In the decade between 2007 and 2017 London changed fundamentally. This article is about how the actions of the transnational über- wealthy — the "have yachts" — impinged on the life- worlds of the "merely wealthy" — "the haves." As the authors explore the conceptual utility of gentrification as a way of thinking about these seismic urban changes, they conclude that profound socio- spatial changes and new intensities in the financialization of housing, neighborhood tensions, and cultural dislocations are reshaping London as a plutocratic city and the lives of those who live there in historically unprecedented ways. The concept of "super- gentrification," the authors argue, does not adequately frame these circumstances.


Flying J was a family-owned company that operated travel plazas, oil refineries, a bank for trucking companies, and other related businesses. In early 2009, Crystal Call Maggelet, the majority shareholder and new CEO of Flying J, was tasked with saving the company founded by her father in 1968. In the intervening forty years Flying J had grown from four gas stations to a vertically integrated $18 billion company. Declining crude oil prices, decreased cash reserves, and multiple internal challenges forced most Flying J subsidiaries to file for bankruptcy protection. This came as a surprise to the company's lenders, suppliers, customers, and employees, who did not know the company was in trouble until it was unable to meet payroll just days before Christmas 2008.

Maggelet was determined not only to return her family's company to profitability but also to repay all of Flying J's debts, retain as many of the firm's 12,000 employees as possible, and avoid compromising employees' savings (e.g., 401K retirement accounts). All of the company's advisors told her it could not be done. They thought a more likely outcome would be paying creditors nine cents on every dollar owed. If that happened, Maggelet's family's holdings would be almost entirely wiped out according to the "priority of claims" rules in bankruptcy, and the family would end up with only 1.2 percent of a restructured Flying J.

However, to the surprise of its advisors and creditors, Flying J paid its debts in full, mostly by cutting operating costs before selling assets. The family was left with a smaller, but still very profitable company.

After students have analyzed the case they will be able to:

Determine governance issues in family-owned businesses

Identify the pursuit of growth as a typical cause of bankruptcy

Understand why cash flow accounting is more important than GAAP accounting

Grasp how huge variations can occur when calculating enterprise valuations of distressed businesses

Understand the differences among law, governance, and ethics


Optimal deterrence theory seeks to promote resource maximization by identifying the most economically useful occasions and magnitudes for legal liability. But liability is only the final outcome of a burdensome process made more onerous for many today by widening inequalities in wealth and access to justice. Omission of this may reflect a preoccupation among tort theorists with large corporate actors and a drift further from the dilemmas of individual and social justice. Select lessons from American Legal Realism prompt us to go beyond liability to think about the deterrent function of legal process itself. These lessons challenge us to consider the interpretive dimension of human behavior in its response to not only norm enforcement but also threats thereof. Taking up that challenge, this Article suggests that considerations of optimal deterrence should account for the behavioral impact of what it terms the "specter of process," in other words the fear of litigation itself, and that doing so requires a stronger bridge between economic and interpretive empirical studies of law. The revised theory may be said to include processual deterrence, the degree to which the behavior of legal subjects is shaped ex ante by fears of being implicated in the burdens of litigation.


We introduce a topic-based inter-video structuring method that considers application to a very large-scale news video corpus as well as user interfaces that provide the users with the ability to efficiently browse through the corpus based on the topic structure. Although the proposed method is a multimedia-integrated method that refers to both text and image based information, this paper focuses on text-based topic segmentation and tracking / threading. First, topic segmentation is performed referring to inter-sentence keyword vector relations within a single video. Next, topic tracking and threading is performed referring to inter-topic keyword vector relations throughout the entire video corpus. Such analysis should reveal the underlying structure of the entire corpus which is not simply a large volume of unrelated data, but data full of rich information in the content-based relational structure itself. The segmentation method evaluated by applying the proposed method showed realistic ability. The proposed method was then applied to 555 daily news video (approximately 270 hours) obtained from a specific Japanese news program. Although detailed evaluation is yet to be done, the user interfaces showed good browsing ability for users to retrieve and track a topic thread of interest.


The different principles of sensor error correction are classified with respect to intrinsic or extrinsic compensation techniques, analog or digital techniques, and integrated or discrete techniques, and typical examples are given. Advantages and disadvantages of the different methods are analyzed, and future trends are outlined. One logical continuation of these trends is the application-specific IC for sensor signal amplification and error correction. On the other hand, inexpensive multipurpose ICs (e.g. an A/D converter and a microprocessor together with a small primary electronics to adapt the IC to the individual sensor type) should also find applications. >


In Italy, over the last years in the world of social struggles asylum seekers have been in the spotlight several times, having led several episodes of mobilisations and protests. They emerged as political subjects, with their own claims and situations; parallel to the issue of reception, they expressed themselves in the public space as asylum seekers, with campaigns, pickets, and marches, with which the respect for their rights and dignity is advocated. This study analyses the causes, forms and repercussions of the struggles of asylum seekers in the last decade. After the analysis of the experience of immigrants' struggles over the last three decades, the article examines the social roots and the features of the struggles of asylum seekers between 2011 to 2019, and considers their meaning in the political context.


BACKGROUND
Previous clinical trials have not proved that adding epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors to chemotherapy confers a survival benefit for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (ABTC). Whether the KRAS mutation status of tumor cells confounded the results of past studies is unknown.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
ABTC patients stratified by KRAS status, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, and primary tumor location were randomized 1 : 1 to receive GEMOX (800 mg/m(2) gemcitabine and 85 mg/m(2) oxaliplatin) or C-GEMOX (500 mg/m(2) cetuximab plus GEMOX) every 2 weeks. The primary end point was objective response rate (ORR).

RESULTS
The study enrolled 122 patients between December 2010 and May 2012 (62 treated with C-GEMOX and 60 with GEMOX). Compared with GEMOX alone, C-GEMOX was associated with trend to better ORR (27% versus 15%; P = 0.12) and progression-free survival (PFS, 6.7 versus 4.1 months; P = 0.05), but not overall survival (OS, 10.6 versus 9.8 months; P = 0.91). KRAS mutations, which were detected in 36% of tumor samples, did not affect the trends of difference in ORR and PFS between C-GEMOX and GEMOX. The two treatment arms had similar adverse events, except that more patients had skin rashes, allergic reactions, and neutropenia in the C-GEMOX arm. Of patients with C-GEMOX, the presence of a grade 2 or 3 skin rash was associated with significantly better ORR, PFS, and OS.

CONCLUSIONS
Addition of cetuximab did not significantly improve the ORR of GEMOX chemotherapy in ABTC, although a trend of PFS improvement was observed. The trend of improvement did not correlate with KRAS mutation status.

CLINICAL TRIALS NUMBER
This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01267344). All patients gave written informed consent.


This paper discusses the analogy between the fitness of technological systems and the fitness of complex adaptive biological systems, and suggests that fitness landscapes are an appropriate structure upon which to evaluate technological system affordability, or fitness. This paper introduces Altenberg's generalized NK fitness landscapes, suggests the possibility that the production possibility set in data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a fitness landscape, and discusses the possible use of DEA to evaluate fitness landscapes and thus the fitness of R&D projects. This paper describes the application of DEA models to evaluate and select DoD Corrosion Prevention and Control (CPC) R&D projects using an appropriate set of input and output fitness function variables to assess the affordability of the projects. The paper also describes the subsequent implementation of the DEA methodology to the DoD Corrosion Prevention and Control R&D project selection program since 2007.


In vitro maturation of oocytes is an integral part of in vitro culture system. In almost all studies of mammalian in vitro maturation, the basic medium is supplemented with serum and hormones. The maturation medium and selection of protein supplements, growth factors, antioxidants and hormones for IVM play an important role in subsequent in vitro fertilization and in vitro embryo development. The objective of the present experiment was to study the effect of exogenous addition of hormones, epidermal growth factor, insulin and β-mercaptoethanol to the maturation medium for in vitro maturation of caprine oocytes. A total of 1540 oocytes were collected from slaughtered goat of 1.5 to 2.5 year of age and randomly divided in to treatment groups. Group 1; COCs were matured in TCM-199 medium containing 10% calf serum (NCS) and 3 mg mL-1 BSA (used as a base medium) for control, Group 2; COCs were matured in a base medium supplemented with hormones (5 μg mL-1 FSH, 5 μg mL-1 LH and 1 μg mL-1 estradiol-17β), Group 3β COCs were matured in a base medium supplemented with 50 ng mL-1 insulin, Group 4β COCs were matured in a base medium supplemented with hormones and 10 ng mL-1 EGF, Group 5; COCs were matured in a base medium supplemented with hormones and 50 mM β-mercaptoethanol and Group 6; COCs were matured in a base medium supplemented with hormones and 50 ng mL-1 insulin. These COCs were matured at 38.5°C in 5% CO2 in air for 27 h. After the maturation, oocytes were separated from cumulus and corona cells by treatment with 0.1% hyaluronidase and by passing through a fine pipette. They are them fixed in 2.5% glutaraldehyde, stained with DAPI and observed under fluorescent microscope for evidence of nuclear maturation. The maturation rates in groups 1 to 6 were 33.6%, 38.0%, 39.7%, 60.0%, 37.4%, and 44%, respectively. Statistical analysis (ANOVA) after arcsin transformation revealed that the maturation rate in group 4 was statistically significant (P < 0.05) as compared to those in groups 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. The results suggest that the supplementation of EGF in maturation medium significantly enhances the in vitro maturation rate of caprine oocytes.


Pangasius catfish, Pangasianodoan hypophthalmus farming has been evolved to a shape of commercial enterprise over the last two decades in north-central part of Bangladesh, particularly in Mymensingh area but there is a lack of quantitative and qualitative data on the impacts of it on land use pattern. This study was conducted using multiple methodological tools including participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools and mainly questionnaire based farm survey to assess the impacts of Pangasius farming on land use from February to September, 2009. The mean farm size (ha), water area (ha) and dyke area (ha) was 1.36±1.25, 1.06±1.31 and 0.30±0.27, respectively. The Pangasius productivity was significantly and positively correlated with water area and dyke area. Around 10.1% area of the study area was converted to Pangasius farm which was previously used as rice-field. Farmers expanded their farm area by taking leased lands which contributed to 56.47% of total farm area and the lease value of Pangasius pond was doubled compared to agriculture land. Around 48% area of dyke were used to produce agriculture crops and the production was 71.01% lower but profit margin was 76.58% higher than normal land. The discharging wastewater of Pangasius pond also increased rice productivity in adjacent agriculture farm by 10% and additionally reduced fertilizer and irrigation cost by 30% and 40%, respectively.


Sociodemographic adjustment of neuropsychological test scores is widely embraced. However, limited research has examined the frequency with which such adjustments alter score profiles, psychologists' decision-making, or diagnostic accuracy. Of particular interest, in an unknown number of cases test scores that are and are not adjusted may yield conflicting interpretations, both of which cannot be correct. Working with the WAIS-Ill and WMS-Ill, this study examined how often, and the extent to which, sociodemographic adjustment altered test score patterns among normal and abnormal groups. Potential impact on classification and diagnostic accuracy was also examined by determining the frequency with which sociodemographically adjusted profiles best matched their original diagnostic prototypes as opposed to other prototypes, and with which abnormal and normal profiles shifted to more closely resemble the opposing classification. Analysis showed that sociodemographic adjustment frequently produced substantial change in profiles for cases based on the prototype for traumatic brain injury, with these same findings replicated for cases of alcohol abuse, as well as for various normal profiles. Further, matches with original prototypes were often altered such that in a large percentage of cases, profiles from specific pathologic conditions formed better matches with different conditions. Both normal and abnormal profiles additionally switched classes with modest frequency. This research demonstrates that sociodemographic adjustment often has a considerable affect on test score patterns, and hence research on the ultimate impact of such adjustments on clinical judgment and diagnostic accuracy is urgently needed.


We present a system that uses ECG time series for reaching decisions regarding the user's health status. ECG waveforms can provide us with certain features that have diagnostic value for several cases. The system consists of two modules. The first performs the analysis of the ECG data so as to extract the aforementioned features, and the second is a hybrid intelligence system combining neural and neurofuzzy networks that uses these features to reach decisions according to certain rules provided by medical experts. The output of the system is a classification of the user's health state to certain alert levels. The system presented here can be integrated in an artificial agent monitoring a user and deciding for his health state.


We report the discovery of a well-defined correlation between B-band face-on central optical depth due to dust, , and the stellar mass surface density, μ*, of nearby (z ⩽ 0.13) spiral galaxies: . This relation was derived from a sample of spiral galaxies taken from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, which were detected in the FIR/submillimeter (submm) in the Herschel-ATLAS science demonstration phase field. Using a quantitative analysis of the NUV attenuation–inclination relation for complete samples of GAMA spirals categorized according to stellar mass surface density, we demonstrate that this correlation can be used to statistically correct for dust attenuation purely on the basis of optical photometry and Sérsic-profile morphological fits. Considered together with previously established empirical relationships of stellar mass to metallicity and gas mass, the near linearity and high constant of proportionality of the relation disfavors a stellar origin for the bulk of refractory grains in spiral galaxies, instead being consistent with the existence of a ubiquitous and very rapid mechanism for the growth of dust in the interstellar medium. We use the relation in conjunction with the radiation transfer model for spiral galaxies of Popescu & Tuffs to derive intrinsic scaling relations between specific star formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, and stellar surface density, in which attenuation of the UV light used for the measurement of SFR is corrected on an object-to-object basis. A marked reduction in scatter in these relations is achieved which we demonstrate is due to correction of both the inclination-dependent and face-on components of attenuation. Our results are consistent with a general picture of spiral galaxies in which most of the submm emission originates from grains residing in translucent structures, exposed to UV in the diffuse interstellar radiation field.


Objectives. We investigated whether patient record forms (PRFs), as currently completed, meet minimum legal standards and provide medico legal pr otection to prehospital healthcare providers, and if their qualification levels influence the level of detail recorded in the patient records. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed consecutive case reports at a single centre over a 1  month period for cases in which ambulance crews attended a patient and the patient later refused to accept transportation to a medical facility. Scores were calculated for each case report, based on the number of data fields completed. The scores were compared for variation between qualifications. Results. A total of 5 873 ambulance cases were dispatched during this period. Case reports for refusal of transport (n=229) were reviewed. No case report achieved 100% compliance with legal requirements. There was no statistically significant variation between levels of qualification with regard to improved detail being recorded. Young adults were the most likely to refuse transport. Most of the refusals occurred in the late evening. Conclusion. Refusal of transport and its documentation are poorly understood and practised by prehospital healthcare providers. The implication is that some patients' rights could potentially be infringed. This could lead to possible grounds for litigation, for which the defence would also hinge on the adequacy of the documentation.


Key Benefit: Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach broke ground with its thorough coverage of molecular physiology seamlessly integrated into a traditional homeostasis-based systems approach. The newly revised Fifth Edition has been significantly updated throughout and features substantially revised art and Running Problems in the book and on the reader Companion Website. Recognized as an extraordinary educator and active learning enthusiast, Dr. Silverthorn incorporates time-tested classroom techniques throughout the book and presents thorough, up-to-date coverage of new scientific discoveries, biotechnology techniques, and treatments of disorders. Dr. Silverthorn also co-authored the accompanying Student Workbook and Instructor Manual, ensuring that these ancillaries reinforce the pedagogical approach of the book.The Fifth Edition includes access to Interactive Physiology(R) 10-System Suite (IP-10), PhysioEx(TM) 8.0, A&P Flix animations in 3D, and The Physiology Place Companion Website. Key Topics: Introduction to Physiology, Molecular Interactions, Compartmentation: Cells and Tissues, Energy and Cellular Metabolism, Membrane Dynamics, Communication, Integration, Homeostasis, Introduction to the Endocrine System, Neurons: Cellular and Network Properties, The Central Nervous System, Sensory Physiology, Efferent Division: Autonomic and Somatic Motor Control, Muscles, Integrative Physiology I: Control of Body Movement, Cardiovascular Physiology, Blood Flow and the Control of Blood Pressure, Blood, Mechanics of Breathing, Gas Exchange and Transport, The Kidneys, Integrative Physiology II: Fluid and Electrolyte Balance, Digestion, Energy Balance and Metabolism, Endocrine Control of Growth and Metabolism, The Immune System, Integrative Physiology III: Exercise, Reproduction and Development Market: Intended for those interested in learning the basics of human physiology


The finite element (FE) method has been extensively used to model complex cutting processes. However, due to large strains in a process zone, leading to increased element distortions, such simulations are confronted with numerical difficulties. Smooth-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a mesh-free computational method, which has been used to simulate multi-body problems. In this paper we present a 3D hybrid modelling approach for orthogonal micro-machining of a copper single crystal with the use of SPH and continuum FE. The model is implemented in a commercial FE software ABAQUS/Explicit. The study is used to gain insight into the effects of crystallographic anisotropy on the machining response of f.c.c. cubic metals.


Automatic image segmentation is an essential step for many medical image analysis applications, include computer-aided radiation therapy, disease diagnosis, and treatment effect evaluation. One of the major challenges for this task is the blurry nature of medical images (e.g., CT, MR, and microscopic images), which can often result in low-contrast and vanishing boundaries. With the recent advances in convolutional neural networks, vast improvements have been made for image segmentation, mainly based on the skip-connection-linked encoder–decoder deep architectures. However, in many applications (with adjacent targets in blurry images), these models often fail to accurately locate complex boundaries and properly segment tiny isolated parts. In this paper, we aim to provide a method for blurry medical image segmentation and argue that skip connections are not enough to help accurately locate indistinct boundaries. Accordingly, we propose a novel high-resolution multi-scale encoder–decoder network (HMEDN), in which multi-scale dense connections are introduced for the encoder–decoder structure to finely exploit comprehensive semantic information. Besides skip connections, extra deeply supervised high-resolution pathways (comprised of densely connected dilated convolutions) are integrated to collect high-resolution semantic information for accurate boundary localization. These pathways are paired with a difficulty-guided cross-entropy loss function and a contour regression task to enhance the quality of boundary detection. The extensive experiments on a pelvic CT image dataset, a multi-modal brain tumor dataset, and a cell segmentation dataset show the effectiveness of our method for 2D/3D semantic segmentation and 2D instance segmentation, respectively. Our experimental results also show that besides increasing the network complexity, raising the resolution of semantic feature maps can largely affect the overall model performance. For different tasks, finding a balance between these two factors can further improve the performance of the corresponding network.


The present study examined the relationship between coping and psychological and psychosomatic distress of 25 individuals who experienced the same severe, acute traumatic event: the violent shooting that killed 23 people and severely injured 20 more in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991. Distress was assessed by one-month pre-event and post-event scores on the SCL-90R, Psychosomatic Questionnaire, and by a Life Event Questionnaire score for the year before the incident. Coping was measured by a modified version of the Ways of Coping Scale (Folkman et al., 1986) and Response Style Questionnaire (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991). All post-event distress scores, except the Psychosomatic score, significantly increased over their corresponding pre-event scores regardless of gender. Although female distress scores were consistently higher than male scores, gender was predictive of post-event distress only for the SCL-90R Anxiety, Somatization, and Global Severity Index scales. The only pre-event score found to be predictive of post-event distress was the Psychosomatic scale. Regression analysis, with demographic and pre-event variables controlled, found a significant positive relationship between Escape/Avoidance coping and one-month post-event levels of Anxiety and Psychosomatic distress. Findings were discussed in the context of the process-oriented stress-illness model and were compared to current disaster and crime victimization literature. Implications for helping professionals, methodological issues, and implications for future research were explored.


Objectives: Oral pentosan polysulfate (PPS) is the only FDA-approved drug for interstitial cystitis (IC). Several studies have been conducted that show PPS will reduce IC symptoms. Sacral neuromodulation is a newer therapy for IC that has been FDAapproved in incontinent patients. Studies conducted in IC patients have shown that sacral neuromodulation reduces IC symptoms. Both therapies have documents reduction in IC symptoms, but no studies have compared these therapies to see which is more effective. Methods: An evidence-based systematic literature review was conducted using Pubmed, Medline, and Proquest nursing journals. Inclusion criteria for the studies were a peerreviewed article, publish date of 1990 or later, level 1 or 2 evidence, were diagnosed with IC, and were only treated with either oral PPS or sacral neuromodulation during the study. Patients were excluded if they were on multiple therapies for IC or a non-IC diagnosis. Results: Three PPS studies fit all inclusion criteria. With successful treatment being defined as a 50% overall improvement in symptoms, studies had a success rate of 26-32%. Four studies fit the criteria for sacral neuormodulation. In these studies 40-94% of the patients had a 50% improvement in one or more of the presenting symptoms of IC. Conclusions: PPS and sacral neuromodulation have both been shown to reduce IC symptoms. Sacral neuromodualtion has been shown to have a higher rate of symptom relief in IC patients. Based on level 2 evidence, a Grade B recommendation can be made for sacral neuromodulation. This evidence as limited by sacral neuromodulation studies having only a level 2 evidence, while PPS has level 1 evidence studies. More studies are needed for each of these therapies.


Phosphate (Pi) deficiency is a global problem for food production. Plants have evolved complex mechanisms to adapt to low Pi. We focused on the initial aspects of adaptation to low Pi perception and immediate-early responses to changes in external Pi. To examine whether a labile repressor controls expression of the high affinity Pi transporter, Pht1;1, we performed electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) but observed only weak protein-DNA binding activity using extracts from Arabidopsis suspension cultures or seedlings. The regulatory role of different regions in Pht1;1 promoter was dissected by promoter deletion analysis, using uidA as a reporter. We identified two domains important for regulation: sequences between -1898 bp and 932 bp are important for induction of Pht1;1 in low Pi; the intron in the 5'UTR impacts Pht1;1 expression in the young part of both primary and lateral root apices. A complementary approach to identify repressors of Pi starvation responses was pursued: We identified ZAT18, a putative transcription factor, as a candidate repressor. ZAT18 contains an EAR motif, a repressor domain in plants; the expression of ZAT18 responds to Pi starvation. Using transgenic lines with promoter::ZAT18-VENUS constructs, we studied its expression, localization and abundance in different levels of Pi availability: ZAT18 is mainly expressed in the nucleus of Arabidopsis root hair cells. Its accumulation was induced by 4 day Pi starvation. We also performed a microarray analysis to examine global gene expression levels during Pi starvation and rapid recovery. Our data indicated that 258 genes were induced and 188 genes were suppressed during Pi starvation. For most of these genes, responses were reversed after 4 hour Pi recovery. Further study of these genes will help to define targets of the early Pi starvation-signalling pathway.


Mothers living with HIV (MLH) are the focus of this narrative study. HIV is increasingly seen as a chronic illness because of medical advances in its treatment. Much research with HIV positive mothers is situated within the dominant biomedical discourse focusing more on outcome rather than experience and, while valuable, it fails to provide insight into their subjective experiences. In Ireland, women represent a third of the newly diagnosed HIV population (O'Donnell, Moran and Igoe 2013), many of whom have children, and migrant African-origin women represent a significant percentage of these new diagnoses. However, no research has examined contemporary maternal HIV experiences within an Irish context. This is an important fact considering the changing nature of HIV and that most HIV positive women are prescribed Highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) during their pregnancies and so give birth to HIV negative babies. This study explores the HIV maternal experience as the psychosocial impact of being HIV positive persists even though it is increasingly seen as a chronic illness. The original contribution to knowledge of this thesis is to provide insight into the experiences of mothers living with HIV in Ireland.
My study involved adopting a narrative approach to interviewing a purposive sample of eleven HIV positive mothers living in Ireland who were at different points on the motherhood trajectory, and were from both high and low HIV prevalence countries. The analysis of this study's narratives drew on a combination of theoretical perspectives including HIV stigma frameworks (Campbell et al., 2007, Herek 2002), social capital theory (Putnam 1995), medicalisation and HIV normalisation.
The interviews reveal the centrality of being a mother to the study participants and how being HIV positive affects mothering. Being an HIV positive mother means protecting children from HIV from the moment of diagnosis , during and after pregnancy; minimising the impact of HIV in everyday life; having an awareness of the persuasiveness of HIV stigma; and managing HIV disclosure. Peer support was a significant factor for these mothers and all were members of an HIV support organisation in Dublin. Linking the findings of this study to wider theoretical literature allows for a greater understanding of the lives of HIV positive mothers in the HIV normalisation era and accentuates the multidimensional impact of maternal HIV infection.


Seabed drag coefficients have been measured at a site within the Norfolk Banks and at a site within the sand wave field in the southern North Sea, using pressure sensors and moored current meters. At the sand banks site a seabed tripod measuring turbulent flows within 1 m of the bed was also used. The results are generally in agreement with values used in numerical models. At the sand banks site, the drag coefficient increases with wind conditions, but at the sand waves site there is a reduction during the highest wave conditions, attributed to the drag reduction caused by sand resuspension from the bed. This result suggests that sediment effects must be considered if wave/current interaction is included in numerical models of the region. The drag coefficient for reversing tidal flows over the asymmetric sand waves is found to be larger for flow towards the steeper face, suggesting a small form drag component. Studies of sand movement used bedform mapping, fluorescent sand tracing and photography of migrating ripples. There is evidence for the early stages of formation of a new bank between Broken Bank and Well Bank. At the sand waves site, ripple migration is found to be a useful estimator of bedload transport under conditions of negligible suspension. Over the sand banks, a definite correlation of surface water properties, notably the turbidity, with the topography of the banks was observed. The mechanism for this surface effect is not known but it is consistent with the observation of features, seen in satellite visible light images, which outline the shapes of the banks.


The Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) is a well-established packet communication protocol that offers users a graphical position display system and a peer-to-peer textual message service. APRS is used in temporary and mobile networks where rapid deployment of infrastructure is required and limited a priori knowledge of the network topology is available. The APRS protocol can be used for emergencies and public service applications. ARPS, functioning as an access network, was originally designed to require low complexity and support high flexibility of a network. These design directives have limited APRS's performance by resulting in low throughput and poor reliability. In order for APRS to be used in time-critical applications, these limitations would need to be improved. The thesis considers the limitations of ARPS by proposing an improved protocol stack with a substitution of the media access control (MAC) layer. The new protocol is modelled in order to develop a largely platform-independent implementation, which could be efficiently retargeted for different platforms. Lastly, a protocol performance evaluation is done in order to determine the resulting improvements on APRS and the overall viability of the proposal.


In addition to golden parachutes, CEOs often negotiate for personal side-payments in connection with the sale of their firm. Side-payments differ from golden parachutes in that they are negotiated ex post in connection with a specific acquisition proposal, whereas golden parachutes are part of the executive's employment agreement negotiated when she is hired. While side-payments may benefit shareholders by countering managerial resistance to an efficient sale, they can also be used to redistribute merger proceeds to management. The current article highlights an overlooked distinction between pre-merger golden parachutes and merger side-payments. Similar to a legislative rider attached to a popular bill, management can bundle a side-payment with an acquisition that is desired by target shareholders. Thus, even if shareholders would not have approved the side-payment for purposes of ex ante incentives, it may receive shareholder support as part of a take-it-or-leave-it merger vote. Because side-payments are bundled into a merger transaction, voting rights cannot adequately protect shareholders against rent extraction. My analysis helps explain empirical results which show that target CEOs sometimes bargain away shareholder returns in exchange for personal side-payments. I conclude with legal reforms to help unbundle side-payments from the broader merger vote.


[Book description] A comprehensive and timely examination of the history and current status of immigrants and refugees-their stories, the events that led to their movement, and the place of these movements in contemporary history and politics. Across a 20th century marked by world wars, regional conflicts, rising and collapsing empires, and the dawn of globalization, the flow of immigrants and asylum seekers reached unprecedented levels. And though America was by far the most popular destination, immigration (voluntary and otherwise) affected virtually every corner of the globe and continues in record numbers today. Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the previous century to the present. It focuses on the United States, but is also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective.
With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions. There is no better resource for exploring just how profoundly the voluntary and forced movement of asylum seekers and refugees has transformed the world--and what that transformation means to us today.


The optical absorption in small cubic particles and thin films, composed of an ionic crystal or a free-electron metal, is calculated by using both a local dielectric constant and more-exact microscopic methods. It is found that a local theory gives a qualitatively correct description of the absorption in cubes but not in thin films. The electric field is calculated in thin metallic films, and the results are applied to the theory of surface-enhanced Raman scattering.


Eutrophication is a widespread problem in tropical marine environments that leads to the increase of nutrients in a water body, usually nitrate and phosphate, and is usually associated with the discharge of untreated sewage, intensive farming or fertilizer-enriched agricultural runoff (Wu 1999). Common symptoms are increased N and P levels, increased macroalgal production in shallow areas, reduced dissolved oxygen, loss of seagrass and coral habitats and changes in the fish community (Hallock and Schlager 1986, Granelli et al. 1990, Valiela 1995, Hemminga and Duarte 2000). Direct chemical testing to establish pollution levels can be difficult because of sharp pollution gradients, rapid dilution effects, changing tides and currents, variable pollutant concentrations, varying pollution activities, unavailability of water quality test kits, a prohibitive range of pollutants to test for and high testing costs (Resh et al. 1995). Many of these problems can be countered with bioassessment methods that use biotic indicators to assess ecosystem integrity (Karr 1981, Noss 1990, Wright et al. 1993, Chessman 1995). Biotic indicators of pollution have several advantages over chemical methods: they are broad-ranged, detect many forms of pollution, reflect pollution history and indicate overall health of the system. Animal bioindicators should be: 1) sufficiently sensitive to disturbance, 2) widely distributed, 3) capable of living in a wide range of conditions, 4) relatively independent of sample size, 5) easy and cost effective to study, 6) able to differentiate between natural and man-made disturbance, and 7) relevant to ecologically significant phenomena (Noss 1990). Fish meet many of these criteria and have been included in several freshwater bioassessment protocols, sometimes referred to as biological integrity indices (Larkin and Northcote 1969, Karr 1981, Karr 1990, Hughes et al. 1998). Marine fish have been widely used as indicators of coral cover and overfishing (Bell and Galzin 1984, Findley and Findley 1985, Roberts 1995, Russ and Alcala 1998), but few studies have successfully used marine fish assemblages as indicators of pollution. One reason is that it is difficult to determine the direct effects of pollution on marine fish assemblages because natural experiments are usually confounded by habitat alteration due to dredging, siltation and pollution. This study aims to assess the potential of marine fishes as bioindicators using artificial reefs as habitat controls in 2 marinas with different pollution levels.


Abstract Roptrocerus xylophagorum (Ratzeburg) (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) is a common Holarctic parasitoid of the larvae and pupae of bark beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scotytinae). In no-choice laboratory bioassays, we found that male wasps derived either from northern California or southwestern Mississippi, United States of America more frequently displayed sexual behaviours (including mounting, wing fanning, and copulation attempts) to glass bulb decoys treated with hexane cuticular washes of females derived from the same parasitoid population rather than the distant population. This result suggests that the composition of the cuticular hydrocarbon sex pheromone has diverged between eastern and western populations and is consistent with previous data indicating that R. xylophagorum may consist of more than one species.


Prior research on technology standardization has focused on two common patterns: processes in which product developers and other stakeholders cooperate to achieve a consensus outcome, and "standards wars" in which competing technologies vie for dominance in the market. This study examines Microsoft's responses to 12 software technologies in the period between 1990 and 2005. Despite the company's reputed tendency to pursue a strategy dubbed "embrace, extend, and extinguish," a content analysis of news articles from the same period reveals surprising diversity in Microsoft's responses at the product level.

We classify these responses using a typology that treats "embrace" and "extend" as orthogonal decisions faced by product development organizations. This typology allows four kinds of outcomes to be distinguished, including two kinds of partial compatibility in addition to the familiar cases of full compatibility and incompatibility. To complement this cross-sectional perspective, we examine more closely the evolution of Microsoft's strategy with respect to Sun's Java technology. This longitudinal view highlights another underappreciated aspect of standardization, namely the extent to which a firm's strategic posture toward a standard can change over time, even within the same product family.

Based on this evidence, we suggest that firms tend to publicly embrace a standard with the aim of gaining legitimacy with a community of adopters, whereas efforts to extend a standard tend to be motivated by the intent to leverage the underlying technology to achieve or strengthen architectural control. We argue that legitimacy and leverage are strategic complements, making the "embrace and extend" strategy attractive to firms like Microsoft, but that the resulting outcome is unstable. Firms that pursue this strategy ultimately face a choice between contributing their extensions back to the standard and losing proprietary leverage, or giving up the legitimacy associated with standards compliance in exchange for freedom from the constraints of compatibility.


Summary Ca2+‐dependent signalling processes enable plants to perceive and respond to diverse environmental stressors, such as osmotic stress. A clear understanding of the role of spatiotemporal Ca2+ signalling in green algal lineages is necessary in order to understand how the Ca2+ signalling machinery has evolved in land plants. We used single‐cell imaging of Ca2+‐responsive fluorescent dyes in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to examine the specificity of spatial and temporal dynamics of Ca2+ elevations in the cytosol and flagella in response to salinity and osmotic stress. We found that salt stress induced a single Ca2+ elevation that was modulated by the strength of the stimulus and originated in the apex of the cell, spreading as a fast Ca2+ wave. By contrast, hypo‐osmotic stress induced a series of repetitive Ca2+ elevations in the cytosol that were spatially uniform. Hypo‐osmotic stimuli also induced Ca2+ elevations in the flagella that occurred independently from those in the cytosol. Our results indicate that the requirement for Ca2+ signalling in response to osmotic stress is conserved between land plants and green algae, but the distinct spatial and temporal dynamics of osmotic Ca2+ elevations in C. reinhardtii suggest important mechanistic differences between the two lineages.


From the emergence of plainsong to the end of the fourteenth century, this Companion covers all the key aspects of medieval music. Divided into three main sections, the book first of all discusses repertory, styles and techniques - the key areas of traditional music histories; next taking a topographical view of the subject - from Italy, German-speaking lands, and the Iberian Peninsula; and concludes with chapters on such issues as liturgy, vernacular poetry and reception. Rather than presenting merely a chronological view of the history of medieval music, the volume instead focuses on technical and cultural aspects of the subject. Over nineteen informative chapters, fifteen world-leading scholars give a perspective on the music of the Middle Ages that will serve as a point of orientation for the informed listener and reader, and is a must-have guide for anyone with an interest in listening to and understanding medieval music.


Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a third-wave behavioral therapy that uses acceptance- and mindfulness-based interventions. The main target of ACT is increasing psychological flexibility. While ACT has been shown to be effective in treating substance use, little research has focused on the mechanisms of change in ACT and substance use. The present study examined if psychological flexibility, distress tolerance, and mindfulness mediate the effectiveness of an ACT-based intervention compared to a psychodidactic control on heavy episodic drinking and alcohol-related problems among college freshmen. No significant differences emerged between conditions on heavy episodic drinking or alcohol-related problems. However, participants in both conditions reported decreased heavy drinking and related problems across time. Indirect analyses indicated a lack of differences between conditions on mediator variables, although there were increases in psychological flexibility, distress tolerance, and mindfulness across time. Psychological flexibility, distress tolerance, and nonjudgment of inner experience were negatively associated with alcohol-related problems. These findings suggest that preventive interventions can impact college student alcohol use and related problems as well as transdiagnostic mechanisms. Future research should examine ACT as a targeted, rather than prevention-focused, intervention for substance use in college students, particularly focusing on transdiagnostic mechanisms of change for substance use.


of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Professor Dennis Hansell. No. of pages in text. (137) Marginal seas represent ∼15% of the ocean surface, where extensive coral reefs, diverse benthic communities, productive fisheries, and sprawling mangroves and estuaries are abundant, and all of which are vulnerable to climate change. Furthermore, human activities locally compromise these ecosystems, for example, by releasing fertilizers into rivers that drain into marginal seas, causing eutrophication that in turn creates 'dead zones,' while the offshore oil industry has also caused extensive damage (e.g., the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe). Marginal seas may also offer insights on ocean-driven climate shifts, since they are restricted from the ocean, having unique deep water circulation pathways and chemistry, perhaps resembling the ocean during the geologic past (e.g., the anoxic Black Sea). Furthermore, marginal seas contain paleo proxies that extend further back into the geologic record, making the study of the ancient carbon cycle and climate shifts possible. Since climate and marine chemistry are strongly influenced by the distribution of carbon (e.g., changing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide), understanding its biogeochemical cycling in marginal seas will improve our understanding of climate change. In this dissertation, the contrasting environments of the Black Sea, Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and basins of the Caribbean were evaluated for biogeochemical properties and dynamics. The environmental impacts of anoxia and river input on carbon biogeochemistry in the Black Sea were investigated, utilizing data from a basin-wide transect conducted in 2013 as part of the GEOTRACES Program. The Black Sea has dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations ∼2.5 times higher than the open ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Previous studies have suggested that input of terrigenous DOC from rivers is responsible for the relatively high concentrations, however, anoxia may inhibit the mineralization of DOC, causing it to accumulate. The concentrations of DOC were predicted within the basin based on conservation with respect to salinity to trace riverine input; predicted values were then compared with observations to estimate net removal (i.e., deficits) and accumulation (i.e., surpluses). The cycling of DOC was also explored by examining the optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM), to provide insights on the composition and predominant origin of the DOM (i.e., terrigenous or marine). Net removal of DOC was identified in the subsurface waters of the Black Sea, and there was no evidence to suggest DOC accumulation under anoxia, instead suggesting that concentrations are due to input of terrigenous DOC from rivers, likely representing ∼50% of the DOC in the deep basin—orders of magnitude higher than found in the deep ocean. In the anoxic water, chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) correlated well with organic matter mineralization derived from hydrogen sulfide (H2S) concentrations, suggesting that the mineralization of sinking particles in the anoxic waters. Carbon mineralization was calculated in the anoxic water based on H2S accumulation and compared with CDOM; the anoxic correlations are similar to CDOM's known relationship with oxygen-derived mineralization in the ocean, suggesting that CDOM dynamics are fairly consistent between oxic and anoxic environments. The environmental impacts of sill depths on carbon biogeochemistry in the GoM and Caribbean (collectively referred to as the Intra-Americas Seas or IAS) were investigated, utilizing various datasets. The five major basins that comprise the IAS have dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations similar to those found in the western North Atlantic. However, below the ∼2000 m sill depths that separate the IAS basins, subtle differences in carbon concentrations exist, yet are not adequately mapped due to limited sampling coverage. Differences between the basins are apparent in oxygen concentrations from the 2013 World Ocean Atlas, showing signs of recent Upper North Atlantic Deep Water penetration, perhaps containing anthropogenic carbon. In order to investigate these differences with respect to carbon, relationships between observed DIC concentrations were established with temperature, salinity, oxygen and silicic acid measurements using multiple linear regression (MLR) models. The concentrations of DIC were calculated using MLR models and compared with available observations to determine the distribution of DIC between the deep IAS. The MLR-derived DIC concentrations represent the first coherent view of the carbon system spanning the deep IAS basins. While the IAS contain natural DIC, they may also act as reservoirs for storing anthropogenic carbon; more observations from the different basins are required to confirm their role as storage reservoirs.


This paper proposes a technique for processing signals in which the relevant spectral feature consists of one or more narrow lines which have a nonzero Doppler shift with respect to the reference frequency. The proposed technique consists of applying a second demodulation process to the demodulated signal obtained as the receiver output. The purpose of such a demodulation is to remove the frequency shift between the observed spectral line and the center of the observed spectral band. This way, the selected spectral line is brought to baseband, allowing the study of its envelope as a slowly varying process. One efficient way to perform the second demodulation step is by a digital version of a quadrature demodulator. This idea is translated into an efficient algorithm, employing real multiplications and accumulators. An advantage of such an algorithm is that in order to observe two spectral lines in symmetrical positions with respect to the center frequency, common multiplication and accumulators can be used. A possible simplification of the algorithm is discussed in which sinusoids used for demodulation are replaced by square waves, so that multiplication reduces to a synchronous sign reversal. Possible distorsions due to this simplified algorithm are mentioned. Possible implementations of double demodulation in a digital signal processing system are discussed in the final part of the paper.


The study carried out during the present Ph.D. program aimed at investigating the PHB production process in autotrophic cultures of cyanobacteria. The work was carried out at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, dei Materiali e della Produzione Industriale of the University of Naples 'Federico II' and at Molecular Microbial Physiology Group of the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences in Universiteit van Amsterdam. The activities were articulated according to three paths: i) the characterization of PHB production process as regards kinetics and yields using different growth media characterized by different nitrate concentration and screening cyanobacteria strains; ii) the characterization of the PHB production process by cyanobacteria according to kinetic models; iii) the development of genetic engineering approach on cyanobacteria to improve PHB production.
1)Selection of the optimal growth media to produce PHB and screening of cyanobacteria strains: characterization in terms of kinetics and yields.
The study was aimed at the assessment of both the kinetics and the yields of the cell growth and PHB produced during the growth on different growth media characterized by different nitrate concentrations: BG11 (optimal nitrate concentration), BG1/2 (half of optimal nitrate concentration), BG1/4 (one fourth of the optimal nitrate concentration) and BG0 (nitrogen-starved conditions). Batch tests were focused on the preliminary characterization of the PHB production process from cyanobacteria with the aim of highlighting the relevant features of the process. Synechocystis PCC6803 was growth as model strains on the different culture media. The investigation was carried out in photobioreactors using CO2 as carbon source. The best media for PHB production was BG1/2 (half of optimal nitrate concentration).
Five cyanobacteria strains were screened using BG1/2 medium, to select a high PHB producer: Synechocystis PCC6803, Synechocystis aquatilis, Synechocystis fuscopigmentosa, Synecoccoccus nidulans and Chlorogloeopsis Fritshii.
2)Characterization of the PHB production process: kinetic models.
An adequate kinetic model to describe the PHB production process is a key issue to address the conditions to maximize the PHB fraction in the cell. A kinetic model of PHB production by Synechocystis PCC6803 from CO2 was proposed using the biochemical networks simulator COPASI. Data form growth tests under dynamic light system (light/dark cycle) carried out at different initial nitrate concentration were used to assess the kinetic and stoichiometric parameters of the proposed model.
Two types of cells were considered in the cultures: growing cells (X), which are able to grow, and PHB producing cells (XPHB). The specific velocity (kT) of XPHB formation was considered dependent from the initial concentration of nitrate.
The proposed model includes the nitrate and phosphate utilization rate, the PHB production rate, the cell growth and lysis rate. The model adequately predicted the experimental data, indeed the square correlation coefficient of metabolite concentrations, calculated by comparing experiments and simulations, ranged between 0.81 and 0.99.
3)Genetic modified cyanobacteria strain to improve PHB production.
In this study Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 was genetically modified with aim to improve PHB production from CO2. Seven mutant strains were created by single and combined mutations: deletion of phosphotransacetylase (pta); the deletion of acetyl-CoA hydrolase (ach); the overexpression of phosphoketolase (xfpk). The tests were carried out on BG11 medium. The mutant strain that gave best performance on BG11 medium was tested on optimized medium (BG1/2 medium).


We propose a novel Adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to compute the partition function. In particular, we show how to accelerate a flat histogram sampling technique by significantly reducing the number of "null moves" in the chain, while maintaining asymptotic convergence properties. Our experiments show that our method converges quickly to highly accurate solutions on a range of benchmark instances, outperforming other state-of-the-art methods such as IJGP, TRW, and Gibbs sampling both in run-time and accuracy. We also show how obtaining a so-called density of states distribution allows for efficient weight learning in Markov Logic theories.


Predicting ecosystem response to change and ensuring long-term sustainable management
of Southern Ocean marine living resources is reliant upon ecosystem monitoring
programmes that will provide data on key physical and biological components of the
ecosystem and the functional relationships between these components. Integral to such
monitoring programmes is accurate and reliable information on the diet of predators. In
this study, I examined the long-term variability in the diet of Adelie penguins Pygoscelis
adeliae, and their dependence on Antarctic krill Euphausia superba, the target of a large
commercial fishery, to evaluate their effectiveness as an indicator species monitored to
detect the effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
Krill and fish were the dominant prey items in the diet of Adelie penguins from
Bechervaise Island, however there was substantial inter- and intra-annual variation, as
well as differences between sexes, in meal mass and diet composition. In years of low
amounts of krill in the diet, reproductive performance declined, indicating Adelie
penguins from this region are dependent on krill and could be considered an effective
indicator species. However the large year-to-year variability naturally present in Adelie
penguin diet limits the power to detect change due to an impact over short time periods
(i.e. <20-years), unless one is willing to relax Type I error levels above the traditional
0.05 level.
Diet of Adelie penguins has traditionally been inferred from stomach samples,
however execution of this technique is restricted to when birds are accessible and have
full stomachs. Hence, diet data is biased towards the chick-rearing period when adults
bring food ashore to feed chicks. Therefore I evaluated two alternate, indirect techniques -
stable-isotope analysis (SIA) and fatty acid signature analysis (FASA) - that may
complement or enhance our knowledge of Adelie penguin diet.
Diet inferred from the analysis of stable carbon (13C) and stable nitrogen (15N)
isotopes in penguin blood and feather samples, and from fatty acids in blood samples, was
similar to that determined from stomach contents. Blood and feather samples analyzed by
SIA or FASA can integrate diet over different time periods. Therefore I examined intraand
inter-annual variation in the diet of adult and chick Adelie penguins. Although diet
did not differ between age classes, it did vary between breeding stages and between the
two years of study. I also developed an in situ method to calibrate blood FA profiles with
stomach contents, which offers a simple and effective alternative to more complex calibration techniques developed elsewhere. I conclude that SIA and FASA are useful for
monitoring Adelie penguin diet at broad taxonomic resolutions, and, combined with
stomach content analysis, provide a more comprehensive picture of Adelie penguin
foraging ecology. Additionally, and most importantly, these techniques extend the
temporal window for obtaining diet information, including those periods when it is
difficult to use conventional sampling techniques, although penguins may be vulnerable to
impacts such as commercial fishing during these periods as well.


This manuscript is the first of a series written for the Nevada Journal of Public Health. The series is result of research conducted for the Southern Nevada Strong, Sustainable Communities Grant. During Year One of the planning process, we created a Southern Nevada Existing Conditions Report. This report highlighted where the region stood on key metrics including: demographics and population projections, access to healthcare and health outcomes, healthy community, housing, environment, economy and education. For this special issue of the Nevada Journal of Public Health, the report was separated into seven articles related to each of these metrics. The articles will present public health professionals with the current conditions in the seven areas for Southern Nevada and make comparisons to Mountain West peer metropolitan areas.. The purpose of this introduction article is to describe the methodology and rationale used to create the initial report. It will also provide the criteria used to select our peer regions and a general description of the study area. Lastly, this article includes short synopses of the key findings from each of the seven supportive manuscripts and provides some recommendations for public health professionals in Nevada. It is our hope that the work of bringing together this series will benefit the greater public health community in Nevada.


In this survey we review the literature that studies the relationship between environmental policy and technical change. We divide the literature in two broad areas of research. First, we look at the studies that evaluate the impact of environmental regulation on technological change after the implementation of environmental policy ( ex-post ). Second, we introduce the studies that assess the impact of environmental regulation on innovation dynamics before the implementation of environmental policy ( ex-ante ). While the first group is dominated by econometric work, in the second group we find the fast growing literature based on Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) created to study the policies to limit global warming. Both ex-post and ex-ante studies corroborate the hypothesis that environmental policy plays an important role in inducing innovation and in increasing the adoption as well as the diffusion of new technologies. Policy experiments carried out using Integrated Assessment Models highlight that the size and the direction of the inducement effect depend on at least three elements. First, relative prices play an important role, but also scale and market size effects are relevant in shaping incentives to innovate. Second, the inducement effect can vary across different R&D programs and with the degree of policy stringency. Third, nearly all studies stress the role of substitution in terms of flexibility, either within the energy sector, between energy and other inputs such as labour or capital, or between final sectors with different energy intensities. A relevant lesson that should be communicated to policy makers is the importance of combining efficiently policies to address the environmental and the knowledge externalities. Areas in which there is room for more research are mentioned throughout the survey. They include the need of exploiting better cross-country dimension of recent panel data sets, launching a new comprehensive assessment of the determinants of eco-friendly innovation in developing countries, assessing the interactions between "clean" and "dirty" R&D, testing whether firms are operating at the frontier of efficiency or not.


Excel can be daunting: that empty grid just stares you in the face when you start the program, challenging you to fill in the cells with thenumbers you need to crunch. How do you start? What do you do?Creating Spreadsheets and Charts in Excel: Visual QuickProject Guide answers those questions and puts you on the straight track to getting the job done. This new addition to Peachpit's Visual QuickProject Guide series by Excel guru Maria Langer uses full color screen shots and numbered steps to walk you through the process of creating an Excel workbook file. You'll learn how to build a worksheet from the ground up, enter data, write formulas, and copy cell contents. You'll then see how to duplicate and modify worksheets to fine-tune them for your needs. The project's steps also include creating a consolidation worksheet, formatting all worksheets, creating a colorful pie chart, and setting options for printing your work. There's no time wasted in this book; Maria shows you the quickest and most efficient way to perform each task and doesn't waste paper with lengthy explanations or alternative methods. This slim book is all you'll need to get started creating spreadsheets and charts with Excel.


Tablets are the most customarily used solid oral unit dosage form for its better patient compliance. Preparation of these tablets include granulation, granule drying, die filling, and tablet coating as few unit operations and evaluation tests like dissolution test and disintegration test. These are the most crucial segments influencing the quality of the tablet. Critical analysis of the impact of factors like flow pattern, temperature, velocity, and other properties of fluid affecting the unit operations is obligatory to enhance their efficiency. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a combined mathematical and numerical approach, is used to analyze the process parameters of fluid affecting the abovementioned processes during tablet formulation. The equations governing the laws of conservation of energy, mass, and momentum are solved numerically utilizing CFD software for better understanding of the role of fluids within the tablet processing steps. This review not only focuses on discrete explanations on how CFD is utilized in formulation and evaluation of tablet but it is also a compilation of multiple research works performed on each unit operation by applying CFD.


We report a high-throughput method for the fabrication of metallic nanogap arrays with high-accuracy over large areas. This method, based on shadow evaporation and interference lithography, achieves sub-10 nm gap sizes with a high accuracy of ±1.5 nm. Controlled fabrication is demonstrated over mm2 areas and for periods of 250 nm. Experiments complemented with numerical simulations indicate that the formation of nanogaps is a robust, self-limiting process that can be applied to wafer-scale substrates. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) experiments illustrate the potential for plasmonic sensing with an exceptionally low standard-deviation of the SERS signal below 3% and average enhancement factors exceeding 1 × 106.


Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing? Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.


The purpose of this study was to investigate how school characteristics affect the usage of the PM and the consequent impact on learner achievement in physics (LAP). Data was collected using Students Achievement Tests (SAT) and questionnaire for physics teachers. Stratified Sampling was applied to select 84 schools comprising boys, girls and mixed schools from seven provinces of Kenya. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. ANOVA, chi-square and multiple-regression were used to test the hypothesis. The key findings of the study were that PM enhances the learning of physics; Single sex schools performed better than mixed schools; the type of schools in terms of gender, whether day or boarding were not factors in the usage of project method. In view of these research findings, the researchers recommend that the government come up with a policy that enhances the establishment of more single sex schools, enhance resource mobilization for the teaching of physics, review the teacher training component so as to encompass the PM as an alternative teaching strategy, and in-service physics teachers on the role of school characteristics in the study of physics. Key words: Physics; Learner Achievement in Physics (LAP); Project Method PM; School Characteristics (SC);


The transport properties of self-assembled guanosine supramolecules (SAGS) confined within nanoscale metal electrodes on transparent GaN semiconductor substrates have been studied. The modified guanosine molecules have been used as self-assembled nanowires to realize nanoscale UV-Visible photodetectors with self-assembly length ranging from 30 to 450 nm. The ribbon-like guanosine supramolecules exhibit semiconductor properties and have polarization along its axis due to the strong intrinsic dipole moment of guanosine molecules. The charge transport through the SAGS wire with nanoscale metal-semiconductor-metal structure on passivated Ga-terminated GaN surface can be explained by Schottky type conductivity and near-surface-states. The intrinsic polarization in SAGS nano-wires changes the band-offset at the metal-semiconductor interface similar to semiconductor photodiodes.


A multichannel fiber-optic Fabry-Perot (F-P) demodulator based on nonscanning correlation demodulation is proposed. The demodulator principle is analyzed, and the prototype of nonscanning correlation demodulation fiber-optic F-P demodulator is made and tested. The measurement range of the prototype is from 10 to 40 ?m, the demodulation resolution is 8 nm, and its stability is 7 nm. This method provides a feasible solution, which guarantees the practicability of the fiber-optic F-P sensor network.


From policy to practice or from practice to policy? What is the best way to sustain OER activity at an institutional level? The OER Policy Registry has 84 (Nov 2013) registered OER policies which seems limited considering this is an international database and that significant investment has been made in OER development activity over the last 5 years. It is clear that some institutions have developed an OER policy and some have not. This paper explores whether having such policies has influenced the impact of effectively engaging academic colleagues in Open Education activity. Referencing work from the JISC/HEA funded OER activity from 2009 - 2012 this paper examines which institutions have a publicly available OER policy and those which have chosen to embed OER activity in other ways. In particular this paper will draw upon the experience of OER activity at Leeds Metropolitan University where we have endeavoured to embed OER practice into the systems and processes that already existed. The paper will ask whether OER policy development is the change agent for open practice or whether policy is in response to open practice communities and cultures. This paper presentation invites participants to bring with them their own experiences within their institutions and to engage in a live data gathering exercise around OER policy & embedding of open practice.


The social determinants of health—including race and socioeconomic status—continue to propagate health disparities at unprecedented levels. These negative health outcomes, including high prevalence of chronic diseases, are most pronounced in communities of color. Since the first African slave arrived in Virginia over four centuries ago, systemic racism, discrimination, and prejudice have permeated society to the point where African Americans can expect to live, on average, five years fewer than their white counterparts. History demonstrates that these disparities are most pronounced during pandemics. During the height of the HIV epidemic in the United States, infection rates in black communities outpaced those in non-minority communities by a factor of ten.[1]
Unsurprisingly, data emerging from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic suggests these longstanding disparities persist. In Michigan, African Americans constitute only 14 percent of the state's population but account for 40 percent[2] of coronavirus-related deaths. Such a grim empirical reality raises crucial ethical questions about fair, unbiased allocation of healthcare resources. Specifically, ventilator allocation protocols—institutional policies intended to maximize the therapeutic value of scarce life-saving resources such as ventilators—require examination though a social justice lens. Currently, there is no federal guidance on ventilator allocation protocols, and state-level guidance, where it exists, varies considerably.[3] In the absence of universal, transparent policy, we must question how—and to what degree—race and ethnicity enter into the ventilator allocation process, a process that ultimately determines who lives and who dies.
In response to concerns of potential bias in ventilator allocation, hospitals have touted the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) scale as the gold standard of clinical objectivity. On its surface, the SOFA scale represents a utilitarian exercise of triage—a practice first employed on 18th century battlefields. Each patient is assigned a mortality risk score based on a set of clinical criteria, thus determining who is most likely to benefit from ventilation therapy. However, a closer analysis of the SOFA scale reveals significant disadvantages for African American patients. The SOFA scale measures six different clinical indicators, using basic blood-based lab tests to assess heart, lung, liver, kidney, and neurological function. African Americans are about 30 percent more likely to suffer from chronic conditions including diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.[4] All of these have been shown to exacerbate the symptomology of the novel coronavirus. In turn, patients with these conditions perform worse on the SOFA and are therefore more likely to engender a higher mortality risk score. This all but ensures African Americans will be excluded from ventilator therapy at disproportionately higher rates in the context of rationing.
In the event two patients receive identical SOFA scores, African Americans continue to be disadvantaged. If two patients hold identical mortality risk scores and only one ventilator is available, priorities shift to maximizing the number of life-years saved.[5] In this instance, clinicians will provide ventilation therapy to the patient poised to live the longest in the event of a full recovery, or at least a partial recovery that results in eventual withdrawal of the ventilator therapy. While this protocol will broadly favor younger patients, the unfortunate reality is that African Americans are expected to lead the shortest lives of any ethnic group in the country. Suppose an Asian patient and a black patient of the same age hold identical SOFA scores. Determining who is likely to live the longest in the event of recovery (the number of life-years saved) is tragically simple. With black life expectancy at 75 and Asian life expectancy at 87, there appears no room for interpretation—the black patient loses again.
It is also plausible that hospitals lack ventilator allocation policies altogether. This circumstance is more likely in rural and underserved communities, where many hospitals operate independently of high-resource academic health systems. In this case, it's business as usual—ventilators are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Decades of racial bias and discrimination within the US healthcare system have deeply damaged African American perception of the healthcare system, resulting in pervasive mistrust of the healthcare enterprise. This mistrust is justified—during non-crisis circumstances, black patients wait 20 minutes longer for care in clinics and emergency rooms. They are also allotted less face-to-face time with clinicians who, by a factor of ten to one, are unlikely to be persons of color.[6] Such systemic inequities result in African Americans often delaying care until symptoms are severe—leading to devastating health outcomes.[7] Thus, the first-come first-serve model is poised to disproportionately benefit non-minority populations, as they are more likely to seek care upon early onset of symptoms, and, once in the clinic or emergency room, are less likely to wait for care.
The unfortunate reality is that a lottery—a completely random process of ventilator allocation—may be the only fair solution in a society plagued by such pervasive health inequities. While this strategy has been previously employed in organ transplantation, it is fraught with ethical complications. First, lotteries engender a reckless disregard for resource optimization—an 85-year-old may be selected for ventilatory therapy over a 16-year-old, without any consideration of social or clinical factors. Second, lotteries suffer from a crisis of transparency. In the absence of an established allocation procedure, it is impossible to prove to patients and/or families that the process was in fact random. For the African American community, it may be particularly difficult to accept a clinician's assurance of a truly random process. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was terminated only fifty years ago following decades of deceit and exploitation of African American men in rural Alabama.
Utilitarianism is often proclaimed as the predominant philosophical paradigm during public health crises. Unfortunately, while government officials and healthcare administrators claim to prioritize the greatest benefit for the greatest number in their defense of clinically based ventilator allocation policies, attention to social justice remains woefully absent. Current clinical and non-clinical frameworks of resource allocation do not account for the pervasive health disparities currently plaguing society, particularly those observed in underserved communities. Regardless of how objective various triage frameworks claim to be, they fail to account for the pervasive social injustices that disproportionately burden black communities. Until federal, state, and local governments and our communities begin to seriously address the social determinants of health, African Americans will continue to unjustly bear the burden of resource rationing. The life-or-death context of ventilator allocation is no exception.

 [1] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Health Disparities in HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and Tuberculosis in the United States." (2007). https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/healthdisparities/docs/nchhstphealthdisparitiesreport1107.pdf.
[2] State of Michigan. "Michigan Coronavirus Data." (2020). https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98163_98173---,00.html.
[3] New York State Department of Health and New York State Task Force on Life and the Law. "Updated Ventilator Allocation Guidelines." (2020). https://www.health.ny.gov/press/releases/2015/2015-11-25_ventilator_allocation_guidelines.htm.
[4] McKinsey & Company. "COVID-19: Investing in black lives and livelihoods." (2020). https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/covid-19-investing-in-black-lives-and-livelihoods.
[5] Truog, Robert D., Christine Mitchell, and George Q. Daley. "The Toughest Triage — Allocating Ventilators in a Pandemic." New England Journal of Medicine 382, no. 21 (March 23, 2020): 1973–75. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2005689.
[6] Johnson, Carolyn. "Racial inequality even affects how long we wait for the doctor." The Washington Post. (October 15, 2015). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/05/medicines-racial-divide-measured-in-minutes-spent-waiting-to-see-a-doctor/.
[7] Chen, Jie, Arturo Vargas-Bustamante, Karoline Mortensen, and Alexander N Ortega. "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care Access and Utilization Under the Affordable Care Act." Medical Care 54, no. 2 (February 2016): 140–46. https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000467.


An example is given which shows that the Denef–Loeser zeta function (usually called the topological zeta function) associated to a germ of a complex hypersurface singularity is not a topological invariant of the singularity. The idea is the following. Consider two germs of plane curves singularities with the same integral Seifert form but with different topological type and which have different topological zeta functions. Make a double suspension of these singularities (consider them in a 4‐dimensional complex space). A theorem of M. Kervaire and J. Levine states that the topological type of these new hypersurface singularities is characterized by their integral Seifert form. Moreover the Seifert form of a suspension is equal (up to sign) to the original Seifert form. Hence these new singularities have the same topological type. By means of a double suspension formula the Denef–Loeser zeta functions are computed for the two 3‐dimensional singularities and it is verified that they are not equal.


In their analysis of the effects of advance notification of plant closings, Nord and Ting (ILR Review, July 1991) claim that much can be expected of current legislation that mandates a 60-day prenotification standard because the outcomes of voluntary arrangements, in an interval preceding implementation of the legislation, point to substantial reductions in both joblessness and earnings losses for workers given over two months' warning of their impending layoff. They also suggest that many of the disparate results reported in the earlier plant closing literature reflect the inability to distinguish between formal and informal notice on the basis of the 1984 and 1986 Displaced Worker Surveys.


It is widely held that voter turnout among immigrants and ethnic minorities is lower than among the native born. The goal of our paper is to explore the determinants of voting, comparing immigrant, minority and majority citizens in Canada. We use the 2002 wave of the Equality Security Community Survey to explore the relationship between personal characteristics (age, sex, education, and household type) work characteristics, social capital attributes (trust in government, belonging, civic awareness and interaction with others) and ethnic characteristics (ethnic origin, place of birth and religion) and voting. We find that the combination of socio-demographic and social capital attributes largely overrides the impact of immigration and ethnicity. This suggests that it is not the minority attribute that impacts voting. Rather it is age, level of schooling and level of civic engagement which effects voting, both federal and provincial.


Readers will score a touchdown at their tailgate parties with Football's Most Wanted(TM) II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities by Walter Harvey. With fun facts and amazing anecdotes from professional and college football, it's sure to delight fans new and old while presenting a wealth of interesting and amusing tidbits and trivia. Harvey takes over in the second half after a stellar performance by the starter, Football's Most Wanted(TM), and is poised to lead your team to victory. With more than fifty additional top-ten lists on a plethora of pigskin possibilities, there's something here for everybody. Harvey includes information on some of the greatest gridiron rivalries, amazing football streaks and records, the youngest coaches and oldest players, famous and defunct college football bowls, coaches who both excelled and failed when making the jump from college to the pros, and the most entertaining touchdown celebrations. He touches on footballers who go into commercials, introduces the famous"other halves" of football players, and even details ten of the longest scoring plays in NFL history. Football's Most Wanted(TM)II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities is a sure score for every fan.


Accurate and robust positioning technology is expected to promote management level and service efficiency in various industrial applications. The strap-down inertial navigation system (SINS) approach has short-term accurate positioning performance, but the SINS is known for its accumulative error over time. Meanwhile, wireless sensor networks (WSN) approach can keep the mobile target on effective tracking after a long time monitoring, but the WSN may have large positioning error in certain areas. In order to make the positioning method allow profit from their advantages, this paper proposes a positioning technology using SINS approach in conjunction with WSN approach. The measurement parameters by SINS and WSN approaches are used. Then the SINS, anchor nodes, mobile tags, XBee, and computer are applied to design the positioning system. The estimation results indicate that the proposed method can make up for the shortcomings by pure SINS or WSN method and can be available for some accurate and robust applications.


Union membership has declined 24.2 percent since 1945. Declining union membership leads to economic losses for labor unions. The problem is relevant to scholars and the labor movement, requiring a deeper understanding of union membership decline. In this qualitative study, experiences with declining union membership are explored with union representatives in Los Angeles County. The conceptual framework uses three models: the utility of union membership, human motivation, and collective bargaining to identify relevant elements of union membership decisions. Twenty face-to-face interviews were conducted with participants who had a minimum of 3 years experience as a full-time union representative. The data were coded, and themes developed using the modified van Kaam method and NVivo 10 software. Three primary emergent themes resulted: (a) globalism is the primarily perceived cause of declining union membership, (b) unions should be more effective in collective bargaining, and (c) communication with union members must increase. The results from this study could be used to improve internal union communication, increase operational efficiency, and develop leadership training. The implications for positive social change include new insights to support labor union leaders in efforts to identify relevant needs, increase membership, retain jobs, and improve the economic health of their members.


Reminiscent of mild-mannered Clark Kent, the glycolytic enzyme glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) has an alter ego with potent and deadly effects. When translocated to the nucleus, GAPDH has been associated with transcriptional regulation, and Hara et al. present results implicating it in control of apoptosis. A yeast two-hybrid screen for proteins interacting with GAPDH turned up Siah1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. In transfected cells, the authors detected interaction of the proteins and increased localization of GAPDH to the nucleus, an effect that required the nuclear localization signal of Siah1. In human embryonic kidney cells undergoing apoptosis in response to staurosporine, the authors detected modification of GAPDH by mass spectrometry and went on to show in vitro that modification of GAPDH by S-nitrosylation (often a consequence of increased generation of nitric oxide within cells) enhanced association with Siah1. These events appear to be important in regulation of apoptosis. In a macrophage cell line undergoing apoptosis in response to lipopolysaccharide, GAPDH became S-nitrosylated and associated with endogenous GAPDH, and the complex moved to the nucleus. All of these effects were blocked by an inhibitor of the nitric oxide-generating enzyme iNOS (inducible nitric oxide synthase). Depletion of GAPDH with small interfering RNA (siRNA) blocked the appearance of phosphorylated histone H2B, a marker associated with apoptosis. In cerebellar granular neurons undergoing apoptosis in response to activation of glutamate receptors, similar effects were observed. Increased binding of Siah1 to GAPDH was blocked in cells from neuronal NOS (nNOS) knockout mice, and depletion of either GAPDH or Siah1 from wild-type cells with siRNA inhibited apoptosis. Exactly how nuclear Siah1 promotes apoptosis remains to be explored, but its action appears to require its RING finger domain, indicating that Siah1-mediated ubiquitination and consequent degradation of nuclear proteins is one likely mechanism. Nitric oxide-mediated modification of metabolic enzymes has been shown to contribute to cell death through energy depletion. Hara et al. propose that this may be a slower process and one associated more closely with necrosis, whereas the faster nuclear actions of GAPDH, which reflect translocation of only a small portion of cytoplasmic enzyme, appear to be independent of effects on glycolysis. M. R. Hara, N. Agrawal, S. F. Kim, M. B. Cascio, M. Fujimuro, Y. Ozeki, M. Takahashi, J. H. Cheah, S. K. Tankou, L. D. Hester, C. D. Ferris, S. D. Hayward, S. H. Snyder, A. Sawa, S-nitrosylated GAPDH initiates apoptotic cell death by nuclear translocation following Siah1 binding. Nat. Cell Biol. 7, 665-674 (2005). [PubMed]


Gene deficient or knockout (KO) mice and rabbits are models of atherosclerosis focusing on cholesterol plaques, which do not reflect the complex etiology of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Inhibiting the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase or the proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) reduce cholesterol levels but not the rate of CVD. Moreover, the one-drug-one-gene paradigm particularly targeting any one of the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which represent the largest protein family encoded by the human genome, has at best produced palliative treatment. Vascular diseases including CVD are caused by extraneous (xeno) factors, which are of multifactorial etiology consisting of upstream and downstream phases. The upstream phase is the physical breach of the cells protective glycocalyx (GCX) shield by chemical and biological pollutants, resulting in a sequela of cell damages (plexic) that is manifested downstream in the form of diseases, herein called xenoplexic diseases. Xenoplexic disease is an etiologic description while chronic disease is symptom-centric. This study treated a natural mouse with extraneous agents, which produced plaques and plaque reduction was the end point to evaluate the curative and/or preventive treatment effect of the 3-component compound therapy. Histopathology monitored the presence of plaque, and a 4-panel biomarker, based on GCX disruption, was subsequently developed as a surrogate to monitor plaque formation. Of the several 3-NCE combos tested 4 combos were found to be preventive and curative of plaques indicating the effectiveness of a combo platform therapy. One combo is chosen as the lead candidate and hereby designated as Embotricin TM.


OBJECTIVE
To compare CT and radiographic images of the lungs in sedated healthy foals positioned in sternal recumbency and to investigate whether a relationship exists between CT-derived measurements of lung attenuation and Paco2 and Pao2.

ANIMALS
6 healthy Standardbred foals < 14 days of age.

PROCEDURES
Thoracic CT images were acquired followed by radiographic views with each foal sedated and positioned in sternal recumbency. For each foal, both CT and radiographic images were evaluated for severity and extent of changes by lung regions on the basis of a subjective scoring system by 3 investigators. Quantitative analysis of CT images was also performed. Assessments of Pao2 and Paco2 were performed before sedation, following sedation prior to CT, and after CT prior to radiography.

RESULTS
Interobserver agreement for CT and radiographic image scoring was strong (0.73) and fair (0.65), respectively; intraobserver agreement was near perfect for CT (0.97) and radiographic (0.94) image scoring. Increased CT attenuation and radiographic changes were identified for all foals and were preferentially distributed in the caudoventral portion of the lungs. Radiographic scores were significantly lower than CT image scores. A positive correlation (r = 0.872) between lung attenuation and CT image score was identified. A significant increase in Paco2 was not considered clinically relevant. Significant changes in Pao2 were not observed.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Results suggested that interpretation of CT images may be less subjective, compared with interpretation of radiographic images. These findings may aid in the evaluation of CT and radiographic images of neonatal foals with respiratory tract disease.


Hikikomori (a severe form of social withdrawal) is a serious mental health issue. A family approach is the initial step to support hikikomori; thus effective family intervention programs are warranted. We recently developed a 5-day family intervention program (120 min weekly) based on Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT). In the present study, we modified the 5-day program to a 3-day program (180 min fortnightly), and examined the effectiveness of the 3-day program using a single-arm procedure. Data of 23 parents (four fathers and 19 mothers; age = 62.0 9.1 years) were analyzed. Mental health conditions among participants themselves improved at the 4-month followup, but the confidence in hikikomori support declined and stigma toward mental health problems did not change. However, short-term improvements in perceived skills in approaching hikikomori sufferers were detected. Hikikomori sufferers' actual behavioral changes, such as social participation or utilization of support, were also observed (six out of 20 hikikomori sufferers). Preliminary effectiveness was confirmed for the 3-day program. Further revision of the program and a validation study with controls are required.


GPS and accelerometers have been broadly used the last decade for the monitoring of flexible structures and bridges, while Robotic Total Station (RTS) has been successfully assessed for the monitoring of slow and dynamic motions. Further experimental studies have revealed specific drawbacks of the GPS (multipath, etc.) and RTS (clipping, etc.) monitoring techniques and how these can be surpassed by their combined use. In the current study, we assess the performance of the complementary use of GPS and RTS for the monitoring of the semi-static and dynamic displacement of a relatively rigid pedestrian bridge, with main modal frequency more than 1Hz.
Two RTS and GPS receivers were synchronised monitoring the deflection of the two sides of the mid-span of the bridge, while pedestrians excited the bridge. Several excitations (walking, marching, jumping, etc.) were examined, causing semi-static and/or dynamic displacement of the bridge, and rotation of the deck, of different amplitude and frequencies. The analysis of the RTS and GPS time-series, which was based on spectral analysis and band-pass filtering of the time-series, resulted to low- and high-frequency component expressing the semi-static and dynamic displacement. Finally, the combination of the GPS and RTS time-series made possible the estimation of 1-4mm semi-static displacement, the 5-10mm dynamic displacement and the estimation of the main modal frequencies.


Kerala and Tamil Nadu, neighbouring states in South India, have each in its own way attracted much attention from development economists in India and abroad. Kerala is known for its development record illustrated by the high levels of literacy of its citizens and health related development indictors. Kerala's record of development has generated debate on the primacy of growth as opposed to investments in health and education as propagators of development. Kerala is supposed to have achieved development with little growth. The other striking feature of Kerala's economy is the relatively low contribution of manufacturing to its growth and the preponderance of the services sector in both growth and employment. Tamil Nadu, in contrast to Kerala, possesses a manufacturing sector led by high tech automobiles and low tech textiles sectors amongst others. There is evidence to support the thesis that whilst Tamil Nadus's growth path over the years conforms to the Kuznets inverted U curve paradigm, Kerala's growth path is far from it. This paper argues that it would be erroneous to claim that Kerala development record is based on low levels and illustrates the returns to be had from emphasising investments in health and education. That which is important for development is a flow of investible resources. Kerala in the earlier years of its development relied on public borrowing for such resources and in recent years it has had heavy inflows of remittances from its diaspora in the Gulf states. Tamil Nadu's record is largely based on growth and foreign direct investments in its manufacturing sector. This paper argues that the differing growth paths of the two states and their development record is to be traces to history and the institutions, especially the education and political institutions in place in the two states. Kerala possesses a comparative advantage in tourism and health services and should promote these sectors if it were to sustain its development record with a sustainable growth path that is not dependent on uncertain and fluctuating remittances from abroad. Tamil Nadu that has entered the services phase of the Kuznets cycle is likely to grow with services sustained manufactures.