Health management information systems (HMIS) are implemented in less developed
countries (LDCs) with the expectation that they will contribute to improving primary
health care (PHC) delivery. Information generated through these systems is conceived
as an imperative for better decision making processes and strengthening
accountability arrangements that underpin the delivery of PHC. Despite strong
rhetoric and significant investments to support these systems, most HMIS
implementation in LDCs face challenges of poor data quality and weak accountability
arrangements that limit their impact on health status. This constitutes a divergence
from the instrumentality of predetermined indicators measuring health status
performance that do not necessarily reflect the complex reality underlying how poor
communities define their health priorities. We therefore highlight that accountability
for performance management may indeed detract from the objective of improving the
health of the poor and needs to be understood more broadly.
This study illuminates the challenges and potential of HMIS implementation through
accountability arrangements that are socially embedded in institutions, interactions
and interpretations of global and local actors. As such, our primary research question
is, "To what extent can HMIS improve accountability arrangements of PHC
delivery?" Employing an interpretivist research methodology, we provide perceptions
of how interactions between citizens, service providers, bureaucratic and political
agents dynamically construct, contest and navigate accountability arrangements
underpinning the provision of health care. This understanding has hitherto been
limited in the HMIS literature. As a central theme in ICT for Development literature,
illuminating these interactions furthers our understanding regarding the potential of
HMIS in improving the lives of the poor. National governments, donors and HMIS
practitioners will benefit from the practical insights derived from this study especially
in relation to reconceptualising HMIS analysis to incorporate contextual and
developmental notions of PHC. With relatively limited HMIS research, Northern
Nigeria as the empirical context of this study also constitutes a useful contribution to
the body of knowledge.


The Group of Thirty in 2009 issued a report entitled "Financial Reform: A Framework for Financial Stability." The Report highlights concerns about vulnerabilities in the financial system that became evident in the 2008-2009 financial crisis and includes wide-ranging recommendations for financial regulatory reform. The main theme of the Report is the importance of containing systemic risk and maintaining close oversight of "systemically important" financial institutions. The Report's recommendations concerning money market funds are based on the misconceptions that money funds are bank-like, pose systemic risk, are not adequately regulated, and enjoy unfair competitive advantages over banks. The Report would apply inappropriate bank-like regulation to money fund operations without any analysis of the consequences. If the Report's recommendations were adopted, money market funds would cease to exist and the U.S. financial markets would lose a vital source of liquidity and efficiency.This paper examines the Report's recommendations, analyzes their potential consequences, and attempts to correct the misconceptions upon which they are based.


Tutoring—defined here as one-on-one or small-group instructional programming by teachers, paraprofessionals, volunteers, or parents—is one of the most versatile and potentially transformative educational tools in use today. Within the past decade, dozens of preK-12 tutoring experiments have been conducted, varying widely in their approach, context, and cost. Our study represents the first systematic review and meta-analysis of these and earlier studies. We develop a framework for considering different types of programs to not only examine overall effects, but also explore how these effects vary by program characteristics and intervention context. We find that tutoring programs yield consistent and substantial positive impacts on learning outcomes, with an overall pooled effect size estimate of 0.37 SD. Effects are stronger, on average, for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Effects also tend to be strongest among the earlier grades. While overall effects for reading and math interventions are similar, reading tutoring tends to yield higher effect sizes in earlier grades, while math tutoring tends to yield higher effect sizes in later grades. Tutoring programs conducted during school tend to have larger impacts than those conducted after school.


CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) describes best practices for the development and maintenance of products and services across their lifecycle. By integrating essential bodies of knowledge, CMMI-DEV provides a single, comprehensive framework for organizations to assess their development and maintenance processes and improve performance. Already widely adopted throughout the world for disciplined, high-quality engineering, CMMI-DEV Version 1.3 now accommodates other modern approaches as well, including the use of Agile methods, Lean Six Sigma, and architecture-centric development. CMMI for Development, Third Edition, is the definitive reference for CMMI-DEV Version 1.3. The authors have revised their tips, hints, and cross-references, which appear in the margins of the book, to help you better understand, apply, and find information about the content of each process area. The book includes new and updated perspectives on CMMI-DEV in which people influential in the models creation, development, and transition share brief but valuable insights. It also features four new case studies and five contributed essays with practical advice for adopting and using CMMI-DEV. This book is an essential resourcewhether you are new to CMMI-DEV or are familiar with an earlier versionif you need to know about, evaluate, or put the latest version of the model into practice. The book is divided into three parts. Part One offers the broad view of CMMI-DEV, beginning with basic concepts of process improvement. It introduces the process areas, their components, and their relationships to each other. It describes effective paths to the adoption and use of CMMI-DEV for process improvement and benchmarking, all illuminated with fresh case studies and helpful essays. Part Two, the bulk of the book, details the generic goals and practices and the twenty-two process areas now comprising CMMI-DEV. The process areas are organized alphabetically by acronym for easy reference. Each process area includes goals, best practices, and examples. Part Three contains several useful resources, including CMMI-DEV-related references, acronym definitions, a glossary of terms, and an index.


This study explores how bioplastics come into being and are changing by focusing on the relationship between bioplastic materials and the products into which they are made. Bioplastics, which are types of plastics that are made from plant sources and/or can be decomposed by microbial activity, are a challenging set of materials not only because of their variety, but also because of the multitude of industries, actors and socio-technical arrangements involved in their making. I explore the different places in which bioplastics are made; in practices of categorising and standardising and so defining bioplastics, in production and the realisation of bioplastics in everyday life through their substitution for other materials, and in branding where bioplastics are made variously visible, as well invisible, as their particular qualities are enacted in specific material-product relationships. I draw conclusions about the nature of the relationship between materials and products, how they are separate but also intricately interconnected, at the same time acknowledging that what is named as a material and as a product is contingent upon the stakeholder in the production chain of materials and products. I detail the ways in which materials get shaped by and also shape the standardization and production infrastructures, interests of different actors, competitor materials, and values at stake within their interaction to specific products. The aim of my study is to open up new connections and pathways for the study of materials, as well as objects, within the social sciences.


We propose a complete multi-view foreground segmentation and 3D reconstruction system that defines a 3-dimensional probabilistic model to model the foreground object in the 3 spatial dimensions, thus gathering the information from all the camera views. This 3D model is projected to each one of the views in order to perform the 2D segmentation with the foreground information shared by all the cameras. Then, for each one of the views, a MAP-MRF classification framework is applied between the projected region-based foreground model, the pixel-wise background model and the region-based shadow model defined for each view. The resultant masks are used to compute the next 3-dimensional reconstruction. This system achieves correct results by reducing the false positive and false negative errors in sequences where some camera sensors can present camouflage situations between foreground and background. Moreover, the use of the 3D model opens possibilities to use it for objects recognition or human activity understanding.


ABSTRACT The experience of learning about emotive topics in the classroom remains relatively under-researched. Within the social sciences, death studies is undergoing a resurgence yet little is known about the student experience of exploring such issues in an academic setting. This research focuses on final year undergraduate students at a British university who have chosen to study a module on the Sociology of Death and Dying. Qualitative data from eleven semi-structured interviews were analysed, revealing several key areas of experiential and pedagogical interest, highlighting how students use each other's experiences as well as their own vulnerabilities to engage with emotive topics. The data also explored the role of the tutor as an emotional safety net in such classes and the extent to which trigger warnings should be ensconced in university teaching. The emergent themes from these interviews are used to address the question of what are student perceptions of the experience and value of death education. They also enable me to critically examine existing academic assumptions associated with dealing with emotive topics in the classroom and provide reflections on the extent of universities' and lecturers' duty of care in such settings.


The change-point detection problem seeks to identify distributional changes at an unknown change-point k* in a stream of data. This problem appears in many important practical settings involving personal data, including biosurveillance, fault detection, finance, signal detection, and security systems. The field of differential privacy offers data analysis tools that provide powerful worst-case privacy guarantees. We study the statistical problem of change-point problem through the lens of differential privacy. We give private algorithms for both online and offline change-point detection, analyze these algorithms theoretically, and then provide empirical validation of these results.


High pollution levels have often been observed in urban street canyons due to the increased traffic emissions and reduced natural ventilation. To investigate this phenomenon suitable microscale dispersion models must be used in order to give the right support to decision makers for air pollution control. Within these streets, pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and residents are likely to be exposed to pollutant concentrations exceeding current air quality standards. In this way people carried out an applied research choosing the "V. Giuffrida" street of Catania as a test canyon because this street shows both geometric features typical of an urban canyon and a lot of car traffic flowing during all the day. In the first step the authors carried out preliminary and suitable studies about street and surrounding buildings geometries, meteoclimatic local data, intensity of traffic flow in different hours of day and so on. In the second step a computational model of the street canyon has been developed taking into account all blocks of buildings on each side of the street according to the actual urban situation. The computational model has been done using K–e turbulence model and under three wind directions and velocity values characteristic of the area. Finally, people carried out a campaign of concentrations measurements of tracer gas on suitable sections of the investigated street. This paper intends to show: the methodologies and techniques to draw the investigation with the backing of a 3D computer code suitable for this use (Airpak – Fluent in our case). the particular flow-dynamic situations with formation of pollutant store zones. the influence of both buildings geometry and the presence of internal courtyard on pollution profiles. The distribution of gas concentrations along the facades of buildings flanking the street with reference to those zones which, overcoming the alarm limits of law, can cause detrimental effects on the health of the inhabitants.


Traditional classifiers are trained from labeled data only. Labeled samples are often expensive to obtain, while unlabeled data are abundant. Semi-supervised learning can therefore be of great value by using both labeled and unlabeled data for training. We introduce a semi-supervised learning method named decision-directed approximation combined with Support Vector Machines to detect zones containing information on grant support (a type of bibliographic data) from online medical journal articles. We analyzed the performance of our model using different sizes of unlabeled samples, and demonstrated that our proposed rules are effective to boost classification accuracy. The experimental results show that the decision-directed approximation method with SVM improves the classification accuracy when a small amount of labeled data is used in conjunction with unlabeled data to train the SVM.


The predominantly inorganic waste landfill concept is part of a larger project on sustainable landfill concepts in the Netherlands. The project is aimed at creating biogeochemical equilibrium between a landfill and the environment within a period of 30 years, in order to reduce the long-term risk and the aftercare needs. It has already been reported that there is in general a very good agreement between the leaching behaviour of the constituted waste mix (analysed on laboratory and lysimeter scale) and the leachate as obtained from the full-scale pilot demonstration cell. However, deviations in the leaching behaviour of Cu, Fe and Mn have been found between experiments on laboratory-, lysimeterand pilot scale. The different redox potentials lead to relatively large deviations in the emissions of Cu, Fe and Mn on the different test scales. It is found that the cumulative release of Cu is much lower in the pilot experiment compared to the other test types (lysimeter and column leaching tests) due to a low redox potential under field situations. Cu(II) is reduced to Cu(I). Moreover, the affinity of humic substances for metal complexation is possibly much lower for Cu(I) species and the formation of relatively insoluble copper sulphides may be a dominant process. Fe and Mn show a relatively high leaching in the pilot experiments, which is in line with the laboratory column test results but much higher than the lysimeter experiments. Fe is normally present as Fe(III) and can easily be reduced to more soluble Fe(II) species in a reducing environment. The leaching of Mn in the pilot experiments and the column experiments is higher than the results for the lysimeters. Under reducing conditions like in the pilot experiment and (to a lesser extent) the column test, the soluble Mn(II) species will be dominant. This species can easily be oxidised to Mn(IV) which forms solid oxides. Geochemical release modelling on column leaching test data showed that the model generally predicts the release of Cu, K, Pb and SO4 very well. This implies that the chemical processes leading to release are understood. The results indicate that preferential flow aspects are important for the long-term prediction of the release of mobile elements from a landfill. The model predicts the release quite well. This modeling approach is comprehensive in that it deals with all major, minor and trace elements simultaneously and partitioned between dissolved (free and DOC bound) and solid phases (minerals, Fe-oxide, Aloxide and particulate organic matter). However, a few contaminants show deviations in concentration of over one order of magnitude and these deviations need to be sorted out in future work.


a. A study is done to determine if elderly drivers are involved in more motor vehicle fatalities than all other drivers. The number of fatalities per 100,000 drivers is compared to the age of drivers. b. A study is done to determine if the weekly grocery bill changes based on the number of family members. c. Insurance companies base life insurance premiums partially on the age of the applicant. d. Utility bills vary according to power consumption. e. A study is done to determine if a higher education reduces the crime rate in a population.


The serotonergic deficits resulting from methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-induced neurotoxicity were prevented by the simultaneous administration of 5-hydroxytryptamine2 (5-HT2) receptor antagonists such as MDL 11,939 or ritanserin. This effect was not region specific as protection was observed in the cortex, hippocampus and striatum 1 week after the administration of a single dose of MDMA. MDL 11,939 also showed some efficacy at reducing the deficits in 5-HT concentrations and tryptophan hydroxylase activity produced by multiple administrations of MDMA. Protection against the neurotoxicity required the administration of MDL 11,939 within 1 hr of MDMA indicating 5-HT2 receptor activation was an early event in the process leading to terminal damage. Examination of the effect of the 5-HT2 receptor blockade on the early neurochemical alterations induced by MDMA revealed an inhibitory effect on MDMA-stimulated dopamine synthesis. Analysis of these data and the associated changes in dopamine metabolites indicates that 5-HT2 receptor antagonists block MDMA-induced neurotoxicity by interfering with the ability of the dopamine neuron to maintain its cytoplasmic pool of transmitter and thereby sustain carrier-mediated dopamine release.


This paper examines five metropolitan areas where light rail transit (LRT) lines serve as regional transit backbones. The paper defines a successful LRT-based regional transit system as one with high riding habit and productivity for all combined modes in each metropolitan area, and as also having high LRT ridership and productivity. Based on these criteria, Portland emerges as a successful LRT-based regional transit system. Our analysis reveals three characteristics that explain the Portland transit system's strong performance: the network's dispersed nature, the overlay of a higher-speed, high-frequency regional LRT network atop the local bus system, and the use of transfers to provide passengers easy access to a diverse array of destinations. We examine the performance of all five metropolitan areas with respect to these characteristics using a combination of agency data and insights from interviews with key informants.


Escherichia coli (E. coli) are among the leading bacterial causes of diarrhoea and edema in newborn and weaned pigs. Pathogenic strains of E. coli are classified into enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), enteroaggreagative E. coli (EAEC), enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) and diffusely adherent E. coli (DAEC) based on virulence factors. Infection with E. coli is achieved by adherence of fimbrial and/or non-fimbrial adhesins to the intestines and the release of toxins thereafter. The increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance are posing a threat in the treatment of porcine E. coli infections. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of pathogenic Escherichia coli virulence genes and antibiotic sensitivity of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli isolates from neonatal and post-weaning pigs in Limpopo and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. For this purpose, 325 rectal swabs were collected from pigs from the Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces of South Africa to investigate the prevalence of ETEC relative to other E. coli strains. Classical microbiological tests were conducted for confirmation of E. coli and PCR was used for the detection of fimbrial, non-fimbrial adhesins and toxin genes. In addition, antimicrobial susceptibility of ETEC positive isolates was determined by the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Of the 325 swabs collected, 303 isolates were identified as E. coli with 67% (205/303) harboring at least one of the tested virulence genes (LT, STa, STb, EAST-1, Stx1, Stx2, Stx2e, VT1, VT2, hlyA, F4, F5, F6, F18, F41, AIDA-1, EAE and PAA) and categorized into 48 pathotypes. A total of 36 (11.9%) isolates was classified as ETEC, having heat-labile (LT) enterotoxin as the most prevalent. Only a single isolate (2.8%) carried fimbriae (F4/F5). Instead, non-fimbrial adhesins PAA, AIDA-1 and EAE were detected. The ETEC positive isolates displayed 47.2%, 38.9% and 36.1% resistance to oxytetracycline, ampicillin and trimetroprim respectively. Most of the ETEC isolates were sensitive to florphenicol (100%), cefotaxime (97.2%) and enrofloxacin (77.8%). Multi-drug resistance was detected in 50% of the isolates. The study demonstrated that there are various E. coli pathotypes in South Africa. The detection of non-fimbrial adhesins reinforces existing knowledge that fimbriae are not the only colonization factors associated with ETEC. Based on the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns observed, florphenicol, cefotaxime and enrofloxacin could be used for the treatment of ETEC infections in South African pigs.


The implementation and running of physical security systems is costly and potentially hazardous for those employed to patrol areas of interest. From a technial perspective, the physical security problem can be seen as minimising the probability that intruders and other anomalous events will occur unobserved. A robotic solution is proposed using an artificial immune system, traditionally applied to software security, to identify threats and hazards: the dendritic cell algorithm. It is demonstrated that the migration from the software world to the hardware world is achievable for this algorithm and key properties of the resulting system are explored empirically and theoretically. It is found that the algorithm has a hitherto unknown frequency-dependent component, making it ideal for filtering out sensor noise. Weaknesses of the algorithm are also discovered, by mathematically phrasing the signal processing phase as a collection of linear classifiers. It is concluded that traditional machine learning approaches are likely to outperform the implemented system in its current form. However, it is also observed that the algorithm's inherent filtering characteristics make modification, rather than rejection, the most beneficial course of action. Hybridising the dendritic cell algorithm with more traditional machine learning techniques, through the introduction of a training phase and using a non-linear classification phase is suggested as a possible future direction.


In spatial interpolation, one of the most widely used deterministic methods is the inverse distance weighting (IDW) technique. The general idea of IDW is primarily based on the hypothesis that the attribute value of an ungauged site is the weighted average of the known attribute values within the neighborhood, and the 'weights' are merely associated with the horizontal distances between the gauged and ungauged sites. However, here we propose an extended version of IDW (hereafter, called the EIDW method) to provide 'alternative weights' based on the blended geographical and physiographical spaces for estimation of streamflow percentiles at ungauged sites. Based on the leave-one-out cross-validation procedure, the coefficient of determination had a value of 0.77 and 0.82 for the proposed EIDW models, M1 and M2, respectively, with low root mean square errors. Moreover, after investigating the relationship between the prediction efficiency and the distance decay parameter (C), the better performance of the M1 and M2 resulted at C = 2. Furthermore, the results of this study show that the EIDW could be considered as a constructive way forward to provide more accurate and consistent results in comparison to the traditional IDW or the dimension reduction technique-based IDW.


This chapter reviews two diseases such as chlamydial abortion and chlamydial endometritis, which are likely to be of interest to workers in the field of human chlamydiosis. The causal agent of enzootic abortion of ewes (EAE) is the ovine abortifacient form of Chlamydia psittaci, previously designated biotype 1 and immunotype 1. Most studies have reported a remarkable degree of homogeneity of strains of C. psittaci in molecular terms. When EAE is experimentally reproduced in naive ewes by subcutaneous injection or by dosing via the oropharyngeal route, abortions usually occur in 40 to 50% of animals, with 75 to 90% excreting chlamydiae at lambing or at abortion. A monoclonal antibody against another surface-expressed antigen of C. psittaci, an 89-kDa protein, reduced infection by 60% in a tissue culture model, suggesting that antibodies against this protein may also be involved in acquired immunity. Three principal antigenic preparations have been used in vaccines: (i) inactivated forms of the cultured organism; (ii) a temperature-sensitive, attenuated mutant; and (iii) protein extracted from genetically engineered bacteria expressing the major outer membrane protein. Due to the relatively recent recognition of bovine chlamydial infertility, metritis, and salpingitis, the most reliable descriptions of its clinical expression are provided by experimental infection studies. Both forms of chlamydial infection of ruminants offer useful comparative features for human reproductive tract disease. The bovine disease is still in the very early stages of characterization, and so the full extent of its usefulness as a model for human disease remains to be determined.


Objective: Survival chances of people with cancer in Nigeria are far worse than those in developed countries. While the chance of finding a lasting solution to cancer in Nigeria is remote, patients living with cancer still need treatment regardless of the terminal outcome, and hence cancer palliative care is necessitated. Caring patterns and expressions differ in diverse contexts. Therefore, this article aimed to present the meanings and expectations of caring and the resulting transformative theory of practice. Methods: A descriptive, qualitative inquiry was conducted with a purposive sample of 12 cancer palliative patients, 9 nurses, 3 physicians, and 5 relatives who were approached for an in-depth interview about their conceived meanings and expectations of caring for or being cared for in the cancer palliative unit. Results: Cancer palliative care in Nigeria is best exemplified through the processes/themes of "knowing," "revealing," and "humanizing." The meaning of care and the expectations of the patients and caregivers were grouped into these three overarching processes which then informed the conceptualization of a germinal theory of knowing-revealing-humanizing (TKRH) as expressions of caring in cancer palliative care. Conclusions: The application of the KRH practice processes is illustrated as a transformative germinal theory of practice. This TKRH as expressions of caring is transformative and can restore positive meanings in the life-world of persons in the cancer palliative care setting.


In this study the effect of different levels of dissolved oxygen tension (d.o.t) on the production of three main components of extracellular cellulases (FPase, CMCase and β-glucosidase) at a fixed agitation speed by Aspergillus terreus was investigated. Growth of A. terreus and cellulase production were modeled based on logistic and Luedeking-Piret equations. The results from the model fit well with the experimental data, confirming that the models were appropriate for describing and representing growth and cellulase production at various d.o.t levels. The models showed that the production of FPase and CMCase were growth-associated processes. Cell growth and cellulase production were approximately two-fold higher in a stirred tank bioreactor compared with a shake-flask culture. At a d.o.t of 55% air saturation, cell growth and cellulase production were higher than at low d.o.t (40% air saturation) or high d.o.t (80% air saturation). The highest activities of FPase (2.33 U ml-1), CMCase (51.10 U ml-1), and β-glucosidase (16.18 U ml-1) were obtained at a d.o.t of 55% air saturation, yielding overall productivities of 19.40, 425.00, and 67.40 U l.h-1, respectively.


As the nameless narrator of Edgar Allan Poe9s "The Man of the Crowd" (1840) begins to relate his personal experience in a coffeehouse and on the streets of London, he has complete confidence in his ability
 to read the crowd on the basis of external signs. By having the narrator alternate reading his newspaper with observing the crowd, Poe parallels the two activities and emphasizes their similarity. Comparing
 the act of gazing through a window with reading a written text, Poe compared the acts of seeing and reading. In part inspired by the pseudosciences of physiognomy and phrenology, the ability to read the
 character of people in a crowd was also a part of the increasingly numerous written texts that were starting to appear as part of the modern urban landscape. As nations approached near-universal literacy,
 their cities began to contain more and more writing. Observing the streets, both literally and figuratively, was becoming a matter of reading. The contemporary figure of the sandwichman reinforced the similarity
 between reading written texts and reading a person. Overall, "The Man of the Crowd" reflects what Poe saw as a new period in the relationship between word and image. Centuries before, the written word had
 taken precedence over the visual image, but in this new period the written word was beginning to take on the qualities of an image.


Abstract. Analytical model of convection in a thick horizontal cloud layer with free upper and lower boundaries is constructed. The cloud layer is supposed to be subjected to the Coriolis force due to the cloud rotation, which is a typical condition for tornado formation. It is obtained that convection in such system can look as just one rotating cell in contrast to the usual many-cells Benard convection. The tornado-type vortex is different from spatially periodic convective cells because their amplitudes vanish with distance from the vortex axis. The lower boundary at this convection can substantially move out of the initially horizontal cloud layer forming a single vertical vortex with intense upward and downward flows. The results are also applicable to convection in water layer with negative temperature gradient.


Heat conduction in novel electronic films influences the performance and reliability of micromachined transistors, lasers, sensors, and actuators. This article reviews experimental and theoretical research on heat conduction in single-crystal semiconducting and superconducting films and superlattices, polycrystalline diamond films, and highly disordered organic and oxide films. The thermal properties of these films can differ dramatically from those of bulk samples owing to the dependence of the material structure and purity on film processing conditions and to the scattering of heat carriers at material boundaries. Predictions and data show that phonon scattering and transmission at boundaries strongly influence the thermal conductivities of single-crystal films and superlattices, although more work is needed to resolve the importance of strain-induced lattice defects. For polycrystalline films, phonon scattering on grain boundaries and associated defects causes the thermal conductivity to be strongly anisotropic and nonhomogeneous. For highly disordered films, preliminary studies have illustrated the influences of impurities on the volumetric heat capacity and, for the case of organic films, molecular orientation on the conductivity anisotropy. More work on disordered films needs to resolve the interplay among atomic-scale disorder, porosity, partial crystallinity, and molecular orientation.


Abstract This study was designed to determine the outcome of renal transplantation program in Sudan, specifically in the fluid management in the intensive care unit after end of renal transplantation surgery, keeping in mind the hot weather in Sudan. The non interventional, retrospective study which was conducted at Ahmed Gasim Hospital - intensive care unit-in the period from November 2005 to May 2006, where the ICU admission sheets for 60 patients, were studied to determine the effect of giving international standard protocol of fluid therapy which was modified by Sudanese physicians from 30m1 to 50m1 + urine output which is replaced by normal saline on central venous pressure, blood pressure, temperature and puls. The study showed that were different levels of significant changes range from slight to strong changes in pulse, blood pressure, central venous pressure and temperature. The results showed that the application of international standard protocol of fluid management (ISP) has a great value to regulate the vital signs in recipient patient in Suda


The mystery of the origin of cosmic rays has been tackled for more than hundred years and is still not solved. Cosmic rays are detected with energies spanning more than 10 orders of magnitude and reaching energies up to "1021 eV, far higher than any man-made accelerator can reach. Different theories on the astrophysical objects and processes creating such highly energetic particles have been proposed. A very prominent explanation for a process producing highly energetic particles is shock acceleration. The observation of high-energy gamma rays from supernova remnants, some of them revealing a shell like structure, is clear evidence that particles are accelerated to ultrarelativistic energies in the shocks of these objects. The environments of supernova remnants are complex and challenge detailed modelling of the processes leading to high-energy gamma-ray emission. The study of shock acceleration at bow shocks, created by the supersonic movement of individual stars through the interstellar medium, offers a unique possibility to determine the physical properties of shocks in a less complex environment. The shocked medium is heated by the stellar and the shock excited radiation, leading to thermal infrared emission. 28 bow shocks have been discovered through their infrared emission. Nonthermal radiation in radio and X-ray wavelengths has been detected from two bow shocks, pointing to the existence of relativistic particles in these systems. Theoretical models of the emission processes predict high-energy and very high-energy emission at a flux level in reach of current instruments. This work presents the search for gamma-ray emission from bow shocks of runaway stars in the energy regime from 100 MeV to "100 TeV. The search is performed with the large area telescope (LAT) on-board the Fermi satellite and the H.E.S.S. telescopes located in the Khomas Highland in Namibia. The Fermi -LAT was launched in 2008 and is continuously scanning the sky since then. It detects photons with energies from 20 MeV to over 300 GeV and has an unprecedented sensitivity. The all-sky coverage allows us to study all 28 bow shocks of runaway stars listed in the E-BOSS catalogue of infrared bow shocks. No significant emission was detected from any of the objects, although predicted by several theoretical models describing the non-thermal emission of bow shocks of runaway stars. The H.E.S.S. experiment is the most sensitive system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. It detects photons from several tens of GeV to "100 TeV. Seven of the bow shocks have been observed with H.E.S.S. and the data analysis is presented in this thesis. The analyses of the very-high energy data did not reveal significant emission from any of the sources either. This work presents the first systematic search for gamma-ray emission from bow shocks of runaway stars. For the first time Fermi -LAT data was specifically analysed to reveal emission from bow shocks of runaway stars. In the TeV regime no searches for emission from theses objects have been published so far, the study presented here is the first in this energy regime. The level of the gamma-ray emission from bow shocks of runaway stars is constrained by the calculated upper limits over six orders in magnitude in energy. The upper limits calculated for the bow shocks of runaway stars in the course of this work, constrain several models. For the best candidate, ζ Ophiuchi, the upper limits in the Fermi-LAT energy range are lower than the predictions by a factor "5. This challenges the assumptions made in this model and gives valuable input for further modelling approaches. The analyses were performed with the software packages provided by the H.E.S.S. and Fermi collaborations. The development of a unified analysis framework for gamma-ray data, namely GammaLib/ctools, is rapidly progressing within the CTA consortium. Recent implementations and cross-checks with current software frameworks are presented in the Appendix.


With recent advances in mobile learning (m-learning), it is becoming possible for learning activities to occur everywhere. The learner model presented in our earlier work was partitioned into smaller elements in the form of learner profiles, which collectively represent the entire learning process. This paper presents an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) for delivering adapted learning content to mobile learners. The ANFIS model was designed using trial and error based on various experiments. This study was conducted to illustrate that ANFIS is effective with hybrid learning, for the adaptation of learning content according to learners' needs. Study results show that ANFIS has been successfully implemented for learning content adaptation within different learning context scenarios. The performance of the ANFIS model was evaluated using standard error measurements which revealed the optimal setting necessary for better predictability. The MATLAB simulation results indicate that the performance of the ANFIS approach is valuable and easy to implement. The study results are based on analysis of different model settings; they confirm that the m-learning application is functional. However, it should be noted that an increase in the number of inputs being considered by the model will increase the system response time, and hence the delay for the mobile learner.


Background This investigation was sparked by research findings on secondary education showing school segregation to be closely associated with homogeneous grouping practices, such as tracking and between-class ability grouping. Research Design We conduct secondary analyses of national data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). Objectives Using these data, we investigate the degree to which the racial and ethnic composition of schools is associated with use of ability grouping practices as early as kindergarten. We focus on within-class ability grouping for reading instruction because it is the most common form of homogeneous grouping for the early grades. Results and Conclusions We find that this form of grouping is practiced by a majority of kindergarten teachers and schools, although frequency of use is quite varied, and some teachers and schools use it only sporadically. The most intensive use of within-class ability grouping exists in schools that serve high proportions of minority students and in schools with high variability in students' reading readiness. The association between student body composition and use of this instructional practice remains even after variability in student academic skills and other structural characteristics of schools are accounted for. Schools serving primarily minority students that use within-class ability grouping have higher average gains in reading achievement by the end of the school year than comparable schools that do not use this form of grouping. Use of this instructional practice is not associated with increases in average achievement gain scores for schools serving students of diverse or primarily White backgrounds. Our findings provide the foundation for further studies of the structural, cultural, and political features of schools associated with the use of ability grouping at the onset of schooling.


Celebrated as a leader of London's 'Underground' in the
 1960–70s, and a leading British poet and performance artist of his time,
 Jeff Nuttall found fame through his critique of post-nuclear culture,
 Bomb Culture, which provided an influential rationale for
 artistic practice through absurdism but lost that recognition a decade or so
 later. Less well recognised, and with greater influence, is the distinctively
 visceral sensibility underlying much of his creative work, notably his poetry
 that draws on Dylan Thomas and the Beat Movement, his graphic drawing and
 luscious painting styles, and his pioneering performance art. This article
 argues that it is through these artistic expressions of visceral intelligence
 that Jeff Nuttall's art and its long-term influence can now best be
 understood. It is intended to complement the Jeff Nuttall Papers in the Special
 Collections of The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of
 Manchester, deposited by the gallerist and poetry publisher Robert Bank
 (1941–2015), to whose memory this article is dedicated. Further papers
 have been added by Nuttall's friends and relatives.


ABSTRACT A series of laboratory tests were conducted to investigate potential effects of fungus gnat (Bradysia impatiens) feeding damage on susceptibility of geranium seedlings (Pelargonium x hortorum) to infection by the root rot pathogen Pythium aphanidermatum. Effects were compared with those from similar tests in which the seedlings were mechanically wounded by severing the root tip with a scalpel. Assays of geranium seedlings in petri dishes revealed a pronounced negative fungus gnat-Pythium interaction, with exposure to fungus gnat larvae 24 h prior to inoculation with P. aphanidermatum zoospores resulting in up to 47% fewer seedling deaths than would have been expected if the two agents had acted independently. Similar results were observed when seedlings were subjected to mechanical wounding 24 h prior to zoospore inoculation. In contrast, no interaction occurred when seedlings were mechanically wounded immediately prior to inoculation. The degree of plant damage inflicted by the feeding activities of the larval fungus gnats had no significant effect on the combined damage from fungus gnats and Pythium in petri dishes. Ancillary studies showed that Pythium development on V8 agar was not inhibited by the presence of fungus gnat-associated microorganisms, nor were seedlings inoculated with these microbes less susceptible to Pythium infection. The precise mechaism or mechanisms underlying the observed interactions were not elucidated; however, the results strongly suggest that both fungus gnat feeding and mechanical wounding activated systemic defenses that made the seedlings more resistant to Pythium infection.


Coastal waters are an aerodynamically unique environment that has been little explored from an air-sea interaction point of view. Consequently, most studies must assume that open ocean-derived parameterizations of the air-sea momentum flux are representative of the nearshore wind forcing. Observations made at the New River Inlet in North Carolina, during the Riverine and Estuarine Transport experiment (RIVET), were used to evaluate the suitability of wind speed-dependent, wind stress parameterizations in coastal waters. As part of the field campaign, a small, agile research vessel was deployed to make high-resolution wind velocity measurements in and around the tidal inlet. The eddy covariance method was employed to recover direct estimates of the 10 m neutral atmospheric drag coefficient from the three-dimensional winds. Observations of wind stress angle, near-surface currents, and heat flux were used to analyze the cross-shore variability of wind stress steering off the mean wind azimuth. In general, for onshore winds above 5 m/s, the drag coefficient was observed to be two and a half times the predicted open ocean value. Significant wind stress steering is observed within 2 km of the inlet mouth, which is observed to be correlated with the horizontal current shear. Other mechanisms such as the reduction in wave celerity or depth-limited breaking could also play a role. It was determined that outside the influence of these typical coastal processes, the open ocean parameterizations generally represent the wind stress field. The nearshore stress variability has significant implications for observations and simulations of coastal transport, circulation, mixing, and general surf-zone dynamics.


This paper presents the segmentation of bilateral parotid glands in the Head and Neck (HN) CT images using an active contour based atlas registration. We compare segmentation results from three atlas selection strategies: (i) selection of "single-most-similar" atlas for each image to be segmented, (ii) fusion of segmentation results from multiple atlases using STAPLE, and (iii) fusion of segmentation results using majority voting. Among these three approaches, fusion using majority voting provided the best results. Finally, we present a detailed evaluation on a dataset of eight images (provided as a part of HN auto segmentation challenge conducted in conjunction with MICCAI-2010 conference) using majority voting strategy.


With performance considerations driving the design of rotating equipment, operating speeds and journal loads have increased greatly in recent years, often exceeding generally accepted design limits. In order for tilting pad journal bearings to operate at load and speed levels that exceed these limits, newer innovative designs are necessary. This paper concerns the development and implementation of a reduced temperature tilting pad journal bearing design that features spray-bar blockers and by-pass cooling. The sequence of design improvements began with evacuated housings with directed lubrication, then progressed to offset pivoted pads, spray-bar blockers, and then finally to behind-the-pad by-pass cooling. Many design application examples are discussed illustrating the progression of innovations leading to the final reduced temperature bearing configuration. Actual application unit loads and surface speeds start at around 350 psi at 250 ft/sec, progressing to about 495 psi at 285 ft/sec and ending up at approximately 770 psi at 350 ft/sec and 470 psi at 420 ft/sec.


Appendiceal tumours are rare and often discovered unexpectedly in an acute situation in which decision-making is difficult. We report the spectrum of appendiuar tumours seen in our institution over a period of more than 10 years, and discuss the clinicopathological behaviour, investigations, surgical procedures and outcomes in these patients. We have also reviewed the literature with regard to appendiceal tumours. Appendicular tumours were identified from the database of 1646 appendictomies (18% in children) performed in single centre and case notes were reviewed. Clinical presentation, investigations, histopathology, surgical procedures and outcome were analysed. Twelve patients with appendiceal tumours were identified (0.72%): 8 carcinoid, 2 mucinous (mucocele) and 2 adenocarcinoma. All the patients with a carcinoid tumour presented with features suggestive of acute appendicitis and were diagnosed postoperatively following appendicectomy and formal histology. No further surgical intervention was required as these lesions were less than 1cm away from the base of the appendix. One of the patient with mucinous cystadenoma presented acutely and underwent an appendicectomy; in the other patient with chronic pain, apreoperative MRI suggested the diagnosis leading to a planned hemicolectomy as the lesion was close to the base of the appendix. While one of the patient with an adenocarcinoma localized to the appendix did well following a right hemicolectomy, the other patient with disseminated disease succumbed within a year. Carcinoid tumours are the commonest appendiceal tumours, which present often as acute appendicitis. While appendicectomy would be adequate in most of these patients, in patients with a cystadenoma close to the base of the appendix or in case of a carcinoma, a right hemicolectomy is the appropriate option. While the prognosis is good in patients with carcinoid tumour and cystadenoma, it remains dismal in patients with disseminated malignant disease.


Programmed cell death (PCD) has traditionally been considered to be restricted to eukaryotic multicellular organisms; however, several genetic modules in prokaryotes are known to mediate a type of programmed cell death. In Escherichia coli, mazF encodes a stable toxin, and mazE encodes a labile antitoxin, that prevents the lethal effect of MazF. Kolodkin-Gal et al. (see the Perspective by Kolter) now show that E. coli mazEF-mediated cell death is a population phenomenon that requires a quorum-sensing signal molecule, extracellular death factor (EDF). EDF is a symmetric, linear pentapeptide whose amino acid sequence is Asn-Asn-Trp-Asn-Asn. In synthetic peptides, the symmetrical arrangement of each of the five amino acids of EDF was important for mazEF-mediated killing activity. I. Kolodkin-Gal, R. Hazan, A. Gaathon, S. Carmeli, H. Engelberg-Kulka, A linear pentapeptide is a quorum-sensing factor required for mazEF-mediated cell death in Escherichia coli. Science 318, 652-655 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. Kolter, Deadly priming. Science 318, 578-579 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


This paper presents an application of Hierarchical Coloured Timed Petri Nets to the modeling, the evaluation and the improvement of the performance of a distributed consensus algorithm. The asynchronous system model is augmented with Failure Suspectors, in order to overcome the impossibility of reaching consensus in the presence of crash failures. We consider here two different implementations of the Failure Suspectors: a general implementation that shows poor performances, and an implementation optimized for the execution of the consensus. The termination time of the consensus algorithm is determined by the communications cost, i.e., by the timing characteristics of the network used for exchanging messages. In other words, the network latency is taken into account in the system model. By simulating the consensus Petri net model it is possible to provide probabilistic guarantees on the termination time of the consensus and to compare the performances of the different implementations of the Failure Suspectors.


Robotics is an emerging synthetic science concerned with programming work. Robot technologies are quickly advancing beyond the insights of the existing science. More secure intellectual foundations will be required to achieve better, more reliable, and safer capabilities as their penetration into society deepens. Presently missing foundations include the identification of fundamental physical limits, the development of new dynamical systems theory, and the invention of physically grounded programming languages. The new discipline needs a departmental home in the universities, which it can justify both intellectually and by its capacity to attract new diverse populations inspired by the age-old human fascination with robots.


During 2012-2018 in the Russian Federation, pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 599 of 05.07.2012, a set of state support measures was implemented aimed at increasing the specific gravity of Russian publications indexed in international databases. The national project 'Science' (NPS) designed to realize the goals set by Presidential Decree No.204 of 05.07.2018 'On the National Goals and Strategic Tasks for Development of the Russian Federation until 2024' continues and develops the theme of increasing the publication activity of the Russian Federation in the internationalized space. One of the six NPS targets is 'The place of the Russian Federation in terms of specific gravity in the total number of articles in areas defined by the priorities of scientific and technological development in publications indexed in international databases'. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the basic value of this indicator for biomedical disciplines related to the priority direction (paragraph 20c) of the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation. We compared volumes of publication flows of the Russian Federation in 20 biomedical disciplines with a similar indicator of countries ranked fifth in the number of publications on the subject area under consideration, indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC). A 5-10 fold lag of the Russian Federation was recorded for the most part of the priority areas in the field of biomedicine identified by the NTS passport. The impact of public policy measures aimed at increasing the national biomedical publication stream for the period of 2012-2018 was estimated as insufficient to meet the considered NTS target.


Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are at the base of many applications, both in embedded and in server-class contexts. While Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are predominantly used for training, solutions for inference often rely on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) since they are more flexible and cost-efficient in many scenarios. However, existing approaches fall short to accomplish several conflicting goals, like efficiently using resources on multiple platforms while retaining deep configurability and allowing a quick Design Space Exploration (DSE) towards the best solution. This paper proposes a solution composed of highly configurable kernels designed for resources time-sharing with an analytical model of their resource/performance characteristics. Building on such models, we propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP)-based approach to effectively identify pareto optimal kernel configurations in terms of throughput and resource consumption. We evaluate our DSE on two state-of-the-art CNNs, showing how it identifies hundreds of pareto optimal solutions in less than a minute. Guided from the DSE configurations of the AlexNet network, we quickly identified a candidate design for a Xilinx Virtex-7 XC7VX485T FPGA and achieved a peak throughput of 4.05 ms per image, while we measured a maximum estimation error of 6.69% with respect to the proposed analytical models.


The biology of Ganoderma parasitic to oil palm and rubber
was investigated. The main aspects studied were the morphology
of sporophores and basidiospores, and pure culture studies of
the isolates with a view to compare their cultural and growth
characteristics under different temperatures and hydrogen-ion
concen trations of the medium. Ganoderma isolates of oil palm
originating from thr ee dif ferent locations namely Kedah, Perak
and Selangor in Malaysia exhibited some variations although all
belonged to one species, Ganoderma miniatocinctum Stey.
Comparisons of oil palm isolates with a confirmed isolate of
Ganoderma philippii (Bres. & P. Henn.) Bres. from Hevea rubber
revealed that the rubber fungus differed distinctly from oil
palm fungal isolates.


Capsule networks have recently gained a great deal of interest as a new architecture of neural networks that can be more robust to input perturbations than similar-sized CNNs. Capsule networks have two major distinctions from the conventional CNNs: (i) each layer consists of a set of capsules that specialize in disjoint regions of the feature space and (ii) the routing-by-agreement coordinates connections between adjacent capsule layers. Although the routing-by-agreement is capable of filtering out noisy predictions of capsules by dynamically adjusting their influences, its unsupervised clustering nature causes two weaknesses: (i) high computational complexity and (ii) cluster assumption that may not hold in presence of heavy input noise. In this work, we propose a novel and surprisingly simple routing strategy called self-routing where each capsule is routed independently by its subordinate routing network. Therefore, the agreement between capsules is not required anymore but both poses and activations of upper-level capsules are obtained in a way similar to Mixture-of-Experts. Our experiments on CIFAR-10, SVHN and SmallNORB show that the self-routing performs more robustly against white-box adversarial attacks and affine transformations, requiring less computation.


Flexible solid-state supercapacitors (FSSCs) are frontrunners in energy storage device technology and have attracted extensive attention owing to recent significant breakthroughs in modern wearable electronics. In this study, we review the state-of-the-art advancements in FSSCs to provide new insights on mechanisms, emerging electrode materials, flexible gel electrolytes and novel cell designs. The review begins with a brief introduction on the fundamental understanding of charge storage mechanisms based on the structural properties of electrode materials. The next sections briefly summarise the latest progress in flexible electrodes (i.e., freestanding and substrate-supported, including textile, paper, metal foil/wire and polymer-based substrates) and flexible gel electrolytes (i.e., aqueous, organic, ionic liquids and redox-active gels). Subsequently, a comprehensive summary of FSSC cell designs introduces some emerging electrode materials, including MXenes, metal nitrides, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), polyoxometalates (POMs) and black phosphorus. Some potential practical applications, such as the development of piezoelectric, photo-, shape-memory, self-healing, electrochromic and integrated sensor-supercapacitors are also discussed. The final section highlights current challenges and future perspectives on research in this thriving field.


By measuring the acoustic profile of lightning¬ generated thunder at several locations simultaneously, it is possible to reconstruct the lightning channel geometry. The technique allows a ground-based study of the lightning channel structure inside thunderstorm clouds. The maximum spatial resolution at a range of 5 km is + 50 meters, except for the vertical direction where the error is + 200 meters. The maximum range is 5 25 km, determined by atmospheric attenuation losses and the degree to which refraction of sound away from the array is observed. These limits apply only to a single station deployment of microphones multi¬ station arrays greatly increase effective range and data statistics. At least three microphones are deployed in an equi¬ lateral triangular shaped array 100 meters on a side. The acoustic pressure profile of thunder events is recorded on magnetic tape and the time lags between similar events are calculated through a cross-correlation analysis. These time lags, taken from the microphone data, are then used to calcu¬ late the incident wave vector of the plane wave at the micro¬ phone array. A model atmosphere is chosen and the incident wave vector is tracked back in time through the atmosphere to its source location. However, interference phenomena due to sources extended in both space and time introduce random, non-stationary effects into the thunder data, we show how to identify these sources of variability in the data. in many cases, we show how to extract this variability from the data to produce more mean¬ ingful results, although approximately 60% of the cross¬ correlations must be disregarded because of the absence of well-defined peaks in the correlograms. By effectively digitizing the lightning source into a "point" source 50 meters in extent, we are usually able to generate 20 to 40 sets of space coordinates that we use to map the lightning channels. Data taken near Tucson, Arizona in August 1970, with photographic support provided by the University of Arizona, is presented in which we match acoustic reconstructions to photographs of the source light¬ ning events. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER


Two novel species of obligate methane-oxidizing bacteria, isolated from landfill soil, were characterized. Both strains were unusual in that some members of the population grew in irregularly shaped, refractile cell packets that resembled sarcina-like clusters. Electron microscopy revealed that the cell packets were covered with a slime layer and the cells contained many large granular inclusion bodies. The individual cells of each strain were sometimes motile and had differing morphologies. Isolate AML-C10T was always coccoidal in shape, and the cells were covered with extracellular fibrils. Isolate AML-D4T was pleomorphic, changing from rod to coccal form, sometimes exhibiting an unusual fusiform morphology. AML-D4T lacked the extensive fibrillar matrix observed with AML-C10T. Both strains utilized only methane and methanol as carbon sources. In stationary phase, the cells of each strain swelled in size and formed cysts. Aside from morphological differences, strains could also be distinguished from each other by cellular protein patterns, as well as by temperature and pH tolerances. 16S rDNA phylogenetic analysis showed that these are type I methanotrophs (family: Methylococcaceae) most closely related to the Methylobacter/Methylomicrobium clade, although they form a monophyletic grouping supported by moderately high bootstrap values. By 16S rDNA database searches, the most similar species to both isolates were Methylobacter spp. However, partial particulate methane monooxygenase sequence analysis suggested that these bacteria might be more closely related to Methylomicrobium than Methylobacter. Furthermore, cellular fatty acid profiles of the strains more closely resemble those of Methylomicrobium, although the absence of significant levels of 16:1omega5c argues for the uniqueness of these two strains. On the basis of the results described here, it is proposed that a new genus should be created, Methylosarcina gen. nov., harbouring two species, Methylosarcina fibrata sp. nov. (type species) and Methylosarcina quisquiliarum sp. nov. The type strains are AML-C10T (= ATCC 700909T = DSM 13736T) and AML-D4T (= ATCC 700908T = DSM 13737T), respectively.


Hecht, Joshua B. (M.S., Aerospace Engineering Sciences, 2012) First Order Feasibility Evaluation of a Water-Based Freezable Heat Exchanger for Use in Human Spacecraft Thermal Control Thesis directed by Associate Professor David M. Klaus A spacecraft thermal control system must keep the cabin and electronic equipment within operational temperature ranges by transporting heat out of the spacecraft. This process is generally accomplished via a series of air-to-liquid heat exchangers with ultimate dissipation to space via radiator panels, and requires various flow regulation schemes to maintain the desired thermal balance. In contrast, a proposed self-regulating freezable heat exchanger is designed to passively maintain and regulate thermal control through water ice buildup within the heat exchanger structure. In order to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of this technology, an integrated analysis of the thermal loads encountered by an orbital spacecraft was conducted. The analysis determines the expected internal and external heat loads on the spacecraft, outlines potential implementation of the hardware into the thermal control system, and predicts the expected performance of the technology. The results attained partially validate the capability of the selfregulating freezable heat exchanger to reject the anticipated range of heat loads. Additional testing will be conducted to further asses the full capabilities of the design. The full test and subsequent results will allow a detailed performance analysis to ultimately establish the feasibility of and options for incorporating the


Abstract:The militarization of state institutions in Zimbabwe now extends beyond just the state-security agencies to other key institutions including the judiciary, state-owned media, and the electoral commission. Just as certain state institutions have become militarized, so has the ruling ZANU-PF fused with the state. According to ZANU-PF's "end-of-history" mentality, the party is entitled to stay in power forever due to its liberation credentials. To them, the attainment of independence in 1980 signaled the end of all struggles; any opposition is therefore deemed an attempt to reverse the gains of independence. The inevitable departure of President Mugabe, who is now ninety years old, will permanently alter Zimbabwean politics, but it will not necessarily provide an opportunity for a democratic breakthrough.


In the last decade, the finding that somatic cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) leads to a great improvement of research involving the use of differentiated stem cells as model of diseases. In the field of neurodegeneration, iPSC technology allowed to culture in vitro all the types of patient-specific neurons, not only helping the discovery of diseases' etiopathology but also testing new drugs with a personalized medicine approach. Moreover, iPSCs can be combined with the 3D bioprinting technology, allowing physiological cell-to-cell interactions, given by a combination of several biomaterials, scaffolds, and cells. This technology combines bioplotter and biomaterials which can encapsulate several types of cells, e.g., iPSCs or differentiated neurons, to develop an innovative cellular model. iPSCs and 3D cell cultures' technologies represent the first step to obtain a more reliable model, like an organoid to facilitate neurodegenerative diseases' investigation.


Schools in the United States are inundated with high-stakes, standardized tests, which are used as the central tool for educational policy and accountability systems there - often under the guise of promoting racial justice and civil rights. In this article the author uses empirical research on the impact of high-stakes to argue that, rather than promote educational equality, high-stakes testing in fact causes harm to working class and Black and Brown students as a form of retributive justice, which seeks to punish "wrongdoers" rather than addressing the actual material issues and conditions that contribute to educational achievement. Alternativey, in this article the author suggests that we can conceive of forms of restorative and transformative assessment that can be healing to our schools and communities as well as activist in nature.


Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, it is quite possible that 60,000 people have died in the last six-plus years as a result of armed conflict between the Mexican cartels and the Mexican government, amongst cartels fighting each other, and as a result of cartels targeting citizens. And this figure does not even include the nearly 40,000 Americans who die each year from using illegal drugs, much of which is trafficked through the U.S.-Mexican border. The death toll is only part of the story. The rest includes the terrorist tactics used by cartels to intimidate the Mexican people and government, an emerging point of view that the cartels resemble an insurgency, the threat — both feared and realized — of danger to Americans, and the understated policy approach currently employed by the U.S. government. This short article only scratches the surface by identifying the Mexican Situation as a pressing U.S. homeland security issue requiring a renewed strategic effort by the United States over the next four years. Involving a complex web of foreign policy, law enforcement, intelligence, military, border security, drug consumption and public policy considerations, breaking the Mexican cartels is no easy feat. But it is a necessary one to secure our southern border, eliminate the presence of dangerous cartels in our cities, reduce Americans' contribution to the drug trade and resulting violence, and play our role in restoring the Mexican citizenry to a society free from daily terror.


The motivational climate is the environment, within an achievement setting, created by influential individuals (e.g., coach, athletic trainer, peers) through situational cues, expectations, feedback, and rewards. The way individuals within the setting interpret the motivational climate influences emotions, values, and behaviors which then directly encourages a specific state of participation. Coaches, athletic trainers, and peers need to be aware of the motivational climate they generate and the potentially constructive and detrimental effects on athletes in sport and injury rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the motivational climate in sport, sport commitment, and injury occurrence. Additionally, this study investigated the relationships between the motivational climate in rehabilitation, athlete rehabilitation behaviors, and athletes' satisfaction with rehabilitation. NCAA Division II male and female athletes (N = 191) completed Time 1 survey measuring perceptions of the coachand peer-created motivational climates in sport and sport commitment type. From the initial sample, 88 participants sustained an injury during the on-going data collection period and met the inclusion criteria for the Time 2 survey, which measured perceptions of the athletic trainer-created motivational climate in rehabilitation, satisfaction with rehabilitation, and sport commitment. Results indicated athletes' perceptions of the motivational climate in sport and sport commitment type did not differ based on injury status. Improved patient satisfaction and more productive behaviors during rehabilitation were predicted by an environment where the athletic trainer emphasized improvement, learning, and working hard. Additionally, more enthusiastic sport commitment was predicted by lower perceptions of unequal recognition and punishment for mistakes by the coach. Furthermore, sport commitment was found to be dynamic in nature with significant changes occurring following injury. Understanding the variables of sport commitment and the influence of the motivational climate will allow coaches, athletic trainers, and peers to assist athletes in having an enjoyable, productive sport career, as well as promote positive rehabilitation behavior and enhanced patient satisfaction. ADULTAND PEER-CREATED MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATES IN SPORT AND INJURY REHABILITATION A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education


Currently, the automotive and aircraft industries are considering increasing the use of magnesium within their products due to its favorable strength-to-weight characteristics. However, the implementation of this material is limited as a result of its formability. Partially addressing this issue, previous research has shown that electrically-assisted forming (EAF) improves the tensile formability of magnesium sheet metal. While these results are highly beneficial toward fabricating the skin of the vehicle, a technique for allowing the use of magnesium alloys in the production of the structural/mechanical components is also desirable. Given the influence that EAF has already exhibited on tensile deformation, the research herein focuses on incorporating this technique within compressive operations. The potential benefit of using EAF on compressive processes has been demonstrated in related research where other materials, such as titanium and aluminum, have shown improved compressive behavior. Therefore, this research endeavors to amalgamate these findings to Mg AZ31B-O, which is traditionally hard to forge. As such, to demonstrate the effects of EAF on this alloy, two series of tests were performed. First, the sensitivity of the alloy to the EAF process was determined by varying the current density and platen speed during an upsetting process (flat dies). Then, the ability to utilize impression (shaped) dies was examined. Through this study, it was shown for the first time that the EAF process increases the forgeability of this magnesium alloy through improvements such as decreased machine force requirements and increased achievable deformation. Additionally, the ability to form the desired final specimen geometry was achieved. Furthermore, this work also showed that this alloy is sensitive to any deformation rate changes when utilizing the EAF process. Last, a threshold current density was noted for this material where significant forgeability improvements could be realized once exceeded.


Early diagnosis of dangerous heart conditions is very important for the treatment of heart diseases and for the prevention of sudden cardiac death. Automatic electrocardiogram (ECG) arrhythmia classifiers are essential to timely diagnosis. However, most of the medical diagnosis systems proposed in the literature are software-based. This work focused on the hardware implementation of a mobile artificial neural network (ANN)-based arrhythmia classifier that is implemented on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) as a single chip solution, as an alternative to various software models of ANNs. Due to the parallel nature of ANNs, hardware implementation of ANNs needs a large amount of chip resources. In order to create an ANN structure in an FPGA, the dimensions of the ANN structure must be reduced; therefore, a data reduction algorithm was employed in the training phase and ECG features and consequently the ANN structure size was reduced with principal component analysis. An eight-input ANN-based arrhythmia classifier that has one hidden layer with two neurons and one output layer with one neuron was implemented on a single-chip FPGA. In this work, two different classifiers were consequently implemented in both 32-bit floating and 16-bit fixed point numerical representations on the same FPGA.


The Finite Volume Method in Computational Fluid Dynamics F. Moukalled 2015-08-13 This textbook explores both the theoretical foundation of the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and its applications in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Readers will discover a thorough explanation of the FVM numerics and algorithms used for the simulation of incompressible and compressible fluid flows, along with a detailed examination of the components needed for the development of a collocated unstructured pressure-based CFD solver. Two particular CFD codes are explored. The first is uFVM, a three-dimensional unstructured pressure-based finite volume academic CFD code, implemented within Matlab. The second is OpenFOAM®, an open source framework used in the development of a range of CFD programs for the simulation of industrial scale flow problems. With over 220 figures, numerous examples and more than one hundred exercise on FVM numerics, programming, and applications, this textbook is suitable for use in an introductory course on the FVM, in an advanced course on numerics, and as a reference for CFD programmers and researchers.


Realistic, simple code examples to solve problems at scale with Hadoop and related technologies Overview Solutions to common problems when working in the Hadoop environment. Recipes for (un)loading data, analytics, and troubleshooting. In depth code examples demonstrating various analytic models, analytic solutions, and common best practices. In Detail Helping developers become more comfortable and proficient with solving problems in the Hadoop space. People will become more familiar with a wide variety of Hadoop related tools and best practices for implementation. Hadoop Real World Solutions Cookbook will teach readers how to build solutions using tools such as Apache Hive, Pig, MapReduce, Mahout, Giraph, HDFS, Accumulo, Redis, and Ganglia. Hadoop Real World Solutions Cookbook provides in depth explanations and code examples. Each chapter contains a set of recipes that pose, then solve, technical challenges, and can be completed in any order. A recipe breaks a single problem down into discrete steps that are easy to follow. The book covers (un)loading to and from HDFS, graph analytics with Giraph, batch data analysis using Hive, Pig, and MapReduce, machine learning approaches with Mahout, debugging and troubleshooting MapReduce, and columnar storage and retrieval of structured data using Apache Accumulo. Hadoop Real World Solutions Cookbook will give readers the examples they need to apply Hadoop technology to their own problems. What you will learn from this book Data ETL, compression, serialization, and import/export. Simple and advanced aggregate analysis. Graph analysis. Machine learning. Troubleshooting and debugging. Scalable persistence. Cluster administration and configuration. Approach Cookbook recipes demonstrate Hadoop in action and then explain the concepts behind the code. Who this book is written for This book is ideal for developers who wish to have a better understanding of Hadoop application development and associated tools, and developers who understand Hadoop conceptually but want practical examples of real world applications.


The Kompics component model and programming framework was designedto simplify the development of increasingly complex distributed systems. Systems built with Kompics leverage multi-core machines out of the box and they can be dynamically reconfigured to support hot software upgrades. A simulation framework enables deterministic debugging and reproducible performance evaluation of unmodified Kompics distributed systems.
 We describe the component model and show how to program and compose event-based distributed systems. We present the architectural patterns and abstractions that Kompics facilitates and we highlight a case study of a complex
distributed middleware that we have built with Kompics. We show how our approach enables systematic development and evaluation of large-scale and dynamic distributed systems.


Rising fossil fuel prices are leading to an increasing awareness of energy efficiency in plant production. Tillage in particular can consume large amounts of fuel. For four tillage implements (reversible mouldboard plough, short disc harrow, universal-cultivator, subsoiler), this study quantifies the effect of different working depths on fuel consumption, wheel slip, field capacity and specific energy consumption. A four-wheel drive tractor (92 kW) was equipped with a data-acquisition system for engine speed, vehicle speed, wheel speed and fuel consumption. Fuel consumption was measured in the fuel system with an integrated high-precision flow-meter. The results show that the area-specific fuel consumption increased linearly with working depth for both the mouldboard plough and the short disc harrow, but disproportionately for the subsoiler. Wheel slip was found to increase fuel consumption and decrease field capacity performance at all depths. The influence of the engine speed was shown in a separate experiment with a universal-cultivator. Increasing the engine speed from 1,513 r min -1 to 2,042 r min -1 results in an increase of 80% for the fuel consumption rate (L/h) and 35% for the area-specific fuel consumption (L/ha). Future measurement of drawbar pull will allow a more detailed analysis of the energy efficiency losses at the engine, the transmission, and at the wheel/soil interface.


It is experimentally shown that the competition between the two lasing modes of bichromatic emission in a dye solution with nanoparticle scatterers within the diffuse regime can be externally controlled by varying only the excitation beam diameter and the radiation detector position. It is established that this feature is a consequence of the changes in the reabsorption process strengths between monomer and dimer dye aggregates. The controllable switching of these lasing modes could open the real possibility of implementing previously suggested applications for this effect as optical switches.


Several mathematical ideas have been investigated for Quantitative Information Flow. Information theory, probability, guessability are the main ideas in most proposals. They aim to quantify how much information is leaked, how likely is to guess the secret and how long does it take to guess the secret respectively. In this paper, we show how the Lattice of Information provides a valuable foundation for all these approaches; not only it provides an elegant algebraic framework for the ideas, but also to investigate their relationship. In particular we will use this lattice to prove some results establishing order relation correspondences between the different quantitative approaches. The implications of these results w.r.t. recent work in the community is also investigated. While this work concentrates on the foundational importance of the Lattice of Information its practical relevance has been recently proven, notably with the quantitative analysis of Linux kernel vulnerabilities. Overall we believe these works set the case for establishing the Lattice of Information as one of the main reference structure for Quantitative Information Flow.


ABSTRACT The aims of this study were twofold: to describe associations between mentoring relationship quality (MRQ) and student academic adjustment in a formal mentoring program involving teachers as mentors and academically at-risk students as mentees, and to explore the mediating and moderating effects of student mastery goal orientation on these associations. One hundred and fifteen academically at-risk students in their first year of high school (mean age = 13.46, SD = 0.80) participated in ACCES, a one-year academic teacher–student mentoring program. Student academic adjustment and mastery goal orientation were assessed at the beginning (September) and end (June) of the program and MRQ was measured at the last mentoring meeting (May). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that teacher–student MRQ positively predicted changes in academic adjustment, particularly when at-risk students showed weak mastery goal orientation at program entry (i.e., compensatory effect). Structural equation analysis showed no mediating effect of mastery goal orientation on associations between MRQ and academic adjustment. Implications for academic mentoring practices by teachers are discussed.


Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have been widely used for quantitative analysis of global economic issues. However, CGE models are frequently criticized for resting on weak empirical foundations. This paper builds on recent work in macro-econometric estimation, developing an approach to parameter estimation for a widely employed global CGE model, the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model. An approximate likelihood function is developed and the set of optimum elasticity values is obtained by maximizing this approximate likelihood function in the context of a back casting exercise. In addition, two statistical tests are performed. The first of these tests compares the standard GTAP elasticity vector with the estimated trade elasticity vector. It rejects the null hypothesis of equality between the two sets of trade elasticities. The second test examines the widely maintained hypothesis known as the "rule of two", by which the elasticity of substitution across imports by sources is set equal to twice the elasticity of substitution between domestic goods and imports. We fail to reject this common rule of thumb. We conclude that there is much to be gained by nesting CGE models within an estimation framework as this opens the way for formal evaluation of model performance and parameterization.


Two revegetation field trials were undertaken on chronically bare acid sulfate soil scalds on grazing properties in the Hawkesbury and Macleay catchments of New South Wales, Australia. The aim was to test the effectiveness of various low cost and readily accessible techniques to encourage revegetation (via existing seedbank or surrounding vegetation) of the scalded sites. The trial at the more efficiently drained Hawkesbury site used a combined treatment of ridging (R), mulching (M) and liming (L) (i.e. R-M-L) compared with a control, within a fenced area. At the more waterlogged Macleay site, various elements of the combined treatment (i.e. R, M, R-M, R-L, R-M-L) were compared with a control, within a fenced area. Vegetation occurrence, biomass and species were tested, along with pertinent soil parameters (pH, salinity, soil moisture, soluble metals). Soil testing was undertaken at 2 depth levels to represent the seed germination zone (0-1 cm), and the potential root zone (1-10 cm). At the Hawkesbury site, the combined treatment (R-M-L) caused significantly greater vegetation occurrence and biomass, lower salinity, higher pH and increased soil moisture. At the Macleay site, results were more variable, but similar to the Hawkesbury trial as the site dried out. Mulching was the single most important treatment. All mulched sites had significantly more vegetation than the control, reaching 100% coverage in the R-M-L plots. Stock exclusion alone produced minimal results. Ridging alone was counterproductive. Liming without mulching caused proliferation of an insubstantial and transient vegetation species (Isolepis inundata). Most interesting was the different vegetation species encouraged by the different mulch treatments: treatment M was dominated by the sedge, Eleocharis acuta; treatment R-M was an even mix of Eleocharis acuta and native water-tolerant grasses (Paspalum distichum and Pseudoraphis paradoxa); treatment R-M-L was dominated by the aforementioned native grasses. These grasses are highly favoured for both economic (highly palatable to stock) and environmental (thick mulch cover, self seeding) objectives. The results demonstrate that revegetation of acid sulfate soil scalds is possible, and different treatments can influence vegetation species composition.


The WWW contains a huge amount of documents. Some of them share the subject, but are generated by different people or even organizations. To guarantee the interchange of such documents, we can use XML. This allows to share documents that do not have the same structure. However, it makes difficult to understand the core of such heterogeneous documents (in general, schema is not available). In this paper, we offer a characterization and algorithm to obtain the midpoint (in terms of a resemblance function) of a set of semi-structured, heterogeneous documents without optional elements. The trivial case of midpoint would be the common elements to all documents. Nevertheless, in cases with several heterogeneous documents this may result in an empty set. Thus, we consider that those elements present in a given amount of documents belong to the midpoint. Once we have such midpoint, the algorithm is generalized for the obtaining of repetitions and optional elements. Thus, a exact schema can always be found generating optional elements. However, the exact schema of the whole set may result in overspecialization (lots of optional elements), which would make it useless.


Multiple habitats were investigated in a known fish nursery area to further understand habitat partitioning among juveniles in the lower reaches of the warm temperate, permanently open Swartkops Estuary, South Africa. Fishes were collected using a 30-m seine net with a mesh size of 10 mm in sand, mud, creek and vegetated habitat types. Each habitat type was sampled in two locations twice per season from February 2013 to January 2014. Shallow-water creeks and vegetated habitats with coverage of Zostera capensis and Spartina maritima were found to be important use areas for numerous solely estuarine and marine estuarine-dependent species. This was evidenced by the high species diversity, abundance and size range per species occurring in these habitats. Seasonal trends were similar to those in previous studies worldwide, where higher abundances of juveniles of marine estuarine-dependent species coincided with summer recruitment into estuarine nurseries. However, recruitment appears to begin as early as late winter in some species, a phenomenon probably linked to a warming climate. Both resident species and those utilizing the area as a nursery area show a large degree of plasticity in habitat use in the lower reaches of the estuary, which became apparent when multiple habitats were compared. The drivers of these patterns involve a complex interaction of species, habitat type, behaviour, feeding, predator avoidance and physico-chemical factors occurring in the estuary.


An orbit averaged quasilinear operator for resonant ion cyclotron interactions is analysed. The regions in phase space where the interactions are strong and the boundaries between regions with resonant and non-resonant ion orbits are identified. At these boundaries the quasilinear diffusion coefficient becomes discontinuous, causing the standard Monte Carlo scheme to induce an unphysical flow of test particles into the region with lower diffusion coefficient. A new Monte Carlo scheme that balances the flows across discontinuities is proposed. Moreover, the quasilinear diffusion coefficient is shown to deviate significantly from the lowest order Larmor radius scaling vertical bar delta H vertical bar(2) proportional to v(perpendicular to)(2n), where delta H is the perturbed Hamiltonian. This is not only caused by the finite Larmor radius effects, but also by the inhomogeneous electric field polarization and by the changes to the guiding centre orbits during the wave-particle interactions.


This paper attempts to explore the perspective of philosophy of education from Home Economics subjects. Home Economics subjects that are part of the education curriculum in Malaysia have a clear direction and strategy in realizing the nation's desire to produce balanced and highly skilled human resources. Home Economics is not a trashy subject to be underestimated because, ironically, it supports the philosophy and ideals towards the nation's ambition. Without philosophy, there is no path that can be used as a guide to strengthen the actions and direction of educational philosophy. And without that support, the struggle of technical and vocational education can't give an impact on the industry and accomplish the aspirations of the nation as a whole. From the perspective of philosophy, the arguments in explaining the importance of knowledge of Home Economics will also be discussed in this paper. Keywords: philosophy, education; home economic; technical and vocational education


The subject of research refers to potential causativeeffective connection between processes on the sun and the largest forest fires in Deliblatska pescara. The four greatest forest fires in Deliblatska pescara in the period 1948-2009 were in 1973, 1990, 1996 and 2007. The analysis of solar activity, especially the solar wind data and the analysis of the fire events were used in the research of the possibility of mutual connection. There are no enough data for the fire that occurred in 1973 on the basis of which the connection with processes on the sun would be determined. The fire from 1990 developed in the conditions of intensive solar activity and it was probably caused by the solar wind. There are some indications that the solar wind from energetic region 7981 caused the largest forest fire in Deliblatska pescara in 1996. For fire that occurred in 2007, the energy source (coronary hole CH279) was determined, as well as the moving of the solar wind particles. During the investigated fires the phenomena characterising fires caused by solar wind were recorded, such as frequent wind direction changes and appearance of fire on different locations at the same time. The statistical analysis of the number of fires in Deliblatska pescara and AMO also indicated the antiphase connection between these events. Even though the obtained results have shown the signal of the connection between charged particles and initial phase of fire, the laboratory testing is necessary to prove the mentioned hypothesis.


Background: Hypothyroidism, one of the most common endocrine disorders, may induce neurological abnormalities at an early stage of the disease. Aim: The study was designed to assess the electrophysiological alterations of some selected variables of nerve conduction, brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs), and visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in hypothyroid patients. Subjects and Methods: Sixty patients of newly diagnosed hypothyroidism and an equal number of age-matched controls were selected for the study. Nerve conduction studies that included parameters as latencies, conduction velocities, and amplitude of motor nerves, i.e., median, ulnar, common peroneal, tibial nerve, and sensory nerves, i.e., median and sural nerves was performed in both hypothyroid patients and controls. Further, BAEPs and VEPs of all the patients were done. The data were compiled and statistically analyzed using Student's unpaired t-test to observe any electrophysiological alterations in hypothyroid patients as compared to healthy controls. Results: On comparative evaluation, statistically significant increase in latency of median, ulnar, tibial, and sural nerves; decrease in conduction velocities of all the tested nerves and decrease in amplitude of median, tibial, and sural nerves was observed in hypothyroid patients. Statistically significant increase in latencies, interpeak latencies, and decrease in amplitudes of BAEP waves and statistically significant increase in P100 latency of VEP was seen in hypothyroid patients. Conclusion: The results of our study suggest that peripheral and central neuropathy develops in patients of hypothyroidism at an early stage of disease and the electrophysiological investigations of such patients can help in timely detection and treatment of neurological disorders that occur due to thyroid hormone deficiency.


Background: Medical students are vulnerable to various lifestyle disorders due to
improper diet, physical activity and inadequate sleep. Aims: To assess the risk
status of components of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases among
medical students. Methods: Information was collected using a standard selfadministered
questionnaire. Blood pressure, waist circumference, height and
weight of students were measured using standard procedures. Fasting blood
sample was taken for plasma glucose, lipid profile, cortisol levels and thyroid
hormone assays. Results: Eighty-eight participants with mean age 21.9 ± 1.1 years
took part in this study. Thirty-one (35.2%) participants reported fried food
consumption every day. Majority of the participants 35(39.8%) reported moderate
exercise less than once a week. Most participants 83 (94.3%) had sleep duration of
≤8 hours at night. Various components of metabolic syndrome like waist circumference (WC), triglyceride (TG) levels, high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels,
blood pressure (BP) values and fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels were abnormal in
36 (40.9%), 2 (2.3%), 39 (44.3%), 21 (23.9%) and 7 (7.9%) participants respectively.
Obesity was present among 33 (37.5%) students. Positive correlation between body
mass index (BMI) with WC (p<0.001) and TG (p=0.011) and negative correlation
between BMI and HDL levels (p=0.008) was observed. There was also a positive
correlation between WC with SBP (p=0.006) and with DBP (p=0.049) values. One or
more risk factors of metabolic syndrome was present among 67 (76.1%)
participants. It was present among greater proportion of participants with sleep
duration of ≤8 hours at night (p=0.05). Medium to high risk of cardiovascular
diseases was observed among 30 (34.1%) participants. Conclusion: High
proportions of students are vulnerable to develop metabolic syndrome and cardio
vascular diseases in this setting. BMI assessment can be used as best predictor to
identify the high-risk groups. Improvement in diet, physical activity and adequate
sleep duration is required for risk mitigation.


Ground State structures of neutral Copper clusters CuN=3−6 were generated and optimised within the framework of the Density Functional Theory (DFT) using Generalised Gradient Approximation (GGA) and ultrasoft pseudopotential. The shapes and binding energies of the clusters obtained showed good agreement with other theoretical works, except for the trimer cluster which has the shape of an equilateral triangle rather than the isosceles triangle as reported in previous works. The optical absorption strength function of the neutral Copper clusters CuN=3−6 in vacuum were then computed within the frame work of Time Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFPT). The spectrum were computed for the energy range of 1.5eV < ~ω < 5.5eV . The clusters that had odd numbers of atoms showed metallic character and could not be implemented in the turboTDDFT package. Whilst the clusters with even numbers of atoms showed semiconductor property with the Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital-Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital (HOMO-LUMO) gap increasing as the number of atoms change from four to six , and full implementation with turboTDDFT was achieved. In both clusters with even number of atoms four absorption peaks were obtained with that of six atoms higher in intensity. The shift in the direction of the peaks as the cluster size increases shows no unique trend. However, there was a slight broadening of the peaks as the cluster size increased. Most of the peaks were observed to be from the electron transiting from the s-orbital in the occupied state to the orbitals in the unoccupied state. Transitions from low-lying orbitals such as d and p orbital were also noticed.