The playback of sounds to animals to assess their behavioural responses presents a powerful tool to study animal cognition in the wild. While playbacks are commonly used to study acoustic responses in birds and other terrestrial animals, their application to the study of marine mammal cognition so far has been limited. A survey of the published literature on field playback experiments with marine mammals identified 46 studies, with a trend towards increased use of play-back approaches in recent years. Field playbacks to marine mammals have been used to address questions of wildlife management, the impact of anthropogenic noise, acoustic interactions between predators and prey, individual and kin recognition, as well as the function of communicative sounds. This paper summarizes the major findings of marine mammal playbacks to date and reviews recent advances in the design and execution of playback experiments, with special reference to marine mammals. Issues concerning appropriate presentation of acoustic stimuli, appropriate quantification of behavioural responses, as well as appropriate control and replication of treatments are discussed. An analysis of replication in marine mammal playbacks showed that the use of a small number of playback stimuli to conduct multiple playback trials (pseudoreplication) was common. This overview of playback experiments in the study of marine mammal cognition in the wild showed that such approaches contribute significantly to the field; however, in many cases, there appears to be substantial room for improvement of playback procedure and experimental design.


James Garvey's short book The ethics of climate change is designed as an introductory text on a dauntingly complex and serious question. The issue is complex because it involves questions of scientific fact, competing understandings of moral value, different conceptions and levels of moral responsibility, and conflicts between the moral principles that one can call upon to guide or assess policy-making. It is serious because even conservative estimates of climate change indicate its alarming potential to disrupt and threaten the lives of humans and other animals and forms of life over the next century.


Empty fruit bunches (EFB) from palm oil were characterized. The holocellulose (66.97%), α-cellulose (47.91%), and lignin (24.45%) are similar to wood materials, and various non-wood materials, but the fiber length is shorter (0.53 mm). The influence of operational variables in the EFB pulping [formic acid (75-95%), hydrochloric acid (0.05-0.15%), and time (30-150 min)], on the yield, kappa number, viscosity, and brightness of the pulps was studied. By using a factorial design, equations that reproduced the experimental results for the dependent variables, errors less than 10% were obtained. These equations could be used to find suitable conditions, so that operating with not too high values of operating variables (with minor costs of capital and of operation), pulps could be obtained with acceptable properties. In this way, a cellulosic pulp with a 42.3% yield, 22.7% brightness, and a 512 mL/g viscosity was obtained under the following conditions: 92.5% of formic acid, 0.075% of hydrochloric acid, and a time of 60 min. A pulp (31.1 kappa number and 606 mL/g viscosity) was bleached by EPabOPoP sequence, achieving a brightness of 69.4%, a loss of viscosity and yield of 34.8% and 13.1%, respectively. The residual liquor from the pulping with formic acid 95%, 0.05% hydrochloric acid and 30 min, provides a liquor with 18.2% residual lignin, 4.1% glucose, 9.8% xylose, and 1.2% arabinose, all on dry weight of original material.


The hyaluronan (HA) receptor for endocytosis (HARE) is a multifunctional recycling clearance receptor for 14 different ligands, including HA and heparin (Hep), which bind to discrete nonoverlapping sites. Four different functional endocytic motifs (M) in the cytoplasmic domain (CD) target coated pit mediated uptake: (YSYFRI2485 (M1), FQHF2495 (M2), NPLY2519 (M3), and DPF2534 (M4)). We previously found (Pandey et al. J. Biol. Chem. 283, 21453, 2008) that M1, M2, and M3 mediate endocytosis of HA. Here we assessed the ability of HARE variants with a single-motif deletion or containing only a single motif to endocytose HA or Hep. Single-motif deletion variants lacking M1, M3, or M4 (a different subset than involved in HA uptake) showed decreased Hep endocytosis, although M3 was the most active; the remaining redundant motifs did not compensate for loss of other motifs. Surprisingly, a HARE CD variant with only M3 internalized both HA and Hep, whereas variants with either M2 or M4 alone did not endocytose either ligand. Internalization of HA and Hep by HARE CD mutants was dynamin-dependent and was inhibited by hyperosmolarity, confirming clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The results indicate a complicated relationship among multiple CD motifs that target coated pit uptake and a more fundamental role for motif M3.


I a new comprehensive study, scientists have determined that the chance of having one or more magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquakes in the California area over the next 30 years is greater than 99%. Such quakes can be deadly, as shown by the 1989 magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta and the 1994 magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquakes. The likelihood of at least one even more powerful quake of magnitude 7.5 or greater in the next 30 years is 46%—such a quake is most likely to occur in the southern half of the State. Building codes, earthquake insurance, and emergency planning will be affected by these new results, which highlight the urgency to prepare now for the powerful quakes that are inevitable in California's future.


An exceptionally interesting case of performance in contemporary art are
artworks, in which artists do not present a performance itself but rather
its effects. For these artists a performance is somehow included in the
tissue of the artwork; it was indispensable for the artwork to be created,
yet it is hidden so the viewer needs to make an effort to reconstruct this
performative character of the artwork and understand (become aware
of) the resulting consequences. The text analyses works by Akira Komoto
(the Seeing series), the realization by Lech Twardowski (Generator Bez
Maszyn), three series of works by Urszula Wilk (Niewysłane listy) as well
as selected sculptures by Shen Shaomin (the Bonsai series). Although in
these works we deal with various forms of performativeness, their joint
feature is the fact that in each of them the viewer must discover and reconstruct
the hidden performance in his/her memory.


Structured Query Language (SQL) is used for interaction between database technology and its users. In higher education, students often struggle with understanding the underlying logic of SQL, thus have trouble with understanding how and why a result table is created from a query. A prototype of a visual learning tool for SQL, viSQLizer, has been developed to determine if visualizations could help students create a mental model and thus enhance their understanding of the underlying logic of SQL. Trough the use of animations and decomposing, our results indicate that visualizations might give students a better understanding of the underlying logic, and that students gain the same learning outcome through visualizations as when using an online tutorial with explanatory text and exercises. Feedback from both professors and students from conducted interviews and experiments indicate that the tool could be used by professors as a visualization tool in lectures, and by students as a practical tool; not as a replacement of, but as an addition to traditional teaching methods.


Genes that are differentially expressed in pancreatic cancers and under epigenetic regulation are of considerable biological and therapeutic interest. We used global gene expression profiling and epigenetic treatment of pancreatic cell lines including pancreatic cancer cell lines, pancreatic cancer–associated fibroblasts, and cell lines derived from nonneoplastic pancreata. We examined expression and epigenetic alterations of cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) and COX-2 in pancreatic cancers and normal pancreas and performed proliferation, knockdown, and coculture experiments to understand the role of stromal sources of prostaglandins for pancreatic cancers. We identify COX-1 as a gene under epigenetic regulation in pancreatic cancers. We find that COX-1 expression is absent in many pancreatic cancer cells and some of these cancers also lack COX-2 expression. Suspecting that such cancers must rely on exogenous sources of prostaglandins, we show that pancreatic cancer stromal cells, such as fibroblasts expressing COX-1 and COX-2, are a likely source of prostaglandins for pancreatic cancer cells deficient in COX. Knocking down the prostaglandin transporter multidrug resistance–associated protein-4 in fibroblasts suppresses the proliferation of cocultured pancreatic cancer cells lacking COX. Pancreatic cancers that lack COX can use exogenous sources of prostaglandins. Blocking multidrug resistance–associated protein-4 may be a useful therapeutic strategy to deplete COX-deficient pancreatic cancers of prostaglandins. Mol Cancer Res; 8(6); 821–32. ©2010 AACR.


This paper offers a working conversation between the authors about the uneasy relationship between literacy studies and learning technologies. We come from the field of literacy studies but from contrasting perspectives: from academic literacies and work on literacies and technologies in higher education; from an interest in media theory and the implications of digital mediation for the contemporary university; from everyday literacies in informal settings and a concern for the gaps between policy and practice. We illustrate our perspectives through reference to post-compulsory education, especially higher education, but intend our arguments to be of broader value to all sectors of education and learning. We argue that it is probably inevitable that terms such as literacy/digital/network will be taken up by different arenas of scholarship and practice to mean different things, but what is important is finding spaces to make visible the embedded and implicit understandings, assumptions and ideological positions that are carried by these terms. In the paper, we attempt to lay bare some of the tendencies in the different approaches and argue the case for building on these differences in our work rather than seeing them as paradigm contests. We suggest that it would be more generative to the field to acknowledge the richness and diversity of these different traditions, rather than attempting the impossible task of forcing them into a superficial reconciliation. Keywords:  literacies; digital; textual practices; learning landscapes; ethnographic (Published: 31 January 2014) Citation : Research in Learning Technology 2014,  21 : 21438 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21.21438


The objective of this article is to demonstrate how the choice of starting material determines potential carbon product properties. Activation can only "develop" an activated carbon skeleton, using the building blocks supplied by the original starting material. The resultant activated carbon skeleton defines the adsorption pore structure and thus all the physical adsorption characteristics of the ensuing activated carbon products, and these in turn dictate the performance of the activated carbon product in any application.


My thesis examines the contemporary Tibetan art movement that has emerged not only in the Tibetan homeland but also amongst the Tibetan diaspora. As the movement spans temporal and spatial boundaries, national and geographical borders, it is appropriate to examine the movement in the context of globalisation.
I argue that these contemporary Tibetan artists are re-claiming their identity: an identity which has been usurped, not only by the Chinese occupation of their homeland which resulted in suppression of Tibetan culture within Tibet and displacement of culture in case of the diaspora, but also by the pervasive Orientalist view of Tibet as an exotic Shangri-La, a remote and imaginary utopia. This identity emerges in a post-modern global era as one that draws on a sense of place and culture to reflect on issues that transcend the local and have a universal relevance. I examine the different ways in which the artists, in both their homeland and in exile, negotiate their modern Tibetan identity, and how this is expressed in their art.
Works of contemporary Tibetan art often involve the deconstruction and reconfiguration of Tibetan Buddhist iconography. They challenge art audiences to confront the stereotypes and assumptions of Tibetan culture. In this thesis I argue that while these artworks may appear iconoclastic, the artists do not reject tradition or denigrate religious images, but rather, reinterpret Buddhist iconography in a way that is relevant to current day issues in contemporary life. By redeploying Buddhist iconography in a contemporary context, these artists renew Tibetan art and Tibetan Buddhist culture, thereby helping to keep this endangered culture vital and dynamic.
My thesis is largely based on extensive interviews with artists both in Tibet and the diaspora. In addition, the key authors and publications that have informed my work are: Clare Harris, anthropologist and curator at Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, particularly her two books: In the Image of Tibet: Tibetan Painting after 1959 (1991) and The Museum on the Roof of the World (2012); Giuseppe Tucci; David Jackson; Per Kvaerne; Donald Lopez; Janet Gyatso, as well as contemporary Tibetan scholars, such as Tsering Shakya. I also draw on the work of post-colonial thinkers, such as Edward Said, and contemporary art theorists such as Nicolas Bourriaud, particularly his publication Altermodern: Tate Triennial, 2009.
Little serious scholarship has been undertaken into this relatively new art movement. Tibet's unique socio-political situation, with its homeland now in China, a government-in-exile in India and widespread diaspora in the West, poses important questions with regard to identity in a globalised world that no longer conforms to the centre-periphery paradigm but rather accedes to a system of multi-directional cultural flows. The concept of a transnational art movement, which is nevertheless identifiable by its cultural foundation, is an important area of inquiry in terms of what it can say about the evolution of society and culture in a globalised world. It also has implications for the
Eurocentric stranglehold over art history, notions of hybridity and Western cultural stereotypes of "the other". By focusing on the contemporary art of the Tibetan community, my intention is to contribute to the post-Orientalist discussion of culture and unravel a complex iconography for a global audience.


A software engineering department in a Daimler-Chrysler business unit was highly professional at developing embedded software for busses and coaches. However, customer specific add-ons were a regular source of hassle. Simple as they are, those individual requirements have to be implemented in hours or days rather than weeks or months. Poor quality or late upload into the bus hardware would cause serious cost and overhead. Established software engineering methods were considered inadequate and needed to be cut short. Agile methods offer guidance when quality, flexibility and high speed need to be reconciled. However, we did not adopt any full agile method, but added single agile practices to our process improvement toolbox. We suggested a number of classical process improvement activities (such as more systematic documentation and measurement) and combined them with agile elements (e.g. Test First Process). This combination seemed to foster acceptance of agile ideas and may help us to break the ice for a cautious extension of agile process improvement.


The Nd:YAG 4F3/2−4I9/2 laser transition is investigated by use of diode pumping. A tuning range of λ = 945.46(2)−946.27(2) nm was achieved. A resonator was used with two foci for the laser crystal and the frequency-doubling crystal. The setup resulted in a single-mode output power of 100 mW at 473 nm. The laser radiation was also frequency quadrupled to the UV by use of an external enhancement cavity. The laser frequency was locked to an external cavity, resulting in a laser linewidth of 460 Hz. The use of the laser to excite the 5s2 1S0−5s5p3P0 line of a single stored In+ ion as the basis of a frequency standard is discussed.


The analysis conditions for measuring trace concentration of Cr(VI) based on the ion chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (IC-ICP-MS) method was examined. By optimizing the analysis conditions, the measurement of 0.02 μg-Cr(VI)/L was achieved with a high degree of accuracy. The behavior of Cr(VI) through the water treatment process in Osaka city was investigated and it was determined that there was a tendency that the Cr(VI) concentration slightly fluctuated throughout the water treatment process with the highest concentration being observed in finished water. The Cr(VI) concentration at the outlet of Kunijima purification plant was less than 0.02–0.13 μg/L, while water taps where retention time from the plant was 4–15 h, were less than 0.02–0.10 μg/L. Also, it was found that Cr(III) was oxidized to Cr(VI) by sodium hypochlorite and ozone being used in the water treatment process. Based on this finding, the oxidation reaction of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) was examined. When sodium hypochlorite was added to granular activated carbon (GAC)-treated water and purified water containing Cr(III), the oxidation of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) proceeded and the Cr(VI) production in GAC-treated water was relatively higher. In addition, it was determined that the Cr(III) oxidation reaction rate depended on water temperature and it was faster when the water temperature was higher.


Framed by Self-Determination Theory, this investigation explored student experience as they engaged in their Physical Education (PE), Health and Wellbeing curriculum in Scotland for the first time. We aimed to uncover the features of various learning environments that appeared to impact upon student motivation in PE over the period one academic year. We carried out focus group interviews with students from one state secondary school (secondary 1 and 2; ages 12-14) and its feeder primary schools (primary 7; age 11 years) immediately after a selection of PE lessons throughout the year. Furthermore, to provide some additional context for our analysis, the students in each year completed a questionnaire (pre-post) to identify and understand their motivation for PE over time. The results from the interviews indicated that students had a number of positive and negative PE experiences. However, the results from the questionnaire demonstrate that the students' experiences during the first year of this 'new' curriculum had little impact on their motivation for PE. The findings highlight the importance of mixed methods research to provide context-specific account of student experience. This detail may be critical for the development of informed and effective pedagogy that supports student learning, health and wellbeing.


As part of the development of a New Zealand Road Safety 2010 Strategy strong community support was evident for a structured approach to address road engineering safety issues. The method of achieving this was seen as through the adoption of SMS. This paper describes what a SMS is, what are its benefits and what it should contain. The model used to implement "best practice" SMS within New Zealand (NZ) Road Controlling Authorities (RCAs) is also presented. This paper is intended to showcase and create discussion on the innovations in road safety engineering that have come out of a SMS development project involving NZ RCAs. This project is a key component of the NZ Road Safety 2010 Strategy. The project envisages all RCAs within NZ will operate a SMS by 2007. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E210298.


Mathurin Coffi Nago is a specialist in food processing. He is Professor of Biochemistry and Food Technology at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, the National University of Benin and Coordinator of the Regional Applied Nutrition and Food Centre (CERNA - Centre regional de nutrition et d'alimentation appliquees and of the AVAL project (Action de valorization des Food processing in Africa is mainly the domain of a wide variety of small businesses that are mostly in the informal sector. Just as the major European businesses have their strengths and weaknesses, so these small enterprises have advantages which they must exploit and problems which they must overcome if they are to develop further.

The major constraint to the expansion of the small-scale food processing industry is low output due to the use of traditional technology. Gari, for example, is in strong demand and has even travailed as far afield as Europe. But, the yield of gari from the basic cassava is usually less than 20 per cent. Improvements in processing could lead to considerable reductions in losses while at the same time increasing the returns to labour.

The education level of small-scale processors is another fundamental problem. In West Africa some 60% of them, mostly women, are illiterate. This often prevents them from appreciating the risks associated with their methods and techniques. For example, basic hygiene measures are seldom implemented, despite the fact that urban consumers are demanding higher standards of hygiene. Low educational standards also lead to ignorance of basic management principles and this often leads to bankruptcy: by confusing turnover with profit, some people spend all the income without making provision for expenses or the purchase of new stocks. These problems could be avoided by training and providing market information to processors.

Difficulties in obtaining formal credit restrict the possibilities of expansion and the small proportion of profit reinvested in the business is the reason why a woman with a small restaurant or maquis' can find herself still at 'square one' after ten or fifteen years. Small scale processors, therefore, have many problems but they also have several trump cards that they must take advantage of

The small-scale food processing industry has the advantage of being based mainly on traditional products that are still important in the diets of urban people. Market share increases in proportion to the improvements that can be made in the quality of the product. Our surveys show that people eat less on the street as rhey become more sophisticated and you can hear the comment, 'I really would like to but the hygiene standards are not what I expect.' It is clear that a small business can progress to selling to a higher, stratum of social class with more disposable income if it improves the quality of its product.

Small-scale producers can be better off in local marketing networks where it is difficult for larger operations to compete. Attieke is a typical granular cassava product that is popular in Cote d'lvoire and tens of tonnes are brought into Abidjan each day from small rural or suburban factories. Attempts to manufacture this product on an industrial scale have failed because consumers do not consider it as good as the traditional item. Industrial processes have difficulty in copying a traditional product without losing some or all of its qualities. The selling price also has to be much higher because of the cost of the technology employed in its manufacture.

The demand for a longer shelf life of products

Industrial production will succeed, however, if it can add some little 'extra' that is liked by the consumer. we carried out an experiment with aklui at the National University of Benin, where one of our major research areas is to add value to local food products and to design equipment that will satisfy the demand for a longer shelf life of products. Aklui is a granulated food based on maize that is widely eaten for breakfast in Benin, Togo and Ghana. Preparation by traditional methods takes a long time. we have mechanized the rolling operation, which is the most difficult process, and improved the yield and stability of the product, which is dried before being packed in plastic bags. Porridge with the improved aklui can be made in five minutes. It is now in great demand, not only in Benin but also throughout West Africa and even in other parts of the continent and in Europe, even though it costs three or four times as much as the traditional product. The technology is now also available for some types of small-scale production of aklui. we are also developing a type of couscous made from maize, known locally as yekeyeke, which will be able to be manufactured on an industrial scale.

The conservative food habits of consumers, including those living in urban areas, is a major advantage for small-scale producers. The short or even direct chain from the producer to the consumer is a further advantage in making local production competitive. The close relationship of the two sides of the equation means that producers are intimately aware of the needs of the consumers and can adapt to them.

In spite of this, however, consumers are open to new commodities from other countries in the region. This change is rather slow at the moment and we have noticed that there is a time lapse from the arrival of a primary product to mastering the procedures needed for it to be used Maize, for example, is gaining ground in northern Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso even though people are not able to use it properly. This is why we undertook an information transfer programme between Senegal, Burkina Faso and Benin. Taste and acceptability tests were carried out in the framework of the AVAL (Action de valorization des savoirsfaire alimentaires locaux Benefiting from knowledge of local foods) project. These showed that people in Burkina Faso were in favour of pasta type products, which they are used to, whereas they were not liked in Senegal where granulated foods such as couscous and aklui are preferred.

Small-scale businesses therefore have plenty of opportunities. They can broaden their product range and also supply very narrow market niches that larger industrial enterprises cannot. By making the correct production and marketing choices for their products, small scale business can prove successful.


The positive outcome of any therapeutic molecule requires control over its delivery rate. When delivered without control, administration of large doses is required to stimulate a therapeutic effect, frequently leading to increased toxicity or undesirable side effects. Recent advances introduced "smart" materials that actively release drugs in response to environmental stimuli. Although a variety of endogenous and exogenous triggers are reported, they are either difficult to control or lack tissue penetration depth. We report here a dynamic drug delivery scaffold based on a cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) host and benzylammonium functionalized gold nanoparticle (AuNP) guest that utilizes a bioorthogonal small molecule to achieve therapeutic control. In addition to their ability to reach deep tissue, small molecule activation is benefitted by their external controllability. Through cell culture studies we demonstrate that the host–guest supramolecular scaffold provides a nontoxic platform that effectively encapsulates a variety of therapeutic molecules and controls the payload release upon exposure to a high-affinity competitive guest molecule. This study presents a new strategy for controlling drug release rate through the use of competitive interactions of orthogonally presented guest molecules with immediate advantages in dosage control.


It is estimated that 5 to 20% of neurodevelopmental disabilities in children are caused by environmental toxic exposures. Lead, methylmercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are known to have neurobehavioral and neurodevelopmental consequences in animal models and human population studies. Bioaccumulation and exposures during gestation transfer from mother to fetus via the placenta and to an infant and young child through lactation. Little is known about multiple environmental chemical exposures, especially among childbearing-aged women. This descriptive and exploratory study involved analysis of existing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a national probability sample. Lead, methylmercury and the summed value of four lipid-adjusted PCB congeners (118, 138/158, 153, 180) were measured in the blood or serum of childbearing-aged females aged 16 to 49 of diverse races and ethnicities who were living in the U.S. 1999 to 2004, including a subset of pregnant women. Exposure was defined as two or more xenobiotic blood levels at or above the geometric mean. Sexton, Olden and Johnson's modified environmental health paradigm (1993) guided the selection of 62 measures of vulnerability (susceptibilityand exposure-related attributes, socioeconomic factors and race-ethnicity). Findings were reported for weighted (adjusted) data. The prevalence of exposures was widespread among childbearing-aged women, one fifth of whom had xenobiotic blood levels at or above the geometric mean for all three chemicals. Overall, pregnant women had lower prevalence rates. Best-fit logistic regression exposure model contained 13 variables. Three were notable. Any fish consumption in past 30 days tripled the risk. A non-linear relationship was demonstrated with increasing age, exponential at ages 40 to 49. Past and current breastfeeding was protective for these women. Current pregnancy was protective with regard to individual chemical exposures only. Statistically significant two-way interactions were identified even though the paradigm could not be fully tested. Further research on exposures to multiple environmental chemicals using the modified environmental health paradigm is needed. Xenobiotic biomonitoring in conjunction with risk communication among childbearing-aged women is encouraged. Precautionary level interventions aimed at eliminating or minimizing exposures are urgently needed. Bioaccumulation and transgenerational consequences of exposures should be addressed in public health policy.


A number of pathophysiologically relevant genes, including platelet-derived growth factor B-chain (PDGF-B), are induced in the vasculature after acute mechanical injury. In rat aorta, the activated expression of these genes was preceded by a marked increase in the amount of the early-growth-response gene product Egr-1 at the endothelial wound edge. Egr-1 interacts with a novel element in the proximal PDGF-B promoter, as well as with consensus elements in the promoters of other genes induced by endothelial injury. This interaction is crucial for injury-induced PDGF-B promoter-dependent expression. Sp1, whose binding site in the PDGF-B promoter overlaps that of Egr-1, occupies this element in unstimulated cells and is displaced by increasing amounts of Egr-1. These findings implicate Egr-1 in the up-regulated expression of PDGF-B and other potent mediators in mechanically injured arterial endothelial cells.


Over the course of its 150-year history, California has successfully protected its scenic wilderness areas, restricted coastal oil drilling, regulated automobile emissions, preserved coastal access, improved energy efficiency, and, most recently, addressed global climate change. How has this state, more than any other, enacted so many innovative and stringent environmental regulations over such a long period of time? This book shows why the Golden State has been at the forefront in setting new environmental standards, often leading the rest of the nation. From the establishment of Yosemite, America's first protected wilderness, and the prohibition of dumping gold-mining debris in the nineteenth century to sweeping climate-change legislation in the twenty-first, the book traces California's remarkable environmental policy trajectory. It explains that this pathbreaking role developed because California had more to lose from environmental deterioration and more to gain from preserving its stunning natural geography. As a result, citizens and civic groups effectively mobilized to protect and restore their state's natural beauty and, importantly, were often backed both by business interests and by strong regulatory authorities. Business support for environmental regulation in California reveals that strict standards are not only compatible with economic growth but can also contribute to it. The book also examines areas where California has fallen short, particularly in water management and the state's dependence on automobile transportation.


Inferring the most likely configuration for a subset of variables of a joint distribution given the remaining ones -- which we refer to as co-generation -- is an important challenge that is computationally demanding for all but the simplest settings. This task has received a considerable amount of attention, particularly for classical ways of modeling distributions like structured prediction. In contrast, almost nothing is known about this task when considering recently proposed techniques for modeling high-dimensional distributions, particularly generative adversarial nets (GANs). Therefore, in this paper, we study the occurring challenges for co-generation with GANs. To address those challenges we develop an annealed importance sampling based Hamiltonian Monte Carlo co-generation algorithm. The presented approach significantly outperforms classical gradient based methods on a synthetic and on the CelebA and LSUN datasets.


Sparse coding, a method of explaining sensory data with as few dictionary bases as possible, has attracted much attention in computer vision. For visual object category recognition, l1 regularized sparse coding is combined with the spatial pyramid representation to obtain state-of-the-art performance. However, because of its iterative optimization, applying sparse coding onto every local feature descriptor extracted from an image database can become a major bottleneck. To overcome this computational challenge, this paper presents "Generalized Lasso based Approximation of Sparse coding" (GLAS). By representing the distribution of sparse coefficients with slice transform, we fit a piece-wise linear mapping function with the generalized lasso. We also propose an efficient post-refinement procedure to perform mutual inhibition between bases which is essential for an overcomplete setting. The experiments show that GLAS obtains a comparable performance to l1 regularized sparse coding, yet achieves a significant speed up demonstrating its effectiveness for large-scale visual recognition problems.


One primary goal in rescue robotics is to deploy a team of robots for coordinated victim search after a disaster. This requires robots to perform sub- tasks, such as victim detection, in real-time. Human detection by computationally cheap techniques, such as color thresholding, turn out to produce a large number of false-positives. Markov Random Fields (MRFs) can be utilized to combine the local evidence of multiple weak classifiers in order to improve the detection rate. However, inference in MRFs is computational expensive. In this paper we present a novel approach for the genetic optimizing of the building process of MRF models. The genetic algorithm determines offline relevant neighborhood relations with respect to the data, which are then utilized for generating efficient MRF models from video streams during runtime. Experimental results clearly show that compared to a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based classifier, the optimized MRF models significantly reduce the false-positive rate. Furthermore, the optimized models turned out to be up to five times faster then the non-optimized ones at nearly the same detection rate.


Respiratory alkalosis is the most frequent acid-base disturbance encountered in clinical practice. This is particularly true in critically ill patients, for whom the degree of hypocapnia directly correlates with adverse outcomes. Although this acid-base disturbance often is considered benign, evidence suggests that the alkalemia of primary hypocapnia can cause clinically significant decreases in tissue oxygen delivery. Mild respiratory alkalosis often serves as a marker of an underlying disease and may not require therapeutic intervention. In contrast, severe respiratory alkalosis should be approached with a sense of urgency and be aggressively corrected. Am J Kidney Dis. 60(5):834-838. © 2012 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.


Anticoagulation therapy is mandatory in patients with pulmonary embolism to prevent significant morbidity and mortality. The mainstay of therapy has been vitamin-K antagonist therapy bridged with parenteral anticoagulants. The recent approval of new oral anticoagulants (NOACs: apixaban, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban) has generated significant interest in their role in managing venous thromboembolism, especially pulmonary embolism due to their improved pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles, predictable anticoagulant response, and lack of required efficacy monitoring. This paper addresses the available literature, on-going clinical trials, highlights critical points, and discusses potential advantages and disadvantages of the new oral anticoagulants in patients with pulmonary embolism.


What calls for justice? Are we called to do justice to other animals? How ought we to understand and relate to the other animals around us? The work of Jacques Derrida offers a strong foundation from which to consider these questions, and I build on his work by developing a set of clear conceptual tools to understand justice and animality (or animal alterity) through the demands they make on us. I argue that this interrelation between justice and animality can be addressed in a profound way by considering the figure of "the call"—including the calls of other animals and the call of justice. I use the "the call" to offer the reader a tool for opening up their own relations to other animals, their responsibilities to them, and the richly differentiated lives of those other animals, all of which can be addressed by carefully listening to the call.


Miners are exposed to silica-bearing dust which can lead to silicosis, a potentially fatal lung disease. Currently, airborne silica is measured by collecting filter samples and sending them to a laboratory for analysis. Since this may take weeks, a field method is needed to inform decisions aimed at reducing exposures. This study investigates a field-portable Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) method for end-of-shift (EOS) measurement of silica on filter samples. Since the method entails localized analyses, spatial uniformity of dust deposition can affect accuracy and repeatability. The study, therefore, assesses the influence of radial deposition uniformity on the accuracy of the method. Using laboratory-generated Minusil and coal dusts and three different types of sampling systems, multiple sets of filter samples were prepared. All samples were collected in pairs to create parallel sets for training and validation. Silica was measured by FTIR at nine locations across the face of each filter and the data analyzed using a multiple regression analysis technique that compared various models for predicting silica mass on the filters using different numbers of "analysis shots." It was shown that deposition uniformity is independent of particle type (kaolin vs. silica), which suggests the role of aerodynamic separation is negligible. Results also reflected the correlation between the location and number of shots versus the predictive accuracy of the models. The coefficient of variation (CV) for the models when predicting mass of validation samples was 4%–51% depending on the number of points analyzed and the type of sampler used, which affected the uniformity of radial deposition on the filters. It was shown that using a single shot at the center of the filter yielded predictivity adequate for a field method, (93% return, CV approximately 15%) for samples collected with 3-piece cassettes. Copyright 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research


The field of DNA vaccines continues to advance and several new strategies to augment the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines are under evaluation. The majority of these studies are in the early preclinical stage, but some DNA vaccines have moved into clinical trials. In this review, we describe some of the more recent efforts aimed at increasing the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines, including the use of genetic adjuvants and plasmid-based expression of viral replicons. In addition, we discuss the possibility of using DNA vaccines to address emerging infectious agents where they may provide an advantage over other vaccine strategies and we review some areas where DNA vaccines have been used to target self-antigens.


Weighted model counting (WMC) has emerged as a prevalent approach for probabilistic inference. In its most general form, WMC is #P-hard. Weighted DNF counting (weighted #DNF) is a special case, where approximations with probabilistic guarantees are obtained in O(nm), where n denotes the number of variables, and m the number of clauses of the input DNF, but this is not scalable in practice. In this paper, we propose a neural model counting approach for weighted #DNF that combines approximate model counting with deep learning, and accurately approximates model counts in linear time when width is bounded. We conduct experiments to validate our method, and show that our model learns and generalizes very well to large-scale #DNF instances.


The Paris Agreement will greatly benefit from the past experience with international market mechanisms for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and related regulatory systems, which have gone through four periods with specific challenges. The first period 1997–2004 operationalized the mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI). Pilot activities in different sectors were undertaken by the public sector, and the first baseline and monitoring methodologies officially approved. Between 2005 and 2011, the carbon markets expanded massively. The EU emission trading scheme (EU ETS) was linked to the Kyoto mechanisms, creating demand for carbon credits from the private sector. During this "gold rush" period criticism emerged with regarding the uneven geographical distribution of projects, as well as environmental integrity problems related to baselines and additionality. The next period saw a collapse in carbon prices between 2012 and 2014, limiting the development of new projects. The quantitative limits on the use of offsets in the EU ETS were reached and the failure to agree on a new international regime resulted in a drying up of demand from governments. The 2015–2018 period is characterized by a gradual stabilization of the international climate regime. The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 increases complexity through global participation in mitigation. Future carbon markets will therefore face both old challenges—supply–demand balance, environmental integrity, transaction costs—and new ones—interactions with other policies and national targets, and sectoral/policy baselines and additionality checks preventing hot air proliferation.


Our objective is the design of a face recognition system for its use in controlled environments. For that reason, different tasks will be performed, that chronologically can be stated as:
The study of the basis of pattern recognition, and especially the statistical pattern recognition.
The study of the main feature selection techniques, focusing in principal component analysis (PCA), and the basic classifiers, as the nearest neighbour and Parzen classifiers.
The study of the main combinations techniques, as we will try to take advantage of the availability of sets of faces to make better-founded decisions
The evaluation of the main problems, like pose variation or light changes.
The choice and posterior adaptation of these different general tools to our needs, like the use of modifications of the Parzen classifier.
The design of the main algorithm, focusing on the differences between the two working modes, identifying (when we try to recognize a person among the different people in our Data collection
Cut out faces
Normaliza-tionFeature selection
PCA / LDA projectionModel selection
Represen-tation of the classes
UpdatingClassifier selection k-NN
ParzenTraining
Parameter optimiza-tion Testing
Identifica-tion / verifica-tion of groups of faces 14 system) and verifying (when we know a priori the id of the person and we try to assure its identity), and the use of single images or sets of faces.
The implementation of the algorithms in C, trying to become familiar with the development environment and considering the possible optimization but maintaining the clarity of the code.
The testing of the whole application using faces from different databases and from real data; that is, captured in real scenarios and in non optimal conditions


What's for dinner? Not just in America, but around the world? And how is it cooked, what's the historical significance of that food, how is it served and consumed, and who gets to clean up? This book provides fascinating insight into how dinner is defined in countries around the world.
 Almost universally, "dinner" is a key meal in most countries around the world, whether it be a simple dish of rice and beans, a slice of pizza on the go, or a multi-course formal meal. What do the specifics of how a meal is eaten—by hand instead of with utensils, for example—say about a specific culture? This fascinating one-volume reference guide examines all aspects of dinner in international settings, enabling insightful cross-cultural comparisons and an understanding of the effects of modernization and globalization on food habits.
 Some 50 countries are covered in chapters focusing on present-day meal habits in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and North and South America. The commentary covers everything about the meal, such as the time, the cooking and preparation, shopping for ingredients, the clean-up process, gender-based participation roles, conversation or other social interactions, and etiquette—just about everything that happens at the table. The book is ideal for classroom teaching and learning, as the entries and photos are conducive to teaching students about other cultures, directly supporting the National Geography Standards. Students will be able to make informed comparisons between their own lives and the various cultural experiences described in the book.


The Federal Circuit's decisions in Oracle v. Google conflict with this Court's seminal decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), misinterpret Congress's codification of this Court's fundamental channeling principle and related limiting doctrines, and upend nearly three decades of sound, well-settled, and critically important decisions of multiple regional circuits on the scope of copyright protection for computer software. Based on the fundamental channeling principle enunciated in Baker v. Selden, as reflected in § 102(b) of the Copyright Act, the functional requirements of APIs for computer systems and devices, like the internal workings of other machines, are outside of the scope of copyright protection even as non-merged aspects of the implementing code for APIs are protectable. Google independently implemented the functional specifications of the 37 APIs at issue and hence did not infringe Oracle's copyrights.

By way of brief illustration, copyright protects artistic and literary works, such as a creative metal sculpture or haiku. Nonetheless, the proprietors of those works cannot complain when third parties replicate elements of that expression that are essential to the operation of a particular machine. For instance, a car manufacturer could secure the ignition switch for its automobiles via a metal key with an original cut pattern on the blade. Although that pattern might be protected as a modern sculpture, the car manufacturer could not use copyright law to prevent others from utilizing the same expression for the purpose of starting the car. The same consideration applies to a car manufacturer that secures a digital ignition switch via entry of a haiku. Copyright law does not bar third parties from utilizing the necessary expression of that otherwise protectable literary work for the purpose of starting the car. The computer program implementing that digital key may be protected by copyright law, but the law places no bar on copying the essential functional elements needed to operate the ignition switch — the haiku text and any other indispensable functional features of the computer program.

As Baker v. Selden recognized, copyright law's limiting doctrines implement a constitutional and statutory balance intended to promote progress by channeling functional features exclusively to the utility patent regime. Although copyright can protect separable expressive features, such as surface ornamentation of an ignition key or non-merged implementing code of a digital ignition key, it does not bar the use of functional specifications — the essential technological elements. Only utility patent law can protect those features.


International development agencies invest heavily in institution building in fragile states, including expensive interventions to support democratic elections. Yet little evidence exists on whether elections enhance the domestic legitimacy of governments. Using the random assignment of an innovative election fraud-reducing intervention in Afghanistan, we find that decreasing electoral misconduct improves multiple survey measures of attitudes toward government, including: (1) whether Afghanistan is a democracy; (2) whether the police should resolve disputes; (3) whether members of parliament provide services; and (4) willingness to report insurgent behavior to security forces.


Editor's Note,
The ability to lift heavy loads while performing multiple repetitions is not only highly correlated with muscle mass or the total number actomyosin interactions, but also metabolic functions that includes substrate concentrations and by-product removal.  Muscles use adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in at least three locations during exercise; to run the actomyosin interaction, operate sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium pumps, and operate sarcolemma sodium and potassium pumps.  Weight lifting sessions are considered to be an intermittent activity that includes only a few second bursts of high force and/or velocity movements followed by rest periods of up to several minutes. Therefore, the anaerobic pathways such as the phosphagen and glycolytic systems are the initial pathways to respond due in part to the ability to match the increased rates of ATP depletion by increasing ATP production.
After the initial resting ATP stores are used up, the phosphagen system starts contributing to ATP replenishment.  This system consists of reactions from the creatine kinase (CK) pathway and the adenylate kinase (AK) pathway.  However, the CK pathway can only work at max capacity for a short period for resting phosphocreatine (PCr) concentrations are only about 4-6 times the amount of resting ATP stores.  Once the PCr concentrations are depleted, the AK reaction will begin by using two adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to form one ATP and one adenosine monophosphate (AMP). Although ATP is produced in this pathway, this production of ATP does coincide with an increased concentration of AMP. This is problematic because increased AMP levels will in turn stimulate the adenylate deaminase reaction, which will produce ammonia (NH3). This conversion of AMP into NH3 will result in the muscle cell having a net loss of total adenine nucleotides available to resynthesize ATP.
Glycolysis is the next reaction in line, which increases its role in ATP replenishment as PCr stores become depleted and aerobic metabolism cannot meet ATP demands of work being performed.  During intense exercise, the demand of glucose as a substrate can increase and consequently stimulate hepatic glucose output (via glycogenolysis) and glucose uptake in the working muscle (via increased GLUT4 translocation).  Pre- and post- activity measurements of blood glucose concentrations (BG) or muscle glycogen via muscle biopsies are the most common method of detecting changes in glucose metabolism. Due to timing and the problems of differentiating between the rates of BG appearance and clearance, it is difficult to determine the direct role of glucose metabolism during the actual resistance training (RT) protocols.  In addition, the studies that show muscle glycogen depletion following resistance training use as many as 6-10 sets to failure with a loads ranging from 30%-80% of the one repetition maximum (1RM).  Moreover, these same research studies were usually was limited to a single movement (e.g. knee extension). Thus, the applicability of the glycogen and glucose utilization studies results to normal RT training programs which employ multiple activities and joint movements is questionable.
In addition to measuring the usage of PCr and glucose, the impact of the anaerobic pathways upon RT protocols can be seen from either creatine or carbohydrate supplementation studies. The consensus of these supplementation studies suggest that the use of PCr has a greater impact upon RT than glucose usage. The benefits of creatine supplementation are seen following both immediate post supplementation and following a training in the supplemented state. For instance, the number of repetitions of a task consisting of 5 sets to failure at the 10 repetition maximum increased after six days of creatine supplementation without any resistance training during the six days. Similarly, isokinetic power has been shown to increase after 5 days of creatine supplementation without any resistance training. Also, other research has found an increased peak torque after 5 days, and an increased 1RM after 28 days of creatine supplementation without any resistance training. Additionally, when creatine supplementation is combined with a resistance training program, numerous studies have reported that individuals achieve much greater strength gains in the form of an increased 1RM, or greater number of repetitions to failure at a given percentage of the 1RM.
The influence of glucose feedings upon resistance training is equivocal. For example, one study showed that while glucose feedings reduced muscle glycogen loss when doing 3 sets of 10 repetitions of back squats, speed squats, and one-leg squats, the glucose feeding did not influence performance. Likewise, four days of a high carbohydrate diet did not improve the power output during multiple sets of maximal jump squats when compared to a lower carbohydrate diet. Also, the total number of completed sets of 5 repetitions of squats using 85% 1RM did not differ between glucose supplementation and control. On the other hand, in a study where individuals did morning and afternoon workouts where the participants did as many complete sets as possible of 10 repetitions of squats at 55% 1RM, it was found that that consuming a 0.3 g·kg body mass-1 carbohydrate supplement after each set allowed the individuals to perform more complete sets in the afternoon workout. In another study, when measuring the work done by individuals performing 16 sets of 10 repetitions of maximal isokinetic knee flexion/extension at 120o·s-1, the individuals performed more work following consumption of a 1.0 g·kg body mass-1 carbohydrate supplement pre-exercise and 0.51 g·kg body mass-1 carbohydrate supplement after sets 1, 6, and 11. Finally,  total work as well as time to exhaustion increased when the participant preceded a static exercise protocol consisting of 20 s of work at 50% of maximal voluntary contraction with the ingestion of 1.0 g·kg body mass-1 carbohydrate coupled with additional carbohydrate supplements of 0.7 g·kg body mass-1 every 6 min.
In conclusion, substrate availability can have significant effects on resistance training, particularly with high volume workouts that consist of multiple exercises targeting a single joint movement. Thus, in addition to ensuring the proper number of sets, repetitions, and loads, the athlete should take steps to ensure that their dietary practice before, during, and after training sessions are properly monitored in order to keep energy stores at optimal levels. Since the aforementioned studies consisted of primarily a single exercise, further research is needed to determine the effect of glucose and creatine concentrations and/or supplementations on resistance training sessions which are composed of several different lifts.  It would also be a benefit if the research into glucose and creatine concentrations and/or supplementations, investigated how these feedings effect other factors such as metabolite concentration/accumulation, performance variables such as peak force/velocity and time to peak force, recovery time, and the speed of strength, power and muscle mass gains.
Arnold   Nelson,
PhD, Louisiana State University, USA


Extracted from text ... PROPERTY
INVESTMENT STRATEGY NEWSLETTER
water seems colder these days. The
garden is also a money guzzler. We
use something like 77 000 litres of
water and 4 530 units of electricity
a month, which is financially and
environmentally preposterous.
Being Dutch, Darling has
noticed thousands of rands a month
of unnecessary expenses. Our
eldest daughter invited us to build
on their plot at Nooitgedacht, 500
metres from the informal settlement.
An elderly couple had been
bludgeoned to death on the next
By DAVID CARTE
"Never mind that it
would add 50 minutes
to my daily commuting
time"
Hard lessons in ..


The agar-bearing seaweeds Gracilaria and Gelidium grow abundantly in the Asia-Pacific region. Production and post-harvest techniques and methods for processing Gracilaria to produce agar suitable for local market is necessary to increase the meager income of coastal dwellers. A flow diagram of a village level agar production is provided. A guide is also given for the quality of dried seaweeds, which are divided into 3 classes.


The first Estonian dictionaries were compiled by German pastors in the 17 th century, at a time when bilingual lexicography was already rather widely spread in Western Europe. Why were these dictionaries compiled and for whom? What are the main characteristics of these dictionaries? In the article, an overview is given of the aspects relevant to historical lexicography of three authors: Heinrich Stahl and his Anführung zu der Esthnischen Sprach (1637), Johannes Gutslaff's Observationes grammaticae circa linguam esthonicam (1648), as well as Heinrich Göseken's Manuductio ad Linguam Oesthonicam (1660). These bilingual German-Estonian dictionaries were not independent works, but were published as appendixes of Germanand Latin-based grammars for Estonian. Their authors were native speakers of German, outstanding members of the local clergy, and at the same time the first Estonian lexicographers. Regardless of the limited number of entries and several inconsistencies in presenting the information about target language equivalents, in addition to evident mistakes in the choice of certain equivalents, the importance of these works should not be underestimated: not only were these grammars and dictionaries the first such publications in the region, but they also helped to fix the orthographic standards of written Estonian. Even if the fact that current Estonian language has extensive German influences both in vocabulary and syntax is most probably not due to a direct impact of these grammars and dictionaries, these three works were influential in their own time (partially due to the importance of their authors in the local church hierarchy) and had a role in the development of the Estonian language.


Electronic and vibrational relaxationsof NO in Ar, Kr, and Xe matrixes were studied using excitation spectra and time and energy resolved emission spectra. In addn. to the vibrationally relaxed emissions from a4P(v = 0), B 2P(v = 0), and A 2S+ (v = 0) in Ar and Kr matrixes, B(v = 5 and 7) emissions were obsd. in Ar matrixes. In Xe matrixes, only Rydberg A 2S+ (v = 0) fluorescence is obsd. Nonradiative Rydberg-valence transitions are obsd. in all matrixes and valence-Rydberg transitions only in Ar matrixes. The intensity ratios IA/IB/Ia are .apprx.3/9/88 in Ar, .apprx.9/3/88 in Kr, and .apprx.2-5/0/0 in Xe matrixes. The quantum efficiency for total luminescence was close to unity in Ar and Kr matrixes. The branching ratios for intramol. relaxation between Rydberg and valence states are described in terms of a model which combines the intramol. Franck-Condon factors with the spectroscopically detd. phonon Franck-Condon factors and solvent enhanced spin-orbit matrix elements. The latter increase from Ar to Xe matrixes. This increase is rationalized in terms of a semiempirical model for the heavy-atom effect on spin-orbit mixing. Weak Rydberg-Rydberg relaxation by a Dv = 2 step in Ar and a Dv = 1 step in Kr is also obsd. and interpreted in terms of a resonant Foerster-Dexter-type energy transfer. Finally in Xe matrixes, a strongly nonresonant energy transfer from the n = 1 exciton of solid Xe to the A(v = 0) Rydberg level is obsd. [on SciFinder (R)]


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate if multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with vitamin B12 (cobalamin) deficiency. Methods: We measured serum vitamin B12, plasma folate, serum methylmalonic acid (MMA), plasma homocysteine (tHcy) and also cerebrospinal fluid (C SF) MMA and tHcy in 72 patients with MS and 23 controls. Results: The mean plasma tHcy level was significantly increased in MS patients (11.6 mmol/L) compared with controls (7.4 mmol/L) (P =4-0.002). Seven patients showed low serum vitamin B12levels but only one of them had concomitant high plasma tHcy. None of them showed high serum MMA. Plasma or blood folate levels did not differ between MS patients and controls. We found no significant differences in mean values or frequency of pathological tests of serum B12, serum MMA, mean corpuscular volume (MC V), haemoglobin concentration, C SF tHcy or C SF MMA between patients and healthy subjects. There were no correlations between C SF and serum/plasma levels of MMA or tHcy. Serum vitamin B12, serum MMA, plasma tHcy, C SF Hcy or C SF MMA were not correlated to disability status, activity of disease, duration of disease or age. Conclusions:The relevance of the increased mean value of plasma tHcy thus seems uncertain and does not indicate functional vitamin B12 deficiency. We can not, however, exclude the possibility of a genetically induced dysfunction of the homocysteine metabolism relevant for the development of neuroinflammation/degeneration. O ur findings indicate that, regardless of a significant increase in plasma tHcy in MS patients, the MS disease is not generally associated with vitamin B12 deficiency since we did not find any other factors indicating vitamin B12 deficiency. A nalysis of C SF MMA and C SF tHcy, which probably reflects the brain vitamin B12 status better than serum, are not warranted in MS. We conclude that B12 deficiency, in general, is not associated with MS.


Every year up to 20% of the crop production with an economical value of almost 200 billion euro is lost due to plant diseases. To be able to develop effective and durable strategies to counteract these plant diseases, understanding the mechanisms that enable pathogens to cause disease is essential. Like animals, plants are equipped with an innate immune system that is activated after recognition of an invading organism. Plant immune receptors are able to recognize attackers by certain conserved microbial molecules, after which an effective defense response is activated. Successful pathogens, however, have developed strategies to prevent activation of effective immune responses in their host. For this, pathogens produce numerous so called effector proteins that (1) are able to interfere with host defense responses, or (2) enable the pathogen to escape from recognition by the host immune system. Firstly, 13 putative RXLR effector proteins of the economically important downy mildew pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis were screened for a role in host immune suppression. To this end, the RXLR effector proteins were overexpressed in the model plant Arabidopsis. Almost all tested putative RXLR effectors had an effect on specific immune responses in Arabidopsis. The effects were relatively minor, which suggests that the downy mildew pathogen affects host immunity by utilizing many effectors with weak effects, rather than by using few effectors with strong effects on host immunity. Secondly, the role of the excreted protease AprA of Pseudomonas bacteria in the evasion of the immune system of plant and mammalian hosts was investigated. Many Pseudomonas species cause disease in plant and/or animal hosts. They are recognized by host immune receptors through spilled flagellin molecules, which are the main components of the bacterial tail. AprA was identified as a secreted protease of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and shown to degrade flagellin molecules, which enables the pathogen to escape from detection by the host immune system. The important bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae produces AprA as well. We demonstrated that AprA-mediated degradation of flagellin molecules is also important for P. syringae to evade host immunity and successfully infect Arabidopsis and tomato. Interestingly, a similar immune evasion strategy was observed in the beneficial bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens, which interacts with plant roots and stimulates plant growth, indicating that AprA-mediated evasion of host immunity is a strategy that is utilized by both pathogenic and beneficial Pseudomonads. Finally, we tested whether the AprA inhibitor protein AprI, which is also produced by Pseudomonas bacteria, can be utilized to protect plants against bacterial infections. Indeed, transgenic AprI-producing Arabidopsis plants showed enhanced resistance against the P. syringae pathogen, suggesting that AprI can be utilized to protect plants against bacterial diseases. The described work provides novel insights into how successful pathogens can suppress or evade host immunity. Striking parallels between host-microbe interactions in plant and animal systems were demonstrated. We demonstrated that a detailed understanding of the mechanisms by which pathogens can evade or suppress host immunity enables the development of novel tools to combat infections in plants and mammals.


The development of a hydrological forecasting model is conditioned by the available data collected in the entire hydrological catchment for which discharge has to be predicted. The forecast quality not only depends on the available historical data but also on the continuously measured data that is necessary to update the model in real time according to the observed conditions. Consequently, the data type, their quality, reliability and the ease of data acquisition highly influence the final model choice. In Colombia, numerous catchments in the interior of the country are equipped with pluviometric and some of them with limnimetric stations but with often incomplete measurement series. For some catchments, temperature and evaporation data are also available but measured only on a sporadic basis. The acquisition of these data is often difficult, due to the accessibility, the size of the country and related costs. These factors have to be considered for the model development to ensure the use of representative and stable data. The present study analyses only one catchment, the one of the Rio Magdalena. It has been chosen for strategic and security reasons, in agreement with the persons in charge of the national hydrological service. For this catchment, the available data include water level measurements at different locations along the river (see the map in Section 3) and precipitation data measured at these limnimetric stations. The available stage-discharge relations are not reliable enough to build a discharge forecast model. A detailed measurement of the precipitation falling onto the catchment is difficult to carry out by conventional methods. The developed forecast models are of a so-called black-box type. They correspond to an autoregressive moving average model with exogenous variables. Each of them predicts river stages at a given point of the studied river. The explicative variables are either river stages or precipitation amounts, measured at the studied location or at other upstream stations. The forecast time step is one day and the forecasts are completed from one to five days ahead. The calibration of the model parameters is part of the model development process. For each limnimetric station, the resulting parameter values encode a model adapted to the available data and the considered forecast lag (time period between the forecast emission and the predicted event). In a first step, the developed models only include limnimetric data. In a second step, these models are further validated and affined considering pluviometric data. Models have been developed for all main stations of Rio Magdalena (see map at p. 24) but only the results for Barranca station are presented in details in this report. The obtained results can be considered as being good and reliable, as illustrated by the graphs and statistical tests presented in Section 5 and 6. A summary of the best model for each station and each forecast time lag given the available data is presented at Table 10 (Section 7, p. 57). The numerical developments have been realized in the programming environment MATLAB6.1®. The available data has been transformed into Excel format before using it as input data for the model development and application. The developed software has a graphical user interface. A CD-ROM containing the original software code and a compiled version is attached to the present report. The original source code can only be used in connection with Matlab®. iii The analysis underlying the present report can easily be transposed to other stations of the Magdalena river or include other available data. It can also be applied to other Colombian rivers having the same characteristics. A technician who is used to deal with hydrological forecasts can complete the necessary work and model testing. A specific training will be given to potential users during the visit of the expert accompanied by one of his co-workers. A generalization of the developed models will ask for an extension of the programs in order to enable their automatic use under any circumstances. The availability of the latest Matlab® version will be necessary. These questions will be discussed during the next expert mission. Finally, it is noteworthy that the development of an operational forecasting tool will require an important amount of additional work to integrate the real-time data measured in the field. This data will namely enable a real-time update of the model and its forecasts according to the errors between the observed data and the realized forecasts. Recursive parameter estimation could also highly improve the forecast quality but would need more sophisticated models and accordingly an appropriate training of the users.


Encounters with beauty can serve as an engaging and powerful agency for peace. Over the past few decades, the interest in the contemplative practices of world wisdom traditions has been expanding. Higher education has also incorporated these "inner sciences", as they are often called. Contemplative practices foster a more compassionate understanding of the behavior and values of others, especially those who are unlike us. They are transformational practices and open ways to improve intercultural understanding. Transcending the limits of a traditional classroom, they offer a new dimension to contemporary learners. As students from different cultural backgrounds cross paths while studying in other countries, intercultural learning becomes an additional focus of their study abroad. An increasing interest from international as well as Canadian students in contemplative practices offers an opportunity to expand existing courses, to connect curriculum with real life, to go beyond the curriculum to offer all students a common shared experience. Getting students physically and emotionally involved in the learning process gives them better spatial and temporal awareness as well as awareness of each other. Sensory engagement offers students the therapeutic effects of cultural experience as well as better understanding of the subject. Research confirms that contemplative forms of inquiry can offset the constant distractions of our modern cultural environment. Thus, creative teaching and learning methods that integrate the ancient practice of contemplation innovatively meet the particular needs of today's students and teachers by assuaging their fear of the future by focusing on the present.


The effectiveness of migration policies has been widely contested in the face of their oft perceived failure to control the movement of people. Because migration is driven by economic, demographic and political processes in origin and destination societies that are far beyond the scope of migration policies, the argument goes that policy restrictions only have a limited effect on inflows, and have several unintended, counter-productive effects such as encouraging irregular migration, discouraging return and pushing migrants into permanent settlement (Castles 2004; Cornelius et al. 2004; de Haas 2011; Massey et al. 1998). Furthermore, migrant networks and migration system dynamics are known to lower the costs and risks of migration. This can give migration processes their own momentum, for instance through continuing family migration (Castles and Miller 2009; de Haas 2010; Massey 1990; Massey et al. 1998). This has led some to state that 'borders are beyond control' (cf. Bhagwati 2003).


Covering the World Intellectual Property Organization, this volume introduces a much ignored element of the contemporary structure of global governance to scholars of international political economy. Christopher May discusses: how the World Intellectual Property Organization works, its antecedents and history the debates about the role and justification of intellectual property the role of WIPO within contemporary global politics the key elements of its relations with the World Trade Organization the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The analysis then examines the recent political economy of the organization and argues that far from being the neutral or technical agency that it often presents itself as, the WIPO is highly politicized and acts to socialize policy makers and civil servants into a specific view of intellectual property. However, the recent proposal to establish a Development Agenda at the WIPO is an important development, and the book concludes by examining the problems which have promoted this agenda, suggesting that these reforms of the WIPO should be welcomed. The World Intellectual Property Organization is a clear and accessible volume that will confirm the WIPO as one of the global institutions which any student of global governance must understand.


Real-time assisted classification of cancerous and healthy human tissue is useful to surgeons since visual classification of cancer boundaries is almost impossible to the naked eye. Raman spectroscopy can be used to quantify the inelastic scattering of light in molecules by analyzing the interaction of photons with the vibrational modes of biological tissue. Raman spectroscopy can therefore serve as a tool to uniquely identify the presence of certain types of cells and their respective pathologies. In particular, Raman spectroscopy can be used to detect cancer cells in-vivo in affected human tissue by using various machine-learning algorithms. We showed that preprocessing steps have a significant impact on classification results and that the IModPoly algorithm performed similarly to the Zhang algorithm however the IModPoly algorithm had signficantly faster runtimes, which is more suitable for real-time classsification. We studied the performance of different classifiers on Raman spectrums acquired from human brain and prostate. We compared the performance of support vector machines, convolutional neural networks and multi-layer perceptrons. We've shown that a convolutional neural network and support vector machines have similar performance metrics when applied to pre-processed Raman spectrums acquired from human prostates when using a K-fold cross validation scheme, with mean ROC AUC 0.941 ± 0.017 and 0.943 ± 0.018 respectively, and that these outperform the MLP with an AUC of 0.935 ± 0.021. We show that data-reduction through PCA and AutoEncoders allow for similar, but overall worse, classification performance through data reduction of up to 2.5 times and that using the raw input as a feature space results overall in higher AUC across classifiers. On the smaller brain dataset, we found that the SVM outperformed the ConvNet and MLP with respective AUCs of 0.955 ± 0.029, 0.941 ± 0.036 and 0.846 ± 0.130. Using ConvNets and K-fold cross-validation, we were able to achieve an average accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 0.921, 0.785, and 0.947 on the prostate dataset and 0.891, 0.944 and 0.825 respectively on the brain dataset. We show that classification metrics drop significantly when using a leave-one-patient-out approach compared to K-fold and show examples of clustering among patients within datasets, suggesting that data collection ensuring more uniform signal collection is of higher priority for robust performance over the choice of classifiers. We studied the use of transfer learning from one dataset to another, and showed limited increase in performance when training the classifier on the prostate dataset before applying it to the brain dataset. We showed a clear distinction using t-SNE in the feature space of brain and prostate datasets, demonstrating the clear biological differences that can be captured using Raman spectroscopy. Future work needs to address the shortcoming of the leave-one-patient-out approach compared to K-fold and the apparent clustering of patient data. It is imperative to determine if the source of clustering is inherent to patients or a result of bias in current protocols. The possibility of calibrating or fine-tuning data in real-time during clinical procedures should also be explored in future work as well as more refined preprocessing procedures.


The purpose of this paper is to attempt to demonstrate that formal mentoring is a helpful tool to develop managers within the changing context of the UK Police, and to highlight how managers can have an influence on mentoring programmes and the learning within them.,A longitudinal qualitative case study approach was chosen and semi-structured interviews were conducted alongside focus groups.,The findings showed that both mentees and mentors perceived they were learning within the mentoring relationship. Also, despite some common themes in relation to the key moderating factors, managers were seen as both facilitating and hindering these mentoring relationships.,It was recognised that although interesting to compare and contrast the findings between the two different case study organisations, the findings drawn from this study may not be directly applicable to other mentoring programmes beyond these UK Police Forces. More could have been explored in the focus groups and information could have been collected from those that did not attend the interviews or the focus groups.,This research adds value as there is little written about the mentoring and managers, within the interesting changing context of the UK Police force. The insights from this mentoring research suggest that there is much learning to be gained by both parties through mentoring and that line managers need to be encouraged away from the day to day reactive approach towards being more proactive with supporting the personal development of their team members (and themselves) into the future. If they are more involved and supportive of learning and development interventions, then they and their team members will gain more from the experience and this will ultimately help them to make a more positive difference within their role.


Abstract. Simulations at a range of resolutions are compared to observations from the South-East Pacific taken during VOCALS-REx. It is found that increased horizontal and vertical resolution make only small improvements to the bulk properties of the simulated cloud and drizzle, but the highest resolution simulation is able to realistically represent mesoscale features in the cloud field. We focus on the highest resolution simulation and demonstrate that a poor representation of the cloud microphysics results in excessive drizzle production. This promotes persistent drizzle induced decoupling of the boundary layer, giving a poor representation of the observed diurnal cycle of stratocumulus. Two simple changes to the microphysics scheme are implemented: a modified autoconversion parametrization and a new representation of the rain drop size distribution. This results in a more realistic simulation of boundary-layer diurnal decoupling, and improvements to the cloud liquid water path and surface drizzle rate.


A nominal scale with 15 descriptive categories ordered in three general classes was designed. Being more complete than previous scales it captures systematically formal and content aspects of bizarreness.
The data consisted of 39 REM-dream reports and 12 presleep waking fantasies (triggered by a stimulus scene) collected from 6 subjects in 12 experimental nights. The reports were rated by 4 independent judges according to the scale and for comparison according to a global (0-5) rating in bizarreness. Interrater-reliability pairwise for each category was: 61-100%. Corrected bias for low frequencies: Cohen's kappa was 0.06-0.56. Category frequencies correlated 0.82-0.86 validly with the global judgement (0-5).


ABSTRACT Between 5–9% of American adolescents experience 1+ episode of independent homelessness. Although multiple stressors have consistently been shown to precede runaway behavior, sampling homeless populations fails to capture variation between juveniles who run/do not run. This research uses Waves I and II of the Add Health public use data to examine conditions likely to result in a first-time run among males vs. females. Specifically, we argue that strains/negative emotion derived from Agnew's general strain theory and social controls derived from Hirschi's social bond theory will act as positive and negative motivations, respectively, to predict first-time runs. We find significant, main effects on running for multiple strain and control measures. However, results of our integrated models suggest that, while composite strain and depression increase the odds of running across gender, composite social control is associated with lower odds of running for females only. This finding underscores prior research suggesting that social bonds may have a stronger protective impact on females considering a first-time run.


The literature on taxation of rents from nonrenewable resources uses different theoretical assumptions and methods and a variety of empirical observations to arrive at widely diverging conclusions. Many studies use models and methods which disregard uncertainty, investigating distortionary effects of different taxes on whether, when, and how to explore for, develop and operate resource deposits. Introducing uncertainty into the analysis opens a range of challenges, and leads to results which cast doubt upon the relevance of studies which neglect uncertainty. There are, however, several ways to analyze uncertainty, regarding companies' behavior, resource price processes, and diversification opportunities, all with different implications for taxation. Methods developed in financial economics since the 1980's are promising, but still not in widespread use. Some more specific topics covered in this review are optimal risk sharing between companies and governments , time consistency and fiscal stability, the relationship between taxes and discount rates, and transfer pricing.


Adequate Human Resources for Health (HRH) are crucial to the delivery of health care services in very remote areas of Indonesia. However, very remote areas suffer shortages in terms the number, type and quality of staff. This situation must be addressed through innovative policy, planning and implementation, such as incentives for retaining and motivating health workers. This paper aims to assess the application of an incentive scheme based on working location. The role of decentralized local government on incentives given to health workers also will be discussed. A desk study was performed from a relevant published materials, MoH database and online literature. The document highlights the importance of financial and non financial incentives. However, financial incentives alone are insufficient to retain and motivate the health workforce. Incentive systems must be integrated within the health system, in line with the goal and objective of Indonesia's health development. The role of local leadership under decentralization is also crucial to motivate and maintain staff in the workplace. Different incentives between contracted and permanent staff in very remote areas must be established to ensure sustainability of the program.


Medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), which also known as "shin splints," is leg pain due to repetitive stresses. It is common among athletes, especially runners. It is estimated that up to 35% of all athletes have MTSS. As a consequence, the athletes spend less time in training and some of them refrain from exercises because of the exercise-induced pain, which adversely affects their career. The exact cause is still unclear. Some studies in the literature have suggested that the underlying mechanism is microdamage due to repetitive stresses. Risk factors include female gender, increased range of hip external rotation in males, navicular bone drop, increased body mass index, and training intensity. Patients usually complain of bilateral pain mainly in the anterior and/or medial side of their distal leg. Pain is aggravated by activity and relieved by rest. The examination may reveal swelling and tenderness, especially in the tibial posteromedial aspect along with other suggestive signs. Imaging modalities including radiographs, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and bone scintigraphy can be utilized to rule out other causes of similar presentation. Prevention is by repetitive stress avoidance, shock absorbing insoles, appropriate treatment of other stress-induced injuries, and screening for anatomical abnormalities. It is mostly treated conservatively with rest, ice and pain control. Athletes can keep training by doing different exercises that do not cause recurrent stresses. Surgery, which is rarely performed, is a treatment option in recalcitrant cases.


Over the last 35 years, China has transformed from an egalitarian society to a nation that has one of the highest income inequality in the world. The transformation is mainly due to the economic reform carried out in 1978, which abandoned egalitarianism and endeavored to build a market economy system in contemporary China. This study reviews China's wage reform in 1978 to illustrate the trade-off between efficiency and equity that the Chinese government has experienced. The emphasis of equity before 1978, although maintaining social justice, impeded efficiency and led to a common poverty across the nation. The wage reform starting from 1978 shifted the principle of wage distribution from equity to efficiency, which no doubt unleashed productivity and promoted economic development. Yet, it also caused a rise in income inequality, which became a potential threat to the stability of society. Thus, the new Chinese leadership has again reemphasized the importance of equity in wage distribution.


Traditional medicines (TM) are known to be popular in sub-Saharan Africa, where over 80% have reported its utilisation. It is claimed to be easily accessible, affordable, available and acceptable, but little is known about at which stage of treatment seeking individuals turn to traditional medicines. This is owing to a paucity in quantitative demand data on how many recourses of care people take for one episode of illness, whether individuals use traditional medicines as a secondary option to orthodox medicines, and if used, how satisfied they are with results. This study presents descriptive data from fieldwork carried out on 772 households in two regions of Ghana to ascertain actions taken for self reported episodes of acute and previously diagnosed chronic diseases. Quantitative results show by looking merely at first recourse, use of traditional medicines is fairly low, but once second recourses are accounted for there is a doubling and tripling of incidence of TM use for acute and chronic diseases respectively. A commonly used patient reported outcome measurement, the EQ5D, is adopted to measure satisfaction before and after traditional medicine use, to reveal significantly positive changes. The study suggests that whilst these results show individuals to be highly satisfied with TM, it is more often the second recourse of treatment with a revealed preference for orthodox medicines as a first recourse. This suggests that policy must investigate why individuals turn to TM only as a second recourse and clarify the insufficiencies of orthodox treatment. Policies which guide individuals to taking the most efficient recourses for given symptoms and further exploration of key reasons behind high levels of satisfaction following utilization are encouraged.


The dissertation studies monetary policy in the UK and specifically three topics: the monetary policy reaction function of the Bank of England, the influence of QE on nominal income and the determination of inflation and the role of money in it. In the study of the reaction function of the Bank of England in chapter 2 (which draws on Cobham and Kang, 2012a), there are two issues involved a comparison of two different approaches: the GMM approach and the ex ante forecast approach. The first issue is the time horizons for inflation and the output gap. The estimations using the GMM method indicate that the best fit is for inflation one year ahead and for the output gap one quarter ahead. The estimations in the ex ante forecast approach indicate the best fit should be for inflation two years ahead and output growth one quarter ahead, which is closer to the Bank of England's view. The second issue is about the smoothing behaviour in interest rate decisions. The GMM method suggests smoothing behaviour incorporated in a lagged dependent variable while the ex ante forecast method suggests no smoothing since the lagged change of the interest rate is not significant in the regression. The latter suggestion is also closer to former policy makers' views. In addition, the GMM method may suffer from a weak instruments problem and the ex ante forecast approach is a better method to estimate the monetary policy reaction function. I also try to apply the ex ante forecast approach to the reaction function of the European Central Bank, with results which are less precise but still closer to what the ECB claims to do. The third and the fourth chapters address the monetary aggregates, which have been ignored in monetary policy research for a long time but fluctuated strongly during the financial crisis period and after QE was implemented. What's more, while most work in recent years focuses on the fluctuations in financial markets, the dissertation discusses the influence of the crisis and QE on macroeconomic activity. In chapter 3 (which draws on Cobham and Kang, 2012b), a flow of funds matrix is used to illustrate the monetary developments. This is followed by regressions of a naive ad hoc reduced form model which considers the growth of nominal spending as determined by the growth of nominal money and other variables. The results of the regression suggest that money has had a bigger role since the crisis and under QE. Then various counterfactual assumptions about money growth are made and the counterfactual paths of nominal spending are calculated by using the estimated parameters of the regression above. The comparison of those counterfactuals indicates that QE has had a considerable influence on nominal spending. In the fourth chapter, money growth is studied in a long-run perspective, in terms of its relation with inflation. In a reduced-form Phillips curve, inflation is explained by variables at different frequencies. The money growth, GDP growth and interest rate change which are included in the Quantity Theory of Money are expected to link inflation at low frequency while the output gap as well as exchange rate and import price has a relation with inflation at high frequency. The frequency-domain technique is used in this process. The estimated results suggest money has a relationship with inflation only at low frequency while the output gap, on the other hand, relates inflation at high frequency. Then regressions on low frequency and high frequency are also run. Frequency-wise causality measures follow to support the indications. From the results given by the third and fourth chapters, it is suggested that it is the time to pay attention to money again in monetary policy research. And it would be useful to incorporate money or credit into wider macroeconometric models of the UK economy.


Abstract This article unpacks the renaissance of interest in 'the local' in peace building. It pays increased attention to local dimensions of peace in a wider context of increased assertiveness by local actors as well as a loss of confidence by major actors behind international peace-support actors. The article sees the 'local turn' in peace building as part of a wider critical turn in the study of peace and conflict, and focuses on the epistemological consequences of the recourse to localism in the conceptualisation and execution of peace building. The local turn has implications for the nature and location of power in peace building. This article is largely conceptual and theoretical in nature but it is worth noting that the local turn is based on reactions to real-world events.


Abstract. Avalanches pose a threat to settlements as well as industrial and recreational areas in the Alps. As a counter measure, technical mitigation measures have been implemented since the 19th century, resulting in a raise in value of formerly endangered areas. This increase in value can be considered as a benefit due to prevented damage. This paper compares the total costs and benefits of technical mitigation measures in the municipality of Davos, Switzerland as a basis for evaluating their net social benefit. The benefit of avalanche defence structures is determined using two different approaches. First, the replacement value of buildings protected by mitigation measures is quantified. Second, the number of protected persons is monetarily assessed by means of a human capital approach. The quantified benefit is compared with the present value of cumulative capital expenditures on avalanche mitigation measures. In addition, distributional effects of the public expenditures on technical mitigation measures are discussed based on the average future tax revenues within protected areas. Depending on whether benefits are calculated in terms of protected buildings or protected persons, the results show a large range of cost-benefit ratios. Critical issues of cost-benefit analyses in the context of alpine natural hazards are highlighted, including problems related to the human capital approach and the sensitivity of results to how benefits are calculated. The applicability of cost-benefit analyses for evaluating avalanche mitigation measures is discussed.


 Citation: Tabatabaei Sh, Khani Jazani R, Kavousi A, Azhdardor M. Relationship between Musculoskeletal Disorders and Quality of Life in Employees of Selected Hospitals in Golestan Province. Journal of Health Research in Community. Spring 2017;3(1): 45-56. ABSTRACT Introduction and purpose: In this study, we attempted to investigate the relationship between musculoskeletal disorders and quality of life in staff of selected hospitals in Golestan Province, Iran. Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, the study population included all the employees (n=770) of Kordkuy Heart Hospital and Khatam al-Anbia Hospital of Gonbad Kavus, Golestan Province, Iran. The standard sample size was estimated at 256 based on Morgan Table. Considering the probability of subject attrition and to bolster the validity of the study, 300 employees (150 Kurdkuy and 150 Gonbad Kavus) from different occupational groups were randomly selected by stratified sampling. To collect the data, a demographic information form, the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, and the Lancashire quality of life profile were used. Independent t-test was run in SPSS, version 22. Results: During the past year, the neck and knee were the most problematic areas, and the elbows and thighs caused the least amount of pain or discomfort among the employees. There was a significant difference between different dimensions of quality of life with consideration of musculoskeletal disorders in different areas of the body. Musculoskeletal disorders in various areas significantly diminished different aspects of quality of life. In the physical aspect of quality of life, the employees suffering from musculoskeletal disorders in all areas were significantly different from those without any problems. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, musculoskeletal disorders are one of the workplace damages that affect employees' quality of life. Indeed, in addition to high costs, it undermines physical, mental, and social health, hence low productivity of employees.


1. Studying Dying, Death, and Bereavement. 2. The American Experience of Death. 3. Growing Up with Death. 4. Perspectives on Death and Life After Death. 5. The Dying Process. 6. Living with Dying. 7. Dying in the American Health-Care System. 8. Biomedical Issues and Euthanasia. 9. Suicide. 10. Diversity in Death Rituals. 11. The Business of Dying. 12. The Legal Aspects of Dying. 13. Coping with Loss. 14. Grieving Throughout the Life Cycle. References. Index. Credits.