There may be three ways of relationship between stress and osteoporosis. The first is that stress induces some physiological changes leading to osteoporosis. The second is that stress induces behavioral distortion of eating, drinking, exercise, and sleep habits, which leads to osteoporosis. The third is that osteoporosis, on the other hand, brings about anxiety, depression, loss of social roles, and social isolation, which leads to stress. The susceptible sex and age groups are postmenopausal women and young women. The abrupt decrease of estrogen in postmenopausal women promotes reabsorption of bone, and it was also reported that the increase of interleukin-6 (IL-6) that is downstream of estrogen was related to the production of osteoclast and to the development of disability of the aged. Regarding the association with stress, while it was reported that depression or depressive states directly increased inflammation-induced cytokines including IL-6, it was also pointed out that stress-induced easy infectious may produce chronic infection, which indirectly increases inflammation-induced cytokines. Anorexia Nervosa that is assumed to be associated with adolescent developmental stress is noteworthy in young women. Amenorrhea is always present in this disease, and in addition to bone reabsorption associated with estrogen deficiency, the decrease of bone formation associated with malnutrition may be related to the development of osteoporosis.


The science of ballistics has a long history and starts with one question: How does a projectile move through the air? Even before physicists worked that one out, military engineers had been tinkering with ballistic devices for centuries. The trebuchet of the Middle Ages has given way to rocket power, and the science of ballistics has evolved to match the technology. Mark Denny's survey covers this dynamic subject from prehistory to the weapons of tomorrow. Taking the bang-whiz-thud approach, Denny first talks about internal ballistics-Bang!-from before gunpowder to the development of modern firearms. External ballistics-Whiz!-are next, with discussions about short- and long-range trajectories. Denny's lesson ends with a Thud!-an explanation of terminal ballistics. Throughout, Denny conveys applicable physics principles in a way that will appeal to technology buffs and ballistics enthusiasts alike. His fun and factual explanations are free of complicated equations; notes cover the key aspects of ballistics physics for the more technically inclined. Denny has perfected this engaging balance of science and story. For study or hobby, Their Arrows Will Darken the Sun is an entertaining guide to the world of ballistics.


Many connections are not always bad for health Contrary to expectations, highly connected populations can experience less impact from infectious disease than isolated groups. What happens to pathogens in natural populations has been poorly studied, because they rarely cause devastating disease outbreaks. Thanks to a long-term study of an inconspicuous fungal-plant disease system, we have now gained some surprising insights. During a 12-year study, Jousimo et al. discovered that clustered and linked host-plant patches showed lower levels of fungal damage and higher fungal extinction rates than more distant patches (see the Perspective by Duffy). This phenomenon is explained by high gene flow and rapid evolution of host resistance within the connected patches. Populations of the modest weed Plantago, growing on the Åland Islands in the Baltic, were less than 10% infected by the Podosphaera mildew fungus in any given year, but infection turnover was high. These findings have broad implications for ecology, disease biology, conservation, and agriculture. Science, this issue p. 1289; see also p. 1229 Better connected plant hosts are better able to resist a fungal pathogen, probably because of higher gene flow. [Also see Perspective by Duffy] Ecological theory predicts that disease incidence increases with increasing density of host networks, yet evolutionary theory suggests that host resistance increases accordingly. To test the combined effects of ecological and evolutionary forces on host-pathogen systems, we analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of a plant (Plantago lanceolata)–fungal pathogen (Podosphaera plantaginis)relationship for 12 years in over 4000 host populations. Disease prevalence at the metapopulation level was low, with high annual pathogen extinction rates balanced by frequent (re-)colonizations. Highly connected host populations experienced less pathogen colonization and higher pathogen extinction rates than expected; a laboratory assay confirmed that this phenomenon was caused by higher levels of disease resistance in highly connected host populations.


This report provides detailed accounts of planning carried out in connection with community fiber networks in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, CA, and Seattle, WA. It includes information about existing fiber assets that the cities identified, funding mechanisms that were considered, and roadblocks that were encountered. Our hope is that this report will be helpful to other cities that are considering launching fiber optic networks.Key findings: The cities profiled in this report have each approached the question of community fiber differently. Washington, D.C. made concessions and arrangements that allowed it to build a robust public-safety-quality fiber network, but limitations on the use of that network have made it unavailable to residents and businesses. Additionally, prices charged non-profits for use of the network are currently too high to be competitive with incumbent products. San Francisco has been highly innovative in expanding fiber to public housing, aggressively leasing dark fiber to community anchor institutions such as libraries and schools, and ensuring free public Wi-Fi, but has not yet cracked the nut of alternative community residential or business fiber access. Seattle has had an extensive city fiber loop in place since 1986, but regulations limiting use of poles and approvals for cabinets have slowed the rollout of competitive last-mile service. Seattle's recent negative experience with Gigabit Squared (which was unable to execute on its last-mile promises and subsequently vanished from the scene) casts a shadow. Seattle's current mayor appears to be determined to ameliorate both the regulatory burdens and the information asymmetries that have dogged the city.


In this paper, the authors present an electrochemical treatment associated to flotation. They want to show that microfiltration can be used in waste water treatment. For this, they have studied the coupling electrocoagulation - flotation, and they have studied the influence of this association on the flux of permeate in microfiltration. The conclusion of this work is that the combination of the three processes is a possible alternative to an extensive treatment in coastal areas. Moreover it is a compact process with which they have obtained a water of a quality suitable for irrigation.


The concentration of organic fluorine in human serum has been reported to vary from 0.0 to 0.13 part per million in persons not exposed to industrial fluorochemicals. To help ascertain whether the natural environment is a source of organic fluorine in human serum, samples from a group of rural Chinese were analyzed. the samples contained low levels of organic fluorine as well as the expected inorganic fluoride.


The SEC announced its proposed Reg AB amendments (the "RegAB II") dealing with the offering process, disclosure, and ongoing reporting of asset-backed securitizations on April 7, 2010. Since the comment period expired in August, the SEC has been evaluating comments it has received on its proposal, as well as working with other agencies, as required by the Dodd-Frank legislation, on various measures common to other agency proposals. Securitization participants should be on heightened awareness of the continuing development in the interagency rulemaking process. As currently written, the SEC's proposed rules are designed to facilitate both investor and general public confidence in structured finance. This article considers the possibility of other consequences, including: • Will the proposals have an effect on the length of time it takes to bring a deal to market? • What is the effect, if any, of the proposed 5% risk retention requirement with respect to consolidation? • What might be the effect of RegAB II on the private placement market? • What are some of the considerations with respect to the proposed waterfall programming?


This is a study of visual and textual images of the mythical creature tengu from the late Heian (897-1185) to the late Kamakura (1185-1333) periods. Popularly depicted as half-bird, half-human creatures with beaks or long noses, wings, and human bodies, tengu today are commonly seen as guardian spirits associated with the mountain ascetics known as yamabushi. In the medieval period, however, the character of tengu most often had a darker, more malevolent aspect. Haruko Wakabashi focuses in this study particularly on tengu as manifestations of the Buddhist concept of Mara (or ma), the personification of evil in the form of the passions and desires that are obstacles to enlightenment. Her larger aim is to investigate the use of evil in the rhetoric of Buddhist institutions of medieval Japan. Through a close examination of tengu that appear in various forms and contexts, Wakabayashi considers the functions of a discourse on evil as defined by the Buddhist clergy to justify their position and marginalize others. Early chapters discuss Buddhist appropriations of tengu during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries in relation to the concept of ma. Multiple interpretations of ma developed in response to changes in society and challenges to the Buddhist community, which recruited tengu in its efforts to legitimize its institutions. The highlight of the work discusses in detail the thirteenth-century narrative scroll Tengu zoshi (also known as the Shichi Tengu-e, or the Seven Tengu Scrolls), in which monks from prominent temples in Nara and Kyoto and leaders of "new" Buddhist sects (Pure Land and Zen) are depicted as tengu. Through a close analysis of the Tengu zoshi's pictures and text, the author reveals one aspect of the critique against Kamakura Buddhism and how tengu images were used to express this in the late thirteenth century. She concludes with a reexamination of the meaning of tengu and a discussion of how ma was essentially socially constructed not only to explain the problems that plague this world, but also to justify the existence of an institution that depended on the presence of evil for its survival. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, Wakabayashi provides a thoughtful and innovative analysis of history and religion through art. The Seven Tengu Scrolls will therefore appeal to those with an interest in Japanese art, history, and religion, as well as in interdisciplinary approaches to socio-cultural history.


Earthquake researchers have long been eavesdroppers, but until recently they listened mainly to the rumblings and groanings of individual faults. Now they are realizing that to understand what faults are saying, they need to monitor dialogues between a fault and its neighbors. This new way of thinking holds that each individual quake is part of a larger conversation in which a major rupture on one fault can transfer stress to a neighboring one and spark a response from it, or temporarily render it speechless by relieving its stress and imposing decades of quiescence on the region.


Kenny Sansom considers himself a lucky man. But he also knows he's pushed that luck, and is fortunate to have survived. As a footballer he soared to great heights - but as an individual he also sank to life-threatening lows. The fans in the Highbury terraces may have sung 'There's only one Kenny Sansom' but no-one ever really knew the whole truth about one of English football's best-loved icons.Few players have ever epitomised the spirit of First Division football more than 'Handsome Sansom'. The nimble left-footed schoolboy from the streets of South London holds a special place in the history of the great English game, winning the hearts of Crystal Palace and Arsenal fans during a playing career which saw him captain successful teams at both clubs. Under the management of Terry Venables, Ron Greenwood, Terry Neill and George Graham, the 1970s and '80s saw the youthful Kenny revelling in top flight football, with millions of fans cheering his refreshing, direct and athletic style.Strong, calm, reliable and known for his ability to work in pinpoint crosses from the left, Kenny was a firm fixture in the cup-winning Arsenal and England defences for most of the 1980s. He won a record-breaking 86 international caps at left-back, and featured in many of the most exciting and pivotal matches played by the Three Lions during that decade - including the infamous game versus Argentina in Mexico 1986. Among many insights from old team-mates and respected managers, for the first time Kenny reveals the real truth about Maradona's controversial 'Hand of God' goal that broke English hearts and robbed the team of a place in the final.Throughout it all, up against some of the best strikers in the world, Kenny's positive attitude never came into question. He's never been booked, let alone sent off. But off the pitch, unknown to his loyal fans, he was suffering in silence. The addictive side of his personality threatened to destroy not only his career but his rock-solid family life too. The fans were kept in the dark by protective manager George Graham, but it was the two women in Kenny's life who truly saved him from the wolves at the door - his devoted mother and the wife he'd met during his early school days.On the brink of throwing it all away, Kenny has found the strength to fight back and defeat the demons of drink and gambling. Laying his soul bare for the first time, Kenny's story reveals the highs and lows of a man at the peak of professional achievement yet dangerously close to losing it all. The result is an entertaining must-read for all football fans - but it also offers hope to anyone caught up in the nightmare of addiction.


The purpose of this study was to determine collegiate athletes' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors concerning hydration and fluid replacement. A survey containing questions pertaining to demographics and knowledge, attitude, and behavior on hydration and fluid replacement was distributed to the athletes during team meetings and practices. A total of 139 out of 171 (81.3%) athletes participated in the study. The mean age of the athletes was 19.8 y. The mean score for knowledge, attitude, and behavior was 13.9 +/-1.8, 9.8 +/- 2.2, and 12.4 +/- 2.5, respectively, with higher scores indicating positive hydration knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Significant positive correlation was observed between knowledge, attitude, and behavior scores (P < 0.05). Significant difference (P < 0.05) was observed in the reported hydration behaviors between skilled (11.79 +/- 2.08) and endurance (12.71 +/- 2.63) athletes. Most athletes correctly answered the general hydration questions on the survey, but the majority did not correctly answer statements in regards to National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) position stands and lacked knowledge regarding appropriate use of sports drink. The results of this study identify specific areas of education for athletes with regards to hydration.


A new cost function, namely, the Wiener cost function, is introduced to find the best wavelet packet (WP) base in image denoising. Unlike the existing entropy-type cost functions in image compression, the Wiener cost function depends on both sparseness of image representation and noise level. Combining the Wiener cost function and the doubly local Wiener filtering scheme, a new image denoising algorithm is proposed using the best wavelet packet bases. Owing to unknown true image in denoising, a pilot image with less noise is required to find the best wavelet packet base, which is obtained by the existing denoising algorithms. From the pilot image, the best 2D wavelet packet tree is searched in terms of the Wiener cost function and the energy distributions of the image in the best wavelet packet domain are also estimated. Further, the image is recovered by applying the local Wiener filtering to the best wavelet packet coefficients of the noisy image. The experimental results show that for images of structural textures, for example 'Barbara' and texture images, the proposed algorithm greatly improves denoising performance as compared with the existing state-of-the-art algorithms.


Multiphase machines have gained an increasing attention due to their more advantages in comparison with three-phase machines. In recent literatures, only voltage source inverters (VSIs) have been used to supply five-phase drives. Matrix converters (MCs) pose many advantages over conventional VSIs, such as lack of dc-bulk capacitors, high quality power output waveform and higher number of output voltages. Due to some special applications of multiphase machines such as ship propulsion and aerospace, the volume of these drives is an important challenging problem. As a consequence, using MCs can be a reasonable alternative. In this paper, a new direct torque control (DTC) algorithm using a three-to-five phase MC is proposed for five-phase permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs). All of output voltage space vectors of three-to-five phase MC are extracted and a new switching table is proposed. Because of higher number of output voltages in MCs, there is a degree of freedom to control input power factor to keep close to unit moreover the torque and flux control. In other words, this proposed method use the advantages of both DTC method and MCs. Simulation results show the effectiveness of presented method in different operation modes.


Curacao and Bonaire form part of the Netherlands Antilles, while Aruba has a "status aparte" within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. All three islands are relatively arid compared to a typical Caribbean island, with mean annual rainfall of 409-553 mm, and experience several periods of drought lasting two or more years each century. A short history of the islands is given, and protected areas are described. The laws and regulations protecting amphibians and reptiles are complex, with general laws originating from the Kingdom of the Netherlands participation in international conventions (such as CITES) together with supplemental laws of the Netherlands Antilles and individual islands. Sea turtles are generally well protected, although their nesting beaches would be vulnerable to a rise in sea level. Among the terrestrial herpetofauna, only the Aruba Island rattlesnake (Crotalus unicolor) is on the IUCN Red List, being Critically Endangered. The status of this species and others of particular interest is described. The Curacao Island snake (Liophis triscalis) should probably be included as Vulnerable or even Endangered, though there is insufficient information at present. Iguana iguana populations on the different islands, and the Curacao whiptail (Cnemidophorus murinus murinus) on Klein Curacao, are distinctive and significant for conservation. An overview is given of introduced amphibians and reptiles and their possible effects on the native fauna. The arid climate of the islands may hinder the establishment of invasive species, which are often not able to survive in the bush and thus reduces their impact on native species.


Marine plastic pollution is a major environmental issue. Given their ubiquitous nature and small dimensions, ingestion of microplastic (MP) and nanoplastic (NP) particles and their subsequent impact on marine life are a growing concern worldwide. Transfers along the trophic chain, including possible translocation, for which the hazards are less understood, are also a major preoccupation. Effects of MP ingestion have been studied on animals through laboratory exposure, showing impacts on feeding activity, reserve depletion and inflammatory responses, with consequences for fitness, notably reproduction. However, most experimental studies have used doses of manufactured virgin microspheres that may not be environmentally realistic. As for most ecotoxicological issues, the environmental relevance of laboratory exposure experiments has recently been debated. Here we review constraints and priorities for conducting experimental exposures of marine wildlife to microplastics based on the literature, feedback from peer reviewers and knowledge gained from our experience. Priorities are suggested taking into account the complexity of microplastics in terms of (i) aggregation status, surface properties and interactions with organic and inorganic materials, (ii) diversity of encountered particles types and concentrations, (iii) particle bioavailability and distribution in experimental tanks to achieve reproducibility and repeatability in estimating effects, and (iv) strict experimental procedures to verify the existence of genuine translocation. Relevant integrative approaches encompass a wide spectrum of methods from -omics to ecophysiological approaches, including modelling, are discussed to provide novel insights on the impacts of MP/NP on marine ecosystems from a long-term perspective. Knowledge obtained in this way would inform stakeholders in such a way as to help them mitigate impacts of the micro- and nano-plastic legacy.


Epigenetic control of gene expression is highly cell-type- and context-specific. Yet, despite its complexity, gene regulatory logic can be broken down into modular components consisting of a transcription factor (TF) activating or repressing the expression of a target gene through its binding to a cis-regulatory region. Recent advances in joint profiling of transcription and chromatin accessibility with single-cell resolution offer unprecedented opportunities to interrogate such regulatory logic. Here, we propose a nonparametric approach, TRIPOD, to detect and characterize three-way relationships between a TF, its target gene, and the accessibility of the TF's binding site, using single-cell RNA and ATAC multiomic data. We apply TRIPOD to interrogate cell-type-specific regulatory logic in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and contrast our results to detections from enhancer databases, cis-eQTL studies, ChIP-seq experiments, and TF knockdown/knockout studies. We then apply TRIPOD to mouse embryonic brain data during neurogenesis and gliogenesis and identified known and novel putative regulatory relationships, validated by ChIP-seq and PLAC-seq. Finally, we demonstrate TRIPOD on SHARE-seq data of differentiating mouse hair follicle cells and identify lineage-specific regulation supported by histone marks for gene activation and super-enhancer annotations.


Route alignment planning for a new highway or railway on the regional level constitutes a complicated planning process which involves the consideration of various data sets and the analysis of such data. It also involves the development of alternative corridors for the potential road and the evaluation of socioeconomic and environmental impacts of such alternatives. The comparison of produced alternatives is another complicated task. In Egypt, and particularly in the General Authority for Roads, Bridges and Land Transport (GARBLT), those tasks are implemented traditionally using manual systems. The choice of a feasible corridor for a new high way is based solely on the topography of the land. The lack of cooperation between the different local authorities and ministries involved complicates the process of data acquisition, integration and analysis. Subsequently, historical, economical and geological data are not accurately considered. Environmental and social impacts are often neglected. To overcome such deficiency, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is mandatory to manage the variety of data sets coming from different sources. But before the introduction and application of GIS would be of any benefit to the GARBLT, some institutional changes are required to allow the data collection and exchange among the different authorities and ministries. The main objective of the present Ph.D. study is to demonstrate to the decision makers and transport planners in GARBLT the capabilities and functions of GIS in the field of route alignment planning and the benefits they will gain if they adopt a certain strategy for data acquisition and maintenance, in the hope that they will move towards a more scientific and up-to-date work methodology. The study will attempt to explore and demonstrate the potentials of the use of GIS in the route alignment planning process. It will also identify the information needs of the route alignment planning process and how it can be integrated and structured in a unified data model. The institutional measures needed for data exchange policies will also be recommended. As a means of achieving these objectives a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for the route alignment planning process will be designed and developed using GIS techniques and capabilities. Such a system should allow multi-criteria analysis and evaluation so that transport planner can come up with some alternative road corridors and evaluate the environmental, social, traffic and economic impacts of each corridor. The incorporation of such factors in the route alignment process is one of the additions to the current system which takes place in GARBLT. Another new aspect is the development of a system that can be reapplied several times as it is intended during the present study rather than aiming at finding the optimum route for a certain project as it is the case in most of the case studies in the literature. This paper explains the need for such a system in Egypt, describes the research plan and the methodology to be followed during this study and demonstrates the results obtained so far from the achieved stages namely the state-of-the-art and the analysis of the current system of route alignment planning in GARBLT.


ProRail is a government task organisation that is responsible for the maintenance of the railway
network. The operation and maintenance of a railway network is complex, it is regulated by
government legislation and has to work closely with all stakeholders in order to be
successful.ProRail choose to outsource their maintenance activities and therefore need to
facilitate a good accessibility.That is why ProRail needs to compose the maintenance
requirements and to do that they need to know how the process contractor executes the
maintenance.The method of maintenance is barely documented within ProRail and that makes
it impossible to compose good maintenance requirements. In this research, it is researched
whether use cases provide benefit to compile the maintenance requirements, in this research is
chosen to elaborate the recovering of a failure in the rail track. Based on the issue it is
possible to drawn the main question.
Main question:
To what extent have use cases for ProRail added value to compose maintenance
requirements for the repair of a malfunction?
Use cases describe the system´s behaviour under various conditions. Actors initiate actions
with the system to accomplish some goal. The use cases are functionally specified this means
they are listed in combination with a verb for example "Restore malfunction".The use cases
itself are often applied in the ICT branch in order to map the client requirements and to be sure
to the created product are close to the desired product. The use cases give a visual display of
a sequence of actions started by different actors. Every use case comes with a systems border
which aims to delimit the specific use case. This makes it possible to create multiple use cases
which follow each other. In a use case often multiple actors are involved, for example in de use
case "Restore malfunction" the contractor and ProRail are involved.
In order to research whether the use cases have added value to compose maintenance
requirements a use case will be developed and using them to check if the use cases have
added value. For this research, the use case "Restore malfunction" has been elaborated
because a malfunction within a rail track is difficult to reach because the trains continue to
drive.
The use case is developed by using the iterative design method, whereby the use case keeps
being adjusted through new information. The information is collected by executing interviews
with colleagues inside ProRail from different departments as well with the four process
contractors who were interviewed about specific cases (Amsterdam Centraal, Utrecht Centraal,
Nijmegen and Breda).
The next step is to create design requirements for the use cases, the requirements are based
on the literature about use cases and the wishes from ProRail.
The use case needs to meet the design requirements in order to be an added value. Eventually
by means of a verification and validation process, it is demonstrated that use cases have an
added value by composing maintenance requirements. The validation process was executed
with six end-users inside ProRail who use the composed use case and giving their opinion
about the use cases by answering some questions and mark them. In addition, they are asked
what needed to be improved to make the use cases successful.
In the end, it can be concluded that the use cases provide added value. The end-users stated
that the use case give a visual display of the maintenance, this visual display is easier to
understand for other departments and makes the maintenance requirements more usable. The
use cases can be used as a communication tool between the different departments inside
ProRail cause of this visual display. By presenting the maintenance requirements on such a
way the end-user can easily trace the underpinning of a specific requirement and use them to
make decisions. The use cases can lead to a maintenance friendly railway network that will
result in shorter failure times caused by a better accessibility. In addition, the use cases can be
used to compose new maintenance requirements.
Also by mapping the maintenance per location, the needed maintenance facilities are
determined. By using the use cases for this and by performing this multiple times, many
standard maintenance requirements are generated.
The use cases will provide added value when they are completely worked out, this means that
they have to include the important / common maintenance activities and every maintenance
requirement needs to be underpinned. Much time has to be invested in the further development
of the use cases.
Following the conclusions and the recommendations from the validation process, a number of
recommendations can be drawn. The use cases to be further developed and this should
involve various stakeholders (engineering and process contractors). It should also be
determined where in the process the use cases are used. ProRail also need to think about how
they want to manage the use cases and how much capacity they want to reserve.


No academic study has empirically analyzed decisions by United State immigration judges to deport judges to deport noncitizens without first providing them a day in court, a procedure known as in absentia removal. Yet bold assertions by members of the current presidential administration that immigrants "never" appear in court drive central policy decisions on immigration enforcement, including growing the immigration detention system, limiting access to asylum, and building a border wall. By reviewing immigration court data from 2008 to 2018 made publicly available by the Executive Office of Immigration Review, this Article provides the first-ever independent analysis of in absentia removal orders. Contrary to claims that all immigrants abscond, our data-driven analysis reveals that 88% of all immigrants in immigration court with completed or pending removal cases over the past eleven years attended all of their court hearings. If we limit our analysis to only nondetained cases, we still find a high compliance rate: 83% of all respondents in completed or pending removal cases attended all of their hearings since 2008. Moreover, we reveal that 15% of those who were ordered deported in absentia since 2008 successfully reopened their cases and had their in absentia orders rescinded. Digging deeper, we identify three factors associated with in absentia removal: having a lawyer, applying for relief from removal (such as asylum), and court jurisdiction. These and other important findings have immediate implications for key immigration policy questions.


According to some researchers (Hopkins, 2004a; Hopkins & Smith, 2008), there is a perception among certain Muslims that anti-Muslim racism is higher in areas where there is a high density of Muslim residents, such as Glasgow. In contrast, other Muslims may feel that Islamophobia is higher in places with fewer numbers of Muslim residents. Through an investigation of Muslims' experiences of Islamophobia in major Scottish cities, this paper discusses the influence of the size of Muslim communities in experiencing Islamophobia[1]. It also examines the importance of other possible factors, such as socio-economic status and deprivation on Islamophobia. To this end, the experience and accounts of 33 Muslim participants in major Scottish cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee) were documented and analyzed through qualitative methods. The findings of this paper suggest that Muslims' individual  and social aspects of life play a more important role on Islamophobia, as opposed to the size of their population in a certain area. More precisely, the analysis of Muslims who experienced Islamophobia suggests that Muslims' identity and visibility, especially racial and religious signifiers such as skin color, beard or hijab, were crucial to their experiences of Islamophobia. [1]. This is compared, in another research (Author, 2015), to the experiences of 10 Muslim participants in small Scottish cities and towns (Falkirk, Dunfermline, East Kilbride and Stirling) where that the number of Muslims living in those areas is less than one percent of the local population (National Records of Scotland, 2013).


In 1940 few Americans had heard of mutual funds. Today U.S. mutual funds are the largest financial industry in the world, with over 88 million shareholders and over $11 trillion in assets. New and updated to reflect the crash of 2008, Matthew Fink's latest book, The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider's View, Second Edition describes the developments that have produced mutual funds' long history of success. Among these developments are: * formation of the first mutual funds in the roaring 20s * how the 1929 stock market crash, a disaster for most financial institutions, spurred the growth of mutual funds * establishment in 1934, over FDR's objection, of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that regulates mutual funds * enactment of the Revenue Act of 1936, the tax law that saved mutual funds from extinction * passage of the Investment Company Act of 1940, the "constitution" of the mutual fund industry * the creation in 1972 of money market funds, which totally changed the mutual fund industry and the entire U.S. financial system *enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which created Individual Retirement Accounts * the accidental development of 401(k) plans, which have revolutionized the way Americans save for retirement * the 2003 trading abuses, the greatest scandal ever in the history of the mutual fund industry Many events have never been discussed in detail; others have been discussed in works on other subjects. This is the first book that pulls together the many strands of mutual funds' unique history, written by an expert who draws on forty years of personal experience in the fund industry. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199753505/toc.html


Nowadays, in the construction sector, some methods are being investigated to detect and minimize their environmental impact. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that allows the evaluation of the environmental burden of a product or process, with a scientific recognition increment; and therefore the aim of this work is to verify the feasibility of the use of LCA in the construction sector. For this purpose, the environmental impacts of the use of conventional reinforced concrete (RC) columns, and Glulam (G) as an alternative material, were compared. The scope of the LCA included the extraction and manufacture of materials and construction of the columns; the software tools used were LCA Manager 1.3 and database Ecoinvent 2.0. The study showed that the most critical stage is the production of materials. RC reports 3.5 times more damage to ecosystem quality, requires a 32% more extraction of natural resources, and produces effects on human health 53% higher than G; while G generates 108 times more damage to land occupation; however, considering environmental measures, this effect can be mitigated, since it is a material 100% renewable. Finally, it was verified that LCA is a feasible option to use in the construction field and, it provides a wide range of results.


Strong scattering during electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) experiments in several magnetically confined fusion devices has been attributed to parametric decay instabilities (PDIs). Analytical modeling has shown that a non-monotonic density profile and excitation of trapped waves through two plasmon decay (TPD) play an important role. Using a particlein-cell (PIC) code, decay of an X-mode wave into waves trapped inside a nonmonotonic density profile is observed. The time evolution and composition of the daughter waves are investigated for different density profiles. A build up of the TPD daughter waves is only observed when they are supported by the plasma.


The impact of uncertainty in the commercialization lifecycle of new technologies is a complex phenomenon. Technologies are research intensive and exposed to uncertainty regarding their successful development and functionality. Further these technologies have to be absorbed by volatile markets in order to be commercialized. These different forms of uncertainty are of primary importance for decision makers but have not been thoroughly studied in previous technology commercialization research and put under one theoretical framework. The main focus of this thesis is to comprehend the recently growing trend among universities and public research organizations to commercialize their research activities from an empirical and theoretical perspective. More particularly the thesis focuses on the life cycle of two main commercialization streams namely the entry and exit of university spinouts, which are companies that evolve from intellectual property developed within academic institutions as well as the licensing and licensing termination of inventions. The main focus of the thesis therefore analysesmarket and technological uncertainty and explains the conditions under which spinout formation, spinout failure, licensing and licensing failure occur by putting them under the theoretical framework of real option theory.


AIM OF THE PAPER
To review the literature relating to emotional labour in the workplace and identify potential sources of emotion within midwifery work.

RATIONALE
There is substantial evidence to indicate that the quality of the relationship between midwife and woman is significant in determining the quality of the childbirth experience for women. Despite this, there is a notable lack of research regarding midwives' experiences of participating in this relationship, and even less regarding the emotional issues involved.

METHOD
Literature review of relevant midwifery, nursing and sociological literature. Discussion of the theoretical perspectives provided by sociological and nursing research relating to the management of emotion at work and critical consideration of their application to an analysis of midwifery work.

FINDINGS
Although these theoretical perspectives may offer significant insights of relevance to midwifery, there is much more that needs to be uncovered. Midwifery work has the potential for creating high levels of emotion work and current changes in the organization of United Kingdom (UK) maternity care may further increase this.

CONCLUSION
It is essential that midwives develop their understanding of emotion at work in order to improve their own working lives, and to meet the needs of childbearing women and their families. More research is needed in this field to develop a body of knowledge to inform midwifery education and practice.


The visualization of large spatial point data sets constitutes a problem with respect to runtime and quality. A visualization of raw data often leads to occlusion and clutter and thus a loss of information. Furthermore, particularly mobile devices have problems in displaying millions of data items. Often, thinning via sampling is not the optimal choice because users want to see distributional patterns, cardinalities and outliers. In particular for visual analytics, an aggregation of this type of data is very valuable for providing an interactive user experience. This thesis defines the problem of visual point clustering that leads to proportional circle maps. It furthermore introduces a set of quality measures that assess different aspects of resulting circle representations. The Circle Merging Quadtree constitutes a novel and efficient method to produce visual point clusterings via aggregation. It is able to outperform comparable methods in terms of runtime and also by evaluating it with the aforementioned quality measures. Moreover, the introduction of a preprocessing step leads to further substantial performance improvements and a guaranteed stability of the Circle Merging Quadtree. This thesis furthermore addresses the incorporation of miscellaneous attributes into the aggregation. It discusses means to provide statistical values for numerical and textual attributes that are suitable for side-views such as plots and data tables. The incorporation of multiple data sets or data sets that contain class attributes poses another problem for aggregation and visualization. This thesis provides methods for extending the Circle Merging Quadtree to output pie chart maps or maps that contain circle packings. For the latter variant, this thesis provides results of a user study that investigates the methods and the introduced quality criteria. In the context of providing methods for interactive data visualization, this thesis finally presents the VAT System, where VAT stands for visualization, analysis and transformation. This system constitutes an exploratory geographical information system that implements principles of visual analytics for working with spatiotemporal data. This thesis details on the user interface concept for facilitating exploratory analysis and provides the results of two user studies that assess the approach.


Mixed-initiative Procedural Content Generation uses algorithms to assist human designers in the collaborative creation of game content. Different mixed-initiative approaches use different methods to engage with the design material while supporting the designer's intentions. However, the designer runs the risk of misunderstanding the system's abilities and how to control them. In order to limit miscommunication during the design process, heuristics could be applied. In this paper we present a mixed-initiative tool for evolving dungeons with the aid of game design patterns as heuristics. The tool, the Evolutionary Dungeon Designer, uses a genetic algorithm that searches for levels containing game design patterns on two hierarchical levels of abstraction to express more complex gameplay in the game level. We evaluate the tool through a series of lab experiments and a user study conducted with professional game developers. Our results demonstrate that we are able to control the generation of the different patterns with the aid of design pattern-related input parameters, as well as identifying a number of features a design pattern-based mixed-initiative tool could benefit from.


The mighty Hoover Dam, starting as a dream of land developers and farmers, became the most ambitious civil engineering project of the Great Depression. This landmark in the middle of the Mojave Desert, holding back the largest man-made lake in America, also became, like Mount Rushmore or the Empire State Building, a visual and cultural icon. The power and meanings of this icon came not through a single image but via myriad visual representations, in government propaganda, advertising, journalism, and art. Even before it was built, these images were used to shape the public's perception of the project and frame the dam as the linchpin to an expanding American economic empire in the desert Southwest. Anthony F. Arrigo has researched a wide array of primary sources and archival materials to trace the project from its earliest representations in illustrations to the documentary photography of its construction and later depictions of the structure in commercial promotions, fine art photography, and paintings. Analysing Hoover Dam through the trajectory of imagery across several decades, rather than the narrative of its construction, illuminates the underlying cultural and ecological imperatives in the drive to build it, including the influence of religious doctrine and the American agrarian movement. Arrigo also discusses various portrayals of labourers, women, minority groups, nature, and technology in this imagery. In time, the visual icon of power and domination was commercialised to sell cars, vacations, and more. Imaging Hoover Dam is an important work in both visual rhetoric and cultural studies. It will also intrigue readers interested in such varied topics as the history of the American Southwest, the Great Depression and the New Deal, social and environmental issues, and American popular culture.


The first chapter reviews twentieth- century work on stress, considering
stress from several points of view: as intensity, pitch and rhythm. The
weaknesses of some approaches are pointed out. Some past work on isochrony
is summarised and the metrical theory of stress introduced. The problem
presented by stress in Welsh is introduced informally.
The second chapter describes a series of measurements and experiments
carried out to investigate stress in Welsh. Acoustic measurements are made
of Fo, intensity, duration, and lengths of rhythmic feet. It is concluded
that stress in Welsh is determined by rhythm rather than inherent acoustic
cues. Statistical anal ysis of further measurements of feet reveal s the
effects of syllabification and also supports the previous findings.
Perceptual experiments using native speaker judgements of resynthesised
speech are presented and analysed; it is concluded that Welsh stress is
linked with rhythm and with consonantal length (the consonant after a
stressed vowel being longer than one after an unstressed vowel), while it
has no direct link with pitch- prominence as such.
The third chapter outl ines a theoretical framework based on the
'metrical' theory of stress, and proceeds to apply it to Welsh . This
modified framework makes use of Selkirk's 'prosodic units', but differs
from the usual forms of the theory by also taking account of the semantic
weight of words in the utterance context. It is agreed that this makes for
a more explanatory theory, and some puzzles of English intonation are
shown to be described more simply using such a theory. The patterns of
intonation in Welsh are also described in this framework.
The fourth chapter discusses the implications posed by the
experimental results for the general theory of stress. Reference is made
to some research in the psychology of stress perception, and evidence is
also presented from the historical development of Welsh from ancient
British times, and also from the Welsh bardic rules of versification. It is
argued that Welsh has a unique contribution to make to our understanding
of the nature of and possible forms taken by stress, and the conclusion is
that stress in any language, and more particularly in English, may not be
as straightforward a matter as has been hitherto assumed.


We have investigated the effect of several hydrophobic polypeptides on the phase behavior of diacylphosphatidylcholines with different acyl chain length. The polypeptides are uncharged and consist of a sequence with variable length of alternating leucine and alanine, flanked on both sides by two tryptophans, and with the N- and C-termini blocked. First it was demonstrated by circular dichroism measurements that these peptides adopt an alpha-helical conformation with a transmembrane orientation in bilayers of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine. Subsequent 31P NMR measurements showed that the peptides can affect lipid organization depending on the difference in hydrophobic length between the peptide and the lipid bilayer in the liquid-crystalline phase. When a 17 amino acid residue long peptide (WALP17) was incorporated in a 1/10 molar ratio of peptide to lipid, a bilayer was maintained in saturated phospholipids containing acyl chains of 12 and 14 C atoms, an isotropic phase was formed at 16 C atoms, and an inverted hexagonal (HII) phase at 18 and 20 C atoms. For a 19 amino acid residue long peptide (WALP19) similar changes in lipid phase behavior were observed, but at acyl chain lengths of 2 C-atoms longer. Also in several cis-unsaturated phosphatidylcholine model membranes it was found that these peptides and a shorter analog (WALP16) induce the formation of nonbilayer structures as a consequence of hydrophobic mismatch. It is proposed that this unique ability of the peptides to induce nonbilayer structures in phosphatidylcholine model membranes is due to the presence of two tryptophans at both sides of the membrane/water interface, which prevent the peptide from aggregating when the mismatch is increased. Comparison of the hydrophobic length of the bilayers with the length of the different peptides showed that it is the precise extent of mismatch that determines whether the preferred lipid organization is a bilayer, isotropic phase, or HII phase. The peptide-containing bilayer and HII phase were further characterized after sucrose density gradient centrifugation of mixtures of WALP16 and dioleoylphosphatidylcholine. 31P NMR measurements of the isolated fractions showed that a complete separation of both components was obtained. Chemical analysis of these fractions in samples with varying peptide concentration indicated that the HII phase is highly enriched in peptide (peptide/lipid molar ratio of 1/6), while the maximum solubility of the peptide in the lipid bilayer is about 1/24 (peptide/lipid, molar). A molecular model of the peptide-induced HII phase is presented that is consistent with the results obtained thus far.


This paper addresses the energy-efficient resource allocation problem in downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) networks with multiple users. The joint optimization of power and subcarrier allocation to maximize bits-per-Joule is formulated constrained by the maximum transmit power and the minimum required system data rate. Due to the prohibitive computational complexity, this paper proposes an iteration-based sub-optimal scheme with superlinear convergence based on the Dinkelbach method by relaxing the constraints and exploiting the properties of non-linear fractional programming. The analytical solutions for the power and subcar-rier allocation in each iteration are derived by the subgradient method according to Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and Lagrange multipliers. Finally, the simulation results validate the convergence and energy efficiency performance of the proposed scheme.


In recent years, self-care has been in the forefront of UK health policy [1], with community pharmacies being promoted as a first point of contact for patients [2], when seeking advice for the treatment of a variety of conditions and minor ailments. As more medicines have become available without prescription this has led to community pharmacists dealing with a wider range of presenting problems and spending more time on making clinical decisions.
Aims / objectives
The area of how community pharmacists make a clinical diagnosis is under-researched. The aim of this exploratory study was to gain an initial insight on how community pharmacists make clinical decisions in order to reach a diagnosis.
Method
A qualitative methodology was employed where semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with community pharmacists that had been practicing for at least six months at the time of the interviews and did not hold, or were working towards, a prescribing qualification. Pharmacists were identified through snow balling sampling and consent sheets sent to their pharmacies' registered address. Pharmacists who returned completed consent forms were recruited to the study. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed ad verbatim. Interviews were analysed, with a team-based approach, using a clinical reasoning based framework analysis to identify themes and subthemes. Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee at the University of Wolverhampton.
Results
Eight interviews were conducted across England, with five male and three female pharmacists, who had been practicing for periods ranging from one to forty years. The major theme that emerged from the analysis was the poor diagnostic knowledge and ability of the pharmacists and a non-evidence based approach to decision-making. Pharmacists constantly used and overly relied on mnemonic methods both for diagnostic purposes and product selection. Their motives within consultations appeared to be establishing an appropriate product to recommend, rather than the need to establish a diagnosis, and the inability to differentiate between the two processes. However, they did have a sense of the limitations of the methods they used and an awareness for the need to 'delve deeper' during consultations but could not articulate how or why this was the case. Themes and sub-themes are explained using confirmatory quotes from the data.
Discussion or Conclusion
The findings of this study suggest that even though community pharmacists are tasked with advising symptom-presenting patients, their poor clinical reasoning skills are preventing them from reaching appropriate diagnoses. In order for community pharmacists to better perform this role, greater emphasis should be given in teaching and practicing clinical reasoning skills during their studies and through continuous professional development. The study is limited by its small sample size.

1. Department of Health. The NHS Plan. A Plan for Investment, A Plan for Reform [Internet]. London: National Health Service; 2000 [cited 6 October 2012]. Available from: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.dh.gov.uk/en/publicationsandstatistics/publications/publicationspolicyandguidance/dh_4002960
2. Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Improving Urgent and Emergency care through better use of pharmacists [Internet]; 2014 [cited 5 October 2016]. Available from: http://www.rpharms.com/policy-pdfs/urgent-and-emergency-care.pdf


A novel MEMS technological platform for RF passive components, namely RF MEMS switches, tuneable capacitors and high-Q suspended inductors, is reported. The proposed process employs a metal (Al, AlSi or Cu) as active movable layer and amorphous silicon or polycrystalline silicon as sacrificial layers, providing multi-air-gaps. Various types of substrates like bulk silicon and SOI can be used. Full dry releasing of suspended beams and membranes is performed with SF6 or XeF2, with unrivalled yield/reproducibility compared with any other wet etching techniques. The platform is used to validate new MEMS architectures and concepts, such as the suspended-gate MOSFET that can serve as both RF capacitive switches and tuneable RF capacitors.


The reconstruotionist position may be expressed as an ideology which treats schools and teachers as major instrumentalities of directed cultural change. Other conceptions of education and culture emphasize the social force of cultural heritage, whereas reconstructionism treats the heritage as a resource for future social and individual growth.
Reconstructionist thinking is conspicuous in those modern nationbuilding enterprises which seek to direct schooling by broad social policy objectives. Throughout the twentieth century, in England and America, many educational thinkers have diagnosed a contemporary cultural crisis and proposed large-scale remedial treatment. These proposals have come most notably from Fabian socialists, scientific rationalists like Wells and Russell, Dewey and other American experimentalists, and Mannheim. Their diverse proposals for cultural renewal may be organized under such headings as crisis, planned change, holism, and a quest for unity and order. Thus, reconstructionists seek to manage the change processes whose destructive impact on culture they have analysed.
Reconstructionism embraces a range of educational positions, from the cultural autonomy of education to the assimilation of educational to other social and political processes. Despite the ambitious synthetic accounts given of these and other relationships, various tensions remain, including thosetiotween common core curricula and specialization, mass and minority institutions, and social adjustment and independence of mind. Reconstructionism, by broadening the teacher's role, poses particular problems for teacher education. As a theory of planned cultural change, its focus is not so much the school as the institutions of teacher education, which are conceived as potentially culturally critical and innovative.


Aeolian sediment transport from the beach to the foredune system can be predicted for periods of months or years from hourly wind data collected at standard meteorological stations. However, there is no corresponding data set of transport-limiting factors such as beach surface moisture, snow and ice, pebble lag and restricted fetch length. The remote sensing station described here has been specifically designed to acquire information on the dynamics of the beach and foredune system at high spatial and temporal resolution during long periods of time. The system consists of three digital SLR cameras covering different areas of interest of the beach and foredune controlled by a timer that takes pictures every hour. Coupled with measurements from a 2D Windsonic anemometer, saltation probes and Erosion/Deposition pins, the station provides extensive time series on those factors affecting aeolian transport. This information is managed by a geodatabase which can be used to query and identify the nature and frequency of events that deliver sand from the beach to the dunes. The first step is to obtain an estimate of when and how do transport events take place. For this purpose, a filtering technique has been designed to isolate periods of aeolian activity at the beach and reduce the volume of data to process. This paper presents preliminary results of behavior of the aeolian system at Greenwich Dunes, Prince Edward Island, Canada through a complete year of measurements, and introduces key aspects for future modeling and analysis.


We use unique price data to study how retailers react to underlying cost changes. Temporary sales account for 95% of price changes in our data. Simple models would, therefore, suggest that temporary sales play a central role in price responses to cost shocks. We find, however, that, in response to a wholesale cost increase, the entire increase in retail prices comes through regular price increases. Sales actually respond temporarily in the opposite direction from regular prices, as though to conceal the price hike. Additional evidence from responses to commodity cost and local unemployment shocks, as well as broader evidence from BLS data reinforces these findings. We present institutional evidence that sales are complex contingent contracts, determined substantially in advance. We show theoretically that these institutional practices leave little money "on the table": in a price-discrimination model of sales, dynamically adjusting the size of sales yields only a tiny increase in profits.


ABSTRACT This paper is a study of the skills economy of the rural region of Mid Wales, and the subsequent policy responses that could be activated to stimulate job creation and upgrading through skills development and training. A skills economy approach incorporates the means by which the expectations of employers, employees and those outside the workforce influence the existing and potential skills base of a region. Such an approach differs from traditional labour market studies, being focused more on longterm aspects and based on skill deficiencies and gaps, rather than merely shortages. The paper addresses the underlying culture of learning and attitudes towards training, from the perspective of the training supply and the demand expressed by employers, employees, the unemployed and the inactive. It highlights that the socio-economic climate of a rural economy dominated by transport difficulties, depopulation and agricultural crises needs to be addressed by the training provision made available. However, the unwillingness or inability to invest in learning and training is shown to be highly apparent from both the employer and employee perspective. It is shown that the development of new awareness and skill raising activities, to encourage both businesses and individuals to capitalize upon their latent skills capacity, are crucial to enhancing the Mid Wales skills economy. These activities should be developed at a number of differing levels, ranging from the direct promotion of increased productivity, to facilitating excluded individuals in the development of basic employability and 'job-getting' skills.


"To improve the ability of farmers in developing countries to reduce the burden of foodborne illness, government agencies need to take the following steps: (1) Implement a farm-to-table approach to agricultural health by focusing efforts on the prevention of potential food safety and agricultural health threats at all stages of the supply chain including production, processing, marketing, and retailing. (2) Raise awareness among decisionmakers, public servants, producers, traders, and consumers about the potential sources of food safety problems and ways to protect against such problems. (3) Encourage a multi-stakeholder approach to improving public health. (4) Strengthen surveillance and diagnostic capacity in all countries to improve measurement of prevalence and detection of outbreaks. (5) Strengthen risk analysis capacity to help decisionmakers in all countries to set strategies and priorities, to consider the many needs of the supply chain, and to increase their focus on the preharvest stage. (6) Switch from command-control policies to performance-based standards to meet national and international food safety goals. Command-control policies are often less flexible and have higher fixed costs, which may result in the displacement of poor producers from the market. (7) Improve infrastructure and access to cold storage facilities to ensure the delivery of highly perishable foods to distant markets. (8) Support efforts to improve supply chain management to improve food safety along the whole supply chain." From text


The author has been advocating for Organization of Petroleum Importing Countries since almost a decade. The argument is simple – OPEC; Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, forces up oil prices by restricting supply. It is intuitively obvious to a layperson as well as economists, that by restricting demand, oil prices should come down. It is especially important to remember that even a small cut in oil supply – as less as 3 to 5% can increase oil prices by more than 100%. So, a small cut in oil demand can be successful in reducing oil prices significantly. And oil prices have significant impact on global economy. Indeed, it is no coincidence that there was a recession in 2008 and there is a recession in 2011 periods, when oil prices have been on higher side. The arithmetic is simple. The world consumes around 30 billion barrels of oil every year. At $10 a barrel, the world pays around $300 billion for oil. But at $100 a barrel, world spends almost $3000 billion for oil. Clearly escalation of oil prices has significant impact on economy. Indeed high oil prices leads to both stagnation and inflation. Again high oil prices transfers wealth and money from oil importing nations, to oil exporting nations. This could have significant political impact. Hence, it is important to control oil prices. It is hence recommended that an organization of petroleum importing country be created to reduce oil demand and thus check oil prices.

 Key words: Organization of petroleum importing countries (OPIC), organization of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) oil, prices.


STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aim was to establish leg ulcer point prevalence, basal patient characteristics, and level of caretaking. DESIGN--The study was a postal cross sectional survey. The validity was ensured by examining a randomly selected sample of reported patients. Responding health care officials were asked to report all patients with an open wound below knee (including foot ulcer) which did not heal or was supposed to heal within a six week period after onset of ulceration. Response rate was 92%. SETTING--Inpatient and outpatient care in hospitals, community health care, and private nursing homes within Skaraborg county, with a population of 270,800. PARTICIPANTS--827 individual patients were found with active leg ulcers, 526 women and 301 men. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS--Age adjusted sex ratio of ulcer patients was 1:1.4 (M:F). The median age was 78 years for women and 76 for men; 700 patients (85%) were older than 64 years. The point prevalence for active leg ulcers was 3.0/1000 total population. District nurses provided care for 680 patients (82%), 106 (13%) were in hospital care, and 41 (5%) were managed by outpatient departments. CONCLUSIONS--There has been an underestimation of the leg ulcer problem among elderly patients, especially men. With an expected increasing number of elderly people it is important that this problem is recognised and measures taken to improve the primary care of these patients.


Abstract Multiple regression models were developed for seasonal test inputs to, and preservation of, marsh foraminiferal assemblages for a two-year period at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge (BHNWR; Smyrna, Delaware). Seasonal assemblages were quite variable and yielded poor regression models. However, signal/noise ratios were amplified using artificially time-averaged (ATA) assemblages, in which separate dead and live abundances of the most abundant species were summed for all seasons. Regression models that used ATA species abundances to retrodict original sample depths accounted for up to ∼99% (p < 0.0001) and ∼91% (p < 0.023) of the variation of dead and live ATA assemblages, respectively, and usually retrodicted sample depths within 2–3 cm of actual depths. Artificially time-averaged assemblages were also used to extract multidecadal- to centennial-scale sea-level signals from near-surface assemblages at BHNWR formed during the past few centuries. The BHNWR sea-level curve closely resembles one previously published for marshes in Clinton, Connecticut (also based on foraminifera). The technique of artificial time-averaging therefore links the temporal scales of ecology and paleobiology by extracting high-resolution paleoenvironmental signals preserved in the fossil record.


The thesis studied resilience in drilling and well operations at an oil company operating on the Norwegian continental shelf, with a major focus on the onshore drilling support function in the case company. Drilling for oil and gas involves significant risks, according to scientists, authorities and the industry itself. The risks of offshore oil extraction have also been manifested through major accidents like the Deepwater Horizon. At the same time, the industry faces challenges like less reservoirs and rising operating costs. The development of new technology for collecting and transmitting data and new ways of working emerged about a decade ago and is often referred to as Integrated Operations or simply IO. The changes made new ways of working over distance possible, which were said to have produced numerous advantages that would lead to improved productivity and profitability as well as HSE. Some scientists however have warned against possible negative risks associated to Integrated Operations that should be accounted for. At the same time, within the safety management science Resilience Engineering has evolved as a well acknowledged theory for building resilient organizations. However, the literature on Resilience Engineering is rather new, and some authors have called for more empirical studies of resilience in practice. To perform a study on resilience in practice in an IO environment, the following research questions were formulated: • How does collaboration technology and integrating of operations influence resilience? • How can resilience be engineered in an IO environment? A case study design was chosen, and the case was delimited to compass the selected case company's drilling and well operations units with the organization's onshore drilling support center as the core object of study. The qualitative research methods semi structured interviews of key personnel at the case company and observation of work practice were used for data collection. In addition some documents were used. The study started off by investigating how the case operates, and in particular how they utilize collaboration technology and work over geographical and organizational borders. Specifically, the focus of attention was to identify the risks and challenges in drilling and well operations and how the organization operates in such an environment. The data collection then focused on how the organization manages risks and what factors contribute to resilience. Relevant literature was reviewed in order to identify characteristics resilient organizations. The data collected at the case company were then compared with the literature study and the organization's resilience was then sought to explain. The analysis resulted in a set of recommendations that was seen as key contributors to resilience for the case, and may be useful recommendations for organizations in other relevant contexts. The suggested steps towards a resilient organization are: • Organize the workers into teams of experts in collaborative open space offices • Make sure employees have experience from relevant work practice • Have organizational processes that facilitate collaboration in place • Use analytics on historical and realtime data extensively • Have knowledge databases with lessons learned and best practices • Invest in new technology and workplace facilities • Create positive attitudes towards change • Encourage curiosity and employees' interest in their field of expertise


Integrins play an important part in axon growth, but integrin traffic in neurons is poorly understood. Expression of the tenascin-C-binding integrin α9 promotes axon regeneration. We have therefore studied the mechanism by which α9 integrin and its partner β1 are trafficked along axons and at the growth cone using adult DRG neurons and PC12 cells. We have focused on the small GTPase Rab11 and its effector Rab coupling protein (RCP), as they are involved in the long-range trafficking of β1 integrins in other cells. Rab11 colocalizes with α9 and other α integrins and with β1 integrin in growth cones and axons, and immunopurified Rab11 vesicles contain α9 and β1. Endocytosed β1 integrins traffic via Rab11. However, Rab11 vesicles in axons are generally static, and α9 integrins undergo bouts of movement during which they leave the Rab11 compartment. In growth cones, α9 and β1 overlap with RCP, particularly at the growth cone periphery. We show that β1 integrin trafficking during neurite outgrowth involves Rab11 and RCP, and that manipulation of these molecules alters surface integrin levels and axon growth, and can be used to enhance α9 integrin-dependent neurite outgrowth. Our data suggest that manipulation of trafficking via Rab11 and RCP could be a useful strategy for promoting integrin-dependent axonal regeneration.


This study developed a computational strategy that utilizes data inputs from multiple spatial scales to investigate how variability within individual fields can impact sustainable residue removal for bioenergy production. Sustainable use of agricultural residues for bioenergy production requires consideration of the important role that residues play in limiting soil erosion and maintaining soil C, health, and productivity. Increased availability of subfield-scale data sets such as grain yield data, high-fidelity digital elevation models, and soil characteristic data provides an opportunity to investigate the impacts of subfield-scale variability on sustainable agricultural residue removal. Using three representative fields in Iowa, this study contrasted the results of current NRCS conservation management planning analysis with subfield-scale analysis for rake-and-bale removal of agricultural residue. The results of the comparison show that the field-average assumptions used in NRCS conservation management planning may lead to unsustainable residue removal decisions for significant portions of some fields. This highlights the need for additional research on subfield-scale sustainable agricultural residue removal including the development of real-time variable removal technologies for agricultural residue.


Abstract:In order to understand the legal use and significance of documents in medieval India, we need to start from the contemporaneous legal categories found in the Sanskrit scholastic corpus called dharmaśāstra. By comparing these categories with actual historical documents and inscriptions, we gain better insight into the encounter of pan-Indian legal discourse in Sanskrit and regional laws in vernacular languages. The points of congruence and transgression in this encounter will facilitate a nuanced history of documents and their use beyond unhelpfully broad categories of written and oral. A new translation of one major scholastic discussion of documents is presented as a way to raise issues relevant to any historical description of the legal encounter text and practice.


Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922) was one of the most interesting,
colourful writers of Victorian England. As an independent man of
means, he led the tempestuous life of an aristocratic, Byronic rebel.
His writing was intensely personal, a series of emotional experiences
influenced his thinking on religion, politics and literature. He was
a diplomat, a poet, a traveller, a diarist, a religious doubter, an
amorist, a cultured artist of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic tastes, a
fashionable squire of the Elizabethan type, an amateur Orientalist
with unconventional sympathies, a traditionalist promoting Mediaeval
values, a modernist who championed several lost causes, playing many
roles with a deep sense of mission. His paradoxical character reflects
the noblest ideals and the most glaring weaknesses of his age.
This thesis is an appreciative study of his creative works in prose
and verse, and an attempt to assess his stature as a pioneer and a
prophet. The method adopted is that of a close study of the texts.
A comparative approach is developed in the analysis of Blunt's work as
a poet and a translator. Historical events and biographical elements
are used wherever they shed light on his writings. A brief survey of
the Victorian interest in the Arab world and the Eastern question, with
reference to the writings and attitudes of travellers/shows that the
East came to mean different things to different people at the height of
Britain's imperialist expansion. A comparison of these attitudes and
their backgrounds in Chapter I concludes that Blunt's understanding
of the East was unique in its accuracy. The impact of the East and
its culture on Blunt's character and attitudes was permanent. These are
(ii)
(iii)
studied in the writings of Blunt as a man of action, particularly in
his Secret History series. Blunt's rendering of Arabic texts is studied
in Chapter IV, in comparison to the translations of professional
Orientalists like Edward Lane, William Jones, and A.J. Arberry. Blunt's
success seen against the failure of a number of other English poets to
reproduce Arabic poetry, makes his Moallakat a unique contribution to
English literature.
Although Blunt belongs to the Romantic tradition, he has assimilated
other traditions, Elizabethan as well as Pre-Raphaelite, neo-classical as
well as modern, Tennysonian as well as Arabic. Yet he remained independent
and highly indiVidual. His experiments in the field of the sonnet and
his assonance in rhyme are analysed and their sources traced in both
Arabic and English precedents and traditions in Chapter II.
For the first time, Chapter III offers a detailed contextual study
of Blunt's three dramatic works, the anti-imperialist Extravaganza,
The Bride of the Nile , the "social problem" play of Ideas, The Little
Left Hand and the drama of passion, Fand. The influences of Shakespeare,
Arabic and Islamic history, Shavian and Ibsenesque elements are traced.
The plays are seen as an attempt by Blunt to propagate his own opinions
in the fields of love, marriage, religious, social and political reform.
Blunt's volumin diaries record his attitudes to the major
issues of his time, his intimate knowledge of the key figures in both
Europe and the East, his deep insight into their characters, and his
now vindicated interpretation of events. Chapter V stresses the
importance of this work as a mine of information, of perennial value
to the student of Victorian and Edwardian times. Blunt's opinions and
indiscretions are shown to be relevant in his capacity as a man of
letters, a man of the world, or a political observer~
·(iv)
Blunt's interest in Islam made him write a book which influenced
both Muslim reformers and English policy-makers. The development of
his religious thought is charted in Chapter VI, where his beliefs
are analysed in the light of his attitudes to culture, evolution and
political revival, together with his streak of superstition. His
agnostic materialism and his attack on religious hypocrisy are
analysed; and Blunt, as an honest doubter, is shown to be the product
of his age.


Beginning from the year-end of 1960, Muslim thinkers introduced the concept of Traditional Arabic and Islamic Medicine (TAIM) as an alternative model to Western bio-medicine. Initially, this development was seen as viable for the future. But however, even today, Islamic Medicine has not yet emerged as a comprehensive healthcare model in any country compared to the Western conventional model. Thus, the objective of this article is to evaluate the social polemics regarding the functional aspect of Islamic alternative medicine in Malaysia. Through distribution of questionnaires to patients who visit Islamic treatment centres in Malaysia, an analysis is made applying inductive, descriptive and quantitative methods based on Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Research concludes that discussing the function of Islamic alternative treatment is polemical. From one standpoint, Islamic Medicine in Malaysia serves a bigger role for the Muslim society compared to other alternative medicines. Its importance in treating disease is also undeniable. But from another standpoint, the role of Islamic Medicine in Malaysia is limited due to two factors: (1) the Muslim society only resorts to alternative medicine after experiencing dissatsfaction with conventional treatment (Western bio-medicine) due to reasons such as idiopathy, variety of disesases difficult to detect, or incurability by conventional or modern methods; and (2) the treatment of spiritual problems has become the main focus of Islamic Medicine. A moderate perception of respondent may be observed in two matters: (1) the role of Islamic alternative medicine in the treatment of physical diseases is not emphasized; and (2) the process of taking over the function of modern health institutions is not considered as appropriate by society. The finding of this research is useful as an early step to empower the role of Islamic alternative medicine in order to suit the needs of the present Muslim society.


In this paper, we propose and study a new bivariate Weibull model, called Bi-level Weibull Model, which arises when one failure occurs after the other. Under some specific regularity conditions, the reliability function of the second event can be above the reliability function of the first event, and is always above the reliability function of the transformed first event, which is a univariate Weibull random variable. This model is motivated by a common physical feature that arises from several real applications. The two marginal distributions are a Weibull distribution and a generalized three-parameter Weibull mixture distribution. Some useful properties of the model are derived, and we also present the maximum likelihood estimation method. A real example is provided to illustrate the application of the model.


The chemical sensors are fabricated using IC manufacturing technologies, providing a smaller size and lower weight, lower power consumption, and lower cost due to the automated and batch production. During the last two decades, largely two-dimensional Integrated Circuit (IC) fabrication technology has been extended into the third dimension by micromachining technologies [1]. Micromachining has been used to produce a growing variety of micromechanical structures, including automotive pressure sensors, airbag deployment accelerometers and many others [2-4]. Given the similarities in IC fabrication and micromachining, microelectronics and micromechanics may be integrated on a single chip, allowing an on-chip monitoring and control of the mechanical/chemical functions. This has led to the term microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to describe this technology. The use of MEMS technology could provide a number of opportunities for gas sensors: the sensing elementscan be miniaturized (reducing power consumption), multiple elements can be integrated into array con_gurations with each element optimized to sense a di_erent gas, improved selectivity/ sensitivity and the integration of sensing and signal processing/control devices on the same substrate. In addition, due to the small mass of micromachined-sensor element, rapid thermal programming can be employed to introduce a level of kinetic selectivity into the operation of the sensor. In this thesis, realization of Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) compatible chemical sensors using micromachining technology will be explained. During this realization 3x2 sensor array is designed to improve the selectivity and sensitivity of the sensor system. To address the needs of convenient and batch processes CMOS compatibility is incorporated inside the fabrication ow because CMOS compatibility o_ers convenient merging with read-out circuitry which comprises of operational transconductance ampliers (OTAs). OTAs are preferred in this design because they assist the detection of the resistance changes at the sensor output.


Narrativity is commonly understood as a predominantly temporal concept. In the case of verbal narration, the telling ('discours') is a temporally structured process and the told ('histoire') can be described as a sequence of events ordered in time. Whether or not there is such a thing as 'pictorial narrativity' is, in consequence, the subject of controversial debate. The static character of the classical panel painting is at odds with the temporality of narrativity. Due to their static character, pictures can only represent one single moment ( punctum temporis ); therefore, they cannot present complete actions or a series of events. Both the critics and the defenders of pictorial narrativity usually refer to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's characterization of the pictorial medium (distinguished from the linguistic medium), which he gives in his Laocoon (Lessing 1853 [1766]: 101f.). Against this background, the defenders either dilute the definition of 'narrativity' (with the result that temporality is no longer a necessary condition for narrativity), or they fall back on picture series or other genres of pictures which can depict several phases of a story. This chapter, however, shows that Lessing's reinterpretation of the presented moment as 'fruitful' or 'pregnant' reveals a different strategy to defend the possibility of pictorial narrativity. The presented moment enables us to infer the whole action of which the picture shows just a snippet. In this way, the observer transcends the intrinsically incomplete representation and (re-)constructs the whole action. By broadening Lessing's approach, we can see that the same holds true for verbal narratives (as the paradigmatic case for narrativity). Verbal narratives do not present the whole story, either, but have to be completed by the reader.


The prospect of prolonged lower hydrocarbon and commodity prices has forced many countries to reconsider both fiscal policy and sovereign wealth fund asset allocation to address possible liquidity needs. In order to analyze the diversity and effectiveness of public investment vehicles it is necessary to recognize that a sovereign wealth fund is a genre of state investment. As a type of state investor sovereign wealth funds sit within an institutional continuum that includes many other bodies, such as national development banks. Well-functioning operating and governance models have evolved among large-scale private equity investors and components of these are suited to government application.


The Maldives islands are predominantly coastal entities, and our environment is among the most vulnerable in the world. For this reason the government of Maldives remains strongly committed to advancing Environmental Education (EE). This study reports on the implementation of inquiry-based approaches in the teaching and learning of Environmental Studies (ES) at primary schools in the Maldives. It also explores what teachers and students in primary ES classrooms do and whether this is what the ES curriculum recommends they should.

A review of literature indicates that a pronounced discrepancy exists between the problem solving and action-oriented goals associated with the contemporary philosophy of EE and the education that takes place in schools in many countries. While much of previous research has revealed the benefits of using inquiry-based instructional strategies over traditional methods. From the literature, key indicators of inquiry based instruction emerged which served as a conceptual framework for this study.

A case study approach utilising a qualitative method was chosen for this study which enabled me to gather detailed information from teachers as well as students from three different schools, by adopting semi-structured interviews, and observations as the main data gathering tools. The results of this study suggest that teachers use a variety of strategies in teaching ES at the primary level. However due to a number of reasons teachers are not able to implement the syllabus quite as the curriculum developers intended. Interviews and classroom observations revealed that education about the environment was the prevailing approach that teachers practiced in the primary schools in Maldives, which is a teaching procedure concerned mainly with the transmission of knowledge.

Even though the findings of this research are specific to this particular research context, it allowed me to draw useful recommendations in this research for other primary schools in the Maldives. The recommendations from this study suggests that the government should allocate sufficient resources to support the practice of inquiry-based learning.
This study also recommends that training teachers, especially through modelling of inquiry instruction, is vital for effective implementation of inquiry based-learning for a positive influence on students' learning and teachers' pedagogy. To expand our understanding of inquiry-based practices in the primary schools in the Maldives further research should be conducted utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies which would involve schools from all the 20 atolls of Maldives.


A growing body of evidence suggests that people exhibit large biases when processing information about themselves, but less is known about the underlying inference process. This paper studies belief updating patterns regarding academic ability in a large sample of students transitioning from middle to high school in Mexico City. The paper takes advantage of rich and longitudinal data on subjective beliefs together with randomized feedback about individual performance on an achievement test. On average, the performance feedback reduces the relative role of priors on posteriors and shifts substantial probability mass toward the signal. Further evidence reveals that males and high-socioeconomic status students, especially those attending relatively better schools, tend to process new information on their own ability more effectively.


Prediction and removal internal multiples is an increasingly high priority task in seismic data processing, due to the increased sensitivity with which primary amplitudes in quantitative interpretation are now analyzed, however, remains to be a big challenge. The more geological model we build approach to real, the more precise the prediction algorithm can be achieved. In a companion paper (Sun and Innanen, 2016d), we proposed a theoretical framework of elastic internal multiples prediction using inverse scattering series, which works for an elastic isotropic medium. In this paper, we investigate how to prepare the input, and concentrate on how to implement the elastic internal multiples prediction algorithm, using the seismic data generated from an elastic isotropic synthetic model. The analysis of the estimated result is also being examined.


A deterministic multithreading (DMT) system eliminates nondeterminism in thread scheduling, simplifying the development of multithreaded programs. However, existing DMT systems are unstable; they may force a program to (ad)venture into vastly different schedules even for slightly different inputs or execution environments, defeating many benefits of determinism. Moreover, few existing DMT systems work with server programs whose inputs arrive continuously and nondeterministically.

TERN is a stable DMT system. The key novelty in TERN is the idea of schedule memoization that memoizes past working schedules and reuses them on future inputs, making program behaviors stable across different inputs. A second novelty in TERN is the idea of windowing that extends schedule memoization to server programs by splitting continuous request streams into windows of requests. Our TERN implementation runs on Linux. It operates as user-space schedulers, requiring no changes to the OS and only a few lines of changes to the application programs. We evaluated TERN on a diverse set of 14 programs (e.g., Apache and MySQL) with real and synthetic workloads. Our results show that TERN is easy to use, makes programs more deterministic and stable, and has reasonable overhead.


The role of mid‐latitude forests in the sequestration of carbon (C) is of interest to an increasing number of scientists and policy‐makers alike. Net CO2 exchange can be estimated on an annual basis, using eddy‐covariance techniques or from ecological inventories of C fluxes to and from a forest. Here we present an intercomparison of annual estimates of C exchange in a mixed hardwood forest in the Morgan‐Monroe State Forest, Indiana, USA for two years, 1998 and 1999. Based on eddy‐covariance measurements made at 1.8 times canopy height from a tower, C uptake by the forest was 237 and 287 g C m−2 y−1 for 1998 and 1999, respectively. For the same time period, biometric and ecophysiological measures and modelled estimates of all significant carbon fluxes within deciduous forests were made, including: change in living biomass, aboveground and belowground detritus production, foliage consumption, and forest floor and soil respiration. Using this ecological inventory method for these same two time periods, C uptake was estimated to be 271 and 377 g C m−2 y−1, which are 14.3% and 31.4% larger, respectively, than the tower‐based values. The relative change between this method's annual estimates is consistent with that of the eddy‐covariance based values. Our results indicate that the difference in annual C exchange rates was due to reduced heterotrophic soil respiration in 1999.


Most countries in the periphery specialized in the export of just a handful of primary products for most of their history. Some of these commodities have been more volatile than others, and those with more volatile prices have grown slowly relative both to the industrial leaders and to other primary product exporters. This fact helps explain the growth puzzle noted by Easterly, Kremer, Pritchett and Summers more than a decade ago: that the contending fundamental determinants of growth - institutions, geography and culture - exhibit far more persistence than do the growth rates they are supposed to explain. Using a new panel database for 35 countries, this paper estimates the impact of terms of trade volatility and secular change on country performance between 1870 and 1939. Volatility was much more important for accumulation and growth than was secular change. Additionally, both effects were asymmetric between Core and Periphery, findings that speak directly to the terms of trade debates that have raged since Prebisch and Singer wrote more than 50 years ago. The paper also investigates one channel of impact, and finds that foreign capital inflows declined steeply where commodity prices were volatile.


A one-layer recurrent neural network with a discontinuous activation function is proposed for linear programming. The number of neurons in the neural network is equal to that of decision variables in the linear programming problem. It is proven that the neural network with a sufficiently high gain is globally convergent to the optimal solution. Its application to linear assignment is discussed to demonstrate the utility of the neural network. Several simulation examples are given to show the effectiveness and characteristics of the neural network.


Is there a link between loose monetary conditions, credit growth, house price booms, and financial instability? This paper analyzes the role of interest rates and credit in driving house price booms and busts with data spanning 140 years of modern economic history in the advanced economies. We exploit the implications of the macroeconomic policy trilemma to identify exogenous variation in monetary conditions: countries with fixed exchange regimes often see fluctuations in short-term interest rates unrelated to home economic conditions. We use novel instrumental variable local projection methods to demonstrate that loose monetary conditions lead to booms in real estate lending and house prices bubbles; these, in turn, materially heighten the risk of financial crises. Both effects have become stronger in the postwar era.


In this study, the seasonal variation of atmospheric concentrations of PCDD/F and Dl-PCB and the effect of meteorological factors on concentration were investigated. Ambient air samples were collected monthly between May 2011 and October 2013 by using high volume samplers. Based on these samples, average PCDD/F and dl-PCB concentrations were obtained as 1482 fg/m3 and 4983 fg/m3 respectively. PCDD/F congeners did show seasonal variations. 58% share in total PCDD/Fs belongs to winter season while 4% to summer season. No significant seasonal change has been observed for dl-PCBs. 92% (1397 fg/m3) of PCDD/Fs were detected in particulate phase while 20% (926 fg/m3) of dl-PCBs were found in particulate phase. Strong negative correlations were obtained between all homolog groups and T, UV, SR. Correlation between five-chlorinated dl-PCBs, the most abandoned homolog group, with T, UV and SR generated positive meaningful correlation. No meaningful correlations were observed with other parameters. Correlations with particle phase were found to be more meaningful compared to gas phase for both PCDD/Fs and dl-PCBs.


In this paper I develop an integrative theoretical framework for understanding creativity, synthesizing themes and principles derived from mythology and philosophy, the physical and biological sciences, psychology, social and economic history, technology, and art and the study of beauty. I demonstrate how the creative process is integral to natural and human evolution and how human creativity builds upon creative evolution in nature. Further, I describe the relationship between creativity and both heightened future consciousness and wisdom, arguing that the latter two capacities clearly embody a creative dimension and form the leading edge of the future evolution of the human mind.