There is a pervasive belief in the MIS research community that PLS has advantages over other techniques when analyzing small sample sizes or data with non-normal distributions. Based on these beliefs, major MIS journals have published studies using PLS with sample sizes that would be deemed unacceptably small if used with other statistical techniques. We used Monte Carlo simulation more extensively than previous research to evaluate PLS, multiple regression, and LISREL in terms of accuracy and statistical power under varying conditions of sample size, normality of the data, number of indicators per construct, reliability of the indicators, and complexity of the research model. We found that PLS performed as effectively as the other techniques in detecting actual paths, and not falsely detecting non-existent paths. However, because PLS (like regression) apparently does not compensate for measurement error, PLS and regression were consistently less accurate than LISREL. When used with small sample sizes, PLS, like the other techniques, suffers from increased standard deviations, decreased statistical power,and reduced accuracy. All three techniques were remarkably robust against moderate departures from normality, and equally so. In total, we found that the similarities in results across the three techniques were much stronger than the differences.


To elucidate the stark influence of hybridization on speech, itself the most pliable aspect of language and therefore the most affected by hybridization, this piece uses anecdotal evidence to serve as the introductory elements to show the more general effect of the current state of linguistic hybridization as it relates to the historical trend of globalization. This anecdotal evidence, as well as other observations and interpretations are grounded in the five months where I studied the German language and culture in Germany. Continuing from this evidence, this paper proceeds to a comparative analysis of research regarding the role of Sprachverfall in the German cultural and linguistic milieu in order to lay the foundation for the ideas of language and identity. While there are many specifics to the German case study, there is much overlap between the events and circumstances of the German Sprachraum and other language communities. The paper discusses interpretation of this phenomena undertaken by scholars of sociolinguistics and culture (with an emphasis on German culture and history). This work highlights the measures being taken by youth communities around the world to preserve their culture while creating a new hybrid thereof that reflects their current social milieu. The final section of the work seeks to present potential solutions and remedies to mitigate the issues with identity and language change that result from perceived Sprachverfall.


Small wind turbines and rooftop solar panels are a highly attractive energy option, capable of generating clean, renewable power without the need for transmission lines across vast stretches of rural land. State and federal incentive programs have made these devices increasingly affordable for landowners in recent years, generating an unprecedented level of interest in "distributed" renewable energy. Unfortunately, small wind turbines and solar panels are often far less attractive in the eyes of neighbors, who fear that the systems will erode neighborhood aesthetics and property values. Despite aggressive state and federal programs aimed at promoting renewable energy systems, land use controls at the local level often discourage landowners from installing the devices. To combat this problem, statutes in a growing number of states invalidate local restrictions on distributed renewable energy. These broad preemptive statutes overcome neighborhood barriers, but they also suppress local participation in land use regulation and ignore community-specific issues and concerns. This article analyzes conflicts between states and communities over land use laws that restrict distributed renewable energy. Framing these conflicts as clashes over scarce "entitlements" to regulate, the article explores the possibility of using liability rule-like approaches to more efficiently allocate these entitlements between states and local governments. Based on the analysis, the article advocates a scheme that would offer "Green Community Tax Credits" to landowners in communities that voluntarily accommodate distributed renewable energy in their land use controls. The tax credit system would strengthen incentives for communities to allow distributed renewable energy but would permit each community to weigh its own unique costs and decide the issue, promoting more flexible and efficient policymaking.


A method for simulating atrial fibrillation has been developed using the open source simulator ECGSYN (available at physionet.org). In this method episodes of atrial fibrillation are simulated by combining data streams generated by two ECGSYN engines driven from a correlated stochastic process. The underlying process represents atrial activity during fibrillation. This process generates a series of atrial inter-beat intervals with the same statistical properties as those found in the MIT-BIH atrial fibrillation database (afdb). The atrial beats from this process are then selected to be either conducting beats that generate subsequent ventricular activity or nonconducting beats that generate only atrial activity. The intervals for conducting beats are processed by an ECGSYN engine with appropriate parameters to create PQRS and T waves while the nonconducting intervals are processed by a second ECGSYN engine with parameters to generate only P waves. The data streams from the two engines are superimposed to create an artificial atrial fibrillation waveform. This waveform generator has been made into an operator and has been incorporated into a stream based ECG simulator. The simulator uses a timing operator to switch from generating normal ECG morphologies to atrial fibrillation.


The phosphorus uptake 1 (Pup1) locus was identified as a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) for tolerance of phosphorus deficiency in rice. Near-isogenic lines with the Pup1 region from tolerant donor parent Kasalath typically show threefold higher phosphorus uptake and grain yield in phosphorus-deficient field trials than the intolerant parent Nipponbare. In this study, we report the fine mapping of the Pup1 locus to the long arm of chromosome 12 (15.31-15.47 Mb). Genes in the region were initially identified on the basis of the Nipponbare reference genome, but did not reveal any obvious candidate genes related to phosphorus uptake. Kasalath BAC clones were therefore sequenced and revealed a 278-kbp sequence significantly different from the syntenic regions in Nipponbare (145 kb) and in the indica reference genome of 93-11 (742 kbp). Size differences are caused by large insertions or deletions (INDELs), and an exceptionally large number of retrotransposon and transposon-related elements (TEs) present in all three sequences (45%-54%). About 46 kb of the Kasalath sequence did not align with the entire Nipponbare genome, and only three Nipponbare genes (fatty acid alpha-dioxygenase, dirigent protein and aspartic proteinase) are highly conserved in Kasalath. Two Nipponbare genes (expressed proteins) might have evolved by at least three TE integrations in an ancestor gene that is still present in Kasalath. Several predicted Kasalath genes are novel or unknown genes that are mainly located within INDEL regions. Our results highlight the importance of sequencing QTL regions in the respective donor parent, as important genes might not be present in the current reference genomes.


This research endeavors a study to interrogate the possible impact of Job Satisfaction on Turnover Intention in the pharmaceutical industry operating in Karachi. 29 item questionnaires were used to collect the data and data was collected from the employee of pharmaceutical industry of Karachi; for the sample of 282. Multiple Regression Analysis and Principal Component Factor Analysis were applied to interrogate the hypotheses. Results indicated that the compensation, co-workers' attitude, work satisfaction, supervisor's support, promotional opportunities and the communications have a significant but negative impact on the turnover intentions in the Pharmaceutical industry located in the region of Karachi, Pakistan.


Even Steve Jobs didn't know what he had on his hands when he announced the original iPhone as a combination of a mere "three revolutionary products"--an iPod, a cell phone, and a keyboard-less handheld computer. Once Apple introduced the App Store and opened it up to outside developers, however, the iPhone became capable of serving a rapidly growing number of functions--now more than 350,000 and counting.But the iPhone has implications far beyond the phone or gadget market. In fact, it's opening the way to what Brian X. Chen calls the "always-on" future, where we are all constantly connected to a global Internet via flexible, incredibly capable gadgets that allow us to do anything, anytime, from anywhere. This has far-reaching implications--both positive and negative--throughout all areas of our lives, opening the door for incredible personal and societal advances while potentially sacrificing both privacy and creative freedom in the process.Always On is the first book to look at the surprising and expansive significance of Apple's incredibly powerful vertical business model, and the future it portends.


Samples of 53 materials that are used or potentially can be used or in the fabrication of microelectromechanical systems and integrated circuits were prepared: single-crystal silicon with two doping levels, polycrystalline silicon with two doping levels, polycrystalline germanium, polycrystalline SiGe, graphite, fused quartz, Pyrex 7740, nine other preparations of silicon dioxide, four preparations of silicon nitride, sapphire, two preparations of aluminum oxide, aluminum, Al/2%Si, titanium, vanadium, niobium, two preparations of tantalum, two preparations of chromium, Cr on Au, molybdenum, tungsten, nickel, palladium, platinum, copper, silver, gold, 10 Ti/90 W, 80 Ni/20 Cr, TiN, four types of photoresist, resist pen, Parylene-C, and spin-on polyimide. Selected samples were etched in 35 different etches: isotropic silicon etchant, potassium hydroxide, 10:1 HF, 5:1 BHF, Pad Etch 4, hot phosphoric acid, Aluminum Etchant Type A, titanium wet etchant, CR-7 chromium etchant, CR-14 chromium etchant, molybdenum etchant, warm hydrogen peroxide, Copper Etchant Type CE-200, Copper Etchant APS 100, dilute aqua regia, AU-5 gold etchant, Nichrome Etchant TFN, hot sulfuric+phosphoric acids, Piranha, Microstrip 2001, acetone, methanol, isopropanol, xenon difluoride, HF+H/sub 2/O vapor, oxygen plasma, two deep reactive ion etch recipes with two different types of wafer clamping, SF/sub 6/ plasma, SF/sub 6/+O/sub 2/ plasma, CF/sub 4/ plasma, CF/sub 4/+O/sub 2/ plasma, and argon ion milling. The etch rates of 620 combinations of these were measured. The etch rates of thermal oxide in different dilutions of HF and BHF are also reported. Sample preparation and information about the etches is given.


Introduction:
Breast cancer is a major health problem in women worldwide. Many efforts have been done to develop screening strategies and to improve the treatment in order to reduce its incidence, recurrence rate and mortality. Ductal carcinoma in situ is a pre-invasive breast tumor. Despite being more benign than the invasive tumor, it is more difficult to ensure clear margins after the lumpectomy. Over the last years, margin distance has been studied without reaching a consensus. This margin status is the most important prognostic factor in this type of tumor.
Objective:
The goal of this study is to determine the minimum margins that have to be left in ductal carcinoma in situ undergoing conservative surgery. The objective is to reduce the recurrence rate. The aesthetic result is important too, so it is vital to find the best relation between the recurrence rate and the amount of breast tissue removed. Our aim is to compare the recurrence rate obtained depending on the millimetres left (free from tumor cells) around the tumor. We want the pathologist to take our conclusion distance of the study as a reference to define when a margin is free from tumor cells in the future.
Methodology:
A longitudinal retrospective and multicenter cohort carried out in the Breast Pathology Unit at eight referral hospitals in Girona. The period of study will be from 2000 to 2017. The sample will be formed by three groups of patients classified by the distance in millimetres of the margins assessment.
Participants:
Women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ undergoing breast conservative surgery plus radiotherapy between 2000 and 2015. The patients will be selected from the database of the Breast Pathology Unit or the SAP of eight hospitals in Girona


Research on the Internet's role in politics has struggled to transcend technological determinism--the assumption, often inadvertent, that the technology simply imprints its own logic on social relationships. An alternative approach traces the ways, often numerous, in which an institution's participants appropriate the technology in the service of goals, strategies, and relationships that the institution has already organized. This amplification model can be applied in analyzing the Internet's role in politics. After critically surveying a list of widely held views on the matter, this article illustrates how the amplification model might be applied to concrete problems. These include the development of social networks and ways that technology is used to bind people together into a polity.


A sequential study of the invasion of oral mucosa by C. albicans is difficult to accomplish in human beings or in animal models. An in vitro model of oral candidal infection has therefore been established and evaluated by light and electron microscopy. In the model system cultured oral mucosa from neonatal rats and rabbits was infected with C. albicans. The pattern of invasion of the tissues was similar to that reported in vivo although invasion tended to be more extensive and progressed to the underlying connective tissues. The system was evaluated by comparing the invasion of keratinized and non-keratinized epithelium by a number of Candida species; their ability to invade oral mucosa was in accord with their differing pathogenicities, and the extent of invasion of the epithelium by the less pathogenic species was related to its degree of keratinization. The ultrastructural relationship between the superficial epithelium and the fungi was similar to that seen in human oral candidosis, thus validating the model as one in which to study the invasion of epithelium by C. albicans. In examining the fine structure of the invading fungi changes were observed in the organization of the fungal cell wall during the invasive process. Cytochemical localization of acid phosphatase and phospholipase demonstrated that these enzymes are located on the surface of Candida within the tissues although their role in epithelial cell membrane penetration was not clearly established. It is suggested that both fungal enzymes and mechanical force may facilitate fungal invasion. The deep candidal invasion seen in culture did not result from changes within the epithelium but probably reflected the lack of systemic factors. ' An evaluation of the role of immune and non-immune serum factors in the model system indicated that these factors alone may not restrict candidal penetration in vivo.


Abstract Background To avoid possible failures and ineffective use of economic resources, necessary infrastructure must be provided before implementing new technologies in a developing country like Iran. Objectives To assess the degree of readiness for implementing a radio frequency identification device (RFID) system in hospitals in Iran. Methods We adopted a descriptive design and structural equation modeling (LISREL statistical software package) to analyze data collected from the hospitals affiliated with the Semnan University of Medical Sciences. All managers, physicians, residents, nurses, and staff members of the medical records and information technology sectors participated in this study. A questionnaire was designed by the investigators to collect ideas from the participants about organizational readiness, cultural readiness, and human resource readiness in implementing RFID. Results We found a significant positive correlation between the variables studied. Human resource readiness significantly predicted RFID implementation, with cultural readiness playing the role of a mediator variable. Cultural readiness itself was influenced by organizational readiness (P < 0.01). We found 0.346 (standard deviation: 0.374) changes in an arbitrary unit of the possibility of RFID implementation was attributed to human resources and cultural readiness. Conclusions Paying attention to cultural factors, which play an important role in implementing technological projects such as RFID in developing countries like Iran, can reduce the risk of failure. Hospitals should strengthen organizational factors and improve the support of top rank managers when implementing technological projects. By so doing, they will promote cultural readiness, prepare human resources, and win the cooperation of personnel for such projects.


Vial of Life Redesign Andrew Heim and Marisonn Manalo Cambria Anonymous Neighbors (CAN), a nonprofit organization assisting the residences of Cambria, hopes to standardize first responder procedures and make medical information easily accessible in case of a medical emergency. Currently the container costs $3.78. CAN would like to provide 2000 containers at a lower cost. After researching materials, acrylic was found to be the best option for the container material due to its low cost and durability. A laser cutter was used to cut the acrylic pieces, and then a set of of step by step instructions were created to assemble the product. To reduce the cost of acrylic, the most expensive material in the process, it is recommended for CAN to order at least 51 units of 18'' x 24'' acrylic. Assuming the labor costs are free because CAN has volunteers, and the laser cutter is free for use, the new container costs $2.17. This product provides a 43% cost reduction for each container CAN makes and provides for a more flexible options for the medical documents inside of the container.


Recent, high-quality science is being heard, but unevenly Disconnects between science and policy, in which important scientific insights may be missed by policymakers and bad scientific advice may infect decision-making, are a long-standing concern (1–7). Yet, our systematic understanding of the use of science in policy remains limited (1, 4–6), partly because of the difficulty in reliably tracing the coevolution of policy and science at a large, global scale (3). Today, the world faces a common emergency in the COVID-19 pandemic, which presents a dynamic, uncertain, yet extraordinarily consequential policy environment across the globe. We combined two large-scale databases that capture policy and science and their interactions, allowing us to examine the coevolution of policy and science during the pandemic. Our analysis suggests that many policy documents in the COVID-19 pandemic substantially access recent, peer-reviewed, and high-impact science. And policy documents that cite science are especially highly cited within the policy domain. At the same time, there is a heterogeneity in the use of science across policy-making institutions. The tendency for policy documents to cite science appears mostly concentrated within intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the World Health Organization (WHO), and much less so in national governments, which consume science largely indirectly through the IGOs. This close coevolution between policy and science offers a useful indication that a key link is operating, but it has not been a sufficient condition for effectiveness in containing the pandemic.


An author's literary style is influenced by the cultural time period in which the author lives. The author's ideas, and the words chosen to express them, can help identify the cultural time period that most influenced the author. Ideas are expressed in language through sequences of words called n-grams. Over the past several years, Google has been engaged in digitizing millions of books. As part of this endeavor, Google has created a database of n-grams extracted from these digitized books and has made the database available to researchers online. This is the first time ever that such an extensive repository of cultural data has been made available. This study develops and tests an original method for utilizing Google's database to identify the cultural time period that most influenced the author of a published work. Several undisputed literary works are examined, from which sets of n-grams are extracted and compared against the Google database. The frequency and distribution of n-gram matches allow us to determine the cultural time period that most influenced the author. The method is also tested against several literary works having uncertain or disputed authorship and period of composition. The results suggest that the method developed provides a reasonable approximation of the time period of greatest cultural influence for each book. Unexpectedly, the results tend to support conclusions reached by another researcher with regard to prior literary influences on the Ern Malley Poems. In addition, they lend support to early 19th-century origins for authorship of Book of Mormon


World population aging is a phenomenon we are confronting with, more than past. This fact has different implications for today's societies. One of these aspects is workforce (1). Some factors have resulted in more tendencies of workers to remain in their works including: Economic, societal, cultural factors, and social trends and laws such as increasing age of retirement in the middle twentieth century, which recently increased more (2). Productive workforce is one of major assets of each country. So, in one hand we have older adults in our workplaces and in other hand, we are following to retain employee's productivity at first, and then, improve it. Ergonomics as a multidisciplinary science, attempts to make balance between human capabilities and its limitations by fitting the task to the person or fitting the person to the task. In this way, workers' fatigue and errors are minimized and productivity and well-being optimized (3). In more developed countries like United States, approximately 66.3 percent of adults aged 55-64 years are in the workforce (4). In our country, Iran, 7.3% of populations were more than 60 yrs. in 2006 (5) which indicate our population is aging, though accurate number of those people in work is lacking. Older adults have physical and mental changes as a common result of aging. Physical changes show itself as decline in physical capabilities, and mental changes involved in sensation and perception, cognition, and motor control (6). So, it is essential to acknowledge these changes and adopt suitable strategies and accommodations for job circumstances and living environments when considering older adults. In general, a few ergonomics studies explored the effect of aging on environmental modifications and job adaptation. To best of my knowledge, also in Iran there are few studies that presented in conferences or published in journals. Therefore, as a closing remark, it is widely needed to pay more attention to aging ergonomics in our studies and society to ensure the safety and effectiveness of older workers. Finally, to initiate this movement, some kinds of funds or supports from universities, the government and research centers are recommended to shift research plans or students' thesis to topics concerning aging ergonomics.


On July 7, 2008, Georgetown was formally inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was recognized for its unique heritage of a living multicultural community. Since then there have been various conservation projects within the vicinity of Georgetown, but the initiative seems to be fighting a losing battle. There have been a few major significant conservation projects developed especially in the cultural enclave in order to maintain the status-quo of a world heritage site. Engaging Love Lane as a pilot project to experiment on a new mechanism of heritage rejuvenation involving public participation and extensive use of technological infrastructure could be an alternative approach in conservation development. Heritage value in Love Lane will be enhanced with the use of information technology via the 'Groupon' method which has been proven successful among online shoppers. It is about time this method of collective fund is put to the test in conservation and management of heritage sites. This theoretical urban design exercise covers a 12-acre block of old shophouses in restoring appropriate historical artifacts through smart partnership among stakeholders. If the project is a success, it could be the key to safeguarding not only Penang, but hundreds of world heritage sites facing similar problems.


Abstract. Linear contrail coverage, optical property, and radiative
forcing data over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) are derived from a year
(2012) of Terra and Aqua Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
imagery and compared with previously published 2006 results (Duda et al.,
2013; Bedka et al., 2013; Spangenberg et al., 2013) using a consistent
retrieval methodology. Differences in the observed Terra-minus-Aqua screened contrail
coverage and patterns in the 2012 annual-mean air traffic estimated with
respect to satellite overpass time suggest that most contrails detected by
the contrail detection algorithm (CDA) form approximately 2 h before
overpass time. The 2012 screened NH contrail coverage (Mask B) shows a
relative 3 % increase compared to 2006 data for Terra and increases by almost
7 % for Aqua, although the differences are not expected to be statistically
significant. A new post-processing algorithm added to the contrail mask
processing estimated that the total contrail cirrus coverage visible in the
MODIS imagery may be 3 to 4 times larger than the linear contrail
coverage detected by the CDA. This estimate is similar in magnitude to the
spreading factor estimated by Minnis et al. (2013). Contrail property
retrievals of the 2012 data indicate that both contrail optical depth and
contrail effective diameter decreased approximately 10 % between 2006 and
2012. The decreases may be attributed to better background cloudiness
characterization, changes in the waypoint screening, or changes in contrail
temperature. The total mean contrail radiative forcings (TCRFs) for all 2012
Terra observations were −6.3, 14.3, and 8.0 mW m−2 for the shortwave
(SWCRF), longwave (LWCRF), and net forcings, respectively. These values are
approximately 20 % less than the corresponding 2006 Terra estimates. The
decline in TCRF results from the decrease in normalized CRF, partially
offset by the 3 % increase in overall contrail coverage in 2012. The TCRFs
for 2012 Aqua are similar, −6.4, 15.5, and 9.0 mW m−2 for shortwave,
longwave, and net radiative forcing. The strong correlation between the
relative changes in both total SWCRF and LWCRF between 2006 and 2012 and the
corresponding relative changes in screened contrail coverage over each air
traffic region suggests that regional changes in TCRF from year to year are
dominated by year-to-year changes in contrail coverage over each area.


Presently, interlocking mortarless masonry system has been developed as an alternative
to the conventional mortared masonry system for wall construction. The structural
behaviour of the interlocking mortarless masonry system is not well explored and there
is no standard and/or design specification for safe design of the interlocking mortarless
block masonry system. The existing finite element analyses are simplified due to the
absence of the significant and essential structural characteristics of the interlocking
mortarless masonry system. Hence these models show inaccurate prediction for the
structural response of the masonry system compared to actual behaviour of the system
found experimentally.
This study aims at investigating numerically the structural response of interlocking
masonry system using finite element method. The developed algorithm used in the FE
analysis includes appropriate mathematical models to simulate the main features of
mortarless masonry system. These models are derived experimentally using small scale
specimens. The main features simulated are the structural characteristics of the interlocking dry joints under combined Normal-Shear force actions, the failure
mechanism of the joints, nonlinear contact behaviour of the joint considering the
geometric imperfection of the block beds, the nonlinear stress-strain behaviour of the
masonry materials and the failure of the masonry materials as well as the geometric
nonlinearity. Proper test setups have been proposed to measure accurately the joint
response under elastic, inelastic and failure stages of load. The actual behaviour of the
interlocking system obtained experimentally is mathematically modelled and
implemented in the finite element algorithm developed for the analysis of the
interlocking masonry system. An incremental-iterative 2-D nonlinear finite element code
is developed to implement the proposed algorithm and analyze the masonry system till
failure.
The developed experimental setups used in this study successfully revealed the
important features of the interlocking mortarless joint. The results indicate that the
developed constitutive model and finite element code can successfully trace the
structural behaviour (capacity, deformation and mode of failure) of the interlocking
mortarless masonry system from the initial stage of loading till the failure. A general
equation is proposed to estimate the capacity of interlocking mortarless masonry walls
under eccentric and concentric vertical loads.


The space of holomorphic maps from $S^2$ to a complex algebraic variety $X$, i.e. the space of parametrized rational curves on $X$, arises in several areas of geometry. It is a well known problem to determine an integer $n(D)$ such that the inclusion of this space in the corresponding space of continuous maps induces isomorphisms of homotopy groups up to dimension $n(D)$, where $D$ denotes the homotopy class of the maps. The solution to this problem is known for an important but special class of varieties, the generalized flag manifolds: such an integer may be computed, and $n(D)\to\infty$ as $D\to\infty$. We consider the problem for another class of varieties, namely, toric varieties. For smooth toric varieties and certain singular ones, $n(D)$ may be computed, and $n(D)\to\infty$ as $D\to\infty$. For other singular toric varieties, however, it turns out that $n(D)$ cannot always be made arbitrarily large by a suitable choice of $D$.


Glacier-fed streams are highly dynamic environments that integrate upstream catchment processes and are prominent geomorphological and ecological components of alpine landscapes. In these systems, hydrological and physicochemical factors change significantly with location downstream of the glacier. Variation in microbial communities in benthic biofilms along such gradients are not well studied, nor do we understand how hydrological and physicochemical factors drive those changes. We characterized microbial community structure in 2 glacier-fed streams in the Tianshan Mountains, central Asia, by sequencing 16S ribosomal (r)RNA genes in benthic biofilms and documented abiotic environmental conditions. Alpha diversity indices of microbes in benthic biofilms (number of operational taxonomic units, evenness, phylogenetic diversity) were significantly related to hydrological factors, including distance to glacier (GD), glacier area proportion (GA), and glacier source proportion (GS), and physicochemical factors, including water temperature, pH, dissolved organic C (DOC), total N (TN), and NO3. The dominant phyla were Proteobacteria (46% of operational taxonomic units [OTUs]), Cyanobacteria (16%), Bacteroidetes (12%), Actinobacteria (9%), and Acidobacteria (6%). Microbial communities differed longitudinally along the stream at the OTU level and even at the phylum level. Correlation, canonical correlation, and network analyses showed that the microbes had significant associations with hydrological (GA, GS, and GD), biogeochemical (TN, NO3, DOC, total P, and soluble reactive P), and physicochemical (pH) factors. These results add to our knowledge of microbial community structure and potential drivers of that structure in glacier-fed stream ecosystems and provide potentially valuable data for assessing future dynamics as these systems experience further disruption caused by the influences of climate change.


We argue that the nominal supine in Romanian is a nominalization by the definite determiner in its interpretation as a 'Down'-operator, which correlates with an event-kind denotation. We use as evidence the restricted nominal properties of the nominal supine, which indicate that it does not have a typical (overt or covert) nominalizing suffix of the kind that other nominalizations like the nominal infinitive and the nominalized participle have. We further show that among these nominalization patterns, only the semantics of the nominal supine correlates with kinds. Eventually, this case study shows how the nominalizing function of the 'Down'-operator from Chierchia (1984) can be unified with its kind semantics in Chierchia (1998).


Goncourt's novel opens in a courtroom where a prostitute known as "la fille Élisa" is sentenced to death. Book I retraces Élisa's life leading up to her crime. The daughter of a midwife and occasional abortionist, Élisa runs away from home at sixteen to prostitute herself, first in a quiet provincial brothel, then in various Parisian maisons de tolérance. At a brothel near the École Militaire, she meets a soldier named Tanchon who falls in love with her. At the beginning of Book II, Élisa's death sentence has been commuted to life in prison, and she is on her way to a women's penitentiary which enforces the rule of continuous silence. The second half of the novel describes Élisa's physical and mental deterioration. As Élisa reminisces about Tanchon, the reader finally understands that she murdered her lover in a fit of rage when he tried to rape her. In the epilogue, the narrator—presumably Edmond de Goncourt himself—is being shown around the penitentiary by the self-satisfied local prefect. At the end of the tour, Goncourt comes across a madwoman who is mute, blind, and paralyzed: she is none other than his own creation, "la fille Élisa."


The sym biotic algae (zoochlorellae) of Hydra viridis live inside the gastrodermal cells. When isolated into pure suspension free of animal tissue, zoochlorellae liberate maltose to the medium during photosynthesis. Maltose synthesis and excretion are very sensitive to external pH. At pH 4.0, about 40 to 50 % of the carbon fixed in photosynthesis may be released from the cells as maltose, and a further 4 to 6 % as other compounds (including alanine, glycollie acid, glucose, and an oligosaccharide provisionally identified as maltotriose). As the pH rises, excretion progressively diminishes, and at pH 7.0, only about 1% of the photo synthetically fixed carbon is excreted, about half as maltose. Only traces of maltose are ever found within the cells, and sucrose is always the predominant intracellular soluble sugar. When cells previously labelled with 14C at pH 7.0 are transferred to non-radioactive media in the dark at pH 4.0, they immediately begin to synthesize and excrete [14C ]maltose; the increase of [14C]maltose is closely correlated with a decrease of 14C-labelled hexose monophosphates and is not accompanied by any loss of 14C from the insoluble fraction. This suggests that maltose is synthesized from hexose monophosphates by a process which is not directly light dependent. In short-term photosynthesis experiments at pH 4.0, fixed 14C appears in sucrose within 20s, but none appears in maltose until 60 s. This, together with the near absence of intracellular maltose and the marked sensitivity of maltose synthesis to external pH, suggests that the mechanism of synthesis is at or near the cell surface. The experimental results were consistent with the hypothesis that maltose synthesis is UDPG -dependent, but direct proof of this was n o t obtained. Although excretion of photosynthetically fixed 14C at pH 4.0 diminishes in the presence of external maltose, it could still continue at an appreciable rate when the external maltose concentration was as high as 10% (w/v). In 10% maltose media, some of the excreted 14C was still in maltose, but most was in compounds provisionally identified as maltotriose and maltotetrose, suggesting that a mechanism for transglycosylation may exist on the surface of the cells. Unlike symbiotic zooxanthellae and lichen algae, Hydra zoochlorellae show no signs of losing their ability of excreting carbohydrate during the first 24 h after isolation from the symbiosis. In the case of Hydra, it is suggested that the host might be able to control maltose excretion from its zoochlorellae by variations in the intracellular pH of the gastrodermal cells, but evidence for such changes is still lacking.


Little is known about the Bristol discovery voyages of the years 1496–1508 and, as my recent article in this journal has shown, even less is certain. The current article contributes to research in this field by publishing two 'new' documents, which were first discovered in the nineteen-seventies but, for the reasons explained here, have not been published until now. These documents are significant both because they reveal important new information about the voyages and because they serve to confirm some of the remarkable, but previously unsubstantiated, claims made about the expeditions by the late Dr. Alwyn Ruddock.


The mean annual prevalence at birth of congenital malformations of the central nervous system for the three years 1964-6 in 48 local authority areas in South Wales was negatively correlated (r = -0·402, P<0·01) with estimates of the mean total hardness of the related water supplies. The mean annual perinatal mortality rate from anencephalus for the five years 1963-7 in 58 county boroughs in England and Wales was also negatively correlated with estimates of the mean total hardness (r = -0·220, P>0·05) and calcium content (r = -0·289, P<0·05) of the related water supplies. It is concluded that the relationship between these associations may well be secondary. Analytical epidemiological studies of the association are called for.


Abstract. The deep sea, the largest biome on Earth, has a series of characteristics that make this environment both distinct from other marine and land ecosystems and unique for the entire planet. This review describes these patterns and processes, from geological settings to biological processes, biodiversity and biogeographical patterns. It concludes with a brief discussion of current threats from anthropogenic activities to deep-sea habitats and their fauna. Investigations of deep-sea habitats and their fauna began in the late 19th century. In the intervening years, technological developments and stimulating discoveries have promoted deep-sea research and changed our way of understanding life on the planet. Nevertheless, the deep sea is still mostly unknown and current discovery rates of both habitats and species remain high. The geological, physical and geochemical settings of the deep-sea floor and the water column form a series of different habitats with unique characteristics that support specific faunal communities. Since 1840, 28 new habitats/ecosystems have been discovered from the shelf break to the deep trenches and discoveries of new habitats are still happening in the early 21st century. However, for most of these habitats the global area covered is unknown or has been only very roughly estimated; an even smaller – indeed, minimal – proportion has actually been sampled and investigated. We currently perceive most of the deep-sea ecosystems as heterotrophic, depending ultimately on the flux on organic matter produced in the overlying surface ocean through photosynthesis. The resulting strong food limitation thus shapes deep-sea biota and communities, with exceptions only in reducing ecosystems such as inter alia hydrothermal vents or cold seeps. Here, chemoautolithotrophic bacteria play the role of primary producers fuelled by chemical energy sources rather than sunlight. Other ecosystems, such as seamounts, canyons or cold-water corals have an increased productivity through specific physical processes, such as topographic modification of currents and enhanced transport of particles and detrital matter. Because of its unique abiotic attributes, the deep sea hosts a specialized fauna. Although there are no phyla unique to deep waters, at lower taxonomic levels the composition of the fauna is distinct from that found in the upper ocean. Amongst other characteristic patterns, deep-sea species may exhibit either gigantism or dwarfism, related to the decrease in food availability with depth. Food limitation on the seafloor and water column is also reflected in the trophic structure of heterotrophic deep-sea communities, which are adapted to low energy availability. In most of these heterotrophic habitats, the dominant megafauna is composed of detritivores, while filter feeders are abundant in habitats with hard substrata (e.g. mid-ocean ridges, seamounts, canyon walls and coral reefs). Chemoautotrophy through symbiotic relationships is dominant in reducing habitats. Deep-sea biodiversity is among of the highest on the planet, mainly composed of macro and meiofauna, with high evenness. This is true for most of the continental margins and abyssal plains with hot spots of diversity such as seamounts or cold-water corals. However, in some ecosystems with particularly "extreme" physicochemical processes (e.g. hydrothermal vents), biodiversity is low but abundance and biomass are high and the communities are dominated by a few species. Two large-scale diversity patterns have been discussed for deep-sea benthic communities. First, a unimodal relationship between diversity and depth is observed, with a peak at intermediate depths (2000–3000 m), although this is not universal and particular abiotic processes can modify the trend. Secondly, a poleward trend of decreasing diversity has been discussed, but this remains controversial and studies with larger and more robust data sets are needed. Because of the paucity in our knowledge of habitat coverage and species composition, biogeographic studies are mostly based on regional data or on specific taxonomic groups. Recently, global biogeographic provinces for the pelagic and benthic deep ocean have been described, using environmental and, where data were available, taxonomic information. This classification described 30 pelagic provinces and 38 benthic provinces divided into 4 depth ranges, as well as 10 hydrothermal vent provinces. One of the major issues faced by deep-sea biodiversity and biogeographical studies is related to the high number of species new to science that are collected regularly, together with the slow description rates for these new species. Taxonomic coordination at the global scale is particularly difficult, but is essential if we are to analyse large diversity and biogeographic trends. Because of their remoteness, anthropogenic impacts on deep-sea ecosystems have not been addressed very thoroughly until recently. The depletion of biological and mineral resources on land and in shallow waters, coupled with technological developments, are promoting the increased interest in services provided by deep-water resources. Although often largely unknown, evidence for the effects of human activities in deep-water ecosystems – such as deep-sea mining, hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, fishing, dumping and littering – is already accumulating. Because of our limited knowledge of deep-sea biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and because of the specific life-history adaptations of many deep-sea species (e.g. slow growth and delayed maturity), it is essential that the scientific community works closely with industry, conservation organisations and policy makers to develop robust and efficient conservation and management options.


'Youth' refers more than a specific biological stage in human life: young people are political actors and vehicles of social change. Membership in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is one way young people work for social change. Through their civic engagement, young people endeavor to multiply peace: i.e. spread values of tolerance, respect, human rights, democracy, and social justice in their societies. This study was designed to explore why young people become activists (entry motives) and what roles they attribute themselves as peace-multipliers in reinforcing sustainable-peace processes in their societies. Specifically, the cases of Germany and Turkey were investigated and three youth NGOs per country were visited. A total of 12 in-depth interviews were conducted with young activists selected via snowball technique. Content analysis was employed as the basic methodology for the data analysis. The findings demonstrate that young activists' self-reported entry motives include personal development, interest in politics, formative experiences, willingness to change and improve themselves and their societies (progress), vefa (loyalty; which stands for sense of social responsibility), experiences of injustice, speaking on others' behalf, personal satisfaction they get through seeing the outcome of their work, being attracted by the flexible working atmosphere (organizational culture) in the organizations and the opportunity to meet people from other cultures (cultural dimension). The roles youth activists ascribe themselves in sustainable peace processes are empowering and becoming a role-model for other young people, building dialogue among different segments of society, participating in NGOs themselves and getting people involved in civil society (associatio


The health and wellness of Indigenous peoples continue to be impacted by the harmful colonization practices enforced by the Government of Canada. While the long-term health impacts of the Indian Residential School (IRS) system are documented, empirical evidence elucidating the relationship between the IRSs and the risk of offspring experiencing other collective childhood traumas, such as the Sixties Scoop (1950-1990) and the inequities within the child welfare system (CWS), is needed. Through an online study, we explored the links between familial (parents/grandparents) IRS attendance and subsequent involvement in the CWS in a non-representative sample of Indigenous adults in Canada born during the Sixties Scoop era. The final sample comprised 433 adults who self-identified as Status First Nation (52.2%), non-Status First Nation (23.6%), and Metis (24.2%). The study found that adults with a parent who attended IRS were more likely to have spent time in foster care or in a group home during the Sixties Scoop era. They were also more likely to have grown up in a household in which someone used alcohol or other drugs, had a mental illness or a previous suicide attempt, had spent time in prison, had lower mean levels of general household stability, and tended to have lower household economic stability. Moreover, the relationship between parental IRS attendance and foster care was explained, in part (i.e., mediated) by a higher childhood household adversity score. These findings highlight that the intergenerational cycles of household risk introduced by the IRS system contribute to the cycles of childhood adversity and increased risk of spending time within the CWS in Canada. This is the first study among Indigenous adults from across Canada to demonstrate quantitatively that being affected by the CWS during the Sixties Scoop era is linked to intergenerational cycles of risk associated with the IRS system.
Corresponding author: Robyn McQuaid at email@example.com


Old laws and complex, innovative finance do not make good partners, particularly in the area of consumer law. Today, tremendous uncertainty exists about the extent to which consumers might have claims against arrangers and investment trusts based on misdeeds at the origination of their loans. For financial services firms, the uncertainty impedes their ability to calculate potential legal liabilities, which in turn makes it difficult to accurately price credit and securities backed by loans. Regulators, who are charged with assuring the safety and soundness of banks and thrifts, likewise, cannot readily determine the dent consumer claims might make in banks' balance sheets. To add to these difficulties, the laws governing consumer lending were a challenge to parse even before home loan financing moved from Main Street to Wall Street. Credit raters, lawyers and others issued countless reports and white papers during the subprime boom speculating about consumer claims and who might be liable for what types of wrongdoing. Those questions were never resolved and there was little incentive to resolve them. Originators, servicers, arrangers, and investors were all making substantial short-term profits. Borrowers in default rarely brought claims against anyone in the securitization chain because it was easier and far less expensive to refinance than find and engage an attorney to determine the existence of claims and pursue them against defendants with much deeper pockets. But this situation has changed: the availability of mortgage credit has fallen sharply, borrowers are challenging foreclosures in court, and borrowers and states are bringing actions against parties in the securitization chain based on alleged unlawful origination practices. This Article is the first to assess consumer claims against arrangers and investment trusts in light of the evolution of financial institutions as securitization of home loans took off. Our analysis is critical because the government is embarking on plans for a new system for housing financing, which we contend must clarify the liability of participants in the securitization food chain so that the market can accurately price securities and loans up-front. This system must also create better incentives to encourage the creation of effective compliance programs to stop problem loans from entering the pipeline.


Compared with their male peers, girls commit few delinquent acts. But crimes and misdemeanors are not the only expression of violence and transgression that girls must deal with, either actively or passively. The various forms raise the question of whether certain modes of violent or non-violent transgression are specific to females and how they should be handled by the social welfare and judicial systems. This semiological puzzle is an open field for new research.


In recent decades, decentralisation measures have been implemented in most advanced democracies. While such reforms may be driven by subnational pressures and demands for empowerment, the central government usually has the deciding power to decentralise. Literature on regional preference has proliferated since the 1990s, though we know little of regional administrative preferences in relation to this process. As policy formulators and implementers, they are directly affected by dispersion of authority downwards, as it directly affects their organisational structures and portfolio of responsibilities. This article analyses decentralisation preferences among regional bureaucrats in Norway in the context of the 2015-2020 Regional Government Reform. Utilising an original survey and testing five explanations, the bureaucrats are generally reserved about taking on additional functions, with support for increasing their portfolio primarily explained by a principled motivation to increase regional autonomy, followed by feelings of regional attachment. Functional arguments also matter, though to a lesser extent. The bureaucrats' principled, rather than functional, attitude towards regionalisation deviates from theoretical premises of decentralisation literature, while also challenging more underlying notions of bureaucratic thinking, inviting further research into how these dynamics manifest themselves among members of the civil service.


Purpose. To gain an understanding of how women with spinal cord injury (SCI) experienced human encounters in occupations and how these influenced their participation. Method. The data were collected through two or three in-depth interviews with 13 women (age 25 – 61 years) with SCI. Data analysis was carried out by using a paradigmatic analysis of narrative data, followed by an interpretation based on a narrative theory. Results. The results showed a complexity where the women's experiences and acting in human encounters changed over time. In these human encounters the women struggled with conflicts, supported other persons that were insecure and revaluated their apprehension about persons in their social network. These multidimensional human encounters thereby enabled them to regain participation in occupations. Conclusions. This shows that human encounters are important for persons with disabilities so they can restructure their occupational identity and their needs for participation in occupations. The study also showed that the use of narratives as a tool within rehabilitation could lead to an increased understanding of the subjective changes that occur over time for a person with a disability.


Analyzing large-scale, multi-experiment studies requires scientists to test each experimental outcome for statistical significance and then assess the results as a whole. We present Black Box FDR (BB-FDR), an empirical-Bayes method for analyzing multi-experiment studies when many covariates are gathered per experiment. BB-FDR learns a series of black box predictive models to boost power and control the false discovery rate (FDR) at two stages of study analysis. In Stage 1, it uses a deep neural network prior to report which experiments yielded significant outcomes. In Stage 2, a separate black box model of each covariate is used to select features that have significant predictive power across all experiments. In benchmarks, BB-FDR outperforms competing state-of-the-art methods in both stages of analysis. We apply BB-FDR to two real studies on cancer drug efficacy. For both studies, BB-FDR increases the proportion of significant outcomes discovered and selects variables that reveal key genomic drivers of drug sensitivity and resistance in cancer.


Eurycoma longifolia fruits are borne in large bunches consisting of 200-300 fruits in each bunch. Even though
trees produce abundant fruits during the peak fruiting season in September, yet the number of seedlings found
growing in the forest floor is very low. Our results indicated that the seeds with hard endocarp sown in a 1:1
soil and sand mixture only start to germinate 43 days after sowing and continue to germinate over a period of
99 days. The soil and sand mixture (1:1) is equivalent to that of the forest sandy soil combination that was
optimum for germination of Eurycoma longifolia seeds. The seeds with endocarp intact that are sown in jiffy
germinated within 35-85 days. However, when the endocarp of seeds were removed, the seeds germinated within
two weeks via in vitro culture using basic MS medium. The npe seeds germinated better when sown in the 1:1
soil and sand mixture than in jiffy pellets. But the unnpe seeds with the endocarp removed seemed to germinate
faster (cve = 0.2053) when cultured in vitro in basic MS medium. All the seedlings were found to have the
same growth pattern in terms of seedling height, number of leaves produced, and the stem diameter irrespective
of germination methods over a period of 120 days.


When the French diplomat Charles Ogier saw frogs and lizards embedded in amber for sale during his visit to Danzig in November 1635 he called them "miniature miracles of nature." With rare exceptions, few of these objects—copiously documented in inventories of the time—have actually survived. Instead, we must depend on Michele Mercati's Metallotheca(1717), Sendel's Historia Succinorum (1742) and contemporary "scientific" watercolours for an idea of their appearance. Such publications and drawings not only record their appearance but also further document
their presence in collections. What was it that made the inclusion in amber so attractive to the early modern collector? Was it the body preserved within, the baffling ability of the material to preserve it, or the pleasure of
owning a piece of poetry, this genre of object having been immortalised by Martial in his Epigrams? Or, indeed, something quite different? This chapter explores the collecting of nature within nature.


We experimentally study punishment patterns across network structures, and their effect on cooperation. In a repeated public goods setting, subjects can only observe and punish their neighbors. Centralized structures (like the star network) outperform other incomplete networks and reach contribution levels like the ones observed in a complete network. Our results suggest that hierarchical network structures with a commonly observed player benefit more from sanctions not because central players punish more, but because they follow, and promote, different punishment patterns. While quasi-central players in other incomplete architectures (like the line network) retaliate, and get trapped in the vicious circle of antisocial punishment, central players in the star network do not punish back, increase their contributions when sanctioned by peripheral players, and sanction other participants in a prosocial manner. Our results illustrate recent field studies on the evolutionary prevalence of hierarchical networks. We document a network-based rationale for this positive effect in an identity-free, fully anonymous environment. (JEL C72, C91, C92, D90, H41).


In this thesis I look into how one can train and run an artificial neural network using Compute Shader and what kind of performance can be expected. An artificial neural network is a computational model that is inspired by biological neural networks, e.g. a brain. Finding what kind of performance can be expected was done by creating an implementation that uses Compute Shader and then compare it to the FANN library, i.e. a fast artificial neural network library written in C. The conclusion is that you can improve performance by training an artificial neural network on the compute shader as long as you are using non-trivial datasets and neural network configurations.


In this thesis, burnout has been studied among Dutch teachers using the theoretical frame of equity theory. Burnout is a metaphor that describes a particular syndrome which is typically found in human service professions, such as teaching, and is assumed to be linked to the emotional strain of working frequently and intensively with other people. Although burnout among teachers has been studied quite extensively for years, few of these studies are theory driven. Equity theory assumes that people, who are engaged in either an intimate or a work relationship, invest in (investments) and gain from (outcomes) that relationship. A disturbed balance of investments and outcomes (lack of reciprocity) is presumed to lead to both negative emotions and a tendency to restore the inequitable balance. The value of social exchange processes has been demonstrated in a variety of settings. However, results generally are inconclusive as to which operationalisation of reciprocity can be used best. In this thesis the Dutch version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators (MBI-NL-ES), as well as three reciprocity indices are validated. In general, results demonstrate that the MBI-NL-ES is a reliable and valid instrument to measure burnout among Dutch teachers and that reciprocity is best measured at a global instead of a specific level.
Examining burnout among teachers from a social exchange perspective resulted in several conclusions. First, social exchange processes are relevant in the exchange relationships teachers maintain with their students, colleagues, and the school. Second, the relationship with students can be regarded as the most salient in this respect, the relationship with the school the least salient and the relationship with colleagues taking an intermediate position. Third, burnout levels tend to be higher when lack of reciprocity is experienced. Forth, although it is assumed in equity theory that people try to reduce inequitable feelings by for instance lowering their investments, we have found no support to back-up this assumption. In fact, inequitable feelings seem to increase when investments are decreased.
In sum, the findings presented in this thesis contributed not only to the validation of burnout and reciprocity measures, but they also reinforced our notion that a disturbed balance of investments and outcomes (i.e., lack of reciprocity) relates significantly to burnout. Furthermore, more insight was gained into the affective and psychological withdrawal reactions to feelings of lack of reciprocity.


There are many defects on the surface of continuous casting slab, such as corner cracks, longitudinal cracks etc. To analyze the cracks and determine their locations, two-dimensional heat transfer mathematical model and thermal elasto-plastic stress model of slab casting were established in this paper. The process of solidification, temperature field, and thermal stress distribution on slab surface were analyzed using finite element method. The effect of thermal stress on the cracks on the slab surface was discussed. The location of the cracks caused by thermal stress can be predicted. This is useful for finding approaches to overcome these defects.


This review of William Patry's How to Fix Copyright highlights three of Patry's themes. First is Patry's insistence that copyright policy be based on real-world evidence, a suggestion that should be uncontroversial but instead runs headlong into the near-religious commitments of copyright stakeholders. Second is Patry's emphasis on the difference between the interests of creators, on the one hand, and owners of copyright interests, on the other. Third, and finally, is Patry's focus on the copyright system's strong tendency to entrench business models and resist change, particularly in the face of new technology.


This paper provides an estimation of the reaction of the firm-level exports consecutive to real exchange rate movements – the exchange rate elasticity of exports. Following recent theoretical works emphasizing the role played by firm heterogeneity, we test in particular how the exchange rate elasticity may be affected by firm-level productivity, and how the heterogeneous reaction of different firms may contribute to shape the aggregate reaction of countries' exports. The analysis relies on a unique cross-country micro-based dataset of exporters available for 11 European countries (2001-2011), which details in particular information about ??rms' productivity and export performance. Our results show that while the average exchange rate elasticity across firms is quite weak, it is also highly heterogeneous. The least productive firms within each country and sector tend to react more to real exchange rate movements than the most productive firms. This weak reaction of highly productive and large exporters tends to reduce the macroeconomic exchange rate elasticity in all countries. Cross-country differences in the shape of the productivity distribution among exporters have a strong influence on the macroeconomic exchange rate elasticity: countries populated with a higher density of low productive firms tend to respond more to exchange rate movements in terms of aggregate exports than countries populated with highly productive exporters.


Abstract The Whitehorse Trough is an early Mesozoic marine sedimentary basin, which extends from southern Yukon to Dease Lake in British Columbia. This paper outlines the stratigraphy and structure, and characterises the overall petroleum resource potential of the central Whitehorse Trough. Strata within the central Whitehorse Trough include carbonate rocks of the Upper Triassic Sinwa Formation, and interbedded sandstone, siltstone and argillite of the Lower Jurassic Inklin Formation. The central Whitehorse Trough is structurally dominated by a Middle Jurassic southwest-vergent fold and thrust belt. Programmed pyrolysis data indicate that potential source rocks in the Inklin Formation are gas-prone, and, along the northeastern flank of the central Whitehorse Trough, are within the oil and gas window. Variably tuffaceous feldspathic arenites in the Inklin Formation have fair to good reservoir characteristics, but are a minor component of the stratigraphy. Potential petroleum traps are provided by antiforms, thrust faults and stratigraphic pinch-outs. Three conceptual gas plays for the central Whitehorse Trough are proposed: (1) the Sinwa Structural Gas Play; (2) the Inklin Structural Gas Play; and (3) the Inklin Stratigraphic Gas Play. The Inklin Structural Gas Play presents the greatest potential in the central Whitehorse Trough because levels of organic maturation along the northeastern flank of the basin are favourable and structural traps are readily identifiable. This prospective belt of strata may extend to the northeast beneath the structurally overlying Cache Creek terrane.


Service outsourcing is a concept that has been widely adopted by many manufacturing firms in today's world. Globalization has been the main reason of outsourcing. Companies have therefore worked tirelessly in order to find out new ways of running their business without losing track of their main reasons for existence. This has therefore prompted them to outsource services and this includes having their non-core functions being performed by third parties. Cement manufacturing firms namely:-Mombasa Cement Ltd, ARM Cement Ltd, Bamburi Cement Ltd, Savannah Cement Ltd, East African Portland Cement Company Ltd and National Cement Ltd., outsource their non-core functions which include:security guard, laundry, cleaning, catering, transport and logistics, information technology and customer care services. This study therefore sought to establish the extent to which cement manufacturing companies in Kenya outsource services. The research used a descriptive research design. Primary data was collected using questionnaires and administered to 53 heads of department in the cement manufacturing firms in Kenya and sampled purposively. The data was analyzed using descriptive analysis (mean and standard deviation). The study established that cement manufacturing firms outsourced services to a greater extent in order to reduce their operating costs, concentrate on their main functions, increase quality and to improve response to the changing market demands


Critical race theorists with interests in contemporary civil rights often look for inspiration in history. In order to understand the state of civil rights in the present, they look for the roots of unfair treatment and inequality in the past, operating under the proposition that discovery and understanding of the legal rules at the foundation of current conditions are imperative for finding remedies. But although many critical race theorists do historical work, not all who do are historians, leading to tensions over methodology.* This essay seeks to explain some of the early trends in historical work within critical race theory that remain influential today. It will assess some of the recent legal scholarship on slavery and reparations as examples of the intersections between critical race theory historical work, and legal historical work that uses critical race theory. It will relate the significance of critical legal studies to methodological debates within the field of legal history and demonstrate that the ostensible tensions between the work of legal historians and critical race theorists interested in history are superficial and reconcilable.*For example, Professor Richard Delgado on the panel "Critical Race Theory at the Crossroads" raised the issue of "conservative historians'" perspective on "presentism," their apparent reluctance to view historical actors through a contemporary lens.


This paper discusses the first language acquisition of the Direct Object Clitic Doubling (henceforth [DOCD]) parameter in Romanian, a [+DOCD] language, and reports the results of a pilot experiment that identifies the default setting of this parameter. The hypothesis tested here assumes, following Sportiche (1996, 1997), that [-DOCD] is the default value of this parameter, while the [+DOCD] value is acquired on the basis of positive evidence. Following the Full Competence Hypothesis (FCH) as proposed by Poeppel & Wexler (1993) among others, I assume that functional categories (i.e. clitics) are present in the child's grammar from the beginning. The working hypothesis in this paper predicts that in earlier stages of language acquisition children will entertain the [-DOCD] parameter, even when they are learning a [+DOCD] language. These predictions are borne out by the results of my study. This pilot experiment was designed to investigate the process of acquisition of the [+DOCD] value; in this respect, children at different stages of acquisition and adult control participants were tested. Two tasks focusing on the DOCD values were used: an elicited production task and an imitation task. We conclude that in the process of L1 acquisition of [DOCD] the default value is [-DOCD]. Key words: Romanian L1 acquisition, direct object clitics acquisition, clitic doubling acquisition, parameteric settings, functional categories.


Tim 14.00 This paper examines perceptions of human services workers regarding their employment experiences and adaptations in oil-impacted rural communities in the Upper Missouri Valley of North Dakota. This study is part of larger pilot project designed to better inform health and human service professionals and elected officials about the nature of human service delivery systems in boomtowns. Qualitative methodologies were employed to analyze information gathered by interviews conducted with 40 human services workers. Both individual interviews and focus groups were conducted. Study findings indicate that the impact of oil on the human service network is complicated. Human service workers in the study were burdened with new and more complex challenges than before the boom, and had fewer resources to address these additional challenges. Their burden was eloquently summarized by one worker who stated, "While somebody else benefits, we carry the burden of oil boom repercussions." Smaller scale local strategies appear to creatively meet many needs, and show signs of worker resilience in strategy adaptation. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE


Photography (scan from a slide). Four riders on camels. They belong to a group of Afridi living in areas of the province of North-Western Territory in Pakistan. Camels is a traditional mean of in this region. Autumn in the mountains is cool. On the right side of the road a small road house building, formerly a post lying a few kilometers before the Pakistani-Afghan border. On the left the car – nowadays the most popular mean of for people. In the background landscape mountain road leading to the Khyber Pass on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is the main road from the west to the Indian subcontinent, known and described in the literature for hundreds of years. Currently the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Areas inhabited by Pashtuns. On the slopes of the mountains traces of homes posed in this harsh climate. Photo from 1992, A few years after the withdrawal of the Russian army in Afghanistan (1979-1989), and before the outbreak of a new conflict. Because of the war this area is currently (2013) dangerous and inaccessible


The concentration of broad-based merit aid adoption in the southeastern United States has been well noted in the literature. However, there are states that have adopted broad-based merit aid programs outside of the Southeast.  Guided by multiple theoretical frameworks, including innovation diffusion theory (e.g., Gray, 1973, 1994; Rogers, 2003), Roberts and King's (1991) typology of public entrepreneurs, and Anderson's (2003) stages of the policymaking process, this qualitative study sought to answer the following questions. First, in the absence of regional diffusion pressures, what internal determinants are reported as accounting for the diffusion of broad-based merit aid programs outside of the Southeastern US?  What types of public entrepreneurs were identified as playing key roles in establishing merit aid in states outside the southeastern US?  During which stages of the policymaking process were they active? We found that merit aid was a means of addressing an array of public problems, including low college going rates at in-state public colleges and universities, and weak K-12 accountability. Consistent factors reported as facilitating merit aid creation included a strong, vocal public advocate (governors and a university system president) and a desire to strengthen state economies and diversify workforces.  A full range of public entrepreneurs played key roles in developing merit aid in the sampled states. Political and executive entrepreneurs were in the forefront of merit aid efforts, but our data suggest that a cast of supporting public entrepreneurs were integral to the eventual adoption of broad-based merit aid in the sampled states.


Every year throughout the world, individuals' health is damaged by their exposure to toxic chemicals at work. In most cases these problems will resolve, but many will sustain permanent damage. Whilst any justified claim for compensation requires medical and legal evidence a crucial and often controversial component of this process is the establishment of a causal link between the individual's condition and exposure to a specific chemical or substance. Causation, in terms of how a substance or substances led the claimant to his or her current plight, can be difficult to establish and the main purpose of this book, is to provide the aspiring expert report writer with a concise, practical guide that uses case histories to illuminate the process of establishing causation in occupational toxicity proceedings. In summary: A practical, accessible guide to the preparation of balanced, scientifically sound expert reports in the context of occupational toxicology. Focuses on the scientist's role in establishing a causal link between exposure to toxins and an individual's ill health. Includes real-life case histories drawn from the Author's 15 years experience in this area to illustrate the principles involved. Expert Report Writing in Toxicology: Forensic, Scientific and Legal Aspects proves invaluable to scientists across a range of disciplines needing guidance as to what is expected of them in terms of the best use of their expertise and how to present their findings in a manner that is authoritative, balanced and informative.


In this paper, we examine robust feature extraction methods for automatic speech recognition (ASR) in noise-distorted environments. Several perceptual experiments have shown that the range between 1 and 10 Hz of modulation frequency band is important for ASR. Combining the coefficients of multi-resolutional Fourier transform to split the important modulation frequency band for ASR into several bands especially increased recognition performance. We applied the wavelet transform to the feature extraction instead of multi-resolutional Fourier transform. We called this method of feature extraction "modulation wavelet transform" (MWT). The feature extraction of the previously proposed MWT covered the modulation frequency between 1 and 15 Hz. Therefore, we conducted speech recognition experiments using the MWT which covers the modulation frequency between 1 and 12 Hz by choosing the center frequencies of 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 Hz. This new set of subbands yielded 3% increase in recognition accuracy compared to the previous results in several noise-distorted environments.


The question of how humans clearly perceive speech, which is anything but clear when analyzed acoustically, has prompted researchers to look at the phenomenon of phonetic ambiguity. In adults, phonetic ambiguity perception has been shown to be aided by the listener using expectations due to the saliency (i.e., familiar ity of the ambiguous word or phrase) and to pre-ex?osure (i.e., priming) to the items prior to testing. Priming makes the subject aware of the alternative (i.e., unfa miliar or rare) member of a phonetic ambiguity pair. In the present study, thirty-two 4 and 5 year olds were exposed to a tape containing familiar and rare ambiguity m e mbers and control items. One-half of them were primed. Results indicated that there was a strong bene ficial effect of priming and saliency. The results of the present study were also compared with a previous adult study; this revealed a great deal of similarity between the two groups, implying 4 and 5 year olds can and do employ the same linguistic cues as adults. Phonetic Ambiguities


We consider a bargaining model of the interaction between a government and interest groups in which, unlike existing models, neither side is assumed to have all the bargaining power. The government will then find it optimal to constrain itself in the use of transfer policies to improve its bargaining position. In a model of redistribution to lobbies, the government will find it optimal to cap the size of lump-sum transfers it makes below the unconstrained equilibrium level. One implication is that with the optimal cap on efficient subsidies in place, less efficient subsidies will be used for redistribution even when they serve no economic function. We thus offer an alternative theory that explains why governments may optimally choose to restrict efficient lump-sum transfers to interest groups and partially replace them with relatively less efficient transfers.


Nanocrystalline NiO thin films were deposited by dc reactive magnetron sputtering in a mixture of oxygen and argon and subsequently coated by Au on a NiO film surface. Very thin Au overlayers with a thickness of about 1 and 7 nm have been prepared by magnetron sputtering. Then, the surface modified NiO films have been analysed by TEM, EDX and SEM. NiO thin films showed a polycrystalline structure with the size of nanocrystals ranging from a few nanometers to 10 nm. Electrical responses of NiO-based structure towards hydrogen have been measured.


Axon extension and guidance require a coordinated assembly of F-actin and microtubules as well as regulated translation. The molecular basis of how the translation of mRNAs encoding guidance proteins could be closely tied to the pace of cytoskeletal assembly is poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that the F-actin-microtubule crosslinker Short stop (Shot) is required for motor and sensory axon extension in the Drosophila embryo. Here, we provide biochemical and genetic evidence that Shot functions with a novel translation inhibitor, Krasavietz (Kra, Exba), to steer longitudinally directed CNS axons away from the midline. Kra binds directly to the C-terminus of Shot, and this interaction is required for the activity of Shot to support midline axon repulsion. shot and kra mutations lead to weak robo-like phenotypes, and synergistically affect midline avoidance of CNS axons. We also show that shot and kra dominantly enhance the frequency of midline crossovers in embryos heterozygous for slit or robo, and that in kra mutant embryos, some Robo-positive axons ectopically cross the midline that normally expresses the repellent Slit. Finally, we demonstrate that Kra also interacts with the translation initiation factor eIF2β and inhibits translation in vitro. Together, these data suggest that Kra-mediated translational regulation plays important roles in midline axon repulsion and that Shot functions as a direct physical link between translational regulation and cytoskeleton reorganization.


Record linkage is the computation of the associations among records of multiple databases. It arises in contexts like the integration of such databases, online interactions and negotiations, and many others. The autonomous entities who wish to carry out the record matching computation are often reluctant to fully share their data. In such a framework where the entities are unwilling to share data with each other, the problem of carrying out the linkage computation without full data exchange has been called private record linkage. Previous private record linkage techniques have made use of a third party. We provide efficient techniques for private record linkage that improve on previous work in that (i) they make no use of a third party; (ii) they achieve much better performance than that of previous schemes in terms of execution time and quality of output (i.e., practically without false negatives and minimal false positives). Our software implementation provides experimental validation of our approach and the above claims.


: Spawning aggregations of reef fish tend to be predictable in time and space. The extent of movement, residence time and seasonality of the aggregation can be difficult to determine, but are important for effective management. We utilized acoustic transmitters and a receiver array to track dog snapper Lutjanus jocu and Cubera snapper Lutjanus cyanopterus within a multi-species spawning aggregation site at the Grammanik Bank in the US Virgin Islands from June 2014 to September 2015. Acoustic detections showed that both species utilized spawning areas of 1.4 to 1.5 km 2 , centered at the shelf promontory. The aggregation area of L. cyanopterus was situated along the shelf edge; the L. jocu aggregation may have been displaced by L. cyanopterus as it occupied some of the inner shelf as well. Receivers along the shelf edge recorded the longest residence times during the hours of spawning (16:45 to 20:00 h), suggesting this is likely a spawning site for both species. L. cyanopterus aggregated monthly from May through November, with residence time peaking in August. L. jocu aggregated monthly throughout the year and residence time did not vary significantly by month. Each month, detections increased in the week before and the first week after the full moon, but then decreased to zero by the third week after the full moon. This study outlines the spatial and temporal dimensions of the spawning aggregation, which can be applied to the management and development of protected areas.


Humans can ground natural language commands to tasks at both abstract and fine-grained levels of specificity. For instance, a human forklift operator can be instructed to perform a high-level action, like "grab a pallet" or a low-level action like "tilt back a little bit." While robots are also capable of grounding language commands to tasks, previous methods implicitly assume that all commands and tasks reside at a single, fixed level of abstraction. Additionally, methods that do not use multiple levels of abstraction encounter inefficient planning and execution times as they solve tasks at a single level of abstraction with large, intractable state-action spaces closely resembling real world complexity. In this work, by grounding commands to all the tasks or subtasks available in a hierarchical planning framework, we arrive at a model capable of interpreting language at multiple levels of specificity ranging from coarse to more granular. We show that the accuracy of the grounding procedure is improved when simultaneously inferring the degree of abstraction in language used to communicate the task. Leveraging hierarchy also improves efficiency: our proposed approach enables a robot to respond to a command within one second on 90% of our tasks, while baselines take over twenty seconds on half the tasks. Finally, we demonstrate that a real, physical robot can ground commands at multiple levels of abstraction allowing it to efficiently plan different subtasks within the same planning hierarchy.


The Companion is a major contribution to the literary evaluation of Pound's great, but often bewildering and abstruse work, The Cantos. Available in a one-volume paperback edition for the first time, the Companion brings together in conveniently numbered glosses for each canto the most pertinent details from the vast body of work on the Cantos during the last thirty years. The Companion contains 10,421 separate glosses that include translations from eight languages, identification of all proper names and works, Pound's literary and historical allusions, and other exotica, with exegeses based upon Pound's sources. Also included is a supplementary bibliography of works on Pound, newly updated, and an alphabetized index to The Cantos.


The SWITCHED-ON project (FFI2011-29829) focusses on the boundaries between mobile, open and social learning as a framework for acquiring languages (Read et al., 2017). Of all the areas of knowledge that could be developed using these approaches, it is argued that language learning is particularly appropriate because the target language in question is both the object of study and the communicative vehicle used for the learning process. For open social language learning to be effective, it is argued by the authors that it should mobilise the student population in such a way that they not only modify and generate content relevant to their own learning activities but also contribute to the refinement of that developed by their peers and harness such work as part of their overall communicative process in the target language.
While this "pedagogic generosity" may appear to be a natural part of the learning process for those who have tried it, the authors' experience is that it is not naturally the case. Students are no more likely to openly share content and ideas than people in general. The tacit view that what "I have generated it and it is mine" can limit wiliness to share in an open and participative fashion. Students need to see the added value of working in this way as being a key part of their own learning process. This does not happen on its own and requires relevant activities to be identified and supported. Yeager et al. (2013) identify four types of activities present in open social learning (specifically in Community MOOCs), that can be harnessed to potentiate open content. For these types of activities to work, students need to be supported in order to develop the relevant values and skills needed to frame sharing as a valuable means to potentiate their learning and that of other students at the same time. The authors go on to argue that this problem is common in the preparation and extension of OERs. If it can be identified and directly addressed in the context of student learning then the approach may be generalised to the field of open education.


After the Second World War, the idea that local community action was indispensable for the alleviation of poverty was broadly embraced by US policymakers, social scientists, international development specialists, and grassroots activists. Governmental efforts to mobilize community action in the name of democracy served as a volatile condition of possibility for poor people and dispossessed groups negotiating the tension between calls for self-help and demands for self-determination in the era of the Cold War and global decolonization. In Poverty in Common , Alyosha Goldstein suggests new ways to think about the relationship among liberalism, government, and inequality in the United States. He does so by analyzing historical dynamics including Progressive-era reform as a precursor to community development during the Cold War, the ways that the language of "underdevelopment" articulated ideas about poverty and foreignness, the use of poverty as a crucible of interest group politics, and radical groups' critical reframing of community action in anticolonial terms. During the mid-twentieth century, approaches to poverty in the United States were linked to the racialized and gendered negotiation of boundaries—between the foreign and the domestic, empire and nation, violence and order, and dependency and autonomy.


Twenty-four young adult domestic cats from a commercial vendor were found to be infected with Helicobacter pylori. Histopathologic analyses, selected electron microscopy, and urease mapping were performed on mucosal samples collected from the cardias and fundi, bodies, and antra of these cats' stomachs. H. pylori organisms were abundant in all areas of the stomach on the basis of histologic evaluation and urease mapping. H. pylori infection was associated with a moderate to severe lymphofollicular gastritis in 21 of 24 cats (88%). The gastritis was most pronounced in the antral region and consisted mainly of multifocal lymphoplasmacytic follicular infiltrates in the deep mucosa. The severity of gastritis in the antrum corresponded to high numbers of H. pylori there on the basis of the use of the urease assay as an indicator of H. pylori colonization. Ten of 24 cats (42%) also had small to moderate numbers of eosinophils in the gastric mucosa. All 24 cats had gastric lymphoid follicles, with follicles being most prevalent in the antrum. Electron microscopy of gastric tissue revealed numerous H. pylori organisms, some of which were closely adhered to the mucosal epithelium. Human H. pylori gene-specific primers to ureA and ureB amplified products of similar sizes from H. pylori cat isolates. Digestion of the products with restriction enzymes resulted in fragments characteristic of the restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns of H. pylori isolates from humans. In the domestic cat, H. pylori infection is associated with a lymphofollicular gastritis, consisting of lymphocytic and plasmacytic infiltration into the lamina propria, and the organism appears to provide chronic antigenic stimulation resulting in the formation of gastric lymphoid follicles.


In 1966-1971, eastern US states with hunting seasons on mourning doves ( Zenaida macroura ) participated in a study designed to estimate the effects of bag limit increases on population survival rates. More than 400 000 adult and juvenile birds were banded and released during this period, and subsequent harvest and return of bands, together with total harvest estimates from mail and telephone surveys of hunters, provided the database for analysis. The original analysis used an ANOVA framework, and resulted in inferences of no effect of bag limit increase on population parameters (Hayne 1975). We used a logistic regression analysis to infer that the bag limit increase did not cause a biologically significant increase in harvest rate and thus the experiment could not provide any insight into the relationship between harvest and annual survival rates. Harvest rate estimates of breeding populations from geographical subregions were used as covariates in a Program MARK analysis and revealed an association between annual survival and harvest rates, although this relationship is potentially confounded by a latitudinal gradient in survival rates of dove populations. We discuss methodological problems encountered in the analysis of these data, and provide recommendations for future studies of the relationship between harvest and annual survival rates of mourning dove populations.


Problem identification: The surgical count is an integral component of the perioperative nurse's role designed to reduce the risk of unintentional retained items (URIs) during surgery. Current literature provides statistical data that URIs continue to occur which has exposed a lack of adherence to the surgical count process as a possible contributing factor. This review was undertaken to identify what is currently known about perioperative nurses' practices in relation to the surgical count and the perceived barriers and enablers when trying to follow best practice as outlined in ACORN's Standards for Perioperative Nursing in Australia. Literature search: The objective of the search was to identify empirical data relating to nurses' knowledge and practices in relation to the surgical count. We identified 215 research papers in the literature search using search terms consisting of instrument counts, culture and patient safety. Data evaluation synthesis: Studies from 2003 to 2018 were categorised methodologically as qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies. All papers were reviewed by the authors separately to extract key information around design, sample size, aim, key findings and limitations. Studies were critically appraised using the mixed method appraisal tool (MMAT) for mixed method studies and the QualSyst tool for quantitative and qualitative studies. The literature search identified a total of 215 studies, 109 of which were identified for further review using the 'preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis' (PRISMA) flow chart. Six exclusion criteria were applied to exclude a further 52 articles from the final review, which resulted in ten articles being included in the final sample. Implications for practice or research: The review demonstrates that statistical data around URIs is widely reported. However, little is documented about the patient, case, individual and environmental factors that may impede perioperative nurses in following best practice when undertaking a surgical count.


Magarpatta City covers 430 acres of land that was owned by about 120 farmer families with 800 individuals. These farmers joined together to form the Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company Limited (MTDCCL) and developed the city, thereby realizing their dream of converting their land into a value-added finished product that gave them benefits and returns in perpetuity. Satish Magar is the de-facto leader of the group because of his educational accomplishments, political connections, largest land holding and the trust that the Magar community has in his leadership and ability to take them collectively to a point where all of them collectively benefit. Magarpatta City was conceived as an integrated planned township with multiple commercial zones, residential neighborhoods, school, hospital, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, and recreation areas. These were designed to be contemporary with futuristic features and included a state-of-the-art IT Park called Cybercity that provided international facilities to leading global IT giants. Being encompassed by verdant greenery and pollution free environment has added to the townships allure. The city has its own rain water harvesting, garbage segregation and waste management, biogas plant, vermiculture, plant nursery and solar water heating arrangements that creates a self sustainable system and ensures further enhancement of the environment. A walk to work-home-recreation lifestyle is at the core of Magarpatta. All these facilities came with complete support to run new cutting edge information technology infrastructure, full power back up, ample parking, stringent security, and strict adherence to fire safety norms. The case describes the process that the farmers went through to convert the raw material that they possessed (land) to a finished product, namely the Magarpatta Township. It illustrates the changes that the real estate sector is going through in India, issues related to getting government permissions for a township, conceptualizing, designing, planning, and constructing the township, marketing and financing the township, benefits that the township had for the farmers, residents, Pune city, business environment, and developing an organization that can carry forward the process of replicating the success of this model of real estate development.


We present detailed modeling and experimental results for an improved design of an InGaAsP-InP wavelength demultiplexer based on a monolithically integrated Rowland circle grating. The design incorporated ten wavelength channels at 1.55 /spl mu/m with a uniform spacing of 2 nm. The total on-chip loss was about 10 dB and the crosstalk between adjacent channels was as low as -25 dB. It was shown that low-loss etched turning mirrors can reduce the total on-chip loss by about 4 dB compared to traditional 90/spl deg/ curved multimode waveguides. By replacing standard flat grating facets with retro-reflecting V-shaped facets in the echelle grating, the loss was further reduced by 4 dB. Polarization independent operation within a passband of 0.5 nm was achieved by using multimode output waveguides. The potential sources producing the crosstalk have been analyzed and fabrication modifications for further improvement are suggested.


Here we present the construction of a partial draft genome of the sweet cherry Prunus avium 'Karina' (2n=2x=16) taking advantage of the NGS technologies available and by implementing a de novo assembly strategy. The estimated assembly size was 352.5 Mb, comprising 904,813 contigs with a N50 of 9,188 bp. The contig merging process resulted in 898,488 scaffolds with a N50 of 13,235 bp and a maximum scaffold length of 419,819 bp. We performed a search for known genes with agronomical importance such as the dormancy-associated MADS-box transcription factors (DAM) and two members of the eIF4G gene subfamily. The search results showed that six putative DAM genes are present in an apparent tandem array with a mean identity of 89.14% with the genomic sequences of Prunus persica. Similar results were achieved for the eIFG genes, obtaining 89.76% of identity with the genomic sequences of Prunus persica and 60.36% of identity with the genomic sequences of Arabidopsis thaliana. With this we are hoping to obtain valuable data to perform genomic studies and to contribute to the better understanding of the genetic background of this cultivar and to obtain a tool to perform genomic studies in sweet cherry.