Toxicity of lead, cadmium, or zinc to early life stages of freshwater mussels (fatmucket, Lampsilis siliquoidea; Neosho mucket, L. rafinesqueana) was evaluated in 48‐h exposures with mussel larvae (glochidia), in 96‐h exposures with newly transformed (5‐d‐old) and two‐ or six‐month‐old juvenile mussels, or in 28‐d exposures with two‐ or four‐month‐old mussels in reconstituted soft water. The 24‐h median effect concentrations (EC50s) for fatmucket glochidia (>299 µg Pb/L, >227 µg Cd/L, 2,685 µg Zn/L) and 96‐h EC50s for two‐ or six‐month‐old fatmucket (>426 µg Pb/L, 199 µg Cd/L, 1,700 µg Zn/L) were much higher than 96‐h EC50s for newly transformed fatmucket (142 and 298 µg Pb/L, 16 µg Cd/L, 151 and 175 µg Zn/L) and Neosho mucket (188 µg Pb/L, 20 µg Cd/L, 145 µg Zn/L). Chronic values for fatmucket were 10 µg Pb/L, 6.0 µg Cd/L, and 63 and 68 µg Zn/L. When mussel data from the present study and the literature were included in updated databases for deriving U.S. Environmental Protection Agency water quality criteria, mussel genus mean acute values were in the lower percentiles of the sensitivity distribution of all freshwater species for Pb (the 26th percentile), Cd (the 15th to 29th percentile), or Zn (the 12th to 21st percentile). The mussel (Lampsilis) genus mean chronic value was the lowest value ever reported for Pb (the 9th percentile) but was near the middle of the sensitivity distribution for Cd (the 61st percentile) or Zn (the 44th percentile). These results indicate that mussels were relatively sensitive to the acute toxicity of these three metals and to the chronic toxicity of Pb, but were moderately sensitive to the chronic toxicity of Cd or Zn compared to other freshwater species. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2010;29:2053–2063. © 2010 SETAC


ABSTRACT The cardiovascular system is critical for delivering O2 to tissues. Here, we examined the cardiovascular responses to progressive hypoxia in four high-altitude Andean duck species compared with four related low-altitude populations in North America, tested at their native altitude. Ducks were exposed to stepwise decreases in inspired partial pressure of O2 while we monitored heart rate, O2 consumption rate, blood O2 saturation, haematocrit (Hct) and blood haemoglobin (Hb) concentration. We calculated O2 pulse (the product of stroke volume and the arterial–venous O2 content difference), blood O2 concentration and heart rate variability. Regardless of altitude, all eight populations maintained O2 consumption rate with minimal change in heart rate or O2 pulse, indicating that O2 consumption was maintained by either a constant arterial–venous O2 content difference (an increase in the relative O2 extracted from arterial blood) or by a combination of changes in stroke volume and the arterial–venous O2 content difference. Three high-altitude taxa (yellow-billed pintails, cinnamon teal and speckled teal) had higher Hct and Hb concentration, increasing the O2 content of arterial blood, and potentially providing a greater reserve for enhancing O2 delivery during hypoxia. Hct and Hb concentration between low- and high-altitude populations of ruddy duck were similar, representing a potential adaptation to diving life. Heart rate variability was generally lower in high-altitude ducks, concurrent with similar or lower heart rates than low-altitude ducks, suggesting a reduction in vagal and sympathetic tone. These unique features of the Andean ducks differ from previous observations in both Andean geese and bar-headed geese, neither of which exhibit significant elevations in Hct or Hb concentration compared with their low-altitude relatives, revealing yet another avian strategy for coping with high altitude. Summary: An increased blood-oxygen carrying capacity provides high-altitude ducks in the Andes with a greater reserve for O2 delivery in hypoxia.


In this study, we explored the utility of k Nearest Neighbor (kNN) algorithm to integrate IRS-P6 LISS III satellite imagery data and ground inventory data for application in forest attributes (DBH, trees height, volume, basal area, density and forest cover type) estimation and mapping. The ground inventory data was based on a systematic-random sampling grid and the numbers of sampling plots were 408 circular plots in a plantation in Guilan province, north of Iran. We concluded that kNN method was useful tool for mapping at a fine accuracy between 80% and 93.94%. Values of k between 5 and 8 seemed appropriate. The best distance metrics were found Euclidean, Fuzzy and Mahalanobis. Results showed that kNN was accurate enough for practical applicability for mapping forest areas.


A multiple regression analysis of the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis dataset shows a response to increased solar activity of a weakening and poleward shift of the subtropical jets. This signal is separable from other influences, such as those of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and is very similar to that seen in previous studies using global circulation models (GCMs) of the effects of an increase in solar spectral irradiance. The response to increased stratospheric (volcanic) aerosol is found in the data to be a weakening and equatorward shift of the jets. The GCM studies of the solar influence also showed an impact on tropospheric mean meridional circulation with a weakening and expansion of the tropical Hadley cells and a poleward shift of the Ferrel cells. To understand the mechanisms whereby the changes in solar irradiance affect tropospheric winds and circulation, experiments have been carried out with a simplified global circulation model. The results show that generic heating of the lower stratosphere tends to weaken the subtropical jets and the tropospheric mean meridional circulations. The positions of the jets, and the extent of the Hadley cells, respond to the distribution of the stratospheric heating, with low-latitude heating forcing them to move poleward, and high-latitude or latitudinally uniform heating forcing them equatorward. The patterns of response are similar to those that are found to be a result of the solar or volcanic influences, respectively, in the data analysis. This demonstrates that perturbations to the heat balance of the lower stratosphere, such as those brought about by solar or volcanic activity, can produce changes in the mean tropospheric circulation, even without any direct forcing below the tropopause.


Reduced tillage has increased dramatically over the past several years and is expected to continue to increase in the future. Continuous no-till may become a popular tillage system with growers to facilitate compliance with government programs to control soil erosion. The objective of this research was to evaluate the long-term effects of four tillage systems and five fertilizer regimes on corn (Zea mays L.) yield. A 20-yr continuous-corn tillage x fertility study was conducted from 1970 to 1990 on an Ebbert silt loam (fine-silty, mixed, mesic Argiaquic Argialbolls), an imperfectly drained soil at the Belleville Research Center, Belleville, IL. Starter fertilizer did not increase corn height within a tillage system. Height was greater in no-till compared with conventional till (moldboard plow), reduced till (chisel plow), or alternate till (2 yr no-till, 1 yr moldboard plow) with or without a starter fertilizer. There was no difference in population among tillage systems due to fertilizer treatment. Corn population was lower in no-till compared with conventional till regardless of fertilizer treatment. Starter fertilizer did not increase yield in any tillage system. Corn yield averaged 5 to 7% lower in no-till compared with conventional till or reduced till where a starter fertilizer was applied. There was no difference in yield among tillage systems when NPK was broadcast. Corn yield was equal in conventional till, alternate till, reduced till, and no-till with fertilizer applied broadcast on an imperfectly drained soil. Continuous no-till with an imperfectly drained soil does not reduce corn yield.


The dipeptoid cholecystokinin (CCK)B antagonists PD136450, Cam-1279 and CI988 stimulated amylase release from isolated rat pancreatic acini with an efficacy similar to CCK8, but with a much weaker potency (ED50, 0.6, 0.9 and 1.3 microM, respectively). In contrast to CCK8, however, none of these compounds elicited inhibition of amylase release at supramaximal concentrations. In addition, 10(-4) M PD136450 blocked the inhibition induced by high concentrations of CCK8. Competitive inhibition of [125I]BH-CCK8 binding by PD136450 indicated that this compound bound with a single affinity state to all CCK receptors on acini. Maximal stimulation of amylase release by PD136450 was dependent upon occupation of virtually the entire complement of CCK receptors. PD136450 at all concentrations examined had only a limited ability to stimulate total phosphoinositide hydrolysis and at maximum induced only 20% of maximal CCK stimulation. Measurement of intracellular calcium ([Ca++]i) by digital imaging of Fura-2 indicated that 1 microM PD136450 induced repetitive [Ca++]i oscillations with a magnitude of 346.0 +/- 4.5 nM and frequency of 1.3 cycles per min. These oscillations were still present in Ca(++)-free medium and were blocked by the phospholipase C inhibitor, U73122. Because the dipeptoid compounds can occupy all available pancreatic CCKA receptors, these compounds must induce a configuration of the receptor different from either CCK8 or the previously characterized partial agonist CCK-JMV-180, thereby inducing a distinct signaling pattern. Because the dipeptoid compounds do not fully mimic CCK actions, it is likely that they interact with only some of the critical binding sites within the CCKA receptor normally occupied by CCK8.


Bovine mastitis is a disease complex which occurs in acute, gangrenous, chronic, and subclinical forms of inflammation of the bovine udder, and is due to a variety of infectious agents. Animal care, hygiene, and management are important factors in this dairy cow disease of great economic importance. Mastitis continues to be the most costliest disease of dairy animals affecting the entire Dairy industries throughout the world. With overuse of antibiotics in bovine mastitis and continuing appearance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, search for alternative substances for antibiotics is imminent. Over time, some bacteria have developed ways to dodge the effects of antibiotics. Widespread use of antibiotics is thought to have made evolutionary changes in bacteria that allow them to survive these powerful drugs. With many of the antibiotics already being used in bovine mastitis are also used in human medicine, and with the way antibiotic resistant bacteria can easily transfer their resistance traits to unrelated bacteria once inside the human body, this can be a major problem we have to face in the near future. Therefore, the bacteriocins produced by micro organisms may represent new antimicrobial peptides with potential applications in the prevention and treatment of bovine mastitis. Recent focus on managing subclinical mastitis and minimizing antibiotic use in food animals has led to a renewed interest in evaluating bacteriocins as a tool in managing mastitis. In this review we have focus on the overview of mastitis, direct and indirect measures corresponding to the diagnosis of infection, bacteriological analysis of milk and exhaustive information on infected quarters, pathogen involved, pathogenesis of the mastitis in dairy cows, existing antibiotic treatments and function of bacteriocin. An extensive review is also made on mastitis applications that exploit their attributes, potential drawbacks in their use, and current status of bacteriocinbased mastitis products, possible alternative for application of bacteriocins from bacteria in the prophylaxis, treatment and prevention of this disease.


Young children are increasingly surrounded by a variety of technologies including television, computers,
iPads, and mobile phones. This small qualitative study explored how Chinese immigrant families living
in Australia viewed their children's use of technology at home. Six parents and three grandparents
representing nine different families with children aged three to six years were interviewed. Data were
analysed using Rogoff's (2003) personal, interpersonal and cultural-institutional planes of analysis. We
found that these children lived in technology-rich environments, however strongly held values and
beliefs associated with academic learning resulted in the creation of family rules and practices that
limited children's access to, and use of, different technologies. We argue that an understanding of family
values, beliefs, practices and culture will assist educators to build partnerships effectively with families,
and enhance learning opportunities for young children.


We study the problem of transferring a sample in one domain to an analog sample in another domain. Given two related domains, S and T, we would like to learn a generative function G that maps an input sample from S to the domain T, such that the output of a given function f, which accepts inputs in either domains, would remain unchanged. Other than the function f, the training data is unsupervised and consist of a set of samples from each domain. The Domain Transfer Network (DTN) we present employs a compound loss function that includes a multiclass GAN loss, an f-constancy component, and a regularizing component that encourages G to map samples from T to themselves. We apply our method to visual domains including digits and face images and demonstrate its ability to generate convincing novel images of previously unseen entities, while preserving their identity.


This 8 week study examined whether a Mediterranean diet supplemented with red wine, had an acute impact on subjects diagnosed with the metabolic syndrome. Twelve non-smoking subjects with diagnostic criteria of the metabolic syndrome on minimal medication, consumed a Mediterranean-like diet for 4 weeks respectively without and with red wine. The amount of red wine consumed was 250 ml (26 grams of alcohol) per day for male and 180 ml (19 grams) per day for female participants. A nutrigenetic profile for cardiovascular risk factors was performed on each participant. Fasting blood specimens were taken at baseline, after the diet and after the diet with wine interventions for platelet function, procoagulants FVII and FVIII, von Willebrand's factor, fibrinogen, tissue plasminogen activator, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, highly sensitive C-reactive protein and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). After both periods of diet without wine and with wine, ORAC increased significantly compared to baseline levels. Except for platelet H2O2 fluxes and FVII concentration, none of the haemostatic or inflammatory parameters changed significantly after the intervention periods compared with baseline levels. Genetic risk factors for cardiovascular disease were identified in all study participants and the potential genotypic effects relevant to this study were generally in agreement with expected phenotypic response following the dietary intervention. Our conclusions are that the period of intervention was too short for substantial changes in haemostatic or in inflammatory parameters in subjects who already manifest some changes in their cardiovascular system and who showed diverse genetic profiles underlying increased cardiovascular risk.


Canada has long perceived itself to be a country in which multiculturalism, and a concomitant respect for diversity, is a unique and defining feature of its identity. Although Canada is a de facto multicultural country, owing to its rapidly evolving demography and the explicit notion of multiculturalism enshrined in its Constitution, there remains a plethora of problems and issues related to equity, diversity and human rights. This paper explores the context and impact of racism in education within a framework that acknowledges and critically positions the predominance of Whiteness. The salience of identity, therefore, is a primary consideration to understanding how marginalized groups face systemic barriers in education. The concluding analysis sheds light on the educational policy process, and focuses on the notion of accountability for anti-racism and social justice in education within a time of neoliberal reforms. The paper is critical of the lack of attention, resources and comprehensive plans in place to ensure that all students benefit from a more holistic education that includes a focus on social justice.


The ALPS operational plan includes a specific aim related to service user and carer involvement: To enhance the role of service users and carers in assessment and learning in practice settings. This led to the advent of the Service User & Carer Working Group. This workshop will explain more about the work of this group. This will be supported by a case study from an ALPS funded project piloting an innovative assessment process involving service users and students in mental health nursing.
The group were given responsibilty for taking forward this aim either as a group, in liaison with other ALPS groups, or through developing, influencing, advising and /or overseeing activity at each partner site. Membership includes representatives from all five partner institutions and two service users.
As the programme nears completion the group has agreed areas where ALPS has made an impact in terms of service user and carer involvement. These are:
• ALPS has provided a structure through which local universities could further sustain their involvement 'community of practice' and so is contributing to an overall cultural shift and institutional leveling in terms of involvement practice
• ALPS has funded valuable research into involvement in research and what matters to service users and carers when it comes to shared care and decision making
• A shared policy on payment of service users across institutions for ALPS work has been an unprecedented development
• ALPS has funded the development of an online involvement good practice resource
• Seeking service users and carer feedback has been more clearly legitimized through the assessment tool and so should have some sustainability as a practice
The objectives of this workshop will be:
To share some of the successes, challenges and lessons learnt by the service user and carer working group about the preparedness (or not) of the overall health and social care economy for involvement.
To demonstrate the groups agreed areas where ALPS has made an impact in terms of involvement as above.
To highlight the effective collaboration of the group that is seen as one of it's key strengths.

Case Study
The case study project is in the field of mental health, proposong new ways of using the ALPS suite. This will include a group of service users working closely with an academic to develop realistic case based scenarios for student assessment and feedback. Planning will be comprehensive and include design of learning materials, understanding the feedback process, dealing with sensitive issues, planning and preparing role-plays, ethical issues, group and student logistics and student learning outcomes.
Each student will then undertake a simulated assessment with a service user. The purpose of this assessment is to develop and improve the student's communication skills, when working with service users and carers. The assessment will use the ALPS suite. Each assessment will be broken down into three 15 minute phases. Assessments are planned to take 15 minutes each, with each assessment observed by an academic and a student peer. In the next 15 minutes the student will reflect and write up their individual reflection. The three observers will discuss and prepare for feedback. In the final 15 minutes of the session the student will receive feedback from the service user, student peer and academic. Feedback will be provided to the student in a timely manner that is individual, tailored, improvement focused. All feedback will be recorded using a PC or existing devices.
Following this simulation, students will take the communication ALPS Assessment tool with them into their next placement, thereby embedding into their practice portfolio. Outcomes from this will post-date the embedding project, but will contribute to the overall ALPS programme.


When two small doses of ethanol were administered to pregnant mice during the gastrulation stage of embryogenesis, the embryos developed craniofacial malformations closely resembling those seen in the human fetal alcohol syndrome. Striking histological changes appeared in the developing brain (neuroectoderm) within 24 hours of exposure. Decreased development of the neural plate and its derivatives apparently accounts for the craniofacial malformations. The critical exposure period is equivalent to the third week in human pregnancy.


We describe an approach to reducing the computational cost of identifying coreferent instances in heterogeneous semantic graphs where the underlying ontologies may not be informative or even known. The problem is similar to coreference resolution in unstructured text, where a variety of linguistic clues and contextual information is used to infer entity types and predict coreference. Semantic graph, whether in RDF or another formalism, are semi-structured data with very different contextual clues and need different approaches to identify potentially coreferent entities. When their ontologies are unknown, unaccessible or semantically trivial, coreference resolution is difficult. For such cases, we can use supervised machine learning to map entity attributes via dictionaries based on DBpedia properties to predict instances entity types, aiding coreference resolution. We evaluated the approach in experiments on data from Wikipedia, Freebase and Arnetminer.


Abstract
A new method is presented for accurately and efficiently simulating multi-scale multibody systems with discontinuous changes in system definitions as encountered in adaptive switching between models with different resolutions as well as models with different system topologies. An example of model resolution change is a transition of a system from a discrete particle model to a reduced order articulated multi-rigid body model. The discontinuous changes in system definition may be viewed as an instantaneous change (release or impulsive application of) the system constraints. The method uses a spatial impulse–momentum formulation in a divide and conquer scheme. The approach utilizes a hierarchic assembly–disassembly process by traversing the system topology in a binary tree map to solve for the jumps in the system generalized speeds and the constraint impulsive loads in linear and logarithmic cost in serial and parallel implementations, respectively. The method is applicable for systems in serial chain as well as kinematical loop topologies. The coupling between the unilateral and bilateral constraints is handled efficiently through the use of kinematic joint definitions. The equations of motion for the system are produced in a hierarchic sub-structured form. This has the advantage that changes in sub-structure definitions/models results in a change to the system equations only within the associated sub-structure. This allows for significant changes in model types and definitions without having to reformulate the equations for the whole system.


A number of short-lasting warm periods (interstadials) interrupted the otherwise cold climate of the last glacial period. These events are supposedly linked to the inflow of the warm Atlantic surface water to the Nordic seas. However, previous investigations of planktonic foraminifera from the Nordic seas have not been able to resolve any significant difference between the interstadials and intervening cold stadials, as the faunas are continuously dominated by the polar species Neogloboquadrina pachyderma s. Here we examine the planktonic foraminifera assemblages from a high-resolution core, LINK17, taken at 1500 m water depth off northern Scotland below the warmest part of the inflowing Atlantic water. The core comprises the time period 34–10 calibrated ka B.P., the coldest period of the last glaciation and the deglaciation. The results reveal a hitherto unknown faunistic variability indicating significant fluctuations in both surface water inflow and in summer sea surface temperatures. During the interstadials, relatively warm Atlantic surface water (4–7°C) flowed north into the eastern Norwegian Sea. During the stadials and Heinrich events the surface inflow stopped and the temperatures in the study area dropped to <2°C. The Last Glacial Maximum was nearly as warm as the interstadials, but the inflow was much more unstable. The data reveal two previously unrecognized warming events each lasting more than 1600 years and preceding Heinrich events HE3 and HE2, respectively. By destabilizing the ice sheets on the shelves the warmings may have played a crucial role for the development of Heinrich events HE2 and HE3.


The right to organize is the worker's most effective weapon against exploitative conditions. Yet the global "race to the bottom" has turned the weapon of unionizing – and the anti-sweatshop struggle overall – into a double-edged sword. If workers organize they are likely to lose their jobs, as corporations pursue factories where unions are forbidden and cheap labor is therefore guaranteed. But if workers do not organize, their rights will continue to be violated. These conditions pose a significant challenge for the anti-sweatshop movement – a challenge that will increase with the end of apparel quotas. This paper begins by reviewing the impact of the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) and the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) – two regulatory frameworks that have governed global trade in these commodities for 30 years. This regulatory framework came to an end on January 1, 2005 with the WTO-mandated end of textile and apparel import quotas. A large body of research on the probable result of the end of the quota system concludes that a small number of countries (and primarily China) are likely to be the chief beneficiaries of the end of quotas, while a large number of countries are likely to suffer significant declines in their apparel and textile export industries. The paper discusses two trends which are transforming the nature of global trade in textiles and apparel (indeed, in all consumer goods): The rise of giant retailers as the key actors in the global supply chain, and the rise of giant transnational contractors – based mainly in East Asia – that are emerging as its chief suppliers. The paper concludes with a discussion of what countries can do to mitigate the impact of the end of quotas on their textile and apparel industries, as well as some suggestions for the anti-sweatshop movement.


Naydenova, G., & Georgieva, N. (2019). Study on seed yield components depending on the duration of vegetation period in soybean. Bulgarian Journal of Agricultural Science, 25(1), 49–54 Avoidance of drought by using varieties with rapid phenological development or displacement of critical phenological periods through the variety are effective approaches to stabilizing soybean yields under non-irrigated conditions in Bulgaria. This requires when selecting genetic resources for our breeding program, the study of seed productivity and structural yield components to be made in relation to the duration of the vegetation period. With such aim twenty-eight cultivars of different maturity groups were studied during three year in a fi eld trial conducted in the long-plot design method on the soybean technology established for the country. According to the results presented, a high and stable performance regarding the traits determining the seed productivity could be considered in connection with the maturity group of genotypes. In selection for "large-seedness" as parental components should be used genotypes with high expression of the trait from the early-ripening or middle late-ripening group of maturity. The average values, but also the ecological dispersion of the traits number of fertile nodes and number of branches were higher in genotypes with a longer vegetation period, and also early-ripening genotypes with a high and ecologically stable expression on these traits were established in this study. Individual productivity, estimated by the number and mass of seeds obtained from a plant, has the most stable performance in Bulgarian cultivars and can be considered to be a function of the specifi c adaptation of genotypes. Also there is a trend for a higher yield of seed from a plant in genotypes with shorter growth period which can be associated with better seed fi lling.


Background: Until recently, the notion of ageing was associated
with older age, and only a few years ago new findings have come
to light, shifting the start of ageing back to the age of late
adulthood, and then gradually to younger age categories. At the
same time, the possibility of prevention of main factors
influencing the overall condition and independence of older
people has been shown. Objective: The aim of the work is to
ascertain the level of knowledge of various age groups of the
population and possibilities for the prevention of older-age
pathologies, to map certain lifestyle aspects of the current
young generation, to provide groups of individuals from
different age categories with information associated with this
matter, to support the effectiveness of remembering through
personal experience. Methods: A diverse group of listeners
(pupils, adolescents, adults, younger senior citizens) was
familiarised with the subject through age-adapted lectures.
Moreover, in order to address the diverse needs of the target
population, we decided to use two primary distance learning
dissemination channels, which have been accepted into
mainstream education. Results: A total of 1,463 probands from
different age categories participated in the project. The
results showed a low awareness of the necessity of lifelong
prevention of atherosclerosis and osteoporosis, low levels of
physical activity and short time spent outdoors among the
project participants. Electronic support of the project
outcomes was published in the form of a comprehensive
e-learning course, and a web portal describing the prevention
of older-age pathologies is available. Conclusions: The
education effectiveness was proved by the increase of correct
answers immediately after the education, and after 2–3 months
as well. The results confirmed our previous assumption of a low
level of awareness among the population of the necessity of
lifelong prevention of atherosclerosis and osteoporosis.
Nevertheless, effectiveness of the education event was
confirmed by an increase in the number of correct answers in
tests performed immediately after the education.


Many of the waterworks facilities in Japan were constructed during the rapid economic growth period. Today, the deterioration and renovation of these aged facilities have become a pressing issue. There are approximately 600,000km worth of water pipelines laid out across Japan, accounting for about 70% of the nation's water-related assets (totalling ¥40 trillion). To provide water that is safe to use, it is necessary to improve and innovate water purification technologies; not only that, it is also vital to properly maintain and manage the pipelines. The current research aims to apply reliability engineering in the waterworks field as one possible approach and to show its viability; it will also obtain vital messages revealed within pipeline incident data. In other words, we collected the information concerning water distribution pipeline incidents through questionnaire surveys and then analysed the cumulative failure distribution (unreliability) by pipeline material, the failure probability density and failure rate, among others.


Ten mammalian taxa have been recovered from four localities in the upper part of the Tremp Formation (south-central Pyrenees). Its stratigraphic position allows the localities to be correlated with the Sphaerochara edda charophyte zone, the lower part of the NP9 nannoplancton zone and magnetochron C24r, below the marine Paleocene/Eocene boundary. Seven of these taxa are described, among them: Afrodon ivani Pelaez-Campomanes nov. sp., related to other congeneric species from the MP 5-6 mammal units; Nosella europaea Pelaez-Campomanes nov. gen. nov. sp. also found in the MP 6 Cernay locality, and Microhyus cf. musculus Teilhard de Chardin, similar to the MP 7 Dormaal sample. The mixed composition between Cernaysian and Neustrian faunas of the Tremp sites make necessary the definition of a new reference level MP 6b with Claret 4 as a reference locality. The new reference level MP 6b is correlated with the lower Clarkforkian Cf 1-2 units, both showing a low species richness and low diversity index comparing with earlier and younger assemblages. This diversity change is related to the late Paleocene Thermal Maximum event, detected in a similar chronological situation (base of C24r chron) in the marine and continental realms. The beginning of the Neustrian reference level MP 7 with highly diversified faunas is correlated with upper Clarkforkian Zone Cf 3, based on faunal composition and the delta 13 C excursion.


Current political sociology scholarship suggests that limited state autonomy from societal organisations undermines state enforcement capacity throughout the national territory, and therefore does superficial separation of the state from civil society (or formal from informal institutions) in the conceptualisation of what effective state system ought to be. These conceptions contradict realities in post-colonial Africa where societal organisations have evolved to bear 'state-like' qualities in resource governance, especially in remote locations where the state has no promising alternative to accommodating inputs from revered institutions or charismatic actors to complement its functions. Colonial experiences in Africa have produced institutional pluralism and a consequential split loyalty to the state in the post-independence era. Apparently, limited state autonomy sometimes refract or obstruct state visions; the resultant co-governance regime does not imply 'wishy-washy' state leadership. This is because state formation processes have produced an intermeshed governance of people, places, and resources through a complicated interplay between entities which have become indistinct in terms of functions, and hence cannot be simplistically categorised as either formal or informal, state or non-state. In this sense, the activity of regulating affairs in the post-colonial regime is characterised by relational governance – a form of governance sutured via reciprocal relation(s) between multiple actors across differentspatial scales and milieus. Drawing on an empirical study of biofuel projects in Ghana, we believe a relational governance approach provides an analytic framework to challenge this orthodoxy in governance studies and refresh discussions on the nature of state-society relations required for effective governance of territorial resources in postcolonial regimes characterised by institutional pluralism.


Cloth and clothing have been integral to life for every person since civilization began.

In the Middle Ages dress was an identifier of occupation, status, gender and ethnicity: textiles ranged through opulent, symbolic, utilitarian and recycled. Cloth production and international trade constituted a major sector of the economy of medieval Britain.

However, evidence for medieval textiles and clothing must currently be sought in diverse academic disciplines: archaeology, archaeological textiles, art history, economic history, literature, languages.

The vocabulary of the various languages spoken and written in the British Isles is documented in different specialist dictionaries, yet geographical proximity and interaction through labour and trade would argue that this evidence should be categorised and analysed together.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council has made an award of £765,576 within the Research Grants (Standard) Scheme to fund a 5 year Project to undertake a trans¬disciplinary study with the purpose of producing an analytical corpus of medieval dress and textiles terminology of the British Isles in the form of a searchable database, innovatively illustrated.

At its centre is the assembly and examination of textiles/clothing lexis in the early languages of Britain (Old and Middle English; Welsh, Old Irish and minor Celtic languages; Anglo-Norman/French, Medieval Latin, Anglo-Norse), investigating the genesis and subsequent development of the vocabulary.

The terms and their citations from both documentary and literary texts will be analysed in awareness of surviving textiles/dress accessories and graphic images in medieval art.

The Project will investigate the complex relationships between vocabulary, artefact and image. Also included in the database will be definitions in modern English of medieval technical processes and artefacts; and 'thumbnail sketches' of significant surviving artefacts.


The only hands-on book devoted to mastering Maya's dynamics tools for water, wind, and fire In the world of animation, the ability to create realistic water, wind, and fire effects is key. Autodesk Maya software includes powerful dynamics tools that have been used to design breathtaking effects for movies, games, commercials, and short films. This professional guide teaches you the primary techniques you need to make the most of Maya's toolkit, so you'll soon be creating water that ripples, gusting winds and gentle breezes, and flickering fires the way Hollywood pros do. The one-of-a-kind book is completely project-based. Learn the intricacies of Maya's Dynamics tools and continue to build your skills with projects that increase in complexity. A DVD is included with additional video training. Maya is the industry-leading 3D animation and effects software; Maya dynamics tools create water and other fluids, wind, fire, fur, particles, and more Build professional skills in Maya Dynamics with this project-based guide Put your skills to work by completing a series of projects on water, wind, and fire effects A DVD included with the book provides additional video training Maya Studio Projects: Dynamics is one of a new series of books designed to teach animators and designers fresh skills through project-based instruction.


This research concerns issues arising in the design and implementation of advanced driver assistance systems, specifically longitudinal and lateral controllers; their effects on the dynamic performance of the vehicle, and their impact on the driver.

The current state of the art is discussed as part of an extensive literature review, which highlights prominent gaps in the published research. There is a lack of understanding as to the effects of adverse environmental factors on the vehicle dynamics, and the effects of the
systems' on the comfort of the driver. A novel twin track approach was taken to investigate these issues: the effects of the systems' on the vehicle dynamics were monitored using a range of off-line simulation tools, while the systems' impact on the driver was considered using an on-line driving simulator experiment.

An adaptive cruise control system was developed, tuned to provide a comfortable response and implemented on a sophisticated off-line 9 degree of freedom vehicle model, with a non-linear tyre model. The system was tested in a range of environmental conditions. These simulations highlighted the good performance of the system in wet conditions, and revealed some possible driver conflicts.

Two lateral control systems were developed, one based on a look down methodology, and the second on a more driver emulating look ahead approach. The systems were tested using the same high fidelity vehicle model, and an extensive range of suitable motorway manoeuvres. The systems were compared, proving the comfort and stability benefits of the look ahead system.

The longitudinal and lateral control systems were integrated with the University of Leeds driving simulator. Ten subject drivers drove with and without the systems through a range of scenarios, some of which required evasive action. The impact of the systems on the driver, and the driver's response to safety critical scenarios was assessed. Results displayed little safety benefit of the systems in evasive scenarios, but drivers perceived
improved awareness and comfort when under their control.

The potential of advanced driver assistance systems to make driving a more comfortable and safe experience has been demonstrated, although the system engineer must consider the impact of the systems on the driver throughout their design and implementation.


Autonomous sensor planning is a problem of interest to scientists in the fields of computer vision, robotics, and photogrammetry. In automated visual tasks, a sensing planner must make complex and critical decisions involving sensor placement and the sensing task specification. This paper addresses the problem of specifying sensing tasks for a multiple manipulator workcell given an optimal sensor placement configuration. The problem is conceptually divided in two different phases: activity assignment and tour planning. To solve such problems, an optimization methodology based on evolutionary computation is developed. Operational limitations originated from the workcell configuration are considered using specialized heuristics as well as a floating-point representation based on the random keys approach. Experiments and performance results are presented.


Abstract. Early measures of mathematics skill and development have focused on early numeracy skills like counting, number identification, and sequencing of numbers. This study attempted to expand early mathematics assessment. Six new measures of early mathematics skill competence were developed and evaluated. Four existing measures also were examined. Measures were developed to directly assess kindergarten children's understanding of concepts including number sense (ordinality, subitivity, cardinality), shape recognition, and patterning. Technical adequacy estimates were examined including test–retest reliability, concurrent and longitudinal correlation with criterion measures, and sensitivity. The Pattern Completion, Set Comparison with Unequal-Sized Items, and Subitivity measures performed best. Existing early numeracy measures performed comparably to or better than the new measures.


This study compared the effect of intermediate flush with distilled water delivered by conventional irrigation, EndoVac microcannula or Self-Adjusting File (SAF) system in the prevention of chemical smear layer (CSL) formation. Thirty human premolars were used. Canals were prepared with Reciproc system and 5.25% NaOCl. After chemomechanical preparation, samples were divided in 3 groups (n=10) according to the intermediate irrigation protocol with distilled water using: conventional irrigation, EndoVac microcannula or SAF. A final flush with 2% chlorhexidine solution was used and scanning electron microscopy was performed to assess protocol effectiveness. Two calibrated evaluators attributed scores according the presence or absence of CSL on the surface of the root canal walls at the coronal, middle and apical thirds, as follows: (1) no CSL; (2) small amounts of CSL; (3) moderate CSL; and (4) heavy CSL. Differences between protocols were analyzed with Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. Friedman and Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used for comparison between each root canal third. SAF resulted in less formation of CSL when compared with the conventional irrigation and EndoVac microcannula (p<0.05). When root canal thirds were analyzed, conventional irrigation and EndoVac groups showed less CSL formation at coronal and middle thirds in comparison to the apical third (p<0.05). In SAF group, there was no difference among the thirds (p>0.05). It may be concluded that an intermediate flush of distilled water, delivered by the SAF system resulted in a better reduction of CSL formation during chemomechanical preparation.


Background and Aim: Toxocariasis is a common parasitic zoonosis of humans, dogs and cats. Migration of Toxocara larva in the internal organs is accompanied by a variety of complications such as hepatomegaly, marked eosinophilia, pulmonary and ocular symptoms. In some cases, symptoms are nonspecific and the patients may only show allergy-like cutaneous and pulmonary manifestations. Considering the significant increase in the prevalence of allergic disorders, study of the possible etiologies of these disorders can lead to the early diagnosis and effective treatment of the disease. In this study prevalence of antitoxocara antibody and some hematological parameters were compared between allergic and non-allergic children. Materials and Methods: Our experimental group included 200 children under 15 years of age with skin and/or respiratory allergies referring to allergy clinics, and our control group consisted of 238 non-allergic children, matched to the experimental group in regard to age and sex. Specific anti-toxocara IgG titers were measured by TES/Ag-ELISA technique. Eosinophilia and leukocytosis were extracted from the CBC results. We used T-test and chisquare to compare the results between the two groups. Results: The prevalence of anti-toxocara IgG in the children with allergic manifestations was significantly higher (4.5%) than that in the healthy children (0.8%). Children with allergic manifestations had a higher rate of eosinophilia (16.5%) compared to healthy children (0.4%), but there was no significant correlation between eosinophilia and toxocariasis serology. Conclusions: Regarding the higher prevalence of anti-toxocara antibodies in the children with skin and respiratory allergies, investigation of toxocariasis in the patients with allergic symptoms is recommended.


There are two obvious ways to map a two-dimension relational database table onto a one-dimensional storage interface: store the table row-by-row, or store the table column-by-column. Historically, database system implementations and research have focused on the row-by row data layout, since it performs best on the most common application for database systems: business transactional data processing. However, there are a set of emerging applications for database systems for which the row-by-row layout performs poorly. These applications are more analytical in nature, whose goal is to read through the data to gain new insight and use it to drive decision making and planning.
In this dissertation, we study the problem of poor performance of row-by-row data layout for these emerging applications, and evaluate the column-by-column data layout opportunity as a solution to this problem. There have been a variety of proposals in the literature for how to build a database system on top of column-by-column layout. These proposals have different levels of implementation effort, and have different performance characteristics. If one wanted to build a new database system that utilizes the column-by-column data layout, it is unclear which proposal to follow. This dissertation provides (to the best of our knowledge) the only detailed study of multiple implementation approaches of such systems, categorizing the different approaches into three broad categories, and evaluating the tradeoffs between approaches. We conclude that building a query executor specifically designed for the column-by-column query layout is essential to achieve good performance.
Consequently, we describe the implementation of C-Store, a new database system with a storage layer and query executor built for column-by-column data layout. We introduce three new query execution techniques that significantly improve performance. First, we look at the problem of integrating compression and execution so that the query executor is capable of directly operating on compressed data. This improves performance by improving I/O (less data needs to be read off disk), and CPU (the data need not be decompressed). We describe our solution to the problem of executor extensibility—how can new compression techniques be added to the system without having to rewrite the operator code? Second, we analyze the problem of tuple construction (stitching together attributes from multiple columns into a row-oriented "tuple"). Tuple construction is required when operators need to access multiple attributes from the same tuple; however, if done at the wrong point in a query plan, a significant performance penalty is paid. We introduce an analytical model and some heuristics to use that help decide when in a query plan tuple construction should occur. Third, we introduce a new join technique, the "invisible join" that improves performance of a specific type of join that is common in the applications for which column-by-column data layout is a good idea.
Finally, we benchmark performance of the complete C-Store database system against other column-oriented database system implementation approaches, and against row-oriented databases. We benchmark two applications. The first application is a typical analytical application for which column-by-column data layout is known to outperform row-by-row data layout. The second application is another emerging application, the Semantic Web, for which column-oriented database systems are not currently used. We find that on the first application, the complete C-Store system performed 10 to 18 times faster than alternative column-store implementation approaches, and 6 to 12 times faster than a commercial database system that uses a row-by-row data layout. On the Semantic Web application, we find that C-Store outperforms other state-of-the-art data management techniques by an order of magnitude, and outperforms other common data management techniques by almost two orders of magnitude. Benchmark queries, which used to take multiple minutes to execute, can now be answered in several seconds. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)


This paper examines to what extent financial performance (FP) represents one of the main determinants for tone disclosure (TD) in Egyptian annual reports. We also measure the bidirectional relationship between TD and FP.
We use the manual content analysis to measure levels of TD in annual reports for a sample of 105 firms listed on the Egyptian stock market. Our sample covers a three-year period (2011–2013).
Our descriptive analysis shows that Egyptian firms disclose more good news than bad news. Therefore, the net news disclosure, or net variances, between good/bad is positive. The empirical analysis shows a positive association between the narrative disclosure of good/bad news and FP based on return on assets (ROA). We also find a highly significant association between the auditor, profitability, leverage, firm growth and financial reporting of good/bad news information. Finally, the results of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression show that the causality between the two endogenous variables runs from FP to TD . Thus, TD is determined by FP.
We offer a novel contribution to disclosure studies by being the first study to examine tone disclosure in one of the developing countries.


A comparative image simulation and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study has been addressed in order to assess whether NiAl intermetallic undergoes a crystalline-to-amorphous transformation directly induced by the cascade. For this purpose, an NiAl single-crystal specimen has been irradiated with 6 MeV nickel ions to 0.1 dpa (maximum) and observed by conventional TEM in weak-beam imaging mode. This work shows that a crystalline-to-amorphous transformation directly induced by the cascade does not occur (absence of amorphous halo). Image simulation reported a defect cluster size of 2.8 nm as compared to a mean value of 3.0 nm measured on the experimental micrograph. The same image simulation study reported a defect cluster density of 1.7×1024 m-3 whereas a direct measurement from the experimental micrograph indicates 1.4×1023 m-3, a value about 10× lower, most probably due to the resolution limit of the technique and also due to the contrast transfer function oscillation along the specimen thickness, which might render a fraction of defect clusters invisible.


The Overseas Private Investment Corporation is a government agency that provides loans and investment insurance to U.S. companies doing business around the world. Its four-year, renewable charter will expire in September 2003. Proponents of OPIC claim that the agency helps the U.S. economy and promotes economic development abroad. A close look at OPIC activity in the past four years undercuts those rationales. OPIC lowers U.S. economic output by transferring resources from productive uses to politically favored ones. OPIC beneficiaries are highly concentrated in terms of companies and industries. The majority of OPIC's largesse goes to a small group of large multinational corporations and overwhelmingly supports a few highly profitable industries such as oil and gas, financial services, and power. OPIC activity is also highly concentrated geographically. A handful of troubled emerging market economies has received 60 percent of OPIC support in the past four years. The agency's finance and insurance for those countries represented only 3 percent of their total foreign direct investment. In other countries that are unable to attract foreign investment because they do not have the proper policy environment, OPIC support undermines development by rewarding the lack of policy reform. OPIC's record does not live up to its advocates' rhetoric. Congress should abolish this font of international corporate welfare. September 15, 2003


This report contributes just over a third of the contribution to the researcher's D.Prof programme (see Ai Exhibits). It is a synthesis of many different activities and avenues of investigation and learning. This report is about one specific project and is focused on the ways to support the spread and adoption of innovative practices. It is not intended to be a report of the entire D.Prof Programme as the other areas are covered separately (see Exhibits Ai for D.Prof Programme Design). The literature review threw up a number of conflicts of definitions and perspectives, especially in the terminology that can be applied to 'spreading good practice' and 'social marketing'. The many paradoxes and contested concepts are highlighted in the review and the discussion that follows. Whilst this part of the D.Prof programme is centred on a work-based project - The Trent Region Older People Services Programme (TROPSP) - it has been difficult to separate learning in this project from other work based experiences in the same period. The deliverables and outputs generated (see Part B Exhibits) demonstrate both the breadth and depth of the researcher's experience and learning during this D.Prof programme. The experiential nature of action-based research is highly subjective as the researcher is an active participant in the investigative process, where personal actions immediately affect and have consequences on the context and subject matter under investigation. This report, therefore, needs to be read in the light of its context for the researcher, and understood as a piece of qualitative, action orientated research, rather than an analysis driven by more positivist or scientific values. The literature review, assessment of the TROPSP project and discussion about the researcher's personal learning themes, combine to produce a set of conclusions and recommendation as diverse and contested as is the topic of interprofessional social marketing itself. The paradoxes and tensions include: how different theories and frameworks can form unhelpful (or helpful) mental models; the importance of context, perspectives and expectations and how they can influence strategy and implementation of good practice; the tension between the individual and the organisation; how working with key influencers can be as damaging as it can be as supportive; and finally, the issue of whether the aim in social marketing is to spread good practice (Push out) or to enable adoption (Pull in). The work summarised in this report has received national and international recognition. The contribution to the modernising the NBS has been significant and there is much interest from other countries in using some of the techniques developed and used in the TROPSP work based project. The implications for professional practice, for those working with modernising healthcare as well as specifically for the researcher, are important.


This thesis is an interdisciplinary project based on motivation research in educational games and research on psychological achievement goals. The purpose was to present a model for a gaming achievement system that adapts to suit the player. The player profile is constructed using an achievement goal questionnaire based on educational achievement goals from previous research. To test the model appropriately, a game prototype was developed.The results derived from the thesis project and the included study is based mainly on qualitative data from game sessions as well as questionnaires. The results indicates that the model works as intended, but that individual choice of gaming achievements can be more useful for some people. The results also show that the model is a viable for implementation in future projects and a suitable alternative for low-budget educational games. The model still needs further evaluation to ensure its efficacy, but shows great promise.


A general multi-country model of trade and conflict is outlined and comparative static results for the number of countries are explored. Conflict is defined as a credible threat to use force to appropriate resources of another country. The model shows that, in general, trade reduces the incentives for conflict, but multi-country situations require important modifications. The pacifying effect of trade diminishes rapidly with a larger number of countries. The effect of trade on conflict is compared given different assumptions about the nature of conflict. Assuming that conflict does not lead to the elimination of the losing side, trade has the strongest deterrent effect if countries trade freely before conflict and are committed to not trading after conflict. Countries have, however, an interest in resuming trade. The connection between this commitment problem and security is then explored in the model from a balance-of-power perspective. The commitment not to trade with an adversary becomes more strained if an alliance is relatively weak or fragmented. In such circumstances, intra-alliance trade has to be more efficient.


After a brief review of the physics of photon detection in single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) devices, in this paper we will outline the principle of operation of a model we developed with the aim of calculating both photon detection efficiency (PDE) and temporal response (TR) of these detectors. Then we will apply the model to the devices currently available in order to critically analyze some experimental results. We will show in particular how the use of the model allows us to gain a better understanding of the influence of each device parameter in determining both the PDE and the TR. Finally we will discuss some modifications that can be applied to the device structure in order to overcome such limitations. Their effectiveness in improving both the PDE and the TR will be investigated by means of the aforementioned model. The aim is to provide the reader with an insight of which performances can be expected in the next few years if a strong development of the SPAD structure is pursued.


This study examines Runyankore-Rukiga demonstrative determiners. Runyankore-Rukiga is a language spoken in the west and south western parts of Uganda.The main focus of my study is on the semantic representation of demonstrative determiners in relation to distance (distance between the referent and the deictic center), visibility (whether the referent is visible or invisible) and location of speaker vs. addressee. I investigate the possible number of demonstrative forms that exist in Runyankore-Rukiga.My research is carried out using Wilkins (1999) questionnaire on demonstratives 'this' and 'that' in comparative perspective. In this questionnaire he presents 25 scenes which can be used to test out the demonstrative system in a language. I have added four more scenes to capture distinctions that are not captured by the 25 scenes.A general background about Runyankore-Rukiga and its structure is presented in chapter 2. Here, I look briefly at the formation of words and, tone, whereas more attentionis given to the noun class system and the demonstrative determiners.In chapter 3, the semantic meaning of demonstratives across languages is looked at. In this chapter my main focus is on how Diessel (1999) describes the semantic meaning of demonstratives. I then connect his analysis with Runyankore-Rukiga demonstratives to see if the semantic features he mentions are relevant also in Runyankore-Rukiga. In addition to this, I present the various account on semantic meaning of demonstratives basing on what other authors say.I give a detailed description of the scenes in Wilkins (1999) questionnaire and explain how I carried out my interviews with my informants. Data from each informant is presented and this involves all the additional constraints involved in the interview guide.Last is the summary and discussion of the results. Here I relate my findings to what other authors have written about Runyankore-Rukiga demonstratives then conclude with chapter 7where I present the research questions and briefly show how they were answered in the thesis.


What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus from Washington, DC, to the states and from philanthropies and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This article examines commonsense understandings in education reform, which are supported by assertions that market-based schooling options are superior for children of color, and argues that a primary reason for the popularity of such reforms is an underexamined advocacy coalition, formed nominally around school choice, while also encompassing several other entrepreneurial educational reforms. The article describes the structure of this network, arguing that its dominance has precluded an understanding of counter advocacy against school choice and related reforms. It then describes several past and current movements that challenge commonsense understandings of the reforms' currency, as a way of pushing back against the reforms' expansion. The article also discusses the activities of grassroots community groups in response to market-based reforms and argues that these efforts can help to expand public deliberation on complex matters of educational policy. The article concludes with recommendations for further examination of these efforts to highlight the concerns, strategies, and solutions to educational inequality being articulated within communities of color and with their allies.


Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a complex disease caused by a combination of genetic factors with a person's life- style (nutrition characterized by a high content of carbohydrates, hypodinamia, alcohol, smoking, mental and physical strain). The incidence of metabolic syndrome in different countries ranges from 10% to 30%. In Russia about 1,200,000 people die annually as a result of MS complications. MS incidence has been found to be increasing in female patients for the recent 10 years, compared with the one for male patients. Criteria for metabolic syndrome were elaborated and unified for various ethnic groups; however, there are some discrepancies among MS criteria that have been suggested lately. WHO experts emphasize the role of misbalance in carbohydrate metabolism and insulin resistance. The expert group of the USA National Council in its Third Report on identification, evaluation and treatment of hypercholesterolemia in adult patient's high-lights the role of lipid metabolism misbalance and fatty tissue condition. Inter- national Diabetes Federation worked out approved criteria for the disease.


Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was a celebrated diplomat, historian, philosopher, and humanist scholar of the early Renaissance who mastered ancient Greek and Hebrew as well as classical Latin. In this treatise, dedicated to Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples, Manetti addresses a question central to the anthropology of the Renaissance: what are the moral, intellectual, and spiritual capabilities of the unique amalgam of body and soul that constitutes human nature? The treatise takes issue with a popular work of medieval asceticism, On the Misery of the Human Condition, written by none other than Innocent III, one of the greatest of medieval popes. The pope's diatribe expresses a revulsion against human nature and argues for the futility of ambition, the emptiness of pleasures, and the ultimate worthlessness of human achievements. Manetti's treatise presents a comprehensive refutation of the pope's pessimism, sometimes citing the achievements of the Renaissance as evidence for the potential divinity of human nature and its extraordinary capabilities. This edition contains the first complete translation into English.


Hepatodiaphragmatic interposition of small/large intestine or Chilaiditi syndrome is a rare condition in which colon or small intestine is interposed (temporally or permanently) between liver and diaphragm. The syndrome is usually discovered by chance during the study of another event. The condition is often asymptomatic; however abdominal pain, abdominal distension, vomiting, anorexia, and constipation have previously been reported in clinical presentation of this rare syndrome. We report a 60-year-old female who presented in department of TB and Chest Diseases, S.N. Medical college, Agra with complaints of breathlessness, cough, constipation, and recurrent abdominal pain.


Electrochemical reduction of CO2 has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing energy storage and producing chemical feedstocks. A mechanistic understanding of the process is crucial to the discovery of efficient catalysts, and an atomistic description of the electrochemical interface is a major challenge due to its complexity. Here, we examine the CO2 → CO electrocatalytic pathway on Ag(111) using density functional theory (DFT) calculations and an explicit model of the electrochemical interface. We show that the electric field from solvated cations in the double layer and their corresponding image charges on the metal surface significantly stabilizes key intermediates—*CO2 and *COOH. At the field-stabilized sites, the formation of *CO is rate-determining. We present a microkinetic model that incorporates field effects and electrochemical barriers from ab initio calculations. The computed polarization curves show reasonable agreement with experiment without fitting any parameters.


Looks at an approach to scenario planning characterized by its future-oriented attitude, and attributed to Michel Godet - a French strategy specialist. Uses a Figure depicting Godet's scenario method for added emphasis. Depicts Godet's scenario as a description of a future situation and the course of events that allows one to move forward from the original situation to the future situation. Concludes scenario-building teams should be kept together because frequent changes of personnel have an adverse effect.


A vast literature documents the history of the women's and gay liberation movements in the late twentieth century, but we still know little about how heterosexual men navigated dramatic change in the legal regulation of families. This Article provides the first legal history of the fathers' rights movement. It analyzes how middle-class white men responded to rising divorce rates by pursuing reform in both family law and welfare policy. This history offers novel insight into the relationship between the private law of divorce, which regulates largely middle-class families, and public welfare state policies, which have the greatest effect on poor families. This Article challenges the assumption that these private and public family law systems operate in parallel, showing instead that they are interdependent.Through the mid-twentieth century, marriage shaped the relationship not only between men and women but also between middle-class men and the state: men supported children and wives in exchange for legal protection of male familial authority. In the 1960s and 1970s, escalating divorce rates and the emergence of no-fault divorce laws upset this balance. By the mid-1980s, activists and federal and state legislators forged a new political compromise: fathers' rights activists conceded ongoing child support obligations in exchange for greater access to custody upon divorce. This "divorce bargain" catalyzed a shift from common law presumptions favoring maternal custody to statutory recognition of joint custody. In so doing, it reinforced private rather than public responsibility for children living in nonmarital families.The divorce bargain promoted formal equality and sex neutrality within private family law, but also entrenched gender and class inequalities. The bargain failed to challenge women's disproportionate responsibility for childrearing within marriage, yet enabled men to use custody rights as leverage in child support and spousal maintenance negotiations. In addition, tying paternal responsibilities to custody rights advanced middle-class men's caregiving interests but hurt those of low-income fathers who could not afford to pay child support. The state vilified these men as "deadbeat dads" who did not merit legal protection. The history of fathers' rights advocacy for the divorce bargain, therefore, reminds us not to confuse liberalism with equality.


This article reflects on a digital storytelling project undertaken for research, communication, and advocacy purposes in Bangladesh. The project trained young women from different regions of the country to make digital stories about their everyday struggles and journeys of personal growth. Excerpts from selected digital stories are shared to highlight how these short films can be used to understand struggles against class and gender hierarchies, sexual harassment, and the need to establish full citizenship rights for minority groups. The article makes a case for digital stories as a new methodology for doing and communicating research. It also sheds light on the nature of the technology itself and confronts the limitations and dilemmas that were faced, particularly with regard to authenticity and representation.


Hungary has been a pioneer in local government reform among transition economies. Through a series of legal reforms introduced since 1990, Hungary has decentralized the state administration and re-established the full autonomy of local governments. The local governments have adjusted resolutely to the changing circumstances, but are reaching the limit of their ability to adapt in the current framework. To help Hungary continue to be successful in its transition and to aid its EU accession, the Bank partnered three units within the Europe and Central Asia region. Those sectors included the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, the Infrastructure Sector Unit, and the Private and Financial Sectors Development Sector Unit. This paper discusses key findings of this partnership study, called the Hungary Subnational Development Program. This publication also proposes policies for modernizing Hungary's subnational government system from the perspective of fiscal decentralization, local capacity building, and development of a competitive credit market. This publication will be of interest to policymakers at the national and local level in Hungary and throughout Eastern Europe.


The casket now in the Museum of the Cathedral of Girona is an unparalleled piece of silversmithing from the Caliphate of Cordoba. It is a unique object both because of the historical information it provides and due to its artistic value. It was commissioned by al-Ḥakam II as a gift for his son, the future Caliph Hisām II, and it can be dated to 976 or a little earlier. This essay offers for the first time the complete reading of its external dedicatory inscription, and it also includes an extensive historiographic review of the studies devoted to it. The names mentioned in the casket inscriptions are then discussed, as well as the date of its production and its possible use. The author raises some of the questions suggested by this object that need to be further researched, as its appearance in Girona in the 19th century without evidence about its provenance.


Using a hierarchy of effects theoretical framework, the present study investigates psychological responses to positive and negative publicity about athlete endorsers. Furthermore, this research addresses the role of brand novelty on these processes. Participants were exposed to an ad for a soft drink brand (either novel or well-established) that featured an athlete endorser. Each ad was paired with a news story that contained either positive or negative information about the athlete's off-field behavior. Participants' cognitive, affective, and conative responses were assessed. Results indicate more cognition, affect, and conation to ads associated with positive publicity about the athletes and for established brands. Unexpectedly, publicity and brand novelty interacted such that established brands were more susceptible to the effects of publicity than were novel brands. Results are discussed in regard to furthering theory and practical implications.


Finger millet is amongst the major crops of Uttaranchal. Over the years there has been rapid decline both in production and consumption of millets. Chemical composition of finger millet revealed that total carbohydrate content of finger millet has been reported to be in the range of 72 to 79.5%. Finger millet has nearly 7% protein but large variations in protein content from 5.6 to 12.70% have been reported by various studies. Total ash content is higher in finger millet than in commonly consumed cereal grains. The ash content has been found to be nearly 1.7 to 4.13% in finger millet. Calcium content of 36 genotypes of finger millet ranged from 162 to 487 mg %. Singh and Srivastava (2006) reported the iron content of 16 finger millet varieties ranged from 3.61 mg/100g to 5.42 mg%. Finger millet is the richest source of calcium and iron. Calcium deficiency leading to bone and teeth disorder, iron deficiency leading to anemia can be overcome by introducing finger millet in our daily diet. Maximum utilization of the nutrient potential of the millet is limited by the presence of phytates, phenols, tannins and enzyme inhibitors but their effect can be reduced by using processing techniques like popping, roasting, malting and fermentation. The use of these techniques not only decreases the content of antinutrients but increases the bioavailability of certain minerals like calcium and iron. Composite flours made by using finger millet can be used for preparation of various nutrient dense recepies which can be effectively used for supplementary feeding programs.


In this paper, we propose an efficient diagnosis scheme to detect and locate the switching network defects/faults in reconfigurable array architecture. This diagnosis scheme performs the test of switching network based on the scan path and fault intersection test methodology to locate the faults occurring in the switching network. After the diagnosis of switching network, the processing element (PE) test can then be initiated through the good switches and links. Errors in testing that cause a good switch, link or PE to be considered as a bad one is called "killing error". The issue of killing error in testing is addressed and the probability of killing error for our diagnosis technique is analyzed and shown to be extremely low. The significance of this approach is the ability to detect and locate the multiple faults in switches, links, and PEs with low testing circuit overhead, and to offer the good test quality in linear diagnosis time.


Objective Several genetic risk factors have been identified for non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (NACP). A genome-wide association study reported an association of chronic pancreatitis (CP) with variants in PRSS1–PRSS2 (rs10273639; near the gene encoding cationic trypsinogen) and CLDN2–MORC4 loci (rs7057398 in RIPPLY1 and rs12688220 in MORC4). We aimed to refine these findings in a large European cohort. Design We studied 3062 patients with alcohol-related CP (ACP) or NACP and 5107 controls. Also, 1559 German patients with alcohol-associated cirrhosis or alcohol dependence were included for comparison. We performed several meta-analyses to examine genotype–phenotype relationships. Results Association with ACP was found for rs10273639 (OR, 0.63; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.72). ACP was also associated with variants rs7057398 and rs12688220 in men (OR, 2.26; 95% CI 1.94 to 2.63 and OR, 2.66; 95% CI 2.21 to 3.21, respectively) and in women (OR, 1.57; 95% CI 1.14 to 2.18 and OR 1.71; 95% CI 1.41 to 2.07, respectively). Similar results were obtained when German patients with ACP were compared with those with alcohol-associated cirrhosis or alcohol dependence. In the overall population of patients with NACP, association with rs10273639 was absent (OR, 0.93; 95% CI 0.79 to 1.01), whereas rs7057398 of the X chromosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms was associated with NACP in women only (OR, 1.32; 95% CI 1.15 to 1.51). Conclusions The single-nucleotide polymorphisms rs10273639 at the PRSS1–PRSS2 locus and rs7057398 and rs12688220 at the CLDN2–MORC4 locus are associated with CP and strongly associate with ACP, but only rs7057398 with NACP in female patients.


We have studied the polarization parameters of the human eye associated with ocular birefringence from double-pass retinal images by using an imaging linear polariscope. A series of nine images corresponding to combinations of linear independent polarization states in both generator and analyser units was recorded. Retardation and azimuthal angle obtained when considering the human eye as a linear retarder have been compared to those calculated with a Mueller matrix polarimeter. Results in young eyes show only small differences, of about 2° for azimuth and 6° for retardation, between these methods. Moreover, changes in the polarization state of the central part of double-pass images are very different from those corresponding to the tails. Although the simpler linear polariscope is mainly designed for studies in physiological optics and clinical diagnosis, it can also be used for the analysis of in vitro biological samples and crystals.


Over the next 10 years (1994-2004), NASA plans to launch several satellites for studying Earth's ecosystems. This Earth Observing System is expected to provide about a terabyte of data per day. The authors have worked with Earth scientists at NASA Ames to encode the selection and preparation of this data as an AI-based planning task. They extended a domain independent planner called Collage, to meet the requirements of this domain, and are building a prototype application that selects and prepares data for ecosystem models. Collage is a successor to the Gemplan planner. Both systems were designed for large, complex planning domains and have been applied to standard toy problems as well as more realistic domains, such as building-construction planning. Two features distinguish Collage from other domain-independent planners. First, instead of state-based planning algorithms, Collage uses a broad repertoire of domain independent, action-based plan-construction algorithms. It can also be extended to include new planning methods, including domain-specific ones. Second, Collage uses localized search: using information about domain structure, the planner partitions a potentially intractable, global search space into smaller, more manageable ones, each working on a local subproblem of the overall task.<<ETX>>


ABSTRACT Residential treatment for youth includes both care, such as basic care-taking tasks and pedagogical child-rearing tasks, and cure elements, such as the therapeutic milieu and individual treatment plans. With these elements, residential treatment aims to achieve a healthy development and a decrease of the present problems with youth. However, achieving enduring change with youth after they have left residential treatment is a great challenge. This challenge can be explained by care workers' difficulties to establish good, genuine therapeutic relationships with individual youth. Furthermore, it can be explained by the commonly used treatment approach to achieve behavior change with youth during residential care. In this paper, I suggest that higher long-term effectiveness of residential treatment can be achieved by applying a combination of three treatment approaches. First, by focusing on youth's individual needs and intrinsic motivations using the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective. Second, by using the Common Factors model as residential care element to promote professionals' interpersonal skills and good, genuine therapeutic relationships with youth. Third, by applying the Motivational Interviewing (MI) approach as a residential cure element. By integrating these approaches as intervention components, it is very likely that residential treatment will contribute to more enduring behavior changes with youth.


Purpose: We aimed to validate and improve prognostic signatures for high-risk urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. Experimental Design: We evaluated microarray data from 93 patients with bladder cancer managed by radical cystectomy to determine gene expression patterns associated with clinical and prognostic variables. We compared our results with published bladder cancer microarray data sets comprising 578 additional patients and with 49 published gene signatures from multiple cancer types. Hierarchical clustering was utilized to identify subtypes associated with differences in survival. We then investigated whether the addition of survival-associated gene expression information to a validated postcystectomy nomogram utilizing clinical and pathologic variables improves prediction of recurrence. Results: Multiple markers for muscle invasive disease with highly significant expression differences in multiple data sets were identified, such as fibronectin 1 (FN1), NNMT, POSTN, and SMAD6. We identified signatures associated with pathologic stage and the likelihood of developing metastasis and death from bladder cancer, as well as with two distinct clustering subtypes of bladder cancer. Our novel signature correlated with overall survival in multiple independent data sets, significantly improving the prediction concordance of standard staging in all data sets [mean ΔC-statistic: 0.14; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.01–0.27; P < 0.001]. Tested in our patient cohort, it significantly enhanced the performance of a postoperative survival nomogram (ΔC-statistic: 0.08, 95% CI, −0.04–0.20; P < 0.005). Conclusions: Prognostic information obtained from gene expression data can aid in posttreatment prediction of bladder cancer recurrence. Our findings require further validation in external cohorts and prospectively in a clinical trial setting. Clin Cancer Res; 18(5); 1323–33. ©2012 AACR.


In MOOCs, characterized by a plethora of resources and massive participation, establishing tutoring in its traditional form is difficult. This lack of tutoring generates isolation and demotivation of learners that could be a contributing factor on their high attrition rate. Consequently, learners engage with their peers in collaborative activities through online social networks where they can easily log in from almost any kind of device, with a view to develop a social tutoring able to break their isolation and maximize their motivation. However, the open nature of MOOCs raises trust issues among learners. They are obliged to evaluate the trust of a large number of participants with diverging behaviors before accepting their interaction request. The decision to trust is generally based on the belief in someone's good intentions towards us. One possible way to deal with this problem is to differentiate learners by using trust metrics to compute quantitative estimates of trust between them; this can enhance social tutoring and may increase their persistence in the MOOC. Thus, our purpose is to propose a trust model adapted to MOOCs. This work is focused particularly to study how to represent and measure social trust in Online Social Networks (OSN) and Social Internet of Things (SIoT) since the learner in MOOCs is frequently interconnected with his peers through smart devices. Therefore, we give an overview for existing trust models of these two domains in the interest to benefit from their combination to increase the value of the trust model of MOOCs platforms.


ABSTRACT Since the Crimean War (1853–56), the Ottomans encountered with the problem of settling the Muslim immigrants and it was initially resolved by establishing new towns and villages on vast arable plains in the Balkans and Anatolia. However, it became a necessity to let the immigrants settle in the cities after the massive influx of refugees in 1877–78, when available agricultural lands to assign remained limited in the empire. With the consent of the Sultan, a new urban typology emerged at the outskirts of the cities, which were called immigrant (muhajir) neighbourhoods. This article aims to explore the spatial development of these settlements by the close examination of two cases based on archival materials. Mecidiye, which was established after the Crimean War, stands as an archetypal example and acted as an experimental laboratory. The success of Mecidiye case encouraged the Ottoman bureaucrats for further in post-1878 period. Hence, immigrant neighbourhood in Üsküb demonstrates us how the experience of Mecidiye was disseminated in the empire to establish a new planned settlement at the edges of an existing city. The close examination of Üsküb case provides us with the necessary tools to understand how the resettlement of refugees had cross-geographical spatial patterns.


This paper introduces the Spatial Analysis of surface Runoff in ArcGis (SARA v1.0) interface to estimate curve number and runoff volume for hydrologic evaluations. This version runs in a vector platform as with other extensions of ArcGIS, introducing changes to the original Natural Resources Conservation Services-Curve Number method, and allowing adaptation to local conditions. The programming syntax was developed in Visual Basic 6.0 as an ActiveX Dynamic Link Library (DLL) to interact with ArcMap, and it is released as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) that can be modified or upgraded to other programming languages.


The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 resulted in many disastrous effects and negative repercussions on the people and State. It reflected on the Iraqi regime and its people as those effects have been extended to all Arab States and the world at large, where those effects and repercussions have taken on many aspects of political, economic and social. The invasion not only had been effected Kuwait but also broadly in the gulf region. This study aims: firstly to study and analyse the political, economic and social implications as the consequences of the Iraqi invasion over Kuwait; secondly, to elucidate and analyse the effects of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on Arab relations; thirdly, to explore on the role of international organizations in addressing the effects of the invasion. The result shows that the invasion has brought to a disastrous schism in the unity of the Arab states and put them left behind in the international stage, and the opening of the area to the Western military presence in the Gulf. The economic loss suffered by the Arab Group reached approximately $1 trillion. The social and psychological effects on society and the individual in Kuwait required long years to be addressed. The international organizations have played a prominent role particularly on recording the file of the prisoners and missing persons, and the compensation is also given to them.


In 2006, four successful entrepreneurs decided to establish a world-class mega university. Initially, the project progressed slowly until Vineet Gupta was able to locate a small plot of land in Sonipat, Haryana. Forty-eight hours before the payment deadline, Ashish Dhawan and Sanjeev Bikchandani agreed to invest in their personal capital to kick start the project. They however suggested a pivot in favour of a smaller private liberal arts college. Meanwhile, Pramath Sinha, with prior experience in establishing the Indian School of Business launched a pilot through the Young India Fellowship (YIF). Dhawan and Bikchandani, through their extensive entrepreneurial networks, raised scholarships for the first two batches of the fellowship in the hope of attracting other donors to the board and getting a buy-in for Ashoka University. The team faced a number of challenges: managing the new model of collective philanthropy, recruiting faculty and finding jobs for the first undergraduate batch. At Ashoka University's first graduation ceremony in 2017 they wondered whether this model could revolutionise the higher education space like the IITs and IIMs had done for the country.


Objectives: Chloramines are by-products of chlorine disinfected swimming pools and are hazardous to people if chloramines evaporate into the air. There is evidence that chloramines cause upper respiratory tract and eye irritation. It was suspected that ozone treatment in addition to chlorine disinfection will reduce chloramine levels in the pool. The following study compared chloramine concentration in a strictly chlorine disinfected swimming pool and whirlpool (C.G. Brown) in Burnaby, BC with an ozonechlorine disinfected swimming pool and whirlpool (Killarney) in Vancouver, BC. The study also compared each pool and whirlpool to the 1.0 mg/L combined chlorine concentration limit in the B.C. Pool Regulation. Methods: Chloramine concentrations were determined by using a Hach Pocket Colorimeter 2 Analysis System which used a DPD method of analysis. Chloramine was determined by subtracting total chlorine by the free chlorine. Thirty pool water samples were analyzed based on two samples per pool per day for fifteen days. A two sample t-test was used to compare the ozone-chlorine treated pools with the chlorine only treated pools using the Mann-Whitney U test. A z-test was used to compare all types of swimming pools and whirlpools to the 1.0 mg/L limit. Results: The chloramine concentration in both the ozone-chlorine disinfected swimming pool and whirlpool was not statistically significantly lower than in the chlorine disinfected swimming pool (p=0.263597) and whirlpool (p=0.523672). Both types of swimming pools were found to be statistically significantly greater than the 1.0 mg/L chloramine limit (p=0.000023 in the chlorine pool and p=0.00001 for the ozone-chlorine pool). Similarly, both types of whirlpools were determined to be statistically significantly greater than the 1.0 mg/L chloramine limit (p=0.000001 for the chlorine pool and p=0.000001 for the ozone-chlorine pool). Conclusion: It was determined that there was no difference between ozone chlorine treated pools and chlorine only treated pools. Environmental Health Officers can suggest other forms of secondary treatment instead of ozone since there is no significant difference compared to chlorine only treated pools in reducing chloramine concentrations. This information is also beneficial for pool operators because they can increase their flow rates for pools that use ozonation or strictly chlorination relative to what they were originally designed for.


BACKGROUND
Men and women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience restrictions in everyday life, in spite of the development of new medications. Recent research has described in detail how participation limitations are experienced in everyday life from a patient perspective. However, knowledge of how sex and intimate relationships are affected is still scarce.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of the present study was to explore sex life experiences in relation to sexual function and sexual relationships in men and women with early RA.

METHODS
The study formed part of TIRA-2 (the Swedish acronym for the prospective multicentre early arthritis project). The data collection included 45 interviews with 21 men and 24 women, aged 20-63, which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The critical incident technique was used to collect data, and content analysis to categorize the results.

RESULTS
Half the participants stated that RA affected their sex life. The general descriptions formed five categories: sex life and tiredness; sex life and ageing; emotional consequences of impaired sexual function; facilitators of sexual function and sexual relationships; and strain on the sexual relationship.

CONCLUSIONS
Sex life is affected in early RA, in spite of new effective treatment strategies. New strategies of communication, assessment and self-managing interventions concerning the sex lives of patients with RA need to be implemented by a multidisciplinary healthcare team. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The aim of the paper is to reveal the most important causes of mobile telephony use by rural residents. In particular, the examination of the expected changes due to use of mobile phones and the assessment of the major causes that drive rural residents to desire mobile telephony access constitute the main objective of the paper. In addition, the study extends the employment of binomial econometric methodologies into rural development issues. Interesting results are revealed from the three discrete segments of rural populations regarding the drivers of mobile phone use. The majority of the users belong to the so-called "farmers", where the dominant causes of mobile phone use are different from the rest ones. More specifically, causes such as region and number of young persons resisting in the households were among the main reasons that compel them to obtain mobile telephony subscription and use.


This report presents a study of driver perceptions using a driving simulator. The evaluation required one hundred and twenty participants from different age groups to drive through virtual highway work zones. During this experiment, driver reaction to VMA markings was determined based on their lane change distance. The drivers were also surveyed using a detailed subjective survey. Analysis of variance was performed to determine the significant variables affecting the lane change distance. For each time of day, a test was conducted to calculate the difference in lane change distance between the markings. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was carried out to evaluate the significance of differences between the lane change distance frequency distributions of the markings. For the subjective evaluation, the markings were ranked by participants indicating their preferences using four different criteria for each time of day. Additionally, the participants were surveyed on the features of the individual markings and for the most preferred marking. The results of the objective and subjective evaluations indicated that, overall, the red and white checkerboard pattern was most effective.


Feature Issue on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC) It is commonly agreed that the next generation of wireless communication systems, usually referred to as fourth-generation (4G) systems, will not be based on a single access technique but will encompass a number of different complementary access technologies. We outline some of the radio frequency (RF) standards that will be used and assess where optical wireless (OW) communications may play a role. Further, we outline some future research challenges and opportunities.


The history of the development of statistical hypothesis testing in time series analysis is reviewed briefly and it is pointed out that the hypothesis testing procedure is not adequately defined as the procedure for statistical model identification. The classical maximum likelihood estimation procedure is reviewed and a new estimate minimum information theoretical criterion (AIC) estimate (MAICE) which is designed for the purpose of statistical identification is introduced. When there are several competing models the MAICE is defined by the model and the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters which give the minimum of AIC defined by AIC = (-2)log-(maximum likelihood) + 2(number of independently adjusted parameters within the model). MAICE provides a versatile procedure for statistical model identification which is free from the ambiguities inherent in the application of conventional hypothesis testing procedure. The practical utility of MAICE in time series analysis is demonstrated with some numerical examples.