Amphibians are a group in worldwide decline. The factors that are causing this decline are not well known, but could be multifactorial, related to the recent expansion of pathogens and habitat disturbance. One of these factors related to the loss of habitat quality is the introduction of alien species. These species can compete with or prey on species of the recipient community, producing deep changes in the structure of these communities. For this reason it is a priority to know which factors act by facilitating the invasion process and which species could be more affected by the presence of this alien species. In Catalonia has become established an alien frog, the painted frog. Introduced in the extreme south of France in the early XXth century, this species has expanded gradually, reaching the Llobregat delta to the south and Llanguedoc to the north. This region is rich in native species of amphibians, some of them endemic, and therefore it is necessary to know how this newcomer species interacts with each of these species. We have used a novel approach when analyzing these interactions, applying the theory of morphospaces. The morphospace is the range of morphological variation observed within a community. This morphology is correlated with the use of a niche, and hence the morphological similarities between the invasive and native species serve as a proxy to assess the functional overlap. These analogies in morphospace were evaluated also in the area of native species and among other species of Discoglossus. The question asked is "Does the invasive species occupy a vacant niche, maintaining a similar morphological gap than that observed in the source assemblage and in the case of other species of the genus Discoglossus?".


Research focusing on families' experiences of end-of-life care in an Irish context is largely absent. In a recent comprehensive review of end-of-life care for older people in acute and long-stay care settings in Ireland, O'Shea et al (2008) excluded the perspective of families from the study. This study aims to reduce that deficit by exploring families' experiences and perceptions of the end-of-life care received by their loved in the context of a private nursing home setting. The report is comprised of discussions on: methodology; review of existing literature and interpretation of the data gathered thorough interviews of relatives who admitted a family member to nursing homes. The data revealed how families noticed their loved 'grow infirm, they age' (Elias 1985 p.3) focusing on their journey through the ageing process. It uncovers the emotional journey of family members when they come to the realisation of the limitations of their ability to provide care for their loved ones. The majority of participants came to the realisation they could no longer provide the care their loved one needed. They had to navigate both the cultural ideology and promises made that nursing homes was the place of last resort for caring for a family member. Finding a nursing home is not easy and the majority of participants reviewed a number of nursing homes until they found what they were looking for. The decision to admit their loved one was based upon their initial instinctive reaction to the home for the majority 'it felt like home'. Life within a nursing home is unpacked, from the quality of life of residents to the quality of care and the process of partings. This report is centered on the stories people told of living with a loved one who was ill and how they journeyed with them until their death.


Phase transitions in polar binary mixtures can be drastically altered by even a small amount of salt. This is because the preferential solvation strongly depends on the ambient composition. Together with a summary of our research on this problem, we present some detailed results on the role of antagonistic salt composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic ions. These ions tend to segregate at liquid–liquid interfaces and selectively couple to water-rich and oil-rich composition fluctuations, leading to mesophase formation. In our two-dimensional simulation, the coarsening of the domain structures can be stopped or slowed down, depending on the interaction parameter (or the temperature) and the salt density. We realize stripe patterns at the critical composition and droplet patterns at off-critical compositions. In the latter case, charged droplets emerge with considerable size dispersity in a percolated region. We also give the structure factors among the ions, accounting for the Coulomb interaction and the solvation interaction mediated by the composition fluctuations.


Stimulus is the essence of any audiovestibular investigation and ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP) would be no different. Several investigations have examined the effect of frequency of stimulus on oVEMP parameters with prime reports concentrated around amplitude and to a lesser extent threshold. Effects of stimulus frequency on latency-related parameters have been sparingly explored with equivocal results. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of air-conducted frequency-specific short tone-bursts on latency, amplitude, and threshold-related parameters of various peaks of oVEMP. A normative study was conducted to obtain oVEMP responses from 50 healthy individuals in the age range of 18 - 30 years. Tone-bursts at octave and midoctave frequencies from 250 to 2000 Hz were used to acquire responses from the inferior oblique muscle using contralateral electrode placement. oVEMPs were present in 100% of the individuals at or below the frequency of 1000 Hz. The largest amplitudes and the lowest threshold corresponded to 500 Hz tone-burst, whereas 250 Hz produced largest absolute latencies as well as interpeak latency intervals (P < 0.05). Frequency had no effect on interaural latency difference as well as interaural amplitude ratio. Owing to largest amplitudes and best thresholds, 500 Hz appears better stimuli for clinical recording of oVEMPs. This is true irrespective of the peak complex being assessed is n1p1 or p1n2.


The objectives of this study are to determine the significant relationship between transformational leadership and performance of academic leaders, and the significant relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and performance of academic leaders. This study is also aimed to determine the mediating effect of corporate entrepreneurship on the relationship between transformational leadership and performance. A quantitative research design based on the questionnaire survey was used to collect the data. A total of 246 usable responses were received from academic leaders of twenty public universities throughout the country. The findings reveal significant and positive relationships between transformational leadership and performance, and corporate entrepreneurship and performance. In addition, corporate entrepreneurship was found to partially mediate the transformational leadership and performance relationship.


Structural funds are the most intensively used policy instrument by the EuropeanUnion to promote economic growth in its member states and to speed up the process ofconvergence. This paper empirically explores the effectiveness of European Structural Fundsby means of a panel data analysis for 13 countries in the European Union. We show that – onaverage – Structural Funds are ineffective. For countries with the 'right' institutions,however, Structural Funds are effective. The latter result is obtained for a wide range ofconditioning variables, such as openness, institutional quality, corruption and indicatorsfor good governance.


This case analyzes the business strategy and expansion of JWT China from the late 1990s to 2008. As part of the world's fourth largest marketing communications network, JWT China grew into one of the largest integrated communications companies in China operating from offices in various parts of the country. The case provides students with a comprehensive history of and insights into China's advertising industry and the challenges for foreign and domestic firms operating within a highly regulated media environment controlled by the Chinese government. At the same time, this case offers insights into the structure of the highly fragmented Chinese consumers market, exploring the socio-economic disparities in income and media access as well as culturally determined consumer behavior across different regions and urban and rural areas. The case lets students explore how these trends might impact JWT's advertising and marketing strategies in the future and how to evaluate JWT's business expansion in China dealing with local and foreign competition.


The controversy began with a seemingly innocuous private letter, and spiraled into the biggest media event in golf history. The Augusta National membership dispute dominated headlines and watercooler conversation for nearly a year, propelled by twenty-first-century hot-button issues and a pair of perfectly drawn foils in Hootie Johnson and Martha Burk. But a year after Burk's messy Masters week protest, the meaning of the membership controversy remains elusive. In "The Battle for Augusta National," Alan Shipnuck -- who reinvented the PGA Tour narrative with the rollicking "Bud, Sweat, & Tees" -- provides the definitive account of what really happened and why.In this lively, irreverent, ambitious book, Shipnuck chases the story from the chairman's office at Augusta National to the living room of the One Man Klan, along the way bringing to life a vivid cast of characters and revealing subplots aplenty. With meticulous reporting and penetrating insights, Shipnuck provides a nuanced look into the complex and contradictory worlds of Hootie and Martha, who were drawn together like moths to a flame; reveals Augusta National's secret plots to undermine the press and the accompanying turmoil at "The New York Times," including an exclusive interview with the Times's disgraced executive editor, Howell Raines; and explores the Southern politics that led to Burk's Masters week banishment, drawing on Senate confirmation hearings and campaign contribution documents to link local politicians and a federal judge to Augusta National.From Tiger Woods to Jack Welch, Sandra Day O'Connor to Bryant Gumbel, Treasury Secretary Snow to Jesse Jackson, the gang's all here in this withering look at astory that never stopped churning.Along the way, many of the membership controversy's mysteries are revealed. How did Augusta National's top-secret membership roll become public? Who was the shadowy protester identified by hoodwinked reporters as Heywood Jablome? Did Burk lie about a vast right-wing conspiracy to undermine her demonstration? All of this and much more can be found in "The Battle for Augusta National," a book that captures the passion and absurdity of a great national debate that continues to simmer.


The aim of the article is to present, as well as to analyse legally, the situation of the indigenous population of Rapa Nui in the territory of Chile. Rapa Nui, officially called Easter Island, is an island in the Pacific Ocean basin. It was illegally annexed by Chile in 1888; since then, violations of the rights of native peoples have been observed. The legal-political situation of Rapa Nui (also the name for the inhabitants of Easter Island) is challenging due to the Chilean government's actions towards them. Instances of human rights breaches can be seen in, inter alia, the failure to respect the right to self-determination as well as the right to environmental protection. The article will also consider breaches of very basic human rights by the Chilean government such as the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. The article firstly examines the actual situation in which the indigenous people of Rapa Nui find themselves. Secondly, such analysis will consider the legal situation, in light of both regional (i.e. American) and universal norms. These legal frameworks provide an explicit legal basis that can be used to improve the problematic position of Rapa Nui. The American regional norms, however, are still at the stage of creation and execution. There are a series of judgments from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which de jure can help the people of Rapa Nui in regaining their freedoms, primarily their right to protest.


Lawyers frequently face situations in which providing accurate advice about the law may well assist a client in violating that law. This Article considers what the ethical or legal guides or limits ought to be for a lawyer confronting this problem. Professor Pepper identifies a number of distinctions that might provide guidance, and explores the jurisprudential and ethical complications those distinctions entail. Although these factors rarely provide a determinate answer, they do provide a useful structure for analysis. Because clear answers are rare, Professor Pepper suggests supplementing the analytic structure with the process of a lawyer-client counseling conversation.


You may know Bill Campbell's name, but chances are, you know his handiwork better, especially the Weird-Ohs models that burst on the pop culture scene in the 1960s. Enjoy looking back over the career of this colorful artist in over 700 brilliant photos and witty prose. From his early days painting model box tops for the Hawk Model Company to his invention of the iconic Weird-Ohs model kits, Bill has continued to create some of the most unique artwork the world has seen. Also discover his work for national ad campaigns, editorial cartoons, his box art, fine art, and the Weird-Ohs that never were. Now much of that work has been gathered into one volume that traces the entire arc of Bill's career, including his connection to the Manhattan Project, an initiative that may well have saved his life. Much of the art is presented here for the very first time.


Following the development of Total Audio Works for the award-winning theatre installation Hotel Gasten, Liseberg Park, Gotenberg (1999), I was commissioned to devise a sonic environment for a 'float through' water drama, Oxygenarium, Parc Asterix.

In most thematic applications audiences are pulsed through the score at predetermined intervals to synchronise with actors, animatronics and drama. Sound and music effects are triggered in isolation with no thematic thread between sequences

TAW is designed as 48 points of looped audio, each broadcast simultaneously and discretely mapped to 48 strategically positioned speakers. This uniquely enables an audience to explore a sonic environment in their own time, auditioning the sound as if travelling through a symphony – with the freedom to move forwards or backwards through the score - the drama unfolding in a more natural organic form.

TAW was developed using looped digital music samples (as generative music for games) but sequenced as a non-linear-through-score.

In 2002, Asterix asked me to look at a proposed ride-through experience inspired by Carolingian Renaissance. One sequence required the power of prayer to be symbolised as aspiring to a higher and higher spiritual order manifested in the audience physically rising upwards through a 30m spiral.

Conventional multi-point immersive audio confines listeners to exploring sound fields within the single horizontal plane. There are instances where sonic artists configure gallery installations in the vertical, but none has through-scored music.

The challenge was to create a soundtrack of multiple harmonic Gregorian phrases that rendered the sensation of journeying upwards through a choral work made up of multiple layers of sonic strata.
The final sound installation combined the principals of TAW, reconfigured in a vertical form, with five separate surround systems stacked at 6m levels. Transdemonium was the first public thematic experience with scored music for vertical surround.
The first thematic experience to use original music composed and designed for a multiple stacked surround in a vertical configuration. Based on C14 scriptoria of composer Guillaume de Marchant


George McCready Price (1870-1963) was the leading young-life creationist of the first half of the twentieth century. Largely self-taught, Price shared his creationist views in more than two dozen books and more than 800 articles— mostly intended for the lay believer. Price argued that true science involves deriving absolute truths by inductive syllogism from known truths. Price believed the Creation Week was 144 consecutive hours in length, six or seven thousand years ago, and everything on the earth was created in that Creation Week. Price believed the creation was created in the state of perfection and that natural evil entered the world at the Fall of man. Price believed the only natural group of organisms, the created kind (what he called the 'natural species' when he was being careful), was at about the taxonomic level of genus or family, and could be identified by successful hybridization. Except in the high altitudes, Price believed the entire pre-Flood world enjoyed a sub-tropical climate and supported a biota of much greater size and beauty than the biota of the present world. Price believed the Genesis Flood was global and was caused by some sort of upheaval of the oceans—possibly the sloshing back and forth of the oceans as the earth sustained a sudden, axis-changing astronomical impact. Price believed that all Phanerozoic sediments were formed in the Flood, and organisms were buried close to their pre-Flood habitation. Price believed that the global biostratigraphic column was artificially arranged according to organismal development, reversals of that order are due to normal sedimentation (not post-depositional thrust faults), and most so-called 'extinct' organisms are actually identical to modern organisms. Price believed that a sudden freeze was somehow associated with the Flood (to explain frozen mammoths), and the warm pre-Flood ocean water in inland seas caused a regional ice age in the years following the Flood. Price believed created kinds diversified largely by splitting and differentiation following the Flood. Price believed the post-Flood Cro-Magnon people are the oldest humans from which we have evidence, and all other hominoids (fossil and living, ape and human) are degenerate humans. Price also believed that God created languages and races and gave them to different people groups spreading out from Babel. Finally, Price believed that human civilization has degenerated from its highest form in Eden. Price's geological ideas formed the core of the geological arguments of Whitcomb and Morris's The Genesis Flood, but without appropriate citation. Many of the discussions of modern creationism are similar to ideas Price shared a century or more ago. Although many of current creationist discussions are likely to be derived from Price, not only is this not obvious, but much valuable discussion has been lost. Creationists should reconstruct their intellectual history and thus enrich current discussions. A host of Price's claims are echoed in modern creationist discussions. Many of those discussions may turn out to be derived from Price's ideas and this intellectual heritage should be studied in detail. Price's philosophy of science, for example, seems to be echoed in such things as the creationist tendency to present anti-evolutionary arguments rather than build models, the preference of quantitative over non-quantitative research approaches, and the adoption of positivist definitions of science. Price's climatology seems to be echoed in such things as adherence to the canopy model, associations of warm climate with large body size, and discussions about the nature and timing of the ice age. Price's biology seems to be echoed in such things as creationists' use of Mayr's biological species definition, references to 'natural limits to variation' and 'living fossils', and post-Flood diversification by segregation of genetic information. Price's geology seems to be echoed in such things as the rejection of the biostratigraphic column and disputes about the location of the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the stratigraphic record.


Background Vitamin D deficiency and vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms are strongly associated with tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility in countries with four seasons. As a country with sufficient sunlight for vitamin D production in skin, the incidence of TB in Indonesia remains high. Objective To assess for possible associations between the incidence of tuberculosis and serum vitamin D level, as well as VDR FokI polymorphisms in children. Methods A case-control study was conducted at the Department of Child Health, Dr. Mohammad Hoesin Hospital, Palembang from November 2011 to April 2012. Subjects were children with TB (the case) and children without TB who had been exposed to TB in the home (the control). Serum vitamin D [1,25(OH)2D3 or calcitriol] level was measured by immunodiagnostic system (IDS) 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D enzyme immunoassay (EIA) kit. The VDR FokI polymorphisms were identified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction-fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. Results Sixty subjects was divided equally into the case and control groups. The mean serum calcitriol level in the case group was significantly lower than that of the control group [105.5 (SD 66.9) pmol/L vs. 162.9 (SD 52.9) pmol/L, respectively; (P=0.001)]. We found 9 subjects with calcitriol deficiency, 8 in the TB group and 1 in the healthy contact group (OR 10.5; 95%CI 1.2 to 90.7) The VDR FokI polymorphism was seen in 28 subjects in the case group and 22 in the control group (OR 5.0; 95%CI 0.9 to 26.4). Conclusion Vitamin D (calcitriol) deficiency and lower serum levels are associated with higher risk of TB in children. The VDR gene FokI polymorphism also contributes to susceptibility for TB.


Background and aim The role of imaging for the detection of vascular lesions in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is poorly defined. A study was undertaken to compare the yield of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in patients with ICH with intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and those without IVH. Methods The DSA database at our institution was reviewed for patients who underwent DSA for acute spontaneous ICH over a period of 68 months. Patients with known vascular malformation or brain neoplasm, prior surgery, ischemic infarction, subarachnoid hemorrhage or isolated IVH were excluded. Patients were grouped into those with associated IVH (group A) and those without (group B). Baseline demographic and clinical data, non-contrast head CT (NCCT) probability for a vascular lesion and angiographic results were compared. Results 293 patients met the inclusion and exclusion criteria (141 women, 152 men, mean age 57, range 18–88), 139 in group A and 154 in group B. Age and sex distributions were similar (p>0.05). Group A patients were more likely to be hypertensive or coagulopathic (p=0.001). Group B had more patients with high probability NCCT scans (p<0.001). Underlying vascular lesions were found in 21 patients (15.1%) in group A and 34 (22.1%) in group B (p>0.05). Conclusion The presence of IVH in patients with acute spontaneous ICH is not associated with an increased risk of an underlying vascular lesion and should not be used to select patients for neurovascular evaluation.


Rise in air temperature accompanied by snow-melting in early spring may affect fungi colonising litter needles. This study dealt with the diversity of communities of culturable microfungi colonising Scots pine litter at localities still covered by snow and after snowmelt. Surface-sterilised needles were cultivated on malt agar under two temperature regimes (8/9 and 15/16 °C) and outgrowing fungi were isolated into pure cultures and identified based on morphology and analysis of ITS and partial 28S rDNA regions. Thirty-one fungal species were isolated in total. Dominant colonisers with a colonisation frequency of over 10 % included Verticicladium trifidum, Ceuthospora pinastri, Sympodiella acicola and an unidentified member of Helotiales. Two basidiomycetes, Marasmius androsaceus and Mycena galopus, were also isolated relatively frequently from needles with snow cover, but under different temperature regimes. This preference for different temperatures reflects different niches that these species occupy in coniferous litter. Species richness was significantly higher on needles cultivated at lower temperatures. Widespread use of room temperature for cultivation of samples even from cold seasons may underestimate fungal diversity.


Face recognition systems under uncontrolled conditions using surveillance cameras is becom-ing essential for establishing the identity of a person at a distance from the camera and providing safety and security against terrorist, attack, robbery and crime. Therefore, the performance of face recognition in low-resolution degraded images with low quality against im-ages with high quality/and of good resolution/size is considered the most challenging tasks and constitutes focus of this thesis. The work in this thesis is designed to further investigate these issues and the following being our main aim:
"To investigate face identification from a distance and under uncontrolled conditions by pri-marily addressing the problem of low-resolution images using existing/modified mathemati-cally inspired super resolution schemes that are based on the emerging new paradigm of compressive sensing and non-adaptive dictionaries based super resolution."
We shall firstly investigate and develop the compressive sensing (CS) based sparse represen-tation of a sample image to reconstruct a high-resolution image for face recognition, by tak-ing different approaches to constructing CS-compliant dictionaries such as Gaussian Random Matrix and Toeplitz Circular Random Matrix. In particular, our focus is on constructing CS non-adaptive dictionaries (independent of face image information), which contrasts with ex-isting image-learnt dictionaries, but satisfies some form of the Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) which is sufficient to comply with the CS theorem regarding the recovery of sparsely represented images. We shall demonstrate that the CS dictionary techniques for resolution enhancement tasks are able to develop scalable face recognition schemes under uncontrolled conditions and at a distance. Secondly, we shall clarify the comparisons of the strength of sufficient CS property for the various types of dictionaries and demonstrate that the image-learnt dictionary far from satisfies the RIP for compressive sensing. Thirdly, we propose dic-tionaries based on the high frequency coefficients of the training set and investigate the im-pact of using dictionaries on the space of feature vectors of the low-resolution image for face recognition when applied to the wavelet domain. Finally, we test the performance of the de-veloped schemes on CCTV images with unknown model of degradation, and show that these schemes significantly outperform existing techniques developed for such a challenging task. However, the performance is still not comparable to what could be achieved in controlled en-vironment, and hence we shall identify remaining challenges to be investigated in the future.


We present Very Large Array (VLA) 3.5 cm continuum observations of the Serpens cloud core. Twenty-two radio continuum sources are detected. Sixteen out of the 22 centimeter sources are suggested to be associated with young stellar objects (Class 0, Class I, flat spectrum, and Class II) of the young Serpens cluster. The rest of the VLA sources are plausibly background objects. Most of the Serpens centimeter sources likely represent thermal radio jets; on the other hand, the radio continuum emission of some sources could be due to a gyrosynchroton mechanism arising from coronally active young stars. The Serpens VLA sources are spatially distributed into two groups; one of them located toward the northwest clump of the Serpens core, where only Class 0 and Class I protostars are found to present centimeter emission, and a second group located toward the southeast clump, where radio continuum sources are associated with objects in evolutionary classes from Class 0 to Class II. This subgrouping is similar to that found in the near-IR, mid-IR, and millimeter wavelength regimes.


Fossil fuels developed from ancient deposits of organic material, and thus can be thought of as a vast store of solar energy from which society meets >80% of its current energy needs. Here, using published biological, geochemical, and industrial data, I estimate the amount of photosynthetically fixed and stored carbon that was required to form the coal, oil, and gas that we are burning today. Today's average U.S. Gallon (3.8 L) of gasoline required approximately 90 metric tons of ancient plant matter as precursor material. The fossil fuels burned in 1997 were created from organic matter containing 44 × 1018 g C, which is >400 times the net primary productivity (NPP) of the planet's current biota. As stores of ancient solar energy decline, humans are likely to use an increasing share of modern solar resources. I conservatively estimate that replacing the energy humans derive from fossil fuels with energy from modern biomass would require 22% of terrestrial NPP, increasing the human appropriation of this resource by ∼50%.


Cite this article: Ali R, Sajjad N, Qureshi S, Hassan S, Ahmad M, Ganie SA, Hamid R. Evaluation of Antioxidant and Immunomodulatory Potential of Methanolic Extract of Juniperus squamata Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don. Free Radicals and Antioxidants. 2018;8(2):111-9. ABSTRACT Background: Antioxidant plays a vital role in scavenging of free radicals, thus, providing protection against oxidative stress. Now the modern research is directed towards the discovery of herbal antioxidants and immnomodulators due to their lesser side effects. Objective: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the antioxidant and immunomodulatory potential of methanolic extract of Juniperus squamata from the Apharwat region of Gulmarg. Materials and method: The antioxidant activity of methanol extract of Juniperus squamata was evaluated by using 1, 1-diphenyl, 2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging, reducing power, hydroxyl radical scavenging, hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity and lipid peroxidation. Furthermore, the immunomodulatory potential of the extracts was investigated through the Delayed type hypersensitivity and phagocytic carbon clearance assay. Results: The highest phenolic content of 780 GAE/g (Total phenolic content) was observed in the methanolic extract, while the lowest Total phenolic content of 459 mg GAE/g was achieved in the petroleum ether extract. At a concentration of 700 g/mL, DPPH radical scavenging activity was found to be highest in methanolic extract (82.12%). Methanol extract was found to be an efficient scavenger of hydrogen peroxide radical and lipid peroxidation with IC50 values of 161.44 ± 0.08 μg/mL and 78.65 μg/mL respectively. Administration of plant extract (100 and 200 mg/kg body weight) increased the DTH response and phagocytic carbon clearance significantly. Conclusion: The results indicate that the methanolic leaf extract of Juniperus squamata has good antioxidant and immunomodulatory potential.


Repeated poor performance by students with special needs on the Indiana Statewide Test of Educational Progress (ISTEP) in an Indiana middle school supported the need for instructional changes. Following the implementation of a full inclusion program, a problem arose in that the program had not been evaluated and effectiveness was in question. This study, grounded in the constructivist and social reproduction theoretical frameworks, is important in explaining the effectiveness of a fully inclusive school. Whether placing middle school aged children with special needs in inclusive classrooms in the middle school setting is an effective practice is the research question guiding this work. A program evaluation was used to determine effectiveness by examining same student test score data in math and English from 2005 through 2007. The 2007 test scores reflected the first scores following a full year of inclusion. The test score data were compared using repeated-measures ANOVA to study overall performance from year to year. The findings of the project show that inclusion had a significant positive effect on ISTEP scores and is an effective method of instructing children with special needs in the least restrictive environment. The information gained from this work could be used to provide improved learning opportunities for middle school students with special needs in their current setting as well as influence their future learning opportunities through high school and beyond resulting in positive social change. Students with special needs may realize higher graduation rates and academic success while this work could be used to guide the implementation of an inclusion program by examining the methods explained in this paper. Effectiveness of Inclusion in an Indiana Middle School by


Abstract Introduction: A relevant role is now emerging for nutraceuticals and specific functional foods in the treatment of dyslipidemia. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a nutraceutical multi-target approach in subjects with moderate cardiovascular risk and to compare it with red yeast rice (RYR) treatment alone. Materials and Methods: Sixty patients with a first diagnosis of moderate dyslipidemia were included in a 6-week open-label, randomized, parallel-group controlled clinical trial and were treated with a nutraceutical supplement of Red Yeast Rice (RYR) extract containing 10 mg of monacolin k or its combination with 48 mg of an improved form of highly bioavailable resveratrol. The dosage of RYR was selected on the basis of its expected efficacy in reducing low-density lipoprotein- cholesterol also approved by the EFSA panel. All differences were assessed by Student's t test with P values .05 are considered as statistically significant. Statistical analysis was performed by using Excel. Results: Treatment with RYR (10 mg monacolin K) led to a reduction of total cholesterol (20%) and low-density lipoprotein- cholesterol (21%). The combination with resveratrol however, compared to RYR alone significantly reduced triglyceride (-18 %) levels, systolic blood pressure (-2 %) and HOMA index (-17 %). Discussion: These results indicate that the nutraceutical supplementation of RYR associated with resveratrol not only shows lipid-lowering activity but compared to RYR treatment alone significantly also ameliorates other metabolic parameters. Thus, may represent a valid and safe approach, especially in people with moderate cardiovascular risk, in which a pharmacologic intervention may not be appropriate.


A simple and new solid-state molten-salt method to synthesise silver (Ag)-doped titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles for solar light-induced photocatalytic applications is examined. Ag-doped TiO2 nanoparticles with varied Ag content ranging from 3 to 10% were synthesised by a single-step molten-salt synthesis method. The effect of Ag content on the antibacterial and photocatalytic activity of nanoparticles was tested. The prepared nanoparticles were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometry, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) diffusive reflectance spectrometer (UV–vis DRS) and powder X-ray diffraction. The SEM image of nanoparticles clearly showed the presence of agglomerated spherical particles. The EDX analysis of the particles confirmed successful doping of particles in the presence of the Ag in the particles. The doping of Ag in TiO2 produced TiO2 pure anatase phase. According to UV–vis DRS results, increasing Ag-doped content in the Ag-doped TiO2 resulted in a higher visible absorption capability of the materials. Ag doping also improved the antibacterial and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles. The maximum photocatalytic activity under light irradiation was observed for 5% Ag-doped TiO2.


Peyronie's disease is a condition commonly seen in urological practice, but is probably still poorly identified and understood in the wider medical community, and certainly by most of the public. Identifying the condition and appropriately referring affected patients can significantly lessen the physical and psychological effects. The development of a bent erection, usually for no obvious reason, causes real concern to men who develop Peyronie's disease (PD), and there is reluctance to talk about it. François Gigot de La Peyronie first described the condition in 1743, but we still do not understand it fully and it has proven resistant to 'cure'.1 None of our current treatments are able to return the penis to its predisease state, but there is much that treatment can do to improve the patient's situation.


International migration occurs when people of a country cross their national boundaries to reside in the host countries for a certain period of time, for various purposes especially for employment. This will have an enormous economic, social and cultural impact on both their countries of origin and destination. India is the second largest country in the world in sending emigrants and the first in terms of their remittances. Remittance inflows to India from overseas Indians reached US $ 55.0 billion in 2010.With this due importance and contribution to the Indian economy and society, this book focuses on three important aspects of international migration from India.First,it examines the recent trends and patterns of international migration. Second, it highlights the importance and impact of remittances on Indian economy and society. Finally, it critically analyses the policy regime governing international labour migration from India and the problems encountered by migrants.


This piece is intended as an exploratory comment on the militancy emerging in (anti-)globalisation political practice and in the policing of such practice, rather than as a definitive analysis. As someone who attempts to pursue a tradition of the 'organic intellectual' – engaging in the practice of activism as well as the theorising of activist practice – the paper has emerged from my own process of sense-making regarding violence in the '(anti-)globalisation movement(s)'. It flows from xperience of irruptive situations, my perceptions of the contextual causes of violence in these situations, and my thinking around the subversive and transformative potential, or otherwise, of violence in engendering radical post-capitalist social relations. I take as a starting point the recent protests against the EU summit meeting in
Thessaloniki, June 2003, which culminated in substantial violence against property and towards police by antiauthoritarian protesters, and was met by the police with violent attack and the brutalisation of those arrested. I do not assume a moral standpoint regarding the value or otherwise of violence to 'the movements'. Instead I try to consider why violence is increasing as a bio-political tactic in these contexts, 'upfronting' both the normalisation of psychological and physical violence in the everyday circumstances of late-capitalism, and the
depression and anger this engenders. In the interests of strategic debate regarding the usefulness of violence in potentiating post-capitalist social relations, however, I attempt to disentangle the relative (f)utility of acting out, acting upon and denying the experience of anger. My personal stance is to celebrate the transformative potential and energy of the correct attribution of the contextual sources of anger – particularly in shifting between the microcosm of individual circumstances and the macrocosm of structural societal violence within which
these arise – whilst upholding a view that violence as a simple reaction to alienating circumstances is likely to maintain rather than shift their brutalising tendencies. My conclusion is both gloomy and hopeful. On the one hand, given that violence to life is both so systemic to
late capitalist modernity and that 'we' tend to be in such denial regarding its dehumanising psychosocietal effects, I am clear that it is likely that the incidence of violence in protest politics as elsewhere will increase in reaction to this. On the other hand, I celebrate the creative
energy present in global anti-capitalist actions and practice, the emergence of a global peace movement as a political force, and the current radicalisation of people otherwise deemed by some to be politically apathetic.


Thirteen loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta were released (10 from Naples, Italy, 2 from Monastir, Tunisia, 1 from Gallipoli, South Italy) with satellite relay data loggers (SRDL) to elucidate their overwintering behaviour. Nine turtles were successfully tracked throughout the winter, while 4 SRDLs failed to transmit after short deployment periods. Of these 9, 4 remained within 80 km of the release site, 3 travelled to a distant overwintering site, and 2 continued to move and did not remain within 80 km of a specific site. Apart from these differences, all turtles stayed near the coast and ded- icated most of their time to dives lasting 3 h and longer. Maximum dive durations ranged from 270 to 480 min and were highly correlated with water temperatures, which fell below the supposed 15°C threshold for sea turtle hibernation in all overwintering sites. Median dive depths were between 4 and 24 m and were, thus, well within the mixed layer, as revealed by temperature profiles, which also were relayed by the SRDLs. No evidence was found that the turtles preferred warmer temperatures to overwinter in, because the range of temperature was very narrow on both the horizontal and the vertical scale of their movements. Despite the long resting phases and the low temperatures (mini- mum = 11.8°C) all turtles retained activity to some degree, at least to commute between the depth of resting and the surface to breathe. While the degree of winter dormancy is certainly affected by temperature, turtles were by no means obligatory hibernators, and their ability to move and even forage during the winter may be important for their growth and maturation rates, as well as their reproductive output.


ABSTRACT Frasnian (Late Devonian) Atrypida (Brachiopoda) from the Świebodzice Depression in the Sudetes (Silesia, south-western Poland) are revised. Three species are recognised. Kyrtatrypa barnimi n. sp. is the first described Late Frasnian species of the genus and one of the latest representatives of the genus before the atrypide extinction at the Frasnian-Famennian boundary. Pseudogruenewaldtia tschernyschewi Rzhonsnitskaya, 1960 is described for the first time outside the type area of the species, the Timan Mts. It allows to date the entire fauna to the Late Frasnian. Spinatrypa mariaetheresiae n. sp. is similar to coeval S. lambermontensis Mottequin, 2003 and S. rossica Rzhonsnitskaya in Rzhonsnitskaya et al., 1998 in having a high tongue (low in most representatives of the genus) but differs from them in ornamentation density. This species is represented by two morphotypes; an analogous dimorphism was described in some Spinatrypina Rzhonsnitskaya, 1964. A synoptic table of Devonian atrypides from the Sudetes is given. At present, given the lack of conodonts and unclear status of other diagnostic macrofauna, atrypide brachiopods are the best time markers giving a pre-Famennian terminus ante quem for the eo-Variscan collision of Bohemia and Saxothuringia.


BACKGROUND
Randomized trials must be of high methodological quality to yield credible, actionable findings. The main aim of this project was to evaluate whether there has been an improvement in the methodological quality of randomized trials published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association (JAPMA).

METHODS
Randomized trials published in JAPMA during a 15-year period (January 1999 to December 2013) were evaluated. The methodological quality of randomized trials was evaluated using the PEDro scale (scores range from 0 to 10, with 0 being lowest quality). Linear regression was used to assess changes in methodological quality over time.

RESULTS
A total of 1,143 articles were published in JAPMA between January 1999 and December 2013. Of these, 44 articles were reports of randomized trials. Although the number of randomized trials published each year increased, there was only minimal improvement in their methodological quality (mean rate of improvement = 0.01 points per year). The methodological quality of the trials studied was typically moderate, with a mean ± SD PEDro score of 5.1 ± 1.5. Although there were a few high-quality randomized trials published in the journal, most (84.1%) scored between 3 and 6.

CONCLUSIONS
Although there has been an increase in the number of randomized trials published in JAPMA, there is substantial opportunity for improvement in the methodological quality of trials published in the journal. Researchers seeking to publish reports of randomized trials should seek to meet current best-practice standards in the conduct and reporting of their trials.


In real-world applications, Internet or online robots require a high degree of autonomy and local intelligence to deal with the uncertainties in both their environments and the Internet. This paper describes our progress in building a new framework for remote cooperation of multiple online robots, which can be accessed through any Java-enabled browsers. We present an approach to the cooperation of multiple robotic agents remotely through the Internet using a low cost and portable solution. A simulated experiment on multi-robot foraging is discussed. The experiment results show that the proposed approach is easily extended to include more functionality and more robotic agents. The local intelligence and communication of remote robotic agents provides simpler control, stability and steady performance.


The week-long visit of Science 's Richard Stone to North Korea (p. [1696][1]) provides a fascinating new take on this strange land. He was shown allegedly cloned rabbits (interesting if true), just a few months after U.S. nuclear scientist Sig Hecker was handed a glass jar supposedly containing homemade plutonium (frightening if true). All this comes amid frustrating, sporadic six-party talks about North Korean nuclear and missile activities and the collapse of the Framework Agreement of 1994: the deal that supposedly froze their nuclear program in return for fuel oil and reactor construction. More ominously, it now appears that North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment program, and U.S. intelligence estimates that they may have recently reprocessed spent fuel into enough plutonium to make as many as six nuclear bombs.

North Korea has some 22 million people. About a quarter of these receive international food assistance, and refugees risk flight to an unwelcoming China. North Korea also maintains a million-man army, pursues major nuclear and missile programs, and threatens Seoul with entrenched conventional weapons. Yet this troublesome pariah nation reportedly has a scientific and technical community of 1.9 million people—poorly equipped but knowledgeable and congenial, Stone found, and eager to begin scientific exchanges with the United States and Europe. This would be a clear change in policy. During Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to Korea in late 2000, the United States reportedly proposed exchanges (not necessarily scientific), but the idea was rejected by the Koreans.

![Figure][2]

CREDIT: R. STONE/ SCIENCE

There will be different U.S. reactions to this new prospect for engagement. Those who respond to countries that disagree with us by seeking to isolate them will call it a ploy to steal U.S. technology and will reject it outright. Another group will embrace it, hoping to begin constructive discussions with at least some people from this hyper-xenophobic country. A third group will want to use it as leverage to gain concessions; if those are not forthcoming, they will drop the idea. (Although scientific cooperation can often be a diplomatic sweetener, it rarely offers much leverage for securing major concessions.)

Everyone is a prisoner of his personal history. I went through the Cold War as an inveterate engager, as the first U.S. scientific attache in Eastern Europe in the late 1960s, where I interacted with scientists that were more on our side than that of their own governments. Later I helped create the first U.S.-USSR Joint Committee on Science and Technology Cooperation, one element of the Nixon-Brezhnev detente agreed on at their 1972 summit meeting; and I was also involved in the first, mutually cautious science exchanges with the Chinese, ending 22-plus years of no contacts at all. Repressive governments characteristically try to prevent their people from having contacts with Americans, but those contacts are to our advantage because the contagion of freedom and democracy is dangerous for totalitarian societies, not the other way around.

Such an engagement strategy is what Joseph Nye, the dean of Harvard's Kennedy School, calls the use of "soft power." U.S. scientists took political risks in reaching out to Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov and his colleagues in post-McCarthy America, and they generated enough mutual trust to influence the positions of both governments. That eventually led to a series of arms control agreements and helped both countries survive the U.S.-Soviet nuclear standoff in the era of mutual assured destruction. George Kennan, America's most prescient diplomat in the post-World War II period, created the Cold War containment strategy used against the USSR. But he argued for an engagement strategy with the Russian people and later lamented the heavy U.S. emphasis on containment in military terms and the relative neglect of available economic, political, psychological, and cultural tools.

These days, approaches employing soft power to build scientific and cultural bridges are often derided. But soft power may be even more important than before in a multipolar world in which terrorism and rogue states present different challenges to democratic institutions. Scientific and technical cooperation can be an effective instrument for wielding that power. So if the North Koreans are serious, if they want to begin modest scientific exchanges on peaceful uses of science, I would jump at the opportunity—in a cautious and constructive way. The world needs soft power, and more of it. In North Korea and elsewhere, these are the weapons that must ultimately prevail.

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.305.5691.1696a
 [2]: pending:yes


Drought conditions in 2012 were some of the most severe in recent history. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of drought on quality, quantity, and theoretical ethanol yield (TEY) of three bioenergy feedstocks, corn stover, mixed grasses from Conservation Reserve Program lands, and Miscanthus × giganteus. To assess drought effects on these feedstocks, samples from 2010 (minimal to no drought) and 2012 (severe drought) were compared from multiple locations in the US. In all feedstocks, drought significantly increased extractives and reduced structural sugars and lignin; subsequently, TEYs were reduced 10–15%. Biomass yields were significantly reduced for M. × giganteus and mixed grasses. When reduction in quality and quantity were combined, TEYs decreased 26–59%. Drought negatively affected biomass quality and quantity that resulted in significant TEY reductions. Such fluctuations in biomass quality and yield may have significant consequences for developing lignocellulosic biorefineries.


We study the problem of automatically generating features for function approximation in reinforcement learning. We build on the work of Mahadevan and his colleagues, who pioneered the use of spectral clustering methods for basis function construction. Their methods work on top of a graph that captures state adjacency. Instead, we use bisimulation metrics in order to provide state distances for spectral clustering. The advantage of these metrics is that they incorporate reward information in a natural way, in addition to the state transition information. We provide theoretical bounds on the quality of the obtained approximation, which justify the importance of incorporating reward information. We also demonstrate empirically that the approximation quality improves when bisimulation metrics are used instead of the state adjacency graph in the basis function construction process.


The Experimental Radio Service (ERS) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has awarded experimental licenses for more than thirty years as a means to promote research and innovation in wireless technologies. In this work, we present an exploratory analysis of the details pertaining to the assignment of these licenses during the past ten years (2007-2016). For this purpose, we have built a single repository of technical and non-technical details about license applications by scraping publicly available information in the FCC's website. This has permitted us systematically categorize among the existing types of experimental licenses and, subsequently, analyze their characteristics. We pay particular attention to the evolution of various parameters such as duration of license, frequency of assignment, processing times, operational parameters, among others. In addition, we explore potential trends hidden in ten years of experimental licenses. This allow us to better understand the time burden of obtaining an authorization or the factors that may influence the license granting process.We conclude this work by delving into the details behind the relationship between ERS authorizations and well known wireless technologies, in particular TV White Spaces and 5G.


Archival content analysis studies of British and German newspapers and diplomatic documents in 1914 showed an increasingly asymmetrical pattern of perceived intentions. Levels of power motive imagery in reports or paraphrases of statements by the `other' side were accentuated, while levels in reports or paraphrases of statements by one's own (favored) side were diminished. As a result, the overall sense of threat was increased. In contrast, an archival study of US and Soviet newspapers during the peacefully resolved 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis showed no such pattern of asymmetrical accentuation-diminution. These results confirm a pattern of perceived intentions previously found in other escalating conflict situations, and are consistent with many related social psychological phenomena and experimental results. These findings suggest that comparing mutual perceptions of power imagery is a precise, operational way to measure `threatening' intentions and thus an important mechanism of conflict escalation.


Different from cryptography which encodes data into an incomprehensible format difficult to decrypt, steganography hides the trace of data and therefore minimizes attention to the hidden data. To hide data, a carrier body must be utilized. In addition to the traditional data carriers including images, audios, and videos, DNA emerges as another promising data carrier due to its high capacity and complexity. Currently, DNA based steganography can be practiced with either biological DNA substances or digital DNA sequences. In this article, we present a digital DNA steganography approach that utilizes the CRISPR-Cas9 off-target editing such that the secret message is fragmented into multiple sgRNA homologous sequences in the genome. Retrieval of the hidden message mimics the Cas9 off-target detection process which can be accelerated by computer software. The feasibility of this approach is analyzed, and practical concerns are discussed.


'Gain-field-like' tuning behavior is characterized by a modulation of the neuronal response depending on a certain variable, without changing the actual receptive field characteristics in relation to another variable. Eye position gain fields were first observed in area 7a of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), where visually responsive neurons are modulated by
ocular position. Analysis of artificial neural networks has shown that this type of tuning
function might comprise the neuronal substrate for coordinate transformations.
In this work, neuronal activity in the dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd) has
been analyzed with an focus on it's involvement in oculomotor control. MSTd is part of
the extrastriate visual cortex and located in the PPC. Lesion studies suggested a participation
of this cortical area in the control of eye movements. Inactivation of MSTd severely
impairs the optokinetic response (OKR), which is an reflex-like kind of eye movement that
compensates for motion of the whole visual scene.
Using a novel, information-theory based approach for neuronal data analysis, we were able
to identify those visual and eye movement related signals which were most correlated to the mean rate of spiking activity in MSTd neurons during optokinetic stimulation. In a majority of neurons firing rate was non-linearly related to a combination of retinal image velocity and eye velocity. The observed neuronal latency relative to these signals is in line with a system-level model of OKR, where an efference copy of the motor command signal is used to generate an internal estimate of the head-centered stimulus velocity signal. Tuning functions were obtained by using a probabilistic approach. In most MSTd neurons these functions exhibited gain-field-like shapes, with eye velocity modulating the visual
response in a multiplicative manner. Population analysis revealed a large diversity of
tuning forms including asymmetric and non-separable functions. The distribution of gain
fields was almost identical to the predictions from a neural network model trained to perform
the summation of image and eye velocity. These findings therefore strongly support the hypothesis of MSTd's participation in the OKR control system by implementing the transformation from retinal image velocity to an estimate of stimulus velocity. In this sense, eye velocity gain fields constitute an intermediate step in transforming the eye-centered to a head-centered visual motion signal.Another aspect that was addressed in this work was the comparison of the irregularity of MSTd spiking activity during optokinetic response with the behavior during pure visual stimulation. The goal of this study was an evaluation of potential neuronal mechanisms
underlying the observed gain field behavior. We found that both inter- and intra-trial
variability were decreased with increasing retinal image velocity, but increased with eye
velocity. This observation argues against a symmetrical integration of driving and modulating
inputs. Instead, we propose an architecture where multiplicative gain modulation is achieved by simultaneous increase of excitatory and inhibitory background synaptic input. A conductance-based single-compartment model neuron was able to reproduce realistic gain modulation and the observed stimulus-dependence of neural variability, at the same time.
In summary, this work leads to improved knowledge about MSTd's role in visuomotor transformation by analyzing various functional and mechanistic aspects of eye velocity gain fields on a systems-, network-, and neuronal level.


Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) has emerged as a major economic crop feeding the world today. This article aims to capture the more recent progress made by the oil palm industry and to discuss the possible path research and development will take in the coming years. In 2017, palm oil and palm kernel oil production recorded close to one-third (75.17 million tonnes) of world total oils and fats production from a planted area of 19.04 million hectares, mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia. Malaysian palm oil alone fetched RM 46.12 billion export revenue from its India and European Union markets. The continuous growth of the industry is made possible through implementation of key strategies covering the whole process chain, from upstream to downstream. Intensified mechanisation, integrated pest and Ganoderma management, advanced breeding and biotechnology as well as good agricultural practices help boost oil palm yields for both plantations and smallholdings. In the palm oil milling sector, focus such as by-products valorisation, biogas (productivity, trapping and utilisation as a form of energy) and wastewater management, i.e. palm oil mill effluent for final discharge compliance ensures that the industry meets its sustainable goals. Palm oil is generally used for edible purpose, however about 20% goes into higher value non-food applications such as palm biodiesel. The beneficial nutritional aspects of palm oil are evident based on its positional distribution and fatty acids composition, while its quality enhanced via technology integration/mitigation and analytical elucidations. Facing strong competition from petrochemicals, palm-based oleochemicals are strategically aimed at producing value-added products for niche and new markets. It is apparent that synergising conventional and disruptive technologies at every level of the palm oil supply chain is desirable and essential to thrust the industry forward. As a commodity, palm oil has not only emerged as an important food source, but has proven to be effectively utilised for feed, fuels and chemicals, to name a few, in developing a sustainable and balanced circular economy.


Much recent progress in applications of machine learning models to NLP has been driven by benchmarks that evaluate models across a wide variety of tasks. However, these broad-coverage benchmarks have been mostly limited to English, and despite an increasing interest in multilingual models, a benchmark that enables the comprehensive evaluation of such methods on a diverse range of languages and tasks is still missing. To this end, we introduce the Cross-lingual TRansfer Evaluation of Multilingual Encoders XTREME benchmark, a multi-task benchmark for evaluating the cross-lingual generalization capabilities of multilingual representations across 40 languages and 9 tasks. We demonstrate that while models tested on English reach human performance on many tasks, there is still a sizable gap in the performance of cross-lingually transferred models, particularly on syntactic and sentence retrieval tasks. There is also a wide spread of results across languages. We release the benchmark to encourage research on cross-lingual learning methods that transfer linguistic knowledge across a diverse and representative set of languages and tasks.


In order not to cannibalize the sale of software, software firms often place restrictive interventions on the usage of the free trial software (FTS). The two most commonly adopted approaches are time and functionality restrictions. Building on psychological reactance theory and expectationdisconfirmation theory, this study seeks to investigate the influence of time and functionality restrictions on users' attitudinal and behavioral responses when the restrictions are either more adverse or favorable than initially expected. Our survey results indicate that when a user perceives the restrictions to be less (more) adverse than anticipated, he/she is more likely to formulate higher (lower) expected value of the FTS and attitude toward the software firm, which in turn positively (negatively) influence perceived effort devoted to the trial process. Concerning behavioral responses to time restriction, we observe that users are less likely to devote and perceive higher effort toward using the FTS when they are given shorter evaluation time. In addition, the influence of time restriction on perceived effort is positively moderated by the accessibility of one's perceived resources. We also establish that perceived effort positively affects the switching cost of a user to switch from a current FTS to other software.


This article explores a recent trend in evangelical revivalism known as 'citywide prayer,' a movement organized around prayer networks and public rituals that highlight religious concerns deemed specific to cities and metropolitan regions. Building on research that includes ethnographic fieldwork in Knoxville, Tennessee, and focusing on the discourse and practical strategies of citywide prayer, the article argues that advocates of this movement promote a style of evangelical urbanism in which prayer serves as a key medium for reimagining one's sense of place, against the disorientation and alienation associated with urban life. Moreover, prayer is presented as a medium for marking time in non-secular terms, as is demonstrated in the use of technologies of religious discipline such as annotated prayer calendars, which invite participants to inhabit multiple coexisting temporalities. It is further suggested that when enacted this evangelical urbanism constitutes a form of urban praxis, enabling projects of emplacement that respond to larger forces that are seen otherwise to limit grassroots agency. Among the wider implications of this discussion is the observation that evangelical revivals, despite their well-known emphasis on individual salvation and millennialist fervor, are oriented toward and engaged with situated social realities of the 'here and now,' including the rhythms of daily life in modern cities.


The presented case features a rare manifestation of pulmonary tuberculosis in a previously healthy young woman who had acute presentation of tuberculous pneumonia complicated by acute respiratory distress syndrome. In developing countries, mycobacterium tuberculosis is an important cause of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). TB can present as an acute process and should be included in the differential diagnosis of CAP. This case is special in its manifestation from several clinical perspectives, including the lack of an underlying medical condition or immune defect and the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in non-miliary and non-disseminated tuberculosis. In conclusion, the diagnosis of TB should be considered in all patients who present with CAP in endemic regions.


This is the title my friend Fred Neidhardt recently used for a talk, and a good question it is. I suppose that most microbiologists and the readers of this blog would split the answer down the middle, the biomass of this planet and the chemical transactions therein being about half microbial, half everything else. However, it's safe to say that most people, many scientists included, are unaware of the colossal importance of the microbial half, not only in biology and medicine but in geology, meteorology, and in our Earth's habitability. This state of affairs should not be unexpected, given that we have only became aware of much of this during the last few decades. I lived roughly the first half of my life carrying only a vague notion of the global importance of the microbial world. But now we know, and the word needs to go out. A measure of microbial literacy is required for anyone to understand the workings of our living planet.


It hardly seems possible that a year has passed since I sat down to write my first editorial as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Proceedings B, replacing Michael Hassell. The first year has been challenging, as I have learned how to address numerous issues that required expeditious but sound decision-making. The academic publishing world is evolving rapidly and at Proceedings B we strive to keep pace with the changes around us and understand how they might influence our core mission as the flagship biological research journal of the Royal Society. These efforts are well rewarded and truly a privilege because of the endless stream of high-quality submissions encompassing an enormous breadth of subject material. Research in organismal biology has diversified greatly over the past decade and the wide range of articles that we now publish is one of the most impressive features of our journal.

I am pleased to report that the journal has gone from strength to strength during 2015. The time to first decision has dropped considerably over the course of the year, and the mean time to first decision over the last six months was just 31.5 days. This reinforces Proceedings B's well-deserved reputation for undertaking rapid and efficient peer review while maintaining high editorial standards. In addition, the number of days from receipt to final acceptance has dropped throughout the year and the mean time to final acceptance over the last six months was just 71 days. This is particularly striking given the very large number of new submissions that we receive, which is on track to be around 3000 for 2015. Citation metrics for Proceedings B remain strong and the journal currently has an impact factor of 5.05 (placing it 8th in the Journal Citation Reports category for Biology), an h-index of 171 and a Source Normalized Impact per Paper value of 1.50.

Over the past year, there have been a number of changes at Proceedings B, and we believe these improvements will further increase the attractiveness of the journal to our authors and readers. One important change implemented early in the year, after considerable consultation among the editors, involved rewording the Aims and Scope of the journal on our website. This change reflects, in part, our concern about the submission of articles that were too specialized and focused on single organismal groups, particularly humans. While we still encourage submissions concerned with novel investigations of our species, articles focusing exclusively on humans will only be considered where they have clear relevance to fundamental biological principles and processes, or to other groups of organisms. I hope that the updated Aims and Scope will provide authors with greater clarity regarding the scientific remit of the journal, and the requirements for publication. Proceedings B remains a biology journal, and the new wording reinforces our policy to publish articles that are broadly relevant across all areas of biology.

Another significant development at Proceedings B was the initiation of a trial integration with Publons—a web-based platform allowing reviewers to voluntarily obtain credit for reviews undertaken across different journals. By integrating the journal with Publons, we have enabled reviewers to add verified reviews to their profiles more efficiently and therefore receive credit quickly and easily. This has been implemented in response to increasing concerns about 'reviewer fatigue' and a growing demand for increased reviewer recognition, including an acknowledgement of the ongoing contributions that reviewers make to scientific journals. I hope that our reviewers will consider taking full advantage of this integration and use it to receive appropriate credit for providing this crucial service to the scientific community.

As in previous years, the journal continued with the tradition of publishing review articles of general interest to our readers on topical and often controversial fields. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage potential authors who wish to write interesting, broad reviews to submit proposals to the Reviews Editor, Per Lundberg, via the Editorial office (gro.yteicoslayor@bsgnideecorp). Reviews in Proceedings B must be synthetic in nature and provide new perspectives on a particular field, rather than simply providing summaries of a specific topic. We particularly encourage reviews that provide novel analyses of existing published data. Several stimulating reviews were published in 2015 including the annual Darwin Review, which this year involved an extended evolutionary synthesis by Kevin Laland et al. [1], and the CSEE (Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution) Review for 2015 [2] in which CSEE past president Jeffrey Hutchings discussed thresholds for impaired species recovery in conservation biology.

The 2015 Proceedings B Special Feature published at the end of the year was on Evolution and genetics in medicine, guest edited by Roy Anderson and Brian Spratt. It featured six articles on this emerging and fascinating topic. The Special Feature rounds off a year of celebrations at the Royal Society marking the 350th year since the launch of Philosophical Transactions, which was the first scientific journal in existence and one of the earliest to undertake formal peer review. Another exciting initiative during 2015 was the inaugural Royal Society Publishing photography competition run jointly between Proceedings B and Biology Letters. The competition was a great success receiving over 1000 entries across three categories: Behaviour, Ecology and Environmental Science, and Evolutionary Biology. The winners were announced in November and their images showcased at an event at the Royal Society in London.

In August, I was invited to participate in the workshop 'Meet the Editors' at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology conference at Lausanne, Switzerland along with editors of other mainstream journals, including Nature, Science, PLoS Biology, Molecular Ecology and Journal of Evolutionary Biology. This event proved to be a very interesting and rewarding experience, with a broad range of topics being discussed based on questions from an audience of several hundred attendees. Of particular note were discussions concerning author appeals of rejections and their drain on editors' time, the pros and cons of double blind reviews, the problems and potential solutions for reviewer fatigue, and ways to ensure balanced gender representation on the Editorial Boards of journals. On this latter issue, I have been working with journal staff at Proceedings B to ensure that our editorial board is more representative of our community of scientists. The journal's board for 2016 includes 28% women—which is higher than in previous years—and a key priority over the next few years will be to increase this proportion.

Perusal of the long list on our website of over 100 members of the Editorial Board of Proceedings B never fails to impress me. These dedicated individuals from all over the world form the intellectual backbone of our journal and represent an impressive range of disciplines, experience and academic expertise. Proceedings B could not provide the high-quality and rapid peer review expected by our authors without their support. I therefore take this opportunity to thank all members of the Editorial Board for their hard work on the journal's behalf, particularly those whose terms have recently ended and have now retired from the journal. Similarly, I would like to welcome all the new Associate Editors to the board—we have recruited 15 new Associate Editors over the past few months—and I am looking forward to working with you all over the next few years. I am also pleased to welcome back one of our previous Associate Editors, Loeske Kruuk, who specializes in evolutionary ecology and quantitative genetics, and has recently moved from Edinburgh University to the Australian National University. We are delighted that Loeske has agreed to return to the journal to increase our team of senior editors to seven and her return will strengthen our expertise in the genetics and ecology of wild populations.

In closing, I would like to thank all the hard working Editorial Office staff in the London office—Jennifer Kren, Matthew Allinson and Buchi Okereafor—who ensure that the processing and distribution of hundreds of manuscripts each month goes smoothly, and that authors, reviewers and editors receive information in a timely and courteous manner. I am particularly grateful to Rhiannon Meaden, Publishing Editor of Proceedings B, for taking a leadership role in the day-to-day running of the journal over the past year. Rhiannon has been an invaluable source of advice in helping me through my first year and has willingly provided data and information that have helped me to make the numerous decisions that are required as Editor-in-Chief. Given that 2015 was also her first year in the job this has been especially impressive.

I am confident that 2016 will be another outstanding year for Proceedings B, and I would be happy to hear from our readership concerning any issues that might improve the services that we provide and particularly the quality of our journal.


Controllers based on neuromuscular models hold the promise of energy-efficient and human-like walkers. However, most of them rely on optimizations or cumbersome hand-tuning to find controller parameters which, in turn, are usually working for a specific gait or forward speed only. Consequently, designing neuromuscular controllers for a large variety of gaits is usually challenging and highly sensitive. In this contribution, we propose a neuromuscular controller combining reflexes and a central pattern generator able to generate gaits across a large range of speeds, within a single optimization. Applying this controller to the model of COMAN, a 95 cm tall humanoid robot, we were able to get energy-efficient gaits ranging from 0.4 m/s to 0.9 m/s. This covers normal human walking speeds once scaled to the robot height. In the proposed controller, the robot speed could be continuously commanded within this range by changing three high-level parameters as linear functions of the target speed. This allowed large speed transitions with no additional tuning. By combining reflexes and a central pattern generator, this approach can also predict when the next strike will occur and modulate the step length to step over a hole.


Coral survival in a time of climate change will depend largely on the ability to tolerate, acclimatise and adapt to changes in their natural environment. High-latitude intertidal corals along the east coast of South Africa withstand extreme temperature fluctuations, and endure highly marginal conditions for coral survival and growth. Intertidal corals have largely been ignored throughout years of coral research, yet they provide scope for understanding adaptation and acclimatisation in marginal conditions. With focus on two scleractinian species occurring in rock pools, Pocillopora verrucosa and Anomastrea irregularis, the aim was to compare population size distributions and physiological responses (zooxanthellae density, chlorophyll a and lipid content) to season and latitude. Heterotrophy as a coping mechanism was also investigated. Five sites along the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) coastline were sampled to determine latitudinal differences, from Sodwana Bay (27°S) to Munster (31°S), the southernmost point of coral distribution in this study. Rock pools experience large temperature fluctuations over short time periods, emphasising the acute thermal stress endured by corals. At spring tide temperatures can fluctuate by more than 10°C over one tidal cycle. Temperatures in rock pools along the coast are a function of rock pool size and depth rather than latitude, with short-term fluctuations not seeming harmful to corals. Coral population structure provides insight into the life history, juvenile input and mortality of these intertidal corals. High variability in size distributions between sites suggests that different disturbances are acting on intertidal coral populations and localised conditions are likely structuring these communities, nevertheless, populations see relatively stable and likely to persist in these habitats. Zooxanthellae density and lipid content decreased from summer to spring in P. verrucosa, whereas A. irregularis showed minimal seasonal patterns. Chlorophyll a was highest in winter in both species, possibly in response to low temperatures and light. Differences in δC and δN between coral tissue and zooxanthellae suggest that heterotrophy contributes more to the metabolism of A. irregularis than P. verrucosa. Isotope signatures also reveal that corals at Sodwana Bay are either feeding less or comprise a different diet to those at other sites. Lipid utilisation and heterotrophy may comprise important energy sources in coping with marginal


This book focuses on the artistic process, creativity and collaboration, and personal approaches to creation and ideation in making digital and electronic technology-based art. Less interested in the outcome itself—the artefact, artwork or performance—contributors instead highlight the emotional, intellectual, intuitive, instinctive and step-by-step creation dimensions. They aim to shine a light on digital and electronic art practice, involving coding, electronic gadgetry and technology mixed with other forms of more established media, to uncover the practice-as-research processes required, as well as the collaborative aspects of art and technology practice.


This paper provides weak conditions under which there is nonparametric interval identification of local features of a structural function which depends on a discrete endogenous variable and is nonseparable in a latent variate. The function may deliver values of a discrete or continuous outcome and instruments may be discrete valued. Application of the analog principle leads to quantile regression based interval estimators of values and partial differences of structural functions. The results are used to investigate the nonparametric identifying power of the quarter of birth instruments used by Angrist and Krueger (1991) in their study of the returns to schooling.


The changes in United States antitrust laws effected by the Export Trading Company Act of 1982 have received the greatest public attention, probably because of the highly unusual procedure for antitrust immunity certification and the changes in United States antitrust jurisdiction. Given the history of banking law in the U.S, however, the bank investment provisions may prove to be revolutionary. This article will address exclusively the changes in the U.S. banking laws under the Act [The Export Trade Company Act of 1982] and the relevance these changes have on the banking business. BANKS AND THE EXPORT TRADING COMPANY ACT OF 1982


Researched for more than three decades, this definitive work provides up-to-date descriptions of all the true conifers of the world, including 545 species of trees and shrubs. Written for accessibility to both horticultural and botanical audiences, it is the first comprehensive update of conifer taxonomy in nearly a century. Noted conifer taxonomist James E. Eckenwalder also discusses the relationships among the groups, practical usages, champion trees, fossil occurrences, and biology. New identification guides for the families and genera are based whenever possible on foliage features and thus should be easier to use than traditional conifer keys, which focus on seasonal, and often microscopic, cone characters. Eckenwalder shares the reasoning behind his taxonomic decisions, many of which are unique to this book, reflecting a comprehensive reevaluation of conifer classification. He also outlines the features sought in cultivars of each genus, particular cultivation concerns, and conifers recommended for cultivation under various conditions and to achieve different effects. Some 3,000 cultivars have been available in recent times, more than five times the total number of conifer species. Several hundred original illustrations include drawings of the seed cones for all genera as well as for representative species. Maps of the natural distribution of each genus allow for easy comparison of ranges. Handsome black-and-white photographs of species in their natural habitats and attractive color photos further enrich the volume. More than 100 images reproduce foliage of many genera as an aid in identification. With its unprecedented attention to detail and extensive bibliography, this major work is an essential reference for botanists, naturalists, and horticulturists.


A magnetic divertor incorporated into a central solenoid of GDT is considered as an alternative MHD stabilizer for axisymmetric high-β plasma. The divertor magnetic field structure can be produced by addition of several new coils to the present coil system in the region occupied by a hot-ion population. The important constraints on the divertor magnetic field are discussed. It must naturally fit into the GDT magnetic field and neutral beam geometry, should be adjustable to the plasma and allow for easy recovery of the standard operational regimes.


The aims of this study were to analyse the effect of two feedback types as strategies in training ski teachers and to verify their effectiveness in the students' learning. Thirty ski teachers participated in the study (average age=32.0±5.4 years; average experience in ski teaching=10.0±3 years). The teachers were divided into two experimental groups (group I: verbal feedback; group II: visual and verbal feedback) and one control group. Fifteen teaching trials were performed by each teacher, and a subsequent instructional supervision meeting was carried out in order to analyse quality of feedbacks delivered during the trial. A total of 180 high school students participated in the study as ski learners. During the instructional supervision meeting, the teachers were guided towards a previously established theoretical model of feedback used as the evaluation criterion. The ARIMA analysis of the time series showed changes in baseline teacher behaviour (group II came closer to the model established and concentrated better than group I; both experimental groups were better than the control group). The results of the analysis of variance for the comparison of students' learning were also in the same direction: the students of group II teachers obtained better results than their peers of group I, and both experimental group's students were better than those pertaining to the control group. We recommend using the criteria of the feedback model in order to achieve better quality of teacher training in skiing.


Cash payments in the form of direct payments have become an essential tool in the distribution and provision of social care support. This development has been hailed to represent 'a potentially revolutionary challenge to [the] unequal relationship between providers and receivers of care' (Glasby & Littlechild 2002: 137), which has shifted the position of social care recipients from 'service users' to commissioners, developers and managers of their own support and created the role of personal assistant. This thesis explores this challenge through the experiences of newly created 'employers' with learning difficulties and their personal assistants, within the discourses of independence, choice, control and empowerment which stand as central principles within the personalisation agenda (DH 2007a; DH 2007b). The personalisation agenda is argued to be situated within the at once competing and complementary analysis of the Independent Living Movement and New Labour's analysis of the 'new global realities' (Cerny & Evans 2004), which requires a re-negotiation between the citizen and the state. These direct employment relationships represent one of the critical points at which our relationship with the state is in the process of flux. It is this, our relationship with the state in social care, heralding new forms of responsibilised citizenship in the form of citizen-consumers (Clarke et al 2007) and citizen entrepreneurs (Scourfield 2007), in combination with the changing social relations of support in the form of personal assistants, that is of interest. Drawing on disability studies and feminist analysis situated within the political economy, this thesis explores, with equal interest, the experiences of employers and personal assistants. Whilst it is clear from this project and others (Gramlich et al 2002; Stainton & Boyce 2004; Prideaux et al 2009) that directly employing personal assistance offers the opportunity to create a personalised support arrangement, however questions emerged around the equality of that opportunity and implications for a workforce which has historically remained low status, low paid and unsupported (Ungerson 1997a). These questions brought into perspective how 'empowerment' is experienced and encouraged an analysis in which support relationships are characterised as much by 'interdependence' as 'independence', questioning the extent to which the 'commodification' (Ungerson 1997b) of support represented the value, or lever of empowerment. Rather, it was the personal and in-formalised aspects of these relationships that offered value and which returns us to a recognition of the social in the personal.


The process of management, the organization of the social help process and its coordination in social educational institutions is a rather complicated and tiring activity. If a social pedagogue does not plan and regulate his/her activity, he/she may experience a lot of difficulties. This topic is relevant because all the activity of a social pedagogue is full of management as he/she constantly plans, organizes, controls, and supervises the process of students' social education. Due to the fact that the managerial activity of a social pedagogue has not been directly investigated, the author of this final paper is trying to answer the following question: what kind of a social activity does a social worker perform? How often does a social pedagogue perform it while fulfilling his/her functions? The object of the research: the managerial activity of a social pedagogue. The aim: to reveal the managerial activity of a social worker and find out how often he/she performs it. The objectives of the research: to show the theoretical and judicial aspects of a social pedagogue's activity; to justify the managerial activity of a social pedagogue; to theoretically substantiate the managerial activity of a social pedagogue. The methods of the research: collecting the data: the analysis of the scientific literature; a questionnaire using a semi-structural form. The analysis of the data: the statistical and qualitative analysis of the content. The results of the research. The performed research on social pedagogue's managerial activity showed, that social pedagogues often in their work do, plan, organize, lead, control social education process and their own activity, but due to the lack of theoretical knowledge, they do not treat it as managerial. In their work there are some limitations because social pedagogues distribute their time irrationally, do not perform their functions, though during the quantitative research social pedagogues pointed out that they would like to rate the strengths and weaknesses of their activity. However, the answers to open questions revealed that while making SWOT analysis, they did not distinguish the strengths of their work from the point of ergonomic work conditions. This showed that they lack managerial competence.


Domestication has had a strong impact on the development of modern societies. We sequenced 200 genomes of the chocolate plant Theobroma cacao L. to show for the first time that a single population underwent strong domestication approximately 3,600 years (95% CI: 2481 – 10,903 years ago) ago, the Criollo population. We also show that during the process of domestication, there was strong selection for genes involved in the metabolism of the colored protectants anthocyanins and the stimulant theobromine, as well as disease resistance genes. Our analyses show that domesticated populations of T. cacao (Criollo) maintain a higher proportion of high frequency deleterious mutations. We also show for the first time the negative consequences the increase accumulation of deleterious mutations during domestication on the fitness of individuals (significant negative correlation between Criollo ancestry and Kg of beans per hectare per year, P = 0.000425).


AIM To study changes induced in ocular surface epithelia and the tear film by antiglaucomatous eyedrops. A β blocker (0.5% timolol) and a novel prostaglandin F2α metabolite related drug (0.12% unoprostone) were examined in a prospective, randomised fashion. METHODS 40 patients were randomly assigned to use either 0.5% timolol (timolol group) or 0.12% unoprostone eyedrops (unoprostone group) twice a day for 24 weeks. In addition to routine ocular examinations, corneal epithelial integrity (vital staining tests, tear film break up time (BUT), anterior fluorometry, specular microscopy) and tear function (Schirmer's test, cotton thread test, tear clearance test (TCT)) were examined before and after the treatment. RESULTS Both eyedrops caused significant reduction in intraocular pressure from the baseline levels. No significant changes were noted in corneal integrity in both groups, except a decrease in BUT at 20 weeks in the timolol group. The timolol group demonstrated significant decreases in Schirmer's test, tear clearance test, and tear function index (Schirmer's test value multiplied by clearance test); however, no such changes were noted in the unoprostone group. CONCLUSION While unoprostone eyedrops caused no adverse effects on the corneal epithelial integrity and tear function, timolol caused significant impairments in tear production and turnover.


Abstract. Spatial quality assessment is based on the conformance of data to its specifications or fitness for users' purpose. These specifications and the users' purposes include the rules and constraints that a dataset should comply with. Assessing the compliance of data to the rules is still an active research subject and rule-based approach is the common method. For the efficient rule-based system implementation, it is desired to automate assessment process with a domain-independent and web-based approach. Reasoning capability and re-usability of semantic web components are expected to promote efficient implementation. In literature, many domains such as agriculture, music, Linked Data and geospatial domain etc. apply ontology-based methods for quality management. There is a need to model geospatial quality concepts and rules in a domain-independent way to automate the quality management process. In our model of rule formalism, we use Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). We devise two types of ontologies. These are; the specification ontologies (SfO) and the Spatial Data Quality Ontology (SDQO). SfO is to be created by domain experts/users to define rules according to specifications. SDQO is responsible with quality assessment; it is domain independent and makes assessment based on the rules defined by any SfO for the related domain. The quality elements are domain and toposemantic consistency that assessed by SWRL. In this paper, the design considerations of the ontologies for quality assessment are explained with an example.


Radiation feedback is typically implemented using subgrid recipes in hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies. Very little work has so far been performed using radiation-hydrodynamics (RHD), and there is no consensus on the importance of radiation feedback in galaxy evolution. We present RHD simulations of isolated galaxy discs of different masses with a resolution of 18 pc. Besides accounting for supernova feedback, our simulations are the first galaxy-scale simulations to include RHD treatments of photoionization heating and radiation pressure, from both direct optical/UV radiation and multiscattered, re-processed infrared (IR) radiation. Photoheating smooths and thickens the discs and suppresses star formation about as much as the inclusion of ('thermal dump') supernova feedback does. These effects decrease with galaxy mass and are mainly due to the prevention of the formation of dense clouds, as opposed to their destruction. Radiation pressure, whether from direct or IR radiation, has little effect, but for the IR radiation we show that its impact is limited by our inability to resolve the high optical depths for which multiscattering becomes important. While artificially boosting the IR optical depths does reduce the star formation, it does so by smoothing the gas rather than by generating stronger outflows. We conclude that although higher resolution simulations, and potentially also different supernova implementations, are needed for confirmation, our findings suggest that radiation feedback is more gentle and less effective than is often assumed in subgrid prescriptions.