of the genera Gonohymenia, Lichinella, Peccania, and Peltula from a broad geographical range. A polyphasic approach was used, combining morphological and cultivation-depending characteristics (microscopy, staining techniques, life cycle observation, baeocyte motility, and nitrogen fixation test) with phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA and 16S–23S ITS gene region. We found an unexpectedly high cyanobiont diversity in the cyanobacterial lichens of the order Lichinales, including two new genera and seven new species, all of which were not previously perceived as lichen symbionts. As a result, we describe the novel unicellular Chroococcidiopsidales genera Pseudocyanosarcina gen. nov. with the species Pseudocyanosarcina phycocyania sp. nov. (from Peltula clavata, Australia) and Compactococcus gen. nov. with the species Compactococcus sarcinoides sp. nov. (from Gonohymenia sp., Australia) and the new Chroococcidiopsidales species Aliterella compacta sp. nov. (from Peltula clavata, Australia), Aliterella gigantea sp. nov. (from Peltula capensis; South Africa), Sinocapsa ellipsoidea sp. nov. (from Peccania cerebriformis, Austria), as well as the two new Nostocales species Komarekiella gloeocapsoidea sp. nov. (from Gonohymenia sp., Czechia) and Komarekiella globosa sp. nov. (from Lichinella cribellifera, Canary Islands, Spain). Our study highlights the role of cyanolichens acting as a key in untangling cyanobacterial taxonomy and diversity. With this study, we hope to stimulate further research on photobionts, especially of rare cyanolichens.


Introduction: Rehabilitation of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is recommended on basis of solid evidence. However, implementation of guidelines for COPD rehabilitation has shown to be difficult and many patients are not referred to primary care rehabilitation.
Aim: This study aims to examine if existing webbased information is sufficient to support referral of patients to COPD rehabilitation programs and if available information reflects the deliverance of recommended COPD rehabilitation.
Methods: The region of Southern Denmark (RSD) was chosen as case for this study. We scrutinized all information on the website www.sundhed.dk related to services for COPD patients. We registered information on following items: 1) Referral procedure, 2) Target groups, 3) Content of programs, 4) Setting, 5) Timetable, 6) Logistics and 7) Waiting time. Subsequently, we contacted all municipalities to complement this information.
Results: According to information on the website, all 22 municipalities in RSD offered at least one COPD rehabilitation program. Complete information on referral procedure and target group was present in 15 and 4 cases respectively. Seventeen municipalities had no information on waiting time and/or timetable. Direct contact to municipalities supplemented the information but still important data were unavailable.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated variable and insufficient web-site information for COPD rehabilitation in municipalities. More focus on readily accessible information might support referrals and thereby implementation on rehabilitation guidelines.


How do you love and not like the same thing at the same time? This was the riddle that met Mississippi writer B. Brian Foster when he returned to his home state to learn about Black culture and found himself hearing about the blues. One moment, Black Mississippians would say they knew and appreciated the blues. The next, they would say they didn't like it. For five years, Foster listened and asked: "How?" "Why not?" "Will it ever change?" This is the story of the answers to his questions.
In this illuminating work, Foster takes us where not many blues writers and scholars have gone: into the homes, memories, speculative visions, and lifeworlds of Black folks in contemporary Mississippi to hear what they have to say about the blues and all that has come about since their forebears first sang them. In so doing, Foster urges us to think differently about race, place, and community development and models a different way of hearing the sounds of Black life, a method that he calls listening for the backbeat.


This paper aims to provide a comparison between the United States and Hong Kong on what accounting employers expect of accounting graduates and the areas where accounting graduates fall short in both localities. Inadequacies as revealed through the study are in the areas of written and oral communication, understanding the business environment and management advisory services. Possible remedies on curriculum and pedagogy are suggested. In the United States, data on what accounting employers wanted and what was perceived as lacking as well as suggested remedies were obtained from relevant literature review. In the case of Hong Kong, the academics and the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) were surveyed on the weaknesses of accounting graduates while the big-four firms were asked to identify the most important skills of entrylevel accountants.


Abstract Using a case study approach, the objective of this research project was to employ a range of methods to identify climate change adaptation options and to explore adaptive capacity and pathways for its enhancement, combining stakeholder engagement, Systems Thinking, System Dynamics and Bayesian modelling within five case studies: Currumbin SLSC and North Kirra SLSC, south east, Queensland; Cudgen Headland SLSC, north east, New South Wales; Ulverstone SLSC, northern Tasmania; and SLSA national office, Sydney. A series of workshops, involving surf lifesavers, local council and community representatives were run focusing on asset management, life saving operations and the role of local clubs in increasing community resilience. This first round of workshops was the base to identify relevant adaptive responses. For clubs, these included the defence of current assets, their relocation and retreat, or the improvement of life saving operations through training and equipment upgrades. At the national level adaptation responses included improving partnerships with external organisations, building capacity of the national organisation to provide guidance for clubs and mainstreaming climate adaptation in current procedure. The second round of workshops was centred on a Bayesian belief modelling exercise to identify adaptive capacity determinants to implement the most relevant options, such as type of funding (local government, state government, club revenue, memberships, etc.) knowledge and expertise in developing options or community or government will for change. In general, adaptive capacity determinants fell into three categories: (i) funding, (ii) technical knowledge and (iii) social and institutional networks. Finally, the adaptive capacity determinants identified across case study areas were the base to determine a set of ten actions to enhance the adaptive capacity of Surf Lifesaving in Australia. Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) has assets and facilities exposed to climatic drivers that are on the frontline of climate change, including 310 separately incorporated local surf life saving clubs (SLSCs) and more than 150,000 trained volunteers delivering services on the coastline. Using a case study approach, the objective of this research project was to employ a range of methods to identify climate change adaptation options and to explore adaptive capacity and pathways for its enhancement, combining stakeholder engagement, Systems Thinking, System Dynamics and Bayesian modelling within five case studies: Currumbin SLSC and North Kirra SLSC, south east, Queensland; Cudgen Headland SLSC, north east, New South Wales; Ulverstone SLSC, northern Tasmania; and SLSA national office, Sydney. A series of workshops, involving surf lifesavers, local council and community representatives were run focusing on asset management, life saving operations and the role of local clubs in increasing community resilience. This first round of workshops was the base to identify relevant adaptive responses. For clubs, these included the defence of current assets, their relocation and retreat, or the improvement of life saving operations through training and equipment upgrades. At the national level adaptation responses included improving partnerships with external organisations, building capacity of the national organisation to provide guidance for clubs and mainstreaming climate adaptation in current procedure. The second round of workshops was centred on a Bayesian belief modelling exercise to identify adaptive capacity determinants to implement the most relevant options, such as type of funding (local government, state government, club revenue, memberships, etc.) knowledge and expertise in developing options or community or government will for change. In general, adaptive capacity determinants fell into three categories: (i) funding, (ii) technical knowledge and (iii) social and institutional networks. Finally, the adaptive capacity determinants identified across case study areas were the base to determine a set of ten actions to enhance the adaptive capacity of Surf Lifesaving in Australia. Please cite this report as: Sano, M, Richards, R, Sahin, O, Ware, D, Sherker, S and Tomlinson, R 2013 Adapt between the flags: enhancing the capacity of Surf Life Saving Australia to cope with climate change and to leverage adaptation within coastal communities, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 146.Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) has assets and facilities exposed to climatic drivers that are on the frontline of climate change, including 310 separately incorporated local surf life saving clubs (SLSCs) and more than 150,000 trained volunteers delivering services on the coastline.


Online communities have increased in size and importance dramatically over the last decade. The fact that many communities are online means that it is possible to extract information about these communities and the connections between their members much more easily using software tools, despite their potentially very large size. The links between members of the community can be presented visually and often this can make patterns in the structure of sub-communities immediately obvious. The links and structures of layered communities can also be formalized to gain a better understanding of their modelling. This paper explores these links with some specific examples, including visualization of these relationships and a formalized model of communities using the Z notation. It also considers the development of such communities within the Community of Practice social science framework. Such approaches may be applicable for communities associated with cybersecurity and could be combined for a better understanding of their development.


In conflict zones around the world, both state and non-state actors deliver governance at local levels. This paper explores the long-term impact of individual exposure to 'wartime governance' on social and political behavior. We operationalize wartime governance as the local policy choices and practices of a ruling actor. Building on detailed ethnographic and historical insights, we use survey data and a natural experiment to show that involvement in wartime governance by armed groups makes Angolan war veterans more likely to participate in local collective action twelve years after the end of the war. This effect is underpinned by social learning and a shift in political preferences, but has no bearing on political mobilization at the national level or cooperation within the family. Our study documents a wartime source of pro-social behavior among veterans and exposes challenges and opportunities for bottom-up approaches to post-conflict state-building and local development.


Abstract. Since 1975, flood estimation in Ireland has generally followed methods as outlined in the Flood Studies Report (Natural Environment Research Council, 1975). An update of this for conditions in the Republic of Ireland commenced in 2005 and included research in Urban Catchment Flood Analysis. To inform this work, a scoping study of issues relating to flooding caused by urban runoff was undertaken by a team from the Centre for Water Resources Research at University College Dublin and some of the findings are described in this paper. It focussed on quantitative and qualitative research methods (self-completion questionnaires and Focus Groups) to review the methods of flood estimation for urbanised catchments currently in use in Ireland. It assessed the nature of deficiencies associated with urban-runoff control and identified achievable and realistic objectives for further research. A questionnaire was developed around a number of key themes pertaining to flooding caused by urban runoff and circulated to 291 stakeholders in target sectors that ranged from Engineering Consultancies to Academic Institutions. A total of 100 questionnaires were returned giving a 34% response rate. The study found; (i) a proliferation of methods are used in practice resulting in significant differences between the estimates; (ii) some methods are sometimes being used for inappropriate spatial scales; (iii) there is a lack of clear guidance on the use of the methods and/or associated software packages; (iv) there is little appreciation of the uncertainties associated with the methods and (v) there are significant deficiencies in some of the basic information available. A list of recommendations was produced, to guide the commissioning of future research to improve the methods available to designers.


The first metallic glass was discovered by Pol Duwez and his colleagues at Caltech in 1960. Shortly after that, Turnbull pointed out that a high ratio of melting temperature over glass transition temperature favors glass formation based on classical nucleation theory. Using Turnbull's theory as a guideline, many alloy systems were found forming glasses. As a new state of metallic alloys, metallic glass is of scientific interest by itself as well as attractive for practical applications due to unique properties. However, since the critical cooling rates for glass formation of conventional alloys are relatively high, at least one dimension of the metallic glass is limited to a few tenths of milimeter. This severely limited the application of metallic glasses.

Recently, several multicomponent alloy systems were discovered that form bulk metallic glasses with the smallest dimension of several mm up to several cm. Two of these alloy systems are the Ti-Zr-Cu-Ni and the Zr-Ti-(Nb)-Cu-Ni-Al alloys, which were discovered during this thesis research.

In this thesis homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation theories and their influence on glass formation are reviewed. Experimental methods for metallic glass processing are introduced. The formation of Ti-Zr-Cu-Ni and Zr-Ti-(Nb)-Cu-Ni-Al bulk metallic alloys are reported. The glass transition, crystallization behavior, and mechanical properties of these glassy alloys are presented. The optimized combinations of four or five elements in these alloys leads to very deep eutetic multicomponent alloys, in which nucleation of crystals upon undercooling becomes increasingly improbable. Thermodynamic, kinetic and topological factors are discussed that contribute the exceptional glass forming ability of these alloys.

The very high stability of the undercooled liquids of bulk glass forming alloys makes it possible to perform studies on undercooled liquids in a time and temperature window that was not accessible thus far. In this thesis the time temperature transformation diagrams were measured for the crystallization of undercooled Zr-Ti-(Nb)-Cu-Ni-Al liquids. It has been discovered that the crystallization of the undercooled liquid is caused by heterogeneous nucleation induced by oxide particles, even when the oxygen concentration is as low as 250 atomic ppm. Overheating the melts above the liquidus temperature of the oxide particle results in maximum undercooling. Strong oxygen concentration dependence of the overheating, undercooling, and TTT diagrams was found. These results suggest that impurities play a key role in the crystallization of undercooled liquid. This first systematic study of impurity effect on crystallization of undercooled liquid will have many important implications on making bulk glasses and any study of undercooled liquids.

To summarize this thesis, important factors which affect the crystallization are revealed and discussed. Strategies on how to find new bulk metallic glasses are suggested.


This paper examines the surge in British interest in the island of Sardinia which occurred during the nineteenth century. By exploiting a variety of sources – such as the content of rare publications written by British travellers, the Baedeker and John Murray travel guides, The Times newspaper, and official documents produced by the British Consulate at Cagliari – it aims to construct a picture of the overall impression that the island made upon its British visitors throughout this period. This research attempts to fill something of the void left between past studies which have focused on the British political interest in Italian unification, or on the British cultural fascination with mainland Italy and Sicily. It builds upon the considerable work that Miryam Cabiddu has undertaken in this area. It also supports Maura O'Connor's suggestion that British enthusiasm for the Risorgimento reflected a desire to see the country remade in a British image, by revealing how British visitors often understood Sardinia's poor state to be primarily the result of its misgovernment. At the same time, it helps to set into context John Pemble's observation that the Victorians were only prepared to acknowledge any sense of their own inferiority amid the classical sites of the Mediterranean, by helping to show how narrowly this preparedness applied.


In commerce search, the set of products returned by a search engine often forms the basis for all user interactions leading up to a potential transaction on the web. Such a set of products is known as the consideration set. In this study, we consider the problem of generating consideration set of products in commerce search so as to maximize user satisfaction. One of the key features of commerce search that we exploit in our study is the association of a set of important attributes with the products and a set of specified attributes with the user queries. Those important attributes not used in the query are treated as unspecified. The attribute space admits a natural definition of user satisfaction via user preferences on the attributes and their values, viz. require that the surfaced products be close to the specified attribute values in the query, and diverse with respect to the unspecified attributes. We model this as a general Max-Sum Dispersion problem wherein we are given a set of n nodes in a metric space and the objective is to select a subset of nodes with total cost at most a given budget, and maximize the sum of the pairwise distances between the selected nodes. In our setting, each node denotes a product, the cost of a node being inversely proportional to its relevance with respect to specified attributes. The distance between two nodes quantifies the diversity with respect to the unspecified attributes. The problem is NP-hard and a 2-approximation was previously known only when all the nodes have unit cost.
 In our setting, we do not make any assumptions on the cost. We label this problem as the General Max-Sum Dispersion problem. We give the first constant factor approximation algorithm for this problem, achieving an approximation ratio of 2. Further, we perform extensive empirical analysis on real-world data to show the effectiveness of our algorithm.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether physicians' beliefs concerning episiotomy are related to their use of procedures and to differential outcomes in childbirth.

DESIGN
Post-hoc cohort analysis of physicians and patients involved in a randomized controlled trial of episiotomy.

SETTING
Two tertiary care hospitals and one community hospital in Montreal.

PARTICIPANTS
Of the 703 women at low risk of medical or obstetric problems enrolled in the trial we studied 447 women (226 primiparous and 221 multiparous) attended by 43 physicians. Subjects attended by residents or nurses were excluded.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

PATIENTS
intact perineum v. perineal trauma, length of labour, procedures used (instrumental delivery, oxytocin augmentation of labour, cesarean section and episiotomy), position for birth, rate of and reasons for not assigning women to a study arm, postpartum perineal pain and satisfaction with the birth experience, physicians: beliefs concerning episiotomy.

RESULTS
Women attended by physicians who viewed episiotomy very unfavorably were more likely than women attended by the other physicians to have an intact perineum (23% v. 11% to 13%, p < 0.05) and to experience less perineal trauma. The first stage of labour was 2.3 to 3.5 hours shorter for women attended by physicians who viewed episiotomy favourably than for women attended by physicians who viewed episiotomy very unfavorably (p < 0.05 to < 0.01), and the former physicians were more likely to use oxytocin augmentation of labour. Physicians who viewed episiotomy more favourably failed more often than those who viewed the procedure very unfavourably to assign patients to a study arm late in labour (odds ratio [OR] 1.88, p < 0.05), both overall and because they felt that "fetal distress" or cesarean section necessitated exclusion of the subject. They used the lithotomy position for birth more often (OR 3.94 to 4.55, p < 0.001), had difficulty limiting episiotomy in the restricted-use arm of the trial and diagnosed fetal distress and perineal inadequacy more often than the comparison groups. The patients of physicians who viewed episiotomy very favourably experienced more perineal pain (p < 0.01), and of those who viewed episiotomy favourably and very favourably experienced less satisfaction with the birth experience (p < 0.01) than the patients of physicians who viewed the procedure very unfavourably.

CONCLUSIONS
Physicians with favourably views of episiotomy were more likely to use techniques to expedite labour, and their patients were more likely to have perineal trauma and to be less satisfied with the birth experience. This evidence that physician beliefs can influence patient outcomes has both clinical and research implications.


Using collaborative autoethnography, this article explores the experiences of Indigenous graduate students as they navigate higher education and work to ensure the continuance of their heritage languages for future generations. The authors of this self-study represent diverse heritage languages and attend different universities across the United States. Following a discussion of Indigenous languages as tied to identity and a means to confront hegemonic power within universities, a review of the literature highlights new directions in language reclamation scholarship—particularly in the portrayal of youth, young adult, and postsecondary student contributions. The authors then present their experiences through vignettes, as well as an analysis of emerging themes. Ultimately, the article argues that, despite diverse backgrounds, the authors share a view of higher education as a tool—albeit one with limitations—that can enable them as effective contributors to language revitalization efforts. Works Cited
 Bainbridge, R. (2007). Autoethnography in Indigenous research contexts: The value of inner knowing. Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 10(2), 54-64.
 Blodgett, A. T., Schinke, R. J., Smith, B., Peltier, and D. Pheasant, C. (2011). In Indigenous words: Exploring vignettes as a narrative strategy for presenting the research voices of Aboriginal community members. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(6), 522-533.
 Brayboy, B. M. J. (2004). Hiding in the Ivy: American Indian students and visibility in elite educational settings. Harvard educational review 74(2), 125-152.
 Brayboy, B. M. J. (2005). Transformational resistance and social justice: American Indians in Ivy League universities. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 36(3), 193–211.
 Brayboy, B. M. J., Fann, A. J., Castagno, A. E., & Solyom, J. A. (2012). Postsecondary education for American Indian and Alaska Natives: Higher education for nation building and self-determination. ASHE Higher Education Report, 37(5).
 Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 585-614.
 Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. W., & Hernandez, K. C. (2013). Collaborative autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
 Deloria, P. (2004). Indians in unexpected places. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
 Deyhle, D. (1995). Navajo youth and Anglo racism: Cultural integrity and resistance. Harvard Educational Review, 65(4), 403–444.
 Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). Retrieved from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108
 Ely, M., Vinz, R., Downing, M., and Anzul, M. (1997). On writing qualitative research: Living by words. Briston, PA: Falmer Press.
 Foucault, M. (1983, October-November). Discourse and truth: the problematization of parrhesia. Lecture series conducted from University of California, Berkeley.
 Gilmore, P. (2008). Engagement on the backroads: Insights for anthropology and education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 39, 109-116. Gilmore, P. (2013, November). Knowledge production in Indigenous scholarship: Fostering relationships, reciprocity, responsibility and respect through cross- institutional engagements. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, IL.
 Hill, J. (2002). "Expert rhetorics" in advocacy for endangered languages: Who is listening and what do they hear? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 12(2), 119-33. Hinton, L. (2014). Foreword. In Wyman, L. T. McCarty, T. L., & Nicholas, S. E. (Eds.), Indigenous youth and bi/multilingualism: Language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (pp. ix-xiv). New York: Routledge.
 Kipp, D. R. (2000). Encouragement, guidance, insights, and lessons learned for Native language activists developing their own tribal language programs. St. Paul: Grotto Foundation, Inc.
 Kroupa, K. T. (2014). Efforts of the Ree-volution: Revitalizing Arikara language in an endangered language context. In Wyman, L. T. McCarty, T. L., & Nicholas, S. E. (Eds.), Indigenous youth and bi/multilingualism: Language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (pp. 168-186). New York: Routledge.
 Lee, T. S. (2009). Language, identity, and power: Navajo and Pueblo young adults' perspectives and experiences with competing language ideologies. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 8, 307-320.
 Lee, T. S. (2014). Critical language awareness among Native youth in New Mexico. In Wyman, L. T. McCarty, T. L., & Nicholas, S. E. (Eds.), Indigenous youth and bi/multilingualism: Language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (pp. 130-148). New York: Routledge.
 Leonard, W. Y. (2011). Challenging "extinction" through modern Miami language practices. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 135-160.
 McCarty, T. L., Romero-Little, M. E., Warhol, L. & Zepeda, O. (2014). Genealogies of language loss and recovery: Native youth language practices and cultural continuance. In Wyman, L. T. McCarty, T. L., & Nicholas, S. E. (Eds.), Indigenous youth and bi/multilingualism: Language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (pp. 26-47). New York: Routledge.
 Meek, B. A. (2011). Failing American Indian languages. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 35(2), 43-60.
 Ortiz, S. (1978). Song, poetry and language: Expression and perception. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press.
 Pithouse-Morgan, K., Khau, M., Masinga, L., & van de Ruit, C. (2012). Letters to those who dare feel: Using reflective letter-writing to explore the emotionality of research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 11(1), 40-57.
 Nicholas, S. E. (2009). "I live Hopi, I just don't speak it." –The critical intersection of language, culture, and identity in the contemporary lives of Hopi youth. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 8(5), 321-334. Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books Ltd.
 Solorzano, D. G. and Bernal, D. D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through a critical race theory and LatCrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36(3), 308–342.
 Sumida Huaman, E. and Stokes, P. (2011). Indigenous language revitalization and new media: Postsecondary students as innovators. Global Media Journal, 11(18). Retrieved from http://lass.purduecal.edu/cca/gmj/sp11/gmj-sp11-article3.htm
 Tuck, E. & Yang, K. W. (2013). R-words: Refusing research. In D. Paris & M. T. Winn (Eds.), Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities (pp. 223-247). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
 Wyman, L. T. (2012). Youth culture, language endangerment and linguistic survivance. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
 Wyman, L. T. (2014). Youth linguistic survivance in transforming settings: A Yup'ik example. In Wyman, L. T. McCarty, T. L., & Nicholas, S. E. (Eds.), Indigenous youth and bi/multilingualism: Language identity, ideology, and practice in dynamic cultural worlds (pp. 90-110). New York: Routledge.


Managed runtimes such as the Java virtual machine (JVM) rely on just-in-time (JIT) compilers to improve application performance by converting bytecodes into optimized machine code. Unfortunately, JIT compilation introduces significant CPU and memory runtime overheads. JIT compiler disaggregation is a technique that decouples the JIT from the JVM and ships compilation to a separate remote process. JIT disaggregation reduces overall memory usage; however, its communication overheads result in higher system-wide CPU usage. JITServer is a disaggregated caching JIT compiler we implemented in the Eclipse OpenJ9 JVM. It improves system-wide resource utilization by enabling the caching of compiled native code and its reuse in JVMs running on different machines. JITServer is transparent to the application developer, and supports all the dynamic features in the JVM specification. In our experiments, JITServer reduced overall CPU cost by up to 77%, overall memory usage by up to 62%, application start time by up to 58% and warm-up time by up to 87%. We provide the open source implementation of JITServer (as part of the OpenJ9 project), as well as the automated benchmarking platform that we used in our experimental evaluation. Our results have been successfully reproduced in artifact evaluation.


Occupational injuries represent a relatively high proportion of the total number of injuries in Norway and thereby deserve more attention than they are currently receiving. Occupational injury claims made to insurance companies in Norway from 1991 to 1996 were analyzed for determination of their patterns. The types of injury with the highest incidence rates among men were fractures; among women, the highest rates were for those for sprains. The injury rates were more than twice as high in young men as in young women; this difference declined with increasing age. Young men had an increased risk of finger injuries, compared with older age groups. The injury rates increased with increasing age, especially for fractures and contusions. A somewhat higher number of injuries per working day occurred in January and February than in the other months. Action should be taken to prevent fractures and contusions among older workers.


Abstract Antimicrobial agents are very useful and have been the subject of intense research. Amongst these compounds, bacteriocins are defined as peptide antibiotics which do not harm the producer strain but have the ability to kill closely related bacteria. Bacillus thuringiensis is a friendly bacterium best known for the production of bioinsecticides, but is also considered as a source of bacteriocins active against the closely related pathogenic species harmful for food products, and many organisms. The major goal of this project is to evidence and characterize novel Bacillus thuringiensis bacteriocins synthesized by Qatari Bacillus thuringiensis strains. In order to obtain that, many approaches have been adopted: - Screening of delta-endotoxin producing strains of Bacillus thuringiensis. - Screening of bacteriocin producing strains of Bacillus thuringiensis. - Study of the antagonistic effects among bacteriocin producing strains. - Study of the effect of medium composition on bacteriocin synthesis. - Screening by PCR of Bacthuricin F4 like producing strains. In order to screen the bacteriocin producing strains of Bacillus thuringiensis, many techniques have been utilized such as: Direct Antagonism on Solid Media and Well Diffusion Method to check the bacteriocin activity. Bacteriocin production was studied on different growth media and against various indicator strains. The screening of 192 Bacillus thuringiensis strains isolated from Qatar, allowed the evidence of strains having different crystal forms. In fact, these strains produce parasporal crystals that have pyramidal, bipyramidal, cubical, spherical and amorphous forms. Among these Bacillus thuringiensis strains, about 70% produce spherical crystals and 30 % bipyramidal. Similar results were obtained in the laboratory by Sara Zakzok and Duha Rabah. This could be considered as a contribution to the establishment of Qatari bacterial gene bank. Screening the collection for bactericidal activities against indicator strains, revealed a variability in the size and aspect of the inhibition zones. About 76% of the collection were bacteriocin producing strains and only 24% were negative. There have been noticed many signs of novelty among our local bacteriocin producing strains. These results are very encouraging and in favour of the use of B. thuringiensis local strains for bacteriocin production.


This two-part study was undertaken to determine a) what questions bereaved children would like to ask a doctor; b) how a doctor responds to these questions; and c) the factors that may influence this process. The first set of data was collected by a retrospective sample of 121 questions posed by 99 children who had attended a residential grief support programme. These questions were sorted and later assigned to one of five categories, namely a) cause of death, b) life span, c) doctors, d) dead body and e) grieving feelings. The largest category identified was 63 questions (52%) relating to the cause of death. It is suggested that this partly, the result of the commonly held societal view that a doctor is the most appropriate person from whom to access this type of information. A subsequent detailed analysis of 35 more questions confirmed these findings. The second set of data was collected by observation, field-note taking, audio taping and later transcribing, the doctor responding to 35 questions posed by 24 bereaved children. A model of communication emerged where the doctor employed three phases within his response, namely a) validation, b) reflection and c) description. The significance of this model and the culture in which adults communicated acceptance and a desire to understand what the children were saying are discussed. The attributes and types of work involved for the doctor are also highlighted, particularly the emotion-focused questions, which appear more challenging than the biomedical questions. It is suggested that the doctor plays an essential role in helping a child understand 'how' and 'why' a person dies. Hence implications for practice and future research have been provided.


We propose a hierarchical extension to hidden Markov model (HMM) under the Bayesian framework to overcome its limited model capacity. The model parameters are treated as random variables whose distributions are governed by hyperparameters. Therefore the variation in data can be modeled at both instance level and distribution level. We derive a novel learning method for estimating the parameters and hyperparameters of our model based on adversarial learning framework, which has shown promising results in generating photorealistic images and videos. We demonstrate the benefit of the proposed method on human motion capture data through comparison with both state-of-the-art methods and the same model that is learned by maximizing likelihood. The first experiment on reconstruction shows the model's capability of generalizing to novel testing data. The second experiment on synthesis shows the model's capability of generating realistic and diverse data.


Oswald Spengler was one of the most important thinkers of the Weimar Republic. In Oswald Spengler and the Politics of Decline, Ben Lewis completely transforms our understanding of Spengler by showing how well-connected this philosopher was and how, at every stage of his career, he attempted to intervene politically in the very real-life events unfolding around him. The volume explains Spengler's politics as the outcome of a dynamic interplay between his meta-historical considerations on world history on the one hand, and the practical demands and considerations of Realpolitik on the other hand.


Urinary schistosomiasis is one of the main public health problems in Africa and the Middle East. Schistosomiasis (Bilharziasis) seems to be on the rise in developed countries like United Kingdom with the continuing influx of immigrants and refugees, as well as the return of travellers and soldiers from endemic areas. We present case report from UK, of a 14 year old Asian boy, who presented to a general paediatrician with a two month history of painless, gross, terminal haematuria. He also had general symptoms of malaise, early fatigability with poor appetite and was a known carrier of thalassemia trait. On Full blood count, his haemoglobin was 11.4 gm/dl with eosinophilia 0.71×109 (Normal range 0.04-0.40). An ultrasound scan of urinary tract revealed localised thickening of bladder located towards the trigone. This raised suspicion of rhabdomyosarcoma of bladder. An urgent cystoscopy was performed which revealed multiple lesions in the area of trigone, studded with white spots within the lesion. Punch biopsy was done which showed eggs of Schistosomia haematobium and the inflammatory mass constituted eosinophilic infiltration. History was revisited and it was discovered that he had travelled to Malawi, where his father was working. As a treatment two doses of Praziquantel was given and patient will be followed up with ultrasound scan later to assess the bladder lesions.


Mortality was studied among a group of 328 employees of an Ontario asbestos-cement factory who had been hired before 1960 and who had been employed for a minimum of nine years. The group of 87 men who had worked in the rock wool/fibre glass operations, or who had been otherwise minimally exposed to asbestos, had mortality rates similar to those of the general Ontario population, while the group of asbestos-exposed employees had all-cause mortality rates double those of the Ontario population, mortality rates due to malignancies five times higher than expected, and deaths attributed to lung cancer eight times more frequent than expected. According to the best evidence available, 10 of 58 deaths among the production workers were due to malignant mesothelioma and 20 to lung cancer. The men dying of mesothelioma were younger than the men dying of lung cancer with mean ages at death of 51 and 64 years respectively. An exposure model was constructed on the basis of the available air sampling data, and individual exposure histories were calculated. These exposure histories were used to investigate the exposure-response relationships for asbestos-associated malignancies.


In this paper, we introduce an approach for leveraging available data across multiple locales sharing the same language to 1) improve domain classification model accuracy in Spoken Language Understanding and user experience even if new locales do not have sufficient data and 2) reduce the cost of scaling the domain classifier to a large number of locales. We propose a locale-agnostic universal domain classification model based on selective multi-task learning that learns a joint representation of an utterance over locales with different sets of domains and allows locales to share knowledge selectively depending on the domains. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on domain classification task in the scenario of multiple locales with imbalanced data and disparate domain sets. The proposed approach outperforms other baselines models especially when classifying locale-specific domains and also low-resourced domains.


One of the most challenging tasks when studying large submarine landslides is determining whether the landslide was initiated as a single large event, a chain of events closely spaced in time or multiple events separated by long periods of time as all have implications in risk assessments. In this study we combine new multichannel seismic profiles and new sediment cores with bathymetric data to test whether the Rockall Bank Slide Complex, offshore western Ireland, is the composite of multiple slope collapse events and, if so, to differentiate them. We conclude that there have been at least three voluminous episodes of slope collapse separated by long periods of slope stability, a fourth, less voluminous event, and possibly a fifth more localized event. The oldest event, Slide A (200 km3), is estimated to be several hundred thousand years old. The second event, Slide B (125 km3), took place at the same location as slide A, reactivating the same scar, nearly 200 ka ago, possibly through retrogression of the scarp. Slide C (400 km3) took place 22 ka ago and occurred further north from the other slides. Slide D was a much smaller event that happened 10 ka ago, while the most recent event, albeit very small scale, took place within the last 1,000 years. This study highlights the need to thoroughly investigate large slide complexes to evaluate event sequencing, as seismic studies may hide multiple small‐scale events. This work also reveals that the same slide scarps can be reactivated and generate slides with different flow behaviors.


Background.
Ozone therapy has a long history. Some studies proved that ozone therapy was useful in treatment of virus hepatitis. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of new medical ozone therapy system for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.

Method.
One hundred eighty-nine patients with chronic hepatitis B were included in this open-label, phase 3 study, and randomly assigned to receive ozone autohemotherapy with experimental ozone generator TianYi (group 1) or with ozone generator Humares (group 2) or oral diammonium glycyrrhizinate capsules (group 3) in a 1:1:1 ratio for 12 weeks. The primary efficacy end point was sera HBV DNA level of less than 1×103 IU/ml or having a more than 2 log10 reduction in HBV DNA level at the end of 12 weeks treatment as compared to baseline HBV DNA level. Secondary end points included HBeAg seroconversion, biochemical response, and combined response.

Results.
At the end of 12 weeks treatment, the proportion of patients reached the primary end point of virologic response in group 1, group 2, and group 3 were 22.4% (13/58, 95% CI, 12.5 to 35.3), 14.7 (9/61, 95% CI, 7.0 to 26.2) and 3.9% (2/51, 95% CI, 0.5 to 13.5), respectively (p=0.021) in the pre-protocol population. Virologic response occurred in more patients receiving ozone therapy with experimental device than patients receiving oral diammonium glycyrrhizinate capsules (mean difference 18.5%, 95% CI 6.3 to 31.5, p=0.005). However, there was no statistical difference in VR12 rates between the treatment of medical ozone therapy system with experimental device (group 1) and with Humares (group 2) (mean difference 7.7%, 95% CI -6.5 to 22.0, p=0.282). More HBeAg seroconversion in patients treated by Tianyi ozone therapy system than those treated by Humares ozone therapy device and oral diammonium glycyrrhizinate capsules (14.8%, 5.1% and 7.3%, respectively, P = 0.272). Higher biochemical response rate was observes in patients receiving ozone therapy than oral diammonium glycyrrhizinate capsules (31.6%, 36.7% and 24.0%, respectively, p = 0.359). The safety profile was similar for the three treatment groups and adverse events were .scare infrequent and mild.

Conclusions.
Ozone therapy had superior antiviral efficacy with a similar safety profile as compared with oral diammonium glycyrrhizinate capsules through week 12 treatment. Ozone therapy is also associated with normalized ALT and AST levels, demonstrating that ozone therapy could benefit the patients with chronic hepatitis B.


We examined how the ability to detect lung nodules in chest x-ray inspection is reflected in experience-related differences in visual search and decision making, and whether the eye-tracking metric time-to-first hit showed systematic decreases across expertise levels are examined. In the study decision making improved with expertise, however, time-to-first fixate a nodule showed only a non-significant trend to decrease with expertise. Surprisingly, naive and expert observers allocated less visual attention at nodules compared with first and third year radiography students. This similarity in visual attention at nodules but not in decision making was explained by the fact that naive observers were more likely to fixate and make errors on distracter regions. Time-to-first hit has been linked to expert performance in mammography, but in this study was not sufficiently sensitive to demonstrate clear linear improvements across expertise groups. This brings into question the use of this metric as an indirect measure of rapid initial holistic processing.


We review the literature on youth voting, paying particular attention to how electoral institutions influence participation. We find that barriers to registration have a disproportionate effect on young people but that their removal alone will not be sufficient to produce large-scale shifts in turnout. Though there are theoretical, empirical, and normative reasons to make voting easier, we argue that electoral reforms designed to promote registration and turnout are best viewed as vehicles to facilitate other efforts aimed at increasing individuals' capacity for and interest in participating. Advocacy groups and scholars alike should devote more attention to identifying ways to engage young people. We recognize the task is a challenging one but we are cautiously optimistic that substantial change is possible.


This paper briefly reviews CIFOR's experience using participatory action research working with communities, user groups within communities, and with governments at various levels, in Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, Philippines, and Zimbabwe. The most dramatic changes that took place early on included increases in knowledge about social and ecological systems and improved skills in conflict management, negotiation, and facilitation. Longer term evaluation will be necessary to confirm actual ecological improvement, and the institutionalization of adaptive mechanisms (planning, implementing monitoring, revising plans). Emphasis is placed on the most recent findings, in second stage work, from CAPRi (Collective Action and Property Rights) research in Asia and Africa. This paper examines some of the successes and difficulties faced working with governmental stakeholders. Successes were most apparent in attitudinal changes, increased capacity for reflection and analysis, improvements in proposal writing and networking at larger scales. Difficulties included frequent personnel shifts, traditional bureaucratic concerns about 'turf', and budgetary inflexibilities. The paper concludes by proposing some important areas for future concentration of effort, including better attention to the various groups that exist within communities, more attention to the links between communities and other stakeholders, and training or awareness raising for government officials on methods for working more effectively and equitably with communities.


Developments of new Servers for Over-the-Air SIM file management and SIM Toolkit applications require a comprehensive test procedure to verify their operation. The goal of this Master Thesis has been to improve the existing test procedure and if possible develop a new procedure that could make the tests more efficient. Measurements showed that the most time consuming parts of the existing procedure were latencies in the GSM network and manual operations. Two major questions had to be handled if it was possible to fully automate the manual test procedure and if an application that reduced the latencies in GSM network would be efficient. This report indicates that it wasn't worth the effort to introduce such an automated test procedure since the extra workload was not in proportion to the benefits. In order to improve the performance due to the latencies in the GSM network an application that reduced this latency was implemented. This application made it possible to transfer Short Messages directly to the SIM-card without passing through the GSM network or through the mobile phone. With the new procedure the time for existing test procedure was reduced by as much as 65%.


A general formalism is developed for optimizing homodyne detection of quadrature-noise squeezing by selection of the local-oscillator (LO) field. The optimum LO is the minimum-eigenvalue eigenfunction of a particular Fredholm integral equation whose kernel depends on the signal field's normally ordered and phase-sensitive covariance functions. The squeezing that results from use of the optimum LO equals one plus twice its associated eigenvalue. A continuous-wave (cw) simplification of the general formalism is presented for the case of stationary signal-field covariances when the homodyne photocurrent is spectrum analyzed. Another simplified special case is exhibited for single-spatial-mode operation, such as is encountered in fiber-based quantum-noise experiments. The cw-source–spectrum-analysis approach is used to determine the optimum LO field and its squeezing performance for cw squeezed-state generation in a bulk Kerr medium with a Gaussian spatial-response function. The single-spatial-mode framework is employed to find the optimum LO field and its squeezing performance for pulsed squeezed-state generation in a single-mode optical fiber whose Kerr nonlinearity has a noninstantaneous response function. Comparison of the cw limit of this pulsed analysis with previous cw fiber-squeezing theory reveals a new regime for quadrature-noise reduction: Raman squeezing in fiber four-wave mixing.


Abiinae is the second-largest subfamily in Cimbicidae, a small family of true sawflies (Tenthredinoidea). The subfamily is adequately defined, but the generic classification has been unstable. Currently, only two genera are regarded as valid: Abia Leach, 1817 and Allabia Semenov & Gussakovskij, 1937. We evaluate the generic classification of Abiinae in a phylogenetic context. A total of 32 species (out of 57 described for the subfamily), including the type species of Allabia, Allabia infernalis (Semenov, 1896), are scored for 150 adult morphological characters. Results show some resolution, but only few clades can be circumscribed by consistent character combinations. Most of the characters that have previously been used to define genera are not congruent; consequently, most suggested genus definitions appear to be random character state combinations and few natural groups can be identified. For these reasons, we treat Allabia syn. nov. as a junior synonym of Abia and make the following additional taxonomic changes: Abia infernalis Semenov, 1896 comb. rev. and Abia malaisei (Semenov & Gussakovskij, 1937) syn. nov. For the purpose of long-term stability of the classification of Abiinae, we recommend recognizing only one genus, Abia, within the subfamily.


The paper addresses the question of whether sex segregation in the labour market, one of the most significant causes in gender inequality in paid work, has changed recently. The paper starts by suggesting new ways of distinguishing between the horizontal and vertical components of segregation, by separating industrial from hierarchical segregation. Further, while most previous analysis has been at either a national level or at the level of specific industries, this paper approaches the issue in actual local labour markets, or travel-to-work areas. The paper uses these newly refined measures to address the issue of changes in sex segregation during 1971-1981. We argue that while some aspects of segregation have decreased, such as the extreme horizontal clustering of men in the same industries, other aspects have increased, especially the vertical segregation of women.


Many acquisition studies indicate that across languages, children overgenerate definite articles in indefinite contexts. However, proportions and ages at which children make this error vary, and so do theoretical accounts. Attempting to resolve some of the mixed results, we combined the methods of two different studies ( Schaeffer & Matthewson 2005 (SM) and van Hout, Harrigan & de Villiers 2010 (HHV)) and administered them to one group of 82 Dutch-acquiring children aged 2–9 and adult controls ( N  = 23). 1 The results show that definite article overuse takes place in (a) only the youngest age group (2;1–3;7) in the relevant SM indefinite condition, (b) only the two oldest child groups (6;0–9;4) in the HHV indefinite condition, and (c) adults score at ceiling in the SM conditions, while only around 70% correct in the HHV conditions. We argue that (a) the indefinite conditions of the two article choice experiments test different types of knowledge, and therefore their results cannot be compared, (b) the HHV task has more methodological drawbacks than the SM task, rendering its results difficult to interpret, and (c) the results provide less evidence for HHV's unranked-constraint hypothesis than for SM's lack-of-Concept-of-Non-Shared-Assumptions hypothesis.


: Fourteen common bean ( Phaseolus vlgaris L.) varieties that were released in Ethiopia from 1997 to 2012 were evaluated as large-seeded food type common bean varieties with the specific objectives to: (1) estimate the genetic progress made in 15 years of common bean breeding in Ethiopia; (2) assess changes in associated traits in the genetic improvement of common bean varieties released in Ethiopia; and (3) assess the reaction of common bean varieties to bean anthracnose [ Clletotrichum lindemuthianum (Sacc. & Magnus) Briosi & Cavara]. The study was conducted at two locations, Bako and Gute during 2014/2015 main cropping season in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three scale data were collected on plot basis and Plant height, Number of pods per plant, Number of seeds per pod, Number of seeds per plant and grain yield per plant data's were collected on plant basis. Statistical data analyses were performed for biomass yield, grain yield, seed weight, harvest index and bean anthracnose severity. Combined analysis of variance showed highly significant differences among the common bean varieties and between test environments for hundred seed weight. The VXL interaction of seed weight did not show significant difference among the varieties. Regression analysis of mean performance at both environments on year of varietal release showed positive relationship for seed weight (r = 0.08), biomass yield (r = 0.04) and anthracnose disease severity (r = 0.10) but negative relationship for grain yield (r = -0.38), and harvest index (r = -0.37). The highest overall locations mean average of grain yield was 2679.5 kg ha -1 for Ayenew and the lowest was 1050.2 kg ha -1 for GLP-2, the grand mean being 1806 kg ha -1 . The annual rates of genetic progresses were 12.7 kg ha -1 (0.13% ha -1 year - 1 ), -48 kg ha -1 (-0.39%), 0.68 g 100 seed -1 year -1 (0.34% 100 seed -1 year -1 ), -0.004% and 0.39% for biomass yield, grain yield, seed weight, harvest index and anthracnose disease severity, respectively. Generally, the grain yield was reduced in the period of genetic improvement, due to the consistent performance of the reference variety Gofta. Stepwise regression indicated that grain yield day -1 (82.5%) and days to mature (21.8%) explained more for the variation of grain yield; but, seed size (-40.2%) was more important cause for grain yield reduction than bean anthracnose (-9.3%). The yield of large seeded food type common bean varieties were reduced due to anthracnose and its large seeded for the last fifteen years (1997- 2012) of breeding; in future also managing the disease; especially, anthracnose disease will be the crucial and Ayenew (26.79.5 kg ha -1 ), Gofta (2627.1 kg ha -1 ) and Fedis (2180.6 kg ha -1 ) will be recommended for the area.


Genetic and sequence information are reported for an angiotensin II-reactive antibody (Ab1, MAb 110) and an anti--anti-idiotypic antibody (Ab3, MAb 131) that have identical antigen binding properties and that are related by an anti-idiotypic antibody (Ab2-beta) that satisfies accepted biochemical criteria for an internal image-bearing antibody. The sequences of the variable regions of the Ab3 and of the Ab1 are nearly identical, even though the Ab1 is an antibody to a peptide and the Ab3 is an antibody to a globular protein. Significantly, amino acid residues that make critical contacts with antigen in the crystal structure of the Ab3-antigen complex are highly conserved in Ab1, suggesting that the epitopes of the Ab2-beta recognized by the Ab3 do indeed resemble the bound structure of the antigen.