Alain Locke's call for the "New Negro" and W. E. B. Du Bois's classification of "the Talented Tenth" created a myriad of creative interpretations during the Harlem Renaissance, especially by women writers. Marita Bonner's work responds to the need for an examination of the lives of characters who must cope with economic hardships, discrimination, deterioration of family relationships, illnesses that are particular to urban life, new religious communities, and multi-ethnic neighborhoods within urban settings. Her themes are unique in comparison to stories written by other African American women., She is the only Harlem Renaissance woman to write short stories set in Chicago. Although she follows the African American women's writing tradition in portraying women as her main characters, these women are not independently strong, not individualized and not triumphant. She avoids any autobiographical elements from her distinctive childhood. She adheres to a social-realist mode of writing about multi-ethnic Chicago, an environment that directs not only her themes, but her craft as well. Her stories present a unique perspective on the struggles of those twentieth-century African Americans who live outside the Mecca of art in Harlem, who do not live in all-African American rural communities, who must face a completely different set of Jim Crow laws from those of the post-Civil War South, and whose daily existence depends on the economic prosperity of Midwestern industry. In particular, several of Bonner's short stories reflect the often overpowering barriers that African American women faced when they attempted to follow the Harlem Renaissance's call for self-improvement through education. Locating Bonner in the history of African American writing is essential to understanding both her short fiction and the sociological map of the Renaissance era. She lived during the Harlem Renaissance, published in two of the leading African American journals (Opportunity and The Crisis), participated in writing groups such as Georgia Douglas Johnson's "S" Street Salon,(1) and lived in three urban setting's (Boston, Washington, DC and Chicago) that were centers for vigorous African American reform activities. She was a contemporary of such well-known women Renaissance writers as Zora Neale Hurston,(2) Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Gwendolyn Bennet, Dorothy West, and Ann Petry. She was the most prolific woman short story writer for Opportunity, publishing seven short stories whereas the average for other women writers was one to two stories. Compared to male short story writers, Bonner's total publication number for Opportunity was exceeded by only two--Henry B. Jones and John Frederick Matheus, who each published nine stories. Until at least 1987, Bonner was unknown to contemporary readers. With the publication of her works in the Beacon Press Black Women Writer's series,(3) her short stories have begun to appear in anthologies.(4) Not surprisingly, scholarship on Bonner has been slight. Cheryl Wall's more recent book Women of the Harlem Renaissance discusses Bonner's essay "On Being Young--A Woman--and Colored." Joyce Flynn's brief introduction to Bonner's works provides only summaries of her short stories. More has been written on her three plays--The Pot Maker: A Play to Be Read (published in Opportunity 5 [Feb. 1927]), The Purple Flower (published in The Crisis 35 [Jan. 1928]), and Exit, an Illusion: A One-Act Play (published in The Crisis 36 [Oct. 1929]). Bonner's pre-publication life is important when one considers her presentation of education in the lives of her characters.(5) She does not incorporate her own family into her stories,(6) and she does not draw on her own early personal experiences for the plots, settings and themes. The violence and poverty of inner-city life found in her stories are not part of her early life experiences. In fact, her childhood and education could be considered privileged. …


The Indo-Pacific lionfish species Pterois volitans and P. miles are piscivorous predators that were introduced probably via aquarium release to the northwestern Atlantic approximately 15 yr ago and rapidly spread and established through the Greater Caribbean. Possible ecological impacts of this invasion on native species are a legitimate cause for concern. Despite predictions that lionfishes will extend their range throughout most of the eastern coast of South America, they are yet to be recorded in Brazil. We pres- ent a perspective analysis of the lionfish in vasion in the southwestern Atlantic by investigating patterns of fish species movement across the Amazon-Orinoco plume (AOP), a large freshwater and sediment runoff between the Caribbean and the Brazilian Provinces that repre- sents a 'porous' barrier to dispersal for reef organisms. We analyzed records of species that have recently crossed the barrier and found that the Brazilian Pro - vince contributes a significantly higher proportion of its endemic fauna to the pool of crossers, indicating that movements of va grant species across the AOP are more common from Brazil towards the Caribbean than vice versa. Nevertheless, despite infrequent migration south - wards against the currents, our analysis indicates that such migration has occurred historically and has re- sulted in the establishment of new populations. Our analysis indicates that a combination of the effects of the AOP and prevailing currents along northern Brazil may slow the pace of the potential invasion, which could help eradication programs if action is taken before lionfishes become widespread and established in Brazil.


We propose a scheme for the generation of continuous-wave terahertz (THz) radiation. The scheme requires a medium in which three discrete states in a Λ configuration can be selected, with the THz frequency transition being between the two lower metastable states. The propagation of three-frequency continuous-wave electromagnetic (EM) radiation through a Λ medium is considered. Under resonant excitation, the medium absorption can be strongly reduced owing to quantum interference of transitions, whereas the nonlinear susceptibility is enhanced. This leads to efficient energy transfer among the EM waves, providing the possibility of THz generation. We demonstrate that the photon conversion efficiency is approaching unity in this technique.


PURPOSE
To determine the presence of activated complement components in eyes affected by diabetic retinopathy.

METHODS
Eyes of 50 deceased donors with diabetic retinopathy and of 10 nondiabetic subjects with uveal melanoma (n = 6) or phthisical eyes (n = 4), as well as eyes of 16 deceased donors without diabetic retinopathy were subjected to immunohistochemical studies, using a panel of antibodies directed against candidate markers of complement activation.

RESULTS
Extensive deposits of complement C5b-9 complexes were detected in the choriocapillaris immediately underlying the Bruch membrane and densely surrounding the capillaries, in all 50 diabetic retinopathy specimens. Complement deposition was sometimes also observed around the larger choroidal vessels. Similarly intense staining for C5b-9 was absent in 25 of the 26 of the other donor eyes. Positive staining was observed in a case of systemic amyloidosis. Staining for C3d positively correlated with C5b-9 staining, corroborating the notion that complement activation had occurred in situ. Furthermore, positive staining was found for vitronectin, which forms stable complexes with extracellular C5b-9. When present, deposits under the pigment epithelium and drusen also stained positively for the activated complement components, independent of diabetic retinopathy. In contrast, there was no positive staining for C-reactive protein (CRP), mannose-binding lectin (MBL), C1q, or C4, indicating that complement activation did not occur through a C4-dependent pathway.

CONCLUSIONS
The presence of C3d, C5b-9, and vitronectin indicates that complement activation occurs to completion, possibly through the alternative pathway in the choriocapillaris in eyes affected by diabetic retinopathy. Complement activation at this site may evoke a spectrum of pathologic sequelae that could contribute to ocular tissue disease and visual impairment.


Many researchers have investigated the value of small businesses and have identified generic attributes of survival. One noted aspect of survivability is the ability to learn. Knowledge has long been recognized as a crucial competitive tool for organizational survival and competition. Further, business leaders must implement learning into the business for it to grow and survive. Capturing, converting, and integrating knowledge into the business is a requisite for business survival and represents an important line of inquiry. Since 2002, small businesses have accounted for more than 99% of all businesses and for 63% of net new jobs between 1993 and 2011. Since 2007, failure rates of small businesses have increased 40%. In California alone, more than 3 million small businesses exist, contributing 37% to the California GDP. The current research was used to add to the body of knowledge on learning and survivability using a multisite case study involving specifically small businesses within San Diego County, California, and answered the research question about how small businesses leaders implement a process to capture, convert, and integrate knowledge for the business to survive. The


Czochralski (Cz) silicon wafers are used almost exclusively for the fabrication of VLSI devices. Such silicon contains excess oxygen which precipitates as oxide particles either when the initial ingot is grown or subsequently during the wafer device fabrication. Such oxide particles can produce reduced device performance or failure if they occur within the active device regions. However, they can be used to improve the device performance by a process known as internal oxide gettering. The wafers are given a series of preanneal treatments to produce controlled precipitation in which a surface zone of the wafer to a depth of typically in the range of 10 to 50 μm is denuded of oxide particles, while the remainder of the wafer contains large numbers of well formed particles. The devices are fabricated in the surface denuded zone and harmful contaminating metal impurities are attracted during the heat treatment stages away from the device regions to precipitate at the underlying oxide particles or their associated dislocations. In this way device yields can be significantly increased. Because of the importance of these oxide particles and the oxygen precipitation process for VLSI fabrication, considerable efforts have been made to develop methods to assess the numbers and distributions of such particles within the wafers. The number density range of most interest is 10 7 to 10 10 cm -3 , and the particle size range is typically 30 to 300 nm. The method that has mostly been used is surface etching followed by optical microscopy to obtain etch pit densities. Transmission electron microscopy is a research method used for obtaining detailed information concerning a small number of individual particles. However, because these methods are destructive, much attention has been given during the last few years to the development of infra-red microscopy methods to directly image the particles within the silicon wafers. Although the particles are smaller than the resolution of these methods, individual particles can nevertheless be imaged. This is because the particles are mostly further apart than the resolution limit, and the sensitivity can be sufficient high that adequate contrast occurs. The contrast arises from scattering or absorption of the light by the particle. Infra-red imaging methods developed include infra-red microscopy (IRM), laser scattering tomography (LST), optical precipitate profiler (OPP) and scanning infra-red microscopy (SIRM), all described more fully in Chapter 2. The SIRM has been developed and used to investigate a variety of semiconductor specimens in the Materials Department, Oxford University, during the last ten years. The SIRM has a good performance and flexibility making it especially suitable as a research instrument. Although all of these infra-red imaging methods have been successful to different degrees in assessing oxide particles in Cz silicon wafers, their performance has at least initially been assessed by comparing the number densities and distributions thus obtained with the corresponding results produced by etch pit studies. Furthermore, no serious attempt has yet been made to develop a rigorous theory of the imaging process and to compare the predictions with the experimental images. One of the main objectives of the present work is to do this or at least to make a significant start to such a project based on the SIRM. The outline of an ideal project which aims at a full understanding of the imaging process and the contrast mechanisms is as follows. The performance of the present Oxford SIRM should be improved and the number of imaging modes increased. The improved performance, i.e. better lateral and depth resolutions and higher sensitivity, would enable smaller particles and higher number densities to be imaged, and hence better quantitative data obtained. The larger number of imaging modes would enable the optimum method to be used to image different types of particle. A rigorous theory should be developed that can describe the imaging process and the contrast mechanisms. First, the illumination system should be studied, and in particular the structure of the focussed probe within the specimen and how the structure changes on focussing deeper into the specimen. Second, the interaction of the light with the specimen should be investigated and especially how light is scattered by individual oxide particles in silicon for the case of the particle size being smaller than the light wavelength. Third, the detection system should be considered. For example, for the reflection confocal SIRM, how the light back scattered by the particles is collected by the probe forming lens and imaged at a pin-hole aperture placed in the front of the detector. Well designed experiments are required to determine the imaging properties of the different modes and comparisons should be made between the experimental and theoretical data. The successful conclusion of such a project would enable SIRM images of the particles to be more fully interpreted and hence more detailed information obtained concerning the particles. Furthermore, the images expected from different types of particle could be more closely predicted, e.g. whether they are detectable or not, and hence materials projects could be better planned at the outset. In this thesis we describe the methods that are presently being used to assess oxide particles in bulk silicon (Chapter 2). We review the literature on scanning optical microscopy covering both visible and infra-red light, present some considerations regarding the design of a high performance and versatile SIRM, and describe the various microscope modes that have been or could be used to image particles in semiconductors with infra-red light (Chapter 3). We give a detailed rigorous theoretical analysis of the energy distributions in the probe for the case when the light is focussed by a high numerical aperture lens from air into silicon (Chapters 4, 5). Numerically computed distributions are obtained to illustrate how the probe changes under different conditions, e.g. different focussing depths (Chapter 6). The relationship between the penetration depth of the probe and the spherical aberration coefficient arising from the silicon specimen is determined (Chapter 7). The classical theory of light scattering is applied to individual spherical silicon dioxide particles embedded in silicon. Numerical results are presented and a contrast mechanism is proposed to describe how the scattered intensity depends on particle size (Chapter 8). A formal solution relevant to the reflection confocal SIRM is given to treat the backward propagation of light using a model which takes into account the polarisation state of the incident light, the spherical aberration introduced by the silicon wafer, the polarisation state of the scattered light and the size of the pin-hole (Chapter 9). Experimental results are obtained for most of the imaging modes described in Chapter 3, specimens being selected so that the wide range of the imaging capabilities of the SIRM is shown, and experimental contrast values are compared with theoretical values (Chapter 10). Finally, overall conclusions are drawn and suggestions are made for completing the work started here (Chapter 11).


Background : Infectious diseases escalation in developing countries especially in Indonesia lead to increasing use of antibiotics in the community. Self-medication with antibiotics may increase the risk of resistant bacteria and irrational use of antibiotics. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between socioeconomic -demographic characteristics with antibiotic self-medication. Methods : An analytical cross sectional study was conducted on people from Sayang Village in West Java Indonesia aged over 18 years and had experience in using antibiotics. A total of 146 respondents were selected as the sample of this study. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analysed by using descriptive statistics and Chi-Square test to analyze the relationship between socioeconomic demographic characteristics with antibiotic self-medication. Results : Out of 146 questionnaires that were completed, 111 were female and 35 male respondents, 75 respondents had experience in using antibiotics without prescription. The survey showed significant relation between antibiotics use with monthly income (p=0,031) and source of income (p=0,009). Conclusions : The study confirms that there is relation between monthly income and source of income with antibiotic self-medication. [AMJ.2017;4(1):73–7] DOI :  10.15850/amj.v4n1.1023


Summary Background L-carnitine was proposed as a potential treatment for patients diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder to improve mitochondrial dysfunction, but no prior randomized controlled trials have been conducted. Material/Methods Thirty subjects diagnosed with an ASD were randomly assigned to receive a standardized regimen (50 mg L-carnitine/kg bodyweight/day) of liquid L-carnitine (n=19) or placebo (n=11) for 3-months. Measures included changes in professionally completed Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), hand muscle testing, and modified clinical global impression (CGI) forms; parent completed Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), treatment adherence measurement (TAM), frequency and intensity of side effect rating (FISER)/global rating of side effect burden (GRSEB)/patient report of incidence of side effects (PRISE) forms; and lab testing. Results Significant improvements were observed in CARS (−2.03, 95% CI=−3.7 to −0.31), CGI (−0.69, 95% CI=−1.1 to −0.06), and ATEC scores. Significant correlations between changes in serum free-carnitine levels and positive clinical changes were observed for hand muscle strength (R2=0.23, P=0.046), cognitive scores (R2=0.27, P=0.019), and CARS scores (R2=0.20, P=0.047). Study subjects were protocol-compliant (average adherence was >85%) and generally well-tolerated the L-carnitine therapy given. Conclusions L-carnitine therapy (50 mg/kilogram-bodyweight/day) administered for 3-months significantly improved several clinical measurements of ASD severity, but subsequent studies are recommended.


The major human activities that have transformed the Earth include agriculture and urbanization. The present study was conducted to contribute to a description of the effect on birds of urbanization and agriculture in an Indian region. Terrestrial bird assemblages were censused along a five-stage urbanisation gradient between January and April 2010-2013 near the city of Amravati, on the Deccan Plateau, Central India. Altogether, 89 species of birds were recorded, with the highest species richness in the rural areas (67 species) and lowest in the urban stage (29 species). The assemblages were significantly nested in all the five stages. Maximum cumulative species abundance (12 399 individuals over four years) was found in the urban stage, and was due to the constant presence of large groups of Rose-ringed Parakeets (Psittacula krameri). The lowest bird abundance was found in the industrial zone (4837 in total), where there was also a nearly two-fold decrease from 2010 to 2013. Thirty-six species demonstrated significant variation in their densities at least in one stage and between at least two months (p<0.05). Densities of 13.9% (n=5) of those species varied significantly in two stages, that of Copsychus saularis in three stages, and of Phoenicurus ochruros, in all five stages. Urban, suburban, periurban and forest stages were characterised by relatively stable species densities (significant changes observed only for 17.2% (n=5), 17.1% (n=6), 12.9% (n=7), and 17.8% (n=16) species, respectively). The additive diversity partitioning indicated that of the overall diversity (gamma-diversity), alpha diversity (within transects located within one stage) contributed 50.1% to the total diversity, and the controbution of within-stage variability was small (2.7%). Additionally, censuses on cultivated fields were taken. In two areas under mixed cropping systems, 53 bird species were identified in the two years period between June and December, 2011 and 2012. Out of the 53 detected species, only 14 were common (recorded at ≥50% of visits). Twenty-one species were recorded at Zadgaon in crops of tur (Cajanus cajan), cotton (Gossypium arboreum) and soybean (Glycine max). Nineteen species were recorded at Bhankhed in jawar (Sorghum bicolor), cotton and mung bean (Phaseolus aureus). At Zadgaon, territorial activity was observed in four species: the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), Jungle Babbler (Turdoides striata), Yellow-eyed Babbler (Chrysomma sinense) and Red-wattled Lapwing (Vanellus indicus). The study indicated that four bird species were found under high risk, thirteen species at medium risk and eight species at low risk due to pesticide applications in croplands. The extent of crop damage in fields of groundnut, pearl millet, peas, sorghum, and sunflower was assessed by doing actual field censuses. The sustainable solution for reducing crop damage is a need for the farmers and such techniques will help to avoid direct or indirect effects of use of lethal bird control techniques on bird species diversity.


Energy and climate change are two important areas in which there is much more cooperation than competition between China and India. After a few years of trying to outbid each other for oil and gas exploration and production licenses, both have found it more productive to bid jointly for many such contracts. Even though neither China nor India has agreed to limits on their emissions of greenhouse gases, both are committed to reducing the carbon intensity of their development, by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 for China, and 20 to 25 percent over the same time period for India. To achieve these goals, the two countries have launched major programs to install power plants using renewable energy sources and nuclear energy, and to increase the efficiency of energy use. It is unlikely that either China or India will agree to absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from their present levels soon, but they may be willing to cap them at future levels that still permit their future per capita income to become comparable to that of countries in Western Europe. At the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, China was strongly supportive of a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol for a second commitment period, but India indicated that it may be willing to explore other approaches suggested by the United States, the EU and small island nations. Though their paths to addressing climate change may begin to differ, it is highly likely that China and India will continue to share the same strategic goal of achieving parity with the West in terms of standard of living of their populations, even if it means higher emissions for another decade or two. ********** Competition for scarce natural resources has been an important determining factor in human development. Tribes of hunter-gatherers fought over land and the flora and fauna that surrounded them, and early agricultural societies that existed along rivers fought deadly conflicts over getting their share of the water. Kingdoms large and small traded or battled for iron, gold and other metals, as well as precious stones. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and the input materials it required were major reasons for the expansion of colonialism. The horrors of two world wars during the 20th century, and of a cold war that almost became hot, convinced most countries that it was better to buy commodities needed for economic development than to occupy countries militarily. This lesson was confirmed by the high cost the United States has incurred since its occupation of Iraq in 2003. The largest commodity in global trade today is energy--oil, coal and natural gas. Oil is the fossil fuel with the smallest reserves-to-production ratio. (1) Europe has been a net importer of oil for more than a hundred years. The United States lost its energy self-sufficiency and became a large importer of oil during the decade following the Second World War, and China went from being a net exporter of oil to a net importer during the 1990s. As countries around the world industrialize and become more affluent, concern is growing that there may not be enough oil at affordable prices to accommodate the development needs of these countries. China and India are by far the two most populous nations and have high rates of economic growth and energy demand. Between 1990 and 2010, the total energy used in China has almost tripled and that in India doubled during the same period. (2) Essentially all energy sources can be used to generate electricity, provide heating and cooling for homes and offices, and run industrial processes. However, the world's transportation systems are still almost completely dependent on oil. Energy used for transportation has been growing faster than for any other use, and total oil requirements have increased faster in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) than anywhere else. …


The Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. However,the essential task of finding information is dominated by a handful of large centralised search engines. In this thesis we study an alternative to this approach. Instead of using large data centres, we propose using the machines that we all use every day: our desktop, laptop and tablet computers, to build a peer-to-peer web search engine. We provide a definition of the associated research field: peer-to-peer information retrieval. We examine what separates it from related fields, give an overview of the work done so far and provide an economic perspective on peer-to-peer search. Furthermore, we introduce our own architecture for peer-to-peer search systems, inspired by BitTorrent. Distributing the task of providing search results for queries introduces the problem of query routing: a query needs to be sent to a peer that can provide relevant search results. We investigate how the content of peers can be represented so that queries can be directed to the best ones in terms of relevance. While cooperative peers can provide their own representation, the content of uncooperative peers can be accessed only through a search interface and thus they can not actively provide a description of themselves. We look into representing these uncooperative peers by probing their search interface to construct a representation. Finally, the capacity of the machines in peer-to-peer networks differs considerably, making it challenging to provide search results quickly. To address this, we present an approach where copies of search results for previous queries are retained at peers and used to serve future requests and show participation can be incentivised using reputations. There are still problems to be solved before a real-world peer-to-peer web search engine can be built. This thesis provides a starting point for this ambitious goal and also provides a solid basis for reasoning about peer-to-peer information retrieval systems in general.


Populations that are vulnerable to decline are of particular concern to wildlife managers and uncovering the mechanisms responsible for downward trends is a crucial step towards developing future viable populations. The aims of this study were to better understand the mechanisms behind the historic decline of the sable antelope, Hippotragus niger , population at the Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve (MWR), to assess its future viability and to use this analysis to determine key areas of breakdown in population growth and link these to potential limiting factors. VORTEX, a population viability model was used to assess the future viability of the sable antelope population and a sensitivity analysis was applied to identify the key areas of breakdown in growth. The sable population is currently viable, but remains highly vulnerable to changes in adult female survival, a factor which had the greatest influence on overall population fitness. Lion predation, impacting on the adult segment of the population, appeared to be the main factor responsible for the historic decline at the MWR. Conservation implications: Sable generally occur at low densities in the lowveld region of Zimbabwe and, as such, populations are vulnerable to increases in mortality rates. The role of lions in driving the decline at the MWR suggests a need to control their numbers and develop prey refuges through improved management of artificial water.


A self-organizing multisensor fusion algorithm to classify the inputs (data or images) into classes (targets, backgrounds) is presented. The algorithm forms clusters and is trained without supervision. The clustering is done on the basis of the statistical properties of the set of inputs. The algorithm is a self-organizing algorithm, since it has the ability to form and adjust the number of clusters without being given the correct number of clusters. This algorithm implements a clustering algorithm that is very similar to the simple sequential leader clustering algorithm and the Carpenter/Grossberg net algorithm (CGNA). The algorithm differs from CGNA in that (1) the data inputs and data pointers may take on real values, (2) it features an adaptive mechanism for selecting the number of clusters, and (3) it features an adaptive threshold. The algorithm does not require the number of classes been known apriori. The problem of threshold selection is considered and the convergence of the algorithm is shown. An example is given to show the application of the algorithm for multisensor fusion for classifying targets and backgrounds, and the results of using this algorithm is compared to the results of using K-nearest neighbor algorithm.


The development of new light harvesting materials is a key issue for the progress of the research on organic & hybrid photovoltaics. Here, we report a new class of organic sensitizers based on the bi-fluorenylidene moiety as π-linker within the donor–π-linker–acceptor (D–π–A) scheme. The new dyes are endowed with electron donor and electron acceptor units at strategic positions in order to improve their electronic and light-harvesting properties. The comprehensive study of these compounds through the use of different experimental and theoretical techniques, provides an in-depth understanding of their electronic and photophysical properties, and reveal their interest as photovoltaic materials.


This study estimates the association of an individual's position in a social network with their risk of homicide victimization across a high crime African American community in Chicago. Data are drawn from five years of arrest and victimization incidents from the Chicago Police Department. Results indicate that the risk of homicide is highly concentrated within the study community: 41 percent of all gun homicides in the study community occurred within a social network containing less than 4 percent of the neighborhood's population. Logistic regression models demonstrate that network-level indicators reduce the association between individual-level risk factors and the risk of homicide victimization, as well as improve overall prediction of individual victimization. In particular, social distance to a homicide victim is negatively and strongly associated with individual victimization: each social tie removed from a homicide victim decreases one's odds of being a homicide victim by approximately 57 percent. Findings suggest that understanding the social networks of offenders can allow researchers to more precisely predict individual homicide victimization within high crime communities.


A winter wonderland in glittering 3D! "Winter's Tale" is Robert Sabuda's most spectacular original pop-up story yet. The simple, elegant text is illustrated with breathtaking artwork and extraordinary paper engineering. Stunning visual effects of foil, glitter, and a twinkling surprise further capture the magic of winter. This is a must-have for everyone's bookshelf.


Developments over the past thirty years have contributed to increased natural gas generation in the US electricity sector. As a result, natural gas generation surpassed coal for the first time in history in 2016. In addition to low natural gas prices, developments with the natural gas-fired combined cycle generator (NGCC) have contributed to the rise of natural gas. In the 1990s, technological innovations led to substantial efficiency gains for NGCC, rendering these generators cleaner and more efficient than other widely available sources of power generation during that period. In the early 2000s, the US experienced the largest short-term increase in generation capacity in history, with over 70% of this new capacity installed as NGCC. Initially, much of the new NGCC capacity only provided power when energy demand was at its highest. Since 2003, NGCC utilization has nearly doubled, and NGCC is increasingly used to provide baseload power. The purpose of this dissertation is to scrutinize these developments with NGCC to better understand how energy and environmental policies influenced the time and location of capacity changes, how this capacity has been used, and the role of technology on both. The first essay in this dissertation evaluates the impact of a government-sponsored research program on NGCC innovations in the 1990s. From 1992-2000, the Department of Energy partnered with two US turbine manufacturers, General Electric (GE) and Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation (SWPC), in a cost-sharing program called the Advanced Turbine System to stimulate efficiency innovations for NGCC technology. Using data from the European Patent Office's worldwide patent database (PATSTAT), I evaluate innovative activity in advanced turbine technology by the program participants and their competitors. Using a negative binomial model, I find GE increased the volume of their patents towards the end of the program and afterwards, while SWPC had higher patent citations for patents filed during the program relative to competitors. These observed changes in patenting activity merit further investigation into why these changes took place, and how the resulting patents translated into commercialized technologies in the US and abroad. The second essay evaluates the impact of policy anticipation on natural gas capacity growth during a time in which substantial natural gas capacity came online. I hypothesize that areas expecting nonattainment designations resulting from changes in the ozone and particulate matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) rushed to complete installations before new environmental regulations took place in 2004 and 2005. I use EIA and EPA data from 1997-2009 to evaluate the role of policy anticipation on capacity investment with difference-in-difference models. My results show areas expecting nonattainment designations had more natural gas capacity growth than areas not facing nonattainment, on the order of 10% for ozone and 13% for particulate matter, per year. This study thus finds that substantial investment in environmental technology may take place in anticipation of policy changes. The third essay considers how this new natural gas capacity is being used. Recent climate regulations aim to increase utilization of NGCC generators to offset coal generation and, consequently, reduce carbon emissions. There have been substantial increases in utilization for some NGCC generators in the last ten years, but most remain below baseload levels. This paper examines the factors that have driven NGCC utilization to date. I use a random-effects model to evaluate the relationships between environmental policies and natural gas prices on NGCC utilization. I find that both low natural gas prices and cross-state air pollution policies drive increases in utilization; however, the size of the impact by the environmental policies depends on the age of the plant. I use the estimates from this model for a counterfactual analysis which reveals the cross-state air pollution policies have had nearly three times the impact of low natural gas prices on utilization from 2003-2014. The Impact of Environmental Policies and Innovation on the Investment in and Use of Natural Gas-Fired Combined Cycle Generators in the US Electricity Sector by Kelly Ann Stevens MPA, Florida State University, 2012 MS, Florida State University, 2008 BS, State University of New York at Oneonta, 2004 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration Syracuse University June 2017 Copyright 2017 by Kelly Ann Stevens All rights reserved


Masters of Science by Austin Hayes Heat dissipation is vital in industries requiring predictable operating temperatures while also producing large heat fluxes. These industries include electronics and power generation. For electronics, as more devices fit on a smaller area, the heat flux increases dramatically. Pool boiling offers a solution to electronic cooling due to extremely high heat transfer with a low temperature change. Previous research has focused on coatings and precision manufacturing to create microchannels and features for boiling augmentation. However, this is limited to designs for subtractive processes. The use of additive manufacturing (AM) offers a novel way of thinking of design for boiling enhancement. 3-D boiling structures are fabricated out of aluminum using the Vader System's magnetojet printer. Three generations of geometric structures are created: a volcano-with-holes, a miniaturized volcano-with-holes, and a modular volcano-with-holes. These designs are not easily manufactured using standard techniques. As such, three-dimensional bubble dynamics are currently being explored using high speed imaging and particle image velocimetry. By printing a volcano shape with base holes, the liquid and vapor phases are physically separated in a process termed macroscale liquid-vapor pathways. The singular volcano-with-holes chips achieved a maximum heat flux of 217.3 W/cm2 with a maximum heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of 97.2 kW/m2K (81% improvement over plain). By producing four volcanoes on a single chip, the liquid flow length inside the volcano, which acts as the entrance length, is reduced by 25% and the HTC greatly increased. The highest performing miniaturized volcano-with-holes chip reached a maximum heat flux of 223.1 W/cm2 with a maximum HTC of 139.1 kW/m2K (150% improvement over plain). Additionally, the highest performing miniaturized chip was printed on top of a microchannel array. This resulted in combined enhancement from both microchannel and bubble dynamics resulting in a maximum heat flux of 228.4 W/cm2 with a HTC of 339.6 kW/m2K (533% improvement over plain). Finally, a modular structure was created to determine the individual influence of conduction and bubble dynamic augmentation on boiling enhancement. The modular designs show an 83% improvement in CHF (202.4 W/cm2) over plain copper chips and a 83% improvement in HTC(139.0 kW/m2K). This indicates boiling enhancement arises from three-dimensional control over bubble dynamics, resulting in macroscale separate liquid-vapor pathways.


In recent years there has been a considerable increase in the use of complementary therapies in the field of learning disabilities. This paper describes the use of a Snoezelen (multisensory) room for adults with learning disabilities in a psychiatric setting in Hong Kong. Theoretical and operational issues are discussed. The demographic and clinical data of a cohort of 96 patients who had used the room were reviewed. Rating forms were completed by their carers or staff at the end of the course to provide a subjective evaluation of the effectiveness of treatment. This is followed by three case reports. In view of the rising popularity of the multisensory room for people with learning disabilities, more research of the impact and therapeutic values is recommended.


A large-format, highly illustrated how-to-do-it book for beginners and practising jewellers looking for new ideas. There has been a recent increase in jewellers using textile techniques in their work, and this book provides a thorough and comprehensive introduction to all the materials and techniques you need to get you started in this exciting area of jewellery making. Using a step-by-step approach, this book is an accessible, but thorough, introduction to a wide range of textiles techniques for those more accustomed to working with metals than with fabrics and yarns. Examples of appropriate techniques for each material will be featured as making sequences, alongside showcased pieces from contemporary jewellers in different materials. Techniques covered will include crochet, weaving, knitting, felting, lace and sewing. There are over ten projects included showing the reader how to design and make your very own finished pieces (eg: flower brooch, felt necklace, Shetland lace tiara, woven bracelet, stille collar). Each project is by a different maker and so you will cover a wide range of techniques and styles. At the end of each project is an inspirational gallery section. Makers shown include: Suzanne Smith; Liz Brown; Marjory Keay; Vicky Forrester; Helen Robertson; Lilia Breyter; Sarah Smith; Sarah Kettley and Joanne Haywood.


As climate change in conjunction with the fourth wave of industrialization necessitates the world to move toward a sustainable future, research needs to focus on the intertwined connection between team work and sustainability. Currently, it is unknown whether teams that are successful at accomplishing sustainability-related tasks have different team composition than the teams who are not. This research explored the composition of teams performing sustainability-related tasks in regard to the individuals' pro-environmental attitude, individuals' self-reported pro-environmental behavior, individuals' pro-environmental identity and team cohesion. Data was collected on real-world teams at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, which is a biennial, international competition to inspire collegiate students and faculty to design, build, and operate energy-efficient solar-powered homes. Established tools were used to measure individuals' pro-environmental attitude (NEP scale), individuals' selfreported pro-environmental behavior (PEB scale), individuals' pro-environmental selfidentity (PESID scale), and team cohesion (TC scale). Regression models suggest that neither pro-environmental attitude, nor pro-environmental behavior, nor proenvironmental self-identity were a significant predictor for team performance on a sustainability-related project. Team cohesion's standard deviation was a significant predictor of team performance on a sustainability-related project; indicating that the convergence of individuals' perceptions of the overall team working together toward achieving this particular project directly aligned with a successful outcome. Furthermore, a posteriori explorations identified a difference in team composition between sustainability-related project performance and overall team performance.


The overall aim of the present study was to contribute to the argument put forward by Burt, Chmiel and Hayes (2009) that trust in the context of employee selection and training can be negative for safety. The present study builds on these authors argument that new employees pose a safety risk and any effort to build trust in the safety behaviours of new team members and/or to reduce perceptions of the safety risk of new employees (e.g. through selection and training) could likely have negative consequences. The research was conducted in eight organisations from the manufacturing, construction, engineering and rail industries which are characterised by high accident rates (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). There were 118 participants which completed an anonymous occupational safety questionnaire. The participants were employees who worked in teams in high risk industries characterised by a history of turnover. The results supported past findings in that trust in selection and training was positively correlated with immediate trust in new team members. There were mixed results regarding the hypothesis that trust in selection and training is negatively correlated with perceived risk from new team members. In particular there was some support for this hypothesis at the highest job risk level. The results supported the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between the number of selection and training processes used by organisations and immediate trust in new team members. The results also indicated that the previous safety outcomes of new team members acts as a mediator between trust in selection and training, and immediate trust in new team members. Results are discussed in terms of the concerns and implications for organisations aiming to reduce accident rates.


Around the turn of the sixteenth century, in Mughal India, artists in the imperial atelier innovated the Mughal equestrian portrait, unique in Asian art although a fusion of Asian and European influences, and quickly ubiquitous as a compositional topos that was identifiably "Mughal" to the extent that it proliferated in the successor states of the Mughal empire over the eighteenth century. Lally's article analyzes the transformation of the equestrian portrait, using this topos as a set of sources through which to examine changes in kingship and imperial politics from the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries. Both equines and equestrianism were enmeshed in the fabric of the Mughal empire and its successor states: in foreign trade, in its military practices, in the organization of the hierarchy of the nobility, and in the ritual practices, language, and visual culture of the court. Turning toward the horse as a subject of analysis draws attention toward the entanglement of the human and the nonhuman, of rituals and ritual objects, of gift horses and equestrian portrait gifts, and between pictorial practices, texts, traditions, and trade in shaping the cultural dimensions of imperial politics in South Asia.


This paper identifies nine political economy factors that influenced governments' policy choices during the most recent global food price crisis. While the most common policy stances may be explained by a simple, welfare-maximizing model, the variety of responses and the policy failures require more complex models. Policies are favored that maintain government legitimacy and produce private benefits for the best-connected stakeholders. Policy interventions were frequently ad hoc and delayed because of lack of market information, conflicts among government agencies in all governments, and extended deliberations among competing stakeholder groups. Widespread mutual mistrust between governments and the private sector was a major challenge. Governments' unpredictable policy behavior and lack of transparency contributed to the hoarding, speculation and inefficient business transactions they condemned in the private sector, which further contributed to low transparency and instability. Breaking this vicious circle appears to be very important to improve food policy.


The AutoCAD Electrical 2017 Black Book, the third edition of AutoCAD Electrical Black book, has been updated as per the enhancements in the AutoCAD Electrical 2017. Following the same strategy as for the previous edition, the book is written to help professionals as well as learners in performing various tedious jobs in Electrical control designing. The book follows a step by step methodology. It covers almost all the information required by a learner to master the AutoCAD Electrical. The book starts with basics of Electrical Designing, goes through all the Electrical controls related tools and ends up with practical examples of electrical schematic and panel designing. Chapter on Reports makes you comfortable in creating and editing electrical component reports. We have also discusses the interoperability between Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical which is need of industry these days. In this edition, procedures to create harness, cable, ribbon cable and many other Electrical 3D features have been discussed. We have tried to improve the language of book based on the reviews we got. Some of the salient features of this book are : In-Depth explanation of concepts Every new topic of this book starts with the explanation of the basic concepts. In this way, the user becomes capable of relating the things with real world. Topics Covered Every chapter starts with a list of topics being covered in that chapter. In this way, the user can easy find the topic of his/her interest easily. Instruction through illustration The instructions to perform any action are provided by maximum number of illustrations so that the user can perform the actions discussed in the book easily and effectively. There are about 1000 illustrations that make the learning process effective. Tutorial point of view The book explains the concepts through the tutorial to make the understanding of users firm and long lasting. Each chapter of the book has tutorials that are real world projects. Project Free projects and exercises are provided to students for practicing. For Faculty If you are a faculty member, then you can ask for video tutorials on any of the topic, exercise, tutorial, or concept.


Abstract In 2001 the newly established Research Support Libraries Group, set up jointly by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the British Library, in partnership with the higher education funding bodies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the national libraries of Scotland and Wales, commissioned an extensive research study of the working patterns and research behaviour of academic and other researchers in the UK. Researchers' Use of Libraries and Other Information Sources found evidence of key differences in research requirements between the main subject groups ‐ Medical and Biological Sciences; Physical Sciences and Engineering; Social Sciences; Area Studies and Languages; Arts and Humanities ‐ particularly in diversity of required research materials and their providers, continued importance of physical access to research resources, and requirements for mediated information and library services. On the other hand, in all subject groups a significant number of researchers share an increasing reliance on remote resource discovery and retrieval, low levels of use and awareness of research resources outside the higher education sector, and a marked preference for generic search engines for web resource access, rather than reliance on subject and institutional mediated gateways and portals. The chapter presents the evidence gathered to support these and other conclusions, and considers the implications for research resource providers within the education and cultural heritage sectors.


Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a versatile organic light-emitting diode (OLED) pixel deposition process, but has hitherto been applied exclusively to polymeric materials. Here, a modified LIFT process has been used to fabricate small molecule Alq3 organic light-emitting diodes (SMOLEDs). Small molecule thin films are considerably more mechanically brittle than polymeric thin films, which posed significant challenges for LIFT of these materials. The LIFT process presented here uses a polymeric dynamic release layer, a reduced environmental pressure, and a well-defined receiver-donor gap. The Alq3 pixels demonstrate good morphology and functionality, even when compared to conventionally fabricated OLEDs. The Alq3 SMOLED pixel performances show a significant amount of fluence dependence, not observed with polymerical OLED pixels made in previous studies. A layer of tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide has been deposited on top of the aluminium cathode, as part of the donor substrate, to improve electron injection to the Alq3, by over 600%. These results demonstrate that this variant of LIFT is applicable for the deposition of functional small molecule OLEDs as well as polymeric OLEDs. V C 2013 American Institute of Physics .[ http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4788710]


The field of health research appears increasingly open to qualitative approaches. We celebrate the rise in qualitative and mixed methods publications and the marked presence of qualitative researchers in academic centres of health research. However, we note enduring tensions between the conceptual and methodological approaches of qualitative research and those of a quantitative paradigm, generally more familiar to health practitioners, policymakers and often other researchers. In some instances, qualitatively-oriented investigations continue to conflict with the expectations within health research to provide concrete and timely findings and recommendations. These concerns foreground questions to be explored around the applicability, value, contribution, legitimacy and limitations of qualitative inquiry within the prevailing research culture. In recognition of these questions, we curated a day long symposium around abstracts submitted in response to an open, internationally disseminated call, framed to create a productive space for the critical examination of the current state of qualitative health research, and the exploration of ways to enable its enrichment. We organised the papers, posters, keynote address and panel discussion into three themes. The first, Problematising the research landscape, reflects on particular issues arising when we 'do' qualitative research. The second, Re-approaching familiar frameworks, explores the application of epistemological traditions of the social sciences to understand health, and to consider what underpins how we frame and treat such topics. The third, Imagination at work—enriching the potential, attends to the prospects of bringing new approaches into research, sometimes borrowed from other fields. The symposium facilitated engagement with current research and reflections on connecting methodological advances with theoretical traditions amidst challenges of carrying out applied health research. A perceived need exists for qualitative researchers to concertedly promote and enrich our contributions without homogenising or obscuring what our approach has to offer. This could be achieved through the continued development of a common platform for qualitative research that facilitates collaborations and fosters interdisciplinary education and training. This symposium represents critical steps towards these aims, to be further developed through the convening of future events.


The Internet and social media have enabled the mobilization of large crowds to achieve time-critical feats, ranging from mapping crises in real time, to organizing mass rallies, to conducting search-and-rescue operations over large geographies. Despite significant success, selection bias may lead to inflated expectations of the efficacy of social mobilization for these tasks. What are the limits of social mobilization, and how reliable is it in operating at these limits? We build on recent results on the spatiotemporal structure of social and information networks to elucidate the constraints they pose on social mobilization. We use the DARPA Network Challenge as our working scenario, in which social media were used to locate 10 balloons across the United States. We conduct high-resolution simulations for referral-based crowdsourcing and obtain a statistical characterization of the population recruited, geography covered, and time to completion. Our results demonstrate that the outcome is plausible without the presence of mass media but lies at the limit of what time-critical social mobilization can achieve. Success relies critically on highly connected individuals willing to mobilize people in distant locations, overcoming the local trapping of diffusion in highly dense areas. However, even under these highly favorable conditions, the risk of unsuccessful search remains significant. These findings have implications for the design of better incentive schemes for social mobilization. They also call for caution in estimating the reliability of this capability.


BAW and BAM have performed a large scale comparison and calibration test on static and dynamic load capacity evaluation of bored piles in glacial sandy soil. The test was performed using eight piles at the BAM test site for technical safety at Horstwalde 50 km south of Berlin. The test area has been prepared and investigated in great detail using boreholes, cone penetration tests, pore pressure sensors and geophysical methods to assure controlled conditions for all piles and tests. The piles (10 m length, 0.9 m diameter) are mainly friction piles (low toe resistance) and have been checked by integrity testing. Five piles have been tested by five contractors using the dynamic method in a blind experiment, the other ones piles by static load and/or later on by the dynamic method. Some piles have been equipped with additional fibre optic instrumentation which proved to be robust and helpful in interpreting the results of static, dynamic and integrity tests. We have experienced a deviation of the dynamic load test results gathered in the blind experiment from the static values of up to 20% in most cases, sometimes even up to 30%. This can be related to the known soil inhomogeneities, interpretation and modelling in CAPWAP and method inherent uncertainties. In cases where the static values were known by the testers for calibration, the deviations were significantly smaller. It has to be taken into account, that the two static load tests showed different results as well. Due to the low toe resistance, use of a big drop weight (11 tons) and large drop heights most piles suffered from cracking, which was clearly seen in follow up integrity tests and confirmed by excavation. The piles are available for further research.


The primary challenge in the visualization of a large-scale unstructured volume data with mixed cell types is to dissolve a bottleneck caused by visibility sorting of unstructured cells. In this paper, we implement an interactive particle-based rendering method to solve this complex visualization problem. This technique uses opaque particles as the proxy geometry of the mixed unstructured cells so that the visibility sorting process is not needed. This characteristic makes the rendering of mixed-cell unstructured volume efficient. We also construct a resizing function to adjust the particle radius depending on the assigned transfer function so that the transfer function can be adjusted in real time. Furthermore, we develop a time-varying level-of-detail (LOD) rendering to efficiently handle the large-scale time-varying data. This LOD rendering can provide high-speed rendering for animation rendering and high-quality rendering when the animation is stopped at any time step of interest. These features facilitate the detailed analysis of the temporal features of the data.


The new wave of the technology revolution, named the fourth industrial revolution, is changing the way we live, work, and communicate with each other. In order to support unprecedented services and applications requiring lower latency, better reliability, massive connection density, and improved energy efficiency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defined three representative service categories, viz., enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communication (mMTC), and ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC). Among three categories, physical layer design of the URLLC service is perhaps the most challenging and problematic since URLLC should satisfy two challenging requirements: low latency and ultra-high reliability. In this talk, I will explain the state-of-the-art overview of URLLC communications with an emphasis on physical layer challenges and solutions. Biography: Byonghyo Shim received the B.S. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Korea, in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and the M.S. degree in Mathematics and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Urbana, in 2004 and 2005, respectively. He industry experiences include LG Electronics, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm. Since September 2014, he has been with the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, SNU, as a professor. Dr. Shim was the recipient of the M. E. Van Valkenburg Research Award from University of Illinois, Hadong Young Engineer Award from IEIE, and Irwin Jacobs Award from Qualcomm. He is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, Journal of Communications and Networks, and a guest editor of IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications. Monday, January 29, 09:50 10:20


The aim of this study was to investigate whether an in vitro test can give an indication of the overall toxicity of fabric extracts, and whether this toxicity correlates with the toxicity of the dyes and finishes used. Thirteen textile dyes and dyed/finished cotton fabrics were tested by using the Hepa-1 cytotoxicity test. Black sulphur and two blue reactive dyes were the most toxic, with IC50 (the concentration at which the total protein content was 50% of the protein content of non-exposed cells) values of 40–65μg/ml. The least toxic dyes, the black and yellow mix reactive dyes, had IC50 values of 825μg/ml and 703μg/ml, respectively. There was no correlation between the toxicities of the dyes and the fabric extracts; the extract from naphtholdyed fabric was the most cytotoxic. These results strongly support the hypothesis that the toxicity of a fabric extract cannot be predicted directly from the toxicity of the dye itself. The results also showed that flame-retardant and water/soil-repellent finishes can alter the cytotoxicity. In vitro tests, as exemplified by the Hepa-1 cytotoxicity test, could provide useful information for developing new ecotextiles.


Effective healthcare service and healthcare utilization are a sine qua non for healthy living and successful aging among the older adults. This study utilized a cross sectional survey design to explore the socio-cultural factors that influence healthcare utilization among older adults in Igbeagu community of Ebonyi state Nigeria. Data for the study were both quantitative and qualitative, obtained by means of questionnaire and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). A total of 397 respondents aged 60 years and above took part in the questionnaire study. Respondents were drawn using multi-stage sampling (simple random sampling (SRS) and cluster sampling). Two gender-balanced FGDs were conducted for different, but, homogeneous groups in a culturally appropriate setting, chosen by the participants themselves, and on a non-market and festival-free day. The FGD participants were drawn from older adults within the inclusion criteria, using Snowball sampling technique. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS version 20.0, while tables and bar charts were used for data presentation. Hypotheses were tested using X2 statistic at 0.05 alpha level. Results indicate that 53.9% of the respondents have more preference for traditional medicine, 31.2% use both traditional and orthodox medicine, while only 14.9% have preference for orthodox medicine. Comments from the FGDs indicate that their preference hinged on factors like assumed cause of disease, assumed efficacy of treatment option, cost, distance, as well as attitude of care-givers and healthcare providers. It was recommended that healthcare services be subsidised for the elderly ones especially in the rural areas. Again, there is a need to provide and/or equip healthcare centres in the rural communities to mitigate the impact of moving a long distance to access healthcare facilities. Finally, it is imperative that care-givers and the general public be enlightened on the need to accord older adults their respect by discussing with them a treatment option before embarking on such treatment so that these older adults will be part of decision that concerns their own health.


Wild animals are a primary source of protein (bushmeat) for people living in or near tropical forests. Ideally, the effect of bushmeat harvests should be monitored closely by making regular estimates of offtake rate and size of stock available for exploitation. However, in practice, this is possible in very few situations because it requires both of these aspects to be readily measurable, and even in the best case, entails very considerable time and effort. As alternative, in this study, we use high-resolution, environmental favorability models for terrestrial mammals (N = 165) in Central Africa to map areas of high species richness (hot spots) and hunting susceptibility. Favorability models distinguish localities with environmental conditions that favor the species' existence from those with detrimental characteristics for its presence. We develop an index for assessing Potential Hunting Sustainability (PHS) of each species based on their ecological characteristics (population density, habitat breadth, rarity and vulnerability), weighted according to restrictive and permissive assumptions of how species' characteristics are combined. Species are classified into five main hunting sustainability classes using fuzzy logic. Using the accumulated favorability values of all species, and their PHS values, we finally identify weak spots, defined as high diversity regions of especial hunting vulnerability for wildlife, as well as strong spots, defined as high diversity areas of high hunting sustainability potential. Our study uses relatively simple models that employ easily obtainable data of a species' ecological characteristics to assess the impacts of hunting in tropical regions. It provides information for management by charting the geography of where species are more or less likely to be at risk of extinction from hunting.


Introduction:  Puberal development assessment (PDA) is performed according Tanner's method (TM).  Objective:  In order establish the coincidence between PDA determined by physicians and the self-evaluation by school-aged children.  Material and Methods:  2 980 school children from Santiago, Chile, were assessed by means of TM, the development of the mammary gland (MD), male genitalia (MG) and pubic hair (PH) were assessed. PDA was simultaneously performed by physicians and by the school children.  Results:  Concordance between physicians and self assessment showed a kappa coefficient (KC) of 0.55, 0.45, and 0.51 in PH, MD and MG respectively, (acceptable KC > 0.61). Self-evaluation of PDA decreased as the age of children increased, with OR of 0.76 (95% IC 0.74 -0.79); 0.87 (95% IC 0.83 - 0.91) and 0.92 (95% IC 0.88 - 0.96) for PH, MD and MG respectively. An inverse relationship between nutritional status (NS) and PDA was observed only in PH, obese school children underscored their PH (OR 0.6; 95% IC 0.5 - 0.7). Multivariate analysis for gender and NS showed that only females overestimate their PH, OR of 1.15 (95% IC 1-1.32).  Conclusions:  PDA through self-assessment yields only moderate correlation coefficients, thus it is not reliable for making relevant clinical decisions.


Oxidative stress plays a major role in cardiovascular disease. Despite the widespread acceptance of this view, it remains a challenge to establish the importance of this link in specific disease states because of the numerous pro-oxidant substances and also the many endogenous antioxidant systems that contribute to the imbalance that we term 'oxidative stress'. It seems that the vascular endothelium is particularly sensitive to oxidative stress, and this is one of the mechanisms that results in widespread endothelial dysfunction in most cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, when the endothelium becomes diseased it is itself a source of oxidative stress; however, other components of the vasculature, such as the adventitia, are also important sources of oxidative stress. The symposium Oxidative stress and the endothelium at Life Sciences Meeting, Glasgow, Thursday 12th July 2007 aimed to bring together important new data and concepts that are contributing to the rapid advances in our understanding of this area. Mark Kearney spoke on Insulin resistance and endothelial cell dysfunction, Patrick Pagano spoke on The adventitial fibroblast NAD(P)H oxidase as a paracrine mediator of vascular hypertrophy: signal for vascular disease?, James Lieper spoke on Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis, and David Newby spoke on Endothelial dysfunction and atherothrombosis.


This article examines the logic, scope, and implications of the influx of private equity takeovers in the United States media sector in the last decade. The strategies and aims of private equity firms are explained in the context of the financial landscape that has allowed them to flourish; their aggressive expansion into media ownership is outlined in detail. Particular attention is paid to the public interest concerns raised by private equity media ownership relating to the frenzied nature of the buyout market, profit maximization strategies, and the heavy debt burdens imposed on acquired firms. The article concludes with discussion of the challenges posed by private equity to effective media regulation and comparison of private equity and corporate media ownership models.


1. Myofibrillar protein degradation has been measured by the rate of 3-methylhistidine excretion in premature infants weighing between 635 g and 1295 g. Analyses were made in conjunction with 1--3 day nitrogen balance studies. 2. In 56 balance studies in 36 infants, total muscle protein breakdown varied between 0.70 and 2.58 (mean 1.05) g day-1 kg-1 body weight while the percentage of total muscle protein degraded each day was between 3.3 and 8.3 (mean 4.8). 3. Both total and fractional rates of protein breakdown showed highly significant negative correlations with nitrogen retention but no relationship to total energy input. 4. Protein degradation was higher than average in infants who were losing weight at the time of the balance study, lower in infants who were gaining weight and higher in those who died within 2 weeks of the analysis. 5. Myofibrillar protein breakdown was not different between infants fed orally and those receiving total parenteral nutrition. 6. Generally the effects of nitrogen and evergy status on muscle protein degradation in the premature infants are different from changes reported in adult human beings or adult rats. We suggest that this difference may be a consequence of the very limited energy reserves of the premature infant.


Recent advances in Information Retrieval utilise energy-intensive hardware to produce state-of-the-art results. In areas of research highly related to Information Retrieval, such as Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, there have been efforts to quantify and reduce the power and emissions produced by methods that depend on such hardware. Research that is conscious of the environmental impacts of its experimentation and takes steps to mitigate some of these impacts is considered 'Green'. Given the continuous demand for more data and power-hungry techniques, Green research is likely to become more important within the broader research community. Therefore, within the Information Retrieval community, the consequences of non-Green (in other words, Red) research should at least be considered and acknowledged. As such, the aims of this perspective paper are fourfold: (1) to review the Green literature not only for Information Retrieval but also for related domains in order to identify transferable Green techniques; (2) to provide measures for quantifying the power usage and emissions of Information Retrieval research; (3) to report the power usage and emission impacts for various current IR methods; and (4) to provide a framework to guide Green Information Retrieval research, taking inspiration from 'reduce, reuse, recycle' waste management campaigns, including salient examples from the literature that implement these concepts.


Through a case study of the diffusion of the celebrated West Gennan "dual system" of vocational training to the territory of the fonner German Democratic Republic, we develop the argument that local sociopolitical relations matter crucially for the successful transfer and implementation of institutional arrangements. Notwithstanding massive levels of government funding, the presence of complementary supports, and the concerted efforts of Germany's social partners, the dual system is experiencing significant difficulties in the new federal states of the East.

These difficulties are not due simply to the particular politics of unification (the wholesale transfer of West German institutions whether or not they were appropriate to Eastern Germany) nor even simply to the paucity of dynamic private firms capable of and willing to train new apprentices. The difficulties stem also from the under lying weaknesses of the East German sociopolitical infrastructure on which the entire dual system rests. This. hy pothesis is elaborated and substantiated through a range of data on training in the East and especially through the use of detailed case studies of Leipzig and Chemrutz.


Based on a literature review of avian data for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), ecologically relevant doses, low (10 ng/egg), medium (100 ng/egg), and high (1,000 ng/egg) of the 2,2′,4,4′,5‐pentabromodiphenyl ether (BDE‐99) congener along with dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) control were injected into the yolk sac of un‐incubated eggs of zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata. Offspring development and adult phenotype were followed over three generations. No effects of in ovo PBDE exposure on hatching success, chick growth, thyroid hormone levels, or hematological traits were measured at sexual maturity (90 d posthatching). However, the authors did detect significant effects of BDE‐99 treatment on adult phenotype of in ovo–exposed birds by breeding observations, in which clutch size was significantly smaller in all PBDE‐dosed birds (low, medium, and high) compared with controls. A trend was also seen for longer laying intervals in PBDE‐dosed birds (13–14 d) compared with control birds (8 d). In addition, a significant effect of PBDE was found on growth of the second‐generation offspring of in ovo–treated females; body mass was significantly lower in the high‐PBDE dosed birds compared with controls from hatch through to fledging (day 30). The authors found no evidence of effects over the longer term and in successive generations, whether in adult, reproductive phenotype of the second‐generation offspring of in ovo–treated birds, or in the growth of their (third‐generation) offspring. Their results suggest that egg levels as low as 10 ng/g BDE‐99 may affect reproduction in small passerines by reducing clutch size. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2013;32:562–568. © 2012 SETAC


Difference hierarchies were originally introduced by Hausdorff and they play an important role in descriptive set theory. In this survey paper, we study difference hierarchies of regular languages. The first sections describe standard techniques on difference hierarchies, mostly due to Hausdorff. We illustrate these techniques by giving decidability results on the difference hierarchies based on shuffle ideals, strongly cyclic regular languages and the polynomial closure of group languages.


Abstract Ancestrally continental forest species of the tribe Oryzomyini, the endemic cricetid rodents of the Galápagos, have had to adapt to the harsh tropical desert of the Islands. Following the recent rediscovery of the Santiago nesoryzomys (Nesoryzomys swarthi) endemic to Isla Santiago, Galápagos, we conducted the 1st autecological study of this species. Our 3-year study revealed mean annual survival of 23.2% and maximum survival of 812 days. Reproductive activity was restricted to the wet season with a stable annual proportion of breeding females and a consistent peak in pregnancy in April. The likelihood of postpartum breeding increased with rainfall when 2 litters were produced. The growth and development of juveniles was slow and they did not reproduce in their natal year. Positive correlations between rainfall and mean adult body weight and between vegetation density (particularly prickly pear cactus [Opuntia galapageia]) and population levels supported a hypothesis of food limitation. Comparisons with the Galápagos oryzomys (Oryzomys bauri), endemic to Isla Santa Fe, and a review of continental members of the tribe Oryzomyini suggest that the ephemeral, unpredictable environment of the Galápagos arid zone has selected for a strategy of relatively high survival and low reproduction in N. swarthi and O. bauri that is more typically found among the desert Heteromyidae than other members of the Oryzomyini. We also present data on sex ratio, home range, and philopatry that together indicate a promiscuous or polygynous mating system. Our findings may help to guide future conservation strategies for this endangered rodent species.


Motion blur from camera shake is a major problem in videos captured by hand-held devices. Unlike single-image deblurring, video-based approaches can take advantage of the abundant information that exists across neighboring frames. As a result the best performing methods rely on the alignment of nearby frames. However, aligning images is a computationally expensive and fragile procedure, and methods that aggregate information must therefore be able to identify which regions have been accurately aligned and which have not, a task that requires high level scene understanding. In this work, we introduce a deep learning solution to video deblurring, where a CNN is trained end-to-end to learn how to accumulate information across frames. To train this network, we collected a dataset of real videos recorded with a high frame rate camera, which we use to generate synthetic motion blur for supervision. We show that the features learned from this dataset extend to deblurring motion blur that arises due to camera shake in a wide range of videos, and compare the quality of results to a number of other baselines.


Head scab is historically a devastating disease affecting not just all classes of wheat but also barley and other small grains around the world. Fusarium head blight (FHB), or head scab, is caused most often by Fusarium graminearum (Schwabe), (sexual stage – Gibberella zeae) although several Fusarium spp. can cause the disease. This study was conducted to determine the effect of mass selection for FHB resistance using an image-based optical sorter. lines were derived from the C0 and C2 of two populations to compare genetic variation within populations with and without sorter selection. Our overall hypothesis is that sorting grain results in improved Fusarium head blight resistance. Both of the used wheat derived line populations have genetic variation, and population 1 has more than population 17. They are significantly different from each other for fusarium damged kernel (FDK), deoxynivalenol (DON), and other FHB traits. Although both populations are suitable to be grown for bulks, population 1 seems better since it has more genetic variation as well as lower FDK and DON, and earlier heading date. Lines within each population were significantly different and some lines in each population had significantly lower FDK and DON after selection using an optical sorter. Some lines had significant reduction in both FDK and DON, and some others had either FDK or DON reduction. Lines of population 1 that had significant reduction, were more numerous than in population 17, and FDK and DON reduction were greater.


A general method for computing the hydrodynamic interactions among N suspended particles, under the condition of vanishingly small particle Reynolds number, is presented. The method accounts for both near-field lubrication effects and the dominant many-body interactions. The many-body hydrodynamic interactions reproduce the screening characteristic of porous media and the 'effective viscosity' of free suspensions. The method is accurate and computationally efficient, permitting the dynamic simulation of arbitrarily configured many-particle systems. The hydrodynamic interactions calculated are shown to agree well with available exact calculations for small numbers of particles and to reproduce slender-body theory for linear chains of particles. The method can be used to determine static (i.e. configuration specific) and dynamic properties of suspended particles that interact through both hydrodynamic and non-hydrodynamic forces, where the latter may be any type of Brownian. colloidal, interparticle or external force. The method is also readily extended to dynamically simulate both unbounded and bounded suspensions.


TORPEX is a toroidal device located at the CRPP-EPFL in Lausanne. In TORPEX, a vertical magnetic field superposed on a toroidal field creates helicoidal field lines with both ends terminating on the torus vessel. The turbulence driven by magnetic curvature and plasma gradients causes plasma transport in the radial direction while at the same time plasma is progressively lost along the field lines. The relatively simple magnetic geometry and diagnostic access of the TORPEX configuration facilitate the experimental study of low frequency instabilities and related turbulent transport, and make an accurate comparison between simulations and experiments possible. We first present a detailed investigation of electrostatic interchange turbulence, associated structures and their effect on plasma using high-resolution diagnostics of plasma parameters and wave fields throughout the whole device cross-section, fluid models and numerical simulations. Interchange modes nonlinearly develop blobs, radially propagating filaments of enhanced plasma pressure. Blob velocities and sizes are obtained from probe measurements using pattern recognition and are described by an analytical expression that includes ion polarization currents, parallel sheath currents and ion-neutral collisions. Then, we describe recent advances of a non-perturbative Li 6+ miniaturized ion source and a detector for the investigation of the interaction between supra thermal ions and interchange–driven turbulence. We present first measurements of the spatial and energy space distribution of the fast ion beam in different plasma scenarios, in which the plasma turbulence is fully characterized. The experiments are interpreted using two-dimensional fluid simulations describing the low-frequency interchange turbulence, taking into account the plasma source and plasma losses at the torus vessel. By treating fast ions as test particles, we integrate their equations of motion in the simulated electromagnetic fields, and we compare their time-averaged and statistical properties with experimental data. Finally, we discuss future developments including the possibility of closing the magnetic field lines and of performing magnetic reconnection experiments.


The 1973 beach nourishment at Cape Hatteras placed approximately 465,000 m on the subaerial beach. Eighteen months later, about 51 percent of this material remained on the beach. During this period there were relatively few major storms, and this mild wave climate is largely responsible for this high retention. At the end of this monitoring period the beach was stable and fully capable of providing shoreline protection and recreation. A correlation is presented relating storm erosion with the complete storm wave climate, including a post-storm period. A new parameter is defined which includes a measure of wave steepness and longshore current velocity.


Abstract In Poland, about 20% of forest nurseries use irrigation water coming from natural superficial reservoirs, presumed to be the first source of infection caused by harmful pathogens belonging to the Oomycota class, especially Phytophthora genus and Pythium genus. The forest nursery is the only place where forest managers can react before pathogens leave it with asymptomatic plants or soil attached to their roots. The aim of this research was detection and identification phytopathogens in water samples. In order to recognise genus Phytophthora or Pythium in water collected from 33 places in five different forest districts in Poland, two DNA-based approaches of identification were applied: (i) the TaqMan probes, and (ii) sequencing of the ITS6/4 region. The genomic DNA was obtained from 17 of 33 investigated water samples. TaqMan probes helped to identify 8 oomycetes present in 17 water samples. Based on ITS rDNA sequencing data, pathogens were identified in 17 cases, and this to the genus level (6 cases) and to the species level (11 cases). In total five Oomycetes species were identified, i.e. 3 Pythium species (Py. citrinum, Py. angustatum, Py. helicoides) and two Phytophthora species (P. lacustris sp. nov. - former taxon Salixsoil, P. gallica sp. nov.).


The formation, growth, and destruction of surface hoar crystals is an important feature of mountain snow covers as buried surface hoar layers are a frequent weak layer leading to unstable snowpacks. The energy and mass exchange associated with surface hoar dynamics is further an important part of land‐atmosphere interaction over snow. A quantitative prediction of surface hoar evolution based on local environmental conditions is, however, difficult. We carried out measurements of crystal hoar size and total surface mass changes in the period between January and March 2007 on the Weissfluhjoch study plot of the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, located above Davos, Switzerland, at 2540 m above sea level. For the first time, a direct comparison between eddy correlation measurements of latent heat flux and lysimeter‐like measurements of surface mass change has been made. Results show that the growth of surface hoar crystals is very well correlated with deposition of water vapor during clear‐sky nights as measured by two eddy correlation systems placed close to the ground. By analyzing local meteorological data, we confirm that low to moderate wind speed, humid air, and clear‐sky nights are the necessary ingredients for the occurrence of significant vapor fluxes toward the surface and thus for the growth of surface hoar. We also confirm that surface hoar crystals tend to preserve during daytime, when strong sublimation occurs, although their size significantly reduces. Despite the complexities associated with mountain terrain and snow surfaces, such as nonequilibrium boundary layers and stratification effects, the hoar formation could be predicted by the snow cover model SNOWPACK, which uses a bulk Monin‐Obukhov (MO) parameterization for the turbulent heat fluxes. On the basis of the comparison between direct observations and model predictions, we suggest that neutral stability conditions in the MO formulation provide the most stable and least flawed prediction for surface hoar formation.


Once an academic venture, autonomous driving has received unparalleled corporate funding in the last decade. Still, operating conditions of current autonomous cars are mostly restricted to ideal scenarios. This means that driving in challenging illumination conditions such as night, sunrise, and sunset remains an open problem. In these cases, standard cameras are being pushed to their limits in terms of low light and high dynamic range performance. To address these challenges, we propose, DSEC, a new dataset that contains such demanding illumination conditions and provides a rich set of sensory data. DSEC offers data from a wide-baseline stereo setup of two color frame cameras and two high-resolution monochrome event cameras. In addition, we collect lidar data and RTK GPS measurements, both hardware synchronized with all camera data. One of the distinctive features of this dataset is the inclusion of high-resolution event cameras. Event cameras have received increasing attention for their high temporal resolution and high dynamic range performance. However, due to their novelty, event camera datasets in driving scenarios are rare. This work presents the first high resolution, large scale stereo dataset with event cameras. The dataset contains 53 sequences collected by driving in a variety of illumination conditions and provides ground truth disparity for the development and evaluation of event-based stereo algorithms.


Banking industry had developed rapidly. It caused the competition and increasing the number of customersbecame difficult. An optimal e-service quality expected to meet the expectations of customers, so the companywas able to win the market competition and it would eventually bring the maximum profit. The objective of thisresearch was to know the effect of e-service quality towards customer satisfaction and loyalty in using internetbanking of Commonwealth Bank Seminyak Bali Branch. Respondents of this research were customers whoused internet banking at least twice a month in the last three years. The number of respondents on this researchdefined 200 respondents by using sampling technique namely purposive sampling. This research used analysisof Structural Equation. The result of this research showed that the hypothesis put forward entirely acceptable:e-service quality had positive and significant impact on satisfaction, e-service quality had positive andsignificant impact on loyalty, satisfaction had positive and significant impact on customer loyalty in usinginternet banking. Managerial implication of this research was that management should evaluate and fix theperformance of e-service quality in particularly web design quality and assurance that had been implementedto minimize customer's complaint and to increase the customers' satisfaction and loyalty.


We present a simple yet effective enhancement to the operation of the EPON multipoint control protocol (MPCP), and its extension for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) EPON. The enhancement, inspired by our earlier work in a related but different context, allows the OLT to perform look-ahead scheduling on each of the upstream channels. The look-ahead operation is fully compatible with the existing standard, and may be implemented via software updates to the OLT without affecting the operation of ONUs in EPON. The look-ahead enhanced MPCP achieves significant performance gains across a wide range of traffic loads, and opens up new opportunities for the design of sophisticated DBA algorithms to support advanced quality of service (QoS) capabilities.


The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand and "make sense" of how beginning teachers experience and define lack of principal/administrative support during their beginning years of teaching. Utilizing grounded theory as a conceptual framework, I sought to deconstruct the stories and lived experiences of nine beginning teachers across eight school districts in North Carolina and to generate substantive theory regarding the phenomena associated with principal support. Educational research around this topic has largely reported numbers and corresponding percentages related to novice teacher attrition, but little qualitative work with teachers themselves has been undertaken to deconstruct and fully understand what they classify as principal support or the lack thereof during initial employment years. Various data, reports and resulting trends, as documented by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF), continue to confirm that many beginning teachers either transfer to other schools/districts to find supportive environments, or they leave the profession entirely as a result of perceiving that adequate administrative support was not provided. This study used multiple interviews and focus group sessions to capture the lived experiences of six participants who have remained in teaching but who transferred to settings where they reported having received support; it also includes stories and experiences from three teachers who left after one, two, or three years of experience for the reported reason of "lack of principal/administrative support." This work found that matters related to presence, communication, trust, and integrity are at the heart of principal support and that novice teachers make assessments about principal support with regard to specific leadership traits and characteristics that principals embody and display within these four categories. Both the quantity and quality of interactions, experienced over time between novice teachers and their principals, form the very basis upon which beginning teachers determine and report whether or not they have experienced principal/administrative support. Similarly, these teachers' reasons for remaining in their schools, leaving their work settings, or resigning from the teaching profession emanate directly from their experiences related to principal support as defined herein. While the findings from this study cannot be generalized across larger populations of beginning teachers, they do suggest that much more qualitative work needs to be undertaken with novice teachers. Doing so would allow the profession to understand even more about the importance of principals' presence, manner and frequency of communication, trust-building, and matters related to both fostering and maintaining integrity.


Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) are driving forces for economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction in developing countries. Cognizant of this fact, Ethiopia is one of the countries which have taken measures to enhance the operation of MSEs. However, there are MSE's in the country that have shown deteriorating performance and have been experiencing huge stumbling blocks with no significant graduation from one enterprise level to the next. This study was conducted in some selected districts of Akaki-Kality Sub-city with the purpose of analyzing the challenges confronting MSEs' successful operation. To this end, a mixed research design was applied that involved quantitative (descriptive survey) and qualitative (exploratory research) methods. For this study, 89 questionnaires were distributed and 81 of them were successfully completed and used for analysis. The participants were selected using a combination of purposive, stratified and simple random sampling methods. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 sub-city and district officials and experts; and 9 MSE's owners through semi-structured interview questions. The quantitative data were analyzed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics while the qualitative data were analyzed by using content analysis and narration approach. As a result, the study revealed that the MSEs in the study area had created considerable employment opportunities for unemployed youth and contributed their part in boosting the incomes of households as well as personal savings. On the other hand, MSEs have been confronted with a number of challenges that obstructed their successes. In particular, the study had pinpointed inadequate infrastructure facilities, inadequate finance, poor managerial and technical skills, and inadequate working premises as the major challenges of MSE's successful operations followed by marketing problems, low support from respective institutions, inadequate supply of raw materials, and regulatory issues. In line with the findings obtained from this study recommendations to respective governmental bodies and MSE's owners/managers have been forwarded. Key terms: Challenges, micro and small enterprises, performance, and success.


Ancient diplomatic correspondence to China from East Asian states has been a subject of research interest in Sinology, especially with respect to its relevance to historical politics and ideology in Asia. References to its implications to translation studies, if any, were, however, quite minimal. This article represents an initial attempt to examine China-bound diplomatic correspondence from the perspective of translation history. Diplomatic letters sent in medieval times by Yamato (known as Japan since 700) and the three Korean states (namely, Paekche, Silla, and Koguryǒ) were generally confirmed to be written in Chinese, not translated. However, the case for China-bound diplomatic correspondence from Turk (on Mongolia steppes)—previously a rival state to China, and later on a vassal state—is still controversial. In this article, examples are chosen from two letters presented by the Turkish qaqhans (tribal chieftains) to China during the Sui dynasty (581–618), to find out if these letters might have been translated from the Turkic language into Chinese. Evidence from standard histories of Northern dynasty China (Zhoushu and Beiqishu, among others) suggests the existence and use of a written Turkic language by the mid-sixth century. This written language, borrowing some Sogdian (present-day Uzbek) words, was said to be similar to the other written languages on the steppes, and was found to have been used in diplomatic and religious contexts, as early as the mid-sixth century. This article argues that if there was a written language in Turk at the time, it is reasonable to assume that the Turkish state letters presented to China might have been written in the Turkic language first, before being translated into Chinese.