Due to the depletion of fossil fuel resources, the utilization of sustainable and renewable biomass is studied in various fields. Wood liquefaction is one of the applicable methods for material utilization of waste biomass. In this study, valueless waste bamboo and white-rotted wood were liquefied for reuse as an alternative plastic material. The waste bamboo samples were liquefied in polyethylene glycol (PEG) with sulfuric acid as a catalyst. Then, the molecular weight distribution of the contents of the liquefied bamboo samples was analyzed using gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and the residue mass was also measured in order to investigate the residue contents. At the same time, the white-rotted woody samples were liquefied in phenol with sulfuric acid as a catalyst. Rotted woody samples and liquefied contents were analyzed with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and determined by GPC, and the residue contents were also compared with the results of non-rotted woody samples. The waste bamboo samples were liquefied effectively under the reaction conditions of a temperature of 150°C, the acidic catalyst of 12% H₂SO₄ and 1/4 proportion of bamboo samples to solvent, respectively. The residue contents were the lowest at a reaction time of 30 minutes, and after that they were increased a reaction progressed. With the help of GPC analysis, it was found that the peaks of the contents of the liquefied bamboo samples at the initial reaction stage appeared at a high molecular weight distribution, which disappeared when the reaction progressed. When the white-rotted woody samples were liquefied, due to the low powder density, the samples did not perform well at the initial reaction stage. From GPC analysis of the liquefied contents, the liquefied tendency and the residue contents of the white-rotted woody samples seemed to be almost the same as those of the non-rotted original woody samples.


Abstract Texts and images in the print media, outdoor advertisements, and on the Internet form the primary source material for this article. The Bush administration and the American media, drawing upon well-worn traditions of representation, contrasted American women and Muslim/Middle Eastern women, American and Middle Eastern male sexuality, and the moral qualities (good versus evil) of American and Middle Eastern people. They used those contrasts to explain 9/11 and legitimize war in Afghanistan and Iraq. 9/11 was simply explained through a contrast between American innocence and Muslim savagery. For Afghanistan, the predominant trope was liberating Afghan women from the Taliban, or white men rescuing brown women from brown men, a story at least as old as the British Raj. The Iraq representations were more complex; both pro-war and anti-war proponents used the same images of suffering Iraqi women and girls, but to different ends: Saddam Hussein was a demon who must be destroyed, or the suffering was caused by sanctions and Western military action. Saddam himself was conflated with Iraq, and images of deviant sexuality were employed. Throughout, American women and girls were portrayed as the right kind of woman: usually white and innocent, or heroic soldiers. In any case, they were free, not oppressed. Keywords: Orientalism, Women in the Middle East, Justifying War Introduction I am concerned in this article about the ways in which representations, primarily visual, of Middle Eastern and American women and men, generated by U.S. government spokespersons, celebrities, organizations, Internet sites, advertisements, newspapers, and newsmagazines served to interpret 9/11 and promote the agenda of war on Afghanistan and Iraq. The representations were not, of course, the only explanations of 9/11 or justifications for war, but they formed a substantial part of them. These representations have a long if not honorable history. The images of the lewd and lascivious Turk and the effeminate or homosexual Arab go back at least to the French Renaissance (Poirier 1996: 157-159). These were images of men, but Middle Eastern women haven't fared any better in Western literature. As Judy Mabro stated in the introduction to her anthology of European travelers' accounts, the veil was always an item of fascination, as was the harem. (3) The women were almost invariably depicted as exclusively sexual beings and, locked up in harems and deprived of male company, they had recourse to lesbian practices (Mabro 1991: 1-27). The same sorts of images could be found in the postcards made for French consumption in colonial Algeria (Alloula 1986). (4) Muslim women living in the United States protest that their "identity is reduced to a burka" (Al-Marayati and Issa 2002). The harem girl is alive and well in American media; for example, "I Dream of Jeannie" lives on in television re-runs and on web sites. (5) As "I Dream of Jeannie" suggests, stereotypic representations of Middle Eastern people are deeply embedded in American culture. For example, high school and Sunday school texts and curricula depict Middle Eastern people as violent, uncultured, backward, desert nomads whose religion teaches them that women are meant to be the slaves of men; indeed, the veiled woman is routinely depicted as a symbol of Islam (Al-Qazzaz 1975: 116-124; Abu-Laban 1975: 160-162; Suleiman 1977: 44-47). Popular American fiction is little different. Arab men are violent, sadistic and promiscuous sexually. The women are controlled by codes of honor, but also promiscuous like the men. And, of course they are oppressed (Sabbagh 1990). These types of images have been well documented. Jack Shaheen for example, has described the "threatening, shifty-eyed, hook-nosed, dirty, sulking Arab" in entertainment television (1980: 39). In The TV Arab he developed "The Instant TV Arab Kit:" "... a belly dancer's outfit, headdresses (which look like tablecloths pinched from a restaurant), veils, sunglasses, flowing gowns and robes, oil wells, limousines and/or camels" (1984: 5). …


As institutes of tertiary education, universities are primarily (further) education facilities and research institutes. They are intended to impart knowledge and competencies, not only in the field of further education but also with respect to social development. Whilst universities used to be geared, first and foremost, to the international and national stage, these days the regional anchoring of universities is increasingly gaining in significance. Universities are expected to commit to their region and contribute to regional development. Universities can accomplish the difficult balancing act of satisfying their mission and legitimation if they can succeed in combining the "university system" with the "regional system". Doing so implies that both the universities and regional stakeholders accept new requirements. Should a partnership emerge between the university and the region, this would mark a significant step on the way to achieving a learning region and a knowledge-based society.


During an intensive demographic study of black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) in Curlew Valley, Utah, USA, we noted unexpected large displacements among 30% of our study animals. Although understanding movement patterns-especially long-distance movements-should be an essential element for programs studying and managing wild populations, reports of such events among jackrabbits are rare. We describe aspects of long-distance movements within I jackrabbit population. We placed radiotransmitters on 393 black-tailed jackrabbits and accumulated 28,945 animal-days of data during 5 study periods between 1979 and 1984. In 146 instances, we documented hares moving ≥5.0 km, typically within 2-10 days. Although 3 hares moved ≥25 km (longest = 35 km), 63% of such movements were ≤10 km. Long movements occurred in all seasons but on an animal-day basis were most frequent February-April (24%) and October-December (52%). Vectors between north and east comprised 66% of long-distance movements documented between March and May. However, 65% of such movements during summer and 83% during fall and winter involved vectors between south and west. These movements appeared to represent migrations to and from traditional wintering areas. Despite the magnitude of these movements, the Curlew Valley jackrabbit population appears to be demographically closed, but if timing of movements varies among sex and age classes, demographic analyses on geographic units that do not encompass the entire valley could be affected. Efforts to mitigate jackrabbit depredations on growing crops or stored forages should incorporate information about seasonal movement patterns as well as the areas potential management programs might affect.


The spatio-temporal models, developed for analyses of diseases, can also be used for others fields of study, including concerns about forest and deforestation. The aim of this paper is to quantitatively check priority areas in order to combat deforestation on the Amazon forest, using the space-time scan statistic. The study area location is at the south of the Amazonas State and cover around 297.183 kilometre squares, including the municipality of Boca do Acre, Labrea, Canutama, Humaita, Manicore, Novo Aripuana e Apui County on the north region of Brazil. This area has showed a significant change for land cover, which has increased the number of deforestation's alerts. Therefore this situation becomes a concern and gets more investigation, trying to stop factors that increase the number of cases in the area. The methodology includes the location and year that deforestation's alert occurred. These deforestation's alerts are mapped by the DETER (Detection System of Deforestation in Real Time in Amazonia), which is carry out by the Brazilian Space Agency (INPE). The software SatScanTM v7.0 was used in order to define space-time permutation scan statistic for detection of deforestation cases. The outcome of this experiment shows an efficient model to detect space-time clusters of deforestation's alerts. The model was efficient to detect the location, the size, the order and characteristics about activities at the end of the experiments. Two clusters were considered actives and kept actives up to the end of the study. These clusters are located in Canutama and Labrea County. This quantitative spatial modelling of deforestation warnings allowed: firstly, identifying actives clustering of deforestation, in which the environment government official are able to concentrate their actions; secondly, identifying historic clustering of deforestation, in which the environment government official are able to monitoring in order to avoid them to became actives again; and finally, verify that distances between the deforestation warning and the roads explain part of the significant clustering.


Wind-blown sands were mobile at many sites along the desert margin in northern China during the early Holocene (11.5–8 ka ago), based on extensive new numerical dating. This mobility implies low effective moisture at the desert margin, in contrast to growing evidence for greater than modern monsoon precipitation at the same time in central and southern China. Dry conditions in the early Holocene at the desert margin can be explained through a dynamic link between enhanced diabatic heating in the core region of the strengthened monsoon and increased subsidence in drylands to the north, combined with high evapotranspiration rates due to high summer temperatures. After 8 ka ago, as the monsoon weakened and lower temperatures reduced evapotranspiration, eolian sands were stabilized by vegetation. Aridity and dune mobility at the desert margin and a strengthened monsoon can both be explained as responses to high summer insolation in the early Holocene.


Abstract: After regime change in 2000, the Serbian Ministry of Education introduced two new subjects in the schools: civic education and religious education. Representatives of local civil society associated the establishment of religious education in schools with a rise in nationalism and a split of the society into "believers" and "citizens". Representatives of the church, on the other hand, criticised the concept of civic education as redundant, and its establishment as merely the minister's "plot" to weaken the reintroduction of religious education. The paper discusses the debate on the new school subjects against the background of Serbia's socialist past, the rise of militant nationalism in the 1990s (respectively its recent ascension), and the democratisation and human rights discourse. Key words: socialism, human rights, civil society, education Introduction This paper addresses an important development in the post-socialist and post-authoritarian transformation of Serbia, namely, the reform of the school system following regime change in 2000 (1) through the introduction of two alternative school subjects: religious education (veronauka) and civic education (gradjansko vaspitanje). Before, and especially after, these subjects were introduced in 2001, a heated debate evolved between representatives of the church, and among others, local NGOs. This debate can be understood as paradigmatic for the contemporary moment of social transformation, as it shows the fundamental contentions and similarities between civil-liberal and nationalist positions concerning an important aspect of the potential direction of social change: the education of young generations. The debate regarding the two school subjects can be seen as an expression of the contemporary discourse on morality, and the promotion of an "adequate" value system legitimized through constructing images of the past. While advocating for religious tolerance and freedom within a secular state, NGO-representatives opposed both school subjects, arguing that they implied a break-up of society into "believers/Serbs" and "democrats/citizens". Advocates of religious education, on the other hand, rejected the subject of civic education as artificial and redundant, and claimed it was merely a politically imposed "counter strike" against religious education. In the course of this paper I will argue that teachers of religious education avoid discussing concepts of tolerance and human rights by means of an "argument of inclusion". This line of argument postulates the superiority of the traditional Christian values of love and charity over the allegedly redundant, artificial, and political nature of the "vocabulary of democratization". I will conclude by indicating a crucial commonality of the two positions--the neglect of the burning issue of the current decline in socio-economic rights and security, which were core values addressed in the socialist period--by reference to the "hypocrisy" or "godlessness" of Yugoslav real-socialism. In order to contextualize my analysis, I will start with a few remarks on religion in socialist Yugoslavia, and Serbia in particular. In this context, I will also briefly discuss the extent to which socialism under Tito had some features of faith, and afterwards will turn to the debate at hand and outline the main opposing arguments, and how their constructions of the past imply visions of a proper morality and a "healthy" future society. The historical background: Titoism and Orthodoxy Although Yugoslavia under Tito was considered to be less repressive of religious freedoms than most of the countries of the Soviet Block, there was a significant amount of control and repression of the church by the communist party. As specified in the 1946 constitution of the Federative Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, there was a clear division between the state and the church whereby the state was defined as secular. …


Serial M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiograms were performed on 10 patients at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after heart transplantation to determine early structural and functional changes in the allograft. Standard M-mode echocardiographic measurements of at least five cardiac cycles were averaged. Right ventricular size and function were assessed by mid-ventricular diameter and the right ventricular apex to lateral tricuspid anulus shortening fraction, respectively, on the two-dimensional apical four-chamber view. There were no consistent differences in left ventricular end-diastolic dimension or fractional shortening between study periods. Left ventricular posterior wall thickness decreased from 15 +/- 2 to 11 +/- 1 mm (p = 0.001), and septal thickness decreased from 15 +/- 2 to 12 +/- 2 mm (p = 0.0006) between the 1-week and 3-month studies. Right ventricular cross-sectional dimension increased from 34 +/- 6 to 39 +/- 6 mm (p = 0.047), and right ventricular fractional shortening increased from 13% +/- 3% to 21% +/- 5% (p = 0.0051) between the 1-week and 3-month studies. There were no correlations between any of the above changes and rejection episodes. There was a weak correlation (r = 0.53) between ischemic time and change in posterior wall thickness. Right ventricular dysfunction and increased left ventricular wall thickness presumably caused by interstitial edema appear to be normal findings early after heart transplantation.


Augmenting built density helps achieve a sustainable urban development reducing, for example, transport-related energy consumption and greenfield urbanization. Yet, in order not to undermine solar potential and daylight, an integrated design approach guaranteeing building performance in dense urban contexts is needed. This thesis shows the application of building simulation tools into a parametric 3D modeling environment so as to calculate the potential energy production from solar systems, the energy needs for space heating/cooling and some climate-based daylight metrics for several design scenarios generated by the combination of fundamental geometrical parameters. This methodology is applied to three case-studies in Switzerland presenting different densification strategies at the neighborhood scale: the urban renewal of a brownfield site in Yverdon-les-Bains and two "soft densification" interventions in Geneva, i.e. roof raising in a central area and housing infill in a suburban residential district. Each case-study has been evaluated according to common morphological and environmental indicators, showing that the urban renewal project represents a good compromise between built density and building performance objectives. Moreover, a set of optimized design scenarios has been proposed for this strategy. Although the results of this work refer to specific case studies which are not representative of all urban contexts, at a methodological level the hereby presented procedure can be used as a decision support tool in the early urban design phase also in other situations and can facilitate the choice of the most appropriate densification strategy.


Abstract Aim: Cholinergic regulation is important in the control of cardiovascular and endocrine responses. The mechanisms behind cardiovascular responses induced by cholinergic activation are explored by studying hormonal systems, including renin-angiotensin and vasopressin (VP). Results: In chronically prepared fetal sheep, intravenous infusion of the cholinergic agonist carbachol increased fetal systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure accompanied with bradycardia at near-term. Although intravenous administration of carbachol had no effect on plasma VP concentrations, this agonist increased angiotensin I and angiotensin II levels in fetal plasma. Fetal blood values, including sodium, osmolality, nitric oxide, hemoglobin, and hematocrit were unchanged by intravenous carbachol. Conclusion: Cholinergic activation by carbachol controls fetal blood pressure and heart rate in utero. An over-activated fetal renin-angiotensin-system (RAS) is associated with changes in vascular pressure following intravenous administration of carbachol, indicating that the cholinergic stimulation-mediated hormonal mechanism in the fetus might play a critical role in the regulation of cardiovascular homeostasis.


Background: Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center (AIMMC) is located in the nation's first municipally recognized LGBTQ neighborhood and has been named a "Leader in LGBT Healthcare Equality" in the Human Rights Campaign Healthcare Equality Index for the past 7 years. The LGBTQ community is a significant portion of the patient population. Health disparities in the LGBTQ community include (1) decreased access to healthcare/insurance; (2) low rates of pap smears and mammograms; (3) higher rates of suicide, depression, and substance abuse; and (4) an unknown proportion of LGBTQ patients in the practice. Methods: We administered a 19-question survey assessing participants' comfort in interacting with LGBTQ patients to 27 providers and staff at the AIMMC – Ravenswood Family Medicine Clinic. Response rates were as follows: attending physicians (26%), resident physicians (26%), medical assistants (19%), nurse practitioners (11%), registered nurses (4%), patient service representatives (7%), and other office ancillary staff (11%). Results: The respondents indicated that the intake forms do not adequately capture gender identity. Providers and staff also signaled their interest in educational opportunities regarding LGBTQ issues. In response, 2 interventions were developed. The first intervention was training in providing an inclusive environment for all patients with topics on sharing difficult patient encounters, addressing patients at the front desk, asking for preferred pronouns, developing comfort discussing gender identity, and taking a complete sexual history. The second intervention was the development of a new intake form. On the current form, all questions are separated by sex. The form does not offer a gender pronoun area for transgender patients, and the number of sexual partners equates to sexual health, resulting in inadequate assessment of risk. The proposed new intake form is unisex and has space for name choice and gender pronoun. The review of systems questions are broad and can be discussed further with individual providers, and the sexual history question is more relevant to sexual risk. Plans are to conduct a follow-up meeting and administer a survey after a trial period of the new form. Conclusion: Providers and staff are not confident in their approach to care for LGBTQ patients, but they are eager to learn how to better serve this population. Making changes to the way we address our patients does not have to be painful, and changes can be fluid and incremental.


The sunflower midge, Contarinia schulzi Gagne, causes economic damage by inducing abnormal growth in infested heads (capitula) of sunflower, Helianthus annuus L. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether sunflower midge damage could be simulated and whether that simulated damage could be used to select midgetolerant sunflower germplasm. An additional objective was to develop a quantitative alternative to the scoring systems used to visually estimate damage. Sunflower plants were treated by injecting buds with the synthetic auxin 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D), which resulted in a distortion of the head morphology that was similar in appearance to the damage caused by the sunflower midge. The extent of distortion depended not only on the dose of 2,4-D but also on the size and growth stage of the head when injected. Among sunflower hybrids tested, resistance to the sunflower midge was significantly, negatively correlated with 2,4-D damage. Therefore, injection of sunflower heads with 2,4-D appears to be an effective method of screening sunflower germplasm for tolerance to the sunflower midge. Two distortion indices, based on measurements of head shape, were compared with the visual damage system. Although the visual rating system is faster, distortion index 2 gave similar results and is preferred when it is necessary to avoid individual differences in scoring techniques.


Intrachain loop formation allows unfolded polypeptide chains to search for favorable interactions during protein folding. We applied triplet–triplet energy transfer between a xanthone moiety and naphthylalanine to directly measure loop formation in various unfolded polypeptide chains with loop regions consisting of polyserine, poly(glycine–serine) or polyproline. By combination of femtosecond and nanosecond laserflash experiments loop formation could be studied over many orders of magnitude in time from picoseconds to microseconds. The results reveal processes on different time scales indicating motions on different hierarchical levels of the free energy surface. A minor (<15%) very fast reaction with a time constant of ≈3 ps indicates equilibrium conformations with donor and acceptor in contact at the time of the laserflash. Complex kinetics of loop formation were observed on the 50- to 500-ps time scale, which indicate motions within a local well on the energy landscape. Conformations within this well can form loops by undergoing local motions without having to cross major barriers. Exponential kinetics observed on the 10- to 100-ns time scale are caused by diffusional processes involving large-scale motions that allow the polypeptide chain to explore the complete conformational space. These results indicate that the free energy landscape for unfolded polypeptide chains and native proteins have similar properties. The presence of local energy minima reduces the conformational space and accelerates the conformational search for energetically favorable local intrachain contacts.


A cDNA clone encoding a human NK serine protease was obtained by screening a lambda-gt10 library from the Lopez NK leukemia with the rat natural killer Met-ase (RNK-Met-1) cDNA clone. In Northern blot analysis human Met-ase (Hu-Met-1) cDNA hybridized with a 0.9-kb mRNA in two human NK leukemia cell lines, unstimulated human PBMC, and untreated purified CD3-CD56+ large granular lymphocytes. Unlike other members of the granzyme family that are highly expressed in activated peripheral T cells, the Hu-Met-1 transcript was barely detected in a population of PMA and ionomycin or IL-2-treated high density T cells. Several in vitro cultured Burkitt lymphomas, chronic- and promyeloid leukemias, acute lymphoblastic leukemias, and colon and ovarian carcinomas and colon and ovarian carcinomas did not express Hu-Met-1 mRNA. Hu-Met-1 mRNA expression in a small number of human T cell tumor lines did not correlate with any particular phenotype or stage of development. The presence of Hu-Met-1 mRNA closely correlated with the Met-ase activity of cellular lysates prepared from these various human peripheral blood subsets and in vitro cultured cell lines. Met-ase activity detected in whole cell lysates of cytotoxic lymphocytes was associated with the cytoplasmic granules of these cells. The nucleotide sequence of the Hu-Met-1 cDNA clone encodes a predicted serine protease of 257 amino acids. The predicted protein is an active enzyme of 232 amino acids with a calculated unglycosylated m.w. of 27,100. Hu-Met-1 is 66% identical to RNK-Met-1 at the amino acid level. The human and rat mature protein sequences conserve the active site His, Asp, and Ser amino acids that form the catalytic triad of serine proteases, all 8 cysteine residues, and several amino acids critical in the formation of the substrate binding pocket. The gene for the Hu-Met-1 serine protease is located on chromosome 19, which distinguishes it from any other member of the human granzyme family.


Lentiviral vectors (LVs) are promising tools for in vivo gene delivery, either
to correct genetic defects or for vaccination. Intravenous administration of LVs
results in stable transduction and expression of the transgene in antigen presenting
cells (APCs) from the spleen. Therefore, it was decided to investigate the reasons for
and the consequences of sustained antigen expression in these cells after systemic in
vivo administration of LVs. Intravenous injection of a LV encoding green fluorescent
protein (GFP) resulted in transduction of lymphocytes, macrophages and all subsets
of dendritic cells (DCs) in the spleen, detected 5 days later. In the case of
macrophages and DCs, the percentage of transduced cells increased between 5 and
30 days after injection. The transduction of dividing precursors contributes to the
persistence of the transgene-expressing DCs, as shown by BrdU incorporation.
Expression of ovalbumin (OVA) resulted in a reduced number of transgeneexpressing
cells after 30 days. However, the remaining transduced cells stimulated
proliferation and activation of OVA-specific CD8+ T cells up to 3 months after LV
administration, in spite of a reduction in the activation status of transduced DCs over
time. Mice also maintained cytolytic activity against OVA-pulsed targets following a
single immunisation. In conclusion, this thesis shows that LVs can transduce DCs
and macrophages, leading to persistent antigen expression. These modified APCs are
functional and capable of activating T cells. Therefore, LVs can be used as tools for
persistent genetic modification of APCs, opening the opportunity for their use in
long-term immunomodulation.


BACKGROUND
Evidence on the health effects of total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) is equivocal. Fish oils are rich in omega-3 PUFA and plant oils in omega-6 PUFA. Evidence suggests that increasing PUFA-rich foods, supplements or supplemented foods can reduce serum cholesterol, but may increase body weight, so overall cardiovascular effects are unclear.

OBJECTIVES
To assess effects of increasing total PUFA intake on cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, lipids and adiposity in adults.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE and Embase to April 2017 and clinicaltrials.gov and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform to September 2016, without language restrictions. We checked trials included in relevant systematic reviews.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing higher with lower PUFA intakes in adults with or without cardiovascular disease that assessed effects over 12 months or longer. We included full texts, abstracts, trials registry entries and unpublished data. Outcomes were all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality and events, risk factors (blood lipids, adiposity, blood pressure), and adverse events. We excluded trials where we could not separate effects of PUFA intake from other dietary, lifestyle or medication interventions.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently screened titles and abstracts, assessed trials for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias. We wrote to authors of included trials for further data. Meta-analyses used random-effects analysis, sensitivity analyses included fixed-effects and limiting to low summary risk of bias. We assessed GRADE quality of evidence.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 49 RCTs randomising 24,272 participants, with duration of one to eight years. Eleven included trials were at low summary risk of bias, 33 recruited participants without cardiovascular disease. Baseline PUFA intake was unclear in most trials, but 3.9% to 8% of total energy intake where reported. Most trials gave supplemental capsules, but eight gave dietary advice, eight gave supplemental foods such as nuts or margarine, and three used a combination of methods to increase PUFA.Increasing PUFA intake probably has little or no effect on all-cause mortality (risk 7.8% vs 7.6%, risk ratio (RR) 0.98, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.89 to 1.07, 19,290 participants in 24 trials), but probably slightly reduces risk of coronary heart disease events from 14.2% to 12.3% (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.06, 15 trials, 10,076 participants) and cardiovascular disease events from 14.6% to 13.0% (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.01, 17,799 participants in 21 trials), all moderate-quality evidence. Increasing PUFA may slightly reduce risk of coronary heart disease death (6.6% to 6.1%, RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.06, 9 trials, 8810 participants) andstroke (1.2% to 1.1%, RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.58 to 1.44, 11 trials, 14,742 participants, though confidence intervals include important harms), but has little or no effect on cardiovascular mortality (RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.26, 16 trials, 15,107 participants) all low-quality evidence. Effects of increasing PUFA on major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events and atrial fibrillation are unclear as evidence is of very low quality.Increasing PUFA intake slightly reduces total cholesterol (mean difference (MD) -0.12 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.23 to -0.02, 26 trials, 8072 participants) and probably slightly decreases triglycerides (MD -0.12 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.20 to -0.04, 20 trials, 3905 participants), but has little or no effect on high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (MD -0.01 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.02 to 0.01, 18 trials, 4674 participants) or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) (MD -0.01 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.09 to 0.06, 15 trials, 3362 participants). Increasing PUFA probably causes slight weight gain (MD 0.76 kg, 95% CI 0.34 to 1.19, 12 trials, 7100 participants).Effects of increasing PUFA on serious adverse events such as pulmonary embolism and bleeding are unclear as the evidence is of very low quality.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
This is the most extensive systematic review of RCTs conducted to date to assess effects of increasing PUFA on cardiovascular disease, mortality, lipids or adiposity. Increasing PUFA intake probably slightly reduces risk of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease events, may slightly reduce risk of coronary heart disease mortality and stroke (though not ruling out harms), but has little or no effect on all-cause or cardiovascular disease mortality. The mechanism may be via lipid reduction, but increasing PUFA probably slightly increases weight.


For an organization that has been promoting sustainable agriculture development for some time, Vredeseilanden is not unaccustomed to seeing smallholder farmers struggle to secure markets and attain higher prices. The biggest stumbling blocks, as identified by the Belgium-based NGO, are the farmers' lack of access to markets, insufficient market information, the inability to meet the product quality required by markets, and limited access to resources (natural, technical, and financial). Cognizant of these problems, Vredeseilanden has modified its approach to assisting smallholder farmers within the context of sustainable agricultural chain development (SACD). SACD is seen by the organization as a means to facilitate greater market access for smallholder farmers. While being part of an ordinary supply chain provides the farmer with a link to market, being part of a sustainable supply chain provides him with an opportunity to participate in the decisions that shape the standards and quality enhancements the chain will deliver to end customers and to secure a more equitable share of the value added commensurate with effort. In its Asian operations, SACD is pursued through participatory agricultural chain assessment (PACA), an approach developed and field-tested by VECO Indonesia. PACA is comprised of three major subcomponents: (1) situation analysis; (2) intervention identification, which may be done by undertaking either participatory research for development (PRD) or multi-stakeholder dialogues (MSD) or both; and (3) chain intervention and planning. As an approach to sustainable agricultural development, PACA considers the level of need within the assisted communities/NGOs and the level of activity contributions each stakeholder is willing to contribute, making the resultant action plan more realistic and achievable.


The structure and defect concentration of colloidal solutions of ZnO nanoparticles, synthesized by a sol–gel procedure (SG-NP), as well as commercially available ZnO nanoparticles (SA-NP) are investigated by UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD patterns, in agreement with the TEM images, reveal that the SG-NPs are more ellipsoidal than the SA-NPs. XRD and XAS reveal the presence of both zinc and oxygen vacancies. The concentration of the latter is independent of the NP size. This is not the case for the zinc vacancies, whose concentration increases sharply in the SG-NPs compared to the SA-NPs, and an ∼40% oxygen excess in comparison to the expected stoichiometric ratio is found. Importantly, an extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis shows that this large concentration of zinc vacancies does not lead to distortions of the local lattice structure. Finally, the Zn K-edge X-ray absorp...


Ryan C. McDevitt ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE METHODS FOR LONG-TERM WIND SPEED AND INITIAL SITE ASSESSMENT FOR PURPOSES OF WIND ENERGY PRODUCTION ESTIMATION 2009/2010 Peter Mark Jansson, Ph.D. PP PE Master of Science in Engineering A need exists for identification and evaluation of viable sites for wind energy. However, this is made difficult by the site-specific nature of the wind. A review of current industry practices shows that linear regression is the preferred method, although little work has been done to investigate alternative approaches. To address this, various methods were tested on 23 target sites with data measured over a long-term period. Each site was analyzed with the chosen best reference station, across 10 data periods for each method with results classified as mean absolute percentage error in energy density between the projected and measured results. Of primary concern was the comparative performance of these alternative methods to the current industry standard. The method that performed best was multiple regression analysis (MRA), which was 0.85% better than linear regression in absolute terms. The multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network (ANN) also exhibited promise in dealing with some of the non-linear aspects of the data sets, although its accuracy was found to be worse than linear regression by 0.79% in absolute terms. The affect of seasonality was also examined, showing extreme results in months of high and low wind speeds, but also results as close as 1.5% to the expected result when combining these extreme months to reach the expected mean wind speed.


Many city governments are under pressure to optimize the utilization of their resources to respond to fire, rescue and medical emergencies. In this paper we describe a simulation-based optimization software called SOFER that learns from a history of emergency requests to optimize the placement of resources and response policies. We describe a two-level random-restart hill climbing approach that yields policies which perform better than the current practice, satisfy the usability constraints, and are sensitive to optimization metrics and population changes. Some of the policies learned by the system give insight into response practices that would otherwise be counterintuitive.


Emotions are conveyed largely through facial expressions and prosody. One important part of language development is learning to express and comprehend these features of emotion. This study examined infants' ability to pair facial expressions with corresponding prosody for " happiness " and " fear ". These emotions differ in valence but contain similar prosody. Sixteen-month-olds viewed a single video screen displaying either a happy or fearful facial expression. Simultaneously they heard a series of phrases containing either fearful or happy intonation. During some trials the voice and face expressed the same emotion; during other trials there was a mismatch. Infants' looking time was measured during each condition; they were expected to look longer when both the face and voice matched in emotion. Sixteen-month-olds did not look significantly longer during any particular condition. This suggests that infants may have a limited understanding of the manifestations of " fear " and " happiness " at 16 months of age.


HSP90 enables the activation of many client proteins of which the most clinically validated is HER2. NVPAUY922, a potent HSP90 inhibitor, is currently in phase II clinical trials. To explore its potential clinical use in HER2-amplified breast and gastric cancers, we evaluated the effect of AUY922 alone and in combination with trastuzumab in both trastuzumab-sensitive and -resistant models. A panel of 16 human gastric and 45 breast cancer cell lines, including 16 HER2-amplified (3 and 13, respectively) cells, was treated with AUY922 over various concentrations. In both breast and gastric cancer, we used cell lines and xenograft models with conditioned trastuzumab-resistance to investigate the efficacy of AUY922 alongside trastuzumab. Effects of this combination on downstreammarkers were analyzed via Western blot analysis. AUY922 exhibited potent antiproliferative activity in the low nanomolar range (<40 nmol/L) for 59 of 61 cell lines. In both histologies, HER2-amplified cells expressed greater sensitivity to AUY than HER2-negative cells. In conditioned trastuzumab-resistant models, AUY922 showed a synergistic effect with trastuzumab. In vitro, the combination induced greater decreases in HER2, a G2 cell-cycle arrest, and increased apoptosis. In a trastuzumab-resistant gastric cancer xenograft model, the combination of AUY922 and trastuzumab showed greater antitumor efficacy than either drug alone. These data suggest that AUY922 in combination with trastuzumab has unique efficacy in trastuzumab-resistant models. The combination of HSP90 inhibition and direct HER2 blockade represents a novel approach to the treatment of HER2-amplified cancers and clinical trials based on the above data are ongoing. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(4); 509–19. 2013 AACR.


This paper is concerned with the quadratic regression problem, where the goal is to find the unknown state (numerical parameters) of a system modeled by a set of equations that are quadratic in the state. We focus on the setting when a subset of equations of fixed cardinality is subject to errors of arbitrary magnitudes (potentially adversarial). We develop two methods to address this problem, which are both based on conic optimization and are able to accept any available prior knowledge on the solution as an input. We derive sufficient conditions for guaranteeing the correct recovery of the unknown state for each method and show that one method provides a better accuracy while the other one scales better to large-scale systems. The obtained conditions consist in bounds on the number of bad measurements each method can tolerate without producing a nonzero estimation error. In the case when no prior knowledge is available, we develop an iterative-based conic optimization technique. It is proved that the proposed methods allow up to half of the total number of measurements to be grossly erroneous.The efficacy of the developed methods is demonstrated in different case studies, including data analytics for a European power grid.


ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID, is a non- profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. Together with other persistent identifiers for scholarly works such as digital object identifiers (DOIs) and identifiers for organizations, ORCID makes research more discoverable. It helps ensure that one's grants, publications and outputs are correctly attributed. It helps the research community not just in aggregating publications, but in every stage of research, viz. publishing, reviewing, profiling, metrics, accessing and archiving. Funding agencies in Austria, Australia, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden and the UK, and the world's leading scholarly publishers and associations have integrated their systems with ORCID registry. Among the BRICS countries, China and South Africa are adopting ORCID avidly. India is yet to make a beginning. If research councils and funding agencies in India require researchers to adopt ORCID and link ORCID iDs to funding as well as tracking performance, it will help them keep track of the workflow. Journal editors can also keep track of contributions made by different authors and work assigned to different reviewers through their ORCID iDs.


Krzysztof Kieślowski was a highly influential Polish filmmaker in the tradition of auteur cinema. Kieślowski tackled the tension between the political, spiritual, and ethical, and his camerawork often involved close framing and sequence shots. His first works, documentaries that examined everyday aspects of Polish reality, were followed by the fiction film Bez Konca [No End] in 1985, a distinctive audio-visual narration that launched his collaboration with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, his co-scriptwriter, and Zbigniew Preisner, who scored his films. Bez Konca considers the impossibility of understanding human misfortune and provokes the audience's empathic involvement. In his early fiction films, Kieślowski scrutinized the restrictions produced by communist ideology alongside metaphysical questions (No End, Prspadek [Blind Chance] (1987), but in his middle phase, which began with Krotki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film about Killing, 1988) followed by the television mini-series Dekalog [The Decalogue], he emphasized social themes. The Decalogue, set in a Warsaw housing project, is loosely based on the Ten Commandments. In the 1990s Kieślowski focused increasingly on moral issues, and works such as La double vie de Veronique [The Double Life of Veronique] and Trois couleurs [Three Colors] have a more spiritual dimension. Kieślowski found funding outside Poland, but he also became disillusioned with Polish critics, who, he felt, misjudged him. They often ignored his engagement with existential and ethical questions by aligning his work with a politically and socially concerned Polish cinema.


Objective The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of new primary malignancies after adult-type granulosa cell tumor (AGCT) and the incidence of AGCT after breast and uterine cancer using nationwide population-based registry data. Methods We used the Finnish Cancer Registry to identify all patients diagnosed with AGCT in 1968 to 2013 (n = 986). The number of subsequent primary malignancies among women with AGCT and the number of AGCTs in women with previous breast or uterine cancer were compared with the expected number of cases and expressed as standardized incidence ratios (SIRs). Results There were 122 cases of subsequent cancers diagnosed at least 6 months after the primary diagnosis of AGCT (SIR, 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91–1.3). In particular, the observed number of cancers of the soft tissue (SIR, 4.13; 95% CI, 1.33–12.8), thyroid (SIR, 3.42; 95% CI, 1.54–7.62), and leukemia (SIR, 2.67; 95% CI, 0.98–5.82) exceeded the number of expected cases. The SIR for breast cancers after AGCT was 1.26 (95% CI, 0.92–1.73), and the SIR for AGCT after breast cancer was 1.59 (95% CI, 1.04–2.29). The risk for subsequent AGCT was more than 2-fold in breast cancer patients younger than 50 years, and over 15 years after primary diagnosis. Conclusions There is an increased risk for thyroid and soft tissue cancer as well as leukemia after AGCT, which may be associated with late effects of carcinogenic treatments and possibly shared risk factors. After breast cancer, the risk for AGCT was higher, which may indicate a shared hormonal etiology.


Purpose: The aims to study the issues of the formation and prospects in Rostov Region of a potential "catalyst" for the development of the socio-economic system of the region – tourist and recreational cluster. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study applied a cluster approach to the development of territories. Such an approach is the study of the tourist region as an interconnected system of tourist resources, tourist infrastructure, tourist services with an effective system of regional tourism management, the optimal phase of which is a tourist cluster. Findings: This article includes the study of areas of Rostov Region from the standpoint of the cluster approach, tourist and recreational zoning of Rostov Region, the identification of areas that are promising for the formation of tourist and recreational clusters and socio-economic substantiation for the functioning of clusters. Practical Implications: The results of the study can be used in the formation and implementation of regional programs for the development of tourism, economy and social sphere. Originality/Value: The main contribution of this article is the application of the cluster approach to the investigation of socio-economic development of Rostov Region, as well as zoning the tourist and recreational clusters.


The propagation of long waves of finite amplitude in water with depth to wavelength ratios less than about one-tenth and greater than about one-fiftieth can be described by cnoidal wave theory. To date little use has been made of the theory because of the difficulties involved in practical application. This paper presents the theory necessary for predicting the transforming characteristics of long waves based on cnoidal theory. Basically the method involves calculating the power transmission for a wave train m shallow water from cnoidal theory and equating this to the deep water power transmission assuming no reflections or loss of energy as the waves move into shoaling water. The equations for wave power have been programmed for the range of cnoidal waves, and the results are plotted in non-dimensional form.


Tremor was suppressed by test stimulation of the thalamic ventralis intermedius (VIM) nucleus at high frequency (130 Hz) during stereotaxy in nonanesthetized patients suffering from Parkinson's disease or essential tremor. Ventralis intermedius stimulation has since been used by the authors over the last 8 years as a treatment in 117 patients with movement disorders (80 cases of Parkinson's disease, 20 cases of essential tremor, and 17 cases of various dyskinesias and dystonias including four multiple sclerosis). Chronic electrodes were stereotactically implanted in the VIM and connected to a programmable stimulator. Results depend on the indication. In Parkinson's disease patients, tremor, but not bradykinesia and rigidity, was selectively suppressed for as long as 8 years. Administration of L-Dopa was decreased by more than 30% in 40 Parkinson's disease patients. In essential tremor patients, results were satisfactory but deteriorated with time in 18.5% of cases, mainly for patients who presented an action component of their but deteriorated with time in 18.5% of cases, mainly for patients who presented an action component of their tremor. In other types of dyskinesias (except multiple sclerosis), results were much less favorable. Fifty-nine patients underwent bilateral implantation and 14 other patients received implantation contralateral to a previous thalamotomy. Thirty-seven patients (31.6%) experienced minor side effects, which were always well tolerated and immediately reversible. Three secondary scalp infections led to temporary removal of the implanted material. There was no permanent morbidity. This tremor suppression effect could be due to the inhibition or jamming of a retroactive loop. Chronic VIM stimulation, which is reversible, adaptable, and well tolerated even by patients undergoing bilateral surgery (74 of 117 patients) and by elderly patients, should replace thalamotomy in the regular surgical treatment of parkinsonian and essential tremors.


Devegetation of soils in arid areas leads to the diminution of their biological quality. In this paper the changes in the biological quality of arid soils due to devegetation have been quantified. The field experiment was carried out on soils from an arid area (southeast Spain) 7 yr after the area was devegetated; this area was contrasted with a natural or undisturbed area. Different parameters related with organic matter as well as biomass C and oxidoreductase and hydrolase activities were determined. Total organic C levels in soils after devegetation fell more than humic substance fractions, among which the most recalcitrant (humic acids) showed the least change. The level of the humic substances was higher in summer. Water soluble compounds, which are used as an energy source by microorganisms, were affected by devegetation, as was dehydrogenase activity (indicative of microbial metabolic activity) and catalase activity. Hydrolases involved in the N cycle (urease), P cycle (phosphatase), and C cycle (β-glucosidase) became less active, while the protease that hydrolyzes N-α-benzoyl-L-argininamide showed no change. There was very little seasonal variation in the activity of the hydrolases analyzed in the area after devegetation.


Improving the quality of software artifacts and products is an essential activity for everyone working on the development of software. Testing is one approach to reveal defects and faults in software. In recent years, message-passing systems have grown to a significant degree due to the rise of distributed systems, embedded systems, and so forth. In messagepassing systems, components communicate with each other through sending and receiving messages. This message-passing mechanism introduces new opportunities for testing programs due to the fact that the time a message is delivered is not guaranteed, so the order in which messages are delivered is also not guaranteed. This non-determinism introduces interleaving and parallelization and subsequently a new source of software defects like race conditions. In this thesis, we have explained a new approach to testing a given component for identifying software faults related to the order in which messages are received by that component. We reorder messages coming to a certain component and deliver them in a different distinct ordering each time. We have three different methods for achieving message reordering: Blocking, Buffering, and Adaptive Buffering. We evaluate the effectiveness of our new testing methods using four metrics: Ordering Coverage, Coverage Rate, Slowdown Overhead, and Memory Overhead. We have implemented our Reordering Framework on QNX Neutrino 6.5.0 and compared our reordering methods with each other and with the naive random case using our experiments. We have also showed that our testing approach applies to real programs and can reveal real bugs in software.


Retinal degenerative diseases cause profound visual impairment in more than 10 million people worldwide, and retinal prostheses are being developed to restore vision to these individuals. Analogous to cochlear implants, these devices electrically stimulate surviving retinal cells to evoke visual percepts (phosphenes). However, the quality of current prosthetic vision is still rudimentary. Rather than aiming to restore "natural" vision, there is potential merit in borrowing state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms as image processing techniques to maximize the usefulness of prosthetic vision. Here we combine deep learning–based scene simplification strategies with a psychophysically validated computational model of the retina to generate realistic predictions of simulated prosthetic vision, and measure their ability to support scene understanding of sighted subjects (virtual patients) in a variety of outdoor scenarios. We show that object segmentation may better support scene understanding than models based on visual saliency and monocular depth estimation. In addition, we highlight the importance of basing theoretical predictions on biologically realistic models of phosphene shape. Overall, this work has the potential to drastically improve the utility of prosthetic vision for people blinded from retinal degenerative diseases.


ABSTRACT The rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections among health care workers that is caused by sharps injuries is higher in the Caribbean and Latin America than in other regions of the world. To respond to and reduce occupational exposures to bloodborne pathogens while also strengthening capacities in the Caribbean, needlestick injury prevention training programs for health care workers were implemented, beginning in 2011. The programs included lectures, workshops, policy reviews, evaluations of safety devices, and workplace assessment. During the training, baseline data from health care workers on their personal history of needlestick injuries and bloodborne pathogen exposure was collected. That baseline data showed that 40% of the participants had sustained sharps injuries during their professional career. In this capacity-building effort, 210 health care workers from five countries have been trained, six health care centers in the Caribbean have been evaluated. and occupational safety and health committees have been established in various countries to monitor and improve safety policies and practices.


The surface stress, which characterizes the state of stress at the surface of a macroscopic crystal, is calculated from first principles by two methods for Mo(001) to be 3.1 mRyd bohr-2 = 2.4 J m-2. Both methods use the energy of a fully relaxed seven-layer slab as a function of the in-plane lattice parameter a. One method uses the slope and the other the curvature at particular values of a. Fully relaxed energies give surface stress values 40% smaller than partially relaxed energies which have relaxed just a single common layer spacing. The slab is divided into bulk and surface regions with different parameters. Estimates are made of the surface region parameters including its equilibrium in-plane lattice constant, its epitaxial elastic constant, its Poisson ratio for in-plane strains and its thickness.


Yan and Polk investigated the effects of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) on cytokine-induced apoptosis in cultured human and mouse epithelial cells and showed that it promoted cell survival through interactions with both proapoptotic and antiapoptotic signaling pathways. Several species of Lactobacilli, bacteria used in the production of yogurt that can colonize the human gastrointestinal tract, are considered probiotics--microrganisms that benefit the health of the host. Data from humans and from animal models suggest that some Lactobacilli may modulate cytokine activity and help in treating inflammatory bowel disease; the underlying mechanisms, however, remain unclear. The authors initiated apoptosis by treating young adult mouse colon (YAMC) cells stably transfected with dominant-negative kinase-inactive kinase suppressor of Ras (kiKSR) with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) or by treating HT29 human colonic carcinoma cells with a cytokine mixture. Viable LGG bacteria inhibited apoptosis and reduced caspase activity. The presence of LGG stimulated Akt phosphorylation in YAMC and HT29 cells, as did TNF. Inhibitors of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibited Akt activation by both LGG and TNF, whereas kiKSR expression inhibited only TNF activation of Akt. LGG inhibited TNF-mediated phosphorylation of proapoptotic p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK). Pharmacological analysis implicated both Akt activation and p38 MAPK inhibition in blocking TNF-mediated apoptosis. Medium in which LGG bacteria had been incubated inhibited apoptosis and stimulated Akt, and the authors identified two active heat- and protease-sensitive factors that may be involved in the antiapoptotic response. F. Yan, D. B. Polk, Probiotic bacterium prevents cytokine-induced apoptosis in intestinal epithelial cells. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 50959-50965 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This chapter provides an overview of the status of Malaysian English (MalE) and discusses the phonological, grammatical and lexical features of this variety. It begins by giving the socio-historical and socio-political context in which this variety is found, illustrating the cultural diversity of and regional differences in the country. Features of pronunciation, grammar and lexis are described and exemplified. This is done firstly by providing a description of the vowels, consonants and suprasegmental features found. Secondly, structural nativization at the grammatical level is discussed focussing on noun phrase structure and verb phrase structure. Thirdly, lexis in MalE is highlighted and categorised according to whether they are globally known or locally known, used formally of informally, their ethnic origin as well as their currency.


Abstract We introduce a new type of convergence in probability theory, which we call "mod-Gaussian convergence". It is directly inspired by theorems and conjectures, in random matrix theory and number theory, concerning moments of values of characteristic polynomials or zeta functions. We study this type of convergence in detail in the framework of infinitely divisible distributions, and exhibit some unconditional occurrences in number theory, in particular for families of L-functions over function fields in the Katz–Sarnak framework. A similar phenomenon of "mod-Poisson convergence" turns out to also appear in the classical Erdős–Kac Theorem.


The Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (the "Old English Bede ") has been studied for what it can tell us about translation practices and the state of learning in Anglo-Saxon England. However, although some Old English Bede manuscripts have been comparatively well-studied, very little attention has been paid to Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS. 279B. This article examines the different layers of scribal activity discernible in that manuscript, reviewing in turn the performances of the main scribe, the corrector, the scribe responsible for chapter initials, and a later writer who provided "scratched glosses" (glosses incised in vellum with a pointed instrument, rather than ink) to parts of the text. It demonstrates that in each layer of production, the scribes were hampered by a difficulty in accessing some aspects of the language of the text they were interacting with, and shows the different strategies employed to overcome these difficulties.


This study was a descriptive survey conducted to compare the sources of home accidents between two types of urban housing units in Plateau State, Nigeria. Four research questions guided the study and four hypotheses were tested. The population for the study was 391,247 households. The sample for the study was 504 workers drawn from the population of study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the sample. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the four research questions, while the four hypotheses were tested using student t-test at 0.05 significance level. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference in the general perception of respondents on the main sources of home accidents in the kitchen area. Comparatively, the mean scores of respondents on the two types of housing units based on main sources of accidents had critical t-values of t=0.775 P>0.05 for kitchen, t=2.100 P<0.05 for toilet and bathroom, t= 2.060 P<0.05 for living room and t=2.576 P<0.05 for compound areas respectively. The study found that most of the items listed were agreed upon as sources of home accident but the rating differed in the extent to which these sources were assumed to be sources of home accident. It was recommended that this study be carried out in all types of housing units and in both rural and urban areas of Plateau State.


Introduction. Part I: Nostradamus, This Is Your Life! Chapter 1: The Stuff Legends Are Made Of. Chapter 2: Winds of Change: Renaissance Life. Chapter 3: The Man Behind the Legend. Part II: The Big Influences on Nostradamus. Chapter 4: People, Events, and Institutions that Shaped Nostradamus's Prophecies. Chapter 5: The Motivations and Methods of Nostradamus. Chapter 6: Peeling Back the Layers of the Prophecies. Part III: The Prophecies From Nostradamus's Time to Napoleon. Chapter 7: Predictions that Created a Legendary Beginning. Chapter 8: Foreseeing Royally Good (and Dangerous) Times. Chapter 9: Royal Betrayal and the French Revolution. Chapter 10: Suffering from a Napoleon Complex. Part IV: The Prophecies of the Modern Era. Chapter 11: Revealing Times of War. Chapter 12: Focusing on Hitler and World War II. Chapter 13: Telling the Tales of the Three Antichrists. Chapter 14: Taking a Technological Tour. Chapter 15: Playing Politics: People and Events of the 20th Century. Chapter 16: Looking at Events in the New Millennium. Part V: The Prophecies of a Future Era. Chapter 17: The Future of Religion and the Family. Chapter 18: Foreseeing Disasters in Our Future. Chapter 19: Looking Toward the Age of Aquarius. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 20: Ten Insights into the Life and Mind of Nostradamus. Chapter 21: Ten Tips for Exploring The Prophecies on Your Own. Chapter 22: Ten Tips on Finding Quality Resources. Appendix: A Brief Chronology of Nostradamus's Life and Times. Index.


The effects of long-term annual applications of cattle (Bos taurus) feedlot manure on the accumulation, decomposition (amounts and rates), and movement of organic matter (OM) and Kjeldahl-determined N (total N) in soil were determined. Manure was applied annually since 1973 at three different levels to nonirrigated and irrigated Dark Brown Chernozemic (Typic Haploborolls) clay loam soil. Significant increases in soil OM and total N content in the first 8 and 6 yr, respectively, as affected by the level of manure application, were limited to the surface 30 cm of soil of the nonirrigated and irrigated land. Tillage did not affect the amount of OM and total N accumulated in the soil, but it did affect their distribution within the 0 to 30-cm depth, which is attributed to placement during incorporation. The accumulation of OM and total N were similar under nonirrigated and irrigated conditions. Manure (C/N ratio of ca. 10.2) lowered the C/N ratio of the soil (ca. 8.2) by small amounts. The accumulation of OM and total N was described by a Michaelis-Menten type of function. A response surface was generated for the accumulation of OM and total N with increasing levels and years of manure application, from which the rates of accumulation and decomposition were derived. The rates of accumulation decrease with years of application such that after two or three decades increases will be small. The model can be used to develop general guidelines for use and disposal of feedlot manure under similar conditions.


The Kimberley region covers a vast area of northern Western Australia. Broome is the largest town in the region and in the West Kimberley, which includes Derby, Fitzroy Crossing and numerous discrete Aboriginal communities; it has emerged as that region's commercial and administrative centre. The expansive Kimberley landscapes and relatively untouched coastal and marine areas, together with vibrant Aboriginal traditional societies and a fascinating colonial heritage, provide the main components of this celebrated nature-based and cultural tourism destination.

This report was commissioned by The Wilderness Society WA, the Conservation Council of WA and Environs Kimberley (the ENGOs) to investigate the successful Kimberley tourism 'brand', the scope for building on this brand through enhanced marine protection, and the likely impacts on tourism of a largescale heavy industry oil and gas extraction and processing complex in the West Kimberley and Broome coastal and off-shore area. This report is based on desktop analysis using published reports and past research and information from consultations with individuals and organisations based in the region.


Abstract Wild mammals cause foraging damage to crops worldwide and nonlethal methods are required for controlling such damage. Many wildlife management situations demand protection of untreated foods. We tested learned food aversion plus an odor cue as a paradigm for protecting untreated model crop items from European badgers (Meles meles). Following conditioning with a combination of ziram and clove oil, badgers avoided untreated maize cobs in presence of a clove odor cue. A clove oil control did not condition badgers. This work has been an important step before proceeding to full-scale field trials for protecting growing crops on a wider scale.


Abstract. The Cévennes–Vivarais region in southern France is prone to heavy rainfall
that can lead to flash floods which are one of the most hazardous natural
risks in Europe. The results of numerous studies show that besides rainfall
and physical catchment characteristics the catchment's initial soil moisture
also impacts the hydrological response to rain events. The aim of this paper
is to analyze the relationship between catchment mean initial soil moisture
θ̃ini and the hydrological response that is
quantified using the event-based runoff coefficient ϕev in
the two nested catchments of the Gazel (3.4 km2) and the Claduègne
(43 km2). Thus, the objectives are twofold: (1) obtaining meaningful
estimates of soil moisture at catchment scale from a dense network of in situ
measurements and (2) using this estimate of θ̃ini
to analyze its relation with ϕev calculated for many runoff
events. A sampling setup including 45 permanently installed frequency domain
reflectancy probes that continuously measure soil moisture at three depths is
applied. Additionally, on-alert surface measurements at ≈10 locations in each one of 11 plots are conducted. Thus, catchment mean
soil moisture can be confidently assessed with a standard error of the mean
of ≤1.7 vol % over a wide range of soil moisture conditions. The ϕev is calculated from high-resolution discharge and
precipitation data for several rain events with a cumulative precipitation
Pcum ranging from less than 5 mm to more than 80 mm. Because of the high
uncertainty of ϕev associated with the hydrograph separation
method, ϕev is calculated with several methods, including
graphical methods, digital filters and a tracer-based method. The results
indicate that the hydrological response depends on θ̃ini: during dry conditions ϕev is consistently
below 0.1, even for events with high and intense precipitation. Above a
threshold of θ̃ini=34 vol % ϕev can reach values up to 0.99 but there is a high scatter. Some
variability can be explained with a weak correlation of ϕev with
Pcum and rain intensity, but a considerable part of the variability
remains unexplained. It is concluded that threshold-based methods can be helpful to prevent
overestimation of the hydrological response during dry catchment conditions.
The impact of soil moisture on the hydrological response during wet
catchment conditions, however, is still insufficiently understood and cannot
be generalized based on the present results.


: Purpose: With this paper we evaluate the impact and implications of the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the Financial Services Industry in small European States; specifically Malta, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Cyprus. That is, countries within the EU having less than 3 million population. Design/methodology/approach: We collected our primary data by carrying out scheduled semi-structured interviews (using WhatsApp ® , Messenger ® and Skype ® ) with 63 participants who are working directly or indirectly with GDPR in financial services between November 2018 and April 2019. The interview was structured using two impact themes, 'Trust, Standardisation and Reputation' and 'Training and 'Resources', with 18 statements under each theme to which participants were required to answer using a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree". To answer the research questions, the empirical data collected was subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS (Version 21) namely descriptive statistics and box plots and later MANOVA, while the qualitative data was analysed using the thematic approach. Findings: We found that overall, participants feel that although GDPR has increased the work load and costs, it has helped to improve the trust, standardisation and reputation of the institutions they represent. However, this comes with some repercussions from the data subjects who are not conversant with the regulation and are apprehensive by the consents required. Originality/value: Although, all States might be represented in the decision process, the larger States usually take over and sometimes dictate the final decision. The concept of proportionality in regulations is not clean and is not effectively managed, at the disadvantage of the smaller States. Therefore, this paper is important since it voices the cries of smaller States and allows for an understanding of the impact and implications of new regulations to smaller jurisdictions, in this case within the EU.


In recent years, impinging streams have received increasing interest for their high efficiency in heat and mass transfer. This numerical study was conducted to investigate flow and heat transfer characteristics of one-way opposing jets of non-Newtonian fluids. Effects of Reynolds number impinging angle, momentum ratio and flow behavior index on mixing index were evaluated. The results showed improvement of thermal mixing due to an increase in Reynolds number, flow behavior index and momentum ratio in impinging zone. This study also demonstrated that thermal mixing along the channel increased as the Reynolds number and momentum ratio decreased. Nevertheless, augmentation of the flow behavior index resulted in higher thermal mixing along the channel. The impinging angle had no significant effect on thermal mixing along the channel; but, with increasing impinging angle, thermal mixing improved in the impinging zone.


A Water Footprint based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is a modern approach to the assessment of impacts of water use on the environment. The Available WAter REmaining (AWARE) method is the recommended characterization method by the WULCA Working group to perform a water consumption impact assessment in LCA. The published values of AWARE characterization factor were computed using the hydrological model at the country and main river basin levels only. These "average" values can be imported into the LCA software and used for LCA studies. The scale of available AWARE data could be insufficient for studies at a local level due to heterogeneous conditions in various countries or large river basins. In our study, we use runoff data from the Europe region available in the Global Runoff Data Centre for computation of "regionalized" AWARE values and compare them with AWARE values at the country and river basin levels. The analysis of computed values indicates that the variance of AWARE values can be very large in some countries and river basins. Keywords: Water footprint – life cycle assessment – characterization factor – hydrological conditions


The dynamics of ice-sheets in response to climate changes becomes increasingly a focus of research. In this regard the glacial history of the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice-Sheet (WAIS) is of particular interest. A potential deglaciation and collapse of the Thwaites and Pine Island glacier drainage basins alone would result in a global sea level rise of approximately 1.5 m. Multichannel seismic reflection profiles offer a record of the glacial development in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment during the Neogene. We identified pronounced northwest-dipping reflector series of more than 1 s TWT thickness (> 800 m) on the middle shelf indicating well layered sedimentary units. The dipping strata reveal a striking alternation of reflection-poor, almost opaque units and sequences of closely spaced, continuous reflectors. We suggest that the distinct change in reflection pattern represents marked episodes of ice sheet advance and retreat forced by climate changes. Pronounced boundaries between the acoustic units give evidence for a rapid waning and waxing of ice sheets indicating concise climate transitions. Due to the similarity with the seismic stratigraphy and the lithology in bore-hole records from the adjacent Amundsen Sea and far Ross Sea we estimated these dipping strata to have been developed since the onset of glaciation in the Miocene. On the inner and middle shelf we can identify at least four events of an ice sheet expansion. We consider the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to have responded quickly and sensitively to climate variations already throughout the Neogene.


We run a laboratory experiment where some participants are selected to make investment decisions on behalf of others. We test whether a democratic context influences the social preferences of decision makers in terms of efficiency, altruism and concern for inequality. We find that decision makers who are selected democratically are generally more efficiency-oriented, but also more altruistic, than leaders who are selected at random or by ability. Because wealth generation and distribution sometime conflict, efficiency is no higher with democratic leaders, although payoffs are more equal. We interpret our results in terms of a democratic norm that mitigates how elections may otherwise lead to an enhanced feeling of entitlement to one's role. We exclude a selection effect and discuss the drivers of our results in terms of belief in the legitimacy of the selection procedure and reduced social distance.


The title of this editorial is pure indulgence. It has long been a dream to chronicle life from afar and in this edition I get to do it. Veteran radio broadcaster, Alistair Cooke's weekly Letter from America entertained and informed, even if it offered a worldview to which you didn't necessarily aspire. While I am far too young to have listened to all 58 years of his "letters", I still enjoyed what I heard. So this month's editorial from America, in the US of A, is by default really, as I failed to send it before I left home. My story is that I needed time and space to mull over this South African nurse's Oktoberfest. This is my shorthand for my October slice of life, my weltanschauung. All of this sounds very grandiose and isn't meant to be. Just a chronicle of a month in the life of a nurse.


This paper presents a novel approach to asset class allocation which builds upon macroeconomic factors. Without doubt the financial returns of asset classes are interlinked with the economy. However, it is not clear how to bring the finance and economy world together within a portfolio's asset allocation. I propose a direct modeling of the weights with global macroeconomic risk factors. These risk factors are not asset class specific but potentially related to the returns of all asset classes. In this paper I focus on three asset classes: stocks, bonds and the risk free asset. The approach is robust, links macroeconomic factors to financial returns intuitively and outperforms a standard 60% stock and 40% bond portfolio almost twice in terms of the Sharpe Ratio - in sample and out of sample. This outperformance largely remains when considering transaction or leverage costs.


In this paper, we explore speaker recognition as a process that is based partlyon analysis of phonetic and linguistic features and partly on pattern recognition(Gestalt perception). Central to this paper is the challenge to incorporate thedual nature of speaker recognition in forensic casework. To meet this challenge,we propose the so-called "blind grouping" method. Blind grouping does notrequire verbal-analytic terminology, but requires the expert to compare anonymisedfragments and arrange them into groups based on same-speaker anddifferent-speaker judgements. It allows the forensic expert to use any strategy toreach a result, including pattern recognition and feature analysis. This methodis proposed as a supplement to the traditional auditory-acoustic method.


In addition to general findings from education research in the widest sense, further insights can be gained by considering the particular perspective afforded from education within a specific discipline. In this chapter we present two such views: In part 1, we use the discipline of physics to highlight the distinctions between general and discipline-based education research and argue for a crucial bridging role for the latter. In part 2, we use the discipline of mathematics to explore the role of context while examining the use of mathematical modelling as a pedagogic practice.


Regarding complex networks, one of the most relevant problems is to understand and to explore community structure. In particular it is important to define the network organization and the functions associated to the different network partitions. In this context, the idea is to consider some new approaches based on interval data in order to represent the different relevant network components as communities. The method is also useful to represent the network community structure, especially the network hierarchical structure. The application of the methodologies is based on the Italian interlocking directorship network.


A thesis submitted to the Department of Art Education, College of Arts and Social Sciences, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, 2004


The frontal ganglion plays a critical role in insect feeding and molting-related behaviors. It is present in all insect orders at all developmental stages. In this study, the histological development of the frontal ganglion of Locusta migratoria, the African migratory locust, was investigated. Ganglia were dissected at 3 distinct developmental stages and their histological structure was evaluated at the light microscope level. The development of the cells generating the ganglion in the first and fifth nymphal stages and in adults was determined using the variance analysis method. Total width and length of the ganglion cells as well as width and length of the nucleus were measured. A significant expansion of the cell and nucleus diameter was observed during development from the youngest stage toward adulthood.


Hot water supplies account for approximately 30% of energy consumption in residential sectors of Japan; it is therefore important that the energy efficiency of water heaters be improved. Absorption heat pump water heaters are expected to provide greater efficiency than conventional water heaters that use gas. However, the absorption systems have larger volumes and are not widely accepted in the market. In this paper, we propose the use of adiabatic absorbers to replace conventional shell-and-tube or plate-fin-type absorbers to downsize absorption heat pump water heaters that use H2O/NH3. The adiabatic absorption system consists of two components: sub-cooler and adiabatic absorber. For the proposed absorption system, the solution from the generator first flows through the sub-cooler and is sub-cooled by tap water, and then flows into the adiabatic absorber to complete absorption. The absorption performance, as well as the volume of the adiabatic absorber, is important in order to obtain greater efficiency. In this study, three types of absorbers are proposed: atomizing nozzle, spreading tray, and packed-column absorbers. These three types of absorption system are modeled and their absorption performances are analyzed. In modeling the atomizing-nozzle-type absorber, the breakup position of liquid film and the diameter of generated droplets are discussed on the basis of the instability theory of liquid film. In analytically modeling the spreadingtray-type absorber, the breakup length of the liquid column and generated droplet diameter are discussed. In the case of the packed-column-type absorber, the effective interfacial area of dumped packing is discussed. From the calculation results, design guidelines are developed and the expected sizes are compared.


[Summary of the book containing this chapter:] Secession is a detachment of a territory from an existing state with the aim of creating a new state on the detached territory. Secession is usually an outcome of the political mobilization of a population on the territory to be detached and, as a political phenomenon, is a subject of study in the social sciences. Its impact on inter-state relations is a subject of study in international relations. But secession is also subject to regulation both in the constitutional law of sovereign states and in international law. Following a spate of secessions in the early 1990s, legal scholars have proposed a variety of ways to regulate the international responses to attempts at secessions. Moreover, since the 1980s normative justification of secession has been subject to an intense debate among political theorists and moral philosophers.

This research companion has the following three complementary aims. First, to offer an overview of the current theoretical approaches to secession in the social sciences, international relations, legal theory, political theory and applied ethics. Second, to outline the current practice of international recognition of secession and current domestic and international laws which regulate secession. Third, to offer an account of major secessionist movements - past and present - from a comparative perspective.

In their accounts of past secessions and current secessionist movements, the contributors to this volume focus on the following four components: the nature and source of secessionist grievances, the ideologies and techniques of secessionist mobilization, the responses of the host state or majority parties in the host state, and the international response to attempts at secession. This provides a basis for identification of at least some common patterns in the otherwise highly varied processes of secession.


Turkey is the only Eurasian state nearly surrounded by a circle of acute hot and "frozen conflicts", ranging from low-intensity violence through terrorism to full-fledged wars. The prevailing pattern of inter-communal and interethnic conflicts in the Balkans and on Cyprus has long been different from the patterns of conflict in the rest of Europe and in the Near East. This difference is closely related to the fact that these lands experienced in the past a centuries-long rule by the Ottoman Empire, whose legal successor is the Republic of Turkey. The inter-communal conflict potential in the rest of Europe used to differ substantially from the one in the Balkans, but the difference has been greatly reduced as Western Europe has in one respect become "balkanised".


Lab-on-a-chip systems used for nucleic acid based detection of bacteria rely on bacterial lysis for the release of cellular material. Although electrical lysis devices can be miniaturized for on-chip integration and reagent-free lysis, they often suffer from high voltage requirements, and rely on the use of off-chip voltage supplies. To overcome this barrier, we developed a rapid prototyping method for creating multi-scale electrodes that are structurally tuned for lowering the voltage needed for electrical bacterial lysis. These three-dimensional multi-scale electrodes – with micron scale reaction areas and nanoscale features – are fabricated using benchtop methods including craft cutting, polymer-induced wrinkling, and electrodeposition, which enable a lysis device to be designed, fabricated, and optimized in a matter of hours. These tunable electrodes show superior behaviour compared to lithographically-prepared electrodes in terms of lysis efficiency and voltage requirement. Successful extraction of nucleic acids from bacterial samples processed by these electrodes demonstrates the potential for these rapidly prototyped devices to be integrated within practical lab-on-a-chip systems.


Abstract Constructs such as Cognitive Errors (CE) and other types of cognition are crucial to the advancement of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) theory, practice and research. However, much ambiguity remains surrounding the characterization and manifestation of CEs and other types of cognitions (e.g., Kwon & Oei, 1994). In response to this, Drapeau and Perry (2008) developed the Cognitive Errors Rating Scale (CERS) which has the potential to clarify some of this ambiguity and to provide a means of assessing the manifestation of CEs. The present study first investigated whether the ambiguity surrounding the characterization and manifestation of cognition types translates from CBT literature to the experience of researchers and practitioners. An online survey (n=128) indicated that this ambiguity is, in fact, not evident to researchers and practitioners. Demographic variables, including identity as a researcher versus practitioner, attitude toward manual use, and experience in practice, affected participants' assessment of the need for and the benefit from the provision of consensual definitions for cognition types in CBT theory. The study also examined the face validity of the CERS. Results showed that the CERS has strong face validity. The research implications of these findings are discussed. Keywords: cognitive errors, cognitive distortions, measurement, assessment, Cognitive Error Rating Scale, CERS, face validity, cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT In conceptualizing psychopathology and its treatment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) scholarship has postulated the existence of a type of cognition referred to as a cognitive error (CE). Despite the fact that CEs are central to the field of CBT, there is variation in the approaches that have been taken to defining and characterizing CEs. As a result, answers to questions such as "what makes a CE a CE? or "what, if anything, differentiates a CE from an automatic thought or a schema?" differ from one scholar to the next (e.g., Kwon & Oei, 1994). For example, some have characterized CEs as distorted cognitive processes and distinguished them from automatic thoughts which are understood to be the cognitive products of distorted cognitive processes (e.g. Hollon & Kriss, 1984; Kwon & Oei, 1994). Others define CEs and related constructs using a surface versus deep criterion, which represents the degree to which a cognition is accessible to awareness. In this context, both CEs and automatic thoughts are believed to be accessible to awareness (i.e. on the surface) and are distinguished from schemas which are considered inaccessible to awareness (i.e., deep; e.g., Kwon & Oei, 1994; Leahy, 2000). Researchers and theorists appear to take for granted different terms and characterizations of CEs. This variation has created inconsistency and uncertainty in the field of CBT (Kwon & Oei, 1994). For instance, when given examples of various types of CEs, independent judges are unable to reliably differentiate between them (Krantz & Hammen, 1979). As a result, of the two adult CE measures in existence, the Cognitive Bias Questionnaire acts only as a general gauge of thought distortion rather than a measure of specific types of CEs (Krantz & Hammen, 1979). Similarly, the Cognitive Error Questionnaire (Lefebvre, 1981) probes only four of the dozens of CEs described by CBT theorists (e.g., Dobson, 2010; Leahy, 2000; Sacco and Beck, 1995). Furthermore, measures presumed to target types of cognitions other than CEs are not exclusive of CEs. For example, according to the thought type characterizations presented by Sacco and Beck (1986), item 23 on the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ; Hollon and Kendall, 1980), "I can't do anything well," appears to be both negative thought content characteristic of an automatic thought and distorted thought processing (i.e., over-generalizing) characteristic of a CE. Likewise, item 14 on the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS; Weissman & Beck, 1978), "If I fail partly, it is as bad as being a complete failure," is both stable thought content characteristic of a dysfunctional attitude and distorted thought processing (i. …


Background: Juvenile polyposis (JP) is an autosomal dominant syndrome predisposing to colorectal and gastric cancer. We have identified mutations in two genes causing JP, MADH4 and bone morphogenetic protein receptor 1A (BMPR1A): both are involved in bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) mediated signalling and are members of the TGF-β superfamily. This study determined the prevalence of mutations in MADH4 and BMPR1A, as well as three other BMP/activin pathway candidate genes in a large number of JP patients. Methods: DNA was extracted from the blood of JP patients and used for PCR amplification of each exon of these five genes, using primers flanking each intron–exon boundary. Mutations were determined by comparison to wild type sequences using sequence analysis software. A total of 77 JP cases were sequenced for mutations in the MADH4, BMPR1A, BMPR1B, BMPR2, and/or ACVR1 (activin A receptor) genes. The latter three genes were analysed when MADH4 and BMPR1A sequencing found no mutations. Results: Germline MADH4 mutations were found in 14 cases (18.2%) and BMPR1A mutations in 16 cases (20.8%). No mutations were found in BMPR1B, BMPR2, or ACVR1 in 32 MADH4 and BMPR1A mutation negative cases. Discussion: In the largest series of JP patients reported to date, the prevalence of germline MADH4 and BMPR1A mutations is approximately 20% for each gene. Since mutations were not found in more than half the JP patients, either additional genes predisposing to JP remain to be discovered, or alternate means of inactivation of the two known genes are responsible for these JP cases.


Author: Zhou, Qingheng. MS Institution: Purdue University Degree Received: December 2019 Title: Exploring Social Roles in Twitch Chatrooms Major Professor: Dr. Colin M. Gray With the popularity of the gaming industry, game streaming appeared and became a global phenomenon with high participation in recent years. Game streaming platforms such as Twitch had millions of active users participated in the community by watching and chatting. Yet there was lack of investigation about how chat behaviors connected with the overall participation in game streaming community. This study aims to describe and analyze the roles taken on by viewers as they engaged in chat while watching game streaming and identify how these roles influenced participation. I designed a qualitative study with online observations on several Twitch channels streaming Overwatch. By analyzing the chatlogs collected, I identified four social roles among chatters: Lurker, Troll, Collaborator, and Moderator. A discourse analysis was applied to further investigate the interactions among these roles and how they shape the conversation in chatrooms. With these findings, I generated a four-role model that specific for chatters in Twitch personal channels. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research were also provided.


Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Abstract This chapter will present an overview of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyano- HABs) and biotic and abiotic factors, as well as various aspects associated with these worldwide ecological bursts. The exact causes of the cyanoHABs are still not well defined, but eutrophication and climate change (temperature increase, light intensity variation, etc.) are the two assumed main factors that may promote the proliferation and expansion of cyanobacterial blooms. However, these premises need to be profoundly investigated as the optimal combination of all factors such as increased nutrient loading, physiological characteristics of cyanobacterial species, and climate effects which could lead to the blooming pattern will require robust modeling approaches to predict the phenomena. Negative issues associated with cyanoHABs are diverse including the toxic products (cyanotoxins) released by certain taxa which can damage the health of humans and animal habitats around the related watershed as well as generate a huge water qual ity problem for aquatic industries.


Ocean acidification and global warming are known as two of the most crucial factors impacting marine ecosystems worldwide. While most investigations tested short-term impacts of single environmental drivers (e.g. temperature, salintiy) on single species, studies on the combined effect of multiple drivers on a multi-species assemblage in different seasons, which is much more realistic and relevant, are still scarce. Therefore, an experimental mesocosm facility was built to gain information on community changes under the impacts from multiple drivers. In three consecutive experiments, in spring, summer and autumn 2014, compartments of an intertidal macroalgae-mussel community from the Wadden Sea were incubated for 8 to 11 weeks within a large-scale mesocosm facility (Sylt Benthic Mesocosm). In the experiments four different treatments were applied: Ambient, nutrient enrichment (N; doubled natural summer nutrient concentration), warming in combination with acidification (OAW; ambient + 5°C and 1000ppm), and a combination of all three drivers (OAW+N). To find seasonal effects, we compared the responses of (OAW) to that of the ambient treatment in spring, summer and autumn. Carbon flows within the food web of the enclosed species assemblage were analysed by a holistic, static modelling approach (Ecological Network Analysis, ENA).
The combined effects of ocean warming and acidification decreased the biomass of the main grazers and the macrophyte Fucus vesiculosus, while epiphytes massively increased due to an altered top-down control during summer. This creates a bottle neck within the energy flow between the first two trophic levels and let less energy pass to higher trophic levels. Enriched nutrients alone did not affect the system substantially, but especially grazers seem to benefit from enriched nutrient concentrations. The effects of climate change on the investigated Wadden Sea community strongly depends on the investigated season. In spring and autumn, OAW affected less or even promoted the system by increased energy flows between the trophic levels. In summer the opposite was found, with decreased energy flow, hampered top-down control and a reduced trophic efficiency, that could propagate through the whole food web and alter the structure and functioning of the investigated community. The Analysis ENA showed a lower relative ascendancy and the trend to an increasing flow diversity, as the result of a high number of multiple pathways between the system components. Theoretically, the resilience of the system shows a tendency to increase and the capability of withstanding external disturbances under OAW as compared to an unstressed system.