This paper discusses Creature:Interactions (2015), a large-scale mixed-reality artwork created by the authors that incorporates immersive 360° stereoscopic visuals, interactive technology, and live actor facilitation. The work uses physical simulations to promote an expressive full-bodied interaction as children explore the landscapes and creatures of Ethel C. Pedley's ecologically focused children's novel, Dot and the Kangaroo. The immersive visuals provide a social playspace for up to 90 people and have produced "phantom" sensations of temperature and touch in certain participants.


In the year 2000, six flights (three southbound and three northbound) of the CARIBIC project were conducted between Germany and two destinations in the southern hemi- sphere (Windhoek, Namibia and Cape Town, South Africa). In the present report, results on particle number concentra- tions are discussed in three size ranges (>4 nm, >12 nm, and >18 nm particle diameter) during the unique transequatorial Africa flights. The flights covered a total of about 80 h in May, July, and December. Thus, no claim can be made for long-term representativeness of the aerosol data. Neverthe- less, they are the first upper systematic tropospheric transe- quatorial aerosol profiles over Africa. The average aerosol results show a broad maximum, roughly symmetrical to the equator, which compares well in latitudinal extent to a max- imum of CO concentrations measured on the same flights. This export of continental surface aerosol to the upper tropo- sphere will be dispersed on a global scale both with the east- erly flow near the equator and with the westerlies in the adja- cent subtropical regions. There was strong evidence of recent new particle formation before aerosol arrival at flight level, in particular during the time periods between 9:00 and 13:00 local time over Africa. Direct and indirect climate effects of the respective particulate matter remain to be investigated by future flights with the ongoing extension of the CARIBIC payload towards size-resolved measurements above 100 nm particle diameter. At the same time global chemical transport models and aerosol dynamics models need to be extended to be able to reproduce the CARIBIC findings over Africa.


European landscapes have featured considerable changes towards intensification and marginalisation. These major trends are expected to continue in the future. Besides, the cultivation of bioenergy crops has become an important factor in agricultural land use. A thorough understanding of land-use processes for management purposes is needed. In this study, the spatial and temporal pattern of agricultural land use and land-use change was classified at the scale of municipalities from 2005 to 2010. The study region was the German federal state Hesse. By using data of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) of the European Union and with the help of k-means cluster analysis, five types of agricultural land-use patterns and dynamics (TLPDs) were detected. These TLPDs represent different sub-regions. Sub-regions with favourable physical conditions for cultivation are dominated by arable land. A progressive land-use change occurred by conversion of grassland to arable land. In sub-regions, where physical conditions are rather unfavourable, especially in mountainous areas, grassland is the predominant land use. But on the remaining arable land, there is a slight change in favour of maize. The knowledge of sub-regions with spatially and temporally different agricultural land use could be utilised to develop land management instruments like site-specific agri-environmental schemes.


Lisa Francks Teacher Motivation 2000 Dr. Ronald L. Capasso School Administration The purpose of the study was to ascertain the causes of decreased teacher motivation in order to provide assistance to first year teachers and other novice teachers who were experiencing difficulties. In addition, the study determined whether teachers who went through a teacher assistance program sustained a higher degree of motivation and enthusiasm towards teaching than those who were not assisted. The study provided a basis for developing a beginning teacher assistance program. As a result, the intern developed a mentoring program to offer novice teachers a means of coping with many of the difficulties they periodically faced. The intern used a sample of 30 teachers. The sample included first year teachers and non tenured teachers who were aided by a teacher assistance program and those who were not assisted. Surveys, questionnaires, and interviews were used to collect data, and the data was reported in percentages. From the data analysis, the intern concluded that teachers who were aided by a teacher assistance program had a higher level of motivation and a more positive attitude towards teaching than those who were not assisted. Furthermore, the study concluded that student attitudes, bureaucratic paperwork, and too many demands from the administration had a negative effect on their enthusiasm for teaching.


Laser doppler anemometers are non-invasive, linear, and inherently precise. Calibration, in the usual sense, is not necessary; length and frequency measurements suffice to establish velocity at a spatial point. Measurements were made at points in the cross-sections of two square ducts containing water flow. The points were selected in con formance with a numerical integration scheme to be used for volumetric flow rate determination from the velocity measurements. The experiments were performed in a primary calibration facility at flows up to 1.25 m 3 /sec using ducts with sides 46 and 92 cm. The anemometer, operating in forward scatter differential mode with a 15 mw He Ne laser, was positioned with a special traversing frame. Windows in the ducts allowed transmission of the beams into the flow and reception of scattered light. Two grid patterns, 4 x 11 and 11 x 11, were used so that 44 and 121 velocities were measured for each test. A total of eight tests were conducted covering a Reynolds number range from 1.1 to 3.9 X 10 8 • After accounting for errors due to the discreet integration scheme of 0.61% and 0.13% for the 4 x 11 and 11 x 11 schemes, respectively, comparieon with the calibration facility indicated extreme errors of +0.81/-0.16 and +0.84/-0.61. The major limitation of the setup used was the time required to move the anemometer and obtain a new velocity value. It was pointed out that either better mechanical positioning or optical scanning could be employed to reduce the time required for a flow determina tion.


Preface More than two decades have passed since the region's first attempts to move towards a development strategy that was more open to foreign competition and more deregulated, in which the State had a smaller role in production activities. Those earliest efforts were made at the start of the 1970s by Chile and were later followed by similar initiatives in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The change in development paradigm, which entailed the abandonment of the inward-oriented, state-led model of the postwar period, brought about great macro-, meso- and microeconomic changes. The production structure and the institutional and regulatory regime of the countries of the region underwent significant change as part of a profound, long-term structural transformation that is far from finished. The combination of pro-competitive structural reforms, the historical features of each national economy and the impact of the world economy 's increasing financial turbulence and volatility triggered a Schumpeterian episode of "creative destruction" through which a new economic, institutional and technological regime is gradually emerging. The micro-and mesoeconomic features of this regime have scarcely been researched so far. This book presents the research findings of one of the five modules of a project entitled "Growth, employment and equity: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s", which was conducted jointly by the Economic Development Division and the Division of Production, Productivity and Management at ECLAC 's headquarters in Santiago, Chile. The study was carried out in close collaboration with various research centres and independent professionals from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. The book was originally published in Spanish under the title "Reformas Estructurales, Productividad y Conducta Tecnologica en America Latina", and it was translated into English by Andrew Crawley. I made considerable revisions in the translation,but the general arguments and conclusions nonetheless remain the same. Jennifer Hoover and Barbara Stallings are to be thanked for their editorial help in making these changes.


Residues from bioenergy and ecological sanitation (EcoSan) can be utilized to sustain soil fertility and productivity. With regard to certain cooking and sanitation technologies used in smallholder households (hh), we systematically analyzed how utilization of the respective potentials to recover residues for farming affects (i) soil nutrient balances, (ii) the potential for subsistence production of composts, and (iii) environmental emissions. On the example of an intercropping farming system in Karagwe, Tanzania, we studied specific farming practices including (1) current practices of using standard compost only; (2) a combination of using biogas slurry, urine, and standard compost; (3) a combination of using so-called "CaSa-compost" (containing biochar and sanitized human excreta, Project "Carbonization and Sanitation"), urine, and standard compost. The system analysis combines a soil nutrient balance (SNB) with material flow analysis (MFA). Currently, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are depleted by −54 ± 3 and −8 ± 1 kg∙ha−1∙year−1, respectively. Our analysis shows, however, a clear potential to reduce depletion rates of N, and to reverse the SNB of P, to bring about a positive outcome. Composts and biogas slurry supply sufficient P to crops, while urine effectively supplements N. By using resources recovered from cooking and sanitation, sufficient compost for subsistence farming may be produced. Human excreta contribute especially to total N and total P in CaSa-compost, whilst biochar recovered from cooking with microgasifier stoves adds to total carbon (C) and total P. We conclude that the combined recycling of household residues from cooking and from sanitation, and CaSa-compost in particular, is especially suitable for sustainable soil management, as it mitigates existing P-deficiency and soil acidity, and also restores soil organic matter.


This paper presents a method for calculating the value of price risk reduction to a consumer that can be achieved with investments in energy efficiency. The examples presented deal with buildings and electricity for heating, but the principles can be applied to other contexts. The value of price risk reduction is largely overlooked so far in literature concerning the costs and benefits of energy efficiency in buildings. The topic is discussed to some length but in the literature reviewed for this paper no methodology for calculating the value was presented. Here we suggest such a method. The problem of valuating price risk reduction is approached using a variation of the Black–Scholes model by considering a hypothetical financial instrument that a consumer would purchase to insure herself against unexpected price hikes. A rational consumer is prepared for a certain amount of growth in energy prices. If, however, the energy price rises more than expected, it might be very undesirable for the consumer. The consumer could, at least in theory, prepare for the unexpected rise by buying a cap contract on energy prices which would provide compensation for that unexpected rise. Case examples calculated for typical single family houses in Finland are presented. The calculations concentrate on heating energy only, because there it is relatively easy to find examples of investments that reduce energy consumption, making it well-suited for demonstrating the issues at hand. Moreover, they concentrate on electricity as an energy carrier, as volatility data are needed and such data are available from the relatively well functioning electricity market in the Nordic countries. The results show that the price risk entailed in household energy consumption can be reduced by a meaningful amount with energy efficiency investments, and that the monetary value of this reduction can be calculated using a variation of the Black–Scholes method. It is argued that this often overlooked benefit of energy efficiency investments merits more consideration in future studies.


Primitive neuroectodermal tumours or PNET's are rare, malignant tumours with aggressive course and extremely poor prognosis. They have no sex preference. They arise mostly in the second decade of life. They are believed to be of neural crest origin and carry the name primitive because majority of the neuronal cells in these tumours appear undifferentiated. Solid organ origin is very rare and tumours arising from the adrenals are very infrequent. We report a case of metastatic bilateral adrenal PNET in a 45-year-old man. We believe this to be the first such case reported in the urological literature.


"Any form of art can only develop by means of single mutations by individual creators. If only traditional conventions are used an art will die, and the widening of an art from is bound to seem strange at first, and awkward. Any growing thing must go through awkward stages. The creator who is misunderstood because of his breach of convention may say to himself, `I seem strange to you, but anyway I am alive.'" -- Carson McCullers, "The Vision Shared" Writers of the "southern grotesque" or "southern gothic"(1)--for example, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and Flannery O'Connor--conjure up the strange worlds of freakish outsiders placed in lovelorn barren landscapes, penetrating heat, and closed spaces, with themes of miscegenation, sexual deviance and bloody violence. Perhaps not surprisingly, critical readers have, on the whole, concurred that the southern grotesque aligns itself with a gloomy vision of modernity, according to which the soul of man is both aimless and loveless. The grotesque worlds of southern literature, it is argued, allegorize the human condition itself as existential alienation and angst. In my view, however, these accounts of the southern grotesque do not tally with the type of art which McCullers describes in the prefatory quotation above, as well as in other essays (for example, "The Russian Realists and Southern Literature" and "The Flowering Dream: Notes on Writing") and the fiction itself. McCullers, like O'Connor in "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction," accentuates the vitality of the grotesque vision. Without wanting to dismiss the real pain that is so often at the heart of the southern grotesque, including McCullers' writings, I want to suggest that the grotesque is not limited to an alienating modernity. Rather, it is to do with the affirming qualities and practices of growth, promise and transformation. What I am advocating, then, is a crucial need to revisit the grotesque. In doing so in this essay, I note different theories of the grotesque, and find Mikhail Bakhtin's conceptualization of it the most fruitful not only for describing the dynamics of McCullers' grotesque subjects, but also for promising a radically new construction of how we read the southern grotesque.(2) I then perform a reading of McCullers' novels of adolescence--The Heart of the Lonely Hunter (1940) and The Member of the Wedding (1946)--as an example of how we might reframe what I suggest are limited readings of the southern grotesque. Julia Kristeva first brought Bakhtin to the attention of western scholars with her 1969 essay, "Word, Dialogue and Novel." With the translation into English of Rabelais and His World in 1968, and The Dialogic Imagination and Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics in the early 1980s, Bakhtin became a key name in literary studies, particularly in response to his theory of the novel. Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin's reading of Gargantua and Pantagruel, contains a revolutionary conceptualization of the grotesque that I suggest can free not just McCullers' fiction but much southern writing from the almost paralyzing burden of more traditional accounts of the grotesque, to celebrate, instead, McCullers' pronouncement, "but anyway I am alive." As I have noted, most readers of the southern grotesque submit that it allegorizes a kind of existential anguish. William Van O'Connor accounts for the grotesque in southern writing as a response to a world of violence and upheaval; Joseph Millichap makes a connection between the grotesque and a dark modernism; and Leslie Fiedler, in Love and Death in the American Novel (1960), links the grotesque with terror and violence. More specifically, McCullers' worlds are said to represent alienation, loneliness, a lack of human communication, and the failure of love.(3) Although there is no denying the validity of these constructions of the southern grotesque, I do not think they tell the full story. …


Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) exhibit an important function in extracellular matrix degradation. MMPs modulate the activation of growth factors, cytokines and metastasis. At present, the effect of exercise on serum levels of MMP-2 and -9 remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of various physical activities on the circulating levels of MMP-2 and -9 in breast cancer (BC) survivors and healthy subjects. A total of 66 female subjects were enrolled in the present study. The cohort included 46 BC survivors and 20 healthy subjects divided into 5 groups: Group A (17 BC survivors, participating in recreational dragon boat paddling), group B (14 BC survivors, participating in recreational physical activity), group C (15 sedentary BC survivors), group D (10 healthy subjects, participating in recreational physical activity) and group E (10 sedentary healthy subjects). ELISA assays revealed a significant increase in the level of circulating MMP-2 in group B compared with all other groups. Recreational physical activity increased the levels of MMP-9 in healthy subjects (group D vs. E), however, the differences were not statistically significant, while in the BC survivor groups the results were opposite, with exercise reducing MMP-9 levels (group B vs. C). Furthermore, a significant increase in MMP-2 was observed in group B lymph node metastasis-positive (N+) subjects compared with group A and C N+ subjects. Thus, the results of the present study indicate that various physical activities modulate the levels of circulating MMP-2 and -9 in BC survivors, and the same exercise program induces a different effect when undertaken by healthy subjects and BC survivors. These results may have important implications with regard to the selection of appropriate physical activities for BC survivors, leading to improvements to their survival and prevention of recurrence, as well as amelioration of physical function, quality of life and fatigue.


A simple, accurate, precise, reproducible RP-HPLC method has been developed for simultaneous estimation of meloxicam and paracetamol with its genotoxic impurity (p-amino phenol) in bulk and combined dosage form (tablet). The method was validated in compliance with ICH guidelines[1-2]. The LC separation was achieved on Lichrospher RP-18e (250X4.6mm), 5μm column at 285 nm in isocratic mode using mobile phase composition Methanol: Phosphate buffer (80:20 v/v), pH adjusted to 2.6 by orthophsphoric acid. Flow rate employed was 1.0 ml/min. The retention time for paracetamol, meloxicam and p-amino phenol were found to be 2.28, 3.14 and 6.09 minutes respectively. Linearity ranges were suitable for routine determination(10-120 μg/ml, 1-20 μg/ml 1-10μg/ml) of Paracetamol, Meloxicam and p-Amino phenol with correlation coefficient of 0.9991, 0.9992 and 0.9990 respectively. The % recoveries were in the range of 99.8 ±0.14 for paracetamol, 99.50± 0.52 for meloxicam and 99.4±0.68 for p-amino phenol impurity with relative standard deviation(RSD) less than 2. The LOD and LOQ were found to be 0.1692 and 0.5073 for Meloxicam, 0.2669 and 0.8007 for Paracetamol, 0.1040 and 0.3120 for p-amino phenol respectively. The proposed method is successfully appplied for the quantification of paracetamol, meloxicam and p-amino phenol impurity in bulk and formulations.


Kurt Goedel, together with Bertrand Russell, is the most important name in logic, and in the foundations and philosophy of mathematics of this century. However, unlike Russel, Goedel the mathematician published very little apart from his well-known writings in logic, metamathematics and set theory. Fortunately, Goedel the philosopher, who devoted more years of his life to philosophy than to technical investigation, wrote hundreds of pages on the philosophy of mathematics, as well as on other fields of philosophy. It was only possible to learn more about his philosophical works after the opening of his literary estate at Princeton a decade ago. The goal of this book is to make available to the scholarly public solid reconstructions and editions of two of the most important essays which Goedel wrote on the philosophy of mathematics. The book is divided into two parts. The first provides the reader with an incisive historico-philosophical introduction to Goedel's technical results and philosophical ideas. Written by the Editor, this introductory apparatus is not only devoted to the manuscripts themselves but also to the philosophical context in which they were written. The second contains two of Goedel's most important and fascinating unpublished essays: 1) the Gibbs Lecture ("Some basic theorems on the foundations of mathematics and their philosophical implications", 1951); and 2) two of the six versions of the essay which Goedel wrote for the Carnap volume of the Schilpp series The Library of Living Philosophers ("Is mathematics syntax of language?", 1953-1959).


Wars, especially civil wars, are among the most serious causes of human suffering and underdevelopment. Yet economic analysis of developing countries at war is relatively rare. These volumes aim to reverse this neglect, tracing the economic and social consequences of conflict both theoretically and through empirical investigations, including seven country case studies. A major objective is to identify policies which may reduce the heavy human and economic costs. Volume One provides a general framework for the analysis, examines the political economy of countries at war, and provides an empirical overview of the costs of war for the poor countries worst affected by conflict. The approach is multidisciplinary: political and sociological analysis is needed in order to understand motivations and behaviour during conflict; while economic analysis is necessary to evaluate how poor people are affected. The analysis includes an investigation of how the international system, including food aid, affects the war economies, and identifies international as well as domestic policies which may reduce the human and economic costs of conflict. The subject is particularly important in view of the high incidence of wars in poor countries. Between 1950 and 1990, around 15 million deaths were caused (directly or indirectly) by war in developing countries. The end of the Cold War led to a transition to peace in many of the areas in which conflict had been fuelled by East-West antagonism, but new wars erupted. From 1989 to 1995, between 34 and 51 armed conflicts were waged each year, the great majority in poor developing countries. These volumes investigate economic and social consequences at macro-, meso- and micro- levels, aiming to identify the indirect costs (e.g. via inflation and reduced entitlements) as well as direct costs of military operations. The in-depth country case studies published in Volume Two (Afghanistan, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda) are summarized in Volume One. These explore the main economic mechanisms operating during war and the policy responses of governments and international actors, showing how each can enlarge the costs and further fuel the conflicts. The large variations in this response and in the consequent costs point to domestic and international policies which can reduce the human and economic costs even before peace is restored. Contributors to this volume - Frances Stewart Valpy Fitzgerald David Keen Cindy Huang Michael Wang Eric Greitens Emma Samman


Reserve the main energy source of fossil fuels thinning, while the demand for energy is increasing. Caused the population growth, economic growth and energy consumption pattern itself is constantly increasing. One source of renewable energy which is of considerable interest to wind energy. Research Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) low speed have not been used in Indonesia. Though there are several locations that have a continuous low wind speeds that allow converted into energy.
The use of lighting at night is one thing to absorb quite a lot of electrical energy, especially on street lighting. One solution is to perform design of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT). Types were used as a vane type helix, because the vertical axis wind turbine blade type helix is still rare in Indonesia were minimal study design and manufacture. Vertical axis wind turbine is safer to use than on the horizontal axis type. Several assumptions will be used to design a propeller-shaped helix, because of limited references and data. This wind turbine generator connected to the axial flux type (AFPMG-Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator). This generator is very suitable for wind turbines because of its low speed and can connect directly to the main turbine shaft, thus eliminating the transmission losses. On testing the vertical axis wind turbine blade without a generator type helix obtained value of tip speed ratio (TSR) of 0,77.


The Phosphoria Formation and related rocks were deposited over an 8.9 m.y. interval beginning approximately 274.0Ma and ending approximately 265.1Ma. The Meade Peak Phosphatic Shale Member was deposited in southeastern Idaho and adjacent Wyoming over 5.4 m.y. from approximately 273.2 to 268.6 Ma. The Retort Phosphatic Shale Member was deposited in southwestern Montana and west-central Wyoming over 1.3 m.y. from approximately 267.4 to 266.1Ma. The base of the Roadian Stage of the Middle Permian occurs within the lower phosphate zone of the Meade Peak. The base of the Wordian Stage occurs within the upper phosphate zone of the Meade Peak. The presence of a cool-water brachiopod fauna, cool-water conodont faunas, and the absence of fusulinids throughout the Phosphoria basin indicate the presence of pervasive cool, upwelling waters. Acritarchs are intimately associated with phosphorites and phosphatic shales and may have been the primary organic producer to help drive phosphate production. The gondolellid conodont fauna of the Phosphoria Formation links a geographic cline of Jinogondolella nankingensis from the Delaware basin, West Texas, to the Sverdrup basin, Canadian Arctic, and shows distinct differentiation in species distribution, as do other conodont groups, within the Phosphoria basin. Ten species and two subspecies of gondolellid conodonts are recognized from the Phosphoria Formation and related rocks that belong to Mesogondolella and Jinogondolella.


OBJECTIVE--To investigate the relation between parental employment in the nuclear industry and childhood leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. DESIGN--Case-control study. SETTING-West Berkshire and Basingstoke and North Hampshire District Health Authorities. SUBJECTS--54 children aged 0-4 years who had leukaemia or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosed during 1972-89, who were born in the study area and were resident there when cancer was diagnosed. Six controls were selected for each case: four from hospital delivery registers and two from livebirth registers maintained by the NHS central register. Controls were matched for sex, date of birth (within six months), and area of residence at birth and time of diagnosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Parents' employment by the nuclear industry and exposure to ionising radiation at work. RESULTS--Five (9%) of the 54 cases and 14 (4%) of the 324 controls had fathers or mothers, or both, who had been employed by the nuclear industry (relative risk 2.2, 95% confidence interval 0.6 to 6.9). Nuclear industry employees who work in areas where exposure to radiation is possible are given film badges to monitor their exposure to external penetrating ionising radiation. Three fathers of cases and two fathers of controls (and no mothers of either) had been monitored in this way before their child was conceived (relative risk 9.0, 95% confidence interval 1.0 to 107.8). No father (of a case or control) had accumulated a recorded dose of more than 5 mSv before his child was conceived, and no father had been monitored at any time in the four years before his child was conceived. A dose-response relation was not evident among fathers who had been monitored. CONCLUSIONS--These results suggest that the children of fathers who had been monitored for exposure to external penetrating ionising radiation in the nuclear industry may be at increased risk of developing leukaemia before their fifth birthday. The finding is based on small numbers and could be due to chance. If the relationship is real the mechanisms are far from clear, except that the effect is unlikely to be due to external radiation; the possibility that it could be due to internal contamination by radioactive substances or some other exposure at work should be pursued. The above average rates of leukaemia in the study area cannot be accounted for by these findings.


After recalling the main empirical evidence in favour of sound symbolism, this Introduction presents the contributions offered by the authors of this issue of Signifiances (Signifying). It then addresses some of the epistemological and metaphysical issues that a full integration of sound symbolism into language theory entails, particularly concerning the relationship between language and reality, and between nature and culture. Finally, it proposes to explain the centuries-old preference of scholars for the arbitrariness of the sign as an effect of the preeminent role that writing on paper has played in their pragmatic-cognitive experience of language up to the digital revolution.


Type 1 vanilloid receptors (VR1) have been identified recently in the brain, in which they serve as yet primarily undetermined purposes. The endocannabinoid anandamide (AEA) and some of its oxidative metabolites are ligands for VR1, and AEA has been shown to afford protection against ouabain-induced in vivo excitotoxicity, in a manner that is only in part dependent on the type 1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptor. In the present study, we assessed whether VR1 is involved in neuroprotection by AEA and by arvanil, a hydrolysis-stable AEA analog that is a ligand for both VR1 and CB1. Furthermore, we assessed the putative involvement of lipoxygenase metabolites of AEA in conveying neuroprotection. Using HPLC and gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy, we demonstrated that rat brain and blood cells converted AEA into 12-hydroxy-N-arachidoylethanolamine (12-HAEA) and 15-hydroxy-N-arachidonoylethanolamine (15-HAEA) and that this conversion was blocked by addition of the lipoxygenase inhibitor nordihydroguaiaretic acid. Using magnetic resonance imaging we show the following: (1) pretreatment with the reduced 12-lipoxygenase metabolite of AEA, 12-HAEA, attenuated cytotoxic edema formation in a CB1 receptor-independent manner in the acute phase after intracranial injection of the Na+/K+-ATPase inhibitor ouabain; (2) the reduced 15-lipoxygenase metabolite, 15-HAEA, enhanced the neuroprotective effect of AEA in the acute phase; (3) modulation of VR1, as tested using arvanil, the VR1 agonist capsaicin, and the antagonist capsazepine, leads to neuroprotective effects in this model, and arvanil is a potent neuroprotectant, acting at both CB1 and VR1; and (4) the in vivo neuroprotective effects of AEA are mediated by CB1 but not by lipoxygenase metabolites or VR1.


Transient or soft errors caused by various environmental effects are a growing concern in micro and nanoelectronics. We present a general framework for modeling and mitigating the logical effects of such errors in digital circuits. We observe that some errors have time-bounded effects; the system's output is corrupted for a few clock cycles, after which it recovers automatically. Since such erroneous behavior can be tolerated by some applications, i.e., it is noncritical at the system level, we define the critical soft error rate (CSER) as a more realistic alternative to the conventional SER measure. A simplified technology-independent fault model, the single transient fault (STF), is proposed for efficiently estimating the error probabilities associated with individual nodes in both combinational and sequential logic. STFs can be used to compute various other useful metrics for the faults and errors of interest, and the required computations can leverage the large body of existing methods and tools designed for (permanent) stuck-at faults. As an application of the proposed methodology, we introduce a systematic strategy for hardening logic circuits against transient faults. The goal is to achieve a desired level of CSER at minimum cost by selecting a subset of nodes for hardening against STFs. Exact and approximate algorithms to solve the node selection problem are presented. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by experiments with the ISCAS-85 and -89 benchmark suites, as well as some large (multimillion-gate) industrial circuits.


In UMTS environments the radio access network (UTRAN - UMTS terrestrial Radio
Access Network -, in UMTS nomenclature) is the highest CO2 emitter. Is it possible
to reduce these emissions? This study presents a proposal of energy saving schemes
at this part of the UMTS network. The study concretely focuses on the possibility of
switching off certain UTRAN elements based on the trafic load at every moment in
order to make possible this energy saving. Special attention has been payed on the
UMTS Base Stations (known as Nodes B in the UMTS standardization literature)
and its controllers (also known as Radio Network Controllers, RNC).
A typical situation where this case could be applied is in the ofice and Financial
areas in cities. Trafic in these areas usually follow a certain periodic pattern, which
could be, somehow, approximated to a curve. This curve would have its maximums
at the ofice hours and its minimums specially at night. The difference of load
between day trafic and night trafic can be very signiFicant. In fact, mobile operators
design the network so to attend all the daytime trafic. It is not an exaggeration to
say that according to night trafic these networks are over-dimensioned.
The analysis has been made using well-known suitable propagation and trafic
models in order to evaluate different scenarios such as motorways or urban microcells.
Besides, the evaluation has been made according to different points of view,
such as the percentage of shut down cells, the impact of the blocking probability
target on the system performance or the number of users which are forced to make
a handover at the switching moments.
In addition, useful information about sustainability, global warming and mobile
communications has also been included in order to complete the most practical
parts of the work, as well as the most important features of the study, such as the
consumptions along the UTRAN or how to make a power budget.


Over the past two decades, there has been a huge amount of innovation in both the principles and practice of operating systems Over the same period, the core ideas in a modern operating system - protection, concurrency, virtualization, resource allocation, and reliable storage - have become widely applied throughout computer science. Whether you get a job at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or any other leading-edge technology company, it is impossible to build resilient, secure, and flexible computer systems without the ability to apply operating systems concepts in a variety of settings. This book examines the both the principles and practice of modern operating systems, taking important, high-level concepts all the way down to the level of working code. Because operating systems concepts are among the most difficult in computer science, this top to bottom approach is the only way to really understand and master this important material.


In this paper, I empirically evaluate the effect of exposure to the Internet on Spanish attitudes towards immigrants. Exploiting a confidential, innovative survey dataset, I am able to identify a relationship between Internet access and attitudes towards immigrants at the micro (municipal) level. I address the endogeneity of Internet availability by looking at pre-existing voice telecommunication characteristics and using outcome variables before and after the arrival of the Internet. Results show that Internet availability between 2008 and 2012 is associated with a better knowledge of (national) immigration dynamics and that it leads to an overall improvement in attitudes towards immigrants. This result is particularly strong among young and urban individuals. Additionally, I find that access to the Internet reduces political support for the Partido Popular, Spain's traditional right-wing party.


When gathering the best papers presented in 2019 during the 8th ATMC conference in Namur for editing this book, we were not expecting 2020 to become the nightmare year that we all experienced in the world. The Covid-19 crisis has significantly disrupted our consumption and travel habits. Heaps of business sectors were severely impacted by the two waves of lockdown of populations and countries, the closure of stores and restaurants and the overall context of anxiety and uncertainty. More than other sectors, the tourism and travel industry was severely affected. The trips and recreative activities of our fellow citizens are henceforth punctuated by 'barrier gestures' and by a large number of health measures taken in order to limit the spread of the pandemic. Of course, the objective of this book was not to account for the current crisis, nor to analyze the extent to which our tourism and leisure activities have changed, and whether these changes are likely to last. The aim of the book was first to discuss sustainability and collaborative practices in order to fill tourism development with ethics and responsibility. Following the collegial tradition of Advances in Tourism Marketing conferences, this book is the result of the collaboration of established international scholars with emergent researchers around the globe. The twelve chapters of this book have offered innovative and dovetailing perspectives around four major strategic questions that may support tourism development in these vulnerable times, i.e.: Can technology enhance value co-creation and the tourism experience? How sharing economy practices develop in tourism? To what extent sustainability issues affect culture and the well-being of residents? What is the connection between technology, millennials and overtourism? Of course, those issues were considered in the framework of the digital world that is ever expanding since two decades. Digital technology has been massively integrated into the strategies and operations of tourism operators. Historically dedicated to marketing and communication, digital technology is now revolutionizing the entire tourism value chain. The promotion of a destination can no longer be considered without the mix between official digital channels and levers such as influencers and rating platforms. Any tourist expects to find relevant and up-to-date information on the Internet in order to prepare for his stay, to choose among transportation, accommodation and recreational alternatives, and to book activities. The exchange of tips and advice has become an important element in choosing a destination. In many regions, competition between destinations and operators makes it essential to be attractive via a different offer and digital technology may act as a major differentiator (e.g., Histopad to visit Chambord's Castle, Monument Tracker). To answer these questions, the book was organized in four parts where interdependence, collaboration, sustainability and responsible behavior are deeply discussed with the aim of contributing to marketing tourism in the digital world that we know today. The book started with a discussion about how to co-create value with or without technologies, detailed how web platforms reboot collaborative economic practices, presented sustainable tourism development under a human perspective and ended with the discussion of key issues in tourism marketing, including overtourism and residents' propensity to boost tourism development. We now summarize the key takeaways of those four parts, closing each part with a reflection on the lessons learnt from current Covid-19 crisis in order to assess what will be left after the vulnerable times that we live now.


Coma is the state of unrousable unconsciousness. There are variations in the degree of coma and the findings and signs found on the patient's clinical examination depend on the underlying cause of the disorder. The Glasgow Coma scale evaluates the best motor, verbal and eye answers of the patient. A patient is considered to be in a coma if his Glasgow Coma Scale is below 8 points. The progress that we have made throughout the years has also led to complications that can culminate in a major catastrophe like death, permanent brain damage, coma. A study performed reached the conclusion that prior comorbidity, older age, intraoperative hypotension, and cardiovascular surgery may predispose patients to postoperative coma. The article presents a case of postoperative coma treated successfully with homeopathy. Although a rare complication, postoperative coma is a severe, death-leading condition, causing immense suffering on both the patient and the patient's family. A multidisciplinary and thorough approach is necessary for these patients, but even after a well-conducted therapy, this condition leads to the death of the patient.


Although Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus are two major cultivated mushrooms in Iran, a range of different other species of Agaricus and Pleurotus mushrooms grow wild in various habitats of the country. However, limited study has been undertaken to investigate antioxidant potency of the Iranian cultivated or wild mushrooms. This study aimed to evaluate antioxidant capacity of methanol-dichloromethane (1:1) extracts of commercially cultivated and newly cultivated wild species of Agaricus and Pleurotus, using chemical and biochemical techniques. In general, the results revealed that all the tested mushroom demonstrated substantial antioxidant activities against various oxidant systems. Specifically, the newly cultivated wild A. devoniensis proved to be a superior antioxidant among the tested mushrooms, due to having high levels of phenols, efficient scavenging activities on 2,2- diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals, relatively high chelating abilities, and an apparent high reducing power. In view of total flavonoids and prevention of lipid peroxidation, however, it was a commercial strain of P. ostreatus that ranked the first. The findings of this research might have implications in preventing oxidative stress-related diseases through the diet; thus they may justify efforts to extract natural antioxidant ingredients from the wild mushrooms tested in this study, or to use them directly in the diet.


Underwater acoustic communication is a rapidly growing field of applied research and is a technique of sending and receiving message below water. There are several ways of doing such communication but the most common one is realized by using transducers. In underwater acoustic communication, one of the most important problems is driving the transducers with matched network. In this study, design of impedance matching network for B&K 8104 hydrophone that can be used for underwater communication was performed via Direct Computational Technique (DCT).


In this article, labour market outcomes of British Columbia graduates from liberal arts and applied education programs are investigated by examining the 1996 cohort of baccalaureate graduates one year and five years after graduation. We argue that the individual return to education has to be analyzed from a multi-dimensional perspective, in relation to initial educational and career goals of graduates who have anticipated both intellectual challenges and economic rewards from their investment in education. The study reveals differences in outcomes (i.e., employment, earnings) by program type, gender and age. Our main conclusion is that graduates from applied education programs experience a more rapid integration into the labour market as compared to graduates from liberal arts education programs. Although earning differences by program type and age either decrease or even disappear over time, earning differences by gender are enhanced five years after graduation. Also, we conclude that graduates from applied education programs establish and accomplish more focused educational and career goals, while graduates from liberal education programs establish broader educational and career goals.


The authors not only provide an in-depth analysis of the interplay of interests and ideology behind the People's movement but also establish relationships between the emergent political culture that bolstered that movement and the Whig and Democratic parties of the later second-party system. Moreover, they demonstrate that the central objective of the People's movement was not simply to enhance American political democracy: it was also fuelled by a determination to avoid taxation of personalty (personal property or estate), which quickly won the support of canny and well-heeled backers both in upstate New York and in New York City. The authors draw on extensive research on New York's political life, from the town and county level to the state Assembly and Senate, and include profiles of the groups who were active in state politics in the early nineteenth century.


Defects created in p-metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect transistors by substrate-hole injection are studied. Both fast and slow interface states are found to be created during the holes injection process. After terminating the stress and applying positive gate bias, fast interface states are found to keep increasing, while slow states reduction and trapped holes annihilation are observed. The build up of fast interface states during and post stress is a consequence of holes injection and annihilation. However, the trapped holes have no influence on the number of slow states present in the oxide. The effect of trapped holes annihilation on both fast and slow states suggests that their formation mechanisms are not the same.


The increasing use of micro-blogs as marketing tools has increased the research attention on the usage and performance of enterprise micro-blogs. Based on research on information system (IS) usage and the resource-based view (RBV) theory, this study develops a model to measure the business value of enterprise micro-blogs. The model consists of metrics on micro-blog usage, micro-blog operational performance, firm capability, and performance. Questionnaires were distributed to firms that use micro-blogs. This study collects 317 valid responses for empirical analysis. The result suggests that the extent of micro-blog usage improves the operational performance of enterprise micro-blogs directly and indirectly by increasing firm capability. The operational performance of enterprise micro-blogs significantly affects firm performance. This study reveals the mechanism of business value generation of enterprise micro-blogs and extends the stream of research that combines IS usage and the RBV theory.


OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not allogeneic SCT of HR pediatric ALL patients is more effective in preventing future relapses of disease and/or mortality in comparison with chemotherapeutic regimens alone. STUDY DESIGN: Review of three English language primary randomized controlled trial studies published between 1996 and the present. DATA SOURCES: Randomized controlled trial studies were found using PubMed. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Each of the three studies evaluated the incidence of recurrent disease and/or mortality in highrisk pediatric ALL patients. These outcomes were analyzed according to the following categories: duration of event-free survival (EFS); duration of disease-free survival (DFS); incidence of relapses; complete remission (CR); death; partial response (PR); resistant disease (RD); and overall survival (OS). RESULTS: Three randomized controlled trials were included in this review. The study by Schrauder et. al., which analyzed the role of SCT in first complete remission for children with very high-risk ALL, showed that the OS for patients who received SCT was higher than that of the patients who received chemotherapy alone (67% vs. 47%). In the study by Ribera et. al. comparing the options of chemotherapy alone versus allogeneic SCT as post-remission therapy, the DFS and OS were both used as indicators of success and showed higher percentages of both in the subgroup that received chemotherapy alone. The final study by Tallen et. al. analyzed a multicenter trial (ALL-REZ BFM 90), which was created with the purpose of improving the prognosis for children with relapsed ALL. The results of this study demonstrated significant differences in the probabilities of EFS and OS amongst the different subgroups analyzed indicating that remission induction regimens must be improved and that allogeneic SCT should be recommended in patients achieving a second complete remission. CONCLUSIONS: Two out of three studies included in this review support the use of allogeneic SCT versus chemotherapeutic regimens alone when treating high-risk pediatric ALL patients. Various factors, such as the achievement of first versus second remission, can also affect the results of studies involving this patient population.


Depth to water table, thickness of the aerobic layer and soil water content were measured before and after digging one drainage ditch on each of eight waterlogged forested wetland cutovers in order to determine the effect of the distance to the ditch on seedling root zone conditions. Drawdown of the water table ranged from 23 cm at 3 m to 6 cm at 60 m from the ditch and was similar on mineral and organic soils. The ditch significantly lowered the water table up to a distance of 60 m where the water table was maintained below the 20 cm depth 25% more often than on the undrained control. Soil water content was reduced by drainage in the top 10 cm layer and the depth of the aerobic layer increased by 6 to 9 cm. This significant improvement of the soil moisture regime in the seedling rooting zone was similar at 7 and 40 m from the ditch, indicating that a dense ditch network may not be necessary to enhance seedling growth.


In this paper, detailed studies have been performed for developing a real time system to be used for surveillance of the traffic flow by using monocular video cameras to find speeds of the vehicles for secure travelling are presented. We assume that the studied road segment is planar and straight, the camera is tilted downward a bridge and the length of one line segment in the image is known. In order to estimate the speed of a moving vehicle from a video camera, rectification of video images is performed to eliminate the perspective effects and then the interest region namely the ROI is determined for tracking the vehicles. Velocity vectors of a sufficient number of reference points are identified on the image of the vehicle from each video frame. For this purpose sufficient number of points from the vehicle is selected, and these points must be accurately tracked on at least two successive video frames. In the second step, by using the displacement vectors of the tracked points and passed time, the velocity vectors of those points are computed. Computed velocity vectors are defined in the video image coordinate system and displacement vectors are measured by the means of pixel units. Then the magnitudes of the computed vectors in the image space are transformed to the object space to find the absolute values of these magnitudes. The accuracy of the estimated speed is approximately ±1 – 2 km/h. In order to solve the real time speed estimation problem, the authors have written a software system in Cpp programming language. This software system has been used for all of the computations and test applications.


The concept of the effective service capacity is an analytical framework for evaluating QoS-constrained queuing performance of communication systems. Recently, it has been applied to the analysis of different wireless systems like point-to-point systems or multi-user systems. In contrast to previous work, we consider in this work slot-based systems where a scheduler determines a packet size to be transmitted at the beginning of the slot. For this, the scheduler can utilize outdated channel state information. Based on a threshold error model, we derive the effective service capacity for different scheduling strategies that the scheduler might apply. We show that even slightly outdated channel state information leads to a significant loss in capacity in comparison to an ideal system with perfect channel state information available at the transmitter. This loss depends on the `risk-level' the scheduler is willing to take which is represented by an SNR margin. We show that for any QoS target and average link state there exists an optimal SNR margin improving the maximum sustainable rate. Typically, this SNR margin is around 3 dB but is sensible to the QoS target and average link quality. Finally, we can also show that adapting to the instantaneous channel state only pays off if the correlation between the channel estimate and the channel state is relatively high (with a coefficient above 0.9).


Abstract.
 Euthycarcinoid arthropods (Cambrian—Triassic) were likely the first animals to transition from oceanic to freshwater and emergent environments. Although their basic bauplan is well known, they have a poor fossil record because their non-sclerotized exoskeleton was rarely preserved. Euthycarcinoids' unusual morphology (varying numbers of body segments, seemingly dichotomous possession of either mandibles or a labrum, specialized or generalized limbs, and possession by some euthycarcinoid species of sternal pores—structures possibly analogous to coxal vesicles in myriapods) contribute to uncertainty regarding their relationship to other arthropod groups; while their poor fossil record masks the evolutionary transitions within and between the separate realms they inhabited (marine, freshwater, emergent). A new euthycarcinoid from a Permian polar proglacial lake is described herein that is morphologically unlike all other euthycarcinoids, and interpreted as being well adapted for a nekton-benthic lifestyle. Antarcticarcinus pagoda n. gen. n. sp. possesses a pair of large wing-like processes that project laterally from the preabdominal dorsal exoskeleton. A trace fossil from the overlying Mackellar Formation, cf. Orbiculichnus, which was previously interpreted as having been produced by insects taking off or landing on wet sediments, is reinterpreted herein as being produced by A. pagoda n. gen. n. sp. due to the high degree of morphological similarity between traces and body fossils. This occurrence indicates that euthycarcinoids were able to adapt to life in temperate freshwater environments, while possible subaerial adaptations hint at an ability to breathe air. Indeed, if euthycarcinoids could breathe air, Cambrian terrestrial forays and rapid transition (by the Ordovician) into freshwater environments might be explained.


Muriel Longhurst attended Wokingham County Girls (Grammar) School in Berkshire. One exercise book is from Latin and covers political history in classical times. The two others consist of Muriel's history notes for the first three years. The first history book moves chronologically from ancient civilisations and the Roman Empire to British history starting with the Anglo-Saxons, then the Battle of Hastings, the Norman kings, the plague, the peasants' revolt and Henry VIII. Muriel's work includes many coloured drawings and maps, as well as the occasional imaginative piece such as 'A Ghost of a Saxon Chief comes back to earth'. The second book picks up the story from Tudor times and continues through to the end of the eighteenth century, including the American revolution and some European history. In adulthood, Muriel worked as a teacher in a school in Brigg, Lincolnshire where she prepared pupils for the local certificate (an earlier form of CSE) from 1957 onwards - two syllabuses are included in this collection. The certificates were accepted by local employers, such as the steelworks in nearby Scunthorpe and the local jam and stocking factories. The CSE was introduced in 1965, but such was the valued 'currency' of the local certificate that the school preferred to use it until 1971.


This paper clarifies the significance of the objectivity of Hegel's idealism on the basis of its relation with Fichte's transcendental philosophy. Central to Fichte's Doctrine of Science is the special relation between absolute and concept, and the way Fichte spells out this relation. The relation between absolute and concept is characterized by a margin, an excess of the absolute. Fichte shows how this difference becomes the place for the reflection of knowledge in and on itself. The absolute manifests or reveals itself in knowledge insofar as the latter recognizes and reconstructs its own conditions and presuppositions.
This self-knowledge of knowledge is not an immanent reflection, so as to loose that characteristic that preserves it from the dogmatic pretension to reduce the absolute to a concept, and consequently to objectify or reify it. The paper argues that Fichte's transcendental philosophy does not evade Hegel's critique of subjectivism. However, the paper argues that the Doctrine of Science provides an ante litteram criticism of Hegel's absolute idealism. This criticism derives from Fichte's identification of the risk of overriding the problematic, but also constitutive, relation between absolute and concept. From this point of view this paper discusses the tenability of the conception of philosophy as an objective 'absolute knowing' or as a 'doctrine of science'.


[1] Swept Impedance Probe measurements in a sporadic E layer observed during the Sudden Atomic Layer (SAL) sounding rocket mission are analyzed to obtain absolute electron densities and electron neutral collision frequencies accurately. Three sets of upleg and downleg impedance data are selected for the analysis. Initial estimates of the plasma parameters are obtained through a least mean square fit of the measured impedance data against the analytical impedance formula ZB(f) of Balmain (1969). These initial parameters are used as a starting point to drive a finite difference computational model of an antenna immersed in a plasma called PF-FDTD. The parameters are then tuned until a close fit is obtained between the measured impedance data and the numerical impedance data calculated by the PF-FDTD simulation. The electron densities obtained from the simulation were close to those obtained from the IRI 2001 model. The electron neutral collision frequencies obtained from the more accurate PF-FDTD simulation were up to 20% lower than the values predicted by Balmain's formula. The obtained collision frequencies are also lower than the quiet time values predicted by Schunk and Nagy (2000) when used in conjunction with neutral densities and electron temperature from the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter Radar Extended-90 model.


Chris Greenhalgh, screenwriter of the 2009 film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, captures the love affair between two unforgettable people: Casablanca actress Ingrid Bergman and legendary photographer Robert Capa, in this heart-wrenching novel Seducing Ingrid Bergman. June, 1945. In newly liberated Paris, battle-ravaged photographer Robert Capa is drowning his sorrows. After ten years of recording horror and violence, he longs for for a diversion. Ingrid Bergman has been sent to entertain the troops and when she walks into the Ritz Hotel, Capa is enchanted. From the moment he slips a mischievous invitation to dinner under her door, the two find themselves helplessly attracted. Ingrid, tired of her passionless marriage, and her controlling film studio, is desperate for freedom and excitement. And Capa is willing to oblige. Dinners in cafes he can't afford. Night walks along the Seine. Dancing barefoot in nightclubs. Trysts in hotel rooms. He brings her back to life and she fills the hole inside him. With everything at stake, both Capa and Ingrid are presented with terrible choices. Full of the romantic glamour of 40s Paris and Hollywood, Seducing Ingrid Bergman tells the heart-wrenching story of the secret affair between the iconic Casablanca star and the famous photographer. 'Delightful and engrossing ...a marvellous piece of writing ...I read it with huge enjoyment' Barbara Erskine, author of Whispers in the Sand 'Greenhalgh's characters are sharply drawn, in particular the contrast between Bergman's inner turmoil and the slick celebrity seen by the public. Capas's self-image is equally conflicted, but together the two conjure a delicious tale of illicit freedom and, ultimately, thwarted love' Financial Times Chris Greenhalgh is the prize-winning author of three volumes of poetry, a novel, and wrote the screenplay for Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which occupied the prestigious closing slot at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. He lives with his wife and two sons in Sevenoaks. www.chris-greenhalgh.com


Purpose: EGFR mutation as a biomarker has documented that EGFR-mutant patients will derive clinical benefit from tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) treatment. Unfortunately, most patients show TKI resistance and tumor recurrence after therapy. Therefore, we expected that an adjuvant biomarker other than EGFR mutation is needed for predicting TKI resistance. Experimental Design: Molecular manipulations were performed to verify whether TKI resistance mediated by p21-activated kinase (PAK1) could be through increasing Mcl-1 protein stability via the PI3K/AKT/C/EBP-β/miR-145 cascade. Xenograft mouse models were used to confirm the mechanistic action of PAK1 on TKI resistance. Forty-six tumor tissues from patients with lung adenocarcinoma who received TKI therapy were collected to evaluate PAK1 and E-cadherin mRNA expressions by real-time PCR. The association of PAK1 and E-cadherin mRNA expressions with tumor response to TKI treatment and outcomes was evaluated. Results: We demonstrate that PAK1 confers TKI resistance in EGFR-mutant cells as well as in EGFR–wild-type cells. Mechanistically, the positive feedback loop of PAK1/PI3K/AKT/C/EBP-β/miR-145 cascades persistently activates the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to protect Mcl-1 degradation by Fbw7, which results, in turn, in TKI resistance and cell invasion via epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition due to a decrease in E-cadherin expression. The mechanism underlying the cell model is further confirmed in xenograft tumors. Among patients, high-PAK1 or low–E-cadherin tumors more commonly exhibited an unfavorable response to TKI and poorer outcome compared with low-PAK1 or low–E-cadherin tumors. Conclusions: The combination of TKI with AKT inhibitor might confer TKI sensitivity and in turn improve outcomes in patients with lung adenocarcinoma who harbored high PAK1 mRNA–expressing tumors. Clin Cancer Res; 22(21); 5370–82. ©2016 AACR.


Departing from observations collected in an architecture firm, this essay investigates the way in which an architect expressed his concerns for what the material he intended to use "wants to do". Adopting a speculative and pragmatist perspective, I detect there a possibility of thinking about architects' responsibility as a moral exchange with beings involved in the design process. The text addresses two interpretations of that situation that could hinder the possibility of a more relational architectural practice. The first reduces the designer's formulation to a rhetorical means to expose his ability to take constraints into account. The second interprets it as the expression of the architects' moral obligation to respect the material's intrinsic nature. Two diverging notions of responsibility are at stake, which are here contrasted with a third one. Built on a materialist view on ethics, the ethological perspective allows the acknowledgement of what the material and the designer become capable of together.


Cyanogen chloride is a toxic chemical compound with the formula NCCl. This linear, triatomic pseudo-halogen is an easily condensed colorless gas. More commonly encountered in the laboratory is the related compound cyanogen bromide, a room-temperature solid that is widely used in biochemical analysis and preparation. This paper presents a description for Cyanogen chloride formation and creations, its effects on animals and human bodies, and finally methods to control its percentages in drinking water under the acceptable levels. The method of controlling its concentration in water is summarized by using suitable chemical additives and noting the time for settlement and then removed from the samples. A comparison between 4 additives in removing Cyanogen chloride is performed for the same sample of water. It is found that as the concentration of NCCl increases the pOH of the sample increases while pH decreases. Also, for the four additives NH4+, CN-1, Cl2 and SO2 for the water samples, it was found that SO2 is the most efficient chemical additive in removing CNCl since it needs the lowest time of removing CNCl.


In this study, we measure the value of sanitary restrictions in terms of forgone profits. For this, we model the short-run trade-off between biosecurity and profits in the aquaculture industry. Incorporating the concept of "sanitary desirable volume (SDV)" for the salmon industry, we optimize a multiobjective model using base information from the Los Lagos region in Chile and identify a Pareto frontier. Within this setting, we analyze the shadow price of one objective in terms of the other, the effect of changes in the administrative regulations that limit fish density in the farms and the effect of prices on the Pareto frontier. We find that the effect of sanitary restrictions in terms of forgone profits is quantitatively important and that this effect is dependent on both the level of sanitary restrictions and the relative product prices. This has important implications for the design of sanitary restrictions in aquaculture. The level of the SDV should be determined carefully to avoid costly excess regulation. Moreover, market conditions can also affect the optimal level of regulation.


In the debate on social capital, it is usually assumed that membership in voluntary associations is highly beneficial for the formation of civic values among the association's affiliates. Despite these theoretical expectations, comparative studies have so far found only a weak statistical relationship between associational involvement and tolerance in Western democracies and a nonsignificant or even negative relationship in the case of Eastern and Central European countries. In this article, the author further investigates the negative relationship between associational involvement and attitudes of social and political tolerance, the "dark side" of social capital. The author shows that when members of voluntary associations build particularized trust rather than generalized trust, this decreases their already low levels of social tolerance. Such situations are especially common in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Associational involvement also has negative effects on political tolerance. Associations are social contexts within which processes of interpersonal influence and political mobilization take place. This results in the reinforcement of civic as well as uncivic orientations of associational members.


The outcome of the National Development Plan hinges on the appropriate use of scarce priority skills still available in South Africa. In the case of civil engineering professionals, these are in the large group of aging pale males, who are currently semi-retired or on the verge of retiring. This fact was highlighted in Allyson Lawless' comprehensive 'Numbers & Needs' research publications of 2005 and 2007, during which she estimated a window-of-opportunity-period of between five to ten years in which to use this group. We are closing in on the ten-year mark.


The transition – transformation, perhaps – from drama student to drama teacher involves negotiating a different sense of performance. Drama teachers move from their roles as student actors, directors, dramaturges, scenographers and managers. They take on additional roles as curriculum designers, curriculum constructors and teaching and learning managers. They bring with them their deeply interpersonal capacities, creativity and innovation and re-shape themselves to the immediate task of creating spaces of interaction and learning in the context of drama. They draw together their drama content knowledge and their developing understanding of drama pedagogy.

In that sense drama teaching is stepping into performance in a new space. They are playing in the space "betwixt and between".

In this paper I explore structuring learning experiences for drama teachers in the processes of becoming, as they step into these new spaces of interaction and learn to make the drama class room their own space. I share the drama education program developed at Murdoch University since it was established in 2002 (when I reported on its beginnings to the last national conference held in Perth).

In sharing "our space" I seek to open the space between participants to share their stories about drama teacher education and to critique and progress future directions for the field.


Reconstructing Criminal Law provides a radical and stimulating alternative to the standard black letter criminal law text. The authors analyse central aspects of criminal law in the context of the assumptions surrounding it, and employ a number of critical approaches, including a feminist perspective to give insights into the current state of the law. A comprehensive resource - it contains extracts that cover a wide range of materials from historical, political, sociological and philosophical sources and discusses offences considered to be at the margins of criminal law. It also offers an important practical element whereby students and teachers can attempt to answer the questions that the criminal justice system confronts on a daily basis.


Now part of the Master Techniques in Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery series, Skull Base Surgery is the new go-to guide on common and advanced procedures in skull base surgery. Step-by-step expert instruction is offered on more than 45 procedures, covering both open and minimally invasive approaches to the skull base. It is a vital resource for students, generalist surgeons, and skull base specialists in otolaryngology and neurosurgery. Key Features: authored by world-renowned experts and pioneers in open and endoscopic skull base approaches. Chapters that cover: introduction to each approach; history; physical examination; indications; contraindications; preoperative planning; surgical technique; postoperative management; complications; results; pearls and pitfalls; instruments to have available; and suggested readings. Sections cover: sphenoid and parasellar regions; anterior cranial fossa; middle cranial fossa; posterior cranial fossa; and reconstruction. Topics include: optic nerve decompression; endonasal approach to the sella; endoscopic endonasal approach to the medial cavernous sinus; endonasal transorbital approaches; cranialization of the frontal sinus; frontal sinus osteoplastic flap with and without obliteration; and anterior craniofacial resection. More than 1,500 color photos and drawings of intraoperative images fully demonstrate the content. Now with the print edition, enjoy the bundled interactive eBook edition, offering iOS, Android, Mac, and PC access to: complete content with enhanced navigation; a powerful search tool that pulls results from content in the book, your notes, and even the web; cross-linked pages, references, and more for easy navigation; highlighting tool for easier reference of key content throughout the text; ability to take and share notes with friends and colleagues; six step-by-step videos that outline the procedures covered in each chapter; and quick-reference tabbing to save your favorite content for future use.


The development of microstructure and crystallographic texture of conventional and high Niobium API 5L X80 line pipe steels has been studied using Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD) technique. The selective use of micro-alloying elements like niobium in alloy design, increases the recrystallization stop temperature, which facilitates rolling at higher temperatures compared to conventional thermo-mechanical processing. The measurement tools available with EBSD, such as image quality values and precise grain boundary misorientation angles, provide new approaches to characterize and compare both microstructures. The texture analysis, in addition, shows high intensification of {112} , {554} and rotated cube {001} for both processes. However, the Goss {110} and the rotated Goss {110} has been only observed in the conventional processing which is a sign that the austenite was recrystallized prior to transformation. This shows the ease of processing experienced with High Temperature Processing (HTP) chemistry compared to the conventional one.


Abstract: "Thermal spray shape deposition is a new process for fabricating net-shape parts by incremental material build-up of cross-sectional layers. This paper presents an approach for spraying thin, flat layers using a robotic spray system. Asymmetries of the spray distribution are first corrected by tilting the spray torch based upon a computer model of the measured spray distribution. The path of the torch is then found using heuristics which are based upon the estimated standard deviation of the corrected distribution. For example, thick arc sprayed coatings (i.e. ̃4mm) have been deposited using this method with the resulting standard deviation from the mean thickness between 20to 30 [mu]m. To demonstrate the shape deposition process, a layered prototype turbine blade shape was built using these optimized trajectories."


Controlled wheel traffic is one way to manage compaction in no-till and ridge-till systems. This study was conducted from 1990 to 1992 at Kanawha, IA, on a Webster silty clay loam (fine-loamy, mixed, mesic Typic Haplaquoll) to examine the effect of a wheel traffic pattern on corn (Zea mays L.) root distribution, shoot growth, and yield in no-till, ridge-till, and chisel-plow tillage systems. The wheel traffic pattern was configured so that some rows would have wheel tracks on both sides, on one side, or on neither side. Bulk density, hydraulic conductivity, root length density, shoot dry weight, and yield were measured at several positions across the traffic pattern. In general, the effect of tillage systems was not significant averaged across positions. Position relative to the traffic pattern had some effect, however, on all measured parameters. Bulk density was greatest in trafficked interrows (1.36 Mg m -3 ) and least in untrafficked interrows (1.09 Mg m -3 ). Hydraulic conductivity near saturation was less in trafficked (39A μm s -1 ) than in untrafficked (104.7 μm s -1 ) interrows. Root length density in trafficked interrows was on average one-third of that in untrafficked interrows. Root length density in a particular interrow also was influenced by the traffic pattern in the adjacent interrows. In 2 of the 3 yr, yields of rows with a trafficked interrow on only one side were 7% less than those of rows without trafficked interrows on either side. The wheel traffic pattern, and not just the presence or absence of wheel traffic, affected corn root growth and yield.


This article provides an integrated analytical framework to explain the factors and trends shaping cattle ranching development in the Brazilian Amazon and its implications for deforestation. The two most important factors currently shaping cattle ranching evolution in this region are gradual market integration and the associated shifting policy contexts. Based on these two broader contextual factors, this article analyzes four main specific trends shaping the production and trade dynamics in the cattle sector. The first trend is growing investment in beef and dairy processing facilities situated closer to production zones. The second trend is gradual improvement in cattle herds and management systems alongside persistently extensive cattle ranching. The third is simultaneous fragmentation and concentration of landholdings. The fourth is widespread adoption of ranching by smallholders. These four trends are not isolated from each other; instead, they interact in complex ways to influence the dynamics of cattle expansion and associated land use outcomes. This article also discusses the complexities underlying any policy responses that aim to reduce environmental impacts of cattle ranching without hindering regional development and harming the well-being of the rural poor. This article adopts a three-step methodology that begins by formulating an analytical framework based on literature review and interview data to understand the factors shaping the development of cattle ranching, then it uses secondary data to depict the primary trends of production and trade in the cattle sector and, finally, the previous analysis is linked with observed deforestation trends.


Abstract During our investigation of saprobic fungi on Juniper (Cupressaceae) of Uzbekistan, two novel species of Holmiella were collected from the host Juniperus. These new species are introduced based on morphological and molecular evidence, the latter generated to investigate their phylogenetic relationships. Taxonomic notes are also provided for the two previously described species of Holmiella. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on analyses of ribosomal DNA (ITS, LSU and SSU regions) of Holmiella species, strongly supports the three currently recognized taxa (H. junipericola, H. juniperi-semiglobosae and H. sabina) as a monophyletic group. The two novel species are morphologically distinct from H. sabina, the type species, with respect to size of ascomata, asci and ascospores, ascospore globules and peridium structure. Descriptions and illustrations, as well as notes on the taxonomy, and phylogenetic characterization of two new species are provided. An identification key to the four accepted species of Holmiella is also provided.


This paper considers public employment guarantee programs in the context of South Africa as a means to address the nexus of poverty, unemployment, and unpaid work burdens--all factors exacerbated by HIV/AIDS. It further discusses the need for genderinformed public job creation in areas that mitigate the "time-tax" burdens of women, and examines a South African initiative to address social sector service delivery deficits within the government's Expanded Public Works Programme. The authors highlight the need for well-designed employment guarantee programs--specifically, programs centered on community and home-based care--as a potential way to help offset the destabilizing effects of HIV/AIDS and endemic poverty. The paper concludes with results from macroeconomic simulations of such a program, using a social accounting matrix framework, and sets out implications for both participants and policymakers.


SUMMAARY. Diuretics are an attractive class of drugs for the treatment of various disorders and in combination with some cardiovascular drugs. In the present work, 2D and 3D quantitative structure-activity relationship studies have been conducted on a series of diuretics. Significant correlation coefficients (r2 = 0.81 and q2 = 0.65, r2 = 0.91 and q2 = 0.85) were obtained, indicating potential of the models generated for untested compounds. The models were then used to predict the potency of an external test set, and the predicted values obtained from the 2D and 3D models were in good agreement with the experimental results. The final QSAR models, along with the information obtained from 3D steric and electrostatic contour maps and 2D contributions should be useful for the design of diuretics having improved potency.


Traditionally, Jordanian butter has always been made from yogurt. When a sufficient amount of sheep milk has been collected, it is fermented then churned by mechanical shaking until butter granules are formed. In making butter from yogurt, the objective of churning is to extract the maximum amount of fat by transferring the emulsion from oil in water to water in oil. The liquid that remains after extracting butter buttermilk is used to produce a type of dry yogurt called Jameed, a local dairy product in Jordan. This traditional method of churning is time-consuming, perhaps taking more than two hours. Observations made of traditional butter-making by smallholders have indicated that the process should be improved by increasing the efficiency of fat extraction from the yogurt and reducing the processing time, thereby improving the economic return. Toward this end, this research has achieved tow objectives, the first is designing one unit to process and automate the butter churning process, and the second one is improving the churning process efficiency. The ultimate goal of this research is achieved by building a one machine for the local organic butter, Fat and Jameed manufacturing. A device is developed that rapidly and consistently agitates milk to churn butter. This device has passed through several phases of development over the last years. Many experiments have been done to design and select churn parameters like rotor velocity, churn temperature. Many experiments also have been done to select the best sensors that can be used to control the whole process which includes heating, cooling, fermentation, and churning. Key-Words: Dairy mechanization, Butter Churn, Process automation, Ghee Production


Objective: One hundred and eight Access to Allied Psychological Services projects have been funded under Australia's Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care programme since July 2001. All projects are run by Divisions of General Practice and enable general practitioners (GPs) to refer patients to allied health professionals for evidence-based care. They differ in the models they use to retain, locate and direct referrals to their allied health professionals. This paper examines the extent to which the projects are achieving positive patient outcomes, and explores the association between different models of service delivery and varying levels of patient outcomes. Method: The paper draws on two data sources (a purpose-designed minimum dataset and a survey of models of service delivery) to examine the level of patient outcomes within and across projects, and variations in the level of patient outcomes by models of service delivery. Results: The projects are achieving positive effects and these are mostly of large or medium magnitude. The projects do not differ markedly in terms of the patient outcomes they are achieving, despite differences in the models of service delivery they are using. However, those projects implementing a direct referral model, where the GP refers the patient directly to the allied health professional, have significantly greater effect sizes, indicating that they are achieving greater improvements in patient outcomes. In addition, there are non-significant trends toward direct employment of allied health professionals by Divisions being predictive of greater improvements in patient outcomes, and delivery of services from allied health professionals' own rooms being predictive of weaker patient outcomes. Conclusions: Overwhelmingly, the Access to Allied Psychological Services projects are having a positive impact for patients in terms of their level of functioning, severity of symptoms and/or quality of life. Preliminary indications suggest that a service delivery model incorporating the use of a direct referral system may be associated with superior outcomes. The findings are discussed in the light of the imminent listing of psychologists' services on the Medicare Benefits Schedule.


In previous studies examining the structural determinants of antidepressant and substrate recognition by serotonin transporters (SERTs), we identified Tyr-95 in transmembrane segment 1 (TM1) of human SERT as a major determinant of binding for several antagonists, including racemic citalopram ((RS)-CIT). Here we described a separate site in hSERT TM3 (Ile-172) that impacts (RS)-CIT recognition when switched to the corresponding Drosophila SERT residue (I172M). The hSERT I172M mutant displays a marked loss of inhibitor potency for multiple inhibitors such as (RS)-CIT, clomipramine, RTI-55, fluoxetine, cocaine, nisoxetine, mazindol, and nomifensine, whereas recognition of substrates, including serotonin and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, is unaffected. Selectivity for antagonist interactions is evident with this substitution because the potencies of the antidepressants tianeptine and paroxetine are unchanged. Reduced cocaine analog recognition was verified in photoaffinity labeling studies using [125I]MFZ 2-24. In contrast to the I172M substitution, other substitutions at this position significantly affected substrate recognition and/or transport activity. Additionally, the mouse mutation (mSERT I172M) exhibits similar selective changes in inhibitor potency. Unlike hSERT or mSERT, analogous substitutions in mouse dopamine transporter (V152M) or human norepinephrine transporter (V148M) result in transporters that bind substrate but are deficient in the subsequent translocation of the substrate. A double mutant hSERT Y95F/I172M had a synergistic impact on (RS)-CIT recognition (∼10,000-fold decrease in (RS)-CIT potency) in the context of normal serotonin recognition. The less active enantiomer (R)-CIT responded to the I172M substitution like (S)-CIT but was relatively insensitive to the Y95F substitution and did not display a synergistic loss at Y95F/I172M. An hSERT mutant with single cysteine substitutions in TM1 and TM3 resulted in formation of a high affinity cadmium metal coordination site, suggesting proximity of these domains in the tertiary structure of SERT. These studies provided evidence for distinct binding sites coordinating SERT antagonists and revealed a close interaction between TM1 and TM3 differentially targeted by stereoisomers of CIT.


The last negotiation of the EU budget and the associated reform of EU Cohesion policy have had major policy impli cations for Spain, the country in receipt of most Cohesion policy support in the previous programming period. EU enlargement, combined with relatively rapid growth in Spain, impacted on the eligibility of Spanish regions for cohesion support while also taking the country as a whole beyond the eligibility threshold for the Cohesion Fund. This paper reviews how it carried out the reform of the Cohesion policy, what were the results of the negotiations for Spain and its regions in terms of budgetary allocations, as well as the political and institutional impact of these re sults. Moreover, it focuses on showing the economic effects of the Cohesion policy (1989-2006), and examine the economic implications of the new policy Framework 2007-2013, which form the axis around which has turned the debate on the last negotiation of the EU budget.


In this paper we reconstruct a famous Severin Boethius's reasoning according to the idea of the medieval obligationes disputation mainly focusing on the formalizations proposed by Ch. Hamblin. We use two different formalizations of the disputation: first with the help of Ch. Hamblin's approach specially designed to formalize such logical debates; second, on the basis of his formal dialectics. The two formalizations are used to analyze the logical properties of the rules of the medieval logical disputation and that of their formal dialectic's counterparts. Our aim is to to show that Hamblin's formal dialectic is a communicative protocol for rational agents whose structural rules may differ, thus, varying its normative character. By means of comparing Hamblin's reconstructions with the one proposed by C. Dutilh-Novaes we are able to justify the following conclusions: (1) the formalization suggested by Hamblin fails to reconstruct the full picture of the disputation because it lacks in some the details of it; (2) Hamblin's formal dialectic and the medieval logical disputation are based on different logical theories; (3) medieval logical disputation, represented by the formalization of C. Dutilh-Novaes, and the two ones of Hamblin encode different types of cognitive agents.


This paper investigates the symmetry of impact from three main food scare events on both the upstream and downstream price transmissions in the Chinese pork market through monthly data from 2001 to 2014. Based on a theoretical model, we firstly estimate the VAR systems for pork retail price and price transmissions in different links, and then plot the impulse response function and dynamic multiplier function respectively for endogenous substitute good price and exogenous food scare events. Empirical results indicate the asymmetry of price transmission in the Chinese pork market, and demand and supply shocks from three food scare incidents are found to impact retail price and price transmissions differentially. In addition, shocks from the same incident on price and price transmissions are significantly different. This research provides implications for farmers, business managers and policy makers to make strategies in response to food scare events.


Thermodynamic, viscous and structural properties of melts and glasses in the AlCl3-ZnCl2 system have been investigated. The two pure components are fundamentally different in the molten state. Both metal atoms are four coordinated, however, ZnCl2 forms a corner sharing tetrahedral network whereas AlCl3 is a dimer, Al2Cl6. ZnCl2 is one of two known single component halide glass formers and additions of AlCl3 have shown to form stable glasses. The glass forming ability remains far into the binary AlCl3-ZnCl2 system.The phase diagram of the AlCl3-ZnCl2 system has been investigated by differential thermal analysis. The system is a simple eutectic system, and the eutectic point was observed at 116±2°C and 0.52±0.05 mole fraction ZnCl2. The system is highly glass forming in the range from pure ZnCl2 up to about 0.46 mole fraction ZnCl2. Glass transition temperatures measured by differential scanning calorimetry (heating rate 10 K/min) were recorded from 115°C for pure ZnCl2 to -5.5°C for 0.46 mole fraction ZnCl2. The reduced width of the glass transition ( Tg'-Tg )/Tg showed a maximum at 0.80 mole fraction ZnCl2 giving a minimum in fragility at this composition.The density of AlCl3-ZnCl2 melts has been determined using volume measurements in sealed quartz tubes. The molar volumes showed a negative deviation from ideality with a minimum at ~0.33 mole fraction ZnCl2 (ZnAl2Cl8). The volume expansion coefficient is strongly reduced from pure AlCl3 to ZnCl2, and the excess volume of mixing is strongly increasing with temperature. A simple model using molecular Al2Cl6, ZnCl2 and ZnAl2Cl8 units was used to calculate equilibrium constants for the reaction of pure components ZnCl2 and Al2Cl6 to ZnAl2Cl8. The density data showed that molecular ZnAl2Cl8 became more stable with increasing temperature. The viscosity of molten AlCl3-ZnCl2 in the range from pure ZnCl2 to 0.40 mole fraction ZnCl2 has been measured as a function of temperature by an oscillation cup method. The melts with ZnCl2 content higher than 0.60 mole fraction ZnCl2 exhibited non-Arrhenius behavior. The viscosity clearly decreases with increasing AlCl3 content. However, the viscosity of ZnCl2 is affected less by addition of AlCl3 compared to addition of ionic chlorides which form terminal chloride bonds. The fragility of the melts obtained from a reduced Arrhenius plot, were observed to decrease with addition of AlCl3 up to 0.80 mole fraction ZnCl2. At higher AlCl3 content the fragility increases in line with the more molecular nature of the melt. The present study has also demonstrated that the oscillation cup viscometer can be applied to record viscosities as high as 3 Pa·s.IR spectroscopy has been performed on melts in the whole compositional range of the AlCl3-ZnCl2 system. The spectra were recorded using an IR reflection method of thin films (>10 µm). Compensation for any splitting of strong bands was performed by defining a specular reflectance, r*, where a thick melt (2-3 mm)\ was used as reference. For all the mixtures a splitting of the anti-symmetric stretching frequency ν3(F2) for the AlCl4 tetrahedron into three bands was observed. This indicated a C2v perturbation of the Td symmetry. From this observation it was proposed that the AlCl4 units were always terminal consisting of two bridging and two terminal chlorines. The melts with compositions from 0.33 mole fraction ZnCl2 to pure Al2Cl6 are proposed to consist of a mixture of Al2Cl6 and ZnAl2Cl8. The temperature dependence of the 0.20 mole fraction ZnCl2 spectra showed that the amount of ZnAl2Cl8 increased relative to the amount of Al2Cl6 with increasing temperature. At 0.40 - 0.60 mole fraction ZnCl2, the melts were proposed to remain molecular in nature, where the ZnCl4 tetrahedra were enclosed by edge sharing AlCl4 terminal units. At higher ZnCl2 content or higher temperatures the connectivity of the molten structure is shifted from edge sharing AlCl4 units to corner sharing AlCl4 units bonded to two ZnCl4 tetrahedra.


The adoption of mobile technologies for emergency management has the capacity to save lives. In Australia in February 2009, the Victorian Bushfires claimed 173 lives, the worst peace-time disaster in the nation's history. The Australian government responded swiftly to the tragedy by going to tender for mobile applications that could be used during emergencies, such as mobile alerts and location services. These applications have the ability to deliver personalized information direct to the citizen during crises, complementing traditional broadcasting mediums like television and radio. Indeed governments have a responsibility to their citizens to safeguard them against both natural and human-made hazards and today national security has grown to encapsulate such societal and economic securitization. However, some citizens and lobby groups have emphasized that such breakthrough technologies need to be deployed with caution as they are fraught with ethical considerations, including the potential for breaches in privacy, security and trust. The other problem is that real world implementations of national emergency alerts have not always worked reliably and their value has come into question as a result. This paper provides a big picture view of the value of government-mandated location-based services during emergencies, and the challenges ensuing from their use.


Most of the Earth's biodiversity resides in the tropics. However, a comprehensive understanding of which factors control range limits of tropical species is still lacking. Climate is often thought to be the predominant range-determining mechanism at large spatial scales. Alternatively, species' ranges may be controlled by soil or other environmental factors, or by non-environmental factors such as biotic interactions, dispersal barriers, intrinsic population dynamics, or time-limited expansion from place of origin or past refugia. How species ranges are controlled is of key importance for predicting their responses to future global change. Here, we use a novel implementation of species distribution modelling (SDM) to assess the degree to which African continental-scale species distributions in a keystone tropical group, the palms (Arecaceae), are controlled by climate, non-climatic environmental factors, or non-environmental spatial constraints. A comprehensive data set on African palm species occurrences was assembled and analysed using the SDM algorithm Maxent in combination with climatic and non-climatic environmental predictors (habitat, human impact), as well as spatial eigenvector mapping (spatial filters). The best performing models always included spatial filters, suggesting that palm species distributions are always to some extent limited by non-environmental constraints. Models which included climate provided significantly better predictions than models that included only non-climatic environmental predictors, the latter having no discernible effect beyond the climatic control. Hence, at the continental scale, climate constitutes the only strong environmental control of palm species distributions in Africa. With regard to the most important climatic predictors of African palm distributions, water-related factors were most important for 25 of the 29 species analysed. The strong response of palm distributions to climate in combination with the importance of non-environmental spatial constraints suggests that African palms will be sensitive to future climate changes, but that their ability to track suitable climatic conditions will be spatially constrained.