The areolate Oriental family Heteropterygidae Kirby, 1893 is critically reviewed and the results of the present study contradict the arrangement suggested by Zompro (2004), but in most aspects agree with a molecular study presented by Whiting et al (2003) and a phylogenetic study presented by Bradler (2009). The family is critically discussed and new hypotheses are presented for the phylogeny and intra-familiar relationships, placing the subfamily Dataminae Rehn & Rehn, 1939 as the basalmost clade of Heteropterygidae. The subfamilies Obriminae Brunner v. Wattenwyl, 1893 and Heteropteryginae Kirby, 1893 together represent the sister-group of Dataminae. Arguments and a tree are presented to support this hypothesis. New diagnoses and lists of genera are provided for all three subfamilies contained in Heteropterygidae, along with keys to distinguish between them.        The subfamily Obriminae is critically reviewed and the distinction between the three tribes Obrimini Brunner v. Wattenwyl, 1893, Eubulidini Zompro, 2004 and Miroceramiini Zompro, 2004 introduced by Zompro (2004) is shown to be poorly supported. While Obrimini sensu Zompro, 2004 is generally accepted (but now also contains genera that were placed in Eubulidini or Miroceramiini by Zompro (2004)), the tribes Eubulidini and Miroceramiini are not supported. A new arrangement is introduced, which is based on morphological characters neglected or overlooked by Zompro (2004) but were partly discussed by Bradler (2009). The genus Mearnsiana Rehn & Rehn, 1939 is removed from Miroceramiini and transferred to Obrimini. The genera Eubulides Stål, 1877, Heterocopus Redtenbacher, 1906, Theramenes Stål, 1875 and Stenobrimus Redtenbacher, 1906 are removed from Eubulidini and also transferred to Obrimini. Consequently, Eubulidini is synonymised with Obrimini (n. syn.). Miroceramiini is a monotypical tribe and only includes the Wallacean genus Miroceramia Günther, 1934. The new tribe Tisamenini n. trib. is established for the three basal genera Tisamenus Stål, 1875, Ilocano Rehn & Rehn, 1939 and Hoploclonia Stål, 1875 all of which were placed in Eubulidini by Zompro (2004). The latter genus differs from the other two genera by the morphology of the female genitalia, which is unique amongst the entire family. Three generic groups are recognized within Obrimini, the Obrimus-group, Stenobrimus-group and Theramenes-group. Keys are presented to distinguish between the three tribes now contained in the Obriminae, i.e. Obrimini, Tisamenini n. trib. and Miroceramiini. The genus Hennobrimus Conle, 2006 is synonymised with Mearnsiana Rehn & Rehn, 1939, based on the fact that the type-species of both genera are conspecific (n. syn.). Hennobrimus hennemanni Conle, 2006, the type-species of Hennobrimus, and Trachyaretaon manobo Lit & Eusebio, 2005 are synonymised with Mearnsiana bullosa Rehn & Rehn, 1939, the type-species of Mearnsiana (n. syn.). Theramenes dromedarius Stål, 1877 from the Philippines is removed from synonymy with the Wallacean Theramenes olivaceus (Westwood, 1859) and re-established as a valid species (rev. stat.).        The subfamily Heteropteryginae Kirby, 1896 is revised at the species-level and a new diagnosis is presented. Keys to the two genera and all 16 known species are provided along with new descriptions, differential diagnoses, lists of examined material, detailed information on the known distributions, measurements and illustrations of the insects and eggs. The intra-subfamiliar and intra-generic relationships are discussed and a cladogram is presented. Heteropteryginae contains two genera: Heteropteryx Gray, 1835 (Type-species: Phasma dilatatum Parkinson, 1798) and Haaniella Kirby, 1896 (Type-species: Phasma (Heteropteryx) muelleri de Haan, 1842). The distribution of this subfamily is restricted to Sundaland with the exception of a single species that is found in Vietnam. All other species are distributed in Borneo, Sumatra, the Mentawai Islands, Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. Heteropteryginae contains the largest and most striking members of the entire family Heteropteryginae, some of which are amongst the heaviest insects known. The subfamily is characterized by apomorphies such as the presence of wings, having a tympanal area (= stridulatory organ) in the basal portion of the alae, straight profemora, strongly shortened tarsi, lack of rough sensory-areas on the prosternum and typically X-shaped micropylar plate of the eggs. The sister-group of Heteropteryginae is represented by the Obriminae, with which it shares a beak-like secondary ovipositor in the females and presence of a medio-apical spine on the area apicalis. Both features are synapomorphies of Heteropteryginae + Obriminae.        The genus Haaniella Kirby, 1904 contains 16 known species, five of which are newly described herein. The genus Miniopteryx Zompro, 2004 (Type-species: Haaniella parva Günther, 1944) is synonymised with Haaniella on the basis that the distinguishing feature mentioned in the original description is a character that is frequently found throughout the genus (n. syn.). The type-species H. parva Günther, 1944 is automatically retransferred to Haaniella (rev. stat.). Haaniella aculeata n. sp. from western Sumatra is described from the male. Haaniella macroptera n. sp. from Singapore and the Johor state in southern Peninsular Malaysia is described from both sexes and the eggs. Haaniella gintingi n. sp. from Central Sumatra is described from both sexes and the eggs and Haaniella kerincia n. sp. from Western Sumatra is described from the insects only, the eggs being still unknown. One new species, Haaniella gorochovi n. sp., is the only representative of the genus and subfamily Heteropteryginae known from Vietnam and both sexes as well as the eggs are described. Haaniella erringtoniae (Redtenbacher, 1906) is endemic in Peninsular Malaysia, here removed from synonymy with H. muelleri (de Haan, 1842) and re-established as a valid species (rev. stat.). The Sumatran Haaniella glaber (Redtenbacher, 1906) is removed from synonymy with H. muelleri (Haan, 1842) and re-established as a valid species (rev. stat.). Leocrates glaber Redtenbacher, 1906 and Haaniella muelleri simplex Günther, 1944 are removed from synonymy with H. muelleri (Haan, 1842) (rev. stat.) and synonymised with H. glaber. Haaniella mecheli (Redtenbacher, 1906) and H. rosenbergii (Kaup, 1871) are removed from synonymy with H. muelleri (Haan, 1842) and re-established as valid species (rev. stat.). Haaniella erringtoniae novaeguineae Günther, 1934 and Haaniella muelleri var. b. (Haan, 1842) are synonymized with H. rosenbergii (Kaup, 1871) (n. syn.). The type-species Haaniella muelleri (Haan, 1842) is shown to be a fairly rare species that is restricted to Sumatra. All subsequent records of H. muelleri from outside Sumatra and references to captive breeding of stock originating from Peninsular Malaysia in Europe relate to H. erringtoniae (Redtenbacher, 1906). The previously unknown males and eggs of H. rosenbergii (Kaup, 1871) as well as the previously unknown females and eggs of H. parva Günther, 1944 are described and illustrated for the first time. Based on morphological characters of the insects and eggs three distinct species-groups are recognized within Haaniella. The muelleri species-group contains nine species that are distributed throughout Sumatra, the Mentawei Islands, Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. These are characterized by the smooth ventral surface of the meso- and metafemora and lemon-shaped eggs which entirely lack the setae seen in the two other species-groups. The grayii species-group comprises four species, two of which are endemic in Borneo, one endemic in Sumatra and the fourth species being the only known representative of the subfamily in Vietnam. These species are characteristic for the prominent pair of spines on the abdominal tergites II-IV of males and long apically multidentate epiproct of females. The echinata species-group contains three exceptionally Bornean species, which are characterized by the long and apically pointed subgenital plate of females, which clearly projects beyond the epiproct, as well as the sub-basal lateral tooth of the anal segment of males. The muelleri species-group is sister to the remainder two species-groups.        Heteropteryx Gray, 1853 is a monotypical genus and only contains the type-species H. dilatata (Parkinson, 1798), which is found throughout Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra and Northeastern Borneo. This genus differs from Haaniella by the strongly conically elevated head, which posteriorly projects over the anterior margin of the pronotum, females being bright green or yellow in colour with plain and translucent pink alae and having distinct spines on the abdominal tergites, and males having a strongly shortened mesothorax and dull pink alae.        Lectotypes are designated for Haaniella parva Günther, 1944, Heteropteryx echinata Redtenbacher, 1906, Heteropteryx saussurei Redtenbacher, 1906 and Heteropteryx scabra Redtenbacher, 1906 to guarantee stability of these names.        Information on the habitats, host-plants, biology, life cycle, parasitism and captive breeding of the species of Heteropteryginae is presented and a list summarising all taxonomic changes presented herein.


In any country, the education of the next generation is of huge importance. For Libya, which has developed very rapidly, the education of young people will be vital for the future of the country. The main problem at present in Libya is the quality of education: the need to build so much in order to educate so many in a short time creates the classical dilemma of quality of education versus quantity of education, a problem common in many developing countries. There is also a shortage of Libyan school teachers at secondary school level especially those qualified in science subjects, as well as resource problems. The examination system emphasises the rote recall of information and holds great power over the learners at key times of the year. Against this background, students sometimes show their dissatisfaction by leaving school or simply failing to attend.

The aim of the present research is to look at Libyan education at various stages and ages from the student perspective: in middle (ages 12-15) and high schools (ages 16-20). The aim was to gain a picture of what was happening and to find out student's views about their learning experiences. Overall, the aim of this study is to offer insights into the perception, beliefs and attitudes of students in Libya in an educational system where growth has been phenomenal over the past five decades or so.

The study involved three major surveys using questionnaires. These involved very large samples (1939 in all), drawn from a wide range of schools and catchment areas, reflecting Libyan society. It was possible to analyse the responses by various subgroups. Great care was taken to ensure that the students responded to reflect what they actually thought by emphasising that the questionnaires were not seen by teachers, all questionnaires being anonymous. To confirm the picture given by the responses to the questionnaires, samples of students were interviewed using a checklist of key areas of interest. A sample of teachers was also interviewed to see to what extent their views matched those of the students.

A first survey offered an overview of students' views, the emphasis being on looking for trends with age. Age 12 is the first year of middle school under the Libyan system while age 15 is the uppermost year in middle schools. The other three groups are drawn from various stages in the high school. The second survey allowed students nearing the end of their studies at secondary school to reflect on their experiences and to offer ideas for the future. Students are able to reflect on their educational journey as they approach the end of schooling; and university, college or jobs are in the imminent future. In Libyan education, students make fixed subject choices (arts, sciences, technology) which determine their high school and curriculum. Once a choice is made, they have to continue with this for the remainder of their school time. The third survey focussed on the age group when these decisions have just been taken: first year in high school.

Finally, the interviews offered a useful way to see to what extent what the students said matched the pictures which had come from analysing the questionnaires. Interviewing a sample of teachers gave added insights in offering a new perspective on the Libyan educational provision as seen from the teacher perspective. The main question was the extent to which teacher views matched student views.

The examinations system clearly poses many problems, including relationships to the curriculum as well as cheating. The students want less reliance on recall, less reliance on end of year examinations and they feel that they are being undermined by the ease of cheating. The system is dominated by the reward of accurate recall. There seems to be an expressed wish for freedom: freedom to question, freedom to express themselves, freedom to be released from the dominance of memorisation and recall. Despite this, they still rely on the security of the factual knowledge as the sources are often seen in black and white terms. Teachers are seen as authority figures and the curriculum is based tightly on prescribed textbooks. Students wish for curricula which are related to life and lifestyles as well as related to their needs, future needs and aspirations. Students were also seeking some kind of pastoral care and support for learning.

In looking at specific subject areas, the sciences need some overhaul. The students see them largely as memory driven and this presents the sciences as bodies of knowledge to be memorised rather than methods of enquiry or ways of interpreting and understanding the world around. They have a utilitarian view of language, wanting to start English at a very much earlier age so that it is available for the world of the sciences. Mathematics is a major problem area, generating very polarised views. The main problem subjects, therefore, appear to be mathematics and physics (with its abstractness) and, perhaps, chemistry. This is a matter of concern given the high proportions which take these subjects for career reasons.

The purpose of education is seen as based on careers, examination passing and recall. Understanding, applying ideas, creativity, questioning are all devalued. The idea of school education as a way to unlock potential seems missing and the students appear to appreciate that. The teacher's role is largely that of transmitting information in an efficient and effective manner to their students. The teachers have little insight in the role of their subjects in the development of young people. They are ruled by the demands of society, with its dependence on examination success for gaining access to the next stage of life. They find the curriculum overcrowded and want more time for students to be able to think. However, they have little clear idea of the nature and role of understanding and the idea of seeing their subject in terms of wider life (outside entry to careers) is largely absent.

Overall, the students are quite positive about many aspects of their experiences although they know of no other educational system. The most fundamental need is to generate a new way of thinking: where the recall of information under an examination-driven system is changed to an educational experience where understanding, applying ideas, creativity and questioning hold a much higher status. This will need a major paradigm shift for teachers and wider society in Libya.


European private regulation pre-existed European Community law and co-exists with it today, giving rise to different forms of complementarity with European legislation. While in the initial stage of jus commune, a stronger role for co-regulation characterized private law, the formation of national legal systems, and in particular the era of codifications, changed the complementarity between public and private law-making. Codifications reduced cooperative law-making but increased the role of adjudication as the vehicle through which customs and practices accessed European continental legal systems. The rise of the regulatory State and the more recent transformations of regulatory strategies have brought up new forms of co-regulation with increasing trends of negotiated rule-making, affecting legal integration through different institutions. In this article the place of private regulation in the evolution of EPL is explored. It affects, in different ways, the whole domain of private law, from contract to property, from civil liability to unfair competition. Often European harmonised private regulation has anticipated European legislation, for example in the areas of unfair commercial practices, internet, financial markets. In other cases, forms of mutual recognition of private regulations have occurred. While the modes through which private regulation has contributed to European legal integration differ, it is quite clear that it has played and will play a significant role.


Transformer-based models have achieved state-of-the-art results in many natural language processing (NLP) tasks. The self-attention architecture allows us to combine information from all elements of a sequence into context-aware representations. However, all-to-all attention severely hurts the scaling of the model to large sequences. Another limitation is that information about the context is stored in the same element-wise representations. This makes the processing of properties related to the sequence as a whole more difficult. Adding trainable memory to selectively store local as well as global representations of a sequence is a promising direction to improve the Transformer model. Memory-augmented neural networks (MANNs) extend traditional neural architectures with general-purpose memory for representations. MANNs have demonstrated the capability to learn simple algorithms like Copy or Reverse and can be successfully trained via backpropagation on diverse tasks from question answering to language modeling outperforming RNNs and LSTMs of comparable complexity. In this work, we propose and study two extensions of the Transformer baseline (1) by adding memory tokens to store non-local representations, and (2) creating memory bottleneck for the global information. We evaluate these memory augmented Transformers on machine translation task and demonstrate that memory size positively correlates with the model performance. Attention patterns over the memory suggest that it improves the model's ability to process a global context. We expect that the application of Memory Transformer architectures to the tasks of language modeling, reading comprehension, and text summarization, as well as other NLP tasks that require the processing of long contexts will contribute to solving challenging problems of natural language understanding and generation.


Background Alcohol and drug abuse are recognized to be significantly prevalent in trauma patients, and are frequent harbingers of injury. The incidence of substance abuse in elderly trauma patients has, however, been limitedly examined. The authors sought to identify the spectrum of positive alcohol and drug toxicology screens in patients ≥65 years admitted to a Level I trauma center. Methods Patients ≥65 years old admitted to an American College of Surgeons (ACS) Level I trauma center over a 60-month period were identified from the trauma registry. Demographic data, blood alcohol content (BAC), and urine drug screen (UDS) results at admission were obtained and analyzed. The positive results were compared with individuals below 65 years in different substance categories using Fisher's exact test. Results In the 5-year period studied, of the 4139 patients ≥65 years, 1302 (31.5%) underwent toxicological substance screening. A positive BAC was present in 11.1% of these patients and a positive UDS in 48.3%. The mean BAC level in those tested was 163 mg/dL and 69% of patients had a level >80 mg/dL. Conclusions These data show that alcohol and drug abuse are an issue in patients ≥65 years in our institution, though not as pervasive a problem as in younger populations. Admission toxicology screens, however, are important as an aid to identify geriatric individuals who may require intervention.


The critical role of the Notch pathway (which provides signals that control cell fate and tissue differentiation during development) is evident in the multiple redundant mechanisms that restrict inappropriate activity of Notch-dependent gene expression. When CSL transcription factors are not activated by Notch signaling, they actively repress expression of target genes. Various pathway components, including the receptor Notch itself, are regulated by ubiquitin-dependent degradation. Lai et al. explore yet another mechanism and provide evidence of an expanded role for microRNA-mediated regulation in control of Notch-dependent gene expression. In Drosophila, Notch signaling regulates two clusters of genes, the E(spl)-C (enhancer of split-complex) and BRD-C (bearded complex). These genes contain sequence motifs that appear to be complementary to miRNAs, and loss of these sites is found in gain-of-function alleles of some of the genes. Lai et al. used in vivo reporter assays to show that most members of the gene complexes are regulated directly by members of three families of Drosophila miRNAs. Ectopic expression of miRNAs caused mutant phenotypes that resembled those of flies with loss-of-function mutations in the Notch pathway. The results also suggest that the Drosophila miRNAs may fine-tune regulation of target genes rather than switching them on and off as some animal miRNAs do. Furthermore, Lai et al.'s results suggest that functional inhibition is possible without extensive pairing to target mRNA sequences and that some genes encode transcripts with multiple functional miRNA binding sites in the 3′ untranslated region. E. C. Lai, B. Tam, G. M. Rubin, Pervasive regulation of Drosophila Notch target genes by GY-box-, Brd-box-, and K-box-class microRNAs. Genes Dev. 19, 1067-1080 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Japan and the United States are in closer contact politically and economically than ever before, yet in many ways our nations are as far from mutual understanding as ever. Misconceptions and miscommunications between East and West continue to plague this important relationship, frustrating the best efforts of both cultures to work together. Stereotypes abound: Americans see Japanese as evasive and inscrutable, while Japanese see Americans as pushy and selfish. What causes these persistent misunderstandings, and what can be done to avoid them? Fluent in both languages and at home in both cultures, Haru Yamada brings an insiders perspective and a linguists training to this difficult question, illuminating the many reasons why Americans and Japanese misunderstand one another. Social organization, she explains, shapes the way we talk. Because American and Japanese cultures value different kinds of social relationships, they play different language games with different sets of rules. In America, for instance, Aesops fable about the grasshopper and the ants ends with the ants scorning the foolhardy grasshopper. In Japan, however, the story has a very different ending: the ants invite the grasshopper in to share their winter meal, as they appreciate how his singing spurred them on during their summer labors. In the difference between these two endings, argues Yamada, lies an important lesson: Americans, because of their unique political history, value independence and individuality, while Japanese value mutual dependency and interconnectedness. The language of both cultures is designed to display and reinforce these values so that words, phrases and expressions in one language can have completely different connotations in another, leading to all manner of misunderstanding. Yamada provides numerous examples. In Japan, for instance, silence is valued and halting speech is considered more honest and thoughtful than fluid speech, while in America forthright, polished speech is valued. Likewise, the Japanese use word order to express emphasis, while Americans use vocal stress: a listener unaware of this difference may easily misunderstand the import of a sentence. In a lucid and insightful discussion, Yamada outlines the basic differences between Japanese and American English and analyses a number of real-life business and social interactions in which these differences led to miscommunication. By understanding how and why each culture speaks in the way that it does, Yamada shows, we can learn to avoid frustrating and damaging failures of communication. Different Games, Different Rules is essential reading for anyone who travels to or communicates regularly with Japan, whether they are scientists, scholars, tourists, or business executives. But as Deborah Tannen notes in her Foreword to the book, even those who will never travel to Japan, do business with a Japanese company, or talk to a person from that part of the world, will find the insights of this book illuminating and helpful, because the greatest benefit that comes of understanding another culture is a better and deeper understanding of one's own.


In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling - specifically, a public law school's interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well. The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court's narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning whether a focus on forward-looking rationales signals a retreat from a commitment to articulating the moral justification for affirmative action. This Article suggests that forward-looking justifications may open the door to revisit the moral roots of affirmative action by showing that diversity can be instrumentally valuable precisely because it is morally justifiable. More specifically, this Article tests Grutter's observation that [c]ontext matters when reviewing race-based government action under the Equal Protection Clause. Part I examines a decisionmaking context very similar to that presented in the University of Michigan cases: race-conscious financial aid decisions by public institutions of higher education. This is a question of real contemporary significance, as schools struggle to determine how to proceed with virtually no judicial precedent as guidance. The Article concludes that Grutter opens some doors for race-based government decisionmaking in this context, while closing others. On one hand, newly available forward-looking rationales may enable governments to rely on more generalized factual predicates to justify instrumentally motivated race-conscious decisionmaking. They may also help re-shape our understanding of undue burden to include an assessment of diversity's countervailing benefits to nonminorities, again increasing the possibility that certain affirmative action programs will survive scrutiny. The Article predicts, however, that many race-exclusive scholarships face substantial - but not necessarily insurmountable - barriers to a finding of narrow tailoring. Part II pushes further afield to examine a very different set of decisions by a different set of government decisionmakers: public entities' employment decisions. Here, too, Grutter opens new doors to race-based decisionmaking, some more promising than others. This Part predicts that forward-looking rationales may well extend to the employment context, although their application may be limited and - in at least one case - dangerous. For example, instrumental justifications that rely on race or national origin as proxies for other attributes - e.g., skill in managing a diverse workforce or anticipating the needs of a diverse consumer base - are themselves steeped in the sort of discriminatory stereotypes that remedial rationales seek to challenge.


At the time this research project was initiated, the Tasmanian pyrethrum industry was
attempting to establish crops by sowing rather than by planting of 'splits' or seedling
plugs. This thesis investigated plant density and sowing times required for maximum
yield. Studies were also conducted to improve chances for successful crop establishment
from seed. That work investigated environmental requirements for germination and
aspects of seed quality and seed production.
Previous studies have examined the influence of density on yield of pyrethrins, but none
had been conducted in sown trials, in cool temperate environments, over a wide range of
plant densities. Furthermore, the influence of plant density on components of yield had
not been intensively investigated. This work identified that maximum yield was achieved
in the first season at between 16 and 39 plants/m2 and at or above 16 plants/m2 in the
second season following establishment. Yield was a function of dry flower yield rather
than due to change in percentage of pyrethrins in the flowers. Higher flower yield was
associated with greater above- ground dry matter production. The yield component
which increased with plant density was number of flowering tillers/m 2 . Yield components
decreasing with density included number of flowering tillers/plant, flowers/tiller and dry
weight/flower. Other aspects of changing plant morphology and development with
density investigated included, crop height, mean flower maturity and plant survival. The
recommendation to industry was to aim for a plant population of above 16 and below 39
plants/m2 . Yields achieved in this work were unprecedented in the pyrethrum agronomy
literature.
No reported studies have examined the influence of time of sowing on pyrethrins yield.
Field studies showed that sowings later than mid-November led to significant reductions
in yield in the first flower harvest. Yield reductions were associated with decreased dry
matter production/plant and flowering tillers/plant. Later sowings resulted in plants
failing to flower or in significant reductions in the extent of flowering. Sowing earlier
than mid-November resulted in no significant increases in yield.
As pyrethrum crops have not been traditionally established by sowing, only scant
information was available on requirements for germination, or seed quality. A field study
and three laboratory trials investigated the influence of temperature and seed quality on
germination and emergence. Results demonstrated that rate and final emergence varied
significantly at different times of year. In general, the proportion of viable seed sown that
emerged and survived was very low. Both rate of emergence and final emergence percentage were associated with temperature. Laboratory investigation of germination
percentage, rate and uniformity of germination of a seed lot under a range of constant
temperatures confirmed the previously reported findings relating to germination
characteristics of this temperate species. Unexpected though was the high proportion of
dead seed found at temperatures only several degrees higher than the temperature for
optimal germination rate. Six seed lots were subsequently germinated at low, medium
and high temperatures which provided some insight into the seed death phenomenon as
well as documenting the range of behaviours from different seed lots. An explanation for
differences in germination behaviour involving seed maturity was proposed for different
seed lots and this was tested in a subsequent study. Finally, the effects of an 18 month
storage period on the germination characteristics seed lots was investigated in a
laboratory trial. There was little change in most germination parameters except for time
to complete germination which increased in all seed lots after storage and uniformity of
germination which decreased. Changes were assumed to be due to satisfaction of an
after ripening requirement.
Laboratory studies investigated the influence of seed mass on various germination and
seedling development characteristics. Variation in seed mass within seed lots was
identified but this had little impact on rate of germination or other germination
parameters. However, a following, study revealed that heavier seedlings emerged from
seeds that germinated earliest within seed lots. Furthermore, heavier seedlings
demonstrated faster development than did lighter seedlings. Although seedling mass was
found to be associated with rate of germination within seed lots, this factor failed • to
explain significant differences in mean time to germinate between seed lots. It was
subsequently recommended to industry that cleaning on a size or mass basis could
improve seed quality. The influence of harvest date on seed quality and quantity were investigated. Results
indicated that losses of larger achenes from the harvested flowers were occurring with
lateness of harvest. Characteristics of the seed including mean seed mass, proportion of
viable seed in the sample, germination percentage and rate of germination were found to
vary considerably with harvest date. Data generated in this work were found to be
consistent with the model which proposed that variability in germination parameters was
due largely due to maturity of seed at harvest. A following study revealed that relative
position on the capitulum also had a profound influence on germination parameters of the
seed. The recommendation for industry emanating from the harvest date work was that
flowers should be cut at a field capitulum moisture of 25%.
Finally, variation in seed quality and quantity was evaluated both within and between
capitula. This study revealed that small flower heads produced fewer and smaller seed
than larger heads. Outer achenes, regardless of whether they came from large or small
capitula were found to germinate more rapidly than inner achenes. Peripheral achenes
weighed more than central achenes and gave rise to heavier seedlings.
The methods and results in this study will serve as a valuable source of information for
agronomists and plant breeders working on improvement of pyrethrum production. The
investigations on seed quality and seed production provide a sound base for future efforts
to improve seed quality and crop establishment. The findings presented provide the
Tasmanian pyrethrum industry with critical information with respect to target plant
densities, sowing times, seed quality and seed production. It is expected that
implementation of findings from the study will prove to be pivotal in continued industry
profitability and expansion.


In this article, a unique model of instruction based on co-teaching carried out in the framework of the practice teaching program intended for third year college students is presented. The program incorporated principles of modeling based on processes of mentoring, instruction, and discussion, showing the students the pedagogical importance of teaching and involving them critically in ways to improve. The qualitative research reported in this article showed that the students, with the help of the instructors' modeling of teamwork, succeeded in overcoming many of the conflicts revealed and the difficulties experienced during the shared work training and co-teaching processes. Throughout the program, the students observed the modeling of co-teaching of the instructors from two different areas of expertise, special education and general education, and they and the instructors thus could address many issues evolving from the process.


It is more dangerous for the units sharing the same division pipeline system than those sharing individual system during the load rejection transient for a high water head pumped storage station. A new mathematical model for the load rejection transient in these two units sharing the same division pipeline was proposed using method of internal characteristic (MIC). The transient relationship between the geometric parameters and working parameters was established based on the dynamic equations of the hydraulic machinery. Meanwhile, the calculation of the load rejection transient was accomplished and compared with field experimental data from a pumped storage power station. The relative errors of the maximum rotational speed of the two units between the predicted results and the experimental data were −5.9% and −4.44%, respectively, and the relative errors of the maximum rising of hydraulic pressure were −6.7% and −6.98%, respectively. The results met with the design specification requirements, which indicated that the proposed new MIC could completely predict the load rejection transient in these two units with joint closing law of ball-valve and guide vane, and the corresponding calculated results were acceptable and reliable. The MIC is also applicable to the transient investigation of hydraulic systems with hydraulic machinery.


Now updated for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, this practical, pocket-sized reference delivers ready answers for using Windows command-line tools to manage multiple clients and servers. It s packed with hundreds of examples that show you how to run, use, schedule, and script Windows commands, support tools, and Resource Kit tools without touching the GUI. Written by a well-known author of more than two dozen computer books and featuring easy-to-read tables, lists, and step-by step instructions this POCKET CONSULTANT delivers fast, accurate information on the spot. Key Book Benefits:Provides fast facts and immediate reference for using Windows command-line tools to manage multiple clients and servers, perform bulk operations, and get more done in less time Delivers hundreds of examples of how to use Windows commands, support tools, Resource Kit tools, and batch scripts Features concise tables, easy-to-scan lists, and step-by-step instructions for immediate answers wherever you need them at your desk or in the field Updated for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008


The effect of various lipophilic weak acids on the stability of certain TOL plasmids was investigated. Benzoate induced deletion of TOL plasmid DNA in Pseudomonas putida MT15, followed by loss of the plasmid; this effect was pHand concentration-dependent, suggesting that undissociated benzoic acid was a more effective curing agent than the benzoate anion. Plasmid loss always approached a frequency of 100% after a lag and apparently depended on the prior Occurrence of deletions, although deleted plasmid was stably maintained in the absence of the acid. m-Toluate, acetate and butyrate also induced deletions and plasmid loss at high frequencies, although these acids were less effective than benzoate. Benzoate inhibited the growth of plasmid-containing cells rather than permitting faster growth of cured cells on benzoate. Similar results were obtained with P. putida strains MT20 and MT84, which contain different TOL plasmids. We suggest that lipophilic weak acids induced deletions, possibly by excision of a transposon-like region, and disrupted the segregation of deleted plasmid.


It is not well known how the nonoperated contralateral hand behaves in bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The postoperative clinical course of the nonoperated contralateral hand in unilateral CTS is not well documented either. Of 324 CTS patients, the authors studied 37 who had carpal tunnel release on one hand only to evaluate the postoperative outcome of the nonoperated contralateral hand. The other 287 patients had operations on both hands. Seven patients were excluded because of missing data or because they could not be contacted. All 324 patients were subject to clinical and electrodiagnostic studies on both hands. The patients were divided into three groups. Group I was composed of patients who had bilateral CTS, diagnosed clinically and electrophysiologically, but who had surgery done only on the hand with the most pronounced symptoms. The patients in group II showed symptoms of CTS in one hand only. However, the opposite hand was diagnosed with subclinical CTS: Electrodiagnostic studies showed involvement of the median nerve, but without symptoms. Group III was composed of true unilateral CTS patients, diagnosed by symptoms and electrodiagnostic study. The results of the electrodiagnosis were categorized according to the severity of median nerve damage (mild, moderate, severe). The outcome and postoperative clinical course of the nonoperated contralateral hand were evaluated by electromyography and telephone survey. This method of survey was used because of the vast spread of patients throughout the country. Within 1 year, all 30 operated hands showed significant improvement, 20 of which belonged to group I. Regarding progress of the nonoperated contralateral hand, 10 patients showed improvement of one grade whereas 5 patients showed three grades of improvement. In another 5 patients there was no change whatsoever. In addition, from groups II and III there were 5 patients who showed no change in the nonoperated hand. The postoperative electromyographic findings of the nonoperated contralateral hand was not commensurate with the symptoms. However, regardless of electromyographic results, the nonoperated contralateral hand showed significant improvement (p < 0.0001). Patients with unilateral CTS did not experience any symptom development in the nonoperated contralateral hand.


This study examines the effect of regulatory policy on efficiency under prudential framework among banks listed in the Iranian Securities and Exchange Organization over the period 2003 to 2015. Arellano-Bond estimation method has been patronized to investigate the effect of regulatory policies on efficiency. Results indicate that regulatory policy indicator indexing reserve requirement on investment deposits has had a positive relationship with the efficiency ratio, Sum of Assets Circulation Ratio (SACR), although it is not meaningful. On the other hand, the legal reserve ratio is positively and meaningfully affecting efficiency in financial institutions. Leverage ratio is negatively and meaningfully affecting the efficiency ratio (SACR) which highlights the point that as the financial institutions heighten their leverage ratio, it will lead to lower sum of asset circulation ratio as the best indicator of efficiency under activity proportions. Higher risk will lead to higher Financial Cost to Net Profit ratio (FCNP) interpreted as lower efficiency in financial institutes. Furthermore, regulatory policy denoted by the legal reserves ratio with one lag interval negatively-significantly influences the financial cost ratio.


The purpose of this action research study was to determine how questioning during a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity would impact comprehension and reading attitude of first graders. This quasi-experimental pre/posttest design study included 38 students from two first grade classes. Basal reader selections were used. The intervention group used questioning along a continuum while the comparison group used traditional basal reader questions. Two separate independent t tests, using the mean gain scores from the pre/post data and the pre/post Reading Attitudes Survey, failed to establish statistical significance (p=0.06). However a large effect size was documented for comprehension (0.8).


Background: Acute hepatitis C virus infection leading to fulminant hepatitis is very rare whereas Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the main causes of chronic liver disease worldwide. The repertoire of substances that accumulate in the blood in fulminant hepatic failure cause neurological abnormalities, aggravate injury to the liver and other organs, suppress the ability of residual hepatocytes to perform organ-specific functions (sick cell syndrome), and inhibit the hepatic regenerative response especially in fulminant hepatitis Virus C which has subacute clinical evolution and takes time to manifest. Liver support technology is evolving as different techniques become available that assist the remaining functional cell mass by providing specific liver functions. Case Presentation: We report a case of Fulminant C virus Hepatitis, successfully treated with albumin dialysis Molecular Adsorbent Recirculating System (MARS). At time of admittance the patient presented: Model End-stage Liver Disease (MELD)-36; Child Turcotte Pugh (CTP)-C(13); Sequential Organ Failure Assestment (SOFA)-12, Glasgow Coma Score (GCS)-11. The patient underwent six sessions of MARS in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in association with standard medical therapy (SMT). The patient survived and was discharged from the hospital in good condition after 40 days without liver transplantation (LT).


We have always conjured up creatures never seen in nature, from flying horses and two-headed birds to fire-breathing dragons and enormous killer skunks, as well as fantastic distortions of our own image, from giants to nubile maidens. In these pages you will meet extraordinary beings from Hindu and Navajo religions, Scandinavian tales, Russian folklore, Lithuanian stories, Irish oral history, American tall tales, and Aztec myth. Just some of the monstrous entourage: * Baku, a benevolent Japanese monster with the body of a horse, the head of a lion, and the legs of a tiger, who helps people by devouring their nightmares. * Kurma, the giant tortoise of Hindu myth, whose upper shell forms the heavens and lower part the earth. * Missipissy, the feared fish serpent of North America's Great Lakes region. This illustrated encyclopedia not only identifies and describes individual beasts in their cultural context but also groups them together across cultures and discusses common mythological strands and conceits.


This paper considers the possible role of an understanding of philosophical and cognitive variants in the education of information systems (IS) students. It is argued that this is important for delivering information systems and e-business value in a networked society. The first section argues that philosophy can play an active role in IS research and practice. It suggests that a particularly useful frame for integrating philosophical issues within IS research and practice is critical realism. The emphasis within critical realism suggests a consideration of both ontological and epistemological issues and that what the world is seen to be largely defines the way it can be studied. It also argues for the importance of understanding how we come to know in relation to our cognitive processes. Given this underlying framework the paper argues for the importance of an understanding of philosophical and cognitive variants by information systems students. It suggests that the reality of people's cognitive styles affects the way that they see the world and the way they develop practice within that world. This is followed by a consideration of some the factors contributing to the cognitive profile of each individual. For the purposes of this paper, a cognitive profile is considered to consist of measures of an individual's cognitive style, learning style and personality. IS student and practitioner awareness of these variants is an important element in their understanding of how individuals in a variety of organisational roles interact with each other and with information systems.


In 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was published to critical acclaim. To commemorate To Kill a Mockingbird's 50th anniversary, Michael J. Meyer has assembled a collection of new essays that celebrate this enduring work of American literature. These essays approach the novel from educational, legal, social, and thematic perspectives. Harper Lee's only novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was transformed into a beloved film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. An American classic that frequently appears in middle school and high school curriculums, the novel has been subjected to criticism for its subject matter and language. Still relevant and meaningful, To Kill a Mockingbird has nonetheless been under-appreciated by many critics. There are few books that address Lee's novel's contribution to the American canon and still fewer that offer insights that can be used by teachers and by students. These essays suggest that author Harper Lee deserves more credit for skillfully shaping a masterpiece that not only addresses the problems of the 1930s but also helps its readers see the problems and prejudices the world faces today. Intended for high school and undergraduate usage, as well as for teachers planning to use To Kill a Mockingbird in their classrooms, this collection will be a valuable resource for all teachers of American literature.


We introduce a technique for dimensionality estimation based on the notion of quantization dimension, which connects the asymptotic optimal quantization error for a probability distribution on a manifold to its intrinsic dimension. The definition of quantization dimension yields a family of estimation algorithms, whose limiting case is equivalent to a recent method based on packing numbers. Using the formalism of high-rate vector quantization, we address issues of statistical consistency and analyze the behavior of our scheme in the presence of noise.


Hexagonal sampling offers substantial computational efficiency in processing circularly band-limited and/or circularly symmetric functions and also offers a significant reduction of required data storage compared with rectangular sampling. Both Fraunhofer and Fresnel computer-generated holograms utilizing hexagonal sampling are capable of exploiting these properties. Hexagonal fast Fourier transform (FFT) and inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) algorithms have been developed along with efficient algorithms for generating the lens transmittance and free-space-transfer matrices that comprise software packages designed to accept hexagonally sampled input arrays and generate hexagonally sampled output arrays suitable for direct encoding into digital holograms.


Carbohydrate malabsorption such as in lactose intolerance or enteric infection causes symptoms that include abdominal pain. Because this digestive disorder increases intracolonic osmolarity and acidity by accumulation of undigested carbohydrates and fermented products, we tested whether these two factors (hypertonicity and acidity) would modulate colorectal afferents in association with colorectal nociception and hypersensitivity. In mouse colorectum-pelvic nerve preparations in vitro, afferent activities were monitored after application of acidic hypertonic saline (AHS; pH 6.0, 800 mosM). In other experiments, AHS was instilled intracolonically to mice and behavioral responses to colorectal distension (CRD) measured. Application of AHS in vitro excited 80% of serosal and 42% of mechanically-insensitive colorectal afferents (MIAs), sensitizing a proportion of MIAs to become mechanically sensitive and reversibly inhibiting stretch-sensitive afferents. Acute intracolonic AHS significantly increased expression of the neuronal activation marker pERK in colon sensory neurons and augmented noxious CRD-induced behavioral responses. After three consecutive daily intracolonic AHS treatments, mice were hypersensitive to CRD 4-15 days after the first treatment. In complementary single fiber recordings in vitro, the proportion of serosal class afferents increased at day 4; the proportion of MIAs decreased, and muscular class stretch-sensitive afferents were sensitized at days 11-15 in mice receiving AHS. These results indicate that luminal hypertonicity and acidity, two outcomes of carbohydrate malabsorption, can induce colorectal hypersensitivity to distension by altering the excitability and relative proportions of colorectal afferents, suggesting the potential involvement of these factors in the development of abdominal pain.


Hepatic stimulator substance (HSS), also known as augmenter of liver regeneration (ALR), acts as a hepatotrophic growth factor to promote liver regeneration after liver damage or partial hepatectomy. However, the expression and function of HSS during liver development in mammals remain largely unknown. In this work, the hepatoblasts were isolated from mice at embryonic day 13.5 (E13.5), and HSS expression and its role during hepatoblast maturation were investigated. The results showed that HSS expression was enhanced in the hepatoblasts compared with mouse primary hepatocytes. HSS expression (23 kDa) was significantly decreased if the hepatoblast maturation was induced by a combination of oncostatin M (OSM), dexamethasone (DEX), and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). We also found that knockdown of HSS expression (mainly 23-kDa isoform) by siRNA promoted hepatoblast maturation and also activated the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) phosphorylation levels. However, if STAT3 activity was blocked by a small-molecule inhibitor Stattic, then hepatocyte maturation could be abolished, suggesting that STAT3 was most likely a potential molecule responsible for HSS signaling. In summary, our results demonstrated for the first time that HSS might be an active factor participating in the regulation of liver development and hepatocyte maturation.


This book examines the relationship between central bank independence and monetary policy in Turkey with a political economic approach. Focusing on the Turkish example, it addresses the theoretical and empirical questions that arise in connection with central bank independence. It analyses the Turkish central bank's institutional statue and its implications for monetary policy since its formal independence in 2001. The main outcome is that Turkey's central bank cannot be regarded as an independent and depoliticized monetary institution, not least due to the high political pressure the ruling Justice and Development Party was able to put on monetary policy decision, especially after the global financial crises 2007-08. The book investigates further domestic and international political economic conditions and developments in regards to the exertion of influence on the Turkish monetary policy. The case of Turkey shows that even a formally independent central bank is unable to detach itself from political interference, in spite of a strong ideology of de-politicized monetary policy. To conceptually grasp this outcome the present title proposes an understanding of the CBRT's institutional status as one of 'relative autonomy'.


Abstract What are the limits of artistic freedom? How beholden is literature to truth? How confined is literature by truth? What should be the fate of a book relating the love affair between an older married man and a young woman, with close accuracy, so much so that the young woman could be identified by distant acquaintances despite the pseudonyms? An Israeli Supreme Court case rendered a few years ago ruled that the publication of the book would harshly violate the woman's privacy, while non-publication would moderately injure the author's artistic freedom. Hence the publication of the book was prohibited and the author was liable to compensate his former lover in the sum of NIS200,000. The triangle of Love–Story–Law is obviously not a unique Israeli matter. Similar stories raise universal hot debates. The Israeli case took an extreme stand compared with other legal systems. The statement "There are norms for which it is worth even losing a few 'good books'" raises concerns about the enforcement of the right to privacy as an oblique way of imposing censorship on grounds of morality. The controversial judgment begs the question of its potential value as a precedent. Alternative balancing between the competing rights, some binary, some distributive, which have been adopted in German and American case law, reflect normative decisions along the axis through freedom of action, artistic freedom, privacy and conservatism. But apart from the question of balancing conflicting rights, our love story reveals a whole set of changing values which will be historically scrutinized, starting from Nathaniel Hawthorne's story The Scarlet Letter. Both stories reflect changing normative, cultural and legal perceptions of the freedom to love, and of the power to control the exposure of love in public. The fate in life and literature of women-protagonists of intimate stories of this kind exhibits a history of a reversal of social–legal perceptions. Policing of personal intimacy gradually gives way to a loosening of sexual fetters and more freedom. At the same time control of publication on the public level yields to lifting the ban on circulation of obscene matter and entrenchment of practically unlimited freedom of expression. State responsibility for policing of such publications gives way to the individual's bearing the burden of preventing publication of matters that might harm one's dignity, reputation and privacy. The courthouse that was once open to all, even for hearings on intimate family details, now offers protection of names and of identifying details of litigants followed by the closure of its doors to the public for hearings on personal matters. And finally the Platonic perception of art as dangerous and false imitation, to be hidden away, is replaced by the requirement of hiding art away because of the truth in it.


This article is part of a larger study exploring global patterns of security education, in order to enhance the collaborative pursuit of security by the majority of the world's countries. We draw on interviews at multinational training events, site visits and open sources. Here we describe general patterns of police, gendarme and military education in Africa, with particular attention to university-like institutions. This leads us to focus on mid-career military staff colleges as the most likely venues for building communities of educated professionals to enhance security. We identify states in each region with the greatest potential to play a leading role in the development of knowledge addressing new security challenges. South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya have obvious educational potential. Good governance and national policies are more important than size and wealth, and this suggests that smaller states like Senegal and Botswana could make important contributions. Mechanisms contributing to regional security communities include the African Peace and Security Architecture, career incentives, innovation, and regional training centres. Understanding the patterns of security education lays the groundwork to understand innovation, diffusion and the influence of the content of security of education.


In order to understand the mechanisms on the variation between rice cultivars in Cd uptake and accumulation, two pot soil experiments were conducted with typical rice cultivars that varied greatly in soil Cd uptake. The experiments with six rice cultivars showed that the root oxidation abilities of rice differed with rice cultivars and also with types of the cultivars, the cultivars with indica consanguinity were significantly higher than the cultivars with japonica consanguinity. Root oxidation abilities of the rice cultivars correlated positively and significantly (P < 0.01) with their Cd concentrations and Cd quantity accumulations in rice plants. The experiments with two rice cultivars showed that significant differences also existed between the two cultivars in pot soil redox potentials, which of Shan you 63 (higher soil Cd accumulator) were significantly higher than that of Wu yun jing 7 (lower soil Cd accumulator) under different soil Cd levels, but the degrees of the differences varied with soil Cd levels. The differences were larger under soil Cd treatments than the control. The results indicate that root oxidation ability, especially in Cd contaminated soil, is one of the main mechanisms which dominate Cd uptake and accumulation by rice plant.


The specificity of human glutathione transferase (GST) A1-1 is drastically altered to favor alkenal substrates in the GIMFhelix mutant designed to mimic first-sphere interactions utilized by GSTA4-4. This redesign serves as a model for improving our understanding of the structural determinants that contribute to the distinct specificities of alpha class GSTs. Herein we report the first crystal structures of GIMFhelix, both in complex with GSH and in apo form at 1.98 and 2.38 A resolution. In contrast to the preorganized hydrophobic binding pocket that accommodates alkenals in GSTA4-4, GSTA1-1 includes a dynamic alpha9 helix that undergoes a ligand-dependent localization to complete the active site. Comparisons of the GIMFhelix structures with previously reported structures show a striking similarity with the GSTA4-4 active site obtained within an essentially GSTA1-1 scaffold and reveal the alpha9 helix assumes a similar localized structure regardless of active site occupancy in a manner resembling that of GSTA4-4. However, we cannot fully account for all the structural elements important in GSTA4-4 within the mutant's active site. The contribution of Phe10 to the Tyr212-Phe10-Phe220 network prevents complete C-terminal closure and demonstrates that the presence of Phe10 within the context of a GSTA4-4-like active site may ultimately hinder Phe220, a key C-terminal residue, from effectively contributing to the active site. In total, these results illustrate the remaining structural differences presumably reflected in the previously reported catalytic efficiencies of GIMFhelix and GSTA4-4 and emphasize the F10P mutation as being necessary to completely accomplish the transformation to a highly specific GST from the more promiscuous GSTA1-1 enzyme.


Recent studies have shown that most of deaths in the 1918 influenza pandemic were caused by secondary bacterial infections, primarily pneumococcal pneumonia. Given the availability of antibiotics and pneumococcal vaccination, how will contemporary populations fare when they are next confronted with pandemic influenza due to a virus with the transmissibility and virulence of that of 1918? To address this question we use a mathematical model and computer simulations. Our model considers the epidemiology of both the influenza virus and pneumonia-causing bacteria and allows for co-infection by these two agents as well as antibiotic treatment, prophylaxis and pneumococcal vaccination. For our simulations we use influenza transmission and virulence parameters estimated from 1918 pandemic data. We explore the anticipated rates of secondary pneumococcal pneumonia and death in populations with different prevalence of pneumococcal carriage and contributions of antibiotic prophylaxis, treatment, and vaccination to these rates. Our analysis predicts that in countries with lower prevalence of pneumococcal carriage and access to antibiotics and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, there would substantially fewer deaths due to pneumonia in contemporary populations confronted with a 1918-like virus than that observed in the 1918. Our results also predict that if the pneumococcal carriage prevalence is less than 40%, the positive effects of antibiotic prophylaxis and treatment would be manifest primarily at of level of individuals. These antibiotic interventions would have little effect on the incidence of pneumonia in the population at large. We conclude with the recommendation that pandemic preparedness plans should consider co-infection with and the prevalence of carriage of pneumococci and other bacteria responsible for pneumonia. While antibiotics and vaccines will certainly reduce the rate of individual mortality, the factor contributing most to the relatively lower anticipated lethality of a pandemic with a 1918-like influenza virus in contemporary population is the lower prevalence of pneumococcal carriage.


Efficient navigation of our social world depends on the generation, interpretation and combination of social signals within different sensory systems. However, the influence of adult aging on cross-modal integration of emotional stimuli remains poorly understood. Therefore, the aim of this PhD thesis is to understand the integration of visual and auditory cues in social situations and how this is associated with other factors important for successful social interaction such as recognising emotions or understanding the mental states of others. A series of eight experiments were designed to compare the performance of younger and older adults on tasks related to multisensory integration and social cognition. Results suggest that older adults are significantly less accurate at correctly identifying emotions from one modality (faces or voices alone) but perform as well as younger adults on tasks where congruent auditory and visual emotional information are presented concurrently. Therefore, older adults appear to benefit from congruent multisensory information. In contrast, older adults are poorer than younger adults at detecting incongruency from different sensory modalities involved in decoding cues to deception, sarcasm or masking of emotions. It was also found that age differences in the processing of relevant and irrelevant visual and auditory social information might be related to changes in gaze behaviour. A further study demonstrated that the changes in behaviour and social interaction often reported in patients post-stroke might relate to problems in integrating the cross-modal social information. The pattern of findings is discussed in relation to social, emotional, neuropsychological and cognitive theories.


Abstract Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and a central role for α-synuclein (αSyn; SNCA) in disease aetiology has been proposed based on genetics and neuropathology. To better understand the pathological mechanisms of αSyn, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from healthy individuals and PD patients carrying the A53T SNCA mutation or a triplication of the SNCA locus and differentiated them into dopaminergic neurons (DAns). iPSC-derived DAn from PD patients carrying either mutation showed increased intracellular αSyn accumulation, and DAns from patients carrying the SNCA triplication displayed oligomeric αSyn pathology and elevated αSyn extracellular release. Transcriptomic analysis of purified DAns revealed perturbations in expression of genes linked to mitochondrial function, consistent with observed reduction in mitochondrial respiration, impairment in mitochondrial membrane potential, aberrant mitochondrial morphology and decreased levels of phosphorylated DRP1Ser616. Parkinson's iPSC-derived DAns showed increased endoplasmic reticulum stress and impairments in cholesterol and lipid homeostasis. Together, these data show a correlation between αSyn cellular pathology and deficits in metabolic and cellular bioenergetics in the pathology of PD.


Overpressure estimation methods that use sonic velocity as a proxy for porosity only account for excess pressure due to disequilibrium compaction; the influence of unloading processes in generating larger excess pressure observed in most basins is ignored. Wireline log data and pore pressure measurements from wells across the Central Graben and the East Shetland Basin, North Sea, have been used to find out whether velocity is sensitive to the contribution of unloading processes to observed overpressures. The approach was to focus on fine-grained sediments, chalk and mudstones, and establish a relationship between sonic velocity and other petrophysical parameters, necessarily including porosity and vertical effective stress, when the latter variables are treated as independent. Investigation of the Chalk in the Central Graben has shown that velocity has no detectable dependence on vertical effective stress when porosity and effective stress are treated as independent variables. The significance is that velocity in Chalk cannot be used to detect the presence of any overpressure caused by unloading. It is suggested that the absence of an observable velocity reduction in unloaded Chalk is due to cementation. Analyses in the Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic mudstones show that gamma ray count and depth can usefully be taken as additional parameters in overpressure estimation. In both the Cromer Knoll and in the Heather formation, there is a small but significant dependence of velocity on vertical effective stress when porosity and effective stress are taken as independent variables together with gamma ray count and depth. The sensitivity factor is 21.8 m/s/MPa in the Cromer Knoll and 17.4 m/s/MPa in the Heather. The contribution of the vertical effective stress with associated independent variables (gamma-ray and depth) produced RMS errors between measured and forward-calculated values of sonic velocity of 101 m/s for the Cromer Knoll and 107 m/s for the Heather Formation. The discrepancies may be attributed to the contributions of other rock parameters that were not taken into account.


Throughout the entire span of Graeco-Roman antiquity Alexandria represented a meeting place for many ethnic cultures and the city itself was subject to a wide range of local developments, which created and formatted a distinct Alexandrine 'culture' as well as several distinct 'cultures'. Ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish observers communicated or held claim to that particular message. Hence, Arrian, Theocritus, Strabo, and Athenaeus reported their fascination of the Alexandrine melting pot to the wider world and so did Philo, Josephus and Clement. In various fashions, the four papers of Part I of the volume, Alexandria from Greece and Egypt, deal with the relationship between Ptolemaic Alexandria and its Greek past. However, the Egyptian origin and heritage also play important roles for the arguments. The contributions to the second part of the book are devoted to discussions of various aspects of contact and development between Rome, Judaism and Christianity.


The Treaty of Lisbon created two key new positions: President of the Council and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Vice President of the Commission. These positions were filled, respectively, by Belgium's former Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy, and the UK's Catherine Ashton. This article examines the process by which these appointments were made and assesses the performance of the post holders during the first eighteen months of their tenure. It asks what could reasonably have been expected of these two leaders in a context where Member States continue to exercise power and influence alongside rather than via the European Union and in which major events - the sovereign debt crisis and the Arab spring - have challenged the incumbents to stamp their mark on Europe's position in the world. It concludes that van Rompuy has performed relatively satisfactorily, whereas Ashton is widely perceived to have failed in making her mark.


Since the structural elucidation of duplex DNA, the construction of small molecules that recognise and react at specific sites to modify DNA structure, reactivity and biological repair mechanisms has been an area of considerable research interest. The discovery of the first synthetic chemical nuclease [Cu(phen) 2 ] 2+ (where phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) has sparked intensive effort toward the development of new artificial metallonucleases. [Cu(phen) 2 ] 2+ binds both nucleic acids and proteins without specificity inducing general toxicity, and is thus considered a "promiscuous" agent. Accordingly, manipulation of this chemotype represents an interesting developmental challenge. The first part of this work thus reports a range of novel Cu 2+ chemical nucleases of [Cu(phen)(N,N´)] 2+ carrying designer phenazine type-intercalators (where N,N´ = DPQ, DPPZ and DPPN) were developed to identify how systematic extension of the ligated phenanthrene group influences nucleotide binding affinity, base selectivity, oxidative chemical nuclease activity, and cytotoxicity within human cancer cells. Agents within this series showed potent intercalative selectivity with high-affinity binding constants among the highest reported to-date.

Since the introduction of two metal centres into complex scaffolds has uncovered nucleic acid binding interactions not possible through the use of simple univalent compounds— with recent examples including the cytotoxic 'self-activating' DNA oxidant [Cu 2 (µ- terephthalate)(phen) 4 ] 2+ —the development of new polynuclear complexes is an area of considerable research interest. With this in mind, the second part of this thesis reports a new di-Cu 2+ complex [Cu 2 (tetra-(2-pyridyl)-naphthalene)Cl 4 ] (Cu 2 TPNap) that was rationally designed based on i.) the utility of a tetra-2-pyridine ligand scaffold for efficient nucleic acid catalytic cleavage within previously reported di-Zn 2+ systems, and ii.) the introduction of an aromatic DNA binding moiety that can potentially enhance both nucleic acid targeting and binding affinity. Using a range of molecular biological and spectroscopic techniques, Cu 2 TPNap was identified to bind DNA non-intercalatively at the major groove inducing guanine-cytosine specific deformation and condensation. The complex oxidatively damages DNA through a superoxide-mediated process leading to strand breakages in the absence of co-activating exogenous species.

The final part of this thesis reports the discovery of a new class of DNA condensation agent featuring a C 3 -symmetric opioid scaffold. These agents, which may have potential gene transfection properties, were identified to collapse the tertiary structure of duplex DNA polymers through phosphate ionic interactions at a protonated piperidine site on the opioid molecule. Using a series of molecular biological and biophysical assays, the binding interactions and structural requirements for this new class of agent were uncovered and are described herein.


Leadership has proved itself to be an interesting topic for researchers. Numerous investigators have studied leadership style in different cultures, organizational settings and occupational levels. Nevertheless, it was rarely examined among teaching staff or faculty members of higher education institutes. The early studies focused on the personalities of the leaders or on their behavior. More recent studies are focusing on a full range of leadership styles, transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant. The current study seeks to determine the leadership style of full time teaching staff employed by public as well as the private higher education institutes. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire called Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) from 265 university employees in all. The results revealed that the public sector teaching staff is more transformational than private sector while transactional and passive/avoidant leadership style is more practiced in private sector. Although there are differences in public and private sector yet they are not statistically significant. Implications have been discussed for policy makers and education administrators specifically to develop their faculty for a challenging future. Guidelines for future research have also been provided.


Background and Research Goal
Despite all the efforts in the sanitation sector, it is acknowledged that the world is not on track to meet the MDG sanitation target to reduce the number of people without access to sanitation by 2015. Furthermore, a large number of existing sanitation facilities in developing countries is out of order. This leads to the conclusion that, besides technical failures, the planning process in the sanitation sector was ineffective. This ineffectiveness may be attributed to the lack of knowledge of the sanitation planners about the local conditions of the sanitation project. In addition, sustainability of a technology is often approached from a fragmented perspective that often leads to an unsustainable solution.
The dissertation is conducted within the framework of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Indonesia project. The goal of this work is to contribute to the development of a methodology of a planning tool for sustainable sanitation technology. The tool is designed for sanitation planners in developing countries, where a top-down planning approach is common practice. The proposed tool enables comprehensive sustainability assessments (using the Helmholtz Concept of Sustainability as reference), taking into account local conditions.
State of the Science
In the planning practice, many sanitation planning tools focus on technology selection. However, it has become evident that the selection criteria for sustainable technologies are not always considered in the tools' framework. In other cases, when the criteria are provided by the tool, there is no clear indication of the conditions to be fulfilled in order to meet these criteria. Specifically, there is no reference to what is meant by sustainable technology in a particular context and how to comprehensively assess the sustainability of different technology options.
Research Methodology
Developing a planning tool is an empirical process, combining theory and practical experience. Hence, the development process of such a tool requires extensive observations, particularly on the interaction between stakeholders in the sanitation sector as well as between technology and its environment. For this purpose, a case study within the project area was carried out. Pucanganom, a village representing common strategic problems in developing countries (e.g. top-down planning approaches, lack of involvement of beneficiaries in the planning process, lack of sustainability assessments) was finally selected as the case study area. After the in-depth case study, an analytical generalisation was developed to enable the tool's application to a broader context.
Results
The result of this research is a new tool – the Sustainability-based Sanitation Planning Tool (SusTA). SusTA enables comprehensive sustainability assessment in its five generic steps, namely: (1) analysis of stakeholders and sanitation policy in the region, (2) distance-to-target analysis on sanitation conditions in the region, (3) examination of physical and socio-economic conditions in the project area, (4) contextualisation of the technology assessment process in the project area, and (5) sustainability-oriented technology assessment at the project level. These steps are conducted at two levels of planning – the region and the project area – in order to identify the specific problems and interests which influence the selection of a sanitation system. Each planning step is equipped with tool elements (e.g. set of indicators, household questionnaires, technology assessment matrices) to support the analysis.
From the development of SusTA, it can be concluded that four elements are required for an effective and widely applicable sanitation planning tool: sustainability concept, participatory approach, contextualisation framework and modification framework. SusTA provides both a theoretical and a practical basis for assessing the sustainability of sanitation technologies in developing countries. The tool's main advantages for decision makers in these countries are: It is simple and transparent in its steps, does not require vast amounts of data and does not need a sophisticated computer program.


The purpose of this paper is to study the relationships between the use of agile methods to develop Internet Websites their quality. An agile method is a new product development process that is often associated with the Internet software industry. Agile methods are characterized by factors of iterative development, customer feedback, well- structured teams, and flexibility. Use of agile methods may improve software quality by injecting customer feedback into a stream of working software versions to converge on a solution. Surveys of 250 software professionals were used to help determine whether the use of agile methods improves the quality of Internet Websites. The central contributions of this study include conceptual models, survey instruments, and original measurement data for agile methods and Website quality. Our findings indicated iterative development and customer feedback were related to Website quality, but well-structured teams and flexibility were not.


'Who possesses me will possess all things, But his life will belong to me...' Raphael de Valentin, a young aristocrat, has lost all his money in the gaming parlours of the Palais Royal in Paris, and contemplates ending his life by throwing himself into the Seine. He is distracted by the bizarre array of objects in a chaotic antique shop, among them a strange animal skin, a piece of shagreen with magical properties. It will grant its possessor his every wish, but each time a wish is bestowed the skin shrinks, hastening its owner's death. Around this fantastic premise Balzac weaves a compelling psychological portrait of his hero, a prisoner of his own Promethean imagination, and explores profound ideas about the human will, vice and virtue, love and death. Helen Constantine's new translation captures the energy and exuberance of Balzac's novel, one of the most engaging of his 'Etudes philosophiques' from the Comedie humaine. The accompanying introduction and notes offer fresh insights into this remarkable work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


Nanostencilling (localized material deposition through ultra-miniature shadow-masks) is a promising patterning technique. Currently, the quality of pattern resolution suffers significantly due to mechanical instability of the stencil caused by the deposition-induced stresses. This paper presents results of FEM simulation study on mechanical stabilization of MEMS stencils. Simulation results are compared to measured data (where available) and good correlation is observed. Studied various geometries of stabilization were found to significantly reduce (up to 96%) out-of-plane deformation of the membrane. These effects can be employed constructively in future work to stabilize real stencils (complex apertured membranes) thus improve the dimensional control of the deposited patterns/structures.


Context. The results of forward modelling of acoustic wave propagation in a realistic solar sub-photosphere with two cases of steady horizontal flows are presented and analysed by the means of local helioseismology. Aims. This paper is devoted to an analysis of the influence of steady flows on the propagation of sound waves through the solar interior. Methods. The simulations are based on fully compressible ideal hydrodynamical modelling in a Cartesian grid. The initial model is characterised by solar density and pressure stratifications taken from the standard Model S and is adjusted in order to suppress convective instability. Acoustic waves are excited by a non-harmonic source located below the depth corresponding to the visible surface of the Sun. Numerical experiments with coherent horizontal flows of linear and Gaussian dependences of flow speed on depth are carried out. These flow fields may mimic horizontal motions of plasma surrounding a sunspot, differential rotation or meridional circulation. An inversion of the velocity profiles from the simulated travel time differences is carried out. The inversion is based on the ray approximation. The results of inversion are then compared with the original velocity profiles. Results. The results of forward modelling of acoustic wave propagation in a realistic solar sub-photosphere with two cases of steady horizontal flows are presented. The influence of steady flow on the propagation of sound waves through the solar interior is analysed. A time-distance analysis technique is applied to compute the direct observable signatures of the background bulk motions on travel times and phase shifts. This approach allows direct comparison with observational data. Further, we propose a method of obtaining the travel-time differences for the waves propagating in sub-photospheric solar regions with horizontal flows. The method employs directly the difference between travel-time diagrams of waves propagating with and against the background flow. Conclusions. The analysis shows that the flow speed profiles obtained from inversion based on the ray approximation differ from the original ones. The difference between the original and observed profiles is caused by the fact that the wave packets propagate along the ray bundle, which has a finite extent, and thus reach deeper regions of the sub-photosphere in comparison with ray theory.


This paper examines the controversy surrounding Zimbabwe's elections in 2000 and 2002. It situates these elections against Zimbabwe's experiences of elections since 1980. It argues that the conditions for this controversy emerged from the institutions and practices that developed in Zimbabwe from the time of independence. At the same time, election observers – influenced both by criticism of earlier observation missions in Africa and international policy concerns – were positioned to make an example of the Zimbabwe elections. The Zimbabwe elections became an international crisis point not because of observer reports or electoral fraud, but because of the politics surrounding Zimbabwe's relations with the outside world.


Customer relationship management (CRM) is widely discussed in numerous industries including the hotel sector. Much of the discussions on CRM have focused on implementations related aspects with only scant attention given to the CRM practices that manifest due to CRM implementations. As a result while the existing understanding on CRM has been established through an organisations point of view by identifying the back stage CRM from the point of view of the organisation, this study demonstrates the importance to enhance the understating of CRM through the customers' point of view. Thus this study explored CRM practices experienced by the leisure travellers in the hotel context and what they think of such practices. Data was collected through focus groups which consisted of 22 participants in total. The findings indicated numerous customer relationship management practices experienced by leisure travellers at the: pre-encounter, encounter and post-encounter stages.


The objectives of the study were, first, to assess the progression in quantitative thinking between first-, second-, and third-year students enrolled in the Bachelor in Culinary Arts and Food Science program and, second, to use the insight to suggest necessary changes to the curriculum to ensure better progression. A standardized quantitative test was used to measure progression in functional knowledge divided in four categories: (i) calculation skills and basic mathematics, (ii) application and interpretation of descriptive statistics, (iii) interpretation of analytical statistics, and (iv) communication through graphs and charts.The results show significant progression in skills and confidence across study years. Broken down into the four categories, progression is stronger in statistics (categories ii–iii). The most problematic category is basic calculations, where the average score is low and progress across study years is poor.A suggestion is presented for how to reform the curriculum in order to improve progression in basic calculation by emulating the methods used for teaching statistics, where progression is better.


Massey Products in String Topology by Aron Fischer Advisor: Martin Bendersky Given a manifold M , Massey triple products exist in ordinary homology h∗(M) for triples of classes a, b, c when the pairwise intersection products ab and bc vanish. This means that the triple product abc vanishes for two different reasons and this is captured by the Massey product. In this thesis we make a similar construction in string topology where we use the Chas-Sullivan product instead of the intersection product; we call it the Chas-SullivanMassey product. Our constructions use the Geometric Homology Theory description of String Topology and this allows us to obtain a very geometric picture of both the ordinary Massey Product and the Chas-Sullivan-Massey product. We then turn our attention to the Loop Homology Spectral Sequence and prove that it can be used to calculate Chas-SullivanMassey products. We find examples of non-zero products for even dimensional spheres and for complex projective spaces. Finally, we indicate how the defintion can be extended to free sphere spaces, to generalised homology theories and to higher Massey-type products. We prove that the Loop Homology Spectral sequence can be used to calculate these products even in the most general case.


Japan has become a super-aged society, facing demographic challenges resulting in societal and economic consequences. In its political structural reform, the Japanese government presented the urgency to consider the increase in labor mobility that includes the issues of immigration and female employment, both domestic and foreign. The aim of this study was to explore, from a Japanese woman's perspective, the intertwined issues of immigration. An in-depth interview was performed and analyzed by content analysis with a methodological departure in qualitative journalistic interviewing. The case was a Japanese woman with a unique profile. The results of this study, family permanency and group cohesiveness, can contribute to understand the potential interdependency between the roles, within the Japanese society, of foreign female domestic workers and Japanese women. In conclusion, it appears that the pivotal role of women in the Japanese society and the global feminization of migration challenge Japanese social consistency.


Globally, freshwater shortage is one of the most dangerous risks for society. Changing hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions have aggravated water scarcity over the past decades. A wide range of studies show that water scarcity will intensify in the future, as a result of both increased consumptive water use and, in some regions, climate change. Although it is well-known that El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects patterns of precipitation and drought at global and regional scales, little attention has yet been paid to the impacts of climate variability on water scarcity conditions, despite its importance for adaptation planning. Therefore, we present the first global-scale sensitivity assessment of water scarcity to ENSO, the most dominant signal of climate variability. We show that over the time period 1961–2010, both water availability and water scarcity conditions are significantly correlated with ENSO-driven climate variability over a large proportion of the global land area (> 28.1 %); an area inhabited by more than 31.4 % of the global population. We also found, however, that climate variability alone is often not enough to trigger the actual incidence of water scarcity events. The sensitivity of a region to water scarcity events, expressed in terms of land area or population exposed, is determined by both hydro-climatic and socioeconomic conditions. Currently, the population actually impacted by water scarcity events consists of 39.6 % (CTA: consumption-to-availability ratio) and 41.1 % (WCI: water crowding index) of the global population, whilst only 11.4 % (CTA) and 15.9 % (WCI) of the global population is at the same time living in areas sensitive to ENSO-driven climate variability. These results are contrasted, however, by differences in growth rates found under changing socioeconomic conditions, which are relatively high in regions exposed to water scarcity events. Given the correlations found between ENSO and water availability and scarcity conditions, and the relative developments of water scarcity impacts under changing socioeconomic conditions, we suggest that there is potential for ENSO-based adaptation and risk reduction that could be facilitated by more research on this emerging topic.


To what extent was the credit contraction during the global financial crisis due to more intense screening and monitoring by banks? We address this question by analyzing changes in the structure of a large number of syndicated loans to private, non-financial corporations. We find an increase in retention rates among syndicate arrangers during the crisis that we cannot explain by borrower risk or interbank liquidity alone. This increased 'skin in the game' is especially pronounced when information asymmetries between the borrower and the lending syndicate - or within the syndicate - are high. This indicates that the reduction in bank lending during the crisis was at least partly caused by stricter bank screening and monitoring: a wake-up call.


Purpose

FastSLAM is a popular method to solve the problem of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). However, when the number of landmarks present in real environments increases, there are excessive comparisons of the measurement with all the existing landmarks in each particle. As a result, the execution speed will be too slow to achieve the objective of real-time navigation. Thus, this paper aims to improve the computational efficiency and estimation accuracy of conventional SLAM algorithms.

Design/methodology/approach

As an attempt to solve this problem, this paper presents a computationally efficient SLAM (CESLAM) algorithm, where odometer information is considered for updating the robot's pose in particles. When a measurement has a maximum likelihood with the known landmark in the particle, the particle state is updated before updating the landmark estimates.

Findings

Simulation results show that the proposed CESLAM can overcome the problem of heavy computational burden while improving the accuracy of localization and mapping building. To practically evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a Pioneer 3-DX robot with a Kinect sensor is used to develop an RGB-D-based computationally efficient visual SLAM (CEVSLAM) based on Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF). Experimental results confirm that the proposed CEVSLAM system is capable of successfully estimating the robot pose and building the map with satisfactory accuracy.

Originality/value

The proposed CESLAM algorithm overcomes the problem of the time-consuming process because of unnecessary comparisons in existing FastSLAM algorithms. Simulations show that accuracy of robot pose and landmark estimation is greatly improved by the CESLAM. Combining CESLAM and SURF, the authors establish a CEVSLAM to significantly improve the estimation accuracy and computational efficiency. Practical experiments by using a Kinect visual sensor show that the variance and average error by using the proposed CEVSLAM are smaller than those by using the other visual SLAM algorithms.


Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a powerful weapon against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. In addition to reaching direct or tangible employment actions involving hiring, termination, promotion, and demotion, it can also protect employees subjected to a hostile working environment — created by unwelcome conduct on the basis of race, gender, color, religion, or national origin that is sufficiently severe or pervasive. There are times, however, when Title VII, because of its jurisdictional and definitional limits, cannot protect an employee who feels trapped in an abusive workplace. Further, Title VII does not apply to employees who are not members of the protected classes mentioned above or those who work for employers with too few employees to be covered by the law. This Article proposes some solutions to one of the gaps in current Title VII jurisprudence.