Diglossia is one distinctive feature of Arabic and other languages, such as Swiss-German (Ferguson 1959). Neurocognitive studies aiming to understand the neural mechanisms of diglossia in general, and Arabic diglossia in particular, are sparse. This paper provides a framework for discussing neurophysiological approaches to questions concerning the representation and processing of languages exhibiting diglossia in the brains of native speakers, as well as understanding the potential contribution of such approaches for applied linguistics and teaching Arabic as a first or second language. The first section introduces electroencephalography (EEG), and some event-related potentials (ERPs) known to correlate with aspects of language processing. The second section reviews neurophysiological studies of language representation and processing in Arabic diglossia to date. Finally, we discuss some potential contributions of neurophysiological studies to the fields of Arabic linguistics, applied linguistics and teaching Arabic. The review points to separateness of the two lexicons in Arabic diglossia and highlights the need for further neurophysoplogiocal and behavioral studies to revisit the suggested model of mental representation in diglossia.


Western environmental law rests on an outdated philosophy that only fully "natural" places, species, and ecosystems should receive full protection, while human influenced places, species, and ecosystems are lesser habitats not worthy of full-throated protection. As we move into the Anthropocene—a dawning geologic age marked by the emergence of humanity as the dominant force shaping the natural world—this simplistic view loses its power to guide our decisionmaking. In a world where more than 75% of ice free land shows evidence of human alteration, if anthropogenic species, places, or ecosystems are not worth protecting, then there simply is not enough left to protect.
This Article examines management of nonnative species to illustrate the problems with using the false dichotomy between nature and humanity to determine what is environmentally good or environmentally bad. Nonnative species in North America cause more than $120 billion per year in damages. But the broad narrative of evil invasive species obfuscates something important—many nonnative species offer important cultural, economic, and environmental benefits that outweigh their negative impacts. The existing legal literature virtually ignores these species and the moral and legal questions they raise.
In light of the Anthropocene and the philosophical and regulatory readjustment it requires, we should not vilify all nonnative species, but rather evaluate them on their own merits. This Article provides case studies of several guest species, a neologism I use to describe the nonnative species that we welcome into our ecosystems. Guest species meet human needs and wants and offer environmental benefits, but our environmental laws and administrative decisions fail to honestly address the costs and benefits of welcoming these species. I conclude that we must, in limited cases, welcome guest as valuable ecosystem components worthy of protection. Guest species provide an example of the hard decisions and novel approaches involved in managing our new nature.


Background & Objective: Health care systems in different countries are organized to provide services, including prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of people, and they are influenced by political, economic, and cultural factors. Health and safety are the basic rights of each and every individual in society. This study aimed to assess the satisfaction level of individuals referring to the rural health centers in Darab County in the Fars Province. Materials & Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical study. The collective data tool was a self-made questionnaire with two parts. The first part comprised demographic characteristics, and the second part contained 20 items for the assessment of satisfaction with family doctor functions from different aspects. Multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to determine samples. Data were analyzed using SPSS software, and inferential statistical analysis was performed. Results: In this study, 100 cases were investigated. The majority of the study population were women, married, and aged between 30 and 39 years [mean= 30.42/9 (5.3) years]. Overall satisfaction averages were 9.47% very high, 20.04% high, 33.09% moderate, 15.12% low, and 22.28% very low. In all the items, the majority of the participants did not report a high level of satisfaction. Conclusion: Allocating more resources and equipment, providing educational programs to improve physician and staff skills, holding training courses in villages to raise awareness about the goals of the family doctor, and careful monitoring of the quality of services provided by physicians will enhance the satisfaction level of people with this nationally important program.


The human mind is built for approximations. When considering the value of a large aggregate of different items, for example, we typically do not summate the many individual values. Instead, we appear to form an immediate impression of the likeability of the option based on the average quality of the full collection, which is easier to evaluate and remember. While useful in many situations, this affect heuristic can lead to apparently irrational decision-making. For example, studies have shown that people are willing to pay more for a small set of high-quality goods than for the same set of high-quality goods with lower-quality items added [e.g. 1]. We explored whether this kind of choice behavior could be seen in other primates. In two experiments, one in the laboratory and one in the field, using two different sets of food items, we found that rhesus monkeys preferred a highly-valued food item alone to the identical item paired with a food of positive but lower value. This finding provides experimental evidence that, under certain conditions, macaque monkeys follow an affect heuristic that can cause them to prefer less food. Conservation of this affect heuristic could account for similar 'irrational' biases in humans, and may reflect a more general complexity reduction strategy in which averages, prototypes, or stereotypes represent a set or group.


Thanks to advances in imaging techniques and scientifi c inquiry, we now know much more about learning disabilities (LD), dyslexia, and the role of vision problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Council on Children with Disabilities, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology published a joint statement that summarizes what is currently known about visual problems and dyslexia. The statement also covers what treatments are and are not recommended when diagnosing and treating vision problems, learning disabilities, and dyslexia. The eyes play an important role in sending visual signals to the brain, and a lot of information presented at school is presented visually. For these reasons, it's important to make sure your child is able to see well and correctly. Schools oft en do vision screenings at the beginning of the year, and your pediatrician's offi ce can refer you to an ophthalmologist with experience in caring for children. However, vision problems are not the cause of dyslexia or learning disabilities. The federal defi nition of learning disabilities is careful to state that the learning disabilities do not include learning problems that are primarily due to visual diffi culties. Because vision problems do not cause dyslexia or learning disabilities, treating LD or dyslexia through approaches such as eye exercises, behavioral vision therapy, or special tinted fi lters or lenses won't help. Therapies and treatments like those described are not supported by scientifi c evidence, and are not recommended or endorsed. There are several recommendations that do support the needs of children: • Children who show signs of learning disabilities should be referred as early as possible for further testing. • The diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities depends on the collaboration of a team that may include teachers, audiologists, speech therapists, physicians, and others. • Children with identifi ed learning disabilities should receive appropriate support and individualized evidence-based educational interventions combined with psychological and medical treatments as needed.


The Solar Envelope is a three dimensional envelope on a site which ensures adjacent neighbors a specified minimum direct solar access time per day throughout the year. The solar envelope was developed as a tool to give buildings in an urban setting the mutual opportunity to employ passive and active solar design strategies. Parametric computer-aided-design (CAD) environments significantly ease the construction and visualization of solar envelopes across whole neighborhoods, facilitating its wider use as a prescriptive zoning tool. This study investigates the implications of a solar envelope zoning approach for the most common building type in the United States (US) with respect to energy use and developable density. The results indicate that solar zoning for this building type has a limited, and sometimes negative effect on energy use as well as a larger negative impact on developable density.


Privacy law creates winners and losers. The distributive implications of privacy rules are often very significant, but they are also subtle. Policy and academic debates over privacy rules tend to de-emphasize their distributive dimensions, and one result is an impoverished descriptive account of why privacy laws look the way they do. The article posits that understanding the identities of the real winners and losers in privacy battles can improve predictions about which interests will prevail in the agencies and legislatures that formulate privacy rules. Along the way, the article shows how citizens whose psychological profiles indicate a strong concern for their own privacy are less likely to be politically efficacious than citizens who do not value privacy, producing a substantive skew against privacy protections. The article employs public choice theory to explain why California's protections for public figure privacy are noticeably stronger than the protections that exist in other American jurisdictions, and what factors might explain the trans-Atlantic divide over privacy regulation with regard to Big Data, the popularity of Megan's Laws in the United States, and the enactment of Do Not Call protections. The article concludes by noting that structural features of privacy regulation can affect the public choice dynamics that emerge in political controversies. Individuals seeking to expand privacy protections in the United States might therefore focus initially on altering the structure of American privacy laws instead of trying to change the law's content.


A multi-university, NSF CCLI collaboration has developed a series of on-line learning modules and experiential projects intended to elucidate complex, systems-oriented concepts in the context of wireless sensor networks (WSN). Together these modules and projects comprise the essential content of a complete undergraduate course on WSN. As it is often challenging to add new courses to existing degree programs, ease of portability of the developed material has been emphasized. The goal was to facilitate selective integration into existing curricula, thereby enhancing sub-discipline-specific courses with systems-centric learning. In this paper, the adoption of systems-oriented material from the WSN course into existing courses on RF/microwave theory and design at three institutions is described. One of the adopters was involved in the original development of the material, and two additional adopters were not. One of the adopting institutions modified a course on introductory microwave circuit design, which traditionally addressed topics such as transmission line theory, network theory and design techniques for various passive components including filters, matching networks and couplers. In the revised format, each topic is now covered in the context of satellite/cellular communications sub-system design and analysis. The on-line modules from the WSN course on system design concepts have been woven into the syllabus, and links between wireless sensor networks and communications networks are discussed. To accommodate the new material, less emphasis is placed on certain specific microwave components, which are often the subject of advanced courses. Early course assessment results indicate that the introductory systems-oriented material increases student interest in RF/microwave circuit design and improves understanding of how the performance of RF hardware impacts overall system performance. Instructor feedback indicates that the modules are effective in giving students a different and broader perspective on course content and in enhancing the systems thinking emphasis in their existing courses. In another implementation, the WSN course material was used to supplement an introductory course on RF systems for undergraduates. The material provided an alternative viewpoint on RF components used in system design and exposure to advanced RF technologies, such as RF MEMS used as switches and for re-configurability, not easily available in an introductory published text used for the undergraduates. Students viewed this additional content as very useful to exposing them to advanced topics related to future RF systems. The three examples of porting the WSN course material into sub-discipline-specific courses are detailed in this paper, including a description of the supplementary material that was developed to effectively merge the new content. A common outcome was that these materials effectively helped students develop conceptual frameworks that enhanced their understanding of multilayered systems. All the developed course content is available through the project website www.uvm.edu/~muse.


The variational autoencoder (VAE) is a popular combination of deep latent variable model and accompanying variational learning technique. By using a neural inference network to approximate the model's posterior on latent variables, VAEs efficiently parameterize a lower bound on marginal data likelihood that can be optimized directly via gradient methods. In practice, however, VAE training often results in a degenerate local optimum known as "posterior collapse" where the model learns to ignore the latent variable and the approximate posterior mimics the prior. In this paper, we investigate posterior collapse from the perspective of training dynamics. We find that during the initial stages of training the inference network fails to approximate the model's true posterior, which is a moving target. As a result, the model is encouraged to ignore the latent encoding and posterior collapse occurs. Based on this observation, we propose an extremely simple modification to VAE training to reduce inference lag: depending on the model's current mutual information between latent variable and observation, we aggressively optimize the inference network before performing each model update. Despite introducing neither new model components nor significant complexity over basic VAE, our approach is able to avoid the problem of collapse that has plagued a large amount of previous work. Empirically, our approach outperforms strong autoregressive baselines on text and image benchmarks in terms of held-out likelihood, and is competitive with more complex techniques for avoiding collapse while being substantially faster.


Most surfactant mixtures display synergistic physicochemical properties, which have led to their extensive application in various technologies. Aqueous mixtures of two oppo‐ sitely charged surfactants, so‐called catanionic surfactant mixtures, exhibit the strongest synergistic effect, which is manifested as high surface activity, enhanced adsorption and a low critical aggregation concentration. In addition, catanionic systems display rich phase behavior and a range of nano and microstructures, including small spherical micelles, rod‐like micelles as well as open and closed bilayers (vesicles). The spontaneous forma‐ tion of catanionic vesicles is of special interest due to their various applications in nano‐ technology and pharmaceutical formulations. In this chapter, the properties of catanionic mixtures of amphiphilic molecules with advantageous properties are discussed. Since numerous papers dealing with catanionic mixtures of monomeric surfactants already exist, the aim of this chapter is to summarize recent progress in mixtures of structurally different surfactants. At the end of the chapter, special emphasis is placed on applications of catanionic mixtures. TAB/decanoic


This study examines the causes, consequences and control strategies of unethical business practices in Nigeria. The main objective is to investigate unethical business practices and its implications on the Nigerian society. The study employed both primary and secondary sources of data which were analysed using descriptive statistics, regression analysis and t-test to analyse the formulated hypotheses in line with the objectives of the study. A sample of 1,124 respondents representing 94% of the population (1,192) was used for analysis in the study. The study found that most customers' complaints on ethical abuses were common in the mobile telecommunication, health, manufacturing and automobile sub-sectors where unethical business practices were caused by a combination of three broad factors namely; external factors, personal characteristics and improper control which include, greed, poor compliance with the legal requirements for doing business in Nigeria, aggressive competition, insufficient legislative enforcement and lack of effective supervision by the business regulatory bodies. The study also found unwholesome activities such as the proliferation of fake and substandard materials, misleading advertising, price collusion, discriminatory pricing and hoarding, diversion, overbilling, petroleum products black racketeering and poor service to disadvantaged consumers as among the factors with major consequences. Some recommendations were made among which are the need for adequate laws with stiffer penalties against violation of business ethics so as to help in ridding the society of all forms of unethical conduct in business. The study concludes that; with effective supervision by business regulatory agencies, stiffer penalties and strict compliance with legal requirements for doing business in Nigeria, the spate of unethical business practices characterizing the Nigerian environment will be eradicated or reduced to the barest minimum which will subsequently, result in economic growth and development of the country.


The present article links business takeovers to the literature on serial autocorrelation of growth rates. The aim of the study is to identify the effects of successions on the performance of small German firms by analysing the growth pathways over a period of eight years after business takeover. Using panel data from 1,872 firms, the present article shows that for the first two years after a business takeover, small firms are subject to negative serial correlation of growth rates regarding employment. The analysis underlines the importance of longitudinal data to provide evidence on changes in the behaviour of a firm following a business takeover.


"The Pocket Book of Patriotism" proved that George Courtauld had a real gift for making history simple. The book became a word-of-mouth bestseller which dominated bookseller lists for many weeks. Now in this book he brings his talents to bear on great British figures. From King Arthur and The Venerable Bede, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Oliver Cromwell, to St. Patrick and William Wilberforce, here are 100 patriots of whom, in the author's view, we should be unashamedly proud. Presenting these beacon figures in the form of CVs, the author (himself a headhunter) casts their careers in a new light, highlighting key historical events, milestones in their careers, all reinforced by quotes from the figures themselves, capped by their personal hobbies and interests. Alongside the familiar names like William Caxton, Nelson and Elizabeth I, come those which are perhaps less familiar but no less important - Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots, and Warwick the Kingmaker; Pelagius and Dr. Harvey. The result is a fascinating slice of history which brings key British figures to life in a simple and most accessible way. Anyone who enjoyed "The Pocket Book of Patriotism" will savour this book.


Background Decathlon is a track and field discipline where participants run, jump, and throw; and the competitions are highly demanding from both the physical and psychological standpoints because of the frequency and intensity of the events. Knowing the frequency and causes of dropouts in decathlon competitions seems relevant and helpful to develop strategies of injury prevention for decathletes. Objective To determine the causes of dropouts and the frequency of injury as the cause of dropout in decathlon. Design Pilot prospective epidemiological study. Setting This study focused on three senior male national or international level (high-level) decathlon competitions. Participants 50 senior male national or international decathletes. Interventions Data concerning athlete's participation (number of participating athletes listed on the start list, number of athletes in the final ranking), the event (or time) of dropout, and the causes of dropouts were collected prospectively during the three high-level decathlon competitions. In case injury was retained as the cause of dropout, its description was made following the IAAF and IOC recommendations. Main outcome measurements Percentage of dropouts and percentage of each dropout cause, description and percentage of injuries (circumstance, location, type). Results 38% of decathletes did not complete these competitions. The causes of dropout were: injury (36%), loss of motivation (36%), tiredness (9%), and indeterminate (18%). 50% of injuries were acute hamstring injuries during explosive events on the first day (100-m and long jump). Conclusion Not completing a decathlon is rather common due to various difficulties (physical, technical and psychological). Although caution is needed when interpreting these results due to methodological limitations, musculoskeletal injury prevention and motivational aspects seem important to complete an entire decathlon and to aim at best performance. More detailed prospective studies are needed to determine the exact medical causes of dropouts in decathlon.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the results of systematizing preventive and health promotion actions among phenylketonuria (PKU) patients.

METHODS
Results of phenylketonuria patients attended in the Prenatal PKU Screening Program in the State of Paraná, Brazil, from 1996 to 2001, were evaluated. Socioeconomic data were investigated and the gross motor function measure was applied to determine the motor score among 32 PKU infants with early diagnosis and treatment. Pearson's correlation coefficient was adopted to investigate the relationship between the target variable (motor score) and other quantitative variables (mean post-treatment serum phenylalanine level, parents' educational level, infant's age at the start of treatment, and family income).

RESULTS
Among all the children evaluated, 93.7% showed development within normal limits as reported in the literature. Treatment was initiated in the first month of life in 71.9% of the PKU cases. Socioeconomic data showed 39.5% of parents having completed the fourth grade of primary school or less. There was a significant correlation between infant's motor score and parents' educational level (N=32), as well as between motor score and early treatment (N=27).

CONCLUSIONS
The results highlighted the program's effectiveness. The correlation between parents' low educational level and lower motor score emphasizes the importance of support for parents in their use of diet therapy. The association between motor score and early initiation of treatment confirms the need for immediate admission into the program. The paucity of other evaluation studies in the literature makes generalization of the results difficult.


The addition of a feedback link to a discrete memoryless channel does not increase its capacity, but it does bring with it other benefits. One of these benefits is an increase to the best achievable error exponent. In the first part of this thesis we revisit a 1976 proof by Burnashev which determined the best achievable error exponent of variable length block codes. We develop a new derivation of the converse proof to the error exponent that parallels a simple and instructive achievability scheme developed by Yamamoto and Itoh. The proposed converse is more accessible than the original and yields some insight into the roles played by the quantities that appear in the exponent expression. This suggests that a communication and confirmation phase are implicit in any scheme which achieves the largest possible error exponent. When calculating error exponents the probability of error is studied in the limiting case of long coding delay. In the following part of the thesis, we construct codes that perform well when we are interested in finite coding delay. Starting from the Yamamoto-Itoh achievability scheme, a new scheme that makes use of a list decoder is proposed. This new scheme reduces the penalty associated with making communication longer when channel conditions require it, allowing the scheme to react better to unfavourable channel realisations. The scheme still achieves the same optimal error exponent as the Yamamoto-Itoh scheme. We show that the proposed scheme can be easily realised using Reed-Solomon codes, and can achieve the same probability of error with shorter delay than the comparable Yamaoto-Itoh scheme. Both feedback schemes are shown to perform significantly better than Reed-Solomon codes without feedback. Block coding techniques assume that the message to be mapped to the block is available at the time transmission starts. This is not the case for sequential codes where the information to be transmitted is revealed progressively to the transmitter. Delay is measured separately for each information symbol, starting from the instant it is passed to the transmitter. Consequently, sequential codes need a different definition of error exponents from block codes. In the third part of the thesis we divide sequential codes with feedback into four classes, according the way the information is revealed to the transmitter (at deterministic or random intervals), and the way delay is limited (peak value bounded or bounded in expectation). Sahai reapplied an argument developed by Viterbi to relate the exponent of sequential codes to the block coding exponent to the case of codes with deterministic interval and peak limited delay. We develop upper bounds to the error exponents for the remaining three cases by relating the sequential coding problems to Burnashev's variable length block coding problem studied earlier in the thesis. The setting with random information arrival time and expected delay bound is equivalent to the achievability schemes proposed by Horstein and Kudryashov, and our upper bound is found to meet the exponent of these schemes at zero rate. In the final part of the thesis we address a coding problem without feedback. We develop low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes to communicate over two-user fading broadcast channels with additive white Gaussian noise. Joint decoding of the codes is analysed and the message update rule at the mapping node linking the users' codes is derived. The update rule is found to exhibit an interesting soft interference cancellation property. High performance codes are found that have rates very close to the boundary of the achievable region for binary constrained input. Simulation results for moderate block length show that the codes operate within less than 1dB of the corresponding error correcting threshold.


This paper evaluates the extent to which the world economy has entered a phase of de-globalisation, and it offers some speculative thoughts on the future of global value chains in the post-COVID-19 age. Although the growth of international trade flows relative to that of GDP has slowed down since the Great Recession, this paper finds little systematic evidence indicating that the world economy has already entered an era of de-globalisation. Instead, the observed slowdown in globalisation is a natural sequel to the unsustainable increase in globalisation experienced in the late 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. I offer a description of the mechanisms leading to that earlier expansionary phase, together with a discussion of why these forces might have run out of steam, and of the extent to which they may be reversible. I conclude that the main challenge for the future of globalisation is institutional and political in nature rather than technological, although new technologies might aggravate the trends in inequality that have created the current political backlash against globalisation. Zooming in on the COVID-19 global pandemic, I similarly conclude that the current health crisis may further darken the future of globalisation if it aggravates policy tensions across countries.


The effect of shape, height, and interparticle spacing of Au nanoparticles (NPs) on the sensing performance of Au NP array is systematically investigated. Lengthening the major axis of elliptical NPs with the minor axis kept constant will cause the redshift of the local surface plasmon (LSP) resonance mode, enhance the sensitivity, and widen the resonance peaks. Larger height corresponds to smaller LSP resonance wavelength and narrower resonance peak. With each NP size unchanged, larger interparticle spacing corresponds to larger resonance wavelength and smaller full-width at half-maximum (FWHM). Moreover, duty cycle is important for sensitivity, which is largest when the duty cycle is 0.4.


Local governments all around the world are providing e-services for their citizens. The main driver for providing these might be the quest for improving the efficiency of public services in order to provide better public values to the citizens and the society. Whatever the motives are the scope of e-services ranges from legally mandated duties to non-mandated duties which are voluntarily provided by the local governments. Drawing on the delivery of services assigned by the laws #5393 and #5216, this paper explores the Turkish provincial municipalities' e-services and their sophistication levels.


This article reads Hobbes's social contract through a monster genre lens, revealing the presence of an ancient narrative structure that deploys powerful symbolic forces. It argues that Hobbes creatively utilizes the monster genre's mythic spatiality, linear trajectory, and subject positions—monster, victim, and hero—to compellingly present a fundamental problem plaguing humanity (wolfishness), as well as his political-theoretical solution (Leviathan). In this political monster tale, Leviathan, a heroic sovereign, conquers the wolf-man of the nightmarish state of nature, thereby making civil society possible. However, Hobbes potentially undercuts the success of his own political theory by framing his fellow citizens as monstrous wolf-men, and by associating his sovereign with a figure that, read mythically and symbolically, appears to be a complex hybrid that devours its subjects.


The measurement of relative vehicle occupant injury risk and injury severity is useful for assessing the safety performance of particular vehicle models and for monitoring design improvements in vehicles over time. Internationally, five key measures of vehicle crashworthiness have been developed that attempt to measure the risk of injury or serious injury to a vehicle driver involved in a two-car collision. This paper aims to extend existing theoretical comparisons of the safety measures by examining the relative effectiveness of each measure using simulated crash data with known properties. A theoretical framework is developed that describes the process of injury data generation in terms of injury risk and injury severity. Application of the safety rating methods to simulated crash data derived from this framework enables quantification of the ability of each rating method to accurately estimate known vehicle safety performance. This is not possible through a theoretical statistical comparison alone. Multiple simulation runs have been conducted to investigate the effects of different relationships between injury risk and impact severity on the effectiveness of the safety rating measures. Results of the analysis highlight the efficiencies, deficiencies and biases of each of the rating methods under various input scenarios.


Macroeconomic literature has traditionally regarded public expenditure as yielding no utility per se to any agent in the economy. In line with a few previous contributions (Linneman and Schabert 2004, Bouakez and Rebei 2007) we build a New Keynesian DSGE model with real and nominal rigidities and distortionary fiscal policy rules, calibrated on the Euro-area (1990:Q1-2008:Q4), where part of public spending is allowed to either Edgeworth complement or substitute private consumption by affecting its marginal utility. We show that the the interaction between the share of usefulness of public spending and the specification of fiscal and monetary policy rules is able to deliver private consumption multipliers which are in line with the empirical findings for the Euro-Area.


This thesis describes a study of the spectroscopy of some rare earth doped silica and fluorozirconate glass optical fibres. The application of these fibres in efficient, low threshold lasers is also described. Most of the work has been carried out on monomode silica fibres where the rare earths investigated have included ytterbium (Yb3+) thulium (Tm3+), holmium (Ho3+) and erbium (Er3+ ). Yb fibre lasers of high efficiency (67% slope efficiency at 974nm and 77% at ~1.04µm) have been demonstrated together with lasers of wide tunability (from 1.0µm to 1.16µm). Tm3+ fibre lasers operating near 2µm have been demonstrated with photon conversion efficiencies (above threshold) in excess of 80%. A tuning range of more than 250nm has also been demonstrated. A Ho3+ doped silica fibre laser operating at 2.04µm has been demonstrated but the efficiency was found to be low as a consequence of the high non-radiative decay rates in the silica host. An Er3+ fibre laser operating at 1.56µm has been studied with excitation taking place through energy transfer from Yb3+ ions. Energy transfer from Yb3+ to Tm3+ has also been investigated with upconversion of infra-red pump photons to the blue being observed. The thesis ends with the results of a study on Tm3+ and Er3+-doped fluorozirconate fibres where reduced non-radiative decay rates compared to silica allow; many more laser transitions to be studied. Suggestions are also made for possible areas of future study in the field of rare earth doped fibres.


Most of the hydrothermal circulation through the ocean crust, in terms of mass, heat, and many solute fluxes, occurs on ridge-flanks. Far from the magmatic influence of mid-ocean ridges, fluid flow is driven by lithospheric heating from below and channeled through volcanic rock outcrops that serve as high-permeability conduits between the ocean and the underlying volcanic crust. Field data in this setting is sparse due to difficulties associated with accessing these remote locations, making geologically accurate modeling particularly valuable to assessing the nature of ridge-flank hydrothermal circulation. Each study in this thesis applies a combination of modeling and field observations to constrain the hydrogeologic properties and behaviors of ridge-flank hydrothermal systems, including: (1) deriving permeability estimates from flowing subsea boreholes, (2) investigating the sustainability of outcrop-to-outcrop hydrothermal flow, and (3) constraining the properties and behaviors on a well-studied outcrop-to-outcrop system. In the first study, thermal records from flowing boreholes in young oceanic crust are used to assess borehole and formation properties, including permeability, using analytic equations and a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis to quantify uncertainty. We find the median bulk permeability at all sites to be between 0.4 to 1.5 x 10^-11 m2, with a standard deviation of 0.2 to 0.3 log-cycles at each borehole. These results are remarkably homogenous, given the much larger variability in permeability measurements in the oceanic crust. Results from the second study illuminate the controls on hydrogeologic sustainability, flow rate, and preferred flow direction in outcrop-to-outcrop hydrothermal systems. We find that sustained flow between outcrops over tens of kilometers depends on a contrast in transmittance (the product of outcrop permeability and the area of outcrop exposure) between recharging and discharging sites, and that discharge is favored through less transmissive outcrops. These systems require aquifer permeability values ranging from 10^-12 to 10^-11 m2, consistent with field measurements and values inferred from the first chapter. In the third study, a suite of three-dimensional numerical simulations are used to characterize and constrain the permeability and thickness of the upper crustal aquifer, the permeability of outcrops, and the potential for multiple discharging outcrops and azimuthal permeability anisotropy to influence hydrothermal processes at a field site on the eastern flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge.


Sub-micron scale lithography methods using deep UV, X-ray or electron beams will allow for further progress in integrated circuit hardware manufacturing. The drawback of these high-end patterning methods however is firstly, the high cost of the equipment, and secondly, the limited flexibility of substrate and material combination. Increased flexibility however becomes important in nano/micro-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS), polymer-based electronic devices, microfluidics and bio-analytical systems, etc. One major limitation of resist-based lithography is that it cannot be applied to mechanically unstable and bio/chemically functional surface layers. Recently, a new resistless nanopattering method, nanostenciling, based on local deposition through miniature shadow-masks has been developed. Solid-state membranes made by silicon nitride (SiN) have been used for the patterning of 10-100 nm scale structures within a limited area of a few 10s square-um. This limitation is given by the low stability of the freestanding membrane to sustain the mechanical stress induced by the deposited layer. To overcome this limitation we present here advances towards a full-wafer (100 mm) MEMS based nanostencil to allow high-throughput, large area nanopatterning. The main issues addressed in this paper are i) the mechanical stability of the thin SiN membrane and ii) multiple length-scale apertures ranging from 100 nm to several 100 um. The new type of stencil allows for combined micro- and nanostructures to be made side-by-side in a single evaporation step, which is a difficult task for lithography. In the presentation, we will show details of the combined micro/nanoengineering process and will demonstrate the application as multiple length scale patterning on full wafer scale.


Theropod teeth are particularly abundant in the fossil record and frequently reported in the literature. Yet, the dentition of many theropods has not been described comprehensively, omitting details on the denticle shape, crown ornamentations and enamel texture. This paucity of information has been particularly striking in basal clades, thus making identification of isolated teeth difficult, and taxonomic assignments uncertain. We here provide a detailed description of the dentition of Megalosauridae, and a comparison to and distinction from superficially similar teeth of all major theropod clades. Megalosaurid dinosaurs are characterized by a mesial carina facing mesiolabially in mesial teeth, centrally positioned carinae on both mesial and lateral crowns, a mesial carina terminating above the cervix, and short to well-developed interdenticular sulci between distal denticles. A discriminant analysis performed on a dataset of numerical data collected on the teeth of 62 theropod taxa reveals that megalosaurid teeth are hardly distinguishable from other theropod clades with ziphodont dentition. This study highlights the importance of detailing anatomical descriptions and providing additional morphometric data on teeth with the purpose of helping to identify isolated theropod teeth in the future.


AIM
To evaluate in vitro the influence of elevated temperature (42 degrees C for 60 min) on the action of anticancer drugs doxorubicin, vinorelbine, carboplatin, ifosfamide, etoposide, oxaliplatin, docetaxel and gemcitabine.

METHODS
HeLa tumor cell cultures, 24h after seeding, were incubated for 60 min with different concentrations of chemotherapeutical drugs at a temperature of 37 degrees C or 42 degrees C. 48 h later the number of viable cells in the flasks were counted using trypan-blue exclusion on a hemacytometer.

RESULTS
Hyperthermia alone caused only 10-20% growth inhibition of cell culture. All the chemotherapeutic drugs used demonstrated a dose enhancement effect at elevated temperature. Thermal enhancement ratio for cell proliferation for oxaliplatin, vinorelbine, carboplatin and ifosfamide exceeded 4, for doxorubicin and gemcitabine exceeded 2. Thermal enhancement ratio for cell death did not exceed 1.4.

CONCLUSION
Synergism of hyperthermia and chemotherapeutical drugs was clearly demonstrated for oxaliplatin, vinorelbine, carboplatin, ifosfamide and to a lesser extent for doxorubicin and gemcitabine. Enhancement of the cytostatic effect of anticancer drugs by hyperthermia was more prominent than their cytotoxic effect.


In this paper a floating body partially depleted SOI MOSFET used to measure light intensity using the transient charge pumping (Okhonin, Nagoga and Fazan, 2002) is modeled through an equivalent electrical circuit. Essentially, photogenerated charges of the MOSFET are converted into a charge pumping frequency needed to maintain the drain current constant during the illumination. This contrasts with other conventional methods that rely on an accurate quantification of the drain current to measure the light intensity. Flux densities as low as 2 mW/m2 were measured, thus confirming the potential of this approach.


Background: Among the non-conventional grounds of homeopathy, the use of medicines in high dilutions (HD) is a cause for objections and skepticism among the scientific community, trained within the dose-dependency paradigm of classic pharmacology. Research aiming at evidencing the effects of homeopathic HD has resource to several experimental models ( in vitro , plants and animals). Aim: To describe the results of studies with high methodological quality that demonstrated positive effects of homeopathic HD on plants. Methods: Taking reviews published until 2015 as reference source, we updated the information through addition of data from recent studies included in database PubMed. Results: From 167 experimental studies analyzed, 48 met the minimum criteria of methodological quality, from which 29 detected specific effects of homeopathic high dilutions on plants through comparison to adequate controls. Conclusions: Despite the substandard methodological quality of most experiments, studies with systematic use of negative controls and reproducibility demonstrated significant indisputable effects of homeopathic HD on plants.


We report on the methods and results of the first dedicated search for gravitational waves emitted during the inspiral of compact binaries with spinning component bodies. We analyze 788 hours of data collected during the third science run (S3) of the LIGO detectors. We searched for binary systems using a detection template family specially designed to capture the effects of the spin-induced precession of the orbital plane. We present details of the techniques developed to enable this search for spin-modulated gravitational waves, highlighting the differences between this and other recent searches for binaries with nonspinning components. The template bank we employed was found to yield high matches with our spin-modulated target waveform for binaries with masses in the asymmetric range 1.0M⊙<m1<3.0M⊙ and 12.0M⊙<m2<20.0M⊙ which is where we would expect the spin of the binary's components to have a significant effect. We find that our search of S3 LIGO data has good sensitivity to binaries in the Milky Way and to a small fraction of binaries in M31 and M33 with masses in the range 1.0M⊙<m1, m2<20.0M⊙. No gravitational wave signals were identified during this search. Assuming a binary population with spinning components and Gaussian distribution of masses representing a prototypical neutron star–black hole system with m1≃1.35M⊙ and m2≃5M⊙, we calculate the 90%-confidence upper limit on the rate of coalescence of these systems to be 15.9  yr−1L−110, where L10 is 1010 times the blue light luminosity of the Sun.


Cloud applications consist of a set of interconnected software elements distributed over several virtual machines, themselves hosted on remote physical servers. Most existing solutions for deploying such applications require human intervention to configure parts of the system, do not respect functional dependencies among elements that must be respected when starting them, and do not handle virtual machine failures that can occur when deploying an application. This paper presents a self-deployment protocol that was designed to automatically configure a set of software elements to be deployed on different virtual machines. This protocol works in a decentralized way, i.e., there is no need for a centralized server. It also starts the software elements in a certain order, respecting important architectural invariants. This protocol supports virtual machine and network failures, and always succeeds in deploying an application when faced with a finite number of failures. Designing such highly parallel management protocols is difficult, therefore formal modeling techniques and verification tools were used for validation purposes. The protocol was implemented in Java and was used to deploy industrial applications.


Problem statement: It is becoming increasingly important to fully utilize the existing transmission system assets due to environmental legislation, rights-of-way issues and costs of construction and deregulation policies that introduced in recent years. The Static Var Compensator (SVC) has been proposed for the better control power flow and dynamic performance. The exact long transmission line model consists of the resistance and reactance. Most of previous researches studies transient stability performance of the SVC in SMIB System with neglecting resistance of the line. Thus the fully capability of the SVC on transient stability improvement of power system may not be applied. The consideration of the resistance causes in the difficulty of deriving mathematical model. Approach: This study investigates the effect of the SVC on transient stability of the power system with consideration the exact long transmission line mode. The concept of two-port network is applied to simplify the mathematical model of the power system. The proposed method is tested on sample system and compared on various cases. Results: The first swing of rotor angle curve of the faulted system without resistance is obviously higher than that of with resistance whereas the second swing of the faulted system without resistance is slightly less than that of with resistance. The system with the SVC can improve transient stability of power system. Conclusion: It is found from this study that the SVC and resistance of the line can improve first swing of rotor angle. The resistance of the line provides the negative effect on second swing of rotor angle. The simulation results indicate that for practical long line, the resistance is very import parameters for evaluating transient stability of power system.


We propose a novel method for combined Routing and Wave-length Assignment (RWA) in optical networks by reformulation to an equivalent Pseudo-Boolean Satisfiability (PB-SAT) problem. We introduce edge observability variables to represent whether an edge is on the optimal route, combined with either a simple or a hierarchical SAT encoding to select a wavelength for that edge only when the edge is on the route. This translation exponentially reduces the size of the solution space, making it independent of the number of wavelengths per link. We present experimental results for routing instances with up to 3,000 nodes, 15,000 edges, and 2,048 wavelengths per edge, and achieve at least 8 orders of magnitude speedup relative to a previous PB-SAT encoding by Aloul et al., such that the speedup is increasing with the number of nodes and edges in the network, and the number of wavelengths per edge. A portfolio of 4 parallel strategies, each based on the new approach and a different hierarchical encoding, resulted in additional speedup of up to 6 times, and reduced the variability of the run times for large networks.


To stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at an equivalent doubling, CO2 emissions must be limited to 5 PgC y in 2050, compared to 8 PgC y today. This will require the decarbonization of world energy supply, in which fossil fuels, which today account for 85% of energy supply, are replaced by carbon-free sources. Only five sources are capable of supplying a substantial fraction of the required carbon-free supply: biomass, fission, solar, wind, and decarbonized fossil fuels. Other sources are either too limited, too expensive, or too unproven to make a substantial contribution by 2050. Each of the major alternatives has significant economic, technical, or environmental handicaps. Biomass can supply affordable portable fuels, but would require vast areas of land, in competition with agriculture and natural ecosystems. Fission is a mature technology, but suffers from public-acceptance problems related to the risks of accidents, waste disposal, and proliferation. Solar is environmentally benign but expensive and would require massive storage or transmission. Wind is economically competitive at windy sites, but attractive sites are limited. Fossil fuels are cheap and abundant, but the cost of CO2 capture and disposal may be high and the environmental impacts unknown.


Habitat models are now broadly used in conservation planning on public lands. If implemented correctly, habitat modelling is a transparent and repeatable technique for describing and mapping biodiversity values, and its application in peri-urban and agricultural landscape planning is likely to expand rapidly. Conservation planning in such landscapes must be robust to the scrutiny that arises when biodiversity constraints are placed on developers and private landholders. A standardized modelling and model evaluation method based on widely accepted techniques will improve the robustness of conservation plans. We review current habitat modelling and model evaluation methods and provide a habitat modelling case study in the New South Wales central coast region that we hope will serve as a methodological template for conservation planners. We make recommendations on modelling methods that are appropriate when presence-absence and presence-only survey data are available and provide methodological details and a website with data and training material for modellers. Our aim is to provide practical guidelines that preserve methodological rigour and result in defendable habitat models and maps. The case study was undertaken in a rapidly developing area with substantial biodiversity values under urbanization pressure. Habitat maps for seven priority fauna species were developed using logistic regression models of species-habitat relationships and a bootstrapping methodology was used to evaluate model predictions. The modelled species were the koala, tiger quoll, squirrel glider, yellow-bellied glider, masked owl, powerful owl and sooty owl. Models ranked sites adequately in terms of habitat suitability and provided predictions of sufficient reliability for the purpose of identifying preliminary conservation priority areas. However, they are subject to multiple uncertainties and should not be viewed as a completely accurate representation of the distribution of species habitat. We recommend the use of model prediction in an adaptive framework whereby models are iteratively updated and refined as new data become available.


INTRODUCTION The new species Centropages karachiensis which is described below was found in small numbers in surface hauls made during September inside Karachi harbour and in the Korangi Creek area situated about 7 miles southeast of the Karachi harbour break water. The holotype is deposited in the Institute of Marine Biology, University of Karachi and the paratypes in the British Museum (Natural History), London and the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden (Reg. no. Crust. F 792). Centropages karachiensis sp. nov. Description. — Female (figs. 1-13). The total body length varies between 1.2 mm and 1.35 mm. The body is cylindrical in shape. The front end of the head is rounded with a typical middorsal crest provided with two purple coloured eyes situated ventrally. The first thoracic somite is distinctly separated from the cephalic region. A large purple middorsal spot is present at the junction of the first thoracic segment and the posterior margin of the cephalic segment (fig. 1). The posterior thoracic corner is rounded and flexed in a downward direction, it is provided with a notch on the ventral aspect of the segment (fig. 2). The abdomen is three-segmented. The genital segment is slightly asymmetrical in dorsal view, bulging slightly towards the left. The furca is symmetrical, it is about two times as long as broad and bears 5 small setae. It has an additional sensory bristle located between the first and second setae. The antennule (fig. 3) does not extend beyond the 4th thoracic somite and consists of 21 free segments. The number and position of setae and the proportional length of the segments are as shown in the figure.


Laser light backscattering imaging (LLBI) with five laser diodes emitting at wavelengths 532, 660, 785, 830, and 1060 nm were employed for predicting quality attributes of banana fruit. The predicted attributes were chlorophyll, elasticity and soluble solids content (SSC). Classifications were done on six ripening stages from ripening stages 2 to 7. The prediction and classification models were built using an artificial neural network (ANN). The results indicated that measurement at 532 nm gave the highest correlation coefficient with 0.949 for chlorophyll prediction, while correlation coefficients of 0.862, 0.867 were the highest obtained for elastic modulus, SSC at 785 and 830 nm, respectively. 95.5% correct classification accuracy was obtained at 830 nm by use of the ANN classification model. The results showed that LLBI with an ANN can be used for non-destructive estimation of banana quality attributes and the subsequent ripeness classification.


The elicitation of software security requirements in early stages of software development life cycle is an essential task. Using security requirements templates could help practitioners to identify implied software security requirements from functional requirements in the context of a software system. In this paper, we replicated a previous study that analyzed the effectiveness of security requirements templates to support the identification of security requirements. Our objective was to evaluate this approach and compare the applicability of the previous findings. We conducted the first replication of the controlled experiment in 2015, and subsequently conducted two differentiated replications in 2018. We evaluated the responses of 33 participants in terms of quality, coverage, relevance and efficiency and discussed insights regarding the impact of context factors. Participants were divided into treatment (security requirements templates) and control groups (no templates). Our findings support some previous results: treatment group performed significantly better than the control group in terms of the coverage of the identified security requirements. Besides, the requirements elicitation process performed significantly better in relevance and efficiency metrics in two of the three replications. Security requirements templates supported participants to identify a core set of the security requirements and participants were favorable towards the use of templates in identifying security requirements.


In Burkina Faso, the expectation that a young man has to financially support his girlfriend is deeply rooted in gender norms and is a keystone of masculinity construction. With the persistent economic crisis, high unemployment rates, and the growing importance of materiality in intimate relationships, this economic obligation seems more and more difficult to fulfil, however. Qualitative studies have reported the frustration of unemployed and poorer young men in West African cities who face difficulties in attracting girlfriends due to their economic condition. This sexual marginalization of poorer city-dwellers, suggested by anthropological evidence, has yet to be explored quantitatively. This is the purpose of the study. Based on unique life history data collected from young adults in 2010 in the capital city of Ouagadougou, the present research examines the impact of poverty on young men's sexual relationship histories. Although they engage in a number of premarital relationships, results suggest that young men in Ouagadougou are not equal in the search for sexual partners. The study provides support for the «sexual marginalization hypothesis» and shows that other things being equal, unemployed males and uneducated young men are significantly less likely than their better-off counterparts to engage in relationships over time


Fifteen wheat genotypes namely Agrani, Prodip, Bijoy, CB 69, Sourav, Sufi, BAW 1064, Gourab, Kanchan Shatabdi, CB 30, Sonora, CB 24, CB34, and Protiva were sown under optimum (Nov. 30) and late (Dec. 30) sowing times to evaluate their performances at high temperature depending on cell membrane thermostability and some morpho-physiological characters. Based on cell membrane thermostability test four genotypes showed the longest heat killing time and were separated as heat tolerant (HT). Four genotypes showed the shortest heat killing time and were separated as heat sensitive (HS). The remaining seven genotypes required time in between those two were separated as intermediate heat tolerant (IHT) genotypes. Lower contribution of photosynthate stem reserves (PSR) to grain in HT genotypes finally contributed to its less affected 1000-grain weight as well as yield. These results suggest that greater cell membrane thermostability supported the minimal changes in some physiological characters of HT ganotypes which ultimately increased the wheat yield under short winter warmer condition.


Surface waters of the Arctic Ocean have the highest concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and terrigenous dissolved organic matter (DOM) of all ocean basins. Concentrations of dissolved lignin phenols in polar surface waters are 7‐fold to 16‐fold higher than those in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and stable carbon isotopic compositions of DOM are depleted in 13C by 1–2‰ relative to those in the Atlantic and Pacific. The large contribution of terrigenous DOM from Arctic rivers is responsible for the elevated concentrations of DOC in polar surface waters. The distribution of terrigenous DOM in polar surface waters is very heterogeneous, but on average we estimate 14–24% of the DOC is of terrestrial origin. Stable nitrogen isotopic compositions were useful for distinguishing DOM of Pacific and Atlantic origins as well as terrigenous and marine origins. The size distribution and composition of lignin phenols provide some evidence of photochemical transformations of terrigenous DOM, but it appears this process is not extensive in polar surface waters. The extent to which terrigenous DOM is removed from the Arctic Ocean by microbial degradation is less clear and warrants further study. Physical transport of terrigenous DOC to the North Atlantic is a major mechanism for its removal from the Arctic. The East Greenland Current alone exports 4.4–6.6 Tg of terrigenous DOC annually to the North Atlantic. Terrigenous DOC of Arctic origin was identified for the first time in components of North Atlantic Deep Water. Preliminary estimates indicate that ∼1 Tg of terrigenous DOC is exported from the Arctic in Denmark Strait Overflow Water with an additional ∼0.7 Tg in Classical Labrador Sea Water. Together, these exports compose approximately 25–33% of the terrigenous DOC discharged annually to the Arctic via rivers.


Abstract First Lady Michelle Obama's public health promotion "Let's Move" seeks to place children on a path to better health by giving families access to health education and fostering healthier environments. We examined the use of public health framing and attribution of responsibility in the First Lady's remarks and newspaper articles reporting on childhood obesity. We coded the Whitehouse.gov website for remarks made by the First Lady regarding the childhood obesity prevention program "Let's Move." Of the 103 remarks coded, 35% of the remarks used public health framing. The First Lady's remarks attributed responsibility and solutions for the childhood obesity crisis in terms of environmental factors, rather than individual factors. Using the same themes, we coded a sample of 260 articles that reported on "Let's Move" specifically or childhood obesity generally, published during the same time period as the First Lady's remarks. Approximately 20% of the articles used public health framing and similarly attributed childhood obesity to environmental factors. When comparing the two outlets, themes in the news articles were similar to the First Lady's remarks; however, each lacked complete public health framing, which may contribute to less effective public health messaging.


Various new aspects of antigen processing have been uncovered through the study of tumor antigens. One of these is the production of antigenic peptides by splicing of two distinct peptide fragments. In one of the two cases reported, the proteasome was found to be responsible for splicing. The presentation of another peptide on major histocompatibility complex class I molecules was found to depend on secretion and reuptake of the parent protein, implying a cross-presentation pathway in melanoma cells. Class II presentation of peptides derived from cytosolic proteins now appears to result from autophagy. Based on increased knowledge on antigen processing and presentation, new vaccination strategies are aimed at improving the targeting of antigens to dendritic cells, promoting cross-priming (for example, using chloroquine), improving peptide binding to class I molecules and targeting antigens to both the class I and the class II pathways.


Abstract. The main biogeochemical nutrient distributions, along with ambient ocean temperature and the light field, control ocean biological productivity. Observations of nutrients are much sparser than physical observations of temperature and salinity, yet it is critical to validate biogeochemical models against these sparse observations if we are to successfully model biological variability and trends. Here we use data from the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study and the World Ocean Database 2005 to demonstrate quantitatively that over the entire globe a significant fraction of the temporal variability of phosphate, silicate and nitrate within the oceans is correlated with water density. The temporal variability of these nutrients as a function of depth is almost always greater than as a function of potential density, with he largest reductions in variability found within the main pycnocline. The greater nutrient variability as a function of depth occurs when dynamical processes vertically displace nutrient and density fields together on shorter timescales than biological adjustments. These results show that dynamical processes can have a significant impact on the instantaneous nutrient distributions. These processes must therefore be considered when modeling biogeochemical systems, when comparing such models with observations, or when assimilating data into such models.


The purpose of the study was to investigate the application of cognitive load theory to the design of online instruction. Students in three different courses (N = 146) were measured on both learning performance and perceptions of mental effort to see if there were any statistically significant differences. The study utilized a quasi-experimental posttest-only control group design contrasting modified and unmodified instructional lessons. Both groups were given a posttest to measure knowledge gained from the lesson (cognitive domain of learning) and perceptions of mental effort involved. Independent samples t-tests were used to compare the mean performance scores of the treatment groups (i.e. the sections using redesigned materials) versus the control groups for all three courses. Cohen's d was also computed to determine effect size. Mental effort scores were similarly compared for each group on the overall cognitive load score, for a total of six data points in the study. Of the four hypotheses examined, three (H1, H2, H4) found no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups. Negative significance was found between the experimental and control group on the effect of modality (H3). On measures of cognitive load, no statistically significant differences were found.


Instructive biomaterials capable of controlling the behaviour of the cells are particularly interesting scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Novel biomaterials are particularly important in societies with rapidly aging populations, where demand for organ/tissue donations is greater than their supply. Herein we describe the preparation of electrically conductive silk film-based nerve tissue scaffolds that are manufactured using all aqueous processing. Aqueous solutions of Bombyx mori silk were cast on flexible polydimethylsiloxane substrates with micrometer-scale grooves on their surfaces, allowed to dry, and annealed to impart β-sheets to the silk which assures that the materials are stable for further processing in water. The silk films were rendered conductive by generating an interpenetrating network of polypyrrole and polystyrenesulfonate in the silk matrix. Films were incubated in an aqueous solution of pyrrole (monomer), polystyrenesulfonate (dopant) and iron chloride (initiator), after which they were thoroughly washed to remove low molecular weight components (monomers, initiators, and oligomers) and dried, yielding conductive films with sheet resistances of 124 ± 23 kΩ square−1. The micrometer-scale grooves that are present on the surface of the films are analogous to the natural topography in the extracellular matrix of various tissues (bone, muscle, nerve, skin) to which cells respond. Dorsal root ganglions (DRG) adhere to the films and the grooves in the surface of the films instruct the aligned growth of processes extending from the DRG. Such materials potentially enable the electrical stimulation (ES) of cells cultured on them, and future in vitro studies will focus on understanding the interplay between electrical and topographical cues on the behaviour of cells cultured on them.


The increasing price of electronic journals, indexing and abstracting database along with the traditional published print subscriptions has forced library community to explore alternative means of subscription. This is an age of information explosion. No library, whatever size it may be, is able to satisfy all the needs of its users due to various constraints. It is because of this phenomenon that the concept of library consortium has developed. Consortium of libraries is well known for sharing of resources all over the world. Information explosion, emergence of internet and particularly World Wide Web as a new medium of information storage makes the concept more come into sight than earlier arena. The trend of consortia or group of libraries maintaining information resources together has become very common these days. The Advent of E-publishing has brought a revolution in journal's publication, subscription and access to scholarly literature and the age of library consortia is at the doorsteps to prove cooperation locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. This study aims to explore the concepts, issues and facilities offered by the library consortium and shows how the (Indian) library consortium is making resources available among the member libraries. Ethiopia has many of University libraries but the concept is still at a nascent stage in library. It believes that establishment of University Library Consortium will make Ethiopian University libraries more productive and effective to their user community.


The hydrolysis of urea by urease enzyme of oral bacteria is believed to have a major impact on oral microbial ecology and to be intimately involved in oral health and diseases. To begin to understand the biochemistry and genetics of oral ureolysis, a study of the urease of Streptococcus salivarius, a highly ureolytic organism which is present in large numbers on the soft tissues of the oral cavity, has been initiated. By using as a probe a 0.6-kpb internal fragment of the S. salivarius 57.I ureC gene, two clones from subgenomic libraries of S. salivarius 57.I in an Escherichia coli plasmid vector were identified. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed the presence of one partial and six complete open reading frames which were most homologous to ureIAB-CEFGD of other ureolytic bacteria. Plasmid clones were generated to construct a complete gene cluster and used to transform E. coli and Streptococcus gordonii DL1, a nonureolytic, dental plaque microorganism. The recombinant organisms expressed high levels of urease activity when the growth medium was supplemented with NiCl2. The urease enzyme was purified from E. coli, and its biochemical properties were compared with those of the urease produced by S. salivarius and those of the urease produced by S. gordonii carrying the plasmid-borne ure genes. In all cases, the enzyme had a Km of 3.5 to 4.1 mM, a pH optimum near 7.0, and a temperature optimum near 60 degrees C. S. gordonii carrying the urease genes was then demonstrated to have a significant capacity to temper glycolytic acidification in vitro in the presence of concentrations of urea commonly found in the oral cavity. The ability to genetically engineer plaque bacteria that can modulate environmental pH through ureolysis will open the way to using recombinant ureolytic organisms to test hypotheses regarding the role of oral ureolysis in dental caries, calculus formation, and periodontal diseases. Such recombinant organisms may eventually prove useful for controlling dental caries by replacement therapy.


Candidate cell sources for vocal fold scar treatment include mesenchymal stromal cells from bone marrow (BM-MSC) and adipose tissue (AT-MSC). Mechanosensitivity of MSC can alter highly relevant aspects of their behavior, yet virtually nothing is known about how MSC might respond to the dynamic mechanical environment of the larynx. Our objective was to evaluate MSC as a potential cell source for vocal fold tissue engineering in a mechanically relevant context. A vibratory strain bioreactor and cDNA microarray were used to evaluate the similarity of AT-MSC and BM-MSC to the native cell source, vocal fold fibroblasts (VFF). Posterior probabilities for each of the microarray transcripts fitting into specific expression patterns were calculated, and the data were analyzed for Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment. Significant wound healing and cell differentiation GO terms are reported. In addition, proliferation and apoptosis were evaluated with immunohistochemistry. Results revealed that VFF shared more GO terms related to epithelial development, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, growth factor activity, and immune response with BM-MSC than with AT-MSC. Similarity in glycosaminoglycan and proteoglycan activity dominated the ECM analysis. Analysis of GO terms relating to MSC differentiation toward osteogenic, adipogenic, and chondrogenic lineages revealed that BM-MSC expressed fewer osteogenesis GO terms in the vibrated and scaffold-only conditions compared to polystyrene. We did not evaluate if vibrated BM-MSC recover osteogenic expression markers when returned to polystyrene culture. Immunostaining for Ki67 and cleaved caspase 3 did not vary with cell type or mechanical condition. We conclude that VFF may have a more similar wound healing capacity to BM-MSC than to AT-MSC in response to short-term vibratory strain. Furthermore, BM-MSC appear to lose osteogenic potential in the vibrated and scaffold-only conditions compared to polystyrene, potentially attenuating the risk of osteogenesis for in vivo applications.


Leakage was detected at the welds between stiffening plates and the pipe in a transfer line carrying butane and related petrochemical compounds. The line and reinforcing rings were of AISI 316 stainless steel, the pipe being of 508 mm diam and 6.25 mm wall thickness. The design temperature and pressure were 621 deg C and 2.75 kPa, respectively, while the operating conditions were 579 deg C and 1.03 kPa. The line was insulated. Failure occurred after approximately 90,000 h of operation, shutdowns being approximately two per annum. The cracking occurred at the toe of welds between the plates and the pipe. The creep damage failure was attributed to repeated relaxation cycles of very high thermal stresses of resulting from the periodic shutdowns, temperature fluctuations during service, or both. This failure emphasized the information available from an evaluation of the operative creep mechanism, namely grain boundary sliding, relating to the periodic nature of the loading, with high residual stresses being present.


The settlement pattern, pottery assemblage and type of hut of a stone-walled site complex are investigated. Finds are descriptionbed and discussed and calculations of stock numbers made. The site complex is compared with previous archaeological finds of the Late Iron Age of the area and elsewhere, and with the classification by Maggs for the central Highveld. The Doornpoort settlements comply with the descriptionptions of the spatial organisation of the Central Cattle Pattern, although the site complex did not produce the standardised and repeated arrangement of structures characterised by connecting walls at Type V, outer walls at Type N and bilobial courtyards at Type Z The decorated pottery assemblage corresponds in general with those from Caledon Valley, Type V and Type N. Doornpoort pottery shares style classes with these assemblages and could be part of the same tradition. The hut, as found at Doornpoort, shows affinities with huts at Type V and Type N. The Doornpoort site could be part of the variation within the Caledon Valley cluster, but also shows relation to sites elsewhere.


Many machine learning models are vulnerable to adversarial examples: inputs that are specially crafted to cause a machine learning model to produce an incorrect output. Adversarial examples that affect one model often affect another model, even if the two models have different architectures or were trained on different training sets, so long as both models were trained to perform the same task. An attacker may therefore train their own substitute model, craft adversarial examples against the substitute, and transfer them to a victim model, with very little information about the victim. Recent work has further developed a technique that uses the victim model as an oracle to label a synthetic training set for the substitute, so the attacker need not even collect a training set to mount the attack. We extend these recent techniques using reservoir sampling to greatly enhance the efficiency of the training procedure for the substitute model. We introduce new transferability attacks between previously unexplored (substitute, victim) pairs of machine learning model classes, most notably SVMs and decision trees. We demonstrate our attacks on two commercial machine learning classification systems from Amazon (96.19% misclassification rate) and Google (88.94%) using only 800 queries of the victim model, thereby showing that existing machine learning approaches are in general vulnerable to systematic black-box attacks regardless of their structure.


We present a method to assess the technical and economic pros and cons of various marine seismic monitoring techniques. The results are displayed in a Value vs. Cost diagram to guide business decisions on the type and frequency of seismic monitoring for the specifics of the reservoir and planned recovery method. The estimation of the economic benefit is the most useful part of the exercise, as it forces geophysicists and reservoir engineers to think about the uses of 4D seismic and the decisions that may be taken based on the data. We illustrate the methodology with an example inspired by the pre-salt carbonate fields offshore Brazil. We conclude that frequent seismic monitoring may deliver high value, such as 5% increase in recovery and large incremental NPV, so long as seismic costs are affordable (relative to alternative investments that may generate similar value). There is scope to reduce seismic monitoring costs by using new technologies or if the market grows in high cost locations.


The Mont Morion complex of the Dent Blanche nappe is interpreted as a multi-stadial Alpine km-scale shear zone. Permian intrusive rocks are transformed into white mica chlorite-bearing or glaucophane-bearing gneisses along high-strain horizons (100 m-thick), while within low-strain cores (100- to 1000 m-thick), metaintrusives preserve igneous features and xenoliths of amphibolites, acid granulites and biotite-bearing gneisses. Ten superposed evolutionary stages (1 to 10) occurred: from pre-Permian (1 and 2, only in pre-intrusive host rocks) to Permian-Triassic (3 and 4) and Mesozoic-Cenozoic (5 to 10). Stages 1 and 2 developed under amphibolite to granulite-facies conditions. During stage 3, the Mont Morion complex was intruded (P-range = 0.25-0.70 GPa at T between 600-760 degrees C). Stage 4 occurred under greenschist-facies conditions. Stages 5 and 6 are associated with the development of tectonitic-mylonitic km-scale domains under blueschist-facies conditions. Stage 7 is represented by folding of S 6 under greenschist-facies conditions. Metre-scale shear zones developed during stages 8, 9 and 10. The pre-Alpine part of the P-T-t-d path is interpreted as trace of post-collisional thinning Variscan continental crust, related to the upwelling of magmas (e.g. Mont Collon-Matterhorn gabbros; Arolla granites); the Alpine part of the P-T-t-d path is interpreted as record of continental crust subduction and exhumation, related to the Alpine oceanic-continental subduction and continental collision.


Spatial information plays an important role in many social, environmental and economic decisions and increasingly acknowledged as a national resource essential for wider societal and environmental benefits. Natural Resource Management is one area where spatial information can be used for improved planning and decision making processes. In Australia, state government organisations are the custodians of spatial information necessary for natural resource management and regional NRM bodies are responsible to regional delivery of NRM activities. The access and sharing of spatial information between government agencies and regional NRM bodies is therefore as an important issue for improving natural resource management outcomes. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the current status of spatial information access, sharing and use with varying statutory arrangements and its impacts on spatial data infrastructure (SDI) development in catchment management sector in Australia. Further, it critically examined whether any trends and significant variations exist due to different institutional arrangements (statutory versus non-statutory) or not. A survey method was used to collect primary data from 56 regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies responsible for catchment management in Australia. Descriptive statistics method was used to show the similarities and differences between statutory and non-statutory arrangements. The key factors which influence sharing and access to spatial information are also explored. The results show the current statutory and administrative arrangements and regional focus for natural resource management is reasonable from a spatial information management perspective and provides an opportunity for building SDI at the catchment scale. However, effective institutional arrangements should align catchment SDI development activities with sub-national and national SDI development activities to address catchment management issues. We found minor differences in spatial information access, use and sharing due to varying institutional environment (statutory versus non-statutory). The non-statutory group appears to be more flexible and selfsufficient whilst statutory regional NRM bodies may lack flexibility in their spatial information management practices. We found spatial information access, use and sharing has significant impacts on spatial data infrastructure development in catchment management sector in Australia.


We examine how technological change affects wage inequality and unemployment in a calibrated model of matching frictions in the labor market. We distinguish between two polar cases studied in the literature: a "creative destruction" economy where new machines enter chiefly through new matches and an "upgrading" economy where machines in existing matches are replaced by new machines. Our main results are: (i) these two economies produce very similar quantitative outcomes, and (ii) the total amount of wage inequality generated by frictions is very small. We explain these findings in light of the fact that, in the model calibrated to the U.S. economy, both unemployment and vacancy durations are very short, i.e., the matching frictions are quantitatively minor. Hence, the equilibrium allocations of the model are remarkably close to those of a frictionless version of our economy where firms are indifferent between upgrading and creative destruction, and where every worker is paid the same market-clearing wage. These results are robust to the inclusion of machine-specific or match-specific heterogeneity into the benchmark model.


This study examines the ways in which a selected number ofRoman theatre buildings in the Near East and their urban contexts communicated nonverbally with individuals and groups in daily contact with them. The theatre at Caesarea, the South Theatre at Gerasa, and the large theatre at SCythopolis serve as case studies for the application of a nonverbal communication approach. These three theatres provide a sample representative of the period from the introduction of theatres to the region in the first century BC to the end of the major period of their construction in the third century AD. By applying a nonverbal communication approach, this thesis challenges the view that topography was the sole determining factor in the placement of theatres within sites. The location of theatres was selected to enhance their intended function, including both the way they were used and the way they influenced behaviour. Nonverbal cues were embedded in the structural components and spatial positioning of the theatres and in their spatial interrelationships with surrounding structures. These cues, once received and interpreted, communicated meanings that influenced the behaviour of individuals and groups.


As ergonomists, for many of us, a driving force is to improve work environments to "do good": to reduce risks for injury and human suffering, improve working conditions and support human well-being. This motivation is in accordance with the first of the two objectives of ergonomics as in the IEA definition – '…to optimize human well-being and overall system performance". However, 'doing good' in this sense can be difficult. A challenging task we face as ergonomists is to motivate work site improvements within a business environment that is focused on the second objective of ergonomics, overall system performance. Thus, the art of ergonomics lies in balancing the two – in addressing individual wellbeing as well as the broader goals of system performance. As part of this balancing act, displaying financial impacts of ergonomics plays an important role and is therefore the focus of this key-note. In all business activity decision makers have to choose between different investment options. For investments that can improve ergonomics, the full economic benefits are often difficult to quantify. Such benefits are associated with reduced costs related to non-optimal work environment. Visible costs, such as direct costs for absenteeism, are quite easily measured while hidden costs, related to business key parameters, such as productivity and quality issues, are often complex, contextually dependent and difficult to estimate. However, these issues are vital for organizations and such costs, which directly affect the company's competitiveness, are often many times greater than the visible costs. If decision makers only are aware of the direct financial impact of investments they may prioritize solutions that are not optimal neither for organizational performance and business results nor for the work environment and health of the employees. In extreme cases this can jeopardize the company's future. So, what is needed for informed decision-making? First, awareness that ergonomics also influences core business parameters and organizational performance is needed. Second, there is a need for user-friendly assessment tools to estimate the financial effects associated with workplace ergonomics. In the presentation a survey of existing assessment tools and methods is presented. Reasons why these tools aren't more widely used are discussed. There is an increased call from companies for assessment tools that companies can use in their operational management to motivate and carry out ergonomic improvements. This is partly due to the need to form business cases to motivate investments. There is also an increased awareness from company management, who recognize that improved working environments also lead to other positive effects for the company. Increasingly managers seek knowledge for informed decision making, for example when prioritizing between work environment improvements and strategic corporate decisions. The assessment tools can be used i) proactively in the design of production systems, which leads to advantages for the staff as well as for the company's performance, ii) reactively to evaluate different scenarios to reduce work environment, productivity and quality problems and iii) strategically for promoting the company. So, what actions are needed to improve these assessment tools, increase their use of and make them a natural part in the company operational processes? In this presentation some research and development suggestions are given. These involve tool as well as organizational and process development. In summary, working towards improved tools and their usage in striving towards the twofold ergonomics objective involves many challenges, but strengthens the possibilities to be successful in "doing good", for individuals and organizations, as well as for societies.


There is no generally accepted way of measuring audit quality and prior research has shown that measurements used have produced conflicting results. Since auditors are those who carry out and sign off audits, they are the ones that know best how to assess and improve audit quality. Auditors assess the quality of their work in terms of how comfortable they are and the comfort of auditors is affected by the ethical climate in the audit firm. Thus, ethical climates are deemed important determinants for auditors' perceived audit quality.The purpose of this study is consequently to explain how ethical climates in audit firms affect audit quality, using the comfort of auditors as proxy. The study aims at offering a new and fresh perspective of audit quality from practitioners' point of view and providing the research field of audit quality with a better type of measurement.Audit quality was conceptualized through extracting a theoretical model based on the theory of ethical climate and comfort theory. Four hypotheses were derived from the model and tested on Swedish authorized auditors using a self-administered questionnaire as data collection method. In this respect, the study adopts a quantitative research design with a deductive approach.The findings suggest that there is a positive significant relationship between the ethical climate in audit firms and the comfort of auditors. Overall, this study has proven the importance of having a strong ethical climate as a means to make the auditors feel comfortable and subsequently to enhance the perceived audit quality of auditors.One limitation of this study is that only Swedish authorized auditors have been studied. Hence, the findings may not be generalized and applicable on authorized auditors in other countries. In addition, the result may have turned out differently if the study would have included non-authorized auditors as well.The original value of the study is a new conceptualization of audit quality measured by the relationship between ethical climates and auditors' comfort.


Cheating and plagiarism were studied at a midwestern public university's College of Education, by interviewing three male and three female students who were in Master's programs in health education, rehabilitation counseling, and community counseling. None of the six students had had a formal orientation program covering expectations about performance, rules, or policies. While there seemed to be an assumption that Master's students should know what constitutes cheating and plagiarism, most respondents were unable to identify how they learned about these concepts. Three students thought there might be specific behaviors related to plagiarism about which students were unaware. Although cheating and plagiarism seemed to be occurring, the respondents were uncertain about the sanctions for these behaviors. Factors noted as contributing to cheating included: pressures related to grades, the number of assignments, and running out of time; leniency of professors and their tendency to avoid addressing these issues; lack of awareness of the rules of plagiarism; and personal attitudes such as wanting to avoid hard work or lack of interest in the topic. Factors noted as inhibiting cheating and plagiarism included fear and guilt, personal confidence, positive professional ethics, and the desire to work or learn. Implications of the findings for practice and research are considered. (Contains 18 references.) (SW) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Graduate Cheating 1 The Meaning and Mediated Nature of Cheating and Plagiarism Among Graduate Students in a College of Education


The induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) technology has revolutionized disease modelling by enabling the generation of patient-specific pluripotent stem cells for the study of complex disorders such as cancer. Somatic cell reprogramming through iPSCs induces global epigenetic reconfiguration of the chromatin which converts cancer cells to an embryonic stem cell-like state with potential reversion of tumorigenicity. Therefore, reprogramming can be used to answer the question as to whether epigenetic alterations alone can be sufficient to induce carcinogenesis, independent of genetic defects. In addition, it can used to dissect the relative contribution of genetics and epigenetics and epigenetics to tumorigenicity. In this study, the triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell line BT-549 and oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) cell line MCF7 were successfully reprogrammed by using the non-integrative episomal vectors expressing OCT4, SOX2, L-MYC, KLF4, LIN28, EBNA1, shRNA against TP53, and microRNA-302/367 cluster together with treatment of sodium butyrate. Pluripotency of cancer-derived iPSCs was confirmed by RT-PCR, RT-qPCR and immunofluorescence staining for expression of pluripotency markers. Differentiation potential of iPSCs was also assessed by using in vitro differentiation either spontaneous or directed to the mammary lineage. Functional assays indicated potential loss of tumorigenicity in re-differentiated cells derived from cancer iPSCs. The same approach was applied to study an immortalised, non-malignant mammary epithelial cell line MCF10A and two of its derived isogenic lines harbouring the two most frequent mutations in breast cancer, PIK3CAH1047R (+/-) and TP53(-/-), created by using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing. Reprogramming induced a tumorigenic phenotype in iPSCs (PIK3CAH1047R (+/-) isogenic line only) and re-differentiated progenies (in both wild type MCF10A and PIK3CAH1047R (+/-) cell lines), suggesting the contribution of PIK3CA mutation in enhancing malignant transformation. Results in this study suggested that epigenetics alone and/or its interaction with genetic defects (e.g. PIK3CA mutation) has significant impact on breast cancer carcinogenesis. The dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying the loss and gain of tumorigenicity using the iPSC models generated in this study could provide general understandings on breast carcinogenesis, which in turn could have important clinical implications.


This paper examines the meanings associated with the high-frequency social address term baixing ('common people') in China's contemporary news media, through the analysis of a sizable corpus of data from China's online news portals, together with the results of qualitative research derived from participation in an online discussion forum. The findings of this project indicate that the term baixing is closely associated with discourses of insignificance, obedience, and powerlessness. This study sets out to make a contribution to current research on Chinese address terms through the use of a corpus-based methodology, by expanding the site of investigation beyond face-to-face encounters to a wider media public, and thereby to provide insights into the discourses of citizen identity in contemporary China.


Winne' s (1995) thoughtful and proactive article stressed the role of metacognitive processes in self-regulated learning. Although metacognition and forms of knowledge are important, they provide an incomplete picture of the processes involved in self-regulation. Theoretical and empirical evidence support the inclusion of student perceptions and motivational processes as integral components of self-regulation. Research incorporating the operation of student knowledge and perceptions will make a significant contribution to the self-regulation literature and have important implications for instruction.


Title of Document: BIOFILM FORMATION BY ESCHERICHIA COLI O157:H7 Karen Suzanne Silagyi, M.S., 2007 Directed By: Associate Professor, Dr. Y. Martin Lo, Nutrition and Food Science Escherichia coli O157:H7 from cattle was evaluated for its ability to produce biofilm on food contact surfaces and quorum sensing signals in various raw meat, raw poultry, and produce broths. Generally, the strain was able to attach and form the most biofilm on stainless steel. Transfer of cells attached to stainless steel was observed onto various raw meat, raw poultry, ready-to-eat deli meats, and produce products as high as 10 CFU/cm. E. coli O157:H7 isolated from 14 animal, food, and human sources were characterized on antimicrobial susceptibility, ability to form biofilm, and production of curli fimbriae and cellulose. Strains isolated from cattle, retail chicken, and retail beef were able to form strong biofilms in addition to curli and cellulose production. Additionally, E. coli O157:H7 from retail chicken showed considerable antimicrobial resistance. This study suggests E. coli O157:H7 biofilms pose significant risk to continuous contamination of a variety of food products. BIOFILM FORMATION BY ESCHERICHIA COLI O157:H7


During the scientific revolution, the dominant Aristotelian picture of nature, which cohered closely with common sense and ordinary perceptual experience, was completely overthrown. Although we now take for granted the ideas that the earth revolves around the sun and that seemingly solid matter is composed of tiny particles, these concepts seemed equally counterintuitive, anxiety provoking, and at odds with our ancestors' embodied experience of the world. In Losing Touch with Nature, Mary Thomas Crane examines the complex way that the new science's threat to intuitive Aristotelian notions of the natural world was treated and reflected in the work of Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and other early modern writers. Crane breaks new ground by arguing that sixteenth-century ideas about the universe were actually much more sophisticated, rational, and observation-based than many literary critics have assumed. The earliest stages of the scientific revolution in England were most powerfully experienced as a divergence of intuitive science from official science, causing a schism between embodied human experience of the world and learned explanations of how the world works. This fascinating book traces the growing awareness of that epistemological gap through textbooks and natural philosophy treatises to canonical poetry and plays, presciently registering and exploring the magnitude of the human loss that accompanied the beginnings of modern science.