"Awareness of the ecological crisis has undeniably increased during the past three or four decades. Nevertheless, despite some local and regional improvements, the global crisis has worsened over this period. This paradoxical situation of pervasive awareness of environmental problems and predominantly cosmetic, ineffectual responses to them is attributable, at least in part, to the social and cultural conditions associated with postmodernity. This study is a theoretical investigation of the social and cultural context of the ecological crisis. It involves an exploration of three interrelated narratives that have become dominant in postmodernity--the end of history myth, neoliberalism, and the rhetoric of economic globalization--and demonstrates how each contributes to ongoing social and environmental degradation. This study also shows how these postmodern narratives inform the prevailing assumption that the primary purpose of education and the proper function of schools (especially the public schools) is to promote economic competitiveness in the new global economy. But if the new global economy is accelerating the pace of environmental destruction, and if much of the instruction that goes on in schools in the United States seeks to develop in students the skills needed to compete more effectively in this new economy, then it is not entirely hyperbolic to suggest that academic success in school amounts to ecological failure. The daily practices of schools reflect and reinforce the dominant values of the larger culture; hence, formal education, as it is currently configured, will likely do little to ameliorate the ecological crisis. Given the strict, top-down organization and management of public schools, it is unreasonable to expect schools to initiate substantive changes supportive of ecological sustainability. This will require major changes in education policy."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


Bioresorbable implants are an attractive alternative to metallic bone fixation devices and offer potential to eliminate some of the clinical challenges with the latter. This work explores the manufacturing of fully bioresorbable fibre-reinforced composite rods and screws for such applications. Poly lactic acid (PLA) and phosphate glass fibres (PGF) were combined to provide mechanical reinforcement and biocompatibility characteristics. Aligned and randomly reinforced PLA/PGF composites were prepared by compression moulding prior to thermomechanical deformation into rod and screw forms. In vitro degradation and mechanical properties retention were investigated in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) at 37°C. The composite rods and screws exceeded published data for bioresorbable implants in their virgin state and were towards the upper range of cortical bone properties. The properties reduced rapidly in an aqueous medium and this was attributed to matrix plasticisation and fibre/matrix disbonding. The degraded samples maintained strength and stiffness close to the lower limits of the cortical bone. Water uptake and mass loss for composites exceeded equivalent values for PLA alone due to water wicking at the fibre/matrix interface. Ion release tests correlated linearly with mass loss profiles confirming that the dominant degradation mechanism was fibre dissolution. The PLA/PGF composites also exhibited good biocompatibility to human osteosarcoma and human mesenchymal stem cells.


The present invention provides four purified preparation containing a polynucleic acid molecule encoding porcine Torque teno virus (PTTV) genotypes or subtypes PTTV1a-VA, PTTV1b-VA, PTTV2b-VA, and PTTV2c-VA. The present invention also provides infectious DNA clones, biologically functional plasmid or viral vector containing the infectious nucleic acid genome molecule of the same. The present invention further provides live, attenuated, vector-expressed and purified recombinant capsid subunit or killed viral vaccines for protection against PTTV infection. The present invention additionally provides subunit vaccines comprising PTTV specific gene products, especially ORF1 capsid gene product for protection against PTTV infection.; Further, the present invention provides methods for diagnosing PTTV infection via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specific primer for PTTV1, PTTV2, and individual PTTV1 genotypes. Finally, the present invention provides methods for diagnosing PTTV infection via immunological methods, e.g., enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA) and Western blot using PTTV specific antigens for detecting serum PTTV specific antibodies.


Football exists everywhere in Africa. It is played formally by professionals and members of football leagues, and it is played on the Eastern beaches by barefoot children who made their own ball out of plastic bags. Given the popularity of the sport, there is potential to use it to meet the needs of African communities in need of development. There is much literature available on the use of sports to meet development goals, but the process, means, and results of the use of football to do so is missing.. This paper analyzes how football has become a tool for meeting community building goals in East Africa. The community-building goals examined include health (especially in regard to HIV/AIDS), environmental preservation, girls' empowerment, crime prevention, orphan aid, youth psychological development, community mobilization, education, poverty, and the like. In order for an organization to be effective in regards to meeting communitybuilding goals, it must meet five criteria. First, initiatives taken by the organization should benefit the broader context of the community. Second, the organizations should be controlled largely by local people. Third, specific needs of the community must be targeted. Fourth, research must gauge whether project selection is driven by mission instead of opportunity, and the fifth criteria is that there is ongoing project and program evaluation. In this paper, three organizations are evaluated based on these criteria— Mathare Youth Sports Association, Elimu, Michezo na Mazoezi, and Grassroot Soccer. The first chapter provides background information about the use of sports as a tool to meet community development goals, defines community building, outlines the theoretical framework for effective community building, provides a literature review, and explains the author's research methods. Chapter two provides details on the processes and programs of each of the cases. Chapter three connects theoretical frameworks defining the criteria for effective community building with the programs and implementation techniques of the case studies. This chapter uses the case studies as examples of how community building can be effectively addressed through the use of football, and examines how specific needs of communities are met by each of these organizations. Research revealed that football-based organizations can effectively meet community-building goals in East Africa.


Modernization of agricultural land use across Europe is responsible for a substantial decline of linear vegetation elements such as tree lines, hedgerows, riparian vegetation, and green lanes. These linear objects have an important function for biodiversity, e.g., as ecological corridors and local habitats for many animal and plant species. Knowledge on their spatial distribution is therefore essential to support conservation strategies and regional planning in rural landscapes but detailed inventories of such linear objects are often lacking. Here, we propose a method to detect linear vegetation elements in agricultural landscapes using classification and segmentation of high-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point data. To quantify the 3D structure of vegetation, we applied point cloud analysis to identify point-based and neighborhood-based features. As a preprocessing step, we removed planar surfaces such as grassland, bare soil, and water bodies from the point cloud using a feature that describes to what extent the points are scattered in the local neighborhood. We then applied a random forest classifier to separate the remaining points into vegetation and other. Subsequently, a rectangularity-based region growing algorithm allowed to segment the vegetation points into 2D rectangular objects, which were then classified into linear objects based on their elongatedness. We evaluated the accuracy of the linear objects against a manually delineated validation set. The results showed high user's (0.80), producer's (0.85), and total accuracies (0.90). These findings are a promising step towards testing our method in other regions and for upscaling it to broad spatial extents. This would allow producing detailed inventories of linear vegetation elements at regional and continental scales in support of biodiversity conservation and regional planning in agricultural and other rural landscapes.


Native Americans are over-represented as incarcerated offenders, yet there are few effective programs available to them. Prisoners of Aboriginal ancestry are also over-represented in the Canadian correctional system. A number of culturally appropriate, innovative programs have been developed to effectively lower their recidivism rate in that country. This article explores one such initiative, the Aboriginal-operated healing lodges, by focusing on one institution: the Stan Daniels Healing Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, the largest and oldest in Canada. The history of the center is presented as well as data about its residents, staff, mandate, ideology, programs, and recidivism rates. A number of potential obstacles to the development of such a center in the United States are discussed, but it is concluded that this model might be very effective in some states with a sufficiently high Native American population.


Offering fresh perspectives on perennial questions of ethnicity, race, nationalism, and religion, Rogers Brubaker makes manifest the forces that shape the politics of diversity and multiculturalism today. In a lucid and wide-ranging analysis, he contends that three recent developments have altered the stakes and the contours of the politics of difference: the return of inequality as a central public concern, the return of biology as an asserted basis of racial and ethnic difference, and the return of religion as a key terrain of public contestation.The cultural and discursive turn that drew students of identity away from the study of structural inequalities in recent decades has now run its course. At a moment of heightened public and scholarly concern with deepening inequality, Grounds for Difference" shows how categories of difference such as race, ethnicity, and gender get built into enduring structures of inequality.In the aftermath of the Human Genome Project, newly influential genetic understandings of human difference threaten to naturalize both difference and inequality. Brubaker critically engages the new ethnoracial naturalism and assesses how genetic perspectives have transformed understandings and practices of race and ethnicity in biomedical research, criminal forensics, popular genealogy, and identity politics.The resurgence of public religion in recent decades likewise has major implications for how we understand the politics of difference. Brubaker explains why the most intensely contested struggles over cultural difference today tend to involve religion, confounding longstanding expectations about continued secularization.


People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) often require specialized care especially from those closely related to them. The task of caregiving to PLWHA can be a daunting undertaking in view of the fact that there is no validated cure yet to HIVIAIDS. Most of this care for the PLWHA takes place in the home and is likely to be done by afamily member. However, very little is understood about the challenges these caregivers encounter and their proposed strategies to enh ance their care provision capacity. The study therefore, sought to investigate the challenges of care provision and capacity enhancement strategies of family caregivers (FCGs) of PLWHA in Thika District. Data collection was done using interview schedules for a sample of 177 FCGs and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) with 40 Community Health Workers (CHWs). Data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that over four fifths (93%) of the FCGs experienced care provision challenges. Th ese challenges included inadequate finances (83%), food provision (56%), stress (52%), stigma and isolation (32%), inadequate medicine and supplies (24%), difficult care recipient (19%) and strain on children education (13%). The FCGs proposed strategies which they felt could enhance their capacity namely; economic empowerment (69%), regular training (58%), psychological support (42%), stigma reduction (30%) and sustained provision of medicine and supplies (17%). In order to enhance the FCGs capacity as well as improve the quality of care provided to PLWHA the FCGs would need an effective and sustained implementation of these strategies.


Two competing theories vie for dominance regarding the relationship between the U.S. military and the natural environment. On the one hand, because legal rules permit the military to disregard environmental laws when they conflict with the military's national security mission, one might be left with the impression that the military always stands opposed to environmental protection. Yet the military is currently engaged in an extensive undertaking to improve its sustainable energy use by reducing demand and developing renewables in its multiple roles as a war fighter, a landlord, a first user of precommercial technologies, and a potential high-demand consumer. The military is undertaking such actions not only in response to congressional directives and presidential executive orders, but also voluntarily in response to its internal battlefield and national security needs. In some cases, the military is leveraging private financing rather than taxpayer funds to drive innovation. Such public-private partnerships among the military, private financiers, and technology firms are an essential form of collaboration with the potential to transform for the better not only our nation's energy profile, but also the military-industrial complex. At the same time, however, these relationships warrant some caution to prevent rent-seeking. This collaboration represents a new Military-Environmental Complex.


All-inclusive holidays can be defined as those where all travel, accommodation and a substantial amount of food and drink, together with activities such as entertainment, trips or sports coaching are included in a pre-paid price while booking. The all-inclusive holiday concept was first introduced in the in 1840s, and later re-emerged in the 1930s. The concept exploded in the Caribbean in the 1950s and was introduced in Africa in the 1980s. An explosion of the concept was later realised along coastal strips in the late 1990s. At its inception, the allinclusive concept was a fundamentally different holiday where a guest had to carry no form of currency, paper, coin or plastic to a hotel, resort or while on a cruise. With time it was realised that the application of the all-inclusive concept had been modified and varied from the original. Due to its modification, the validity and efficacy of the concept has been questioned particularly with regard to service procedures, professionalism of the personnel employed, value for money, quality of food, drink and accommodation offered; quality of tourists it attracts, and the spill-over effects to the host country. The general objective of this research was to analyse the all-inclusive holiday concept as applied in Kenya. To achieve this, the study used four specific objectives to profile the application of all-inclusive practices, assess service delivery versus customer expectations, identify important attributes to customer delight and assess the relationship between customer delight and customer loyalty. The study reviewed literature on the all-inclusive holiday concept across different countries; customer satisfaction, delight and loyalty. The study used a conceptual model, theoretical model and operational model to link theory to practice. The theoretical models used were the SERVQUAL Model, Expectancy Disconfirmation Model and Kano's Satisfaction Model. The study used a cross-sectional survey design to collect information from the vacational hotels at the Kenyan coast. Purposeful and stratified systematic sampling techniques were used. A sample size 0f 209 respondents was obtained. The research instruments were questionnaires, interviews and observations. The data analysis involved use of descriptive statistics where frequencies, content analysis, the servqual research instrument and factor analysis were used to identify the correlations among variables. Hypotheses were tested using t-test, chi square and non-parametric correlations. The findings of the study show customer satisfaction level averaging between satisfactory to fairly satisfactory. Further, there was a discrepancy between customer expectations and customer perceptions. A linear relationship between customer delight and customer relationship was established. For the concept to remain viable in Kenya, the current mode of its application and marketing needed to be revised. The study proposes a new approach to marketing and applying the all-inclusive concept. Such an approach would involve the intervention of the Ministry of Tourism and the local hospitality practitioners. The study suggested further studies to compare and benchmark the application of the holiday concept with other parts of the world including the Caribbean Islands where the concept is well-grounded.


Fish farming in open water releases dissolved and particulate waste (inorganic and organic) into the surrounding marine environment. To reduce this environmental impact, commercial extractive species can be grown alongside to utilize and reduce this waste, a technique known as integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA). Information is lacking on whether (i) IMTA is generally successful with respect to extractive species growth responses and (ii) at what spatial scale they can be cultivated from fish cage nutrient sources. Focussing on bivalves and macroalgae as extractive species, this study uses a meta-analysis approach to summarize and conclude peer-reviewed data on IMTA to address these information gaps. We show that there are clear benefits to integrating bivalves and macroalgae with fish farms. Bivalves grown within, and relatively near, fish cages (0 m and 1–60 m distance categories, respectively) showed significantly higher biomass production relative to controls compared to those grown at larger spatial scales (61+ m). However, biomass production of macroalgae was significantly higher than controls only within close proximity to fish cages (0 m). This information shows increased extractive species production is generally greatest at relatively small spatial scales. It also highlights the need for more site-specific information (e.g. seawater parameters, hydrodynamics, food supply, farm capacity) in future studies. The allocation of control sites and locating these at suitable distances (>1–8 km) from fish farm effluent sources to avoid fish farm nutrient contamination are also recommended.


To test the possibility that aluminosilicate liquids exhibit pressure-induced transformations, particularly involving changes in the coordination of aluminum, we determined melting relationships for the feldspar-bearing systems NaAlSi 3 O 8 -SiO 2 , KAlSi 3 O 8 -SiO 2 , and CaAl 2 Si 2 O 8 -SiO 2 from 1 atm to 25 kbar. Albite and anorthite behave similarly in that they, and presumably liquids of these compositions, transform at high pressures to jadeite, kyanite, corundum, and other structures with aluminum in six-fold coordination, releasing SiO 2 component. This results in a large increase in the activity of SiO 2 component in the liquid (a l qz ), which is manifested by a significant decrease in the melting-point depression of albite and of anorthite by the addition of quartz at pressures above ∼15 kbar. In contrast, sanidine does not transform to denser phases at pressures below at least 100 kbar, but it melts incongruently to leucite + SiO 2 -rich liquid up to ∼ 15 kbar. This produces a relatively large a l qz and a small freezing-point depression by quartz below this pressure; the opposite holds above ∼15 kbar. These results support the concept that significant structural changes, including coordination changes in aluminum, occur in magmas in the upper mantle.


OBJECTIVES
Persistent MRSA infections are especially relevant to endovascular infections and correlate with suboptimal outcomes. However, the virulence signatures of Staphylococcus aureus that drive such persistence outcomes are not well defined. In the current study, we investigated correlations between accessory gene regulator (agr) activation and the outcome of vancomycin treatment in an experimental model of infective endocarditis (IE) due to MRSA strains with different agr and clonal complex (CC) types.

METHODS
Twelve isolates with the four most common MRSA CC and agr types (CC5-agr II, CC8-agr I, CC30-agr III and CC45-agr I) were evaluated for heterogeneous vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (hVISA), agr function, agrA and RNAIII transcription, agr locus sequences, virulence and response to vancomycin in the IE model.

RESULTS
Early agr RNAIII activation (beginning at 2 h of growth) in parallel with strong δ-haemolysin production correlated with persistent outcomes in the IE model following vancomycin therapy. Importantly, such treatment failures occurred across the range of CC/agr types studied. In addition, these MRSA strains: (i) were vancomycin susceptible in vitro; (ii) were not hVISA or vancomycin tolerant; and (iii) did not evolve hVISA phenotypes or perturbed δ-haemolysin activity in vivo following vancomycin therapy. Moreover, agr locus sequence analyses revealed no common point mutations that correlated with either temporal RNAIII transcription or vancomycin treatment outcomes, encompassing different CC and agr types.

CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that temporal agr RNAIII activation and agr functional profiles may be useful biomarkers to predict the in vivo persistence of endovascular MRSA infections despite vancomycin therapy.


This research used monthly milk recording data to explore how the probability of 'recovery' from high somatic cell count (SCC) is associated with different factors such as parity, stage of lactation, the magnitude of SCC and category of high SCC (e.g. new or chronic). The particular interest of this study was to identify the relative impacts of magnitude and category of high SCC on 'recovery', once the other factors were taken into account.
A high SCC (≥200 thousand cells/ml) is commonly associated with intra-mammary infection (IMI), one of the most economically important diseases faced by the dairy industry. High SCC is important in its own right because the bulk milk tank SCC is a determinant of the price farmers receive for their milk.
A high SCC may be transient, returning ('recovering') to low SCC at the next monthly milk recording. Better understanding of factors influencing the probability of 'recovery' from high SCC, could improve decision making on how to manage cows with high SCCs in the most effective manner to minimise both production loss and unnecessary interventions that may include antimicrobial use. In this study, different factors (SCC magnitude; category of high SCC, e.g. new or chronic; parity; and lactation stage) were analysed using a multilevel, mixed effect logistic regression model to assess the association with recovery probability. Data of 12,250 full lactation records from 499 milk-recorded UK dairy herds were used, from which 30,080 high SCC 'cases' were analysed.
In line with established evidence, increasing parity, increasing days in lactation and increasing magnitude of SCC are associated with decreased probability of recovery. The important result is that the category of high SCC is the most influential factor, with probability of recovery after two consecutive high SCC being around half or less the probability of recovery after just one high SCC. The results provide evidential support for category of high SCC to be used ahead of magnitude of SCC when advising farmers about prioritising high SCC cases for investigation and possible treatment, drying-off or culling.
Dairy herd management software companies should work with farmers and their advisors to ensure SCC data are presented in the most useful way, allowing easy interpretation and translation into the most effective interventions that can increase the efficiency of the dairy industry as well as avoiding needless or ineffectual interventions, that may include use of antimicrobials.


This study describes the childbirth experiences of survivors of childhood sexual abuse using an interpretative phenomenological approach. Data collection involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews of four women who gave birth to a baby within the last five years. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, three superordinate themes emerged: control, anxiety, and detachment. This contributes to the current body of research by extending knowledge on what it means to experience childbirth for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, told by the woman herself. These findings are especially important in understanding what is required in providing safe, sensitive care for all childbearing women, and has important implications for practice, education, and further research.


Scholars studying intuition are frequently focusing on decision-takers and to this day conceptualize intuition as a form of judgment. More recently, the notion of intuition in creativity has been challenged by the argument that although the creative process may contain intuitive judgments, any creative idea or solution is essentially the result of intuitive insight. This interpretivist study seeks an increased understanding of the role of intuition in the creative process by providing empirical evidence from in-depth interviews with expert chefs. The findings show that the interviewees describe their experiences of the creative process in line with how the literature describes intuition and explain intuitive insight and judgment as instantaneous yet distinct and rapid processes.


Transversal structures (also known as regular edge labelings) are combinatorial structures defined over 4-connected plane triangulations with quadrangular outer-face. They have been intensively studied and used for many applications (drawing algorithm, random generation, enumeration, ...). In this paper we introduce and study a generalization of these objects for the toroidal case. Contrary to what happens in the plane, the set of toroidal transversal structures of a given toroidal triangulation is partitioned into several distributive lattices. We exhibit a subset of toroidal transversal structures, called balanced, and show that it forms a single distributive lattice. Then, using the minimal element of the lattice, we are able to enumerate bijectively essentially 4-connected toroidal triangulations.


We report on a comparative style analysis of hyperpartisan (extremely one-sided) news and fake news. A corpus of 1,627 articles from 9 political publishers, three each from the mainstream, the hyperpartisan left, and the hyperpartisan right, have been fact-checked by professional journalists at BuzzFeed: 97% of the 299 fake news articles identified are also hyperpartisan. We show how a style analysis can distinguish hyperpartisan news from the mainstream (F1 = 0.78), and satire from both (F1 = 0.81). But stylometry is no silver bullet as style-based fake news detection does not work (F1 = 0.46). We further reveal that left-wing and right-wing news share significantly more stylistic similarities than either does with the mainstream. This result is robust: it has been confirmed by three different modeling approaches, one of which employs Unmasking in a novel way. Applications of our results include partisanship detection and pre-screening for semi-automatic fake news detection.


For generations, scholars have focused on the rise of the Greek city-state and its brilliant cosmopolitan culture as the ultimate source of the Western tradition in literature, philosophy, and politics. This passionate book leads us outside the city walls to the countryside, where the vast majority of the Greek citizenry lived, to find the true source of the cultural wealth of Greek civilization. Victor Hanson shows that the real 'Greek revolution' was not merely the rise of a free and democratic urban culture, but rather the historic innovation of the independent family farm. The farmers, vinegrowers, and herdsmen of ancient Greece are 'the other Greeks,' who formed the backbone of Hellenic civilization. It was these tough-minded, practical, and fiercely independent agrarians, Hanson contends, who gave Greek culture its distinctive emphasis on private property, constitutional government, contractual agreements, infantry warfare, and individual rights. Hanson's reconstruction of ancient Greek farm life, informed by hands-on knowledge of the subject (he is a fifth-generation California vine- and fruit-grower) is fresh, comprehensive, and absorbing. His detailed chronicle of the rise and tragic fall of the Greek city-state also helps us to grasp the implications of what may be the single most significant trend in American life today - the imminent extinction of the family farm.


Characteristics of rotor blade tip clearance flow in axial compressors can significantly affect their performance and stable operation. It may also increase blade vibrations and cause detrimental noises. Therefore, this paper is contributed to investigate tip leakage flow in a low speed isolated axial compressor rotor blades row. Simulations are carried out on near-stall condition, which is valuable of being studied in detail. In turbomachines, flows are non-isotropic and highly three-dimensional. The reason arises from the complicated structure of bounded walls, tip leakage flows, secondary flows, swirl effects, streamlines curvatures and pressure gradients along different directions. As a result, accurate studies on tip leakage flow would be accompanied by many challenges such as adopting suitable turbulence models. So, investigations are carried out numerically utilizing two well-known turbulence models of k-e and k-ω-SST, separately. It is shown that the k-e model yields poor results in comparison to the k-ω-SST model. To realize reasons for this discrepancy, turbulence parameters such as turbulent kinetic energy, dissipation and eddy viscosity terms at the tip clearance region were surveyed in detail. It is found out that estimation for eddy viscosity term is too high in the k-e model due to excessive growth of turbulent kinetic energy, time scale, and lack of effective damping coefficient. This leads to dissipation of vortical structure of flow and wrong estimation of flow field at the rotor tip clearance region. Nevertheless, k-ω-SST turbulence model provides results consistent with reality.


Complex carbohydrates play an important role in many biomedically important processes, including inflammatory response, hormone action, malignancy, viral and bacterial infections and cell differentiation. This review article enlights how glycobiotechnology is contributing to the mainstream of biomedical field. While several methods are described to produce large-scale quantities of bio-active oligosaccharides, other facets address the challenge of the glycosylation of therapeutic antibodies and the complexity of glycosaminoglycans. The present state of carbohydratebased vaccines is presented as an opening to the on-going development of new vaccines focusing on carbohydratebased vaccines against other pathogens such as viruses (HIV), fungi, protozoan parasites, or helminths as well as cancer.


Self-assembly is a process through which an organized structure can spontaneously form from simple parts. Taking inspiration from biological examples of self-assembly, we designed and built a water-based modular robotic system consisting of autonomous plastic tiles capable of aggregation on the surface of water. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the morphology (here: shape) of the tiles on the yield of the self-assembly process, that is, on the final amount of the desired aggregate. We describe experiments done with the real system as well as with a computer simulation thereof. We also present results of a mathematical analysis of the modular system based on chemical rate equations which point to a power-law relationship between yield rate and shape. Using the real system, we further demonstrate how through a single parameter (here: the externally applied electric potential) it is possible to control the self-assembly of propeller-like aggregates. Our results seem to provide a starting point (a) for quantifying the effect of morphology on the yield rates of self- assembly processes and (b) for assessing the level of modular autonomy and computational resources required for emergent functionality to arise.


The present Doctoral Thesis is framed within the study line developed by the research group named TRACE (acronym of CEnsored TRAnslations in Spanish) and it covers the area corresponding to the translated narrative texts from English into Spanish during the decade of the seventies (1970-1978). The objective of this research is to disentangle the translation practices of that time with the intention of establishing translation norms which can help us complete the mosaic that constitutes the history of translation in Spain. Thus, our theoretical and methodological framework is composed by the Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) implemented by the Polysystem Theory and a Corpus-Based Approach (CBS). After establishing the contextual and methodological framework and examining the ins and outs of its main determining factor, official censorship, a catalogue was compiled containing all the translated narrative texts between both languages during those nine years. The result was a pre-textual corpus or corpus 0 with 9269 entries. From these, a series of regularities were drawn which allowed the possibility of studying in more depth six textual sets consisting of best seller novels, which were the most prototypical kind of narrative at the time. The descriptive-comparative study of these was done taking into account the controversial topics of the dictatorial regime in charge by then, i.e., politics, religion, sexual morals and improper language and by means of a list of "anchor terms" which helped locating the instances for the analysis. This list of "anchor terms" is similar to the "anchor words" used in parallel corpora: we translated those taboo areas into terms which allowed us to search the aligned texts with the software available for that means, thus improving the methodology used in the TRACE studies so far. Thanks to this analysis the behavior of the translators in each of the cases could be observed and it was thus possible to determine that the translating activity is closely linked to the place where it is carried out. The translators' tendency towards the acceptability pole could be seen in the instances relating to sexual morals and improper language, whereas regarding religious and political matters the norm was to tilt towards adequacy, in harmony with the progressive deterioration of the dictatorship and liberalization of the Spanish society by then and confirming the fact that "translators and interpreters shape their words to the needs of the moment" (Tymoczko 2006: 453).


— Determination of hyporheic zone thickness in streams is an important step for study of stream-aquifer interactions. Knowledge about hyporheic zone thickness is useful in stream restoration. However, because there is a lack of standard techniques for such study, evaluation of the hyporheic zone thickness for a given stream reach remains a challenge task for researchers. This paper presents Galerkin finite element flow and stream function models that can simulate the hyporheic zone thickness. The flow and stream function equations are solved for 2-D profile domains that can be across a stream or parallel to a stream. The numeral schemes for solving the flow and stream function equations and the treatment of boundary conditions are described. Hypothetical streams are used for simulation of the control of hyporheic zone thickness by the magnitude of inflow and outflow that occur at the stream-sediment interface. Groundwater flow velocity field is generated to examine the flow dynamics in hyporheic zones. The magnitude of groundwater flow velocity in hyporheic zone is greater than that of regional groundwater flow.


In recent years, cartel infringements have led to fines and damage claims by injured parties running into billions. In view of that, the question of liability is of great significance. In European competition law, the undertaking is subject to both prohibitions of certain conduct (Art. 101 et seq. TFEU) as well as sanctions for infringements of these prohibitions (Art. 23 Regulation 1/2003). Art. 1 para. 1 of the Cartel Damages Directive (Directive on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions (2014/104/EU)) also addresses the undertaking when imposing liability for damages. The Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled in its MasterCard decision that liability for damages extends to all legal entities that have exercised a decisive influence over the infringing persons, applying the notion of "undertaking" as developed by the ECJ. Furthermore, several other Member States of the European Union have endorsed group liability or at least parental liability on this basis, including France, Spain, Portugal and Austria. Recently, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has held in its Skanska decision (C-724/17) that the notion of "undertaking" determines the persons liable, both for the purpose of imposition of fines and for the purpose of civil liability.

Hence, the decisive factor regarding liability is the notion of "undertaking". According to settled case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), an undertaking encompasses every entity engaged in an economic activity, which may consist of several legally independent entities, provided that these independent entities form an economic unit. Within the scope of this economic unit, an innocent parent company is generally liable for the cartel infringements of its subsidiaries. Whether an innocent subsidiary is vice versa liable for its parent company or whether sister companies are liable for each other has not yet been examined in detail. This paper aims to close this gap – also with a view to the recent referral of this question to the ECJ (Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona, sec. 15a, order of 24 October 2019, Rollo no 775/2019 – Sumal v Mercedes Benz Trucks Espana). A close examination of the ECJ's reasoning regarding group liability reveals that group liability under competition law, i.e. the joint liability of the parent company and its subsidiaries, derives from the unity of action of the undertaking ('joint action triggers joint liability'). In this respect, the existence of a decisive influence is not relevant; the criterion of decisive influence merely serves to determine whether there is an economic unit. If there is an economic unit, this leads to joint liability amongst all the constituent entities of this economic unit. As a result, an innocent subsidiary is also liable for the parent company or sister companies if they belong to the same economic unit.


Purpose. This study compared three different methods of determining a reading addition and the possible improvement on reading performance in children and young adults with low vision. Methods. Twenty-eight participants with low vision, aged 8 to 32 years, took part in the study. Reading additions were determined with (a) a modified Nott dynamic retinoscopy, (b) a subjective method, and (c) an age-based formula. Reading performance was assessed with MNREAD-style reading charts at 12.5 cm, with and without each reading addition in random order. Outcome measures were reading speed, critical print size, MNREAD threshold, and the area under the reading speed curve. Results. For the whole group, there was no significant improvement in reading performance with any of the additions. When participants with normal accommodation at 12.5 cm were excluded, the area under the reading speed curve was significantly greater with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.031, 0.028, and 0.028, respectively). Also, the reading acuity threshold was significantly better with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.014, 0.030, and 0.036, respectively). Distance and near visual acuity, age, and contrast sensitivity did not predict improvement with a reading addition. All, but one, of the participants who showed a significant improvement in reading with an addition had reduced accommodation. Conclusions. A reading addition may improve reading performance for young people with low vision and should be considered as part of a low vision assessment, particularly when accommodation is reduced.


Abstract Increasing growth rate across bacteria strengthens selection for faster translation, concomitantly increasing the total number of tRNA genes and codon usage bias (CUB: enrichment of specific synonymous codons in highly expressed genes). Typically, enriched codons are translated by tRNAs with higher gene copy numbers (GCN). A model of tRNA–CUB coevolution based on fast growth-associated selection on translational speed recapitulates these patterns. A key untested implication of the coevolution model is that translational selection should favor higher tRNA GCN for more frequently used amino acids, potentially weakening the effect of growth-associated selection on CUB. Surprisingly, we find that CUB saturates with increasing growth rate across γ-proteobacteria, even as the number of tRNA genes continues to increase. As predicted, amino acid-specific tRNA GCN is positively correlated with the usage of corresponding amino acids, but there is no correlation between growth rate associated changes in CUB and amino acid usage. Instead, we find that some amino acids—cysteine and those in the NNA/G codon family—show weak CUB that does not increase with growth rate, despite large variation in the corresponding tRNA GCN. We suggest that amino acid-specific variation in CUB is not explained by tRNA GCN because GCN does not influence the difference between translation times of synonymous codons as expected. Thus, selection on translational speed alone cannot fully explain quantitative variation in overall or amino acid-specific CUB, suggesting a significant role for other functional constraints and amino acid-specific codon features.


The entry of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) into target cells typically requires the sequential binding of the viral exterior envelope glycoprotein, gp120, to CD4 and a chemokine receptor. CD4 binding exposes gp120 epitopes recognized by CD4-induced (CD4i) antibodies, which can block virus binding to the chemokine receptor. We identified three new CD4i antibodies from an HIV-1-infected individual and localized their epitopes. These epitopes include a highly conserved gp120 b-strand encompassing residues 419–424, which is also important for binding to the CCR5 chemokine receptor. All of the CD4i antibodies inhibited the binding of gp120–CD4 complexes to CCR5. CD4i antibodies and CD4 reciprocally induced each other's binding, suggesting that these ligands recognize a similar gp120 conformation. The CD4i antibodies neutralized laboratory-adapted HIV-1 isolates; primary isolates were more resistant to neutralization by these antibodies. Thus, all known CD4i antibodies recognize a common, conserved gp120 element overlapping the binding site for the CCR5 chemokine receptor.


The relative contributions of climate variation, lake trout Salvelinus namaycush predation, and other factors to the recent, three-decade decline of the lacustrine-adfluvial (i.e., a life-history form consisting of fish that mostly live in a lake but spawn in an inflowing tributary) Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri (YCT) population of Clear Creek, a Yellowstone Lake tributary, were evaluated. Strong growth of that population's storied spawning run between the early 1960s and 1978, when the run peaked at about 70,000 fish, had been considered key evidence of recovery of the lake's YCT population from formerly excessive angler harvest and other adverse factors. Thus the run's subsequent, almost continuous decline to about 500 fish in 2007 was perplexing. Gillnet catches of YCT at established lake locations likewise indicated a concurrent decline in the lake-wide YCT population. Prominent among the factors that may have importantly affected the YCT population during the recent decades was predation by the illegally introduced, reproducing, nonnative lake trout discovered in Yellowstone Lake in 1994. Data mainly taken from YCT in the spawning run (n = 29 years) and gillnet catch (n = 30 years) were examined for information useful to specifying the Leslie matrix of a dynamic, age-structured model that had climate as a covariate. The model, fitted to spawning run size and mean total length (TL) of YCT in the run during 1977–2007 (n = 29 data years), explained 87% of variation in observed run size, 86% of variation in observed mean TL, and strongly suggested that climate (as indexed by total-annual air degree-days > 0°C measured on the lake's north shore) had an important effect on recruitment of age-0 YCT to subsequent spawning runs. Results also suggested that an effect of lake trout predation on survival of age-1 to age-5 YCT became apparent only during the recent decade. The important test of ongoing efforts to control lake trout in Yellowstone Lake and thereby limit their predation on YCT – on the basis of data for YCT – will occur when climatic conditions improve for YCT recruitment to the Clear Creek and other YCT spawning stocks of the lake.


Objective: Substantial funds are being invested into training health professions students to provide screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) for substance use, but will the newly trained workforce be ahead of its future employers? The goal of this study was to explore implementation facilitators and barriers. Methods: This project educated 541 baccalaureate nursing (BSN), advanced practice nursing (NP), and master of social work (MSW) students through didactics, role plays, standardized patient practice, and clinical experience to help students achieve competency. One month after training, students were surveyed regarding their use of SBIRT in clinical practice and barriers/facilitators to their use of SBIRT. Results: Efforts to integrate SBIRT into students' clinical experiences were met with numerous challenges. Follow-up surveys revealed a number of barriers to practicing SBIRT during clinical rotations, including feeling a lack of authority to implement, clinic policies not allowing SBIRT, clinic staff lacking SBIRT awareness and training, perceptions that SBIRT was inappropriate for the patient populations served, lack of time, and fear of patient reaction. Facilitators included faculty and supervisor support of SBIRT, clinic policies allowing SBIRT, acceptance of SBIRT by clinic staff, having a framework to discuss substance use, and having SBIRT practice as a course requirement. Conclusion: Without clinical site buy-in, students do not receive adequate opportunities to practice with patients. Therefore, clinical site attitudes and policies need to be considered prior to implementing student practice so students can sustain gains in knowledge, attitudes, and skills.


Compact toroids can be used for fueling other fusion devices by accelerating them to high enough velocities to penetrate strong magnetic fields. In the simplest analysis, the kinetic energy density of a flux-excluding object {1/2}pv{sup 2} must exceed the magnetic field energy density B{sup 2}/2{mu}{sub 0} of the field to be pushed aside. Field reversed configurations (FRCs) are a type of compact toroid that are particularly efficient for this application due to their high density and thus lower required energy per unit mass. FRCs are also formed and accelerated inductively, thus minimizing possible impurity contamination. The Tokamak Refueling by Accelerated Plasmoids (TRAP) experiment was built to develop the inductive acceleration method and test the ability of high-velocity FRCs to penetrate transverse magnetic fields. Simple models have been developed for both the acceleration and penetration processes to determine fueler parameters required for a given tokamak field. Experimental results are given for the acceleration process. Half-milligram FRCs with number densities of 10{sup 22} m{sup {minus}3} were accelerated to velocities of 200 km/s, sufficient to fuel tokamaks with Tesia magnetic fields. The technology is easily extendable to much higher FRC densities and velocities, sufficient to fuel the largest, highest-field tokamaks.


The development of biological communities is an important research issue regarding biological quality elements. However, it is still uncertain how different organism groups and their metrics are affected by different environmental factors. A study of high-quality sites of medium-sized lowland streams typical for Latvia (ecoregion Baltic province) was carried out with an emphasis on hydrological and hydromorphological characteristics. The investigations were carried out within the STAR project using the project designated standard methods. We found that the level of saprobity according to benthic macroinvertebrates was mainly linked with substrate type and stream depth. The trophic diatom index for diatoms on a soft substratum had a negative correlation with altitude and a positive correlation with distance from the source and also stream depth. There were no significant correlations between macrophyte trophic indices and environmental factors associated with stream hydrological conditions. The European fish index was influenced mainly by stream width and distance from the source, which agrees with the results of other researchers. In general, a direct or indirect role of hydrological and hydromorphological factors was evident in the forming of communities characterizing stream ecological quality.


The inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) functions as a sensor for the second messenger IP3 and as a channel protein that allows release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores in response to activated receptors that are linked to production of IP3. However, there are some 2000 extra amino acids in the large IP3R protein in between the region that confers IP3 binding and the Ca2+ channel itself, and a number of proteins have been identified that interact with the IP3R in this region to regulate its function. Van Rossum et al. used a yeast 2-hybrid screen to search for other IP3R-interacting proteins in mammalian cDNA libraries and identified a new one they call DANGER. The authors confirmed interaction of the endogenous proteins by immunoprecipitation from cultured PC12 and showed colocalization with IP3Rs near the plasma membrane by immunofluorescence microscopy. Addition of glutathione S-transferase-tagged DANGER to microsomal fractions from COS7 cells expressing transfected IP3R enhanced the sensitivity of the channel to inhibitory feedback by Ca2+. Normally, supraphysiological concentrations of Ca2+ are needed to decrease IP3-dependent release of Ca2+ through the receptor, but when DANGER was present, moderate concentrations of Ca2+ (0.8 to 3.8 μM) almost abolished Ca2+ release. Single-channel recordings of IP3R activity showed that DANGER reduced the channel open probability by decreasing the opening rate of the channel. The authors propose that DANGER appears to cause allosteric regulation of the IP3R that enhances the Ca2+ sensitivity of the receptor such that Ca2+ becomes a major regulator of the IP3R in cells expressing DANGER. D. B. van Rossum, R. L. Patterson, K.-H. Cheung, R. K. Barrow, V. Syrovatkina, G. S. Gessell, S. G. Burkholder, D. N. Watkins, J. K. Foskett, S. H. Snyder, DANGER, a novel regulatory protein of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate-receptor activity. J. Biol. Chem. 281, 37111-37116 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This research was conducted during period of February 2016 to July 2017 to detect Toxoplasma gondii recruiting 106 female patients with repeated abortion with age between 18-43 years who attended Al-Fayeth clinical laboratory in Baghdad. The diagnosis was done by Immunochromatography and ELISA methods. Blood sample was taken from each patient as well as other 30 healthy control of same age group. The study included measurement of concentration of interleukin-8, interleukin-10, leukotriene B4 and calcium in sera of patients and control. The result indicated presence of the anti-Toxoplasma IgG level in 45 cases, and anti-Toxoplasma IgM in 76 cases out of 106 cases of women by immunochromatography methods whereas anti-Toxoplasma IgG in 40 cases and Anti-toxoplasma IgM in 42 cases by ELISA methods. Also, the result indicated increasing levels of IL-8 and IL-10 in patients' sera and decreasing level of leukotrienes B4 and calcium compared to healthy women (control).


We develop a Bayesian procedure for estimation and inference for spatial models of roll call voting. This approach is extremely flexible, applicable to any legislative setting, irrespective of size, the extremism of the legislators' voting histories, or the number of roll calls available for analysis. The model is easily extended to let other sources of information inform the analysis of roll call data, such as the number and nature of the underlying dimensions, the presence of party whipping, the determinants of legislator preferences, and the evolution of the legislative agenda; this is especially helpful since generally it is inappropriate to use estimates of extant methods (usually generated under assumptions of sincere voting) to test models embodying alternate assumptions (e.g., log-rolling, party discipline). A Bayesian approach also provides a coherent framework for estimation and inference with roll call data that eludes extant methods; moreover, via Bayesian simulation methods, it is straightforward to generate uncertainty assessments or hypothesis tests concerning any auxiliary quantity of interest or to formally compare models. In a series of examples we show how our method is easily extended to accommodate theoretically interesting models of legislative behavior. Our goal is to provide a statistical framework for combining the measurement of legislative preferences with tests of models of legislative behavior.


Swine dysentery is a contagious mucohemorrhagic diarrheal disease caused by the intestinal spirochete Brachyspira hyodysenteriae that colonizes and induces inflammation of the cecum and colon. It has been reported that a diet containing chicory root and sweet lupin can prevent swine dysentery. This experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that inulin in the chicory root rather than galactans in lupins was responsible for protective effects. An experiment with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments was undertaken using pigs fed barley- and triticale-based diets, with the main effects being protein source [185 g/kg of canola meal (decreased galactans) or 220 g/kg of lupins (greater galactans)] and inulin supplementation (0 or 80 g/kg). Forty Large White × Landrace pigs weighing 21 ± 3 kg, with 10 pigs per diet, were allowed to adapt to the diets for 2 wk, and then each pig was challenged orally 4 times with a broth culture containing B. hyodysenteriae on consecutive days. Pigs were killed when they showed clinical signs of dysentery or 6 wk postchallenge. Pigs fed diets without inulin had 8.3 times greater risk (P = 0.017) of developing swine dysentery and were 16 times more likely (P = 0.004) to have colon contents that were culture-positive for B. hyodysenteriae, compared with the pigs fed a diet with 80 g/kg of inulin. Diets containing lupins did not prevent pigs from developing clinical swine dysentery; however, inclusion of lupins or inulin or both in the diets delayed the onset of disease compared with the diet based mainly on canola meal (P < 0.05). Diet did not influence the total concentration of organic acids in the ileum, cecum, or upper and lower colon; however, the molar proportions of the organic acids were influenced (P < 0.05). Consequently the pH values in the cecum, and upper and lower colon were not influenced (P > 0.05) by diet. However the pH values of the ileal digesta were decreased in pigs fed the diet with both lupins and inulin compared with the diet containing only lupins (P < 0.05). In conclusion, this study shows that diets supplemented with highly fermentable carbohydrates from inulin protected pigs against developing swine dysentery.


The syllabic affiliation of ambisyllabic consonants (e.g. the /m/ in limit) is unclear. Standard analyses argue for their simultaneous linkage to the preceding and following syllables (Kahn, 1976; Kenstowicz, 1994). However, others have argued that a reformulation of the crucial phonological processes in terms of footstructure eliminates the need for syllabic representations all together ( Jensen, 2000; Kiparsky, 1979). There is even a lack of consensus in the literature about the onsets and codas. It has been argued that there is little to no perceptual evidence through priming experiments for syllable structure (Schiller, Costa, & Colome 2002; Schiller, Meyer, & Levelt 1997). On the contrary, through a syllable tracking task, Nesbitt & Durvasula (2015) argue that listeners do perceive a difference between word-medial onset and codas. Furthermore, they argued that listeners treated words containing ambisyllabic consonants similar to those containing wordmedial coda consonants. With so many conflicting findings, the question remains: Are syllabic representations available to speaker/listeners of American English? If so, what acoustic cues are utilized to indicate such representations for ambisyllabic consonants? For this paper, recorded speech was extracted from the Buckeye Corpus (Pitt et al 2007), and analyzed to determine the acoustic effects of word-medial consonants. We compared duration and pitch measurements of vowels preceding ambisyllabic consonants to those preceding word-medial coda and word-medial onset consonants in American English. We conclude that American English speakers have a coda representation for ambisyllabic consonants. They produce vowels preceding these consonants and word-medial coda consonants with a shorter duration and lower pitch than they do vowels preceding word-medial onset consonants. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/


The 'Transforming Feedback' pilot study aimed to explore the impacts of a form of feedback that was designed to engage users in the process of interpreting and re-visualising data about their home electricity consumption. This report describes the aims and methods of the study and outlines the system used to engage people with feedback about their consumption. The study was conducted between August 2013 and February 2014. The paragraphs below discuss some of the implementation of the research design and list the main themes that have so far emerged from the data analysis.

For a period of three weeks, twelve households were provided with equipment that measured the electricity consumption of their household and were asked to spend 5-10 minutes each day using an online software application that enabled them to view how their consumption varied minute by minute, label that consumption according to the activities or devices associated with it and test out different visualisations of the resulting information set. Following the three-week trial, participants were interviewed about their experiences and an analysis made of the digital trace left by their interactions with it.


This paper presents a new approach for power amplifier design using deep submicron CMOS technologies. A transformer based voltage combiner is proposed to combine power generated from several low-voltage CMOS amplifiers. Unlike other voltage combining transformers, the architecture presented in this paper provides greater flexibility to access and control the individual amplifiers in a voltage combined amplifier. In this work, this voltage combining transformer has been utilized to control output power and improve average efficiency at power back-off. This technique does not degrade instantaneous efficiency at peak power and maintains voltage gain with power back-off. A 1.2 V, 2.4 GHz fully integrated CMOS power amplifier prototype was implemented with thin-oxide transistors in a 0.13 mum RF-CMOS process to demonstrate the concept. Neither off-chip components nor bondwires are used for output matching. The power amplifier transmits 24 dBm power with 25% drain efficiency at 1 dB compression point. When driven into saturation, it transmits 27 dBm peak power with 32% drain efficiency. At power back-off, efficiency is greatly improved in the prototype which employs average efficiency enhancement circuitry.


OBJECTIVE
To compare performance of right- versus left-sided double-lumen tubes (DLTs) among infrequent users by evaluating the incidence and severity of hypoxemia, hypercapnia, and high airway pressures.

DESIGN
A retrospective, cohort study.

SETTING
A university hospital.

PARTICIPANTS
Ninety-eight patients undergoing left-sided DLT placement (53.9 +/- 21.2 years old) and 98 patients undergoing right-sided DLT placement (62.3 +/- 20.6 years old). Cases performed by thoracic anesthesia specialists were excluded.

INTERVENTIONS
The authors retrospectively reviewed electronic anesthetic records from a 2-year period to determine the incidence and severity of hypoxia (SpO(2) < 90%), hypercapnia (end-tidal carbon dioxide > 45 mmHg) and high airway pressures (peak inspiratory pressure >35 cmH(2)O) during one-lung ventilation via right and left DLTs.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Right-sided (n = 98) DLTs were almost exclusively used on the side contralateral to surgery by infrequent users, whereas left-sided (n = 98) DLTs were used for ipsilateral surgery one third of the time. Hypoxia lasted longer in left versus right DLTs, but the frequency of hypoxia was the same for each tube type among infrequent users. Hypercapnia and high airway pressures occurred more frequently with left-sided DLTs.

CONCLUSIONS
Left-sided DLTs are perceived to be safer because they may be less prone to malpositioning during lung isolation. However, the supposition that left-sided DLTs are safer than right-sided DLTs when intraoperative hypoxia, hypercapnia, and high airway pressures are used as criteria, even when these tubes are used by infrequent users, is not supported by the data.


We explore the varied uses of the uniform distribution on [θ − 1/2, θ + 1/2] as an example in the undergraduate probability and statistics sequence or the mathematical statistics course. Like its cousin, the uniform distribution on [0, θ], this density provides tractable examples from the topic of order statistics to hypothesis tests. Unlike its cousin, which appears in many probability and statistics books, this uniform is less well known or used. We discuss maximum likelihood estimators, likelihood ratio tests, confidence intervals, joint distributions of order statistics, use of Mathematica®, sufficiency, and other advanced topics. Finally, we suggest a few exercises deriving likelihood ratio tests when the range is unknown as well, or for the uniform on [θ − ρ, θ + ρ].


Indonesia recently announced that it would review its 67 bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Shortly beforehand, it had unsuccessfully challenged the jurisdiction of an ICSID arbitral tribunal in a claim for expropriation and other violations brought by the Australian subsidiary of a UK coal mining company (Planet Mining v Indonesia). The tribunal's decision found that consent to jurisdiction existed under the coal mining licences given by Indonesian authorities, but not under the wording of the 1992 Australia-Indonesia BIT. It found that the countries had only given a "promise to consent" rather than full advance consent to ICSID jurisdiction, meaning that Indonesia could still refuse consent subject to potential review through an inter-state arbitration procedure separately provided under the treaty. Further, as both countries remained party to the framework 1965 ICSID Convention facilitating enforcement of arbitral awards, another BIT provision for ad hoc investor-state arbitration (ISA) was also unavailable to investors.This paper critically assesses the arguments developed by the tribunal to reach this surprising interpretation of the Australia-Indonesia BIT. It also considers the potentially wide-ranging implications of the tribunal's reasoning given similar wording contained in many other treaties concluded by Australia, and (to a lesser extent) some other countries in the region such as Japan. Fortunately for investors, some of those treaties (including the Australia-Indonesia BIT) are now complemented by ISA rights contained in bilateral or regional free trade agreements (FTAs), or may soon be. However, in light of the tribunal's decision, Australia should clarify the scope of its other BITs, especially with countries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Other nations, legal advisors and arbitrators will also need to examine treaty wording and practice more broadly, which risks adding to growing costs and delays in ISA proceedings.


Migration is a widespread but highly diverse component of many animal life histories. Fish migrate throughout the world's oceans, within lakes and rivers, and between the two realms, transporting matter, energy, and other species (e.g. microbes) across boundaries. Migration is therefore a process responsible for myriad ecosystem services. Many human populations depend on the presence of predictable migrations of fish for their subsistence and livelihoods. Although much research has focused on fish migration, many questions remain in our rapidly changing world. We assembled a diverse team of fundamental and applied scientists who study fish migrations in marine and freshwater environments to identify pressing unanswered questions. Our exercise revealed questions within themes related to understanding the migrating individual's internal state, navigational mechanisms, locomotor capabilities, external drivers of migration, the threats confronting migratory fish including climate change, and the role of migration. In addition, we identified key requirements for aquatic animal management, restoration, policy, and governance. Lessons revealed included the difficulties in generalizing among species and populations, and in understanding the levels of connectivity facilitated by migrating fishes. We conclude by identifying priority research needed for assuring a sustainable future for migratory fishes.


This manuscript examines how to help more people learn to float because this skill is taking a much more central role in the latest drowning prevention advice in the UK. In 2017 BBC Radio Two show presenter, Simon Mayo, declared that he 'could not float.' Many persons in the UK identified with this claim. Despite having been an activity in many traditional swimming lessons floating is not a straight-forward skill for all to master. It requires a high degree of personal trust to have developed in the water. I discuss what learning to float fundamentally entails based on recent publications from the neuroscience of emotion and insights from my experience in the water with learners of all ages. I explore why very buoyant individuals can find floating as hard to perform as those who feel like sinkers. I suggest a few simple and reliable ways to gain deeper personal insight into how to help persons learn to float. In my view flotation is primarily based upon an internal state of emotional coherence in the water itself. Achieving this emotional state requires learners to explore calm 'stationary' being of existence in the water in pool settings.


Azathioprine, an analog of mercaptopurine, is used for various inflammatory/autoimmune diseases in diverse fields such as rheumatology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, and neurology. One of the dreaded side effects of this drug is myelosuppression, which can be either dose related or "idiosyncratic." The latter group often manifests with sudden cytopenias and is often secondary to a genetic predisposition. Mutations in the genes thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) and nucleoside diphosphate-linked moiety X-type motif 15 (NUDT15) have been identified to predispose to severe myelosuppression with azathioprine. An important clinical clue that can precede the onset of myelosuppression is alopecia. Here, we describe the case of a young lady treated with azathioprine, who developed alopecia (progressing to alopecia totalis), which was followed by severe cytopenia – both of which recovered on stopping the drug. On genetic analysis, she was found to be homozygous for mutation in NUDT15 (C415T) but was negative for mutation in TPMT. We review various other cases reporting alopecia as a marker of azathioprine-induced myelosuppression and the genetic mutations described.


In this work, we consider a parallel compressor model (PCM), which decomposes a compressor encountering non-uniform inflow into a distorted and an undistorted subcompressor, respectively, to determine its overall operating point. The main advantage of PCM modeling is a significantly reduced computational workload. At the same time, modeling errors are introduced, which need to be quantified together with model input uncertainties. Therefore, we introduce a probabilistic setting where unknown parameters are modeled as random variables. We carry out a global sensitivity analysis, which allows to reduce the complexity of the probabilistic model, by setting unimportant input parameters to their nominal values. This analysis attributes portions of the model output variance (the fan efficiency for instance) to particular input parameters or input parameter combinations, through so-called Sobol coefficients. We further include a parameter describing the PCM inflow averaging process into the analysis, which allows to determine the influence of specific modeling choices onto the predicted efficiency. Efficient sampling methods are needed to estimate the sensitivity coefficients with a reasonable computational effort. A key advantage of the global approach is that nonlinear effects are fully taken into account, the necessity of which will be demonstrated by our numerical examples. The model is also compared to CFD reference simulations to quantify structural model errors. This comparison is based on area validation metrics comparing the stochastic distribution functions of the probabilistic PCM model and the reference data.


It is well known that innovation law and policy must strike a balance between incentivizing inventions on the one hand, and granting monopolies to successful innovators on the other. In achieving this balance, it is commonly presumed that actors in innovation markets respond to their economic environments just like anyone else (at least on a first approximation). This paper presents evidence to the contrary, using a series of controlled experiments. In our experiments, subjects were offered a choice between (a) a monetary payoff with certainty; and (b) a riskier (but potentially more lucrative) option. Our principal manipulation was to alter how the latter option was framed: subjects in the control group were presented with an unadorned choice between safe and risky options, while subjects in the treatment group were confronted with the identical economic choice, but with the risky option framed as an investment in an "innovation-related" project. We find strong evidence that when the risky choice was framed in this way, subjects exhibited significantly less risk aversion, and that they did so across many variations on the experimental setting. We calibrate our results to an equivalent downward "shock" that the innovation-related frame introduces to subjects' manifest risk preferences. Our findings have implications for legal design questions, not only within intellectual property but also in other legal settings (such as venture capital) where the need to account for people's risk tolerance plays an important role.


ABSTRACT Molecular adaptation, as characterized by the detection of positive selection, was quantified in a number of genes from different human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) group M subtypes, group O, and an HIV-2 subtype using the codon-based maximum-likelihood method of Yang and coworkers (Z. H. Yang, R. Nielsen, N. Goldman, and A. M. K. Pedersen, Genetics 155:431-449, 2000). The env gene was investigated further since it exhibited the strongest signal for positive selection compared to those of the other two major HIV genes (gag and pol). In order to investigate the pattern of adaptive evolution across env, the location and strength of positive selection in different HIV-1 sequence alignments was compared. The number of sites having a significant probability of being positively selected varied among these different alignment data sets, ranging from 25 in HIV-1 group M subtype A to 40 in HIV-1 group O. Strikingly, there was a significant tendency for positively selected sites to be located at the same position in different HIV-1 alignments, ranging from 10 to 16 shared sites for the group M intersubtype comparisons and from 6 to 8 for the group O to M comparisons, suggesting that all HIV-1 variants are subject to similar selective forces. As the host immune response is believed to be the dominant driving force of adaptive evolution in HIV, this result would suggest that the same sites are contributing to viral persistence in diverse HIV infections. Thus, the positions of the positively selected sites were investigated in reference to the inferred locations of different epitope types (antibody, T helper, and cytotoxic T lymphocytes) and the positions of N and O glycosylation sites. We found a significant tendency for positively selected sites to fall outside T-helper epitopes and for positively selected sites to be strongly associated with N glycosylation sites.


Hospital list prices, contained in something called a chargemaster are insanely high, often running ten times the amount that hospitals routinely accept as full payment from insurers. Moreover, the relative level of a particular hospital's chargemaster prices bears no relationship to either the quality of the services the hospital provides or to the cost of the services provided. The purpose of these fictitious list prices is to serve as a starting point or anchoring point for negotiations with third-party payers regarding the amount that they will actually pay the hospital for its goods and services. Ironically, there is widespread agreement, even on the part of many hospital administrators, that the prices reflected on chargemasters are ludicrously high and are set in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Hospital administrators often argue that this does not matter because no one really pays chargemaster prices. In this contention, however, hospital administrators are mistaken. These insanely high chargemaster prices cause myriad problems throughout the healthcare system. For example, often self-pay patients are in fact expected to pay these exorbitant charges because many hospitals refuse to reduce their charges for many self-pay patients. As a result, debt collectors, often working on behalf of so-called charitable hospitals, hound many self-pay patients mercilessly, to the point of bankruptcy, in a usually futile attempt to collect these outrageous charges. In addition, chargemaster prices increase constantly and create upward pressure on pricing throughout the healthcare marketplace, resulting in overall higher prices. This is borne out by the fact that over the last ten years increases in the price for hospital care, along with price increases for drugs and medical devices and not intensity of service or demographic change, produced most of the increase in healthcare's share of GDP. High chargemaster prices is one of the reasons that healthcare in the United States is * Professor of Law and Business, Lehigh University. [Vol. 43: 745, 2016] Hospital Chargemaster Insanity PEPPERDINE LAW REVIEW 746 more expensive than any other developed country. Also, the chargemaster pricing system contributes significantly to a lack of price competition in healthcare, which exacerbates the problem. That is, the chargemaster system makes meaningful comparison-shopping by patients on the basis of price impossible because it all but eliminates price transparency, encourages complex and meaningless (to the patient) a la carte pricing, and contributes to rampant price discrimination. Creating a more competitive healthcare market is necessary in order for the United States to continue to provide the highest quality healthcare in the world. The chargemaster pricing system has been a significant factor in the destruction of the competitive market for healthcare. I argue here that the government needs to step in, not to take over responsibility for providing healthcare, but just the opposite, to eliminate the chargemaster pricing system and allow a more competitive market in healthcare to flourish, which will allow each individual to take greater responsibility for their own acquisition of healthcare goods and services. The purpose of the solution I argue for here is to empower individuals to force hospitals to compete on the basis of price and quality.


The only authorized book explaining the HomePlug networking standardsHomePlug is a growing technology for creating high-speed Power Line Communication (PLC) networks by transmitting data over in-home or in-office power lines. Users only need to plug adapters into wall outlets to create an instant network of computers, printers, routers, home entertainment devices, and appliance control systems.HomePlug AV and IEEE 1901: A Handbook for PLC Designers and Users provides for the first time an opportunity for non-members of the HomePlug Alliance to gain in-depth insight into the design and operation of the HomePlug standards. Offering a clear and simple description of the standards, this groundbreaking resource presents HomePlug AV and the associated IEEE 1901 standards in terms more readily understood by a much wider audience, including nontechnical managers, engineers, students, and HomePlug designers.The book details the many benefits of HomePlug AV, including:An affordable, secure alternative or complement to WiFiespecially in buildings where WiFi reception is poor or running new network wires is impracticalHigher potential data transmission rates up to 200 MbpsSupport for multimedia applications such as HDTV and VoIPThe book also provides an overview of the HomePlug Green PHY standard that is targeted for use in smart energy applications, and the HomePlug AV 2.0 standard that operates at up to 1.5 Gbps.An essential tool for designers of HomePlug devices, network administrators, and individual users of HomePlug networks who need to understand the features and capabilities of HomePlug, HomePlug AV and IEEE 1901: A Handbook for PLC Designers and Users will also prove useful for researchers in academia and the power line communications industry.


Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the second leading anxiety disorder. On the functional neurobiological level, specific brain regions involved in the processing of anxiety‐laden stimuli and in emotion regulation have been shown to be hyperactive and hyper‐responsive in SAD such as amygdala, insula and orbito‐ and prefrontal cortex. On the level of brain structure, prior studies on anatomical differences in SAD resulted in mixed and partially contradictory findings. Based on previous functional and anatomical models of SAD, this study examined cortical thickness in structural magnetic resonance imaging data of 46 patients with SAD without comorbidities (except for depressed episode in one patient) compared with 46 matched healthy controls in a region of interest‐analysis and in whole‐brain. In a theory‐driven ROI‐analysis, cortical thickness was increased in SAD in left insula, right anterior cingulate and right temporal pole. Furthermore, the whole‐brain analysis revealed increased thickness in right dorsolateral prefrontal and right parietal cortex. This study detected no regions of decreased cortical thickness or brain volume in SAD. From the perspective of brain networks, these findings are in line with prior functional differences in salience networks and frontoparietal networks associated with executive‐controlling and attentional functions. Hum Brain Mapp 35:2966–2977, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This study was carried out to assess the nutrient composition of some unconventional and local feed resources available in Senegal so as to use them as protein supplement sources in the diets of indigenous chickens to enhance their productivity. Ten (10) unconventional and local ingredients from Senegal including leguminous leaves (Leuceana leucocephala, Cassia tora, Moringa oleifera, Adansonia digitata, Sesbania rostrata), cucurbit (Citrullus vulgaris) and roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) seeds, red and white cowpea (Vigna unguiculata seeds) and cockroaches (Blatta orientalis) were collected, sun-dried, processed into meal and analyzed for their chemical and macro-mineral composition using internationally established procedures. The results showed that the samples Dry Matter (DM) percent ranged from 89.3% (red cowpea) to 94.9% (C. vulgaris). The Crude Protein (CP) content ranged from 24.7% (white cowpea) to 61.9% (cockroaches meal), with A. digitata leaves having the lowest value (12.9%). Citrullus and Hibiscus seeds meal recorded the highest (38.8% and 18.9%) Ether Extract (EE) values, followed respectively by cockroaches (11.1%), Moringa (9.8%), Leuceana (6.4%) and Sesbania leaves meal (5.1%), while the others were below 4.5%. The crude fiber (CF) content was globally high in the leaves, ranging from 11.7% (M. oleifera) to 16.8% (C. tora) while that of seeds and cockroaches ranged from 1.9% (white cowpea) to 19% (Citrullus seeds). A. digitata leaves gave the highest ash content (25.2%), followed by Cassia (15.2%), Moringa (13.6%), Leuceana (11.4%) and Sesbania leaves (7.1%), while the others were below 5.6%. The metabolizable energy (ME) value calculated for seeds and cockroaches meal ranged from 3161 kcal/kg DM (cockroaches) to 4270 kcal/kg DM (C. vulgaris) and that of leaves from 1873 (A. digitata) to 2888.9 kcal/kg DM (M. oleifera). Cassia leaves contained the highest level of calcium (3.1%), followed by Adansonia and Leuceana (1.81%), Moringa and Sesbania leaves (1.41%), whilst cockroaches, Hibiscus and Citrullus seeds meal recorded respectively 0.93, 0.81 and 0.55% of phosphorus. These results showed that all the ingredients samples contained appreciable quantities of all dietary nutrients tested for which more or less make them partial or complete substitutes for the conventional feed sources.


Assessment and Accreditation of Prior Learning systems are now widely used in colleges to open up access for potential students by harnessing their prior learning, knowledge and skills. But one major issue, language and literacy, has not yet been adequately addressed, and our education system still presents many barriers for non-native speakers of English. This book focuses on practical and pro-active ways of approaching these problems using case studies and examples throughout. The various chapters cover: * Ways of resourcing and implementing APL systems * The implications this has for staff development * Methods for assessing prior linguistic ability and accrediting qualifications gained overseas * The role of the guidance advocate worker * The TDLB APL assessor and advisors award * Recent developments within Europe and how these affect National Vocational Qualifications and the current APL systems


Background:
This poster considers one of three overriding themes from my PhD. The study considered how women engage with the 'modern birth story' and grew from a sense that the way we talk about birth must surely impact on our expectation and experience of birth.
Purpose/Objective:
To consider how engaging with stories of birth influenced expectations and experiences of childbirth for two generations. Birth stories encompassed personal oral stories as well as media representations of contemporary childbirth.
Method:
A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was taken; participants were purposively selected and recruited. In phase one 10 primigravid women were interviewed raising questions about whether information gleaned from media/virtual birth story mediums creates meaningful knowledge. In phase two interviews with 10 women pregnant in the 1970s – 1980s were conducted to determine whether women from a different era were more
able to translate knowledge into meaning when stories were mediated by personal contact and not though virtual technologies.
Key Findings:
Emergent meanings and understandings were unconcealed in three alethia chapters (Heidegger, 1962).
1. 'Stories are difficult like that'
2. 'It's a generational thing'
3. 'Birth in the twilight of certainty'
Discussion:
'Birth in the Twilight of Certainty' explored women's experience of being in ' the system' of birth and on the 'conveyor belt of care'. In this space birth was understood as a 'technological feat', a process imbued with potentially disastrous consequences for women and birth. In a risk averse, safety and consumer orientated, and technological 'world of birth', women reported feeling an onus to be seen as both ' good patients' and 'good parents'; relentlessly seeking out information to manage their anxieties and demonstrate competency. Despite the information and stories at their disposal women were lacking in birthing 'know how'; having little understanding of physiological birth and lacking belief in their bodies to
birth.
References:
Heidegger, M. (2012). Being and time (J. McQuarrie, E. Robinson Trans.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.


Pseudolipomatosis of the colon is a rarely described benign condition that is characterized histologically by the presence of multiple vesicles containing air, in the wall of the large intestine. It is believed that this disease has iatrogenic origin, caused by air infiltration through the colon mucosa during endoscopic procedures. The objective of the present report was to present a case of pseudolipomatosis of the colon that was confirmed by histopathological studies. Case report: A 74-year-old woman underwent colonoscopy to investigate anemia. She had been complaining about cyclical rectal bleeding during evacuations, weight loss and anemia. The endoscopic examination did not show any abnormalities in the colon and only showed the presence of a single hemorrhoid, which at the time of examination presented signs of recent bleeding. Three weeks after this examination, she underwent elastic ligation of the hemorrhoid. While carrying out this procedure, a whitish yellow raised area was found in the intestinal mucosa. It was approximately 4 cm in diameter and was located on the posterior wall of the rectum at a distance of 13 cm from the anal margin. It had not existed at the time of performing the colonoscopy. The altered region of the mucosa and the elastic ligation of the hemorrhoid were biopsied. Histopathological examination showed the presence of large numbers of vacuoles of varying diameters and sometimes confluent, located in the intestinal wall layer itself. The appearance mimicked adipose tissue. The presence of a longitudinal connection allowing communication between the vacuolized region and the surface of the colon mucosa was noted. Histochemical and immunohistochemical techniques for detecting fat inside the vesicles gave negative results, thus allowing the diagnosis of pseudolipomatosis of the colon. After the elastic rubber band ligation, the patient did not present any further rectal bleeding and recovered from the anemia. Conclusion: Although pseudolipomatosis of the colon is rare, it is a condition that may be found after performing endoscopic procedures in the colon.


Firm performance is something that is produced by a company in a certain period with reference to the standard set. The performance of hotel industry in Bandung tend to be sluggish and decrease performance. This happens because the hospitality business in Bandung City attracted many businessmen supported by an increasing numbers of domestic and foreign tourist visits every year. The purpose of the research is to determine the behavior of supply chain management and marketing ability to the company's performance directly or through the competitive advantage as a mediator This research is multivariate analysis with SEM PLS data processing. The study was conducted on 77 managers hotel taken using stratified random sampling technique. The results show that supply chain management practices have a positive effect on competitive advantage, but do not have influence on the performance. In contrast to marketing capability that has an influence on competitive advantage and firm performance. This study also shows that competitive advantage can mediate the relationship of marketing capability to firm performance, but can not mediate the supply chain management practices relationship to firm performance in the hospitality industry of Bandung City.


Craze initiation stress was measured in three-point bending isochronal creep tests on a series of entangled bimodal blends of polystyrenes of narrow dispersity, on three polystyrenes of broad dispersity, and on four blends of polystyrenes of broad dispersity. Crazing stress was found to increase rapidly with small additions of the higher molar mass component, quickly reaching a plateau. A simple model based on the weighted addition of the crazing stress contributions of the individual weight fractions obtained from an established piecewise linear crazing law was able to predict the crazing stress accurately in the bimodal blends using a power law exponent of 2.59 (90% CI [1.75–17.34]). In broad dispersity systems, in particular where short unentangled chains dilute the polymer, it was found necessary to modify the model using dynamic tube dilution theory. Dilution leads to a change in the entanglement length and hence in the molar mass at which transitions to disentanglement and chain scission crazing occur. With the improved model, crazing stress could be predicted even for the broad dispersity polymers with wide and bimodal distributions. This represents an opportunity for the molecular design of polymers by blending to achieve improved resistance to craze initiation.


The Gymnasium at Eretria is one of the best examples of a palaestra from the early Hellenistic period. This paper presents results from fieldwork carried out by the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece in 2015 and 2016 that yielded important new insights for the chronology, plan, and function of this complex. The building was constructed around 330–320 BCE as a palaestra with two differently sized courtyards. The courtyards were probably conceived for use by different age groups. The construction period of the palaestra coincided with the introduction of the ephebeia in Eretria. The palaestra was remodeled several times, with a particular focus on improving its bathing facilities, and was finally abandoned around 100 CE when the ephebeia lost its importance.


Contrary to the long-received theory of FDI, interest rates or rates of return can motivate foreign direct investment (FDI) in concert with the benefits of direct ownership. Thus, access to investor capital and capital markets is a vital component of the multinational's competitive market structure. Moreover, multinationals can use their superior financial capacity as a competitive advantage in exploiting FDI opportunities in dynamic markets. They can also mitigate higher levels of foreign business risks under dynamic conditions by shifting more financial risk to creditors in the host economy. Furthermore, the investor's expectation of foreign business risk necessarily commands a risk premium for exposing their equity to foreign market risk. Multinationals can modify the profit maximization strategy of their foreign subsidiaries to maximize growth or profits to generate this risk premium. In this context, we investigate how foreign subsidiaries manage their capital funding, business risk, and profit strategies with a diverse sample of 8,000 matched parents and foreign subsidiary accounts from multiple industries in 38 countries.We find that interest rates, asset prices, and expectations in capital markets have a significant effect on the capital movements of foreign subsidiaries. We also find that foreign subsidiaries mitigate their exposure to foreign business risk by modifying their capital structure and debt maturity. Further, we show how the operating strategy of foreign subsidiaries affects their preference for growth or profit maximization. We further show that superior shareholder value, which is a vital link for access to capital for funding foreign expansion in open market economies, is achieved through maintaining stability in the rate of growth and good asset utilization.


The 2016 presidential election brought forth new disputes concerning the definition of a "natural born citizen." The most significant challenges surrounded the eligibility of Senator Ted Cruz, born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother. Administrative challenges and litigation in court revealed deficiencies in the procedures for handling such disputes. This paper exhaustively examines these challenges and identifies three significant complications arising out of these disputes.First, agencies tasked with administering elections and reviewing challenges to candidate eligibility often construed their own jurisdiction broadly, but good reasons exist for construing such jurisdiction narrowly given ample political and legal opportunities to review candidates' qualifications. while litigation in federal court usually led to swift dismissal on a procedural ground, challenges in state proceedings sometimes led to broad — and incorrect — pronouncements about the power to scrutinize the eligibility of presidential candidates. Third, decision makers repeatedly mused about how useful it would be if the Supreme Court offered a clear definition of a "natural born citizen." This suggests that executive and judicial actors are uncomfortable with non-federal judicial resolution of a constitutional claim like this one.Finally, this Article offers a recommendation. After three consecutive presidential election cycles with time-consuming and costly litigation, it may well be time to amend the Constitution and abolish the natural born citizen requirement. Amending the Constitution is admittedly no simple task. But perhaps an uncontroversial amendment would find broad support in order to avoid delays and legal challenges seen in recent presidential primaries and elections.


In the present work, bottom-gate top-contact organic field effect transistors (OFETs) were fabricated by evaporating a pentacene semiconductor film on top of a new insulating poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) copolymer containing methacrylate units. The PMMA copolymer was synthesized in order to combine the well-known insulating properties of PMMA with the possibility to be efficiently photocured enabling photopatterning-based organic circuitry integration processes. The properties of the pentacene layer deposited on ITO/PMMA copolymer stack were studied through morphological and structural analyses. Device photoresponses and photoexcitated transients were investigated and compared to reference devices based on standard PMMA gate dielectric.


This book is planned to publish with an objective to provide a state-of-the-art reference book in the areas of advanced microwave, MM-Wave and THz devices, antennas and systemtechnologies for microwave communication engineers, Scientists and post-graduate students of electrical and electronics engineering, applied physicists. This reference book is a collection of 30 Chapters characterized in 3 parts: Advanced Microwave and MM-wave devices, integrated microwave and MM-wave circuits and Antennas and advanced microwave computer techniques, focusing on simulation, theories and applications. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the components and devices used in microwave and MM-Wave circuits, including microwave transmission lines, resonators, filters, ferrite devices, solid state devices, transistor oscillators and amplifiers, directional couplers, microstripeline components, microwave detectors, mixers, converters and harmonic generators, and microwave solid-state switches, phase shifters and attenuators. Several applications area also discusses here, like consumer, industrial, biomedical, and chemical applications of microwave technology. It also covers microwave instrumentation and measurement, thermodynamics, and applications in navigation and radio communication.