Abstract Field, greenhouse, and laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate resistance to glyphosate in tropical sprangletop biotypes (Lv8 and Lv9) collected in Persian lime from Veracruz, Mexico. Assays to determine the dose required to reduce seedling fresh weight by 50% indicated a resistance factor (RF) of 4.9 and 3.2 for biotypes Lv8 and Lv9, respectively; whereas the LD50 showed a RF of 4.4 and 3.3 for biotypes Lv8 and Lv9, respectively. On the other hand, the RFs using whole plant dose–response assays were lower (RF of 3 for Lv8 and 2.3 for Lv9). The susceptible biotype (LvS) accumulated 5.5 and 11.8 times more shikimate than biotypes Lv8 and Lv9, respectively, at 96 h after treatment (HAT). In field experiments, alternatives to glyphosate-resistant tropical sprangletop management were identified. Indaziflam + glufosinate and paraquat + diuron provided over 80% control of in-field populations of tropical sprangletop at 60 d after treatment (DAT). These results confirmed the first reported case of glyphosate-resistant tropical sprangletop. Nomenclature: Diuron; indaziflam; paraquat; glufosinate; glyphosate; tropical sprangletop, Leptochloa virgata (L.) P. Beauv.; Persian lime, Citrus latifolia Tan.


Predicting human activities is important for improving recommender systems or analyzing social relationships among users. Those human activities are usually represented as multi-object relationships (e.g. user's tagging activities for items or user's tweeting activities at some locations). Since multi-object relationships are naturally represented as a tensor, tensor factorization is becoming more important for predicting users' possible activities. However, its prediction accuracy is weak for ambiguous and/or sparsely observed objects. Our solution, Semantic data Representation for Tensor Factorization (SRTF), tackles these problems by incorporating semantics into tensor factorization based on the following ideas: (1) It first links objects to vocabularies/taxonomies and resolves the ambiguity caused by objects that can be used for multiple purposes. (2) It then links objects to composite classes that merge classes in different kinds of vocabularies/taxonomies (e.g. classes in vocabularies for movie genres and those for directors) to avoid low prediction accuracy caused by rough-grained semantics. (3) It finally lifts sparsely observed objects into their classes to solve the sparsity problem for rarely observed objects. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that leverages semantics to inject expert knowledge into tensor factorization. Experiments show that SRTF achieves up to 10% higher accuracy (lower RMSE value) than state-of-the-art methods.


Abstract Using Spain and the Czech Republic as examples of two EU countries with different labour market performance, we apply a gross flow analysis based on EU-SILC longitudinal data. We find that while in Spain the increases in youth unemployment are driven mostly by young people who lose their jobs, in the Czech Republic, this is mainly due to new labour market entrants who failed to find a job. The analysis of flow transition rates suggests that youth labour markets with enormously high unemployment rates have not failed in all relevant respects. Their development seems to be hindered predominantly by high risk of job losses and diminishing employment prospects of the unemployed, rather than by impeded transitions from inactivity to employment. In countries with lower youth unemployment rates, unemployment policy agenda appears to be challenged by quite the opposite tendency


The small and medium-sized states in Southeast Asia have faced significant geostrategic changes with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. Over the last decade, scholars have debated how these countries would cope with growing Chinese power, and how their relations with the other major powers in the region would change. Some analysts have suggested that the region is shifting toward a more China-centered order, but this view is premature. Eschewing the simple dichotomy of balancing versus bandwagoning, Southeast Asian countries do not want to choose between the two major powers, the United States and China. This avoidance strategy is not merely tactical or time-buying; instead, Southeast Asian states have actively tried to influence the shape of the new regional order. Key Southeast Asian states are pursuing two main pathways to order in the region: the omni-enmeshment of major powers and complex balance of influence. They have helped to produce an interim power distribution outcome, which is a hierarchical regional order that retains the United States' dominant superpower position while incorporating China in a regional great power position just below that of the United States.


We propose a new theory of the extensive margin of trade based on a standard random-utility, discrete choice model for import demand. Crucially, there are only a nite number of independent purchase decisions each period. Whereas traditional demand systems predict market shares, our model yields instead the probability that a purchase for a given good is supplied by any given country. The model has a rich set of predictions regarding the extensive margin across goods, countries, and time. The underlying probabilistic structure naturally reconciles two commanding observations in the data: there is a large fraction of varieties that are not traded yet the entry and exit rates of commodities are very high. We purse an exhaustive evaluation of the model's quantitative performance with data on U.S. imports at the HS10 product level over the period 1990-2001. The model reproduces faithfully the cross-section distribution of varieties traded per product along several dimensions. Regarding dynamic facts, the model is spot on its predictions on the net change, gross entry and exit of commodities, both by count and weighted by value; as well as survival probabilities and hazard rates. We briey explore the model's implications for price changes, using NAFTA as a case study, and welfare gains from new varieties.


Midcentury America was governed from the center, a bipartisan consensus of politicians and public opinion that supported government spending on education, the construction of a vast network of interstate highways, healthcare for senior citizens, and environmental protection. These projects were paid for by a steeply progressive tax code, with a top tax rate at one point during the Republican Eisenhower administration of 91 percent. Today, a similar agenda of government action (and progressive taxation) would be portrayed as dangerously left wing. At the same time, radically anti-government and anti-tax opinions (with no evidence to support them) are considered part of the mainstream. In Take Back the Center, Peter Wenz makes the case for a sane, reality-based politics that reclaims the center for progressive policies. The key, he argues, is taxing the wealthy at higher rates. The tax rate for the wealthiest Americans has declined from the mid-twentieth-century high of 91 percent to a twenty-first-century low of 36 percent--even as social programs are gutted and the gap between rich and poor widens dramatically. Ever since Ronald Reagan famously declared that government was the problem and not the solution, conservatives have had an all-purpose answer to any question: smaller government and lower taxes. Wenz offers an impassioned counterargument. He explains the justice of raising the top tax rates significantly, making a case for less income inequality (and countering society's worship of the wealthy), and he offers suggestions for how to spend the increased tax revenues: K-12 education, tuition relief, transportation and energy infrastructure, and universal health care. Armed with Wenz's evidence-driven arguments, progressives can position themselves where they belong: in the mainstream of American politics and at the center of American political conversations, helping their country address a precipitous decline in equality and quality of life.


A study of the variation in sea ice algal distribution and production was performed dur- ing June and early July 1999 in Young Sound, northeastern Greenland. Measurements were per- formed in situ by divers using an underwater pulse-amplitude-modulated (PAM) fluorometer, oxygen microelectrodes and 14 C incubations. In early June, Young Sound was covered by ~1.6 m of sea ice and ~30 cm of dry snow, which reflected ~75% of the incident light. These conditions resulted in low irradiance below the sea ice (<2 µmol photons m -2 s -1 ), low values of chlorophyll a (<1 µg l -1 sea ice) and low primary productivity (<0.05 µg C l -1 h -1 ) in the bottom ice (0 to 4 cm). The snow cover grad- ually disappeared during June, resulting in increased light penetration of up to 20 µmol photons m -2 s -1 , chl a concentrations of up to 15 µg l -1 (0.6 mg C m -2 ), and primary production rates of up to 0.2 µg C l -1 h -1 (0.2 mg C m -2 d -1 ) in the bottom ice. Light saturation curves of photosynthesis were obtained in situ on 3 occasions and showed adaptation of the sea ice algae to low irradiance; E k val- ues ranged from 12 to 35 µmol photons m -2 s -1 . Photosynthesis of sea ice algae resulted in supersatu- rated oxygen conditions (150 to 200%) at the sea ice-water interface as compared to ambient seawa- ter. In situ investigations of irradiance, algal biomass and photosynthetic activity on different metric scales showed a heterogeneous distribution of sea ice algae. Statistical treatment of the data obtained revealed that algal activity followed the light regime below the sea ice (radii of patches were 50 to 100 m), whereas algal biomass patches were smaller (radii of patches were 5 to 10 m). Sea ice algal production in Young Sound was 2 to 3 mg C m -2 during June and July 1999. Compared to other coastal fast-ice areas this rate is low. We suggest that the low biomass and productivity in Young Sound was caused by a combination of poor light conditions due to snow cover and freshwater drainage from melt ponds and river discharge removing and/or inhibiting the algae at the sea ice- water interface through physical disturbance and exposure to freshwater. The primary production of sea ice algae in Young Sound was <1% of the annual pelagic primary production.


Egypt continues to experience interreligious sectarian conflict between Muslims and Copts since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. The same factors that had contributed to escalating violence between the two communities continue to be at play in postrevolutionary Egypt. One of the key sites of sectarian conflict is interreligious marriage and conversion, an issue that ignites the passion and ire of both communities. While issues of sexuality and gender are at the center of these conflicts, religion-based family law plays a particularly pernicious role. In this essay, I rethink the nexus between family law, gender, and sectarian conflict through an examination of both the history of the emergence of Egyptian family law and the simultaneous relegation of religion and sexuality to the private sphere in the modern period. [sectarianism, Copts, Islam, state, family law, sexuality]


All patients who present to the Emergency Department undergo the process of triage. This is a complex assessment to allocate a priority score identifying how long they can safely wait to be seen by a doctor (ACEM 2006). As a consequence the score can facilitate direct access to care for triage one, two and three or result in waiting one to two hours or potentially longer for triage four and five. The process is based on strict criteria however as any process with a human dynamic open to human interpretation and manipulation. The subtle variations in triage assessment can produce individual inequities in the system. As a result of longer waiting times patients leave the department without being seen by the doctor.
This research aims to explore the groups of people that 'did not wait' focusing on patients identified triage four and five who present out of hours. This focus was chosen as the emergency department is the sole health care provider during this period. Therefore these patients were identified as disenfranchised with no other choice of health provider.

The methodological approach utilised was critical social theory as this seeks to emancipate the disenfranchised. Exploring the barriers that exist, providing a mechanism for change and highlighting ethical ways to practice nursing (Carnegie & Kiger 2009). Retrospective routinely collected electronic data was extracted from the organisational data base. Five year trend analysis and descriptive statistical data patterns were produced to identify the specific groups of out of hour's patients that 'did not wait'. The significant groupings who showed marked increases in 'did not wait' presentations were Maori children (0-5), teenage males (15-19) and Maori women (20-39) from low socio-economic areas.

In conclusion removing the identified barriers that currently exist for these groups of patients will include; recognition that rural emergency departments play a vital role in primary healthcare out of hours. Reducing waiting times through advanced nursing practice, role development and nurse initiated treatment pathways. Finally by implementing a whole systems and community wide approach to out of hours care.


A study of soil erosion in the United States, especially in Texas, which brings attention to the causes of soil erosion under the existing system of farm management. The material gathered and compiled and arranged under certail main heading. Two chapters deal with present and immediate causes of erosions and their results. One full chapter takes up the history of the conservation movement and attempts to show how slow Texans have been in comparison with some of the other states of the United States. The study calls for further research, teaching of better land-use, raising awareness of soil erosion causes and conditions.


Electron beam instabilities occurring in a gyrotron electron beam can induce an energy spread which might significantly deteriorate the gyrotron efficiency. Three types of instabilities are considered to explain the important discrepancy found between the theoretical and experimental efficiency in the case of quasi-optical gyrotrons (QOG): the electron cyclotron maser instability (ECMI), the electrostatic Bernstein instability (BI) and the Langmuir instability (LI). When the magnetic field gradient in drift tubes of QOG is low, the ECMI can develop in the drift tube at very low electron beam currents. Experimental measurements show that with a proper choice of absorbing structures in the beam tunnel, this instability can be suppressed. At high beam currents, the BI can induce a significant energy spread at the entrance of the interaction region. The induced energy spread scales approximately linearly with the electron beam density and for QOG one observes that the beam density is significantly higher than the beam density of an equivalent cylindrical cavity gyrotron. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-664X(98)01906-5]


For renewable wave energy to operate at grid scale, large arrays of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) need to be deployed in the ocean. Due to the hydrodynamic interactions between the individual WECs of an array, the overall power absorption and surrounding wave field will be affected, both close to the WECs (near field effects) and at large distances from their location (far field effects). Therefore, it is essential to model both the near field and far field effects of WEC arrays. It is difficult, however, to model both effects using a single numerical model that offers the desired accuracy at a reasonable computational time. The objective of this paper is to present a generic coupling methodology that will allow to model both effects accurately. The presented coupling methodology is exemplified using the mild slope wave propagation model MILDwave and the Boundary Elements Methods (BEM) solver NEMOH. NEMOH is used to model the near field effects while MILDwave is used to model the WEC array far field effects. The information between the two models is transferred using a one-way coupling. The results of the NEMOH-MILDwave coupled model are compared to the results from using only NEMOH for various test cases in uniform water depth. Additionally, the NEMOH-MILDwave coupled model is validated against available experimental wave data for a 9-WEC array. The coupling methodology proves to be a reliable numerical tool as the results demonstrate a difference between the numerical simulations results smaller than 5% and between the numerical simulations results and the experimental data ranging from 3% to 11%. The simulations are subsequently extended for a varying bathymetry, which will affect the far field effects. As a result, our coupled model proves to be a suitable numerical tool for simulating far field effects of WEC arrays for regular and irregular waves over a varying bathymetry.


The Research Support Team at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) runs events called research cafes throughout the academic year. During these cafes, we bring together PhD students, early career researchers and more established academics over lunch to give them an opportunity to talk about their work to a lay audience of their peers and the public. From its inception in 2013 we have maintained the overall format of the research cafe, based as it is on promoting interdisciplinary dialogue in an informal setting, while also making a few small but significant changes. These changes have in turn increased the visibility and reach of research promotion within the Library. Against that backdrop, this article – which is based on a lightning talk and poster session presented at the 41st UKSG Annual Conference, Glasgow, in April 2018 – will outline why the library is ideally placed to facilitate this type of scholarship sharing and why research and community engagement should be viewed as an integral part of a university library's agenda. It will also discuss how its success has allowed our Team to work in partnership with colleagues from across the University in new and exciting ways. Finally, it will address what further developments we can make to continue to improve and help the research community at LJMU and beyond.


Benefiting from the deformability of soft robots, calibration, and force sensing for soft robots are possible using an external vision-based system, instead of embedded mechatronic force sensors. In this letter, we first propose a calibration method to calibrate both the sensor-robot coordinate system and the actuator inputs. This task is addressed through a sequential optimization problem for both variables. We also introduce an external force sensing system based on a real-time finite element (FE) model with the assumption of static configurations, and which consists of two steps: force location detection and force intensity computation. The algorithm that estimates force location relies on the segmentation of the point cloud acquired by an RGB-D camera. Then, the force intensities can be computed by solving an inverse quasi-static problem based on matching the FE model with the point cloud of the soft robot. As for validation, the proposed strategies for calibration and force sensing have been tested using a parallel soft robot driven by four cables.


The objective of this research is to generate leads for developing our ultimate poly-active molecules with utility in central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Indeed, poly-active molecules capable of mitigating brain free radical damage while enhancing acetylcholine signaling (via cholinesterase inhibition) are still being sought for combating Alzheimer's disease (AD). We differentiate "poly-active" agents from "multi-target" ones by defining them as single molecular entities designed to target only specific contributory synergistic pharmacologies in a disease. For instance, in AD, free radicals either initiate or act in synergy with other pharmacologies, leading to disease worsening. For this preliminary report, a total of 14 (i.e., 4,5-dimethoxy-2-nitrobenzohydrazide plus 1-(1-benzylpiperidin-4-yl)ethan-1-one) derivatives were synthesized and screened, in silico and in vitro, for their ability to scavenge free radicals and inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE)/butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) enzymes. Overall, six derivatives (4a, 4d, 4e, 4f, 4g, 9b) exhibited potent (>30%) antioxidant properties in the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay. The antioxidant values were either comparable or more potent than the comparator molecules (ascorbic acid, resveratrol, and trolox). Only three compounds (4d, 9a, 9c) yielded modest AChE/BuChE inhibitions (>10%). Please note that a SciFinder substance data base search confirmed that most of the compounds reported herein are new, except 9a and 9c which are also commercially available.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the state of entrepreneurial education in library and information science programs and the influence that entrepreneurial education has on LIS students. The study adopted a descriptive research design approach. Both primary and secondary data was collected through questionnaires, observation and data review. The study population comprised of diploma and undergraduate students as well as alumni of LIS. The research data was analyzed through descriptive statistics and the results presented in tables. The findings showed that only basic entrepreneurship education was offered in LIS programs and not incorporated across all the years of study of a student. Entrepreneurship education was delivered in theory while practical experience was lacking. However, it was not conclusive from the study whether entrepreneurship education was taught by professionals or there were sufficient information resources to support teaching. The findings revealed that entrepreneurship education had little impact on student's business skills, their potential of starting business, their attitude towards self-employment and their pursuit of personal economic venture or on their creativeness and innovation. The study recommends for entrepreneurship education to be aligned with the library practices and be offered throughout the study years of a student and be taught beyond the basics while incorporating practical lessons. It should also be handled by a professional with both entrepreneurship and LIS background and supported with information resources that are relevant. Entrepreneurship education should focus on adding business skills to a student, enhancing their creativity and innovativeness and creating a mindset and attitude of self-employment and business ventures. It further recommends that institution of higher learning should adopt strategies that can help to develop the entrepreneurial potential of students.


Abstract : This two-volume report describes a framework for identifying program initiatives aimed at significantly improving US capabilities for irregular warfare (IW). The framework has two components: a characterization of the capabilities needed to conduct IW in terms of the type of capability (Understand, Shape, Engage) and the object being addressed (Environment, Population, Host-Nation Government, Red, Blue); and a set of five attributes (Human Terrain, Civil-Military Coordination, IW Combat Characteristics, Consolidation, and Transition) that distinguish IW from regular warfare. The report first applies the framework to Iraq-like IW. It identifies a set of twenty-three high-level missions and ninety-two capabilities, which are broadly assessed based on recent performance. The report then applies the framework to specific areas of high importance: Transition; Theater Communications; Personal Interactions; Civilian and Military Organizations and Activities; Policing-Related Capabilities; and Technology. Each application illustrates the study approach to identifying directions for initiatives for improving performance. Finally, the report discusses steps for implementing IW-related initiatives within DoD and how the process may serve as a vehicle for focusing the attention of subject-matter experts and stakeholders on critical IW issues.


One starless night Janie's childhood was swept away by the terrors of the Khmer Rouge. Exiled from Phnom Penh, Janie and her family were forced to live out in the open: cold, hungry and under constant surveillance. Caught up in a political storm which brought starvation to millions, tore families apart and changed the world forever, Janie lost everyone she loved. Now, three decades later, Janie's life in Montreal is unravelling. Weaving together the threads of Janie's life, Dogs at the Perimeter evokes totalitarianism through the eyes of a little girl, and draws a remarkable map of the mind's battle with memory, loss and the horrors of war.


Nonlinear distortion of horn loudspeakers can be compensated by prefiltering the electrical input signal inversely. A new filter architecture is derived from the results of nonlinear loudspeaker modeling using static nonlinear and dynamic linear subsystems. This special structure requires less computational effort and less memory than other generic architectures and allows complete compensation for the modeled nonlinear mechanisms. In practice, simplified versions of this filter can be implemented to compensate for dominant nonlinearities only. System identification performed on a particular horn loudspeaker provides valuable information about the dominant nonlinearity and allows adjustment of the free filter parameters. The implementation of an adequate filter structure for a professional horn loudspeaker in a DSP56000 is discussed, and results of the distortion reduction are presented.


zfishbook is an internet-based openly accessible database of revertible protein trap gene-breaking transposon (GBT) insertional mutants in the zebrafish, Danio rerio. In these lines, a monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) is encoded by an artificial 3′ exon, resulting in a translational fusion to endogenous loci. The natural transparency of the zebrafish embryo and larvae greatly facilitates the expression annotation of tagged loci using new capillary-based SCORE imaging methods. Molecular annotation of each line is facilitated by cloning methods such as 5′-Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) and inverse polymerase chain reaction (PCR). zfishbook (http://zfishbook.org) represents a central hub for molecular, expression and mutational information about GBT lines from the International Zebrafish Protein Trap Consortium (IZPTC) that includes researchers from around the globe. zfishbook is open to community-wide contributions including expression and functional annotation. zfishbook also represents a central location for information on how to obtain these lines from diverse members of the IZPTC and integration within other zebrafish community databases including Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN), Ensembl and National Center for Biotechnology Information.


Abstract. Intertidal benthos link tertiary predators and primary producers in marine food webs as well as directly contribute to sediment CO2 emission. However, current methods for studying food sources of marine benthos are time-consuming and does not allow direct estimates on feeding regime-related CO2 production. We examined the foods of mangrove crabs and gastropods as well as their corresponding CO2 production by using cavity-ring down spectroscopy to measure the δ13C of consumer-respired CO2, considering the effects of feeding regime, benthos taxa, and dominant feeding habit. Benthos taxa and feeding habit have significant impact on δ13C of respired CO2. Particularly, the δ13C of crab (−23.9p0.4 ‰) respired CO2 was significantly lower than that from gastropod (−17.5p1.3 ‰) respiration. The δ13C of deposit-feeder respired CO2 was significantly higher than that from detritivores. There are significant differences in the amount of CO2 emitted and δ13C of crab respired CO2 under different feeding regimes. The differences reflect diet-switching and fuel-switching in the crabs, i.e. you breathe what you eat . Significant differences in CO2 production of crabs also exist between those feeding on microphytobenthos (0.13p0.02 mmol g−1 day−1) and on field collection (0.31p0.03 mmol g−1 day−1). CO2 production of crabs is strongly related to carapace width and length. The δ13C of respired CO2 from mangrove crabs reflects their diet while crab-respired CO2 flux is related to crab size. These relationships enable partitioning the feeding habit and food sources of key benthos, and help incorporate their contribution into the overall sediment-atmosphere CO2 fluxes in mangroves.


The collection of high frequency water quality data are key to making the next leap in hydrological and biogeochemical sciences. Commercially available in situ ultraviolet‐visual (UV‐Vis) spectrometers make possible the long‐term collection of absorption spectra multiple times per hour. This technology has proven useful for measuring nitrate, dissolved organic carbon, and total suspended solids in many environments, but has not been tested in tidal marsh conditions where upstream freshwater mixes with estuarine waters, resulting in rapid changes in concentrations and salinity. These three parameters encompass only a portion of the nutrients that are of interest in these systems. To test the potential of spectroscopy to measure these and other nutrient concentrations, spectrometers were installed in a constructed brackish tidal marsh and absorbance spectra were compared to lab analyses for coinciding discrete samples. Variable selection techniques, including partial least squares regression, lasso regression, and stepwise regression, were used to develop models with which nitrate, total kjeldahl nitrogen, dissolved organic carbon, phosphate, total phosphorus, total suspended solids, and salinity in brackish marsh waters can be predicted from UV‐Vis spectrometer measurements. Significant relationships between the absorption spectra and the laboratory measured concentrations were observed for all of the parameters. Phosphate and total phosphorus were the only nutrients which had R2 values less than 0.86 for their best calibrations. This study shows the potential to collect multiple water quality parameters at a high frequency in brackish waters using in situ spectrometers and gives the tools to replicate this analysis in all environments.


Outside the confines of academia, John Edgar Wideman has achieved a celebrity few avant-garde or African American writers could claim. Although most of his novels are radically innovative and more or less inaccessible to readers lacking at least a college education, Wideman's persona exerts a strong appeal for journalists and literary scholars alike. Several popular magazines have run features focusing on the contrast between his extraordinary success and the troubles of his boyhood community or have published reviews of his novels. Klaus Schmidt lists seven published scholarly interviews in a 1995 bibliography, and Bonnie TuSmith's Conversations with John Edgar Wideman (1998) compiles nineteen interviews. Schmidt, however, bemoans the "meager critical response" to the writer's actual published work and presents his own article on Reuben as "an attempt to insert a missing page in literary history" (81-82). In light of the accolades Wideman's fiction has garnered, reflected in laudatory reviews and significant awards, the virtual silence his work has registered from scholars of American literature stands in stark contrast to the scrutiny with which the work of African American women writers is habitually treated. Apparently Wideman, who has written provocatively about the psychic conflicts associated with being a Rhodes scholar and college professor whose son and brother are in prison, presents an irresistible subject for those interested in popularizing the work of African American writers, while his novels and short stories are seen as too self-consciously experimental, apolitical, or disturbing. Only two book-length studies of his career, which is in its thirty-fourth year, exist in print, leaving James W. Coleman's 1989 monograph as the definitive study. (1) Coleman's analysis illuminates much about Wideman's concerns and technique and also makes a convincing argument about the evolution of the novelist's vision. But some of Wideman's most important work has appeared since Coleman's publication of Blackness and Modernism, including a collection of short stories, Fever (1989); the novel for which he won his second PEN/Faulkner Award in 1991, Philadelphia Fire; a "meditation on race," Fatheralong (1995); and a semi-historical novel, The Cattle Killing (1996). Because of the relevance of its concerns, the urgency and distinctiveness of its voice, and its uniquely expressive narrative technique, Philadelphia Fire (1990) in particular deserves serious consideration. Philadelphia Fire represents the apex of the late modernist project Wideman initiated with the highly experimental Hurry Home (1969). (2) Keith E. Byerman, while drawing a definite distinction between Wideman's fiction and that of "white postmodernist writers," notes that Wideman just as clearly sets himself apart from the orthodox "critical realist tradition" so often prescribed for writers with a social conscience (34, ix). Through a fragmented narrative and a modernist collage of voices, the novel treats the city of Philadelphia as a self-enclosed world of the artist's creating, a consciously textual world that contains, unifies, and imitates universalized themes within its structure. A troubling look at juvenile violence in the urban environment calls into question the seemingly insurmountable status quo that brutalizes socially marginal classes of people, as well as the significance of fictional narrative as a counter to the totalizing discourse of history. Structurally and thematically, Philadelphia Fire argues for a new form of narrative realism that transcends the typical modernist writer's alienated, authoritative vision. Wideman distinguishes between a kind of "realism" that cynically asserts the inevitability of social decay--the realism of the aloof politician who recognizes only changes for the worse in the living conditions of the poor--and a participatory, potentially liberating realism, defined as a linguistic construct. …


Background: Air travel may be associated with the spread of viruses via infected passengers and potentially through in-flight transmission. Given the novelty of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, transmission associated with air travel is based on what is known about the dynamics of transmission of other respiratory virus infections, especially those due to other coronaviruses and influenza. Our objective was to provide a rapid summary and evaluation of relevant data on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 aboard aircraft, report important policy implications, and highlight research gaps requiring urgent attention. Methods: This review is part of an Open Evidence Review on Transmission Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. We searched LitCovid, medRxiv, Google Scholar, and the WHO Covid-19 database from 1 February 2020 to 27 January 2021 and included studies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 aboard aircraft. We assessed study quality based on five criteria and reported important findings. Results: We included 18 studies on in-flight transmission of SARS-CoV-2, representing 130 unique flights and two studies on wastewater from aircraft. The overall quality of reporting was low. Two wastewater studies reported PCR-positive SARS-CoV-2 samples, but with relatively high Cycle threshold values ranging from 36 to 40. The definition of an index case was very heterogeneous across the studies. The proportion of contacts traced ranged from 0.68% to 100%. In total, the authors successfully traced 2800/19729 passengers, 140/180 crew members, and 8/8 medical staff. Altogether, 273 index cases were reported, with 64 secondary cases. No secondary cases were reported in three studies, each investigating one flight. The secondary attack rate among the studies that followed up >80% of the passengers and crew (including data on 10 flights) varied between 0% and 8.2%. The included studies reported on the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, and symptomatic individuals. Viral cultures were performed in two studies, with 10 positive results reported. Genomic sequencing and phylogenetic analysis were performed in individuals from four flights, with the completeness of genomic similarity ranging from 81-100%. Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted during aircraft travel, but the published data do not permit any conclusive assessment of the likelihood and extent. Furthermore, the quality of evidence from most published studies is low. The variation in study design and methodology restricts the comparison of findings across studies. Standardized guidelines for conducting and reporting future studies of transmission on aircrafts should be developed.


Abstract. We describe FESOM-C, the
coastal branch of the Finite-volumE Sea ice – Ocean Model (FESOM2), which
shares with FESOM2 many numerical aspects, in particular its finite-volume
cell-vertex discretization. Its dynamical core differs in the implementation
of time stepping, the use of a terrain-following vertical coordinate, and the
formulation for hybrid meshes composed of triangles and quads. The first two
distinctions were critical for coding FESOM-C as an independent branch. The
hybrid mesh capability improves numerical efficiency, since quadrilateral
cells have fewer edges than triangular cells. They do not suffer from
spurious inertial modes of the triangular cell-vertex discretization and need
less dissipation. The hybrid mesh capability allows one to use
quasi-quadrilateral unstructured meshes, with triangular cells included only
to join quadrilateral patches of different resolution or instead of strongly
deformed quadrilateral cells. The description of the model numerical part is
complemented by test cases illustrating the model performance.


In the wake of World War II, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman established the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, to determine exactly how effectively strategic air power had been applied in the European theater and in the Pacific. The final study, consisting of over 330 separate reports and annexes, was staggering in its size and emphatic in its conclusions. As such it has for decades been used as an objective primary source and a guiding text, a veritable Bible for historians of air power. In this aggressively revisionist volume, Gian Gentile examines afresh this influential document to reveal how it reflected to its very foundation the American conceptual approach to strategic bombing. In the process, he exposes the survey as largely tautological and thereby throwing into question many of the central tenets of American air power philosophy and strategy. With a detailed chapter on the Gulf War and the resulting Gulf War Air Power Survey, and a concluding chapter on the lessons of the Kosovo air war, How Effective is Strategic Bombing? is the most comprehensive and important book on air power strategy in decades.


Online learning to rank is a sequential decision-making problem where in each round the learning agent chooses a list of items and receives feedback in the form of clicks from the user. Many sample-efficient algorithms have been proposed for this problem that assume a specific click model connecting rankings and user behavior. We propose a generalized click model that encompasses many existing models, including the position-based and cascade models. Our generalization motivates a novel online learning algorithm based on topological sort, which we call TopRank. TopRank is (a) more natural than existing algorithms, (b) has stronger regret guarantees than existing algorithms with comparable generality, (c) has a more insightful proof that leaves the door open to many generalizations, (d) outperforms existing algorithms empirically.


At our laboratory extensive research has been conducted on the conversion of conventional Diesel cogeneration engines to operation on natural gas and biogas. In the framework of this research, a numerical simulation of a prechamber autoignition gas engine has been performed based on an experimental test case. With a simplified finite-rate/eddy-dissipation model for the combustion of natural gas, it was possible to properly reproduce the experiment considering the combustion duration, ignition timing and overall energy balance. A modification of the original cylindrical-conical prechamber geometry to a simpler cylindrical one was tested with the simulation model. The influence of burnt gases inside the prechamber was assessed simulating the mixture formation inside the prechamber. The simulations showed little effect of taking into account the non-homogeneities in the gas phase on the combustion duration. The new cylindrical geometry envisaged did not show any improvement in the combustion homogeneity inside the prechamber and its volume (limited by the real engine geometry) is in fact not sufficient to properly ignite the main chamber according to the simulations. The model can be used to further guide design modifications of the prechamber engine to improve performance.


This chapter focuses on the effects of aging on the process of language production from a psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic perspective. The first section of the chapter provides a detailed description of the language production system by outlining the notions of micro- (i.e., lexical and grammatical) and macrolinguistic (i.e., pragmatic and discourse level) processing and introducing to some of the most influential psycholinguistic models of message production. The second part focuses on psycholinguistic investigations assessing age-related variations in the ability to produce a verbal message. A conclusive section outlines the complex interplay between the neural changes induced by aging and the (re)organization of the language production system.


We have investigated single grain boundaries (GBs) isolated in coated conductors produced by metal-organic deposition. When a magnetic field is swept in the film plane, an angle-dependent crossover from boundary to grain limited critical current density ${J}_{c}$ is found. In the force-free orientation, even at fields as high as 8 T, the GBs still limit ${J}_{c}$. We deduce that this effect is a direct consequence of GB meandering. We have employed these single GB results to explain the dependence of ${J}_{c}$ of polycrystalline tracks on their width: in-plane measurements become flatter as the tracks are narrowed down. This result is consistent with the stronger GB limitation at field configurations close to force-free found from the isolated boundaries. Our study shows that for certain geometries even at high fields the effect of GBs cannot be neglected.


This article proposes that industrial designers should engage in design for behavioral change to encourage positive actions that contribute to a sustainable society. The article contains three sections: First, it outlines why it is critical for design to explore its potential to contribute to behavioral change; second, it presents a process for guiding designers to design for behavioral change; and third, it suggests how this type of design may provide viable future vocations for designers. While the article originated from a four-year action research study in teaching Design for Sustainability (DfS), the process also applies to the broader design community.


If the United States were subject to a terrorist nuclear attack, its president would face overwhelming political pressure to respond decisively. A well-prepared response could help both to prevent additional attacks and to bring the perpetrators to justice. An instinctive response could be cataclysmically ineffective, inflicting enormous collateral damage without achieving either deterrence or justice. An international security doctrine of Mutually Assured Support can make the response to such attacks more effective as well as less likely—by requiring preparations that reduce the threat. The doctrine requires all subscribing nations to mobilize fully in support of the attacked nation, in return for a promise of nonretaliation. It provides a vehicle for domestic and international leadership, allowing the president to engage the American people, from a position of strength, around an issue that has had little public discussion. The authors describe its rationale, implications, and implementation.


Sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase isoform 3 (SERCA3) is one of two Ca2+ pumps serving intracellular Ca2+ signaling pools in non-muscle tissues; however, unlike the ubiquitous SERCA2b, it exhibits a restricted cell-type distribution. Gene targeting was used to generate a mouse with a null mutation in the SERCA3 gene. Homozygous mutant mice were viable, fertile, and did not exhibit an overt disease phenotype. Because SERCA3 is expressed in arterial endothelial cells, aortic ring preparations were analyzed to determine whether it is involved in the regulation of vascular tone. Contraction-isometric force relations in response to phenylephrine or KCl, as well as relaxation produced by exposure to a nitric oxide donor, were similar in wild-type and null mutant aortas. Acetylcholine-induced endothelium-dependent relaxation of aortas after precontraction with phenylephrine was significantly reduced in homozygous mutants (61.3 ± 5.6% in wild type, 35.4 ± 7.3% in mutants). Ca2+ imaging of cultured aortic endothelial cells demonstrated that the acetylcholine-induced intracellular Ca2+ signal is sharply diminished in SERCA3-deficient cells and also indicated that replenishment of the acetylcholine-responsive Ca2+ stores is severely impaired. These results indicate that SERCA3 plays a critical role in endothelial cell Ca2+signaling events involved in nitric oxide-mediated relaxation of vascular smooth muscle.


Title of Dissertation / Thesis: A THERMODYNAMIC INVESTIGATION INTO THE ALLOSTERIC ACTIVATION MECHANISM OF THE BIOTIN REPRESSOR Patrick H. Brown, Ph.D., 2004 Dissertation / Thesis Directed By: Professor Dorothy Beckett, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry The biotin regulatory system of Escherichia coli serves as a model for investigating the regulatory mechanism of a non-classical allosteric transcription factor. The central protein, BirA, functions as both an essential metabolic enzyme in biotin retention and as a repressor of transcription initiation. In its repressor function, two BirA monomers bind a 40-base pair palindromic DNA sequence thereby blocking transcription initiation at the two divergent overlapping promoters of the biotin biosynthetic operon. Binding of the small molecule corepressor, biotinyl-5'-AMP, promotes the assembly of the transcription repression complex by driving the self-association of the repressor. Here, the effects of binding of four corepressors on the self-association and DNA binding properties of BirA have been measured utilizing sedimentation equilibrium and DNaseI footprinting analyses. The results of this study indicate that biotinyl-5'-AMP and an ester analog, biotinol-AMP, are strong allosteric activators of BirA dimerization. The enhancement observed in the energetics of DNA binding closely matches with the enhancement of selfassembly of the repressor. Biotin and a sulfamoyl corepressor analog are weak allosteric effectors of BirA dimerization. Binding of the weak effectors, results in an uncoupling of the self-association and DNA binding processes. A detailed thermodynamic investigation of the effector binding process was performed utilizing isothermal titration calorimetry. Binding of all four corepressors to BirA is an enthalpically driven process. However, the higher affinities for binding of the strong effectors are characterized by a relatively moderate binding enthalpy and a favorable entropic term. Whereas binding of the weak effectors is comprised of a much larger enthalpic contribution and is entropically opposed. Heat capacity changes for binding of the four effectors to BirA were determined by measuring the temperature dependence of the binding enthalpy. Results of the analysis indicate that a negative heat capacity change is associated with binding of each effector. No correlation is observed between the magnitude of the heat capacity change and the magnitude of the effect the corepressor has on the self-assembly of BirA. Finally, conditions were identified and utilized for the crystaliztion of BirA·biotinol-AMP. The crystals obtained are currently being analyzed by X-ray diffraction in a collaborative effort. A THERMODYNAMIC INVESTIGATION INTO THE ALLOSTERIC ACTIVATION MECHANISM OF THE BIOTIN REPRESSOR.


In this paper, a nonlinear optimal control approach is proposed to plan the motion of a redundant free-floating space manipulator (FFSM) when carrying a heavy payload. Optimal joint trajectories are determined to track a desired end-effector path, for which limitations of the manipulator's load-carrying capacity and tracking accuracy are simultaneously considered. In this method, FFSM is described as a nonlinear system using the dynamics equation. The integrated performance indicator is proposed as the cost function, which includes tracking error punishment of the end- effector, joint-torques optimization, total energy improvement and instability avoidance of the base. Then the state- dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) is established and solved by Taylor series approximation method. The motion planning algorithm is presented, subject to multi-constraints. Simulations are performed for a 7-DOF space manipulator and the results are discussed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


BACKGROUND
Obstetric brachial plexus palsy, which occurs in 1-3 per 1000 live births, results from traction and/or compression of the brachial plexus in utero, during descent through the birth canal or during delivery. This results in a spectrum of injuries that range in extent of damage and severity and can lead to a lifelong impairment and functional difficulties associated with the use of the affected upper limb. Most infants diagnosed with obstetric brachial plexus palsy receive treatment, such as surgery to the brachial plexus, physiotherapy or occupational therapy, within the first months of life. However, there is controversy regarding the most effective form of management. This review follows on from our previous systematic review which investigated the effectiveness of primary conservative management in infants with obstetric brachial plexus palsy. This systematic review focuses on the effects of primary surgery.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this review was to systematically assess and collate all available evidence on effectiveness of primary brachial plexus surgery for infants with obstetric brachial plexus palsy.

SEARCH STRATEGY
A systematic literature search was performed using 13 databases: TRIP, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, Proquest 5000, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews, Expanded Academic ASAP, Meditext, Science Direct, the Physiotherapy Evidence Database, Proquest Digital Dissertations, Open Archives Initiative Search Engine, the Australian Digital Thesis program. Those studies that were reported in English and published between July 1992 to June 2004 were included in this review.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Quantitative studies that investigated the effectiveness of primary brachial plexus surgery for infants with obstetric brachial plexus palsy were eligible for inclusion into this review. This excluded studies where infants were solely managed conservatively or with pharmacological agents, or underwent surgery for the management of secondary deformities.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two independent reviewers assessed the eligibility of each study for inclusion into the review, the study design used and its methodological quality. Where any disagreement occurred, consensus was reached by discussion. Studies were also assessed for clinical homogeneity by considering populations, interventions and outcomes. Where heterogeneity was present, synthesis was undertaken in a narrative format.

RESULTS
Twenty-one studies were included in the review. Most were ranked low on the hierarchy of evidence (no randomised controlled trials were found), and most had only fair methodological quality. Surgical intervention was variable, as were the eligibility criteria for surgery, the timing of surgery and the outcome instruments used to evaluate the effect of surgery. Therefore, it is difficult to draw conclusions regarding the effectiveness of primary brachial plexus surgery for infants with obstetric brachial plexus palsy.

CONCLUSIONS
Although there is a wealth of information regarding the outcome following primary brachial plexus surgery it was not possible to determine whether this treatment is effective in increasing functional recovery in infants with obstetric brachial plexus palsy. Further research is required to develop standardised surgical criteria, and standardised outcome measures should be used at specific points in time during the recovery process to facilitate comparison between studies. Moreover, comparison groups are required to determine the relative effectiveness of surgery compared with other forms of management.


This thesis examines the role of sociology in producing visions of rural transformation in interwar Romania. Focusing on the Bucharest School of Sociology, led by Dimitrie Gusti, whose studies in many ways shaped broader academic, social, and political views of the peasantry, it traces the establishment of the discipline as a reputable source of knowledge about the countryside and examines the ways in which sociologists conceptualised and sought to influence the ongoing transformation of rural Romania. The theme of transformation therefore runs through the various stages in the production of sociological knowledge, from the encounter between sociologists and the peasantry, to the intellectual debates over their findings, and to the various blueprints for rural transformation the School produced, considering how sociology shaped and was in turn shaped by its relationship with both the rural world and the state. It explores the constant shift between the lament over social and cultural change in the countryside and the desire to manage its modernisation scientifically.
Examining the Bucharest School of Sociology challenges existing conceptual divisions used to understand the politics of interwar Romania. The thesis argues that the School's ethos drew in intellectuals of both the right and the left, all of whom believed that scientific knowledge harnessed to the power of the state was the only solution to Romania's 'agrarian question'. Moreover, this study makes an important contribution to the existing literature on the role of social sciences in state-building and modernisation processes by placing Romanian sociology in a wider interwar intellectual effort of finding the perfect balance between rurality and modernity. It complements and casts new light on studies concentrating mainly on Western states, colonial regimes and the Soviet Union, by looking at how the intellectuals of an independent agrarian state sought to aid its modernisation and integration into the world capitalist system. Finally, it uncovers issues that are very relevant for current debates about the fate of the peasantry in developing countries.


Competition policy is at a crossroads on both sides of the Atlantic. In this insightful book, judges, enforcers and academics in law and economics look at the consensus built so far and clarify controversies surrounding the issue.


The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902 – 04) made the first topographical survey and geological assessment of Laurie Island, one of the South Orkney Islands. The expedition's surgeon and geologist, J. H. H. Pirie, provided competent geological descriptions but these were largely overshadowed by his misidentification of an obscure plant fossil as a graptolite. Erroneous confirmation by eminent British palaeontologists led to Triassic rocks being regarded as Lower Palaeozoic for fifty years. The mistake arose from the familiarity of all concerned with the geology of the Scottish Southern Uplands: they were led astray by the preconception that, as in Scotland, deformed 'greywacke–shale' successions would contain Lower Palaeozoic fossils. Other, more successful aspects of the expedition's geological investigations are less well known. Fossils acquired in the Falkland Islands expanded that archipelago's poorly known Devonian brachiopod fauna, but arguably the most important palaeontological discovery lay unrecognized for ten years. A limestone block dredged from the bed of the Weddell Sea contained Early Cambrian archaeocyath fossils which, had they been promptly identified, would have been the first record of this important Antarctic palaeofauna. Instead, the Weddell Sea material complemented fossils recovered on the opposite, Ross Sea side of the Antarctic continent during Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition (1907 – 09).


Today's rapid pace of technological change has fundamentally transformed global IT outsourcing. Traditionally viewed as a cost-saving measure, IT outsourcing is increasingly leveraged as a strategic tool for acquiring cutting-edge innovation. Many companies are expanding their portfolios of IT suppliers to include smaller, highly innovative companies. This pursuit of emerging technologies and capabilities, however, has elevated the complexity of managing supplier portfolios. The outsourcing practices that companies have been maturing in the past decade are under a new level of duress. Today, organizations need to reimagine IT outsourcing strategies in increasingly turbulent business environments.


Callimachus of Cyrene, born ca. 310 BCE, after studying philosophy at Athens, became a teacher of grammar and poetry at Alexandria. Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (reigned 285-247) made him when still young a librarian in the new library at Alexandria; he prepared a great catalogue of its books. Callimachus was author of much poetry and many works in prose, but not much survives. His hymns and epigrams are given with works by Aratus and Lycophron in another volume (no. 129) of the Loeb Classical Library. In the present volume are included fragments of the Aetia (Causes), aetiological legends concerning Greek history and customs; fragments of a book of Iambi; 147 fragments of the epic poem Hecale, which described Theseus's victory over the bull which infested Marathon; and other fragments. We have no explicit information about the poet Musaeus, author of the short epic poem on Hero and Leander, except that he is given in some manuscripts the title Grammatikos, a teacher learned in the rhetoric, poetry and philosophy of his time. He was obviously a follower of the Egyptian poet Nonnus of Panopolis, of the fifth century AD, and his poem seems also to presuppose the Paraphrase of the Psalms of Pseudo-Apollinarius which can be dated to the period 460-470. Musaeus takes up a subject whose first detailed treatment is preserved in Ovid's Heroides (Epistles 18 and 19), but he presents it in a quite different manner. Among the literary antecedents to which this learned grammatikos expressly alludes, the most prominent are Books 5 and 6 of the Odyssey and Plato's Phaedrus. He draws too on the Hymns of Proclus and the Metaphrasis of the Gospel of St. John by Nonnus. He was most probably a Christian Neoplatonist writing a Christian allegory.


ABSTRACT Imagine that one could arrange atoms in any form one wanted: What would one create? What kind of mind would it take to change the world through this metamorphosis of rearrangement and design? The ultimate endgame of our current technological capability to make material things is determined by our own creativity. The author examines how technological interfaces join the human mind to objects of experience from the nanometric to the planetary scale and theorizes the impact this perceptual condition will have on the personal and collective psyche.


This study aims to investigate the possibility of improving the flame Retardancy for the hybrid composite material consisting araldite resin (CY223). The hybrid composite was reinforced by hybrid fibers from carbon and Kevlar fibers on woven roving form (45o -0o), by using a surface layer of 4mm thick of Zinc Borate flame retardant. Afterward, the structure was exposed directly to gas flame of 2000oC due to 10 mm and 20mm exposure interval. The retardant layer thermal resistance and protection capability were determined. The study was continued to improve the performance of Zinc Borate layer mixed by 10%, 20% and 30% of Antimony Trioxide. To determine the heat transfer of the composite material the opposite surface temperature method was used. Zinc Borate with (30%) Antimony Trioxide gives the optimized result of the experiment.


Purpose Acute anterior uveitis (AAU) is the most common form of uveitis and is thought to be autoimmune in nature. Recent studies have described genes that act as master controllers of autoimmunity. Protein tyrosine phosphatase type 22 (PTPN22) and Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) are two of these genes, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the genes encoding these molecules have been associated with several autoimmune diseases. In this study we have analyzed SNPs in PTPN22 and CTLA-4 in patients with AAU. Methods The functional protein tyrosine phosphatase type 22 (PTPN22) SNP (R620W rs2476601, 1858C/T), and two CTLA-4 SNPs (rs5742909, −318C/T and rs231775, 49A/G) were analyzed in 140 patients with AAU and 92 healthy controls by sequence-specific primer -polymerase chain reaction (SSP-PCR). Data was analyzed by χ2 analysis and Fisher's exact test. Results There was no significant association between PTPN22 620W, CTLA-4 −318C/T, or CTLA-4 49A/G and AAU. Similarly, there was no association with the three SNPs when patients were classified by race or gender. Finally, there was no association with the presence of ankylosing spondylitis in the patient cohort. Conclusions The data do not support an association between SNPs in PTPN22 and CTLA-4, genes regarded as genetic master switches of autoimmunity. This raises the issue of the etiology of AAU and the possibility that it should be regarded as an autoinflammatory rather than an autoimmune condition.


Decentralization of decision-making is among the most intriguing recent school reforms, in part because countries went in opposite directions over the past decade and because prior evidence is inconclusive. We suggest that autonomy may be conducive to student achievement in well-developed systems but detrimental in low-performing systems. We construct a panel dataset from the four waves of international PISA tests spanning 2000-2009, comprising over one million students in 42 countries. Relying on panel estimation with country fixed effects, we identify the effect of school autonomy from within-country changes in the average share of schools with autonomy over key elements of school operations. Our results show that autonomy affects student achievement negatively in developing and low-performing countries, but positively in developed and high-performing countries. These results are unaffected by a wide variety of robustness and specification tests, providing confidence in the need for nuanced application of reform ideas.


BACKGROUND: Individuals with peripheral neuropathy (PN) frequently experience balance and gait impairments that can lead to poor physical function, falls, and injury. Nurses are aware that patients with cancer experience balance and gait impairments but are unsure of optimal assessment and management strategies. OBJECTIVES: This article reviews options for balance and gait assessment for patients diagnosed with cancer experiencing PN, describes advantages and limitations of the various options, and highlights innovative, clinically feasible technologies to improve clinical assessment and management. METHODS: The literature was reviewed to identify and assess the gold standard quantitative measures for assessing balance and gait. FINDINGS: Gold standard quantitative measures are burdensome for patients and not often used in clinical practice. Sensor‐based technologies improve balance and gait assessment options by calculating precise impairment measures during performance of simple clinical tests at the point of care.


Teleoperation systems consist of two subsystems namely, the master and the slave. Master is used by the human operator to send commands to the slave to achieve a task. In bilateral teleoperation, the interaction forces acquired from the slave sub-system is sent to the master to increase the level of tele-presence. In this kind of a setting, data has to be transferred through a communication line in which package losses and time delays occur. Such deficiencies in the communication line results in stability problems in the system. In this paper, HIPHAD desktop haptic device as the master sub-system and an omni-directional mobile robot as the slave subsystem is used to develop an unlimited workspace teleoperation system. The system's stability and tracking performance under a constant time delay is measured for direct teleoperation and when model mediation method is applied to ensure stability. The results of the tests are given and the conclusions are derived.


A new method was developed for the specific and covalent labeling of fusion proteins with small organic probes in vitro and in vivo. The method is based on the construction of fusion proteins of the human O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (hAGT) with a protein of interest and the subsequent tethering of a probe to hAGT. Apart from its natural substrate, O6-alkylguanine-DNA, hAGT specifically reacts with DNA-free O6-benzylguanine (BG) derivatives, leading to the covalent attachment of the benzyl group to a reactive cysteine residue. It was demonstrated in the course of this project that the use of BG derivatives, which are modified with a desired reporter group in the para position of the benzyl moiety, enables the labeling of hAGT fusion proteins with this reporter group. Several BG derivatives carrying different reporter groups were synthesized and two major applications of the hAGT tag were established in vitro and in vivo. In the first application the covalent labeling of hAGT fusion proteins by either fluorescent probes or affinity tags was demonstrated. The fluorescence labeling of hAGT fusion proteins was achieved using BG derivatives of the fluorescent probes fluorescein and BODIPY, whereas affinity labeling was realized using BG-derivatives of biotin and digoxigenin. It was shown that all substrates were capable of labeling hAGT in vitro, but labeling in E. coli, yeast or mammalian cells strongly depended on the molecular properties, such as cell-permeability and solubility, of the BG derivative. In a second application, the feasibility of the hAGT tag to trigger the chemical induced dimerization of fusion proteins was investigated. Such an application might potentially be valuable for controlling cellular processes that depend on the dimerization of two biological subunits. First, different BG-methotrexate (BGMtx) hetero-dimers were synthesized to induce the dimerization of hAGT fusion proteins with fusion proteins of the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR). The capability of these molecules to induce dimerization in living cells was demonstrated in a so-called yeast three-hybrid system. In this assay, the transcriptional activation of a reporter gene depends on the efficient dimerization of fusion proteins of hAGT and DHFR by BGMtx. In a further approach, the covalent homo-dimerization (cross-linking) of several hAGT fusion proteins was achieved using different BG-BG homo-dimers. The cross-linking was demonstrated in vitro as well as in living cells. The use of dimeric (interacting) proteins as fusion partners of hAGT demonstrated that the hAGT tag together with BG-BG derivatives could be used as proximity sensor for protein-protein interactions. Furthermore, the cross-linking of hAGT fusion proteins targeted to different cellular compartments revealed that the system could also be used to indicate the spatial proximity of fusion proteins that do not necessarily interact with each other, but are located in the same cellular compartment. Altogether, the demonstrated versatility of the hAGT tag should make it a highly valuable tool to explore proteins in vitro or inside living cells. Key advantages of the technology are the high specificity of the formation of a stable covalent bond and the possibility to attach chemically diverse compounds.


Many scientists and doctors hope that affordable genome sequencing will lead to more personalized medical care and improve public health in ways that will benefit children, families, and society more broadly. One hope in particular is that all newborns could be sequenced at birth, thereby setting the stage for a lifetime of medical care and self-directed preventive actions tailored to each child's genome. Indeed, commentators often suggest that universal genome sequencing is inevitable. Such optimism can come with the presumption that discussing the potential limits, cost, and downsides of widespread application of genomic technologies is pointless, excessively pessimistic, or overly cautious. We disagree. Given the pragmatic challenges associated with determining what sequencing data mean for the health of individuals, the economic costs associated with interpreting and acting on such data, and the psychosocial costs of predicting one's own or one's child's future life plans based on uncertain testing results, we think this hope and optimism deserve to be tempered. In the analysis that follows, we distinguish between two reasons for using sequencing: to diagnose individual infants who have been identified as sick and to screen populations of infants who appear to be healthy. We also distinguish among three contexts in which sequencing for either diagnosis or screening could be deployed: in clinical medicine, in public health programs, and as a direct-to-consumer service. Each of these contexts comes with different professional norms, policy considerations, and public expectations. Finally, we distinguish between two main types of genome sequencing: targeted sequencing, where only specific genes are sequenced or analyzed, and whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing, where all the DNA or all the coding segments of all genes are sequenced and analyzed. In a symptomatic newborn, targeted or genome-wide sequencing can help guide other tests for diagnosis or for specific treatment that is urgently needed. Clinicians use the infant's symptoms (or phenotype) to interrogate the sequencing data. These same complexities and uncertainties, however, limit the usefulness of genome-wide sequencing as a population screening tool. While we recognize considerable benefit in using targeted sequencing to screen for or detect specific conditions that meet the criteria for inclusion in newborn screening panels, use of genome-wide sequencing as a sole screening tool for newborns is at best premature. We conclude that sequencing technology can be beneficially used in newborns when that use is nuanced and attentive to context.


In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop a conceptual model on factors that influence employer for adoption of internet recruiting and also to describe a typology and determining factors. Understanding influential issues for adoption is imperative in measuring the dynamics of internet recruiting and their probable success or failure. The paper proposes a typology of factors in adoption of internet recruiting. In addition, it also explains the general outline for examining employer responses, by presenting the relationship between the factors contributing to the phases of adoption which can lead to a specific action. In conclusion, the paper discusses directions for future research regarding Internet recruiting issues and its adoption thereof.


We provide a multiperiod model of political competition in which voters imperfectly observe the electoral promises made to other voters. Imperfect observability generates an incentive for candidates to offer excessive transfers even if voters are homogeneous and taxation is distortionary. Government spending is larger than in a world of perfect observability. Transfers are partly financed through government debt, and the size of the debt is higher in less transparent political systems. The model provides an explanation of fiscal churning; it also predicts that groups whose transfers are less visible receive higher transfers, and that imperfect transparency of transfers may lead to underprovision of public goods. From the policy perspective, the main novelty of our analysis is a separate evaluation of the transparency of spending and the transparency of revenues. We show that the transparency of the political system does not unambigously improve efficiency: transparency of spending is beneficial, but transparency of revenues can be counterproductive because it endogenously leads to increased wasteful spending.


Noninvasive, prenatal whole genome sequencing (NIPW) may be a technological reality in the near future, making available a vast array of genetic information early in pregnancy at no risk to the fetus or mother. Many worry that the timing, safety, and ease of the test will lead to informational overload and reproductive consumerism. The prevailing response among commentators has been to restrict conditions eligible for testing based on medical severity, which imposes disputed value judgments and devalues those living with eligible conditions. To avoid these difficulties, we propose an unrestricted testing policy, under which prospective parents could obtain information on any variant of known significance after a careful informed consent process that uses an interactive decision aid to deliver a mandatory presentation on the purposes, techniques, and limitations of genomic testing, as well as optional resources for reflection and consultation. This process would encourage thoughtful, informed deliberation by prospective parents before deciding whether or how to use NIPW.


Trichodesmium is a filamentous cyanobacterium of great ecological significance as it contributes significantly to primary production in oceans through an efficient nitrogen fixation strategy, including a unique cell type, the diazocyte. The aim of this thesis was to generate a deeper understanding of the structural and molecular background related to the development of diazocytes and the maintenance of diazotrophy in Trichodesmium erythraeum IMS101. Data obtained demonstrated a diurnal separation of basic physiological processes, with nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis confined to the light and cell division and diazocyte development to the dark period. Diazocyte development was preceded by cell division and expression of the main regulator of heterocyst differentiation, hetR. In non-diazotrophic cultures, subject to nitrogen depletion, a developmental program was initiated in a subset of cells that differentiated into mature nitrogenase containing diazocytes, while addition of combined nitrogen abolished development. A nitrogen depletion signal initially enhanced transcription of the global nitrogen regulator ntcA and was followed by elevated expression of coxBII (respiration) and glnA (primary ammonia assimilation) and pronounced sub-cellular rearrangements. Comparative proteomic analysis further revealed a clear shift in the cellular metabolism depending on the nitrogen regime, with 94 proteins being differentially expressed in diazotrophic (with diazocytes) as opposed to in non-diazotrophic cultures. Proteins up-shifted in diazotrophic cultures were related to supporting the nitrogenase enzyme with reducing equivalents and a lower oxygen tension. In addition, two highly divergent flavodoxins were identified with different expression patterns in response to combined nitrogen additions and the data discourage the use of flavodoxins as indicators of iron stress in Trichodesmium populations.


Seamless circum-Antarctic palaeosedimentary and palaeobathymetry maps and grids spanning the Cretaceous to present are important, because sedimentary thickness and sedimentation rates are needed to reconstruct more realistic seafloor geometries, palaeotopography and long term climate change models. To create such a dataset around Antarctica, a complete network of crosslinked deep-sea seismic reflection profiles is necessary. In this context, the multinational Circum-Antarctic Stratigraphy and Palaeobathymetry (CASP) initiative was born to provide constraints for palaeo-climate modelling. Existing international seismic data cover most of Antarctica's continental rise, but from 130°W to 160°W, a completely unsurveyed sector on the western margin of Antarctica, between the Ross Sea and Amundsen Sea, prevents closure of the Circum-Antarctic sedimentary grids, and palaeostratigraphic link. During the RV Polarstern cruise, from January to March 2010, the Alfred Wegener Institute acquired ca. 5000 km high resolution multichannel seismic data on the West Antarctic margin, using a 3 km streamer and 3 GI-guns. Among these profiles, is a ca. 1500 km multichannel seismic reflection profile the first crossing the previously unsurveyed sector. Preliminary results show minimum sediment thickness of ~0.75s two-way-time (TWT) in the Ross Sea and maximum sediment thickness of ~2.5s TWT in the Amundsen Sea. A clear acoustic basement occurs at ~6 to 8s TWT depth and similar to the internal reflectors, is traceable across the entire length of the profile. The basement topography is slightly rugged at the Ross Sea, becoming undulating and then smooth up to 123°W, where it meets the Mary Byrd Seamount region, and becomes more rugged towards the continental shelf. The continuous seismic reflectors of three distinct sedimentary packages are mostly horizontal and undisturbed, and thus provide the first possibility to link the seismic stratigraphy of pre-glacial, transitional and glacially dominated sedimentary packages in the Ross Sea, with similar stratigraphy in the Amundsen Sea. This data brings us a significant step closer to the circum-Antarctic isopach maps and grids. Polartagung 2010 ConfTool, Print Page: ShowAbstract https://webapp.uibk.ac.at/polartagung-2010/index.php?page=showAbstr... 1 of 1 11.05.2010 17:03


Abstract:  The Greater Black Warrior Basin (GBWB) is an important late Paleozoic depocenter of the southern Appalachian foreland basin containing a thick (> 2.5 km) synorogenic clastic wedge belonging to the Lower Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation. Pottsville clastics are cyclothemic, consisting of interbedded sandstone, siltstone, claystone, shale, and numerous coal beds, with orthoquartzite sandstone and conglomerate at the base. Basal Pottsville is dominated by quartz-rich sediments; feldspars increase upsection. Presence of heavy minerals, including garnets and rutile, suggest exhumation of deeper sections of orogenic belts for Pottsville sandstones. Compositions of these sandstones (Qt 60 F 7 L 33 ) reflect a "recycled orogenic" provenance. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar analysis of detrital muscovite from the Pottsville Formation yields ages as young as Early Pennsylvanian, that appear to reflect a very brief lag time for the deposition of some of the Pottsville sediment. Prominent detrital-muscovite age modes of ca. 460–450 Ma, 380–370 Ma, and 330–320 Ma are evident among these samples, and are interpreted to represent sediment from catchments containing Taconian, Acadian, and Alleghanian lithologies. We interpret the GBWB orogenic repository to have received detritus via Lower Pennsylvanian drainages of the southern Appalachians, analogous to the modern Ganges–Brahmaputra drainages of the Himalayas. There are dramatic differences in single-crystal 40 Ar/ 39 Ar age modes for muscovite among these samples that likely reflect combinations of changes in transverse and longitudinal sediment supply, Alleghanian tectonics, and progressive development of Appalachian catchments.


A crisis of urban violence has emerged in northern Central America during the past two decades. Although youth gangs are responsible for only a portion of this violence, punitive approaches to dealing with gang violence have sharpened public hostility toward gang members and created a context conducive to the practice of "social cleansing" aimed at reducing gang violence by eliminating gang-affiliated youth through extrajudicial executions. Against this backdrop of public anger and resentment aimed at gang youth, a sizeable number of Evangelical-Pentecostal pastors and lay workers have developed ministries aimed at rescuing gang members and restoring them to society, often making considerable sacrifices and taking personal risks in the process. After describing the difficul-ties and risks associated with leaving the gang, this article takes a sociological approach to gang member conversions to discover the resources that Evangelical-Pentecostal congregations and gang ministries offer to former gang members facing the crisis of spoiled identity. I draw on semistructured interviews conducted in 2007 and 2008 with former gang members and gang ministry coordinators in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and a handful of follow-up interviews conducted in 2013.


Abstract In certain passive, future boiling water reactor concepts, during emergency cooling conditions, mixtures of steam and nitrogen are blown into a pool of water via a downward-facing open pipe; at its end, large gas bubbles form, break up, and rise in the water. We have developed a computer simulation program for the hydrodynamics of the process using an isothermal piecewise linear interface construction-volume of fluid method and carried out an experiment with flow rates up to 50 l/s into a tank of 1 m3 volume. Bubble frequencies and volumes can be predicted fairly well for the case of air injection. The experiments show that most of the condensation takes place before the bubble detaches from the pipe exit. The phenomena depend mainly on the volumetric flow rate of the gas and on a parameter measuring the shrinkage due to condensation. The rates of condensation were estimated to be very high.


The suicide‐bombing by Wafa Idris in an Israeli grocery store on January 27, 2002, killing one Israeli, created excitement in the media over the perceived new phenomenon of Palestinian female suicide bombers. Palestinian women's political and even violent participation in the national campaign is not, however, new. In fact, Palestinian female suicide bombing falls within the continuum of women's political participation in the Palestinian struggle against Zionism and Israel. Many scholars have put forth gendered theories to explain the emergence of Palestinian female suicide bombing. One holds that women are trying to prove their equality with men and seeking to elevate women's place in Palestinian society. Evidence shows that even as their participation reaches the level of suicide bombing, however, the women win social praise but no structural changes in Palestinian society for the betterment of women. Another explanation is the theory of individual redemption, which argues that the Palestinian women who become involved in suicide bombing do so because they are divorced, barren, adulterers or otherwise shamed or undesirable and their patriarchal society offers no alternatives for redeeming themselves. Contrary to this popular Western and Israeli belief, however, most Palestinian female suicide bombers do not fall into any of these categories of disgrace. I argue that Palestinian society's response to female suicide bombing and the backgrounds of the women show that, in fact, Palestinian women are not driven so much by a desire to advance women's societal gains or individual redemption, but rather by the same nationalist motivations driving Palestinian male suicide bombers fighting against Israeli occupation and Palestinian suffering. I demonstrate the validity of my argument with an original chart in which I pull together both gendered and non‐gendered components of the female suicide bombers' back stories. Once charted, the preponderance of possible political and nationalist catalysts is clear. Continuing to use gendered‐based theories to explain why Palestinian women become suicide bombers limits our understanding of the phenomenon and crucially hinders our thinking about how to overcome it. 3 Acknowledgements


The study seeks to identify the methods for storage of solid wastes, ascertain the waste disposal systems, and determine the effective waste management system. The study was carried out primarily through survey method and interview of the faculty cleaners in engineering faculty in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; and a random sampling technique was employed in the collection of the data. Observations were also carried out to view the engineering student?s activities in the halls and empirical works of other scholars were consulted. Secondary data were consulted from books, journals, annual reports and internet. The study population of engineering faculty in Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU) is 2966. A mathematical model for predicting solid waste generation was developed using multi linear regression technique. A system for efficient management of generated solid waste was modeled. The faculty generates an average of 326.73kg of waste per week at a generation rate of 0.011kg/person/day. The highest volume of solid waste generation is at the engineering workshop accounting for 13.30% of the solid waste stream. Recyclable solid waste accounts for 45.30% of the total solid waste stream. Through some observations we noticed that financial constraints and lack of appropriate technologies are major challenges to wastes management in the faculty of Engineering Unizik.


Feature Issue on Optical EthernetWe present a novel proposal for the extension of the currently approved multipoint control protocol (MPCP), as defined in the IEEE 802.3ah standard, clause 64, in the form of two new MPCP messages (extended GATE and extended REPORT), maintaining full backward compatibility with the already-deployed Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) systems and allowing for coexistence with legacy MPCP flow-control messages within the same network structure. Both currently existing logical-link identifier (LLID) assignment systems [namely, one LLID per optical network unit (ONU) and one LLID per queue] are examined in depth, and a missing scenario (one LLID per multiqueue) is discussed. Simulation results conducted using C++ based implementation of standard EPON networks with support for extended GATE-REPORT MPCP data units (DUs) prove that the design assumptions for both new flow-control messages were met to their fullest extent. The eGATE/eREPORT MPCP DUs allow for per-queue scheduling from the central packet controller in the optical line terminal (OLT) at the cost of ONU-based operation, thereby maintaining the benefits of two standard solutions. The obtained simulation results indicate superiority of the proposed IEEE 802.3ah, clause 64 extension in terms of network resource management, bandwidth efficiency, and system setup flexibility.


In the light of Bakhtinian theories, this research focuses on Ulysses as a postcolonial modernist text, in which Joyce appropriates modernist aesthetic strategies to serve the purpose of narrating the nation. Bakhtin is helpful here, not only because his theories serve especially well to explain the meeting and intersection of social, political, and cultural forces in periods of transition, but also because his attempt to establish a "historical poetics" helps both to explore discourse as social/individual ideology constituting the text and to interpret the dialogue interaction between sociohistorical forces and textual representation. As Bakhtin seeks to think through the issue of alterity and accentuates the all-importance of dialogue construction, his thought is useful for interpretation of Joyce-s endeavour to turn the hostility of binary opposition into polyphonic orchestration of heteroglossia. Mediating between such binary oppositions as Self and Other, private and public, inside and outside, the Joycean text demonstrates the importance of engagement with the past to transform its nightmarish impact into creative power for the composition of a postcolonial history; the significance of incorporating and negotiating dichotomies in a triangular structure and recognizing their coexistence for the constitution of a postcolonial subjectivity; and the consequence of integrating nationalist projects and cosmopolitan dimensions for the construction of a postcolonial nation. While Bakhtin sheds light on Joyce, Joyce complements what Bakhtin leaves unsaid, enlarging the scope and implication of Bakhtinian theories. The dialogue between the Irish author and the Russian thinker results in mutual enlightenment.

The introductory chapter surveys the relationship between Joyce, Bakhtin, and postcolonial modernism, concentrating on the applicability of Bakhtinian concepts to the Joycean text. From the notion of the chronotope, the first chapter examines Stephen's ambivalent attitude toward history, and focuses on his transformation of the past in the present time-space for the construction of a divergent and ongoing postcolonial future. The next chapter explores Bloom's relation to colonial Irish society and inquiries into his shaping of an architectonic self, which results from the reaccentuation of public discourse and the mediation between individualism and collectivism. In the light of dialogism and grotesque realism, the third chapter deals with Molly's dialogue answers to Bloom's proposal of liberation, and investigates how her androgynously grotesque body transmits the external body, through her sexual body, into the textual body which is "Penelope." The concluding chapter focuses on the interillumination of Joyce and Bakhtin: while Bakhtin helps refigure a postcolonial modernist Joyce, Joyce triangulates the binary structure of dialogue, underscoring the significance of trialogue as potential technique for postcolonial construction.


Field programmable logic devices provide a cost and time efficient way to create new microcontroller designs. These qualities are particular useful and desirable for high temperature applications in hostile environments above 250 °C.

Starting from summarizing the present state-of-the-art in SIMOX high temperature developement the presented work introduces HTPAL devices as an example of a new class of programmable logic devices. These class is characterized by a range of features that were not available in am similar combination before: a wide temperature range from -50 °C up to 250 °C and above, high resistance against ionizing radiation,
flexible and permanent field programmability by the end user.

The wide temperature range results from an avantageous circuit structure combined with the SIMOX technology.

Permanent field programmability is achieved by using a new One-time-programmable (OTP) MOSFET device, called a TOXFET. The new device consists of a high voltage NMOS transistor combined with a thin tunnel oxide to initially insulate the drain lead from the transistor structure.


Uniform flow will become unstable when the channel slope is very steep. When this happens, the free surface will form a series of roll waves. This paper, using the Fluent software and applying the volume of fluid model to simulate free surface flow and the k – e turbulence model, analyzes conditions for roll wave formation in free surface flow with the aim of predicting their occurrence in chutes. This study describes how the type of cross-section of the chutes influences the formation of roll waves. Hydraulic characteristics of the flow in the physical model of the flood control structure for Azad Dam spillway, which consists of a side spillway, chute, and flip, are three-dimensionally simulated. Numerical predictions were compared against the experimental data and results show that there is a good agreement between numerical and experimental results. Results indicate that an increase in side slope tends towards flow stability and the slower formation of rolling waves. Also, the rolling waves are expected to be generated for sections of the chute when the difference between the maximum dynamic pressure and the minimum dynamic pressure in those sections is above 9,000 Pa.


Transition from description to causality and engineering Despite their centrality to life on Earth, we know little about how microbes (1) interact with each other, their hosts, or their environment. Although DNA sequencing technologies have enabled a new view of the ubiquity and diversity of microorganisms, this has mainly yielded snapshots that shed limited light on microbial functions or community dynamics. Given that nearly every habitat and organism hosts a diverse constellation of microorganisms—its "microbiome"—such knowledge could transform our understanding of the world and launch innovations in agriculture, energy, health, the environment, and more (see the photo). We propose an interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) to discover and advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of Earth's microbial ecosystems. The impacts of oceans and soil microbes on atmospheric CO2 are critical for understanding climate change (2). By manipulating interactions at the root-soil-microbe interface, we may reduce agricultural pesticide, fertilizer, and water use enrich marginal land and rehabilitate degraded soils. Microbes can degrade plant cell walls (for biofuels), and synthesize myriad small molecules for new bioproducts, including antibiotics (3). Restoring normal human microbial ecosystems can save lives [e.g., fecal microbiome transplantation for Clostridium difficile infections (4)]. Rational management of microbial communities in and around us has implications for asthma, diabetes, obesity, infectious diseases, psychiatric illnesses, and other afflictions (5, 6). The human microbiome is a target and a source for new drugs (7) and an essential tool for precision medicine (8).


ALTHOUGH MOST SOLDIERS and junior leaders involved in Operation Just Cause, the 1989 US invasion of Panama, saw combat for the first time during that operation, they behaved like veterans. This is the payoff from two decades of mutually supportive innovations in training, leadership and manning that have altered the US Army's human dimension.l Applied differently in the 20 infantry battalions committed to Just Cause, these innovations provided realistic training that provided the Army with soldiers who had confidence they could accomplish their missions; leaders who fostered a sense of responsibility and readiness to go to war; and soldiers and leaders who trusted one another and could work together under stress. The battalions successfully went from peace to war overnight and, from the outset, waged war with a skillful mix of violence and restraint. These attributes make the US Army a force that is well prepared for rapid projection into unpredictable situations that require sensitivity to the postwar responses of indigenous populations. The Department of Military Psychiatry, Division of Neuropsychiatry, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), has been studying the human dimension evolution in the Army since 1980.2 A WRAIR team conducted a systematic debriefing of the soldiers who did the fighting in Just Cause.3 The words and actions reported here represent the responses from those interviews. By comparing them with historical studies, the reader can derive an assessment of the force's operational efficiency.4 This article will discuss three aspects of that efficiency: acceptance and implementation of restrictive rules of engagement (ROE), competent performance by battle-naive personnel and junior personnel acceptance of responsibility for and adapting to unfamiliar and rapidly changing missions. Just Cause was a series of small, violent infantry actions conducted within a policy of restraint to minimize friendly and enemy casualties. Within 48 hours, the initial assault force of about 7,000 overwhelmed the forewarned Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF a military establishment numbering 7,400 supported by about 1,800 in paramilitary "dignity battalions."5 US forces accomplished their missions with few casualties among friendly personnel and Panamanians.6 Most analysts describe the assault forces and the 13,000 soldiers in follow-up operations as using firepower sparingly and behaving with competence, restraint and compassion.7 It is worth reflecting on what the soldiers in Just Cause did and how they did it-we are likely to need those capabilities again. Rules of Engagement Preventing Panamanian death and injury and property and infrastructure damage were crucial to Operation Just Cause's political and psychological success. The ROE-designed to protect Panamanians-increased the infantrymen's vulnerability by sharply limiting the use of fire-support systems. No indirect fire by mortars or artillery was allowed and howitzers were only used in direct fire with delayfuzed shells that burst inside buildings.8 Panamanian armored vehicles, antiaircraft weapons and machineguns were taken out by single shots, missiles or bursts of fire from AC-130 gunships and helicopters.9 Firepower was often demonstrated rather than applied. Only two aerial bombs were used. They were dropped by F-117As on the remote and isolated PDF base at Rio Hato with offsets to prevent casualties among enemy troops. 10 At Fort Amador, a howitzer was fired into an unoccupied building next to those held by the PDF 5th Rifle Company.ll This was done to induce PDF soldiers to surrender without bloodshed or damage to the infrastructure or private property. ROE limited use of infantry weapons also. In the initial stages of combat, the "[R]ules of engagement prevented soldiers from firing unless they were certain that the shot would kill the enemy."12 The ROE prohibited suppressive fires on likely enemy positions. Rather than achieve fire superiority early as they had been trained to do, US soldiers had to let the enemy have the first shot. …