Abstract. We study the onset and development of an ultra low frequency (ULF) pulsation excited by a storm sudden commencement. On 30 August 2001, 14:10 UT, the Cluster spacecraft are located in the dayside magnetosphere and observe the excitation of a ULF pulsation by a threefold enhancement in the solar wind dynamic pressure. Two different harmonics are observed by Cluster, one at 6.8 mHz and another at 27 mHz. We observe a compressional wave and the development of a toroidal and poloidal standing wave mode. The toroidal mode is observed over a narrow range of L-shells whereas the poloidal mode is observed to have a much larger radial extent. By looking at the phase difference between the electric and magnetic fields we see that for the first two wave periods both the poloidal and toroidal mode are travelling waves and then suddenly change into standing waves. We estimate the azimuthal wave number for the 6.8 mHz to be m=10±3. For the 27 mHz wave, m seems to be several times larger and we discuss the implications of this. We conclude that the enhancement in solar wind pressure excites eigenmodes of the geomagnetic cavity/waveguide that propagate tailward and that these eigenmodes in turn couple to toroidal and poloidal mode waves. Thus our observations give firm support to the magnetospheric waveguide theory.


It has long been recognised that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) causes respiratory and cardio-vascular disease. A ban, prohibiting smoking in the workplace, was sanctioned by the Irish government and came into effect on 29 March, 2004. Bar staff were an ideal group to study the health effects of the introduction of this ban. Methods Workers were recruited through their Trade Union, Mandate, and 81 participated in the pre-ban phase of testing between September 2003 and March 2004. They attend the Respiratory Laboratory in St. James's Hospital and underwent lung function tests and measurement of exhaled carbon monoxide (CO). They also completed a questionnaire relating to their respiratory health and personal smoking history. 75 (92.6%) returned one year late (6-11 months) post ban) and repeated the test and questionnaire. Results 73 barmen were included in the analysis. 34 (47%) had never smoked 31 (42%) were ex-smokers, and 8 (11%) were current smokers. After the introduction of the ban upper and lower airway symptoms were significantly reduced. Worker's exposure to ETS in work was reduced from an average of 40 hours per week to less than half an hour post ban (-99%,p=0.001). Exhaled carbon monoxide (used as a marker of exposure) was reduced by a mean of 40% in the non-smoking barmen. 57 (88%) of non smokers reported the same or less exposure to ETS outside work. Tests to measure how well the lungs were working showed significant improvement in those barmen who never smoked but showed deterioration in smokers. Conclusion Overall the workplace ban on smoking has shown an immediate effect on the respiratory health in non-smoking bar workers, with reduction in symptoms and CO levels, and better lung function results.


We present experimental results showing that long-period gratings in photonic crystal fibers can be used as sensitive biochemical sensors. A layer of biomolecules was immobilized on the sides of the holes of the photonic crystal fiber and by observing the shift in the resonant wavelength of a long-period grating it was possible to measure the thickness of the layer. The long-period gratings were inscribed in a large-mode area silica photonic crystal fiber with a CO2 laser. The thicknesses of a monolayer of poly-L-lysine and double-stranded DNA was measured using the device. We find that the grating has a sensitivity of approximately 1.4nm/1nm in terms of the shift in resonance wavelength in nm per nm thickness of biomolecule layer.


In light of growing discourse on 'frugal innovation', this book offers novel approaches to innovation based on extensive empirical research. The study complements a decade of scholarly attention on frugal innovation by taking a research-based approach to innovation in resource-scarce and complex institutional contexts. The findings suggest that concepts such as frugal, reverse, jugaad, social, grassroots and inclusive innovation in fact represent heterogeneous assemblies of innovation for social, environmental and economic value. The conceptual framework invites attention to more plural sources and elements in the study of models of innovation to inspire further research in the fields of strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, economic sociology and development studies. The design framework offers models, metrics and competencies for practitioners and policymakers to identify, evaluate and design frugal innovations. The comprehensive view of frugal innovation demonstrates how firms can implement globally competitive strategies by pursuing innovation for humanity to improve lives for everyone, everywhere.


Advances in semiconductor device during last few decades enable us to improve the electronic device performance by minimizing the device dimension. However, further development of these systems encounters scientific and technological limits and forces us to explore better alternatives. Low‐dimensional carbon allotropes such as carbon nanotube and graphene exhibit superior electronic, optoelectronic, and mechanical properties compared to the conventional semiconductors. This Feature Article reviews the recent progresses of carbon nanotubes and graphene researches and compares their electronic properties and electric device performances. A particular focus is the comparison of the characteristics in transparent conducting films (transparency and sheet resistance) and field‐effect transistors (FETs) (device types, ambipolarity, mobility, doping strategy, FET‐performance, logic and memory operations). Finally, the performance of devices that combine graphene and carbon nanotubes is also highlighted.


Design, build, and deploy your own machine learning applications by leveraging key Java machine learning librariesAbout This BookDevelop a sound strategy to solve predictive modelling problems using the most popular machine learning Java librariesExplore a broad variety of data processing, machine learning, and natural language processing through diagrams, source code, and real-world applicationsPacked with practical advice and tips to help you get to grips with applied machine learningWho This Book Is ForIf you want to learn how to use Java's machine learning libraries to gain insight from your data, this book is for you. It will get you up and running quickly and provide you with the skills you need to successfully create, customize, and deploy machine learning applications in real life. You should be familiar with Java programming and data mining concepts to make the most of this book, but no prior experience with data mining packages is necessary.What You Will LearnUnderstand the basic steps of applied machine learning and how to differentiate among various machine learning approachesDiscover key Java machine learning libraries, what each library brings to the table, and what kind of problems each are able to solveLearn how to implement classification, regression, and clusteringDevelop a sustainable strategy for customer retention by predicting likely churn candidatesBuild a scalable recommendation engine with Apache MahoutApply machine learning to fraud, anomaly, and outlier detectionExperiment with deep learning concepts, algorithms, and the toolbox for deep learningWrite your own activity recognition model for eHealth applications using mobile sensorsIn DetailAs the amount of data continues to grow at an almost incomprehensible rate, being able to understand and process data is becoming a key differentiator for competitive organizations. Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, spam detection, document search, and trading strategies, to speech recognition. This makes machine learning well-suited to the present-day era of Big Data and Data Science. The main challenge is how to transform data into actionable knowledge.Machine Learning in Java will provide you with the techniques and tools you need to quickly gain insight from complex data. You will start by learning how to apply machine learning methods to a variety of common tasks including classification, prediction, forecasting, market basket analysis, and clustering.Moving on, you will discover how to detect anomalies and fraud, and ways to perform activity recognition, image recognition, and text analysis. By the end of the book, you will explore related web resources and technologies that will help you take your learning to the next level.By applying the most effective machine learning methods to real-world problems, you will gain hands-on experience that will transform the way you think about data.Style and approachThis is a practical tutorial that uses hands-on examples to step through some real-world applications of machine learning. Without shying away from the technical details, you will explore machine learning with Java libraries using clear and practical examples. You will explore how to prepare data for analysis, choose a machine learning method, and measure the success of the process.


The way a society deals with hair speaks volumes about its structures, its wealth, and its values. How is hair arranged? Is it left long or cut short? How often is it washed? Do men and women treat their hair differently and what does this tell us about gender? This stimulating book contains articles written by the Paris hairstylist Emile Long between December 1910 and December 1920 for an English trade journal. Long's purpose in writing was to keep English coiffeurs informed about the goings-on in the world of fashion and hairdressing in France, and especially in Paris. In doing so he has provided us with a personal cultural history of the world's most fashionable city in a period that stretches from the end of the Belle Epoque, through the First World War, and into the opening year of the Roaring Twenties. His investigation of hairstyles and fashion inevitably leads him to a fascinating discussion of important historical issues: the 'true' nature of Woman; the genesis and democratization of fashion; and popular attitudes towards hygiene. With his engaging literary style Long invites us to think about consumer habits and technology, notions of fashion and cleanliness, and changing ideals of femininity and the social order.Students and scholars of history, fashion and French society will enjoy these rich and revealing accounts of what hair means to identity and culture.


The Art of Spirited Awaycollects colour illustrations of Spirited Awayfor the first time in an English edition. This book includes paintings and designs from the Academy Award winning animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Features commentary, colour stills, sketches, storyboards, and illustrations used to envision the rich fantasy world of the film. Also includes a complete English-language script.


This paper aims to examine the relation between paternalism and antipaternalism. The original intention is disable the arguments seeking to justify acceptance on the part of Mill of moral and legal paternalism. The work will also investigate the concern milleans with the concepts of autonomy and self-development , positioning itself for a reading of Mill as a thinker who advocates a weak version of paternalism. This research suggests, moreover, the communication with the interpreters of contemporary Mill, which will assess the impact of their ideas on the current dialogue on the liberty and paternalism.


The Philippines do not have localised term to refer to transgender (TG) persons. In fact, the common local terms "bakla", "bading" and "bayot" are negatively used to refer to TG women. Even the Philippine Integrated HIV Behavioral and Serological Surveillance (IHBSS) do not disaggregate data for men having sex with men (MSM) and TG but are lumped together, which creates both a socio-political and behavioural risk issue. Thus, it is important to look at how TG women themselves define and understand the concept of TG in order to provide a context in developing TG-specific health services and HIV prevention programmes. The methods used were facilitating a self-administered questionnaire to forty-six (46) self-identified TG women, and conducted four (4) focus group discussions to TG women members from community-based organisations (CBOs) in Metro Manila, Cebu City and Davao City. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents/participants, being affiliated with a CBO, defines TG as persons whose gender identity and/or expression does not conform with their sex assigned at birth. Their differentiation of a TG woman from a transsexual (TS) is that the latter is related more to the concept of body modifications (i.e. hormone replacement therapy, collagen injection and implants). Thus, TG-specific health services should include both empowerment of their TG identities and addressing risky behaviours such as "versatile" sexual role and engaging in various forms of body modifications, especially those who self-inject hormones and collagens. Some TG CBOs coined "transpinay", "transwomen" and "binabae" as a local term for TG women which are useful to reach the unaware Filipino TG women community. Lastly, in order to identify and target TG women clients in peer education, qualifier questions or criteria can be used but always give the target clients the opportunity to self-identify for self-empowerment - both strategies should complement each other.


This study was conducted to assess spinal safety of the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor ketorolac in dogs and rats. Beagle dogs were prepared with lumbar intrathecal catheters and received continuous spinal infusions of 5 mg/ml ketorolac (N = 6), 0.5 mg/ml ketorolac (N = 8), or saline vehicle (N = 6) at 50 microl/h (1.2 ml/day) for 28 days. No systematic drug or dose-related changes were observed in motor function, heart rate, or blood pressure. Histological examination revealed a mild pericatheter reaction in all groups with no drug or dose related effect upon spinal pathology at the lumbar site of highest drug concentration. Cisternal CSF protein was elevated for all treatment groups at necropsy, and cisternal glucose was within normal range for all treatment groups, though three dogs displayed decreases in cisternal glucose. Significant reductions in hematocrit were noted, and increased incidence of gastric bleeding at necropsy was observed in animals receiving ketorolac. Intrathecal ketorolac kinetics revealed a biphasic clearance: t1/2 s = 10.3 and 53 min, respectively. After initiation of infusion (0.5 mg and 5 mg/ml/50 microl/h), lumbar CSF concentrations of ketorolac were 3.8 and 52.7 microg/ml, respectively. Bolus and continuous infusion of intrathecal ketorolac resulted in significant reduction of lumbar CSF PGE2 concentrations. In rats, with intrathecal catheters, four daily bolus deliveries of saline or ketorolac (5 mg/ml/10 microl) had no effect upon spinal histology or upon spinal cord blood flow. These data indicate that intrathecal ketorolac in two species at the dose/concentrations employed does not induce evident spinal pathology but diminishes spinal prostaglandin release.


ABSTRACT The Picornaviridae family comprises a heterogeneous group of non-enveloped viruses with genome consisting of a single positivesense RNA strand. Infections with picornaviruses are very common in humans, producing a spectrum of clinical outcomes, ranging from asymptomatic infection and mild respiratory illness, to meningitis, myocarditis, pericarditis, and enterovirus-induced septic syndrome. Most picornaviruses seem to develop resistance quite effectively against almost any chemotherapeutic agent that modern science has developed, presenting a truly formidable challenge to modern healthcare. For some time, it has been hoped that synthetic agents mimicking the naturally occurring sphingosine-like molecule occupying the hydrophobic pocket in the viral capsid may be useful as antiviral agents, but it has been repeatedly demonstrated that resistance to the pocket-binding antivirals develops quite rapidly and that viral strains dependent on the chemotherapeutic may emerge. Several pocket-binding pyrazole drugs have entered clinical trials so far, but as of now, none of these have been licensed by the FDA, despite the extensive clinical trials. Apparently, the search for means of prevention of infection with rhino- and enteroviruses or an etiotropic cure for the conditions related to infections with picornaviruses is still ongoing.


Tracing the sequence of library calls and system calls that a program makes is very helpful to characterize its interactions with the surrounding environment and, ultimately, its semantics. However, due to the entanglements of real-world software stacks, accomplishing this task can be surprisingly challenging as we take accuracy, reliability, and transparency into the equation. In this article, we identify six challenges that API monitoring solutions should overcome in order to manage these dimensions effectively and outline actionable design points for building robust API tracers that can be used even for security research. We then detail and evaluate SNIPER, an open-source API tracing system available in two variants based on dynamic binary instrumentation (for simplified in-guest deployment) and hardware-assisted virtualization (realizing the first general user-space tracer of this kind), respectively.


By 1980 the National Party government of South Africa and the most prominent anti-apartheid organisation, the African National Congress (ANC), had moulded multidimensional strategies of epic proportions with which to seize and maintain power. The government perceived the global campaign against South Africa's political status quo as a so-called total onslaught operating in all possible socio-economic and political spheres. In reaction it engineered a strategy to counter it in all possible spheres: the total strategy. Its implementation implied a reorganisation of South African politics and society on an unimaginable scale. Simultaneously the most important anti-government organisation was overhauling itself. After the turmoil of the late 1970s, the African National Congress determined that the climate was ripe to launch a multidimensional offensive against the minority regime. The execution of these strategies, during the 1980s, culminated in sweeping violent political conflict and socio-economic unrest. A political power play was effected with the actions and reactions of each side thrusting South Africa ever closer to the brink of a man-made apocalypse. These separate strategies will be analysed in an historical perspective.


Recent accounting scandals have shaken the U.S. stock market and faith in the ethics of the capitalist system. We show that these accounting scandals and the parable of the unrighteous steward given in Luke 16 shed light on each other. We argue that the morals derived from the parable of the unrighteous steward include (1) that we should give alms; (2) that we should not be like the Pharisees who replaced God's requirements with legalism; and (3) that, when placed in stewardship positions, we should be cautious that we do not allow our shrewdness to govern and, in so doing, ignore God's requirements. Jonathan E. Leightner and Pamela Z. Jackson, "Unrighteous Stewards in Biblical and Modern Times," Journal of Markets & Morality 10, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 339-355


In this article we describe the use of a standard game console joystick, namely the Nintendo Wiimote, for controlling a HOAP-2 humanoid robot. We give a short overview on the use of tangible user interfaces, followed by the description of the used game controller and the measurements of some of its characteristics. We show the ease of applicability of inexpensive and robust standard game controllers for direct translation between the user's intent and the robot actions on a two-handed robot drumming task.


The rise in atmospheric CO2 has caused significant decrease in sea surface pH and carbonate ion (CO3‐2) concentration. This decrease has a negative effect on calcification in hermatypic corals and other calcifying organisms. We report the results of three laboratory experiments designed specifically to separate the effects of the different carbonate chemistry parameters (pH, CO3‐2, CO2 [aq], total alkalinity [AT], and total inorganic carbon [CT]) on the calcification, photosynthesis, and respiration of the hermatypic coral Acropora eurystoma. The carbonate system was varied to change pH (7.9‐8.5), without changing CT; CT was changed keeping the pH constant, and CT was changed keeping the pCO2 constant. In all of these experiments, calcification (both light and dark) was positively correlated with CO3‐2 concentration, suggesting that the corals are not sensitive to pH or CT but to the CO3‐2 concentration. A decrease of ~30% in the CO3‐2 concentration (which is equivalent to a decrease of about 0.2 pH units in seawater) caused a calcification decrease of about 50%. These results suggest that calcification in today's ocean (pCO2 = 370 ppm) is lower by ~20% compared with preindustrial time (pCO2 = 280 ppm). An additional decrease of ~35% is expected if atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles (pCO2 = 560 ppm). In all of these experiments, photosynthesis and respiration did not show any significant response to changes in the carbonate chemistry of seawater. Based on this observation, we propose a mechanism by which the photosynthesis of symbionts is enhanced by coral calcification at high pH when CO2(aq) is low. Overall it seems that photosynthesis and calcification support each other mainly through internal pH regulation, which provides CO3‐2 ions for calcification and CO2(aq) for photosynthesis.


The photochemistry of anthracene, a new class of photoresist for direct laser writing, is used to enable visible‐light‐gated control over the mechanical properties of 3D microstructures post‐manufacturing. The mechanical and viscoelastic properties (hardness, complex elastic modulus, and loss factor) of the microstructures are measured over the course of irradiation via dynamic mechanical analysis on the nanoscale. Irradiation of the microstructures leads to a strong hardening and stiffening effect due to the generation of additional crosslinks through the photodimerization of the anthracene functionalities. A relationship between the loss of fluorescence—a consequence of the photodimerization—and changes in the mechanical properties is established. The fluorescence thus serves as a proxy read‐out for the mechanical properties. These photoresponsive microstructures can potentially be used as "mechanical blank slates": their mechanical properties can be readily adjusted using visible light to serve the demands of different applications and read out using their fluorescence.


Plagiarism is the theft of someone's ideas or language, and is a form of cheating which is morally and ethically unacceptable. This study analyses the nature of plagiarism from an Islamic perspective and its prevalence in institutions of higher learning in the Muslim world, especially among faculty members. It also examines the ways in which universities attempt to minimise or marginalise plagiarism. This study is warranted by the fact that there is relatively very little research on the issue of plagiarism at universities in the Muslim world and that existing research seldom addresses the issue of academics engaged in such unethical practices. Based upon existing surveys, interviews, and documentary sources, the study found that in earlier periods, standards were not inevitably lower than those that exist today and that the scope for condemning plagiarists has always existed. It also found that despite Islam's loathing, the incidence of plagiarism has grown significantly among Muslim students and faculty members in the Muslim world. The response to plagiarism varies from country to country. Some Muslim countries tolerate plagiarism, while others are taking steps to curb it. Institutions in Malaysia approach the problem of plagiarism as a matter of morality and crime that emphasise the need to develop writing and researching skills. They resort to honour codes, emphasise law and enforcement, and teach ways to write and cite. However, the success of these methods needs to be further probed.


This chapter explores the potential of phonetic and sociophonetic research in characterising varieties of English in the Indian diaspora, using South African Indian English (SAIE) as a focal point. We first identify key phonetic features that lend themselves to such comparative study. In this regard we note that retroflexes are recessive in SAIE, aspiration shows patterns that are intermediate between Indian English (IE) and varieties like White South African English (White SAE), and interdental fricatives /ð/ and /θ/ are closer to IE, while differing in respect of aspiration. In characterising the differences between IE as usually described in the literature and SAIE, three factors are crucial: (a) the give-and-take between the English of speakers of North Indian and South Indian origins in South Africa, (b) the influence of varieties of South African English, and (c) internal sociolinguistic developments within the SAIE community relating to age, gender and class. This last aspect is illustrated in detail in the second half of the chapter via a sociophonetic study of the nurse vowel.


Metric clustering is fundamental in areas ranging from Combinatorial Optimization and Data Mining, to Machine Learning and Operations Research. However, in a variety of situations we may have additional requirements or knowledge, distinct from the underlying metric, regarding which pairs of points should be clustered together. To capture and analyze such scenarios, we introduce a novel family of stochastic pairwise constraints, which we incorporate into several essential clustering objectives (radius/median/means). Moreover, we demonstrate that these constraints can succinctly model an intriguing collection of applications, including among others Individual Fairness in clustering and Must-link constraints in semi-supervised learning. Our main result consists of a general framework that yields approximation algorithms with provable guarantees for important clustering objectives, while at the same time producing solutions that respect the stochastic pairwise constraints. Furthermore, for certain objectives we devise improved results in the case of Must-link constraints, which are also the best possible from a theoretical perspective. Finally, we present experimental evidence that validates the effectiveness of our algorithms.


Irrigated soybean production in Nebraska spans a region with diverse soils and climates. Irrigators can easily adopt irrigation scheduling using a stage of growth for timing applications. However, simplifying assumptions, including soil water holding capacity, rainfall, stored soil water, and adequate irrigation system capacity, are implicit in the development of stage of growth irrigation scheduling recommendations. Reliance on these can lead to misapplication of irrigation water. This project tested irrigation scheduling techniques for indeterminate soybean production in Nebraska, with stage of growth indicating the initiation of irrigation. The range of soils and climate in the study area gave a range of irrigation scheduling recommendations. In the semi-arid, west-central Nebraska, full-season irrigation to meet evapotranspiration demand has been recommended. In sub-humid, south-central and eastern Nebraska, irrigation can be delayed until flowering on deep medium to fine textured soils if the potential root zone is filled at planting time.


This dissertation investigated the diversity and hydrogenase activity and gene expression of mineral-associated microorganisms. Surface-associated microbes have been shown to dominate diversity and activity in the environment, however molecular analysis of sediment-associated communities is hindered by both inaccessibility to the subsurface and co-extraction of inhibitory compounds. In order to analyze microbial communities in which the environmental conditions previously had precluded the use of traditional sediment extraction techniques, biofilm coupons (metal, mesh cylinders containing surrogate substrata) were used to recover microorganisms able to attach and compete in a biofilm. The community recovered from the contaminated site using hematite as a surrogate substratum was dominated by microbes most closely related to Alcaligenes sp. (metal-tolerant), Frateuria sp. (acidophilic), and Methylobacterium radiotolerans (radionuclide-tolerant) which together reflect the acidic, metal-, and radionuclide-contaminated environment. Hematite, as compared to other substrata, was shown to recover communities most closely representative of sediment communities inhabiting the saturated zone. Surface-associated cells have been shown to express greater activity than suspended populations and mineral-associated sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) mediate the formation of different secondary minerals as compared to suspended cells. In order to investigate the affect of surface-association on enzyme activity, hydrogenase enzyme activity was compared in hematite-associated and suspended populations of the SRB Desulfovibrio desulfuricans Essex 6. Hydrogenase activity of surface-associated populations was higher than that displayed by suspended cells. Hydrogenase likely affects the pH and pE of the conditions immediately surrounding the cell. The greater rate of activity may be one factor which contributes to the formation of a mineral phase not observed in the presence of suspended populations of this bacterium. In order to determine the portion of cells expressing hydrogenase in the surface-associated populations, in situ reverse-transcription PCR was applied to the hematite-associated cells and all cells were expressing the [NiFe] hydrogenase gene. This thesis demonstrates that environmental conditions of contaminated subsurface environments select for microorganisms able to tolerate or utilize the contaminants. Also, the hydrogenase activity of surface-associated populations is not representative of the suspended cells thus indicating the importance of studying attached populations where enzyme activity likely influences the conditions at the mineral-microbe interface.


The rediscovery of the Viljandi Castle, which was totally destroyed during the Great Northern War, occurred between 1878 and 1879, when extensive excavations were conducted under the direction and guidance of Theodor Schiemann (1847–1921). The real sensation revealed by the excavations at the time was the discovery of numerous carved construction details. Most of them were column capitals or bases. These have been attributed to the main castle, which was a convent building typical of the Teutonic Order. This type of castle was developed in Prussia between ca 1280 and 1300, and its "classic" form spread between 1300 and 1330, during approximately the same half century as the Viljandi convent building was built. Some of the Viljandi column capitals have figural decorations and oak leaves are most common. There is also a large capital with naturalistic grape leaves, which comes from a cloister and was completed in the late 13th century. Apparently, the convent building was being constructed at that time. However, most of the capitals are much more archaic. Some of the motifs are typical of the Romanesque style. But the most common are the so-called "bud capitals" typical of the Early Gothic style. Basically such decorations became popular in Old Livonia in the 1250s and 1260s. In any case, it is clear that a large number of the capitals were carved when the convent-type castles had yet to develop. In the past, I have alluded to the possibility that there was a large richly decorated structure in Viljandi which was demolished to build the convent building. However, this is extremely unlikely. Although an archaeological study has not been made of the entire area of Viljandi's main castle, it is hard to identify a place where such a large-scale building could have existed. Therefore, the possibility should be considered that some of the caitals were brought from elsewhere. We should also turn our attention to the fact that there are numerous capitals and bases for paired columns. Heretofore, it has been assumed that they had been used to decorate the windows of the chapel and capital hall in the northern wing of the main castle. Actually they originate from a structure which had an open gallery or cloister. However, this would mean that there was a very richly decorated structure in 13th century Old Livonia that was demolished less than 50 years after it was built, and the ruins were dispersed. There were very few such structures in Old Livonia at the time. However, one such case does exist, and it is not far from Viljandi – namely the Old Parnu Cathedral. The main church of the Oesel–Wiek bishopric in Old Parnu was completed in the early 1250s. Based on written records, we know that there was a capital hall, refectory and dormitory for the cathedral chapter house. This spatial plan also alludes to the existence of a cloister. The Old Parnu Cathedral was destroyed by the Lithuanians in 1263. Later, the ruins of the cathedral were reconstructed into a parish church. However, this means that the cloister was no longer need. And it is possible that some of the carved decorations were transported to Viljandi, where the construction of a large-scale castle was under way during the last decades of the 13th century.


Measurements have been made of the mean-total-head and mean-temperature fields in a round turbulent jet with various initial temperatures. The results show that the jet spreads more rapidly as its density becomes lower than that of the receiving medium, even when the difference is not sufficiently great to cause dynamic-pressure function. Rough analytical considerations have given the same relative spread. The effective "turbulent Prandtl number" for a section of the fully developed jet was found to be equal to the true (laminar) Prandtl number within the accuracy measurement.


For conventional acoustic monopole sources in a logging-while-drilling (LWD) or wireline environment, shear slowness logs can be hard to obtain, particularly in slow formations where direct refracted shear-wave arrivals are often absent. For LWD dipole sources, formation flexural waves are often coupled with the lowest order of tool flexural waves, so the flexural mode does not approach shear wave slowness at low frequencies. A dispersion correction is required to extract shear slowness from LWD dipole data. Instead, a quadrupole firing, which generates screw waves, is considered the best LWD excitation mode for shear measurement. A fundamental feature of screw waves in an LWD environment is that their non-leaky cutoff frequency slowness is the formation shear slowness. However, slowness data near the cutoff frequency of LWD screw waves are often influenced by noise or the presence of other modes because of low excitation amplitude. To overcome these LWD data processing challenges, we propose a data-driven processing method that uses all useful dispersion responses of existing modes in the frequency domain. The process first generates a differential phase frequency-slowness coherence map and extracts the slowness dispersion vs. frequency. Then, it computes the slowness density log, referring to the intensity of the dispersion response along the slowness axis. Next, an edge-detection method is applied to capture the edge of the first peak associated with shear slowness on the slowness density map. To refine the shear slowness answer, this initial estimate of shear slowness serves as the input to another algorithm that minimizes the misfit between the screw slowness vector and a simplified screw dispersion model. The simplified screw dispersion model consists of a pre-computed base library of theoretical screw dispersion curves and two data-driven parameters. The two data-driven parameters are used by the measured data to stretch the base dispersion model in the frequency and slowness axes, respectively, to account for errors generated by alteration, anisotropy, or other parameters not included in the forward modeling. The method can also be applied to flexural waves, where the initial guess of shear slowness is picked from the slowness density map of flexural waves after dispersion-correction processing. This paper shows a case study of borehole flexural and screw waves processing in soft formations. A modified differential-phase frequency-semblance (MDPFS) approach is applied to extract the mode waves' full-frequency dispersion response from measured waveforms. The data-driven shear slowness processing is applied to the dispersion response. Both dipole flexural waves and quadrupole screw waves are processed. A combination of slowness density log from the flexural or screw wave slowness and the dispersion-corrected slowness is used as a QC metric of the final estimated shear. Results show that flexural and screw dispersions are well measured by the LWD sonic tool, even if the shear slowness is as large as 500 s/ft. Shear slowness extracted from flexural waves and screw waves match well with each other and with wireline shear slowness logs, demonstrating that the processing is reliable and robust.


a largely invisible health crisis in lowand middle-income countries that has only recently begun to receive the attention it demands. Between 2016-20, researchers from The George Institute for Global Health examined the health burden stemming from drownings in parts of Bangladesh, India and Vietnam. The Institute's ground-breaking research across the three countries revealed critical insights, raised awareness and offered policy makers and local communities evidence-based tools to help stop the silent epidemic.


A third of Canadian housing starts and half of the housing starts in Atlantic Canada are produced by self-help means, yet this important sector of housing provision has been overlooked by analysts of Canadian housing. The objective of this thesis is to examine self-help housing in Atlantic Canada, and by this means, improve the understanding of Canadian housing. The thesis begins by developing an economic theory of self-help housing provision. The application of this approach is not restricted to Canada; it has relevance for housing analysis in all industrialised countries, and to self-help housing in the Third World. In the third chapter estimates are made of the level of self-help housing in different regions of Canada. Self-help is estimated to account for at least half of all housing starts annually in Atlantic Canada, and a third of all Canadian housing starts. Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta are predicted to have the lowest level of self-help housing, while Saskatchewan, Quebec and British Columbia are predicted to have medium levels of self-help. Self-help is not a rural phenomenon, it is estimated to account for 22 percent of all housing starts in Census Metropolitan areas of Canada. Case study information from Atlantic Canada is used to describe self-help housing provisioning and there appears to be little difference between households using self-help as opposed to purchasing a dwelling built by the residential construction industry, or indeed between the dwellings built by the two sectors. While there are no differences in the quality or the suitability of dwellings built by the two sectors, self-help provisioning is far more affordable, and self-help households have a much higher level of financial security in their dwelling. The incidence of self-help cannot be predicted by different skill levels of the population or by factors such as a greater amount of time for self-help as a consequence of high rates of unemployment (while self-help provisioning is highest where unemployment rates are highest, self-help households are rarely unemployed, at least in the areas covered by the case studies). It is argued that self-help is best viewed as a sector of housing provision, and is more likely to occur in areas where the residential construction industry has greatest difficulty obtaining profits from the production of housing. Others have noted that self-help appears to be most likely where the economy is weakest, an observation which is consistent with the predicted incidence of self-help provisioning in Canada. However this thesis demonstrates that self-help also contributes to uneven development by depriving the residential construction industry of profits (from production as well as extra profits) and also by contributing to the ability of the population to survive at lower money wage levels and concomitantly reducing incentives for local industry to improve productivity. In this fashion self-help housing provision slows the accumulation process of both the residential construction industry and industry in general, thereby contributing to uneven development. The impact of housing policy on self-help provisioning is also examined. Self-help is more sensitive to policy initiatives such as changes in the costs of inputs or interest rates, and thus is more responsive to policy initiatives. At the same time, self-help generates more employment than does industry production. Thus, given the size of the sector, its higher incidence in areas with the greatest economic problems, and, that self-help provisioning is more affordable and the housing produced is of equal quality and suitability, then there is considerable potential for social and fiscal gains through policies directed towards the self-help housing sector.


CONTEXT
EGb 761 is a particular extract of Ginkgo biloba used in Europe to alleviate symptoms associated with numerous cognitive disorders. Its use in dementias is based on positive results from only a few controlled clinical trials, most of which did not include standard assessments of cognition and behavior.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the efficacy and safety of EGb in Alzheimer disease and multi-infarct dementia.

DESIGN
A 52-week, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, multicenter study.

PATIENTS
Mildly to severely demented outpatients with Alzheimer disease or multi-infarct dementia, without other significant medical conditions.

INTERVENTION
Patients assigned randomly to treatment with EGb (120 mg/d) or placebo. Safety, compliance, and drug dispensation were monitored every 3 months with complete outcome evaluation at 12, 26, and 52 weeks.

PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES
Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog), Geriatric Evaluation by Relative's Rating Instrument (GERRI), and Clinical Global Impression of Change (CGIC).

RESULTS
From 309 patients included in an intent-to-treat analysis, 202 provided evaluable data for the 52-week end point analysis. In the intent-to-treat analysis, the EGbgroup had an ADAS-Cog score 1.4 points better than the placebo group (P=.04) and a GERRI score 0.14 points better than the placebo group (P=.004). The same patterns were observed with the evaluable data set in which 27% of patients treated with EGb achieved at least a 4-point improvement on the ADAS-Cog, compared with 14% taking placebo (P=.005); on the GERRI, 37% were considered improved with EGb, compared with 23% taking placebo (P=.003). No difference was seen in the CGIC. Regarding the safety profile of EGb, no significant differences compared with placebo were observed in the number of patients reporting adverse events or in the incidence and severity of these events.

CONCLUSIONS
EGb was safe and appears capable of stabilizing and, in a substantial number of cases, improving the cognitive performance and the social functioning of demented patients for 6 months to 1 year. Although modest, the changes induced by EGb were objectively measured by the ADAS-Cog and were of sufficient magnitude to be recognized by the caregivers in the GERRI.


Whenever a major earthquake strikes or a hurricane unleashes its fury, the devastating results fill our television screens and newspapers. Mary C. Comerio is interested in what happens in the weeks and months after such disasters, particularly in the recovery of damaged housing. Through case studies of six recent urban disasters--Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, Hurricane Andrew in Florida, the Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes in California, as well as earthquakes in Mexico City and Kobe, Japan--Comerio demonstrates that several fundamental factors have changed in contemporary urban disasters. The foremost change is in scale, and as more Americans move to the two coasts, future losses will continue to be formidable because of increased development in these high-hazard areas. Moreover, the visibility of disasters in the news media will assure that response efforts remain highly politicized. And finally, the federal government is now expected to be on the scene with personnel, programs, and financial assistance even as private insurance companies are withdrawing disaster coverage from homeowners in earthquake- and hurricane-prone regions. Demonstrating ways that existing recovery systems are inadequate, Comerio proposes a rethinking of what recovery means, a comprehensive revision of the government's role, and more equitable programs for construction financing. She offers new criteria for a housing recovery policy as well as real financial incentives for preparedness, for limiting damage before disasters occur, and for providing a climate where private insurance can work. Her careful analysis makes this book important reading for policymakers, property owners, and anyone involved in disaster mitigation.


Cy Twombly (1928-2011) created art that was remarkable for its versatility, sensitivity and originality. Throughout his career, he followed his own artistic pathway, independent from contemporary trends, and for a long time his work went unnoticed by a wider audience. By the time of his death in Rome, at the age of eighty-three, he was internationally recognized as one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic artists of the 20th and early 21st century. At an early stage, he began to develop his own symbolic language of letters and words, which suggested a pictorial form of poetry. References from art, history and mythology soon expanded this poetic vocabulary, often combined with a sensual engagement with the painted surface. This book provides an authoritative overview of Twombly's complex body of work, bringing together the most important of his paintings and painting cycles, as well as a selection of his drawings, sculptures and photographs.


Substance abuse in the United States is on the rise and evidence has shown that screening patients is ideal in primary care. Early identification of substance use is important in decreasing mortality and morbidity associated with substance use. Protocols need to be in place to identify substance abuse and respond appropriately. The aim of this quality improvement project is to implement a substance abuse screening tool in a free clinic and develop a protocol for patients who screen positive. Over a 14-week period, patients were screened using the Tobacco, Alcohol, Prescription Medication, and Other Substances (TAPS-1) screening tool for substance use. A resource pamphlet, which identified resources within the community, was developed to distribute to patients screening positive. A retrospective chart review (n=159) identified that 5% of patients received screening using the TAPS-1. Implications for this DNP project include implementing the screening tool within the EHR and creating reminders. It is recommended that future project planners consider organizational readiness and assessment of potential barriers when working with free clinics and volunteer-based staff.


Reconstructing the surface of highly specular objects is a challenging task. The shapes of diffuse and rough specular objects can be captured in an uncontrolled setting using consumer equipment. In contrast, highly specular objects have previously deterred capture in uncontrolled environments and have only been reconstructed using tailor-made hardware. We propose a method to reconstruct such objects in uncontrolled environments using only commodity hardware. As input, our method expects multi-view photographs of the specular object, its silhouettes and an environment map of its surroundings. We compare the reflected colors in the photographs with the ones in the environment to form probability distributions over the surface normals. As the effect of inter-reflections cannot be ignored for highly specular objects, we explicitly model them when forming the probability distributions. We recover the shape of the object in an iterative process where we alternate between estimating normals and updating the shape of the object to better explain these normals. We run experiments on both synthetic and real-world data, that show our method is robust and produces accurate reconstructions with as few as 25 input photographs.


The figure shows the LEMUR II - the second generation of the Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot (LEMUR), which was described in "Six-Legged Experimental Robot" (NPO-20897), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 12 (December 2001), page 58. The LEMUR II incorporates a number of improvements, including new features, that extend its capabilities beyond those of its predecessor, which is now denoted the LEMUR I. To recapitulate: the LEMUR I was a six-limbed robot for demonstrating robotic capabilities for assembly, maintenance, and inspection. The LEMUR I was designed to be capable of walking autonomously along a truss structure toward a mechanical assembly at a prescribed location and to perform other operations. The LEMUR I was equipped with stereoscopic video cameras and image-data-processing circuitry for navigation and mechanical operations. It was also equipped with a wireless modem, through which it could be commanded remotely. Upon arrival at a mechanical assembly, the LEMUR I would perform simple mechanical operations with one or both of its front limbs. It could also transmit images to a host computer. Each of the six limbs of the LEMUR I was operated independently. Each of the four rear limbs had three degrees of freedom (DOFs), while each of the front two limbs had four DOFs. The front two limbs were designed to hold, operate, and/or be integrated with tools. The LEMUR I included an onboard computer equipped with an assortment of digital control circuits, digital input/output circuits, analog-to-digital converters for input, and digital-to-analog (D/A) converters for output. Feedback from optical encoders in the limb actuators was utilized for closed-loop microcomputer control of the positions and velocities of the actuators. The LEMUR II incorporates the following improvements over the LEMUR I: a) The drive trains for the joints of the LEMUR II are more sophisticated, providing greater torque and accuracy. b) The six limbs are arranged symmetrically about a hexagonal body platform instead of in straight lines along the sides. This symmetrical arrangement is more conducive to omnidirectional movement in a plane. c) The number of degrees of freedom of each of the rear four limbs has been increased by one. Now, every limb has four degrees of freedom: three at the hip (or shoulder, depending on one s perspective) and one at the knee (or elbow, depending on one s perspective). d) Now every limb (instead of only the two front limbs) can perform operations. For this purpose, each limb is tipped with an improved quick-release mechanism for swapping of end-effector tools. e) New end-effector tools have been developed. These include an instrumented rotary driver that accepts all tool bits that have 0.125-in. (3.175-mm)-diameter shanks, a charge-coupled-device video camera, a super bright light-emitting diode for illuminating the work area of the robot, and a generic collet tool that can be quickly and inexpensively modified to accept any cylindrical object up to 0.5 in. (12.7 mm) in diameter. f) The stereoscopic cameras are mounted on a carriage that moves along a circular track, thereby providing for omnidirectional machine vision. g) The control software has been augmented with software that implements innovations reported in two prior NASA Tech Briefs articles: the HIPS algorithm ["Hybrid Image-Plane/Stereo Manipulation" (NPO-30492), Vol. 28, No. 7 (July 2004), page 55] and the CAMPOUT architecture ["An Architecture for Controlling Multiple Robots" (NPO-30345), Vol. 28, No. 10 (October 2004), page 65].


With the use of behavioral genetics methodology, in which variance of an observed trait can be decomposed into the effect of three latent variables, that is, genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental, factors contributing to the formation of authoritarian conservatism were examined. 4111 participants ( 1279 male twins and 1899 female twins between the ages of 12 − 26, as well as 83 fathers and 860 mothers of the twins ) responded to the Authoritarian Conservatism Scale. The twin model analysis employing 912 pairs of identical and 630 pairs of fraternal twins accounted for 33% of the variance of authoritarian conservatism by genetics, and 67% by nonshared environment. The subsequent twin parent − offspring model analysis also produced a very similar result. Thus, it was revealed that what mediated the familial transmission of authoritarian conservatism was genetics, not cultural transmission. Theories explaining the formation of authoritarianism by parenting or social background of the family are not supported. Transmission models can be further elaborated by including genetics as a predictable variable.


We have studied self-coordinated transportation systems using SU-8 microstructures in open microchannels and here present a stochastic model for the bacteria-driven microbarge that is designed to mimic the motion of this system with and without chemical gradients or other external stimuli and compare experimental results with the outcomes of simulations. Our ultimate goal is to use our mathematical model as a workbench to propose various closed loop control schemes applicable for the real system.


Ants are widely employed by plants as an antiherbivore defence. A single host plant can associate with multiple, symbiotic ant species, although usually only a single ant species at a time. Different plant-ant species may vary in the degree to which they defend their host plant. In Kenya, ant–acacia interactions are well studied, but less is known about systems elsewhere in Africa. A southern African species, Vachellia erioloba, is occupied by thorn-dwelling ants from three different genera. Unusually, multiple colonies of all these ants simultaneously and stably inhabit trees. We investigated if the ants on V. erioloba (i) deter insect herbivores; (ii) differ in their effectiveness depending on the identity of the herbivore; and (iii) protect the tree against an important herbivore, the larvae of the lepidopteran Gonometa postica. We show that experimental exclusion of ants leads to greater levels of herbivory on trees. The ants inhabiting V. erioloba are an effective deterrent against hemipteran and coleopteran, but not lepidopteran herbivores. Defensive services do not vary among ant species, but only Crematogaster ants exhibit aggression towards G. postica. This highlights the potential of the V. erioloba–ant mutualism for studying ant–plant interactions that involve multiple, simultaneously resident thorn-dwelling ant species.


The main goals of this paper are to investigate the accuracy of the Tran-Blaha modified Becke Johnson (TB-mBJ) potential to predict the electronic structure of lithium iron phosphate and the related redox reaction energy with the lithium deintercalation process. The computed electronic structures show that the TB-mBJ method is able to partially localize Fe-3d electrons in LiFePO4 and FePO4 which usually is a problem for the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) due to the self interaction error. The energy band gap is also improved by the TB-mBJ calculations in comparison with the GGA results. It turned out, however, that the redox reaction energy evaluated by the TB-mBJ technique is not in good agreement with the measured one. It is speculated that this disagreement in the computed redox energy and the experimental value is due to the lack of a formal expression to evaluate the exchange and correlation energy. Therefore, the TB-mBJ is an efficient method to improve the prediction of the electronic structures coming form the standard GGA functional in LiFePO4 and FePO4. However, it does not appear to have the same efficiency for evaluating the redox reaction energies for the investigated system.


As quantum computing progresses steadily from theory into practice, programmers will face a common problem: How can they be sure that their code does what they intend it to do? This paper presents encouraging results in the application of mechanized proof to the domain of quantum programming in the context of the SQIR development. It verifies the correctness of a range of a quantum algorithms including Grover's algorithm and quantum phase estimation, a key component of Shor's algorithm. In doing so, it aims to highlight both the successes and challenges of formal verification in the quantum context and motivate the theorem proving community to target quantum computing as an application domain.


The significance of enhancement in energy consumption in order to boost the respective national output level within any economy cannot be denied. Moreover, the United Nation's 2030 Sustainable Development agenda had also called for an improvement in efficiency of energy-use through the adoption of renewable energy technologies in particular, with the ultimate goal of attaining sustainability in global energy supply. The rationale behind escalating the associated efficiency levels is that by doing so the level of energy consumption can be reduced which would complement the direct energy conservation policies as well. However, there has been ambiguity with regard to the precise relationship between efficiency in use and consumption of energy. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the energy efficiency-energy consumption nexus in context of the two South Asian Lower Middle-Income Countries, Bangladesh and India. The study makes a novel attempt at investigating the 'Jevons Paradox' by disaggregating energy consumption into primary and secondary energy consumption and by expressing each of these as separate functions of energy-use efficiency and other control variables. This study considers annual data stemming from 1990 to 2016 and employs Fixed Effects (FE), Random Effects (RE) and Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) panel regression tools for robustness check. Furthermore, the paper also analyses the long run causal linkages using the Granger causality tests. In light of the estimated results, evidence of a Jevons paradox is found in the context of non-renewable energy, electricity and coal consumption. In addition, no long-run causal association is found to exist.


With increasing demand of data-intensive applications, mapreduce technologies have become useful tools to develop large scale applications efficiently by integrating various existing mapreduce jobs. However, there are few existing researches of workflow systems which can integrates mapreduce jobs with on-demand cloud resource provisioning. In this paper, we present a new cloud-based mapreduce workflow execution platform named DIVECWM (Distributed-parallel Virtual Environment on Cloud computing for Workflow for launching Mapreduce jobs) which integrates multiple mapreduce jobs and legacy programs into a single workflow. It provides a transparent and selective job scheduling by estimating the execution time in advance for workflow to execute all its jobs. Also, it supports automatic resource provisioning scheme which offers on-demand VM resources automatically to launch a workflow onto cloud. Furthermore, it provides an agent based resource management for automatic job deployment and execution of workflow on mapreduce clusters. Additionally, service oriented architecture based on web service API and graphical user interface offers high accessibility and convenience to user and other systems. We show the experimental results which compares the different scheduling schemes for various workflows.


Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and inulin are considered prebiotic ingredients and are FDA approved for use in food for human consumption. A prebiotic is a food ingredient that benefits the host by selectively stimulating the growth and activity of the beneficial bacteria in the colon. In this project, consumer acceptability of ice cream made with 10% of the sugar substituted with either inulin or FOS was tested. Physical tests were also conducted. The texture, water activity and L and b color values did not differ significantly for the treatments (Inulin and FOS) versus the control sample. The a value for color (red/green) differed (p=0.02) for the treatment samples when compared to the control. For the sensory evaluation, 71 participants ranked the ice cream samples made with inulin and FOS equally as well liked (6.56 and 6.80, respectively) on a 17 cm hedonic scale (0 = like and 17 = dislike). However, the participants liked the control ice cream better than the ice cream with a prebiotic ingredient (P<0.001). Inulin and FOS are potential ingredients for use in ice cream.


We might distinguish between two types of constitutional regimes, one codifying, the other transformative. A codifying constitutional regime aims at preserving something essential from the then-current constitutional or legal culture?to protect it against change in the future; a transformative constitutional regime aims at changing something essential in the then-current constitutional or legal culture to make it different in the future. The picture of the codifying regime is Ulysses tied to the mast; the picture of the transformative is revolutionary France. In our constitutional tradition, the Constitution of 1791 was a codifying constitution?the Bill of Rights, that is, was a constitutional regime that sought to entrench certain practices and values against change.1 The Civil War Amendments, on the other hand, were transformative, aiming to remake something of what the American social and legal culture had become, to tear out from the American soul its tradition of inequality, and replace it with a practice of equality.


Aharonian, F. and Akhperjanian, A. G. and Bazer-Bachi, A. R. and Beilicke, M. and Benbow, W. and Berge, D. and Bernl ohr, K. and Boisson, C. and Bolz, O. and Borrel, V. and Braun, I. and Breitling, F. and Brown, A. M. and Chadwick, P. M. and Chounet, L. M. and Cornils, R. and Costamante, L. and Degrange, B. and Dickinson, H. J. and Djannati-Ata , A. and Drury, L. O. and Dubus, G. and Emmanoulopoulos, D. and Espigat, P. and Feinstein, F. and Fontaine, G. and Fuchs, Y. and Funk, S. and Gallant, Y. A. and Giebels, B. and Gillessen, S. and Glicenstein, J. F. and Goret, P. and Hadjichristidis, C. and Hauser, D. and Hauser, M. and Heinzelmann, G. and Henri, G. and Hermann, G. and Hinton, J. A. and Hofmann, W. and Holleran, M. and Horns, D. and Jacholkowska, A. and de Jager, O. C. and Kh eli , B. and Klages, S. and Komin, N. and Konopelko, A. and Latham, I. J. and Le Gallou, R. and Lemi ere, A. and Lemoine-Goumard, M. and Leroy, N. and Lohse, T. and Marcowith, A. and Martin, J. M. and Martineau-Huynh, O. and Masterson, C. and McComb, T. J. L. and de Naurois, M. and Nolan, S. J. and Noutsos, A. and Orford, K. J. and Osborne, J. L. and Ouchrif, M. and Panter, M. and Pelletier, G. and Pita, S. and P uhlhofer, G. and Punch, M. and Raubenheimer, B. C. and Raue, M. and Raux, J. and Rayner, S. M. and Reimer, A. and Reimer, O. and Ripken, J and Rob, L. and Rolland, L. and Rowell, G. and Sahakian, V. and Saug e, L. and Schlenker, S. and Schlickeiser, R. and Schuster, C. and Schwanke, U. and Siewert, M. and Sol, H. and Spangler, D. and Steenkamp, R. and Stegmann, C. and Tavernet, J. P. and Terrier, R. and Th eoret, C. G. and Tluczykont, M. and van Eldik, C. and Vasileiadis, G. and Venter, C. and Vincent, P. and V olk, H. J. and Wagner, S. J. (2006) 'Discovery of very-high-energy gamma-rays from the Galactic Centre ridge.', Nature., 439 (7077). pp. 695-698.


We propose a reweighting-estimation-transformation (RWET) approach to estimate the impacts of COVID-19 on job postings in Australia. Contrary to the commonly used aggregation-based method on counting data, our approach can be used in a relatively 'thin' market, such as Australia. In a thin market, the number of job postings is relatively small, and the share of empty cells increases substantially when aggregating the data into finer categories. Using Australian job postings collected by Burning Glass Technologies and the RWET approach, our empirical evidence shows that the overall labour demand in Australia as of July 2020 is slowly recovering from its lowest 45 per cent dip at the beginning of May. Our results also suggest that the impacts of the pandemic are relatively evenly distributed across skill levels, but vary substantially across states, industries and occupations. Our findings of the dynamics on the demand side of the labour market suggest that skill-targeted policies might not be as effective as policies targeted at the state and industry levels to facilitate economic recovery.


Observation of brain activities in freely moving animals has become an important approach for neuroscientists to understand the correlation between brain function and behavior. We describe an extendable fiber-optic-based multi-modal imaging system that can concurrently carry out laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) of blood flow and optical intrinsic signal (OIS) imaging in freely moving animals, and it could be extended to fluorescence imaging. Our imaging system consists of a multi-source illuminator, a fiber multi-channel optical imaging unit, and a head-mounted microscope. The imaging fiber bundle delivers optical images from the head-mounted microscope to the multi-channel optical imaging unit. Illuminating multi-mode fiber bundles transmit light to the head-mounted microscope which has a mass of less than 1.5 g and includes a gradient index lens, giving the animal maximum movement capability. The internal optical components are adjustable, allowing for a change in magnification and field of view. We test the system by observing hemodynamic changes during cortical spreading depression (CSD) in freely moving and anesthetized animals by simultaneous LSCI and dual-wavelength OIS imaging. Hemodynamic parameters were calculated. Significant differences in CSD propagation durations between the two states were observed. Furthermore, it is capable of performing fluorescence imaging to explore animal behavior and the underlying brain functional activity further.


This study is a descriptive study on the production of morphological and syntactic errors in the junior high school students? English compositions. The data are collected from 48 compositions which were written by the students of Ta?miriyah Junior High School, who were in the third A class. In this case, all categories of morphological and syntactic error types are classified and described based on the theory of two descriptive taxonomies which are Linguistic Category and Surface Strategy Taxonomy. Based on the result of the analysis, morphological error types in this study, viewed from Linguistic Category Taxonomy, fall into indefinite article case, possessive case, simple verb problems, third person singular case, simple past verb problems, past participle problems, Adjective superlative form, noun, verb, adjective, and adverb form; while the syntactic errors fall into the use of noun phrase, verb phrase, verb and verb construction, word order, transformation, and other four categories of errors, which are fragment, conjunction, modifier, and unidentified error types classified in miscellaneous. Based on the Surface Strategy Taxonomy, those kinds of errors are described as omission, addition, misformation and misordering. The result of the analysis shows that both morphological and syntactic errors comprise big number of errors in this study. However, the occurrence of syntactic error is higher than the morphological one. In morphology, most errors occur in the use of inflectional morphemes such as third person singular and past tense maker; while in syntax, they occur especially in constructing noun phrase and verb phrase.


China is on the verge of a design revolution. A "third generation" of the People's Republic of China that came of age during China's "opening up" period of the 1980s now strives for fame, fortune, and self expression. This generation, workers in their thirties and forties, has more freedom to create -- and to consume -- than their parents or grandparents. In China's Design Revolution, Lorraine Justice maps the evolution of Chinese design and innovation. Justice explains that just as this "third generation" (post-Revolution, post--Cultural Revolution) reaches for self-expression, China's government is making massive investments in design and innovation, supporting design and creative activities (including design education programs, innovation parks, and privatized companies) at the local and national levels. The goal is to stimulate economic growth -- and to establish China as a global creative power. Influenced by Mao and Confucius, communism and capitalism, patriotism and cosmopolitanism, China's third generation will drive the culture of design and innovation in China -- and maybe the rest of the world. Justice describes and documents examples of Chinese design and innovation that range from ancient ceramics to communist propaganda posters. She then explores current award-winning projects in media, fashion, graphic, interior, and product design; and examines the lifestyle and purchasing trends of the "fourth generation," now in their teens and twenties. China's Design Revolution offers an essential guide to the inextricably entwined stories of design, culture, and politics in China.


Superconductors have been investigated for a long time. But since the discovery of high temperature superconductors first in 1986, there has been done more research on low temperature superconductors than on HTS. So the behavior in the low temperature region of superconductors is already well known, but because industry aims to work with superconductors with increasing temperatures now high temperature superconductors have to be investigated.
For high temperature superconductors there is up to now no widely accepted theory how superconductivity occurs. There is no cooling of the atoms which reduces the lattice oscillations as in the case of low temperature superconductors and so it shouldn"t be possible for electrons to follow all the same path and so having no resistance in the superconductor. Adding strain to a superconductor causes another change in the crystal lattice. The aim of this bachelor assignment is to explore whether it is possible to find a strain scaling relation for yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconductors.
When a material becomes mechanically strained, the crystal lattice becomes distorted. This influence is directly observable in the superconducting properties. These properties are best described with the so called critical surface of a superconductor. Not only the temperature is a critical parameter for superconductivity, but also the current and the applied magnetic field. This so-called critical surface will be constructed for the high temperature region of YBCO, which will be from 89K to 92K, for different magnetic fields (from 0T to 0.3T) and different values of strain.
The critical current and critical temperature found for different values of magnetic field in both the compressive and tensile strain region show non-linear behavior, peaking in both the compressive and tensile strain region. These finding match the finding of other groups researching the strain behavior of YBCO.
Due to this non-linear behavior of the critical current of YBCO, expressions that were used in the past as strain scaling relations for LTS (like Nb3Sn superconductors) cannot be used to scale the superconducting properties of YBCO with strain. The existing scaling relation describing the curves for YBCO does not depend on strain and so could be used to find the strain scaling relation. To make strain scaling possible for YBCO superconductors, more measurements are needed to insert the non-linear behavior of the critical current, obtained by adding strain to the sample, into the existing scaling relation.


The argument presented in this paper is based on distinctive and exploitable differences which merit putting ecotourists,
eco-resorts and the coastal tropics into categories of their own. Such differences should inform planning and
design process when working in this environment, which is both very sensitive and valuable. The paper aims to describe
the main characteristics of the coastal tropics as a climate targeted by eco-tourism. Differences between eco-tourists
and residents are presented through definition of comfort. Climatic and other factors influencing comfort limits are at
the core of discussion, in which passive design is seen as the most appropriate response to challenges of the tropical
coast setting. The design opportunities for the desirable climate modifications in eco-friendly resorts together with some passive design features are briefly presented. These architectural design solutions are set against theoretical principles
specific to tropical coastal regions. The focus is on human responses to environmental factors, and on their implications.
The paper concludes with a few recommendations aimed to deliver indoor conditions consistent with climatic preferences
of itinerant environmentally conscious users of buildings in the coastal tropics. Such an approach is expected
to minimize impacts the facility will make on the environment.


As the event management industry grows and consolidates worldwide, associations play an increasingly significant role in professional support to the industry by ensuring the continued growth and success of event management professionals. Although there are many events, which are successfully crewed by volunteers, the increasing competition to secure major events is giving some impetus to the trend to create fully professionalised events (Getz, 1997). Volunteers continue to play a significant role in the management and organization of events, nevertheless, the industry is increasingly relying on well educated, experienced and professional event managers. This paper reviews the literature on professional associations and specifically explores the goals and objectives of event management associations. The literature on professional associations is scant, scattered among a variety of disciplines and consequently has little breadth (Rodenhauser, 1999). As yet, there is limited academic research, which focuses on event management associations in general (Arcodia & Reid, 2002) and none which investigate their goals and objectives. Ayal (1986) suggests that there is a lack of formal strategic planning with professional associations and this is due to a wide number of factors such as the mission of nonprofit organisations being diffuse, having numerous goals and objectives that are difficult to define, as well as having many constituencies with conflicting objectives. In addition, he proposes that resolution and decision making within associations is often political in nature, leadership may be voluntary and subject to frequent changes resulting in the lack of time and resources that are available for strategic planning. This study identified 147 professional associations worldwide involved with event management. While this list is not exhaustive, it provides a very strong sample of event management associations. They were located using a variety of sources such as the internet, industry and personal contacts. Rather than use or adapt an existing framework for analysis, this study applies a grounded approach to the analysis of the content of the goals and objectives. That is, the categories of meaning were developed from an analysis of the data provided rather than imposed by an existing typology from the literature. These associations were categorized by location, including international, regional and special interest associations with numerous sub-categories. Regional associations were divided into continents so that there were six sub-categories, the North American, European, Asian/Pacific, United Kingdom, South American and South African. The special interest associations were included as there were a number in the sample that did not fit within the first two categories, yet they were deemed significant to the study because they dealt with event management issues within the context of a specific industry. The study concludes that event management associations have a strong record in developing goals and objectives as part of their operational framework. The key variables that emerged are: information exchange, education and training, identity and recognition, ethics and standards, networks and collegiality, business management, membership, premier representative association, product development and being a change agent.


Though industrial land is not a public good in the strict sense of the words a small part of the industrial estates has been developed by the private sector municipalities have nevertheless often treated the provision of industrial land more or less similar to the provision of other public utilities like energy and water provision or infrastructure development. Notwithstanding, that the industrial property market is suffering from a number of imperfections it is our conviction that in order to be able to effectively liberalize the market for industrial land development, more knowledge is needed about the present private involvement in the market for industrial land. This paper aims to analyse the differences between public and private investments in the industrial land and property market in the Netherlands. Based on previous work, a number of hypotheses about assumed intervention variables, are formulated and tested. These variables, including location attributes as well as market characteristics, are assumed to be decisive for the private investment decision. The statistical method to test this model is logistical regression analysis. The explanatory analysis is executed by making two subsets based on our own database; one of public developed sites and one of private developed sites. Our findings will indicate the strength between the dichotomous variables, the categories of public and private investment, and the aforementioned independent variables. So, this paper tries to explain the current private sector involvement in industrial land development in the Netherlands, aiming to derive potential implications for policies aimed at the liberalization of the industrial land market. In a broader perspective, our study can be considered a case study of the liberalization of land and property markets and the conditions that must be met to match the rationales of private sector investment decisions in industrial land development.


This essay reconstructs Lewis F. Powell, Jr.'s thoughts on the civil rights movement by focusing on a series of little-known speeches that he delivered in the 1960s lamenting the practice of civil disobedience endorsed by Martin Luther King, Jr. Convinced that the law had done all it could for blacks, Powell took issue with King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, impugning its invocation of civil disobedience and rejecting its calls for compensatory justice to make up for slavery and Jim Crow. Dismissive of reparations, Powell developed a separate basis for supporting diversity that hinged on distinguishing American pluralism from Soviet totalitarianism. Powell's reasons for defending diversity are worth recovering today, not least because courts continue to misinterpret his landmark opinion in Regents v. Bakke, confusing the use of diversity in higher education with the compensatory goals of affirmative action, a project that Powell rejected.


Abstract Background: Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) controls intracellular lipid accumulation in human preadipocytes, but it is not known whether ALP is expressed in all body fat depots, or whether it has a similar role at all sites. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting and subjects: Subjects undergoing breast reduction and abdominal fat biopsies operations at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. Outcome measures: This study compared intracellular lipid accumulation and ALP activity in the presence and absence of ALP inhibitors in preadipocytes that were obtained from different adipose depots. Abdominal and mammary gland preadipocytes were isolated from women and induced to differentiate in culture. ALP activity and intracellular lipid levels were measured at baseline and after 12 days of differentiation in the presence and absence of the ALP inhibitors, histidine and levamisole. Results: ALP activity was detected in nondifferentiated abdominal (134 ± 7.5 mU/mg protein) and mammary gland (136 ± 9.6 mU/mg protein) preadipocytes. Its activity had increased significantly (p-value < 0.0005 for both) by day 12 of differentiation (388 ± 55 for abdominal and 278 ± 28 mU/mg protein for mammary). Preadipocytes treated with histidine had lower fat accumulation (p-value < 0.0005) and ALP activity (p-value < 0.005) than nontreated cells on day 12, while those treated with levamisole had lower fat accumulation (p-value < 0.005), but elevated ALP activity (p-value < 0.05), compared to nontreated cells. Lipid accumulation (p-value < 0.005) and ALP activity (p-value < 0.05) were higher in abdominal than mammary gland preadipocytes by day 12. Conclusion: ALP is involved in the control of intracellular lipid accumulation in human preadipocytes that are isolated from both adipose depots. The ability of levamisole to inhibit this process while activating ALP, suggests that this molecule acts via an ALP-independent pathway, while histidine attenuates both lipid deposition and ALP activity.


Buvik, K. (2013). How bartenders relate to intoxicated customers. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 2(2), 1-6. doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v2i2.120 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v2i2.120 ) Aims: In many studies, the extent of over-serving has been registered, but few attempts have been made to understand what happens in these situations when alcohol is ordered. The present study was designed to address two questions: How can we understand and explain why bartenders over-serve customers who are clearly intoxicated? What influences the interactions between bartenders and customers in situations in which alcohol is served? Design: Observation of 32 purchase attempts with pseudo-patrons, and in-depth interviews with seven bartenders. The bartenders interviewed were not those who were involved in the test purchasing. Findings: In the majority of cases, the pseudo-patrons were served without the bartender showing any sign of evaluating the customer's level of intoxication. Three factors affect the bartenders' interactions with intoxicated customers: a working situation not adapted for responsible serving; a drinking culture with a collective acceptance of intoxication; and opposition to the Alcohol Act, which is seen as too strict and ineptly enforced. Bartenders blamed their serving of intoxicated patrons on hectic working conditions as well as on wanting to maintain a good atmosphere in the bar and avoid conflicts. Observation at the premises showed a liberal drinking culture that legitimizes a high level of intoxication. Conclusions: As long as the customer appears pleasant and not confrontational, they can have another beer. Serving is the rule, and denial of service is the exception.


Adaptive resource tracking in space and time may be disrupted by the modification of resources and competitors. Major global change drivers (e.g. land-use change) have induced declines in many native species, while facilitating only a few. Given that many resources are predicted to become increasingly scarce under the joint effects of climate and land-use change, disturbance-tolerant species that are able to defend high-value resources may further limit the persistence of disturbance-sensitive species. We sought to determine which nectarivorous birds track variation in flowering and if relationships between nectarivores and flowering are affected by on-transect vegetation structure or the occurrence of a native, hyper-aggressive species, the noisy miner Manorina melanocephala, which has become more prevalent. We measured eucalypt flowering and abundances of nectarivorous birds over the course of a year; we measured vegetation structure on the same forest transects. Nectarivores tracked spatial and some temporal variation in flowering, but this relationship was disrupted by noisy miners. Where present in sufficient numbers, the noisy miner excluded small-bodied nectarivores (<63 g) from fragments, limiting the ability of this numerically dominant component of the avifauna to gain access to flowering resources. Altered patterns of interspecific competition due to vegetation fragmentation and climate-induced degradation may have led to changes in the distribution of small nectarivore species that is a departure from the 'ideal free distribution' model. Interactions between noisy miners and small-bodied nectarivores appear to be best described by the 'ideal despotic distribution' model in which noisy miners exclude smaller competitors and monopolize local resources. Increases in the severity and frequency of extreme climatic events (e.g. long droughts) predicted under climate change may create a boom-bust pattern of availabilities of resources. The apparent insensitivity of noisy miners to such variation in flowering resource availability and the miners' influence on the ability of small nectarivores to access resources may lead to disproportionate declines in smaller-bodied nectarivorous species. Reduced tracking of flowering by nectarivores has the potential to disrupt ecosystem services (e.g. pollination, seed dispersal) and may have long-term consequences for the persistence of fragmented vegetation, adding further pressure on forest-dependent biota.


This article centres on stylized commemorative events staged in Israel in 1962 and 1982 to mark, respectively, 80 and 100 years since the consensual beginning of the "First Aliyah," the first wave of Jewish rural settlement in Palestine. Focusing on protocols of 1962 and 1982 Knesset sessions, commemorative medals, military parades, summer camps, and local commemorations, it shows that multiple completing Zionist parties used the rhetoric of "firstness" to negotiate and redefine primacy in light of the political present. Drawing from scholarship on settler memory in other settings, it also positions the settlement event as not a onetime historical occurrence but a sacralized referent used to frame and justify ongoing settlement and participate in historical erasures. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 30 April 2020; Accepted 30 November 2020


Elias' essay on time is often interpreted both as a critique on the juxtaposition of natural time and social time as well as a plea for a triadic conception of time in which natural time and social time both provide the 'materials' for individual choices of time. Such an interpretation implies that there exists a multitude of natural, social and individual times. First, this contribution searches literature on the sociology of time for practical approaches to natural and social temporal structures and argues how they have been at interplay in the changing collective and individual experience of time. Second, given that time is neither solely a self-evident natural phenomenon nor solely a coercive individual transcending characteristic of society, this contribution argues that the multitude of individual times is to be found in the way individuals draw on these natural and social temporal structures for the practices that make up daily life. Third, since large part of these practices is motivated by indivi...


Bangladesh has experienced multiple freshwater issues including salinization from monsoonal floods and groundwater over-pumping that induces severe land subsidence. Therefore, using satellite observations to virtually build a monitoring network becomes an efficient and innovative means. We focus on the Sylhet Mymensingh haor area that has the highest annual precipitation and the largest inundation area in northeastern Bangladesh. The modified normalized difference water index is first used to extract water area from MODIS and Landsat-5/-7/-8 optical imageries. A weekly flood chance model is then created from a sequence of images to recover water extent from the cloud-covered images. Using MODIS images for water identification achieves an overall accuracy of 84% in rainy season and 41% in dry season as validated with Sentinel-1A radar images. This model can be further used to refine the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model (DEM). As compared with ICESat laser altimetry, the root-mean-square of the height difference is improved from 1.65 m to 1.16 m after DEM modification. By combining the recovered water area and the refined DEM, surface water volume (WV) is quantified. A comparison with the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) gravimetry retrieved equivalent water heights (EWHs) in 2002 2015 is conducted, where the correlation coefficient and root-mean-square of the EWH difference are 91.7% and 0.09 m, respectively. Article history: Received 28 February 2018 Revised 8 November 2018 Accepted 15 November 2018


Competing visions of Egypt's future have long been divided along secular versus religious lines, a split that both the Sadat and Mubarak regimes exploited to weaken political opposition. In this context, one striking feature of the Egyptian uprising that took place last spring is the extent to which it defied characterization in terms of the religious–secular binary. In this commentary, I explore how this movement drew sustenance from a unique political sensibility, one disencumbered of the secular versus religious oppositional logic and its concomitant forms of political rationality. This sensibility has a distinct intellectual genealogy within Egyptian political experience. I focus here on the careers of three Egyptian public intellectuals whose pioneering engagement with the question of the place of Islam within Egyptian political life provided an important part of the scaffolding, in my view, for the practices of solidarity and association that brought down the Mubarak regime. [Egypt, politics, intellectuals, secular, Islam]


Foreword by William Sears, M.D. Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: Ten Steps to Helping Your Baby Sleep All Night Chapter 1: Do a Safety Check Safety First The Foremost Safety Worry: SIDS General Sleeping Safety Precautions for All Families General Sleeping Safety Precautions for Cradles and Cribs General Sleeping Safety Precautions for Co-Sleeping Chapter 2: Learning Basic Sleep Facts How Do We Sleep? How Do Babies Sleep? What is a Sleep Problem? How Much Sleep Do Babies Need? What About Nighttime Feedings? What Are Realistic Expectations? What is the Right Way to Teach a Baby to Sleep? Chapter 3: Crate Your Sleep Logs Let's Get Started! Chapter 4: Review and Choose Sleep Solutions Part One: Solutions for Newborn Babies--Birth to Four Months Part Two: Solutions for Older Babies--Four Months to Two Years Chpater 5: Create Your Personal Sleep Plan Chapter 6: Follow Your Plan for Ten Days What If You Can't Do it All? The Road to Success is Really More Like a Dance Chapter 7: Do a Ten-Day Log Chapter 8: Analyze Your Success Evaluate Your Sleep Plan If Your Baby Is Now Sleeping Through the Night (Five or More Consecutive Hours) Chapter 9: Follow Your Plan for Ten More Days Every Baby is Different Every Family is Different How Long is This Going to Take? "I've Tried Everything! Nothing Works! Help!" Chapter 10: Complete a Log, Analyze Your Success, and Revise Your Plan if Necessary Every Ten Days Keep This Book Handy Part II: Let's Talk About You Chapter 11: Baby's Sleeping (Finally!) but Mommy's Not What's Happening? How to Get a Good Night's Sleep? Chapter 12: Final Thoughts--Mom-to-Mom We Are Alike If You've Just Begun Living for the Moment? Basball Babies Patience, Patience, and Just a Little More Patience For More Information Index


As the capabilities, range of missions, and the size of robot teams increase, the ability for a human operator to account for all the factors in these complex scenarios can become exceedingly difficult. Our previous research has studied the use of case-based reasoning (CBR) tools to assist a user in the generation of multi-robot missions. These tools, however, typically assume that the robots available for the mission are of the same type (i.e., homogeneous). We loosen this assumption through the integration of contract-net protocol (CNP) based task allocation coupled with a CBR-based mission specification wizard. Two alternative designs are explored for combining casebased mission specification and CNP-based team allocation as well as the tradeoffs that result from the selection of one of these approaches over the other.


Simulations of asexual populations undergoing continual adaptation present a definite prediction: mutator hitchhiking should drive the mutation rate upwards in an asexual population until it reaches an intolerable level, at which point the population will be driven extinct. Experimental studies have shown that a mutator allele can readily hitchhike to fixation with beneficial mutations in an asexual population having a low, wildtype mutation rate. Using Eshcerichia coli, I show that a genotype bearing two mutator alleles can supplant an asexual population already fixed for one mutator allele. My results provide experimental support for recent theory predicting that mutator alleles will tend to accumulate in asexual populations by hitchhiking with beneficial mutations, causing an ever-higher genomic mutation rate. Interestingly, results from recent simulations also suggest that the deleterious mutational load which accompanies an increased mutation rate is not immediately incurred. The delay in accruing a mutational load may potentially allow a succession of mutator hitch hiking events to occur before the cost of the initial hitchhiking event is incurred. Ultimately, mutation rates in asexual populations may evolve upwards to a rate that threatens extinction due to overwhelming mutational pressure. To test this prediction, I established independent populations of E. coli bearing either a singleor double-mutator genotype and propagated them for several thousand generations. At the conclusion of the experiment, the growth rate of the single-mutator populations had risen substantially, consistent with the substitution of beneficial mutations; in contrast, the growth rate of the double-mutator populations had fallen significantly, consistent with erosion of fitness by deleterious mutations. In addition, both sets of populations had maintained the mutation rate present at the outset of the experiment. Strikingly, the experiment seems to have provided evidence of mutation-driven fitness decline in the double-mutator populations despite the presence of beneficial mutations. I address the experimental results in the context of theoretical predication of fitness decline at a high mutation rates. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Biology First Advisor Paul Sniegowski


The article looks at the definition of State aid, in the light of recent case law of the EU Courts. There are claims that this case law shows serious shortcomings, is too complex, and reveals a rift between the General Court and the ECJ. In particular the interpretation of the substantive elements forming the notion of aid such 'granted by the state or through state resources' and 'selectivity' is far from clear. The question arises whether State aid control is then possible at all, given the underlying political objectives. Despite some shortcomings the Courts are somehow still managing to maintain a formal approach, in order to meet predictability requirements and legal certainty and at the same allowing a certain degree of flexibility. The case law reaffirms that the interpretation of the notion of aid still aims to preserve free movement and fair competition between States, and to ensure that Member States comply with EU law in terms of transparent economic governance. The efforts by the Courts and the European Institutions, in particular the Commission, in developing consensual rules on policy may still be the best we have so far.


All technology developed by plant breeding programs is spread through seed and image analysis has proved to be a promising technique in assessing the viability of seeds per constitute an objective method, economical and practical. Thus, the objective with the survey was evaluate the physiological quality of coffee seeds submitted to drying and to estimate the seedling vigor through the Seed Analysis System (SAS ®) in order to correlate them with the until they reach levels of 40%, 20%, 15% and 12% of water by slow drying in the shade. After this process, the quality of the seeds was evaluated by germination test and first count. The SAS® equipment was used to es course of the germination test. The use of images with the help of SAS® program analysis is a promising method for assessment of the viability and vigor of coffee seeds and seedling