How and how well growers manage the risks inherent in agriculture have direct welfare implications for producers and consumers at both local and societal levels. While better weather, pest and disease forecast information are rapidly disseminating among producers and are often touted as promising inputs to production and risk management, little is known about how this new information actually shapes producer behavior in practice. Better forecast information can benefit growers by improving their capacity to manage disease and pests effectively, but we must jointly consider multiple margins of adjustment in order to properly understand their response to this improved information. Using the case of California winegrape growers and high resolution panel data that includes plot-level treatments for powdery mildew, we characterize growers' response to a popular powdery mildew risk model that generates forecasts in the form of a daily risk index (PMI). Our analysis suggests that growers using the PMI adjust their powdery mildew management strategies along several margins of adjustment, including shifting from sulfur to more potent synthetic fungicides, increasing dosage rates, and using multiple products when the risk is high according to the PMI. The observed mix of these response adjustments varies by location and by output value. While field trials that only allow for treatment timing adjustments have suggested that the environmental benefits of the PMI could be substantially positive, our analysis of pesticide use risks to soil, surface water, groundwater, and air suggests that the net environmental impact of growers' multi-dimensional response to the PMI may actually be negative.


It is possible to be 'irrational' without being 'uneconomic'? What is the link between 'Value' and 'values'? What do economists do when they 'explain'? We live in times when the economic logic has become unquestionable and all-powerful so that our quotidian economic experiences are defined by their scientific construal. This book is the result of a multifaceted investigation into the nature of knowledge produced by economics, and the construction of the category that is termed 'economic' with its implied exclusions. It is an attempt to think economics Otherwise, that is, a questioning of economics as if difference mattered.

Nitasha Kaul re-examines certain understood ways of thinking about economics as a discipline, especially in elation to questions of identity and difference. This book explores the notion that economics is not a timeless, universal, objective science but a changing response to the problems of knowledge and administration. The epistemological inheritance of economics is 'rooted' in the enlightenment, and it also inherits the liberal paradoxes of that age. Kaul argues that the juxtaposition of identity with economic (culture/economy) is essential, and can only be achieved by critiquing establishment economists' discourse on identity, and taking feminist poststructural and postcolonial work seriously. The author challenges the assumption that there is a simple linkage between the category economic, the entity economy and the study of economics. She envisions an economics in the plural: contextual, social, political―econo-mixes.

The book brings together some of the most urgent topics of the day―the power of economics as a discipline, the questions of difference and the politics of identity, and feminist perspectives on this. It will be particularly relevant to heterodox economists, feminist theorists, postcolonial studies scholars, social and cultural theorists, philosophers and history of ideas or intellectual history of thought scholars.


Water resource management requires robust assessment of the consequences of future states of the resource, and, when dependent on prediction models, it requires assessment of the uncertainties associated with those predictions. Ensemble prediction/forecast systems have been extensively used to address such issues and seek to provide a collection of predictions, via a collection of parameters, with intent to bracket future observations. However, such methods do not have well‐established finite‐sample properties and generally require large samples to additionally determine better performing predictions, for example, in nonlinear probabilistic ensemble methods. We here propose a different paradigm, based on Vapnik‐Chervonenkis (VC) generalization theory, for robust parameter selection and prediction. It is based on a concept of complexity (that is data‐independent) that relates finite sample performance of a model to its performance when a large sample of the same underlying process is available. We employ a nearest neighbor method as the underlying prediction model, introduce a procedure to compute its VC dimension, and test how the two paradigms handle uncertainty in one step ahead daily streamflow prediction for three basins. In both paradigms, the predictions become more efficient and less biased with increasing sample size. However, the complexity‐based paradigm has a better bias‐variance tradeoff property for small sample sizes. The uncertainty bounds on predictions resulting from ensemble methods behave in an inconsistent manner for smaller basins, suggesting the need for further postprocessing of ensemble members and uncertainty surrounding them before using them in modeling uncertainty estimation. Finally, complexity‐based predictions appear to mimic the complexity of the underlying processes via input dimensionality selection of the nearest neighbor model.


This report address considerations in the 1995 farm bill debate for wheat, including market conditions, policy proposals, trade agreements, and the interactions between policy and markets for selected commodities. Surplus wheat stocks disappeared under the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990. The aggregate U.S. wheat sector appears in balance due, in part, to acreage reduction programs, the Conservation Reserve Program, and the Export Enhancement Program. However, some industry participants wonder whether wheat carryover levels are optimal and whether the public will approve a continuation of government expenditures near current levels, while others want to maintain low carryover stocks. Exports will likely be the largest source of demand growth for U.S. wheat for the remainder of the 1990s. Global wheat trade is expected to expand steadily through the 1990s at a rate higher than the 1980s, but well below the rate experienced in the 1970s. The U.S. market share is expected to drop slightly over the next decade to about 31 percent as competition increases in a growing world market. Issues for the 1995 farm legislation include levels of program benefits and costs, methods for calculating deficiency payments, the future of the Conservation Reserve Program, farm program cost containment, planting flexibility, wheat imports, marketing loan provisions, targeting benefits to producers, environmental quality, and the future of the Export Enhancement Program.


It is desirable for the load in a distributed system to be balanced evenly. A dynamic process migration protocol is needed in order to achieve load balancing in a user transparent manner. A distributed algorthim for load balancing which is network topology independent is proposed in this paper. Different network topologies and low-level communications protocols affect the choice of only some system design parameters. The "drafting" algorithm attempts to compromise two contradictory goals: maximize the processor utilization and minimize the communication overhead. The main objective of this paper is to describe the dynamic process migration protocol based on the proposed drafting algorithm. A sample distributed system is used to further illustrate the drafting algorithm and to show how to define system design parameters. The system performance is measured by simulation experiments based on the sample system.


The guiding principle of this research is that the utilisation of information technology (IT) in any part of the world currently is taking place within the globalisation trends. The need to take a wider view of IT use has become important due to the ease with which IT and associated management practices now pervade countries. These practices, developed in the 'west' and applied in countries around the world, are becoming increasingly universal as a result of the globalisation process. The Nigerian economy was deregulated towards the end of the 1980s and different sectors of the economy - including banking - were liberalised with a view to promoting competition and efficiency. In the face of these environmental changes, organisations in Nigeria have, over the past few years, been investing extensively in IT and adopting global IT-based practices. Although studies have discussed the importance of adapting these global practices to suit the context of their implementation, few have actually focused on revealing the nature of these adaptations and the factors influencing them. The overall aim of this study, therefore, is to increase understanding of why and how adaptations take place, and what results are achieved. This understanding is achieved in the thesis by incorporating ideas from both resource-based theory and new institutional theory within a contextualist framework, to study the implementation of planned technology-based change programmes in two Nigerian banks. It is suggested that local adaptations to global IT-based practices involve an adaptation process where organisational resources and local institutional rules are employed rationally, as well as symbolically, to modify the techniques. Rationally, organisational members redefine the global institutional rules embodied in global practices in order to fit the organisation's resource context and the demands of the immediate institutional environment. Symbolically, global practices are modified when organisational members ritually sustain organisational traditions and taken-for-granted practices about how to do things within the organisation or the wider societal context. Thus, such redefinition and symbolic processes specify the nature of local adaptations to global IT-based practices when they are being implemented in local contexts.


Introduces efficient pipeline architectures for the recursive morphological operations. The standard morphological operation is applied directly on the original input image and produces an output image. The order of image scanning in which the operator is applied to the input pixels is irrelevant. However, the intent of the recursive morphological operations is to feed back the output at the current scanning pixel to overwrite its corresponding input pixel to be considered into computation at the following scanning pixels. The resultant output image by recursive morphology inherently depends on the image scanning sequence. Two pipelined implementations of the recursive morphological operations are presented. The design of an application-specific systolic array is first introduced. The systolic array uses 3 n cells to process an nxn image in 6 n-2 cycles. The cell utilization rate is 100%. Second, a parallel program implementing the recursive morphological operations and running on distributed-memory multicomputers is described. Performance of the program can be finely tuned by choosing appropriate partition parameters.


Global warming is becoming a major threat for human and wildlife on Earth and scientists agree in considering anthropogenic greenhouse gasses emission as the main factor contributing to atmosphere and sea temperature increase. Arundo donax L. is the most promising species for second generation biofuel production in Mediterranean areas but up to now little was known about its genetics. In this study, we first explored the whole transcriptome of young shoot of Arundo donax under simulated drought stress through NGS technology. This allowed us to understand the general molecular mechanisms of early plant responses to osmotic stimulus. Through comparative analyses with major Poaceae species, we identified a set of 53 orthologs that can be considered as a core of evolutionary conserved genes important to mediate water stress responses in the family. Leveraging on the availability of this transcriptome, we developed a set of of reliable reference genes with high stability across different stress and/or tissues, to enable further functional studies in this species. We selected a candidate, named AdDWD1, that have the potential to play an important role in stress response by targeted protein degradation. Our results indicate that AdDWD1 is upregulated under osmotic and salt response in A. donax and its overexpression in Arabidopsis brought to a significant decrease in germination under salt and a growth retardation in ABA-containing media. Overexpression of AdDWD1 caused downregulation of DREB2A and SOS3, while it did not affect other stress-related genes, pinpointing a possible pathway-specific regulatory role of the gene. Taken together, these results suggest a strong relation of AdDWD1 with salt and osmotic stress response and an important role in the signalling pathway during early stress stages.


ABSTRACT We draw on theories of policy enactment to explore the ways in which the situated, material and external contexts and professional cultures in adult literacy in the UK have influenced practitioners. Our analysis of the transnational (OECD, EU) and UK external policy contexts found that skills-related education is prioritised, with a focus on economic growth through increased productivity and accountability. This can lead to a narrow conceptualisation of literacy as a set of information processing skills needed for employment that limits the curriculum so that the knowledge of the participants is ignored. However, our findings show that there is not a one-way flow from the transnational to the local. Instead, literacy practitioners translate and enact policy texts based on their situated contexts and professional cultures leading to approaches to teaching and learning that keep learners and their goals at the centre of the curriculum. We conclude that shared understandings of good practice and an underpinning value system, along with creative ways of delivering pre-set outcomes, allow practitioners to resist to some extent the neoliberal discourse whilst meeting the requirements of policy and funding. However, how feasible delivering this alternative curriculum is over the longer term remains to be seen.


Students' alternative conceptions of force are one of the most studied topics, important for both science assessment and instruction. Previous studies often described students' alternative conceptions of force with a small number of well-known frameworks by utilizing interviews and paper-pencil tests in their assessments. This study aims to explore middle school students' meanings of force with a refined assessment tool that provides a) apparent contextually different situations, b) realistic and familiar situations, and c) presentation of the situations with concrete manipulatives in questioning. Eight 8 th grade students studying in the same public school were selected for the interviews. The students' responses to the interview questions were qualitatively analyzed and described in terms of their force meanings. The results of the study indicates that the students' meanings of force are multiple and divergent. Seven new meanings of force that have not been captured in previous studies were determined in the students' responses, in addition to the well-known meanings of force. The implications derived from the results of the study were discussed in terms of the potential influence of the refined assessment tool on the students' reasoning and classroom practices for conceptual change.


Serious Games and associated data analytics offer the potential of a complementary means of detecting early signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is often a precursor to more serious forms of dementias. As with all diseases and illnesses, the ability to mitigate the impact of the illness is directly correlated to early detection and intervention. In this work, a representative serious game is used to capture a "cognitive fingerprint" of a person's play, which is then used to analyze and visualize play. The long-term objective of the research is to demonstrate that data collected from serious games may be used to detect cognitive difficulties that may be pre-symptomatic, and outside the scope of normal age related cognitive decline. The present work assesses the viability of the platform for this purpose and opportunities in data visualization, but does not include clinical testing for MCI. Keywords—Serious games, mild cognitive impairment, machine learning, data visualization.


A new genus and species of diplodactylid gecko, Oedodera marmorata Bauer, Jackman, Sadlier & Whitaker, is described from low-elevation maquis habitat near Paagouméne in the northwest of the Province Nord, New Caledonia. The new gecko is a robust form that is superficially similar to members of the genus Bavayia Roux but differs in several digital characteristics, the presence of a patch (versus 1-2 rows) of precloacal pores, and a uniquely swollen neck. In addition, molecular data indicate that the new form is the basal member of the entire radiation of New Caledonian diplodactylids. The new species is at risk due to wildfires, introduced predators and perhaps competitors, and planned mine development into part of its range.


Academic research often examined real estate as an asset class. These studies were often focused on risk-return issues, diversification benefits or certain securitized investment vehicles, mostly REITs and commercial mortgage backed securities. The research that covered the private equity side of the real estate capital market often-focused on direct property investments (e.g. property level returns and factors relating to portfolio performance). To my review of research literature, there have only been a few empirical studies conducted on the performance of the real estate private equity fund market. These studies often focused on small parts of the market, like opportunity funds[2] and not on the market of real estate private equity vehicles as a whole. That is why this paper examines the position of the European-focused non-listed property funds in relation to the rest of the indirect real estate market. The issues discussed in this paper are intended to support institutional investors in their selection of a non-listed property fund operated from the European Union.


ABSTRACT Among Brethren fisher-families in Gamrie, confession of sin is a private and pointedly interior affair. Yet, much of Brethren worship is given over to ritualised acts of confession. So whose sins do the Brethren confess? In Gamrie, such acts involve confessing not one's own sin, but the sins of 'fallen' world. By attending to the anthropological and theological processes of confessing the sins of another, we see a collapse in the distinction between confiteor and credo that has so dogged anthropological studies of Christianity. In Brethren prayer, bible study, and everyday gossip, the 'I confess' of the confiteor and the 'I believe' of credo co-constitute one another as evidences of the 'lostness' of 'this present age'. With the ritual gaze of confession turned radically outward, Brethren announcements of global wickedness enact (in a deliberate tautology) both a totalising call for repentance from sin, and a millenarian creed of the imminent apocalypse.


Within the context of the imminent implementation of the Pb-free soldering in
Europe in 2006, this thesis addresses the gap in understanding that has emerged in the
fundamental materials issues between well-understood and mature lead-containing
solders and a plethora of new, Pb-free solders for which there are neither long term
reliability data nor understanding of the materials behaviour and how these might be
influenced by manufacture and in-service conditions. In addition, this thesis also
addresses the question as to whether the solder joint size and geometry could become
a reliability issue and therefore affect the implementation of the Pb-free solders in
ultrafine micro joints.
Thermodynamic calculations using MTDATA (developed by the National
Physical Laboratory, NPL, UK) together with a thermodynamic database for solders
under either equilibrium or Scheil conditions, have shown their usefulness in Pb-free
solder design and processing, generating a wealth of information in respect of the
temperature dependence of phase formation and composition. The predictions from
MTDATA on a number of selected systems is generally in good agreement with the
results from experimental work, and has assisted in the understanding of the
microstructure and mechanical properties of the Pb-free solders and the implications
of their interactions with a tin-lead solder. However, further critical assessment and
the addition of new elements into the solder database, such as Ni and P, are required
to make MTDA TA a more effective computational tool to assist the optimization of
processing parameters and cost-effective production in using Pb-free solders.
Molten solder can interact with the under bump metallizations (UBM) and/or
board level metallizations on either side of the solder bump to form intermetallic
compounds (IMCs) during solder reflow. In the modelling of the kinetics of the
dissolution process of UBM into the liquid solder, the commonly used NernstBrunner
(N-B) equation is found to have poor validity for these calculations for micro
joints at 100 µm in diameter or less. Three bumping techniques, i.e. solder dipping
(SD), solder paste stencil printing followed by reflow (SPR) and electroplating of
solders and subsequent reflow (EPR), are used to investigate the interfacial
interactions of molten Sn/Sn-rich solders, i.e. pure Sn, Sn-3.5Ag, and Sn-3.8AgO.7Cu, on electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) and copper pads at 240°C. The
resultant bulk and interfacial microstructures from a variety of pad sizes, ranging from
1 mm down to 25 µm, suggest that in general the small bumps contain smaller β-Sn
dendrites and Ag₃Sn IMC particles, nevertheless the interfacial IMC is thicker in the
smalI bumps than in the large bumps. In addition, one and two-dimensional
combined thermodynamic and kinetic models have been developed to assist the
understanding of the kinetics of interdiffusion and the formation of interfacial
intermetallic compounds during reflow. Both the experimental results and theoretical
predictions suggest that the solder bump size and geometry can influence the as-soldered
microstructure, and therefore this factor should be taken into consideration
for the design of future reliable ultrafine Ph-free solder joints.


A comprehensive and critical review of the global scholarly literature on diversity, this book presents findings from original UK-based research involving in-depth organizational case studies, interviews, observation and documentary data from over fifty organizations. Analyzing the findings from the perspective of key stakeholder groups - diversity practitioners, line-managers, trade union equality officers, workplace trade union representatives and employees, it addresses a range of questions, including: How is the diversity concept developing in the UK? Has the UK deconstructed and reconstructed the diversity concept to fit with the legal, social and economic context of UK organizations? How are organizations in the public and private sectors responding in practical terms to the diversity concept? What is the legacy of the traditional equal opportunity concept? What are the experiences of different organizational stakeholders of diversity management? Whose interests does diversity management serve? Looking at many of the weaknesses associated with more traditional equal opportunity policy approaches, this book is excellent reading for all students of international business, entrepreneurship and small businesses.


We present large-area (25 cm2) dielectric metasurfaces based on silicon photonic crystal slabs. Adjustment of the slab thickness allows to systematically shift the metasurface resonances over several hundreds of nanometers. We compute the three-dimensional field energy density near the surface and determine optimum slab thicknesses for selected near-infrared excitation wavelengths applied in biophotonics. Our simulations reveal up to 17-fold enhanced near-field energy densities at normal incidence, but over 500-fold enhancement at 4° incident excitation. We explain this behaviour via the coupling of external radiation with symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum. These results enable metasurface-enhanced spectroscopy on large areas and underline the benefit of slight oblique incidence excitation conditions.


A new type of magnetic nanoparticle imaging (MPI) system has been proposed and developed. The spatial resolution of MPI systems is generally determined and limited by the size of the magnetic sensors used and the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles detected. Here, high-resolution imaging of magnetic particles was realized by combining the MPI system with a high-TC SQUID magnetometer and laser scanning system. The spatial resolution of this system was not determined by the properties of the magnetic nanoparticles but was determined by the laser spot size focused on samples. Thus, the higher spatial resolution imparted by conventional MPI systems could be expected. As a demonstration of the imaging system, two cylindrical containers filled with magnetic particles solutions were fabricated and measured. Although the containers were spaced only 2 mm apart, they could be clearly distinguished by the obtained signals. A knife-edge analysis was also applied to the obtained signals, and the spatial resolution of our system was estimated to be approximately 0.9 mm.


Independence is essential for everyone and crucial for people with disabilities. Being able to perform the activities of daily living as autonomously as possible is an important step towards real inclusion and an independent life. Several technology-enhanced services and tools have been created to address special-needs users, but are they really used and appreciated by them? Sensors and radio frequency devices are increasingly exploited to develop solutions such as the smart home, aimed at improving the quality of life for all, including people with visual impairment. This paper collects blind users' expectations and habits regarding home automation technology through an online survey and face-to-face interviews. Specifically, 42 visually impaired people answered an accessible online questionnaire to provide more insight into their needs and preferences. Next, semi-structured short interviews conducted with a set of eight totally blind participants enabled the collection of relevant user requirements in order to better understand the obstacles experienced, and to design usable home automation and remote control systems. Results showed that the main requests regard increasing autonomy in everyday tasks and having more usability and flexibility when using remote home automation control. Thanks to the collected feedback, a set of general suggestions for designers and developers of home automation and remote control systems has been proposed in order to enhance accessibility and usability for the blind user.


Recent forms of die new three-section TOEFL were administered to a total of 88 native speakers of English just prior to graduation from a college-preparatory high school program. Total test score distributions were highly negatively skewed, reinforcing findings of earlier studies that the 70EFL.is not psychometrically appropriate for discriminating among native speakers of English with respect to English language competence. Although the native English examinees achieved high total test scores and performed excellently on the Listening Comprehension section, a number of items in the other two sections (Structure and Written Expression; Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary) were answered incorrectly by over 20 percent of the examinee group. Included in these were a number of questions considered by the TOEFL test development staff to deal with basic grammar points or straightforward reading passages of a type that college-level.° students should be expected to handle wittout From these results, it is concluded that although response data from native English speaking examinees may be of some use in designating particular test questions for closer examination, errors made by collegebound native speakers should not automatically be considered indicative of item inappropriateness for the TOEFL population.


We report on a hard-x-ray imaging microscope consisting of a lens, a sample, and a transmission grating. After the theoretical framework of self-imaging phenomenon by the grating in the system is presented, equations for the electric field on the image plane are derived for ideal and real lenses and an equation for the intensity on the image plane for partially coherent illumination is derived. The equations are simple and similar to those applying to a projection microscope consisting of a transmission grating except that there is no defocusing effect, regardless of whether the grating is in front of or behind the lens. This means that x-ray phase-imaging microscopy can be done without the defocusing effect. It is also shown that, by resolving the self-image on the image plane, high-sensitive x-ray phase-imaging microscopy can be attained without degradation in the spatial resolution due to diffraction by the grating. Experimental results obtained using partially coherent illumination from a synchrotron x-ray source confirm that hard-x-ray phase-imaging microscopy can be quantitatively performed with high sensitivity and without the spatial resolution degradation.


Confidence in estimates of anthropogenic climate change is limited by known issues with air temperature observations from land stations. Station siting, instrument changes, changing observing practices, urban effects, land cover, land use variations, and statistical processing have all been hypothesized as affecting the trends presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others. Any artifacts in the observed decadal and centennial variations associated with these issues could have important consequences for scientific understanding and climate policy. We use a completely different approach to investigate global land warming over the 20th century. We have ignored all air temperature observations and instead inferred them from observations of barometric pressure, sea surface temperature, and sea‐ice concentration using a physically based data assimilation system called the 20th Century Reanalysis. This independent data set reproduces both annual variations and centennial trends in the temperature data sets, demonstrating the robustness of previous conclusions regarding global warming.


A simultaneous transmission-emission SPECT system (STEP) was developed on a three-detector gamma camera (Picker Prism 3000) equipped with fan-beam collimators (65 cm focal length) and a transmission line source. With this system, fan-beam geometry can cause transmission projection data to be truncated. An iterative transmission reconstruction algorithm was formulated to determine the distribution of attenuation coefficients from the system of linear equations for only measured projections. In this paper we evaluated this algorithm using phantom data with varying degree of data truncation. The results showed that with up to 30% truncation, differences in partial attenuation integrals in the non-truncated region were statistically not significant (p<0.05). Also, a study was performed to determine the minimal number of iterations necessary to obtain quantitatively accurate results. It was shown that partial attenuation integrals were not significantly different (p<0.05) when 9 to 100 iterations were performed. We conclude that the described transmission reconstruction algorithm using nine iterations is quantitatively accurate and is able to correct for the truncation of the data.<<ETX>>


The energy consumption of buildings? air conditioning systems is of prime concern in tropical cities. The Low exergy concept in the tropics promotes high temperature cooling strategy using raised chilled water temperature compared to the conventional design. This scheme could be a more energy efficient design compared to all air system, considering the facts that less energy is required for providing the raised chilled water temperature and water is a more efficient medium for heat exchange compared to air. A decentralized dedicated outdoor air system coupled with radiant ceiling panel (DDOAS-RCP) has been designed based on low exergy concept for tropical buildings. The experimental setup was conducted in the BubbleZERO laboratory in which the low exergy cooling systems have been installed. The results of the environmental measurements have shown that DDOAS-RCP can provide healthy and comfortable indoor space in tropical buildings under different indoor/outdoor scenarios. Based on results of this thesis, collections of system components and control strategies were suggested for actual implementation and operation of high temperature cooling systems in tropical buildings.


The paper introduces a simple experimental ground-based SAR (GB-SAR) system for studying SAR fundamentals. The SAR system is developed on a vector network analyzer (VNA), for example Agilent E5071C, with some useful built-in functions such as transform and gating. The procedure of acquiring the data by using the SAR system is presented in details. The acquired empirical data is also used to reconstruct the illuminated scene. The possibilities to use the SAR system to support SAR research topics are also discussed in this paper.


ABSTRACT Fluvial facies in the Sentinel Butte Formation include meandering-channel, channel-plug, natural-levee, floodbasin, and swamp facies. The channel facies comprises elongate, tabular, fining-upward sand beds that exhibit gently dipping point-bar surfaces (sigmoidal cross bedding). Trough cross bedding in the lower part of the sand beds grades upward to planar and ripple cross bedding. Paleocurrent data indicate current directions generally parallel to bed trends. Channel-plug facies consist of organic silty clay filling arcuate, asymmetrically trough-shaped abandoned meanders. Levee facies grade upward from channel facies and consist of ripple cross-bedded sandy silt and silty clay. Floodbasin facies comprise dark-gray, organic, bioturbated silty clay, and grade upward to woody lignite f the swamp facies. Petrified tree stumps are present in levee, floodbasin, and swamp facies. Deltaic facies include distributary-channel, channel-plug, natural-levee, marsh, delta-front, prodelta, interdistributary-bay, and crevasse-splay facies. The channel facies consists of elongate, narrow, trough-shaped, fining-upward sand beds. Planar cross bedding grades upward to ripple and climbing-ripple cross bedding. Paleocurrent indicators are parallel to sand bed trends. Most channel deposits grade upward to organic, disturbed clay and lignite of the marsh facies, but others grade upward to ripple cross-bedded sandy silt and silty clay of the channel-plug facies. Small levee facies of silty clay border the upper part of the channel facies and grade downward to planar cross-bedded silty sand and silty clay of the delta-front facies. The delta-front facies overlies laminated, spar ely fossiliferous silty clay of the prodelta facies and grades laterally to fissile silty clay of the interdistributary-bay facies. Thin, lens-shaped beds of silty sand within the interdistributary-bay facies represent the crevasse-splay facies.


The United States has begun the huge task of reforming its health care system and many individuals have already begun to consider the likely impact of health care reform on their state's economy. Given the momentum of change in the private sector and at the state level, the U.S. health care system will never be the same again, with or without federal legislation. Because New England is the U.S. region most dependent on employment in health care services, concerns about the impact of health care reform are particularly acute in this area. ; Accordingly, this article presents a preliminary analysis of the regional impact of health care reform. The country's concerns seem clear enough and its financing options~ are limited enough to permit examining the regional impact of reform using the Clinton Administration's Health Security Act as an illustrative example. The study concludes that reform under the Health Security Act or any other viable plan could lead to a not insignificant shift of economic resources and activity away from most New England states, in large part because this generally highincome region will help fund improved access and subsidized premium payments in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, within the decade, health reform will provide net savings within the region and the nation. Recognizing the redistributional challenges in store, New England leaders and taxpayers must seek to use their share of these savings in ways that promote the economic vitality of the region.


The reliability of the earnings forecasts has been a topic of criticism recently
since some of the listed companies are found to have documented a large
discretipency between the actual and forecast profits. This study intend to
substantiate the previously documented evidence on the Initial Public Offerings
forecast errors of the Main Board. The IPO for firms listed on the Second Board for
the period 1989 to 1994. The companies under study covered a wide range of sectors
such as Industrial, Consumer, Construction, Trading/Service and Finance.
The forecast accuracy is measured by forecast errors, absolute forecast errors
and squared forecast error. The level of forecast accuracy appears to be better for the
Second Board listed companies compared to that of Main Board IPOs. The accuracy
levels are closed to the developed markets such as United Kingdom, United States and
Australia.
A multiple regression model was needed to explain the variation in the
absolute forecast errors (the dependent variable) with firms characteristics as
independent variables. The only variable that showed significant relationship with
absolute forecast errors was forecast interval that is the time between the prospectus
issued date and the year end of the forecast pertain. Other variables, such as Auditor
Choice, Age Size Financial Leverage, Industry sectors were not significant. In
general, the findings are consistent with that reported for the Main Board IPOs
(Shamser et. al. 1994) and inconsistent with those reported in developed markets.


textabstractThis thesis addresses the analysis of new or very recent marketing data and the introduction of new marketing models. We present a collection of models that are useful to analyze (1) the optimal launch time of new and dominant technologies, (2) the triggers, speed and timing of new products' price landings, (3) the consumer heterogeneity that drives substitution patterns present in aggregate data, and (4) the influential locations that drive the diffusion of new technologies. The econometric approaches that we apply are diverse but they are predominantly Bayesian methods. We use Bayesian mixture modelling, Bayesian variable selection techniques, Bayesian spatial models and we put forward a new Bayesian approach for the random coefficient logit model. The data that we analyze consist of unique and large datasets of video-game prices, video-game consoles' sales, aggregate sales data for consumer products and Google's online search data.


CONTEXT
Several well-publicized recent studies have suggested that disability among older Americans has declined in the last decade.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the quality, quantity, and consistency of recent evidence on US trends in the prevalence of self-rated old age disability and physical, cognitive, and sensory limitations during the late 1980s and 1990s and to evaluate the evidence on trends in disparities by major demographic groups.

DATA SOURCES
We searched MEDLINE and AGELINE for relevant articles published from January 1990 through May 2002 and reviewed reference lists in published articles.

STUDY SELECTION
From more than 800 titles reviewed, we selected 16 articles based on 8 unique repeat cross-sectional and cohort surveys of US prevalence trends in disability or functioning among persons generally aged 65 or 70 years or older.

DATA EXTRACTION
We evaluated survey quality according to 10 criteria, ranked the surveys as good, fair, or poor, and calculated for each outcome the average annual percent change.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Among the 8 surveys, 2 were rated as good, 4 as fair, 1 as poor, and 1 as mixed (fair or poor, depending on the outcome) for assessing trends. Analyses of surveys rated fair or good showed consistency of declines in any disability (-1.55% to -0.92% per year), instrumental activities of daily living disability (-2.74% to -0.40% per year), and functional limitations. Surveys provided limited evidence on cognition and conflicting evidence on self-reported ADL (changes ranged from -1.38% to 1.53% per year) and vision trends. Evidence on trends in disparities by age, sex, race, and education was limited and mixed, with no consensus yet emerging.

CONCLUSIONS
Several measures of old age disability and limitations have shown improvements in the last decade. Research into the causes of these improvements is needed to understand the implications for the future demand for medical care.


The nucleation of vapor bubbles within a superheated fluid is studied using density functional theory. The nudged elastic band technique is used to find the minimum energy pathway from the metastable uniform liquid to the stable uniform gas thus emphasizing the analogy between the the nucleation problem and that of chemical reactions. The result is both an accurate determination of the critical nucleus and an unbiased description of the density profile at various points along the path between the free energy extrema. This calculation is compared to two other methods: the use of parametrized profiles and constrained minimization of the free energy. The results indicate that the recent claim, based on the constraint method, that bubble nucleation and growth involves an activated instability is incorrect.


Scholars praise the whistleblower protections of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 as one of the most protective anti-retaliation provisions in the world. Yet, during its first three years, only 3.6% of Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowers won relief through the initial administrative process that adjudicates such claims, and only 6.5% of whistleblowers won appeals through the process. This Article reports the results of an empirical study of all Department of Labor Sarbanes-Oxley determinations during this time, consisting of over 700 separate decisions from administrative investigations and hearings. The results of this detailed analysis demonstrate that administrative decision-makers strictly construed, and in some cases misapplied, Sarbanes-Oxley's substantive protections to the significant disadvantage of employees. These data-based findings assist in identifying the provisions and procedures of the Act that do not work as Congress intended as well as suggest potential remedies for these statutory and administrative deficiencies.


Mercury has been one of the most persistent cases in contemporary history of international market regulations and this in spite of its having been affected by important technological changes and the regular discovery of new deposits. This paper offers an approach to the least known period, although perhaps the one in which the greatest rises in process and production occurred as a consequence of market manipulation. The period coincides with a series of agreements between the Spanish and the Italian producers and the outcome was a worldwide cartel known as "Mercurio Europeo" which came into being in 1928. The aims of this work will, therefore, be first to describe the features of the various stages of development of the international mercury market during the first half of the twentieth century, with emphasis on the characteristics and conditioning factors in each period. Secondly, the objective is to analyze the various market agreements that came about, the effectiveness of the clauses therein, the construction of distribution networks and the influence that the increase in production had on other mines and on certain technological developments.


Jerusalem has always been a unique city. Hundreds of millions of people, believers of the three main monotheistic religions Christianity, Islam and Judaism, have always looked forward to visiting, living, dying or even being buried in the Holy City. Throughout its long history, this city was subject to different kings, sultans and leaders that ruled the city and its inhabitants. Simultaneously, the population of the city changed in origin, habitat, language, culture, and in other aspects of life such as quality of the medical system, physicians and remedies that were used. This book is a reflection of the growing academic interest in the history of this fascinating city in general and of medicine in Jerusalem in particular. The interest that the academic community has had in the subject of medicine in the holy city can be measured by the number of articles and books that have been published, academic courses and seminars that have been taught and conventions that have been held in various academic institutes in Israel.The book deals with natural curative substances and healing materials used by the residents of Jerusalem throughout the ages, but its scope takes in the use of materia medica in the Land of Israel and throughout the Levant in this time span. The study represents an intensive and systematic historical study of the medicinal substances that were used by the inhabitants and the visitors of the City of Jerusalem. It deals with the description of the various substances and their uses. It also deals with comparisons of such uses in traditional and folk medicine of several ethnic groups of present day in the region and in other parts of the world. Part A covers the information gathered from different historical sources of the medieval and early Ottoman periods (10th-18th centuries. Part B refers to specific subject matters including institutes and historical periods that deserve special attention concerning the uses of medicinal substances in the city of Jerusalem (including chapters on traditional and folk medicine substances still used in Jerusalem as well a modern overview.Three appendices provide information concerning the historical periods dealt with in the book, the sources, which are mentioned and quoted in Part A, and a list of medicinal substances used in Jerusalem from the 10th to the 18th century. A bibliography, list of abbreviations, and indices conclude the study.


Age-appropriate modifications of the A-not-B task were used to examine 2-year-olds' search behavior. Several theories predict that A-not-B errors will increase as a function of number of A trials. However, the hierarchical competing systems model (Marcovitch & Zelazo, 1999) predicts that although the ratio of perseverative to nonperseverative errors will increase, the likelihood of perseveration will be an inverted U-shaped function. In Experiment 1, children received 1, 6, or 11 A trials in a multistep multilocation search task. In Experiment 2, children received 3, 7, 11, or 15 A trials in a sandbox task. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the ratio of perseverative to nonperseverative errors increased with number of A trials, and results from both Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that the likelihood of perseverative errors was highest following a moderate number of A trials. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that search behavior provides an index of the development of conscious control.


This paper measures the value of best practices based on data taken from the Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics database. A three-step process provides the basis for measuring the potential benefits of increased best practice use. First, a practice use index is derived to model the way in which best practices are utilized on actual projects. The index combines data from eight best practices to create a single measure of practice utilization. Second, a project performance index, combining cost and schedule metrics, is derived as an indicator of overall project performance. Third, the practice use index is correlated with cost, schedule, and overall project performance metrics. Both owners and contractors benefit from increased practice use. Potential cost savings for owners range from $1.7 to $3.4 million, depending on industry group and project size. Potential cost savings for contractors are higher, averaging $7.2 million for the typical $88 million heavy industrial project. Benefits from schedule reductions are most apparent for owners. On large building projects, schedule reductions for owners average 27 weeks. Finally, improvements in overall project performance on the order of 30% are observed for both owners and contractors.


We develop a simple analytic gaussian model, predicting BER performance of optical DPSK receivers with high accuracy in the wake of all three phase noise sources impairing differential phase detection: linear phase noise (ASE-induced), nonlinear phase noise (the Gordon-Mollenauer effect), and laser phase noise Brownian fluctuations. We validate our analytical Q-factor based formulas using known analytical cases and importance-sampling based Monte-Carlo simulations.


An efficient and robust shooting algorithm for the design of bidirectionally pumped Raman fiber amplifiers is proposed. First, a parameter S, new to our knowledge, called scaling vector, is introduced. This parameter is used in combination with the physical picture of stimulated Raman scattering to generate accurate initial guesses for the powers of backward pumps in the bidirectionally pumped Raman fiber amplifiers. Second, a modified Newton–Raphson method is developed. With an appropriate restriction for the adjustment of increments of initial guess attached, the modified Newton–Raphson method is used to correct the initial guesses to approach the true solution of the problem. By combining the method of initial value determination and the correction mechanism, 14 types of bidirectionally pumped Raman fiber amplifiers are designed. The simulation results show that the proposed shooting algorithm is more efficient and stable than most of the existing ones. Comparison with three other relevant methods reported in the literature is made to reveal the advantages of the new method.


Medical science technology has improved tremendously over the decades with the invention of robotic surgery, gene editing, immune therapy, etc. However, scientists are now recognizing the significance of 'biological circuits' i.e., bodily innate electrical systems for the healthy functioning of the body or for any disease conditions. Therefore, the current trend in the medical field is to understand the role of these biological circuits and exploit their advantages for therapeutic purposes. Bioelectronics, devised with these aims, work by resetting, stimulating, or blocking the electrical pathways. Bioelectronics are also used to monitor the biological cues to assess the homeostasis of the body. In a way, they bridge the gap between drug-based interventions and medical devices. With this in mind, scientists are now working towards developing flexible and stretchable miniaturized bioelectronics that can easily conform to the tissue topology, are non-toxic, elicit no immune reaction, and address the issues that drugs are unable to solve. Since the bioelectronic devices that come in contact with the body or body organs need to establish an unobstructed interface with the respective site, it is crucial that those bioelectronics are not only flexible but also stretchable for constant monitoring of the biological signals. Understanding the challenges of fabricating soft stretchable devices, we review several flexible and stretchable materials used as substrate, stretchable electrical conduits and encapsulation, design modifications for stretchability, fabrication techniques, methods of signal transmission and monitoring, and the power sources for these stretchable bioelectronics. Ultimately, these bioelectronic devices can be used for wide range of applications from skin bioelectronics and biosensing devices, to neural implants for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.


Estimation risk occurs when parameters relevant for decision making are uncertain. Bayes' criterion is consistent with expected-utility maximization in the presence of estimation risk. This article examines optimal (Bayes') land allocations and land allocations obtained using the traditional plug-in approach and two alternative decision rules. Bayes' allocations are much better economically than the other allocations when there are few sample observations relative to activities. Calculation of certainty equivalent returns (CERs) with estimation risk is also discussed and illustrated. CERs are typically (and incorrectly) calculated with the plug-in approach. Plug-in CERs may be extremely misleading.


In 1970 340 of strains were resistant to tetracycline, in 1971 46%, in 1972 54%, and in 1973 to date 35°%. It would seem therefore that in this area, at least, there has been no fall in the level of tetracycline-resistant Strep. pyogenes over the past four years. The majority of strains isolated continue to come from throat swabs, though many also come from skin sepsis and abscesses. Group B haemolytic streptococci show an even higher prevalence of tetracycline resistance580% of 74 strains isolated so far this year (mainly from vaginal swabs) were resistant to this drug. Whether the difference between Dr. Robertson's findings and mine is due to differences in the usage of tetracyclines in the two areas is something on which I cannot comment, but our results illustrate how widely divergent antibiotic sensitivity patterns may 'be observed in different areas of the couniry.-I am, etc., R. J. FALLON Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow


Smallholder farmers in Zambia comprise 85 per cent of the farmers' population. Such farmers are regarded as not creditworthy and furthermore their agricultural productivity could be improved. The aim of this paper is to present recent evidence on value chain financing (VCF) as a framework to increase access to agricultural finance for Zambian smallholder farmers. Such financing will act as an enabler to mechanize and, in turn, might improve productivity. Qualitative data collection techniques were followed to provide the results as presented in three illustrative case studies. Each case study highlights the benefits of financing, using the value chain framework, but also emphasizes certain challenges and risks associated with the approach. The Zambian case is not perfect, but provides recent evidence of how various roleplayers in Zambia's agricultural sector have applied the VCF framework to coordinate the actions of various chain actors, and by doing so allow smallholders access to finance within the local and country-specific context. Although two of the three VCF programmes have been discontinued, they still provide useful learning points: for instance, commercial banks should assign more resources to manage the VCF products; and the risk should be shared between all the VCF participants.


A novel laser joining process for hybrid polymer-metal structures has proven a strong bond between polyamide and aluminium. This welding technique is strongly requested by the automobile producing industry for numerous applications within structure components. However, the joining quality exhibits a strong dependency on process-related variables, which highlights the need for an online inspection technique. The requirements for a chosen inspection technique are [1], [2]: 1. Showing the results on-line during the joining process; 2. Working non-destructive; 3. Working as an integral method; Being able to determine weld defects. In that case only the Acoustic Emission Analysis (AEA) as a Non-Destructive-Technique (NDT) can be used to guarantee reasonable results. During the first tests at the welding laboratory at the Laser Technology Competence Centre (LTCC) at the University of Luxembourg, AEA sensors are applied onto the surface of the test specimen which has to be welded. In this principle acoustic events, caused by welding defects, are recorded during the laser joining. The most important laser process parameters, like velocity, power and horizontal focal position of the laser spot, have been verified and evaluated by the AEA. It was observed that insufficient laser power can lead to the break of the melting bath, which is often not recognizable by non-destructive optical methods [2]. The AEA however was able to detect this lack of fusion. Using high laser power, the appearance of gas bubbles arising from the Polyamide 6.6 could be detected afterwards in a microscopic micrograph. The AEA signals related to this effect can be correlated clearly. Due to the high pressure of the gas bubbles, the aluminium weld is often interrupted, which can be traced back to the solidification of the aluminium molten mass. Due to the actual situation, the AEA is a well-working NDT online monitoring method and can be used for the correlation of acoustic events and welding defects within the mentioned joining method. Future tasks will develop some algorithms to separate the different defects by pattern recognition of the AEA signals and parameter


Mechanisms for measuring data-path quality and identifying locations where packets were dropped are crucial for informing routing decisions and enforcing network accountability. If such mechanisms are to be reliable, they must be designed to prevent ASes from 'gaming' measurements to their advantage (e.g. by hiding packet loss or by blaming packet loss on innocent ASes). In this paper, we explore mechanisms for accurately detecting and localizing packet loss events on a data path in the presence of both benign loss (congestion, link failure) and active adversaries (ASes motivated by malice or greed). We do not advocate a specific network architecture. Instead, we use rigorous techniques from theoretical cryptography to present new protocols and negative results that can guide the placement of measurement and security mechanisms in future networks. Our major contributions are: (1) Negative results that prove that any detection or localization mechanism requires secret keys, cryptography and storage at every participating node. (2) Pepper Probing and Salt Probing, two efficient protocols for accurate end-to-end detection of packet loss on a path, even in the presence of adversaries. (3) A new protocol for accurately localizing packet loss to specific links along a path, even in the presence of adversaries. This technical report contains proofs, definitions, and other results in support of our short paper, "Measuring Path Quality in the Presence of Adversaries: The Role of Cryptography in Network Accountability".


Malaria, a plasmodial disease, causes more than one million deaths per year and has a significant public health impact. Improved access to prompt treatment with effective antimalarial drugs need to be conducted for prevention of infection in high risk groups. However, the parasite as causal agent has exhibited a potential danger of wide-spread resistances. This warning has directed attention to the study of alternative methods of protection against the disease, among them is to do the immunization. A deeper understanding of the nature and regulation of protective immune mechanisms against this parasite will facilitate the development of much needed vaccines. Developing a malaria vaccine remains an enormous scientific, technical, and financial challenge. Currently a vaccine is not fully available. Among the practical applications of radiobiological techniques that may be of considerable interest for public health is the use of ionizing radiation in the preparation of vaccines. Convincing data were reported that sporozoites of Plasmodium berghei irradiated with X- or gamma-rays, provide an antigenic stimulus effective to induce a protective immune response in mice and rats against subsequent sporozoite infection. Irradiated parasites are better immunogens than killed ones and although non-infective they are still metabolically active, as shown by continued protein and nucleic acid synthesis. There is a substantial number of data from human studies demonstrating that sporozoites attenuated by radiation are potent inducers of protective immunity and that they are safe and do not give rise to the asexual erythrocytic infections that cause malaria. This vaccine is relatively inexpensive to produce, easy to store, and transportable without refrigeration. A long-term effort and commitment to providing resources must be maintained and increased to achieve the goal of a malaria vaccine candidate where ionizing radiation as a tool to prepare is seemingly feasible.  Received: 20 November 2010; Revised: 11 July 2011; Accepted: 01 August 2011


[Extract] Hybrid zones have long been recognized as 'windows on the evolutionary process' (Harrison, 1990) and their value for teasing apart core evolutionary processes has only increased with genetic advances. The review of Abbott et al. (2013) covers a lot of interesting ground in regard to the role of hybridization in speciation. The review is particularly valuable in its coverage of recent advances in our understanding of the genetics of reproductive isolation and the genetic mechanisms underlying the production of novel phenotypes in hybrids, which has not received recent synthesis.

Abbott et al. (2013) also highlight that cline theory can provide an important framework for the current debate about how 'islands of genomic divergence' operate. The coupling coefficient – a measure of how selection and recombination trade-off over many loci – may be especially useful as empirical studies move away from detecting divergence of single loci of large effect, and towards the complex analysis of multiple loci of small effect. That newly evolved clines in adaptive (ecological) variation can become spatially coupled with pre-existing clines in intrinsic incompatibilities may explain how seemingly recent adaptive differentiation among populations dates to much older divergence times. An alternative explanation is that standing genetic variation in an ancestral environment becomes adaptive in a new environment, resulting in divergent selection among populations and deep genetic differentiation at these loci (e.g. Colosimo et al., 2005; reviewed in Barrett & Schluter, 2007). Distinguishing between these two quite different mechanisms will be important for understanding how rapid speciation events occur.


This book provides a comprehensive account of the Athenians' conception of women during the classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Though nothing remains that represents the authentic voice of the women themselves, there is a wealth of evidence showing how men sought to define women. By working through a range of material, from the provisions of Athenian law through to the representations of tragedy and comedy, the author builds up, in the manner of an anthropological ethnography, a coherent and integrated picture of the Athenians' notion of 'woman'.


An approach called relational-linear quadtree which provides information at multiple resolutions to describe spatial features together with descriptive or propositional information in desired structures is presented. It also provides powerful and flexible spatial analysis and manipulation ability. Its principle is quite clear, and implementation is very easy. It can be modified to fit other database models or structured knowledge representation schemes and can be implemented on most database management systems (DBMS) or expert system tools which support the structured models or schemes. The only extension is a set of quadtree operators which involve arithmetic operations on integers that can be coded as routines in a host language or a system command language. No additional processor is needed. This advantage makes the relational-linear quadtree a very practical approach in making use of the existing DBMSs or expert system tools to develop spatial information processing systems. >


A reliable method, based on the double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA), was developed for the extraction of viruses from soil and optimized for the detection of Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) in soil taken from green pepper (Capsicum annuum) fields. When added to phosphate buffer, Tween 20 increases extraction efficiency and skim milk increases the specificity for PMMoV. Samples positive by DAS-ELISA were verified by inhibition testing using specific anti-PMMoV antibody, immuno-electron microscopy, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, and inoculation tests on assay plants. Our system for detecting PMMoV in soil was successfully tested on samples from 22 infected and uninfected fields in Japan. When used before seedlings are planted, this method allows for the prediction of possible damage to cultivated plants by soil-borne PMMoV.


This is a phenomenological study into the lived experience of university students over 45 years old. The aim of the study was to collect data on older university students, which is lacking in the existing literature. Moreover, with the recent widening participation policy agenda (Browne, 2010), there is a need to ascertain if older students have different academic needs to younger students, with much less life experience.   Three students were selected using convenience sampling from two different universities. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured format, the recordings of which were transcribed and analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Seven themes emerged from the data, which were encapsulated in three master themes; the experience of living in different worlds, self-categorisation and stereotypical discourse relating to maturity, and learning and development. An analysis of the interviews revealed a real risk of inter-group conflict arising from: a professional identity gained from living in the real world, a lack of older student/tutor relationship, teaching styles and personal attributes valued by the participants. The themes are discussed in relation to Tajfel's (1981) Social Identity Theory, and Turner's (1982) Self-categorisation Theory. In conclusion, there is an argument for specific courses that recognise and utilise the older students' past experience. Therefore, more research is needed into the needs of older university students and how to utilise their previous experience as a way of enhancing their learning.


OBJECTIVE
To describe how clinicians use decision aids.

BACKGROUND
A 98-patient factorial-design randomized trial of the Statin Choice decision vs. standard educational pamphlet; each participant had a 1:4 chance of receiving the decision aid during the encounter with the clinician resulting in 22 eligible encounters.

DESIGN
Two researchers working independently and in duplicate reviewed and coded the 22 encounter videos.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
Twenty-two patients with diabetes (57% of them on statins) and six endocrinologists working in a referral diabetes clinic randomly assigned to use the decision aid during the consultation.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Proportion and nature of unintended use of the Statin Choice decision aid.

RESULTS
We found eight encounters involving six clinicians who did not use the decision aid as intended either by not using it at all (n = 5; one clinician did use the decision aid in three encounters), offering inaccurate quantitative and probabilistic information about the risks and benefits of statins (n = 2), or using the decision aid to advance the agenda that all patients with diabetes should take statin (n = 1). Clinicians used the decision aid as intended in all other encounters.

CONCLUSIONS
Unintended decision aid use in the context of videotaped encounters in a practical randomized trial was common. These instances offer insights to researchers seeking to design and implement effective decision aids for use during the clinical visit, particularly when clinicians may prefer to proceed in ways that the decision aid apparently contradicts.


A personal testimony Most Pentecostals, charismatics and members of Pentecostal-like indigenous churches believe in divine healing (they usually prefer this term to "faith healing"), (1) and a few will even admit to their doubts concerning it. (2) Pentecostal belief in healing is often based on testimonies of people who have themselves experienced healing, and they see this as a direct intervening act of God. I share that perspective and offer a personal testimony to clarify my own presuppositions and set the stage for what follows. In 1975, during a preaching tour in the mosquito-infested Shire River Valley in Malawi, I contracted cerebral malaria. I was unable to have medical attention for two days; I was delirious and felt as if I was dying. A Christian villager prayed for me until the fever broke. The next day I was well on the way to recovery and was preaching again within three days. A medical doctor confirmed from a blood test that I had indeed contracted and recovered from the disease, but I had an injection of chloroquine, just in case! What seemed like an even greater act of divine intervention occurred ten years later, when my wife Olwen and I were travelling in Zambia towards Malawi with a van and trailer. A partial head-on collision with a large truck resulted in us both being at death's door. I lost a lot of blood from external injuries. A Catholic priest gave me the rite of extreme unction and a Polish nun stayed at my side in the small mission hospital, holding my hand, and imparting incredible strength. The Australian doctor said that it would be "a miracle" if I were still alive the next morning. Lutheran nuns from Darmstadt came to assist the Catholics. We were flown to hospital in South Africa by air ambulance. I was released from hospital within two weeks. Olwen, however, went into a coma after two days, which was to last for seven weeks. People all over the world prayed. I believe that I had received divine assurances that Olwen would recover. One afternoon, after she had been comatose for four weeks, the German healing evangeli st Reinhard Bonnke (who lived in South Africa at that time) came to pray for her and rebuke the "spirit of death" that gripped her. She was in a deep coma with a "decerebral" response to stimuli. The neurologist had pronounced his opinion that she would not recover from her vegetative state. The next day, the nurse reported that she had smiled, and three weeks later she was beginning to talk. Everyone, the neurologist included, admitted that this was an event that had exceeded all expectations. Although Olwen's injuries were extensive and she remained in hospital for six months, we are now the parents of two children, our oldest born eighteen months after the accident that changed our lives. That is another miracle and another story. I relate these stories because the issues that are discussed here have profoundly affected me and are taken very seriously. God used a Catholic priest, Catholic and Lutheran nuns, medical professionals, a German evangelist; and the prayers of many people to bring about our healing. I will not pretend that everything has been perfect thereafter. Olwen and I continue to suffer physical consequences from our injuries, but we know that we are still alive because of God's miraculous intervention and answer to prayers. We know that God is compassionate and powerful, and can do anything in his love-filled purposes. Sometimes (but not always) these purposes are to heal and to relieve suffering and affliction. I pray for people to be healed even when I seldom see it happening, and I gladly receive prayer for healing when I need it. Sometimes it seems as if sickness overwhelms people, including my family and myself. But we Pentecostals remain convinced that healing is part of the continuing ministry of Christ on earth through the Holy Spirit. Healing, furthermore, is comprehensive and relates to all of life, not just the "physical" part of it. …


In this paper, we present a brief review of the launch of surface nonlinear optics and nonlinear magneto-optics at Moscow State University in the 1980s and further development of these areas in Russia. The history of these branches of modern nonlinear optics cannot be separated from the history of Russia's School of Nonlinear Optics founded by Rem V. Khokhlov and his colleagues and partners Sergey A. Akhmanov and David N. Klyshko. After a brief description of the basic contributions of the founding fathers, we present retrospection of surface nonlinear-optical and magneto-optical studies performed at the Physics Department of Moscow State University. In the last section, we present results of our recent studies of the relation between surface plasmons and magnetization-induced second-harmonic generation in magnetic nanoparticles.


Contra Shepard we argue, first, that his presentation of a three-dimensional representational (psychological or phenomenal) colour space is at odds with many results in colour science, and, second, that there is insufficient evidence for Shepard's stronger claim that the three-dimensionality of colour perception has resulted from natural selection, moulded by the particulars of the solar spectrum and its variations. [Shepard]


Governors are the most prominent political actor in state politics and a subject of continuous study by scholars. An analysis of the research produced over the past five decades reveals a pattern of topics investigated as well as trends in interest level of those topics. A brief review of some of the findings is presented as well as suggestions for additional research. Finally, a proposal to rethink how we study and evaluate governors is offered.


Activatable theranostic nanomedicines involved in photothermal therapy (PTT) have received constant attention as promising alternatives to traditional therapies in clinic. However, the theranostic nanomedicines widely suffer from instability and complicated nanostructures, which hamper potential clinical applications. Herein, we demonstrated a terrylenediimide (TDI)-poly(acrylic acid) (TPA)-based nanomedicine (TNM) platform used as an intrinsic theranostic agent. As an exploratory paradigm in seeking biomedical applications, TDI was modified with poly(acrylic acid)s (PAAs), resulting in eight-armed, star-like TPAs composed of an outside hydrophilic PAA corona and an inner hydrophobic TDI core. TNMs were readily fabricated via spontaneous self-assembly. Without additional vehicle and cargo, the as-prepared TNMs possessed a robust nanostructure and high photothermal conversion efficiency up to approximately 41%. The intrinsic theranostic properties of TNMs for use in photoacoustic (PA) imaging by a multispectral optoacoustic tomography system and in mediating photoinduced tumor ablation were intensely explored. Our results suggested that the TNMs could be successfully exploited as intrinsic theranostic agents for PA imaging-guided efficient tumor PTT. Thus, these TNMs hold great potential for (pre)clinical translational development.


The Design Commission's newest report warns the UK digital economy will not reach its full economic and social potential without the strategic application of design to ensure people, and not technologies, are at the centre of the 'digital revolution'. The report is the result of an eight-month inquiry chaired by Lord Inglewood of Hutton in the Forest and co-chaired by Gillian Youngs, Professor of Digital Economy at Brighton University, and makes 17 recommendations to spark policy and culture change across government and the design and technology sector.


Trust and security have prevented businesses from fully accepting cloud platforms. To protect clouds, providers must first secure virtualized data center resources, uphold user privacy, and preserve data integrity. The authors suggest using a trust-overlay network over multiple data centers to implement a reputation system for establishing trust between service providers and data owners. Data coloring and software watermarking techniques protect shared data objects and massively distributed software modules. These techniques safeguard multi-way authentications, enable single sign-on in the cloud, and tighten access control for sensitive data in both public and private clouds.


Relationship Web takes us from "which document" could have information I need to "what's in the resources" that gives me the insight and knowledge I need for decision making. Dr. Vannevar Bush outlined his vision for Memex in a 1945 Atlantic Monthly article [1]. Describing how the human brain navigates an information space in what he called trailblazing, Dr. Bush said, "It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain." Now that we can label content to associate semantics (meaning) to data and build information processing in which relationships rather than keywords and entities play the central role, the possibility of realizing the Memex vision seems tantalizingly close. Although through much of the recent past attention has been on search, finding a document is seldom the end goal of a human activity. Aligned with the Memex vision, human need for information is related to a desire and need for information processing that goes well beyond delivering a list of documents that matches the keywords or even the implied intent. Human information seeking is likely to be driven by more demanding activities such as interaction and entertainment, finding associations and answers, performing analysis, gaining insights, or making decisions. The Memex vision provides an interesting paradigm for supporting these objectives. Changing the computing paradigm to one that focuses on relationships is the key to realizing the Memex vision. We term our realization of Memex Relationship Web. In past work we observed the changing focus from documents to entities to relationships. We also investigated a broad variety of issues related to modeling, validating, discovering, and exploiting the many types of relationships between entities in content [2]. The first result of these efforts was the concept of Metadata Reference Links (MREFs), which proposed associating semantic metadata with hypertext links [3]. MREF faced several limitations, but recent significant advances resulting from research, standards, and technology development associated with Semantic Web provide building blocks for realizing the Relationship Web. We outline below some recent relationship-centric research to which we have had the opportunity to contribute, at the same time acknowledging extensive work in each area by many researchers and practitioners.


China joined the WTO in 2001 under exceptionally unfavourable, non-reciprocal and asymmetric terms of membership. China's less-than-equal status raises difficult legal questions with respect to the rule of law in the WTO, as they call into question the normativity of the fundamental principles that underlie the WTO system. It is argued that, in DSB cases involving China's WTO-plus obligations, restrictive interpretation should generally be used to determine the meaning of an ambiguous provision, as a value-oriented interpretative approach in favour of the equilibrium of rights and obligations of China and in deference to the uniformity and integrity of the WTO legal system. For bilateral trade relations to be mutually advantageous and more balanced, major WTO members should offer equal status to China in the world trading system, in exchange for China's full compliance with its WTO commitments and greater contribution to the world trading system. This entails the development of reciprocal and cooperative trade policies on both sides.


New strategies were herein applied for treating a cotton dyeing wastewater: coagulation/flocculation followed by Fenton's oxidation – approach 1, Fenton process per se – approach 2, and Fenton followed by coagulation/flocculation – approach 3, aiming reducing chemicals consumption. Regarding the cost analysis, which is crucial for deciding on the best strategy to implement, it was found that in approach 1 and approach 2 the hydrogen peroxide has a major influence on the total costs as compared to ferrous ion. In approach 3, the total costs are again mostly related to the consumption of reagents in the oxidation stage. The integration of the Fenton's process followed by coagulation/flocculation provided an effluent that meets the discharge limits, with global organic matter removals of 55.6% for COD, 42.7% for BOD5 and 70.4% for DOC, and almost complete colour reduction (99.6%). However, the combined treatment of coagulation/flocculation followed by Fenton's oxidation exhibits also high overall efficiencies (61.7%, 25.8% and 71.2% for COD, BOD5 and DOC removal, respectively, with almost complete decolourisation) but simultaneously smaller operating costs associated with chemicals consumption (0.82 €/m3), putting into evidence the usefulness of the novel strategy implemented: use of the residual dissolved iron employed as coagulant in the first stage as catalyst in the subsequent Fenton's oxidation.


This dissertation comments on the current period of intense social change in the former Soviet Union by charting processes of elite production at a business school in Riga, Latvia. It is concerned with an ethnically diverse group of students from the Baltic states who attend a Swedish institution established to accelerate the transition. I suggest that rather than producing 'catalysts of change' the business school represents a foreign-direct-investment into human capital. The thesis tackles the transnational complexities of the organisation by combining ethnographic description with an analysis of the historical and ideological shifts in international relations and a review of the anthropological literature on socialism. The thesis also responds to the lack of anthropological research on elites by presenting the first ethnographic study of a business school. It investigates elite schooling practices and parameters through an engagement with the debates on reproduction in education. In Riga an off-the-peg curriculum sidelines issues specifically concerned with the Baltic context; instead of addressing local problems students are increasingly drawn towards transnational corporations. During their attendance they partially develop their own agenda, which is a finding that questions prevalent assumptions about the docility of students in elite education. Other key factors of the students' transformation are language, image, style, school space and consumption. Their collective grooming project forms an important part of the esprit de corps at the school. Additionally, the thesis highlights the establishment of a multi-ethnic networks on the basis of shared interests, thus challenging one-dimensional reports of nationalism in the region. Caught between the post-Soviet context and a forceful Swedish vision of change students experience upward mobility along with problematic negotiations of ongoing circumstance. Intended as a contribution to anthropological studies of post-socialism the thesis explains how the business school generates graduates who are willing and desirable recruits for the capitalist expansion.


Coverage includes the statute's modern revival in Monroe v. Pape, municipal liability, individual officer and sovereign immunity, excessive force litigation, choice of law, state and federal court jurisdiction, remedies, and attorney's fees, There are also chapters on federal officer liability and the relationship between habeas corpus and section 1983. A helpful tool for practitioners, students, judges, and their clerks, or anyone wishing to get up to speed on this complex, ever-changing topic.


Community case management services provide targeted care to patients with long term health conditions (LTCs) and complex needs, at high risk of adverse events such as emergency hospital admissions. However, there is no standardised evidence informed programme for providing such care, including for patient monitoring. The complexity of older patients, those most likely to have multiple LTCs, and who often present with frailty and atypical symptoms, enhance the difficulty of on-going monitoring and targeting of care. There is an established relationship between ageing and LTCs, frailty and muscle strength, and function and service use, suggesting that muscle strength may be a useful aid to monitoring. Whilst muscle strength is a known indicator for future health, it is not known whether monitoring it is feasible or useful as a short term indicator in older people, especially those at high risk of adverse events. Patients are initially identified for case management by predictive modelling and/or clinical judgement, but little is known about the patients who go on to receive such care. The feasibility and usefulness of routine measures of muscle strength to help clinicians provide timely interventions were investigated alongside case management patients' health, functional and physical status. An initial pilot study in healthy older adults (n=21) investigated four portable measures of strength, grip strength, sniff nasal inspiratory pressure (SNIP), peak inspiratory flow (PIF) and peak expiratory flow (PEF), and confirmed, via the collection of repeated measures at two time points one week apart, the reliability and acceptability of all but SNIP. A follow on feasibility study explored the acceptability and stability of the three successfully piloted measures in case management patients (n=8) and clinicians (n=5) via researcher administered questionnaire, with the reliability and stability of the measures assessed using a variety of statistical tests including intra-class correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman plots, on data collected over a maximum 7 week period. Concurrently measures of physical and functional ability and health were conducted. A third study analysed routine primary and secondary care case management patient data (n=101), allowing the development of a health and demographic profile of patients, including an assessment of frailty. The pilot and feasibility studies confirmed the reliability and acceptability of three portable measures of strength, PIF, PEF and grip strength. The high level of muscle strength stability observed in patients over the short-medium term, despite adverse events, suggested that whilst monitoring muscle strength may be feasible it would not be useful over this time period. Analysis of routine primary and secondary care data, identified case management patients as predominately female, with age skewed towards the older old and experiencing high levels of deprivation. Multiple LTCs were commonly recorded, and a wide variety of conditions noted. Health service use varied greatly, with few patients recording frequent usage. A frailty index suggested that frailty was common, and highlighted the potential for the development of a useful frailty index using routine data to improve the targeting of case management services towards those who are most at risk.


Since September 2001, the United States has waged what the government initially called the global war on terrorism (GWOT). Beginning in late 2005 and early 2006, the term Long War began to appear in U.S. security documents such as the National Security Council's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq and in statements by the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the JCS. The description Long War-unlimited in time and space and continuing for decades-is closer to reality and more useful than GWOT. Colonel Robert Cassidy argues that this protracted struggle is more correctly viewed as a global insurgency and counterinsurgency. Al Qaeda and its affiliates, he maintains, comprise a novel and evolving form of networked insurgents who operate globally, harnessing the advantages of globalization and the information age. They employ terrorism as a tactic, subsuming terror within their overarching aim of undermining the Western-dominated system of states. Placing the war against al Qaeda and its allied groups and organizations in the context of a global insurgency has vital implications for doctrine, interagency coordination, and military cultural change-all reviewed in this important work. Cassidy combines the foremost maxims of the most prominent Western philosopher of war and the most renowned Eastern philosopher of war to arrive at a threefold theme: know the enemy, know yourself, and know what kind of war you are embarking upon. To help readers arrive at that understanding, he first offers a distilled analysis of al Qaeda and its associated networks, with a particular focus on ideology and culture. In subsequent chapters, he elucidates the challenges big powers face when they prosecute counterinsurgencies, using historical examples from Russian, American, British, and French counterinsurgent wars before 2001. The book concludes with recommendations for the integration and command and control of indigenous forces and other agencies.


Kynurenic acid (KYNA) has well-established protective properties against glutamatergic neurotransmission, which plays an essential role in the activation and sensitization process during some primary headache disorders. The goal of this study was to compare the effects of two KYNA analogs, N-(2-N,N-dimethylaminoethyl)-4oxo-1H-quinoline-2-carboxamide hydrochloride (KA-1) and N-(2-N-pyrrolidinylethyl)-4-oxo-1H-quinoline-2-carboxamide hydrochloride (KA-2), in the orofacial formalin test of trigeminal pain. Following pretreatment with KA-1 or KA-2, rats were injected with subcutaneous formalin solution in the right whisker pad. Thereafter, the rubbing activity and c-Fos immunoreactivity changes in the spinal trigeminal nucleus pars caudalis (TNC) were investigated. To obtain pharmacokinetic data, KA-1, KA-2 and KYNA concentrations were measured following KA-1 or KA-2 injection. Behavioral tests demonstrated that KA-2 induced larger amelioration of formalin-evoked alterations as compared with KA-1 and the assessment of c-Fos immunoreactivity in the TNC yielded similar results. Although KA-1 treatment resulted in approximately four times larger area under the curve values in the serum relative to KA-2, the latter resulted in a higher KYNA elevation than in the case of KA-1. With regard to TNC, the concentration of KA-1 was under the limit of detection, while that of KA-2 was quite small and there was no major difference in the approximately tenfold KYNA elevations. These findings indicate that the differences between the beneficial effects of KA-1 and KA-2 may be explained by the markedly higher peripheral KYNA levels following KA-2 pretreatment. Targeting the peripheral component of trigeminal pain processing would provide an option for drug design which might prove beneficial in headache conditions.


ABSTRACT The use of Web for export marketing normally enables firms to leapfrog the conventional stages by removing a number of barriers associated with exporting. This study investigates the impact of Web presence on the perception of export barriers among Tirupur knitwear apparel exporters, Indian bricks and mortar manufacturing small firms. A mail survey was conducted among 950 active exporters with 13.6 % response rate. The psychological barriers are found to be the biggest barrier to their export activities. Their overall perception of export barriers decreases significantly with their advancement in the business growth stage, and not with their company's age. However, in the company age group of less than 10 years, exporters with Web presence significantly differ in their perception from other exporters. Even though a number of patterns are observed, in the other age group and at all the business growth stages the differences in their perception of export barriers remain insignificant. It is concluded that the functionalities of these exporters' Websites are of primitive in nature and not being effectively exploited. Keywords: Electronic Commerce Adoption; Small Businesses; Export Marketing; Export Barriers; Web Presence 1. Introduction The Internet, the massive network of interconnected packet switched computer networks, is a general-purpose global communication and information system. The Internet has revolutionized the pattern of human society (Biswas and Kumar, 2004). But the emergence of World Wide Web (Web) has created the most interest in the business world. The Internet has become a central fact of life for export firms. For a number of years, the Internet has provided a vehicle by which firms can communicate with those outside the company using electronic mail and has provided a rich source of information that firms can tap to help in fulfilling their business functions (Stallings, 2003). Stansfield and Grant (2003) investigated into the impact of government policy on Internet connectivity and adoption among small and medium businesses. Clarke (2002) found that even after controlling for self-selectivity bias and for factors that might affect both export performance and Internet connectivity, firms with Internet access exported more than similar firms and Internet access affected industrial and service enterprises to similar degree. The recent changes in market conditions like increased globalization, competition, customer awareness, changing demographic factors, etc., have forced the business firms towards doing business over the Internet (Chakraborty and Ajoy, 2004). Now many firms do business over the Internet, mainly through the use of Web. Web provides the functionality necessary for online businesses. Technically and commercially, the Web client-server model becomes a dominant technology (Kalakota and Whinston, 1996). Kettinger and Hackbarth (2004) found that a small firm's capacity to perceive benefits had the strongest influence on the degree of integration of its electronic commerce networking into the sales process. Whether it is dealing with suppliers or corporate buyers, or individual consumers, the Web provides a great opportunity to expand export business. 1.1. The Web and Export Marketing The export firms traditionally adopt export marketing through an evolutionary series of sequential stages (Anderson, 1993; Calof and Beamish, 1995). The use of the Web for export marketing enables export firms to leapfrog the conventional stages, as it removes all geographical constraints, permits the instant establishment of virtual branches throughout the world, and allows direct and immediate foreign market entry to the smallest of businesses. Roger Bennett (1997) envisages that the conventional model of obtaining export orders by information seeping out of a firm through formal and informal contacts with buyers, suppliers and like is not particularly relevant in the present Web era. …


The objective of this study was to develop a simple, safe, minimally invasive protocol to evaluate the hepatic vasculature. Five purpose-bred Beagle dogs underwent noncontrast-enhanced computed tomographic scan of the entire abdomen. A dynamic, nonincremental computed tomography scan at the level of T11 was then performed using a test bolus of contrast medium to determine time to peak opacification and to aid in the calculation of scan delay. The time to peak arterial enhancement ranged from 2.0 to 7.0 s, with a median of 2.0 s. The time to peak portal venous enhancement ranged from 23.0 to 46.0 s, with a median of 32.0 s. Scan delay for arterial opacification ranged from 0 to 5.0 s, with a median of 0 s. Scan delay for the portal phase of opacification ranged from 6.0 to 21.0 s, with a median of 17.0 s. Using this information, two separate computed tomographic studies were used to image the arterial and portal venous phases of circulatory opacification, respectively. The dogs were hyperventilated to prevent breathing motion during the scan, each of which required approximately 20 s. A power injector was used to inject diatrizoate meglumine (128 mg I/kg) through an 18-gauge cephalic vein catheter at a rate of 5 ml/s. Scanning was initiated after the appropriate scan delay to optimize the specific phase of vascular filling. Maximum intensity projections allowed clear delineation of the hepatic arteries and the portal venous system, while eliminating overlying structures that might interfere with image analysis. Time/density curves were generated, and the time needed for each study was recorded. Hepatic arteries and portal veins were clearly visualized in all dogs. Parenchymal opacification was also observed.