While per capita fluid milk consumption has been declining for decades in the United States, generic fluid milk marketing activities sponsored by fluid milk processors and dairy farmers have helped mitigate some of this decline. We estimate that these marketing efforts have had a positive and statistically significant impact on per capita fluid milk consumption. Specifically, over the 11-year period 1995 through 2005, we estimate that a one-percent increase in generic fluid milk marketing expenditures resulted in a 0.051 percent increase in per capita fluid milk consumption when holding all other demand factors constant. What about the impact on total consumption of fluid milk? From 2001 through 2005, generic fluid milk marketing activities increased fluid milk commercial disappearance by 22.5 billion pounds in total or 4.5 billion pounds per year. Put differently, had there not been generic fluid milk marketing conducted by the two national programs, fluid milk consumption would have been 8.2 percent less than it actually was over this time period. Hence, the bottom line is that the combined efforts of dairy farmers and fluid milk processors to market fluid milk have had a positive and statistically significant impact by partially mitigating declines in fluid milk consumption. In terms of the total dairy demand analysis, the average generic dairy marketing elasticity for the period 1990 through 2005 was 0.074; i.e., a one-percent increase in expenditures for these marketing activities would increase per capita dairy demand by 0.074 percent. Thus, the total marketing effort by dairy farmers and milk processors has had a positive and statistically significant impact on dairy consumption. We calculated a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for the Dairy Program for the period 2000 through 2005. The benefits of the Dairy Program were calculated as the change in dairy farmers' net revenue due to demand enhancement from all marketing activities under the Dairy Program. The costs of the Dairy Program were calculated as the difference in total assessment revenues before and after the national program was enacted. The results show that the average BCR for the Dairy Program was 4.33. This means that each dollar invested in generic dairy marketing by dairy farmers would return $4.33, on average, in net revenue to farmers. To make allowances for the error inherent in any statistical estimation, a 95-percent confidence interval was calculated for the average BCR. The confidence interval provides a lower and an upper bound for the average BCR. One can be "confident" that the true average BCR lies within these bounds 95 percent of the time. The estimated lower and upper bounds for the average BCR were 3.70 and 4.95, respectively. This confidence interval demonstrates that one could be 95 percent confident that the true average BCR lies between 3.70 and 4.95. This confidence interval give credence to our finding that the benefits of the Dairy Program's marketing activities have been considerably greater than the cost of the program.


Title of dissertation: DYNAMICS OF LARGE SYSTEMS OF NONLINEARLY EVOLVING UNITS Zhixin Lu, Doctor of Philosophy, 2017 Dissertation directed by: Professor Edward Ott Department of Physics; The dynamics of large systems of many nonlinearly evolving units is a general research area that has great importance for many areas in science and technology, including biology, computation by artificial neural networks, statistical mechanics, flocking in animal groups, the dynamics of coupled neurons in the brain, and many others. While universal principles and techniques are largely lacking in this broad area of research, there is still one particular phenomenon that seems to be broadly applicable. In particular, this is the idea of ::::::::::: emergence, by which is meant macroscopic behaviors that "emerge" from a large system of many "smaller or simpler entities such that ... large entities" [i.e., macroscopic behaviors] arise which "exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit." [1]. In this thesis we investigate mechanisms and manifestations of emergence in four dynamical systems consisting many nonlinearly evolving units. These four systems are as follows. (a) We first study the motion of a large ensemble of many noninteracting particles in a slowly changing Hamiltonian system that undergoes a separatrix crossing. In such systems, we find that separatrix-crossing induces a counterintuitive effect. Specifically, numerical simulation of two sets of densely sprinkled initial conditions on two energy curves appears to suggest that the two energy curves, one originally enclosing the other, seemingly interchange their positions. This, however, is topologically forbidden. We resolve this paradox by introducing a numerical simulation method we call "robust" and study its consequences. (b) We next study the collective dynamics of oscillatory pacemaker neurons in Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN), which, through synchrony, govern the circadian rhythm of mammals. We start from a high-dimensional description of the many coupled oscillatory neuronal units within the SCN. This description is based on a forced Kuramoto model. We then reduce the system dimensionality by using the Ott-Antonsen Ansatz and obtain a low-dimensional macroscopic description. Using this reduced macroscopic system, we explain the east-west asymmetry of jet-lag recovery and discus the consequences of our findings. (c) Thirdly, we study neuron firing in integrate-and-fire neural networks. We build a discrete-state/discrete-time model with both excitatory and inhibitory neurons and find a phase transition between avalanching dynamics and ceaseless firing dynamics. Power-law firing avalanche size/duration distributions are observed at critical parameter values. Furthermore, in this critical regime we find the same power-law exponents as those observed from experiments and previous, more restricted, simulation studies. We also employ a mean-field method and show that inhibitory neurons in this system promote robustness of the criticality (i.e., an enhanced range of system parameter where power-law avalanche statistics applies). (d) Lastly, we study the dynamics of "reservoir computing networks" (RCN's), which is a recurrent neural network (RNN) scheme for machine learning. The advantage of RCN's over traditional RNN's is that the training is done only on the output layer, usually via a simple least-square method. We show that RCN's are very effective for inferring unmeasured state variables of dynamical systems whose system state is only partially measured. Using the examples of the Lorenz system and the Rössler system we demonstrate the potential of an RCN to perform as an universal model-free "observer". DYNAMICS OF LARGE SYSTEMS OF NONLINEARLY EVOLVING UNITS


Complex malware samples feature measures to impede automatic and manual analyses, making their investigation cumbersome. While automatic characterization of malware benefits from recently proposed designs for passive monitoring, the subsequent dissection process still sees human analysts struggling with adversarial behaviors, many of which also closely resemble those studied for automatic systems. This gap affects the day-to-day analysis of complex samples and researchers have not yet attempted to bridge it. We make a first step down this road by proposing a design that can reconcile transparency requirements with manipulation capabilities required for dissection. Our open-source prototype BluePill (i) offers a customizable execution environment that remains stealthy when analysts intervene to alter instructions and data or run third-party tools, (ii) is extensible to counteract newly encountered anti-analysis measures using insights from the dissection, and (iii) can accommodate program analyses that aid analysts, as we explore for taint analysis. On a set of highly evasive samples BluePill resulted as stealthy as commercial sandboxes while offering new intervention and customization capabilities for dissection.


The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Vegetation Subcommittee, the Ecological Society of America Panel on Vegetation Classification, and NatureServe have worked together to develop the United States National Vegetation Classification (USNVC). The current  standard was accepted in 2008 and fosters consistency across Federal agencies and non-federal partners for the description of each vegetation concept and its hierarchical classification. The USNVC is structured as a dynamic standard, where changes to types at any level may be proposed at any time with new information. But, because much information already exists from previous work, the NVC partners first established methods for screening existing types to determine their acceptability with respect to the 2008 standard. Current efforts include a screening process to assign confidence to Association and Group level descriptions, and a review of the upper three levels of the classification. For the upper levels especially, the expectation is that the review process includes international scientists. Immediate future efforts include the review of remaining levels and the development of a proposal review process.


This work presents an intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year that changed not only his fortunes, but the course of literature. How did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year, we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw, and who he worked with as he invests in the new Globe theatre and creates four of his most famous plays - "Henry V", "Julius Caesar", "As You Like It", and, most remarkably, "Hamlet". This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.


This paper presents part of the work on ground vibrations induced by blasting, and to estimate safe maximum charge per delay to protect the nearby structures. Blasting near sensitive areas has always been a cause of concern and utmost care has to be taken to keep the charge per delay below the stipulated level A number of field visits were made to collect the geotechnical data, and monitoring ground vibrations induced by blasting. A number of blasts were monitored to study various blast parameters related to blasting Overburden and Coal benches and to understand the effect of blast on the surrounding structures, and rock mass conditions at the mine site. Drilling is accomplished by tire mounted drill machine capable of drilling large diameter holes of 159mm. The drilling pattern of the mine benches is based on the rock formation of the particular bench and varies with the variation in strata from 4 m to 6 m. Holes were charged with Bulk Emulsion Explosives in association with Booster(Cap sensitive). Nonel systems of initiation were used to reduce vibration. Accordingly, the safe charge per delay for the distance of 100 m, 200 m, 300 m, 400 m, and 500 m is 18.9 Kg, 75.9 Kg, 170.8 Kg, 303.7 Kg, and 474.5 Kg, respectively to keep the vibration level below 5 mm/sec for the above geomining conditions of Jindal Power Opencast Coal MineTamnar. The damage criteria was proposed by many organizations including USBM, DGMS, Indian Standards etc based on the Permissible PPV in mm/s and Frequency of the ground vibrations for various types of structures. The criteria based on the Permissible PPV in mm/s and Frequency of the ground vibrations for various types of structures was presented. In the present investigations safe charge per delay 3 was estimated through empirical model to limit the ground vibrations within safe limit of 5 mm/sec considering the structures as sensitive and not belonging to the owner. Hence, the mining technology in terms of blasting pattern and explosive charge was recommended for local environmental protection of the structures.


Measurement of Oxygen Transfer in Clean Water provides the latest methods for measuring the rate of oxygen transfer from diffused gas and mechanical oxygenation devices to water. This Standard (a revision of ASCE 2-91) is applicable to laboratory scale oxygenation devices with water volumes of a few gallons as well as to full-scale systems with water volumes typical of those found in the activated sludge wastewater treatment process. It is intended for use by engineers in the preparation of specifications for compliance testing and by manufacturers in the development of performance information.


ABSTRACT We relate relationship satisfaction and thoughts about leaving a romantic relationship to a couple's relative and absolute resources and check for context-dependency of those associations. Our theoretical point of departure is that the more resources women have compared to their spouses, the higher their intra-household bargaining power to negotiate themselves out of unpleasant tasks, particularly in gender-egalitarian and very income equal and unequal societies. In traditional societies (which score low on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)), the inflexible role of men within the household presumably prevents women from bargaining a better position, which in turn negatively affects relationship quality. Income equality (low GINI coefficient) may be a prerequisite for women's bargaining position, where more inequality (mid-GINI) may be detrimental for it. Nevertheless, extreme income inequality (high GINI) may again be favorable for women's relationship power. Using country fixed effects models on data from the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS), we compare men and women who are in a couple (formed after 1995) for eight European countries. We find that absolute resources matter more than relative resources, at least for relationship satisfaction: Higher educated couples are more satisfied with their relationships, which could suggest lower stress levels in those couples (in more traditional contexts). Second, we observe GINI context-dependency of the association between relative education and relationship satisfaction for women and relative education and exit thoughts for men, although opposite to what we expected. Perhaps reference group theory or gender display theory can explain these unexpected results. Finally, we find that women have more break-up plans in societies with a lower score on GEM. This last result is consistent with the notion that bargaining only works in egalitarian contexts.


Milk of animal origin, characterized by high nutritional value and exceptional flavour, is one of the most popular and valuable components of the human diet. Milk is a rich source of protein, fat, lactose, vitamins and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, chlorine, iron and zinc. The mineral composition of milk may vary widely depending on genetic, physiological and environmental factors. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of milk production performance of Black-and-White Polish Holstein-Friesian (PHF) cows on the concentrations of potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na) and zinc (Zn) in milk and its proximate composition. Mineralized milk samples were assayed for the content of K, Ca, Na by atomic emission spectroscopy (AES), while Mg and Zn were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The production performance of the evaluated PHF cows was high, at 11 028 kg of milk over 305-day lactation on average. Milk yield had a significant influence on the average content of lactose, K and Na in milk during the 305-day lactation period. The concentrations of Ca, Mg and Na in the analyzed milk samples were below the lower reference limits, whereas the levels of K and Zn were high. The K and Na content of milk varied considerably across lactation stages. In early lactation, K levels were particularly high in cows producing up to 10 000 kg of milk. The Na content of milk increased steadily from the fourth month until the end of lactation. Cow productivity was negatively correlated with the concentrations of lactose, K and Ca in milk. Highly significant positive correlations were found between the fat content of milk vs. the levels of Ca, Mg and Zn. The results of this study indicate that milk from high-producing cows may have insufficient concentrations of selected minerals, relative to the relevant standards.


Over the past 40 years, proteomics, generically defined as the field dedicated to the identification and analysis of proteins, has tremendously gained in popularity and potency through advancements in genome sequencing, separative techniques, mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics algorithms. As a consequence, its scope of application has gradually enlarged and diversified to meet specialized topical biomedical subjects. Although the tryptic bottom-up approach is widely regarded as the gold standard for rapid screening of complex samples, its application for precise and confident mapping of protein modifications is often hindered due to partial sequence coverage, poor redundancy in indicative peptides, and lack of method flexibility. We here show how the synergic and time-limited action of a properly diluted mix of multiple enzymes can be exploited in a versatile yet straightforward protocol to alleviate present-day drawbacks. Merging bottom-up and middle-down ideologies, our results highlight broad assemblies of overlapping peptides that enable refined and reliable characterizations of proteins, including variant identification, and their carried modifications, including post-translational modifications, truncations, and cleavages. Beyond this boost in performance, our methodology also offers efficient de novo sequencing capabilities, in view of which we here present a dedicated custom assembly algorithm.


This publication aims to give some guidance on how to measure the impact of climate change on the marine biodiversity of protected areas and how to improve planning for the mitigation of future impact. It also summarizes the most important threats to and effects on Mediterranean marine biodiversity that have been observed to date and outlines the many uncertainties that still exist in understanding ecological responses to climate change.


This thesis uses Historic Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) to uncover the
continuing and new patterns of land use in colonial Van Diemen's Land to 1835. In 1817 free settlers were frst encouraged to emigrate to the colony of Van Diemen's Land.
They brought with them substantial assets, as well as ideals of British agriculture, and the
following years saw a massive transformation of the island's landscape. By the 1820s many
visitors assumed these new agriculturalists were aspiring to recreate Britain, and praised
what they saw as the early stages of this. They dismissed the work of the former convicts
on their much smaller grants, and ignored the thousands of years of land management
conducted by the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. In fact, as much as the settlers sought to
reshape the landscape, they themselves were reshaped by it. Their aspirations were only
possible because of the work of their predecessors. By placing land grants and sales data into an HGIS, this thesis reconstructs the sequence
of European settlement in three regions of the island: New Norfolk, Bothwell and through
the Midlands. These case studies are used to argue the existence of two primary European
settlement patterns. The frst is riverine intensive, a pattern based on European and settlercolonial precedent. The domain of emancipist grantees, the name refects the signifcance of waterways in shaping the early colony. This pattern gave way to the open extensive in the
early-1820s, as the colony's economy shifted to fne wool exports and the settlers required
larger acreages. This thesis argues that both of these patterns were reliant on the Aboriginal mosaic
patterns, as the settlers were drawn to areas kept clear with fre-stick farming. Settlers in
the open extensive stage were particularly drawn to the large 'plains', and their land-use
represented a drastic departure from accepted British methods. Nonetheless, the riverine
intensive settlers also benefted from cleared lands. By combining the settlement pattern
parameters with environmental data and settlement sequences, this thesis argues that it is
possible to uncover details of the pre-European landscape that were not recorded before it
was irrevocably altered by the arrival of large-scale pastoral pursuits. Connecting land records to colonial survey charts also enables this thesis to measure the
extent to which acreages were over- or under-measured. Using these fndings, it analyses
allegations of corruptions that were frequently levelled against the colonial surveyors.
Their work is critiqued within the context of surveyor work-load, changing settler and
governmental priorities, and the rise of the Black War.


This study was designed to examine whether prostaglandin E2 can directly affect sodium transport across isolated perfused rabbit renal collecting tubules. Changes in transepithelial potential and isotopic sodium fluxes in response to peritubular prostaglandin E2 were measured. In addition, changes in transepithelial potential of the outer medullary collecting tubule in response to prostaglandin E2 were also measured. With few exceptions, all rabbits received 5 mg/day desoxycorticosterone acetate for 4-11 days before experimentation. The results of the experiments show that: (a) prostaglandin E2 inhibits the negative transepithelial potential in the cortical collecting tubule as well as the outer medullary collecting tubule; (b) prostaglandin E2 inhibits net sodium transport out of the lumen by inhibiting efflux while backflux is unaffected; (c) prostaglandin E2 produces this inhibition within 15 min, and the effects are dose dependent and reversible. These results suggest that prostaglandin E2 may modulate sodium transport in vivo and may contribute to the final regulation of sodium excretion.


Disapproval of homosexuality is widespread, deep-rooted and of long standing. Often this disapproval is tied to religion including, for nearly 3,000 years, the religions of "the Book" - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the last forty years a movement to change the treatment of homosexuality has emerged in the West. This movement first sought only tolerance. Now it demands acceptance of homosexuality as legally and socially equal to heterosexuality. The demand for approval has brought the gay movement into conflicts with "traditional" religion that flare throughout our culture. This war is not amenable to compromise. The goals of the gay movement are not primarily economic; most gays already have above-average incomes. Because of the pervasive influence of religion in America, equal acceptance of homosexuality cannot be achieved unless religious groups either surrender and affirm this equality or, at least, those that do not are reduced to a despised minority forced to keep its views to itself. Since the gay movement's goals are not primarily economic, it cares about the law not so much for its financial impact as for its symbolic or expressive significance. Since the prize is a symbol, compromise is unacceptable except, perhaps, as a temporary tactic: anything less than full equality is inferior, second-class status, intolerable. Full legal and social equality of homosexuality, however, cannot be squared with respect for the traditional religions that disapprove of it. If government treats homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality and by nondiscrimination laws compels citizens to do likewise, then disparagement of homosexuality must be condemned and suppressed just as racial discrimination now is. In effect, government must declare traditional religion to be false and evil. The legal war between religion and the gay movement will not culminate in an Armageddon, a final showdown. Neither side is poised to obtain a national law providing that its claims always trump the claims of the other side. Accordingly, the war between religion and the gay movement seems fated to drag on indefinitely in innumerable battles large and small. Part I of this Article discusses general federal and state constitutions and statutes that set some boundaries for specific disputes. Part II discusses government action supporting homosexuality, including antidiscrimination laws and religious exemptions therefrom. Part III discusses actions by private institutions against employees, students, or others who manifest traditional views about homosexuality. Part IV discusses general principles in the conflict between the gay movement and religious freedom and suggests some resolutions.


Public space development has got an increasing role in the urban development movements. These parts of the city were always important in history and today they are more and more often analyzed in scientific researches. In the Western countries (mainly in North America and Western Europe) public space development is highly detailed and really longsighted. In Hungary this kind of method started to be used later and has not been so sophisticated and matured yet. This paper presents the development of Saint Stephen square of Szeged, Hungary. Besides the development, it also presents what kind of methods are appropriate for analyzing a square. Saint Stephen square is a good example to illustrate the changes related to the rehabilitation because it has been a degraded but popular place and after the development it has become a really attractive but not so lively square. Its main characteristic was a flea market, which gave the essence to it, but after the renewal it has become much smaller; due to some other changes, it could no longer function as before. This movement caused the biggest impairment of the place and some other negative changes also emerged.


The properties of simple and multiple Fabry–Perot-type interference filters with aluminum films as the reflecting layers are deduced with the aid of the measured optical constants of aluminum. Computed transmission curves are given for several filters of these types in the wavelength range from 1500 to 2500 A. The properties of multiple-stack filters, two or more simple three-layer interference filters stacked contiguously, are deduced. It is shown that multiple-stack filters have definite advantages over three-layer interference filters. In particular, improvement in contrast without significant increase in bandwidth is obtained. Combination of a first- and second-order filter in the same multiple-stack filter is shown to give a reduced bandwidth, as expected. Experimental results for multiple filters confirm the predicted theoretical advantages.


In recent years, building Supply Chain Resilience (SCRES) has gained considerable interest as the best way firms can face up to disruptions and gain a competitive advantage. The need for more empirical work on SCRES is well expressed in the literature, but there are few prior empirical studies on SCRES to date; and their focus has been on the developed world, especially Western Europe and North America. Yet, developing countries constitute a significant part of the world population and global supply chains; and there is evidence to believe that developing countries have also faced disastrous effects of supply chain failures. And the current global interconnectedness suggests that such effects can propagate into the developed world. Further, while several potential strategies for improving SCRES have been proposed in the literature, the relationships between them remain ambiguous, with some researchers arguing they are independent and others considering them to be interrelated – meaning they could contradict or reinforce each other, potentially affecting SCRES. This thesis presents findings from the case study of a supply network of 20 manufacturing firms in the developing country of Uganda, to answer the following related questions: what do manufacturing firms in Uganda perceive to be the threats to their supply chains? What strategies do they adopt to build resilience? What are the outcomes of implementing these strategies? The thesis also investigates how the threats and strategies are interrelated, and what it means for SCRES. The findings reveal that the context of a developing country characterised, for example, by weak legal controls and social acceptance of certain customs and practices can produce threats to SCRES like corruption and dishonest employees that are less pronounced in the developed world. It is also found that the threats to SCRES are mainly chronic and endogenous events rather than the exogenous discrete, large-scale catastrophic events typically emphasised in the literature. This study initially applies Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory to interpret the data, which shows how environmental conditions, supply chain threats, and resilience strategies are inherently inter-related. This proves to be a useful theory frame – it emerges that the systemic nature of the threats to SCRES and of the strategies for dealing with these threats clearly produces non-linear and non-stationary outcomes. But it was also found that these systemic relationships among threats, strategies and their outcomes are explained by the context in which the supply chain is situated. Hence an embeddedness perspective was adopted to show that the political, cultural and territorial embeddedness of supply networks in a developing country can produce threats or render resilience strategies either ineffective or even counterproductive. This study therefore finds that both CAS and embeddedness perspectives are needed jointly to explain SCRES – it is embeddedness in a developing country that contributes to the phenomenon of "supply chain risk migration", whereby an attempt to mitigate one threat produces another threat and/or shifts the threat to another point in the supply network. This portrays resilience as a continual process of supply network members responding to chronic and catastrophic events that may be endogenous and/or exogenous, and to the outcomes of their own previous responses – not to a specific set of structures or practices. These findings have implications for managers wishing to build SCRES. For example, managers are informed that supply chain events of continuous possibilities deserve attention. Managers are also reminded of the potential migration of threats – they should thus understand how threats, strategies and potential outcomes are interconnected. Further, managers should understand the contexts in which their supply chains are embedded.


We address the existence and properties of solitons in layered thermal media made of alternating focusing and defocusing layers. Such structures support robust bright solitons even if the averaged nonlinearity is defocusing. We show that nonoscillating solitons may form in any of the focusing domains, even in those located close to the sample edge, in contrast to uniform thermal media, where light beams always oscillate when not launched exactly on the sample center. Stable multipole solitons may include more than four spots in layered media.


Purpose: Occupational exposure to blood borne pathogens with needle stick or other sharp tool injuries is a serious but preventable problem. this study will be conducted to investigate the incidence of Needle stick injury (NSI) among the Dental health care providers (DHCP) of Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Mangalore.Method:The NSI incidence, demographics, contributing factors, and follow up following NSI report were reviewed.Results : Six, eleven , seventeen and nineteen needle stick injuries were reported in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively . Most injuries were experienced by students and least by the Faculty.Conclusion: Based on the results and within the limitations of this surveillance study it is concluded that occupational exposures can be reduced and reporting of all exposures is vital. The institution of appropriate PEP, psychological support and counselling of affected HCWs and stringent follow-up are all needed to reduce the burden of occupationally acquired infections in HCWs.


This thesis investigates the linguistic practices of politicians in one of the oldest and most powerful of all British institutions: the House of Commons. After the general election of 1997 record numbers of women were elected to parliament. This rapid increase in women's representation led to much speculation in politics and the media about how new women MPs would adapt to and change British politics. At the same time it is clear that men and women MPs are not treated equally. Women are marginalised by sexist barracking within the chamber and portrayed negatively by the media.
Theoretical and methodological insights gained from language and gender research are used to explore whether this inequality extends to the differential access to and use of linguistic resources by women and men in the debating chamber. The central questions of the thesis are: what factors contribute to a participant being more or less powerful in this context, and how salient is gender to the construction of that power? Viewing the debating chamber as a 'Community of Practice' (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992), and drawing upon the insights of MPs from interview data, I describe the interactional norms of the House of Commons as part of the ethnographic approach to this research. Using data from a 60-hour video corpus of House of Commons speech events I then undertake an analysis of floor apportionment in debates. I identify adversarial linguistic features in parliamentary question time sessions and examine their use by women and men. I also undertake an analysis of the functions and use of humour and irony in the debating chamber. Finally, a comparative study is undertaken with the Scottish Parliament. I describe the parliamentary procedures and historical development of the Scottish Parliament before analysing floor apportionment, the use of adversarial language, and humour and irony in this forum.


Individuals in most industrialized countries have to make investment decisions throughout their adult life span to save for their retirement. These decisions substantially affect their living standards in old age. Research on cognitive aging has already demonstrated several changes in cognitive functions (e.g., processing speed) that likely influence investment decisions. This review brings together research on behavioral and neural aspects of financial decision making and aging to advance knowledge on age-related changes in financial decision making. The dopaminergic system plays a key role in financial decision making, both in financial decisions from description and financial decisions from experience. Importantly, both dopaminergic neuromodulation and financial decision making change during healthy aging. Especially when the parameters of the return distribution have to be learned from experience, older adults show a different and suboptimal choice behavior compared to younger adults. Based on these observations we suggest ways to circumvent the age-related bias in financial decision making to improve older adults' wealth.


PURPOSE
This investigation studied the factors involved in the development of refractive error (RE) in premature infants unaffected by retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

METHODS
Premature infants enrolled in the national ROP screening program were recruited and examined at 32, 36, 40, 44, and 52 weeks' postmenstrual age. At each examination, axial length (AXL), anterior chamber depth (ACD), and lens thickness (LT) were measured on the A-scan biometer. Corneal curvature (CC) was recorded with a video-ophthalmophakometer, and refractive state was determined with routine cycloplegic refraction. Multilevel modeling techniques were used to determine the relationships between all the variables throughout the study period, as well as individual growth rates.

RESULTS
Sixty-eight premature infants were included. AXL and ACD showed linear patterns of growth, whereas LT changed little over the study period. CC showed a quadratic growth pattern, and unlike the previous variables, correlated well with refractive state. Premature infants were myopes at the start of the study, with refraction becoming emmetropic as they neared full term and then hypermetropic toward the end of the study.

CONCLUSIONS
Most of the components of refractive status showed linear patterns of growth during this early phase of ocular development. CC displayed a more complex pattern of growth, which correlated well with refractive state. Compared with full-term infants examined around term, this group has shorter AXLs, shallower anterior chambers, and more highly curved corneas. In addition, less of the expected hypermetropia developed in the premature group, which seems mainly due to the differences in ACD and corneal curvature.


China's rise is altering global power relations, reshaping economic debates, and commanding tremendous public attention. Despite extensive media and academic scrutiny, the conventional wisdom about China's economy is often wrong. Cracking the China Conundrum provides a holistic and contrarian view of China's major economic, political, and foreign policy issues. Yukon Huang trenchantly addresses widely accepted yet misguided views in the analysis of China's economy. He examines arguments about the causes and effects of China's possible debt and property market bubbles, trade and investment relations with the Western world, the links between corruption and political liberalization in a growing economy and Beijing's more assertive foreign policies. Huang explains that such misconceptions arise in part because China's economic system is unprecedented in many ways-namely because it's driven by both the market and state- which complicates the task of designing accurate and adaptable analysis and research. Further, China's size, regional diversity, and uniquely decentralized administrative system poses difficulties for making generalizations and comparisons from micro to macro levels when trying to interpret China's economic state accurately. This book not only interprets the ideologies that experts continue building misguided theories upon, but also examines the contributing factors to this puzzle. Cracking the China Conundrum provides an enlightening and corrective viewpoint on several major economic and political foreign policy concerns currently shaping China's economic environment.


Ethiopia is known for its high bamboo resource potential in Africa. The country has two indigenous bamboo species namely the highland bamboo (Arundinaria alpine) and the monotypic genus lowland bamboo (Oxytenanthera abyssinica). Bamboo is a multipurpose plant with significant economic and environmental benefits. Although the benefits of bamboo for communities in Ethiopia are diverse, the economic values at national scale, the biodiversity conservation and ecotourism values of bamboo have not been discussed in the past. Studying the different values of bamboo promotes human quality of life and national economic support though income generation. Similarly, bamboo is an important plant in enhancing biodiversity conservation and promoting ecotourism despite it has been neglected by research and development programs in the country due to the less economic benefit obtained from the forest. Hence, this study was made to review the economic, biodiversity conservation and ecotourism values of bamboo forest in Ethiopia. These issues were addressed through exploration of different studies conducted on bamboo and by referring various journals. The study revealed that bamboo provides various benefits in Ethiopia. It enabled to obtain 23-30 Million USD annually which was 0.02% of the country's GDP during 2010-2014 G.C. Similarly, it contributes for employment opportunities, furniture and industrial materials production, construction and home use purposes, food for humans and animals, etc. Bamboo also provides biodiversity conservation and ecotourism benefits. It facilitates biodiversity conservation through protection of forest, wildlife conservation and supporting micro-organisms. While the role of bamboo in the construction of cultural houses and production of different cultural materials contributes for ecotourism development in different parts of Ethiopia. However, challenges like fire, deforestation, agriculture and related land conversion and inadequate awareness are affecting the economic, biodiversity conservation and ecotourism values of bamboo in Ethiopia.


We study the fixed design segmented regression problem: Given noisy samples from a piecewise linear function $f$, we want to recover $f$ up to a desired accuracy in mean-squared error.
Previous rigorous approaches for this problem rely on dynamic programming (DP) and, while sample efficient, have running time quadratic in the sample size. As our main contribution, we provide new sample near-linear time algorithms for the problem that -- while not being minimax optimal -- achieve a significantly better sample-time tradeoff on large datasets compared to the DP approach. Our experimental evaluation shows that, compared with the DP approach, our algorithms provide a convergence rate that is only off by a factor of $2$ to $4$, while achieving speedups of three orders of magnitude.


The performative schizoid method is developed as a contribution to performance as research. The method is inspired by contemporary research in the human and social sciences urging experimentation and researcher engagement with creative and artistic practice. In the article, the method is presented and an example is provided of a first exploratory engagement with it. The method is used in a specific project Becoming Iris, which enquires into the creation of arts-based knowledge during a three month visiting scholarship at a small, independent visual arts academy. Using the performative schizoid method in Becoming Iris results in four audio-visual and performance-based productions, centered on an emergent theme of the scholar acting as artist as the bird in borrowed feathers. Interestingly, the moral lesson of the fable about the vain jackdaw, who dresses in borrowed peacock feathers and becomes an outcast, stands in sharp contrast to the potential of a performative schizoid method: to liberally experiment and make-believe.


Al 7075 is a good choice as a matrix material to prepare metal matrix composites (MMCs) owing to its better specific tensile strength and toughness. Among different types of the recently introduced composite materials, particles reinforced MMC and in particular aluminium as matrix material have been found to have enormous industrial applications like automotive and aerospace sectors. In the present study, mechanical properties of Al 7075-eutectoid steel powder metal matrix composites is assessed in age-hardened and as-cast conditions. The heat treatment processes are carried out in atmospheric condition. Eutectoid steel (water hardenable tool steel - W1grade) reinforced aluminium 7075 is an attempt to investigate the role of micro-constituent phases on property alterations of metal matrix composites. As an economical and promising route for MMC, liquid stir casting technique is used to reinforce synthesised steel powder in the matrix of Al 7075. Heat treatment is performed as a tool to mould and improve the required mechanical properties as per the requirements. Eutectoid steel powder is selected as the reinforcement material since it is believed to be composed of lamellar pearlite with ferrite and cementite as alternate layers in as-cast condition, serving as micro-hybrid reinforcement to improve hardness and strength. In this work four different proportions of steel powder (2, wt.% 4 wt.% and 6 wt.%) reinforced composites are prepared by a two-stage stir casting process. Age-hardening treatment is given to the samples and analysed critically and compared with alloy matrix for different properties such as tensile strength, hardness and toughness. Results have shown significant improvement in the ultimate tensile strength and hardness of the composites after aging treatment. The 4 wt.% steel powder reinforced composite has shown better results compared to other composites.


This dissertation consists of three separate but interrelated essays that investigate how family structure and public policy are linked to health and developmental child outcomes. Each essay employs two or three waves of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) as the primary data source. The first essay broadly investigates how family structure, including the less typical non-traditional families such as single father and grandparent households, are related to a wide of array of child outcomes with a focus on the interplay of parent-child gender. The results from this study show that children in single father families have better health status than children living in all other non-traditional families. Adding economic resources and inputs appears to mitigate the adverse effect of poverty associated with non-traditional families, but does not eliminate such negative impact. The second essay investigates how the State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), which are designed to provide coverage for uninsured children with family income too high to qualify for Medicaid but not high enough to secure private insurance, affect coverage, medical care utilization and child health outcomes. I find strong and consistent evidence that the number of publicly insured children increases; however, the number of privately insured children also declines suggesting significant crowd-out. As a result, there are no consistent findings that SCHIP increased the overall number of insured children. The results also indicate that SCHIP programs encourage medical care utilization such as well-child care visits and doctor visits. Nevertheless, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of SCHIP with respect to improving children's health outcomes. The third essay contributes to the sparse existing literature on two different fronts. First, it empirically investigates the impact of welfare reform on the formation of grandparent-headed households, while at the same time taking into account the interplay of other contemporary public programs such as state kinship care policies and SCHIP. Second, this essay explores the motivations underlying grandparent caregiving behaviors and offers insights to such behaviors from an economist's perspective. I do not find evidence that welfare reform encourage grandparent household formation. However, there is strong evidence that kinship care policies encourage grandparent caregiving behaviors.


The β-lactamase inhibitor, clavulanic acid is frequently used in combination with β-lactam antibiotics to treat a wide spectrum of infectious diseases. Clavulanic acid prevents drug resistance by pathogens against these β-lactam antibiotics by preventing the degradation of the β-lactam ring, thus ensuring eradication of these harmful microorganisms from the host. This systematic review provides an overview on the fermentation conditions that affect the production of clavulanic acid in the firstly described producer, Streptomyces clavuligerus. A thorough search was conducted using predefined terms in several electronic databases (PubMed, Medline, ScienceDirect, EBSCO), from database inception to June 30th 2015. Studies must involve wild-type Streptomyces clavuligerus, and full texts needed to be available. A total of 29 eligible articles were identified. Based on the literature, several factors were identified that could affect the production of clavulanic acid in S. clavuligerus. The addition of glycerol or other vegetable oils (e.g., olive oil, corn oil) could potentially affect clavulanic acid production. Furthermore, some amino acids such as arginine and ornithine, could serve as potential precursors to increase clavulanic acid yield. The comparison of different fermentation systems revealed that fed-batch fermentation yields higher amounts of clavulanic acid as compared to batch fermentation, probably due to the maintenance of substrates and constant monitoring of certain entities (such as pH, oxygen availability, etc.). Overall, these findings provide vital knowledge and insight that could assist media optimization and fermentation design for clavulanic acid production in S. clavuligerus.


Abstract Bayne and Nagasawa have argued that the properties traditionally attributed to God provide an insufficient grounding for the obligation to worship God. They do so partly because the same properties, when possessed in lesser quantities by human beings, do not give rise to similar obligations. In a recent paper, Jeremy Gwiazda challenges this line of argument. He does so because it neglects the possible existence of a threshold obligation to worship, i.e. an obligation that only kicks in when the value of a parameter has crossed a certain threshold. This article argues that there is a serious flaw in Gwiazda's proposal. Although thresholds may play an important part in how we think about our obligations, their function is distinct from that envisaged by Gwiazda. To be precise, this article argues that thresholds are only relevant to obligations to the extent that they transform a pre-existing imperfect obligation or act of supererogation into a perfect obligation. Since it is not clear that there is an imperfect obligation to worship any being, and indeed since on a certain conception of moral agency it is highly unlikely that there could be, the search for a rational basis for the obligation to worship must continue.


The neural blackboard architecture is a localist structured connectionist model that employs a novel connection matrix to implement dynamic bindings without requiring propagation of temporal synchrony. Here I note the apparent need for many distinct matrices and the effect this might have for scale-up to semantic processing. I also comment on the authors' initial foray into the symbol grounding problem.


Objective : The reduction of an upper cervical subluxation through chiropractic care in the case of a child with occipital lobe epilepsy is described. Clinical Features: A nine-year-old girl presented with uncontrollable blinking of the left eye and fainting spells, previously diagnosed by a neurologist as occipital lobe epilepsy. Intervention and Outcomes : High velocity and light force adjustments (Blair technique) were applied to the first cervical vertebra on three separate occasions. Other low force adjustments (Activator) were administered to various levels of the spinal column where vertebral subluxations existed. The patient's uncontrolled eye twitching decreased immediately following the first upper cervical adjustment and ceased completely 3 weeks following the final adjustment. The twitching has not resurfaced in approximately 2 years. Conclusions : This case report demonstrated resolution of signs and symptoms associated with occipital lobe epilepsy in a child following the reduction of an upper cervical subluxation. Key Indexing Terms: Upper Cervical; Blair; Occipital Lobe Epilepsy; Epilepsy; Cervical Spine; Chiropractic, Subluxation


The annual European Migration Network policy reports examine the main trends and policy development in the area of migration and asylum at EU Member State level. This seventh annual policy analysis report focuses on the period from January to December 2010. Important developments in the period included publication of an Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill in June 2010; continuation of a number of administrative and legislative changes related to employment permit holders introduced in 2009; and publication of a new five-year strategy document framework, Investing in Global Relationships, which set an objective of increased international student numbers in both overall higher education and English language schools by 2015. In addition, changes to renewal arrangements for 'Green Card' holders came into effect in August 2010, and in November 2010, updated immigration arrangements concerning those eligible under the five year worker and redundancy policy were introduced with immediate effect. Inaugural meetings of a Ministerial Council on Migrant Integration took place during 2010 also. As of March 2010 Ireland began collecting biometric data in the form of fingerprints as part of the visa application process. This process initially began in Nigeria and is expected to extend to other locations at a later date. During 2010, Ireland ratified both the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons especially Women and Children supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (17 July 2010) and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (1 November 2010). During 2010 Ireland took part in an EU-led dialogue with India on migration. No EU Legislation relating to migration or asylum was transposed in Ireland in 2010. In June 2010, the European Commission referred Belgium and Ireland to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to complete implementation of EU rules on asylum procedures.


Mercury (Hg) contamination in aquatic systems remains a global concern because the organic form, methyl Hg (MeHg), can biomagnify to harmful concentrations in fish, fish-eating wildlife, and humans. Food web transfer of MeHg has been explored using models of log MeHg versus relative trophic position (nitrogen isotopes, δ(15)N), but regression slopes vary across systems for unknown reasons. In this study, MeHg biomagnification was determined for 11 lake food webs in Kejimkujik National Park, Nova Scotia, Canada, and compared to physical and chemical lake characteristics using principal component and multiple regression analyses. MeHg biomagnification (regression slopes of log MeHg versus baseline-adjusted δ(15)N for fishes and invertebrates) varied significantly across lakes and was higher in systems with lower aqueous nutrient/MeHg/chloride scores. This is one of the largest, consistent data sets available on MeHg biomagnification through temperate lake food webs and the first study to use a principal component and multiple regression approach to understand how lake chemical and physical characteristics interact to affect biomagnification among systems. Overall, our results show that the magnitude of MeHg biomagnification through lake food webs is related to the chemical and physical characteristics of the systems, but the underlying mechanisms warrant further investigation.


Over the last decade, interest in detection of genes or genomic regions that are targeted by selection has been growing. Identifying signatures of selection can provide valuable insights about the genes or genomic regions that are or have been under selection pressure, which in turn leads to a better understanding of genotype-phenotype relationships. The main focus of this thesis is the detection of selection signatures in various breeds of chicken. Common strategy for the detection of selection signatures is to compare samples from several populations and search for genomic regions with outstanding genetic differentiation. This strategy uses inter-populations statistics. In this dissertation in each chapter (chapter 2, 3 and 4) one or two inter-populations statistics for selection signature detection is investigate.

Two sets of data set were used in this thesis: The first set comprised a total of 96 individuals of three commercial layer breeds (White leghorn, White Rock and Rhode Island Red) and 14 non-commercial fancy breeds (including, G. g. gallus and G. g. spadiceus) were genotyped with three different 600K SNP-chips. The second set was pool sequences (10 individuals per pool) from 43 different chicken breeds. 43 chicken breeds were contained of 3 commercial breeds (White leghorn, White Rock and Rhode Island Red) and 40 non-commercial breeds (including G. g. gallus, G. g. spadiceus and G. various).

In our first approach, as described in the 2nd chapter, Wright's fixation index, FST, was used as an index of genetic differentiation between populations for detection of selection signatures on the first data set. This chapter focuses on detection of selection signatures between different chicken groups based on SNP-wise FST calculation. After removing overlapping SNPs between the three 600K SNP arrays a total of 1,139,073 SNPs remained. After filtering for minor allele frequencies lower than 5% and removing SNPs on unknown locations, a total of 1 million SNPs were available for FST calculation. The average of FST values were calculated for overlapping windows. The average FST values between overlapping windows were then compared to detect for selection signatures. Two sets of comparisons were made in this study in order to detect selection signatures. First, we performed a comparison between commercial egg layers and non-commercial fancy breeds and second between commercial egg-layer, white egg layers and brown egg layers. Comparing non-commercial and commercial breeds resulted in the detection of 630 selection signatures, while 656 selection signatures were detected in the comparison between commercial egg-layer breeds. Annotation of selection signature regions revealed various genes corresponding to productions traits, for which layer breeds had been selected. NCOA1, SREBF2 and RALGAPA1 were among the detected genes, which are associated with reproductive traits, broodiness and egg production. Several of the detected genes were associated with growth and carcass traits, including POMC, PRKAB2, SPP1, IGF2, CAPN1, TGFb2 and IGFBP2. These genes are good candidates for further studies. Our approach in chapter 2 demonstrates that including different populations with specific breeding histories can provide a unique opportunity for a better understanding of farm animal selection.

In the study described in the 3rd chapter, our aim was to use haplotype frequencies and considering the hierarchical structure in order to detect selection signatures. We used a subset of the first data set with a total of 74 individuals of three commercial layer breeds (White leghorn, White Rock and Rhode Island Red) and two non-commercial fancy breeds (G. g. gallus and G. g. spadiceus). To facilitate this, we used the statistical methods FLK and hapFLK. FLK calculates variation of the inbreeding coefficient by using a population's kinship matrix to incorporate hierarchical structure. A similar statistic is used in hapFLK but haplotype frequencies are used instead of allele frequencies. FLK and hapFLK were calculated in all layer breeds, using non-commercial fancy individuals for the estimation of the ancestral genetic distance. FLK and hapFLK were applied to three groups; all layers, white layers and brown layers. A total of 107 and 41 regions were detected as selective signatures in the FLK and hapFLK studies, respectively. Annotation of selection signature regions revealed various genes and QTL corresponding to productions traits, for which layer breeds were selected. A number of the detected genes were associated with growth and carcass traits, including IGF-1R, AGRP and STAT5B. We also annotated an interesting gene associated with dark brown mutational phenotype in chickens (SOX10). Our new analysis in chapter 3 provided a great comparison between FST, FLK and hapFLK. Large overlap exists between the regions that have been determined as regions under selection in the FST study and in the current analysis using FLK and hapFLK. QTL associated to meat production, as well as both IGF-1R and STAT5B, were located in regions that were similar between brown layers. These results showed a large degree of agreement with the FST results discussed of chapter 2. We demonstrated that using haplotype frequencies and considering a hierarchical structure can improve the power of detection in our data set.

The approach discussed in 4th chapter of this dissertation uses SNPs extracted from the pool sequence data (the second data set) to detect selection signatures. Over 30 million SNPs in 43 pools consisted of 3 commercial breeds (White leghorn, White Rock and Rhode Island Red) and 40 non-commercial breeds (including G. g. gallus, G. g. spadiceus and G. various) were used in this study. After filtering for mapping quality and sequencing depth, 22 million SNPs remained. The breeds were studied for selection signature in three contrasts (i.e. skin color, egg shell color, and toe number). FST was calculated between the two groups, whereas heterozygosity (HE) was obtained for each group. Both measures (FST and HE) were subsequently summarized in 40 kb windows with an overlap of 50% within each contrast. Comparisons of summarized FST and HE between overlapping windows was employed for selection signature detection, this was done to improve the power and reliability of detection. A total of eight regions (in all contrast) were detected as selective signatures using both FST and HE methods. Annotation of selection signature regions revealed one gene (BCO2) and three QTL corresponding to skin color and egg shell color, respectively. In this study we demonstrated that the use of sequence data with a larger number of populations and combination of methods with different statistic background (i.e. FST and HE) can improve the power of detection.

In conclusion, the results of the studies discussed in this dissertation showed that the identification of regions that were potentially under selection can be carried out by including various populations and utilizing of high-resolution genome scans (using dense marker or pool sequence data). Our study provides a great comparison between different inter-populations methods for selection signature detection (FST, FLK and hapFLK) and the use of different resolution of genome scans (pool sequence and high density chip). We demonstrated that use of inter-populations method with combination of an intra-populations statistic (heterozygosity) can improve the power of detection. We identified several putative selection signature regions with genes corresponding to the productions traits that chicken breeds were selected for. The regions identified are good candidates for further studies for both commercial purposes and biodiversity studies. We believe that our study gives a better understanding of farm animal selection, particularly in regard to chicken.


At Dealing with Disasters 2009, we first presented a paper (Fyfe, Richardson and Wilson) that speculated on the potential uses of personal stories, mediated through digital technology within the arena of disaster management.

This paper was based on a pilot research project with a small number of individuals from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, who had suffered flooding in recent years. The 'digital stories' that were produced as a result of a series of workshops, consisted of short, first-person narratives, told in the voice of the actual storyteller and accompanied by a slide-show of photographs, often from the individuals own collections.

The paper tentatively proposed that digital storytelling could be used as a tool for increasing the effectiveness, quality and level of communication between post- and pre-disaster communities and between the emergency services and relief organisations, with a view to aiding regeneration and building resilience and preparedness.

This pilot project was conducted by The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling with the support of Professor Lindsey McEwen at the University of Gloucestershire. Since November 2009, this partnership has developed into a more substantial collaboration and the two universities are now embarked on two cross-disciplinary follow-up research projects:

- a JISC-funded Community Engagement project (Co-Fast – Community Flood Archive Enhancement through storytelling) to explore the value of including digital stories in a local flood database for Severn communities; and

- an AHRC-funded network on exploring flood histories entitled Learning to Live with Water: Flood Histories, Environmental Change, Remembrance and Resilience.

This paper will report on these two projects, building upon the suppositions made in the earlier paper and evaluating progress on developing a narrative-based approach to disaster management, with suggestions for further progressing this agenda.


This article argues that China may be on the verge of a "Green Leap Forward" that could make it a global environmental leader. This article argues that two principal forces have contributed to this development. First, Chinese officials now realize that a global shift away from fossil fuels will create enormous business opportunities on a global scale. Chinese companies are now making enormous strides in the development of green technology, such as solar power, wind energy, and electric cars, with the active assistance of the Chinese government. Second, realizing that climate change severely threatens China, and stung by the criticism it received for its stance during the December 2009 Copenhagen conference, the Chinese government now realizes that it must play a more constructive global leadership role on environmental issues.


"Ecological integrity" provides a useful framework for ecologically based monitoring and can provide valuable information for assessing ecosystem condition and management effectiveness. Building on the related concepts of biological integrity and ecological health, ecological integrity is a measure of the composition, structure, and function of an ecosystem in relation to the system's natural or historical range of variation, as well as perturbations caused by natural or anthropogenic agents of change. We have developed a protocol to evaluate the ecological integrity of temperate zone, forested ecosystems, based on long-term monitoring data. To do so, we identified metrics of status and trend in structure, composition, and function of forests impacted by multiple agents of change. We used data, models, and the scientific literature to interpret and report integrity using "stoplight" symbology, ie "Good" (green), "Caution" (yellow), or "Significant Concern" (red). Preliminary data indicate that forested ecosystems in Acadia National Park have retained ecological integrity across a variety of metrics, but that some aspects of soil chemistry and stand structure indicate potential problems. This protocol was developed for the National Park Service Vital Signs Monitoring Program and holds promise for application in the temperate zone, forested ecosystems of eastern North America.


Chemical doping is widely used to manipulate the electrical and thermoelectric properties of organic semiconductors, yet intelligent design of polymer–dopant systems remains elusive. It is challenging to predict the electrical and thermoelectric properties of doped organic semiconductors due to the large number of variables impacting these properties, including film morphology, dopant and polymer energetics, dopant size, and degree of polaron delocalization. Herein, a series of dopants with varying sizes and electron affinities (EAs) are combined with polymers of differing ionization energies (IEs) to investigate how the difference between polymer IE and dopant EA influences the doping efficiency and electrical conductivity, and how the dopant size influences the thermoelectric properties. Our experiments demonstrate that at low doping levels the doping efficiency strongly depends on the difference between the polymer IE and dopant EA; the effectiveness of doping on increasing electrical conductivity drastically decreases at high loadings for the molybdenum dithiolene complexes, while FeCl3 remains effective at high loadings; and the large molybdenum complexes lead to more delocalized polarons as compared to FeCl3. To take advantage of the complementary doping characteristics of the molybdenum complexes and FeCl3, both dopants are employed simultaneously to reach high power factors at relatively low dopant concentrations.


It is particularly important for us not to lose sight of the fact that people have been around for a long time and that they achieved remarkable technical skills long before Western science was developed. An anonymous writer from the Food and Agriculture Organization has observed: "It is a commonplace that the fundamental discoveries which made civilization possible—fire- making, tool-making, agriculture, building, calculating, writing, money—were all apparently made outside the area which has given us the marvels of modern science" (19). The writer might well have added that it is also commonly overlooked that food technology was not suddenly developed in the 20th century but has been very much a part of the lives of people everywhere ever since they began doing more to their food than gathering it and eating it raw. Lamb's "Essay on Roast Pig" may not be an accurate account of the first conjunction of fire and food, but cooking is a rather ancient practice. Fermentation is another complicated processing technology which is a traditional part of most cultures, particularly those in warm climates—beer, yogurt, cheese, the fish pastes and sauces of Asia, the palm wine of Africa, and soy sauce, are butsome examples. Native Americans, besides accomplishing marvels in plant genetics and crop development, also developed water extraction methods for treating acorns to render the flour palatable and edible, and the alkali method of processing maize. Furthermore, they developed a cure for scurvy—by making a water extraction of pine needles which are rich in ascorbic acid—long before it was first reported by Jacques Cartier in the 16th century. Similarly, calcium-deficient diets of pregnant and nursing women were traditionally successfully supplemented by calcium-rich powdered deer antlers in northern China. Among the Chinese and Greeks, goiter was cured by eating certain kinds of seaweed centuries before the disease was traced to a lack of iodine, and Kenyans learned to suck salt-rich earth to avoid salt depletion symptoms after arduous exertion in tropical heat long before "modern science" learned why (20). The enumeration of examples could go on, but this was not meant to be an essay in folklore. The point is that all so-called primitive societies developed technologies, techniques, and a store of practical knowledge of a wide range of sophistication, by what must be admitted to be the scientific method, and neither their accomplishments and skills nor those of societies "en voie de d�veloppement" should be ignored or discounted. We are confident that modern food science and technology has much to contribute to helping the food-deficit nations eat adequately. First, we must find a way of using the best of Western technology without losing sight of the reality of the situation in the third world and without failing to take into account, better than we have done so far, the secondary and tertiary implications of the changes suggested. Second, we must encourage the examination of local problems in terms of the use and improvement of local technologies which are often quite sophisticated and the result of centuries of development. And third, we must inject a greater component of cultural awareness in the education of students to make them more creative in their application of scientific knowledge to local problems and more adaptable to the conditions that exist in developing countries. We should not lose sight of the fact that because of the precarious nature of their food supply, very often developing countries have much more rigid rules governing the production, preparation, and consumption of food than usually is the case in food-surplus societies, and disturbing these rules is a very serious matter. The time is past when "West is best" can be taken for granted; "adapt and adopt" is surely less offensively arrogant and much more to the point.


Online reviews and rating sites are shaping industries as the users rely on recommendations given by former consumers and sharing opinions on the web. Dentistry has also been impacted by dental patients' reviews. This paper classifies trust-related information for dental care recommendations onto 4 categories: context, relationship, reputation and subjective criteria. It discusses each category and describes how they help focussing on trust when matching patients and dentists in brief. The paper then focuses on subjective criteria and presents the results of a survey aimed at showing trustrelated information emerged from subjective characteristics. Traits of personalities are used as subjective characteristics of patients and that of dentists are derived from the online patients' reviews. 580 Australian patients were surveyed to determine what factors affect their decision to find the trusted dentist. Subjective characteristics of dentists such as dentists' qualities and experienced dentists are considered the most important factors after location and cost. The most preferred dentists' qualities by almost all types of personalities are experienced, professional and quality of service. When the patients are further classified based on levels of fear, their preferences for dentists' qualities changed. Subjective qualities of both patients and dentists are important factors to improve the matching capability for the dental care recommendation systems.


Effects of plasma density distributions on self-focusing of intense laser pulses propagating in an underdense cold plasma are investigated, where the laser intensity has a Gaussian distribution and the initial plasma density is cylindrical-symmetrically distributed. An evaluation function is derived to judge which type of plasma density distribution is more beneficial for the occurrence of self-focusing. Through analyzing and calculating the evaluation function, it is found that for a given laser field and with fixed initial plasma density along the central axis, which coincides with the axis of the laser beam, increasing plasma density with the distance from the axis favors self-focusing. Furthermore, the greater the density gradient, the more favorable. It is also found that the combined action of both relativistic and ponderomotive effects is of more advantage to self-focusing than that of relativistic effect alone. Numerical simulation confirms that the evaluation function is capable of accurately predicting the favorable role of plasma density distribution in producing laser self-focusing.


Summary
1. We followed microbial and other planktonic communities during a 4-month period (February–May) in 12 outdoor flow-through mesocosms designed to elucidate the effect of global warming and nutrient enrichment. The mesocosms were established in 2003.

2. Warming had a smaller effect than nutrients on the biomass of the microbial and planktonic communities, and warming and nutrients together exhibited complex interactions.

3. We did not find direct effects of warming on the biomass of bacterioplankton or ciliates; however, warming significantly added to the positive effect of nutrients on these organisms and on heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNF). No warming effects on any of the other planktonic groups analysed were detected.

4. The zooplankton: phytoplankton biomass ratio was lowest, and the HNF: bacteria and rotifer: bacteria biomass ratios highest in the heated, nutrient-rich mesocosms. We attribute this to higher fish predation on large-bodied zooplankton, releasing the predation on HNF and competition for rotifers.

5. The proportion of phytoplankton to the total plankton biomass increased with nutrients, but decreased with warming. The opposite pattern was observed for the proportion of phytoplankton to the total microbial biomass.

6. As climate warming may lead to eutrophication, major changes may occur in the pelagic food web and the microbial community due to changes in trophic state and in combination with warming.


Aim: to determine whether the application of laser acupoint stimulation to previously reported effective ear and body acupuncture points was successful in reducing the physical symptoms of withdrawal, so promoting a complete cessation of smoking. Design: The method used was that of a double blind, randomised controlled trial and semi‑structured interviews. Adult volunteers (n=415) were recruited following a television appeal. After initial screening and application of inclusion/exclusion criteria the volunteers (n=387) were randomly allocated to either of the treatment groups A or B or C. Intervention: Three laser therapy treatments on days 1, 3 and 7 of the programme and one sham treatment on day 14 (Group A) or 4 laser treatments carried out on days 1, 3, 7 and 14 (Group B) or Group C with four sham treatments on days 1, 3, 7 and 14. Sham treatments used an inactive probe identical in appearance to active probe. Findings: Groups A and Group B participants achieved a higher rate of non smoking than Group C. Of the two groups, four treatments (Group B) was more effective than the three treatments (Group A). The differences in the non smoking behaviors of all three groups were statistically significant. Subjective data reported a lessening of withdrawal symptoms after laser treatment. Conclusions: Laser acupoint stimulation can assist in smoking cessation by reducing the physical symptoms of withdrawal.


In this paper we discuss how the products of student work during long-term, interdisciplinary curricular units at King Middle School, a grades 6-8 public school in Portland, Maine, through their aesthetic qualities, transformed people's understanding of what children were capable of. We argue that, to effectively understand student work of this type, 'cognitive' and 'practical' criteria for evaluation – i.e., as a supposed indicator of what students need to know and be able to do – fail to convey the actual, substantive value of the work, rendering it relatively static and meaningless like much conventional schoolwork. Instead, we argue that aesthetic criteria can help to adequately understand and assess community-based, project work. Moreover, focusing only on student learning throughout the production process occludes the importance of collaboration, communication, and dialogue with an audience: in this case, community experts whose goals and interests must be accommodated as students do their work. The aim of the article is twofold: 1) to present a coherent picture of student project work that adequately captures its complexity both in the process of its production, and in its use-value upon completion; and 2) to argue for the importance of aesthetic criteria in planning and assessing student projects.


The Skellefte district, an early Proterozoic massive sulphide ore province in Northern Sweden, contains a well-preserved volcano-sedimentary rock association, referred to as the Skellefte Group, metamorphosed predominantly under low-grade conditions. The volcanic rocks in the lower part of the succession host the massive sulphide deposits and comprise a bimodal sequence, composed of a calc-alkaline group of felsic rocks and a tholeiitic group of mafic rocks displaying a basaltic to andesitic composition. Derivation of the felsic rocks by fractional crystallization from the mafic rocks is not supported by the geochemical data. Application of tectonic environment discriminant diagrams involving the elements Ti, Zr, Y and Cr suggests that these rocks were deposited in a volcanic arc setting. Stratigraphically above the volcanic rocks hosting the massive sulphide deposits, there follows a sequence of metamorphosed greywackes and pelitic sediments with intercalation of primitive basaltic to ultrabasic volcanic and high-level intrusive rocks. The volcanic rocks show geochemical similarities to both Archaean basaltic komatiites and Phanerozoic boninites. The primitive nature of these rocks present difficulties in assessing their palaeotectonic setting. A volcanic arc or transition to an inter- or back-arc rift situation is suggested.


Search engines can record which documents were clicked for which query, and use these query-document pairs as "soft" relevance judgments. However, compared to the true judgments, click logs give noisy and sparse relevance information. We apply a Markov random walk model to a large click log, producing a probabilistic ranking of documents for a given query. A key advantage of the model is its ability to retrieve relevant documents that have not yet been clicked for that query and rank those effectively. We conduct experiments on click logs from image search, comparing our ("backward") random walk model to a different ("forward") random walk, varying parameters such as walk length and self-transition probability. The most effective combination is a long backward walk with high self-transition probability.


Noting the rising sales of eco-friendly and fairly traded goods in the United States, this study examines the effects of implementing a policy that would limit the supply of non-fair-trade coffee in San Francisco. The goal of this policy would be to increase the sales of the fair-trade coffee market in the United States, and benefit fair-trade coffee growers by mandating the sale of fair-trade coffee in San Francisco. This study focuses on the economic effects of the policy on consumers and producers of fair-trade coffee, regular coffee, tea, and soda. " Fair trade " began at the end of World War II and was linked to religious organizations that wanted to provide relief for refugees and other impoverished groups. This relief was provided by selling handicrafts and other goods in northern markets at prices that afford high rates of return for the impoverished producers in the developing world. Over time, seventeen different fair-trade labeling organizations have been created that monitor and certify fair-trade products and requirements. Requirements for coffee growers to attain a fair-trade certification state that growers must follow the principles of democratic organization, not utilize child labor, recognize trade unions for laborers, and support environmental sustainability. The fair-trade movement is gaining momentum in recent years, with sales growing more than twenty percent annually since 2000 and over forty percent between 2002 and 2003. Product demand and supply were specified as functions of various price elasticities for related markets: fair-trade coffee, regular coffee, tea and soda. This model was used to estimate the percentage changes in quantity and price for each market caused by a policy that restricts the supply of non-fair-trade coffee to 10 percent of its initial quantity. This policy would result in an increase in the price of fair-trade coffee from $1.26 per pound to $3.31 per pound in the city of iv San Francisco as well as an increase in supply from 512,922 pounds per year to 2,190,179 pounds per year. This policy would increase the national consumption of fair-trade coffee by 1.9 percent but it would leave consumers with high prices for tea, soda and non-fair-trade coffee. Overall this study provides a roadmap for similar analyses of market equilibriums as well as rough predictions for changes in prices and quantities for these commodities as a result of such a policy.


Background Chagas disease is a long-lasting disease with a prolonged asymptomatic period. Cumulative indices of infection such as prevalence do not shed light on the current epidemiological situation, as they integrate infection over long periods. Instead, metrics such as the Force-of-Infection (FoI) provide information about the rate at which susceptible people become infected and permit sharper inference about temporal changes in infection rates. FoI is estimated by fitting (catalytic) models to available age-stratified serological (ground-truth) data. Predictive FoI modelling frameworks are then used to understand spatial and temporal trends indicative of heterogeneity in transmission and changes effected by control interventions. Ideally, these frameworks should be able to propagate uncertainty and handle spatiotemporal issues. Methodology/principal findings We compare three methods in their ability to propagate uncertainty and provide reliable estimates of FoI for Chagas disease in Colombia as a case study: two Machine Learning (ML) methods (Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Random Forest (RF)), and a Linear Model (LM) framework that we had developed previously. Our analyses show consistent results between the three modelling methods under scrutiny. The predictors (explanatory variables) selected, as well as the location of the most uncertain FoI values, were coherent across frameworks. RF was faster than BRT and LM, and provided estimates with fewer extreme values when extrapolating to areas where no ground-truth data were available. However, BRT and RF were less efficient at propagating uncertainty. Conclusions/significance The choice of FoI predictive models will depend on the objectives of the analysis. ML methods will help characterise the mean behaviour of the estimates, while LM will provide insight into the uncertainty surrounding such estimates. Our approach can be extended to the modelling of FoI patterns in other Chagas disease-endemic countries and to other infectious diseases for which serosurveys are regularly conducted for surveillance.


The reliability of the data which characterize the behavior of a plant is critical to the effective monitoring and improvement of plant performance. It is thus essential that gross errors in these data, which can arise from measurement problems or inadequate mathematical models, are detected and eliminated before the performance of the plant is evaluated. Procedures for the detection of gross errors based on back propagation neural nets have recently been shown to be superior to those based on conventional statistical tests, especially where data processing is dependent on highly nonlinear models. The global detection of gross errors in process systems appears to be a relatively simple problem that can be accommodated with equal effciency by back propagation, probabilistic, and learning vector quantization neural nets. The location of errors based on the constraint residuals of process systems, on the other hand, poses a more formidable problem that is not handled well by standard back propagation nets. For these types of problems other systems such as learning vector quantization neural nets, that are significantly more efficient than back propagation neural nets are recommended


Abstract : Presentation given at the 2001 Vehicle Technologies Symposium, 29-31 May 2001, sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association.


This paper presents a general method for detecting curvilinear structures, like filaments or edges, in noisy images. This method relies on a novel technique, the feature-adapted beamlet transform (FABT) which is the main contribution of this paper. It combines the well-known beamlet transform (BT), introduced by Donoho , with local filtering techniques in order to improve both detection performance and accuracy of the BT. Moreover, as the desired feature detector is chosen to belong to the class of steerable filters, our transform requires only O(N log(N)) operations, where N = n 2 is the number of pixels. Besides providing a fast implementation of the FABT on discrete grids, we present a statistically controlled method for curvilinear objects detection. To extract significant objects, we propose an algorithm in four steps: 1) compute the FABT, 2) normalize beamlet coefficients, 3) select meaningful beamlets thanks to a fast energy-based minimization, and 4) link beamlets together in order to get a list of objects. We present an evaluation on both synthetic and real data, and demonstrate substantial improvements of our method over classical feature detectors.


Originally formulated in Social Choice theory, Ranking Aggregation, also referred to as Consensus Ranking, has motivated the development of numerous statistical models since the middle of the 20th century. Recently, the analysis of ranking/preference data has been the subject of a renewed interest in machine-learning, boosted by modern applications such as meta-search engines, giving rise to the design of various scalable algorithmic approaches for approximately computing ranking medians, viewed as solutions of a discrete (generally NP-hard) minimization problem. This paper develops a statistical learning theory for ranking aggregation in a general probabilistic setting (avoiding any rigid ranking model assumptions), assessing the generalization ability of empirical ranking medians. Universal rate bounds are established and the situations where convergence occurs at an exponential rate are fully characterized. Minimax lower bounds are also proved, showing that the rate bounds we obtain are optimal.


The postmodern turn which has so marked social and cultural theory also involves conflicts between modern and postmodern politics. In this essay, we articulate the differences between modern and postmodern politics and argue against one-sided positions that dogmatically reject one tradition or the other in favor of partisanship for either the modern or the postmodern. Arguing for a politics of alliance and solidarity, we claim that this project is best served by drawing on the most progressive elements of both the modern and postmodern traditions. Developing a new politics involves overcoming the limitations of certain versions of modern politics and postmodern identity politics in order to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to the challenges of the new millennium.


This paper considers how James Hunter's arguments, presented both in his address and his book To Change the World, might inform the development of a constructive religious legal theory based in the particular resources of Christian theology. In speaking of religious legal theory, I mean something quite different than a theory of law and religion. For some time, the academic conversation about law and religion has centered around issues concerning church-state relations and, more broadly, the place of religion within the liberal political order. Yet, the regnant methodological concerns that have shaped this discourse reflect the boundedness of law to a modern secular imaginary. This being the case, pulling theology into deeper conversation with legal thought will require freeing law from its lingering state of captivity. Hunter's work is particularly useful in this ground-clearing task because it offers a dense critique of the sociological assumptions that have shaped legal modernity. While his concern is not with religious legal theory as such, Hunter's normative account of Christian being in the world, captured most fully in the idea of faithful presence, contains important resources for developing a model of Christian engagement with law.


Computational grids allow the sharing of geographically distributed resources in an efficient way, extending the boundaries of what we perceive as distributed computing. It is a fact that the computational grid nodes are not 100% secure from failure. Here comes a problem on how to handle failing nodes and effectively schedule and distribute the required work on the participating nodes and, in the same time, provide assurance that the task will be completed successfully. Additionally, when applying a recovery technique to an Economic Grid, the problem of maintaining the cost arises. In this paper, we propose an enhancement to a fault tolerance Genetic Algorithm (GA) using a checkpoint recovery technique. The enhancement focuses on finding a schedule which tries to minimize the running costs resulting from the overhead of implementing fault tolerance technique and in the same time tries to satisfy the quality constraints of the user. The results show that without adding these factors, the schedule running costs may be uncontrollable from the point of view of the grid owner.


Financing measures and incentive schemes for (existing and new) building owners can promote the sustainable settlement development of rural regions or municipalities and, in a wider sense, entire countries or cross-border regions. In order to be used on a broad scale, the concept of revolving funds must continue to be further developed. In this research, the concept of an advanced revolving housing fund (ARF) for building owners to support the sustainable development of rural regions and potential mechanisms are introduced. The ARF is designed to reflect impacts and challenges with regard to rural regions in Germany, Europe and beyond. Based on New Institutional Economics, the Theory of Spatial Organisms, an expert workshop, interviews and discussions and further literature research, the fundamentals for incentive schemes and the essential mechanisms and design aspects of the ARF are derived. This includes the principal structure and governance of a holding fund and several regional funds. Based on this, input parameters for the financial modelling of an ARF are presented as well as guiding elements for empirical testing to promote more research in this area. It is found that the ARF should have a regional focus and must be a comprehensive instrument of settlement development with additional informal and formal measures. The developed concept promises new impulses, in particular, for rural regions. It is proposed to test the concept by means of case studies in pioneer regions of different countries.


ABSURDIST II, an extension to ABSURDIST, is an algorithm using attributed graph matching to find translations between conceptual systems. It uses information about the internal structure of systems by itself, or in combination with external information about concept similarities across systems. It supports systems with multiple types of weighted or unweighted, directed or undirected relations between concepts. The algorithm exploits graph sparsity to improve computational efficiency. We present the results of experiments with a number of conceptual systems, including artificially constructed random graphs with introduced distortions.


The scientific understanding of how people perceive and code risks and then use this information in decision making has progressed greatly in the last 20 years. There is considerable evidence that people employ simplifying heuristics in judgement and decision making. These heuristics may lead to bias in how people interpret information. However, much of our understanding of risk perception is based on laboratory studies. It is much less clear whether risk perception in the real world (as in the case of medical treatments) exhibits the same patterns and biases. This paper reviews the published literature on risk perception in patients who face substantial treatment risks. It examines how accurate patients' perception of risk is, what factors affect the perception of risk, and several possible explanations for why patients' risk perception is not always accurate.


The first of two books concentrating on the dynamics of slender bodies within or containing axial flow, Fluid-Structure Interaction, Volume 1 covers the fundamentals and mechanisms giving rise to flow-induced vibration, with a particular focus on the challenges associated with pipes conveying fluid. This volume has been thoroughly updated to reference the latest developments in the field, with a continued emphasis on the understanding of dynamical behaviour and analytical methods needed to provide long-term solutions and validate the latest computational methods and codes. In this edition, Chapter 7 from Volume 2 has also been moved to Volume 1, meaning that Volume 1 now mainly treats the dynamics of systems subjected to internal flow, whereas in Volume 2 the axial flow is in most cases external to the flow or annular. * Provides an in-depth review of an extensive range of fluid-structure interaction topics, with detailed real-world examples and thorough referencing throughout for additional detail. * Organized by structure and problem type, allowing you to dip into the sections that are relevant to the particular problem you are facing, with numerous appendices containing the equations relevant to specific problems. * Supports development of long-term solutions by focusing on the fundamentals and mechanisms needed to understand underlying causes and operating conditions under which apparent solutions might not prove effective.


Cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibition results in tumor regression; however, little is known about the mechanism. In the present study, using a Walker256 tumor model and a rat bone marrow–derived endothelial cell line TR-BME-2, we analyzed the effects of a new selective COX-2 inhibitor, 5,5-dimethyl-3-(3-fluorophenyl)-4-(4-methylsulphonyl)phenyl-2-(5H)-furanone (DFU), on the production of chemokines and growth factors and on the neovascularization. The oral administration of DFU (5 mg/kg/d) significantly suppressed the tumor growth with decreasing microvessel density in vivo, although it showed no direct inhibition of Walker256 cell proliferation in vitro. It was newly found that the recruitment of systemically injected TR-BME-2 cells into the tumor site was significantly inhibited by DFU treatment. In addition, we found that DFU significantly reduced the production of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) both in tumor tissues and in the systemic circulation (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001, respectively). Such reduction was not observed in other chemotactic factors, vascular endothelial growth factor and stromal cell–derived factor-1. The induced chemotaxis of TR-BME-2 by serum of tumor-bearing rats was significantly reduced in DFU-treated rat serum, although DFU showed no direct inhibition for TR-BME-2 cells, either cell growth or chemotaxis. Treatment with neutralizing antibodies to soluble mediators, including MCP-1, significantly suppressed the chemotaxis. Regarding the down-regulation machinery of MCP-1 production in vivo, tumor-associated macrophages seem to play crucial roles, because DFU eliminated MCP-1 production in the activated macrophages remarkably but not in Walker256 tumor cells in vitro. In conclusion, COX-2 inhibitor DFU exerts tumor regression activity in a Walker256 tumor model by suppressing MCP-1 production in tumor tissues and in the circulation.


Many Indian microfinance institutions (MFIs) introduced the individual lending (IL) methodology as a natural progression from the group lending methodology. The lure of "big ticket" loans and higher profitability is attracting growth oriented MFIs to aggressively push for IL without considering the inherent risks. IL has its own idiosyncratic needs like cash flow based lending; analysing business needs and risks; bringing flexibility in product features; building staff capacities and processes that must be followed for successful implementation. This India Focus Notes (IFN) examines these issues and makes recommendations for MFIs considering individual lending.