Holocaust representation in film has received much academic attention, with a focus on how
cinematography and the narrative may assist our memorialisation process.
One aspect of film which has received little academic attention, however, is the issue
surrounding the musical accompaniments of such films. The musical score often goes
unnoticed, but may also contain emotional qualities. It can make an audience laugh, cry or
alter their perception of the narrative.
The three countries of East, West and reunified Germany have each attempted to engage
with the Holocaust, including through the medium of film. They have done so in contrasting
ways and to varying degrees of effectiveness. The opposing political, social and cultural
environments of East and West Germany outweighed their geographical proximity.
Likewise, reunified Germany developed a third, divergent approach to Holocaust
engagement.
This thesis combines three key existing fields of academia: film music theory, Holocaust
representation in film, and German politics, history and culture.
Through comparative textual analyses of six film case studies, two each from East, West
and reunified Germany, this thesis examines whether there are examples of similarities or
inherent, reoccurring musical characteristics which define the Holocaust on screen.
Furthermore, the six analyses will be supported by contextual examinations of the
respective countries, directors and composers in order to ascertain whether there were
political, cultural and/or social considerations which impacted upon the film scores.
The original contribution to knowledge to which this thesis lays claim is that it forms the first
significant scholarly engagement with not only the film music of German Holocaust cinema
specifically, but, on a broader scale, the ongoing theoretical discourse surrounding film
music and representation. This new contribution to Holocaust knowledge also extends to a
continued development of the understanding of and engagement with the event and its
audio-visual representations.


Thermo-mechanical numerical modelling becomes a universal tool for studying short- and long-term lithosphere processes, validating and verifying geodynamic and geological concepts and putting stronger constraints on the observational data. State-of-the-art models account for rheological and mineralogical structure of the lithosphere, implement high resolution calculations, and their outputs can be directly matched with the geological and geophysical observations. Challenges of these models are vast including understanding of the behavior of complex geological systems and processes, parameterization of rheological parameters and other rock properties for geological conditions, not forgetting a large number of future methodological breakthroughs such as the development of ultra-high resolution 3D models coupled with thermodynamic processes, fluid circulation and surface processes. We here discuss both geological and geodynamic applications of the models, their principles, and the results of regional modelling studies focused on rifting, convergent and transform plate boundaries.


In many real-world applications of supervised learning, only a limited number of labeled examples are available because the cost of obtaining high-quality examples is high. Even with a relatively large number of labeled examples, the learning problem may still suffer from limited supervision as the complexity of the prediction function increases. Therefore, learning with limited supervision presents a major challenge to machine learning. With the goal of supervision reduction, this thesis studies the representation, discovery and incorporation of extra input and output information in learning.
Information about the input space can be encoded by regularization. We first design a semi-supervised learning method for text classification that encodes the correlation of words inferred from seemingly irrelevant unlabeled text. We then propose a multi-task learning framework with a matrix-normal penalty, which compactly encodes the covariance structure of the joint input space of multiple tasks. To capture structure information that is more general than covariance and correlation, we study a class of regularization penalties on model compressibility. Then we design the projection penalty, which encodes the structure information from a dimension reduction while controlling the risk of information loss.
Information about the output space can be exploited by error correcting output codes. Using the composite likelihood view, we propose an improved pairwise coding for multi-label classification, which encodes pairwise label density (as opposed to label comparisons) and decodes using variational methods. We then investigate problem-dependent codes, where the encoding is learned from data instead of being predefined. We first propose a multi-label output code using canonical correlation analysis, where predictability of the code is optimized. We then argue that both discriminability and predictability are critical for output coding, and propose a max-margin formulation that promotes both discriminative and predictable codes.
We empirically study our methods in a wide spectrum of applications, including document categorization, landmine detection, face recognition, brain signal classification, handwritten digit recognition, house price forecasting, music emotion prediction, medical decision, email analysis, gene function classification, outdoor scene recognition, and so forth. In all these applications, our proposed methods for encoding input and output information lead to significantly improved prediction performance.


Template-directed syntheses of cyclobis(paraquat-4,4′-biphenylene) (1)– a Molecular square–have been achieved by use of π-electron-rich macrocyclic hydroquinone-based and acyclic ferrocene-based templates. In particular, the use of a polyether-disubstituted ferrocene derivative as a template permits synthesis of 1 (which is accessible only in very low yields without templates) on a preparative scale. Furthermore, the use of a macrocyclic hydroquinone-based polyether template in corporating an ester function in one polyether chain–an (oriented) macrocycle–affords a 1 : 1 mixture of two topologically stereoisomeric [3]catenanes. Ester hydrolysis of the π-electron-rich macrocyclic components mechanically interlocked with 1 within the catenated structures releases the tetracationic cyclophane in quantitative yield as a result of the degradation of the [3]catenanes. The molecular square has been characterized by X-ray crystallography, FAB mass spectrometry, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopies, and elemental analysis. The binding properties of 1 and of the smaller cyclophane cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene) toward a series of π-electronrich guests have also been investigated with the above techniques and UV/VIS spectroscopy. The self-assembly of the resulting supramolecular complexes in solution and in the solid state is driven mainly by π–π stacking interactions and hydrogen-bonding interactions, as well as by edge-to-face T-type interactions. In particular, the complexation of ferrocene or a ferrocene-based derivative within the cavity of 1 suggests the possibility of constructing functioning ferrocene-based molecular and supramolecular devices that can be controlled electrochemically in the form of catenanes, rotaxanes, and pseudorotaxanes.


OBJECTIVES: To study the relationship between serum uric acid level and Killip classification in pateints with acute myocardial infarction (MI), and the use of serum uric acid levels as a marker of short-term mortality. METHODS: The present study involved 50 patients with acute MI and 50 controls. Serum uric acid level was measured on days 0, 3 and 7 of MI, and compared with all clinical parameters and mortality in the enrolled subjects. RESulTS: There was a statistically significant higher serum uric acid concentration in patients with MI on the day of admission compared with controls. Patients with history of MI had higher serum uric acid levels. On all days, serum uric acid levels were higher in patients who were in a higher Killip class. Two patients who died after three days of hospital stay had a serum uric acid level >7.0 gm/dL and both were in Killip class IV. CONCluSIONS: Serum uric acid levels were higher in patients with acute MI compared with normal healthy individuals. In acute MI, patients with hyperuricemia had higher mortality. Serum uric acid levels correlated with Killip classification in patients with acute MI. Serum uric acid level can be used as a marker of short-term mortality in acute MI, and hyperuricemia may be an indicator of poor prognosis. Serum uric acid levels were elevated in acute MI patients with systemic hypertension and diabetes mellitus.


Each attribute stored in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory has a defined syntax (i.e., data type). A syntax definition specifies how attribute values conforming to the syntax are normally represented when transferred in LDAP operations. This representation is referred to as the LDAP-specific encoding to distinguish it from other methods of encoding attribute values. This document defines an attribute option, the binary option, that can be used to specify that the associated attribute values are instead encoded according to the Basic Encoding Rules (BER) used by X.500 directories.


Going beyond performing simple analyses, researchers involved in the highly dynamic field of computational intelligent data analysis design algorithms that solve increasingly complex data problems in changing environments, including economic, environmental, and social data. Computational Intelligent Data Analysis for Sustainable Development presents novel methodologies for automatically processing these types of data to support rational decision making for sustainable development. Through numerous case studies and applications, it illustrates important data analysis methods, including mathematical optimization, machine learning, signal processing, and temporal and spatial analysis, for quantifying and describing sustainable development problems. With a focus on integrated sustainability analysis, the book presents a large-scale quadratic programming algorithm to expand high-resolution input-output tables from the national scale to the multinational scale to measure the carbon footprint of the entire trade supply chain. It also quantifies the error or dispersion between different reclassification and aggregation schemas, revealing that aggregation errors have a high concentration over specific regions and sectors. The book summarizes the latest contributions of the data analysis community to climate change research. A profuse amount of climate data of various types is available, providing a rich and fertile playground for future data mining and machine learning research. The book also pays special attention to several critical challenges in the science of climate extremes that are not handled by the current generation of climate models. It discusses potential conceptual and methodological directions to build a close integration between physical understanding, or physics-based modeling, and data-driven insights. The book then covers the conservation of species and ecologically valuable land. A case study on the Pennsylvania Dirt and Gravel Roads Program demonstrates that multiple-objective linear programming is a more versatile and efficient approach than the widely used benefit targeting selection process. Moving on to renewable energy and the need for smart grids, the book explores how the ongoing transformation to a sustainable energy system of renewable sources leads to a paradigm shift from demand-driven generation to generation-driven demand. It shows how to maximize renewable energy as electricity by building a supergrid or mixing renewable sources with demand management and storage. It also presents intelligent data analysis for real-time detection of disruptive events from power system frequency data collected using an existing Internet-based frequency monitoring network as well as evaluates a set of computationally intelligent techniques for long-term wind resource assessment. In addition, the book gives an example of how temporal and spatial data analysis tools are used to gather knowledge about behavioral data and address important social problems such as criminal offenses. It also applies constraint logic programming to a planning problem: the environmental and social impact assessment of the regional energy plan of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Sustainable development problems, such as global warming, resource shortages, global species loss, and pollution, push researchers to create powerful data analysis approaches that analysts can then use to gain insight into these issues to support rational decision making. This volume shows both the data analysis and sustainable development communities how to use intelligent data analysis tools to address practical problems and encourages researchers to develop better methods.


Podotrematous crabs from the Cretaceous worldwide are examined and reassigned, result- ing in Vespridromites new genus, Notiodromia new genus, and Antarctiprosopon new genus, and seven new combinations. Torynommidae is severely restricted. Longodromitidae as currently recog- nized extends into the Eocene and has a well-established Cretaceous record.


This essay argues that Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris rescues Gothic buildings that still existed in France from destruction by transforming them into national symbols. Through his novel, he transforms the people who were their greatest threat — from a restive mob into a nation — by inserting them and their ancestors into the narrative of French history.  Hugo saw destruction of castles and churches in France in the wake of the Revolution and became convinced that these first and easiest targets of political unrest were also irreplaceable witnesses to important events right up to his own uneasy present. Their disappearance meant the loss of part of the historical record, gaps in collective memory, and the loss of a corresponding part of the national identity. The 1830s, when Notre Dame de Paris was published, political debate turned to how to end the cycle of revolution and restoration in which the French seemed locked. What sort of government was France to have? How was French society to be organised? By whom were such decisions to be made? Hugo's novel answers these questions by turning the attention of a wide readership to a distant, non-controversial past in order to construct an image of France and its people that everyone could endorse, one that combines the best qualities of all people, regardless of faction or ideology.  United and possessing political will and real power to effect change, they are the French nation centuries before the idea of nation. The writing and publication of this novel, then, is an act of architectural restoration, recovery of a lost world, and creation of national myth rooted in the "Gothic" past—a literary restoration of the buildings of the ancien régime, even as his it underscores the impossibility and undesirability of the restoration of Bourbon absolutism. Hugo showed post-Revolutionary France how to make sense of their recent past as periodically recurring upheaval in modern guise, not as catastrophe to be explained away or denied. The publication of his novel marks a novelist's insertion of himself into what his contemporaries often saw as an essentially political debate.  Hugo presents French identity as a collective project driven by people's intellectual engagement with their culture and with a past they have never really considered their own. By including a mass readership in the process of defining French identity, Hugo's novel could extend Revolution into the realm of civil discourse — and, perhaps, remove it from the streets.


J M Keynes carefully read Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) before he was 28. Of extreme importance to Keynes was Smith's categorization of a group of upper income class citizens, whose speculative and financial interactions with the private banking industry created a very severe danger to the society as a whole, as being projectors, imprudent risk takers, and prodigals. Keynes's description of Smith's projectors, imprudent risk takers, and prodigals in the General Theory, as well as Keynes's extremely important, early 1937 papers in the Eugenics Review and Quarterly Journal of Economics, is that Smith's projectors, imprudent risk takers, and prodigals are Keynes's Wall Street speculators and rentiers. It is the speculators and rentiers who are mainly responsible for the problems of inflation and deflation in the macro economy. Keynes realized that this destructive, casino-gambling type behavior that is so damaging to the macro economy is facilitated and financed by the "…forces of banking and finance".
Keynes's Chapter Twelve analysis on pages 147-162 in the General Theory of the speculative dangers resulting from the financial behavior of Wall Street speculators and rentiers is identical to Smith's pages 114-115, 279-341 discussions in the Wealth of Nations of the dangers from projectors, imprudent risk takers, and prodigals.
Both Smith's and Keynes's analysis complements each other. Both Smith and Keynes could have given the exact, same, vastly superior analysis and policy advice to government officials facing the 2007-2009 Great Recession that would have been greatly superior to the type of very poor policy analysis provided by DSGE macroeconomists in the period 2006-2010.
Both Smith and Keynes explicitly point out and analyze the malign impacts(see Kennedy, 2008) on the macro economy perpetrated by either Smithian projectors, imprudent risk takers, or prodigals or Keynesian speculators and rentiers. The role of government is to impose constraints on these categories of upper income class members so as to prevent them from harming the sober people by proactive laws, rules, and regulations.
The obvious reason that DSGE macro models failed so egregiously is that there are no variables in their models representing the impacts of these types of decision makers on the macro economy over time. The reason for this misspecification modeling error by DSGE proponents is that they accept Bentham's critique of Smith that there are no such individuals in the economy as Smith's projectors, imprudent risk takers, or prodigals.


[1] While the ability of subaquatic vegetation to attenuate wave energy is well recognized in general, there is a paucity of data from the field to describe the rate and mechanisms of wave decay, particularly with respect to the relative motion of the vegetation. The purpose of this study was to quantify the attenuation of incident wave height through a seagrass meadow and characterize the blade movement under oscillatory flow under the low-energy conditions characteristic of fetch-limited and sheltered environments. The horizontal motion of the seagrass blades and the velocity just above the seagrass canopy were measured using a digital video camera and an acoustic Doppler velicometer (ADV) respectively in order to refine the estimates of the drag coefficient based on the relative velocity. Significant wave heights (H s ) were observed to increase by ∼0.02 m (∼20%) through the first 5 m of the seagrass bed but subsequently decrease exponentially over the remainder of the bed. The exponential decay coefficient varied in response to the Reynolds number calculated using blade width (as the length scale) and the oscillatory velocity measured immediately above the canopy. The ability of the seagrass to attenuate wave energy decreases as incident wave heights increase and conditions become more turbulent. Estimates of the time-averaged canopy height and the calculated hydraulic roughness suggest that, as the oscillatory velocity increases, the seagrass becomes fully extended and leans in the direction of flow for a longer part of the wave cycle. The relationship between the drag coefficient and the Reynolds number further suggests that the vegetation is swaying (going with the flow) at low-energy conditions but becomes increasingly rigid as oscillatory velocities increase over the limited range of the conditions observed (200 < Re < 800). In addition to the changing behavior of the seagrass motion, the attenuation was not uniform with wave frequency, and waves at a secondary frequency of 0.38 Hz (2.6 s) appeared to be unaffected by the seagrass. Cospectral analysis between the oscillatory and blade velocity suggests that the seagrass was moving in phase with the current at the (lower) secondary frequency and out of phase at the (higher) peak frequency. In this respect, seagrass is not only an attenuator of wave energy but also serves as a low-pass filter; higher frequencies in the spectra tend to be more attenuated.


The aim of this study was to determine attitudes of consumers in the northwestern part of Turkey towards food waste behaviour. A structural equation model was used to analyze the attitudes and behaviour of consumers to food waste within the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. It was found that food-related planning routines had no effect on food waste behaviour, but that food-related shopping routines encouraged food waste behaviour. On the other hand, the intention not to waste acted to discourage food waste behaviour in consumers. Accordingly, the tendency for consumers to buy more food than they need when shopping leads to an increase in food waste in the household, while the intention not to waste food acts to reduce the amount of waste. Moral attitudes increased the effect of shopping routines while perceived behaviour control had the effect of decreasing it. Intention not to waste was reduced by moral norms and enhanced by subjective norms. Food waste is an ever-increasing problem, but it is preventable. It is recommended that these factors be taken into consideration when developing campaigns, public information notices and workshops about food waste reduction.


In many developing countries, the resources necessary to support the development of entrepreneurs and SMEs are scarce including: infrastructure, business advice and mentoring, networking, financing and security. To address these problems, infoDev launched its business incubator programme in 2002, which is currently supporting a global network of over 150 incubators in more than 70 developing countries. A comprehensive impact assessment of this programme was completed in 2007 and the key findings are included here. Successful incubators were led by dynamic, visionary leaders, who often had an influence on policy and attitudes towards entrepreneurship beyond their client base; other important contributions were made by universities, foundations and corporations who were involved in mentoring, sharing facilities and research as well as board membership. Most clients and incubators had difficulty accessing private investment.


This paper covers highlighting the importance of anti-consumer groups in today's markets and several outstanding factors shaping their reaction against consumption, which are ethnocentrism, religiosity, environmental and health consciousness. A conceptual model is presented which examines the explaining power of ethnocentrism, religiosity, environmental and health consciousness upon voluntary simplifiers and global impact consumers. Data were collected through an e-questionnaire by sending posts to the anti-consumer websites. A total of 503 useable responses were retained for analysis. The analysis reveals that ethnocentrism, environmental and health consciousness have significant impacts upon anti-consumers. In addition, religiosity has a negative impact upon global impact consumers' anti-consumption behavior. Raising sensitiveness to environmental and health consciousness and ethnocentrism with regards to dealing with anti-consumers enables companies to have sustainable competitive power. These consumers' growing satisfaction contributes to consumer loyalty in addition to an increase in market share. Researches related to anti-consumers have traditionally emphasized their impacts upon companies' profits and reputation. On the contrary, this study reveals the main motivations behind voluntary simplifiers and global impact consumers and puts forth a new perspective by presenting the findings related to anti-consumers in Turkey.


The neurological mechanisms involved in translating and interpreting are one of the chief known unknowns in translation studies. Translation studies has explored many facets of the processes and products of translation and interpreting, ranging from the linguistic aspects to the textual aspects, from the politics of translation to implications from cognitive science, but little is known about the production and reception of translation at the level of the individual brain and the level of molecular biology.1 Much of this terra incognita will be explored and illuminated by neuroscience in the coming quarter century, and significant discoveries pertaining to language processing in translation will be made during the coming decade, linking observable behaviors at the macro level with knowledge of what happens in the production and reception of translation at the micro level of the neuron and the neuronal pathways of the brain.In the past two decades powerful new techniques for observing brain function in healthy living individuals have been devised. To a large extent neuroscience has become a rapidly developing field because of new technologies that make it possible to monitor the brain as it actually works, to document neural pathways, and even to track the activity of specific neurons. This article focuses on discoveries in neuroscience pertaining to perception, memory, and brain plasticity that have already achieved consensus in the field and that have durable implications for the ways we will think about translation in the future.


Abstract Do 5-month-old infants show differences in processing objects as a function of a prior interaction with an adult? Using a live ERP paradigm we assessed this question utilizing a within-subjects design. Infants saw objects during two pretest phases with an adult experimenter. We recorded event-related potentials to the presentation of objects following the interactive pretest phases. Experimental conditions differed only in the nature of eye contact between the infant and the experimenter during the pretests. In one condition the experimenter engaged the infant with direct eye contact. In a second condition the experimenter looked only at the infant's chest. We found that the negative component, related to attentional processes, showed differences between experimental conditions in left fronto-central locations. These data show that 5-month-old infants allocate more attention to objects that have been previously seen during direct eye-contact interaction. In addition, these results clarify the functional nature of the negative component.


In this paper, we extend a recently introduced multi-fidelity control variate for the uncertainty quantification of the Boltzmann equation to the case of kinetic models arising in the study of multiagent systems. For these phenomena, where the effect of uncertainties is particularly evident, several models have been developed whose equilibrium states are typically unknown. In particular, we aim to develop efficient numerical methods based on solving the kinetic equations in the phase space by Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) coupled to a Monte Carlo sampling in the random space. To this end, exploiting the knowledge of the corresponding mean-field approximation we develop novel mean-field Control Variate (MFCV) methods that are able to strongly reduce the variance of the standard Monte Carlo sampling method in the random space. We verify these observations with several numerical examples based on classical models , including wealth exchanges and opinion formation model for collective phenomena.


Measuring return volatility remains a core issue not only in performance evaluation but also in trading an underlying strategy. For those who desire a relatively straightforward approach, the commonly used Parkinson method (variance estimator based on the mean of observed ranges) provides one such means. This estimator is not widely used, possibly because the estimator is biased, but the degree of bias is explored in the finance literature. It is shown here that the bias inherent in these estimators is a function of the sample size used, and is easily quantified and corrected.


In this paper, we address the problem of robust data association for simultaneous vehicle localization and map building. We show that the classical gated nearest neighbor approach, which considers each matching between sensor observations and features independently, ignores the fact that measurement prediction errors are correlated. This leads to easily accepting incorrect matchings when clutter or vehicle errors increase. We propose a new measurement of the joint compatibility of a set of pairings that successfully rejects spurious matchings. We show experimentally that this restrictive criterion can be used to efficiently search for the best solution to data association. Unlike the nearest neighbor, this method provides a robust solution in complex situations, such as cluttered environments or when revisiting previously mapped regions.


An injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) which operates in F-band (90 ~ 140 GHz) is proposed. The proposed ILFD using a triple-split-inductor technique achieves a high oscillation frequency. The ILFD is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process. The measured locking range is 113.92-to-118.08 GHz. It consumes 8.4 mW from a 1.2 V power supply without biasing circuit and buffers and the core circuits occupies 0.32 × 0.25 mm2.


A convenient synthetic route to poly(tetrazolato) silicon complexes is described based on the four reactive centres of the N-rich, highly endothermic tetraazides of the type Si(N3)4(L2). Hypercoordinate azido(tetrazolato) silicon complexes Si(N3)2(N4C-R)2(L2), R = CH3, C6H5, 4-C6H4CH3 (4a, 5, 6, 7) and Si(N3)2(N4C-L)2 (9, L = 2-C5H4N), L2 = 2,2'-bipyridine, 1,10-phenanthroline, with SiN6 skeletons were synthesised via multiple [3 + 2] dipolar cycloaddition reactions starting from Si(N3)4(L2) and a nitrile. The isolated new complexes were characterised by standard analytical methods, single crystal X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (4a,b). Tetrazolato ligand linkage isomerism was observed for complex 4a. The crystallographically characterised methyl tetrazolato complexes and plausible configurational and linkage isomers were evaluated by DFT calculations at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level.


Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive tumour that grows in the pleural cavity. MPM spheroids released in the pleural fluid can form new tumour foci. Cell–cell, cell–extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions in 2D and 3D impact malignant cell behaviour during cell adhesion, migration, proliferation and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). In this study, epithelioid, biphasic and sarcomatoid MPM cell types as well as benign mesothelial cells were tested with regards to the above phenotypes. Fibronectin (FN) and homologous cell‐derived extracellular matrix (hcd‐ECM) treated substratum differentially affected the above phenotypes. 3D MPM spheroid invasion was higher in FN‐collagen matrices in the epithelioid and biphasic cells, while 3D cell cultures of epithelioid and sarcomatoid MPM cells in FN‐collagen showed a higher contractility compared to hcd‐ECM‐collagen. Cell aggregates demonstrated invasive behaviour in hcd‐ECM matrices alone. Our results suggest that ECM and the dimensionality affect malignant cell behaviour during cell culture studies.


In 1984, I became a member of the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS), one of the best decisions of my professional career. I joined SWCS at the invitation of Bernie Parsons, a senior faculty member in the Agricultural Engineering Department at Virginia Tech, which I had just joined as a new assistant professor. Bernie took me under his wing and started taking me to Virginia Chapter SWCS Council meetings. He introduced me to most of the key soil and water conservation professionals in the state. As a result of these introductions and the networking opportunities that they provided, I became heavily involved in soil and water conservation activities in Virginia—served as Virginia Chapter president, have been the faculty advisor to the Virginia Tech Student Chapter for over 15 years, served on numerous national committees, and eventually became an SWCS Board member and president. Now, I am involved in soil and water conservation activities across the globe. Bernie's invitation had a profound effect on my life and professional development, and I will forever remember him for introducing me to SWCS. This article focuses on my international soil and water conservation experiences since 2004 when I became the program director of…


With the increasing use of pesticides in modern agriculture, increased evidence of their disastrous effects on the environment has been noticed. Pesticides applied in various modes and places contaminate various parts of the environment, including groundwater sources. As pesticide problems are greater in the rural areas, the authors have developed a successful low-cost technology for rural areas with wood charcoal treated with nitric acid. As pesticides are classified as hazardous waste, the sludge resulting from their treatment has to be disposed off safely. This paper describes the removal of pesticides at a higher concentration of 24 mg/l, using a mixed culture of aerobic bacteria, and also a study of the inhibiting action of endosulfan on bacterial cells. It was found that bacteria without acclimatisation could remove 89.7% of endosulfan, and with prior acclimatisation the efficiency was 96%. It was found that removal in the initial phase is because of the hydrophobic nature of endosulfan and its affinity to sediments. The adsorbed endosulfan subsequently undergoes biotransformation, which has been confirmed by monitoring endosulfan concentrations in the bacterial sludge. Transformation was found to be significant in the acclimatised culture system. The fluctuation in bacterial performance was greater at lower concentrations of endosulfan, and overall inhibition was greater at higher concentrations.


The present paper examines the use of two compound tenses – perfect and pluperfect – in Estonian. Perfect and pluperfect have emerged due to the influence of the Baltic and Germanic languages and are used frequently in Estonian. However, while looking at the usage frequency derived from the Corpus of Estonian Dialects, dialect areas display remarkable differences, which can be explained either by local language contacts with Swedish, Russian, Latvian, and Finnic languages (Votic, Ingrian, and Finnish) or by functional differences in the use of compound tenses. It appears that there are two main regions where the compound tenses are used more often compared to other areas: the Insular dialect and Mulgi dialect regions. The increase of compound tenses in the Insular dialect could be a result of contacts with Swedish. However, the Insular dialect also exhibits a high number of negated utterances using the perfect reflecting changes in the formation of negation more generally in this area. The Mulgi dialect shows a high number of pluperfect forms that can be related to the abundance of reported narratives in the data, but also as an increase of using pluperfect as an evidential strategy, which is probably a result of contacts with Latvian.


Informal economic activity is hugely important, providing food and income for some of the world's poorest people. But just as in formal trading relationships, some players in informal value chains — particularly small-scale producers — have comparatively less influence than others in the markets and the decisions that affect them. Socio-legal empowerment (SLE) that promotes producer agency (the processes by which individuals or collectives make more informed choices, take more effective action and bring about change)1 has an important role to play in the informal sector. Cases from around the world, from Bolivia to Uganda, show that SLE approaches are varied and best led from the ground up. Development practitioners can support these efforts and help advance producer agency through flexible, long-term programming that understands context, nurtures existing social capital and puts producers first.


The question whether religious norms and laws should be 'accommodated' by the state has become an important issue in civic society, with a particular focus on the working of religious courts. The debate has largely taken place without much reference to empirical evidence of their organisation or operation. An empirical case-study of three different religious tribunals, Muslim, Jewish and Catholic, which deal with religious annulments and divorces, sheds light on how religious tribunals may be run and how they view their purpose and relationship with the state. In the tribunals in the study, the main focus of operation was on the determination of parties' status for the purposes of remarriage within the faith, rather than on handling the consequences of the termination of the marriage. They operated in full awareness of, and were influenced by, the wider social context in which their litigants live their lives. Furthermore they recognised very clearly the limits of their jurisdiction and the importance of compliance with the civil law.


This article describes a method for efficiently computing parallel transport of tangent vectors on curved surfaces, or more generally, any vector-valued data on a curved manifold. More precisely, it extends a vector field defined over any region to the rest of the domain via parallel transport along shortest geodesics. This basic operation enables fast, robust algorithms for extrapolating level set velocities, inverting the exponential map, computing geometric medians and Karcher/Fréchet means of arbitrary distributions, constructing centroidal Voronoi diagrams, and finding consistently ordered landmarks. Rather than evaluate parallel transport by explicitly tracing geodesics, we show that it can be computed via a short-time heat flow involving the connection Laplacian. As a result, transport can be achieved by solving three prefactored linear systems, each akin to a standard Poisson problem. To implement the method, we need only a discrete connection Laplacian, which we describe for a variety of geometric data structures (point clouds, polygon meshes, etc.). We also study the numerical behavior of our method, showing empirically that it converges under refinement, and augment the construction of intrinsic Delaunay triangulations so that they can be used in the context of tangent vector field processing.


Now- a – days workplace spirituality is a renowned topic which is gaining gratitude and value among the academicians and industrial people. Workplace Spirituality aims at meaningful work, sense of community and value of organization. It speaks about experiencing and sharing common attachments of people, which attracts and bond them in togetherness within the workplace and the organization as a whole. The present study is a modest attempt to explore the individual perception about spirituality among the employees (Faculties) in selected B-Schools in Kolkata. The methodology adopted involves a field study using a structured questionnaire as a research instrument which would be circulated among 80 faculties in selected 10 B- Schools in the city of Kolkata. The collected data would be analyzed through Likert 5 Point Scale ranging from strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree. The analysis would be carried out using S.P.S.S. The objective of this study comprises the following: 1. To have an insight about spirituality amongst the faculty members of selected B-Schools. 2. To know the benefits of integrating spirituality in the institutes of higher learning.


Electrically active defect centres related to sodium in silicon have been examined with deep level transient spectroscopy, and their recombination potential analysed with the microwave photoconductive decay technique. In order to investigate the entire silicon band gap for defect centres, both p-type (B-doped) and n-type (P-doped) float zone monocrystalline silicon samples were ion implanted with sodium. Three Na-related levels were identified in the upper half of the band gap at EC − 0.094 eV, EC − 0.119 eV and EC − 0.139 eV in implanted n-type silicon. In implanted p-type silicon three Na-related levels were identified at EV + 0.088, EV + 0.270 eV and EV + 0.139 eV. The capture cross sections of all levels were in the range 2–5 × 10−15 cm2, with an exception for the level at EV + 0.270 eV that was found to have a capture cross section of 4 × 10−14 cm2. Implantations of sodium lead to a significant drop in minority carrier lifetime of both n-type and p-type silicon. This degradation was substantially higher in p-type silicon. The observed recombination activity can be compared to that of nickel and manganese.


This research seeks to explore the nature and value of peer learning for a group of pre-registration nursing students and specifically aims to examine a group of student nurses in order to inquire whether they learn from each other and if so, how, when and where this takes place. Secondly, the work aims to discover more about the process used by those nurses while engaging in peer learning and to unearth their perceptions of and value systems ascribed to this type of learning. In this context the students engage in peer learning as they learn from and through each others' experience. This research is set against the backdrop of recent changes within nurse education in the United Kingdom. In 1999, the Peach report made several main recommendations regarding the future of pre-registration nurse education, including the integration of knowledge and skills through balanced time in theory and practice together with the fostering of interpersonal and practice skills through experiential and problem-based learning (UKCC 1999). In this case the fellow learners are a group of pre registration student nurses enrolled on a programme leading to registration as Adult Branch nurses with a Diploma level academic qualification. The curriculum (based on the Fitness for Practice recommendations within the Peach report) convenes the group (known as a base group) together throughout the course at regular intervals, and utilizes a strategy of problem based learning as part of a range of teaching and learning strategies in order to help the students to acquire the knowledge required by a qualified nurse. It is important to differentiate peer learning from other mechanisms which involve students in learning from each other. For example, peer teaching or peer tutoring is a far more formal and instrumental strategy whereby advanced students or those further on in progression, take on a limited instructional role (Boud, Cohen and Sampson 2001). In other words, the more senior students are used to formally teach various aspects of the curriculum to more junior students.


Because of the increasing promotion of renewable energy such as photovoltaic (PV) panels in Japanese houses, the voltage increase and frequency adjustment of a city electrical distribution network sys-tem will be of concern. Therefore, self-consuming surplus electricity and leveling the reverse power flow is important in terms of reducing the smart grid network load and reducing the peak load of the smart grid network. The aim of this study was to acquire knowledge regarding methods of self-consuming surplus power as well as leveling the reverse power flow. An equipment operation method, termed "schedule control," was proposed that changes the operational time of a heat pump water heater and the charging time of a storage battery according to solar radiation prediction. Because PV power fluctuates depending on weather and time zone, this method helps in self-consuming as much PV power generation as possible. By actual measurement and simulation results, it was confirmed that the schedule control of the heat pump water heater and storage battery was useful in self-consuming surplus power and leveling reverse power flow.


OBJECTIVE
Social relationships supply purpose to life. How can socially disconnected people, who show lower levels of purpose, compensate for purpose in life? We propose that religious beliefs can compensate for the purpose in life that social relationships would otherwise provide, through providing (a) greater purpose to turn to and (b) divine figures that can substitute for social relationships.

METHOD
In three studies, we analyze three nationally representative and longitudinal data sets (N = 19,775) using moderated regression and cross-lagged panel analyses.

RESULTS
Consistent with our hypotheses, religious beliefs were of minimal influence on purpose in life for socially connected individuals, who already held higher levels of purpose than socially disconnected individuals. However, for socially disconnected individuals, being highly religious predicted higher levels of purpose in life.

CONCLUSIONS
Results suggest that although people primarily derive purpose from social relationships, socially disconnected individuals may leverage their religious beliefs for purpose and social comfort until they can reconnect.


The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) can stimulate phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) even though it lacks a direct binding site for the enzyme. Although the EGFR could accomplish this by forming a heterodimer with another family member, ErbB3, which does bind to PI3K, Rodrigues et al. now show that the EGFR can activate PI3K through an adaptor protein called Grb 2-associated protein 1 (Gab1). Gab1 binds directly to two tyrosine residues in the EGFR tail and overexpression of Gab1 increased EGF-induced stimulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and Jun kinase (JNK) in a PI3K-dependent manner. In addition, PI3K appears to be an upstream activator of Gab1. Like many other adaptor proteins, Gab1 has a pleckstrin homology (PH) domain that binds to phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-triphosphate [PI(3,4,5)P3], a membrane lipid that is generated by PI3K. Blocking PH domain-mediated translocation of Gab1 to the plasma membrane inhibited EGF-induced activation of MAPK and JNK. The authors propose a positive feedback model in which Gab1 is recruited to, and becomes phosphorylated by, the activated EGFR. Gab1 could then bind to and activate PI3K. Increased production of PI(3,4,5)P3 could further promote membrane recruitment of Gab1 and enhance PI3K signaling through the EGFR. It is not yet clear how this loop might be terminated. Rodrigues, G.A., Falasca, M., Zhang, Z., Ong, S.H., and Schlessinger, J. (2000) A novel positive feedback loop mediated by the docking protein Gab1 and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase in epidermal growth factor receptor signaling. Mol. Cell. Biol. 20: 1448-1459. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Accelerated melting of Greenland ice has raised concern about the future impact of enhanced freshwater discharge on regional climate through its effect on ocean circulation. An abrupt cooling event ca. 8200 cal. yr B.P. has been linked to meltwater from the decaying North American ice sheet. Oxygen isotopic analyses of cellulose from subfossil Sphagnum mosses, isolated from a Newfoundland peat core, reveal a pronounced anomaly ca. 8350 yr B.P. with a duration of ~150 years. The maximum estimated δ 18 O precipitation change, 4.53‰ ± 1.05‰ (Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water), is the largest observed in the circum-North Atlantic region. The magnitude of change exceeds that predicted by recent paleoclimate simulations. Comparisons with recent records of surface and deep ocean proxies in the Labrador Sea and the wider North Atlantic region suggest synchroneity. However, an ~200 year delay between the responses of the Labrador Sea region and the Greenland Ice Sheet to the effects of meltwater release remains to be explained.


Various strains of Leptospira interrogans were compared by bacterial restriction-endonuclease DNA analysis (BRENDA). Field strains of serovar hardjo isolated from domestic animals in New Zealand, Australia and Northern Ireland were indistinguishable from one another but differed strikingly from the hardjo reference strain Hardjoprajitno. Similarly, field isolates of balcanica and tarassovi differed from their serovar reference strains, probably owing to a difference in epidemiological niche. Subdivision of these serovars into distinct subtypes as defined by BRENDA is therefore useful and justified. In contrast, analysis of serovars pomona, ballum and copenhageni shows that field and reference strains were identical, or differed only by a single band. It is suggested that BRENDA will overcome many of the problems associated with serological methods of identifying serovars and allow more precise definition of epidemiological relationships between strains and their hosts.


Objective To assess the feasibility of using a blood pressure (BP) self-measurement kiosk—a solid-cuff sphygmomanometer combined with technology to integrate the BP readings into patient electronic medical records— to improve hypertension detection. Design A concurrent mixed-methods feasibility study incorporating observational and qualitative interview components. Setting Two English general practitioner (GP) surgeries. Participants Adult patients registered at participating surgeries. Staff working at these sites. Interventions BP self-measurement kiosks were placed in the waiting rooms for a 12-month period between 2015 and 2016 and compared with a 12-month control period prior to installation. Outcome measures (1) The number of patients using the kiosk and agreeing to transfer of their data into their electronic medical records; (2) the cost of using a kiosk compared with GP/practice nurse BP screening; (3) qualitative themes regarding use of the equipment. Results Out of 15 624 eligible patients, only 186 (1.2%, 95% CI 1.0% to 1.4%) successfully used the kiosk to directly transfer a BP reading into their medical record. For a considerable portion of the intervention period, no readings were transferred, possibly indicating technical problems with the transfer link. A comparison of costs suggests that at least 52.6% of eligible patients would need to self-screen in order to bring costs below that of screening by GPs and practice nurses. Qualitative interviews confirmed that both patients and staff experienced technical difficulties, and used alternative methods to enter BP results into the medical record. Conclusions While interviewees were generally positive about checking BP in the waiting room, the electronic transfer system as tested was neither robust, effective nor likely to be a cost-effective approach, thus may not be appropriate for a primary care environment. Since most of the cost of a kiosk system lies in the transfer mechanism, a solid-cuff sphygmomanometer and manual entry of results may be a suitable alternative.


A population sample of 10,049 women living in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, was recruited into a natural history of human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical neoplasia study in 1993–1994. At the enrollment visit, we applied multiple state‐of‐the‐art cervical cancer screening methods to detect prevalent cervical cancer and to prevent subsequent cervical cancers by the timely detection and treatment of precancerous lesions. Women were screened at enrollment with 3 kinds of cytology (often reviewed by more than one pathologist), visual inspection and cervicography. Any positive screening test led to colposcopic referral and biopsy and/or excisional treatment of CIN2 or worse. We retrospectively tested stored specimens with an early HPV test (hybrid capture tube test) and for >40 HPV genotypes using a research PCR assay. We followed women typically 5–7 years and some up to 11 years. Nonetheless, 16 cases of invasive cervical cancer were diagnosed during follow‐up. Six cancer cases were failures at enrollment to detect abnormalities by cytology screening; 3 of the 6 were also negative at enrollment by sensitive HPV DNA testing. Seven cancers represent failures of colposcopy to diagnose cancer or a precancerous lesion in screen‐positive women. Finally, 3 cases arose despite attempted excisional treatment of precancerous lesions. Based on this evidence, we suggest that no current secondary cervical cancer prevention technologies applied once in a previously under‐screened population is likely to be 100% efficacious in preventing incident diagnoses of invasive cervical cancer. © 2009 UICC


A testing program was undertaken in which cohesive soil at different confining pressures was tested in a resonant column device using random torsional excitation in addition to conventional sinusoidal excitation. The damping and shear modulus from random loading testing were determined by both the power spectral density function and the transfer function method. Evaluation of the dynamic soil properties for sinusoidal vibration followed conventional procedures. The results indicated that during random loading, the damping values were higher and the shear moduli lower than the values obtained from sinusoidal loading at the same root mean square strain. For the cohesive soil tested, formulas were developed to correct the damping and shear moduli obtained from routine sinusoidal testing so that the values are more representative of actual field conditions during random dynamic loading.


The influence of gas venting on flame acceleration in an obstacle-laden tube has been investigated in the High-Temperature Combustion Facility (HTCF) at BNL. The main component of the HTCF is a 27.3-cminner diameter heated detonation tube. In the present experiments, five 3.1-meter-long tube sections were used with a vent section placed in between each tube section. The total vent area per vent section is four times the tube's cross-sectional area. The entire length of the vessel is filled with 20.6-cm-inner diameter orifice plates, with 27.3-cm spacing, to promote flame acceleration. Hydrogen-air-steam mixtures were tested at initial temperatures up to 650K and at an initial pressure of 0.1 MPa. In these venting experiments, the flame was observed to accelerate very quickly in the first tube section before the first vent section. For lean hydrogen mixtures, after the first vent section, the flame velocity decayed to a velocity on the order of the laminar burning velocity. For more sensitive mixtures, the flame reached a quasi-steady flame velocity similar to flame propagation in the choking regime observed in tests without venting. For all initial temperatures, the lean limit for significant flame acceleration (i.e., choking regime limit) with venting increased over the nonventing case by an average of 2 percent hydrogen. In the choking regime, the flame was observed to accelerate in the tube section to a maximum velocity close to the speed of sound in the products and then decelerate across the vent section. There was little evidence of any variation in the global average velocity (i.e., average over the length of one vent and tube section) once the flame entered this mode of propagation. Pressure measurements taken before the last vent section, near the end of the tube, were similar to overpressures measured in tests without venting. At the limited temperatures tested where DDT was observed, the minimum hydrogen concentration required for transition to detonation increased with venting present as compared to without venting. In all cases, after a certain propagation distance, the detonation wave failed due to local venting effects and continued to propagate at a velocity characteristic of the choking regime. iii iii NUREG/CR-6524


A system for the rapid and noncontaminating sampling of trace elements with volumes of up to 36 L per depth and including the dissolved and particulate phases has been developed for ocean sections that are a crucial part of programs such as International GEOTRACES. The system uses commercially available components, including an aluminum Seabird Carousel with all titanium pressure housings for electronics and sensors to eliminate zinc sacrificial anodes and holding twenty‐four 12 L GO‐FLO bottles, and a 7500 m, 14 mm Vectran conducting cable (passing over an A‐frame with nonmetallic sheave) spooled onto a traction winch. The GO‐FLO bottles are stored and processed in a clean lab built into a 20' ISO container. To minimize contamination, the GO‐FLO bottles are triggered when the carousel is moving upward into clean water at 3 m min−1. Analyses of salinity and nutrients in bottle samples from the stopped versus moving carousel show no detectable smearing, whereas the contamination‐prone trace elements show the samples are uncontaminated when compared with other clean sampling methods. Based on the use of this system on three major cruises, the launch‐sample‐recover time for the carousel (2 bottles triggered per depth) is 1 h per 1000 m, and dissolved and particulate sampling time averages 6 h per hydrocast. Thus, the system described here meets all the requirements for ocean basin sampling for trace elements: rapid, good hydrographic fidelity, and noncontaminating.


The micro-extrusion of feedstock is a promising and emerging technology for manufacturing very high length to thickness aspect ratio metallic microcomponents which are not feasible for conventional metal processing methodologies or commonly used feedstock processing technologies. Extrusion of high aspect ratio microcomponents using metallic feedstock confronts the challenges of achieving a continuous extrusion without any breakage, the geometrical accuracy, surface finish and structural properties for the component which are required for the micro-application, during micro-extrusion process. The type of metallic powder, powder size, type of binder, and binder properties are very decisive in making the extrusion process feasible for the micro-application. The influence of feedstock properties on micro-extrusion of high aspect ratio microcomponents are still unknown in case of micro-extrusion of feedstock. In this research work, the effect of type of feedstock on micro-extrusion is studied by extruding microbi-lumen tubes using biocompatible steel feedstocks AISI316 L and 17-4PH at two different aging states (no aging and 1.5 years aging). The geometrical features of the extruded bi-lumen tubes, surface roughness and structural properties are analyzed using three-dimensional (3D) focus variation microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The analysis showed that feedstock type affects the feasibility of extrusion and geometrical size to a great extent. An average Sa roughness deviation from 1.73 to 4.57 μm was observed for feedstocks 17-4PH and AISI316 L. The study also confirms that binder properties and aging of the feedstocks also have to be taken into account for maintaining the surface finish and structural properties in case of metallic feedstock extrusion of high aspect ratio bi-lumen tubes.


This longitudinal study examined how relative contributions to the division of childcare are related to individual and relational outcomes across the first 2 years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of first-time parents 6 weeks before the birth of their child and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. The results revealed that certain individual differences-especially gender and attachment avoidance-shape individual reactions to childcare, above and beyond the proportion of childcare tasks that partners report completing. Women and less avoidantly attached new parents handle the introduction of childcare tasks better than most men, especially those who are more avoidantly attached. In addition, certain reactions to childcare, such as childcare self-efficacy and perceptions of work-family conflict, moderate the relation between contributions to childcare and relationship satisfaction over the course of the transition. We also discuss the need for more research on men's adjustment during this particularly stressful transition.


There is a growing importance for libraries being able to use data to make impactful connections between their contributions to the goals of their parent organization beyond that of the traditional input/output metrics. In order to accomplish this successfully, librarians must receive assessment training to effectively enable them to do so. The purpose of this research is to address the question to what extent is assessment being taught in American Library Association (ALA) accredited LIS programs. The results of this study indicate that while research methods courses and evaluation courses are prevalent, assessment is not emphasized in LIS program curricula.


In computed tomography (CT), dense objects such as bone, metal implants, and contrast medium, induce cupping and streaking artifacts. To reduce those artifacts, various approaches have a common strategy, which is segmenting datasets into different materials and correcting them separately according to their own physical characteristics. However, in most cases, the severe artifacts hinder the primary segmentation which results in low efficiency of artifact reduction approaches. When taking noise under consideration, the accuracy of segmentation gets even worse. In this work, we applied an edge preserving step based on bilateral filtering between reconstruction and segmentation. A traditional bilateral filter performs noise reduction, and a bilateral edge detector exploits the structural edge information. By incorporating the edge information with noise reduced reconstruction images, a more sophisticated segmentation approach is proposed. Quantitative evaluations of noise reduction and segmentation performance are carried out using simulated and real CT datasets. The results show that our approach can reduce streak artifacts at a primary level, which significantly improves segmentation.


Abstract. The Himalayas have been widely accepted as one of the most sensitive indicators of climate change. However, the rugged terrains of the Indian Himalayas render it impossible to carry out ground based surveys in a periodic manner. Remote sensing helps bridge this gap with its synoptic coverage. Of all the available remote sensing techniques, currently synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is one of the most preferred methods owing to its all-weather and all-day imaging capacity. In this study we present, the decadal glacier mass changes in one of the catchments of the Central Himalayas in Uttarakhand using geodetic method. In this method, the prime step is the accurate estimation of change in elevation and area. For elevation changes, digital elevation models (DEMs) are required. The DEMs have been generated using high resolution TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X scenes and standard interferometric technique. The results indicate total mass loss of −0.05 ± 0.01 Gt in 2000–2014 in the Mandakini catchment. This study not only assesses the potential of the TerraSAR- X/TanDEM-X dataset in glacier dynamics but also facilitates understanding the melt-water contribution of the glaciers of Indian Himalayas towards future water sustainability.


Local anesthetic solutions were applied suddenly to the outside of single myelinated nerve fibers to measure the time course of development of block of sodium channels. Sodium currents were measured under voltage clamp with test pulses applied several times per second during the solution change. The rate of block was studied by using drugs of different lipid solubility and of different charge type, and the external pH was varied from pH 8.3 to pH 6 to change the degree of ionization of the amine compounds. At pH 8.3 the half-time of action of amine anesthetics such as lidocaine, procaine, tetracaine, and others was always less than 2 s and usually less than 1 s. Lowering the pH to 6.0 decreased the apparent potency and slowed the rate of action of these drugs. The rate of action of neutral benzocaine was fast (1 s) and pH independent. The rate of action of cationic quaternary QX-572 was slow (greater than 200 s) and also pH independent. Other quaternary anesthetic derivatives showed no action when applied outside. The result is that neutral drug forms act much more rapidly than charged ones, suggesting that externally applied local anesthetics must cross a hydrophobic barrier to reach their receptor. A model representing diffusion of drug into the nerve fiber gives reasonable time courses of action and reasonable membrane permeability coefficients on the assumption that the hydrophobic barrier is the nodal membrane. Arguments are given that there may be a need for reinterpretation of many published experiments on the location of the anesthetic receptor and on which charge form of the drug is active to take into account the effects of unstirred layers, high membrane permeability, and high lipid solubility.


'...a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...' Swift's devastating short satire on how to solve a famine. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift's works available in Penguin Classics are Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal and Other Writings.


PURPOSE
Little is known of the onset of breast cancer in high-risk populations. We investigated the risk of breast cancer in twin sisters and in the contralateral breast taking family history into consideration.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We analyzed a Scandinavian population-based cohort of 2,499 female twin pairs, in which at least one had a diagnosis of breast cancer and estimated the risk of breast cancer in the sister. Using a total of 11 million individuals in Sweden with complete family links, we identified 93,448 women with breast cancer and estimated the risk of a bilateral breast cancer.

RESULTS
The incidence of breast cancer in twin sisters of breast cancer patients was 0.64% per year and 0.42% per year in mono- and dizygotic twin sisters, respectively. In comparison, the risk of familial (affected first-degree relative) and nonfamilial bilateral breast cancer was 1.03% per year and 0.68% per year, respectively. Contrary to the risk of unilateral disease, the risk of cancer in the nonaffected twin and the opposite breast was not affected by age or time since first event. The relative risk of familial bilateral cancer was 52% higher (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 1.52; 95% CI, 1.42 to 1.64) and the relative risk in the dizygotic twin sister was 25% lower (IRR = 0.75; 95% CI, 0.61 to 0.91) compared with the risk of nonfamilial bilateral cancer.

CONCLUSION
The elevated risk of breast cancer in high-risk groups is little affected by age and time since diagnosis. Our findings suggest that susceptible groups of women might have already aggregated genetic prerequisites for breast cancer.


The regulation of commercial speech in the interests of public health is an issue which recently has become the topic of numerous debates. Two examples of such governmental regulation are the subjects of discussion in this article, namely the prohibition on the advertising and promotion of tobacco products, as well as the proposed prohibition on the advertising and promotion of infant formulae and other foods and products marketed as being suitable for infants or young children. The article seek to evaluate the recently proposed regulations published in terms of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act in the light of the reasoning by the Supreme Court of Appeal in the British American Tobacco South Africa (Pty) Limited v Minister of Health 463/2011) [2012] ZASCA 107 (20 June 2012) decision, and in particular in terms of the section 36 test of reasonableness and proportionality found in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. It argues that, although the South African Department of Health must be applauded for its attempt at improving public health in the country, some of the provisions of the proposed regulations are not constitutionally sound. It will be contended that, despite the fact that the promotion of breastfeeding is a laudable goal, the introduction only of measures which restrict the right to advertise these types of products will not necessarily achieve this objective.


KNOT, P., J. SKLADANKA, F. HRABE, P. SLAMA, A. NAWRATH and M. KVASNOVSKY, 2015. Changes in the species diversity of grassland communities during secondary succession. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 21: 822–828 Treatments of N, P and K fertilization levels were studied over the course of 18 years (1992–2009) of secondary succession in a semi-cultural permanent meadow community of Sanquisorba Festucetum comutatae on a mesophytic site in a fodder production area. Results of the evaluation of species diversity levels show that on average only 23.7 species (max. 34 species) contribute to actual fodder production, i.e. only 44% of species ascertained. A high level of N fertilization – 180 kg.ha–1 year–1 – significantly lowered the number of species (average – 19.9) in comparison to the variant without NPK (25.3 species), as well as in comparison to PK (26.3) and 90 kg N–1 year–1 + PK (23.4). Grasses make up on average 43.0% of the total number of species, legumes 5.9% and other herbs 51.1%. In the course of secondary succession, the number of species averaged across all treatments significantly increased, with 25.6 species in the 3rd post-stabilization phase (years 13–18) and 20.8 species in the 1st phase of succession (years 1–6). From % dominance point of view (expressed as the percentage weight of different species groups relative to total weight), there was a significant decrease in % dominance of grass components from 60.8% (1st phase) to 47.8% (3rd phase) and an increase in % dominance of other herbs from 35.3% (1st phase) to 46.8% (3rd phase). Across all successional phases, intensive N + PK fertilization significantly increased % dominance of grass components from 41.1%, and 39.8% for the variants without N fertilization, to 59.2% for N 90 and 69.7% for N 180 kg.ha–1 year–1 variant.


In multiple studies DNA methylation has proven to be an accurate biomarker of age. To develop these biomarkers, the methylation of multiple CpG sites is typically linearly combined to predict chronological age. By contrast, in this study we apply the Universal PaceMaker (UPM) model to investigate changes in DNA methylation during aging. The UPM was initially developed to study rate acceleration/deceleration in sequence evolution. Rather than identifying which linear combinations of sites predicts age, the UPM models the rates of change of multiple CpG sites, as well as their starting methylation levels, and estimates the age of each individual to optimize the model fit. We refer to the estimated age as the "epigenetic age", which is in contrast to the known chronological age of each individual. We construct a statistical framework and devise an algorithm to determine whether a genomic pacemaker is in effect (i.e rates of change vary with age). The decision is made by comparing two competing likelihood based models, the molecular clock (MC) and UPM. For the molecular clock model, we use the known chronological age of each individual and fit the methylation rates at multiple sites, and express the problem as a linear least squares and solve it in polynomial time. For the UPM case, the search space is larger as we are fitting both the epigenetic age of each individual as well as the rates for each site, yet we succeed to reduce the problem to the space of individuals and polynomial in the more significant space—the methylated sites. We first tested our algorithm on simulated data to elucidate the factors affecting the identification of the pacemaker model. We find that, provided with enough data, our algorithm is capable of identifying a pacemaker even when a weak signal is present in the data. Based on these results, we applied our method to DNA methylation data from human blood from individuals of various ages. Although the improvement in variance across sites between the UPM and MC was small, the results suggest that the existence of a pacemaker is highly significant. The PaceMaker results also suggest a decay in the rate of change in DNA methylation with age.


Semiarid sagebrush ecosystems are being transformed by wildfire, rangeland improvement techniques, and exotic plant invasions, but the effects on ecosystem C and N dynamics are poorly understood. We compared ecosystem C and N pools to 1-m depth among historically grazed Wyoming big sagebrush, introduced perennial crested wheatgrass, and invasive annual cheatgrass communities, to examine whether the quantity and quality of plant inputs to soil differs among vegetation types. Natural abundance δN isotope ratios were used to examine differences in ecosystem N balance. Sagebrush-dominated sites had greater C and N storage in plant biomass compared to perennial or annual grass systems, but this was predominantly due to woody biomass accumulation. Plant C and N inputs to soil were greatest for cheatgrass compared to sagebrush and crested wheatgrass systems, largely because of slower root turnover in perennial plants. The organic matter quality of roots and leaf litter (as C:N ratios) was similar among vegetation types, but lignin:N ratios were greater for sagebrush than grasses. While cheatgrass invasion has been predicted to result in net C loss and ecosystem degradation, we observed that surface soil organic C and N pools were greater in cheatgrass and crested wheatgrass than sagebrush-dominated sites. Greater biomass 1 Coauthors: John M. Stark, Urszula Norton, A. Joshua Leffler, Michael Peek, and Ron Ryel. With kind permission from Springer Media: Hooker, T. D., J. M. Stark, U. Norton, A. J. Leffler, M. Peek, and R. Ryel. 2008. Distribution of ecosystem C and N within contrasting vegetation types in a semiarid rangeland in the Great Basin, USA. Biogeochemistry 90:291-308. 18 turnover in cheatgrass and crested wheatgrass versus sagebrush stands may result in faster rates of soil C and N cycling, with redistribution of actively cycled N towards the soil surface. Plant biomass and surface soil δN ratios were enriched in cheatgrass and crested wheatgrass relative to sagebrush-dominated sites. Source pools of plant available N could become N enriched if faster soil N cycling rates lead to greater N trace gas losses. In the absence of wildfire, if cheatgrass invasion does lead to degradation of ecosystem function, this may be due to faster nutrient cycling and greater nutrient losses, rather than reduced organic matter inputs.


Mining readiness is continually emphasized. Training is conducted to ensure that selected aerial forces remain in a state of mine readiness. Naval air forces and mine assembly personnel are capable of rapid deployment to operate from overseas bases and carriers. Tactics for mine laying in a hostile environment are under constant development, and prepositioned mine stocks are held in a high state of readiness to support approved mining plans. Research and development continues for new mines and components, including such features as improved capabilities against submarine and surface targets, better resistance against minesweeping and hunting, more flexibility, easier and less expensive maintenance, simpler and faster preparation for laying, and improvement of mine detection and control systems with increased sophistication. A sophisticated technique for aerial mine presented in this paper including the technologies of the wireless communication to construct a mesh of aerial mine, and GPS technologies for the orientation positioning, also the ultrasonic techniques for target detection.


Relatively little is known about the consumer perceptions of own brands in the newly emerging markets of central and eastern Europe. This paper attempts to fill a gap in knowledge by investiga-ting various aspects of consumer perceptions of Tesco own brands in the Czech Republic. The key data for this research was collected by structured questionnaires from Tesco supermarket customers in the Czech Republic and the UK. Non probability quota sampling was used and the sample was stratified according to gender, age and income. The results of the research indicate that the general view of Tesco own brands is slightly less positive among Czech than British customers. However, significant differences emerge when these are examined in terms of income. Increases in income lead to a decrease in the favourability with which own brands are viewed in the Czech Republic – the opposite to the position in the UK. The age of consumers was also found to be significant, although there is not a linear trend. No strong correlation was found to exist between gender and any of the characteristics under investigation. The sample was limited in size (n=100 in each country). In depth interviewing would be necessary to assess consumer attitudes further. The results of this research may help Tesco in relation to its general expansion in central and eastern Europe and its brand building in particular. The originality of the paper relates to its study of consumer behaviour in one of the emerging markets of central and eastern Europe.


The nature of computational principles of syntax remains to be elucidated. One promising approach to this problem would be to construct formal and abstract linguistic models that parametrically predict the activation modulations in the regions specialized for linguistic processes. In this article, we review recent advances in theoretical linguistics and functional neuroimaging in the following respects. First, we introduce the two fundamental linguistic operations: Merge (which combines two words or phrases to form a larger structure) and Search (which searches and establishes a syntactic relation of two words or phrases). We also illustrate certain universal properties of human language, and present hypotheses regarding how sentence structures are processed in the brain. Hypothesis I is that the Degree of Merger (DoM), i.e., the maximum depth of merged subtrees within a given domain, is a key computational concept to properly measure the complexity of tree structures. Hypothesis II is that the basic frame of the syntactic structure of a given linguistic expression is determined essentially by functional elements, which trigger Merge and Search. We then present our recent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, demonstrating that the DoM is indeed a key syntactic factor that accounts for syntax-selective activations in the left inferior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus. Hypothesis III is that the DoM domain changes dynamically in accordance with iterative Merge applications, the Search distances, and/or task requirements. We confirm that the DoM accounts for activations in various sentence types. Hypothesis III successfully explains activation differences between object- and subject-relative clauses, as well as activations during explicit syntactic judgment tasks. A future research on the computational principles of syntax will further deepen our understanding of uniquely human mental faculties.


The dramatic growth of the wireless communication industry has resulted in searches for new technologies to provide broader bandwidth per user channel, better quality, and new value-added services. Employing smart antennas presents an elegant and relatively economical way to improve the performance of wireless transmission. The Handbook on Advancements in Smart Antenna Technologies for Wireless Networks is the most comprehensive reference source on smart antenna technologies. Featuring chapter contributions from leading experts in both academia and industry, this uniquely comprehensive reference offers in-depth descriptions of terminologies, concepts, methods, and applications related to smart antennas in various wireless systems.


This report summarises observations made on a field visit to areas affected by the May 2010
eruption of Volcan Tungurahua, Ecuador. The focus of this trip, carried out in September
2010 by a field team from the University of Canterbury and University College London, was
to investigate both direct and indirect effects of ashfall on critical infrastructure, and the
management of ashfall events. In particular we paid attention to less-studied areas of interest
including electrical power and healthcare systems. All infrastructure topics explored aspects
of resilience and adaptation, in the context of ongoing volcanic unrest at Tungurahua since
1999. Research methods were largely qualitative and included semi-structured interviews,
observation, water testing and informal conversations and meetings with locals.
A good overview of ashfall impacts on electricity networks, healthcare services and
emergency management issues was achieved during the trip. The information gathered adds
to our knowledge of the possible effects of volcanic ashfall on infrastructure and public
services. Further insights into impacts of water, wastewater, transportation and agriculture
were gained.
Overall, infrastructure seemed to function well during the 2010 eruption, with only minor
problems reported. However, the May 2010 eruption generated only minor ashfalls (a few
mm) in most locations. Over the past 11 years of volcanic unrest, other events have caused
more serious impacts, particularly a VEI 3 eruption on 16-17 August 2006.
Electrical supplies suffered few problems, with no reports of electrical flashover from ashfalls.
Problems arising from contamination of open water supplies have led to an initiative to cover
water supplies. In the transport sector, the 2010 eruption resulted in a two-day closure of
Guayaquil international airport due to risks to aircraft. Roads in the Tungurahua region have
been frequently damaged by lahars over the past 11 years. The 2010 eruption caused
partial damage to 3740 ha of crops. Far more severe, although localised, damage to crops,
livestock and rural communities was caused by the August 2006 eruption.
Healthcare centres are well-organised and are able to prioritise essential services in the
event of an ashfall, and so experience few major impacts, but a variety of minor impacts on
facilities and equipment. A variety of public health pathologies have increased by small
amounts in the short term after ashfalls, and psychological impacts in communities affected
by eruptions have increased since activity began at Volcan Tungurahua in 1999, and have
required increased attention from healthcare professionals in the long term. Emergency
management insights provide lessons pertaining to the benefits of local engagement and
involvement in risk management, including the influential role of the vigias, who act as
observers of volcanic activity and coordinators of voluntary civil defence within the
community.
The focus on adaptations and responses to the long-term volcanic activity has provided
insights into the long-term effects of volcanic activity and helped identify possible mitigation
and prevention measures. It is found that in general, increased maintenance of infrastructure
now occurs widely across sectors, and cleanup methods for specific sectors have been
developed to cope with ashfalls. The cleanup of ash at the municipal level is well organised,
and is coordinated with the National Secretariat of Risk Management such that costs are
shared with the proportions adjusted according to the severity of the situation. Increased use
of personal protective measures (such as masks and goggles) has achieved a reduction in public health impacts. Healthcare centres are also well organised, forming brigades for rapid
response in affected areas, and having a clear hierarchy of health centres within each region
so that patients can be transferred if necessary. They have good knowledge of the volcanic
alert level system and the protocols required for each alert level change. Emergency
management also appears organised. Emergency drills are run in at-risk communities, and
contingency plans are updated and revised following eruptions. Hazard warning and shelter
signage is also widespread in the Tungurahua volcanic hazard area.
Overall, we found clear evidence for increased organisation and improved management
procedures in the Tungurahua volcanic hazard area, which should have strengthened
societal resilience. Additionally individual adaptive behaviour has included: increased use of
personal protective equipment, which has reduced public health effects; farmers growing
more ash-resilient crops including onions, and using greenhouses for crop growth; farmers
only rearing livestock for a shortened period of time in the area, in order to prevent tooth
abrasion; and an initiative to cover water supplies to protect them from contamination by
ashfalls.
Other examples of adaptations to infrastructure have included: widespread hazard signage;
sirens in and around Banos for early warning (with an alternate power supply in case of
power cuts, and a contingency emergency services siren system); floodgate design at
Agoyan dam for bypassing turbulent water; and the development of plans to relocate
electrical transmission towers away from valleys that have, in the past, been affected by
lahars.
Further studies in the Tungurahua volcanic area would be beneficial, to gain long-term
understanding of volcanic ash consequences on a variety of sectors, including those
explored in less depth in this study.


Demersal fishes hauled up from depth experience rapid decompression. In physoclists, this can cause overexpansion of the swim bladder and resultant injuries to multiple
organs (barotrauma), including severe exophthalmia ("pop-eye"). Before release, fishes can also be subjected to asphyxia and exposure to direct sunlight. Little is known, however, about possible sensory deficits resulting from the events accompanying capture. To address this issue, electroretinography was used to measure the changes in retinal light sensitivity, flicker fusion frequency, and spectral sensitivity in black rockfish (Sebastes melanops) subjected to rapid decompression (from 4 atmospheres absolute [ATA] to 1 ATA) and Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) exposed to 15 minutes of simulated sunlight.
Rapid decompression had no measurable influence on retinal function in black rockfish. In contrast, exposure to bright light significantly reduced retinal light sensitivity of Pacific halibut, predominately by affecting the photopigment which absorbs the green wavelengths of light (≈520–580 nm) most strongly. This detriment is likely to have severe consequences for postrelease foraging success in
green-wavelength-dominated coastal waters. The visual system of Pacific halibut has characteristics typical of
species adapted to low light environments, and these characteristics may underlie their vulnerability to injury
from exposure to bright light.


AbstractResponse to literature involves a transaction between reader and author where meaning is constructed by the reader, using the blueprints, or signs, provided by the author. According to Fish (1980a), readers and authors implicitly know the conventions of response by virtue of being members of the same interpretive community. This socially acquired knowledge enables readers and authors to conjointly create, identify, and respond to literature. Currently, increased re-search into the teaching and learning of literature has led to a renewed examina-tion of classroom techniques directed toward "teaching" response. This article presents data which suggests that many young children begin formal schooling with a predisposition, or readiness, for literary response. Evidence for this comes from a study of preliterate kindergarten children who were asked to "pretend to read" to a pretend child (doll) from a wordless picture book (Purcell-Gates, 1988). Cast in the authorial role, these children used language which proved to enhance and constrain imaging for reader response. This communicative compe-tence is interpreted through Fish's notion of an interpretive community within which literary conventions are implicitly learned. Knowledge of both the product and process of acquisition of this knowledge held by entering school children should inform discussions of instructional methodology regarding reader re-sponse. (Literacy Education)


This article emphasizes the value of creativity and arts-based learning in the sciences (STEAM education), using one example from a recent research study of creative and effective classroom teachers. The future of innovative thinking in STEM disciplines relies on breaking down the distinction between disciplines traditionally seen as "creative" like the arts or music, and STEM disciplines traditionally seen as more rigid or logical-mathematical (Catterall, 2002). The most exceptional thinkers in fields like science or math are also highly creative individuals who are deeply influenced by an interest in, and knowledge of, music, the arts and similar areas (Caper, 1996; Root-Bernstein, 2003; Dail, 2013; Eger, 2013). In light of this, STEAM must become an essential paradigm for creative and artistically infused teaching and learning in the sciences. I recently conducted a study of creative teaching practices among highly effective teachers (winners/finalists of the National Teacher of the Year program). This article looks at a single case drawn from this study, and considers the arts-based science teaching/learning employed by one of these teachers, Michael Geisen, the 2008 National Teacher of the Year award winner, and a middle school science teacher. Author/Artist Bio Dr. Danah Henriksen is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Educational Psychology & Educational Technology program, in the Michigan State University College of Education. Her current work and research interests focus on several strands of research related to creativity and technology, such as evaluation schemas for creative work, trans-disciplinary thinking, and creative-cognitive skills for teaching and learning. She is part of the Deep-Play Research Group in the MSU College of Education, which focuses on research related to creativity, trans-disciplinary thinking, and 21st century issues of teaching and learning. Dr. Henriksen teaches a variety of courses in the area of educational psychology and learning technology, with focuses on issues of design/creativity, technology for teaching, and the psychology of learning in technology-rich contexts. More information on her work (and a complete vita) can be found at http://www.danah-henriksen.com.


In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists's misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history. Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the "Age of Reason" was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason's authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.


Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease, and new therapeutic targets are urgently needed. We previously identified DNA amplification at 7q21-q22 in pancreatic cancer cell lines. Now, by high-resolution genomic profiling of human pancreatic cancer cell lines and human tumors (engrafted in immunodeficient mice to enrich the cancer epithelial fraction), we define a 325 Kb minimal amplicon spanning SMURF1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase and known negative regulator of transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) growth inhibitory signaling. SMURF1 amplification was confirmed in primary human pancreatic cancers by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), where 4 of 95 cases (4.2%) exhibited amplification. By RNA interference (RNAi), knockdown of SMURF1 in a human pancreatic cancer line with focal amplification (AsPC-1) did not alter cell growth, but led to reduced cell invasion and anchorage-independent growth. Interestingly, this effect was not mediated through altered TGFβ signaling, assayed by transcriptional reporter. Finally, overexpression of SMURF1 (but not a catalytic mutant) led to loss of contact inhibition in NIH-3T3 mouse embryo fibroblast cells. Together, these findings identify SMURF1 as an amplified oncogene driving multiple tumorigenic phenotypes in pancreatic cancer, and provide a new druggable target for molecularly directed therapy.


We present a real-time algorithm which enables an autonomous car to comfortably follow other cars at various speeds while keeping a safe distance. We focus on highway scenarios. A velocity and distance regulation approach is presented that depends on the position as well as the velocity of the followed car. Radar sensors provide reliable information on straight lanes, but fail in curves due to their restricted field of view. On the other hand, Lidar sensors are able to cover the regions of interest in almost all situations, but do not provide precise speed information. We combine the advantages of both sensors with a sensor fusion approach in order to provide permanent and precise spatial and dynamical data. Our results in highway experiments with real traffic will be described in detail.


Children's picture books are often described as fundamental in nurturing the development of young children into engaged readers and fearless writers. Many adults have a special place in their hearts for picture books they loved as children; books they read over and over again, books that spoke to their hearts and minds, and books that helped them figure out the mystery of written language. In this inter-domain course, we will take a close look at children's picture books and explore their magic though integrating humanities and the arts. We will read many, many books of different genres to examine how the written text and illustration work together to compose a work of art that we read, understand, enjoy and connect to. We will explore the criteria by which we judge the literary and artistic quality of picture books and will become acquainted with resources that can help us find exceptional books. We will also consider the significance of children's literature representing diverse perspectives and will work to deconstruct the values and biases implicit in texts written for young children. Much of the course will be organized in a workshop format through which we will learn about the authoring and illustrating techniques and processes used by notable authors and illustrators of modern children's picture books, while also experimenting with the same techniques through drafting and developing our own picture books. Our end goal will be to thoughtfully weave linguistic and visual composition elements to craft original multimodal texts for children.


Smart sensor systems play a decisive role in the condition assessment of concrete sewer pipes going through microbial corrosion. Few Australian water utilities adopt a predictive analytic model for estimating the corrosion. They require sensor inputs like sewer air temperature data for corrosion prediction. A sensor system was developed to monitor the daily variation of sewer air temperature inside the harsh sewer environmental conditions. However, a diagnostic tool to evaluate the streaming sensor data is vital for reliable monitoring. In this context, this paper proposes a temporal forecasting driven approach for anomaly detection in sewer air temperature sensor system. Several temporal forecasting models were comprehensively evaluated and adopted Facebook's Prophet method based forecasting to develop an anomaly detection approach. The proposed approach was evaluated with sewer air temperature sensor data and the results indicate a reasonable anomaly detection performance.


We report on InAlN/GaN heterostructure metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSHFETs) with an InAlN barrier layer of different compositions (xInN = 13, 17, and 21%) and ZrO2 gate-insulator/passivation. Static measurements yielded higher drain currents than those on unpassivated HFET counterparts and the currents increased with decreased xInN. Post deposition annealing of the ZrO2 insulator had less influence on the static performance but remarkable changes were observed on the capacitance–voltage characteristics. The capacitance hysteresis in both channel depletion and barrier accumulation regions was significantly suppressed after annealing. This indicates a reduction of the interfacial trap states and of fixed charge in the oxide. Pulsed current–voltage measurements confirmed this conclusion – the gate lag of only ∼80% was evaluated for 200 ns pulse width, independently on the composition of the InAlN barrier layer. These results support an application of high permittivity ZrO2 gate-insulator/passivation for the preparation of high-performance InAlN/GaN MOSHFETs.