The objective of this study is to apply the concept of lean manufacturing and find out the different
approaches to measure customer expectations. The lean concept is applied for reducing waiting time
of passengers at various sec
delay time and enhance customer satisfaction. During the Flight travel the checkpoint wait times for
airport passengers were becoming excessive. They were particularly concerned that
indicated wait times could reach three hours during the peak summer travel period, if the screening
process was not improved. An experimental approach was done to identify the methods to minimize
the check point delays and to create an improvem
reviewed and the importance of services, new approaches for development as well as the role of lean
manufacturing is discussed. The literature is used to build up experiences of passengers at various
airports, waiting time, which is tested to find out most important service quality attributes for the
customers based on the data. A Value Stream Mapping is done. A Questionnaire survey is chosen as a
primary method of data collection. The target group includes yo
about to complete university education


Nowadays, automated material handling systems are indispensable and are of key importance for production and distribution. However, these systems also have a nonnegligible energy consumption, which is an increasingly important factor due to climate change and rising energy prices. The question regarding the amount of the energy consumption of a system cannot usually be answered using common methods. This paper presents a way to determine the energy consumption of a pallet conveyor system using material flow simulation. To this end, a discrete event modeling approach is developed.


Theoretical models for prediction of cell dehydration during addition/removal of cryoprotective agents (CPAs) or during freezing sprung up like mushrooms. These models are powerful for qualitative analysis of "solution injury" or "osmotic injury", and furthermore, optimization of the complex processes involved in cryopreservation.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Written by an expert in the game industry, Christer Ericson's new book is a comprehensive guide to the components of efficient real-time collision detection systems. The book provides the tools and know-how needed to implement industrial-strength collision detection for the highly detailed dynamic environments of applications such as 3D games, virtual reality applications, and physical simulators.Of the many topics covered, a key focus is on spatial and object partitioning through a wide variety of grids, trees, and sorting methods. The author also presents a large collection of intersection and distance tests for both simple and complex geometric shapes. Sections on vector and matrix algebra provide the background for advanced topics such as Voronoi regions, Minkowski sums, and linear and quadratic programming.Of utmost importance to programmers but rarely discussed in this much detail in other books are the chapters covering numerical and geometric robustness, both essential topics for collision detection systems. Also unique are the chapters discussing how graphics hardware can assist in collision detection computations and on advanced optimization for modern computer architectures. All in all, this comprehensive book will become the industry standard for years to come.


One reason why neoliberal economic ideas are powerful is that they are assumed to stem from a position of scientific dominance. We empirically analyze the professional advance of economists in the United States since the 1960s to examine if Chicago economists, and their networks, performed better than their peers in Harvard and MIT. Specifically, we differentiate mechanisms related to professional behavior, such as publication productivity and relationships in citation networks, from mechanisms related to selection, such as external funding and hiring practices. We suggest that behavior and selection can be traced generationally by studying the relationship between important economists at Chicago, Harvard, and MIT ('Fathers') and their doctoral students ('Children'). Our findings demonstrate that academic and professional prominence alone do not explain the ascension of neoliberalism – not in terms of historic citations, external funding, or post-PhD career paths. Where we do find significant divergence between the Chicago school and their descendants was with respect to observed social norms of reciprocity and in-group cohesion, suggesting an important 'insurgent solidarity' mechanism at play in the neoliberal ascent.


In this thesis, we develop, extend, apply, and discuss a number of methods for the study of limits of sequences of functions and operators. The connection between the notion of two-scale convergence and more general concepts of convergence is investigated and some alternative classes of admissible test functions are characterized. These techniques are extended into compactness results suitable to prove homogenization and corrector results for linear parabolic equations. A further refinement of these methods, together with a characterization of the limits of certain sequences of parameter-dependent functions which has been subject to extension from a quite general class of periodic domains, is introduced. This provides an efficient tool for the homogenization of e.g. nonlinear evolution heat conduction in heterogeneous materials which vibrate with high frequencies or are perforated by periodically arranged nonconducting holes. Moreover, we prove compactness and homogenization for sequences of solutions of linear elliptic and monotone parabolic equations defined in some classes of nonperiodic domains and derive a Darcy's law for a type of nonperiodic porous media. In the linear elliptic case the convergence is strengthened by means of correctors. Finally, we present some numerical results for homogenized stiffness of fibre composites and demonstrate how homogenization techniques for elasticity in composite materials and for liquid flow in porous media can be combined with recent optimization techniques to obtain optimal layout of composite materials.


BACKGROUND
The follicular tissue around impacted third molars has a potential to develop pathosis. However, it is generally assumed that the absence of abnormal radiolucency indicates the presence of a normal follicle.

AIMS
The aim of this study was to investigate abnormalities associated with radiographically normal follicular tissue of third molar impactions.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred eighty-five impacted third molars from 170 patients with no signs of abnormal radiolucency (follicular space < 3 mm) were used for this study. Follicular tissues of the relevant teeth were collected. Specimens were fixed in 10% formalin and stained routinely with hematoxilin and eosin to be independently examined by two pathologists. A diagnosis was registered only when the results from both pathologists were in concordance. Clinical details for each patient were registered in WHO standard forms to undergo chi-square statistical analysis.

RESULTS
Fifty-three per cent of the specimens had developed pathosis. The incidence of pathosis was higher in the age group of 20-30 years, in men compared to women and in the mandible compared to the maxilla.

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study suggest that radiographic appearance may not be reliable in the diagnosis of pathosis in follicular tissue as a surprisingly high rate of pathosis was found in the absence of any radiographically detectable sign.


In Wagner9s Tristan und Isolde, the title characters conceive their union as a direct linkage between self and world, a linkage that involves a crucial short circuit, bypassing societal conventions and institutions, and echoing the nineteenth-century Germanic disdain for "Civilization" as opposed to "Culture." Facilitating this Wagnerian short circuit is a fluid musical discourse that can seem, alternately and even simultaneously, either to simulate a single consciousness, in which impressions and memory freely commingle, or to provide a deep sense of the world, bypassing surfaces to evoke a kind of world-sublime (or "world-breath," as Isolde would have it). Generally absent from Wagner9s music are the correlatives of "Civilization": well-articulated forms and other markers of conventional musical types, which would disrupt the sense of musical flow essential to WagnerOs "Gesamtkunstwelt."
In this article, I trace the roots of Wagner9s practice both in German Idealist thought and in Beethoven, especially as received through a totalizing mode of Beethoven reception fostered by Wagner, in which Beethoven9s "voice" seems fully coextensive with his music while resonating on a deep level with the Germanic Welt. I then sketch two separately developed modes of post-Wagnerian dramatic music. I first describe how Mahler9s novelistic musical discourse sometimes imposes a sense of continuity on the broken surfaces of a world through an overpowering musical "flow," a process that derives from the ways that Leitmotivs emerge from the fluid orchestral fabric of Wagner9s music, but reverses the latter9s sense of intrinsic embeddedness by beginning with the sounding surface of the experienced world. I then briefly lay out how and why WagnerOs technique has proven so useful for film music and consider the ways that the overtly Wagnerian scoring of Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981) supports a particularly Wagnerian retelling of the Arthurian legends.


Shadowgraphy was employed to study snow saltation in boundary-layer wind tunnel experiments with fresh, naturally deposited snow. The shadowgraphy method allowed for a temporally and spatially high-resolution investigation of snow particle characteristics within a measurement area of up to 50 mm x 50 mm. Snow particle size and number characteristics, and their variation with height in the saltation layer, were analysed. The following observations and findings were made for the saltation layer: (1) the particle number decreases exponentially with height, (2) the mean particle diameter is fairly constant, with a very slight tendency to decrease with height, (3) the maximum particle diameter decreases linearly with height, and (4) the snow particle size distribution can be adequately described by gamma probability density functions. The shape and scale parameters of the gamma distribution were found to vary systematically, though only slightly, with height over ground and between experiments with different snowpack characteristics.


Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his closest friends as well as having complete access to his archives. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.


Successful high-speed autonomous navigation requires integration of tools from robotics, control theory, computer vision, and systems engineering. This thesis presents work that develops and combines these tools in the context of navigating desert terrain.
A comparative analysis of reactive, behavior-based, and deliberative control architectures provides important guidelines for design of robotic systems. These guidelines depend on the particular task and environment of the vehicle. Two important factors are identified which guide an effective choice between these architectures: dynamic feasibility for the vehicle, and predictability of the environment. This is demonstrated by parallels to control theory, illustrative examples, simulations, and analysis of Bob and Alice---Caltech's full-scale autonomous ground vehicle entries in the 2004 and 2005 Grand Challenge races, respectively.
Further, new model-based methods are developed for constructing and maintaining estimates of terrain elevation and road geometry. These are demonstrated in simulation and in fully autonomous operation of Alice, including accurate detection and tracking of the centerline of desert roads at speeds up to 5 m/s. Finally, Alice's navigation architecture is presented in full along with experimental results that demonstrate its capabilities.


Plant populations in fragmented ecosystems rely largely on internal dispersal by animals. To unravel the mechanisms underlying this mode of dispersal, an increasing number of experimental feeding studies is carried out. However, while physical activity is known to affect vertebrate digestive processes, almost all current knowledge on mechanisms of internal seed dispersal has been obtained from experiments with resting animals. We investigated how physical activity of the mallard Anas platyrhynchos, probably the quantitatively most important biotic dispersal agent in aquatic habitats in the entire Northern Hemisphere, affects gut passage survival and retention time of ingested plant seeds. We fed seeds of nine common wetland plants to mallards trained to subsequently swim for six hours in a flume tank at different swimming speeds (activity levels). We compared gut passage survival and retention times of seeds against a control treatment with mallards resting in a conventional dry cage. Intact gut passage of seeds increased significantly with mallard activity (up to 80% in the fastest swimming treatment compared to the control), identifying reduced digestive efficiency due to increased metabolic rates as a mechanism enhancing the dispersal potential of ingested seeds. Gut passage speed was modestly accelerated (13% on average) by increased mallard activity, an effect partly obscured by the interaction between seed retention time and probability of digestion. Gut passage acceleration will be more pronounced in digestion-resilient seed species, thereby modulating their dispersal distances. Our findings imply that seed dispersal potential by mallards calculated from previous experiments with resting birds is highly underestimated, while dispersal distances may be overestimated for some plant species. Similar effects of physical activity on digestive efficiency of mammals suggests that endozoochorous dispersal of plant seeds by vertebrates is more effective and plays a quantitatively more important ecological role in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems than previously thought.


The aim of this thesis is to study the differences between traditional bullying and cyberbullying among adolescents, focusing on gender, psychosomatic problems, and disability, and to gain insight into health staff's experience of bullying in schools.The four studies in this thesis were based on surveys undertaken among 3,800 adolescents in Grades 7, 8 and 9 in Sweden, as well as focus groups of 16 people consisting of school social workers and school nurses.While almost no gender differences were found among traditional victims, Study I showed that girls were more likely than boys to be cybervictims. Boys were more likely than girls to be traditional bullies, while girls were equally as likely as boys to be cyberbullies. Study II showed that psychosomatic problems were associated with being a victim, a bully or a bully-victim. Cyberbullying showed no stronger association with psychosomatic problems than traditional bullying. Study III: Three main categories emerged from school health staff's experience: 1) "Anti-bullying team"; 2) "Working style"; and 3) "Perspectives on bullying". The last two each comprised two sub-categories: "Team member"/"Single worker"; and "Contextual perspective"/"Individual-oriented perspective". Study IV showed that, regardless of gender and grade, students with a disability were more likely to be bully-victims and, more particularly, bully-victims involved in both traditional bullying and cyberbullying. No differences between disabled adolescents and others were found with respect to the association between bullying and psychosomatic health.The results show that some adolescents are more likely to experience higher levels of psychosomatic health problems than others. They also show that some adolescents are more likely to be involved in bullying, either as victims, bullies or bully-victims. This thesis also discusses contextual and individual approaches adopted by schools in preventing bullying.


Chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by the emerging fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has been implicated in the decline of over 500 amphibian species. Population declines could have important genetic consequences, including reduced genetic diversity. We contrasted genetic diversity among both long-Bd-exposed and unexposed populations of the south-east Australian alpine tree frog (Litoria verreauxii alpina) across its range. At the population level, we found no significant differences in genetic diversity between Bd-exposed and unexposed populations. Encouragingly, even Bd-infected remnant populations that are now highly isolated maintain genetic diversity comparable to populations in which Bd is absent. Spatial genetic structure among populations followed an isolation-by-distance pattern, suggesting restricted movement among remnant populations. At the individual level, greater heterozygosity was associated with reduced probability of infection. Loss of genetic diversity in remnant populations that survived chytridiomycosis epidemics does not appear to be a threat to L. v. alpina. We suggest several factors underpinning maintenance of genetic diversity: (1) remnant populations have remained large enough to avoid losses of genetic diversity; (2) many individuals in the population are able to breed once before succumbing to disease; and (3) juveniles in the terrestrial environment have low exposure to Bd, providing an annual 'reservoir' of genetic diversity. The association between individual heterozygosity and infection status suggests that, while other work has shown all breeding adults are typically killed by Bd, males with greater heterozygosity may survive longer and obtain fitness benefits through extended breeding opportunities. Our results highlight the critical role of life history in mitigating the impacts of Bd infection for some amphibian species, but we infer that increased isolation as a result of disease-induced population extirpations will enhance population differentiation and thus biogeographic structure.


Abstract : Project managers are responsible for numerous decisions affecting systems under their purview. To make these decisions and effectively manage projects, they need methods for quantifying technical progress and quality and identifying issues early in the project life cycle. Typically, information is obtained through reviews, which provide information on risks, problems, and work completed to date. However, these reviews are generally aimed at identifying problems within isolated components or artifacts. They often fail to expose problems related to the end-to-end system or the underlying, systemic issues that led to them. The technical assessment method introduced in this paper addresses these shortfalls by providing a framework for evaluating a system from several perspectives, or views, for a comprehensive picture of progress and quality. It also describes a structured approach that customers and developers can use to measure progress at each review. A graphical indicator is introduced that clearly depicts technical progress and quality, enabling those involved with the project to make informed decisions to mitigate problems and reduce quality risks. The results of applying this method to a software acquisition program are presented and an assessment of the effectiveness of the method is made. Recommendations for future use and study are also provided.


QUESTION UNDER STUDY
The present study aimed to compare the prevalence of work-life conflicts and the health status of physicians, with a representative sample of university graduates as well as with a representative sample of the general Swiss working population. Furthermore, it aimed to analyse whether work-life conflicts correlate with the health of physicians, as it does in the general working population.

METHODS
The present cross-sectional study analysed data from 2007 originating from the SwissMedCareer Study (a prospective cohort study of physicians who graduated in 2001; n = 543) and the Swiss Household Panel (a representative Swiss survey on living and working conditions; university graduates of the same age range: n = 172, general working population of the same age range: n = 670). Data were analysed with Chi2 tests, correlations and logistic regressions.

RESULTS
Physicians reported strong time-based as well as strain-based work-life conflicts more frequently than university graduates and the general working population. Significantly more physicians reported "moderate" to "very poor" health than the other two samples. Surprisingly, on the other side of the scale ("very good" health), physicians outnumbered the other samples too. Strong associations between work-life conflict and self-rated health as well as various health complaints were found for physicians.

CONCLUSION
The high prevalence of work-life conflicts may explain the comparably high prevalence of poor self-rated health in the physicians' sample.


In recent years the role of transport infrastructure in energy markets has become a flashpoint for legal conflict. On one hand, the world is experiencing an unprecedented build-out all kinds of energy transport: oil and gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas projects, power transmission, and port facilities for coal and oil. On the other hand, environmental advocates have increasingly insisted that pipelines and other transport projects should not be built if they would encourage fossil fuel production in markets "upstream" and fossil fuel consumption in markets "downstream" of these projects.

Governments have struggled with how to respond. President Obama famously promised to assess the upstream emissions from the Keystone XL pipeline but the resulting analysis was criticized by all sides as confusing and incomplete. In the meantime, most other energy transport facilities, including other oil and gas pipelines, were being approved without any upstream or downstream analysis over the objection of environmental groups. The federal agencies remain split between infrastructure-approving agencies which are resisting wider reviews and the Environmental Protection Agency, which is demanding them. And the fight has spread to other countries, where the Keystone XL precedent is now frequently cited as a model by opponents of oil and gas pipelines.

This Article makes the counterintuitive case that studying how energy transport projects might affect upstream and downstream markets is not helpful. First, the marginal impact of a single energy transport project in ever-changing global energy markets is so uncertain that it provides no useful information to the agencies that decide on these projects. Second, to approve or reject a pipeline because it could encourage international energy markets is to assert the power and the authority to control energy markets in other countries—an undiplomatic encroachment on the authority of those countries to balance environmental and economic concerns in regulating their own energy markets.


A suite of 48 samples, including both historical and prehistoric lavas and some plutonic rocks, have been analysed from the Cumbre Vieja rift, La Palma, Canary Islands. Additionally, mineral–melt partition coefficients have been measured for clinopyroxene, plagioclase, amphibole, titanite and apatite in selected rocks. The lavas range from basanite to phonolite (SiO2 = 41·2–57·5 wt % and MgO = 10–0·8 wt %) in composition and form coherent, curvilinear major and trace element arrays in variation diagrams, irrespective of eruption age. The mafic lavas have typical ocean island incompatible trace element patterns and Sr, Nd and Pb isotope compositions show little variation but have a HIMU-type character. Generation of the parental magmas is inferred to have involved ∼4% dynamic melting of a garnet lherzolite source that may have previously been metasomatized by melts derived from a recycled mafic component containing residual phlogopite. The major process of differentiation to phonotephrite involved fractional crystallization of basanitic magmas that evolved along the same liquid line of descent under similar pressure–temperature conditions. Numerical simulations using the MELTS algorithm suggest that this occurred across a temperature interval from c. 1320 to 950°C at 400 MPa and an oxygen fugacity equivalent to quartz–fayalite–magnetite (QFM), with an initial H2O content of 0·3 wt %. The later stages of differentiation (<5 wt % MgO) were dominated by mixing with partial melts of young syenites formed from earlier magma batches. All of the lavas are characterized by 230Th and 226Ra excesses and (230Th/238U) decreases with decreasing Nb/U and increasing SiO2, with no accompanying change in (226Ra/230Th). To explain the observations, we propose a model in which there was a significant role for amphibole, and more importantly accessory titanite, in decre'asing Nb/U, Ce/Pb and Th/U ratios and increasing or buffering (226Ra/230Th) ratios during the later stages of differentiation and magma mixing. These processes all occurred over a few millennia in small magma batches that were repeatedly emplaced within the mid-crust of the Cumbre Vieja rift system prior to rapid transport to the surface.


Database systems are tremendously powerful and useful, as evidenced by their popularity in modern business. Unfortunately, for non-expert users, to use a database is still a daunting task due to its poor usability.
This PhD dissertation examines stages in the information seeking process and proposes techniques to help users interact with the database through direct manipulation, which has been proven a natural interaction paradigm. For the first stage of information seeking, query formulation, we proposed a spreadsheet algebra upon which a direct manipulation interface for database querying can be built. We developed a spreadsheet algebra that is powerful (capable of expressing at least all single-block SQL queries) and can be intuitively implemented in a spreadsheet. In addition, we proposed assisted querying by browsing, where we help users query the database through browsing. For the second stage, result review, instead of asking users to review possibly many results in a flat table, we proposed a hierarchical navigation scheme that allows users to browse the results through representatives with easy drill-down and filtering capabilities. We proposed an efficient tree-based method for generating the representatives. For the query refinement stage, we proposed and implemented a provenance-based automatic refinement framework. Users label a set of output tuples and our framework produces a ranked list of changes that best improve the query.
This dissertation significantly lowers the barrier for non-expert users and reduces the effort for expert users to use a database.


Scholarship and jurisprudence concerning the Constitution's separation of powers today is characterized by sharp disagreement about general theory and specific outcomes. The leading theories diverge on how to model the motives of institutional actors; on how to weigh text, history, doctrine, and norms; and on whether to characterize the separation-of-powers system as abiding in a stable equilibrium or as enthralled in convulsively transformative paroxysms. Congress's Constitution — a major contribution to theorizing on the separation of powers — provides a platform to step back and isolate these important, if not always candidly recognized, disputes about the empirical and normative predicates of separation-of-powers theory — predicates that can be usefully grouped under the rubric of 'separation of powers metatheory.' Unlike much other work in the field, Congress's Constitution directly identifies and addresses the three important key metatheoretical questions in play when the separation of powers is theorized. This review analyzes how it grapples with those profound challenges, and tries to articulate a descriptively fit and normatively compelling account of our federal government. Considering Congress's Constitution from this perspective offers a valuable opportunity for considering the state and direction of academic theorizing on the separation of powers more broadly.


Robots are becoming safe and smart enough to work alongside people not only on manufacturing production lines, but also in spaces such as houses, museums, or hospitals. This can be significantly exploited in situations in which a human needs the help of another person to perform a task, because a robot may take the role of the helper. In this sense, a human and the robotic assistant may cooperatively carry out a variety of tasks, therefore requiring the robot to communicate with the person, understand his/her needs, and behave accordingly. To achieve this, we propose a framework for a user to teach a robot collaborative skills from demonstrations. We mainly focus on tasks involving physical contact with the user, in which not only position, but also force sensing and compliance become highly relevant. Specifically, we present an approach that combines probabilistic learning, dynamical systems, and stiffness estimation to encode the robot behavior along the task. Our method allows a robot to learn not only trajectory following skills, but also impedance behaviors. To show the functionality and flexibility of our approach, two different testbeds are used: a transportation task and a collaborative table assembly.


Mammalian Na+/H+ exchangers (NHEs) are a family of transport proteins (NHE1-NHE5). To date, the cellular and subcellular localization of NHE4 has not been characterized using immunochemical techniques. We purified a fusion protein containing a portion of rat NHE4 (amino acids 565-675) to use as immunogen. A monoclonal antibody (11H11) was selected by ELISA. It reacted specifically with both the fusion protein and to a 60- to 65-kDa polypeptide expressed in NHE4-transfected LAP1 cells. By Western blot analysis, NHE4 was identified as a 65- to 70-kDa protein that was expressed most abundantly in stomach and in multiple additional epithelial and nonepithelial rat tissues including skeletal muscle, heart, kidney, uterus, and liver. Subcellular localization of NHE4 in the kidney was evaluated by Western blot analysis of membrane fractions isolated by Percoll gradient centrifugation. NHE4 was found to cofractionate with the basolateral markers NHE1 and Na+-K+-ATPase rather than the luminal marker gamma-glutamyl transferase. In stomach, NHE4 was detected by immunoperoxidase labeling on the basolateral membrane of cells at the base of the gastric gland. We conclude that NHE4 is a 65- to 70-kDa protein with a broad tissue distribution. In two types of epithelial cells, kidney and stomach, NHE4 is localized to the basolateral membrane.


This volume presents the essentials of Jung's thought in his own words. To familiarize readers with the ideas for which Jung is best known, the British psychiatrist and writer Anthony Storr has selected extracts from Jung's writings that pinpoint his many original contributions and relate the development of his thought to his biography. Dr. Storr has prefaced each extract with explanatory notes. These notes link the extracts, and with Dr. Storr's introduction, they show the progress and coherence of Jung's ideas, including such concepts as the collective unconscious, the archetypes, introversion and extroversion, individuation, and Jung's view of integration as the goal of the development of the personality.


Soil desiccation (drying), involving water evaporation induced by air injection and extraction, is a potentially robust vadose zone remediation process to limit migration of inorganic or radionuclide contaminants through the vadose zone. Desiccation also has the potential to improve gas‐phase‐based treatments by reducing water saturation and therefore increasing sediment gas‐phase permeability. Before this technology can be deployed in the field, concerns related to energy limitations, osmotic effects, and potential contaminant remobilization after rewetting must be addressed. A series of detailed, intermediate‐scale laboratory experiments, using unsaturated homogeneous and heterogeneous systems, was conducted to improve our understanding of energy balance issues related to soil desiccation. The experiments were subsequently simulated with the multifluid flow simulator STOMP, using independently obtained hydraulic and thermal porous medium properties. In all experiments, the injection of dry air proved to be an effective means for removing essentially all moisture from the test media. Observed evaporative cooling generally decreased with increasing distance from the gas inlet chamber. The fine‐grained sand embedded in the medium‐grained sand of the heterogeneous system showed two local temperature minima associated with the cooling. The first one occurred because of evaporation in the adjacent medium‐grained sand, whereas the second minimum was attributed to evaporative cooling in the fine‐grained sand itself. Results of the laboratory tests were simulated accurately only if the thermal properties of the flow cell walls and insulation material were taken into account, indicating that the appropriate physics were incorporated into the simulator.


Background Stroke patients commonly experience dysphagia post stroke. Complications of dysphagia include aspiration leading to chest infection and pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, and a subsequent increased risk of death. Its early diagnosis and management is an important prerequisite for recovery from stroke during the rehabilitation phase. As nurses are the first health personnel that interact with a patient post stroke, it is important that they are knowledgeable and skilled in the screening of these patients for dysphagia. Objective The aim of the study was to determine the knowledge and factors associated with knowledge of nurses regarding dysphagia in stroke patients. Methods The study used a quantitative survey to determine the knowledge of the nurses employed at an intermediate hospital in Namibia. A convenient sample of 182 participants completed a self-administered questionnaire with closed-ended questions, which was developed by the researcher. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results The findings of the study confirmed that nurses have a moderate knowledge of the signs, symptoms, and complications of dysphagia, but poor knowledge about its management. Training and experience in the care of dysphagia patients was a stronger predictor of knowledge than the initial qualification or years of experience as a nurse. Conclusion Post basic training in dysphagia would better equip nurses to manage stroke patients in the acute phase.


Base-promoted cyclization of (2-alkynylphenyl) benzyl ethers was studied in detail. The effects of the solvent, base, temperature, reaction time and amount of base on the efficacy of the cyclization reaction were analyzed and a new base–solvent system (tert-BuOK/DMSO) for effective cyclization of (2-alkynylphenyl) benzyl ethers was reported. The results showed that the cyclization reactions proceeded cleanly and smoothly under mild reaction conditions, employing tert-BuOK as a base, and DMSO as a solvent, at room temperature in a short reaction time (1 h). Under these conditions, a number of different substituted (2-alkynylphenyl) benzyl ethers were cyclized to the corresponding fused heterocycle cyclohepta[b]furans. This one-pot, two-step procedure occurred regioselectively giving only the cyclohepta[b]furans as the unique regioisomers via an initial intramolecular 5-exo-dig mode followed by an intramolecular 7-endo-dig mode. The cyclohepta[b]furan derivatives absorbed in the UV region (300–350 nm range) with molar absorptivity coefficient values attributed to spin and symmetry allowed π–π* electronic transitions. An emission located in the purple region (380–440 nm range), with a Stokes shift between 65–100 nm is probably associated with the charge transfer character of the excited state. The electrochemical analysis (CV) of the cyclohepta[b]furans showed an oxidation and reduction process, probably due to the presence of the selenium atom and π-anion radical species.


Their use entails risks, but probably fewer than with synthetic drugs

Recent reviews have rightly alerted us to the risk associated with herbal medicines.1 This is necessary and important. But the more important question probably is–do the risks of herbal benefits outweigh their potential for harm? Therefore I will try to put herbal medicines into context and consider the benefit they might bring.

The potential benefits of herbal medicines could lie in their high acceptance by patients, efficacy, relative safety, and relatively low costs. Patients worldwide seem to have adopted herbal medicines in a major way. Survey data from the United Kingdom show that herbal medicine has been tried by about 30% of the British population.2 The associated out of pocket expenditure was estimated to amount to £31m (US$47.7m; €45m) in the United Kingdom2 and £1.3bn in Germany.3 Herbal medicines are used predominantly …


Systemic biomarkers (i.e. biomarkers of functioning of cellular pathways) offer a broad spectrum of diagnostic capabilities. There are several approaches to using systemic biomarkers that derive from exact needs of a researcher or a clinical specialist. First, analyzing a multifunctional and multi-systemic pathway in circulating cells (e.g. leukocytes) allows to gather generalized information on functioning of the organism. Second, there are numerous pathways that, even still in circulating cells, allow to assess risks of developing or stage of development of numerous diseases, including the leaders of non-infection diseases mortality—cardiovascular diseases. Third, biopsy specimens can readily be used to assess the exact signaling type of a disease (especially cancer) thus helping in selecting the best treatment option. Due to unique properties of the human oxidative status pathways that are discussed in the present chapter, diagnostics specialists are now acquiring an allin-one toolbox for profiling and detecting almost any non-infectious and a broad range of infectious diseases. In addition to properties of the human oxidative status pathways opening these possibilities, this chapter considers exact systemic biomarkers deriving from this approach, reveals some examples of usage of the resulting diagnostic technology and provides instances of successful clinical application of the systemic biomarker approach.


More than low default rates, lenders are interested in the expected return on their loans. In this paper, we consider a number of other measures of repayment and nonpayment that are likely to be of direct interest to lenders. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, we document repayment and nonpayment outcomes 10 years after graduation for American students receiving BA/BS degrees in 1993. We estimate differences in these outcomes across individual/family background characteristics, college major, type of institution, the amount borrowed, and post-graduation income. A key contribution is our analysis of the following outcomes in addition to student loan default rates: the fraction of the original undergraduate loan amount repaid as of 2003, nonpayment rates (including deferment and forbearance as well as default), and the fraction of original undergraduate loan amounts on which borrowers defaulted or are currently not repaying.


1. Snakes possess two sensory systems which respond to both air-borne sound and infstrate vibration as shown by extracellular slow evoked potentials recorded in the midbrain. One involves the VIII cranial nerve and inner ear (designated 'auditory system'); the other requires an intact spinal cord and probably originates in skin mechanoreceptors (designated 'somatic system'). 2. In species of the families Colubridae, Crotalidae, Boidae, the auditory system has a typical U-shaped frequency-threshold curve, similar to those found in other animals, but restricted to a narrow frequency range, c.150 Hz to 600 Hz. The U-shaped curve has a distinct minimum threshold or best frequency. Frequency-threshold curves for sound and head vibration have only minor differences. 3. The auditory system is not remarkably sensitive to sound. It is about 20 dB less sensitive than the human auditory system for air-borne sound between 200 and 400 Hz. It is remarkably sensitive to head vibration: at the best frequency, 1 A peak-to-peak amplitude is suprathreshold. 4. The auditory system responds not only to stimuli at the head but to sound and vibration delivered to the body alone. Responses to body stimulation by sound are caused by the same sensory end-organ that responds to head vibration. The role of the body in picking up sound for the auditory system can be infstantial; thus the lung plays an important part in snake hearing, a novel situation among land vertebrates. 5. The somatic system is not as sensitive to sound or to vibration as is the auditory system over most of the latter9s frequency range. The somatic system has a relatively flat frequency-threshold curve which lacks a distinct best frequency. The frequency range extends both above and below the range of the auditory system, 50-1000 Hz. The somatic system is insensitive to vibration of the head. 6. Evoked slow potentials fail to show that either spinal or auditory system distinguishes between vibratory energy from the air and from the infstrate. It is proposed that intensity information from the auditory system could be compared by the snake9s brain with intensity information from the snake9s somatic system in order to determine the relative amounts of air-borne sound and infstrate vibration in an unknown natural stimulus.


Two types of sonoelectrochemical reactors for preparative synthetic work are suggested and characterized by their performance in the reversible one electron reduction of cobalticenium cations in acetonitrile solution. The dominant effect of ultrasound is to strongly agitate the liquid phase and the corresponding parameters (mass transport coefficients) for the transport at the electrode surface are reported. An upper limit for ultrasound induced mass transport at macroelectrodes an order of magnitude beyond that achieved in conventional electrolysis is described. Further, for a synthetic scale reaction, the reductive ring opening of the α,β-epoxyketone isophorone oxide to yield the corresponding β-hydroxyketone, an improved current efficiency (3 F for a direct two electron reduction) and a clean conversion (yields up to 80% isolated) are demonstrated. The extremely high rates of mass transport achieved in the presence of ultrasound considerably enhance the performance and current efficiency in electrosynthesis by selectively increasing the rates of the mass transport controlled processes.


In the present paper, after a description of the theoretical framework used to define self-determination, we will describe the importance of structuring a research context that fosters the self-advocacy of people with disabilities. In this direction, a protocol of participatory research with people with intellectual disabilities will be presented in the third paragraph. Specifically, we will expand the procedure to support the creation of accessible museum captions, thanks to the application of Easy-to-Read guidelines.


Here is a complete reference on the fundamental science, treatment, and management of salivary gland disorders. Covering anatomy, physiology, histology, cytology, pathology, and imaging, this text is a premier resource for physicians who diagnose and treat salivary gland diseases both medically and surgically. Highlights: -Comprehensive review of both the common and unusual salivary gland disease entities in the adult and child -Full-color histologic, cytologic, and pathologic photomicrographs help the clinician gain a full understanding of disease -More than 200 line drawings and images demonstrate key steps in every surgical technique described -Discussion of the new and emerging techniques of sialendoscopy, IMRT, and de-novo tissue engineering of functional salivary gland tissue Otolaryngologists, head and neck surgeons, oral surgeons, plastic surgeons, general surgeons, radiation oncologists, and pathologists will benefit from this exceptional text.


We present evidence for a change in electron – phonon coupling across a bulk ph=e transition. Below the lattice stiffening transition at around 160 K, there is a change in the diffracted peak width observed by neutron and X-ray scattering techniques. Also, the electronic b~d structure of the copolymer is shifling in binding energy below 160 K, decreasing the density of states near the Fermi level. The value of the effective Debye temperature above the transition temperature is approximately 50 K, while below 160 K, the value of the Debye parameter is 245 K. We postulate that the coupling between electrons and phonons results in a static distortion of the lattice (below 160 K), and this distortion "melts" above 160 K.


Anatase nanoparticles synthesized by the sol-gel method were surface-functionalized with long alkyl chain coupling agents as compatibilizers for a nonpolar environment, containing different anchor groups for surface interaction namely phosphonate (dodecyl phosphonate), carboxylate (dodecanoic acid), sulfate (sodium dodecyl sulphate), and amine (dodecyl amine). It was shown that the surface of the nanoparticles can be functionalized with the various surface groups applying similar reaction conditions. The kind of surface interaction was analyzed applying FTIR spectroscopy. The phosphonate and the carboxylate groups interact with the surface via quite strong covalent or coordinative interactions, respectively. The sulfate and amine based coupling agents on the other hand exhibit electrostatic interactions. UV stability studies of the surface bound groups revealed different degradation mechanisms for the various functionalities and moreover showed that phosphonates are the most stable among the investigated surface capping groups.


In recent years there have been many proposals for educational platforms and virtual classes for schools. We started with Edmodo, and we tried others including Moodle and Google's Gsuite, up to the latest proposals from publishers and even the current Weschool. The Khan Academy, however, we liked very much immediately, especially for its mathematical offer. We successfully tested it in a fourth and a fifth grade of the Primary school, two secondary classes in the secondary level and a third and fourth grade in the second grade secondary, registering a significant improvement, especially in the recovery and consolidation activities. In just two months of using the platform over 40% of the boys improved their mathematics performance. The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization that an engineer from Bangladesh, Salman Amin Khan created in 2006. His educational platform was created to offer free services, materials and tutorials for education and learning. through e-learning technologies. On this platform you can assign exercises for reviewing, recovering or enhancing math subjects from kindergarten to university and above all this has immediately intrigued us, since we have been dealing with verticality in mathematics for years. The platform also offers the possibility of doing some individual teaching, such as the one upside down and, in our opinion, can be a sort of gym for our students to train in a nonspecific way, to the new INVALSI tests that will be computer based.


Since the 1950s, the death rate from heart attacks has plunged from 35 percent to about 5 percent--and fatalistic attitudes toward this disease and many others have faded into history. Much of the improved survival and change in attitudes can be traced to the work of Eugene Braunwald, MD. In the 1960s, he proved that myocardial infarction was not a "bolt from the blue" but a dynamic process that plays out over hours and thus could be altered by treatment. By redirecting cardiology from passive, risk-averse observation to active intervention, he helped transform not just his own field but the culture of American medicine.Braunwald's personal story demonstrates how the forces of history affected the generation of researchers responsible for so many medical advances in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1938 Nazi occupiers forced his family to flee Vienna for Brooklyn. Because of Jewish quotas in medical schools, he was the last person admitted to his class, but went on to graduate number one. When the Doctor Draft threatened to interrupt his medical training during the Korean War, he joined the National Institutes of Health instead of the Navy, and there he began the research that made him the most influential cardiologist of his time.In "Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine, "Thomas H. Lee offers insights that only authoritative firsthand interviews can provide, to bring us closer to this iconic figure in modern medicine.


The purpose of this paper is to examine perceived differences among the ASEAN countries toward East Asia regional cooperation and integration, and to analyze the prospect of recent regional cooperation with ASEAN members in the foremost position of such development. Regional economic cooperation and integration in East Asia is a diversified and complicated process. Since the beginning, ASEAN countries have been emphasizing on their principal role in leading the process. They want to play a dominant role in influencing the agenda by insisting any cooperation on the basis of "ASEAN Plus Three" must be under the ASEAN organizational structure. In practice, the model of cooperation within ASEAN itself is prone to receive external influence. Confounded by different versions of cooperation proposed by China and Japan, ASEAN members have mixed reactions in various degrees, which contribute to the fact that the ASEAN-led East Asia cooperation can only proceed by attuning its internal differences and resisting external competitions.


Ethiopia is the birthplace and is the largest producer of Arabica coffee in Sub-Saharan Africa countries and it is ranked the fifth largest coffee producer in the world next to Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, and Indonesia by contributing about 7 to 10% of total world coffee production. Coffee is the most important to the Ethiopian economy with about 15 million peoples has been directly or indirectly deriving their livelihoods from coffee product. Coffee is still Ethiopia's number one export item. It accounts for 45 to 50% of Ethiopia's total export earnings. A marketing system that coordinates better, that links faster, and that protects the interests of both sides of the trade. It is time for a marketing system that is transparent, efficient, and innovative, that will take Ethiopian agriculture into the new Millennium. Ethiopia, once a commercial trading hub in antiquity linking markets of East and West, can again claim a place in the global market arena. Coffee is the main cash and export crop in Southern Ethiopia as well as in the whole Ethiopia. ECX Hawassa branch is one of the 19th branches of, which carry out a new method of exchange and a safer one for all who trade on products. Though different researchers describe different factors on how and what impacts put on the quality of coffee products, however, no one describe clearly what factors are put effects on the Ethiopian, perhaps especially , the Hawassa branch ECX coffee quality product and market performance. The researcher, therefore, set objectives and planned schedule to investigate and in turn solve this vague issue as well as motivated to identify what and how factor particularly put effect on this issues. The researcher had designed and had used suitable and different methodologies and passed through it. The researcher used the responses of respondents sampled from 60 coffee suppliers which were sampled from 150 total suppliers. The researcher, finally come up with the result, of Less quality coffee and the decreasing the market performance which are mainly associated with poor adoption of improved technology, oldness of coffee trees and poor pruning and recycling system, climate, harvesting process like sorting , roasting ,shipping were among the major problems. Adoption of improved technologies is one of the most promising ways to increase productivity and production in Ethiopia. the researcher, at last, provides different set of recommendations in how and when as well as by whom and for whom should have to be done at chapter five and he dedicatedly advised that the concerned body had to have applied so as to end up with the problems observed in coffee production, control the factors, and in turn provide good quality of coffee products as well as good market performance in the ECX Hawassa branch in particular and the country at general.


A new pellet injector based on a piston-type extruder and a guide tube for magnetic high-field side (HFS) injection has been developed for HL-2A. Preliminary experimental results have been obtained by pellet injection. In this paper, the mechanisms of the pellet injector and the guide tube for HFS injection are described. Experimental results of pellet edge-localized mode triggering and HFS pellet injection are also presented.


Epithelial ovarian carcinoma, the leading cause of gynecologic cancer death, is characterized by widespread intra-abdominal metastases mediated primarily by surface shedding of tumor cells and peritoneal implantation. Whereas hematogenous metastasis is known to involve cellular adhesion, extracellular matrix proteolysis and cell migration, the role of these processes in the intraperitoneal dissemination of ovarian cancer remains unclear. To analyze further the role of adhesion and proteolysis in ovarian carcinoma dissemination, we have characterized the adhesive profiles of 4 primary cultures of ovarian carcinoma cells and 5 ovarian carcinoma cell lines. Our data demonstrate preferential adhesion of ovarian carcinoma cells to interstitial type I collagen. Analysis of adhesion molecule expression demonstrated the presence of the alpha2 and beta1 integrin subunits by cell surface ELISA, immunoprecipitation and immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, antibodies directed against the alpha2 and beta1 subunits inhibited adhesion of ovarian carcinoma cells to type I collagen by 56% and 95%, respectively. Plasminogen activator and matrix metalloproteinase production by adherent cells was not altered as a consequence of adhesion to individual extracellular matrix proteins; however, adhesion to an extracellular matrix comprised primarily of interstitial collagen increased plasminogen activator activity in 5 of 5 cell lines. Since the ovarian carcinoma micro-environment is rich in type I collagen, our data suggest that preferential adhesion to type I collagen followed by secretion of serine and metalloproteinases may represent a biochemical mechanism by which the intraperitoneal dissemination of ovarian carcinoma is mediated.


The last 12 months have been very active in the life settlement industry. The life settlement market continued to expand in 2006 and, by some estimates, approximately $15 billion in face amount of policies were sold. Synthetic structures have also become available as a means to invest in life settlements without actually purchasing the physical life insurance policies. In addition to purchasing life settlements, lending into the life settlement market, and providing synthetic investment opportunities, in the past year a number of financial institutions have become part owners of life settlement providers. As further evidence of a maturing market, a number of exchanges, similar to commodities exchanges, are currently in operation, and more may be on the way. Life settlements are governed on a state-by-state basis, with 28 states having enacted laws to govern life settlements and several states having proposed legislation. The primary legislative guide for life settlement regulation has been the Viatical Settlement Model Act, promulgated by the National Asssociation of Insurance Commisioners in 2001. In May 2006, a movement to amend the Model Act began to gather momentum. In an effort to end the so-called stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) or investor-originated life insurance business segment, the Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee proposed a prohibition on the sale of a life insurance policy during the first five years after the policy is issued. While the inexact nature of life expectancy determinations has been one factor that has delayed the arrival of securitization to this sector due to the difficulties encountered by the rating agencies in achieving a sufficient comfort level with life expectancy predictions, many believe that securitization presents the logical progression of the life settlement market.


We evaluated sequence diversity in the mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I (COI; EC 220.127.116.11) gene as a tool for resolving differences among species of Arctic springtails. The Collembola examined in this analysis were collected from Igloolik, Cornwallis, and Somerset islands and included representatives from all major families found in the Arctic. Members of 13 genera and 19 species were examined, including 4 species of the genus Folsomia and 3 species of the genus Hypogastrura. In all cases, species were successfully discriminated. Sequence divergences within species were generally less than 1%, whereas divergences between species were greater than 8% in all cases. Divergences among individuals of one species of Folsomia were much higher (up to 13%), but this likely represents the presence of an undescribed sibling species. We conclude that DNA barcoding is a powerful tool for identifying species of Collembola and should regularly be useful as a complement to traditional, morphological taxonomy.


Objectives: Brand equity and purchase decisions are considered as the key determinants of consumer behaviour. The objective of this study was to examine the role of loyal consumers in strengthening brand equity of In-store brands. Statistical Analysis: The method adapted to study the objectives is a cross sectional study. Th study was carried out by self- administered questionnaire developed based on Likert scale. The survey was carried out at organised retail outlets in Bangalore city from 258 customers by following convenience sampling technique. PLS-SEM was used to analyse the data. Cronbach's Alpha was obtained to determine the reliability of the instrument. Further, convergent and discriminant validities were established to know the measures of relationship existing. Sobel's test was employed to test the mediation effect of customer advocacy between the relationship of customer loyalty and brand equity. Findings: From the results obtained it is observed that all AVE values obtained are greater than 0.5 i.e., Brand Equity (BE) is 0.7788, Brand Loyalty (BL) is 0.7863 and Customer Advocacy (CA) is 0.797, thus confirming the convergent validity of the constructs chosen. Further it is also observed that each construct chosen is distinct and different from the other constructs in the model. All the factor loadings of given construct are greater than corresponding cross loadings thus confirming the discriminant validity. The results of Sobel's test indicate that the impact of brand loyalty on brand equity is greater with the mediation effect of customer advocacy (Sobel test statistic t-values=3.627) than the direct effect of brand loyalty on brand equity (Sobel test statistic t-values=3.068). Thus we can clearly state that the relationship between Brand loyalty and Brand Equity can be best explained through Customer Advocacy. Both brand loyalty and customer advocacy have accounted for 60% of variance in brand equity, wherein brand loyalty has accounted for 45.3% of variance in customer advocacy. The findings of this study can be a reference for retailers to strategize their decisions with respect to in-store brands by laying more emphasize on customer advocacy. Application/Improvements: The outcomes reflect the positive influence of consumer advocacy on brand equity, by which the brand owners can strategize their moves towards enhancing brand equity by motivating advocacy of brands by the loyal customers to prospects, thus reducing excessive promotional costs by the brand owners.


This dissertation concerns the epic poem Caramuru (1781) by Jose de Santa Rita Durao. I propose both a post-nationalist or postcolonial reading of Caramuru, as well as a pre-nationalist or historical analysis. The first part of this dissertation focuses on the form itself, particularly the genre of epic poetry to which Caramuru belongs. The title of this dissertation references Virgil's Aeneid, while the comparisons between this and other epics focus on the conventions of epic poetry, placing Caramuru within the context of other epic poems. Traditionally, and even recently, Caramuru has consistently been compared to Luis de Camoes' Os Lusiadas. I have tried to establish a closer connection with Virgil's Aeneid, rather than Os Lusiadas, as the model epic for Caramuru. Chapter One focuses on the topic of imitation, specifically the many similarities with the plot of Virgil's Aeneid. Chapter Two offers a historiographical approach to how the readings of colonial texts changed over time, including a historical background of Caramuru, which was written soon after the fall of the so-called enlightened despotism of Portugal under the Marques de Pombal. The second part of this dissertation is a close reading of the text itself, and focuses on the colonial discourse present in the poem. Chapter Three is an analysis of the religious discourse in Caramuru, which reflects the preoccupations of an Augustinian monk living in the Age of Enlightenment. Chapter Four concerns the representations of Amerindian resistance in the poem, particularly of two characters who belong to the insubordinate Caete tribe. The last chapter focuses on the issue of gender and how women are represented in Caramuru. The main woman protagonist is a Tupinamba woman who becomes a prototype for Iracema, a well-known fictional character from nineteenth-century Brazil. Santa Rita Durao was born in Brazil but lived most of his adult life in Portugal, plus 15 years in Italy. He wrote that the motivation to write this poem was his 'love of homeland' or nationalist sentiment, even though the nation of Brazil was yet to exist at the time he wrote Caramuru.


Frozen pretrained models have become a viable alternative to the pretraining-then-finetuning paradigm for transfer learning. However, with frozen models there are relatively few parameters available for adapting to downstream tasks, which is problematic in computer vision where tasks vary significantly in input/output format and the type of information that is of value. In this paper, we present a study of frozen pretrained models when applied to diverse and representative computer vision tasks, including object detection, semantic segmentation and video action recognition. From this empirical analysis, our work answers the questions of what pretraining task fits best with this frozen setting, how to make the frozen setting more flexible to various downstream tasks, and the effect of larger model sizes. We additionally examine the upper bound of performance using a giant frozen pretrained model with 3 billion parameters (SwinV2-G) and find that it reaches competitive performance on a varied set of major benchmarks with only one shared frozen base network: 60.0 box mAP and 52.2 mask mAP on COCO object detection test-dev, 57.6 val mIoU on ADE20K semantic segmentation, and 81.7 top-1 accuracy on Kinetics-400 action recognition. With this work, we hope to bring greater attention to this promising path of freezing pretrained image models.


[Extract] The aim of this report is to demonstrate resident attitudes to mining and LDC and describe the structure of social capital in Kalgoorlie – Boulder. Mining LDC only constituted 37% of the total LDC workforce, highlighting the need to separate mining and LDC impacts. When separated from LDC, mining contributions were viewed positively by respondents. These could be attributed to the Royalties for Regions program that reinvests mining royalties into regional WA. LDC attitudes were negative; there is evidence of emotional fatigue in Kalgoorlie - Boulder with residents hesitant to start new friendships with LDC workers. Furthermore, LDC contributions to the community were viewed as below par creating the impression of a hollow economy.

Social networks were present among respondent's friends, families and work colleagues, and to a lesser extent neighbours. Neighbourhood connections (bonding social capital) were lacking suggesting respondents may be feeling isolated in their neighbourhoods. Connections with the residents of Kalgoorlie – Boulder (bridging social capital) were positive with strong senses of attachment to the community and a diversity of social networks. The Kalgoorlie – Boulder community had – aside from the police and local council – there was little trust in the state parliament to balance the needs of industry and residents (linking social capital).

Respondents were mixed in their opinions of the ability of Kalgoorlie – Boulder to adapt to the future. They want to see Kalgoorlie – Boulder grow in the future but need to be convinced of governments, in particular, state government's ability to achieve it.


[1] In April 2003 we injected Rhodamine-WT fluorescent dye into the halocline at the base of the Delaware River plume during an upwelling event. The dye immediately bifurcated: One third of the dye moved offshore with a portion of the plume, while the other 2/3 remained within the halocline, near the coastline. This behavior has not been previously observed, and it presents a strong challenge to contemporary coastal ocean models. Here we employ a numerical model of Delaware Bay and the adjacent coastal region that incorporates the Mellor-Yamada Level 2.5 turbulence closure scheme to simulate the observed dye injection event. Comparison between the simulation and observations reveals that the model is able to successfully reproduce the flow field, simulating the separation and subsequent advection of the dye. Consequently, the simulation is used to examine the relative effects of wind- and buoyancy-driven transport on mixing and advection of the dye. Comparison of simulated and observed plumes reveals that the model accurately reproduces the observed mixing and accompanying vertical salt flux within the offshore plume. Examination of the simulation reveals a unique combination of wind- and buoyancy-driven flow that results in the dye remaining in the halocline of the onshore plume despite significant vertical mixing due to winds. The strong stratification within the inshore plume causes the closure scheme to shut off the vertical diffusivities, leaving the circulation model with arbitrarily chosen constant background values. Varying these values reveals only a weak dependence of the salt flux within the highly stratified regions due to the highly localized nature of the salt flux.


Reduced speech intensity or hypophonia is a common speech deficit observed in hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). The introduction of background noise is a particularly relevant context to study in relation to this speech symptom. Previous research has indicated that listeners have more difficulty understanding dysarthric speech, and must exert more effort when listening. However, little is known of the specific features of the speech signal that contribute to perceived listener effort in the speech of individuals with PD and hypophonia. The purpose of this study is to investigate two speech features (1. Articulatory Imprecision 2. Reduced Loudness) that may contribute to perceived listener effort and that are commonly impaired in individuals with PD. This study also aims to determine potential relationships among ratings of listener effort and speech intelligibility in two noise conditions (no added background noise and 65 dB multi-talker background noise). Listener participants orthographically transcribed audio recordings of each speaker with PD reading three sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test (SIT). Intelligibility, listener effort, articulatory imprecision, and reduced loudness of these sentences was also rated in each noise condition using visual analogue scaling (VAS). Results revealed that the noise condition had a significant impact on the ratings of intelligibility, listener effort, articulatory imprecision, and reduced loudness. The results of this study revealed that individuals with PD and hypophonia were rated to have less intense speech, less precise speech, and reduced speech intelligibility in background noise, and ratings of listener effort were also significantly higher in background noise.


This paper describes the design of an educational module which aims to raise awareness and change the attitudes of elementary school students about focal endangered species in protected areas. The proposed design builds on, and extends the General Teaching Model. The educational module which was developed through this approach was pilot-tested in two Greek elementary school classes, involving 29 students who provided their opinion through a questionnaire. The results verify that the educational module had a significant effect on the cognitive level and the attitudes of the students. Therefore, it is argued that the proposed design approach can form the basis for the development of educational activities and strategies which can raise awareness and change the attitudes of elementary school students about the conservation of endangered species. It can also be used in non-formal educational settings, such as National Marine Parks.


Prior to enactment of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), P.L. 107-155, the term "soft money" generally referred to unregulated funds, perceived as resulting from loopholes in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), 2 U.S.C. §§ 431 et seq. Generally, the intent of BCRA, (effective Nov. 6, 2002), which amends FECA, is to restrict the raising and spending of soft money. This Issue Brief discusses constitutional and legal issues surrounding two major types of soft money that BCRA regulates: political party soft money and soft money used for issue advocacy communications. Corporate and labor union soft money, which FECA exempts from regulation and is not addressed by BCRA, is also discussed.


The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is arguably the biggest policy intervention in health insurance in the United States since the passage of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. The Act was signed into law in March 2010, and by 2016 approximately 20 to 24 million additional Americans were covered with health insurance. Such an extension of insurance coverage could affect not only medical bills, but also educational, employment, and broader financial outcomes. In this post, we take an initial look at the relationship between the ACA and higher education financing choices and outcomes. We find evidence that expansions in healthcare coverage may influence both the prevalence of student loans and loan repayment behavior. Specifically, our results suggest that individuals covered by ACA-related expansions are taking out slightly more loans and taking a longer time to start repayment.


Many real-world systems are known as complex networks that can be modeled by networks of interacting agents. In complex networks, vertices can be a member of densely connected components named community structures, which sparsely connect to the rest of the net. Community structures can be overlapping, such that vertices are the member of more than one community. We can see examples of overlapping communities in real life, for instance, a scientist is not only active in scientific communities but also may belong to communities of relatives, family members, colleagues, a sports club, etc. We can also observe overlapping communities in other types of networks, e.g., biological and online social networks. Overlapping members often help communities to scale up and to share their knowledge, e.g., diffusion of information in learning environments. In this dissertation, we propose overlapping community detection algorithms that use properties such as degree mixing and information diffusion. We also build prediction models for the evolution of overlapping communities. Besides, we show the importance of overlapping community structures in the prediction of mixing patterns in networks. For this purpose, dynamics of overlapping community structures are used to propose ranking and recommender models. Our proposed algorithms in many cases outperform state-of-the-art techniques. Moreover, the algorithms have been made widely available in our WebOCD software framework. Different applications can use the algorithms proposed in this thesis. Recommender systems can use overlapping community structure dynamics to recommend items to users in overloaded information spaces. Additionally, overlapping community structures can contribute to recommend overlapping members to experts that this helps to increase the information flow and to scale up communities. Algorithms, WebOCD framework, and applications have been validated in several settings, including large-scale informal Learning networks in the European Learning Layers project.


Scope of the journal IT-Information Technology is a strictly peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is the oldest German journal in the field of information technology. Today, the major aim of IT-Information Technology is highlighting issues on ongoing newsworthy areas in information technology and informatics and their application. It aims at presenting the topics with a holistic view. It addresses scientists, graduate students, and experts in industrial research and development.


Wheat yield depends on the number of grains per square metre, which in turn is related to the number of fertile florets at anthesis. The dynamics of floret generation/degeneration were studied in contrasting conditions of nitrogen (N) and water availability of modern, well-adapted, durum wheats in order to understand further the bases for grain number determination. Experiments were carried out during the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 growing seasons at Lleida (NE Spain). The first experiment involved four cultivars (Claudio, Donduro, Simeto, and Vitron) and two contrasting N availabilities (50 kgN ha–1 and 250 kgN ha–1; N50 and N250) while experiment 2 included the two cultivars most contrasting in grain setting responsiveness to N in experiment 1, and two levels of N (N50 and N250), under irrigated (IR) and rainfed (RF) conditions. In addition, a detillering treatment was imposed on both cultivars under the IR+N250 condition. The number of fertile florets at anthesis was increased by ~30% in response to N fertilization (averaging across treatments and spikelet positions). The effect of N and water availability was evident on floret developmental rates from the third floret primordium onwards, as these florets in the central spikelets of all genotypes reached the stage of a fertile floret in N250 while in N50 they did not. In this study, clear differences were found between the cultivars in their responsiveness to N by producing more fertile florets at anthesis (through accelerating developmental rates of floret primordia), by increasing the likelihood of particular grains to be set, or by both traits.


Author(s): Trivedi, Mahendra Kumar; Jana, Snehasis | Abstract: The present study was performed to investigate the Hepatoprotective potential of the Biofield Energy (The Trivedi Effect®) Treated test item, Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) in HepG2 cells. The test item was distributed into two parts. One part received Consciousness Energy Healing Treatment by a renowned Biofield Energy Healer, Mahendra Kumar Trivedi and was labeled as the Biofield Energy Treated DMEM group and the other part referred as the untreated DMEM group, where no Biofield Treatment was provided. Results showed that more than 97% cell viability of the test items were observed by MTT assay, which indicated a safe and nontoxic nature of the test items. The Biofield Treated DMEM showed significant (p≤0.001) protection of cells by 10% against oxidative stress induced by t-BHP, while the untreated DMEM group showed 0.4% protection. The level of interleukin-8 (IL-8) was significantly (p≤0.01) reduced by 31.57% in Biofield Treated DMEM than untreated DMEM. The level of ALT enzyme activity was significantly (p≤0.001) reduced by 66% in Biofield Treated DMEM compared to untreated DMEM. Cholesterol level was significantly (p≤0.001) reduced by 46.23% in Biofield Treated DMEM than untreated DMEM. Besides, Biofield Treated DMEM group showed 51.18% increased the level of albumin compared to untreated DMEM group. Overall, results demonstrated that Biofield Treatment significantly protect the liver hepatocytes against oxidative stress. Therefore, Consciousness Energy Healing (The Trivedi Effect®) Treatment might be useful as a hepatoprotectant against different types of liver injuries like cirrhosis, alcohol abuse, hemochromatosis, Wilson's disease, Gilbert's disease, cholangiocarcinoma, steatosis, Budd-Chiari syndrome, etc.


According to archeological and historical records, the Bahrain Islands of the Arabian Gulf were the home of a flourishing civilization four thousant years ago. Then, as now, these islands served as an important locus of maritime trade, but they were also characterized as a land of copious artesian springs and fertile fields. Modern Bahrain, in contrast, is beset by environmental and demographic problems: the depletion of the artesian water supply, abandonment of rural agricultural lands, and rapid population growth. In this exemplary interdisciplinary study, Curtis E. Larsen combines archeological, geological, historical, and anthropological methods to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental and socioeconomic context that links Bahrain's present to its past.


When combining a multicode CDMA system with convolutional coding, two methods have been considered in the literature. In one method, coding is across time in each multicode channel while in the other the coding is across both multicodes and time. In this paper, a performance/complexity analysis of decoding metrics and trellis structures for the two schemes is carried out. It is shown that the latter scheme can exploit the multicode diversity inherent in convolutionally coded direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems which employ minimum squared error (MMSE) multiuser detectors. In particular, when the MMSE detector provides sufficiently different signal-to-reference ratios (SIRs) for the multicode channels, coding across multicodes and time can obtain significant performance gain over across time, with nearly the same decoding complexity.


BACKGROUND
Self-regulated learning (SRL) has mainly been conceptualized to involve student learning within academic settings. In teacher education, where learning from theory and practice is combined, student teachers also need to regulate their learning. Hence, there is an urgent need to extend SRL theories to the domain of teacher learning and to obtain scientific knowledge on the nature of student teachers' SRL to enable support of these processes in teacher education.

AIMS
This study was aimed at exploring the nature of student teachers' regulation of learning across various theoretical and practical contexts in teacher education.

SAMPLE
Twenty-eight students from a post-graduate academic teacher education institute participated in this study.

METHOD
For the measurement of student teachers' regulation activities, an open question log, called Learning Report, was developed. Content analysis and multiple correspondence analyses of 133 Learning Reports were used to identify qualitative differences in regulation activities and the underlying structure in the data.

RESULTS
The analyses resulted in the identification and description of the variety and frequency of student teachers' regulation activities. The relations among the regulation activities were described by an underlying structure of two dimensions: passive versus active regulation of learning and prospective versus retrospective regulation of learning. Active regulation dominated in practice schools, passive regulation at the university.

CONCLUSIONS
It is argued that for learning to teach, a different conceptualization of SRL is needed, focusing less on setting initial learning goals and more on retrospective aspects of SRL. Building blocks for such a conceptualization are offered.


Many couple therapists prefer an integrative approach to working with couples. They also have shown more interest in the humanistic approach in recent times than they used to do in the past. However there has been almost no discussion in the literature of how the focusing-oriented approach can be used in couple therapy, probably because most focusing-oriented therapists remain individual counsellors. The present research is a contribution to bringing the focusing-oriented approach into couple therapy, but is also a contribution to the integrative approach to working with couples. The aims of this research are:
1. To examine how couple therapists usually work with couples.
2. To investigate how widespread the use of the focusing-oriented approach is as a therapeutic approach when working with couples.
3. To explore what are seen as the common factors of therapeutic change in standard couple therapy and in focusing-oriented psychotherapy.
4. To examine what elements of focusing-oriented therapy can be brought into couple therapy.
5. To ascertain whether there is any evidence for the focusing-oriented approach being effective in working with couples.
6. To discover how using the focusing-oriented approach can make a difference to couple therapy.
This research aims to demonstrate how the focusing-oriented approach can apply to couple therapy. With this end in view, the research for the thesis was conducted in three parts. Part One collected quantitative data about the extent to which focusing-oriented therapists are involved in working with couples and how couple therapists normally work with couples. Part Two observed and recorded focusing sessions with the Diploma students in focusing-oriented and experiential psychotherapy at the University of East Anglia for two years. The aim of this part of the research was to understand the focusing process and to find what elements of Focusing might apply to working with couples. Part Three involved interviews with fourteen counsellors. Seven counsellors worked with couples as couple therapists and the other seven counsellors were trained in the focusing-oriented approach and had experience of working with couples. The interviews and analysis revealed how they worked with couples, and what the possibilities are for integrating the focusing-oriented approach into couple therapy.


Petroleum processing industry activities generate wastewater containing phenol. If the effluent directly released into the environment will cause environmental pollution. This study aims to determine the effect of flow rate and height of bed to the reduction in the phenol content in wastewater oil and gas industry by using activated carbon adsorbent in a fixed-bed column. The study begins with the pre-treatment of wastewater by aeration to separate the oil content in the waste water. Furthermore sewage flowed into a fixed-bed column at various flow rates and high bed. Effluent from each - each variation of measured and calculated% concentration phenol removal. The results showed that the reduction in flow rate increases the amount of phenol is absorbed. For the high bed 25%, 50% and 75% of the fixed-bed column height, the higher the bed the higher the amount of phenol is absorbed. Best results are obtained on a high bed 75% and a flow rate of 0.8 mL / sec with% phenol removal amounted to 98.99%


Collaborative fluency is the coordinated meshing of joint activities between members of a well-synchronized team. In recent years, researchers in human–robot collaboration have been developing robots to work alongside humans aiming not only at task efficiency, but also at human–robot fluency. As part of this effort, we have developed a number of metrics to evaluate the level of fluency in human–robot shared-location teamwork. While these metrics are being used in existing research, there has been no systematic discussion on how to measure fluency and how the commonly used metrics perform and compare. In this paper, we codify subjective and objective human–robot fluency metrics, provide an analytical model for four objective metrics, and assess their dynamics in a turn-taking framework. We also report on a user study linking objective and subjective fluency metrics and survey recent use of these metrics in the literature.


Recent global trends have seen a steady increase in both the levels of urbanisation and forced displacement worldwide. This nexus of challenges is evident in the Great Lakes region of sub-Saharan Africa, where protracted conflicts have produced large populations of refugees, in tandem with the rapid growth of cities such as Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. For an urban municipality, the presence of a burgeoning urban refugee population in Dar es Salaam presents a number of difficulties. As a city with 5.6% annual growth, Tanzania's primary city is already struggling to contend with migration from rural areas, poor infrastructure, the effects of climate change and widespread informality. To successfully integrate refugees into a host community with whom they will have to complete with for employment and access to basic services requires the municipality to support the refugees' own resilience strategies, and facilitate wider community resilience through urban institutions. This paper will examine what types of resilience strategies have emerged, both at an individual and institutional level in Dar es Salaam, as a consequence of the urbanisation-displacement nexus. Using Ager and Strang's integration framework, the limitations and opportunities inherent to creating a more inclusive space in the city will be considered.


This article discusses bondholder exchange offers, a useful private debtrestructuring technique. In a typical offer, an under-performing issuer will seek to exchange its old bonds for new bonds with economically less favourable terms to bondholders, thus deleveraging the issuer without the difficulties of a formal insolvency process. Some issuers
seek to incentivise their bondholders to accept these new, less favourable bonds by using coercive tactics, such as 'exit consents' and 'covenant strips'. While lawful in the US, the English courts have only recently considered them for the first time in relation to English Law bonds. The Assenagon case declared an egregious coercive tactic invalid on the basis of an old company law principle, casting doubt on the validity of other coercive tactics. This principle (the'abuse principle') originally restricted the abuse of minority shareholders by the majority, but is now also applicable to debt security voting arrangements. This article examines the abuse principle through the cases and discusses its potential application to other forms of coercive tactics in exchange offers. The article argues that where a coercive tactic is used purely to compel bondholders to exchange their bonds, this will contravene the abuse principle. The use of coercive tactics may however still be consistent with the abuse principle
and Assenagon. An issuer will need to show that 'reasonable men' could see the tactic as beneficial for the class of bondholders, even though its use might adversely affect
non-exchanging bondholders. A potential permissible example is a covenant strip that removes a restriction on asset disposals in order to facilitate a disposal pursuant to a
restructuring.


In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph. "Now under intensive study by educators throughout the country is a revolutionary method of teaching pioneered this year by Professor Alfred E. Neuman of Vauxhall University, North Dakota. In a recent interview Dr. Neuman explained exactly what his procedure had been this Fall Semester in the first trial of his daring new system. "I met with my class for ten minutes the first day and gave them lists of the books that made up the course, most of which could be found either in this or other campus libraries. I then informed them they were to be participants in an experiment to revitalize teaching techniques and to bring them to perfection. I told them, quite simply, that I would stay away from them altogether, that I would see them no more. Indeed, at a very great personal sacrifice to myself, I would keep myself aloof from them until January, when I would give them their examination." Dr. Neuman, watching the faces of the reporters, waived aside any cries of praise even before they could be uttered. But one of the reporters asked him how, even for the sake of elevating teaching, he could so deny himself the personal rewards that come from marking papers and preparing classes. "I will confess," he replied with a wave of a sun-tanned, dedicated arm, "that when this idea first sprang into my mind late one night, that very thought of such enforced idleness at once presented itself. But I had long since learned that teaching is a martyrdom, and indeed by this time I was ready to try anything." Cover Page Footnote Appeared in the issue: Volume 9, Spring, 1964. This prose is available in The Angle: http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/angle/vol1964/iss1/17 A REPORT FROM THE EDUCATIONAL FIELD


Unigram Language modeling is a successful probabilistic framework for Information Retrieval (IR) that uses the multinomial distribution to model documents and queries. An important feature in this approach is the usage of the empirically successful cross-entropy function between the query model and document models as a document ranking function. However, this function does not follow directly from the underlying models and as such there is no justification available for its usage till date.
Another related and interesting observation is that the naive Bayes model for text classification uses the same multinomial distribution to model documents but in contrast, employs document-log-likelihood that follows directly from the model, as a scoring function. Curiously, the document-log-likelihood closely corresponds to cross entropy, but to an asymmetric counterpart of the function used in language modeling. It has been empirically demonstrated that the version of cross entropy used in IR is a better performer than document-log-likelihood, but this interesting phenomenon remains largely unexplained.
One of the main objectives of this work is to develop a theoretical understanding of the reasons for the success of the version of cross entropy function used for ranking in IR. We also aim to construct a likelihood based generative model that directly corresponds to this cross-entropy function. Such a model, if successful, would allow us to view IR essentially as a machine learning problem. A secondary objective is to bridge the gap between the generative approaches used in IR and text classification through a unified model.
In this work we show that the cross entropy ranking function corresponds to the log-likelihood of documents w.r.t. the approximate Smoothed-Dirichlet (SD) distribution, a novel variant of the Dirichlet distribution. We also empirically demonstrate that this new distribution captures term occurrence patterns in documents much better than the multinomial, thus offering a reason behind the superior performance of the cross entropy ranking function compared to the multinomial document-likelihood.
Our experiments in text classification show that a classifier based on the Smoothed Dirichlet performs significantly better than the multinomial based naive Bayes model and on par with the Support Vector Machines (SVM), confirming our reasoning. In addition, this classifier is as quick to train as the naive Bayes and several times faster than the SVMs owing to its closed form maximum likelihood solution, making it ideal for many practical IR applications. We also construct a well-motivated generative classifier for IR based on SD distribution that uses the EM algorithm to learn from pseudo-feedback and show that its performance is equivalent to the Relevance model (RM), a state-of-the-art model for IR in the language modeling framework that uses the same cross-entropy as its ranking function. In addition, the SD based classifier provides more flexibility than RM in modeling documents owing to a consistent generative framework. We demonstrate that this flexibility translates into a superior performance compared to RM on the task of topic tracking, an online classification task.


The aim of this paper is to assess the amount of "policy space" available to increase tariff protection in South African agriculture. To this end, formal definitions for agricultural produce, actual import data, applied tariff data and bound tariff rates and tariff quota information were used to investigate the extent to which it is possible and feasible to increase tariffs. The analysis shows that in general the policy space available to South African agriculture is limited because of, among others, WTO binding and treaty obligations under the EU and SADC agreements. Furthermore, it does not make policy sense to increase protection on most other products. Copyright (c) 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) Economic Society of South Africa 2008.


Laboratory and field experiments focused on pyrolysis and ignition coupled with sufficient description of fuel characteristics and physics-based modeling are being used to improve our understanding of combustion processes in mixed (heterogeneous) fuel beds managed with prescribed fire in the southern United States. Previous pyrolysis work has typically used ground-up samples, thus eliminating any effects caused by moisture content, fuel particle shape, or heating mode. We are measuring pyrolysis at bench, laboratory and field-scale using intact fuels from living plants. Pyrolysis products being measured include light gases and tars using off-line and real-time spectroscopic instruments. 3-D fuel description, heat transfer to the fuels, and air flow around the fuels are being determined using a variety of intrusive and nonintrusive methods. The ability of high fidelity physics-based FDS, WFDS, and GPYRO3D to reproduce experimental results and to study conditions outside the range of the experimental data is being examined. This presentation will present an overview of the project and the questions being addressed. Preliminary results from initial attempts to measure pyrolysis at field-scale and results from early modeling of pyrolysis of live leaves using coupled GPYRO3D and FDS models are presented.


Recent empirical evidence has revealed that firm age is one of the key determinants for firm growth, while other literature points out the importance of customer-supplier networks for firm growth. This paper investigates how the inter-firm transaction network evolves over the firm lifecycle and its relationship with firm growth using large-scale firm network data in Japan. Old firms are large in size and well connected compared to young firms. In particular, older firms are connected to other older firms exhibiting positive assortativity of age. Younger firms tend to add and drop links more frequently, and the stability of a transaction link increases with its duration of active relationships, implying gradual learning of link-specific productivity over time. Moreover, firm's sales growth is positively related with the expansion of transaction partners in various measures, conditional on firm age. This suggests that the observed relationship between firm age and firm growth may be due to the lifecycle pattern of building inter-firm networks.


The problems this book discusses are the same now as they were 25 years ago: unemployment, poor housing, inadequate facilities, poverty, racism, violence. What is the function of a school in such a situation? Although many schools hold reformist ideals, their practice is constrained by organisational demands. School organisation is based upon a coercive theory of social control which is intolerant of expressions of individuality by teachers and pupils. Needs for individuality may be mistaken for deviance, and deviance is at least in part produced by, or exacerbated by, school organisation. The author maintains that schooling is therefore largely maladjusted to the needs of individuals.


Prostatic abscess (PA) is an uncommon complication after transrectal ultrasonography-guided prostate biopsy with possible heavy outcome too. In this case report (a 68-year-old patient) prostatic abscess presents non specific symptoms: dysuria, supra-pubic pain, urinary frequency, fever 36.0°C (96.8°F). Full blood count, serum urea, electrolytes, liver function test and serum amylase were all normal. There was no growth in his urine culture. Diagnosis is based on digital rectal examination and transrectal ultrasonography. With transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) we observed a hypoechoic area that contained inhomogeneus material. Color and power Doppler sonography showed a hypovascular fluid collection surrounded by perilesional increased parenchymal flow. TRUS-guided aspiration was performed with an 18 Gauge Chiba needle and the pathogen identified was Escherichia Coli. TRUS of the prostate 1 month later showed complete resolution of the PA and patient remained free of any lower urinary tract symptoms.