Abstract. Since April 2015, NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive
(SMAP) mission has monitored near-surface soil moisture, mapping the globe
(between 85.044∘ N/S) using an L-band
(1.4 GHz) microwave radiometer in 2–3 days depending on location. Of
particular interest to SMAP-based agricultural applications is a monitoring
product that assesses the SMAP near-surface soil moisture in terms of
probability percentiles for dry and wet conditions. However, the short SMAP
record length poses a statistical challenge for meaningful assessment of its
indices. This study presents initial insights about using SMAP for monitoring
drought and pluvial regions with a first application over the contiguous
United States (CONUS). SMAP soil moisture data from April 2015 to December
2017 at both near-surface (5 cm) SPL3SMP, or Level 3, at ∼36 km
resolution, and root-zone SPL4SMAU, or Level 4, at ∼9 km resolution,
were fitted to beta distributions and were used to construct probability
distributions for warm (May–October) and cold (November–April) seasons. To
assess the data adequacy and have confidence in using short-term SMAP for a
drought index estimate, we analyzed individual grids by defining two filters
and a combination of them, which could separate the 5815 grids covering CONUS
into passed and failed grids. The two filters were (1) the
Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) test for beta-fitted long-term and the short-term
variable infiltration capacity (VIC) land surface model (LSM)
with 95 % confidence and (2) good correlation (≥0.4) between beta-fitted VIC and
beta-fitted SPL3SMP. To evaluate which filter is the best, we defined a mean
distance (MD) metric, assuming a VIC index at 36 km resolution as the
ground truth. For both warm and cold seasons, the union of the filters –
which also gives the best coverage of the grids throughout CONUS – was
chosen to be the most reliable filter. We visually compared our SMAP-based
drought index maps with metrics such as the U.S. Drought Monitor (from
D0–D4), 1-month Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and near-surface VIC from
Princeton University. The root-zone drought index maps were shown to be
similar to those produced by the root-zone VIC, 3-month SPI,
and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). This study is a step forward towards building a
national and international soil moisture monitoring system without which
quantitative measures of drought and pluvial conditions will remain difficult
to judge.


Summary Birdwatching has become a global pastime and a driving force for conservation. Because of China's economic and environmental importance, the emergence of birdwatching as a mass participation leisure activity in China over the past three decades is of global interest. We documented this emergence by conducting an extensive literature search and two online questionnaires which we used to describe the history, geographic distribution, demographics, activities, motivations, and environmental concerns of Chinese birdwatchers. The emergence happened because of (1) the transfer of ornithological knowledge to birdwatchers, (2) the increasing political tolerance to pursue pastimes, (3) the increasing leisure time, affordability of optical equipment, and urbanisation of China's society, (4) increased internet use, and (5) interactions of birdwatchers with the media and foreign birdwatchers. Of the 576 respondents to our questionnaires, two-thirds were male, about half were younger than 35 years of age, approximately 90% were university-educated, and many also had an above-average income and originated mostly from the more urbanised coastal or near-coastal provinces. Our respondents were thus part of China's economic and educational elite who largely birdwatch for enjoyment, but also because of the knowledge gained about the birds' ecology. Many birdwatchers have become concerned about the deteriorating state of the environment and are frustrated about the lack of government action. Within the political constraints set by the government, many birdwatchers support environmental conservation through various activities, which have yielded some conservation successes. However, birdwatching societies remain constrained by the same legislative and administrative restraints which limit the actions of other environmental non-governmental organizations, thus hindering the effective discourse between China's government and its emerging but still strictly controlled and regulated civil society.


The main objective of the NWGA is to improve both the quality and quantity of wool produced in the communal wool sheep farming areas of South Africa. Shearing sheds in the communal area were divided into three performance categories namely top, average and bottom sheds. This finding has led to two questions: Why and where do they differ? Can something be done to improve the performance of the sheds? A total of five (5) top, five (5) average and seven (7) bottom sheds were selected to collect data from 179 respondents. The socio-economic data is always important to indicate clearly who the respondents are. The average age of respondents is 59.46 and 64% male and 36% females. There are more members in the top sheds than in the other two categories. Although a large number of respondents can read and write, the majority do have only a qualification at the lower level. A total of 83% of the respondents do have some years of experience in sheep farming. Respondents in the top shed have significantly more sheep, cattle and goats than respondents in the average and bottom sheds. Significantly more farmers attend the top shed meetings than farmer members in the other two categories. A total of 39% respondents indicated that good sheep health control will lead to higher wool production and the most common diseases as perceived by respondents are Sheep scab, Blue tongue and internal parasites. Burr/weeds and paints are the two most important objects of wool contamination. Significantly more sheep are sheared in the top sheds, they pack more bales and the weight of the bales is higher than in the average and bottom sheds. Farmer's most important needs are financial issues, farm infrastructure and they need more land. To improve the profitability and productivity of wool sheep farming at all shearing sheds within the communal farming area. A specific extension program addressing the specific needs will be presented to farmers in each of the three shearing shed groups. Keywords: communal wool sheep farmers, farmer's needs, perception, knowledge, extension program


Graphene produced by solution processing has attracted significant scientific and technological interest due to its applicability in a wide range of commercial applications from printing inks and coatings to structural composites.

The requirements for these applications (high loading of conductive additive and tunable viscosity) have been a significant challenge in the graphene field.

I will present the current graphene production methodologies and introduce an industrially scalable production route, namely microfluidization that can produce high quality defect-free graphene from graphite in large volumes in one step.

I will then focus on different applications starting from graphene dispersions; the fabrication of conductive fibres using wet spinning, coatings using flexo/screen printing, and aerogels using freeze drying.

I will finish my talk with my future plans at the University of Sunderland, on the development of new graphene-based materials (printing/stretchable inks, conductive adhesives and automotive composites).


Your Hands-On Guide to SAP ERP Sales & Distribution

Written by senior SAP consultant Glynn Williams, Implementing SAP ERP Sales & Distribution is packed with tested, time-saving tips and advice. Learn how to use SAP ERP Central Component 5.0 and 6.0 to create sales documents and contracts, control material and customer master data, schedule deliveries, and automate billing. You'll also find out how to deliver robust financial and transactional reports, track customer and credit information, and interoperate with other SAP modules.

Configure and manage the SAP ERP SD module
Track sales, shipping, and payment status using master records
Create multi-level sales documents and item proposals
Develop contracts and rebate agreements
Deliver materials and services requirements to the supply chain
Plan deliveries, routes, and packaging using Logistics Execution
Perform resource-related, collective, and self billing
Generate pricing reports, incompletion logs, and hierarchies
Handle credit limits, payment guarantees, and customer blocks
Integrate user exits, third-party add-ons, and data sharing
Configure pricing procedures and complex pricing condition types

Table of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction and Master Data
Chapter 2. Master Data Configuration
Chapter 3. Sales Documents
Chapter 4. Contracts and Special Processes
Chapter 5. Available to Promise and Transfer of Requirements
Chapter 6. Logistics Execution Process
Chapter 7. Billing
Chapter 8. Pricing and Taxes
Chapter 9. Diverse Sales and Distribution Functions
Chapter 10. Credit Management, Receivable Risk Management, Blocks, and Calendars
Chapter 11. Advanced Consultant Tools
Appendix A: Transaction Codes Related to Sales and Distribution
Index


This thesis is concerned with exploring the way in which the physics of the detection process affects the quality of a CCD-based X-ray detector system. The physical processes which lead to the final images and spectra achieved with a CCD-based camera system are investigated through a combination of simulations and experimental techniques with the aim of improving the detector performance and allowing future detectors to be designed with optimal characteristics. Techniques developed throughout the study and the results of the simulations have wide-ranging impacts on the areas concerned. The study is split into two main sections, the first regarding a high-resolution, high-energy, photon-counting X/γ-ray camera. In medical imaging, X-rays and gamma-rays are often used for the purposes of diagnostic imaging. In many synchrotron based research programmes, such as protein crystallography and X-ray diffraction imaging, X-rays are used, once again, for imaging purposes. In both cases, a high-resolution detector with a high frame-rate is required such that images can be taken with a spatial resolution of the order of micrometers to tens of micrometers. If one is able to distinguish the energy of the incident X-rays and gamma-rays (with energies of 20-200 keV) then these spectral capabilities add to the functionality of the detector, allowing, for example, the removal of fluorescence X-rays. Chapter 2 reviews the relevant detector physics and theory before providing a critical review of current gammacameras. Chapter 3 outlines the feasibility study for the scintillator-coupled EM-CCD detailing the development of a new energy discrimination methodology. Also described is the development of a full system simulation which can be used to troubleshoot problems found when calibrating and optimising the device. Chapter 4 details the characterisation and optimisation of the detector making use of the aforementioned simulations where appropriate. Chapter 5 presents the results of the study, showing how the resolution can be dramatically improved and how energy discrimination can be implemented. The second section of the thesis regards instrument background. The use of CCDs for space borne X-ray detection in scientific satellites is wide-spread. Whilst in-orbit the CCDs are subjected to an incident flux of high energy particles. These particles may be detected, both as the primaries themselves and by means of secondaries produced in the detector shielding, and will produce a background level formed by components indistinguishable from the X-rays for which the mission was designed to detect. Chapter 6 presents an introduction to the theory behind the instrument background experienced by CCD-based detector systems in orbit. A simulation has been developed which is in very good agreement with data received from the spacecrafts, described in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the outcomes of these studies and provides insight into future work which will further aid the improvement of gamma-cameras for medical imaging and synchrotron-based research and will allow future CCD-based camera systems to be designed for increased sensitivity in-orbit.


Abstract Lawyers and economists do not always speak the same language. Where economists present crisp and clear numbers, lawyers get lost in lengthy discussions about fairness and justice. Or so it seems. Arguably, the regulation of short selling illustrates a worrying clash of cultures. Economists understand short selling as a value-free market mechanism while (not only) lawyers suspect a profit, unfairly gained at the expense of others: "Short sellers not only profit from the misery of others, they also cause it". In what follows, we address implications of this culture clash in the realm of ethics and politics. We conclude with a hypothesis, submitting that there might be traces of another clash to be observed when comparing regulatory cultures across countries. A preliminary look at data seems to suggest that short sale bans are less common in countries with a strong capital-market tradition and more common for countries which are newer to this game. If this holds true, important lessons are to be learned for the European Commission's plan to set up a capital market union.


The United Kingdom is not yet maximising the return on its public investment in research. Research Councils UK (RCUK) spend £3.5 billion pounds annually. The UK produces at least 130,000 research journal articles per year, but if it is worth funding and doing at all, research must be not only published, but used, applied and built upon by other researchers ('citation impact'). The online-age practice of self-archiving has been shown to increase citation impact by a dramatic 50-250%, but so far only 15% of researchers are doing it spontaneously. Citation impact is rewarded by universities (through promotions and salary increases) and by research-funders like RCUK (through grant funding and renewal) at a conservative estimate of £46 per citation. If we multiply this by the 85% of the UK's annual journal article output that is not yet self-archived, this translates into an annual loss of £2,541,500 in revenue to UK researchers for not having done (or delegated) the few extra keystrokes per article it would have taken to self-archive their final drafts. But this impact loss translates into a far bigger one for the British public, if we reckon it as the loss of potential returns on its research investment. As a proportion of the RCUK's yearly £3.5bn research expenditure (yielding 130,000 articles x 5.6 = 761,600 citations), our conservative estimate would be 50% x 85% x £3.5.bn = £1.5bn worth of loss in potential research impact(323,680 potential citations lost). The solution is obvious, and it is the one the RCUK is proposing: to extend the existing universal 'publish or perish' requirement to 'publish and also self-archive your final draft on your institutional website'. The time to close this 50%-250% research impact gap is already well overdue. This is the historic moment for the UK to set an example for the world, showing how to maximise the return on the public investment in research in the online era.


Research has demonstrated that false confessors whose cases are not dismissed before trial are often convicted despite their innocence. In order to prevent such wrongful convictions, criminal justice officials must better understand the role that false confessions play in creating and perpetuating miscarriages of justice. This chapter examines police-induced false confessions and analyzes three sequential errors that occur in the social production of every false confession: investigators first misclassify an innocent person as guilty; they next subject him to a guilt-presumptive, accusatory interrogation that invariably involves lies about evidence and often the repeated use of implicit and/or explicit promises and threats as well; and once they have elicited a false admission, they pressure the suspect to provide a post-admission narrative that they jointly shape, often supplying the innocent suspect with the (public and nonpublic) facts of the crime. We refer to these as the misclassification error, the coercion error, and the contamination error. Additionally, at least three other processes – "misleading specialized knowledge," "tunnel vision," and "confirmation bias" – usually pave the way to a wrongful conviction by convincing all of the criminal justice actors to ignore the possibility that the confession is false. We analyze these processes in this chapter and conclude with recommendations designed to reduce false confessions and prevent false confessions from leading to wrongful convictions.


James Coleman's project was to resocialize rational choice while keeping micro-macro
connections as operational as they are in economics. His general model in Foundations of
sociological theory either accounts for norms while effacing social organization, or brings
social organization to the fore (in the reduced form of social capital distribution) while failing to generate sufficient norms. A parallel simulation study suggests that the problem lies
in the type of rationality itself: Coleman's rationality is merely calculative; only interpretive
rationality can take collective entities into consideration. This change would require the
rational actor to accede to a less cursory type of language, intensional rather than
extensional.


In this thesis an inverse method is developed for the theoretical design of radio-frequency
(RF) coils for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at high-frequency.
New design techniques are required for RF coils at high-field, where
the wavelength of operation becomes comparable to the dimensions of the
coils. In addition, the effects of sample loading on the homogeneity of induced
fields become more pronounced as the frequency of operation increases and
can result in severe distortion to the acquired image. The general aim of the
design method presented is to find a current density solution on the coil that
will induce some desired homogeneous magnetic field upon a spherical target
region within. This is an ill-conditioned inverse problem that can be solved
using regularisation, in which the error between induced and target magnetic
fields is minimised along with some additional constraint of the designer's
choosing. This general technique is demonstrated and adapted throughout
the thesis for a wide variety of RF coil types.
The method is initially applied to the design of unloaded, unshielded RF
volume coils, with asymmetrically located target regions. Time-harmonic
methods involving retarded potential Green's functions are used to obtain
field expressions, with the geometry of the coil accounted for using a Fourier
series representation of the current density components. The resulting integral
equation is solved using a hybrid regularisation penalty function that allows
a trade-off between coil winding simplicity and field homogeneity. The important
case of RF shielding is considered in a straightforward extension of
the design method, to induce a null field exterior to the coils. In addition,
the method is reworked to account for sample loading and its corresponding
effects at high-field. This requires a three-layer model which is solved using
Fourier-Bessel series expansions, along with appropriate boundary conditions
on the surfaces of the load and RF coils. Finally, the inverse method is adapted
further for the design of RF phased arrays, which afford a number of advantages
over RF volume coils, including a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over
a large field of view. A robust design method is presented for this coil type,
which allows complete freedom over array size, field focussing and polarisation
considerations.


This paper presents the multimodal corpora that are being collected and annotated in the Nordic NOMCO project. The corpora will be used to study communicative phenomena such as feedback, turn management and sequencing. They already include video material for Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Estonian, and several social activities are represented. The data will make it possible to verify empirically how gestures (head movements, facial displays, hand gestures and body postures) and speech interact in all the three mentioned aspects of communication. The data are being annotated following the MUMIN annotation scheme, which provides attributes concerning the shape and the communicative functions of head movements, face expressions, body posture and hand gestures. After having described the corpora, the paper discusses how they will be used to study the way feedback is expressed in speech and gestures, and reports results from two pilot studies where we investigated the function of head gestures ― both single and repeated ― in combination with feedback expressions. The annotated corpora will be valuable sources for research on intercultural communication as well as for interaction in the individual languages.


Preparation has been proposed in the literature as one of the most important phases of an interpreting assignment, especially if the subject is highly specialised. Preparing an assignment in advance aims at bridging the linguistic and extra-linguistic gap between conference participants and interpreters and at reducing the cognitive load during interpretation. For these reasons it is considered crucial in ensuring higher interpreting quality. Yet, preparation is generally time-consuming and interpreters may often experience the feeling of not knowing exactly how to perform this task efficiently. Information technology could change this. Even though the first computer-assisted interpreting software has entered the profession in recent years, no tool has been specifically developed to satisfy the needs of interpreters during the preparatory phase. After analysing different theoretical frameworks of interpreting preparation, this paper aims at presenting a tool that implements a corpus-driven approach to preparation. According to this approach, the process of knowledge and language acquisition needed to perform well as an interpreter is optimized by making it corpus-driven: browsing the terminology of the domain in a specialised corpus, interpreters are able to reconstruct its conceptual structure, prepare subject-related glossaries and rationalise the preparatory work.


The accumulation of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean has altered carbonate chemistry in surface waters since preindustrial times and is expected to continue to do so in the coming centuries. Changes in carbonate chemistry can modify the rates and fates of marine primary production and calcification. These modifications can in turn lead to feedback on increasing atmospheric CO2. We show, using a numerical model, that in highly productive nearshore coastal marine environments, the effect of eutrophication on carbon cycling can counter the effect of ocean acidification on the carbonate chemistry of surface waters. Also, changes in river nutrient delivery due to management regulation policies can lead to stronger changes in carbonate chemistry than ocean acidification. Whether antagonistic or synergistic, the response of carbonate chemistry to changes of nutrient delivery to the coastal zone (increase or decrease, respectively) is stronger than ocean acidification.


Data plays a central role in both medicine and insurance, enabling advances and creating new challenges. Although legislative efforts have attempted to protect the privacy of people's health data, many other kinds of data can reveal sensitive health information about an individual. People's medical conditions or health habits can be inferred from many sources, including their purchases, phone call patterns, fitness tracking apps, posts on social media, and browsing histories. Sometimes, medical information that reveals sensitive information about an individual can be linked to the medical state of a relative. However, accuracy of these inferences may be a problem, and inaccurate inference can result in social stigma and harmful reputational effects on the wrongly categorized individual. In addition, the kinds of inferences generated and used by marketers and insurance companies may not be useful when applied to the context of patient care. Not only does misuse of data have consequences for individuals seeking fair access to healthcare, but inappropriate practices also erode productive efforts to use data to empower people, personalize medicine, and develop innovations that can advance healthcare.


Bi-doped SiO2-Al2O3-GeO2 fiber preforms are prepared by modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) and solution doping process. The characteristic spectra of the preforms and fibers are experimentally investigated, and a distinct difference in emission between the two is observed. Under 808-nm excitation, an ultra-broad near-infrared (NIR) emission with full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 495 nm is observed in the Bi-doped fiber. This observation, to our knowledge, is the first in this field. The NIR emission consists of two bands, which may be ascribed to the Bi0 and Bi+ species, respectively. This Bi-doped fiber is promising for broadband optical amplification and widely tunable laser.


Title: Role of scavenger receptor MARCO in particle uptake and lung inflammation Chairperson: Andrij Holian, PhD Alveolar macrophages (AM) form the first line of defense against chronic inflammation caused by occupational exposure to environmental particulates such as crystalline silica (CSiO2). The chronic inflammatory process triggered by CSiO2 is known to culminate into a fibrotic response called silicosis in the human lungs. Previous studies have indicated the role of membrane glycoproteins called scavenger receptors in binding of environmental particles. The scavenger receptors are classified into different classes (AH) based on their structure and function. Class A scavenger receptors are critical in uptake of variety of ligands such as bacteria, acetylated lipoproteins and are typically found on macrophages, dendritic and epithelial cells. One of the members of this family is Macrophage receptor with collagenous structure (MARCO). Recent studies have focused on analyzing the interaction between MARCO and inorganic particles such as CSiO2 and titanium dioxide (TiO2). Both in vivo and in vitro binding studies have identified MARCO as a key receptor in CSiO2 uptake and subsequent cytotoxicity in AM from C57Bl/6 mice. Further in vitro studies using a transfected cell line revealed that the 100 amino acid residues long cysteine-rich (SRCR) domain at the C-terminal end of MARCO is required for binding of inorganic particles such as CSiO2, TiO2 and amorphous silica (ASiO2). Moreover, individual particles bind to SRCR domain of MARCO with unique differences and have varying requirements with respect to need for divalent cations. Our studies demonstrate that physiological absence of MARCO in C57Bl/6 mice leads to a more robust inflammatory response following CSiO2 exposure as compared to wild-type mice. The results suggest that diminished clearance of CSiO2 particles from the MARCO lungs exacerbates the lung inflammation. These findings demonstrate that the involvement of different regions of SRCR domain may distinguish downstream events following particle binding. Taken together, these data establish the role of MARCO in uptake of various inorganic particles and elucidate the protective role of MARCO in CSiO2-induced lung inflammation.


Earlier linguistic studies of political discourse revealed that, not many works exist on pragmatic analysis of impoliteness in this genre. Apart from Mullany (2002), who employs relational and face works to analyses impoliteness in political discourse, Taiwo (2007), Adetunji (2009), and Ademilokun (2015), who employ discourse analytical tools in analyzing the political speeches, there exist very scanty works on invective songs of Western Nigerian Politicians. The present study, therefore, focused on filling the existing lacuna in pragmatic studies by exploring fourteen randomly selected invective songs of Western Nigerian Politicians (WNPs), utilizing the modified version of Eckert and McConnell-Ginet's (1992a) community of practice (CofP) as the pragmatic tool for data analysis. Our findings revealed that, invective songs of WNPs were characterized by impolite/belligerent utterances, indirect speech acts, politic confrontational behavior, lexical borrowing, code-mixing, direct speech acts, use of paralanguage, imagery, and symbolism. The paper concluded that, CofP clearly explicates the signification in invective songs of WNPs and shows the participants' intention in the discourse.


PURPOSE
To compare the accuracies of computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and bone scintigraphy in staging disease in patients with neuroblastoma.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ninety-six children with newly diagnosed neuroblastoma were enrolled in a multicenter prospective cohort study. CT, MR, and bone scintigraphy were used to evaluate tumor stage. Sensitivity and specificity values and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were used to compare the accuracy of CT, MR, and scintigraphy for tumor staging.

RESULTS
Eighty-eight patients were eligible for staging analysis, and 45 patients who underwent surgery at initial diagnosis were eligible for analysis of local tumor extent. CT and MR had sensitivities of 43% and 83%, respectively (P <.01), and specificities of 97% and 88%, respectively (P >.05), for detection of stage 4 disease. Areas under the ROC curves for CT and MR were 0.81 and 0.85, respectively (P =.06); that for scintigraphy was 0.83. Addition of scintigraphy to both CT and MR increased the areas under the ROC curves to 0.90 and 0.88, respectively. Accuracy of CT and MR for staging disease confined to the chest or abdomen (stages 1, 2, and 3) was poor.

CONCLUSION
MR alone and CT and MR combined with bone scintigraphy enable the accurate detection of stage 4 disease. Both CT and MR perform poorly for local tumor staging.


According to Graddol (2004) "The world's language system is undergoing rapid change because of demographic trends, new technology, and international communication. These changes will affect both written and spoken communication." The previous quotation reflects a linguistic reality. It is impossible to deny the influence of technology and international communication, not only on language, but also on our daily lives. The process of borrowing is one of the many ways in which technology and international communication affect language. Some of the borrowed words have Arabic equivalents, while others do not. Nevertheless, most of these borrowed words are subject to phonological and morphological changes. The main cause of the borrowing phenomenon may be that, as Baker stated, "translation activity in the Arab World is still too slow when compared to the speed with which new terms are coined for new concepts in the West and the frequency of their usage once coined" (1987, 88). Many of the loanwords, some of which are Arabized, are widely used today in Qatari Arabic. Arabization involves the rendering of foreign terms into Arabic in its original linguistic form, after introducing minor phonetic and/or morphological changes where necessary. This method has received much opposition from language purists, who fear that the assimilation of foreign terms may change the identity of Arabic and, if applied to excess, would even result in some form of a hybrid language. However, faced with the massive influx of new terms which need to be rendered into Arabic, even the purists have had to accept Arabized terms which have found their way into the language and increasingly gained acceptance, with or without academies' approval. (Ibrahim, 2006). Although linguistic borrowing is a universal phenomenon that has been noted historically and studied a lot , it is of interest to investigate this practice and its patterns in Qatari Arabic and to know to what extent the Qatari informants are able to know the meaning and the origin of some of the borrowed words in Qatari Arabic. Thus, the researcher collected one hundred of exotic foreign words which are Arabized and used in Qatari dialect and will ask Qataris to identify the meaning and the origin of the borrowed words. The focus in this study will be on the ability of the Qatari informants to identify the meaning and the origin of the borrowed words in question. Objectives: Identify some borrowed words used in the Qatari dialect. Identify the origin of the borrowed words. Identify the types of borrowed words. measure the knowledge of the sample to know the meaning of the borrowed words. measure the ability of the sample to determine the origin of the borrowed words.


Many valuable archaeological artefacts have the size of a few centimetres or less. The production of relevant documentation of such artefacts is mainly limited to subjective interpretation and manual drawing techniques using a magnifier. Most of the laser scanners available for the archaeological purposes cannot reach sufficient space resolution to gather all relevant features of the artefact, such as the shape, the relief, the texture and any damage present. Digital photogrammetric techniques make measuring with high accuracy possible and such techniques can be used to produce the relevant archaeometric documentation with a high level of detail. The approaches for shooting a good macro photograph (in the photogrammetric sense) will be explored and discussed as well as the design of a calibration test-field and the self-calibration methods suitable for macro photogrammetry. Finally, the method will be tested by producing a photorealistic 3D-model of an ancient figurine.


Studies on self-assembly of molecules, mediated by, e.g., hydrogen bonding interactions, are a major theme currently. The consequence of such self-assembly of hydrogen-bonding molecules, when dispersed in a polymer matrix, has not been studied so far. We describe such a polymer dispersed self-assembling small molecule system, in which a homologous series of small molecules, with a hydrogen-bonding moiety and alkyl side chains, is dispersed in polycarbonate. These are not liquid crystalline. The self-assembling molecules form colloidal size domains in the polymer, and this involves a hierarchy of three levels of assembly. The molecules self-assemble into small crystallites, which then organize into spherulitic structures. These spherulites then aggregate to form large, uniform near-spherical domains. The size and uniformity of the domains depend on the length of the alkyl side chain. The domain formation is reversible; that is, these domains can be melted and reformed.


Trunk-mounted monitoring equipment like GPSports SPIHPU units are designed to use global positioning (GPS), accelerometer and heart rate monitoring to evaluate the physical demands of an activity. A medical staff might also consider markers such as running symmetry in evaluation of injury occurrence and rehabilitation. A running symmetry is a ratio of the synchronization of the right and left lower limbs during the gait cycle. An asymmetry due to, a pathology or musculoskeletal injury, results in abnormal loading on the foot that may be detected by trunk-mounted accelerometry. The aim of this study is to evaluate the ability of SPIHPU units to detect running asymmetry. Subjects wore the HPISPU units (100Hz, 16g tri-axial accelerometer, 50Hz magnetometer) while engaged in various running activities. In the first study, artificially inducing a leg length discrepancy led to a difference between running symmetry scores. This discrepancy was confirmed using individual accelerometers attached to the lower leg near the foot. Next, varying running speed did not result in differences in running symmetry. However, the SPIHPU units did detect a running asymmetry between fatigued and non-fatigued conditions. Finally, two case studies showed that the units could identify asymmetry immediately after a lower leg injury and during rehabilitation of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery. The results of this study show that the HPUSPI units can be reliably used to monitor running symmetry and to detect asymmetrical gait patterns. Table of


Reducing cutting fluid consumption remains a goal of the machining industry. Despite their reported advantages such as heat dissipation, friction reduction, extended tool life, and improved surface quality, cutting fluids pose several health and environmental concerns throughout their lifecycle, in particular when conventional mineral oil-based, semi-synthetic or synthetic fluids are used. Manufacturers are encouraged to reduce the use of harmful conventional fluids. However, the usage of cutting fluid is still an unavoidable industrial practice, especially when machining titanium alloys, due to the generation of large quantities of heat. High cutting temperature is one of the main reasons for rapid tool wear and hence the poor machinability of titanium alloys. Vegetable oil (VO)-based fluids have been suggested as favourable alternatives to the conventional fluids due to their superior tribological properties and high biodegradability. Several cutting fluid supply systems have been developed to reduce cutting fluid use, such as minimum quality lubricant (MQL) and cryogenic cooling or to control the temperature in the cutting zone, for example flood, and high pressure cooling (HPC) systems, to improve productivity and increase the overall performance of machining processes. Even though process improvements are achieved by these systems, inaccuracies in estimating cutting fluid flow rates, high fluid consumption and low penetrability, as well as high set-up costs, are their technical and economic drawbacks. For these reasons, the need for an innovative supply system to deliver fluids in machining processes has become crucial.

In this PhD project, a novel controlled cutting fluid impinging supply system known as 'CUT-LIST' is developed to deliver an accurate quantity of cutting fluid into machining zones through precisely-oriented coherent nozzles. The design of CUT-LIST is supported by numerous fluid dynamic and metal cutting theories along with extensive experimentation. The performance of the new system is evaluated against a conventional flood system during the step shoulder milling of Ti-6Al-4V using a water-miscible vegetable oil-based cutting fluid. The effect of cutting conditions on the key measures of the process are investigated, including cutting force, workpiece temperature, tool flank wear, burr formation and average surface roughness (Ra). The effect of CUT-LIST on the micro-hardness and microstructure of the machined surface as well as chip formation are also evaluated. The study shows that the new system provides a dramatic decrease in cutting fluid consumption of up to 42% with noticeable reductions in cutting force, tool flank wear and burr height of 16.41%, 46.77% and 60% respectively. Relatively smaller surface roughness (Ra) values are also found with the use of the CUT-LIST supply system. In terms of the effect of the new system parameters on key process measures, feed rate has a major effect on cutting force, burr formation and surface roughness, with the highest percentage contribution ratios (PCRs) of 47.46%, 38.69% and 39.10% respectively. Meanwhile, the cutting speed has a major effect on workpiece temperature and flank wear, with the highest PCRs of 46.5% and 59.23% respectively. Nozzle position at a 15˚ angle in the feed direction and 45˚or 60˚ against feed direction helped in minimising workpiece temperature. An impinging distance of 55 or 75 mm is also necessary to control burr formation, workpiece temperature, and Ra. Metallurgical observation shows that both systems achieved acceptable micro-hardness values for aerospace components (386.3 to 419 HV100). However, a slight reduction in micro-hardness of ~5.5% was recorded with the use of CUT-LIST. The hardness is lower at distances < 50 μm below the machined surface as a result of thermal softening, while it becomes higher at distances <100 μm from the surface due to cyclic internal work hardening. The micro-hardness then gradually decreases until it reaches the base material's nominal hardness.

Both systems also produce a thin, plastically deformed layer below the machined surface under all conditions investigated. Despite the noticeable reduction in cutting fluid consumption achieved by CUT-LIST, no significant disparity is found in the microstructural subsurface damage caused by the two systems. Microstructural alteration is strongly affected by cutting speed and fluid flow rate. At higher cutting speeds, the conventional system shows visible surface defects such as smearing, surface cavities and erosion in workpiece material. With both systems, desirable discontinued serrated chips are generated. However, the increase in fluid flow rate significantly influences chip morphology, while the average distance between chip segments is more pronounced and evident with the increase in cutting speed. Severe crack propagation (up to a depth of 200 μm) is observed in the chip end free surface, with the use of the conventional system.

In addition, CUT-LIST shows decreases of up to 12.5 % in saw-tooth height (hmax) and increased segment width up to 13.63 % at higher speeds, while the transition from aperiodic to periodic serrated chip formation is closely controlled by cutting speed and feed rate. Chip segmentation frequency and shear angle are also found to be sensitive to cutting speed, whilst CUT-LIST provides a larger shear angle compared to the conventional system.

Based on the results achieved by CUT-LIST, it is apparent that the new system possesses various advantages over the conventional system. Hence, CUT-LIST can be considered as a feasible, efficient, and ecologically beneficial solution, offering less fluid consumption in machining processes.


Bladder cancer is a common and deadly malignancy but its treatment has advanced little due to poor understanding of the factors and pathways that promote disease. ATDC/TRIM29 is a highly expressed gene in several lethal tumor types, including bladder tumors, but its role as a pathogenic driver has not been established. Here we show that overexpression of ATDC in vivo is sufficient to drive both noninvasive and invasive bladder carcinoma development in transgenic mice. ATDC-driven bladder tumors were indistinguishable from human bladder cancers, which displayed similar gene expression signatures. Clinically, ATDC was highly expressed in bladder tumors in a manner associated with invasive growth behaviors. Mechanistically, ATDC exerted its oncogenic effects by suppressing miR-29 and subsequent upregulation of DNMT3A, leading to DNA methylation and silencing of the tumor suppressor PTEN. Taken together, our findings established a role for ATDC as a robust pathogenic driver of bladder cancer development, identified downstream effector pathways, and implicated ATDC as a candidate biomarker and therapeutic target.


Many important ecosystem-level processes are integrated in hydrologically-forced marshrwater column interactions in estuaries. In this work, I quantified nutrient and sediment fluxes in two Louisiana estuaries using throughflow marsh flumes. The Barataria Basin estuary is in a later, deteriorating stage of the deltaic cycle. Brackish and saline marshes here exported dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), total nitrogen, and dissolved organics (DOM); phosphorus fluxes were low and variable. Fourleague Bay marshes, in an earlier developmental stage of the deltaic cycle, imported DIN in the spring and released DIN in summer and fall. In this way, marshes here buffer open-bay N concentrations from high riverine N inputs. Fourleague Bay marshes exported phosphorus, but took up DOM on all tides sampled. Suspended sediment fluxes measured over individual tidal cycles were low and variable in both estuaries. Sediment accretion rates calculated from these fluxes were lower than actual measured accumulations. Apparently, most TSS flux onto marshes occurred during episodic climatological events. Wetland loss, a pervasive problem in Louisiana, has numerous implications to marshrwater column interactions. An extended period of low water levels in 1987-88 isolated marshes from the water column; a phenomenon I refer to as "ephemeral wetland loss". Multivariate analyses indicated that 37% (intermonthly) and 46% (interannual) of the variability in historical (1963-87) coastal water levels was explained by climatological parameters. Further, mean annual water levels explained 26% of the interannual variability in inshore shrimp harvest (a measure of marsh-dependent estuarine productivity). The relationship was nonlinear, with low shrimp harvest at low and high water levels. In both cases, low catch corresponded to El Nino events. Wetland loss represents a permanent removal of marsh area from the estuarine ecosystem. In Louisiana, most of this loss is a habitat change to open water. As marsh is converted to open water, the marsh:open water ratio changes and remaining marsh is "diluted" by increasing open water area. The functional loss of marsh, related to dilution,


Combating terrorism is nothing new for democracies. Over the course of decades, a wide range of democratic states has encountered an array of terrorist groups and, moreover, has often prevailed against them. As this timely and stimulating volume makes clear, the United States can learn much from fellow democracies to help it in its current war against al Qaeda and affiliated groups. "Democracy and Counterterrorism" offers unparalleled breadth in its comparative study of the policies, strategies, and instruments employed in the fight against terrorism. The distinguished contributors some scholars, some practitioners, and all renowned experts examine no fewer than fourteen cases, featuring thirteen states and sixteen major terrorist groups. Each case study includes a brief overview, a detailed analysis of the policies and techniques that the government employed, and an assessment of which measures proved most effective and instructive. The substantial conclusion draws together common threads from the individual cases and asks what lessons their collective experience can offer to the democracies now battling al Qaeda and the global jihadists. Among the answers sure to interest policymakers as well as academics is that the constraints within which democracies must fight terrorism are actually a source of strength; democratic governments that seek simply to obliterate terrorism by force usually succeed only in making their problems worse."


Wireless networks are vulnerable to Sybil attacks, in which a malicious node poses as many identities in order to gain disproportionate influence. Many defenses based on spatial variability of wireless channels exist, but depend either on detailed, multi-tap channel estimation-something not exposed on commodity 802.11 devices-or valid RSSI observations from multiple trusted sources, e.g., corporate access points-something not directly available in ad hoc and delay-tolerant networks with potentially malicious neighbors. We extend these techniques to be practical for wireless ad hoc networks of commodity 802.11 devices. Specifically, we propose two efficient methods for separating the valid RSSI observations of behaving nodes from those falsified by malicious participants. Further, we note that prior signalprint methods are easily defeated by mobile attackers and develop an appropriate challenge-response defense. Finally, we present the Mason test, the first implementation of these techniques for ad hoc and delay-tolerant networks of commodity 802.11 devices. We illustrate its performance in several real-world scenarios.


Increasingly, file systems for multiprocessors are designed with parallel access to multiple disks, to keep I/O from becoming a serious bottleneck for parallel applications. Although file system software can transparently provide high-performance access to parallel disks, a new file system interface is needed to facilitate parallel access to a file from a parallel application. We describe the difficulties faced when using the conventional (Unix-like) interface in parallel applications, and then outline ways to extend the conventional interface to provide convenient access to the file for parallel programs, while retaining the traditional interface for programs that have no need for explicitly parallel file access. Our interface includes a single naming scheme, a multiopen operation, local and global file pointers, mapped file pointers, logical records, multi-files, and logical coercion for backward compatibility.


Both children and adults can be afraid of water. Sometimes the reason for this is that they had a traumatic experience with water. More often, however, there is no explanation, as such. The following article discusses the underlying problems that may be a factor in fear of being in water or, in more extreme cases, being under water. In addition, the article explores how haptotherapy in water can offer healing, address the vitality of a person or lack thereof, thereby reawakening a person to their own individual character.


In accordance with the existing standards applied to estimate the performance of regional public authorities, the quantitative indexes comprise such variables as 'amount of fixed investments' and 'the tax revenues of regional budgets'. To the authors' opinion, these variables are in mathematical relations. We assume that such relations can be used to assess the financial tools, which are at the disposal of regional public authorities. We have developed a methodology for quantitative evaluation of the economic performance of the financial instruments, which are at the disposal of regional public authorities and can impact the economic growth. The research is based on the comparative statistical analysis of the National Statistical Monitoring System concerning the economic development of Belgorod region. As a result, we have determined the acceptable potential for the increase of the Belgorod region's budget guarantees assigned for the implementation of major investment projects. We have obtained the dependency of the tax revenues of regional budgets on the fixed assets productivity (the fixed capital or property used to generate income). Our technique allows to evaluate the amount of fiscal revenues of the budget of a federal subject of the Russian Federation depending both on the financial guarantees assigned by the regional budgets and on the productivity of fixed assets (capital productivity). The research results show that up-to-date domestic practice in managing the economic growth in the federal subjects of Russia underestimates the financial guarantees performance. The financial guarantee instrument is prioritized for the major investment projects. These projects can ensure the yield from capital investments as many as four, which fosters the increase of the fiscal revenues of regional budgets up to 40 %. We have measured the economic performance of management decisions concerning the choice of financial instruments by regional public authorities. Moreover, the paper presents the projection of the results from each financial instrument application.


Hostel dwellers form a larger part of the urban population in South Africa (Ramphele, 1999). These hostels were initially created as temporal arrangement for African men moving from rural to urban areas seeking for employment. Due to housing shortage in urban areas they eventually became permanent residential accommodation. However, observations into the environmental conditions in these hostels have raised concerns about the health and well being of residents and neighbouring communities. The area of study was selected on the basis of the current depleted living conditions due to mismanagement of facilities provided by both the occupants and the hostel administrators. The study was a cross sectional descriptive study involving all three Durban Metropolitan block hostels. Assessing (i) the quality of block hostel environment (indoor and outdoor) through visual inspection (walkthrough), (ii) the exposure measures and outcomes (biophysical environment assessment) by means of questionnaire survey, air testing and microbial identification. Sixty three (63) hostel inventory were completed, followed by the administration of 450 questionnaires, and 646 surface and air samples were collected in the indoors of the selected hostel blocks including the control outdoor samples. The demographic profile of the hostel dwellers in the selected hostel blocks revealed that in the five bed type dormitories the habitable space per individual was 3 m 2 to 3.8 m 2 . Whilst in the ten bed type dormitories the habitable space per individual was 3.3 m 2 to 3.6 m . This was not even close to the World Health Organization suggested habitable space of 12 m 2 (WHO, 2000) and was therefore regarded as overcrowding. Lack of access control in the hostels exacerbated by the socio-economic demands of the living environments, e.g. unemployment, was to blame for overcrowding. This overcrowding of the hostels was overloading the services, causing enormous number of blockages and bursts of wastewater pipes resulting in the system not functioning. This situation resulted in the accumulation of dampness in the indoor environment, and hence creating conditions favouring the growth of indoor mouldiness in the buildings. This was further supported by evidence that 47% of the occupants in the selected hostel blocks were experiencing respiratory symptoms and 53% experiencing non-respiratory symptoms. The most recorded respiratory symptoms were pulmonary tuberculosis (14.3%), chest tightness (12.2%), sore and dry throat (7%), sinus congestion (7%) symptoms. Whilst the most recorded non-respiratory symptoms were headache (11.5%), dry and itchy skin (11.5%), stomach upset (6.3%) and fatigue (3.6%). Forty five percent (45%) of the respondents were current smokers and 80% of them had a tendency of smoking indoors. The results of the surface and air samples indicated that the level of indoor mould growth in the selected hostel blocks was at 37, 24%. Surface moulds were at 58% and airborne spores were at 42%. Statistical analysis of data revealed a significant relationship between exposure factors and outcomes in the 5, 10 and 15-bed type dormitories. Incidence Risk Rate (IRR) and the p-value (p . 0.01) were used to determine relationships between exposure factors and outcomes. Certain factors were very much supportive in the development of selfreported symptoms in the selected hostel blocks of the three hostels under certain circumstances and these were the hygiene state of the building, leaking pipes, smoking habits and total mea and dg surface moulds. At all levels of the analysis the hygiene state of the building was very much supportive in the development of self-reported symptoms. Other exposure factors were not supportive at all, for example, structural defects, bed-types, different floor levels and participants' perception of overcrowding. A review process of the role of legislation in controlling the adverse health effects revealed that certain aspects of the legislation relating to building standards requirements, sanitation requirements, ventilation requirements, space and density requirements, and air quality standards requirements were violated. Therefore, the findings of the study recommended that a proper management plan must be developed to enhance living standards. This plan shall include a routine maintenance of the building structures, the development of a culture of self-care, as well as access control in the hostels. In addition to that where there are signs of visible moulds on walls and ceilings adequate control measures are highly recommended using commercially available measures in order to provide a healthy living environment. In conclusion is the adoption of a compliance policy towards legal requirements pertaining to building standards as defined in the National Building Regulations Standards Act (Act 103 of 1977). This study has showed that necessary


This thesis involves three sections exploring disclosure amongst adolescents with HIV. Part one is a literature review examining the current literature around disclosure for young people with HIV and highlighting the factors that both facilitate and inhibit disclosure. Part two is an empirical paper outlining a qualitative study interviewing young people with perinatally acquired HIV on their attitudes and experiences towards disclosure. Part three is a critical appraisal of the research experience, commenting upon some of the challenges of conducting the research, methodological issues and learning points. All three sections should influence further research and have implications for clinical work in suggesting ways in which young people with HIV can be better supported around disclosure.


This thesis is divided into two parts; the first part describing the synthesis and evaluation of novel fluorogenic enzymatic substrates for microorganism detection, and the second part investigating the synthesis of thiophenes with extended conjugation as fluorescent labels with potential applications in antimicrobial susceptibility testing.

'Spacer' substrates were identified as a method of incorporating a phenolic fluorophore (ArOH) into an enzymatic substrate designed at targeting aminopeptidase activity. Substrates of the general structure ArO-spacer-AA were therefore synthesised (AA = amino acid). The action of aminopeptidases on these substrates would therefore result in fragmentation, liberating the phenolic fluorophore. The spacer group of choice was para-aminobenzyl alcohol (PABA), as it has been widely used as such for the synthesis of prodrugs. After condensation of the amine group of PABA with either Boc-L-alanine or pyroglutamic acid and subsequent chlorination of the benzylic alcohol giving the corresponding benzyl chloride, 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole and 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzoxazole were attached using a Williamson ether synthesis to produce the Boc-protected substrates. After removal of the Boc groups, the substrates produced strongly fluorescent colonies with Gram-negative bacteria. Also investigated were a series of fluorogenic substrates, both with and without 'spacer' methodology, designed for the detection of nitroreductase activity but little activity was observed with bacteria. Three BODIPY-derived substrates were also prepared and evaluated for detecting nitroreductase and esterase activity. These substrates showed good activity in agar media when the agar plates were post-treated with acid resulting in the generation of strong colour and fluorescence.

The second section of this thesis focuses on antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Two types of substrates possessing highly conjugated thiophene cores were synthesised: hydrazides and D-amino acids. The hydrazides are expected to label dead cells by reacting with aldehyde groups that are produced by protein carbonylation. The D-amino acid series of compounds are expected to be incorporated into the cell walls of growing bacteria, and hence live cells can be labelled. The thiophene core structures were chosen to have excitation wavelengths of approximately 488 nm because this excitation wavelength is commonly used in flow cytometry. Results from fluorescence measurement testing indicate that both sets of cell labelling substrates synthesised have an excitation wavelength of roughly 450 – 460 nm with emission wavelengths ranging from 480 nm to as high as 520 nm.


Financial intermediation is a value-enhancing service. Banks are among the most important financial institutions in a modern economy for that service. Conventional banks use rates of interest (charged to clients and paid to depositors) on both the assets and the liabilities sides. Since interest is prohibited in Islam, Islamic financial experts have developed a number of financial instruments that avoid any involvement in interest. They take the form of either risk-and-reward sharing or trading in commodities/assets to price assets. In this paper we describe the basic features of the most important among these financial instruments. Even though Islamic banks emerged in response to market needs of Muslim clients, they are not religious institutions. Like other banks, these are profit seeking institutions, simply following a different model of financial intermediation. While it is the preferred way of banking for one fifth of humanity, it offers a wider choice of financial products to all by generating a number of benefits for the society. The successful operation of Islamic financial institutions has proven that this new model of financial intermediation is not only viable, but in many aspects, it is rather superior to the conventional model. The appealing features of the Islamic model have attracted world-wide attention. Islamic financial industry which started as a niche market in early 1970s in the Middle East has made a place for it in more than fifty countries around the globe and has grown into a multi-trillion dollars industry. This paper attempts to explain the basic features of this fascinating model.


In Samantar v. Yousuf, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not govern the immunity of foreign officials from legal proceedings in U.S. courts. Part I of this symposium contribution seeks to put in sharper focus exactly what is, and what is not, in dispute following Samantar. Part II presents three challenges to common assumptions about conduct-based immunity, which I consider under the headings of personal responsibility, penalties, and presence. Under the heading of personal responsibility, I emphasize that state responsibility and individual responsibility are not mutually exclusive. Under penalties, I argue that civil immunity and criminal immunity are not fundamentally distinct. Under presence, I emphasize that a defendant who enters the forum state's territory might justifiably have a weaker claim to conduct-based immunity than one who does not. Part III suggests some factors that should guide lower courts in determining an individual defendant's entitlement to immunity going forward.


We demonstrate air-cladding single-mode waveguides operating at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths with propagation loss of 5 dB/cm at λ =402 nm. The waveguides are fabricated with atomic layer deposition (ALD) of aluminium oxide (AlOx) on SiO2/Si substrates and with contact optical lithography. This enables an efficient, costeffective and fast processing. Our result paves the way for on-chip UV spectroscopy.


PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja is a practical hands-on guide to learning all the tools, principles and techniques needed to build a fully-functional database-driven web site using PHP & MySQL.This book covers everything from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows, Linux, and Mac through to building a live web-based content management system.While this is essentially a beginner's book, it also covers more advanced topics such as the storage of binary data in MySQL, and cookies and sessions in PHP. It comes complete with a set of handy reference guides for PHP & MySQL that include:MySQL syntax MySQL functions MysQL column types PHP functions for working with MySQL


American law – in particular, American administrative law – grants citizens extensive rights to participate in government decision-making. Those rights kick in, most importantly, whenever a government entity engages in "rulemaking" as defined in the Administrative Procedure Act. When the federal government engages in rulemaking, it must give members of the public an opportunity to participate in its decision-making by submitting written comments with information or argument. And it must issue a written opinion articulating reasoned responses to any significant points that those public comments raise. The public's engagement with government in rulemaking, thus, is marked by a two-way dialogic commitment, in which government decision-makers may not simply ignore the arguments raised by citizens. Rather, they must engage with them and respond. I'll refer to citizens' entitlement to such consideration as the "right to be taken seriously."In this article, after examining the legal basis of the right to be taken seriously, I pose the question why we might value it. The first part of the answer is the easiest: mechanisms such as notice and comment help agencies make better decisions. The next part, though, is harder: does the presence of a right to be taken seriously make our government institutions more democratic? Commentators assume that it does. But standard theories of democracy and administrative law, I argue, don't provide satisfying basis for that conclusion.I argue nonetheless that a more satisfying basis exists, and that to see it, we should focus less on the individual's ability to comment than on the government's obligation to hear, engage, and respond. That requirement puts governors and governed in a discursive relationship. It compels the state to engage in communicative, reason-based, discourse rather than the mere exercise of power. The government's obligation in this manner to show respect, to treat commenters as democratic citizens rather than as objects of paternalistic control, is at the heart of the right to be taken seriously and its democratic bona fides.But there is, as always, a catch. I ground the democratic function of the right to be taken seriously in a theoretical understanding of democracy and, in part, in Habermas's conception of communicative rationality. But is this theory reflected in the everyday practice of notice-and-comment? The answer is no; not really. In practice, agencies are often swamped by comments and pay serious attention to only some of them. They attend to those comments filed by repeat players with instrumental power, and may send the rest off to outside contractors to be ignored. While the interaction, even in this limited form, has value in bringing information to the eyes of the agency, it's harder to argue that it's meaningfully democratic or democratizing.To illuminate this gap between theory and practice, I turn to some history. The right to be taken seriously isn't just a product of post-WWII environmental and administrative-law statutes. It has roots, rather, in a striking and neglected place: the historic understanding of right of the people, guaranteed by the first amendment, "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The first amendment's petition clause initially was understood to incorporate the same dialogic commitment as the modern right to be taken seriously: citizen expression of policy views coupled with an government obligation to attend to that input, to consider it on the merits, and to respond.That older understanding of the petition clause has disappeared today, in part a casualty of conflict over whether the 1840s Congress was obliged to receive and respond to petitions relating to the abolition of slavery. More importantly, the old understanding of petition died because it was the product of an pre-liberal political culture in which the relationship between citizens and governors was one of organic reciprocal obligation, not one of mass politics and electoral control. The old right to be taken seriously was rooted in the grace owed by a royal sovereign; it wasn't susceptible of legal enforcement, and it fit uneasily in a new world in which voting was the key link between citizen and government.When the new right to be taken seriously reappeared in modern administrative law, it was accompanied or the first time by an enforcement mechanism: the courts' determination to reverse agency decisions where the agency had neglected adequately to address facts and arguments raised in public comments. Yet that enforcement mechanism turned out to be too blunt an instrument. Courts can't compel agencies to attend to all comments; those that best reflect mass public sentiment are in one respect the most easily ignored.The right to be taken seriously is appealing because it promises that government will respond to citizens dialogically – that is, it will respond as if the relationship between government and citizen were the same sort of human relationship we have in those aspects of everyday life not driven by marketplace or government authority. Yet today as in the eighteenth century, that promise reaches beyond the limits of legal enforceability.The institution of notice-and-comment is tied to the idea of a dialogic, discursive relationship in which government must show the citizenry the respect of explaining itself – of hearing public comments and responding to them directly. That sort of relationship builds connection because it creates a sense that governors and governed are part of a shared community. But it's not really true. Agency members read public comments because they fear judicial reversal, not because they respect the commenters as individuals. There is no getting away from the instrumental nature of that relationship. And, in the end, that undercuts the democratic connection that the right to be taken seriously might otherwise make.


The Effect of Paracetamol, Metamizole Sodium and Ketoprofen on Postoperative Hemorrhage Following Pediatric Tonsillectomy
Aim: The aim of the present study was to determine the association between postoperative hemorrhage and using paracetamol, metamizole sodium and ketoprofen as analgesics after pediatric tonsillectomy.
Patients and Methods: 330 children with recurrent tonsillitis and/or obstructive symptoms were included in the present study. Children were divided into three groups based on the medicines used for postoperative pain. Each group was administered paracetamol, metamizole sodium or ketoprofen after the surgery. Study population was compared for postoperative hemorrhage. Chi-square test was used for statistical analysis.
Results: A total of 109 patients were administered ketoprofen while 110 patients received metamizole sodium and 111 patients received paracetamol. Post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage developed in 13 (3, 53) children among which there were three primary hemorrhage cases and one secondary hemorrhage case. Post-operative hemorrhage was observed in 5 (4, 36%) of the 109 cases receiving ketoprofen, in 4 (3, 64%) of the patients receiving metamizole sodium and in 4 (3, 57%) of the patients receiving paracetamol. There was no statistically significant difference with respect to hemorrhage rates among these three groups (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In our study, no significant increase was shown in hemorrhage risk after using ketoprofen, metamizole sodium and paracetamol, which suggests that these drugs can be used safely for post-tonsillectomy pain.


Purpose Over the past decade, linear and non-linear surface electromyography descriptors for central and peripheral components of fatigue have been developed. In the current study, we tested fractal dimension (FD) and conduction velocity (CV) as myoelectric descriptors of central and peripheral fatigue, respectively. To this aim, we analyzed FD and CV slopes during sustained fatiguing contractions of the quadriceps femoris in healthy humans. Methods A total of 29 recreationally active women (mean age±standard deviation: 24±4 years) and two female elite athletes (one power athlete, age 24 and one endurance athlete, age 30 years) performed two knee extensions: (1) at 20% maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) for 30 s, and (2) at 60% MVC held until exhaustion. Surface EMG signals were detected from the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis using bidimensional arrays. Results Central and peripheral fatigue were described as decreases in FD and CV, respectively. A positive correlation between FD and CV (R=0.51, p<0.01) was found during the sustained 60% MVC, probably as a result of simultaneous motor unit synchronization and a decrease in muscle fiber CV during the fatiguing task. Conclusions Central and peripheral fatigue can be described as changes in FD and CV, at least in young, healthy women. The significant correlation between FD and CV observed at 60% MVC suggests that a mutual interaction between central and peripheral fatigue can arise during submaximal isometric contractions.


The purpose of this study is to explore that, despite severe challenges, welfare economics still exists. This descriptive study is conducted through some specific time line developments in this field. Economists are divided over the veracity and survival of the welfare economics. Welfare economics emphasizes on the optimum resource and goods allocation with the objective of better living standard, materialistic gains, social welfare and ethical decisions. It origins back to the political economics and utilitarianism. Adam Smith, Irving Fisher and Pareto contributed significantly towards it. During 1930 to 1940, American and British approaches were developed. Many economists tried to explore the relationship between level of income and happiness. Amartya Sen gave the comparative approach and Tinbergen pioneered the theory of equity. Contemporarily the futuristic restoration of welfare economics is on trial and hopes are alive. This study may be useful to understand the transitional and survival process of welfare economics.


This book synthesizes the last 25 years of research on the prehistoric inhabitants of an intermontane basin located at elevations above 11,000 ft. This research is centered in the region of Antofagasta de la Sierra, which has yielded stimulating data on human occupations and paleoenvironmental conditions during the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary and continuously throughout the Holocene, including the very arid Middle Holocene -a time when the Atacama Desert to the west and the North Puna witnessed low intensity human occupations. The archaeological studies presented in this volume take on different aspects of human adaptation, from the earliest hunter-gatherers in the region to the transition toward food producing societies. Authors examine animal bones and fleece fibres, macro and micro-botanical remains, chipped and ground stone tools, and human burials from exceptionally well-preserved contexts in remarkable stratigraphic sequences from several rock-shelters, and discuss the relevance of their results in relation to hunter-gatherer settlement, subsistence and mobility strategies. This book aims at presenting the research to non-Spanish speaking audiences and at promoting a dialogue between archaeologists who study hunter-gatherers in deserts around the world. It is hoped that the research will contribute to a better understanding of the wide array of human adaptations in South America as well as to high altitude environments.


Due to computational expense, the current radiation scheme in the IFS is called infrequently in time (every hour in the high resolution forecast and every three hours in the ensemble system) and on a reduced spatial grid. This can lead to large surface temperature errors at coastal land points due to surface fluxes computed over the ocean being used where the skin temperature and surface albedo are very different. It can also lead to a lag in the diurnal cycle of surface temperature. This memorandum describes a computationally efficient solution to these problems, in which the surface longwave and shortwave fluxes are updated every timestep and gridpoint according to the local skin temperature and albedo. In order that energy is conserved, it is necessary to compute the change to the net flux profile consistent with the changed surface fluxes. The longwave radiation scheme has been modified to compute also the rate of change of the profile of upwelling longwave flux with respect to the value at the surface. Then at each gridpoint and timestep, the upwelling flux and heating-rate profiles are updated using the new value of skin temperature. The computational cost of performing approximate radiation updates is only 2% of the cost of the full radiation scheme, so increases the overall cost of the model by only of order 0.2%. Testing the new scheme by running daily 5-day forecasts over an eight-month period reveals significant improvement in 2-m temperature forecasts at coastal stations compared to observations.


Semiconductor diode lasers are presented whose active medium consists of quantum dots (QDs). Laser operation is based on zero-dimensionally localized carriers. High density arrays of uniform QDs are fabricated using epitaxy in the Stranski-Krastanow growth mode. Edge emitting and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers have been fabricated with some of their properties already exceeding the performance of conventional semiconductor diode lasers based on quantum wells.


Economic, health and social issues associated with the ageing population and the disconnect between the generations call for novel approaches to care services. Intergenerational programs are known to enhance engagement between generations, improve health and well‐being and create a stronger sense of community. While the health and social benefits are well documented, little attention has been given to the operational aspects of intergenerational programs within care facilities. This paper describes the research protocol used to develop, implement and evaluate an intergenerational learning program for preschool‐aged children and older people attending care services. The research focuses on five key areas: (a) impact on older people and children; (b) intergenerational learning; (c) workforce development; (d) socio‐economic implications and costs; and (e) program fidelity and sustainability. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to building age‐friendly communities through the development of practical operational guidelines for intergenerational learning programs to be implemented more broadly across Australia.


Many people suffer from knee pain due to abnormal function of the patellofemoral joint and are not able to enjoy normal activities of daily living. Surgical treatments are available and new methods are being developed by the medical industry. However, computational tools to efficiently evaluate the effects of the intervention on patellofemoral function are lacking. Therefore, a validated and efficient computational model of the patellofemoral joint was developed. The subject specific finite element model was validated against the patellar kinematics recorded during cadaveric patellofemoral laxity experiments of the natural knee. The development involved a sequential process in which the soft-tissue was represented with an increasingly more mechanistic approach with each model iteration. Medial and lateral PF laxity models were developed with the knee at several flexion angles (full extension, ~25 degrees, and ~60 degrees), and a model to simulate passive range of motion was also created. Optimization was conducted to fine-tune a selection of soft-tissue parameters in order to minimize the difference between model-predicted and experimental kinematic results. The average RMS differences for all degrees of freedom and for all flexion angles tested were 2.4 mm and 6.7 degrees with the most simplistic model iteration and 2.5 mm and 5.2 degrees with the most complex model iteration. When the RMS results for medial and lateral PF laxity models are isolated, an improvement is noticed for the most complex iteration's medial laxity results with average RMS differences of 1.6 mm and 4.4 degrees. The validated PF laxity model can be used to assess how changes in knee geometry affect factors such as soft tissue tension and patella tracking. Document Type Thesis Degree Name M.S. Department Mechanical Engineering First Advisor Paul J. Rullkoetter Second Advisor Peter Laz Third Advisor Chris Hughen


In today's telecommunication market, the increased complexity in the system and short release cycle of a product is becoming a challenge for the product testers. Due to increased competition in the telecom sector, a high reliability of complex software is always demanded by the customer, along with the cost reduction, from his contractor. A product has to be tested again if a small modification or some extra functionality is added in it. As testing is traditionally performed manually, which cannot assure that the software is tested using all possible combination of inputs. Therefore, to enhance the reliability of tests, there is a need of techniques which can improve the manual way of testing and assure the high performance and evaluation of the product. Clearly, the test automation techniques are getting more consideration due to its benefits. Therefore, in this thesis work an evaluation is made on model based testing (MBT) using Qtronic by Conformiq. Qtronic is a tool for automatic test case design that is driven by 'design models'. A simplified automatic teller machine (ATM) client-server system is used initially as a system under test (SUT), which is implemented in Java. Qtronic modeling language (QML) is used to design a model of ATM using finite state machines (FSM) notation. The 'design model' is a description of the intended behavior of the system on some level of abstraction. Qtronic designs test cases for a system automatically when it is given a 'design model' of a system as an input. The complexity of the test object is increased incrementally to evaluate how well suited Qtronic is for incremental design and how changes in a test object affects model based testing in broad implementation. Furthermore, an experiment is also performed to evaluate the test generation time of Qtronic, by moving the 'core logic' of the model to the test harness. However, it is recommended that a larger and more complex test object should be used to evaluate the model based testing using Qtronic.


This thesis introduces three new developments of the reduced basis method (RB) and the empirical interpolation method (EIM) for nonlinear problems. The first contribution is a new methodology, the Progressive RB-EIM (PREIM) which aims at reducing the cost of the phase during which the reduced model is constructed without compromising the accuracy of the final RB approximation. The idea is to gradually enrich the EIM approximation and the RB space, in contrast to the standard approach where both constructions are separate. The second contribution is related to the RB for variational inequalities with nonlinear constraints. We employ an RB-EIM combination to treat the nonlinear constraint. Also, we build a reduced basis for the Lagrange multipliers via a hierarchical algorithm that preserves the non-negativity of the basis vectors. We apply this strategy to elastic frictionless contact for non-matching meshes. Finally, the third contribution focuses on model reduction with data assimilation. A dedicated method has been introduced in the literature so as to combine numerical models with experimental measurements. We extend the method to a time-dependent framework using a POD-greedy algorithm in order to build accurate reduced spaces for all the time steps. Besides, we devise a new algorithm that produces better reduced spaces while minimizing the number of measurements required for the final reduced problem


Abstract. Despite the fact that frequent aerosol formation has been observed in various locations in the atmosphere, the overall magnitude of the new particle formation as a particle source is still unclear. In order to understand the particle formation and growth processes, we investigate the magnitudes of the particle formation and growth rates at the size where the real atmospheric nucleation and activation occurs. The relative contribution of neutral and charged particles to the new particle formation rate is also studied. The data include particle and ion number size distributions and total particle concentration measurements at a boreal forest site in Hyytiala, Finland, during the spring 2007 EUCAARI field campaign. The total and charged particle formation rates differed from each other by approximately an order of magnitude. The median formation rates of 2 nm total and charged particles were 0.65 cm−3 s−1 and 0.03 cm−3 s−1, respectively. The median growth rates of particles in size classes 1.3–3, 3–7 and 7–20 nm were 1.9, 3.6 and 4.2 nm h−1, respectively. The calculated ion-ion recombination rates were about the same order of magnitude as the ion-induced formation rates. The results indicate that the ion-induced nucleation involving the ion-ion recombination products, i.e. ion mediated nucleation, contributes approximately 10% to the boreal forest new particle formation events.


Many law librarians are currently beginning to explore the Internet as a source of legal information. One of the most frequently asked questions after one gets an Internet connection is "Where do I go from here?" The following pathfinder is a list of what I consider to be the most important resources which will lead the legal researcher to the widest possible amount of legal information on the Internet. This list is purely subjective, and certainly not complete. I tried to stick to the 'top five' format as much as possible, but every so often I couldn't help myself from cheating a bit. Information about Internet tools and commands mentioned in this handout can be found in the sources listed under "Five Best Guides," and "Five Best Online Guides." Please note that due to the ever changing nature of the Internet, the access instructions could change at any time.


Transnational networks of local authorities are an established and growing phenomenon in Europe, where they perform a number of (soft) governance functions for their membership, often in direct connection with EU institions. This paper examines networks from the angle of institutional differentiation – an inherent trait of these organisations – in order to expand the analysis of this concept beyond its state-centric confines. The paper also adds to the study of (differentiated) integration more traditionally defined, both by analogy and insofar as networks are part and parcel of the Union's system of multi-level governance. Building on original empirical data, we identify three dimensions of differentiation generated by networks – insider-outsider, compound and multi-level differentiation – and discuss their implications for the efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy of networks' actions. Based on our analysis, we formulate three broad recommendations for policy-makers involved in networks: first, strive for inclusion, especially of smaller and less administratively capable sub-national governments; second, improve available information on networks in order to make their landscape more efficient; third, exploit the paradiplomatic advantages of networks both outside and inside the European Union.


Following recommendations of a preliminary meeting in Calgary, Canada, in February 1974 between representatives of the IHD Committees of Canada, USA and Sweden, and discussions at the Unesco House in Paris, France, in September 1974 between representatives of the IHD Committees of Canada, USA, Finland, Norway and Sweden, a Workshop Symposium on Northern Research Basins - Objectives and Measurements was organized at Edefors, Sweden, 7–11 April 1975.

The meeting was convened jointly by the Swedish IHD Committee and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and organized by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. It was held close to the Lapptrasket Research Basin.

Participation in the workshop was arranged through the National IHD Committees of the participating countries: Canada, USA, Norway, Finland, the Soviet Union and Sweden.


First published in 1973, this book quickly became an indispensable short history of Canadian painting. This new edition has been extensively revised and expanded to reflect new information and new interpretations. The first edition studied Canadian painting through 1965, masterfully combining visual description, anecdotes, and aesthetic evaluation with full accounts of the careers of most of the leading Canadian painters, beginning in the French colonial period. The second edition covers events through 1980, with a new long chapter covering the crucial intervening fifteen years that saw developing in Canada a tremendous interest in other art forms, and an apparent waning of interest in painting. Reid contends that this was not so, and traces the contributions of established artists who produced steadily in the period as well as new arrivals on the scene who have since joined the ranks of leading Canadian artists. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 illustrations, 36 of them in color, this edition is simply the most wide-ranging and authoritative handbook on its subject available and will be of interest to anyone involved in art and art history.


From food punnets to credit cards, plastic facilitates every part of our daily lives. It has become central to processes of contemporary socio-material living. Universalised and abstracted, it is often treated as the passive object of political deliberations, or a problematic material demanding human management. But in what ways might a 'politics of plastics' deal with both its specific manifestation in particular artefacts and events, and its complex dispersed heterogeneity?

Accumulation explores the vitality and complexity of plastic. This interdisciplinary collection focuses on how the presence and recalcitrance of plastic reveals the relational exchanges across human and synthetic materialities. It captures multiplicity by engaging with the processual materialities or plasticity of plastic. Through a series of themed essays on plastic materialities, plastic economies, plastic bodies and new articulations of plastic, the editors and chapter authors examine specific aspects of plastic in action. How are multiple plastic realities enacted? What are their effects?


Applications that perform continuous sensing on mobile phones have the potential to revolutionize everyday life. Examples range from medical and health monitoring applications, such as pedometers and fall detectors, to participatory sensing applications, such as noise pollution, traffic and seismic activity monitoring. Unfortunately, current mobile devices are a poor match for continuous sensing applications as they require the device to remain awake for extended periods of time, resulting in poor battery life. We present Sidewinder, a new approach toward offloading sensor data processing to a lowpower processor and waking up the main processor when events of interest occur. Sidewinder differs from other heterogeneous architectures in that developers are presented with a programming interface that lets them construct custom wake-up conditions by linking together and parameterizing predefined sensor data processing algorithms. Sidewinder's wake-up conditions achieve energy efficiency matching fully programmable offloading, but do so with a much simpler programming interface that facilitates deployment and portability.


Digital technologies offer tremendous opportunities with respect to information access, storage and transmission, and digital reading environments offer ways to present information that are difficult or impossible to attain in text on paper. This is significantly changing the ways we read. Digital materials can be adapted to each individual's skill level, enabling flexible learning processes to accommodate the particular needs and developments of each reader. At the same time, empirical research indicates that the affordances of screens may also foster less advantageous reading developments, habits and mind sets.This warrants balancing the discourse on possibilities and advantages of digital technologies. To this purpose 'Evolution of Reading in the Age of Digitisation' (E-READ) — a research initiative funded by COST (European Cooperation in Science & Technology) as Action IS1404 — has brought together almost 200 scholars and scientists of reading, publishing, and literacy from across Europe. Starting from the assumption that the introduction of digital technologies for reading are not neutral regarding cognition and comprehension, the members of the network joined in an effort to research how readers, and particularly children and young adults, comprehend or remember written text when using print versus digital materials.The articles in this special issue have been written by members of the EW-READ network to discuss indepth way a number of findings, hypotheses and recommendations that came out of their research about print versus screen reading.


Abstract

Questions are never asked without a reason, and whenever a question is made, it becomes a vehicle for another action. Questions, on their most basic level, endeavour to strike up an epistemic balance between the interlocutors in that the questioner appears to be seeking information. This study builds on the body of existing literature on questioning in interaction. It explores questions and questioning through a corpus of police interviews recorded in a police station in a Montenegrin city, with a particular focus on how the participants to interrogations are managing questions with purpose in Serbo-Croatian. Similar to other types of institutional interaction in the literature, this study shows that when asking questions, detectives have in mind completing a range of smaller 'jobs' as well as solving the project in general. Thus, chapter 4 shows how while performing these jobs, close connection is exhibited between the linguistic form, epistemics and action. The detectives, for instance, select from different linguistic forms of 'do you know' interrogatives in order to perform different actions, such as asking for information, asking for confirmation or preparing the ground for another activity. Moreover, the roles of participants in interrogations heavily affect the language and interactional techniques they are using. Thus, certain interactional techniques are noted to be tied only to certain types of interviews and to certain tasks of the detectives. Chapter 5 indicates that the detectives use the technique of repeating a part or the whole of the received answer only when speaking with suspects and in order to express doubts about their answers. At the same time, chapter 6 shows that only those interlocutors, who in the course of interrogation realise they are being treated as suspects use rhetorical questions as a defensive technique specific of this interactional identity. This study generally supports the thesis that questioning is never done without a specific action in mind and that a range of possible activities can be performed through the question-answer pairs in interrogation.


Excitotoxicity plays a key role during insults to the developing brain such as neonatal encephalopathy, stroke, and encephalopathy of prematurity. Such insults affect many thousands of infants each year. Excitotoxicity causes frank lesions due to cell death and gliosis and disturbs normal developmental process, leading to deficits in learning, memory, and social integration that persist into adulthood. Understanding the underlying processes of the acute effects of excitotoxicity and its persistence during brain maturation provides an opportunity to identify mechanistic or diagnostic biomarkers, thus enabling and designing possible therapies. We applied mass spectrometry to provide metabolic profiles of brain tissue and plasma over time following an excitotoxic lesion (intracerebral ibotenate) to the neonatal (postnatal day 5) mouse brain. We found no differences between the plasma from the control (PBS-injected) and excitotoxic (ibotenate-injected) groups over time (on postnatal days 8, 9, 10, and 30). In the brain, we found that variations in amino acids (arginine, glutamine, phenylananine, and proline) and glycerophospholipids were sustaining acute and delayed (tertiary) responses to injury. In particular, the effect of the excitotoxic lesion on the normal profile of development was linked to alterations in a fingerprint of glycerophospolipids and amino acids. Specifically, we identified increases in the amino acids glutamine, proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan, valine, and the sphingolipid SM C26:1, and decreases in the glycerophospholipids, i.e., the arachidonic acid-containing phosphatidylcholine (PC aa) C30:2 and the PC aa C32:3. This study demonstrates that metabolic profiling is a useful approach to identify acute and tertiary effects in an excitotoxic lesion model, and generating a short list of targets with future potential in the hunt for identification, stratification, and possibly therapy.


The internet of things (IoT) generally refers to the embedding of computing and communication devices in various types of physical objects (e.g., automobiles) used in people's daily lives. This paper draws on feedback intervention theory to investigate the impact of IoT-enabled immediate feedback interventions on individual task performance. Our research context is a smart testsimulation service based on internet-of-vehicles (IoV) technology that was implemented by a large driver-training service provider in China. This system captures and analyzes data streams from onboard sensors and cameras installed in vehicles in real time and immediately provides individual students with information about errors made during simulation tests. We postulate that the focal smart service functions as a feedback intervention (FI) that can improve task performance. We also hypothesize that student training schedules moderate this effect and propose an interaction effect on student performance based on feedback timing and the number of FI cues. We collected data about students' demographics, their training session records, and information about their simulation test(s) and/or their official driving skills field tests and used a quasi-experimental method along with propensity score matching to empirically validate our research model. Difference-in-difference analysis and multiple regression results support the significant impact of the simulation test as an FI on student performance on the official driving skills field test. Our results also supported the interaction effect between feedback timing and the number of corrective FI cues on official test performance. This paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical contributions and practical significance of our research.