In this thesis short-distance (hard momentum transfer) processes are explored using perturbative QCD. Three problems, as described below, were studied. In the first research problem the low x behaviour of the twist-two structure functions F2D(x), g1D(x) and b1D(x) for the deuteron was examined in the framework of the LPS (Landshoff-Polkinghorne-Short) model for deep inelastic scattering. Glauber theory was used to go from quark-nucleon scattering to quark-nucleus scattering. The quadrupole structure function b1D(x, Q2), which otherwise vanishes for a pure s-state, turns out to be non-zero once double scattering terms are included. Assuming a simple s-state model of the deuteron, numerical estimates were given for all twist-two structure functions, both spin dependent and independent.

In the second problem, processes involving heavy quarkonia were studied. I have developed a systematically improvable method of incorporating gauge invariance in heavy quarkonia processes and thereby corrected an important defect of the traditional non-relativistic quark model. The method yields relativistic correction of O( v2), where v is the relative quark velocity, in heavy quarkonia decays, etc. It was found that corrections arising from the incorporation of gauge symmetry are important for decay, fragmentation and formation processes involving QQ systems. The contribution of soft gluons was also shown to be of higher order in v and so is negligible for calculations done upto O( v2).

In the third, and final, problem the formalism described above was applied, upto terms of O(v2), to the photoproduction of J/Iˆ on nucleons. The bound state corrections to this process were calculated in the colour-singlet model. The internal structure of the meson is characterised by two parameters, EB / M and V2 Iˆ (O)/M2 Iˆ(O), in addition to the usual wavefunction at the origin Iˆ(O). The parameters were constrained to be consistent with measured leptonic and hadronic decays of the J/ Iˆ. It was found that the calculated corrections to the colour singlet model, which include radiative effects, improve agreement with the experimental data.


This research into school identity studies school agency by focusing on how schools act to self-determine an aspirational international identity. Aspirational identity is conceptualized in Bourdieusian terms as intentional position-taking in the face of constraints, both external – field competition for capital resources – and internal - a subject's habitus (which, for schools, necessitates critical evaluation of the putative notion of institutional habitus). Schools fundamentally distinct from many organizations in that a school's identity subsumes a role in the determination of the identity of its students, may construe and pursue the realization of an element to their school identity that is international. Schools may do this by creating an international ethos, in order to internationalize student identity. In this study, to analyse ethos- and identity-internationalizing initiatives in a sufficiently broad, unifying manner, applicable to any type of school, use is made of Bernstein's notion of the pedagogization of knowledge to inspire an analytical framework developed from the Pedagogic Device. Data from interviews with school leaders in 15 schools in 10 countries, showed ethos internationalizing initiatives to be divisible into three classes: firstly, initiatives pertaining to the medium by which knowledge is transmitted, particularly the language of instruction and the nationality mix of students and teachers; secondly, the knowledge transmitted to students may be deemed to be more or less international in content; thirdly, the knowledge to be transmitted may be prepared for transmission to students in ways that are more or less international by the process that Bernstein calls recontextualization. A potent means of internationalizing school identity and thus ethos was seen to be (international) recontextualization of knowledge by schools themselves, sometimes but not always in conjunction with an external agency. It was found that schools, irrespective of the composition by nationality of their student body, according to varying degrees of agency they display to construe and pursue an international identity for themselves and students, may be classified according to three 'ideal types': international identity creators; international identity assemblers; or international identity strengtheners. Some of the international identity strengtheners are shown to exhibit positive habitus to aspire to international identity as they stake more advantageous field positions by operating simultaneously in both national and transnational fields.


In emerging East Asia, agricultural output has expanded dramatically over recent decades, primarily as a result of successful efforts to stimulate yield growth. This achievement has increased the availability of food and raw materials in the region, drastically diminished hunger, and more generally provided solid ground for economic development. The intensification of agriculture that has made this possible, however, has also led to serious pollution problems that have adversely affected human and ecosystem health, as well as the productivity of agriculture itself. In the region that currently owes the largest proportion of deaths to the environment, agriculture is often portrayed as a victim of industrial and urban pollution, and this is indeed the case. Yet agriculture is taking a growing toll on economic resources and sometimes becoming a victim of its own success. In parts of China, Vietnam, and the Philippines—the countries studied in The Challenge of Agricultural Pollution—this pattern of highly productive yet highly polluting agriculture has been unfolding with consequences that remain poorly understood. With large numbers of pollutants and sources, agricultural pollution is often undetected and unmeasured. When assessments do occur, they tend to take place within technical silos, and so the different ecological and socioeconomic risks are seldom considered as a whole, while some escape study entirely. However, when agricultural pollution is considered in its entirety, both the significance of its impacts and the relative neglect of them become clear. Meanwhile, growing recognition that a "pollute now, treat later" approach is unsustainable—from both a human health and an agroindustry perspective—has led public and private sector actors to seek solutions to this problem. Yet public intervention has tended to be more reactive than preventive and often inadequate in scale. In some instances, the implementation of sound pollution control programs has also been confronted with incentive structures that do not rank environmental outcomes prominently. Significant potential does exist, however, to reduce the footprint of farms through existing technical solutions, and with adequate and well-crafted government support, its realization is well within reach.


In this paper we present a new algorithm to find the optimal unit commitment and economic dispatch (UC/D) for a large hydrothermal power system. Mathematically, this is a large nonlinear, mixed integer optimization problem involving over 16,800 integer variables for a system having 100 thermal units with a 1-week schedu horizon. We use a dual programming approach to solve a separate optimal control problem for each therm unit and for each set of coupled hydro units. The algorithm has been tested on a 100 thermal unit/6 hydro unit system having a 168-hour scheduling period, and will find solutions that are within 0.1 to 0.25 percent of the optimal dual cost. We report computational results for a system modeled after the New York Power Pool.


A growing awareness by mankind can be found these days of the limitations of our planet's resources of both energy and materials. It is now realized that only a responsible policy for energy and material consumption can prevent too rapid exhaustion of these resources. Fortunately, new technologies and materials are available which make it possible to design new devices and components of tiny dimensions, resulting in a considerable reduction of material and energy consumption. These new (technological) elements, because of their ever decreasing dimensions, need special techniques for analytical guidance throughout the whole cycle of production and testing. A number of thin-film analytical techniques are available, not only for these special type of analyses but also for a much broader range of applications. The developments in one of these techniques, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), will be the main topic of this paper. A brief comparison of the principle features of SIMS and other beam techniques-Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ion scattering spectroscopy (ISS), etc.-with the classical discharge excitation techniques, such as arc, spark, and glow discharge-excitation, will be made. The following different lines of development in SIMS will be discussed: 1. The increasing use of quadrupole mass spectrometers, mostly used in combination with other thin-film analysis techniques, and problems encountered in point analysis and elemental mapping (imaging), using ion microprobes, where a fine ion beam scans the surface to be imaged, or ion microscopes, where an image of the bombarded area is produced using the ion optics of the mass spectrometer. 2. The need to detect cluster ions X n Y m + -important for organic SIMS analysis, depth profiling, and fundamental studies-which has led to the development of mass spectrometers with a large mass range. High mass resolution instruments (5000 and up) are required for the identification, by means of mass defects, of constituents of layers or interfaces, or both, that emit ions or cluster ions with the same mass number. 3. Methods for quantitative analysis with SIMS, using positive or negative atomic ions or molecular ions, developed for a large number of matrices. However, some caution is always necessary because of the possibility of artifacts not yet taken into account. 4. The combination of SIMS with other thin-film analysis techniques being used more and more, in many cases, to facilitate the solution of practical analytical problems caused by the complementary information available-for example, the element range, limit of detection, peak coincidences, and ease of interpretation. 5. Quantitative, routine depth profiling of many elements, including hydrogen, as reported by many authors. Reliable depth profiles will only be obtained, however, when the many artifacts inherent to ion bombardment are taken into account. 6. Different applications of SIMS-for example, the investigation of nonplanar samples, insulating materials, thin-film sandwich structures, organic materials, and biological materials.


Grasping is a flexible human motor behavior coordinated on the basis of perceptual information about the structure of surfaces in reachable space. In two original experiments, we investigated the perceptual information supporting accurate grasp performance. Participants in these experiments reached-to-grasp target objects that were situated in illusory contexts under two perceptual conditions: a natural closed-loop condition with full visual feedback and a modified closed-loop condition which selectively prevented online vision of the hand. In natural closed-loop grasping in an illusory context, we found that the anticipatory opening between the forefinger and thumb (grip aperture) reflected the illusory perceptual size in early stages and the veridical physical size in late stages. Dynamic analysis of grip aperture scaling revealed a clear mid-flight correction, suggesting that additional information for motor control was made available during grasp execution. Based on this finding, we conducted a follow-up experiment in which we prevented online vision of the hand. In contrast to the natural closed-loop condition where maximum grip aperture (MGA) was tuned to veridical physical size, in the modified closed-loop condition we found that MGA was tuned to illusory perceptual size. This work focuses on the implications of these results for the perceptual control of action, arguing that they cannot be accounted for by explanations that posit specialized vision-for-action processes capable of extracting metrically accurate, Euclidean spatial information akin to a 3D depth map of the local environment. As an alternative, the results suggest that online control processes based on visual comparison of hand and target positions could support accurate grasp performance in illusory contexts. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


The word "alternative" is definitely trending in the legal zeitgeist. Beginning with the U.K. Legal Services Act and accelerating through the legal tech startup boom, discussion about the growing importance of Alternative Business Structures (ABS) and Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSP) has become a cottage industry in the legal press, and increasingly in the legal academy as well. And yet, for all of the talk about the growing importance of these "alternatives," the very discourse used to cast these new providers as the harbingers of impending dramatic changes in the market for legal services continues to marginalize and mask their true significance. In this Chapter, we argue that this characterization of the range of new providers competing for a share of the global corporate legal services market is fundamentally flawed. We do so by first reminding today's lawyers and commentators that the large law firms and sophisticated in-house legal departments that we now consider to be the "traditional" standard against which all other legal service providers should be measured, were once considered radical "alternatives" posing a significant threat to the "core" values of lawyer professionalism. As market conditions changed, however, these marginalized forms of practice not only moved to the mainstream, but have become the very embodiment of professional excellence. Similarly, we argue, as corporate clients increasingly demand professional services that are "integrated," "customized," and "agile," the parts of the market that are now considered "alternative" – e.g., technology, managed services, flexible staffing, and multidisciplinary practice – are also moving from the periphery to the core. At the same time, "traditional" law firms and in-house legal departments are under mounting pressure to demonstrate how the "core" services that they provide contribute to producing the kind of "integrated solutions" their clients need. We conclude by highlighting some of the challenges that this evolving "integrated solutions" model poses for other parts of the legal "ecosystem" such as legal education, legal regulation, and the rule of law, that either have not – or should not – change.


This article analyses the religious travel experiences of members of the first generation of the Muslim Pakistani diaspora living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK drawing upon qualitative interpretations collected from semi-structured interviews. Religious travel for first-generation Muslim Pakistanis is influenced by Islamic principles and practices associated with obligations to travel to meet with friends and relatives. Religious obligations to travel are considered as a key factor influencing visiting friends and relatives (VFR) mobilities at a local and national level. The religious obligation associated with VFR travel is examined in view of one of the five pillars of Islam, which is salah (prayer), which stimulates various mobilities. Central to the analysis of religious-orientated (VFR) journeys are the conceptual underpinnings of obligations situated in the mobilities paradigm, which give rise to understandings of spiritualities of place. Religious obligations to travel unite the Muslim diaspora in various local (in Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and national (UK) settings. The contribution of this paper is, therefore, to advance the understanding of the relationship between Islam and travel, and add to existing knowledge of the journeys of Muslim travellers in the context of VFR travel. We conclude by suggesting further avenues of research concerning religious obligations to travel.


This study investigated the efficacy of vibration exercise (VbX) as a warm-up modality for maximal overground sprinting. Ten national level sprinters participated in a randomized crossover design (14.0 x 7.4 days washout period). A VbX warm-up was compared to a warm-up involving sprint-specific exercises (control condition). The VbX warm-up involved 10 x 1 minute bouts delivered by a Galileo 900 side-alternating plate (frequency = 26 Hz, peak-to-peak displacement = 9 mm) with 30 s rest between bouts (total time = 15 minutes). The sprint-specific warm-up involved jogging, dynamic exercises and sprinting drills followed by 3 x 40 m sub-maximal sprints not exceeding 95% of maximal speed over a 15 minute period. After each warm-up (within 2 minutes), 6 x 40 m maximum sprints were completed from a crouch start position with starting blocks. Outcome measures were recorded by timing gates (Swift Performance, Australia) and a Vicon Motion Measurement System (Oxford, UK). Measures recorded were sprint time over the 0-4 m, 5-10 m, 10-20 m, 20-40 m and 5-40 m intervals. The stride length, stride velocity and stride time of both legs were recorded over the 0-4 m interval by the Vicon system. All measures remained unchanged across warm-up modalities. It is reasonable to conclude that VbX may be used as an alternative warm-up for sprinting over 40 m. Given its time efficiency and suggested relatively low metabolic cost, VbX may be a suitable warm-up for activities requiring multiple sprints over a competition day or game period.


Seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits, found at water depths to 3600 m, are products of high-temperature hydrothermal activity associated with seafloor volcanism. Dissolved metals in the hydrothermal fluids precipitate when the fluids are expelled. Metal sulphides also accumulate as chimney-like structures. SMS are considered for future commercial exploitation because of the presence of metals such as Cu, Zn, Au and Ag. Physical parameters (geotechnical and geophysical) of SMS are important for mining purposes, to allow estimation of both the size of the deposits and the amount of ore. This paper investigates the magnetic susceptibility of 40 mini-core samples with respect to the possible discrimination of ore from host rock in the cores immediately after the drilling operations. The unmineralized host rock samples in general have higher susceptibilities compared with the mineralized samples. However, the analysis of the electrical resistivity allows a unique discrimination for our set of samples, as the mineralized and unmineralized samples fall into distinct groups without overlap when both susceptibility and resistivity are considered. The imaginary conductivity, a parameter that quantifies induced polarization, further enhances discrimination between the mineralized and non-mineralized groups.


It has long been the focus of many countries around the world to see their entrepreneurs grow and to introduce interventions to assist them, as they realise the impact these entrepreneurs have on their economies. Technology is believed to be one of the biggest tools that entrepreneurs can use to assist them in growing sustainable businesses. There is an increased need for small businesses to employ information and communication technology (ICT) to enhance their businesses as part of their countries' socio-economic development. This, in turn, leads to an increased need for digital literacy interventions for these entrepreneurs. Many interventions have tried to assist a country's residents to adopt ICT and enhance their digital literacy levels. However, many of these did not have the desired outcomes. Many barriers prevent these initiatives from being successful, for example difficulty in retaining the current workforce, a lack of skills and human capital development, a lack of resources, security concerns, mistrust regarding ICT and ICT service providers and a lack of trust. Data were gathered over three years (2012, 2013 and 2017) to determine whether there has been any change in the uptake of technology over time, whether technology is indeed the answer to many entrepreneurs' problems and whether some of the barriers could be overcome. An interpretivist paradigm using a qualitative approach was employed and 193 entrepreneurs were interviewed over three years to see if there was any change in their adoption of technology, which should be the case if one recognises the pace at which technology is changing. The identified barriers no longer seem to exist for South African entrepreneurs. It emerged that technology adoption and digital literacy studies should be industry-specific and should not be based on a generic approach. Thus, digital literacy cannot be used as a broad term and needs to be focused for each sector. This article proposes that most entrepreneurs have addressed one of the main barriers. These main barriers include a lack of expertise, in-house knowledge or a one-stop shop to assist with ICT queries and problems. Most of the entrepreneurs now have access to an information technology consultant or expert who can help them to become more digitally literate. Although many new technologies are being developed, certain standard software systems, such as the Microsoft Office package, will always be used. Thus, these standard software systems should be the focus of digital literacy training interventions. These interventions should be simple and easily accessible to everyone.


Angle-resolved low coherence interferometry (a/LCI) enables depth-resolved measurements of scattered light that can be used to recover subsurface structural information, such as the size of cell nuclei. Measurements of nuclear morphology, however, can be complicated by coherent scattering between adjacent cell nuclei. Previous studies have eliminated this component by applying a window filter to Fourier transformed angular data, based on the justification that the coherent scattering must necessarily occur over length scales greater than the cell size. To fully study this effect, results of experiments designed to test the validity of this approach are now presented. The a/LCI technique is used to examine light scattered by regular cell arrays, created using stamped adhesive micropatterned substrates. By varying the array spacing, it is demonstrated that cell-to-cell correlations have a predictable effect on light scattering distributions. These results are compared to image analysis of fluorescence micrographs of the cell array samples. The a/LCI results show that the impact of coherent scattering on nuclear morphology measurements can be eliminated through data filtering.


This article tackles specific issues that arise in teaching human rights in a Western academic institution. As critical human rights scholars, we are concerned with a pedagogy of human rights that gives respect to cultural diversity and the cross-cultural applicability of concepts and social issues in ways that are not antithetical to the purpose of human rights itself. In the Australian context where we are located both as human rights educators and immigrants, our approach depends on giving critical attention to questions of colonialism and its aftermath; to how contemporary human rights are understood across diverse cultures and subjectivities; and how to enable decolonizing methodologies to ensure an ethical exchange and negotiation of human rights learning and teaching in a higher education context. This approach is significant since contemporary Australia is an immigrant nation, a settler colonial society that is located in the South and yet problematically dominated by ontological and epistemological orientations towards the North. We argue that a critical pedagogy of human rights involves a robust non-colonizing and ethical engagement that is both self-reflexive and aware of complicit power relations. We seek to interrogate power as understood through the relationship between lived experience, knowledge and education. In our article we examine, through examples in our own teaching practice, how we seek to create and enable a critical pedagogical space that allows such an ethical engagement to take place.


A fundamental operation in computer graphics is to determine for a given point and direction in a scene, which geometric surface is nearest this point from this direction and thus visible. Conceptually, the point and direction define a "ray". Z-buffer hardware can compute surface visibility for a set of rays with a common origin (i.e. eye point) and a regular pattern of directions in real-time. However, this hardware is much less efficient at performing other visibility computations such as those required to accurately render shadows. A more flexible solution to the visible surface problem is needed.
This work introduces the irregular Z-buffer algorithm, which efficiently solves the visible surface problem for rays with a common origin and arbitrary directions. In addition, we identify several changes to classical graphics architectures needed for hardware acceleration of this algorithm. Though these modifications are incremental in nature (i.e. no new functional units are introduced), we show that they enable significant new capability. In tandem with the irregular Z-buffer algorithm, a GPU with these changes has applications in: shadow rendering, indirect illumination, frameless rendering, adaptive anti-aliasing, adaptive textures, and jittered sampling. We explore the performance of hard and soft shadow rendering in particular, by way of a detailed hardware simulator.


Sardine (Sardina pilchardus) is one of the most important species among Turkish fisheries and is broadly distributed along its coastal waters. In the present study, mitochondrial DNA sequences from the cytochrome b (cytb) gene were examined to assess the genetic diversity of sardines inhabiting Turkish coastal waters. A fragment of sardine cytb DNA from each sample collected from 8 representative regions along the coastal zones was amplified by PCR analysis and subsequently sequenced. The results of sequence analysis determined the existence of variations in 16 single nucleotide sites within the 452 bp fragment of the cytb gene examined in the present study. Phylogenetic trees and pairwise analyses demonstrated a very small divergence (0.002%-0.44%) between the populations, suggesting the lack of population subdivisions. Furthermore, the results of this study revealed a pattern of high nucleotide homology among the adjacent populations, and a small number of nucleotide changes among disjunct populations, leading us to conclude that there is a genetic admixture among the populations inhabiting the coastal waters of Turkey, especially in those geographically close to each other. The results of this study suggest that sardine populations of coastal Turkey are part of a larger, self-recruiting population whose boundaries extend beyond the investigated area.


Conflict between baboons and humans is a common occurrence in many places where baboons exist in close proximity to cultivated land. This study examines patterns of raiding by baboons, farmer retaliation, and potential behavioural responses of baboons to that retaliation in and around the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, South Africa. Recent years have seen a rising baboon population and increasing complaints from farmers in the area about baboons raiding their farmland, leading to concerns that the population may have outgrown the resources available within the reserve. This study consists of three parts: an examination of patterns of space use by baboons, using data from GPS collars fitted to one baboon in each of 10 troops in the reserve; an examination of the behaviour of baboons in 9 of these troops, using data gained though direct observation of troops within the reserve; and an examination of patterns of raiding and farmer retaliation, using data from questionnaires sent to land owners surrounding the reserve. The data revealed that the troops appeared to be responding to resource scarcity and the opportunity to raid in a variety of ways. Some troops appeared to be raiding farmland intensively on short forays out of the reserve, while using the reserve as a refuge, indicated by small amounts of time spent outside the reserve, high levels of overlap between troops and low levels of foraging within the reserve. Other troops appeared to be shifting their home ranges out of the reserve to forage on fallow land, while also raiding farmland to some extent, indicated by large amounts of time spent outside the reserve, low levels of overlap between troops, and low levels of foraging within the reserve. Two of the troops studied apparently did not raid, as they never left the reserve. Data from the questionnaires suggest that, while raiding is stimulated by food scarcity in the dry season, baboons raid maize and beans whenever available, seemingly preferring these crops over natural forage. While some farmers are responding to raiding with lethal retaliation against baboons, the effects of this on the social structure of the troops are unclear due to low sample sizes of behavioural data. This study demonstrates some of the behavioural responses of baboons to raiding and farmer retaliation, and some of the different responses available to baboon troops facing a scarcity of natural food together with the opportunity to raid farmland. Based on my findings, I also provide recommendations to farmers and the Suikerbosrand management aimed at reducing baboon human conflict in the area.


A numerical study has been performed to validate the multiphase CFD model (DPM) by comparing its results to the experimental data of an air/mist film cooling study. The complete experimental test section was simulated including all the details including all the five holes, side walls effect, partially opened top wall, the conjugate bottom wall, the initial droplet distributions from the actual data, and the long boundary layer developing region upstream of the cooling holes. The effects of different particle distributions, the breakup and coalescence models, and the conjugate wall on the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness were investigated. The multiphase CFD model employs an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The Eulerian method is used for the continuous phase including air and water vapor and the Lagrangian method in terms of the discrete phase model (DPM) is used to simulate the dispersed phase (e.g., mist or liquid droplets) in a continuous phase (e.g., air). The overall consistency between the computational prediction and experimental data is within 0.2% for the air-only case and 7% for the mist case. The results showed that considering the wall using the conjugate heat transfer technique significantly provided better agreement with the experimental data than without including the wall. The non-uniform particle distribution provided better agreement with the experimental results near the film cooling hole exit.


In this study, we have performed a detailed investigation of the electronic properties of a core/shell/well/shell multilayered spherical quantum dot, such as energy eigenvalues, wave functions, electron probability distribution, and binding energies. The energy eigenvalues and their wave functions of the considered structure have been calculated for cases with and without an on-center impurity. For this purpose, the Schrodinger equation has been numerically solved by using the shooting method in the effective mass approximation for a finite confining potential. The electronic properties have been examined for different core radii, barrier thicknesses, and well widths in a certain potential. The results have been analyzed in detail as a function of the layer thicknesses and their physical reasons have been interpreted. It has been found that the electronic properties are strongly dependent on the layer thicknesses.


Study Background: Toxocara canis is a helminths parasite known as dog worm but infects human through infected dog feces or contaminated dirt. It is a neglected disease in economically less privileged areas. The parasitic infection can generate inflammatory process. Aim and Objective: This work was designed to determine the seroprevalence of T. canis and the parasitic effect on plasma cytokines in children aged 6–11 years in Saki-East local government area in Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Two hundred children aged 6–11 years (female – 100 and male – 100) were recruited across Saki-East local government area. One hundred and sixty-one of them not infected with any of the infectious agents were studied as control. Sputum, blood, stool, skin snip, and urine samples were obtained for microscopic identification of parasites. Sputum sample was also used for Ziehl–Neelsen staining to demonstrate acid-fast bacilli, while ELISA technique was used for determination of T. canis, anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV), HBsAg, HIV1-p24 antigen, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), and interleukin (IL)-10. Results: The results obtained showed overall seroprevalence of T. canis among the children as 9.5% (19) including 6% (12) male and 3.5% (7) female children. This included 5.5% (11) monoinfected with T. canis; 1% (2) were T. canis coinfected with Ascaris lumbricoides; 1% (2) were T. canis coinfected with hepatitis B virus; 1% (2) were T. canis coinfected with Plasmodium spp.; 0.5% (1) were T. canis coinfected with hookworm; and 0.5% (1) were T. canis coinfected with Schistosoma haematobium. There is no coinfection with either HIV or HCV among the children. 10% (20) were infected with infectious agents but seronegative to T. canis. There was a significant increase in the plasma values of cytokines TNFα and IL-10 in T. canis monoinfected children compared with the control (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The work revealed an overall seroprevalence of T. canis as 9.5% including 5.5% monoinfection and a significant increase in plasma TNFα and IL-10 in T. canis monoinfection.


Up to the middle of the 19th century the distribution of mail, public as well as private, was, to a large extent, a duty imposed on farmers. Demands from farmers to be relieved of this duty resulted in the Government giving the Post Office authority to set up post offices of a new, relatively simple kind (poststationer, or sub-post offices). The majority of these sub-post offices were set up in places served by the railways, and most of them were combined with the railway station, in which case the mail would be dealt with by railway station staff. Between the end of 1860 and the end of 1919, the number of main and sub-post offices in Sweden increased from around 200 to 3,639, of which 3,383 (93 per cent) were sub-post offices. As a result of this rapid expansion, there were often collisions of names, and the postal and railway authorities were forced to introduce naming principles. The parishes, villages, farms etc. which lent their names to sub-post offices are referred to in the thesis as name sources.The findings of the study can be summed up as follows: (1) Place-names which became sub-post office names acquired a new denotation, while retaining their old one. (2) Parish names, the names of villages established around parish churches and the names of large estates and industrial communities became more important. (3) Regional features of the place-name stock, associated with the economic structure of the regions concerned, came to be accentuated. (4) Names of water features and artefacts could become settlement names. (5) Names of already established communications facilities could influence the naming of new sub-post offices. (6) New place-names were created to a certain extent, but primarily this was done by adding elements to existing names according to established patterns. Very few completely new names were coined. (7) The naming principles applied could result in the names of well-known places being passed by, while those of insignificant places were elevated to the status of sub-post office names. (8) The expansion of the rail network and the network of sub-post offices, which occurred largely before industrialization and urbanization began in earnest in Sweden, helped, in spite of the changes mentioned under 7 above, to preserve and consolidate important components of the existing agrarian nomenclature.


For leaders and the groups they lead, doing a good job is often not enough to gain the visibility and recognition they deserve. What's needed is some self-promotion, carried out intentionally and strategically. Many leaders have a negative view of self-promotion, but there are ways for them—and their organizations—to benefit from it while still maintaining integrity and authenticity.


Ray tracing is a well known method for photorealistic image synthesis, volume visualization and rendering. Over the last decade the method is being adopted throughout the research community around the world. With the advent of the high speed processing units, the method has been emerging from offline rendering towards real time rendering. The success behind ray tracing algorithms lies in the use of acceleration data structures and modern processing power of CPUs and GPUs. kd-tree is one of the most widely used data structures based on surface area heuristics (SAH). The major bottleneck in kd-tree construction is the time consumed to find optimum split locations. In this paper, we propose a prediction algorithm for animated ray tracing based on Kalman filtering. The algorithm successfully predicts the split locations for the next consecutive frame in the animation sequence. Thus, giving good initial starting points for one dimensional search algorithms to find optimum split locations - in our case parabolic interpolation combined with golden section search. With our technique implemented, we have reduced the ldquorunning kd-tree constructionrdquo time by between 78% and 87% for dynamic scenes with 16.8 K and 252 K polygons respectively.


A seminal figure in the history of photography, Edward Weston (1886 - 1958) began his long and colourful career in Southern California. Among the more than fifty prints gleaned from the Getty Museum's important collection of approximately 240 works that span the photographer's career, this book features pictures made in Claremont, Glendale, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and other locations in California and the U.S. Weston wed machine-age aesthetics with vernacular subjects, pursuing Modernism as a way of seeing. He produced works of art using subject matter as wide-ranging as sea shells, green peppers, sand dunes and nudes, and he set a standard for elegant composition and print technique for generations of photographers to come. Commentaries on each of the featured works, as well as an introduction and chronology, are provided by Brett Abbott, curatorial assistant in the Getty Museum's Department of Photographs. A colloquium discussion on the artist's work includes Abbott's contributions as well as those of six other participants: photographer William Clift; Amy Conger, author of Edward Weston: Photographs from the Collection of the Center for Creative Photography; David Featherstone, a freelance writer and editor; Weston Naef, curator of photographs at the Getty Museum; David Travis, curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago; and Jennifer Watts, curator of photographs at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.


Because of the risk of political interference, in countries with managed courts jurists who share ruling-party preferences disproportionately self-select into judicial careers. During political turmoil, such jurists will find judicial careers less attractive. Orthodox potential jurists will disproportionately shun the courts, and orthodox incumbent judges will disproportionately resign. Unorthodox potential jurists, on the other hand, might find the judiciary more attractive. Combining data on a random sample of 1,605 Japanese lawyers and all 2,502 judges hired between 1971 and 2001, we locate evidence consistent with these hypotheses: after the political crisis of 1993, the recruitment of young lawyers from elite universities lagged, while the number of early resignations increased.


Lower urinaty tract infections are among the most common bacterial infections encountered in community practice. The diagnosis is made on a clinical basis, and the treatment provided is therefore empirical. In order to characterize the uropathogens and their antimicrobial susceptability, we have screened posive urine cultures which were isolated from patients in Jerusalem area with symptoms suggesting lower urinary tract infection. We found that, similar to other communities, E. coli is still the most common uropathogen (66.1%) in the Jerusalem area. The antibiotic susceptibility was (for women and men respectively) 29.8%, 25.1% for ampicillin, 51.6%, 41.1% for cephalexin, 86%, 78% for nitrofurantoin, 67%, 54% for TMP-SMX, 62.9%, 49.3% for amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, 92.8%, 77.2% for gentamicin, 88.8%, 64.4% for cefuroxime and 91.4%, 71.7% for ciprofloxacin. According to the above antimicrobial susceptability nitrofurantoin can be recommended for empirical treatment of lower urinary infections in women while in men, non E Coli pathogens were more common and more effective drugs such as cefuroxime and quinolones were needed.


With this study we have a twofold aim. Firstly, to develop a model for identifying and analyzing the status of students' scholarly thinking, and secondly to design and evaluate an educational practice with the aim of supporting these skills. A series of webinars connected researchers and students from Finland, Norway and Sweden and gave the students access to an authentic Network of researchers, otherwise not accessible to them. The webinars were recorded and an analysis, inspired by variation theory, were conducted in order to identify signs of scholarly thinking in student reasoning when discussing students' final thesis. Findings were then used to construct a model for identifying variations of scholarly thinking as qualities of scholarly discernment, identified in students' communicative actions. Two critical aspects for stimulating scholarly thinking during webinars emerged from data. First the diversity of language and knowledge and secondly, a more informal framing. A carefully staged webinar using these two critical aspects, offers a socialization of students in professional training, to an academic discourse where the production and evaluation of knowledge is part of students' identity and constantly debated.


Most of traditional crops have often been used for centuries, but have become increasingly neglected in times as more productive and profitable crops replaced them in farming systems. Almost about half of the humanity's need regarding calories and proteins is met by three crops, wheat, maize, and rice, but there is an urgent need to promote crop diversification to avoid the vulnerable situations in future.. Under-utilized crops are often rich in nutrients when compared to more popular staple crops. They often contain high levels of protein, vitamins, phytochemicals and they can have a good macronutrient profile of fat, protein and carbohydrates. With regard to health superiority, national under-utilized crops for example pulses can be included as a promising food group. Thence, developing varietalhuman dietary sources e.g., amaranth, buckwheat, ricebean, adzuki bean, chenopodium and many more can play a important role to ensure nutritional security.


This article questions the conventional wisdom that bankruptcy and other forms of debt relief unfairly allow the wealthy to retain more resources than the poor. The central insight is that if bankruptcy provides insurance otherwise unavailable because of market failures, an ideal bankruptcy system would embrace significant inequality in post-bankruptcy standards of living. When choosing insurance policies, the wealthy generally choose contracts that ensure their high standards of living. Though others envy these benefits, they do not wish to pay the premiums that these policies require. To the extent that credit markets force a debtor to pay premiums (higher interest rates) for the debt relief she may receive, forcing all debtors to accept the same standard of living after default forces each debtor to accept the same Procrustean insurance with a benefit too meager for some and premiums too dear for others. This argument requires strong assumptions that reasonable minds may reject. However, if one rejects these assumptions, one must question not only the debt relief secured by the once wealthy, but also the debt relief offered to the middle class.


The following paper has as its object the political philosophy of K. Karatani, in particular its relationship with the work of Marx. Japanese philosopher, in fact, reinterprets some elements of Marxian theory in the light of Kantian categories, hybridizing the ethical and moral theory of the latter with the critique of the political economy of the former. The result of Karatani's project can be seen, in particular, in two works. With the first, Transcritique, Karatani moves into the realm of philosophy to construct a method that holds the two theoretical poles together. The concept of 'Transcritique', in fact, represents the junction between Kantian and Marxian insights. With the second work, 'The Structure of World History', the Japanese philosopher shifts the analytical focus from ethics to economics, proposing a different interpretation of capitalism and its historical cycles. The shift of the observation of the capitalist system from the sphere of production to that of exchange represents the analytical novelty. Carrying through to the end the methodology developed in the previous work, Karatani traces back to exchange all the productive, institutional and political dynamics produced over time. Cycles of accumulation thus become cycles of exchange. The author, in fact, determines a correspondence between the specific modes of exchange and the consequent political structures, highlighting the centrality that money occupies, both in the theoretical elaboration and in political reality. The prevailing mode of production, based on the exchange of commodities, relies on the absolute mobility of money and on the strength of the state political institution, which acts as a hinge between the global dimension of exchanges and the territorial need for the appropriation of surplus-value. Karatani's critique is embodied in a political proposal, articulated through two key figures: community and cosmopolitanism. With the first term, the philosopher opposes the materiality of human relationships based on reciprocity to the abstract equivalence of economic relationships. By the second term, he shows the need for an extended political practice in which the pursuit of local freedom goes hand in hand with the realization of global justice. The paper traces these themes both through direct exposure of Karatani's work and by offering critical comparisons with other authors who have addressed similar issues. Finally, the purpose of this paper is to emphasize the originality of the Japanese author's philosophical-historical work, suspended between utopia and pragmatism, also through criticism, in order to highlight its strengths and underline its potential weaknesses.


A near-global ocean model with resolution enhanced in the southern Indian Ocean has been spun up to seasonal equilibrium and then driven by NCEP–NCAR reanalysis 1 monthly mean forcings and Hadley SSTs over the period 1948–2002. The aim was to simulate changes in the subsurface properties observed in hydrographic surveys at 32°S in the Indian Ocean in 1965, 1987, and 2002. These surveys showed a zonally averaged cooling on isopycnals of 0.5° and 0.3°C in mode and intermediate waters between 1965 and 1987 and a warming of the mode water coupled with a continued cooling of the intermediate water between 1987 and 2002. The major changes in isopycnal depth and temperature modeled in this study were confined to the mode water and were qualitatively similar to those observed but concentrated in a lower density class and in the eastern half of the section. The dominant changes here were multidecadal, with maximum temperatures on the σθ = 26.7 kg m−3 isopycnal being reached in 1968 and minimum temperatures in 1990. The simulations showed a propagation of interannual anomalies toward the section from a region of deep late winter mixed layers in the southeast Indian Ocean within a period of several years. Surface temperatures in this region were lowest in the 1960s and highest in the late 1980s. Temperatures on isopycnals showed the opposite variation, consistent with SST having the controlling effect on mixed layer density and depth. Isopycnal depths within the mode water were strongly correlated with temperature, implying a redistribution of mode water density classes, the greatest volume of mode water being produced in a higher density class (σθ = 26.8–27.0 kg m–3) during the period of cooler surface forcing in the 1960s and 1970s than during the warmer period following (σθ = 26.6–26.8 kg m–3).


Content New coverage Kazakhstan Turkey The first part of the publication contains an analysis of the latest FDI trends. The analysis highlights the temporary recovery of FDI in 2011. The second part of the publication contains two sets of tables Tables I total flow and stock data, FDI flow by form and FDI income, FDI per capita and other FDI reference parameter (2003-2011) Tables II detailed FDI data by economic activity and by country (last four years) The main sources of data are the central banks of the individual Central, East and Southeast European countries. General Description (PDF) Abstract FDI continues to be of great significance for the development of the former transition economies. The domestic engines of economic growth are still weak, and fiscal consolidation provides a drag on the economies. The short-lived recovery in 2011 was based mainly on external demand, which upgraded the importance of foreign investors, as they generate a major part of exports. The first part of this report, following detailed methodological explanations of FDI related terminology, provides an analysis of the latest FDI trends in 22 CESEE countries. The strongest growth in FDI in 2011 was observed in the SEE countries (64%) following a year with extremely low inflows. The growth of FDI in the NMS was 26% and in the CIS 18%, though both regions still recorded significantly lower amounts than in 2008. FDI inflows declined in only five countries, in line with the general upswing in business sentiment and economic growth, at least up until the fourth quarter of the year. Methodological problems have been identified that can distort the reporting of the home countries and economic sectors in terms of FDI flows and stocks. Special purpose entities, which are often financial holdings registered in the Netherlands and classified under 'other business activities', are the main sources of distortion. Home country statistics and greenfield project data suggest that Austria is the second-biggest investor in the NMS and the biggest in the SEE – one place above its ranking based on FDI stocks statistics. Also, if the Bank of Russia were to subtract the flows of Russian capital via offshore locations from the FDI statistics, Russian FDI would shrink to about a third of what is currently reported. Forecasts for economic growth and first quarter trends in FDI flows and greenfield projects suggest a setback for FDI in most CESEE countries in 2012, with the possible exceptions of Russia, Estonia and Croatia. The second part of this report contains two sets of tables the tables in Part I cover FDI flow and stock data, FDI flows by form and related income; the tables in Part II provide detailed FDI data by economic activity and country. The main sources of data are the central banks of the individual Central, East and Southeast European countries. Examples Table of contents (PDF Related Publication The CD-ROM version contains Excel, CSV, TSV, HTML data (time series from 1990 onwards) PDF version of the hardcopy Available time series (XLS) wiiw Database on Foreign Direct Investment 2012 CD-ROM


Business and academic scholars alike observe the increasing need for companies to collaborate with external stakeholders to pursue successful innovation (REF). Especially incumbents might have difficulties changing from closed to open, as it means to change entire working routines and the innovation culture itself. Literature has not particularly paid attention to the cultural shift that is needed to successfully move from a closed innovation system to a more open innovation system. Also, open innovation (OI) initiatives often originate at the strategic top management level, while middle managers need to carry out the implementation. Therefore, it is important to understand how middle managers react towards the strategic directive of openness and the resulting collaboration with stakeholders and how their activities enhance or impede the cultural shift towards openness. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to explore the process of how individual managers accompany the cultural shift from closed to open innovation. Given the exploratory nature of our study, a longitudinal, grounded theory study is conducted, to investigate the journey of a large German investment company changing from a closed innovation to an open innovation process. It focuses on employees embracing or resisting this cultural change and discusses why they behave and react in certain ways. It is also examined why the attitude of the company's employees is critical to the change process and how it affects the outcome of the change initiative.


What is a project? How are projects organized to deal with a complex, rapidly changing, and uncertain world? Why are projects the organization of the future?

A project is a temporary organization and one-time process established to achieve a desired outcome. Projects range in size from small teams to large international joint-ventures and temporary coalitions of public and private organizations. What distinguishes projects from all other organizational activities - such as mass produced products and services - is that a project is finite in duration, lasting from hours, days, or weeks to years, and in some cases decades. Each project is disposable. It brings together people and resources to accomplish a goal and when the goal is accomplished, the organization disappears. When projects are complex, unpredictable, and changing, their plans have to be flexible and able to adjust to situations that cannot foreseen at the outset.

In this Very Short Introduction Andrew Davies looks at how projects have developed since the industrial revolution to create the human-built world in which we live, work, and play. Considering some of our greatest endeavours such as the Erie Canal, Apollo Moon landing, Japanese product development, and Chinese ecocity projects, Davies identifies how projects are organized and managed to design and produce large and complex systems, cope with fast changing conditions, and deal with the immense uncertainties required to create breakthrough innovations in products and services. He concludes by considering how projects could be organized to address the challenges facing the post-industrial society of the 21st century.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


A new course in materials engineering has been developed to incorporate industrial design and sustain ability principles. Many current engineering tasks require the ability to comprehend and consider the complicated interplay of technology with the environment and society. Thus the changing skill set required of future engineers is being reflected in the changes with our courses. We are stepping beyond the traditional boundaries of engineering courses to present a more holistic approach to problem solving. The use of materials and processing techniques is applied to product design, and thus involves consideration of the end user and the end of product life. Green engineering and cradle to cradle design principles are also introduced in the course. Outcomes for this class include students being able to employ systems thinking, to formulate creative design solutions, and to select the appropriate materials and processing for minimal environmental impact


The Cryogenian record of South Australia includes the type region of the Sturtian glaciation, the oldest of three pan-global icehouse intervals during the Neoproterozoic. Data are presented from previously little described sections at Holowilena Creek, Oladdie Creek and Hillpara Creek in the central and southern Flinders Ranges, where five facies associations are recognized. These are (1) diamictite and conglomerate, (2) interbedded heterolithic deposits, (3) hummocky cross-stratified sandstone, (4) lonestone-bearing siltstone, and (5) ferruginous siltstone and sandstone. The succession reveals significant lateral and vertical facies variation, which is linked to a complex inherited palaeotopography and distance from the sediment source. Repeated stratigraphic occurrences of striated clasts and abundant ice-rafted debris strongly support recurrent glacial influence on sedimentation. The intercalation of gravitationally reworked diamictites, dropstone-bearing siltstone and dropstone-free siltstone testifies to dynamic sedimentation within a periodically glacially influenced subaqueous environment. Sequence stratigraphic analysis identifies four glacial advance systems tracts, separated by three glacial retreat systems tracts, wherein hummocky cross-stratified sandstones attest to open water conditions. These findings support dynamic ice sheet behaviour in South Australia, and provide clear evidence for repeated intra-Sturtian ice sheet recession.


There are a lot of technical systems in engineering world that apply tire haulage as significant component of their structure. It is quite obvious that in order to maintain a haulage fleet in proper conditions the system must possess a preservative subsystem to meet planned maintenance and repair requirements. A suitable organization of this subsystem determines the number of transport units accomplishing the given transportation task. In the paper the problem of proper mathematical description of the system: truck – workshop is being considered employing models taken from the queue theory. The main characteristic that is obtained is the probability distribution of a number of failed trucks as the function of several parameters such as the fleet size and possession of a reserve, reliability indices of machines and parameters characterizing intensity of realized repairs and number of repair stands.


Balancing and bandwagoning are concepts that realists return to again and again – yet neither concept is well suited for explaining the complex issue of Europe's growing role as a security and defence actor. Europe will confound realism as long as realism is based on assumptions of anarchy as conflictual and as long as non-systemic factors remain under-developed. Moreover, I suggest that Europe confounds all mainstream IR theories, because neither realism, liberalism, or constructivism have taken serious account of the purposive role played by agents and although they all see crises as sources of changes, they do not account theoretically for the role of the continuous occurrence of events as sources of change. I suggest that to understand Europe's development as a security and defence actor, it is necessary to consider how the construction of agent-level identities and narratives takes place in agent-level self-constitutive processes within a fundamentally changed structural environment. Doing so is the key for understanding the background motives and preferences that have resulted in ups and downs in the integration process and in the different positions adopted by European member states despite them being subjected to the same structural conditions and the same events.


In many parts of the world, marine ornamentals, fishes and invertebrates collected and sold in the aquarium trade, comprise an increasingly important fishery. Few management strategies have been devised for these fisheries, yet they may represent the most tractable systems: e.g., the benthic life stages are relatively site attached and easily sampled, and many species are amenable to experimental study. Here, a stochastic population model is developed with which to investigate the efficacy of exploitation strategies designed to manage a marine ornamental fishery. Extensive field studies of the tropical damselfish Dascyllus trimaculatus were used to define functions and estimate associated parameters that govern the dynamics of the unexploited population. Sources of uncertainty in the predictions of the model were then evaluated and the responses to different exploitationcontrol rules simulated. Effects resulting from uncertainty due to variable larval settlement were comparable in magnitude to effects of uncertainty in parameter estimates. In addition, despite resident-facilitated settlement, yields were not a unimodal function of catch rate. Instead, yield typically increased with catch rate. The absence of a domeshaped yield curve appeared to result from an interaction between facilitated settlement and subsequent density dependence.


On-demand ride services (e.g., Uber) receive praises from consumers and investors. However, governments in the United States and Europe are challenging these innovative services by raising legal concerns over labor laws, unfair pricing, and consumer safety. At the same time, the Chinese government is facing a dilemma. On one hand, the Chinese government wants to support these innovative startups as examples of its "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" initiative launched in 2015. On the other hand, the Chinese government needs to ensure the survival of the traditional taxi industry that supports millions of taxi drivers. Facing with this dilemma, we develop a two-period dynamic game that captures the strategic interactions of multiple stakeholders (i.e., the government, an on-demand ride service company, independent drivers, taxi drivers, and passengers). Our analysis reveals that, without government regulation, the on-demand ride service platform can drive the traditional taxi industry out of the market. Also, relative to no regulation and complete ban, we show that the Chinese government's new regulatory framework provides a better balance of multiple objectives (e.g., business and job creation, viability of taxi service, consumer welfare, environmental and traffic issues, and labor welfare) across multiple stakeholders. Also, by adopting a unified modeling framework, we find that the government's optimal policy that maximizes the total social welfare depends on the taxi's price and the relative emphasis that the government places on multiple stakeholders. Particularly, our model provides a justification for the Chinese government's new regulations: imposing some basic regulations is a balanced approach to support the new business and to ensure the sustainability of the traditional industry.


In the years since its first publication, Paxinos and Franklin's the Mouse Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates has received virtually universal acceptance in neuroscience as the authoritative source for stereotaxic coordinates and delineations. This atlas is constructed in the style of The Rat Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates, the most cited publication in neuroscience. The completely revised and updated 4e of Paxinos and Franklin's the Mouse Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates features high-quality color plates scanned by the renowned microscopy unit of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Constructed by the leaders in neuroanatomical atlas development, the new edition will maintain the position of the atlas as an indispensable resource for scientists working on the mouse brain. Features: 100 coronal diagrams and accompanying photographic plates spaced at 120-m intervals; diagrams completely revised; 32 sagittal diagrams and accompanying photographic plates; diagrams completely revised; 30 horizontal diagrams and accompanying photographic plates; diagrams completely revised; the most accurate and widely used stereotaxic coordinate system; and Nomenclature and abbreviations harmonized with the atlases of the brains of the rat, chick, marmoset, rhesus and human.


Politics has been described as a man's game and a man's place. Further, the design of houses of politics also embeds this dominant masculine ethos. Traditional Chambers have been large with only limited seating arrangements ensuring that only privileged elite can participate and both officials and the public are located at some distance and separate from the elected officials. Such a Chamber ensures that Members need to face each other and the dominant interaction is adversarial. Within this system however, women have been able to carve out new spaces, or use existing ones in different ways, to become more involved with the mechanisms of parliament and provide alternative routes to leadership. In doing so, they have introduced elements of the private domain (nurturing, dialogue and inclusion) to the public domain.
The way in which space is used is fundamental and its treatment has consequences for individuals, organizations and societies (Clegg and Kornberger 2006). Dale's (2005) work emphasises the social character of architecture which recognises the impact which it has on the behaviours of individuals and nowhere is this more pertinent than the way the Australian Parliament House operates.
This paper draws on the experiences of Australian parliamentarians to examine the way in which the new Australian Parliament House shapes the way in which the Australian political cultural norms and practices are shaped and maintained. It also seeks to explore the way the Members of Parliament (MPs) experience these spaces and how some MPs have been able to bring new ways of utilising the space to ensure it is more accommodating to the men and women who inhabit this building at the apex of Australia's political life. In doing so, such MPs are seeking to ensure that the practices and processes of Australia's political system are reflective of the men and women who inhabit this national institution in the beginning of the 21st century.


This article presents findings from an exploratory in-depth qualitative research project with seventeen child welfare professionals exploring their permanency decisions with regards to Looked after Children. Thinking aloud-protocols and semi-structured interviews, in conjunction with a specifically constructed vignette were used to explore the permanency decisions of child welfare workers. Findings from this innovative research suggest that different decisions were taken by participants based on viewing the same vignette. However, even though the decisions differed, they clustered around the more interventionist options with most favouring adoption and foster care despite viable alternatives offered. There was broad consistency related to the rationale for the decisions taken, but this did not translate into a consistent permanency option being chosen. Possible reasons to account for this are that the decisions were heuristically constructed, idiosyncratic to individual inclinations and influenced by factors other than the individual needs of the service user. The implications of this are that children and families do not get a consistent and reliable response to their permanency needs. We therefore recommend the greater use of structured decision-making tools in permanency decisions to increase their objectivity and consistency.


1. The effects of acute intravenous infusion of 2 litres of saline/120 min on pulmonary capillary blood flow (Qc), diffusing capacity per unit of alveolar volume (DL/VA), functional residual capacity (FRC), and pulmonary tissue plus capillary blood volume (VTPC) were compared with the changes induced by water immersion to the neck for 4 h. Serial measurements were made at 30 min intervals in five normal subjects, utilizing a non-invasive rebreathing method with a gas mixture containing 0·5% acetylene, 0·3% C180, 10% He, 21% O 2 and 68·2% N 2 . 2. Infusion of saline produced a rise in Qc which was similar to that induced by immersion. This increment in Qc persisted for the 3 h of observation after stopping the infusion, in contrast to the prompt decrease in Qc to pre-study values after cessation of immersion. 3. DL/VA was unaffected by saline administration in contrast to the marked and prompt increment induced by immersion. 4. Pulmonary tissue plus capillary blood volume was unchanged during both saline administration and immersion, suggesting that neither gradual saline administration nor immersion induces major extravasation of fluid into the pulmonary interstitial space. 5. The present data indicate that the 'volume stimulus' of immersion is similar to that of saline-induced extracellular fluid volume expansion in normal seated subjects. Immersion may be a preferred investigative approach for assessing the effects of volume expansion in subjects in whom rapid reversibility of the 'volume stimulus' is desirable.


Matching is a methodology applied at the beginning of a study that compares two or more groups. The main advantage for matching over random non-matching sampling is that matched study designs can often lead to a more statistically efficient analysis. The most commonly used methods to analyse the matched pair dataset are logistic regression models. The main advantage of using logistic regression with matched data occurs when there are variables other than the matched variables that the investigator wishes to control. Conditional logistic regression is one commonly used method to investigate the relationship between an outcome and a set of covariates in matched case-control studies. The aim of this study is to propose a truncated logistic regression analysis for matched case-control studies, an alternative approach to conditional logistic regression methods, and to demonstrate its applicability in matched case-control studies. We also applied the methods to a real data set and compared them. We showed that regression coefficient estimation can be accomplished using either truncated or conditional logistic regression methods. However, the parameter estimates for those covariates obtained from truncated logistic regression had more precision. In conclusion, truncated logistic regression model may be the preferred method for the analysis of matched case-control data because it is a more efficient method.


In response to increased nutrient loads in surface waters, scientists and engineers need to identify critical nutrient source areas and transport mechanisms within a catchment to protect beneficial uses of aquatic systems in a costeffective manner. It was hypothesized that hydrologic heterogeneities (e.g., macropores and gravel outcrops) in the vadose zone play an integral role in affecting flow and solute transport between the soil surface and shallow alluvial aquifers. The objective of this research was to characterize phosphorus (P) leaching through silt loam soils to alluvial gravel aquifers in the floodplains of the Ozark ecoregion at the plot scale. Solute injection experiments used plots (1 m  1 m, 3 m  3 m, and 10 m  10 m) that maintained a constant head for up to 52 h. Solutes in the injection water included P (highly sorptive), Rhodamine WT (slightly sorptive), and chloride (conservative). Electrical resistivity imaging identified zones of preferential flow. Fluid samples from observation wells indicated nonuniform subsurface flow and transport. The surface soil type, ranging from silt loam to clean gravel outcrops, had a significant impact on P leaching capacity, with gravel outcrops resulting in high infiltration rates and rapid solute detection in wells (e.g., 4 min). Even in silt loam soils without gravel outcrops, macropore flow resulted in rapid transport of P. Maximum transport velocity for soluble reactive P in one silt loam plot was 810 cm h-1, compared with a mean pore water velocity in the range of 25 to 130 cm h-1. Soluble reactive P concentrations in observation wells reached up to 0.54 mg L-1 in silt loam plots and 1.3 mg L-1 in gravel outcrop plots, demonstrating that a highly sorbing solute can be mobile.


[Excerpt] "Two qualities of American capital punishment perhaps explain its ability to command the attention of the Court, year by year, decade after decade. First, an exceptionally talented and dedicated specialist capital defense bar continually mounts new challenges to the institution of the death penalty. This year, for example, we await a decision from the Supreme Court on the claim that the lethal injection method of execution violates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Constitution. Never before has the Supreme Court confronted this claim; indeed, not for more than a hundred years has the Supreme Court addressed a claim that a method of execution violates the Constitution."


[1] Reactive nitrogen species HNO3, ClONO2, NO, NO2, and N2O5 were retrieved from high resolution atmospheric limb emission spectra measured by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) on board the European Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT) during the split of the southern polar vortex in September/October 2002. The chemical and transport processes determining the NOy deficit and partitioning are investigated here. Most of the available NOy in the polar vortex was in the form of HNO3 and NOx in the lower stratosphere except for the period 22–27 September when NOy was mostly in the form of HNO3 and ClONO2 between the 400 K and 475 K levels. The dominant process throughout the lower stratosphere was enhanced photolysis of HNO3 resulting in a steady increase of NOx during the split of vortex. The enhanced photolysis was initiated following the displacement of the vortex to low and midlatitudes. This observation was confirmed by the buildup of HNO3 after this period in mid-October following the vortex repositioning on the pole. N2O5 inside the vortex increased above the 625 K level during the 22–27 September period following the enhancement of NOx from HNO3 photolysis. On the 475 K level, the NOy volume mixing ratio (VMR) inside the vortex is lower than the reference value derived from its proxy early winter exvortex relation by about 12.5 ppbv during the whole period. The artificial reference linear tracer method suggests that the contribution to the NOy deficit due to quasi-horizontal mixing and denitrification before the split of vortex is approximately 25% and 75%, respectively. After the vortex split the contribution due to mixing increased to 40–45%, while that due to denitrification decreased to 55–60%. The quasi-isentropic mixing line approach uses [CH4]:[N2O] vortex scatterplots to estimate the mixing induced NOy deficit to be 55–60% before, and 62% after, the vortex split.


Almost a decade after the complete sequencing of the human genome, we have seen a proliferation of genetic testing services marketed directly to the consumer and purporting to use genetic information to generate individualized health information. These tests have been subject to only minimal regulation, despite the fact that scientists and policymakers have serious concerns about both the clinical effectiveness of the tests and the safety of releasing certain types of health information to the public without the supervision of a health care professional. Proponents of minimal regulation argue that the tests allow for patient autonomy and privacy of genetic information, while unburdened marketing of the tests encourages increased development and innovation of testing services. This article explores in depth both the benefits of direct to consumer genetic testing and the concerns arising from such tests, and concludes that particular safety and accuracy concerns warrant increased oversight of these tests. The article then goes on to evaluate the current regulatory framework under which direct to consumer genetic testing services operate, and finds that it is insufficient in light of these concerns. The article concludes that recent steps by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to exercise increased regulation over direct to consumer genetic tests are warranted and will provide the optimal amount of regulation for these tests.


We present a technique for observing single fluorophore molecules in solution. A mode-locked laser beam is focused into the solution, thereby defining a two-photon excitation volume localized in three dimensions. Molecules diffusing into and out of this volume produce fluorescence bursts, which are detected with a high signal-to-background ratio. The theoretical foundations for the technique are laid out, including the attendant fluorescence rate distribution, and agree with experimental results obtained for Rhodamine B molecules in water.


Several position identification methods have been used for mobile robots. Dead reckoning is a popular method, but is not reliable for long distances or uneven surfaces because of variations in wheel diameter and slippage. The landmark method, which estimates current position relative to landmarks, cannot be used in an uncharted environment. We have proposed a new method called "Cooperative Positioning System (CPS) ." For CPS, we divide the robots into two groups, A and B. One group, A, remains stationary and acts as a landmark while group B moves. Group B then stops and acts as a landmark for group A. This "dance" is repeated until the target position is reached. CPS has a far lower accumulation of positioning error than dead reckoning, and can work in three-dimensions which is not possible with dead reckoning. Also, CPS has inherent landmarks and therefore works in uncharted environments. In this paper, we discuss CPS with redundancy that consists of a number of moving robots and show a new computational theory that is to integrate positional information obtained from various combinations of multiple robots. Experimental results with a second prototype CPS machine model (CPS-II) give a positioning accuracy of 0.32% for position and 0.43 [degree] for attitude without redundancy, and 0.12% for position and 0.32 [degree] for attitude with redundancy.


Haemophilia A (HA) is an X-linked recessive bleeding disorder caused by several mutations in the F8 gene, whose inversion causes most of the mutation in 40% of severe HA patients. Methods such as long distance PCR and southern blot have been exploited to analyse intron 22 inversion in the F8 gene. For this purpose, we used an inverse shifting PCR assay, a novel genetic diagnostic method, for the detection of intron 22 inversion in severe HA patients. A screen for the presence of intron 22 and intron 1 inversions at the F8 gene in 30 Iranian severe HA patients revealed that 47% of patients showed intron 22 inversion (40% type 1 and 7% type 2), while 7% of patients had intron 1 inversion. Among the patients carrying the inversion, 12% developed inhibitors. Inverse shifting PCR is a precise method for assessment of rearrangements related to int 22h and int 1h in patients and carriers of haemophilia A. Since the previous methods of assessing inversion are time-consuming and demanding, this method can be a good replacement.


How neurons influence each other's firing depends on the strength of synaptic connections among them. Motivated by the highly interconnected structure of the brain, in this study, we propose a computational model to estimate the relationships among voxels and employ them as features for cognitive state classification. We represent the sequence of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) measurements recorded during a cognitive stimulus by a set of local meshes. Then, we represent the corresponding cognitive state by the edge weights of these meshes each of which is estimated assuming a regularized linear relationship among voxel time series in a predefined locality. The estimated mesh edge weights provide a better representation of information in the brain for cognitive state or task classification. We examine the representative power of our mesh edge weights on visual recognition and emotional memory retrieval experiments by training a support vector machine classifier. Also, we use mesh edge weights as feature vectors of inter-subject classification on Human Connectome Project task fMRI dataset, and test their performance. We observe that mesh edge weights perform better than the popular fMRI features, such as, raw voxel intensity values, pairwise correlations, features extracted using PCA and ICA, for classifying the cognitive states.


Hot massive stars represent only a small fraction of the stellar population of the galaxy, but their enormous luminosities make them visible over large distances. Therefore, they are ideal standard candles, used to determine distances of near galaxies. Their mass loss due to supersonic winds driven by radiation pressure contributes significantly to the interstellar medium and thus to the chemical evolution of galaxies. All hot stars are soft x-ray sources; in contrast to the sun with its highly variable x-ray flux, long time scale x-ray variability is not common among hot stars. An analysis is presented here of an unusual increase in x-ray flux observed with the roentgen observatory satellite during a period of 2 days for the hot supergiant zeta Orionis, the only episode of x-ray variability that has been found in a hot star. These observations provide the most direct evidence so far for the scenario of shock-heated gas in the winds of hot stars.


Neurological development is a complex process in which the nervous system reaches its fullness in adulthood stage. This development begins before birth, continues in both the last months of gestation and in the first months after birth, in response to a continuous remodeling due to the ability of nerve cells to eliminate excess components through apoptosis. One of the most important and ambitious objectives of developmental neurology is the early identification of those at risk for the development of subsequent disabilities: an early rehabilitation intervention can improve the quality of their life. The most important long-term outcome of periventricular leukomalacia is represented by spastic diplegia, which is also the most frequent motor deficit associated with prematurity. This high incidence seems to be due to the specific localization of the lesion involving the cortico-medullary bundles descending from the motor areas assigned to the movement of the lower limbs. In the presence of larger lesions, which also involve the semi-oval center, tetraparesis can be found accompanied by severe alteration of the intellectual function. The follow-up of the high-risk child and newborn is now established in the most developed countries. Physiotherapy is a relatively recent therapeutic modality in the Intensive Care Units and is performed through different techniques, with the aim of reducing respiratory work, maintaining airway viability and improving ventilation and gas exchange, improving neurosensory skills. A sensitive period for performing an intervention with a set schedule is from birth to 24 months of correct age. The program is tailored to the child and his family. An intervention program must promote the neurobehavioral development of the child, the quality of the organization and of the relational, sensorial, motor and cognitive skills and their integration, with the aim of an adequate development, without the pretension of modifying or accelerating its natural learning.


Leveraging recent advances in technologies surrounding the Internet of Things, "smart" water systems are poised to transform water resources management by enabling ubiquitous real-time sensing and control. Recent applications have demonstrated the potential to improve flood forecasting, enhance rainwater harvesting, and prevent combined sewer overflows. However, adoption of smart water systems has been hindered by a limited number of proven case studies, along with a lack of guidance on how smart water systems should be built. To this end, we review existing solutions, and introduce open storm—an open-source, end-to-end platform for real-time monitoring and control of watersheds. Open storm includes (i) a robust hardware stack for distributed sensing and control in harsh environments (ii) a cloud services platform that enables system-level supervision and coordination of water assets, and (iii) a comprehensive, web-based "how-to" guide, available on open-storm.org, that empowers newcomers to develop and deploy their own smart water networks. We illustrate the capabilities of the open storm platform through two ongoing deployments: (i) a high-resolution flash-flood monitoring network that detects and communicates flood hazards at the level of individual roadways and (ii) a real-time stormwater control network that actively modulates discharges from stormwater facilities to improve water quality and reduce stream erosion. Through these case studies, we demonstrate the real-world potential for smart water systems to enable sustainable management of water resources.


Nanowire superconducting single photon detectors (SSPDs) [1] are characterized by very high sensitivity in the near infrared (detection efficiency η up to 30%, for a dark count rate DK of few Hz), speed (up to ∼1 GHz repetition rate) and time resolution (jitter of 20 ps full width at half maximum, FWHM). They can be operated at temperatures near 4 K, so they can be packaged in cryogenic dipsticks or cryogen-free refrigerators. These features make SSPDs the most promising detectors for telecom-wavelength single-photon counting applications. The basic structure of an SSPD is a narrow (w=50 to 120 nm), thin (th∼4-10 nm) NbN superconducting nanowire folded in a meander pattern. The typical detector active area (i.e. the size of the pixel) is Ad=10 × 10 µm2 (which allows an efficient coupling with the core of optical fibers at telecom wavelengths) with filling factor (f, the ratio of the area occupied by the superconducting meander to the device total area) ranging from 40% to 60%. The meanders are embedded in a 50 Ω coplanar transmission line. At present, the SSPD detection efficiency is limited by its absorbance (α, the ratio of the number of photons absorbed in the nanowire to the number of incident photons on the device active area). Indeed, it has been shown that in the classic front-illumination configuration α cannot exceed 30%. Our approach to increase α consists in integrating SSPDs with advanced optical structures such as distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) and optical waveguides. This requires to transfer the challenging SSPD technology (i.e. the deposition of high-quality few-nm thick NbN films and the nano-patterning by electron beam lithography, EBL) from the usual comfortable substrates, i.e. sapphire and MgO, which are known to allow the deposition of few-nm thick NbN films of excellent quality, to an optical substrate like GaAs, on which DBRs and waveguides can be easily obtained. Our first task was then to optimize a process for the deposition of high-quality few-nm thick NbN films on GaAs and AlAs/GaAs-based DBRs. Because of the requirement of compatibility with GaAs, the substrate temperature used for the depositions is 400°C, in order to prevent As evaporation. As GaAs and DBRs are highly mismatched substrates, the deposition parameters were first optimized with respect to the superconducting properties of NbN films on MgO substrates, which allow the growth of high crystal quality NbN films at low temperature. This made easier to separate the influence of stoichiometry from that of microstructure. The optimized deposition parameters were then used to grow NbN films on GaAs and DBRs, under the reasonable assumption (later checked and confirmed) that changing the substrate would not produce a change in film stoichiometry, but only in its microstructure. NbN films ranging from 150nm to 3nm in thickness were then deposited on epitaxial-quality single crystal MgO, GaAs and DBRs structures. The deposition technique is the current controlled DC magnetron sputtering (planar, circular, balanced configuration) of Nb in an Ar + N2 plasma. NbN films deposited on MgO exhibit superconducting critical temperature ΤC=10 Κ, superconducting transition width ΔΤC=0.8 Κ and residual resistivity ratio RRR=R(20K)/R(300K)=0.8 for th=4 nm, which are state of the art values, proof of the excellent quality of our low-temperature deposition process. The quality of films deposited on GaAs and on DBRs is lower than that of NbN deposited on MgO, as for any thickness they systematically exhibit higher ΔΤC and lower ΤC and RRR. However, 5.5 nm-thick NbN films on GaAs still exhibit ΤC=10.7 Κ, ΔΤC=1.1 Κ and RRR=0.7, which compares with 4.5 nm thick films on MgO, making them suitable for device fabrication. To our knowledge, the growth of such high quality thin NbN films on GaAs and DBRs, has never been reported in literature. The degradation of the superconducting properties exhibited by NbN films on GaAs and DBRs was attributed to a highly defected microstructure, due both to a higher lattice misfit between NbN and GaAs and to a poorer quality of the substrate surface. Encouraging preliminary results show that the quality of these films can be improved either cleaning the GaAs/DBR substrate surface more effectively or adding an MgO buffer layer. SSPDs were fabricated on thin NbN films (th=3-7 nm) deposited under optimal conditions on MgO and GaAs by EBL and reactive ion etching. The geometrical parameters of our detectors are: Ad=5×5 µm2, w=60-200 nm, f=40%-60%. The devices were then characterized both electrically and optically. I-V curves of test structures were measured, from which it was possible to deduce important physical parameters used as figures of merit to estimate the superconducting properties of the nanowires, or for the design and the simulation of the devices. The quality of the devices fabricated on GaAs is poorer than those on MgO, most likely due to the lower quality of NbN films deposited on GaAs and to issues related to the EBL nano-patterning step. Measurements of η and of DK as a function of the bias current were performed on SSPDs fabricated on MgO and GaAs. The best performance was exhibited by a w=100 nm, f=40%, th=4 nm meander, showing η=20% and noise equivalent power NEP=10-16 W/Hz1/2 (at λ=1.3 µm and T=4.2 K), which are state of the art values. This result showed for the first time that high performance NbN SSPDs can be realized on a different substrate and from a deposition process at lower temperature than previously reported. High detection efficiencies could not be measured with SSPDs fabricated on GaAs, but it should be noted that at present only first-generation devices (fabricated on GaAs substrates of poor surface quality) have been tested. Better results are expected from devices fabricated on the improved NbN films grown on clean or MgO-buffered GaAs substrates. Although SSPDs on MgO have shown high detection efficiency, the fabrication yield of high performance detectors has to be improved. Variations of the critical current along a nanowire are responsible for the wide distribution in efficiency values of nominally identical SSPDs. In order to understand the physical origin of the nanowire constrictions (i.e. regions of suppressed superconductivity) we performed a spatially-resolved characterization of η of a long straight nanowire, followed by a high resolution SEM (scanning electron microscope) scan on its whole length. Two types of inhomogeneities were evidenced, corresponding to localized efficiency dips and peaks. The peaks likely correspond to constrictions. SEM observations did not evidence any width narrowing at the position of the efficiency peaks, which suggests that constrictions might be due to thickness or quality inhomogeneities of the film occurring during the film deposition or later in the process. On the other hand, the efficiency dips have been correlated with lithography problems discovered on SEM images. Finally, a new photon number resolving detector, the Parallel Nanowire Detector (PND), has been demonstrated, which significantly outperforms existing approaches in terms of sensitivity, speed and multiplication noise in the telecommunication wavelength range. In particular, it provides a repetition rate (80 MHz) three orders of magnitude larger than any existing detector at telecom wavelength, and a sensitivity (NEP=4.2×10-18 W/Hz1/2) one-two orders of magnitude better, with the exception of transition-edge sensors (which require a much lower operating temperature). An electrical equivalent model of the device was developed in order to study its operation. The modeling predicts a physical limit to the reset time of the PND, which is lower than initially estimated. Furthermore, the figures of merit of the device performance in terms of efficiency, speed and sensitivity were defined and their dependency on the design parameters analyzed. Additionally, we developed modeling tools to fully characterize the device and an algorithm to estimate the photon number statistics of an unknown light using the PND. The reconstruction proved to be successful only for low photon fluxes, most likely due to the limited counting capability and the poor calibration of the detector. The PND, with its high repetition rate and high sensitivity, is then suitable for measuring an unknown photon number probability distribution assuming accurate calibration and sufficient counting capability. ______________________________[1] G. N. Gol'tsman, O. Okunev, G. Chulkova, A. Lipatov, A. Semenov, K. Smirnov, B. Voronov, A. Dzardanov, C. Williams, and R. Sobolewski, Appl. Phys. Lett. 79, 705 (2001).


William Hague has written the life of William Wilberforce who was both a staunch conservative and a tireless campaigner against the slave trade to coincide with the bicentenary of its abolition in 1807. A formidable orator, campaigner and tactician, Yorkshire-born William Wilberforce spearheaded in Parliament the 20-year-long campaign to abolish one of the great abominations of the eighteenth century: the Atlantic slave trade. Starting with research which led him famously to decide in 1787 that 'so enormous, so dreadful and so irremediable did it appear that I resolved I would not rest until I had effected its abolition', Wilberforce and his small band of allies took on the most powerful vested interests in the land, as well as some formidable political opponents, to secure eventual triumph in the dramatic events of 1807. This is the extraordinary story of a politician (and good friend of William Pitt the Younger) who shunned all honours, titles and ministerial positions, yet became one of the most influential Britons in history. Born into wealth and idleness, he transformed himself into a man who to a unique degree combined friendship, philanthropy and evangelism with immense social and political achievements. In this book, published in the bicentenary of the slave trade's abolition, award-winning author William Hague brilliantly illuminates Wilberforce's turbulent life and career, offering a politician's insights into the parliamentary manoeuvres and electoral dramas with which he had to contend. He shows how Wilberforce's conviction and faith allowed him to hold fast to his independence and (generally conservative) beliefs even at a time of war, revolution and social upheaval. And he demonstrates how the eradication of the slave trade was genuinely the work of a lifetime, paving the way for the abolition of slavery itself throughout the British Empire, enacted while Wilberforce lay dying in 1833. The result is a compelling account of a man who achieved the rare feat of placing principle above politics, mankind above party and results above ambition. A vital part of human history, this is also a timeless story of determination and inspiration.


The energy consumption associated with domestic hot water supply services correspond to a significant portion of the total energy consumption of the urban water cycle. The objective of this study is to analyse the performance of domestic water heaters in the three largest cities of Australia (i.e. Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane). The performance of systems was investigated undertaking a multi-parametric analysis, in which energy efficiency indicators (i.e. energy intensity and power peaks) were combined with level of service indicators (i.e. compliance rate with minimum temperature thresholds for end use points and hot water tanks). The operation of water heaters was modelled using the software EnergyPlus. Results demonstrate the need for a more holistic approach for the design and assessment of domestic water heaters taking into account not only the technology type to heat water, but also site specific aspects.