Ammonium (NH4+) is a biological nutrient that is transformed in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in a process called activated sludge. This is accomplished in an aerobic environment using microorganisms and inorganic carbon that convert the ammonium to nitrate (NO3-). This process is termed nitrification. Removal of ammonium is necessary due to its oxygen demand and toxicity to the environment.
Nitrification is considered a slow process due to the slow growth rate of the nitrifying bacteria. Ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) first covert the ammonium (NH4+) to nitrite (NO2-) followed by conversion to nitrate (NO3-) by nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). These slow rates limit the treatment capacity of the WWTP.
The initial hypothesis suggested that these slow rates were due to limited carbon in the aeration basin of a WWTP. A series of designed experiments and observational studies revealed substantial dissolved CO2 exists throughout a WWTP. Based on these findings, the central research focused on determining if an optimum dissolved CO2 concentration/ pH combination exists that maximizes nitrification.
Experimentation conducted at a pH of 7.0 and varying concentrations of dissolved CO2 concentration revealed inhibition at low ( 30 mg/l) dissolved CO2 concentration levels. Further research found that optimum nitrification can be attained in a dissolved CO2 concentration range of 10 - 15 mg/l and a pH range of 7.5 - 8.0. A maximum specific growth rate of 1.05 - 1.15 days-1 was achieved. A partitioning of the sums of squares from these designed experiments found that pH accounts for approximately 83 percent of the sums of squares due to treatment with the dissolved CO2 concentration accounting for 17 percent. This suggests that pH is the dominant factor affecting nitrification when dissolved CO2 concentration is optimized.
Analysis of the growth kinetics for two of the designed experiments was conducted. However, a set of parameters could not be found that described growth conditions for all operating conditions. Evaluating the results from these two experiments may suggest that a microbial population shift occurred between 16 and 19 mg/l of dissolved CO2 concentration. These dissolved CO2 concentrations represent pH values of 7.1 and 7.0, respectively, and were compared to experimentation conducted at a pH of 7.0. Though the pH difference is minor, in combination with the elevated dissolved CO2 concentration, a microbial shift was hypothesized.
Microbial samples were collected from the designed experiment that optimized dissolved CO2 concentration (5, 10 and 15 mg/l) and pH (6.5, 7.0, 7.5 and 8.0). These samples were evaluated using Fluorescence in situ hybridizations (FISH) to determine the population density of common ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) (Nitrosomonas and Nitrosospira) and nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) Nitrobacter and Nitrospirae). The dominant AOB and NOB microbes were found to be Nitrosomonas and Nitrospirae.
These results suggest that increased nitrification…


What is in view here is a sharply contrasted comparison between the doctrine of time and its epistemological presuppositions in Aristotle's Physics and late-medieval physics. This contrast seeks to understand the long historical process that marks the transition from ancient classicism to the raising epistemology of modernity comprehending the years 1000 to 1350. That is, from an Aristotelian notion of Physics, centered around the concept of the continuous with clear physiological connotations, to several medieval "readings" of the Aristotelian text according to a plane understanding of physics as the mechanics of individual solids. Late mediaeval Aristotelianism seeks and establishes, at the same time, the decisive epistemological direction of 17th century physical science, and in a way justifies the loss of the historical meaning of the Aristotelian doctrines and even of reality itself. The late mediaeval concept of time does not invite us to assess history, but rather to forget it.


Spyware represents a serious threat to confidentiality since it may result in loss of control over private data for computer users. This type of software might collect the data and send it to a third party without informed user consent. Traditionally two approaches have been presented for the purpose of spyware detection: Signature-based Detection and Heuristic-based Detection. These approaches perform well against known Spyware but have not been proven to be successful at detecting new spyware. This paper presents a Spyware detection approach by using Data Mining (DM)technologies. Our approach is inspired by DM-based malicious code detectors, which are known to work well for detecting viruses and similar software. However, this type of detector has not been investigated in terms of how well it is able to detect spyware. We extract binary features, called n-grams, from both spyware and legitimate software and apply five different supervised learning algorithms to train classifiers that are able to classify unknown binaries by analyzing extracted n-grams. The experimental results suggest that our method is successful even when the training data is scarce.


Objectives: To assess the level of nutritional knowledge (NK) among
male Kuwaiti college students and to correlate NK scores with different
nutritional domains. Methods: A
random sample of 378 students was asked to answer a questionnaire regarding
socio-demographic and health-related factors and answer questions assessing
their NK on different domains. Height and weight were measured. Results: NK was low. NK on sodium and
carbohydrates was the highest, where those of protein and cholesterol were
the lowest. Only older age, healthy dental status, and high academic
achievement in high school were associated with high NK. NK scores of different
nutritional domains were weekly correlated with each other. While the
NK on cholesterol correlated with NK on all other domains. NK on calories/food
intake correlated with less than half of the domains. Conclusion: NK was found to be low and interrelated. NK education
should aim to improve NK especially in those groups with the lowest scores.


Paramount to multicultural social work practice is acquiring a comprehensive understanding of oppressed and vulnerable populations who often lack access to healthcare and economic resources. A practitioner's self-awareness of social attitudes can provide a foundation for developing cultural competency skills. Using a pretest posttest design, social attitudes of Master of Social Work (MSW) students enrolled in a required social justice course were examined (N=85). A repeated-measure MANOVA indicated significant main effects on: 1) within subject factor of time on students' cognitive attitudes towards racial diversity, affective attitudes toward racial diversity, and women equity following students' exposure to the social justice course, and 2) between subject on the racial diversity affective subscale. Implications for practice are discussed.


The study sought to identify the challenges facing small scale women entrepreneurs in Kenya and initiatives put in place to counter the challenges. The study employed desktop research. MSEs Baseline survey, recorded that 612,848 women in Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in Kenya, accounting for 47.4 per cent of all those in MSEs. The study showed that women tended to operate enterprises associated with traditional women's roles, such as hairstyling. The small and micro enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the Kenyan Economy such as creating jobs however they face serious challenges such as lack of finance, discrimination, problems with the city council, multiple duties, poor access to justice, lack of education, among others. The study established that many stakeholders from both public and private sector are helping empower women entrepreneurs in Kenya: such as formation of women enterprise fund, establishing of women's university of science and technology, formal and informal financial support, and donor initiatives among others have been put in place. The study recommends that women in entrepreneurs need to be accepted and supported financially, legally and more capacity building should be made available. Further research is recommended in this area.


The Frank-Starling law states that the stroke volume of a regular cardiac beat increases in response to an increase in the volume of blood filling the heart. If this law applies in atrial fibrillation (AF) as well as in sinus rhythm (SR) then cardiac function will depend
on the duration of diastole in the preceding beat as well as the duration of the indexed beat.

Aim: The aim of this thesis was to develop a series of tools which would allow an assessment of the changes in cardiac function from one beat to the next in AF and SR. A secondary aim was to find a means of describing rhythm in a way that reflected possible functional change.

Methods: List-mode radionuclide ventriculography, RNVG, acquisitions of 373 patients in AF and a comparative group of 385 patients in SR were made. Software was written which allowed tightly defined preceding and indexed beat selection criteria to be established. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and other functional parameters (pre-systolic volume, systolic time, the ratio of pre-systolic to end-diastolic volume, peak filling rate and first third filling fraction) were calculated for images created using different beat selection criteria based on the quartiles of beat length. Assessment used both
variable and fixed time formatting and included a comparison of results achieved in the first and second half of the scan. Traditional linear measures of heart rate variability together with descriptors of the
Poincar´e plot and cycle length entropy were used to describe rhythm in both AF and SR patients.

Results: Substantial variation with indexed and preceding beat length was seen in both SR and AF in all the systolic parameters measured and in particular in LVEF where the standard deviation of LVEF for any one patient was found to be 8.2% in SR and 14.1% in AF. A combination of descriptors of rhythm was found to have good correlation with the range of LVEF measured. Examination of the results for LVEF in several clinical sub-groups suggests that the range of LVEF may have clinical interest. The techniques were applied in a small clinical study which considered the value of radio-frequency ablation in patients with AF and heart failure. In this study, measures of Sample entropy and the range of LVEF appeared to have prognostic value.

Conclusion: A tool which allows the investigation of beat-to-beat functional variation in RNVG has been produced. It has been shown that the functional variation depending on beat selection criteria is substantial and may have clinical significance both in patients with underlying pathology and prognostically in patients undergoing radiofrequency ablation (RFA).


This paper presents a receding horizon (RH) controller used for regulating a nonholonomic mobile robot. The RH control stability is guaranteed by adding a terminal-state penalty to the cost function and a terminal-state region to optimization constraints. A suboptimal solution to the optimization problem is sufficient to achieve stability. A new terminal-state penalty and its corresponding terminal-state constraints are found. Implementation and simulation results are provided to verify the proposed control strategy.


Unique among presidents' wives, Lady Bird Johnson was not only one of the leading environmentalists of the twentieth century, she also redefined the institution of First Lady. In this first book in an innovative new series, Lewis Gould shows why Mrs. Johnson ranks with Eleanor Roosevelt as a significant innovator of the First Lady role. Building upon his much admired Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment, Gould has refocused and revised his thinking to create a fresh, informative, and entertaining new portrait of LBJ's First Lady. Using Lady Bird's White House papers and interviews with her and her close associates, Gould captures both her spirit and considerable achievements during her tenure in the White House. He shows how Lady Bird's efforts to advance the cause of beautifying highways and the city of Washington, D.C. which included attending legislative strategy sessions and lobbying for the programs that she endorsed represented a new departure for a First Lady. He also tells how she devised and developed the staff, procedures, and tactics that subsequent First Ladies have since employed in the public arena. The book sheds light on the personal side of Mrs. Johnson's activism as well, telling how her appearances on behalf of environmental issues were often marred by antiwar protests and how she agonized with her husband over his decision not to run for reelection. It also reveals details of her life after LBJ's death, showing that the consistency with which she pursued her vision of the environment has added to her historical influence. Today Lady Bird's efforts are commemorated at such sites as a grove in Redwoods National Park and a park by the Potomac River that both bear her name. Equally important, she herself participated in the policymaking process in a more direct way than any previous First Lady had dared. All in all, Lady Bird Johnson set a high standard for future First Ladies to follow, while raising the environmental awareness of millions of Americans. For those reasons especially, her legacy will endure."


Student retention is a cause of concern for many higher education institutions. Early interventions aimed at improving student retention focused on student support mechanisms (see for example, Thomas et al., 2002). However, a shift has gradually been made towards learning, teaching and assessment practices which focus on student engagement with their studies. Crosling et al. (2009) identify engaging students in their studies as the major need for retaining students and stemming attrition. Over the years, the Department of Law and Criminology at Edge Hill University has adopted various learning and teaching approaches to encourage students to engage with their studies. These included: early diagnostic exercises, comprehensive induction programme, formative assignments, amongst others.
38
However, despite a number of measures introduced in efforts to reduce the retention problem, the Department continued to be faced with low progression rates of Level 4 students in particular.
This work in progress presentation will report on our latest initiative which involves assessment of students" performance in seminars. Using assessment and feedback as tools for engagement has been proposed by Krause (2007) as one of the effective strategies for enhancing student engagement with learning. With greater emphasis on skills-based education, grounded in the need for critical thinking and problem-solving capacities demanded by everyday legal practice, the assessed seminars were designed to tests the students" level of preparation, depth of understanding of the relevant material, and quality of participation and leadership in group discussion. The initial findings from surveys conducted with both students and tutors demonstrate that the introduction of assessed seminars has had a beneficial impact on both student attendance and performance. This is consistent with Gow (reported in Hornby 2003) who found that in class assessment not only improved attendance and rates but also student motivation to learn.
The presentation will describe the seminars" approach, teaching methodology, grading and goals. Student observations, reactions and comments will be presented, as well as tutors" reflections on the process and some of the issues which were identified with the assessment of student participation in class.


Time-to-depth conversion is the process where seismic velocities are scaled accordingly to check shots and well logs so that geological markers and seismic horizons match in depth. The final stacked seismic volume, if imaged in the depth domain, is stretched to time with the migration velocity, or a smoothed version of it (Jones, 2009), before redepthing with the calibrated velocity model. There are many different techniques used routinely in the industry (see Etris at al., 2001, for a detailed summary), by scaling either average velocities or interval velocities with some derived correction functions. These functions can be simple scalars, depth variant scalars, or more complex time and space variant functions, which need to be interpolated between wells. In any case, the depthing process is quite laborious because the derivation correction functions for each well is time-consuming. The application of these correction functions may produce results that look somehow discontinuous, with jumps in velocity a...


Along with progressively expanding information media exist in in this time become us progressively easy to get information. One of the media of is forwarding of information which experiencing of many change is television media. And one of the form display television giving many information is displaying which in the Target of this research is to know the existence of cultural symbols as nation identity through jamu product advertisement refuse version wind "Trully Indonesia". In this advertisement there are a lot of cultural symbols which is the mentioned become a identity of State Indonesia Method which is used in this research is with approach of kualitatif-interpretatif. In this research is used by Roland Barthes semiotik analysis tekhnik, this analysis is selected because felt can assist to express to eat which hidden in advertisement, good of meaning which look (content manifest) and also hidden meaning (content latent). Through stringed up ideology of myth, symbols which there are in this advertisement can be expressed by more circumstantial to get meaning from each;every cultural symbols which there are in manner artistry of area which there are in jamu advertisement refuse version wind " Trully Indonesia form of advertisement. Advertisement represent form of communication meant to motivate, to promoting, and introducing an service and product to very consumer or someone of that potential. Beside that, advertisement also has function to influence and invite public to act and think as according to desire the maker of advertisement. One of the advertisement which have displayed in television namely at advertisement a jamu product refuse wind of Sidomuncul which is have theme " Trully Indonesia" attend not merely promoting its just product however, in this advertisement the maker of advertisement try idea input about variation of culture the anticipated have been claimed off hand by other State. In this research of researcher find that cultural identity of nation determined by cultural acculturation which is cultural there are some symbols which there are in traditional culture of Indonesia have and meaning of articulation in every existing culture. And its him big nation is nation capable to esteem its culture, not merely loving yielded product however also have to earn to love and take care of continuity of culture had Don'T let our identity[is hijacked by other state, for that association and unity of defended proper nation to utilize creation perfection of nation. Keyword : Identitas Budaya; Iklan; Analisis Semiotik Link terkait : http://skripsi.umm.ac.id/files/disk1/325/jiptummpp-gdl-s1-2009-etikirawat-16208-PENDAHUL-N.pdf


We derive a novel expression for the mutual-coherence function for plasma x-ray lasers using generalized matrix optics. The expression is valid when optical systems can be described by complex ABCDGH beam matrices and when gain saturation can be ignored. The model is used to analyze the output-beam characteristics and the spatial-coherence properties of a general class of x-ray lasers that contain exploding-foil, slab, and curved targets. Comparison of our results with numerical solutions of the paraxial wave equation and previous experimental data shows good agreement.


Cooperation between wireless network nodes is a promising technique for improving the physical layer security of wireless transmission, in terms of secrecy capacity, in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. While existing physical layer security literature answered the question "what are the link-level secrecy capacity gains from cooperation?", this paper attempts to answer the question of "how to achieve those gains in a practical decentralized wireless network and in the presence of a secrecy capacity cost for information exchange?". For this purpose, we model the physical layer security cooperation problem as a coalitional game with non-transferable utility and propose a distributed algorithm for coalition formation. Through the proposed algorithm, the wireless users can autonomously cooperate and self-organize into disjoint independent coalitions, while maximizing their secrecy capacity taking into account the security costs during information exchange. We analyze the resulting coalitional structures, discuss their properties, and study how the users can self-adapt the network topology to environmental changes such as mobility. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm allows the users to cooperate and self-organize while improving the average secrecy capacity per user up to 25.32% relative to the non-cooperative case.


Landscape approach is increasingly implemented aimed to improved land-use governance. It is seen as a promising approach addressing the ideal goal in conservation, and environment protection while supporting development. Nonetheless, the implementation is challenging. There are cases of programs were discontinued when a project was withdrawn, due to large coverage area, transboundary, high cost or poor coordination with formal agencies. Aimed to have a long-term impact on land-use improvement, we develop a framework implemented at the sub-landscape as part of a bigger landscape. The framework then adopted into three tiers of processes, conducted in parallel. The tiers include a community participation on a spatial planning process through zoning to recognize and redefined conflicted land use zones. Correlate the program with existing government planning instruments is also key. The goals are to improve stakeholders coordination between the communities, private, government, and establish a social cohesion on the same environmental services. We study the implementation at two sub landscapes in Indonesia with two specific focus, a watershed in Aceh Province and mitigation for fire-prone peatland in Central Kalimantan. Regardless the context specificity, these landscapes are representing Indonesia and other similar countries with common land-use issues.


We propose a framework for estimating network-driven time-varying systemic risk contributions that is applicable to a high-dimensional financial system. Tail risk dependencies and contributions are estimated based on a penalized two-stage fixed-effects quantile approach, which explicitly links bank interconnectedness to systemic risk contributions. The framework is applied to a system of 51 large European banks and 17 sovereigns through the period 2006 to 2013, utilizing both equity and CDS prices. We provide new evidence on how banking sector fragmentation and sovereign-bank linkages evolved over the European sovereign debt crisis and how it is reflected in network statistics and systemic risk measures. Illustrating the usefulness of the framework as a monitoring tool, we provide indication for the fragmentation of the European financial system having peaked and that recovery has started.


My motive for doing what I am going to do is simply personal revenge. I do not expect to accomplish anything by it. Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) Game theory is multiplayer decision theory where the choices of each player affect the payoffs to other players, and the players take this into account in their choice behavior. In this chapter we address the contribution of game theory to the design of experiments aimed at understanding the behavior of individuals engaged in strategic interaction. We call this be-havioral game theory. Game theory is a general lexicon that applies to all life forms. Strategic interaction neatly separates living from nonliving entities and defines life itself. Strategic interaction is the sole concept commonly used in the analysis of living systems that has no counterpart in physics or chemistry. Game theory provides the conceptual and procedural tools for studying social interaction, including the characteristics of the players, the rules of the game, the informational structure, and the payoffs associated with particular strategic interactions. The various behavioral disciplines (economics , psychology, sociology, politics, anthropology, and biology) are currently based on distinct principles and rely on distinct types of data. However, game theory fosters a unified analytical framework available to all the behavioral disciplines. This facilitates cross-disciplinary information exchange that may eventually culminate in a degree of unity within the behavioral sciences now enjoyed only by the natural sciences (see chapter 12). Moreover, because behavioral game-theoretic predictions can be systematically tested, the results can be replicated by different laboratories This turns social science into true science. Behavioral game theory presumes the BPC model, as developed in 1.1. Experiments subject individuals to a variety of game settings, including diverse payoffs, informational conditions, and constraints on action, and 48


Allen Ginsberg began photographing in the late 1940s when he purchased a small, second-hand Kodak camera. For the next fifteen years he took photographs of himself, his friends and lovers, including the writers and poets Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Gregory Corso as well as Beat personality Neal Cassady. He abandoned photography in 1963 and took it up again in the 1980s, when he was encouraged by photographers Berenice Abbott and Robert Frank to reprint his earlier work and make new portraits; these included more images of long-time friends as well other acquaintances such as painters Larry Rivers and Francesco Clemente and musician Bob Dylan. Ginsberg's photographs form a compelling portrait of the Beat and counterculture generation from the 1950s to the 1990s. Far more than historical documents, his photographs and the extensive inscriptions he added to them years later preserve what he referred to as "the sacredness of the moment," the often joyous communion of friends and the poignancy of looking back to intensely felt times. More than seventy prints are brilliantly reproduced in this book and accompanied by Sarah Greenough's essay on Ginsberg's photography in relation to his poetry and other photographers of the time, a chronology of his photographic activity, and selections from interviews with Ginsberg between 1958 and 1996.


Sustainable, safe, secure and efficient logistics is of great importance for chemical supply chains to operate successfully. However, as most logistics operations in this sector are outsourced to logistics service providers (LSPs), chemical companies have to rely on LSPs and collaborate with them when working on logistics ecoefficiency. This paper takes an LSP's perspective. It aims to investigate the vertical as well as horizontal collaboration needed in making chemical logistics greener and safer, by shifting chemical road freight to intermodal transport, combining modes, better transport planning, and energy and emission management. The research problem is analysed on the basis of a literature review and structured, in-depth interviews conducted with nine LSPs and twelve chemical companies operating in Poland. The research is part of the "Promotion of Multimodal Transport in Chemical Logistics" project within INTERREG Central Europe Programme. The main findings from the research show that environmental regulations and targets in the EU Transport Whitepapers have resulted in LSPs' interest to work towards establishing more ecological strategies and operations, as well as new, greener services in response to the needs of chemical companies. There are many examples of vertical cooperation, even with elements of collaboration, among LSPs and their suppliers, and chemical customers in green logistics. However, this is not the case for horizontal cooperation among LSPs operating in Poland. They consider it to be very challenging and risky, and are reluctant to share their data with other LSPs. Nevertheless, environmental regulations, technological development and efficiency goals will soon force LSPs to consider working together with other LSPs, even competitors. The research reported in this paper is limited in its scope. Even so, it does provide a platform from which more detailed research may be conducted. The managerial implications arising from the research suggest current practices in green logistics in general and green logistics in chemical industry in particular.


This presentation presents information about The Portal to Texas History, a digital gateway to cultural heritage collections in Texas. This presentation discusses the IOGENE project, the research processes involved in developing The Portal to Texas History, the research with genealogists, and shows illustrations of the contents of The Portal to Texas History.


Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to leftfield. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.


Uptake of evidence in public health policy development, also referred to as knowledge translation (KT), is poorly understood, especially in low income countries. We sought to enhance our understanding of the diffusion of evidence into public health policies and practice in Uganda. A theory-driven enquiry was used with two Ugandan case study evaluations: the national malaria treatment policy change on the one hand, and the abolition of user fees in the public health care delivery system on the other. We found that there is no simple formula for improving evidence uptake, but a better understanding of facilitating factors and interactions of stakeholders can help researchers and policy actors improve KT. Facilitating factors identified in our study pertain to the characteristics of the available evidence, the strengthened capacity of the Ministry of Health to lead the KT process, the presence of KT partnerships, the feasibility of implementation of the proposed change, a favourable political context and evidence aligning with the overall government agenda. However, the nature of the issue may influence this uptake as evidence concerning non-contested technical issues tends to be taken up more easily than evidence pertaining to more controversial policy themes.


Do better material conditions improve well-being and mental health? Or does any positive relationship merely reflect that well-being promotes economic success? We compare winners and losers from a large Ethiopian housing lottery in a preregistered analysis. Winners gain access to better housing, experience a substantial increase in wealth, and report higher levels of overall life satisfaction and lower levels of financial distress. However, we find no average effects of winning on psychological distress. Our results suggest that not all aspects of well-being and mental health are equally sensitive to economic conditions.


One of the first questions that has to be answered in the survey design process is "How many subjects should be interviewed?" The answer can have significant implications for the cost of project preparation, since in Latin America and the Caribbean costs per interview can range from US$20 to US$100. Traditionally, the sample size question has been answered in an unsatisfactory way by either dividing an exogenously fixed survey budget by the cost per interview or by employing some variant of a standard statistical tolerance interval formula. The answer is not to be found in the environmental economics literature. But, it can be developed by adapting a Bayesian decision analysis approach from business statistics. The paper explains and illustrates, with a worked example, the rationale for and mechanics of a sequential Bayesian optimization technique, which is only applicable when there is some monetary payoff to alternative courses of action that can be linked to the sample data.


We study sequential decision-making with known rewards and unknown constraints, motivated by situations where the constraints represent expensive-to-evaluate human preferences, such as safe and comfortable driving behavior. We formalize the challenge of interactively learning about these constraints as a novel linear bandit problem which we call constrained linear best-arm identification. To solve this problem, we propose the Adaptive Constraint Learning (ACOL) algorithm. We provide an instance-dependent lower bound for constrained linear best-arm identification and show that ACOL's sample complexity matches the lower bound in the worst-case. In the average case, ACOL's sample complexity bound is still significantly tighter than bounds of simpler approaches. In synthetic experiments, ACOL performs on par with an oracle solution and outperforms a range of baselines. As an application, we consider learning constraints to represent human preferences in a driving simulation. ACOL is significantly more sample efficient than alternatives for this application. Further, we find that learning preferences as constraints is more robust to changes in the driving scenario than encoding the preferences directly in the reward function.


OBJECTIVES
We explain why traits of interest to behavioral scientists may have a genetic architecture featuring hundreds or thousands of loci with tiny individual effects rather than a few with large effects and why such an architecture makes it difficult to find robust associations between traits and genes.

METHODS
We conducted a genome-wide association study at 2 sites, Harvard University and Union College, measuring more than 100 physical and behavioral traits with a sample size typical of candidate gene studies. We evaluated predictions that alleles with large effect sizes would be rare and most traits of interest to social science are likely characterized by a lack of strong directional selection. We also carried out a theoretical analysis of the genetic architecture of traits based on R.A. Fisher's geometric model of natural selection and empirical analyses of the effects of selection bias and phenotype measurement stability on the results of genetic association studies.

RESULTS
Although we replicated several known genetic associations with physical traits, we found only 2 associations with behavioral traits that met the nominal genome-wide significance threshold, indicating that physical and behavioral traits are mainly affected by numerous genes with small effects.

CONCLUSIONS
The challenge for social science genomics is the likelihood that genes are connected to behavioral variation by lengthy, nonlinear, interactive causal chains, and unraveling these chains requires allying with personal genomics to take advantage of the potential for large sample sizes as well as continuing with traditional epidemiological studies.


: Objective: We evaluated the patients who were hospitalized for acute intoxications. We report the etiologies of intoxications, mortality rate, and the outcomes of treatment modalities. Materials and Methods: Data is given of patients who were hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit of Erciyes University Medical Faculty from January 1, 1993 to December 31, 1999. The total number of patients followed in the Medical Intensive Care Unit during this period were 3500 and 272 (7.8%) of them were acute intoxications. One hundred and six patients were male (mean age; 31–18 years) and 166 were female (mean age; 24–15 years). Results: Insecticides were the most common causes of intoxications with 95 patients. Other common causes were sedative- antidepressants (57 cases), mushrooms (26 cases) and carbon monoxide (24 cases). The biggest parts of the insecticides were organophosphates with 59 patients. Suicidal attempt was present in 197 patients. All alcohol intoxications were with consumption of ethyl alcohol. The rest of the patients (69 cases) were accidental exposures. The causes of deaths were insecticides in 13 patients, alcohol in 3 patients, carbon monoxide in 2 patients, mushrooms in 2 patients, and naphthalene in a patient. Specific antidote has been used for 73 patients. 11 (15%) of the patients, who died, received specific antidote treatment. Conclusion: Intoxications are one of the most common causes for admissions to the Intensive Care Units. The causes of intoxications change with the characteristics of region, hospital and departments. Appropriate supportive care alone may save the lives of patients. However, if there is a specific antidote, it must be given.


What characterises the relationship between users and platforms? How are use and users configured by platform design, and in turn, how do users accept or reject such efforts? Using the live-streaming platform Twitch, this paper explores the user-platform relationship to answer these questions. Twitch is a highly popular live-streaming platform with an emphasis on gaming, whose rise to fame has been far from streamlined or expected. Based on qualitative analysis of design, discourse and user practices, the paper draws on script theory from science and technology studies and platform theory from Internet studies, to unpack the configuration of use and users. By tracing the development of the platform, we identify a pattern of frequent interaction between platform owners and users, and consequent course changes, which we label co-scription. Finally, we analyse the current Twitch script and propose five dimensions of co-scription that determine the user-platform relationship: 1) Sociality: community or individual use; 2) Audience: specific or general; 3) Moderation: strictly moderated or laissez-faire; 4) Content: user-generated or commercial; and 5) Scope: specialised or multi-feature.


The situation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be dire. This book uses an original database of SOE performance that shows that every year about one-third of such enterprises in the region report losses (up to 70 percent in some countries) and that they require between 0.3 and one percentage point of GDP in fiscal transfers to cover such losses. Countries in the region have adopted centralized agency monitoring of their SOEs, managed to reduce the fiscal burden of SOEs, shown better financial returns, and accumulated less liabilities to GDP, thus generating less fiscal risk for the government overall. Each of the chapters provides a practical way to solve either asymmetry of information problems in the monitoring of SOEs or solutions to reduce the discretionary nature of the fiscal governance of SOEs. Chapter 2 details the kinds of fiscal risks and contingent liabilities that SOEs create for governments and provides a set of controls to limit those risks. Chapter 3 shows that allowing SOEs to issue bonds has been an ineffective way of hardening their budget constraint, given that investors price those bonds at a discount. Chapter 4 presents a state-contingent financial instrument that allows investors to value an SOE. Chapter 5 provides empirical evidence on the advantages of SOE centralized monitoring agencies in Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighting Chile, Peru, and Paraguay. Chapter 6 examines the experience of East Asian countries with holding companies and discusses when holding companies are a better vehicle to control SOEs. Chapter 7 suggests ways to align the incentives of politicians and SOE managers to provide better goods and services. Finally, Chapter 8 provides a practical guide to improve the monitoring of SOEs and to design a centralized monitoring agency.


There were three principal research aims: primarily, Lean is and always should be regarded as a business model as depicted by Toyota who is dedicated towards finding better ways of producing cars; consequently an investigation of whether organisations embracing Lean as a philosophy were indeed more triumphant. An adapted balanced scorecard was used which embraced strategic, operation and indices focused towards the future prospects of an organisation. Secondly, it was obligatory to explicitly and precisely determine whether an organisation espoused Lean as a philosophy as opposed to another process or strategy. Thirdly, since Lean has to be envisaged as a never-ending journey; it was important to map out the Lean journey and to be able to categorize the juncture an organisation occupies at any particular phase of its overall implementation. This affords an opportunity to advise an organisation of specific requirements it needs to satisfy should it wish to embrace Lean as a philosophy. The methodological approach focused on the effective deployment of survey questionnaires in sixty-eight organisations and seven extensive case studies in manufacturing organisations of varying sizes. The CIMA organisational classification, the Puttick grid and the Product-Process matrix were used to analyse the range of organisations used in this investigation. Whilst there was a requirement to investigate whether Lean indeed equates to success, pertinent performance measurement was considered decisive; the DMP Model (Maltz et al., 2003) was modified to perform this role. An unremitting theme both in literature concerning the implementation of Lean and in the research evolves around the notion of corporate cultures. Its relevance is explored further within the analysis. In accepting the premise that Lean incorporates a journey, it was fundamental to identify the voyage. Prevalent frameworks are deficient in identifying the sustainability and ideological facets of Lean. Consequently, an extensive Lean audit was developed and piloted in twenty disparate organisations.


This paper begins with a detailed analysis of the factors that led Koreas more open approach to FTAs, culminating in the officially stated intention of exploring a bilateral FTA with Chile. Korea and Chile have concluded preliminary talks and working-level negotiations are expected to begin in 1999. Looking beyond the FTA with Chile, Korea has stated that it is pondering establishing FTAs with Thailand, South Africa, and Turkey. The choice of these countries is part of Koreas strategy to establish an FTA with a country in each continent in order to increase market access around the world. However, this paper takes the position that if Korea seeks for future free trade partners after the establishment of a Korea-Chile FTA, Korea needs to look to a new regional trading bloc with APEC. Through extending preferential bilateral FTAs to other APEC economies, Koreas FTA may not only accelerate the trade and investment liberalization of APEC, but also help Korea play a leading role in APEC in the future. This paper the proceeds to support a view that Koreas next move needs to be the consideration of bilateral FTAs with Australia, New Zealand and Canada or a multilateral FTA encompassing all four countries. While trade with all of these countries would be highly complementary for both sides, the most compelling reason for such a FTA would be its potential for spreading free trade throughout the Asia Pacific region. Along with Chile, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are all APEC members. Such a free trade area would demonstrate the benefits of free trade to regional economies and possibly exert the pressure needed to restart the currently stalled free trade talks of APEC. Such progression would move Korea to the forefront of international trade talks.


South Africa is experiencing a large environmental problem due to uncontrolled discharge of acid mine water into public water courses. The need for neutralisation and desalination of acid mine drainage is a significant issue in South Africa and the sludges that result from mine wastewater treatment usually contain elevated levels of mixed contaminants derived from those originally contained in the wastewater. A more reasonable approach to ultimate sludge disposal is to view the sludge as a resource that can be recycled or reused. Carbon dioxide and a sludge mixture consisting of Mg(OH)2 and CaSO4-2H2O are by-products from acid mine drainage treatment processes. This study was carried out to explore the feasibility of separating Mg(OH)2 from CaSO4 2H2O through dissolution of Mg(OH)2 by accelerated carbonation in a pressurised, completely-mixed reactor. The effects of temperature and pressure, and of both together, on the dissolution of the sludge mixture with time were investigated. Parameters monitored included alkalinity, pH, conductivity and Ca2+, Mg2+ and SO4 2- concentrations. OLI Analyser Studio Version 9.0 software was used for modelling predictions of chemical speciation of the mixtures. The optimum separation capacity for the Mg(OH)2-CaSO4-2H2O sludge mixture was determined to be 99.34% Mg2+ and 0.05% Ca2+ in the aqueous phase when contacted with CO2 at a temperature of 5 C and pressure of 150 kPa. The model predictions were in agreement with the experimental findings. Temperature and pressure have a significant impact on the dissolution of the mixed sludges when contacted with CO2.


Based on information including porosity and permeability, petrography, the stable isotopic composition of carbonate cements, and homogenization temperatures of aqueous fluid inclusions, we have studied the main factors for the development of abnormally high porosity in the Lingshui Formation reservoir of the Yacheng area. We found the sandstones were mainly subarkose, arkose, and lithic arkose and were texturally and compositionally immature. The research suggested that the sandstones existing close beneath the regional unconformity were formed during the Late Oligocene. Early diagenetic calcite cements leached to form intergranular secondary pores without the precipitation of late-diagenetic calcite cements in most sandstones. The isotopic composition of carbonate cements suggested a significant incursion of meteoric freshwater in the sandstones. Early diagenetic meteoric freshwater leaching reactions provided favorable conduits for the penetration of organic acids during the later period. Thermal fluid activities allowed source rocks to mature rapidly; therefore, the organic acid generation period was extended and feldspars were corroded to form abundant intragranular secondary pores. The abundant corroded minerals and the small amounts of associated authigenic minerals suggested that the dissolution of minerals most likely occurred in an open geochemical system. The dissolution of feldspars and calcite minerals generated an enhanced secondary porosity of approximately 9%–13% in thin sections of these sandstones.


The present international migration system is failing to respond to the new challenges and opportunities that movements of people now present. Rising levels of migration and its increasingly complex pattern-marked by economic globalisation, a widening variety of source countries and unpredictable and intense flows-is making migration management more and more difficult. Fears have been expressed that a breakdown of the migration system, already under heavy strain, could spell political and economic disaster, creating in its wake a major setback in human progress. Not surprisingly, there have been calls in recent years for the establishment of a more robust and comprehensive multilateral framework to help revamp the present fragmentary and predominantly reactive arrangements. But little systematic work has been done to develop this idea. The study takes up this challenge. In this ground-breaking study, the issues and prospects of a multilateral response to the challenge of movements of people is explored. It presents, within a single, cohesive framework, the views, perceptions, and critical analyses of a group of eminent specialists drawn from different disciplines but with an in-depth knowledge of migration issues. It argues, that if a co-ordinated multilateral response is indeed necessary, what should be its exact configuration? In addressing this critical question, the book introduces the concept of an internationally harmonized migration regime, based on the principle of regulated openness - commonalty of policy objectives, harmonized normative principles and co-ordinated institutional arrangements.


Kidney allografts are frequently lost due to alloimmunity. Still, the impact of early acute rejection (AR) on long‐term graft survival is debated. We examined this relationship focusing on graft histology post‐AR and assessing specific causes of graft loss. Included are 797 recipients without anti‐donor antibodies (DSA) at transplant who had 1 year protocol biopsies. 15.2% of recipients had AR diagnosed by protocol or clinical biopsies. Compared to no‐AR, all histologic types of AR led to abnormal histology in 1 and 2 years protocol biopsies, including more fibrosis + inflammation (6.3% vs. 21.9%), moderate/severe fibrosis (7.7% vs. 13.5%) and transplant glomerulopathy (1.4% vs. 8.3%, all p < 0.0001). AR were associated with reduced graft survival (HR = 3.07 (1.92–4.94), p < 0.0001). However, only those AR episodes followed by abnormal histology led to reduced graft survival. Early AR related to more late alloimmune‐mediated graft losses, particularly transplant glomerulopathy (31% of losses). Related to this outcome, recipients with AR were more likely to have new DSA class II 1 year posttransplant (no‐AR, 11.1%; AR, 21.2%, p = 0.039). In DSA negative recipients, early AR often leads to persistent graft inflammation and increases the risk of new DSA II production. Both of these post‐AR events are associated with increased risk of graft loss.


Cellier, Elizabeth (fl. 1668–1688), midwife, has been linked to the Dormer family of Buckinghamshire, while her enemies claimed that she was a brazier's daughter from Canterbury. Cellier said that she converted to Catholicism out of loyalty to the crown, after her father and brother died on the same day during the civil war. Nothing is known of her training as a midwife, although from her writings it appears that she owned Jacques Guillemeau's Child-Birth, or, The Happy Deliverie of Women (1612). Nor is it known whether Cellier was licensed; if, as is usually assumed, she served the Catholic nobility in London, a licence may have been irrelevant. The role of midwife enabled her to move freely about London by day or night, and it is known that Lady Powis used Cellier to carry messages. Although Cellier claimed that her advice had led to Mary of Modena's successful pregnancy in 1687–8, she was not present at the birth of the prince of Wales.


There is evidence that multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology leads to distinct patterns of volume loss over time (VLOT) in different central nervous system (CNS) structures. We aimed to use such patterns to identify patient subgroups. MS patients of all classical disease phenotypes underwent annual clinical, blood, and MRI examinations over 6 years. Spinal, striatal, pallidal, thalamic, cortical, white matter, and T2‐weighted lesion volumes as well as serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) were quantified. CNS VLOT patterns were identified using principal component analysis and patients were classified using hierarchical cluster analysis. 225 MS patients were classified into four distinct Groups A, B, C, and D including 14, 59, 141, and 11 patients, respectively). These groups did not differ in baseline demographics, disease duration, disease phenotype distribution, and lesion‐load expansion. Interestingly, Group A showed pronounced spinothalamic VLOT, Group B marked pallidal VLOT, Group C small between‐structure VLOT differences, and Group D myelocortical volume increase and pronounced white matter VLOT. Neurologic deficits were more severe and progressed faster in Group A that also had higher mean sNfL levels than all other groups. Group B experienced more frequent relapses than Group C. In conclusion, there are distinct patterns of VLOT across the CNS in MS patients, which do not overlap with clinical MS subtypes and are independent of disease duration and lesion‐load but are partially associated to sNfL levels, relapse rates, and clinical worsening. Our findings support the need for a more biologic classification of MS subtypes including volumetric and body‐fluid markers.


Aminometyl lithium complexes R2NCH2Li (R2N = Me2N (1a), C5H10N (1b), C7H14N (1d)) and LiCH2NPh2.1...1.5 THF (1c) were prepd. by reaction of Bu3SnCH2NR2 with BuLi. The x-ray structure anal. of 1c exhibits a dimeric structure with monohapto bonded aminomethyl ligands. Compds. 1a and 1b react with nickel halide phosphine complexes to give very air sensitive homoleptic aminomethyl nickel complexes [{Li(OEt2)}2Ni(CH2NR2)4] (NR2 = NMe2 (2a), NC5H10 (2b)) which were characterized by microanal. and by NMR spectroscopy. They are diamagnetic (2a: meff = 0.22 BM, 2b: meff = 0.33 BM) and thermally very stable (Tdec.: 90-115 Deg). The x-ray structure anal. of 2b shows a planar NiC4 unit and a strong coordination of Li at the aminomethyl ligands. Compd. 1d reacts with nickel halide phosphine complexes in an electron transfer reaction to give [Ni(PR3)4].


Tapered laminates have been used in many engineering applications such as composite yokes to hold the blades in helicopters, wing structures etc. The tapering configuration requires cut fibers along the length of the laminate. This provides flexibility. However this also creates stress concentration which can accelerate fatigue crack propagation. One possibility to improve the performance of this type of structure is to modify the epoxy matrix with nanoclay. In our previous work, it was shown that addition of clay can improve the fatigue performance of regular laminates of glass/epoxy. In this work, epoxy modified with nanoclay was incorporated into glass fibers and tapered laminates were made using these materials. Three different types of laminate stacking sequence were investigated. Tension-tension fatigue tests were performed. The results show that significant improvement in fatigue lives was indeed obtained. The incorporation of nanoclay seems to speed up the delamination at the initial stage of the fatigue. However the rate of crack propagation is slower subsequently. The net result is longer fatigue live to reach a certain crack length. It is believed that the improvement is due to the enhancement in mode II fracture toughness. Stacking sequence also has an effect on rate of fatigue crack propagation.


The authors propose a method to optimize the RF gain in narrowband radio-over-fiber links employing a Mach-Zehnder modulator followed by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) for amplification. Optimization is achieved by control of the modulator bias in order to improve the signal optical-modulation depth (OMD). Thus, for a given modulation amplitude, the optical signal has a reduced mean optical power and can access the small signal gain of the EDFA. This unsaturated gain is higher than the saturated one, thereby significantly increasing the RF gain of the link. Simultaneous optimization of OMD is also desirable to reduce detector saturation and fiber-induced nonlinear effects. They derive an analytical expression to describe optimum operating conditions for the modulator bias and validate their results through numerical simulation and experimental work. The proposed optimum modulator operating point is experimentally proven to be applicable to multicarrier signals like those used in 802.11a/g protocols


Introduction It is generally believed that the greater the role of economic factors in sport, the greater the impact of law in sport. (1) This is also true of Community law. (2) In her speech delivered on 28 November 2003, Viviane Reding, then the EU commissioner for sports matters, announced that the elimination of doping in sport is to become one of the priorities in the Community's policy. (3) Such a declaration raises the question of the legal grounds that might lie at the EU anti-doping policy, or of the extent to which Community law might influence the anti-doping laws and regulations adopted by international sports federations, or of the relationship between WADA (World Anti-Doping-Agency) and EU policy, regarding the fight against doping going on today. Legal sanctioning of doping at the international level--historical background The battle against doping in sport that had been fought until late 1990s under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee was not successful. Poor international collaboration rendered the unification of procedures or jurisdiction impossible. (4) Despite the existence of an international legal document that addressed the problems of doping in sport, which took the form of the Anti-doping Convention of the Council of Europe No 135 issued on 16 November 1989 and ratified by the government of Poland on 1 November 1990 (5), it soon turned out that it was not an instrument capable of resolving the technical complexities (or technical problems) encountered in the fight against doping in sport. (6) The unquestionable advantage of having the Convention, however, is the fact that it triggered off mechanisms that broadened awareness of, and interest in the problem of doping in sport. (7) The impulse that had significantly accelerated the efforts to develop effective ways of eliminating doping worldwide--and therefore also within the Community--were the doping scandals that came to light during the Tour de France race in 1998, when substances known for their doping characteristics were found in the samples taken from the Festina team. It was then that both the Council of Europe and the European Union resolved to take measures that would decidedly fight doping in sport. At the Vienna summit in December 1998, the Council of Europe expressed its concern about the growing number and scale of doping scandals in sport. Those concerns were later reflected in the so called Community Plan to Combat Doping in Sport. That document had laid the grounds for a large-scale information and education campaign. The Council underlined the necessity of joint action at the Community level and obliged the European Commission to investigate the existing anti-doping laws in member states. (8) Further, basing on the opinion of the European Group of Ethics, the European Committee announced mobilisation of all Community instruments that might contribute to the elimination of doping in sport. At the same time it was agreed that the protection of sportsmen's rights was a higher goal of the world-wide anti-doping policy that should involve the harmonisation of doping rules and procedures, as well as disciplinary sanctions and the determination of a uniform list of illegal products and methods, giving priority to the health of the sportsmen through exercising anti-doping controls and checks also at times between competitions. The document failed, however, to specify on what legal grounds the European Union could base its intended action. Legal grounds of the Community anti-doping policy The EC founding Treaties and subsequent reforming treaties" do not contain any provision that would regulate stricte sports issues". Consequently, the classification of sport, and therefore the anti-doping policy as an area of EU activity, is not at all clear." Doping in sport is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and therefore the European Commission, in seeking to combat it, reaches for legal instruments which are also available in other policies. …


The polarization competition in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with two nearly degenerate modes is analyzed with the aim of studying their noise properties and, in particular, amplitude fluctuations and spectral linewidth. The coupling between the two modes is attributed to carriers, different spin populations, and structural anisotropies, including the consequences of the electro-optic effect that results from current injection. The model is based on quantum equations of motion with Langevin noise sources. Results for the noise spectra in the regions where mode competition is stronger are reported and discussed.


Until 1933 the yearly number of certificates issued to miners in Britain on account of respiratory dust disease was less than 100. Partly owing to alterations in legislation dealing with workmen's compensation, partly because of a real increase in the incidence, the number of certifications has risen greatly since then, reaching a peak of 5,754 in 1945. Of that number 5,180 were issued to men in the South Wales coalfield. From the beginning of 1931 until the middle of 1948 over 22,000 new cases of pneumoconiosis of miners were certified in the whole country, and of these 19,000 were in South Wales. As the number of coal miners in South Wales is only about a sixth of all British coal miners, the incidence there is about 40 times greater than in the rest of the country. This excessive incidence, still largely unexplained, has led to the development of important sociological problems. These, as well as the purely medical aspects of the disease have been studied by the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit of which the authors are members, Dr. Fletcher being its Director. It is estimated that the number of certified men alive today in the South Wales area is i6,000 and of these, 5,000 are known to be unemployed. The effects are felt by the individual and by the community. The affected man suffers an impairment in his general health, with consequent curtailment of his ability to work and his freedom to enjoy leisure. The loss of employment means considerable loss of income, and there are often serious psychological effects. The coal mining industry suffers a loss of skilled workers, added to which are the costs of paying compensation, unemployment benefit, and the maintenance of government departments for these and other functions. The Memorandum contains a chapter giving statistical information, and another containing 12 case histories of patients chosen to represent different facets of the social problem. In addition, there are three useful appendices. The first gives a description of pneumoconiosis, principally for those who do not know much about the disease; the second, entitled " Administrative Aspects of Coalworkers' Pneumoconiosis ", deals with the different compensation schemes and their working. Appendix III gives some results of two hitherto unpublished sampling enquiries, one by H.M. Social Survey in 1945, and the other a report by Doig and Hillier to the National Joint Pneumoconiosis Committee in 1947. It includes information about various matters such as age distribution, degrees of disability, reasons for leaving jobs, and travelling difficulties. The authors emphasize that the greatest need of these disabled men is suitable work. They quote evidence showing that some 75% of the unemployed pneumoconiosis cases are fit for medium or light work under ordinary conditions of employment, and this figure is


We demonstrate the ability to guide high-frequency photoacoustic waves through thick tissue with a water-filled silica-capillary (150 μm inner diameter and 30 mm long). An optical-resolution photoacoustic image of a 30 μm diameter absorbing nylon thread was obtained by guiding the acoustic waves in the capillary through a 3 cm thick fat layer. The transmission loss through the capillary was about −20 dB, much lower than the −120 dB acoustic attenuation through the fat layer. The overwhelming acoustic attenuation of high-frequency acoustic waves by biological tissue can therefore be avoided by the use of a small footprint capillary acoustic waveguide for remote detection. We finally demonstrate that the capillary can be used as a dual optical-in acoustic-out waveguide, paving the way for the development of minimally invasive optical-resolution photoacoustic endoscopes free of any acoustic or optical elements at their imaging tip.


We investigate the time-varying ARCH (tvARCH) process. It is shown that it can be used to describe the slow decay of the sample autocorrelations of the squared returns often observed in financial time series, which warrants the further study of parameter estimation methods for the model. Since the parameters are changing over time, a successful estimator needs to perform well for small samples. We propose a kernel normalised-least-squares (kernel-NLS) estimator which has a closed form, and thus outperforms the previously proposed kernel quasimaximum likelihood (kernel-QML) estimator for small samples. The kernel-NLS estimator is simple, works under mild moment assumptions, and avoids some of the parameter space restrictions imposed by the kernel-QML estimator. Theoretical evidence shows that the kernel-NLS estimator has the same rate of convergence as the kernelQML estimator. Due to the kernel-NLS estimator's ease of computation, computationally intensive procedures can be used. A predictionbased cross-validation method is proposed for selecting the bandwidth of the kernel-NLS estimator. Also, we use a residual-based bootstrap scheme to bootstrap the tvARCH process. The bootstrap sample is used to obtain pointwise confidence intervals for the kernelNLS estimator. It is shown that distributions of the estimator using the bootstrap and the "true" tvARCH estimator asymptotically coincide.


Raymond Swisher, Advisor Prior research that places violence into the larger life course context tends to take one of two approaches. Victimization is typically framed as a catalyst that ultimately leads to a variety of negative outcomes, including limited socioeconomic attainment (Macmillan and Hagan 2004), mental health problems (Hodges and Perry 1999), and its effect on the transition from adolescence into adulthood (Hagan and Foster 2001; Haynie et al. 2009). On the other hand, research on own violence typically focuses on the numerous sociological and psychological factors that predict engagement in this behavior (i.e., Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; Agnew 1992; Anderson 1999). However, prior research has shown a significant overlap in the causes and timing of own violence and victimization (Lauritsen et al. 1991; Schreck et al. 2008; Jennings et al. 2010), but has not considered the possibility that own violence and victimization may jointly affect adolescent development. The goal of the present study is to address this limitation in the research. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I assess how own violence and victimization independently and interactively affect 1) educational attainment in early adulthood, 2) depression in adolescence and early adulthood, and 3) the risk of future violence and victimization in adolescence and early adulthood. I also allow for these processes to differ by gender. My results indicate that, in general, both own violence and victimization independently increase the risk of future violence and victimization, are independently associated with elevated levels of immediate depressive symptoms, and independently increase the risk of limited educational attainment. My analyses do not show any evidence that being severely victimized


Aim The long-term stability of coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and salt marshes depends upon the maintenance of soil elevations within the intertidal habitat as sea level changes. We examined the rates and processes of peat formation by mangroves of the Caribbean Region to better understand biological controls on habitat stability. Location Mangrove-dominated islands on the Caribbean coasts of Belize, Honduras and Panama were selected as study sites. Methods Biological processes controlling mangrove peat formation were manipulated (in Belize) by the addition of nutrients (nitrogen or phosphorus) to Rhizophora mangle (red mangrove), and the effects on the dynamics of soil elevation were determined over a 3-year period using rod surface elevation tables (RSET) and marker horizons. Peat composition and geological accretion rates were determined at all sites using radiocarbon-dated cores. Results The addition of nutrients to mangroves caused significant changes in rates of mangrove root accumulation, which influenced both the rate and direction of change in elevation. Areas with low root input lost elevation and those with high rates gained elevation. These findings were consistent with peat analyses at multiple Caribbean sites showing that deposits (up to 10 m in depth) were composed primarily of mangrove root matter. Comparison of radiocarbon-dated cores at the study sites with a sea-level curve for the western Atlantic indicated a tight coupling between peat building in Caribbean mangroves and sea-level rise over the Holocene. Main conclusions Mangroves common to the Caribbean region have adjusted to changing sea level mainly through subsurface accumulation of refractory mangrove roots. Without root and other organic inputs, submergence of these tidal forests is inevitable due to peat decomposition, physical compaction and eustatic sea-level rise. These findings have relevance for predicting the effects of sea-level rise and biophysical processes on tropical mangrove ecosystems.


Purpose: The United States has about 2100 rural hospitals. Approximately 1300 are Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) with 25 beds or less. CAHs receive cost-based reimbursement through the federal Flex program with the goal to improve quality and access to health care. Reports on quality of care (QOC) and factors that influence quality in CAHs are mixed. This study compared QOC and factors that influence QOC in CAHs and other rural hospitals. Sample: 385 staff nurses in 6 CAHs and 9 other rural hospitals in North Carolina and Virginia. Method: Descriptive cross-sectional design using nurse surveys aggregated to the hospital level, data from provider of services file, and the United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research files. Variables on community, hospital, and nursing unit characteristics, the nurse work environment, nurse rated QOC and community perception of hospital quality were compared using t-test or chi-square. Findings: There were no differences in the majority of factors influencing QOC. A culture of safety, the nurse work environment, and QOC were rated high in all hospitals. Compared to other rural hospitals CAHs tend to be located in communities with better economic status and their nurses had more years of nursing experience. More nurses in CAHs felt their community recognized their hospital as a good place for minor health issues and would recommend the hospital to family and friends. Conclusions: The high ratings of QOC were accompanied with the presence of safety cultures and work environments rated as highly as in Magnet hospitals. The lower poverty levels in communities with CAHs suggest possible community financial benefits from CAHs. More studies are warranted to explore these relationships. Further reporting to public quality indicator databases by all CAHs should be encouraged and QOC measures relevant for small rural hospitals should be developed. DOi : http://dx.doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v14i2.328


INTRODUCTION Today's managers consider employee participation and empowerment vital to making organizations more competitive in the marketplace. Employee participation is said to lower operating costs, improve productivity, quality, commitment and morale, and reduce turnover (e.g., Kotter & Heskett, 1992; Milliken, 1996; Mumford & Hendricks, 1996; Scotto, 1996). Employee participation/empowerment is the centerpiece of the Total Quality Management movement. It is the heart and soul of the movement to autonomous work teams. Employee participation in the performance appraisal process has produced resounding improvements in morale (Cawley, et al., 1998). Even a number of colleges and universities allow their faculty members to individually weight areas of emphasis (e.g., teaching, research, service) prior to their year-end performance appraisal. Amazingly, however, this fundamental management principle of the new millennium is not practiced in the classrooms of most business schools. Emery and Emery's (2001) survey of 106 business professors at ten colleges and universities found that only six had experimented with either allowing the students to develop the course syllabus (within accreditation standards) or to determine the weighting of the assessment vehicles (e.g., the students could weighting for the tests between 10-20% each, for the homework 30-40%, for quizzes 10-20%, for presentations 5-15%, for the final exam 15-30%, etc.). Each of these professors chose to implement it as a group rather than as an individual decision-making process. Further, only three of these professors still practice some form of student self-determination in their courses. The three that discontinued the process, cited lack of tangible benefits, lack of student consensus on syllabi or weighting decisions, increased class divisiveness, and lower student satisfaction (as measured by course evaluations). We believe, however, the time has come to increase student participation in determining the weighting of appraisal criterion. Discontinuing efforts in this area, because of failures, is a kin to throwing out the baby with the bath water. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, examine the participation literature from the standpoint of both a manager and an employee to determine whether the theories might be generalized to the teacher-student educational environment. Second, determine whether students favor taking on a more active role in weighting course assessments and if so which factors might be related to this desire. LITERATURE REVIEW There are two theoretically distinct approaches to examining the appropriateness of employee participation. One evaluates it as a consequence of leadership styles (e.g., job satisfaction, productivity). The other examines it as an outcome of organizational processes/strategies (e.g., participatory decision-making and appraisal design) and individual differences (e.g., self-efficacy, locus of control) on job satisfaction, commitment, productivity, motivation, learning and attitude. LEADERSHIP THEORIES Situational or contingency theories of leadership are considered by many to be the most valid approach to explaining leadership effectiveness. These theories grew out of an attempt to explain the inconsistent findings of trait and behavioral theories. Specifically, These theories propose that the effectiveness of a particular style of leader behavior depends on the situation. As situations change, different styles become appropriate. We will examine three leadership theories that suggest conditions under which a participatory style might be most effective. Decision Process Theory Reviewers of empirical leadership research over the last thirty years (e.g., Bass, 1990) suggest that the situational theory of leadership advanced by Vroom and Yetton (1973) and reformulated by Vroom and Jago (1988) is perhaps the most statistically valid model of predicting and prescribing leadership effectiveness. …


Solution-focused brief counseling (SFBC) is an efficient and direct approach to therapy that emphasizes problem identification and solutions. A multiple-baseline-across-participants design was used to evaluate the effects of a SFBC intervention on mathematics assignment completion and accuracy across six fifth-grade students who were failing math. The majority of the participants showed an immediate improvement in assignments completed and these improvements were generally maintained. Although intervention accuracy rates were higher than baseline accuracy rates, they continued to remain fairly low across phases. Discussion focuses on the utility of SFBC as an academic intervention in school settings. Strengths and limitations of the current study are addressed along with implications for practice and future research.


The term "fuzzy logic" (FL), as it is understood in this book, stands for all aspects of representing and manipulating knowledge based on the rejection of the most fundamental principle of classical logic: the principle of bivalence. According to this principle, each declarative sentence is required to be either true or false. In fuzzy logic, these classical truth values are not abandoned. However, additional, intermediary truth values between true and false are allowed, which are interpreted as degrees of truth. This opens a new way of thinking-thinking in terms of degrees rather than absolutes. For example, it led to the definition of a new category of sets, referred to as fuzzy sets, in which membership is a matter of degree. The book examines the genesis and development of fuzzy logic. It surveys the prehistory of fuzzy logic and inspects circumstances that eventually lead to the emergence of fuzzy logic. The book explores in detail the development of propositional, predicate, and other calculi that admit degrees of truth, which are known as fuzzy logic in the narrow sense. Fuzzy logic in the broad sense, whose primary aim is to utilize degrees of truth for emulating common-sense human reasoning in natural language, is scrutinized as well. The book also examines principles for developing mathematics based on fuzzy logic and provides overviews of areas in which this has been done most effectively. It also presents a detailed survey of established and prospective applications of fuzzy logic in various areas of human affairs, and provides an assessment of the significance of fuzzy logic as a new paradigm.


Understanding the mobility of a traveller from mobile sensor data is an important area of work in context aware and ubiquitous computing. Given a multimodal GPS trace, we will identify where in the GPS trace the traveller changed transportation modes. For example, where in the GPS trace the traveller alight a bus and boards a train, or where did the client stop running and start walking. Using data mining schemes to understand mobility data, in conjunction with real world observations, we propose an algorithm to identify mobility transfer points automatically. We compared the proposed algorithm against the state of the art that is used in the previously proposed work. Evaluation on real world data collected from GPS enabled mobile phones indicate that the proposed algorithm is accurate, has a good coverage, and a good asymptotic run time complexity.


Titan's haze particles are the principle opacity at solar wavelengths. Most past work in modeling these particles has assumed spherical particles. However, observational evidence strongly favors fractal shapes for the haze particles. We consider the implications of fractal particles for the thermal structure and near infrared opacity of Titan's atmosphere. We find that assuming fractal particles with the optical properties based on laboratory tholin material and with a production rate that allows for a match to the geometric albedo results in warmer troposphere and surface temperatures compared to spherical particles. In the near infrared (1-3 microns) the predicted opacity of the fractal particles is up to a factor of two less than for spherical particles. This has implications for the ability of Cassini to image Titan's surface at 1 micron.


ABSTRACT Throughout the epithelial cycle of spermatogenesis, actin microfilaments arranged as bundles near the Sertoli cell plasma membrane at the Sertoli cell-cell interface that constitute the blood-testis barrier (BTB) undergo extensive re-organization by converting between bundled and unbundled/branched configuration to give plasticity to the F-actin network. This is crucial to accommodate the transport of preleptotene spermatocytes across the BTB. Herein, we sought to examine changes in the actin microfilament organization at the Sertoli cell BTB using an in vitro model since Sertoli cells cultured in vitro is known to establish a functional tight junction (TJ)-permeability barrier that mimics the BTB in vivo. Plastin 3, a known actin microfilament cross-linker and bundling protein, when overexpressed in Sertoli cells using a mammalian expression vector pCI-neo was found to perturb the Sertoli cell TJ-barrier function even though its overexpression increased the overall actin bundling activity in these cells. Furthermore, plastin 3 overexpression also perturbed the localization and distribution of BTB-associated proteins, such as occludin-ZO1 and N-cadherin-β-catenin, this thus destabilized the barrier function. Collectively, these data illustrate that a delicate balance of actin microfilaments between organized in bundles vs. an unbundled/branched configuration is crucial to confer the homeostasis of the BTB and its integrity.


Efficient charge carrier extraction from a colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solid is crucial for high performance of CQD solar cells (CQDSCs). Herein, highly ordered wrinkled MgZnO (MZO) thin films are demonstrated to improve the charge carrier extraction of PbS CQDSCs. The highly ordered wrinkled MZO thin films are prepared using a low-temperature combustion method. The photovoltaic performances of CQDSCs with a combustion-processed MZO (CP-MZO) thin film as an electron transport material (ETM) are compared to those of CQDSCs with a conventional sol–gel processed MZO (SGP-MZO) thin film as an ETM. We performed photoluminescence quenching measurements of the colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solid and charge carrier dynamic analysis of full solar cell devices. The results show that the highly ordered wrinkled CP-MZO thin film significantly increases the charge carrier extraction from the CQD solid and therefore diminishes the charge interfacial recombination at the CQD/ETM junction, leading to a 15.5% increase in power conversion efficiency. The improved efficiency in the CP-MZO based CQDSC is also attributed to the compact and pin-hole free CP-MZO thin film.


Pain is a personal, subjective experience that is commonly evaluated through visual analog scales (VAS). While this is often convenient and useful, automatic pain detection systems can reduce pain score acquisition efforts in large-scale studies by estimating it directly from the partictipants' facial expressions. In this paper, we propose a novel two-stage learning approach for VAS estimation: first, our algorithm employs Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to automatically estimate Prkachin and Solomon Pain Intensity (PSPI) levels from face images. The estimated scores are then fed into the personalized Hidden Conditional Random Fields (HCRFs), used to estimate the VAS, provided by each person. Personalization of the model is performed using a newly introduced facial expressiveness score, unique for each person. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to automatically estimate VAS from face images. We show the benefits of the proposed personalized over traditional non-personalized approach on a benchmark dataset for pain analysis from face images.


Thirty years after the civil rights era, the United States remains a residentially segregated society in which Blacks and Whites inhabit different neighborhoods of vastly different quality. Given high levels of racial segregation and elevated rates of Black poverty, it is axiomatically true that African Americans will experience more neighborhood poverty than other groups. Moreover, because poverty is associated with crime and delinquency, they will also be exposed to far higher rates of social disorder and violence. In this article I argue that long-term exposure to social disorder and violence because of segregation produces a high allostatic load among African Americans, which leads, in turn, to a variety of deleterious health and cognitive outcomes. After summarizing recent research on stress and allostatic load, I specify a biosocial model of racial stratification and draw upon it to explicate well-documented racial differentials with respect to health and cognition.


This paper performs a comparison of two well known approaches for modelling R&D spillovers associated with investment in E-R&D, namely dAspremont-Jacquemin and Kamien-Muller-Zang. We show that there is little qualitative difference between the models in terms of total surplus delivered when selecting the optimal tax regime when there is precommitment under cooperative regimes in which firms coordinate expenditures to maximize joint profits. However, under non-cooperative regimes there is marked difference, with the model of Kamien- Muller-Zang leading to higher taxation rates when firms share information. Furthermore, we argue that the Kamien-Muller-Zang model is of questionable validity when modelling R&D on emissions reducing technology due to counter intuitive results showing a positive relationhip between R&D spillovers and emissions taxes.


Written by members of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) product team, this is the official guide to the beta release of Adobe's new cross-platform desktop runtime, previously known by its code name Apollo. This book explains how you can use AIR to build and deploy HTML and JavaScript-based web applications to the desktop, using all of the tools and technologies with which you are already familiar. Everything you need to know about this platform is right here, so you can start building applications with AIR right away. Topics include: What AIR is, and the problems this runtime aims to solveHow to set up your development environmentHow to create your first app using HTML and JavaScriptThe HTML and JavaScript environments within AIRHow to do common tasks, presented in the easy-to-use O'Reilly Cookbook format Also included is a guide to AIR packages, classes and command line tools. Once you understand the basics of building an HTML- and JavaScript-based AIR applications, this pocket guide makes an ideal reference for tackling specific problems. Welcome to the revolution! Adobe Developer Library is a co-publishing partnership between O'Reilly Media and Adobe Systems, Inc. and is designed to produce the number one information resources for developers who use Adobe technologies. Created in 2006, the Adobe Developer Library is the official source for comprehensive learning solutions to help developers create expressive and interactive web applications that can reach virtually anyone on any platform. With top-notch books and innovative online resources covering the latest in rich Internet application development, the Adobe Developer Library offers expert training and in-depth resources, straight from the source.


We study the optimal accumulation of international reserves in a quantitative model of sovereign default with long-term debt and a risk-free asset. Keeping higher levels of reserves provides a hedge against rollover risk, but this is costly because using reserves to pay down debt allows the government to reduce sovereign spreads. Our model, parameterized to mimic salient features of a typical emerging economy, can account for significant holdings of international reserves, and the larger accumulation of both debt and reserves in periods of low spreads and high income. We also show that income windfalls, improved policy frameworks, and an increase in the importance of rollover risk imply increases in the optimal holdings of reserves that are consistent with the upward trend in reserves in emerging economies. It is essential for our results that debt maturity exceeds one period.


Malaria exacts a toll of disease to people in the Tropics that seems incomprehensible to those only familiar with medicine and human health in the developed world. The methods of molecular biology, immunology, and cell biology are now being used to develop an antimalarial vaccine. The Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria have many stages in their life cycle. Each stage is antigenically distinct and potentially could be interrupted by different vaccines. However, achieving complete protection by vaccination may require a better understanding of the complexities of B- and T-cell priming in natural infections and the development of an appropriate adjuvant for use in humans.


The worldwide spread of diseases is considered a major threat to biodiversity and a possible driver of the decline of pollinator populations, particularly when novel species or strains of parasites emerge. Previous studies have suggested that populations of introduced European honeybee (Apis mellifera) and bumblebee species (Bombus terrestris and Bombus ruderatus) in Argentina share the neogregarine parasite Apicystis bombi with the native bumblebee (Bombus dahlbomii). In this study we investigated whether A. bombi is acting as an emergent parasite in the non-native populations. Specifically, we asked whether A. bombi, recently identified in Argentina, was introduced by European, non-native bees. Using ITS1 and ITS2 to assess the parasite's intraspecific genetic variation in bees from Argentina and Europe, we found a largely unstructured parasite population, with only 15% of the genetic variation being explained by geographic location. The most abundant haplotype in Argentina (found in all 9 specimens of non-native species) was identical to the most abundant haplotype in Europe (found in 6 out of 8 specimens). Similarly, there was no evidence of structuring by host species, with this factor explaining only 17% of the genetic variation. Interestingly, parasites in native Bombus ephippiatus from Mexico were genetically distant from the Argentine and European samples, suggesting that sufficient variability does exist in the ITS region to identify continent-level genetic structure in the parasite. Thus, the data suggest that A. bombi from Argentina and Europe share a common, relatively recent origin. Although our data did not provide information on the direction of transfer, the absence of genetic structure across space and host species suggests that A. bombi may be acting as an emergent infectious disease across bee taxa and continents.


This work introduces a novel method for person re-identification using embedded smart cameras. State-of-the-art methods address the re-identification problem using global and local features, metric learning and feature transformation algorithms. Such methods require advanced systems with high computational capabilities. Nowadays, there is a growing interest in security applications using embedded cameras. Motivated by this we propose to study a new system that addresses the challenges posed by the reidentification problem using devices (e.g. smartphones, etc.) that have limited resources. In this work we introduce a novel client-server system that exploits a feature learning method to achieve a two-fold objective: (i) maximize the re-identification performance over time and (ii) reduce the required computational costs. In the training phase, state-of-the-art features are selected considering both the device capabilities and re-identification performance. During the detection phase, the re-identification performance are maximized by selecting the best features for a given input image. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed method we conduct the experiments using different mobile devices. Statistics about feature extraction and feature matching are presented together with re-identification results.


Diel vertical migration (DVM) is a dynamic behavioral pattern found ex- tensively in the world's oceans and lakes, yet the role of food and temperature distribution on DVM is still unclear. While DVM has been mostly studied in systems with surface food maxima, deep-water food maxima are quite common in lakes and oceans. In such ecosys- tems, optimal conditions of temperature and food are uncoupled. In a Swiss high-mountain lake (Oberer Arosasee) with a deep-water food maximum, we found that Daphnia galeata adults and juveniles exhibit DVM behavior almost throughout the year and migrated up- wards, out of food-rich environments, at night. In a large indoor mesocosm experiment, we were able to show that Daphnia respond to fish-mediated cues by migrating into deeper water layers. In the presence of fish and using natural vertical food and temperature dis- tributions in the mesocosms, we could reproduce the vertical distribution of adult Daphnia observed in the field. The indoor experiments show that food and temperature modulate the actual depth at which the animals stop migrating, whereas fish and ultraviolet radiation likely determine the timing of migration (its synchronization with dawn and dusk). Overall, our results show that the nighttime movement into the surface waters contributes to the fitness ofDaphnia, given the costs and benefits associated with the trade-off between food and temperature.


In histories of the metal toy industry there is to be found an oft repeated story: W J Bassett-Lowke visited the 1900 Paris International Exposition where he met Stefan Bing. Seeing the build quality and noting the low retail price of Bing's German outline toy trains, he commissioned Bing to make him a batch of Gauge III models of the locomotive 'Black Prince'. This was duly done and, with the loco's release on to the market in January 1901, Lowke was later to claim - first to have invented and introduced the first ever 'modern', quantity produced toy/model British outline locomotive - and second to have been directly responsible for introducing German makers to the potential of designing products specifically for the British market. But, in fact, how realistic are these claims? By looking at surviving examples and returning to a close analysis of the primary evidence, this article attempts to find out.


In this work, we propose a new analytical method for modeling and estimating the performance of hybrid networks that are comprised of terrestrial wireless networks interconnected by a satellite overlay. We take advantage of the natural hierarchy present in the hybrid architecture to split the network into multiple levels based on the node and link characteristics. For the lower level of terrestrial wireless nodes, we use a simple approximate (throughput) loss model that couples the physical, MAC and routing layers. The model provides quantitative statistical relations between the loss parameters used to characterize multiuser interference and physical path conditions on the one hand and traffic rates between origin-destination pairs on the other. For the higher layer consisting of the terrestrial gateway nodes interconnected by the satellite overlay, we use a simple satellite channel bit error loss model coupled with a channel access protocol, to derive a similar relationship between traffic arrival rate and the link loss. We use the technique of hierarchical reduced loss network model, adapted for packet-switched networks, to create a reduced load network model for the hybrid network that connects the packet arrival rates in the different levels with the associated physical and link loss rates. We then apply a fixed point approximation approach for this set of relations to derive a solution that converges to a fixed point for the given set of parameters, while satisfying all the equations in the set. The result is an implicit model of the selected performance metric parameterized by the design variables. We apply the technique of Automatic Differentiation to the performance models obtained through the fixed point approximation and analyze the sensitivity of the performance metrics to variations in the selected network parameter. We thus develop a methodology for parameter optimization and sensitivity analysis of protocols to aid in the design of hybrid networks. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through simulation results, compared with results from discrete event simulations on identical network topology.


Excitement is rumbling through the city just waiting for the grand opening. A fresh new face has been added to the streetscape of downtown Roanoke. A new branch library and baseball stadium is set to open soon. The site is near the edge of downtown Roanoke, Virginia at the intersection of Jefferson St. and Elm Ave. All the construction is complete and cleared away. Residents and employees all around Roanoke are eager for a new baseball season to start up. Those especially eager are downtown employees, who have just a short walk from work to the stadium. The new stadium has created a buzz from all the downtown businesses looking forward to the influx of people this summer, not to mention the amount of jobs the stadium will provide residents of Roanoke. Fans will be treated to a great event and will be fully entertained. The mountains far away create a beautiful backdrop for all. With baseball games becoming more and more of a social event and atmosphere, this stadium's seating exhibits a new socially driven design while still mixing in the simplicity of the traditional seating style. The new branch library sits atop the stadium having its own autonomous nature while also blending in with the stadium form. It has its own specific entrance designed only for library use. Its grand entrance reaches out from the brick stadium wall signifying its special use. The library is one long floor filled with book stacks, personal reading spaces, large group meeting rooms, and computers. Views outward toward the baseball field and overlooking the Roanoke area provide a peaceful spot for all to sit back and enjoy a good read. At night, the large rooms are rentable for parties on game nights allowing for a private feel while still getting the great atmosphere of the game.