Do you think that the Ozone Hole is a grunge rock club? Or that the Food Web is an on-line restaurant guide? Or that the Green Revolution happened in Greenland? Then you need The Cartoon Guide to the Environment to put you on the road to environmental literacy. The Cartoon Guide to the Environment covers the main topics of environmental science: chemical cycles, life communities, food webs, agriculture, human population growth, sources of energy and raw materials, waste disposal and recycling, cities, pollution, deforestation, ozone depletion, and global warming-and puts them in the context of ecology, with discussions of population dynamics, thermodynamics, and the behavior of complex systems.


Often described as 'social phobia's cousin' and misdiagnosed as autism, selective mutism is a debilitating fear of speaking in some situations experienced by some children. The disorder usually presents in children before the age of five, but it may not be recognized until the child starts school. When requested to speak, children with selective mutism often look down, blush, or otherwise express anxiety that disrupts their engagement with people and activities. Selective mutism is related to social anxiety and social phobia, and more than 90 percent of children with selective mutism also manifest symptoms of one of these problems. This book is the first available for parents of children with selective mutism. It offers a broad overview of the condition and reviews the diagnostic criteria for the disorder. The book details a plan you can use to coordinate professional treatment of your child's disorder. It also explains the steps you can take on your own to encourage your child to speak comfortably in school and in his or her peer group. All of the book's strategies employ a gradual, 'stepladder' approach. The techniques gently encourage children to speak more, while at the same time helping them feel safe and supported.


In this paper, I explore the role of lexical diffusion in the development of creole languages through the study of lexical items involved in the double-object construction in Haitian Creole and its substrate languages. First, it is shown that, while the double-object construction is available in the substrate languages of Haitian, it is not available in French, the superstrate language of this creole. Second, it is shown that, while the class of verbs participating in the doubleobject construction is quite small in some of the substrate languages, it is quite large in the creole. It is argued that these discrepancies may be accounted for in terms of lexical diffusion. The paper ends with a discussion on the long standing issue of whether creolization is 'abrupt' or 'gradual'.


Within the growing field of music preferences, little is currently known about the concept of a favourite piece of music. The current study explores listeners' nominated favourite pieces of music over short and longer time-spans, combining diary and interview methods to uncover what a favourite means, how stable it is, and what factors influence the development of favourites. Nine undergraduate students participated in a diary study spanning one month, with follow-up interviews conducted with two participants. Results indicate that musical favourites are subject to rapid change and highly context-dependent. Most daily favourites were heard on the day, either deliberately or by chance. 'Magpie' listeners collected a large number of relatively transient favourites, while 'squirrel' listeners had a large catalogue of music stored from which to select. Long-term favourites differed from daily favourites, being associated with intense emotional events in listeners' lives. In this small-scale study, diary methods successfully captured fluctuations in music preferences over time for most listeners, while interviews revealed more about listeners' motivations and personal stories connected with their favourite music. Future research is required with larger samples to tease out the complexities of developing music preferences over time and engagement with music in everyday life settings.


Prepared by the Emerging Materials Committee of the Materials Division of ASCE. This report presents a review of the state of the art on emerging materials for use in civil engineering infrastructure. Emerging materials include novel and new materials, as well as traditional materials with profound potential in new applications. A material or class of materials is considered emerging if its use has not yet progressed to a stage wherein well-established guidelines, codes, and specifications exist for its use. This report is conveniently divided into chapters that address specific classes of materials and highlight the most recent developments in materials technologies relevant to civil infrastructure. Topics include: smart materials for civil engineering applications; fiber reinforced composites in civil infrastructure; emerging geomaterials for ground improvement; aluminum materials and the infrastructure; polymer concrete made with recycled plastics; state of the practice in asphalt technology; emerging uses for masonry materials; and emerging uses for window glass. The practicing engineer, student, or general reader will find this to be an easy-to-use reference for construction material systems that are being developed for use in civil engineering.


OBJECTIVELarge interhemispheric subdural hematomas (iSDHs) causing falx syndrome are rare; therefore, a paucity of data exists regarding the outcomes of contemporary management of iSDH. There is a general consensus among neurosurgeons that large iSDHs with neurological deficits represent a particular treatment challenge with generally poor outcomes. Thus, radiological and clinical outcomes of surgical and nonsurgical management for iSDH bear further study, which is the aim of this report.METHODSA prospectively collected, single-institution trauma database was searched for patients with isolated traumatic iSDH causing falx syndrome in the period from January 2008 to January 2018. Information on demographic and radiological characteristics, serial neurological examinations, clinical and radiological outcomes, and posttreatment complications was collected and tallied. The authors subsequently dichotomized patients by management strategy to evaluate clinical outcome and 30-day survival.RESULTSTwenty-five patients (0.4% of those with intracranial injuries, 0.05% of those with trauma) with iSDH and falx syndrome represented the study cohort. The average age was 73.4 years, and most patients (23 [92%] of 25) were taking anticoagulants or antiplatelet medications. Six patients were managed nonoperatively, and 19 patients underwent craniotomy for iSDH evacuation; of the latter patients, 17 (89.5%) had improvement in or resolution of motor deficits postoperatively. There were no instances of venous infarction, reaccumulation, or infection after evacuation. In total, 9 (36%) of the 25 patients died within 30 days, including 6 (32%) of the 19 who had undergone craniotomy and 3 (50%) of the 6 who had been managed nonoperatively. Patients who died within 30 days were significantly more likely to experience in-hospital neurological deterioration prior to surgery (83% vs 15%, p = 0.0095) and to be comatose prior to surgery (100% vs 23%, p = 0.0031). The median modified Rankin Scale score of surgical patients who survived hospitalization (13 patients) was 1 at a mean follow-up of 22.1 months.CONCLUSIONSiSDHs associated with falx syndrome can be evacuated safely and effectively, and prompt surgical evacuation prior to neurological deterioration can improve outcomes. In this study, craniotomy for iSDH evacuation proved to be a low-risk strategy that was associated with generally good outcomes, though appropriately selected patients may fare well without evacuation.


Mr. Joe Sweet is Director of International Patient Experience, Cleveland Clinic. As a busy leader who is often travelling for work he enjoys time spent outdoors to relax himself; running, cutting the grass, walking the dog, riding bike, playing ball with his kids. He enjoys running outside a few times per week to clear his mind and re-energize (Figure 1).


This study began with the researcher's interest to transform learning strategy in Japanese computer which has been longstanding in conventional way. In previous studies the Jigsaw cooperative strategy had been tested in the exact sciences in College. The researcher was challenged to bring the instructional materials of Japanese computer which are felt quite hard by students to be easier with mutual assistance. Heavy load materials are minimized. Learners must actively explore materials; it is not only from the teacher. The Jigsaw cooperative strategy was tested on three-semester students in order to determine the effectiveness of Jigsaw cooperative in Japanese computer learning. This study used pure experiment. The design involved two groups of subjects, one given by the experimental treatment with the Jigsaw cooperative strategy (experimental group) and the other group (control group) with usual learning technique. Data were taken in two ways: quantitative by making instruments such pretest and posttest to the two classes and qualitative by interview to complete the descriptive data analysis result. Furthermore, all results of the pretest and posttest were analyzed by measuring the normality and t-test to determine how the Jigsaw strategy successfully applied on the samples. To collaborate the results, the interviews were transcribed to see the response from samples on the Jigsaw cooperative strategy in Japanese computer learning. Results of the test data analysis in the experimental group and the control group showed that the Jigsaw cooperative strategy was proved more effective in Japanese computer learning than the conventional method usually used.


Progress in hardware integration technology for full- and semicustom implementations enables cost-efficient, innovative computing architectures that could provide alternatives or add-ons to the current von Neumann architecture. Radical, alternative architectures not in compliance with this classical imperative approach--for example, those that support functional programming--have not succeeded in replacing the von Neumann architecture. But several basic approaches--especially an inherent exploitation of the parallelizibility of certain problems--continue to imply modifications of the imperative style. Although unorthodox, these architectures nevertheless constitute well-fitting add-ons to a basic von Neumann architecture. Such approaches includemassively parallel processing,instruction-level parallelism,dataflow machines,associative architectures,neural networks, and biologically inspired architectures.


This article describes an investigation of interactive narrative in virtual reality (VR) through Samuel Beckett's theatrical text Play. Actors are captured in a green screen environment using free-viewpoint video (FVV). Built in a game engine, the scene is complete with binaural spatial audio and six degrees of freedom of movement. The project explores how ludic qualities in the original text elicit the conversational and interactive specificities of the digital medium. The work affirms potential for interactive narrative in VR, opens new experiences of the text and highlights the reorganization of the author-audience dynamic.


The world becomes shareable, narrow, familiar, and accessible for all since we have a common language (English) despite having culture, tradition, territory and idiosyncratic variation. Because of its commonness, it is accepted as an international, global, foreign/ second language or as a lingua-franca among thousands of diverse language speakers. It becomes the global language since its form is cozily perceptible and scope is being open-ended in nature. Having its scope unlimited, the status is automatically broadened and the positional value will be transformable from fewer to more, lesser- users to frequent, foreign to second language, etc. As the status and scope of English growing up, the opportunities and challenges have been raised as well. In the forms of opportunities, people are liable to get better jobs, quality education, and international identity and so on. In contrary, challenges oppose the regular development of it which may result minimizing the status and scope sooner than later. Whatever the situation, English language is stepping forward rather than pushing back.Journal of NELTA Surkhet,  Vol. 5 January, 2018


This article presents a study of three asylum-seeking men from Iran and Afghanistan. It aimed to explore how and if they experienced occupations as occupations in a Danish asylum centre and how their life experience shaped their choice and value of current occupations. In-depth narrative interviews explored the participants' occupational history and its influence on their current occupations in the asylum centre. A thematic analysis showed that the participants had been subjected to occupational disruption and deprivation by politically oppressive systems even before their flight. Their occupations in Denmark were to a certain extent influenced by their earlier occupations and the current occupational deprivation they all experienced was due to limited possibilities in the centre. Although they tried their best to fill their days and create structure, there was a loss of valued occupations and a profound sense of occupational deprivation. One of the participants had been subjected to torture and he experienced occupational deprivation to a greater extent. The findings suggest that further research should include exposure to torture as a key component when examining the occupational deprivation of asylum seekers.


This Article is about legal scholarly publication in a time of plenitude. It is an attempt to explain why the most pressing questions in legal scholarly publishing are about how we ensure access to an infinity of content. It explains why standard assumptions about resource scarcity in publication are wrong in general, and how the changes in the modality of publication affect legal scholarship. It talks about the economics of open access to legal material, and how this connects to a future where there is infinite content. And because student-edited law reviews fit this future better than their commercially-produced, peer-refereed cousins, this Article is, in part, a defense of the crazy-beautiful institution that is the American law review.


It is widely recognized that the current U.S. corporate income tax is flawed, particularly in its treatment of foreign‐source income. These flaws are amplified by the high U.S. statutory tax rate. Unfortunately,current reform proposals fail to resolve the fundamental contradictions in the current corporate income tax structure.The current system and the reform proposals attempt to base corporate taxation on the source of the corporate income, the residence of the corporation, or a combination of those two factors. The problem is that neither source nor corporate residence can be easily defined. Any viable reform must either find an agreed‐upon way to define those terms or must restructure the tax system in a way that avoids the need to define them.In this report, we describe the challenges facing the corporate income tax and discuss two structural reform options that could address them. One option would seek international agreement on how to allocate income of multinational corporations among countries. The other option would eliminate the corporate income tax, but would tax American shareholders of publicly traded companies at ordinary income tax rates on their dividends and accrued capital gains. We discuss the benefits and limitations of each option.


This study examines how students perceive official student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and unofficial mid-semester evaluations (MSEs). It also examines whether completing a MSE affects students' perceptions of the course and the instructor. A survey revealed that participants (N = 80) believed SETs are valid measures of teaching; however, they had doubts about whether students or instructors take these evaluations seriously. On the other hand, participants had very positive perceptions of MSEs and instructors who conduct them. Furthermore, completing a MSE positively affected perceptions of the instructor's responsibility, his commitment to teaching, and his desire for the class to do well. Implications and limitations of these results are discussed. ********** Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are widely used in higher education to assess instructors' performance and to provide a means of accountability for the college or university (Williams & Ceci, 1997). Administrators routinely use SETs when making decisions about the hiring, tenure, and promotion of instructors (Newport, 1996). These evaluations are also sometimes made available to students for use in course selection (Marsh 1987). However, there is a debate over the utility of SETs for these purposes. Critics argue that SETs are prone to bias and that students are incapable of effectively evaluating teaching (e.g. Wachtel, 1998). Because SETs have become such an important factor in employment decisions, instructors may be temped to grade leniently, and as a result, academic standards may suffer. Proponents contend that students are indeed capable of evaluating teaching (Miller, 1988) and that well-developed SETs serve as one of the best measures of teaching effectiveness (Hobson & Talbot, 2001). Research on the reliability and validity of SETs is mixed. West (1988) found that students were only moderately consistent in their evaluations of instructors over time. Furthermore, students' ratings can be influenced by a variety of factors--including class-size (Min & Baozhi, 1998), time of day (Greenwald & Gilmore, 1997), race and attractiveness of the instructor (Rao, 1995), and expected grade (Marsh & Roche, 2000). On the other hand, a number of studies lend support to the claim that SETs are reliable and valid measures of teaching (e.g. Gamliel & Davidovitz, 2005). Drew, Burroughs, and Nokovish (1987) validated student evaluations by assessing student-instructor agreement about day-to-day variability within courses. Students' reports were strongly related to those of instructors. Although the reliability and validity of SETs has received much attention, relatively few studies have examined how students perceive these evaluations. Students seem to be generally willing to complete SETs and try to be fair and accurate (Spencer & Schmelkin, 2002). Students also tend to have confidence in their ability to assess instructors. In one survey, the majority of students believed that SETs provide an effective measure of teaching (Dwinell & Higbee, 1993). However, the results of other surveys suggest that students are skeptical about the utility of SETs. Spencer and Schmelkin (2002) found that students do not believe that instructors or administrators take these evaluations seriously. Even if SETs are valid measures of teaching, they pose a fundamental problem for instructors being evaluated. Because SETs are typically conducted at the end of the semester, instructors do not have the opportunity to make changes to the course for which they are being evaluated. If instructors conducted their own mid-semester evaluations (MSEs), they should be able to better assess student learning and make immediate changes to their curriculum or teaching style. Price and Goldman (1981) found that conducting MSEs led to improved ratings on end-of-semester evaluations. Conducting unofficial MSEs may also convey to students a genuine interest in how well they are learning. …


Two new mammalian carnivoraform species, Uintacyon hookeri sp. nov. and Quercygale smithi sp. nov., are described from the early Eocene of Europe. U. hookeri sp. nov. is recorded in Mutigny (MP8 + 9, PE IV), Avenay (MP8 + 9, PE V), Brasles, Condé‐en‐Brie (MP8 + 9) and Cuis (MP 10), while Q. smithi sp. nov. comes from Mutigny and Mancy (MP10). Because the two species are not recorded in earliest Eocene localities such as Dormaal and Le Quesnoy (MP7, PE I), it is proposed that they dispersed after the main phase of the Mammal Dispersal Event. U. hookeri sp. nov. supports the existence of terrestrial connections with North America, while Q. smithi sp. nov. implies possible faunal exchange with Asia. This evidence for the evolution of the Carnivoraformes supports: (1) a rapid decrease in their diversity after the Mammal Dispersal Event; and (2) the existence of a mammal turnover event in Europe during the early Eocene. The discovery of a new species of Quercygale, which is generally considered as the closest carnivoraform to the crown‐group Carnivora, shows that the genus had already lost the M3 by the early Eocene and supports an important, but very poorly known, radiation of the carnivoraforms at least during the earliest early Eocene.


CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL OF VORTEX SHEDDING BY MEANS OF LORENTZ FORCE by Xiaoyun Sun When an incompressible fluid flows past a circular cylinder, vortex shedding occurs as soon as the Reynolds number exceeds about 40. Vortex shedding is usually undesirable, as it generates a significant increase in drag, as well an oscillating lift force on the cylinder leading to cross-stream structural vibrations. Flow control to either delay the appearance of vortex shedding or fully suppress it has attracted much attention during the last decade. The focus of this dissertation is to control vortex shedding from a circular cylinder by applying an external electromagnetic field. As in previous works, the latter is generated by electrodes and magnets alternatively arranged on the cylinder surface. In a weakly conducting fluid such as seawater, this has the effect of creating a Lorentz force tangential to the surface of the cylinder and oriented in the flow direction. A novel analytical expression of the Lorentz force is derived by integrating the Maxwell equations and using series expansions. This expression is then used for the control of vortex shedding in numerical simulations. Specifically, a closed-loop control algorithm is derived utilizing a single point sensor on the cylinder surface and the bilinear searching method in order to determine the appropriate magnitude of the Lorentz force at every time. Numerical simulations based on a two-dimensional Navier-Stokes solver show that vortex shedding is indeed suppressed at the Reynolds number values Re = 100 and 200. CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL OF VORTEX SHEDDING BY MEANS OF LORENTZ FORCE


Abstract In this paper, we analytically study the performance of two topologies of high-speed rail (HSR) networks: isolated-corridors and grid networks. We evaluate how HSR configuration affects capacity of newly developed infrastructure, profits and social welfare by considering a number of factors, namely economies of traffic density, market size, operating cost and cost of capital. Our investigations focus on a social welfare-maximizing entity which provides HSR train services as well as develops infrastructure. We find that although the grid network allows for more new markets, the isolated-corridors network may perform better in terms of social welfare when the cost of capital is high, the demand in the new markets established by the isolated-corridors network is high, the operating cost (excluding density effect) is high and the traffic density effect is weak. We also identify cases where the optimal network configuration in terms of social welfare may not be optimal in other aspects, such as capacity, consumer surplus and profits. For example, when the density effect is strong, grid network is likely to be socially optimal, but it faces more difficulty in recovering the invest cost comparing with the alterative network.


Under certain constraints the test case generation problem can be represented as a model checking problem, thus enabling the use of powerful model checking tools to perform the test case generation automatically. There are, however, several different model checking techniques, and to date there is little evidence and comparison on which of these techniques is best suited for test case generation. This paper presents the results of an evaluation of several different model checkers on a set of realistic formal specifications given in the SCR notation. For each specification test cases are generated for a set of coverage criteria with each of the model checkers using different configurations. The evaluation shows that the best suited model checking technique and optimization very much depend on the specification that is used to generate test cases. However, from the experiments we can draw general conclusions about which optimizations are useful and which model checking technique is best suited for which type of model. Finally, we demonstrate that by combining several model checking techniques it is possible to significantly speed up test case generation and also achieve full test coverage for cases where none of the techniques by itself would succeed.


This is the second time Iranian students experience distance learning in the aftermath of a nationwide crisis. Iranian schools across the country are now remained closed as a measure to control Coronavirus. The distance learning programs evoke the last years of eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, when the big cities like Tehran and Isfahan were targeted by Iraqi missiles and many families left their houses for safe places in remote areas. Iranians in their late 30s or early 40s remember the teaching schedules on public TV. There were only two TV channels and the channel II was dedicated to distance learning; mathematics, history and social sciences were taught by unknown teachers whom their method was not familiar to the students. Almost 35 years later in a different crisis, once again, Iranian students have to learn from distance. This time, thanks to the technology, the chance of a more constructive communication between students and teachers is higher. In the recent days, Western media outlets have replaced the word "pandemic" with "outbreak" of Coronavirus. This approach would be interpreted as the highest level of alert in all countries. Coronavirus has now infected every continent except Antarctica. Thereupon, in the early days of the current semester, many schools across the United States and Europe were shut down in attempt to control the virus. As a result of rising concerns over the spread of Coronavirus, the schools may remain closed for some weeks and distance learning would be an alternative to bridge the gap in the learning process. Now that students across the globe feel what the Iranian students experienced 35 years ago. Out of their experience on distance learning, the former Iranian students and teachers ensure that quality of distance learning cannot compete school classes. One-way communication was the most important deficiency of TV classes and the examination system altered in order to ease passing the courses. 9 Trump, it seems likely, is finished politically


Ab s t r Ac t Aim: The purpose of this review was to explore the overall scenario of pharmacovigilance, its aims, challenges, and recommendations pertaining to dentistry for further improvements. Materials and methods: Literature search was done with the help of the Endnote software, followed by vigilantly arranging the material in a coordinated way. Results: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are among the top 10 leading causes of all-cause mortality. In order to reduce the harm to the patients and serve the public health mission, there is a definite need for developing mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the safety of medicines in India. Therefore, the requirement for developing a well-organized pharmacovigilance system is imperative. Different countries have developed their own reporting guidelines for pharmacovigilance. The reporting guidelines are conceived to adapt to the specific requirements of any country and the prime focus of these adverse event reporting systems is improving the patient's health and safety. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) has initiated a nation-wide pharmacovigilance program in India. It aims to protect the health of the patients by assuring drug safety under the aegis of Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. In dentistry, the science of pharmacovigilance is rarely applied and its practice among dental health professionals, including reporting of ADRs, is minimal. However, studies have shown that the dental professionals comprehend the importance of pharmacovigilance and its application in dentistry. Conclusion: It is essential to foster a sense of trust among patients regarding the medicines they use, to ensure that risks in drug use are anticipated and managed. This will eventually enhance the confidence of patients on the healthcare delivery system in general. Clinical significance: The practice of dentistry involves prescribing various medications for patient use. It is therefore the duty of the dentist to comprehend and identify the adverse effects of the drugs. Dentists should also know about the right channel for reporting any instances of ADRs. They should also strive toward increasing the awareness among patients regarding possible side effects so that any untoward consequences can be avoided. This will be an invaluable aid in furthering the public health mission of improving the health of the populations.


Nursing as a discipline has been concerned with patient data since the early days of Nightingale. Nursing data as a first source is the most effective way to obtain a true picture of the nursing services the patient obtained while visiting a healthcare facility. The objective of this paper is to provide real examples from the operational level in how nurses are handling the daily challenges in collecting data on paper forms and electronic medium, such as computational solutions. An investigation / audit of nursing forms was conducted to gain insight into the type of data elements nurses collect in medical, surgical and aged care units for admission and discharge using a progressive method of auditing documentation done by nurses. Results: nurses were familiar with the discord between collecting real patient data/information and, the data required for reporting purposes for administration and / or to meet external requirements. A key finding suggested the quality and richness of data elements that describe patient's condition are usually kept as informal documentation. Another complexity has been the use of "shell forms" which are an official blank and titled templates for specific documentation such as care plans. The lack of patient data and extensive misuse of these documents is an issue and adds to the existing clinical complexity. The effectiveness in documentation by reduction in duplication and increasing the quality of data is often overlooked in a grand scale. In the information era in health, the transformation from paper to electronic is demanding and the cultural reengineering is not to be underestimated. The challenge is to reduce the risk to patient, staff and organisation in the process and from the cumbersome paper format develop an information model ready for a computerised space.


Abstract Volatility in commodity markets poses a distinct risk to farmers in developing countries who rely on cash crop agriculture. We combine a time series of international coffee prices with a long‐running panel on coffee‐growing households in Vietnam to investigate coping mechanisms employed by farmers in a transitioning economy. We find that households cope with lower coffee prices by increasing wage labor of adults, with children and adolescents substituting for adults on the farm. Heterogeneity analysis indicates a stronger substitution pattern among women, ethnic minorities, and households with fewer assets. A variety of robustness checks corroborate these findings. Account of this finding should be taken in formulating and implementing social protection and inclusive growth policies.


An approach toward user behavior modeling that takes advantage of the properties of neural algorithms is described, and results obtained on preliminary testing of the approach are presented. The basis of the approach is the IDES (Intruder Detection Expert System) which has two components, an expert system looking for evidence of attacks on known vulnerabilities of the system and a statistical model of the behavior of a user on the computer system under surveillance. This model learns the habits a user has when he works with the computer, and raises warnings when the current behavior is not consistent with the previously learned patterns. The authors suggest the time series approach to add broader scope to the model. They therefore feel the need for alternative techniques and introduce the use of a neural network component for modeling user's behavior as a component for the intrusion detection system.<<ETX>>


A Study of Graphical Alternatives for User Authentication MOHD ZALISHAM JALI (Dip, BSc, MSc) Authenticating users by means of passwords is still the dominant form of authentication despite its recognised weaknesses. To solve this, authenticating users with images or pictures (i.e. graphical passwords) is proposed as one possible alternative as it is claimed that pictures are easy to remember, easy to use and has considerable security. Reviewing literature from the last twenty years found that few graphical password schemes have successfully been applied as the primary user authentication mechanism, with many studies reporting that their proposed scheme was better than their predecessors and they normally compared their scheme with the traditional password-based. In addition, opportunities for further research in areas such as image selection, image storage and retrieval, memorability (i.e. the user"s ability to remember passwords), predictability, applicability to multiple platforms, as well as users" familiarity are still widely possible. Motivated by the above findings and hoping to reduce the aforementioned issues, this thesis reports upon a series of graphical password studies by comparing existing methods, developing a novel alternative scheme, and introducing guidance for users before they start selecting their password. Specifically, two studies comparing graphical password methods were conducted with the specific aims to evaluate users" familiarity and perception towards graphical methods and to examine the performance of graphical methods in the web environment. To investigate the feasibility of combining two graphical methods, a novel graphical method known as EGAS (Enhanced Graphical Authentication System) was developed and tested in terms of its ease of use, ideal secret combination, ideal login strategies, effect of using smaller tolerances (i.e. areas where the click is still accepted) as well as users" familiarity. In addition, graphical password guidelines (GPG) were introduced and deployed within the EGAS prototype, in order to evaluate their potential to assist users in creating appropriate password choices. From these studies, the thesis provides an alternative classification for graphical password methods by looking at the users" tasks when authenticating into the system; namely click-based, choice-based, drawbased and hybrid. Findings from comparative studies revealed that although a number of participants stated that they were aware of the existence of graphical passwords, they actually had little understanding of the methods involved. Moreover, the methods of selecting a series of images (i.e. choice-based) and clicking on the image (i.e. click-based) are actually possible to be used for web-based authentication due to both of them reporting complementary results. With respect to EGAS, the studies have shown that combining two graphical methods is possible and does not introduce negative effects upon the resulting usability. User familiarity with the EGAS software prototype was also improved as they used the software for periods of time, with improvement shown in login time, accuracy and login failures. With the above findings, the research proposes that users" familiarity is one of the key elements in deploying any graphical method, and appropriate HCI guidelines should be considered and employed during development of the scheme. Additionally, employing the guidelines within the graphical method and not treating them as a separate entity in user authentication is also recommended. Other than that, elements such as reducing predictability, testing with multiple usage scenarios and platforms, as well as flexibility with respect to tolerance should be the focus for future research.


Lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) play a dual role as target and as effector molecules. The knowledge of the LPS-induced activation of human immune cells is increasing; however, surprisingly, much less effort seems to be directed towards the understanding of the mechanisms leading to the killing of the bacterial organisms, which eventually results in the release of LPS from the bacterial surface into the blood circulation. We demonstrate mechanisms of interaction of peptides of the innate immune system (e.g. defensins and cathelicidins) as well as of externally administered antibiotics (e.g. Polymyxin B) with Gram-negative bacteria. The main focus is directed on data derived from electrical measurements on a reconstitution system of the outer membrane as an asymmetric bilayer composed on one side of LPS and on the other of phospholipids. All these antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are membrane-active and induce the permeabilization of the reconstituted membranes by the formation of lesions. We found that differences in the activity of the AMPs against various sensitive and resistant Gram-negative bacteria can be explained solely by variations in the chemical structure of LPS, e.g. in the composition of the sugar head group. A reduction of the net negative charge of LPS is responsible for a reduced interaction with the polycationic AMPs and thus for resistance. A most important side effect of positively charged AMPs is the neutralization of the negatively charged LPS released from the bacterial surface as a consequence of AMP-induced killing.


Summary

These two papers add further dimensions to the discussions in IDS Bulletin 40.2 (March 2009) on 'Transforming Security and Development in an Unequal World' edited by Robin Luckham, Niagale Bagayoko, Lucia Dammert, Claudio Fuentes and Michael Solis. Like the contributions to the latter, they were first discussed at the founding Colloquium of the Global Consortium for Security Transformation held at Kandalama, Sri Lanka in September 2007.

Niagale Bagayoko's paper on 'State, Non-State and Multilateral Logics of Action in Post-Conflict Environments' considers the complexities of Northern policymaking and their impacts in post-conflict countries. It thus differs from but complements IDS Bulletin 40.2, which focuses mostly on security and development from a Southern perspective.

She argues that a number of different policy logics are at work in the security, development, humanitarian and media etc domains, which are sometimes coordinated – but often in tension with – each other. Her approach thus differs from that of certain critical voices in the NGO and academic worlds, which hold that there is a danger that Northern security priorities might 'securitise' the humanitarian and development agendas, particularly in post-conflict environments. While these dangers are real, nevertheless one should not stereotype all international actors as 'Northern' or as promoting Northern security (e.g. anti-terrorist) agendas. It is instead more fruitful to view such actors as diverse players with conflicting interests that operate according to different policy logics.

Lyndsay McLean Hilker's paper on 'Why Identity Politics Matters for Security and What Follows for Research and Policy' spells out a general framework for analysis of identity-based violent conflict, drawing upon empirical examples, including Rwanda, where she has focused her own research. It is unique in its focus on the implications of analysis and research on identity politics for development policy.

She contends that identity politics matter both to the persistence of insecurity and to the achievement of greater security. Evidence from multiple contexts demonstrates that identity provides an effective basis for group mobilisation into collective action – both violent and non-violent in nature. If we are to work to combat insecurity at the local as well as the global level, we need to look in more depth at the processes leading to violence in the name of identity in specific contexts, and explore the types of interventions that can prevent and respond to such violence. It is especially important to understand under what circumstances identity politics can be exercised in ways that are inclusive and empowering rather than exclusionary or violent.


This report presents a description of an internship in reading at Whitbourne Central High School. During the internship, the intern acted as a reading consultant in the school and worked primarily with the grade seven class and their English teacher who was principally responsible for the developmental reading program. The general aims of the internship were to improve the grade seven students' reading performance and to begin planning a more adequate reading program. -- Data were collected on the community, school, teaching staff, and grade seven students to help in the assessment of the problem. The data revealed that many of the students came from homes that do not place much value on reading. The teaching staff, although concerned about the reading problem, did not have any training or experience in the teaching of reading. The Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test,Form W,Level II was given to the grade seven class and the results indicated that most of the students were reading below their grade placement and that they were generally very weak in all the reading skills. An informal interest inventory given to the class showed that most of the students had very limited experiential backgrounds. -- A definition of reading and a description of an ideal reading program were developed to provide a standard against which to measure the conclusions derived from the assessment of collected data and to provide a rationale for implementing change. Using the models for reading and a reading program and the collected data, seven specific objectives were set for the internship under the headings: "Formation of Groups," "Provision of Appropriate Reading Materials," "Provision for Recreational Reading," "Implementation of a Skills Development Program," "Improving Functional Reading," "Language Arts Development," and "Planning for Future Program Development." -- Implementation of the specific objectives required the division of the grade seven class into two groups for literature periods, and the introduction of an alternate literature book designed for students having difficulty with reading. Recreational reading was encouraged, and materials geared to the reading ability and interest of the students were placed in the classroom library. Provision was made to give the students remedial instruction in basic reading skills with a specific emphasis on comprehension and vocabulary skills. All the teachers were provided with some inservice training in the teaching of reading and were encouraged to incorporate reading instruction into their content teaching. The intern assisted the staff in the initial planning for future reading program development. -- An assessment of the immediate impact of the internship indicated that the grade seven students had benefitted from the changes that had been introduced. The teachers stated that the internship had served to make them more aware of the problem, and to lay a basis for program development. They felt, however, that the real benefit to the school would occur in the next year.


Despite the availability of huge amounts of data and a variety of powerful data analysis methods, prognostic models are still often failing to provide accurate and precise time to failure estimations. This paper addresses this problem by integrating several machine learning algorithms. The approach proposed relies on a classification system to determine the likelihood of component failures and to provide rough indications of remaining life. It then introduces clustering and SVM-based local regression to refine the time to failure estimations provided by the classification system. The paper illustrates the applicability of the proposed approach through a real world aerospace application and discusses data pre-processing requirements. The preliminary results show that the proposed method can reduce uncertainty in time to failure estimates, which in turn helps augment the usefulness of prognostics.


ABSTRACT This article concerns the return of the literary biography in the humanistic fields, especially in Danish literary research, since 1980. During the New Criticism in the 1960s biography was regarded as a superfluous genre, and during the neoMarxism of the 1970s as a naive genre. But around 1980 it returned in the form of a number of new scholarly works especially in the fields of literature and history. This article points to two elements in the postmodern Zeitgeist which might have played a role in promoting the return of biography: first, the collapse of the grand systems of interpretation, and second a change in the ideal of scholarship in the direction of constructivism. Then the article investigates how 'the new biography' is distinguished from the old and outlines three points in particular: 1) a greater understanding of the significance of social structures; 2) an increased focus on contingency, incoherence and indeterminacy in a human life; and 3) a rising interest in the 'ordinary' human being. On a fourth point, postmodern biography has not come as far as one might expect. Although it could be more experimental and theoretically self-conscious, in fact it employs surprisingly traditional patterns of narrative, most of which are stamped by the Bildungsroman of the 19th century.


Kent P. Jackson, Studies in Scripture, Volume Seven: 1 Nephi to Alma 29; Volume Eight: Alma 30 to Moroni. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987, 1988. viii+ 373 pp.; viii+ 335 pp., with subject and scripture indexes. $15.95 each. Reviewed by Stephen D. Ricks These volumes on the Book of Mormon complete-with the exception of a forthcoming volume on 1 Kings to Malachi in the Old Testament-the eight-volume Studies in Scripture series, begun in 1984 by Kent P. Jackson and Robert L. Millet, as essays systematically treating the various books of Latter-day Saint scripture. The volumes include contributions by twentysix different authors, most of them from Brigham Young University or the Church Educational System: Mae Blanch, Spencer J. Condie, Larry E. Dahl, Kay P. Edwards, S. Brent Farley, Camille Fronk, LaMar Garrard, H. Dean Garrett, Kent P. Jackson, Clark V. Johnson, Victor L. Ludlow, Thomas W. Mackay, Darrell L. Matthews, Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet, Monte S. Nyman, D. Kelly Ogden, Robert E. Parsons, Daniel C. Peterson, Rex C. Reeve, Jr., Andrew C. Skinner, Terrence L. Szink, Morgan W. Tanner, Catherine Thomas, Rodney Turner, and Gary Lee Walker, besides a recent conference address by President Benson and excerpts on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon by Oliver Cowdery taken from The Messenger and Advocate. Each of the chapters of the Book of Mormon is considered in order in these volumes. The contents of each of the chapters correspond to section divisions used for the Book of Mormon course at Brigham Young University. The editor's preface at the beginning of the first of these two Book of Mormon volumes sets out the intention of the essays in the volumes: "The reader will readily see that the emphasis in this volume is on the teachings of the Book of Mormon. The authors have stressed the messages contained in the sermons and writings of its prophets. At the same time, they have discussed Book of Mormon history to clarify the narrative and emphasize the lessons that are taught through the historical events it records. Since the primary purpose of the Book of Mormon itself is to teach and bear testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our purpose in this volume has been to do likewise. Thus, we have considered external evidences of the 90 REVIEW OF BOOKS ON THE BOOK OF MORMON Book of Mormon, as well as contextual and comparative studies, to be of le~ser value for this work" (p. viii). In sacred history, as elsewhere-even in scripture where doctrine is the central focus---context must properly be given its due. While many of the details of history as well as of the realia mentioned in sacred writ are primarily of antiquarian interest, others are important in understanding the teachings. Awareness of, and attention to, the chiastic structure in Alma 36 helps the reader to see unmistakably the didactic and doctrinal core of the chapter at verse 18: "Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: 0 Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death." Recognizing Mosiah 1-6 as a covenant renewal festival, where the king gives an accounting of his rule (cf. Deut. 17), such as those found in the the Old Testament in Exodus 19 and 20-24, the entire book of Deuteronomy, and Joshua 24, with an explicitly Christian element added, enables the reader to see the logic of the order of service and the specific choice of topics more clearly. Seeing the rending of garments by Moroni and the people in Alma 46 as a simile having a rich Near Eastern treaty and covenantal background provides insight into a dimension of ritual richness that might otherwise be missed. Even knowing something of Lehi' s desert experience lends meaning to Nephi' s terse comment, "My father dwelt in a tent" (1 Nephi 2: 15) as well as to the imagery of his vision in 1 Nephi 8. Needless to say, such background details also add an important element of human interest to a study of the Book of Mormon. As noted above, the emphasis in this volume is expressly laid on the teachings of the Book of Mormon. Yet Jackson and Millet, in their New Testament Studies in Scripture volume, place doctrine and history on an equal footing. But is the "primary purpose" of the Gospels in the New Testament (the focus of Jackson and Millet's Studies in Scripture volume) any less "to teach and bear testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ" than the Book of Mormon? I think not. But Jackson does not explain for us his differing approaches to these two volumes of scriptures, although elsewhere he does note that "the Book of Mormon ... teaches its messages primarily though history."1 1 Kent Jackson, "God's Testament to Ancient Israel," in Kent P. Jackson and Robert L. Millet, eds., Studies in Scripture, Volume Three: The Old Testament (Salt Lake City: Randall Book, 1985), 8; cf. Jackson, JACKSON, STUDIES IN SCRIPTURE (RICKS) 91 Fortunately, most of the essays in this volume do allow a role for history 41 the ·chapters under discussion, although it is often less than I might have wished and less than the available evidence would have permitted and could have been used to elucidate even doctrinal points. Consciously or unconsciously, these two volumes tend more toward being theologies than the other volumes in the Studies in Scripture series. Within the parameters of their intentions, however, these two volumes are quite successful. Some of the essays have been splendidly done, and are fairly loaded with new, and sometimes challenging, insights-the essays of Rodney Turner and Robert L. Millet immediately come to mind, as do also the fine studies of D. Kelly Ogden on 1 Nephi 1-7 and Terrence L. Szink on 1 Nephi 16-18, which sparkle with fresh geographical, historical, and theological perspectives; others are workmanlike; others tend toward being pedestrian recapitulations of the contents of the chapters under discussion, which is unfortunate, since the primary justification for a commentary or other studies on scripture is to provide the reader new insights. Still, this is perhaps the best companion to the teachings of the Book of Mormon that is currently available, and could be used with profit as a teaching aid in the classrooms of the Church. "The Sacred Literature of the Latter-day Saints," in Ernest S. Frerichs, The Bible and Bibles in America (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1986), 170.


The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a national information system currently consisting of sixteen clearinghouses under the sponsorship of the National Institute of Education (NIE). Each clearinghouse is responsible for obtaining the educational literature within its area for evaluation, indexing, and abstracting into the ERIC data bank, and also for providing information analysis materials and various user services based on the information contained in ERIC. Transcripts of speeches, topical papers, program descriptions, inservice and preservice workshop materials, curriculum guides, research reports, conference proceedings, and educational journal articles are among the documents indexed in the ERIC system. As one of the sixteen clearinghouses, the Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills (ERIC/RCS) is responsible for resources, information, and materials in reading as well as in the other communication skill areas ∼ English, journalism, speech, and the theater. The data collected in reading by ERIC/RCS are available in at least 600 ERIC microfiche collections for use by reading coordinators, reading consultants, teachers who stress content reading, and other educators.


&NA; A series of five unusual surgical patients is reported in which "predilection" to death was a prominent part of the clinical picture. The common characteristic of these predilection patients is that each anticipated his death at the time of admission. With the exception of a mentally ill woman, they were neither anxious nor significantly depressed. All expressed the conviction that death would occur within a short time, except for a young girl who serenely anticipated death without openly referring to it. The conviction of death was invariably accompanied by an expectation of being killed by another. Predilection patients may be readily distinguished from preoperative patients with high anticipatory anxiety, depressed patients, suicidal patients, and those rare patients who correctly prognosticate their own deaths and demonstrate no significant lesions at autopsy. Two men died unexpectedly in the course of convalescence. Three women patients were not only expecting to die but were expected to die because of malignant disease. However, in one woman, the disease had apparently been arrested for 28 yr. Relapse and metastatic lesions did not occur in another patient until after a young man with the same disease had succumbed. A third woman, suffering both from severe mental illness and incurable cancer, became alarmed shortly before death when a palliative procedure threatened to prolong her unhappy life. Death held more appeal for these patients than did life because it promised either reunion with lost love, resolution of long conflict, or respite from anguish. Each patient was emotionally isolated during the final admission. Their "loneliness" was of several different kinds; one man was a semi‐vagrant who had never known emotional intimacy; another man had exiled himself from his family; one woman had suffered successive deaths of her husband and members of her family; another woman had repudiated all but the most formal relationships throughout her life; a young girl had not only lost a close friend by death but was deserted by her physicians and family, who were so concerned that they could not come to terms with her certain death. Study of the predilection patients has led to an evaluation of the care of the dying patient in general, particularly from the viewpoint of the paradoxical attitudes towards death that are conventionally assumed. The application of psychodynamic principles to the concept of death and the process of dying is based on the hypothesis of the appropriate death. An appropriate death is one that recognizes the inevitability of personal death as a fulfillment of life. It satisfies four conditions: conflict reduction, compatibility with ego ideals; continuity of personal relations with the living and the already dead; and consummation of phantasies. In short, the circumstances of an appropriate death are the opposite of those in which a patient would commit suicide. The conditions of an appropriate death have been derived from the distinction between impersonal, interpersonal, and intrapersonal death. The fear of dying is not the same as the fear of death. The dying process has psychological counterparts in primary anxiety, the sense of imminent disintegration; the fear of death. it has been shown, is a death phobia, indirectly related to "rational" fears. Appropriate death is an aspect of euthanasia‐‐death without suffering‐‐for patients whose death is imminent. However, the conventional concept of euthanasia as the hastening of the death of incurably ill patients is the antithesis of the appropriate attitude towards death which psychiatric intervention advocates. In conventional euthanasia, the patient's personality is ignored; in the proposal of therapeutic dissociation of the patient from the disease, the personality in its unique dignity is enhanced. Various practical recommendations for implementing the appropriate death are presented, but no intervention is possible without frankly facing the imminence of death with the patient. Evidence has been presented to indicate that this is usually more difficult for the doctor than for the patient. Tacitly to impose silence, denial, deception, and isolation upon the dying patient may itself cause suffering and bring about bereavement of the dying, a state of premortem loneliness, emotional abandonment, and withdrawn interest that the survivors impose upon the dying. Examples are cited in which altered interpersonal relationships provide the prodromal intimations of approaching death. Instead of viewing death as a failure beyond his competence, the physician can extend his care and help his dying patient to achieve an appropriate emotional world in which to die.


The task of structural health monitoring (SHM) of aging highway bridges and overpasses is important not only from the point of preventing economic losses from traffic delays and detours but also is a matter of preventing catastrophic failures and loss of human life. In recent years, wireless sensor technologies have been used extensively to develop SHM platforms for bridges. A limitation of wireless sensors is the finite life span of batteries and high cost of battery replacements, which make such systems prohibitively expensive in many cases. Energy harvesting is a solution capable to alleviate this problem. A novel wireless sensor system is presented that harvests vibrations of the bridge created by passing traffic, which is converted into usable electrical energy by means of a linear electromagnetic generator. Utilization of an electromagnetic generator allows harvesting of up to 12.5 mW of power in the resonant mode with the frequency of excitation at 3.1 Hz, in this particular design. The novelty of the system also includes tight integration of the power generator and a smart algorithm for energy conversion that switches between the low-power mode and the impedance matching mode. Finally, results of field experiments are presented in which the wireless system is operated exclusively by the harvested energy of vibration on a rural highway bridge with low traffic volume.


Antigen-specific T cell activation depends on T cell receptor-ligand interaction and costimulatory signals generated when accessory molecules bind to their ligands, such as CD28 to the B7 (also called BB1) molecule. A soluble fusion protein of human CTLA-4 (a protein homologous to CD28) and the immunoglobulin (lg) G1 Fc region (CTLA4lg) binds to human and murine B7 with high avidity and blocks T cell activation in vitro. CTLA4lg therapy blocked human pancreatic islet rejection in mice by directly affecting T cell recognition of B7+ antigen-presenting cells. In addition, CTLA4lg induced long-term, donor-specific tolerance, which may have applications to human organ transplantation.


We present new Mo isotope data from the Mexican continen- tal margin that, in conjunction with previous data, allow us to propose a mechanistic description of the Mo isotope system in ma- rine sediments. We hypothesize that there are unique environmen- tally dependent Mo isotope signatures recorded in marine sedi- ments that reflect the mechanisms responsible for authigenic Mo accumulation. Open-ocean anoxic sites, defined as having dissolved oxygen and sulfide concentrations near zero in the overlying water, exhibit a 98/95 Mo isotope signature of 1.6‰. We believe this val- ue reflects Mo sulfide formation via diagenetic processes within sediments. Quantitative formation of Mo sulfide within the sulfidic water column of euxinic environments results in sediment isotope values similar to the modern seawater value (2.3‰), as typified by samples from the highly sulfidic Black Sea. In contrast to these reducing settings, manganese oxide-rich sediments have measured Mo isotope values that are more negative (relative to seawater) than any other sediment samples analyzed to date, similar to Fe- Mn crusts (0.7‰). Most measured Mo isotope compositions of marine sediments from open-ocean settings appear to reflect a mix- ture of lithogenic Mo (0.0‰) and the Mo signature of a specific authigenic Mo accumulation mechanism. We therefore suggest that Mo isotopes may record unique signatures that reflect the domi- nant chemical mechanism for Mo sequestration into sediments.


In the measurement of automobile body-in-white, it has been widely studied to position the two-dimensional (2D) visual sensors with high precision. In this paper a graphic positioning method is proposed, a hollow tetrahedron is used for a positioning target to replace all the edges of a standard automobile body. A 2D visual sensor can be positioned through adjusting two triangles to be superposed on a screen of the computer, so it is very important to evaluate the superposition precision of the two triangles. Several methods are discussed and the least square method is adopted at last, it makes the adjustment more easy and intuitive with high precision.


We develop a bioeconomic model to analyze a sole-owner fishery with fixed costs as well as a continuous cost function for the generalized Cobb-Douglas production function with increasing marginal returns to effort level. On the basis of data from the North Sea herring fishery, we analyze the consequences of the combined effects of increasing marginal returns and fixed costs. We find that regardless of the magnitude of the fixed costs, cyclical policies can be optimal instead of the optimal steady state equilibrium advocated in much of the existing literature. We also show that the risk of stock collapse increases significantly with increasing fixed costs as this implies higher period cycles which is a quite counterintuitive result as higher costs usually are considered to have a conservative effect on resources.


A relatively unknown phenomenon in active magnetic bearings (AMBs) is that the frequency content of their rotor position signal can induce nonlinear behaviour in the bearings. The existence of such frequency-induced nonlinear behaviour is experimentally and theoretically confirmed. Frequency-induced nonlinearity is characterised by means of a novel graphical representation. The resultant graph is quite useful in the specification of suitable excitation signals when AMBs are to be modelled by means of system identification.


When people hear "bath salts," they probably picture fizzy bubbles floating to the surface of bathwater. However, some people may also be aware that the term is also used as slang for a range of synthetically designed drugs that have no place in your bubble bath. These synthetic cathinones (more on this in a bit) are a man-made, illegal, powdery substance, chemically similar to the illicit stimulants methamphetamine (also known as meth, ice, crystal, chalk, shabu, tik, yaba, pure, base, crank, tweak, and go-fast) and MDMA [2]. In fact, they were initially marketed as legal alternatives to drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and ecstasy. Salty, are you still searching for answers? Read on!


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
We aimed to encourage nurses to release information about drug administration errors to increase understanding of error-related circumstances and to identify high-alert situations.

BACKGROUND
Drug administration errors represent the majority of medication errors, but errors are underreported. Effective ways are lacking to encourage nurses to actively report errors.

METHODS
Snowball sampling was conducted to recruit participants. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to record types of error, hospital and nurse backgrounds, patient consequences, error discovery mechanisms and reporting rates.

RESULTS
Eighty-five nurses participated, reporting 328 administration errors (259 actual, 69 near misses). Most errors occurred in medical surgical wards of teaching hospitals, during day shifts, committed by nurses working fewer than two years. Leading errors were wrong drugs and doses, each accounting for about one-third of total errors. Among 259 actual errors, 83.8% resulted in no adverse effects; among remaining 16.2%, 6.6% had mild consequences and 9.6% had serious consequences (severe reaction, coma, death). Actual errors and near misses were discovered mainly through double-check procedures by colleagues and nurses responsible for errors; reporting rates were 62.5% (162/259) vs. 50.7% (35/69) and only 3.5% (9/259) vs. 0% (0/69) were disclosed to patients and families. High-alert situations included administration of 15% KCl, insulin and Pitocin; using intravenous pumps; and implementation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

CONCLUSIONS
Snowball sampling proved to be an effective way to encourage nurses to release details concerning medication errors. Using empirical data, we identified high-alert situations. Strategies for reducing drug administration errors by nurses are suggested.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Survey results suggest that nurses should double check medication administration in known high-alert situations. Nursing management can use snowball sampling to gather error details from nurses in a non-reprimanding atmosphere, helping to establish standard operational procedures for known high-alert situations.


Public authorities are rarely associated with creativity and playfulness. Rather, it can be threatening civic legitimacy. With the introduction of social media, a new channel opens possibilities for officers to meet the public and interact in more personal and creative ways than previously. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, have become important in people's everyday lives as well as for organizational use. These technologies encourage self-expression, and allow users to create and share content, to comment and show appreciation or dislike of content. It also makes social networks visible. For public authorities, social media is a double-edged sword. It is a promising technology for dialogue with the citizens, but it may also facilitate the mobilization and coordination of criticism from the public. This is due to the dynamics and disruption afforded by the social media platforms. With the Swedish police officers' Facebook interaction as empirical setting, the aim of this paper is to discuss how the increased use of social media affects the police's legitimacy work. The study contributes with a deeper understanding of the interplay between social media and competing value logics in the context of public authorities, as it highlights the institutional tensions between official authority and playfulness. The empirical example of the police is used to show how social media creates new possibilities for creativity and playfulness.


Forecasting the motion and evolution of tropical cyclones is a challenging, computationally expensive task. Complex, interacting physical processes on a wide range of scales need to be considered. Adaptive techniques, such as local mesh refinement, are a promising way to improve the efficiency of numerical models for such multi-scale problems. We investigate the interaction of two tropical cyclones in a barotropic model assuming exact initial conditions and discuss how the impact of discretization errors on the prediction of storm tracks can be minimized using adjoint-based goal-oriented adaptivity. We propose suitable functionals for the prediction of storm tracks, interpret the associated sensitivity from a meteorological point of view and discuss its relation to sensitivity measures commonly used in meteorological applications. We present numerical results of adaptive simulations on optimized meshes and adaptive time stepping controlled by a posteriori error estimators that exploit the sensitivity information. Using goal-oriented adaptivity, the storm tracks can be determined about one order of magnitude more precisely, compared to uniform discretizations with the same number of unknowns. The highest improvement in accuracy (up to two orders of magnitude) can be observed for meshes with comparatively low number of cells.


This study was conducted to provide pharmacological basis for the medicinal use of Salvia officinalis in diarrhea. The crude extract of S. officinalis was studied using the in vivo and in vitro assays.  The crude extract inhibited castor oil-induced diarrhea in mice at the dose of 100 and 300 mg/kg. In isolated rabbit jejunum, it caused a dose-dependent (0.1-3 mg/mL) relaxation of spontaneous as well as low K + (25 mM) and high K + (80 mM)-induced contractions, being distinctly more potent on low K + . Pretreatment of tissue with 4-aminopyridine (1 mM) almost completely blocked the inhibitory effect of crude extract on low K + .  These results indicate that the crude extract of S. officinalis possesses antidiarrheal and antispasmodic activities mediated possibly through the dominant activation of voltage-dependent K + channels and this study provides sound pharmacological basis for its medicinal use in diarrhea and gut spasm.


We consider a game of information transmission, with one informed decision maker gathering information from one or more informed senders. Private information is (conditionally) correlated across players, and communication is cheap talk. For the one sender case, we show that correlation unambiguously tightens the existence conditions for a truth-telling equilibrium. We then generalize the model to an arbitrary number of senders, and we find that, in this case, the effect of correlation on the incentives to report information truthfully is non monotone, and correlation may discipline senders' equilibrium behavior, making it easier to sustain truth-telling. JEL Code : C72, D82, D83


This article considers the central role of the alphabetic sequence in the conceptual writing movement, which has emerged as the dominant avant-garde in poetry in the past decade. By looking at alphabetic conceptual works through a formal lens, it argues that conceptual writing has more in common with its textual forbears than its practitioners would often like to admit. Instead of seeking precursors to conceptual writing in conceptual visual art, it considers conceptual written works alongside other alphabetic texts, such as abecedarian poetry and reference texts, to provide a new context for approaching conceptual writing formally. By focusing in particular on Kenneth Goldsmith's No. 111 2.7.93–10.20.96, the article argues that close reading conceptual work is not just possible, but essential, and that studying form allows us not just to see conceptual procedure in action, but also the ways in which rules-based texts formally exceed their constraints and thus destabilize their conceptual frameworks. The article ultimately suggests that the alphabetic structure is the epitomic form of a movement that would like to deny form's centrality to its goals, and that alphabetization—a seemingly rote and rigid procedure—unexpectedly reveals the formal possibilities of conceptual writing.


Securing the Outdoor Construction Site: Strategy, Prevention, and Mitigation offers a holistic view of security planning for vulnerable capital projects, providing the strategic and tactical plans needed to protect large areas with a minimum investment in personnel and equipment.

This book is a one-stop reference that provides effective security strategies, methods, and tactics to mitigate the theft of equipment and how to avoid these incidents altogether.

In addition, the book outlines the true costs of construction site theft to organizations in terms of lost time, equipment, and brand reputation, along with increased insurance premiums and danger to personnel.

It lists the types of theft that regularly occur at sites, explores their underlying causes, and documents their worldwide financial significance. Finally, readers will learn how to conduct a construction site survey with loss prevention in mind, and how to budget for the unexpected.

Provides complete guidelines for implementing a loss prevention program for any large outdoor construction project
Offers proven strategies for minimizing capital loss and costly delays using a minimum number of personnel and security technologies
Demonstrates how to develop proactive partnerships with law enforcement to stop theft before it occurs
Includes the latest data on outdoor construction theft and its impact
Draws on case studies and examples from around the world

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Impact of Construction Site Theft
Chapter 2 - What is Being Stolen?
Chapter 3- Rolling the Dice
Chapter 4 - Naming the Losses
Chapter 5 - Assessing the Risks and Potential Losses
Chapter 6 - Recovering After the Loss
Chapter 7 - Loss Mitigation Strategies and Tactics
Chapter 8 - Gadgets
Chapter 9 - Establishing Standards
Chapter 10 - Construction Equipment 101
Chapter 11 - Organizations
Chapter 12 - Checklists
Chapter 13 - The National Equipment Register and National Plant and Equipment Register


Article history: Received October 28, 2015 Received in revised format November 28, 2015 Accepted January 17, 2016 Available online January 20, 2016 With the progress in technology and innovation in product development, the contribution of computeraided design (CAD) software in the design and manufacture of parts/products is growing on significantly. Selection of an appropriate CAD software is not a trifling task as it involves analyzing the appositeness of the available software packages to the unique requirements of the organization. Existence of a large number of CAD software vendors, presence of discordance among different hardware and software systems, and dearth of technical knowledge and experience of the decision makers further complicate the selection procedure. Moreover, there are very few published research papers related to CAD software selection, and majority of them have either employed criteria weights computed utilizing subjective judgements of the end users or floundered to incorporate the voice of customers in the decision making process. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a well-known technique for determining the relative importance of customers' defined criteria for selection of any product or service. Therefore, this paper deals with design and development of a QFD-based decision making model in Visual BASIC 6.0 for selection of CAD software for manufacturing organizations. In order to demonstrate the applicability and potentiality of the developed model in the form of a software prototype, two illustrative examples are also provided.


Introduction Data encryption and decryption operations are basic building blocks for most security applications. For this purpose, most systems use block ciphers, such as the public AES standard. It is well known, however, that implementations of block ciphers such as AES, as well as other cryptographic algorithms, are subject to side-channel attacks [1]. These attacks allow adversaries to extract secret keys from devices by passively monitoring power consumption, EM emissions, or other "side channels". Differential power analysis (DPA) is a common side channel attack that leverages power measurements.


BACKGROUND
IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerular disease with approximately 30% to 40% of patients progressing to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) within 20 years. The most common regimens include immunosuppressive agents, however the risks of long-term treatment often outweigh the potential benefits. Non-immunosuppressive options, including fish oils, anticoagulants, antihypertensive agents and tonsillectomy have also been examined but not reviewed systematically.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the benefits and harms of non-immunosuppressive treatments for treating IgAN in adults and children.

SEARCH STRATEGY
In July 2010 we searched the Cochrane Renal Group's specialised register, CENTRAL (in The Cochrane Library), MEDLINE (from 1966) and EMBASE (from 1980). We also searched reference lists of included studies, review articles and contacted local and international experts.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of non-immunosuppressive agents in adults and children with biopsy-proven IgAN were included.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently reviewed search results, extracted data and assessed study quality. Results were expressed as mean differences (MD) for continuous outcomes and risk ratios (RR) for dichotomous outcomes with 95% confidence intervals (CI) using a random-effects model.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 56 studies (2838 participants). Antihypertensive agents were the most beneficial non-immunosuppressive intervention for IgAN. The antihypertensives examined were predominantly angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi), angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) or combinations of both, versus other antihypertensives and other agents. The benefits of antihypertensive agents, particularly inhibitors of the renin angiotensin system, appear to potentially outweigh the harms in patients with IgAN. The benefits are largely manifest as a reduction in proteinuria, a surrogate outcome. There is no evidence that treatment with any of the antihypertensive agents evaluated affect major renal and/or cardiovascular endpoints or long-term mortality risk beyond the benefit that arises from controlling hypertension in patients with IgAN. The RCT evidence is insufficiently robust to demonstrate efficacy for any of the other non-immunosuppressive therapies evaluated here.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
IgAN remains a disease in search of adequately powered RCTs to reliably inform clinical practice. More and better evidence is needed to understand the magnitude of benefit and the possible risks of anti-hypertensive or more specifically of ACEi/ARB therapy alone or in combination and which specific types of patients with the IgAN might have the greatest potential for benefit. For other non-immunosuppressive therapies, where neither benefit nor significant harm has yet to be demonstrated, there remains some justification for further exploration of the potential benefits.


Private services account for over a half of GDP in developed industrialised countries. We analyse how productivity in private services is measured, the challenges and problems that the measuring faces, and the direction that research is currently taking. After this we analyse the level of and growth in private services in developed industrialised countries in 1980-2003. For Finland, also the development in total factor productivity is analysed. The sectors included in the study are trade, hotels and catering, transportation, communication, finance, and business services. At the level of the economy as a whole, labour productivity in Finland is at the same level as in the reference countries on average, but productivity growth has been one of the fastest during the past twenty years. In private services, the results concerning the level of productivity in different countries depend on the method and statistical source used in the calculation. In an international comparison, the Finnish communication and finance sectors do the best. In many service sectors, productivity growth in Finland has been very good compared with the other countries


Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is a common gynecological disorder. Hitherto, animal models which recapitulate clinical features of PD have not been fully established. We aimed to examine whether a pain model in mice could mimic the clinic features of PD. After pretreated with estradiol benzoate (1 mg/kg/day) intraperitoneally (i.p.) for 3 consecutive days, non-pregnant female Imprinting Control Region mice (6–8 weeks old) was injected with 0.4 U of oxytocin to induce the stretching or writhing response which was recorded for a time period of 30 min. During the writhing period, the uterine artery blood flow alterations were examined by Doppler ultrasound detection. After writhing test, the uterine morphological changes were observed by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining histopathology. In addition, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit was used to measure the levels of prostaglandins F2α/prostaglandins E2 (PGF2α/PGE2) and TXB2 (a metabolite of TXA2)/6-keto-PGF1α (a metabolite of PGI2) in the uterine tissue homogenates and plasma, respectively. Western blot analyses were performed to determine the expressions of oxytocin receptor (OTR), beta2-adrenergic receptor (beta2-AR), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in uterine, which are responsible for the uterine contraction. The writhing response only occurred in the estrogen pretreated female mice. The area of uterine myometrium significantly decreased along with the increased thickness in the oxytocin-induced estrogen pretreated mice model. The uterine artery blood flow velocity dropped, while the pulsatility index and resistance index slightly increased after the injection of oxytocin. The PGF2α/PGE2 level significantly increased and the plasma TXB2/6-keto-PGF1α level significantly enhanced. Compared with the control group, the uterine histopathology demonstrated moderate to severe edema of endometrium lamina propria. In consistent with the uterine morphological changes, a significant reduction of beta2-AR and a significant increase of OTR and COX-2 in the uterine tissue were observed. The writhing response was caused by the abnormal contraction of uterus. The uterine spasm and ischemia changes of oxytocin-induced estrogen pretreated female mice model were similar to the pathology of human PD. We reported an in vivo mice model, which can be used to study PD and for clinical therapeutic evaluations.


This document describes the functional requirements for a routing
protocol to be used between autonomous systems. This document is
intended as a necessary precursor to the design of a new inter-
autonomous system routing protocol and specifies requirements for the
Internet applicable for use with the current DoD IP, the ISO IP, and
future Internet Protocols. It is intended that these requirements will
form the basis for the future development of a new inter-autonomous
systems routing architecture and protocol. This memo does not specify
a standard.


In this note it is shown that every von Neumann algebra has a semi modular projection lattice. The notions of a dual modular pair of projections and nonasymptoticity, which were shown by Mackey to coincide in a type ITM factor, are compared globally. A von Neumann algebra containing no asymptotic pairs of projections is characterized as the direct-sum of an abelian algebra and a finitedimensional algebra.


The development of aluminium alloys capable of elevated temperature service by utilization of Rapid Solidification (RS) processing techniques has been an area of intense study during the past decade. The ternary alloy system, Al-Cr-Fe, has displayed very promising mechanical properties when produced by an evaporation-vapour deposition technique, but little indication exists of whether similar properties may be achievable by using other, more commercially applicable, RS techniques. This work comprises a study of the microstructure and tensile properties of a range of Al-Cr-Fe alloys (Al-2.93 to 8.43 wt% Cr-0.67 to 2.07 wt% Fe) processed by high pressure gas atomisation (HPGA), supplemented by additional experiments using melt-spinning and chill-casting techniques in order to allow the effects of a wide range of cooling rates (<1k/s to 106K/s) to be examined. A series of binary Al-Cr alloys (Al-1.99 to 5.50 wt% Cr) were also processed in order to facilitate comparison with the ternary alloys. The variety of microstructures observed in the atomised powders were consistent with the different cooling rates and nucleation temperatures experienced by droplets of different diameters. The cooling rate necessary to suppress formation of the Ali3Cr2 phase was found to be consistently higher in the ternary alloys than in the corresponding binaries. No evidence was found of partitionless solidification having occurred in the Al-Cr-Fe powders, the estimated solidification front velocities being insufficient to prevent the partitioning of the iron to the infinity-aluminimum cell boundaries. The infinity-aluminium phase was found to be divided into two co-existing, but distinct, solid solutions with different chromium solute levels. A fine spherical phase was observed in the finest particles of the most concentrated alloy (Al-8.43 wt% Cr-1.26 wt % Fe), which was found to be similar to the icosahedral phase identified in the melt-spun ribbon. A relationship has been determined between the thickness of wedge shaped chill castings and powder particle diameters for similar microstructural transitions. A procedure is proposed by which the determination of alloy compositions designed to give a particular microstructure in a specific powder size fraction can be accomplished by a simple chill casting technique. The mechanical properties of the atomised powders consolidated by extrusion have been determined and related to the microstructures and strengthening mechanisms operative in the materials. A large contribution to the strength of the extruded materials is derived from their fine grain size. However, none of the atomised Al-Cr-Fe alloys matched the properties obtained in the Al-7.5 wt% Cr-1.2 wt% Fe alloy material produced by the vapour deposition technique. None of the alloys investigated retained its strength after prolonged thermal exposure at or above 350°C, nor possessed adequate tensile strength properties at 350°C. The results do suggest, however, that a service temperature of 300°C may be possible.


Summary Taking as read the need for strong and effective partnerships between health service providers and consumers, the article addresses an example of successful partnership from Zambia. It identifies a community‐based organisation (CBO), namely the (Health) Neighbourhood Committee (NC), as the ideal institution through which this partnership should be forged in this context. It is here strongly suggested that the NC, which is already carrying out some important 'partnership' functions in most districts of the country, be developed further to enable it to articulate community concerns on health and other related social issues to the other, often more powerful and better organised, stakeholders. In collaboration with these stakeholders, the NC can ensure equitable access to quality health services and create a sense of ownership over health facilities. The article draws on lessons learnt from other CBOs working in other sectors. This is done in order not to try to re‐invent the wheel of community partnerships all over again, but to learn what can and has worked and what does not work.


The benefits of pre-concentration using sensor-based sorting have been widely reported with the greatest potential impacts on low grade and high tonnage operations such those mining copper porphyry deposits. Due to the non-selective nature of bulk surface mining methods, significant quantities of waste misreport to the concentrator reducing the feed grade, consuming energy during comminution and increasing water usage. In addition, significant metal misreports to the waste dump that represents a production loss and contributes to the metal content and therefore liability of the waste dump. The two main barriers to broader application of sorting are limitations in processing rates and the inability of sensors to accurately discriminate ore from waste. The present study is focussed on the latter and demonstrates the development of a more intelligent and more accurate sensing system. The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology was examined to explore its potential to pre-concentrate a low-grade copper ore through discarding barren particles. Simple linear correlation between the copper grades estimated using XRF and the copper grades obtained through chemical analysis did not meet the sorting requirement. Improved linear correlation and multiple linear correlation analysis were introduced in the study and better sorting results were obtained due to stronger correlations.


We examined inter-habitat variation in benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the 180-km Garrison Reach of the Upper Missouri River, North Dakota (USA) in 2001–2003. The Garrison Reach is unchannelized with a mostly rural setting. Flows are regulated by Garrison Dam.We sampled benthos from three habitats defined a priori: channel, shoreline, and backwater. Benthic assemblages were different in each habitat. Average Bray-Curtis dissimilarity in assemblage composition ranged from 89% for backwater versus channel habitat to 70% for backwater versus shoreline habitat. There were distinct intra-habitat groups within a priori habitats: channel assemblages included moving-sand assemblages and other-substrate channel assemblages; backwater assemblages included connected (to the river channel) and unconnected backwater assemblages; shorelines assemblages varied between natural (unprotected) and riprap (rock revetment) shorelines. Abundance and taxa richness were lowest and spatial variability highest for moving-sand channel assemblages. Abundance was highest in backwaters. Taxa richness in backwaters and along channel shorelines were similar. Assemblages in all three habitats were dominated by Nematoda, Oligochaeta and Chironomidae. Taxa in these groups comprised at least 80% of mean abundance in all three habitats. Taxa that discriminated among habitats included the psammophilic chironomid Chernovskiia for moving-sand channel substrates versus all other habitats; Hydroptila (Trichoptera) for riprap vs natural shorelines, Aulodrilus (Oligochaeta) for connected versus unconnected backwaters; and Nematoda for backwater versus channel and shoreline versus channel. Based on overlap patterns in benthic assemblages among habitats, we concluded that sampling main channel shorelines should also capture much of the natural and stressor-induced variation in connected backwater and channel habitat exclusive of moving-sand channel habitat. Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words: Great Rivers; Missouri River; benthos; benthic macroinvertebrates; EMAP; backwater; bioassessment


The importance of real-time character animation in computer games has increased considerably over
the past decade. Due to advances in computer hardware and the achievement of great increases in
computational speed, the demand for more realism in computer games is continuously growing.
This paper will present and discuss various methods of 3D character animation and prospects of their
real-time application, ranging from the animation of simple articulated objects to real-time deformable
object meshes.


Introduced in the 1960s, the Moreau envelope has grown to become a key tool in non\-smooth analysis and optimization. Essentially an infimal convolution with a parametrized norm squared, the Moreau envelope is used in many applications and optimization algorithms. An important aspect in applying the Moreau envelope to nonconvex functions is determining if the function is prox-bounded, that is, if there exists a point $x$ and a parameter $r$ such that the Moreau envelope is finite. The infimum of all such $r$ is called the threshold of prox-boundedness (prox-threshold) of the function $f.$ In this paper, we seek to understand the prox-thresholds of piecewise linear-quadratic (PLQ) functions. (A PLQ function is a function whose domain is a union of finitely many polyhedral sets, and that is linear or quadratic on each piece.) The main result provides a computational technique for determining the prox-threshold for a PLQ function, and further analyzes the behavior of the Moreau envelope of the function using the prox-threshold. We provide several examples to illustrate the techniques and challenges.


This dissertation examined the role of school-based college planning guidance services in the college trajectories of central city students of color. It is projected that by 2018, most jobs will require some postsecondary training beyond high school, placing almost 60 million Americans at risk of being locked out of the middle class because of limited educational attainments. Thus, college guidance services become critical for disenfranchised students who may require greater technical assistance and support to access college. To explore the role of school-based college planning guidance services, this dissertation examined the college planning experiences of students of color enrolled at two distinct urban public high schools in a Midwestern community plagued with longstanding traditions of disenfranchisement resulting from decades of segregated schools and communities. This case study utilized a critical approach through the lens of critical race theory, heuristic inquiry, and narratology to capture the essence of the college planning experiences as expressed by African American high school seniors, parents, and recent graduates iv affiliated with two central city public schools, each notorious for the highest and lowest rates of college placement amongst its graduates. The case studies of 8 high school seniors within two distinct school cultures within the same neighborhood, served as illustrations of the inequitable provision of college planning guidance in place to equip urban students of color to compete with their suburban peers without equal college planning exposure or supports. Underperforming school systems must examine their role and assume full accountability for ineffective services that contribute to the economic and academic disenfranchisement of students of color. The perpetuation of limited access to higher education is critically detrimental for urban students relegated to neighborhood schools without the means for economic mobility. Without navigational support and technical assistance the cycle of disenfranchisement is likely to continue, preserving traditions of segregation, while further handicapping urban residents into adulthood.


The problems of the need for water in the quantity and quality for the diverse uses that we require of it is one of the principal problems that we must address. More and more plants are installed for the production of water for potable, irrigation or industrial uses that employ membrane technologies, especially reverse osmosis. Moreover, with increasing frequency these techniques are also being employed in the recycling of waters from urban and industrial effluents. Paralleling the development of these techniques and their new applications is the need for advances in understanding of the processes that affect their functioning and yield. Any reverse osmosis installation will in the medium or long term encounter problems of membrane fouling that necessitate cleansing. The cleansing protocol depends on the type of deposit (biofilm, organic matter, inorganic deposits or natural colloids) present in the membranes, which makes its characterisation indispensable. A membrane autopsy combines different procedures of analysis and tests capable of revealing information relating to the nature of the deposits and other aspects that can be associated with deficiencies in the functioning of the installations. In this way we have a toolkit able to compile the data necessary for the planning of new guidelines for the management of installations that will minimise or delay the appearance of the problems detected.


The pollution of soils by organic contaminants, such as phenols, is a serious problem because of the high toxicity and persistence in the environment. Mechanochemical treatments (MTs) of polluted soils with minerals, such as clays and oxides, which have surfaces that exhibit catalytic properties, have been suggested to be a new useful strategy to promote both organic and inorganic pollutant degradation. Nevertheless, much still remains to be studied about the capability of clays to promote pollutant removal by means of the mechanochemical activation of the mineral surfaces. This work investigates the efficiency of the mineral kaolinite in promoting the sequestration of catechol (CAT) and pentachlorophenol (PCP) by MT. A well crystallized kaolinite (KGa-1b) was milled for prolonged times with different amounts of organic molecules so as to obtain two different clay:organic compound ratios. Prolonged grinding and a higher clay mineral:organic compound ratio were found to be more effective in promoting a stronger removal than simple contact. After 1 h of mechanochemical treatment, the PCP and CAT removal percentages were 32% and 20%, respectively. Additionally, a 7-day undisturbed incubation of the milled mixtures produced a trend for increased CAT removal (up to 40%). The interaction mechanism between kaolinite and each organic compound (i.e. CAT and PCP) after a MT was inferred by integrating information from spectroscopic, diffractometric, and chromatographic analyses. X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared data suggested a strong interaction between CAT and KGa-1b. This interaction mechanism likely occurs through the formation of an inner-sphere complex by H-bonding between the organic molecules and the oxygens of the kaolinite tetrahedral sheet. On the other hand, a weak interaction (i.e. van der Waals type) can occur between the KGa-1b O-planes and the PCP molecules, which likely bind to the external surfaces of KGa-1b.