Myocardial perfusion quantification by means of Contrast-Enhanced Cardiac Magnetic Resonance images relies on time consuming frame-by-frame manual tracing of regions of interest. In this Thesis, a novel automated technique for myocardial segmentation and non-rigid registration as a basis for perfusion quantification is presented. The proposed technique is based on three steps: reference frame selection, myocardial segmentation and non-rigid registration. In the first step, the reference frame in which both endo- and epicardial segmentation will be performed is chosen. Endocardial segmentation is achieved by means of a statistical region-based level-set technique followed by a curvature-based regularization motion. Epicardial segmentation is achieved by means of an edge-based level-set technique followed again by a regularization motion. To take into account the changes in position, size and shape of myocardium throughout the sequence due to out of plane respiratory motion, a non-rigid registration algorithm is required. The proposed non-rigid registration scheme consists in a novel multiscale extension of the normalized cross-correlation algorithm in combination with level-set methods. The myocardium is then divided into standard segments. Contrast enhancement curves are computed measuring the mean pixel intensity of each segment over time, and perfusion indices are extracted from each curve. The overall approach has been tested on synthetic and real datasets. For validation purposes, the sequences have been manually traced by an experienced interpreter, and contrast enhancement curves as well as perfusion indices have been computed. Comparisons between automatically extracted and manually obtained contours and enhancement curves showed high inter-technique agreement. Comparisons of perfusion indices computed using both approaches against quantitative coronary angiography and visual interpretation demonstrated that the two technique have similar diagnostic accuracy. In conclusion, the proposed technique allows fast, automated and accurate measurement of intra-myocardial contrast dynamics, and may thus address the strong clinical need for quantitative evaluation of myocardial perfusion.


This paper is devoted to path planning when the safety of the system considered has to be guaranteed in the presence of bounded uncertainty affecting its model. A new path planner addresses this problem by combining Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT) and a set representation of uncertain states. An idealized algorithm is presented first, before a description of one of its possible implementations, where compact sets are wrapped into boxes. The resulting path planner is then used for nonholonomic path planning in robotics.


Depression is the most frequently seen neuropsychiatric manifestation in stroke patients. It hampers the ability to undergo therapy and impairs their functional outcome. Depression also increases the risk of suicide in stroke patients, therefore, increasing mortality. The etiology of post-stroke depression (PSD) is complex and reported to be multi-factorial in origin. It also depends on the size and location of the infarct. In addition, family history or prior history of
depressive disorders makes them prone to be affected with depression following a stroke. In this article, we will mention various aspects of PSD, as well as the prevalence and the different screening assessment tools used in literature studies. Although there are many available testing tools, little consistency was seen in them being valid or reliable. We will also discuss the pathophysiology of depression in stroke patients with various available options for managing the condition. We will briefly review the use of alternative treatment such as Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) as well. However, we need further evidence-based research exploring the screening tool; i.e. universally acceptable for PSD and implementing an effective, non-invasive treatment modality impacting the prognosis. Also, we require further investigations to identify the role of antidepressants in the recovery of stroke patients.


Abstract We describe an approach to task-oriented dialogue in which dialogue state is represented as a dataflow graph. A dialogue agent maps each user utterance to a program that extends this graph. Programs include metacomputation operators for reference and revision that reuse dataflow fragments from previous turns. Our graph-based state enables the expression and manipulation of complex user intents, and explicit metacomputation makes these intents easier for learned models to predict. We introduce a new dataset, SMCalFlow, featuring complex dialogues about events, weather, places, and people. Experiments show that dataflow graphs and metacomputation substantially improve representability and predictability in these natural dialogues. Additional experiments on the MultiWOZ dataset show that our dataflow representation enables an otherwise off-the-shelf sequence-to-sequence model to match the best existing task-specific state tracking model. The SMCalFlow dataset, code for replicating experiments, and a public leaderboard are available at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/dataflow-based-dialogue-semantic-machines.


This manuscript presents magnetic flux tube analysis of L‐band signal scintillation in the nighttime equatorial and low‐latitude ionosphere. Residues of the scintillation index S4 estimated from the L‐band signals received from Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites are employed in the analysis. The S4 estimates have been shown to be associated with simultaneous GPS VTEC variations derived from JPL's GIPSY‐GIM package. We have applied the wavelet decomposition technique simultaneously on the S4 time series in a flux tube over the equatorial and low‐latitude regions. The technique decomposes the S4 signal to identify the dominant mode of variabilities and the temporal variations of scintillation‐producing irregularities in the context of a flux tube. Statistically significant regions of the wavelet power spectra considered in our study have mainly shown that (a) dominant plasma irregularities associated with S4 variabilities in a flux tube have periods of about 4 to 15 minutes (horizontal irregularity scales of about 24 to 90 km). These periods match short period gravity waves, (b) scintillation‐producing irregularities are anisotropic along the flux tube and in the east‐west direction, and (c) the occurrences of scintillation‐producing irregularities along the flux tube indicate that the entire flux tube became unstable. However, plasma instability occurrences were not simultaneous in most cases along the flux tube, there were time delays of various orders. Understanding the attributes of L‐band scintillation‐producing irregularities could be important for developing measures to mitigate L‐band signal degradation.


Recommender systems attempt to highlight items that a target user is likely to find interesting. A common technique is to use collaborative filtering (CF), where multiple users share information so as to provide each with effective recommendations.

A key aspect of CF systems is finding users whose tastes accurately reflect the tastes of some target user. Typically, the system looks for other agents who have had experience with many of the items the target user has examined, and whose classification of these items has a strong correlation with the classifications of the target user. Since the universe of items may be enormous and huge data sets are involved, sophisticated methods must be used to quickly locate appropriate other agents.

We present a method for quickly determining the proportional intersection between the items that each of two users has examined, by sending and maintaining extremely concise "sketches" of the list of items. These sketches enable the approximation of the proportional intersection within a distance of e, with a high probability of 1 - δ. Our sketching techniques are based on random min-wise independent hash functions, and use very little space and time, so they are well-suited for use in large-scale collaborative filtering systems.


In the last years wind turbines have increased dramatically in size so that their structural-dynamic behaviour is becoming progessively more important. Industrial simulation codes for wind-turbine-specifi c problems have some shortcomings in structure modelling, especially for drive trains. This leads to new approaches to wind turbine simulation. The Endowed Chair of Wind Energy at the Institute of Aircraft Design (University of Stuttgart) initiates the usage of SIMPACK for the simulation of wind turbine models. This requires some add-ons to SIMPACK. The most important of these consists of an aerodynamic module to consider rotor aerodynamics and turbulent wind fi eld input.


Many researchers consider Gamification as a powerful way to improve education. Many studies show improvements with respect to traditional methodologies. Several educational strategies have also been combined with Gamification with interesting results. Interest is growing and evidence suggest Gamification has a promising future. However, there is a barrier preventing many researchers from properly understanding Gamification principles. Gamification focuses of engaging trainees in learning with same intensity that games engage players on playing. But only some very well designed games achieve this level of engagement. Designing truly entertaining games is a difficult task with a great artistic component. Although some studies have tried to clarify how Game Design produces fun, there is no scientific consensus. Well established knowledge on Game Design resides in sets of rules of thumb and good practices, based on empirical experience. Game industry professionals acquire this experience through practice. Most educators and researchers often overlook the need for such experience to successfully design Gamification. And so, many research papers focus on single game-elements like points, present non-gaming activities like questionnaires, design non-engaging activities or fail to comprehend the underlying principles on why their designs do not yield expected results. This work presents a rubric for educators and researchers to start working in Gamification without previous experience in Game Design. This rubric decomposes the continuous space of Game Design into a set of ten discrete characteristics. It is aimed at diminishing the entry barrier and helping to acquire initial experience with Game Design fundamentals. The main proposed uses are twofold: to analyse existing games or gamified activities gaining a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and to help in the design or improvement of activities. Focus is on Game Design characteristics rather than game elements, similarly to professional game designers. The goal is to help gaining experience towards designing successful Gamification environments. Presented rubric is based on our previous design experience, compared and contrasted with literature, and empirically tested with some example games and gamified activities.


Objective: The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) posits that the cognitive foundation for behaviour is rooted in three subjective probabilities: (1) behavioural, (2) normative, and (3) control beliefs. The purpose of this study was therefore to conduct an elicitation study to determine the modal salient exercise beliefs held by pregnant women in East Kent.

Design: Consistent with TPB guidelines, participants (n = 18) were asked to describe their beliefs using open-ended questions. Method: A modal set of beliefs were compiled following content analyses. Specifically, beliefs were selected based on their frequency of emission until 75% of all responses listed were accounted for.

Results: The main advantages of exercise during pregnancy were keeping fit and being healthy whilst fatigue was the main disadvantage. Expectant mothers believed that health professionals in particular would approve of them exercising during their pregnancy. The primary normative referents identified were those who already enjoy an active lifestyle whilst those with health issues were least likely to be physically active. Accessibility of suitable exercise opportunities and having time available were two of the main factors that would make it easy or enable women to exercise during their pregnancy. Conversely, health issues, not having enough time and fatigue were identified as factors that would hinder participation. Conclusion: Elicitation studies provide valuable information regarding people's beliefs about a particular behaviour. Such insight has important implications for behavioural interventions as it allows researchers and practitioners to tailor interventions to meet the specific needs of the population under investigation.


Neoliberal forces since the latter part of the 20th century have ushered in greater devolution in state schooling systems, producing uneven effects on the working conditions of teachers, commonly the largest segment of the public sector workforce. Within this context, this paper examines secondary teachers' working conditions as they relate to the restructuring of the professional landscape that school choice reforms bring. Drawing illustrations from a qualitative study of teachers' working experiences in the lowest socio-economic status schools, through the 'middle band', to the most prestigious and affluent in a metropolitan city in Australia, this paper finds that teachers develop skill-sets that are context specific, creating possible 'lock-in effects' within but also between sectors. Moreover, various work arrangement issues seem to reinforce the lock-in effects by making changes between sectors risky and unattractive. We postulate that inter- and intra-sectoral differences, which are exacerbated through school choice processes, have the potential to reinforce and deepen the lock-in effects on teachers, with possible consequences for their future career mobility.


L2pB1 cells are a subpopulation of B‐1a B cells that express programmed death ligand 2 (PD‐L2) as their unique cell surface marker. In mice, about 50% of peritoneal B‐1a cells are L2pB1 cells. The remaining B‐1a cells are L2nB1 (PD‐L2–) B‐1a cells. L2pB1 cells differ from L2nB1 cells in their immunoglobulin repertoire, expression of interleukin 10, and their capacity to phagocytose phosphatidylcholine. The physiological roles of L2pB1 cells have not been investigated owing to the lack of an animal model that allows for specific depletion of L2pB1 cells. Here, we report a mouse model that enables specific tracking and inducible depletion of L2pB1 cells in vivo. Our data show that depletion of L2pB1 cells significantly reduces serum anti‐phosphorylcholine (PC) IgM levels and IL‐10 expression in the peritoneal cavity. This animal model provides a tool for the study of the immune regulatory functions of L2pB1 cells in health and disease.


CONTEXT
 Of the 200 million adults worldwide who undergo noncardiac surgery each year, more than 1 million will die within 30 days.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the relationship between the peak fourth-generation troponin T (TnT) measurement in the first 3 days after noncardiac surgery and 30-day mortality.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
 A prospective, international cohort study that enrolled patients from August 6, 2007, to January 11, 2011. Eligible patients were aged 45 years and older and required at least an overnight hospital admission after having noncardiac surgery.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
 Patients' TnT levels were measured 6 to 12 hours after surgery and on days 1, 2, and 3 after surgery. We undertook Cox regression analysis in which the dependent variable was mortality until 30 days after surgery, and the independent variables included 24 preoperative variables. We repeated this analysis, adding the peak TnT measurement during the first 3 postoperative days as an independent variable and used a minimum P value approach to determine if there were TnT thresholds that independently altered patients' risk of death.

RESULTS
 A total of 15 133 patients were included in this study. The 30-day mortality rate was 1.9% (95% CI, 1.7%-2.1%). Multivariable analysis demonstrated that peak TnT values of at least 0.02 ng/mL, occurring in 11.6% of patients, were associated with higher 30-day mortality compared with the reference group (peak TnT≤0.01 ng/mL): peak TnT of 0.02 ng/mL (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 2.41; 95% CI, 1.33-3.77); 0.03 to 0.29 ng/mL (aHR, 5.00; 95% CI, 3.72-6.76); and 0.30 ng/mL or greater (aHR, 10.48; 95% CI, 6.25-16.62). Patients with a peak TnT value of 0.01 ng/mL or less, 0.02, 0.03-0.29, and 0.30 or greater had 30-day mortality rates of 1.0%, 4.0%, 9.3%, and 16.9%, respectively. Peak TnT measurement added incremental prognostic value to discriminate those likely to die within 30 days for the model with peak TnT measurement vs without (C index = 0.85 vs 0.81; difference, 0.4; 95% CI, 0.2-0.5; P < .001 for difference between C index values). The net reclassification improvement with TnT was 25.0% (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS
Among patients undergoing noncardiac surgery, the peak postoperative TnT measurement during the first 3 days after surgery was significantly associated with 30-day mortality.


Elizabeth I had people of Jewish origin in her personal circle, such as the famous physician Rodrigo Lopez, who was a relative of an influential Jew called Álvaro Mendes. Mendes was born in Portugal, and later took refuge in the Ottoman Empire, where he was known as Salomon ibn Ya'ish; we know that he exchanged correspondence with Elizabeth I, and the queen always favoured him in her missives to Sultan Murad III. The queen knew that Mendes received, while a Christian, a knighthood in the Order of Santiago, since she dubbed him 'Eques' in her correspondence. So even if ibn Ya'ish lived exiled in the Ottoman Empire, Elizabeth I still considered him a 'Westerner'. The question that arises is: to what extent did this pragmatic diplomacy of Elizabeth I with Islamic states where some 'Western' Jews appear as pivotal elements shape their image in Elizabethan England, especially in the eclectic circles in which Shakespeare lived?


Personal name disambiguation is the task of linking a personal name to a unique comparable entry in the real world, also known as named entity linking (NEL). Algorithms for NEL consist of three main components: extractor, searcher, and disambiguator. Existing approaches for NEL use exact-matched look-up over the surface form to generate a set of candidate entities in each of the mentioned names. The exact-matched look-up is wholly inadequate to generate a candidate entity due to the fact that the personal names within a web page lack uniform representation. In addition, the performance of a disambiguator in ranking candidate entities is limited by context similarity. Context similarity is an inflexible feature for personal disambiguation because natural language is highly variable. We propose a new approach that can be used to both identify and disambiguate personal names mentioned on a web page. Our NEL algorithm uses: as an extractor: a control flow graph; AlchemyAPI, as a searcher: Personal Name Transformation Modules (PNTM) based on Context Free Grammar and the Jaro-Winkler text similarity metric and as a disambiguator: the entity coherence method: the Occupation Architecture for Personal Name Disambiguation (OAPnDis), personal name concepts and Simple Partial Tree Matching (SPTM). Experimental results, evaluated on real-world data sets, show that the accuracy of our NEL is 92%, which is higher than the accuracy of previously used methods.


The efforts of political leaders to negotiate a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions highlights the importance of consistent action at the domestic level. To gauge the efficacy of any international agreement and subsequent reductions, a clear, consistent and comparable approach to carbon disclosure must be adopted by UK companies. This allows economic benefits, as carbon reporting is an enabler for energy efficiency and a driver for better, cleaner technology in new markets. Furthermore, the pursuit of the perfect reporting framework must not be the enemy of the good, as the urgent need to address the causes of climate change requires immediate action to drive reduction in carbon emissions by UK plc.


We have previously shown that cells mutant for TOP3, a gene encoding a prokaryotic-like type I topoisomerase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, display a pleiotropic phenotype including slow growth and genome instability. We identified a mutation, sgs1 (slow growth suppressor), that suppresses both the growth defect and the increased genomic instability of top3 mutants. Here we report the independent isolation of the SGS1 gene in a screen for proteins that interact with Top3. DNA sequence analysis reveals that the putative Sgs1 protein is highly homologous to the helicase encoded by the Escherichia coli recQ gene. These results imply that Sgs1 creates a deleterious topological substrate that Top3 preferentially resolves. The interaction of the Sgs1 helicase homolog and the Top3 topoisomerase is reminiscent of the recently described structure of reverse gyrase from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, in which a type I DNA topoisomerase and a helicase-like domain are fused in a single polypeptide.


A number of surveys reveal that a large number of analysts, valuation experts, investors, chief financial officers and finance academics employ the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) of Sharpe (1962) and Lintner (1965) to estimate the cost of equity. There are, however, a number of alternative valuation models that can be used to infer the cost of equity. These alternative equity valuation models include the constant growth dividend discount, the earnings and book market multiples, the residual income and the Ohlson and Juettner-Nauroth (2005) abnormal earnings growth (AEG) models. Using four mature retail firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, this paper tested for the equivalence of these models to the CAPM in estimating the cost of equity. The study found that the variants of the constant growth dividend discount and the AEG models give similar estimates which are closer to those of the CAPM. The variants of the price-to-earnings market multiples, price-to-book market multiples, and residual income models all yield estimates that are higher than those of the CAPM. Finally, the estimates seem to be affected by the stability of the firm's earnings and financial position.


Currently, Japan's working-age population is on the decline, and the productivity of its current workforce is said to be the worst among all G7 countries. Therefore, Japanese company workers are under pressure to find ways to efficiently increase their performance. However, simply requiring workers to improve threatens their sense of belonging and allegiance. In order to combat this, there is a need for companies to find ways to increase organizational commitment. In this paper, we introduce eight hypotheses based on factors believed to affect work performance and organizational commitment (e.g., job autonomy and psychological empowerment) and unique aspects of Japanese management styles, including the seniority wage system and lifetime employment. Data from surveys were used to conduct a multiple regression analysis to test these hypotheses. As a result of these analyses, it became clear that job autonomy has an effect on work performance, psychological empowerment has effects on both organizational commitment and work performance, lifetime employment does not affect organizational commitment or work performance, and the seniority wage system has a positive effect on organizational commitment but a negative effect on work performance.


The increasing cost of employer contributions for employee health insurance reduces the percentage of compensation that is subject to the payroll tax. Rising insurance contributions can also have a more subtle effect on the Social Security tax base because they influence the distribution of money wages. Workers bear most of the burden of employer health contributions through lower money wages. Any change in the average cost and distribution of costs of employer health plans can have an effect on the distribution of wages and the percentage of wages subject to the payroll tax. This paper uses the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to analyze trends in the cost of employer health contributions and the cross-worker distribution of health contributions. Our analysis shows that the 1996-2008 increase in employer health premiums was faster than overall compensation increases but only slightly faster among workers below the taxable maximum compared with those above the maximum. However, because employer health insurance premiums represent a much higher percentage of compensation below the maximum taxed earnings amount, the effect of health cost trends exerted a disproportionate downward pressure on money wages below the taxable maximum, reducing the percentage of compensation subject to the payroll tax. We simulated the implications of the health reform law on the trend in employer health costs around 2016. We find only slight effects on the fraction of worker compensation that will be subject to Social Security taxes. The higher insurance costs faced by employers who will be required to offer health plans will be approximately offset by lower health costs on the part of employers who will see some insured employees accept subsidized health insurance outside of an employer plan. The main long-term impact of reform on the taxable wage base is likely to be through its effect on the trend in underlying health care costs.


We report the first investigation of cool-core properties of galaxy clusters selected via their Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. We use 13 galaxy clusters uniformly selected from 178 deg2 observed with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and followed up by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. They form an approximately mass-limited sample (>3 × 1014 M☉ h−170) spanning redshifts 0.3 < z < 1.1. Using previously published X-ray-selected cluster samples, we compare two proxies of cool-core strength: surface brightness concentration (cSB) and cuspiness (α). We find that cSB is better constrained. We measure cSB for the SPT sample and find several new z > 0.5 cool-core clusters, including two strong cool cores. This rules out the hypothesis that there are no z > 0.5 clusters that qualify as strong cool cores at the 5.4σ level. The fraction of strong cool-core clusters in the SPT sample in this redshift regime is between 7% and 56% (95% confidence). Although the SPT selection function is significantly different from the X-ray samples, the high-z cSB distribution for the SPT sample is statistically consistent with that of X-ray-selected samples at both low and high redshifts. The cool-core strength is inversely correlated with the offset between the brightest cluster galaxy and the X-ray centroid, providing evidence that the dynamical state affects the cool-core strength of the cluster. Larger SZ-selected samples will be crucial in understanding the evolution of cluster cool cores over cosmic time.


Inadequate health knowledge is associated with poor health status and increased rates of morbidity and mortality. College students with limited health knowledge may face many difficulties, ranging from what major to choose to lifestyle decisions that impact their health status in the present as well as in the future. The objectives of this descriptive cross sectional study were assessing the health knowledge among students of five colleges in Al Quds University, Palestine. Students from 5 colleges (580 undergraduate freshmen students: 307 males and 273 females) participated in this study. The study instrument was a 70-item inventory used to assess general health knowledge among undergraduate college freshmen students. The Health Knowledge Inventory (HKI) contains 10 questions from each of 7 health content areas. The results of this study confirmed that college-aged students are not well-informed about health. Of the 7 health topic subscales, percentage of correct responses ranged from 37.3% for communicable disease to 47.8%% for nutrition. Of major concern is the overall lack of health knowledge among these students in a time of growing health concerns for the 18-24 year-old age group. The results are discussed in light of implications for health education and health promotion programs at the college level. The findings of this study might facilitate development of appropriate health education and health promotion interventions for the college population. The researchers recommend including health courses within the teaching curricula as a compulsory and not as an elective for all college students regardless of their major.


There are generally three criteria that must be achieved before establishing a causal relationship between two conditions such as infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and the subsequent development of cognitive impairment: (1) there must be evidence of temporal precedence, where the 'cause' happened before the 'effect'; (2) there should be covariation between the conditions, demonstrated as a relationship response between the presence or absence of either factor; and (3) the absence of other plausible alternatives to explain the relationship.

The report by Abrantes et al 1 presents us with an opportunity to take stock and consider the evidence in favour of a direct association between infection with HCV and the subsequent development of cognitive impairment. Although the neurological features of hepatic encephalopathy are well described in patients with viral liver cirrhosis, recent reports have highlighted changes in cognitive performance in HCV-infected patients that emerge long before any evidence of significant hepatic dysfunction.2 These cognitive symptoms appear 'specific' to HCV infection and are not as evident in patients infected with hepatitis B virus.3 In a recent review on the topic by Senzolo et al ,4 the majority of reports supported an increased prevalence of cognitive impairment in patients with HCV infection which …


To halt the decline of marine biodiversity, networks of interacting marine protected areas (MPAs) – intertidal and subtidal areas "reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment" (Kelleher 1999) – need to be expanded. Systematic conservation planning (hereafter 'systematic planning') offers a way forward with its explicit methods for locating and designing resource management (hereafter 'management') in time and space to promote the conservation of biodiversity (Margules and Pressey 2000). The implementation of systematically planned MPA networks has been demonstrated in some regions. However, numerous challenges (e.g. understanding the willingness of people to engage in conservation) impede translations of many spatial prioritisations into management. Spatial prioritisations are the technical activities within systematic planning that identify the configuration of priority areas for conservation action. Conservation actions are interventions that contribute to conservation goals (e.g. establishing education programs or management) (Salafsky et al. 2008). The failure of many spatial prioritisations to motivate conservation action is referred to as the knowing-doing gap.

The conservation biology literature contains a heated discussion about the best investment of conservation resources, leading to a polarization between systematic planning and opportunistic conservation – conservation that takes advantage of opportunities without considering spatial context or regional conservation goals. Although it can be useful to polarize these perspectives to better understand their respective strengths and limitations, academics and resource managers are now exploring how they can be made complementary. Opportunistic conservation actions can be 'scaled up' to better achieve fisheries and conservation objectives that require perspectives broader than individual local governance units. At the same time, spatial prioritisations must be 'scaled down' or adapted to better inform implementation of conservation actions by incorporating local objectives, unforeseen constraints on conservation actions, and errors in data. The goal of this thesis is to better understand options for integrating systematic planning with local management. With this goal in mind, my thesis has two main objectives:

1. To investigate methods for scaling down systematic planning to inform conservation actions, focusing on opportunities for implementing multiple forms of management with different contributions to conservation goals; and;
2. To explore considerations for scaling up conservation actions to achieve regional conservation goals.

To achieve these objectives, first I examine the mismatch of spatial scales between systematic planning and conservation actions. I review key decisions about spatial scale in systematic planning, and the considerations and implications of these key decisions for informing conservation actions (Chapter 2). In Chapter 2, I develop a framework in which decisions about spatial scale can be made explicit, investigated further, and potentially addressed during systematic planning. In this framework, I identify five decisions about spatial scale: extent and delineation of the planning region, resolution of data, size and delineation of planning units, MPA network design, and applying conservation actions. Each of these decisions involves several considerations, including the extent of available data, extent of bioregions, and social, economic and ecological characteristics of study areas. My framework helps to link theory and application in systematic planning, facilitates learning, and promotes the application of conservation actions that are both regionally and locally significant.

To scale up conservation actions or scale down systematic plans, the differential contributions of several forms of management (e.g. permanent and temporary closures to resource extraction) to conservation goals must be understood, so I develop a method to do so (Chapter 3). Using Fiji as a case study, I gather expert knowledge through dialectic inquiry to obtain perceived effectiveness scores for four forms of management, and use these in a national gap analysis. Permanent closures were the benchmark with an ecological effectiveness score of 1.0. Temporary closures with controlled harvesting had relatively high scores and temporary closures with uncontrolled harvesting and 'other management' had relatively low scores. Understanding the relative contribution of different forms of management to conservation goals facilitates scaling up and down in three ways: (1) forms of management that complement each other in terms of the level of protection they offer and their social acceptability can be identified; (2) conservation achievements in countries where multiple forms of management will be needed to achieve national conservation goals can be assessed; and (3) spatial prioritisations can be tailored to management that is relevant within the ecological, social, economic and political context of the selected planning regions.

To contribute to existing knowledge on opportunities for implementing multiple forms of management, I develop a method to model conservation opportunity at fine resolution for different forms of management (Chapter 4). I also develop an approach to investigate the social characteristics of villages with different forms of management, thereby providing insights into conservation opportunity (Chapter 5).

In Chapter 4, I use key informant interviews and remotely collected data, and model conservation opportunity for different forms of management at regional scales using Maxent. This model provides information on the relative suitability of one area for a particular form of management. I find that two of the most important predictors of suitability for the different forms of management are distance from the nearest road and proportion of inshore fishing ground already closed. This approach is promising, because it produces good fits to the existing data (cross-validated AUC at least 0.98). It also provides insight into the factors influencing the presence and characteristics of different forms of management, and matches accounts in the literature on factors important to establishing closures.

In Chapter 5, I use the social-ecological systems diagnostic framework, and compare the performance of data at different resolutions for informing conservation opportunity. Even though conservation opportunity is context specific, using a well-recognized diagnostic framework allows identification of characteristics that lead to effective governance within different contexts. I use canonical correspondence analysis to examine the association between the presence and form of management on one hand and, on the other, human and social characteristics of villages. I find that, in the Solomon Islands, human and social characteristics that influence the presence and absence of management can be more easily differentiated than those related to different forms of management. Furthermore, I find that household-scale data are more effective than village-scale data at identifying the human and social characteristics associated with management. Understanding these characteristics and mapping conservation opportunity facilitate the scaling down of systematic plans by informing planners of priorities for feasible forms of management within a social-ecological system.

To further explore considerations for scaling up conservation actions to achieve regional conservation goals (objective 2), the conservation opportunity model developed in Chapter 4 is used as the basis for comparing systematic planning and opportunistic approaches to conservation. I carry out 10-year simulations of additional conservation actions with systematic planning and opportunistic conservation approaches, identifying the difference between the upper and lower bounds of plausible future conservation achievements (Chapter 4). To predict future conservation action, I use data on conservation opportunity (Maxent suitability model), established MPAs, key informant interviews, and Marxan with Zones (systematic planning software). The opportunistic approach achieves quantitative conservation objectives for half the ecosystems, while all objectives are achieved or nearly achieved with the systematic planning approach. Chapter 4 informs policy makers about what incentives and regulations are needed to steer Fiji toward achieving national conservation goals into the future.

My thesis contributes to the theoretical advancement of the field of conservation biology by investigating the results of different approaches to conservation (i.e., systematic planning and opportunistic approaches) and developing methods that help integrate them. Chapter 2 informs both scaling up and scaling down by identifying the considerations needed and the trade offs between considerations when making decisions about spatial scale. Chapter 3 provides a method to understand the differential effectiveness of management and integrates this understanding into a national gap analysis, which facilitates scaling down of outputs from systematic plans by tailoring them to specific regions. Understanding differential effectiveness also helps to scale up management by informing decision makers about complementary forms of management. Together, chapters 4 and 5 provide methods to understand opportunity for conservation. This is critical if spatial prioritisations are to identify priority areas that are most likely to be implemented, thereby facilitating the scaling down of systematic plans. Lastly, Chapter 4 also demonstrates a method to understand the benefits of coordinating opportunistic management to facilitate the development of policies and incentives.


Airtime lending default rates are typically lower than those experienced by banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) but are likely to grow as the service is offered more widely. In this paper, credit scoring techniques are reviewed, and that knowledge is built upon to create an appropriate machine learning model for airtime lending. Over three million loans belonging to more than 41 thousand customers with a repayment period of three months are analysed. Logistic Regression, Decision Trees and Random Forest are evaluated for their ability to classify defaulters using several cross-validation approaches and the latter model performed best. When the default rate is below 2%, it is better to offer everyone a loan. For higher default rates, the model substantially enhances profitability. The model quadruples the tolerable level of default rate for breaking even from 8% to 32%. Nonlinear classification models offer considerable potential for credit scoring, coping with higher levels of default and therefore allowing for larger volumes of customers.


PURPOSE
The ability to produce precisely targeted beams as small as 1 mm necessitates the understanding and management of intra-fraction motion. This study evaluated lung motion in free-breathing mice and compared free-breathing imaging (3D and 4D reconstruction) to breath-hold imaging for use in treatment planning.

METHODS
Five mice were imaged weekly for six weeks using the X-RAD 225Cx system. Each week, CBCT projections were acquired during free-breathing imaging under anesthesia and reconstructed into 3D and 4D images (6 phases). Superior-inferior, anterior-posterior, and right-left motion were evaluated using deformable registration of the 4D images, and confirmed by manual measurements on fluoroscopic images. Next, the mice were intubated and their breath was held at full-inhale for 20 seconds during image acquisition. Breath-hold scans from the same session were compared to assess reproducibility.

RESULTS
The average voxel motion in the lungs of free-breathing mice was 1.3 mm (stdev = 0.2mm) while the average maximum motion was 3.4 mm (stdev = 0.3mm). To ensure tumor coverage in free-breathing mice we can apply the ITV concept to 3D-CBCTs, using added margins defined by the 4D-CBCT image sets. However, in an area of maximum motion, the expanded target volume could cover 30% the length of the lung. Adding this margin could Result in substantial normal tissue toxicity. Breath-hold imaging was reproducible to within 0.6 mm except in areas close to the heart due to cardiac motion. A visual comparison of image quality found that the breath-hold images were substantially sharper than both the 3D and 4D free-breathing images due to blurring and reconstruction artifacts.

CONCLUSION
Given the large respiratory motion relative to lung size in mice, breath-hold imaging offers clear advantages in motion management and image quality. Breath-hold treatments using IGRT are feasible and are recommended in cases of large tumor motion.


This paper combines cross-sectional and longitudinal income data to present the evolution of absolute intergenerational income mobility in ten developed economies in the 20th century. Absolute mobility decreased during the second half of the 20th century in all these countries. Increasing income inequality and decreasing growth rates have contributed to the decrease. Yet, growth is the dominant contributor in most countries. We show that detailed panel data are unnecessary for estimating absolute mobility over the long run. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)


Historical patterns of diversity, biogeography and faunal turnover remain poorly understood for Wallacea, the biologically and geologically complex island region between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. A distinctive Quaternary vertebrate fauna containing the small-bodied hominin Homo floresiensis , pygmy Stegodon proboscideans, varanids and giant murids has been described from Flores, but Quaternary faunas are poorly known from most other Lesser Sunda Islands. We report the discovery of extensive new fossil vertebrate collections from Pleistocene and Holocene deposits on Sumba, a large Wallacean island situated less than 50 km south of Flores. A fossil assemblage recovered from a Pleistocene deposit at Lewapaku in the interior highlands of Sumba, which may be close to 1 Ma old, contains a series of skeletal elements of a very small Stegodon referable to S. sumbaensis , a tooth attributable to Varanus komodoensis , and fragmentary remains of unidentified giant murids. Holocene cave deposits at Mahaniwa dated to approximately 2000–3500 BP yielded extensive material of two new genera of endemic large-bodied murids, as well as fossils of an extinct frugivorous varanid. This new baseline for reconstructing Wallacean faunal histories reveals that Sumba's Quaternary vertebrate fauna, although phylogenetically distinctive, was comparable in diversity and composition to the Quaternary fauna of Flores, suggesting that similar assemblages may have characterized Quaternary terrestrial ecosystems on many or all of the larger Lesser Sunda Islands.


Near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, on April 13, 2020, about 50 members of the American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis convened through Zoom to talk about the impact of the pandemic on their practices, their patients, and themselves.* They offer their reflections through oral and written comments. Participants were encouraged to organize their contributions around the dimensions of administrative psychiatry, the structure of clinical care, the content of clinical care, the patients' reported personal experiences, and the psychiatrists' reported personal experiences. Themes identified and discussed are paradoxical separateness, seeking an optimal interpersonal distance, finding new idioms, reality and symbolism, and loss, mourning, and isolation. The views are noted to touch on only one point early in the arc of the pandemic. A significant body of personal commentary provides an understanding of the roots of themes likely to evolve as the pandemic progresses.


Introduction
The current hypercompetitive extramural funding environment in the United States emphasizes the critical need for effective research training programs that focus not only on grantsmanship, but on skill development across the full range of research activities, culminating in writing research results for publication. Using Writing Accountability Groups (WAG), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded Obesity Health Disparities (OHD) PRIDE is one of the few research training and mentoring programs that places an equal focus on scientific writing and grant writing. This article reports on the utility of WAGs for OHD PRIDE mentees.

Method
Participants included 14 of 26 individuals who were fellows in the OHD PRIDE research training and mentoring program. A typical WAG has between four and eight members who meet for one hour each week over a 10-week period and commit a priori to attend at least 70% of the sessions. Summary statistics were produced to characterize number of peer-reviewed publications, grants, years in academic rank, and category of current academic rank, barriers to frequency of writing, and duration of writing. Results from pre- and post-WAG surveys were compared to determine the overall impact of the WAG. The study period discussed in this article took place between January and December 2017 and included data from three 10-week cycles beginning in February, May, and September.

Results
Fifty-three percent of OHD PRIDE participants successfully completed at least one 10-week WAG cycle. The WAGs did not have a statistically significant impact on either the frequency of writing or the duration of writing. However, the majority of the participants who successfully completed at least one WAG cycle reported that they either maintained or increased their frequency or duration of writing.

Conclusion
By providing a structured approach to developing and/or enhancing a practice of consistent writing, time management skills, and collaborative relationships, the WAG has promise for enhancing scientific writing skills for many trainees and early-career faculty. Longer term follow-up is needed to more fully assess the potential impact of WAGs.


The results are reported of research investigating the use of saliva analysis as a research tool in determining drug usage by drivers who have not been involved in crashes. The research shows that saliva analysis is a valid research method for screening for a wide variety of drugs with the potential to impair driving skills, in a noninvasive and more easily obtainable manner than would he the case for blood and/or urine samples. In addition, details are provided of drug findings from the first 618 saliva samples from a related survey of truck drivers. bus drivers and general population drivers


Abstract. Strains of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi (Haptophyta) collected from the subarctic North Pacific and Arctic oceans in 2010 were established as clone cultures and have been maintained in the laboratory at 15 °C and 32 ‰ salinity. To study the physiological responses of coccolith formation to changes in temperature and salinity, growth experiments and morphometric investigations were performed on two strains, namely MR57N isolated from the northern Bering Sea and MR70N at the Chukchi Sea. This is the first report of a detailed morphometric and morphological investigation of Arctic Ocean coccolithophore strains. The specific growth rates at the logarithmic growth phases in both strains markedly increased as temperature was elevated from 5 to 20 °C, although coccolith productivity (estimated as the percentage of calcified cells) was similar at 10–20 % at all temperatures. On the other hand, the specific growth rate of MR70N was affected less by changes in salinity in the range 26–35 ‰, but the proportion of calcified cells decreased at high and low salinities. According to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations, coccolith morphotypes can be categorized into Type B/C on the basis of their biometrical parameters. The central area elements of coccoliths varied from thin lath type to well-calcified lath type when temperature was increased or salinity was decreased, and coccolith size decreased simultaneously. Coccolithophore cell size also decreased with increasing temperature, although the variation in cell size was slightly greater at the lower salinity level. This indicates that subarctic and arctic coccolithophore strains can survive in a wide range of seawater temperatures and at lower salinities with change in their morphology. Because all coccolith biometric parameters followed the scaling law, the decrease in coccolith size was caused simply by the reduced calcification. Taken together, our results suggest that calcification productivity may be used to predict future oceanic environmental conditions in the polar regions.


In many species, social networks provide benefit for both the individual and the collective. In addition to transmitting information to others, social networks provide an emotional buffer for distressed individuals. Our understanding about the cellular mechanisms that contribute to buffering is poor. In many species, social networks provide benefit for both the individual and the collective. In addition to transmitting information to others, social networks provide an emotional buffer for distressed individuals. Our understanding about the cellular mechanisms that contribute to buffering is poor. Stress has consequences for the entire organism, including a robust change in synaptic plasticity at glutamate synapses onto corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN). In females, however, this stress-induced metaplasticity is buffered by the presence of a naive partner. This buffering may be because of discrete behavioral interactions, signals in the context in which the interaction occurs (i.e., olfactory cues), or it may be influenced by local signaling events in the PVN. Here, we show that local vasopressin (VP) signaling in PVN buffers the short-term potentiation (STP) at glutamate synapses after stress. This social buffering of metaplasticity, which requires the presence of another individual, was prevented by pharmacological inhibition of the VP 1a receptor (V1aR) in female mice. Exogenous VP mimicked the effects of social buffering and reduced STP in CRHPVN neurons from females but not males. These findings implicate VP as a potential mediator of social buffering in female mice. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In many organisms, including rodents and humans, social groups are beneficial to overall health and well-being. Moreover, it is through these social interactions that the harmful effects of stress can be mitigated, a phenomenon known as social buffering. In the present study, we describe a critical role for the neuropeptide vasopressin (VP) in social buffering of synaptic metaplasticity in stress-responsive corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons in female mice. These effects of VP do not extend to social buffering of stress behaviors, suggesting this is a very precise and local form of sex-specific neuropeptide signaling.


The thematic argument that forms the core of this book holds that it is important in understanding the European Union's impact on private and especially contract law that the European Union has only a limited competence conferred by its founding Treaties, but that, largely as a consequence of the Court's generous reading of the scope of the internal market, those limits are less of a restraint than may initially be supposed and that, moreover, pursuit of, in short, social justice is less constitutionally elusive than is often alleged. It provides an authoritative account of the actual and possible scope of the European Union's role and also interrogates the question whether the European Union's influence on private and especially contract law is benign or disruptive, in particular in the context of that constitutionally limited competence. This is timely, not least because the Commission's review of contract law, initiated in 2001, has still not run its course and may never do so. It is a continuing process. And the constitutional dimension has tended to be neglected. The book insists on the need for awareness of a complex interaction of often ambiguous constitutional rules, often politically inconsistent institutional rhythms and often evasive judicial pronouncements. And it shows how the European Union's role is not simply a niche area that has grown erratically but ultimately remains on the edges of the European Union's core public law activities, but rather that the rise of European Union private and especially contract law asks some vividly important questions about the principle and practice of conferred competence and about the choice of priorities in market regulation as protective instincts and deregulatory impulses collide. The adjustments made by the Treaty of Lisbon, especially but not only the grant of binding effect to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, have sharpened the interest. Contract Law of the Internal Market is written for both private and EU lawyers.


Traditional stochastic programming is risk neutral in the sense that it is concerned with the optimization of an expectation criterion. A common approach to addressing risk in decision making problems is to consider a weighted mean-risk objective, where some dispersion statistic is used as a measure of risk. We investigate the computational suitability of various mean-risk objective functions in addressing risk in stochastic programming models. We prove that the classical mean-variance criterion leads to computational intractability even in the simplest stochastic programs. On the other hand, a number of alternative mean-risk functions are shown to be computationally tractable using slight variants of existing stochastic programming decomposition algorithms. We propose a parametric cutting plane algorithm to generate the entire mean-risk efficient frontier for a particular mean-risk objective.


This research sought to explain why states give foreign aid. More specifically, it addressed recipient needs and donor interests. The dependent variable in this case was Official Development Aid (ODA). The independent variables included GDP/capita of the recipient, population of the recipient, the FDI of the recipient, defense pacts between the donor and the recipient, the colonial status of the recipient, and the donor power status. Regression analysis highlighted the importance of both recipient needs, and especially donor interests. This research is limited in its scope, and further research is recommended. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Political Science First Advisor Volker Krause Second Advisor Jeffrey L. Bernstein


Object detection and segmentation represents the basis for many tasks in computer and machine vision. In biometric recognition systems the detection of the region-of-interest (ROI) is one of the most crucial steps in the processing pipeline, significantly impacting the performance of the entire recognition system. Existing approaches to ear detection, are commonly susceptible to the presence of severe occlusions, ear accessories or variable illumination conditions and often deteriorate in their performance if applied on ear images captured in unconstrained settings. To address these shortcomings, we present a novel ear detection technique based on convolutional encoder-decoder networks (CEDs). We formulate the problem of ear detection as a two-class segmentation problem and design and train a CED-network architecture to distinguish between image-pixels belonging to the ear and the non-ear class. Unlike competing techniques, our approach does not simply return a bounding box around the detected ear, but provides detailed, pixel-wise information about the location of the ears in the image. Experiments on a dataset gathered from the web (a.k.a. in the wild) show that the proposed technique ensures good detection results in the presence of various covariate factors and significantly outperforms competing methods from the literature.


Almost every professional sector has embarked on the move toward sustainability. European landscapes are facing rapid changes in land use, where understanding and management of this process is essential. Sustainability has become a widely acknowledged dimension of human actions, but still little stress is put on education in sustainability. This paper identifies focus of education, gives suggestions for improvements and presents a new tool for education and training in sustainable land use – "Route Planner". As results, it provides all users with new interesting facts on sustainability in the European Union and additional materials related to sustainable land use and Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIA). Users got the access to updated information regarding approximately 3000 courses on offer in this topic area throughout the European Union as well as case studies to compare sustainability practices in these countries in comparison to other parts of the world. Furthermore the end result of the information chain also leads the user to a collection of links such as interesting websites and further reading in the topic area.


The toxicology of a widely used fungicide, chlorothalonil (TCIN), was investigated in three species of native Australian galaxiid fish and rainbow trout, Salmo gairdneri Rich., after measuring environmental levels in two aerially sprayed north-eastern Tasmanian catchment streams. TCIN residues (0 - 5 ug/l) were detected intermittently in stream waters after spraying events. LC50 values determined in flow through tests were from 12 - 21 ug/l. Investigation of sublethal effects showed short term anaemia, haemolysis and long-term gill damage quantified by morphometric analysis. No anaerobic glycolysis was measurable on short-term lethal exposure, despite a synergistic effect of low oxygen levels measured in an LC50 test at 50% saturation. A device counting opercular rhythms by Fast Fourier Transform analysis was designed and tested in conjunction with experiments to determine respiratory rate and responses of S. gairdneri to low TCIN levels. A distinct respiratory response was measured, characterized by elevated ventilation rates, with a threshold of 20 ug/1 during 2 h exposure. Environmental degradation of TCIN was studied in stream waters with a variety of substrates, temperatures and water types. TCIN was found to be a non-persistent pollutant whose disappearance rates were markedly enhanced by the presence of algal substrate and the presence of fish. Sediment partition coefficients were established. In a stream-dosing study, TCIN was found to be highly associated with suspended sediment.
In order to study metabolism of chlorothalonil (TCIN) in more detail, a synthetic route was designed and used successfully to produce (C\(^{14}\)-CN) TCIN. Tracing experiments were carried out in 10 ug/1 exposed rainbow trout. Significant levels built up in all organs. Protein binding occurred in the liver. The primary concentration of label occurred in the gall bladder (up to 4000 ug/g in 96h). Sephadex filtration and TLC showed that glutathione conjugates were the primary metabolites. Structural studies were carried out using synthesized model compounds, and the structures of TCIN glutathione conjugates were fully elucidated by spectral methods.
Catalysis of the conjugation reaction by hepatic glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzymes was studied in detail in the three Galaxias species, S. gairdneri and S. trutta. Molecular weights, comparative activities to another substrate (CDNB), pH optima, induction by TCIN exposure, binding and inhibition, reaction order, and organ specificity were all studied. All species were found to have two GST enzymes of different molecular weight with peak activity toward the two substrates, C\(^{14}\)-TCIN TCIN and CDNB. Galaxias GST's were consistently lower in molecular weight than those of the salmonids, indicating a major phylogenetic difference in this enzyme group. Induction and binding of metallo-thioneins by TCIN and co-induction with Zn exposure were also studied. Hepatic GST activity was promoted in S. gairdneri, G. maculatus and G. truttaceus exposed to low levels of TCIN over four days, and the response was dose dependent. Confirmation of detoxication by glutathione (GSH) depletion was obtained by measuring GSH levels in livers of exposed fish. Despite in vitro inhibition at low GAPDH levels, GAPDH inhibition was prevented by the presence of glutathione and was low in hepatic cytosol preparations of similar low GAPDH levels. Inhibition of GAPDH in livers of TCIN exposed fish was also studied, and found to be only transitorily affected by exposure to lethal levels.
No similar work on either toxicology, degradation or metabolism of pesticides in Australia has been reported in the literature. Apart from same heavy metal and hydrocarbon toxicology studies, almost no such work has been performed in Australia, most information being derivative from overseas. This study shows that the toxicological response of the galaxiids appears to be as sensitive as that of rainbow trout. A case is made for aquatic toxicological information applied within Australia to be directly related to information on native and not overseas species.
A proposal is made to screen native fish, both marine and freshwater, before time-consuming, expensive toxicity tests, possibly detrimental to native species populations, are carried out. The screening process involves selecting species "at risk" to classes of pollutants by studying levels and activities of detoxication enzyme systems. This proposed procedure is illustrated with the example of a correlation between GST and GSH levels in Salmo gairdneri, Galaxias auratus, and Galaxias maculatus, and the LC50 values for TCIN for these species, determined in this work.
A paper on the synthesis of C\(^{14}\)-TCIN has been accepted for publication. The manuscript is contained in Appendix 5. Six other papers have been submitted for publication on the toxicology and metabolism of chlorothalonil in fish.


Abstract. This study investigates the long-term evolution of subtropical ozone profile time series (1999–2010) obtained from ground-based FTIR (Fourier Transform InfraRed) spectrometry at the Izana Observatory ozone super-site. Different ozone retrieval strategies are examined, analysing the influence of an additional temperature retrieval and different constraints. The theoretical assessment reveals that the FTIR system is able to resolve four independent ozone layers with a precision of better than 6% in the troposphere and of better than 3% in the lower, middle and upper stratosphere. This total error includes the smoothing error, which dominates the random error budget. Furthermore, we estimate that the measurement noise as well as uncertainties in the applied atmospheric temperature profiles and instrumental line shape are leading error sources. We show that a simultaneous temperature retrieval can significantly reduce the total random errors and that a regular determination of the instrumental line shape is important for producing a consistent long-term dataset. These theoretical precision estimates are empirically confirmed by daily intercomparisons with Electro Chemical Cell (ECC) sonde profiles. In order to empirically document the long-term stability of the FTIR ozone profile data we compare the linear trends and seasonal cycles as obtained from the FTIR and ECC time series. Concerning seasonality, in winter both techniques observe stratospheric ozone profiles that are typical middle latitude profiles (low tropopause, low ozone maximum concentrations) and in summer/autumn profiles that are typical tropical profiles (high tropopause, high maximum concentrations). The linear trends estimated from the FTIR and the ECC datasets agree within their error bars. For the FTIR time series, we observe a significant negative trend in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere of about −0.2% yr−1 and a significant positive trend in the middle and upper stratosphere of about +0.3% yr−1 and +0.4% yr−1, respectively. Identifying such small trends is a difficult task for any measurement technique. In this context, super-sites applying different techniques are very important for the detection of reliable ozone trends.


In this revealing analysis of the legal profession, researcher Susannah Sheffer interviews long-time capital defense attorneys with the goal of answering this question: How does it feel to know that your job is to save a person's life? Sheffer has written about and worked on death penalty-related issues for fifteen years. Here, she presents an informative and compelling description of the responsibility and personal anguish attorneys of death row clients feel about their role in the death penalty process. Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys offers a glimpse into a part of the judicial process that is not only rarely discussed in the culture—as it usually occurs through a series of documents, filed with and responded to by the court in writing rather than in dramatic courtroom settings—but, as the interviews disclose, also remains undiscussed even among colleagues. The information gathered from interviews with twenty attorneys—six women and fourteen men who have practiced between eight and thirty-two years—explains in detail how capital defense attorneys internalize their work. Sheffer explores the range of often conflicting emotions that capital defense attorneys experience, from exhilaration over the high-stakes nature of the work to tremendous stress about the responsibility they bear. Through her wellwritten and clear descriptions, even readers who are not familiar with the legal process will fully grasp the magnitude and impact of the attorneys' responsibilities. Throughout the account, Sheffer allows the attorneys to convey their feelings in their own words and to explain what motivated them to enter this type of legal work, how it has affected them personally, and why they continue, despite the many challenges. She highlights the similarities in their responses, and discovers that the attorneys share a common motivation, primarily social justice. One of the most thought-provoking quotes is from Benjamin (Sheffer promised the participants confidentiality and they are identified only by pseudonyms), who describes an experience with a particular client, but one that is also typical: "We sentenced him to death ... Then we took twenty years to make him into someone whose life was worth saving, and then we killed him. That's the system." Sheffer's insightful book will be of interest to all capital defense attorneys and others working in the judicial system, as well as to those who work on death penalty issues in other contexts, including politicians, journalists, and advocates. It will further appeal to readers working in high-pressure jobs and facing the same conflicting feelings about their own professions. By so thoroughly depicting the mindset of a capital defense attorney, while still acknowledging opposing views, Sheffer presents a highly persuasive argument against the death penalty. Fighting for Their Lives serves to inform and also encourage readers to consider the effect the death penalty has on all involved in the process, as well as society at large. MARIA SIANO (February 26, 2013)


Predicting the behavior of a product before it is built has been a long time struggle, especially for software based systems. For building software systems there are few methods that comply with the engineering methods established from physics where properties of construction can be determined before the actual assembly of a product. By taking the predictable assembly from certifiable components (PACC) approach our intention is define methods to predict certain properties. We conclude that product line architectures that build on top of a component technology can be build in a much more controlled way if the component technology is prediction enabled. The aim of this position paper is to investigate how embedded product line architectures can utilize a prediction enabled component technology to build products with known properties. We present a framework where we can reason about extra-functional properties in a uniformed way. We illustrate our approach by an example including several different extra-functional properties.


OBJECTIVES
We examined the impact of Arizona's "Supporting Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" (SB 1070, enacted July 29, 2010) on the utilization of preventive health care and public assistance among Mexican-origin families.

METHODS
Data came from 142 adolescent mothers and 137 mother figures who participated in a quasi-experimental, ongoing longitudinal study of the health and development of Mexican-origin adolescent mothers and their infants (4 waves; March 2007-December 2011). We used general estimating equations to determine whether utilization of preventive health care and public assistance differed before versus after SB 1070's enactment.

RESULTS
Adolescents reported declines in use of public assistance and were less likely to take their baby to the doctor; compared with older adolescents, younger adolescents were less likely to use preventive health care after SB 1070. Mother figures were less likely to use public assistance after SB 1070 if they were born in the United States and if their post-SB 1070 interview was closer to the law's enactment.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that immigration policies such as SB 1070 may contribute to decreases in use of preventive health care and public assistance among high-risk populations.


PURPOSE
Vision loss due to retinitis pigmentosa affects an estimated 15 million people worldwide. Through collaboration between Second Sight Medical Products, Inc., and the Doheny Eye Institute, six blind human subjects underwent implantation with epiretinal 4 x 4 electrode arrays designed to directly stimulate the remaining cells of the retina, with the goal of restoring functional vision by applying spatiotemporal patterns of stimulation. To better understand spatiotemporal interactions between electrodes during synchronous and asynchronous stimulation, the authors investigated how percepts changed as a function of pulse timing across the electrodes.

METHODS
Pulse trains (20, 40, 80, and 160 Hz) were presented on groups of electrodes with 800, 1600, or 2400 microm center-to-center separation. Stimulation was either synchronous (pulses were presented simultaneously across electrodes) or asynchronous (pulses were phase shifted). Using a same-different discrimination task, the authors were able to evaluate how the perceptual quality of the stimuli changed as a function of phase shifts across multiple electrodes.

RESULTS
Even after controlling for electric field interactions, subjects could discriminate between spatiotemporal pulse train patterns based on differences of phase across electrodes as small as 3 ms. These findings suggest that the quality of the percept is affected not only by electric field interactions but also by spatiotemporal interactions at the neural level.

CONCLUSIONS
During multielectrode stimulation, interactions between electrodes have a significant influence on the quality of the percept. Understanding how these spatiotemporal interactions at the neural level influence percepts during multielectrode stimulation is fundamental to the successful design of a retinal prosthesis.


Formal security analysis has proven to be a useful tool for tracking modifications in communication protocols in an automated manner, where full security analysis of revisions requires minimum efforts. In this paper, we formally analysed prominent IoT protocols and uncovered many critical challenges in practical IoT settings. We address these challenges by using formal symbolic modelling of such protocols under various adversaries and security goals. Furthermore, this paper extends formal analysis to cryptographic Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks and demonstrates that a vast majority of IoT protocols are vulnerable to such resource exhaustion attacks. We present a cryptographic DoS attack countermeasure that can be generally used in many IoT protocols. Our study of prominent IoT protocols such as CoAP and MQTT shows the benefits of our approach.


INTRODUCTION: The study is part of a project intended to retrieve information about the serology of the American trypanosomiasis in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, during the period when there was a state effort to control the vector. Data from the municipality of Taquarituba, administrative region of Sorocaba, which was then important in the epidemiology of Chagas disease in that region, were analyzed. Despite the government efforts started in the 1950s, domiciliary triatomines were still being captured in that region during the 1970s. METHODS: Population samples were selected from five localities of Taquarituba. Age, sex, birthplace, and time of residence in the house being occupied at the time of the interview, were recorded. Probit analysis is used to assess a possible relationship between age and seropositivity, the latter taken as indicative of the risk of transmission. RESULTS: Blood from Taquarituba native people represented 62.9% of the samples examined (n = 2.784) and 62.4% of all seropositives (n = 380). Overall proportion of seropositives was 13.6% with no significant difference between genders (p = 0.538). Children under 6 years of age were not seropovitive, Seropositivity increased from 2.7% in the age group 6-9 years to 30.6% in the age group 30-39 years. By using probit analysis, an age-seropositivity relationship was found within these groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results of serological tests pointed to an association between the actions taken against Triatoma infestans and the decline and eventual control of the transmission of Chagas disease in the late 1960s.


Fluoride is widely distributed in nature and a direct source of adverse health effects in human populations. Fluoride poisoning attributed by long-term exposure to high levels of fluoride called fluorosis. The present study was carried out among 9-14 years old school children of Dausa district, Rajasthan India. The subjects were selected from high fluoride region (>2.0 ppm) and age matched were selected from Jaipur district where fluoride content was (<1.5 ppm). A set of question was used to collect information from the children's personal character, clinical health outcome, residential record, educational achievements and family socioeconomic status. Fluoride in serum, urine and drinking water were estimated in both subjects and controls along with serum vitamin (A, C, D and E) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE). The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices was used to measurement of children's intelligence. IQ scores and serum F levels was directly correlated with the concentration of serum F level. Reduced concentration of vitamin (C, D and E) and AChE activity is the potent markers of neuro-degeneration. The conclusion of the study is that the excessive fluoride delineates the neuronal impairment which were evident by reduce IQ score and serum AChE activity. Moreover, the altered vitamin concentrations which may further lead to brain and bone damage.


Competitive adsorption of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH) and plasticizers (PEG Mw 600 and 2000, M600 and quaternized M600) onto Na-bentonite has been studied. Preliminary experiments showed that as the concentration of plasticizers or PVOH increased, the amount adsorbed by clay increased and followed a Langmuir-type adsorption. The order of affinity to clay was PVOH, PEG2000, M600 and PEG600. Step changes occurred in the gallery with increasing amounts of plasticizer offered as it expanded from a depleted single layer through to a full single layer, then a combined single and bilayer system, and finally a full bilayer system. For PVOH, multi-layers were observed, as well as mostly exfoliated structures when the PVOH concentration was > 75 wt%. The extent of change in the d-spacings of PEG600/clay and PVOH/clay systems were shown to be greatly affected by thermal treatment and exposure to different relative humidities at low organic loadings (23 wt%). The thermal stability of PEG600 or PVOH in clay was dependant on the loading and so related to the type of structure. Desorption of organic from clay by washing up to ten times with water showed that not all organic was removed since the d-spacing of organic/clay did not collapsed to that of clay alone.In the competitive adsorption studies, both plasticizers (PEG600 or M600) and PVOH were present within the clay gallery, the amounts of plasticizer and PVOH present increased with the amount of plasticizer and PVOH offered. The amount of PVOH adsorbed by clay was slightly increased by the presence of 1-30pph PEG600, but reduced in the presence of 30 pph M600 and 1, 10 and 30 pph QM600, whilst the amount of PEG600 or M600 adsorbed by clay was reduced when the amount of PVOH offered was increased. Samples prepared by mixing PEG600 with clay first before adding PVOH consistently exhibited slightly higher d[001]-spacings and peak intensities when compared to the corresponding samples prepared by either mixing PEG600 and PVOH before adding clay or mixing PVOH with clay first before adding PEG600. The differences are assigned to their molecular arrangements rather than quantities adsorbed. The tensile storage modulus, &, alpha temperature and E[a] of PVOH/clay systems increased as the amount of clay increased whilst the opposed trend was observed for the toughness and damping properties. Introduction of clay into PVOH resulted in a reduced water permeability in the nanocomposites since an 8 times reduction was observed when clay content was 50 wt%. The opposite trend was observed when 20 wt% PEG600 was introduced to the PVOH since it increased the water permeability by 4.4 times. Introduction of clay to PVOH/PEG600 reduced the water permeability and -23 wt% clay was needed to return the WVTR value to that of PVOH alone. Besides clay, the crystallinity of PVOH was shown to reduce the water permeability of the nanocomposites. The levels of PVOH crystallinity were identified using FTIR from the intensity ratio of the bands at 1142 cm[-1] and 2942 cm[-1]; the ratio increased with heating temperature and clay content but decreased with time when exposed to 85% relative humidity. In addition, the intensity of the XRD peak at a 19 °20, which relates to PVOH crystallinity increased with temperature and decreased with exposure time for all films. The sample crystallinity was greatly affected by water content, however, the induced crystallinity was not completely lost after being maintained at 23 °C and 85 % RH for 51 days.


Most of the regional shortening in the type area of the Sevier orogenic belt in central Utah was accommodated by displacement on the Canyon Range (Neocomian-Aptian), Pavant (Aptian-Albian), Paxton (Cenomanian-Campanian), and Gunnison (late Campanian–Paleocene) thrust systems. Inception of each thrust system generated synorogenic sediment associated with frontal thrust-tip anticlines or triangle zones and older thrust sheets that were elevated above major ramps farther toward the hinterland. The Sevier culmination, a large antiformal duplex cored by crystalline basement rocks, developed during Paxton and Gunnison thrusting west of and structurally beneath the Canyon Range and Pavant thrusts. Growth of the Sevier culmination was coeval with reactivation of the Canyon Range and Pavant thrust systems and produced a second culmination in Proterozoic–Lower Cambrian rocks in the Canyon Range. These structural highs provided much of the sediment to the adjacent foreland basin from late Cenomanian to late Paleocene time, and may have helped to maintain critical taper in the thrust belt.


This work presents the early efforts by peacemakers in the world's longest refugee crisis. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has resulted in the longest-standing refugee crisis in the world today. Based on new archival research and interviews with surviving participants, this book considers one early effort to resolve that crisis while offering helpful lessons for current efforts at conflict resolution in the Middle East and elsewhere. When war broke out in Palestine in 1948, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker service organization, had just won the Nobel Peace Prize for its peacemaking endeavors and its service to war refugees during the Second World War. On the basis of that experience, the United Nations invited the highly visible AFSC to provide humanitarian relief to Arab refugees in Gaza. The AFSC also sent volunteers to work in Israel, where they hoped to serve both Arabs and Jews. Its long-term goal was repatriation of the refugees and conciliation and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. As eyewitnesses to some of the major events of the conflict, the AFSC volunteers came to understand it better than most outsiders at the time. By examining these early efforts at peacemaking and assistance, historian Nancy Gallagher has uncovered essential insights for today's peacemakers, human rights activists, and humanitarian NGOs.


OBJECTIVE
To identify risk factors for equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) among horses examined at 11 equine referral hospitals.

DESIGN
Case-control study.

ANIMALS
183 horses with EPM, 297 horses with neurologic disease other than EPM (neurologic controls), and 168 horses with non-neurologic diseases (non-neurologic controls) examined at 11 equine referral hospitals in the United States.

PROCEDURES
A study data form was completed for all horses. Data were compared between the case group and each of the control groups by means of bivariate and multivariate polytomous logistic regression.

RESULTS
Relative to neurologic control horses, case horses were more likely to be > or = 2 years old and to have a history of cats residing on the premises. Relative to non-neurologic control horses, case horses were more likely to be used for racing or Western performance.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Results indicated that cats may play a role in the natural epidemiology of EPM, that the disease is less common among horses < 2 years of age relative to other neurologic diseases, and that horses used for particular types of competition may have an increased risk of developing EPM.


Introduction: In this study, we investigated the effect of the 3-hydroxy-3-methylgutaryl-CoA reductase inhibitor lovastatin, as a sensitizer of lung cancer cells to ionizing radiation (IR). Methods: A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells were treated with 0 to 50 &mgr;M lovastatin alone or in combination with 0 to 8 Gy IR and subjected to clonogenic survival and proliferation assays. To assess the mechanism of drug action, we examined the effects of lovastatin and IR on the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor and AMP-activated kinase (AMPK) pathways and on apoptotic markers and the cell cycle. Results: Lovastatin inhibited basal clonogenic survival and proliferation of A549 cells and sensitized them to IR. This was reversed by mevalonate, the product of 3-hydroxy-3-methylgutaryl-CoA reductase. Lovastatin attenuated selectively EGF-induced phosphorylation of EGF receptor and Akt, and IR-induced Akt phosphorylation, in a mevalonate-sensitive fashion, without inhibition on extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation by either stimulus. IR phosphorylated and activated the metabolic sensor and tumor suppressor AMPK, but lovastatin enhanced basal and IR-induced AMPK phosphorylation. The drug inhibited IR-induced expression of p53 and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21cip1 and p27kip1, but caused a redistribution of cells from G1-S phase (control and radiated cells) and G2-M phase (radiated cells) of cell cycle into apoptosis. The latter was also evident by induction of nuclear fragmentation and cleavage of caspase 3 by lovastatin in both control and radiated cells. Conclusions: We suggest that lovastatin inhibits survival and induces radiosensitization of lung cancer cells through induction of apoptosis, which may be mediated by a simultaneous inhibition of the Akt and activation of the AMPK signaling pathways.


Back in print after ten years, this unique book brings together 141 speeches, speech excerpts, letters, fragments, and other writings by Lincoln on the theme of democracy. Selected by leading historians, the writings include such standards as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, but also such little-seen writings as a letter assuring a general that the President felt safe-drafted just three days before Lincoln's assassination. In this richly annotated anthology, the writings are grouped thematically into seven sections that cover politics, slavery, the union, democracy, liberty, the nation divided, and the American Dream. The introductions are by well-known historians: Gabor Borritt, William E. Gienapp, Charles B. Strozier, Richard Nelson Current, James M. McPherson, Mark E. Neely, Jr., and Hans L. Trefousse. In addition, each section's title page displays a photograph of Lincoln from the time period covered in that section, with a paragraph describing the source and the occasion for which the photograph was made.


Several of the campus heritage plans funded by the Getty Foundation served as laboratories for applying the relatively new field of cultural landscape preservation to campus planning. (1) With a strong landscape component, the heritage plans of The University of Kansas, Cranbrook Academy, the University of California, Berkeley, and elsewhere remind us that landscape preservation is inherently different from architectural preservation--and that the young field remains far richer in edifying puzzles than proven answers. The Getty Foundation-funded plans also remind us that planners should always challenge the assumed wisdom about what is "historic" and how to steward it. Having contributed to two of the campus heritage plans as a landscape historian, I have come to learn that the rigidity of our beliefs about what is "historically significant" on a campus often leads to preserving static physical qualities with little regard for character-rich ecological systems, town-gown connections, and institutional culture. For too long, officials at state offices of historic preservation and many preservation consultants have assumed that the new sustainability and the preservation of designed campus landscapes, such as quads and formal gardens, must be at loggerheads. Recent sustainable practices, such as rainwater swales and gardens, green roofs, and permeable paving, are often forbidden in campus historic districts because they did not exist during some official "period of historic significance." Many campus leaders also still view architectural and landscape preservation as a fundamental threat to new programs and institutional competitiveness. Yet, as a field only about 30 years old, historic landscape preservation can help planners to challenge these old assumptions that historic resources must be frozen in time. Historic landscape stewardship is fundamentally different from the preservation of buildings and the curation of museum artifacts. Like generations of students and alumni, campus landscapes, if managed well, can be self-renewing. But unlike a Greek vase or a historic classroom building, they are never quite the same at two points in time. So from what period should a specific campus landscape be preserved? Is it even possible or desirable to pose a single period of significance for a campus as a whole? In most cases, probably not. How do we frame periods of historic significance or, more realistically, successional historic landscapes within a campus as a whole? In several of the completed campus heritage plans, we can find site-specific decisions regarding some of these landscape preservation dilemmas. Yet we should note that these strategies are choices made and not universal solutions. There remains no one set of best practices in campus landscape preservation-and this lack of resolution may be why its puzzles can enrich heritage preservation discourse overall. How Can We Define a Campus's Essential Character? At its core, historic landscape preservation on campus means getting to the bottom of things, knowing what is the baseline character of spaces, roads, walks, lawns, and water features that, if altered or lost, would severely harm the campus's "historic integrity." In preservation terms, "character-defining features" are the sine qua non, the bedrock that must be saved if a campus is to retain its historic integrity and eligibility for recognition such as inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Campus cultural landscapes are not discrete sets of objects but rather connected systems of spaces, topography, vegetation, and circulation. Character-defining features matter because if we can define them, we can also find ways to protect them while accommodating new programs and improving campus sustainability, safety, and accessibility. Of course, like constitutional law, the qualities of historic landscape character are entirely open to interpretation--and that is partly why they are so fascinating. …


Abstract. In the Anthropocene, social processes have become critical to understanding planetary-scale Earth system dynamics. The conceptual foundations of Earth system modelling have externalised social processes in ways that now hinder progress in understanding Earth resilience and informing governance of global environmental change. New approaches to global modelling are needed to address these challenges, but the current modelling landscape is highly diverse and heterogeneous, ranging from purely biophysical Earth System Models, to hybrid macro-economic Integrated Assessments Models, to a plethora of models of socio-cultural dynamics. World-Earth models, currently not yet available, will need to integrate all these elements, so future World-Earth modellers require a structured approach to identify, classify, select, and combine model components. Here, we develop taxonomies for ordering the multitude of societal and biophysical subsystems and their interactions. We suggest three taxa for modelled subsystems: (i) biophysical, where dynamics is usually represented by natural laws of physics, chemistry or ecology (i.e., the usual components of Earth system models), (ii) socio-cultural, dominated by processes of human behaviour, decision making and collective social dynamics (e.g., politics, institutions, social networks), and (iii) socio-metabolic, dealing with the material interactions of social and biophysical subsystems (e.g., human bodies, natural resource and agriculture). We show how higher-order taxonomies for interactions between two or more subsystems can be derived, highlighting the kinds of social-ecological feedback loops where new modelling efforts need to be directed. As an example, we apply the taxonomy to a stylised World-Earth system model of socially transmitted discount rates in a greenhouse gas emissions game to illustrate the effects of social-ecological feedback loops that are usually not considered in current modelling efforts. The proposed taxonomy can contribute to guiding the design and operational development of more comprehensive World-Earth models for understanding Earth resilience and charting sustainability transitions within planetary boundaries and other future trajectories in the Anthropocene.


Continuing education and training is pivotal in today's fast-paced technology driven society. A profession is defined by the theories and techniques that competent practitioners utilize in their everyday work. Therefore, determining the competencies that practitioners must possess for any given profession is a prerequisite for a respected profession. Most professions are bounded by competencies that are dictated by professional organizations and education programs, yet the real test is how practitioners view these competencies as they relate to their job. For a profession to reach the ultimate goal of improving society the first step is to align professional organization, education, and practice. This research is a needs assessment that investigates education and training needs of planning professionals and determines the alignment between professional organizations, planning education, and planning practice. Thus the focus of this study is to conduct a needs assessment to investigate the specific knowledge, skills and values under each related outcome criteria defined by the Planning Accreditation Board as it relates to the training needs of planning practitioners, as well as specific competencies defined in the review of related literature. Using a descriptive research method three types of questions were answered: (1) How professional planners allocate their time on various professional competencies on a typical work day? (2) What professional competencies are important in their job? and (3) What professional competencies do they feel they possess for their job? The web based survey drew 270 planning practitioners from 26 states to participate in the survey. The results of this study indicate that planning professionals valued competencies defined by PAB more than the amount of time they spend on each of the competencies. In addition, the needs assessment revealed 8 out of 18 competences that had the greatest gap between the amount of time practitioners stated they spend on the competences compared to how important they felt the competencies were to their job. Finally, planning practitioners indicated that they were the most competent in verbal communication skills and problem solving skills, while, stating they were least competent in linear regression, forecasting / modeling skills, and communication using social media.


Is there a peculiarly English 'look' and if so how does one define it? From the 'traditional' dress of the Victorian rural working class through to the contemporary collections of Vivienne Westwood and a younger generation of London-based designers, notions of Englishness, either real or imagined, have always been at play in considerations of English fashion and clothing. This provocative book explores how far these fraught ideals can be applied to the dress of the past and present. English expressions of taste and creativity have had a profound influence on style over the last three centuries, and the pursuit and subversion of an English 'look' have shaped conceptions of fashionability from the pastoralism of the eighteenth-century through to the eras of Twiggy, Punk and beyond. But are these simply stereotypical characterizations that relate to an imagined 'Englishness', or is there some concrete basis for them? If the former, what has led to their development? If the latter, what definitions can be employed to unravel such complicated conceptions of national identity? What role has social decorum played in developing an 'English' style, and is this preoccupation with etiquette in fact unique to England ? With chapters authored by leading scholars in the fields of costume history, social history and cultural studies, this is the first book to examine the ways in which fashion and dress might be considered in the context of national identities as they apply in England. Presenting an overview of how particular designers and consumer groups have striven to present or contest versions of Englishness through clothing from the 18th through to the 21st centuries, it will fascinate anyone interested in dress history, national and ethnic identity or English cultural history.