Health and social care staff work in complex workplace cultures that expose them to human suffering, distress and 'dis-ease'. To defend themselves from emotional and physical pain, staffs undertake tasks, rituals, customs and practices to ameliorate discomfort. This serves as psychological and physical protection from their clients; alien to the ethos of person centred compassionate care. The dance of caring persons is a metaphor for the physical and emotional interaction of a caring relationship. Being facilitated through each of the dance steps offers one way to reignite caring professions. We outline a workshop process aimed to re-engage care staff with an intention to care. Self-care is the first step, which at an intentional, meaningful level requires a moment of mindfulness as internal bodily awareness. Noticing one's emotional state increases self-awareness and an ability to focus on the here and now, from which to relish the breadth and depth of human experience. The second step includes a moment of performance; through intentional use of non-verbal communication to welcome and engage with others. The third step of the dance is active and effective verbal communication used to purposefully enter into a caring relationship. The fourth step is critical creative discussion, following mutual reflection of what has gone before. Step five is resonance; delving deeper into understanding the emotional and body senses, exploring the words exchanged, their intention and 'true' meaning. Step six is the creation of a 'collage of caring'. Fragments of mutual learning, emotive expression and reactions (impact) are captured in the final exchange undertaken by all involved in the caring process. The dance of caring persons aims to identify the dance steps each person contributes to the context of caring. Such a compendium of caring provokes a deeper understanding of self in relation to the other, within the context of health and social care interactions.


Published in cooperation with the "http://www.smu.edu/swcenter/" target="new">William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist UniversitySettlers at Santa Fe and outlying homesteads during the seventeenth century established a thriving economy that saw the exchange of commodities produced by indigenous peoples, settlers, and Franciscan friars for goods manufactured as far away as China, France, and Turkey. This early Spanish colonial period in New Mexico provides an opportunity to explore both economic activity within a colony and the relations between colony and homeland. By examining the material remains of this era from 1598 to 1680, Heather Trigg reveals a more complete picture of colonial life. Drawing on both archaeological and historical sources, Trigg analyzes the various levels of economic activity that developed: production of items in colonial households, exchanges between households, and trade between the colony and Mexico. Rather than focusing only on the flow of products and services, she also explores the social mechanisms that likely had a significant impact on the economic life of the colony. Because economic activity was important to so many aspects of daily life, she is able to show how and why colonial society worked the way it did. While focusing on the colonists, she also explores their relations with Pueblo peoples. Through her analysis of these two pools of data, Trigg generates insights not usually gleaned from the limited texts of the period, providing information about average colonists in addition to the governors and clergy usually covered in historical accounts. By using specific examples from historical documents and archaeological materials, she shows that colonists from all levels of society modified both formal and informal rules of economic behavior to better fit the reality of the colonial frontier. With its valuable comparative data on colonization, From Household to Empire provides a novel way of examining colonial economies by focusing on the maintenance and modification of social values. For all readers fascinated by the history of the Southwest, this book provides a fuller picture of life in early New Mexico than has previously been seen.


We investigate the behavior of solutions of simple linear kinetic equations, subjected to a strong and fast time-oscillating force field, in the diffusion regime. We consider quasiperiodic oscillations. The asymptotic behavior is governed by a convection-diffusion equation, for which we can identify the effective coefficients.


In the present modern era with the development of power systems, fast and accurate faults locations becoming more and more important. Power grids produce transient travelling wave signals, which transmit along the transmission line to each substation with the speed approaching the velocity of light. Using the exact arrival time of the fault traveling wave and the waveform characteristics recorded at each substation, the traveling wave based fault location and protection can be realized. The fault location has high precision, and the protection has fast action speed. So, current transformer saturation low frequency oscillation and fault resistance cannot influence it.
Fault location device (FLD) is installed at each substation in power grid, and travelling wave host computer is installed in control center. When a fault occurs, FLD records the switch operation information and the arrival time of the travelling wave, the information is then transmitted to the host computer. Lightning strike fault location method can only locate the fault caused by lightning, and it hardly satisfies the operation requirements in power system. Travelling wave fault location method with GPS is simple and with high precision, it has been applied in extra-high-voltage.


Although the work of F. A. Hayek (1899-1992) has attracted a good deal of attention in recent years, many important questions about the nature and origin of his thought remain unanswered. This is particularly true regarding his so-called "transformation," during which he all but abandoned technical economics and instead decided to pursue broader questions in political and social philosophy. In this dissertation I examine the system of beliefs that guided his thought, and argue that a number of important questions can be usefully addressed by seeing Hayek in the light of the Natural Law tradition. I argue that there are important reasons to consider Hayek part of this tradition. Many of the central ideas of Natural Law doctrine (especially as they appear in the classical liberal philosophers of the 18th century) are clearly present in Hayek's work, and he was, as a matter of fact, under the governing influence of the Natural Law tradition for most of his life. The Natural Law connection helps account for a number of otherwise mysterious features of Hayek's work, for instance, why he adopted a theory of natural selection at the level of the group as the centerpiece of his mature theory. Moreover, the link with Natural Law doctrine goes a long way toward accounting for the immense rhetorical power of his theory. Meanwhile, I claim, Hayek's reliance on central tenets of Natural Law doctrine had important unintended, unanticipated and unwelcome consequences.


Although both antibiotic residues and metal-based nanoparticles (NPs) are common emerging pollutants, little is known about their potential co-contaminant interactions, including resulting impacts on sensitive biota such as food crops. This study assessed the impact of tetracycline (TC, 5–20 mg L−1) and titanium dioxide (TiO2, 500–2000 mg L−1) NPs co-exposure on rice (Oryza sativa L.) under a 10 d hydroponic exposure. Plant biomass, contaminant content (TC, Ti), oxidative stress enzymes, and macro-/micronutrient contents were measured in rice shoots and roots as a function of exposure. Under TC alone exposure, dose-dependent toxicity (biomass, oxidative stress enzymes) and TC accumulation were observed and the levels of several key elemental nutrients were decreased. For example, root biomass treated with 5 and 20 mg L−1 TC was reduced by 18.8% and 62.5%, respectively, relative to the control. The contents of K, P, and S in 10 and 20 mg L−1 TC treated rice shoots were approximately 80% of the unamended control. Under co-exposure, the presence of TiO2 NPs significantly enhanced the TC treated rice growth in terms of plant size and total biomass. In addition, TiO2 NPs significantly reduced the levels of TC in rice shoots and roots, as well as oxidative stress enzymes, back to the level of unamended controls and also enabled recovery of TC-induced nutrient deficiency. It is worth mentioning that both contaminants resulted in severe iron deficiency (44–76% decreases of Fe in all the treatments were evident) under both single and co-exposure treatments. Abiotic sorption data indicates that TC phytotoxicity was prevented due to sorption of the antibiotic onto NP TiO2 (a maximum amount was 2.62 mg g−1), resulting in significantly decreased availability to the rice seedlings. The presence of TC increased the Ti content in rice roots, which could be ascribed to the alteration of surface charges of TiO2 NPs as affected by TC. Antagonistic and synergistic effects of TiO2 NPs and TC on rice were analyzed using three methods, including toxicity unit (TU), additional index (AI), and mixture toxicity index (MTI), all of which indicated under co-exposing condition, TiO2 NPs and TC interacted antagonistically, resulting in an overall alleviation of phytotoxicity and enhanced plant health.


When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate – disappearing in a flash of energy, leaving traces, producing new artefacts and ideas. Annihilation Event invites a contrary group of artists, archivists, archaeologists, historians, technical experts and theorists from all over Europe to bring their objects, machines, speculative processes and performances into constellation. Annihilation Event will take place in the Lethaby Gallery at CSM in March 2017.

In the lead up to this students and graduates from MA and BA Fine Art at CSM and ENSAV La Cambre, Brussels have been working in research groups on a prototype event. For one day at Tate we will run public workshops and demonstrate processes including casting, photogrammetry, reflectance transformation imaging and virtual reality applications. The Department of Subjective Archaeology will install its offices and participative laboratory.

Make your own object to scan or see some curiosities from UAL archives and special collections close up. Bring your subjective archaeological artefacts for replication and analysis. Come and learn:

Casting/Ghosting - Photosculpture - Display/Support - Open Lab

Schedule

12 noon: General Intro to Annihilation Event, its objects and people:

Students from CSM, CCW Digital Derive Group, Winchester School of Art and ENSAV La Cambre Brussels, Andy Jones, Monkton-Up-Wimborne chalk block, Paul Reilly, Digital Old Minster, Pierre Huyghebaert, Waend, Belgian Litho Stone, Naomi Dines, Portolan Map, Anna McSweeney, Papersqueeze, Kate Jarvis, Claudia Zehrt, British Museum, Mick Finch and Johannes von Muller, Bilderfahrzeuge, Jim Thrower, Jean-Pierre Muller, the Printmaking Union, Sion Fletcher, Nelson Crespo, Louisa Minkin, Elizabeth Wright, Nicola Lorini, the Campari Fountain, John Wollaston, Jet Jet, Pete Smithson, Ian Dawson, Assassination Weapon, The Department of Subjective Archaeology, UAL Archives and Special Collections, and other participants.

Workshops begin at 1pm and continue till 5.30pm with talks and interventions


Object-relational database systems add object-oriented features to relational DBMS and allow the DBMS's functionality to be extended to new application domains. For the important domain of fulltext retrieval and document management, we analyze whether current object-relational DBMS are already able to compete with specialized information retrieval (IR) systems. After discussing the main requirements, we present a comparison of the ORDBMS Informix and several text data blades with the information retrieval system Fulcrum and a relational DBMS extended by IR functionality (Oracle ConText). A qualitative and quantitative evaluation is presented considering the degree of IR functionality, performance, and retrieval quality.


The stabilization of soil organic matter (SOM) is an important process in the context of global change and is strongly affected by soil use and management. We investigated the mineralization and stabilization of 14 C-labeled wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) straw and 14 C-labeled farmyard manure under different cropping systems (crop rotation, monoculture, and bare fallow) in a long-term field experiment established in 1967. Exponential decay equations were fitted to the measured data, and coefficients of the C pools and decay constants were estimated. The different organic amendments and cropping systems resulted in considerably different distributions and half-lives of three modeled SOM pool compartments. Significantly lower amounts of residual 14 C-labeled material were found in the bulk soils of the bare fallow systems than the farmyard-manured crop rotation or monoculture, indicating enhanced organic matter stabilization in the latter systems. In 2004, remaining 14 C-labeled amendments (as a percentage of the original application in 1967) in bulk soils were 8.7 ± 0.3% for crop rotation, 8.6 ± 0.4% for monoculture, 7.5 ± 0.7% for bare fallow (all farmyard-manured), and 5.0 ± 0.6% for straw-manured bare fallow. Humic acids extracted with 1 mol L -1 NaOH responded markedly to the different cropping systems regarding both their extraction yields and the remaining 14 C label. In all cropping systems, the 14 C in the extracted humic acids decreased rapidly with time. Remaining 14 C-labeled organic residues in this fraction in 2004 (as a percentage of the original application in the fraction) were 0.315 ± 0.002% for crop rotation, 0.31 ± 0.02% for monoculture, and 0.16 ± 0.02% for bare fallow (all farmyard manured). Our study therefore shows that the investigated humic acids are a dynamic SOM pool cycling at decadal and subdecadal rates.


In every engineering approach, technology tries either to match human perfection or to overcome human limitations. Based on this aspect, the present work tries to estimate the behavior of human visual system in the name of video quality. Appraisal of image quality in video and image processing systems plays a vital role in deciding the quality of service, network maintenance and even to compare different service providers. These systems have a wide range of applications from security services till entertainment which includes digital television, internet video, multimedia messaging services e.t.c,.


Internet regulation and 'online harms' are matters of much political and regulatory attention. This debate is beset by issues, including defining 'online harms', respecting freedom of expression, and others. While much of this debate has focused on content hosted by online platforms, comparatively little attention has been paid to the central role of algorithmic personalisation – or 'recommending' – by platforms in content dissemination in online environments and the problems to which this contributes. Focusing on recommender systems, i.e. the mechanism by which content is recommended by platforms, provides an alternative regulatory approach that avoids many of the pitfalls with addressing the hosting of content itself. This paper therefore explores motivations and considerations for regulating the use of recommender systems by online platforms. In doing so, this paper establishes a typology of online recommending, sets out various problems and consequences of recommending, and argues that recommending content is not one of the three activities for which information society service providers are afforded liability protections under the E-Commerce Directive. To address the identified problems and fill this legal gap, this paper proposes some principles for future regulation, and discusses approaches to oversight and compliance that could work with these principles.


ABSTRACT The Late Triassic reptile Leptopleuron lacertinum Owen, 1851 is described for the first time in full anatomical detail, based on newly produced silicone and plastic casts of the numerous specimens preserved as natural moulds. Previously, only the braincase has been described from these detailed casts. Leptopleuron is reconstructed as a 270-mm-long reptile with a long tail, although it is possible that even the largest known specimens were still sub-adults. Within Procolophonoidea, Leptopleuron is distinguished by the following non-braincase autapomorphies: two flattened, triangular spines of equal size on the quadratojugal; V-shaped groove on the jugal; the anterior tip of the jugal in contact with the posterolateral extension of the nasal; minimal contact between the jugal and the postorbital; frontals narrow anterior to the orbitotemporal openings; the vomerine dentition consisting of a tall and a short pair of fangs; broad medial ridge of pleurocentra of the dorsal vertebrae divided into three separate ridges by two deep grooves on each pleurocentrum; distinct three-fold depression pattern on the ventral side of ischium; and the first phalanx on the fifth pedal digit being long and slim. Leptopleuron shares some features with living sand lizards and might have lived a burrowing lifestyle. The dentition and body shape of Leptopleuron imply it ate a diet of fibrous plant material or hard-shelled invertebrates.


Blame Welfare: Ignore Poverty and Inequality. By Joel F. Handler and Yeheskel Hasenfeld. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. xiii+401. $80.00 cloth; $29.99 paper. Despite its clumsy and potentially misleading title, Handler and Hasenfeld's Blame Welfare: Ignore Poverty and Inequality provides a useful synthesis of recent research on welfare, poverty, and the low-wage labor market in the United States in service of the authors' thesis, that the nation must reject the symbolic politics of "welfare reform" and ensure economic stability for working families. Handler and Hasenfeld, University of California, Los Angeles professors of law and social welfare, respectively, have made this point before, but it is worth reiterating, particularly now that the 1996 welfare reform and reduction in welfare rolls has driven poverty from mainstream political debate. The authors' statistical portrait of poverty in the present-day United States, drawn from a range of longitudinal and case studies, is solid and useful as reference material for students and scholars. The studies debunk the persistent myth that poverty is the fault of a deviant "underclass": while nonwhite Americans experience disproportionate levels of poverty, the nation's high child poverty rate results, the authors insist, from an anachronistic and crumbling social safety net and a deteriorating low-wage labor market. Studies on the aftermath of welfare reform suggest as much: single mothers on Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF, which replaced the much-reviled Aid to Families with Dependent Children in 1996) are members of the "working poor." Handler and Hasenfeld are at their best when synthesizing the important new research on welfare leavers, who often "play by the rules" (that is, work for wages) but remain poor (p. 30). Leaver studies reveal the barriers that single mothers face in earning wages (from health problems to child care needs) and the instability, low wages, and lack of mobility that characterize the low-wage labor market. If the most important issue is children's well-being, the authors insist, then welfare reform is not the success it is purported to be. In the book's historical sections, the authors are on less-solid ground. Drawing on secondary sources, they assert that from the colonial era to the present, "moral blame, race and gender discrimination, and symbolic politics" have cast poor single mothers as "undeserving" (p. 155) and that commitment to the "work ethic" and inattention to structural barriers have hampered responses to poverty. Such a broad sweep (one that moves from the War on Poverty to TANF in a few paragraphs) and the emphasis on continuity obscure important changes. The authors have little to say about politics: American policy makers, it seems, are all of one cloth, which also leaves open questions of causality. …


Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes. Donald Favareaus Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well. Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the big questions of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.


Abstract. The MYSTIC three-dimensional Monte-Carlo radiative transfer model has been extended to simulate solar and thermal irradiances with a rigorous consideration of topography. Forward as well as backward Monte Carlo simulations are possible for arbitrarily oriented surfaces and we demonstrate that the backward Monte Carlo technique is superior to the forward method for applications involving topography, by greatly reducing the computational demands. MYSTIC is used to simulate the short- and longwave radiation fields during a clear day and night in and around Arizona's Meteor Crater, a bowl-shaped, 165-m-deep basin with a diameter of 1200 m. The simulations are made over a 4 by 4 km2 domain using a 10-m horizontal resolution digital elevation model and meteorological input data collected during the METCRAX (Meteor Crater Experiment) field experiment in 2006. Irradiance (or radiative flux) measurements at multiple locations inside the crater are then used to evaluate the simulations. MYSTIC is shown to realistically model the complex interactions between topography and the radiative field, resolving the effects of terrain shading, terrain exposure, and longwave surface emissions. The effects of surface temperature variations and of temperature stratification within the crater atmosphere on the near-surface longwave irradiance are then evaluated with additional simulations.


Unique evolutionary potential could be lost when a population goes extinct or when individuals are translocated to other existing populations. Therefore, in order to identify priorities and to predict the efficiency and consequences of conservation actions, information is needed on the genetic structure of natural populations. In the urbanized and diverse landscapes of Flanders, Belgium, natterjack toad (Epidalea calamita) populations have been declining over the last decades. Therefore, this species is subjected to a wide range of different types of conservation measures (e.g. habitat management, corridor development, translocations). However, more information is needed on its genetic population structure. In this study, we sampled egg clutches from six populations and studied their genetic structure with six microsatellite markers. In total, 184 samples from 99 different egg strings were genotyped. Observed heterozygosity was generally high, even for the small and isolated populations (overall mean HO = 0.43). The weak clustering by the Bayesian analyses (STRUCTURE, Adegenet and BAPS) does not allow us to make strong conclusions on the population structure. However, the significant ΦST values between the populations underline the importance of genetic information when conservation priorities are discussed. Unique evolutionary potential could be lost when one or more natterjack toad populations would go extinct, and translocation of individuals to other existing populations should be considered with caution.


SYSTeam is an IT solutions supplier company that wants to develop a product which permits users to communicate with each other, over the Internet, in a secure way. The solution creates communication between two subnets which are connected through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) Gateway. The security of the communication is implemented at the application layer by using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol which carries, encrypted within it, a session layer technology called Sock-et-s (SOCKS). The communication prototype is developed in a Linux platform with the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Eclipse and Java programming language. There are many similar software-hardware based products in the market, but these solutions usually demand high budgets. This thesis shows the development of a communication prototype of a new, and low cost, alternative product. This report also describes how the Java SOCKS methods are increased with further functionality in order to reach the designed communication infrastructure. The entire implementation is tested by using a network analyzer software called Wireshark and a log function which writes out messages in order for us to know which part of the code is running.


We have reviewed the histories of 320 patients in whom a diagnosis of coronary heart disease was ultimately established and traced the symptoms back to their first appearance. In 51% the first symptom was effort angina. Difficulties in recognition arose when the symptom was localized to an unusual site, when its occurrence was dependent on a combination of exercise with cold or a recent meal, or when it was induced by excitement rather than by effort. In a quarter of the cases the onset of angina was abrupt, and in these there was usually evidence of acute infarction. In 43% of cases the first symptom was an attack of pain or discomfort in the torso occurring without any discernable precipitating factor. Again, diagnosis was difficult when the pain was in an atypical site and also when it was of brief duration associated with skeletal or abdominal disease which could cause pain at the same site, or if the patient was able to undertake strenuous exertion. In four patients cardiac pain was first experienced during a paroxysm of tachycardia. In 6% of cases the onset was marked by a symptom other than pain—most frequently dyspnoea, tiredness, faintness, or syncope. Clinical examination was of no direct value in diagnosis. Its importance lay in disclosing factors which had to be taken into account in interpreting the electrocardiogram. The electrocardiogram was invaluable, though by no means infallible. In over half of the patients the first tracing showed major abnormalities of coronary type, and nearly a quarter more showed minor S-T/T depression consistent with coronary disease. Ten per cent. showed miscellaneous abnormalities, such as left ventricular hypertrophy or bundle-branch block, and 15% no definite abnormality. There is as yet no completely reliable objective method of diagnosing early coronary heart disease, so that the recognition of symptoms remains of paramount importance.


Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is a common foreign market entry mode. The M&A-literature is multi-disciplinary and the understanding of M&As is the result of many different perspectives, e.g. economics, finance, strategy and organizational management. Both internationalization and M&A are closely related to growth, and share many challenges.The Uppsala-model of internationalization showed how the business network is a key factor in the choices and process during internationalization. With M&As being important to internationalization, the M&A research should have a similar view of companies and markets. In this paper, we review articles on M&As to find out in what way customers and suppliers are recognized. To what extent are customers and suppliers included in the M&A literature? And how are their roles and stakes in M&As described?Based on an analysis of 1,632 articles, the study builds a categorization of six ways of including customers and suppliers in M&A literature. It is shown that customers and suppliers, when included in M&A literature, are predominantly treated as passive and reactive stakeholders. There seems to be a need for a clearer theoretical framework of the role customers and suppliers can have in M&As.


In this thesis we have developed a framework with an open architecture that has been designed and implemented in MATLAB. The framework gives its users the extensibility, simplicity and flexibility. The application of this framework frees the end users from much programming in administrative tasks. Since, the common video, live video and image processing tasks are implemented inside the framework this results in a user friendly live Video and Image processing GUI. The framework has been developed with an open architecture in mind hence it gives users the freedom to manipulate the functions inside the framework.


A 10% increase in the average minimum price of alcohol was associated with a 32% reduction in wholly alcohol attributable deaths, a Canadian study has found.1 The finding will lend support to the proposed introduction of a minimum price in England and Wales.2

The study, published in Addiction , analysed deaths associated with alcohol use in British Columbia between 2002 and 2009 and compared them with rises in government set prices for alcohol. The researchers used three categories of death associated with alcohol: wholly alcohol attributable, acute, and chronic. Wholly alcohol attributable deaths included alcohol poisoning, alcoholic psychoses, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, fetal alcohol syndrome, and …


Received: December 2015, Accepted: April 2016 Background: Sleep and rest are basic physiological human needs. Nurses work irregularly in morning, afternoon, and evening shifts; therefore, they are at greater risk of sleep problems than others. The aim of this study was to identify the factors related to sleep quality of nurses at Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013. The study subjects consisted of 366 nurses who were randomly selected from among nurses working at the medical university. Data collection tools included the occupational demographic questionnaire and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Data analysis was performed using chi-square test and logistic regression model in SPSS software. Results: It was found that 273 (74.7%) of the nurses had poor sleep quality. The overall mean score of nurses was 7.35 ± 2.86. The logistic regression model showed a statistically significant relationship between poor sleep quality and variables of age (P = 0.030) (95% CI: 1.09-1.010) (OR = 1.50), gender (P = 0.001) (95% CI: 0.23-0.70) (OR = 0.40), number of night shifts (P = 0.003), (95% CI: 1.1381.11) (OR = 1.20), and having children of less than one year of age (P = 0.019) (95% CI: 3.8-1.12) (OR = 2.10). The chi-square test showed a significant relationship between poor sleep quality and the type of working shift (P = 0.001). About one-third of the nurses in this study used medicine for sleeping and had difficulty in falling asleep. Conclusions: The results indicated that the sleep quality of the majority of the nurses was poor. It is suggested that a certain guideline be developed for planning nurses' schedules using the results of this study and other studies in this area.


Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are responsible globally for almost one million cryptococcosis cases yearly, mostly in immunocompromised patients, such as those living with HIV. Infections due to C. gattii have mainly been described in tropical and subtropical regions, but its adaptation to temperate regions was crucial in the species evolution and highlighted the importance of this pathogenic yeast in the context of disease. Cryptococcus gattii molecular type VGII has come to the forefront in connection with an on-going emergence in the Pacific North West of North America. Taking into account that previous work pointed towards South America as an origin of this species, the present work aimed to assess the genetic diversity within the Brazilian C. gattii VGII population in order to gain new insights into its origin and global dispersal from the South American continent using the ISHAM consensus MLST typing scheme. Our results corroborate the finding that the Brazilian C. gattii VGII population is highly diverse. The diversity is likely due to recombination generated from sexual reproduction, as evidenced by the presence of both mating types in clinical and environmental samples. The data presented herein strongly supports the emergence of highly virulent strains from ancestors in the Northern regions of Brazil, Amazonia and the Northeast. Numerous genotypes represent a link between Brazil and other parts of the world reinforcing South America as the most likely origin of the C. gattii VGII subtypes and their subsequent global spread, including their dispersal into North America, where they caused a major emergence.


Wildlife crime presents a growing threat to the integrity of ecological communities. While campaigns have raised consumer awareness, little is known about the socio-demographic profile of wildlife offenders, or how to intervene. Using data from China Judgements Online (2014–2018), we documented 4,735 cases, involving 7,244 offenders who smuggled, hunted, transported, sold and/or purchased protected species in contravention of China's Criminal Law. Offenders were predominantly men (93.0% of 7,143 offenders), aged 30–44 (43.9% of 4,699), agricultural workers (48.4% of 3,960), with less schooling (78.6% of 4,699 < senior secondary school). Socio-economic profiles related to crime seriousness, the type of illegal activity, motivation and taxon involved. These generalizations reveal scope to tailor specific intervention and mitigation approaches to offender profiles, through public information campaigns, proactive incentives opposed by punitive disincentives, and provision of alternative incomes.


The surge of interest in so-called "designer materials" during the last few years together with recent advances in additive manufacturing (3D printing) techniques that enable fabrication of materials with arbitrarily complex nano/micro-architecture have attracted increasing attention to the concept of mechanical metamaterials. Owing to their rationally designed nano/micro-architecture, mechanical metamaterials exhibit unusual properties at the macro-scale. These unusual mechanical properties could be exploited for the development of materials with advanced functionalities, with applications in soft robotics, biomedicine, soft electronics, acoustic cloaking, etc. Auxetic mechanical metamaterials are identified by a negative Poisson's ratio and are perhaps the most widely studied type of mechanical metamaterials. Similar to other types of mechanical metamaterials, the negative Poisson's ratio of auxetics is generally a direct consequence of the topology of their nano/micro-architecture. This paper therefore focuses on the topology–property relationship in three main classes of auxetic metamaterials, namely re-entrant, chiral, and rotating (semi-) rigid structures. While the deformation mechanisms in the above-mentioned types of structures and their relationship with the large-scale mechanical properties receive most attention, the emerging concepts in design of auxetics such as the use of instability in soft matter and origami-based structures are discussed as well. Furthermore, the data available in the literature regarding the elastic properties of auxetic mechanical metamaterials are systematically analyzed to identify the spread of Young's modulus–Poisson's ratio duos achieved in the auxetic materials developed to date.


After sketching various ways in which economic issues influenced the political realignment of the 1850s, the paper concentrates on five questions: (1) the timing of the economic issues and the disjunctions in economic developments across regions and classes; (2) the size of the nonagricultural male labor force of the North toward the end of the 1850s and the ethnic and residential distributions of these workers; (3) changes in the ethnic composition of the northern electorate and the sharp shift in the partisan affiliations of "Old Americans," especially between 1852 and 1860; (4) problems in measuring the ups and downs in the standard of living of northern nonagricultural workers between 1840 and 1860 and provisional estimates of the decline in their real wages between 1848 and 1855; (5) a provisional estimate of the excess supply of labor during 1854-1855 created by the unfortunate phasing of three cycles (the collapse of a long cycle in construction, the coincident trough of a relatively mild trade cycle, and the continued upswing of a long cycle in immigration).


Limited guidance is available for providing patient‐specific care to hypertensive patients, although this chronic condition is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. To address this issue, we develop an analytical model that takes into account the most relevant risk factors including age, sex, blood pressure, diabetes status, smoking habits, and blood cholesterol. Using the Markov Decision Process framework, we develop a model to maximize expected quality‐adjusted life years, as well as characterize the optimal sequence and combination of antihypertensive medications. Assuming the physician uses the standard medication dose for each drug, and the patient fully adheres to the prescribed treatment regimen, we prove that optimal treatment policies exhibit a threshold structure. Our findings indicate that our recommended thresholds vary by age and other patient characteristics, for example (1) the optimal thresholds for all medication prescription are nonincreasing in age, and (2) the medications need to be prescribed at lower thresholds for males who smoke than for males who have diabetes. The improvements in quality‐adjusted life years associated with our model compare favorably with those obtained by following the British Hypertension Society's guideline, and the gains increase with the severity of risk factors. For instance, in both genders (although at different rates), diabetic patients gain more than non‐diabetic patients. Our sensitivity analysis results indicate that the optimal thresholds decrease if the medications have lower side‐effects and vice versa.


The Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) is among the most important nontariff trade barriers facing developing countries today. Originating more than twenty years ago, it uses product-specific quotas intended to encourage the expansion of trade, reduce barriers, and further the liberalization of world trade in textile products. It has been argued, however, that the MFA may cut off access to major export markets for developing countries, thereby short-circuiting their industrialization process at an early stage.The authors endeavor to fill several gaps in the literature on the MFA. First, they more closely examine the various quota implementation rules and their implications by describing how the details of quota implementation differ across countries, modeling some aspects of implementation, and attempting to relate some of the results to actual data. Second, by considering alternative theoretical setups and undertaking some simple econometric tests, they look into the possibility that exporting countries may be receiving less quota rent than suggested by the standard competitive model. A selected number of exporters to the United States--including Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, India, and Mexico--serve as case studies.Kala Krishna and Ling Hui Tan conclude that the process of quota implementation begins with an initial system of regulations, drawn up in order to meet certain desirable objectives. But over time, as loopholes are discovered in the system, additional layers of regulation continue to be introduced, resulting in a complicated, discretionary system that no longer meets the original objectives.Kala Krishna is Professor of Economics, Pennsylvania State University. Ling Hui Tan is an Economist, International Monetary Fund.


Abstract China is the largest consumer of turtles in the world and international trade has been cited as the greatest threat to Asian turtles. Two main types of trade in live turtles occur in China: for food and traditional Chinese medicine, and for pets, including those for release by Buddhists. The food trade involves the largest quantities of turtles. In recent years, however, the international pet turtle trade has increased dramatically. Yuehe Pet Market in Guangzhou is the largest pet market in China. selling live chelonians and other animals. To understand the potential impacts of the pet trade on chelonians we conducted seven surveys in Yuehe Pet Market from August 2006 to March 2008. Over 39,000 individual chelonians of 61 species were recorded (19.1% of the global total of 319 species). Fifteen (24.6%) of these species are native to China and 46 (75.4%) are native to other countries. Two are designated as grade II key state-protected species in China. Thirty-eight (62.3%) are CITES listed species (four in CITES Appendix I, 26 in CITES II and eight in CITES III). Four are categorized on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered, 16 as Endangered and 19 as Vulnerable. Our surveys indicate that increasing demand and the illegal international pet trade could be having a severe impact on chelonian conservation, and we make recommendations for law enforcement and conservation.


The world economy faces a grave danger from the large imbalances in current account positions. Policymakers should not wait until financial markets force global adjustment. They should initiate a credible, comprehensive adjustment program to reduce the risks of a crisis, which could produce a world recession and disruptions to the global trading system. Participants in a February 2007 workshop, held in Washington and sponsored by Brussels-based Bruegel, Seoul-based Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, and Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, outlined how an orderly reduction in global imbalances can be achieved. They presented estimates of the exchange rate implications of current account adjustment scenarios in which the US current account deficit narrowed to 3 percent of GDP in the medium term and the world growth rate was unchanged. Most of the adjustment would be borne by China, Japan, other Asian economies, a few high-surplus European economies not in the euro area, and the oil-exporting countries. The combined role of the smaller surplus economies in Asia and Europe (outside of the euro area) in the adjustment process will be more important than the role of either China or Japan. The adjustment would require a rebalancing of world demand with both higher saving in the United States and higher consumption in East Asia, as well as effective appreciations of the currencies of China, Japan, and other surplus countries in East Asia and Europe and bilateral appreciations against the dollar by other currencies. The problem is multilateral in nature and needs to be addressed in a multilateral context such as that potentially provided by the International Monetary Fund.


Globalisation is occurring at a fast and accelerating rate. Over the past decade foreign direct investment has grown three times faster than world trade and four times faster than world output. Over the past quarter century the number of countries operating without exchange controls affecting the import of goods and services has increased more than five fold. These developments have led many organizations to assume that the historical cultural differences which existed between the territories in which they operate are less marked, and less important than they once were. As the markets for their goods and services becomes increasingly global, so too do the needs and aspirations of the employees who produce and deliver these goods and services. Companies increasingly structure themselves around global business units rather than national organizations, and seek to enhance employee commitment to and identification with the goals and objectives of transnational units rather than the traditions and bonds of bounded country fiefdoms. Technological innovation, new product markets and a diverse workforce have increased the need for companies to re-examine how their training practices contribute to learning. The need for globalisation emanates from the quest of organisations for larger market share, low cost production and sourcing of skilled workforce. Ethical consideration and work practices must result in the greatest good for the largest number of people. Employment practices must therefore respect the basic human rights of privacy, due process, consent and free speech. Finally managers must treat employees and customers equitably and fairly.


In France, risk assessment studies have to be conducted before the implementation or the enlargement of some new facilities and before the reuse of some contaminated sites. These studies have to be performed in accordance to four principles : precautionary, specificity, proportionality, transparence. Until now, no devoted software has been developed in France to assess future exposure and risks for such studies. Because of that, many problems have been reported in exposure assessment studies leading to inconsistency between risk assessment studies and a lack of confidence in results provided. To improve the practices and the transparency of the estimates obtained in these studies, INERIS develops and diffuses modeling tools in the framework of one's missions for the Ministry in charge of the Environment. A peer-reviewed handbook, entitled 'Sets of equations for modeling exposure linked to soil contamination or emissions from an industrial facility', has been published and is available on INERIS'website. This document presents the equations used at INERIS for estimating the media concentrations, the exposure and risk levels. It also describes the origin of these equations and underlines the hypotheses on which they are built and their limits. A modeling and simulation platform (MODUL'ERS) based on the equations presented in this handbook has also been developed. Our main objectives during its conception were to provide a tool (1) suited to different site conditions and tier studies, (2) transparent for any stakeholders and helpful to perform uncertainties analysis. MODUL'ERS consists in a library of preset modules enabling the users to build models in accordance with the site conceptual model (that is to say the pathways from the source to the receptor), by downloading modules and connecting them, to create an exposure matrix. Many options are also available to create a customized application. To improve transparency of studies all the equations, parameters can be viewed by the users, as well all the intermediate calculations performed. Especially, hyperlinks enable to browse among variables and their equations. The first version of the tool will be available at soon. Coupling with a GIS is forecast. Some reports will be also published to make more transparent the assignment of values to input parameters, by describing the values collected and the choices made (best-estimate, ranges, probabilistic distributions).


With the outstanding growth of communication and device technologies, various kinds of digital appliances have been introduced into home, and expectations toward home network which interconnects and controls such appliances have been rapidly emerging. This article describes the latest technologies and future trends on home network in which wireless network including wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) such as sensor network plays a vital role. The network includes wireless LAN, Ultra Wide Band (UWB), ZigBee sensor network and Power Line Communication (PLC). ECHONET which is a defacto standard for accommodating energy efficient legacy appliance control is also briefly introduced. As one of the key functions for seamless interconnection of digital appliances, protocol standardization is essential. This article addresses the defacto middleware architectures such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), Digital Living Networking Alliance (DLNA) and Open Service Gateway initiative (OSGi) which involve the standard protocols and message formats. Finally, seamless integration between in-house and outdoor networks, and in-house network interconnection between e.g. wireless LAN as a backbone and sensor network as a branch are presented as a future image of home network environment.


ABSTRACT In this article, we ask: "how does race matter when working with intersectional feminism in a postcolonial Nordic context?" We take our cue from feminist and postcolonial scholars who have pointed out that minoritisation and majoritisation processes in the Nordic area are entangled in ongoing racialization processes. Working with and around the video installation Black Magic at the White House by the artist Jeanette Ehlers, we hold on to the particularities of racialization processes in the Danish context, as well as their insertion in a global racial ontology. We establish a conversation between Ehlers' installation and the work of two black American scholars from the humanities: Sylvia Wynter and Hortense Spillers. These scholars have not been influential in the European uptake and further elaboration of intersectionality, but we argue that engaging with their work opens up a perspective that focuses on affect, absence and disappearance rather than only representation, identity and recognition, thereby worlding intersectionality differently than standpoint theory. Experience is also constituted through affective encounters, the ephemeral, forgotten and bypassed qualities and intensities. We conclude the article by drawing a preliminary sketch of elements in what we, paraphrasing Spillers, call a Danish "grammar book" of the racialized and gendered ordering of the human that again complicates the stories we may tell about how race matters and what Nordic intersectional feminism may look like, as well as the interventions this may open up.


This study aimed to understand the issues associated with rainfed rice production in dry and semidry areas in Tamil Nadu, India. Farmers face risks such as input, output, market-price, and income, as these areas are prone to rainfall shortage. Secondary data about Tamil Nadu and various waterlimited rice environments were studied. A farm survey of 230 farm households in selected districts was conducted in 2001-02 and 2003-04. Fertilizer use in rainfed areas was reduced due to rainfall shortage. In drought period, crop response to fertilizer declined, causing a decrease in rice yields. Yield variability was higher (44 percent to 60 percent) in drought-prone areas. In rainfed areas, a 10-percent increase in drought risk resulted in a 5.4 percent decline in the yield of modern varieties. In contrast, the effect on landraces was minimal. Farmers in the rainfed areas are operating at sub-optimal level of production. About 90 percent were inefficient since crop yields were lower than the optimal yield. Farmers incurred an additional cost of Rs 899 to increase yield by 228 kg/ha. An increase in rice productivity by one ton per hectare would replace rice area by 189,208 hectares in Tamil Nadu. Area expansion under rice was noticed in the selected rainfed areas, revealing that infusing high productivity traits in drought-tolerant rice varieties enable farmers to allocate part of their land to other crops. Traits (genetic and marketability) of widely adopted modern varieties and landraces should be considered in breeding varieties for water-limited environments to earn profits. The results confirm that drought intensity is higher during the maximum-tillering stage, therefore, continued research on development of drought-tolerant rice varieties to withstand early drought is crucial. Finally, rice income variability in rainfed areas was explained more by variability in yields rather than prices both during normal and risk periods. In other areas, income variability was due to price variability. Yield stabilization would be more effective in keeping revenues stable in rainfed areas, while price stabilization, is an appropriate strategy for reducing revenue risk in irrigated areas.


The concentrations of dissolved solids, chloride, and sulfate in Belton Lake on the Leon River in central Texas average about 240 milligrams per liter, 40 milligrams per liter, and 30 milligrams per liter, respectively. The water is hard or very hard, averaging 170 milligrams per liter as calcium carbonate. The average concentrations of these constituents and hardness are least during late summer and early fall after periods of sustained high inflow. Thermal stratification begins to develop in Belton Lake in late February or early March. The water usually is stratified into three fairly distinct layers by early June, and stratification usually persists until September or October. Thermal stratification and seasonal variations in the concentrations of dissolved constituents in inflow result in stratification of the principal dissolved constituents. Dissolved solids in water at the surface of deep sites during summer differ from those at the bottom by about 40 milligrams per liter. Thermal stratification also results in significant seasonal and areal variations in dissolved oxygen, dissolved iron, dissolved manganese, total inorganic nitrogen, and total phosphorus. Oxygen used in the oxidation of dead organisms and other organic material near the bottom of the lake is not replaced during periods of summer stagnation. Consequently, water below depths of 35 to 40 feet (10.7 to 12.? meters) usually contains less than 1.0 milligram per liter of dissolved oxygen during these periods. Water near the surface at most sites in the lake throughout the year usually contains less than 30 micrograms per liter of dissolved iron and 20 micrograms per liter of dissolved manganese. Reducing conditions during periods of summer stagnation result in the dissolution of iron and manganese from the sediments in deep areas of the lake. The concentrations of both constituents are greatest near the bottom at site AC, a deep site near Belton Dam. Iron concentrations at this site during the summer have ranged from 0 to 600 micrograms per liter and have averaged about 290 micrograms per liter; manganese concentrations have ranged from 0 to 540 micrograms per liter and have averaged about 320 micrograms per liter. Concentrations of total inorganic nitrogen and total phosphorus are greatest at deep sites during periods of summer stagnation when decay of aquatic organisms and chemical reduction of bottom sediments release the constituents to the water. The concentrations of total inorganic nitrogen and total phosphorus in the bottom stratum of water at site AC during the summer average about 0.75 milligram per liter of nitrogen and 0.10 milligram per liter of phosphorus. The concentrations of these constituents in the surface stratum at site AQ during the summer average about 0.02 milligram per liter of nitrogen and 0.01 milligram per liter of phosphorus. The maximum concentrations of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides or their degradation products detected in bottom sediments collected from the lake during four lake surveys included 1.1 micrograms per kilogram of DOT, 3.0 micrograms per kilogram of ODD, 11 micrograms per kilogram of DDE, and 2 micrograms per kilogram of chlordane.


This paper investigates the non-linear free and forced vibration response of immovable simply-supported composite rectangular plates. The plates are symmetric and are subjected to a transverse pressure which is harmonic in time. A novel procedure is implemented to obtain the non-linear ordinary differential equation by using first order shear deformation theory and Galerkin method. The multiple time scales perturbation method is utilised to obtain an analytical closed-form expression for the non-linear frequency and frequency response equation of the studied plates. After validation of present study with available literature, the non-linear free and forced vibrations of a fibre-metal laminated plate, named Glare 3, have been investigated. Also, the effects of some system parameters on the non-linear frequency have been studied.


A lot of social, economic and physical problems are found within the 40 problem Districts (Enforcing Districts) located across the Netherlands. A possible way to tackle some of the safety and employment problems is the application of Mix-Use strategy proposed by the Dutch government. Within this research project the perceptions on what Value Characteristics of a district should be realized when applying Mix-Use in an Enforcing District are collected. The value perceptions of the Inhabitants, Housing Corporations and applicable Entrepreneurs for Mix-Use are brought together to one ranking list by the use of the Analytical Hierarchy Process. This ranking list then provides the Value Proposition for the district which, when realized, ensures a bigger chance of success for Mix-Use, the tackling of Enforcing District problems and creating and capturing value for the district. On the basis of the value proposition, a business model is developed to illustrate a win-win situation for the enforcing district projects.


Title of Document: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATERNAL SPEECH CLARITY AND INFANT LANGUAGE OUTCOMES Kerry McColgan, Master of Arts, 2011 Directed by: Dr. Nan Bernstein Ratner, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences Mothers' use of infant-directed speech (IDS) may assist infants in decoding l anguage input. IDS is characterized by exaggerated prosodic features (Fernald, 1989) , shorter mean length of utterance (Cooper, 1997; Bernstein Ratner, 1996), repetition (Bernstei n Ratner, 1996), and more highly clarified acoustic qualities (Bernstein Ratner, 1984; Malsheen, 1980) in comparison to speech directed to adults. However, it is not yet known to what extent such measures of maternal input have long-term impacts on language development. This thesis seeks to test the overarching hypothesis t hat children who receive more clarified speech input during the prelinguistic stage may be expected to have better language skills at an earlier age than children who receive poorer qua lity


In January 2010, reefs in the Upper and Middle Florida Keys experienced prolonged exposure to extremely cold water temperatures, below lethal thresholds for many reef organisms including corals. We examined post-disturbance juvenile assemblages of stony corals and octocorals on eight patch reefs, four of which were categorized as high impact and four as low impact, based on declines in stony-coral cover following disturbance. We established permanent quadrats to conduct field surveys in spring and fall of 2012 and 2013. Overall, juvenile abundances of both stony corals and octocorals were greater on low-impact sites, suggesting that those sites had higher recruitment and juvenile survival than high-impact sites. Juvenile assemblages also showed a regional pattern, with more stony corals on Middle Keys sites and more octocorals on Upper Keys sites. The stony-coral juvenile assemblage was dominated by Siderastrea siderea (46%) and Porites astreoides (19%), whereas previously abundant species such as Orbicella annularis were nearly absent (<3%). Octocoral juveniles were dominated by Antillogorgia spp. (25%), Gorgonia spp. (21%), Eunicea spp. (19%) and Erythropodium caribaeorum (14%). Overall, post-disturbance juvenile assemblages displayed a wide range of octocoral genera, but only a few select stony-coral species, which exhibited either opportunistic or hardy life-history characteristics.


Polaron traps are ubiquitous in organic semiconductors and recent evidence suggests they might be crucial for the large observed magnetic field effects (MFEs) in organic semiconductors. Here we measure MFEs in polymer thin-film devices with engineered, radiative trap sites in order to spectroscopically investigate the influence of the traps. Surprisingly, the luminescence at the trap sites and the polymer backbone is found to have an opposite response to a magnetic field. All our results are compatible with a mechanism in which spin mixing at the traps can create the large MFEs observed on the backbone. This scenario is quantitatively confirmed by numerical drift-diffusion modeling with magnetic-field-dependent exciton densities at the traps. These insights solve an outstanding controversy within the research field.


Re-visiting research begun a decade ago, we examine the design and implementation of a modern currency transaction tax, the original financial transaction or Tobin tax. We show how a feasible CTT can be collected, and we estimate CTT revenues and market impact based on alternative tax rates. We survey the potential uses for these new revenues, and propose allocation mechanisms. Finally, we estimate the new and additional resources that would likely become available for financing the provision of global public goods.


Abstract Question: Is a rapid decline in abundance of a dominant species in a bottomland hardwood forest evidence for a trade-off between flood-and shade-tolerance? Location: Bottomland hardwood forest in east Texas, USA. Methods: We used 23 years of data on marked individuals to examine abundance, mortality, recruitment and growth of trees before and after a long growing season flood. Results: A decline of 47% in abundance and 49% in basal area of Carpinus caroliniana (Betulaceae) occurred between 1989 and 1994 in a bottomland hardwood forest following a long summer flood. Other major species showed little change in abundance or basal area. The Carpinus decline was greater at low elevations suggesting the importance of flooding. Carpinus is rated among the least flood-tolerant species in the system. It differs from other species of similar flood tolerance in adult stature (midstory) and shade tolerance (tolerant). Conclusions: The trade-off between flood tolerance and shade tolerance can influence dynamics of floodplain forests. Nomenclature: Burns & Honkala (1990) except for Ilex decidua Walt.


The total reorganization energy, λ, for interfacial electron trans-fer, ET, from a conductive electrode to redox-active molecules at fixed positions within the electric double layer, EDL, has been determined experimentally. Conductive indium-tin-oxide (ITO, In2O3:Sn) mesoporous films were functionalized with [RuII(bpy)2(4,4'-(PO3H2)2-bpy)]3+/2+ (RuP), where bpy is 2,2'-bipyridine, and/or 4-[N,N-di(p-tolyl)amino]benzylphosphonic acid (TPA). The small inner-sphere reorganization, λin, for RuIII/IIP and TPA+/0 makes them excellent probes of outer-sphere reorganization energy, λo, as λin << λo such that λ = λin + λo ≈ λo. Consecutive layer-by-layer addition of ZrIV-bridged methylenediphosphonic acid enabled positioning at distances from 4-27 Å from the ITO. Excited-state injection into the ITO by RuP* generated ITO(e-)|RuIIIP. For ITO co-functionalized with TPA and RuP, sub-nanosecond lateral ET yielded ITO(e-)|TPA+. The kinetics for ET from ITO to RuIIIP or TPA+ were quantified spectroscopically as a function of applied potential (Eapp) and hence driving force, -ΔGo. Marcus-Gerischer analysis of this data provided λ. Significantly, λo was near zero within the outer-Helmholtz plane, λ = 0.11 eV at an ~4 Å distance, manifest by kinetics largely insensitive to Eapp. In agreement with dielectric continuum theory, λ increased to values expected in CH3CN solution when the molecule was positioned at an ~27 Å distance, λ = 0.94 eV. The data reveal small intrinsic barriers for electron transfer proximate to conductive interfaces, exploitable behavior in solar energy conversion and other applications that utilize transparent conductive oxides to accept or deliver electrons.


The aerodynamic forces on bodies of arbitrary shape were investigated under conditions such that the mean free path of the air molecule is greater than the dimensions of the body. Air pressures and friction forces were calculated from gas kinetic theory for surfaces facing both toward and away from the air stream at any angle. Air forces for an atmosphere of definite composition (molecular hydrogen) were calculated as a function of the flight velocity. The results indicate that the friction stresses between the air and the body surface are of the same magnitude as the dynamic pressure and as the air pressures normal to the surface. The application of the general method to the specific cases such as thin airfoils and projectiles leads to high drag coefficients and poor glide ratios even for the theoretically best wing sections.


The income gap between rich and poor countries has increased since 1980, despite the rapid
growth of capitalist commodity production in parts of the Third World. However, contemporary
Marxist writing rarely acknowledges this and can't explain how the imperialist core has
maintained its dominance. Over the same period, academic Marxism has come to reject Lenin's
theory of imperialism, but not replaced it with another Marxist theory. Academic Marxists
instead accept some version of the popular narrative that Third World nations (especially China)
are 'catching up' with the imperialist core.
It is shown that Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and its key theoretical
concept—monopoly finance capital—provides a Marxist theoretical framework that can
successfully explain the principle concrete developments in the international economy during
the neoliberal period. These are: the growth of capitalism in the Third World yet lack of
convergence with the imperialist core, how the global division of labour that developed during
the neoliberal period concretely manifests and reinforces imperialist monopolistic dominance
and how, on this basis, the imperialist core usurps the labour value created in the Third World.
Much of essential conceptual framework developed in the thesis was explicit in Lenin's
Imperialism but is lacking from contemporary discussion. It is argued, the most essential form
of monopoly—and that which is the key to long-term reproduction of imperialist core
dominance—is monopolistic dominance over the labour process. The latter is maintained by
monopoly over the highest and most sophisticated labour. Monopoly capital develops in this
way alongside and in connection with the parallel development of non-monopoly capital—much
of which is based in the Third World.
For this reason, the usurpation of value from Third World societies—i.e. Third World
exploitation—is shown to be an integral and inevitable feature of international production and
trade and underscores the longevity of the imperialist system.


Introduction: Mobility impairments are among the main causes of falls in older adults and patients with neurological diseases, leading to functional dependence and substantial health care costs. Feedback-based interventions applied in controlled, laboratory environments have shown promising results for mobility rehabilitation, enhancing the benefits of standard therapy. However, the effectiveness of sensor-based feedback to improve gait in actual outpatient physical therapy settings is unknown. The proposed trial examines the effectiveness of a physical therapist-assisted, visual feedback system using wearable inertial sensors, Mobility Rehab, for mobility training in older adults with gait disturbances in an outpatient clinic. Methods: The study is a single site, pragmatic clinical trial in older adults with gait disturbances. Two hundred patients undergoing their outpatient rehabilitation program are assigned, by an independent assistant, for screening by one of four therapists, and assigned to either a standard physical therapy or therapist-assisted feedback therapy. Both groups train twice a week for 6 weeks. Four physical therapists were randomized and stratified by years of experience to deliver standard therapy or therapist-assisted feedback rehabilitation. Each session is 45 min long. Gait is trained for 30 min. The additional 15 min include exercises for endurance, strength, and static and dynamic balance in functional tasks. Mobility Rehab uses unobtrusive, inertial sensors on the feet and belt with real-time algorithms to provide real-time feedback on gait metrics (i.e., gait speed, double support time, foot clearance, angle at foot strike, and arm swing), which are displayed on a hand-held monitor. Blinded assessments are carried out before and after the intervention. The primary outcome measure is subjects' perception of balance as measured by the Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale. Gait speed, as measured with wearable inertial sensors during walking, is the secondary outcome measure. Discussion: We hypothesize that therapist-assisted feedback rehabilitation will be more effective than standard rehabilitation for gait. Feedback of motor performance plays a crucial role in rehabilitation and objective characterization of gait impairments by Mobility Rehab has the potential to improve the accuracy of patient-specific gait feedback. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT03869879.


Not surprisingly, migration is currently perceived as an important topic in the South of Italy, a region which, due to its geographical position, has been confronted with the arrival of thousands of refugees from Africa and the Middle East, but which, due to its own long history of emigration, is also able to empathize with their plight. The popular music of Southern Italy reflects this situation in a striking way, accentuating in many cases the affinities and feelings of brotherhood with those who arrive in Italy looking for help or asylum. By analyzing a song which can be seen as paradigmatic for this attitude, "Chiui sta porta" by Sicilian singer-songwriter and artist Salvatore Tartamella,  fundamental strategies will be identified (both textual and musical) that also occur in other songs by southern Italian singer-songwriters or groups, such as Enzo Avitabile, Eugenio Bennato or Almamegretta. As will be demonstrated, most of the aesthetic strategies to be discussed (such as the recourse to one's own tradition of popular music, often combined with African or Middle Eastern sounds, the use of dialect, or the mythification of migrants' fates) result from the assumption that a common basis of 'subalternity' between refugees and parts of the Southern population exists. The theoretical frame of this discussion is based on thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Franco Cassano, and Iain Chambers.


Based on the dispersive feature of the dielectric function of noble metals and the wave vector conservation in physics, both the plasma effect and the complex refractive index, which are profoundly correlated to the complex dielectric function and permeability, have been studied and analyzed. The condition to induce a bulk or a surface plasma in the visible region will not be satisfied, and there will be one solution for the real and the imaginary parts of the refractive index, restricting it only to region I of the complex plane. The results given in this work will aid in understanding the properties of light transmission at the metal/dielectric interface as characterized by the law of refraction in nature.


This thesis develops a multidisciplinarily grounded account of the cultural causes of environmental problems discussed as a question in philosophical and sociological theory of social action. The approach is articulated by an original reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Part 1 of the thesis critically discusses a prominent view of the cultural causes found in environmentalism and environmental history with significant popular appeal. In this view, labelled the ideological approach, the human nature relationship is characterised essentially by our culture's alleged disrespectful, manipulative and materialistic attitude to nature that is said to have been internalised by the modern human being and to fundamentally drive our ecologically consequential activities. An alternative organisatory approach is suggested based on the view that due to division of labour of culturally and geographically dispersed masses, as well as the everyday character of activities in terms of which we collectively cause environmental problems in global industrial market society, no general ideological source of social action can plausibly be posited. An organisatory approach to the human environmental burden as a function of the collective performance by masses of a shared organisation of activity on a recursive, everyday basis is a more realistic account of the intensity of human environmental impact. Part 2 argues that the ideological approach in environmentalism and beyond can be seen to imply a form of collectivism also found in many classics of Wittgensteinian philosophy and social theory, an important common denominator being their ontological focus on the mental source of social action in shared conceptual schemes, normative orientations and the like. By contrast, in the Wittgenstein reading developed in this thesis, his perspective was non-ontological, viewing social activity as developing processes not defined by their mental source in shared conceptions but by their organisation. Social life is viewed as being based on agreement in form of life, that is, in organisation of human activity. The thesis is a rare and original attempt to make philosophy relevant in the discussion of a pressing contemporary problem that also advances Wittgensteinscholarship to a novel area.


The best mode disclosure requirement helps to ensure that the public receives a full and honest disclosure in return for the grant of patent. It has a profound theoretical basis and foundation. The best mode disclosure requirement is an optional obligation under the TRIPS Agreement in its Article 29. Among the most important developed countries that have implemented this disclosure requirement are the US and Japan; however, there are certain differences in their national laws and practices, especially with regard to the legal effect of this requirement. In the US, patent reform is tending towards removing the best mode disclosure from the list of reasons to invalidate a granted patent; although, the requirement will still apply to all patent applications during patent prosecutions. Developing countries are recommended to consider adopting the best mode disclosure requirement in their patent laws. It is proposed that patent applicants be required to disclose the best mode which shall be a substantive condition for patent grant; however, the failure to disclose the best mode may not constitute a reason to invalidate a granted patent. The objective of this article is to study the best mode disclosure requirement from an international and comparative perspective, and suggest how developing countries should implement this disclosure requirement. The article also seeks to answer to two questions: whether a developing country should implement the best mode disclosure requirement, and if so, how to best implement it?


AIMS
Ventricular myocytes isolated from hearts of streptozotocin (STZ)-diabetic rats exhibit increased spontaneous Ca(2+) release. Studies attribute this defect to an enhancement in activity of type 2 ryanodine receptor (RyR2). To date, underlying reasons for RyR2 dysregulation remain undefined. This study assesses whether the responsiveness of RyR2 following stimulation by intrinsic ligands is being altered during experimental type 1 diabetes (T1D).

METHODS AND RESULTS
M-mode echocardiography established a cardiomyopathy in 8 weeks STZ-diabetic rats. Confocal microscopy confirmed an increase in the spontaneous Ca(2+) release in isolated ventricular myocytes. Western blots revealed no significant change in steady-state levels of the RyR2 protein. When purified to homogeneity and incorporated into planar lipid bilayers, RyR2 from STZ-diabetic rats (dRyR2) exhibited reduced current amplitude at ±35 mV. dRyR2 was also more responsive to intrinsic cytoplasmic activators Ca(2+), adenosine triphosphate, and cyclic adenosine diphosphate ribose and less responsive to the cytoplasmic deactivator Mg(2+). Threshold for the activation of RyR2 by trans (luminal) Ca(2+) was also reduced. These changes were independent of phosphorylation at Ser2808 and Ser2814. Two weeks of insulin treatment starting after 6 weeks of diabetes blunted the phenotype change, indicating that the gain of function is specific to the diabetes and not the result of STZ interacting directly with RyR2.

CONCLUSION
These data show, for the first time, that RyR2 is acquiring a gain-of-function phenotype independent of its phosphorylation status during T1D and provides new insights for the enhanced spontaneous Ca(2+) release in myocytes from T1D rats.


A machine learning technique for automating the traditional controller tests process that evaluates autonomous-vehicle software controllers is discussed. In the proposed technique, a controller is subjected to an adaptively chosen set of fault scenarios in a vehicle simulator, and then a genetic algorithm is used to search for fault combinations that produce noteworthy actions in the controller. This approach has been applied to find a minimal set of faults that produces degraded vehicle performance and a maximal set of faults that can be tolerated without significant performance loss.<<ETX>>


The solution of the multiple-scattering problem for two parallel infinite dielectric cylinders is considered for plane wave illumination perpendicular to the cylinder axes. Numerical results show the coupling effect with respect to cylinder size, separation, and orientation of the cylinder axes with respect to the incident wave. The coupling effect is illustrated by calculations of the internal and near-field intensity for end-on and broadside incidence. Results for circular cylinders with a size/wavelength ratio corresponding to a particular morphology-dependent resonance (size parameter = 45.329) show that the local effect of the resonance is completely damped when the two cylinders touch.


Clearly, the future of the beef cattle industry in the United States depends on the quality of the product. The majority of calves are born in the spring; therefore, to have a consistent supply of feeders entering feedlots and to take advantage of forages, a variety of stocker programs exist. Cattle enter the feedlot at varying weights and ages and from different nutritional backgrounds, and this variation could produce differences in carcass quality. The economically important measures of carcass quality are yield grade and quality grade. They are directly related: as cattle fatten in the feedlot, both quality grade and yield grade increase. Because cattle are commercially fed to fat-constant end points, it is logical to make comparisons at equal fat end points. Then, marbling (percentage Choice) becomes the primary quality criterion. We analyzed data from 534 cattle serially slaughtered and found that the percentage grading Choice increased 12 ± 1 percentage units for each 1-mm increase in rib fat. Marbling score increased 30 units (200 = slight 00) for each 1-mm increase in fat. To determine the effect of rate of winter gain on carcass quality, 372 calves over 5 yr were wintered at .23 or .61 kg/d gain. When adjusted to equal rib fat after summer grazing and finishing, there was no difference in quality grade. To test the effect of summer gain on carcass quality, 418 calves over 7 yr were followed through the feedlot after gaining .57 or .84 kg/d on grass. When compared at equal rib fat, there was no difference in quality grade. Shear force values and consumer taste panels were used to evaluate steaks from 90 cattle from calf-fed and yearling production systems. Calf-feds were 14 mo of age at slaughter and yearlings were 19 or 21 mo. Each group was serially slaughtered. There was no effect of an additional .39 cm of rib fat on shear force, juiciness, tenderness, flavor, or overall palatability. Calf-feds were significantly more tender than yearlings, but the risk of an undesirable steak from yearlings was < .2% based on shear force and < 2.8% based on the consumer taste panel. If cattle are fed to a common rib fat end point, and within the range of rates of winter and summer gains reported herein, we conclude that the backgrounding program has little or no effect on marbling or carcass quality grade.


Aim/Purpose Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) simulation (ERPsim) games have been used in Information Systems courses to teach students ERP systems and business processes. This study investigates whether the use of ERPsim games can be extended to other management disciplines. More specifically, this study reports on using the ERPsim games innovatively in a new context, in an undergraduate managerial decision making course, to enhance student perceived learning outcomes and satisfaction. Background In this study, the ERPsim games were used to provide students with practical experience about using information in tactical and operational decision making and to illustrate important course concepts such as anchoring, bias, and bounded awareness, among others. The theoretical framework leveraged in this study was derived from the literature on technology acceptance in educational settings and the studies on virtual learning environment effectiveness. Methodology Survey methodology was used to collect the data and test the research model. One sample t-tests and partial least squares (PLS) were used for empirical analysis. 138 students participated in the study. Contribution By developing and testing a sound research model, we conclude that the use of ERPsim games can be successfully extended from their current domain of Information Systems to management courses that are not technical to enhance student understanding of managerial concepts in a fun and enjoyable Innovative use of ERPsim: Management Decision Making 616 way while enabling students to gain realistic practical experience in using information for decision making. While, the ERPsim games have been used in IS education; this paper presents an opportunity to use them in a different context. Findings The study confirms that the ERPsim games are useful in improving student perceived learning outcomes and the level of satisfaction in management courses. It also identifies the factors that directly or indirectly shape student learning outcomes and satisfaction in such courses. Recommendations for Practitioners The use of the simulations has relevance to the new Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) guidelines that emphasize the need to incorporate evidence based, technology and data-driven decision making to solve real-world business problems into business curriculum. The study should also encourage educators to innovate in their own courses by experimenting with this particular simulation or similar simulations. Recommendations for Researchers Researchers should use additional samples to increase the generalizability of the findings. They should also extend the current research model by incorporating additional factors. Impact on Society The study provides support for the use of a simulation game to improve students' learning experiences and to help them better understand managerial decision making, which would allow graduates to more effectively transition into managerial roles. Future Research Future research should include establishing and validating the best practices surrounding the use of these simulations in the classroom.


A common paradigm in classical planning is heuristic forward search. Forward search planners often rely on simple best-first search which remains fixed throughout the search process. In this paper, we introduce a novel search framework capable of alternating between several forward search approaches while solving a particular planning problem. Selection of the approach is performed using a trainable stochastic policy, mapping the state of the search to a probability distribution over the approaches. This enables using policy gradient to learn search strategies tailored to a specific distributions of planning problems and a selected performance metric, e.g. the IPC score. We instantiate the framework by constructing a policy space consisting of five search approaches and a two-dimensional representation of the planner's state. Then, we train the system on randomly generated problems from five IPC domains using three different performance metrics. Our experimental results show that the learner is able to discover domain-specific search strategies, improving the planner's performance relative to the baselines of plain bestfirst search and a uniform policy.


A field experiment was performed to study the effects of soil structure heterogeneity generated by farming practices (i.e., compaction by wheel traffic, plowing, surface tillage) on plot‐scale water flow and solute transport. The experiment involved a 4 by 2 m2 field plot that was uniformly sprinkle irrigated with water and bromide for about 6 h. Independently measured soil hydraulic functions were used to simulate the experiment with a numerical flow and transport model (HYDRUS‐2D) using a fully deterministic approach for describing soil heterogeneity. The numerical model reproduced observed flow and transport processes only after adjustments were made to the soil hydraulic functions. Adjustments were needed to account for increased flow and transport into and through the soil between the compacted zones below the wheel tracks, and to predict double concentration peaks caused by the umbrella (or shadow) effects of compacted soil clods. Global optimization of the soil hydraulic parameters produced a satisfactory description of the very heterogeneous flow patterns, with the resulting hydraulic parameters showing only limited correlation among each other. We demonstrate that double‐peak concentration profiles can result from the presence of tillage‐induced soil heterogeneities.


In this article, we describe our initial apprehensions, difficulties of working across our differences, and changes in our understandings and teaching practice as we collaboratively taught a social studies methods course. We began with stereotypes of each other implied by our university/school and professor/graduate student/classroom teacher roles. After 4 years of working together, we have come to understand our positions, knowledge, and expertise in different ways and as a result have changed our teaching. We began our co-teaching experience as members of a Professional Development School (PDS) project. In this PDS, university faculty, graduate associates, school principals, and class, room teachers work closely to construct and evaluate the redesign of the university's elementary teacher education programs. One important aspect of this collaboration is co-teaching the methods courses for the M aster of Education certification students in the program. Classroom teachers, doctoral students, and university professors make shared decisions about course syllabi, assignments, and evaluation to bring theory and practice into a productive dialogue. Despite initial support for co-teaching the methods courses, both university faculty and classroom teachers were reluctant. Classroom teachers were uncertain about working with university faculty, about the time necessary for planning, and especially about leaving their classrooms for half a day each week. University faculty were hesitant to relinquish their autonomy and worried about the time required to team teach. These hesitancies resulted in less concern about teachers' expertise in the subject area and more on their willingness to participate. Rather than participating in a formal selection process, faculty and teachers were asked to volunteer; decisions about which teachers would teach with which faculty were left to informal negotiations. This article focuses on the co-teaching of a social studies methods course. We do not include practical descriptions of how we organized the social studies course, the students' evaluations of the course, or assessment of student learning. This is not to deny the importance of student outcomes that we discuss in other work in progress, but to situate this study within the literature on collaborative work and professional development. Studies of teachers' professional development supported our interest in looking at our own learning and development. Traditionally evaluation of change initiatives have considered classroom instruction and student performance more than the teachers who managed the learning environments. Attention to teachers' growth and development has been slow in coming, particularly studies that include self-study and reflection. Recently, researchers have been using case studies, collaborative methodologies, narrative forms, and feminist theories to look at the complexities and perspectives of teachers (Miller, 1990; Witherell & Noddings, 1991). Action research is enjoying a resurgence, and teachers are increasingly studying and publishing reports on their own teaching and beliefs (Bricher, Hawk, & Tingley, 1993; Nalle, 1993; Paley, 1989). Journals are increasingly including collaborative studies by teachers or between teachers and researchers (Gitlin, 1992; Hunsaker & Johnston, 1992). Greene (1988) argues that stories--and myths, and diaries, and histories--give shape and expression to what would otherwise be untold about `our lives' (p. x). Multiple forms of expression help to reveal the complexities of personal lives as they are reflected in professional lives and development. These studies point to the value of teachers considering their own thinking and teaching as sites for reflection, inquiry, and change. The authors (Lisa Westhoven, a classroom teacher; JoAnn Hohenbrink, a graduate teaching associate; and Marilyn Johnston, a professor) co-taught a two-quarter course for 2 years (1991-1993). …


The surface heat flux response to underlying sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (the surface heat flux feedback) is estimated using 42 yr (1956–97) of ship-derived monthly turbulent heat fluxes and 17 yr (1984–2000) of satellite-derived monthly radiative fluxes over the global oceans for individual seasons. Net surface heat flux feedback is generally negative (i.e., a damping of the underlying SST anomalies) over the global oceans, although there is considerable geographical and seasonal variation. Over the North Pacific Ocean, net surface heat flux feedback is dominated by the turbulent flux component, with maximum values (28 Wm 2 K 1 ) in December–February and minimum values (5 W m 2 K 1 ) in May–July. These seasonal variations are due to changes in the strength of the climatological mean surface wind speed and the degree to which the near-surface air temperature and humidity adjust to the underlying SST anomalies. Similar features are observed over the extratropical North Atlantic Ocean with maximum (minimum) feedback values of approximately 33 W m 2 K 1 (9 Wm 2 K 1 ) in December–February (June–August). Although the net surface heat flux feedback may be negative, individual components of the feedback can be positive depending on season and location. For example, over the midlatitude North Pacific Ocean during late spring to midsummer, the radiative flux feedback associated with marine boundary layer clouds and fog is positive, and results in a significant enhancement of the month-to-month persistence of SST anomalies, nearly doubling the SST anomaly decay time from 2.8 to 5.3 months in May–July. Several regions are identified with net positive heat flux feedback: the tropical western North Atlantic Ocean during boreal winter, the Namibian stratocumulus deck off West Africa during boreal fall, and the Indian Ocean during boreal summer and fall. These positive feedbacks are mainly associated with the following atmospheric responses to positive SST anomalies: 1) reduced surface wind speed (positive turbulent heat flux feedback) over the tropical western North Atlantic and Indian Oceans, 2) reduced marine boundary layer stratocumulus cloud fraction (positive shortwave radiative flux feedback) over the Namibian stratocumulus deck, and 3) enhanced atmospheric water vapor (positive longwave radiative flux feedback) in the vicinity of the tropical deep convection region over the Indian Ocean that exceeds the negative shortwave radiative flux feedback associated with enhanced cloudiness.