The distribution of the parton content of nuclei, as encoded via the generalized parton distributions (GPDs), can be accessed via the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) process contributing to the cross section for leptoproduction of real photons. Similarly to the scattering of light by a material, DVCS provides information about the dynamics and the spatial structure of hadrons. The sensitivity of this process to the lepton beam polarization allows to single-out the DVCS amplitude in terms of Compton form factors that contain GPDs information. The beam spin asymmetry of the $^4$He($$\vec {\mathrm e}$$,e$$' \gamma ^4$$He) process was measured in the experimental Hall B of the Jefferson Laboratory to extract the real and imaginary parts of the twist-2 Compton form factor of the $^4$He nucleus. The experimental results reported here demonstrate the relevance of this method for such a goal, and suggest the dominance of the Bethe-Heitler amplitude to the unpolarized process in the kinematic range explored by the experiment.


17-hydroexemestane is the major metabolite of exemestane in vivo. Previous studies have shown that 17-hydroexemestane is androgenic and bone protective. Due to structure similarities, we hypothesized that, like exemestane, 17-hydroexemestane is an inhibitor of aromatase (CYP19). Our aim was to assess the potency (IC50) of 17-hydroexemestane toward CYP19 inhibition, and to determine the specific CYPs responsible for 17-hydroexemestane metabolism. Using recombinant human CYP19, we investigated the ability of exemestane and 17-hydroexemestane to block the formation of estradiol from testosterone. We found that 17-hydroexemestane potently inhibited aromatase. IC 50 values for the inhibition of CYP19 by exemestane and 17-hydroexemestane were 1.5 μM and 3 μM, respectively. Furthermore, using recombinant human P450s, human liver microsomes, and HPLC analytical techniques, we identified one major metabolite (MIII) of 17-hydroexemestane in the human liver microsomal incubate. In a bank of 15 well-characterized HLMs, MIII formation rate was significantly correlated with the activity of CYP3A (rs= 0.78, p=0.001).In a panel of baculovirus-expressed CYP enzymes, only CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 catalyzed MIII formation at the highest rate. In sum, these in vitro data suggest that 17-hydroexemestane is a potent inhibitor of CYP19 and that CYP3A plays a major role in its metabolism. Whether genetic polymorphisms and drug interactions involving these enzymes may contribute to the disposition and action of 17-hydroexemestane in breast cancer patients remains to be elucidated.


The paper describes an on-going research that explores improvement schemes on the regulatory framework that will facilitate the implementation of reconstruction after disasters in New Zealand. There is evidence suggesting that the existing regulatory provisions may cause procedural constraints, loss of pragmatism on the part of disaster practitioners, improper coordination arrangements coupled with unclear inter-agency responsibilities, which may eventually hinder the achievement of effective reconstruction programmes. The research focus and methodology are presented, to give an insight into the opportunities for research that will proffer best practice guidelines for achieving reconstruction objectives through appropriate regulatory frameworks.


Drawing on a number of recent research studies, this article evaluates the process of implementation of a more student-centred task-oriented approach to English language teaching in Hong Kong primary schools. The reform, essentially a top-down system-level initiative strongly influenced by curriculum developments in the UK and Australia, called for sweeping changes to existing learning and teaching practices by promoting whole-person development, task-based syllabus design, criterion-referenced assessment and pair and group work. The article presents an analysis of the various stages of the curriculum decision-making process – from the intended curriculum as manifested in policy documents; through to the resourced curriculum, as exemplified in commercially published textbook resources; to the implemented curriculum – what teachers teach – and the experienced curriculum – what students learn. The article shows how the reform was progressively reinterpreted by the various stakeholders, resulting in a hybrid and evolving set of accommodations to local cultures which ultimately may be assimilated by them. The article identifies the key factors which have caused this slippage, including conflicting or unclear expectations, attitudes and beliefs at all levels, as well as a lack of real understanding of the established pedagogical cultures, and concludes with some implications for teaching, teacher education and curriculum innovation.


The purpose of this study was to obtain the concentration of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and the appropriate concetration of ethanol with a mixture of waste cooking oil to formulate the semi-solid ethanol as an alternative for house hold fuel. The research was carried out by using completely randomized design (CRD) with factorial design. The first factor is the concentration of NaOH (12, 13, 14, and 15%), and the second factor is the concentration of ethanol (85, 90, and 95%). Results of analysis of variance showed interaction of ethanol concentration and the addition of NaOH concentration significanly affected the degree of acidity (pH) and the calorific value. The addition of different concentrations of ethanol, significantly affected on burning residue, calorific value, and heat transfer. The addition of different concentrations of NaOH significantly affected on viscosity, acidity (pH), burning residue, calorific value and heat transfer. At the beginning of the burning, flame color changed from blue to yellowish blue,, then to yellow flame before the flame extinguished. The best formulation of semi-solid ethanol is treatment A2B3 whic shows a viscosity of 19,500 cP, the calorific value of 22,519 J/g and 45.34% combustion residues.


Aim/Purpose: The integration of knowledge through the transdisciplinary method with the three concepts civilization, ideology, and geopolitics (CIG) enables the analysis of international relations in a new perspective and the informing strategists of countries, organizations, analysts, clients, etc. These three concepts express the transdisciplinarity that offers a new theoretical explanation and the informing science approach.

Background: The integration of knowledge using the three concepts for the analysis of international relations has found adequate explanations from 1890 until the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the CIG model theoretically and practically finds support for more than a century, as argued in the paper.

Methodology: The present paper uses a mixed theory based on transdisciplinary methodology and informing science. The literature was reviewed to find and build the theoretical basis and provide appropriate examples. The theory is also based on the model used by Francis Fukuyama in his books on building and dissolution of states (middle-range theory).

Contribution: This paper enables the rethinking of the limitations of research on a theoretical and practical basis that is done in many scientific circles, not to eliminate others but to enrich science even more.

Findings: In the paper, the main findings are the following:

Integrating the three CIG concepts according to the transdisciplinary method offers a new perspective to explain international relations using the IS method;

The integration of the three concepts is worthwhile after 1980, when the model of cabinet governments falls, Bismarck falls, and public opinion starts to emerge;

It was after 1980 that theories of civilization and geopolitics began to emerge along with ideologies to apply in practice;

These three concepts offer explanations based on a CIG zone and in the periphery of the CIG zone. In the CIG zone the security sphere is more stable and long-term, while in periphery the cooperation is temporary and not long termed;

The paper shows that the Cold War period is divided into two periods;

The paper also finds that CIG explains with examples the events that happened after the Cold War and until present days;

The paper also shows, based on the strategies of the superpowers, how they are extending their influence based on the CIG concepts.

The paper also shows new patterns of cooperation and clashes between the superpowers' security zones, which also provide an explanatory perspective for the USA withdrawal from Afghanistan. (We do not talk in the paper about the Afghanistan issue and USA withdrawal).

Recommendation for Researchers: Scientific attributes in the integration of knowledge give researchers a more open and comprehensive perspective to make more accurate and practical analyses of international relations. According to this model, other theories are enriched that use the transdisciplinary method, IS, and the CIG as a model for the integration of knowledge.

Future Research: Researchers and practitioners of this CIG model can find answers such as "Why did the USA fail in Afghanistan and why was it successful in Kosovo?" as well as other questions about finding a solution for Iraq, cooperation with China, etc.


Begonia is one of the largest angiosperm genera, with 1400 species currently recognised. These were placed into 63 sections in the most recent taxonomic treatment. However, there is considerable uncertainty in both section inter-relationships and sectional composition, and there is no formalised phylogenetic hypothesis for the genus. Using the nuclear internal transcribed spacers (ITS) and partial large subunit (26S) sequences of ribosomal DNA, I have produced phylogenetic trees to form the basis of a cladistic framework for the interpretation of the evolution and sectional level systematics of Begonia. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and minimum evolution cladograms were produced for 35 Begonia, one Symbegonia and two Datisca species, for partial 26S, ITS and combined sequence data. The results of the analyses suggest that African taxa are basal in Begonia, but that there is not sufficient information to elucidate the precise relationships among these basal lineages. The genus Symbegonia is nested deeply within Begonia. A far larger data set was constructed by sequencing the ITS region for 153 species. Different alignment methods (automated, elision and manual) were tested on these sequences, as were different search strategies. The topology which was taken to be the best estimate of the ITS phylogeny of Begoniaceae was constructed using manual alignment, culled of ambiguous regions, and adjusted to reflect the topologies of smaller, localised, compartment analyses. In the resulting tree, the African species of Begonia resolve as paraphyletic, with both Asian species (including Socotra) and American species (sister to southern African species) monophyletic. Comparisons were made between the ITS sequence data and trees produced from the chloroplast trnC - trnD inter-genic spacer. Parsimony analyses of trnC - trnD sequences support African taxa as basal in Begonia] however, in contrast to the ITS data, trnC - trnD suggests polyphyly / paraphyly of American taxa, albeit with little bootstrap support. A morphological data matrix (67 characters for 159 taxa) did not produce a phylogenetic hypothesis for Begonia that was congruent with any other available data. Using a combined morphology - ITS analysis, the fit of individual morphological characters to a fundamental tree was examined. Some characters fitted the combined topology well, although some of the characters which have traditionally been considered important in Begonia taxonomy (e.g. the number of placental branches) proved misleading. The ITS tree was used as a framework for reviewing chromosome evolution in the genus (604 published counts from 239 species). In contrast to sequence divergence, which was greatest among African species, chromosome number diversity was greatest among American species. The correlation between phylogenetic relationships implied by the ITS tree and the geographical distributions of species was explored to obtain biogeographic hypotheses which may explain the present-day distribution of Begonia. As a general rule, related species are geographically proximal, suggesting limited dispersal of lineages. This finding contradicts observations made on morphology, where the close affinities of morphologically disparate (but geographically proximal) taxa were previously unsuspected. Mechanisms responsible for the evolution of large genera were discussed, and Willis' 'age and area' hypothesis compared to the 'relict' hypothesis of Cronk. In Begonia, the morphological diversity of the genus, and most of the species, are encompassed among the putatively derived lineages, favouring the 'relict' hypothesis.


textabstractWe estimate the impact of health and financial incentives on the retirement transitions of older workers in Spain. Individual measures of pension wealth, peak and accrual values are constructed using labor market histories and health shocks are derived as changes in a composite health stock measure over time. We examine labour market exits into both old age retirement and a broader definition of retirement including inactivity, while controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that pension wealth, accrual and peak value are significant determinants of retirement decisions, although their effect is weaker in the case of the broad definition of retirement. Initial health stock shows a significant impact on both definitions of retirement. Only large negative health shocks have a significant effect on the probability of entering the broader definition of retirement. Unlike previous literature, we find that (i) financial incentives, when measured adequately, exert a greater impact on retirement behaviour than health shocks, and (ii) initial health stock plays a more important role than health shocks in determining retirement decisions. We also perform simulations of a recently enacted reform of pension incentives and show how its expected effects compare to those of health improvements.


Located about 24 km from the Red Sea, the Abou Dabbab region is characterized by significant microseismic activity. The seismic history of this region is marked by two moderate magnitude earthquakes, the 12 November 1955 Mb 6.1 and the 2 June 1984 Mb 5.1. The 1955 Mb 6.1 earthquake was the largest recorded event to occur within Abou Dabbab. Woodward Clyde Consultants (1982) computed the first-motion focal mechanism for the 1955 event. The mechanism has a strike-slip faulting solution with a normal dip-slip component. The T -axis has a NNW trend. The two nodal planes that were determined for this event give NNW to NW and ENE to ESE strike directions. Earthquakes in the Abou Dabbab region have shown a tendency to cluster in space and time (Morgan et al. 1981).

This pattern suggests that the activity seems to have been mainly controlled by local sources ( e.g. , magmatic intrusion) triggered in turn by regional tectonics (Badawy et al. 2008). The heat flow value in Abou Dabbab is twice the average heat flow value in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Morgan et al. 1985). El Hady (1993) reported from the distribution of earthquake's focal depths and rheological studies that the brittle-ductile transition in the Abou Dabbab area occurs at a relatively shallow depth range (∼9–1. km). The existence of the brittle-ductile transition in this region can be attributed to shallow asthenospheric intrusion, which causes an increase in the temperature.

Recordings of microearthquakes in Abou Dabbab from 1 August to 20 August 2004 from 11 portable instruments show that this region is distinguished by intense spatial clustering (Figure 1A). The error estimated in both horizontal distance and depth is less than 0.3 km (Hussein et al. 2008). The cross-section perpendicular to the activity reflects two main spatial clusters with a …


Objective Numerous studies have shown that a substantial number of patients suffer from adverse events (AEs) as a result of hospital care. However, specific data on AEs in acute cardiac care are scarce. The current manuscript describes the development and validation of a specific instrument to evaluate patient safety of a predefined care track for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Design Retrospective patient record review study. Setting and participants A total of 879 hospital admissions treated in a tertiary care centre for an AMI (age 64±12 years, 71% male). Main outcome measure In the first phase, the medical records of patients with AMI warranting coronary angiography or coronary intervention were analysed for process deviations. In the second phase, the medical records of these patients were checked for any harm that had occurred which was caused by the healthcare provider or the healthcare organisation (AE) and whether the harm that occurred was preventable. Results Of all 879 patients included in the analysis, 40% (n=354) had 1 or more process deviation. Of these 354 patients, 116 (33%) had an AE. Patients with AE experienced more process deviations compared with patients without AE (2±1.7 vs 1.5±0.9 process deviations per patient, p=0.005). Inter-rater reliability in assessing a causal relation of healthcare with the origin of an AE showed a κ of 0.67 (95% CI 0.51 to 0.83). Conclusions This study shows that it is possible to develop a reliable method, which can objectively assess process deviations and the occurrence of AEs in a specified population. This method could be a starting point for developing an electronic tracking system for continuous monitoring in strictly predefined care tracks.


Field, structural, kinematic, and deformation temperature analyses were conducted on rocks from the Lhagoi Kangri gneiss dome (southern Tibet) in order to establish the geologic history of the dome, identify major phases of deformation within the dome, and to relate these phases of deformation to the tectonic evolution of the Himalayan middle crust. The Lhagoi Kangri dome, one of a series of gneiss-cored domes in southern Tibet, records stratigraphy and structural features similar to previously studied north Himalayan gneiss domes. Field mapping reveals a sequence of rocks that comprise a cover of unmetamorphosed to amphibolite-grade siliciclastic and minor carbonate rocks overlying a core predominantly composed of foliated and lineated orthogneiss intruded by relatively undeformed granite, which also intrudes the cover rocks both concordantly and discordantly. Field observations and microstructural analyses suggest that the contact between the core and cover rocks was originally a nonconformity, but we do not rule out the possibility of subsequent slip along the surface, as has been reported for correlative structures in other domes. Lhagoi Kangri rocks were pervasively deformed during at least two major tectonic phases. The earliest deformation event (D1) resulted in shortening and thickening of crust, the record of which is largely eliminated, particularly in lower structural levels, by transposition and recrystallization during the second phase of deformation (D2). Ductile deformation during D2 is characterized at higher structural levels by crenulation cleavage that tightens with depth, while at lower structural levels D2 manifests as a distributed shear zone that records some evidence of both plane strain and coaxial flattening, possibly indicating overall heterogeneous general shear. The shear zone is ∼3 km thick and contains rocks with mostly symmetrical top-to-north and top-to-south shear sense indicators with a dominant top-to-north component at lower structural levels. Microstructural analyses and quartz c-axis fabrics indicate a range of D2 shear zone temperatures from 200 to 300 °C at the upper boundary to ≥630 °C at the lowest structural levels sampled with minimal evidence of lower temperature overprinting. The interpreted temperatures define a wide range in thermal field gradients (18–90 °C/km) that suggest that temperature indicators were locked in at relatively late stages of D2. The structural framework and kinematic history of the Lhagoi Kangri dome are similar to previously studied north Himalayan gneiss domes as well as to transects through the South Tibetan detachment system, which supports previous interpretations of structural continuity between the north Himalayan gneiss domes and other middle crustal exposures in the Himalaya. The Lhagoi Kangri distributed shear zone, in particular, may represent a deeper ductile manifestation of the South Tibetan detachment system.


This study is designed to examine Vietnam's attempts to reform its economic and legal system in order to accelerate its economic development and the challenges it is facing as a result of its membership of the WTO. The thesis revolves around the following central research question: How has the Vietnamese legal system responded to the challenges brought about by modernisation driven by this country's membership of the WTO and what improvements are needed in its legal system to ensure that this agenda of modernisation is reconciled with the needs of its people as well as with the demands of the international trade and the intellectual property protection agenda.

After a long period of negotiations Vietnam became the 150th WTO member on 11th January 2007. Like China, Vietnam has also been pursuing a policy of economic liberalization since 1986 while maintaining a socialist political system. On the road to economic development and prosperity for the people, Vietnam accepted many new obligations resulting from its WTO membership. Consequently, the country is now going through a period of breathtaking changes not only in
transforming the economy but also all aspects of its legal system.

By joining the WTO, Vietnam represents a unique case of an attempt to reform a centrally planned economy in order to transform itself into a system which was supposed to be compliant with the multi-lateral trading system led by the WTO, and based on the values of capitalism. The economic and legal transformation that Vietnam is going through as a result of membership to the WTO, and the nature and
scope of obligations that Vietnam was required to undertake to become a member of this world trade body, makes a fascinating case for study. While still maintaining a
single party political system, a huge transformation has been carried out in the legal framework of Vietnam in the past 20 to 25 years to bring the Vietnamese legal
system up to the international legal standards expected by foreign trades and investors interested in doing business with and in Vietnam.

Vietnam has finished its first few years with the WTO "machine" in operation and this country is now trying to progress with the same speed as with other WTO members. In order to deal with the challenges and to gain from the opportunities arising from its WTO membership appropriately, Vietnam is launching plenty of new initiatives in socio-economic policies and in the national legal system as well. However, the country is still facing many challenges concerning the integration of the main principles of international trade and economic law into a socialist legal system. It is in this context that this thesis examines the process of reform, its weaknesses and strengths, the merits and demerits of Vietnam's membership of the WTO with particular reference to the obligations arising from the international intellectual property regime, and proposes a set of recommendations designed to
better equip Vietnam to deal with the challenges ahead. The focus is on the strengths and weaknesses of various reform programmes undertaken by the country and the lacunae that still exist in its legal system.


ABSTRACT The war in Yemen has shown inconsistencies in European Union (EU) member states' arms export control practices: specifically, how they have applied international humanitarian law standards in their arms transfer decisions towards members of the Saudi-led coalition involved in the conflict. While such discrepancies are not new, the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty by all EU member states, including the United Kingdom (UK) at the time, has provided another framework for bringing these controversies into the spotlight. It has also provided non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the UK and France with further legal grounds to challenge the legality of these governments' arms exports to Saudi Arabia and to seek their compliance with their obligations in the field of arms trade. These actions are noteworthy in terms of the information they provide on states' arms export risk assessment procedures, on how to interpret and implement applicable legislation, and their possible impact on other countries' decision-making in the same domain.


A dearth of research studies has examined the psychosocial experiences of African American college student-athletes. By comparison, numerous studies have examined the adjustment process of African American students at predominately White institutions (PWIs). The literature shows African Americans have a difficult time adjusting at PWIs due to numerous factors, including general stressors (e.g. financial concerns) and race-related stressors (e.g. racial insensitivity by professors) (2004; Prillerman, Myers, & Smedley, 1989; Sedlacek, 1999). In regards to college athletes, research indicates that the structure of the campus environment challenges student-athletes' capacity to fit in and adhere to expectations regardless of their racial background (Cogan & Petrie, 1996; Ridinger & Pastore, 2000). Nonetheless, it is critical to understand how the campus environment at-large and within the sports context influence African American student-athletes' adjustment. In the current study latent profile analysis (LPA) was employed to better understand the adjustment of African American student-athletes based on perceived social support, perceived campus racial climate, team cohesion, and life events. Results indicated three profile groups of African American student-athletes emerged and can be used to predict college adjustment concerns and campus setting (predominately White institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Implications are discussed to offer athletic directors, coaches, and practitioners a means to capitalize on identifying facilitators of healthy adjustment, ensuring that the overall campus, and more specifically the sport environment, provides a safe, encouraging place for the success of African American student-athletes.


This quantitative research study explored the role of the school social worker in supporting parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Surveys were emailed to members of the Minnesota School Social Workers Association. Participants were asked to complete the survey if they worked as a school social worker and supported students with ASD. The survey investigated the impact of an ASD diagnosis on the parental stress and what role school social workers had in supporting parents' needs. The objective of this study was to gain a better understanding of the school social workers' role and identify what supports are being utilized and which are not. The three most common supports were connecting parents to community resources, acting as a liaison between school and home and emotional support. Respondents reported parents most frequently report stress relating to behavior, educational needs and lack of resources. Some respondents reported certain areas of stress in which they did not feel it was their place to provide supports such as parent support groups. These findings also uncover implications for future research. There is a need for more detailed research investigating the role school social workers have in supporting parents of a child with ASD. It is important to identify what stressors these parents are experiencing in order to develop best practice and interventions.


This case study provides some interesting insights and phenomena. It was observed that how monetary policy badly affected the poverty situation in Pakistan. This study covers three important aspects of the socio-economic changes in Pakistan in the recent past. First it describes the macroeconomic growth in the different political regimes. Second aspect of the study is to assess the poverty levels in Pakistan. In this part, we have compared the poverty in Pakistan with the selected countries and trends over the period have also been shown. Third aspect of the study is to identify the impact and contribution of monetary policy in poverty and income distribution.


For more than three decades, Andris Zoltners, now an emeritus professor at Northwestern, has been studying the best ways to organize and pay salespeople. The pioneer of sales analytics, he is the founder of one of the world's largest sales consulting firms and the author of six books on sales management. In this interview, he shares some of his insights with HBR. Companies make several common mistakes with sales compensation, Zoltners notes: over- or underincentivizing key products, setting quotas too high or too low, and underpaying top performers or overpaying people with good territories. Companies often get the proportion of incentive pay wrong, too, because they fail to account for "free sales"—residual sales they get nearly automatically. They may think they're paying 60% in salary and 40% in commissions, but if their salespeople have a lot of free sales, commissions could be closer to 15%. Overly complicated plans are also a problem. Some plans have different payments for dozens of objectives. That's too much; salespeople can focus on only four or five goals at most. Yet a bigger issue may be an overreliance on compensation in the first place, Zoltners suggests. There are other drivers of sales success—the people you hire, their managers, the design of territories. And while analytics are a useful tool, culture may prove to be an even better one


It is sometimes claimed that overseas development aid is wasted; that little of it reaches the poor. After fifty years of aid, there are still many poor countries, and about a billion people still live on less than a dollar a day. Can we conclude that aid is wasted? Owen Barder has a statistic that says otherwise.


Exposure of the plasma membrane phosphatidylserine (PS) on the extracellular face of the membrane has been considered a hallmark of an apoptosing cell destined to be removed as debris. Elliott et al. now suggest that, in a subset of T lymphocytes, PS may serve a regulatory role contributing to inflammatory responses and lymphocyte homing. Fluorescent annexin V, which binds to cell surface PS, was used to identify a subset of T cells that also had high amounts of PS on the surface; these cells were CD4+ and also had a low abundance of the transmembrane phosphatase CD45RB. A further connection with CD45RB was noted when cells were sorted by flow cytometry after stimulation of the ATP receptor P2X7, which revealed that only cells with low CD45RB responded to P2X7 activation with exposure of PS on the cell surface. Pharmacological inhibition of PS redistribution prevented proteolytic release of the homing receptor CD62L (CD62L shedding) in response to P2X7 activation. Using the C6 T cell clone, the authors showed that exposure of the cells to annexin V inhibited cell migration in vitro and in vivo, which suggests that cell surface PS may have a role in lymphocyte infiltration. Calcium and sodium uptake in response to P2X7 activation was blocked in the presence of inhibitors of the PS translocation enzymes. Thus, the authors propose that P2X7 stimulation triggers PS flipping, which is required for opening of the P2X7 channel, and that PS on the intracellular face of the membrane inhibits the channel activity of P2X7. Flipping of PS to the cell surface also correlated with P2X7-mediated inhibition of the multidrug transporter P-glycoprotein, and this effect was blocked by pharmacological inhibition of the PS translocation enzymes. Thus, PS appears to be another lipid in the membrane that can alter membrane protein activity and, in this case, the regulatory mechanism involves the repositioning of the lipid in the intra- or extracellular face of the membrane. J. I. Elliott, A. Surprenant, F. M. Marelli-Berg, J. C. Cooper, R. L. Cassady-Cain, C. Wooding, K. Linton, D. R. Alexander, C. F. Higgins, Membrane phosphatidylserine distribution as a non-apoptotic signalling mechanism in lymphocytes. Nat. Cell. Biol. 7, 808-816 (2005). [PubMed]


This national survey examined the nature of distance education at the 67 land-grant institutions in the United States as perceived by selected administrators. Several dimensions of distance learning including definitions and the available support services were examined. Data showed that in general: 1) administrators held several definitions for distance education; 2) a variety of services exist to support learners and faculty; 3) distance education has developed into an important element in the missions of universities and colleges; and 4) management of distance learning is a responsibility of individual colleges or departments offering distance learning. Distance learning has become an important element in the American education system. The evidence of this significant development is found in the increasing rate of learning that is occurring outside the traditional educational environment (Charp, 1998). Several factors have contributed to the noted growth in popularity of distance learning in recent years. Demographic changes, technological revolution, and a changing global economy are some of the contributing reasons (Gary & Kathleen, 1994). These factors coupled with information age have created a need for further learning that is geared towards acquiring new skills, polishing old ones or both. Thankfully distance education is becoming increasingly accessible to learners seeking learning opportunities. Adult learners who may find it difficult to fit in a regular traditional classroom are finding distance learning to be such a valuable resource. As a result a large number of adults throughout American are either enrolled in distance learning or have expressed a desire to participate in distance education (Gibson, 1992), a phenomenon that is likely to grow. Distance education is benefiting adult learners particularly well because unlike traditional learners they experience a variety of hindrances that sometimes discourages them from enrolling in traditional on-campus programs. Gibson (1992) cited areas such as employment conditions, travel assignments, advanced age, poor health conditions, and geographical inaccessible areas as some barriers faced by a great majority of adults in the United States. In the presence of distance education these situations may no longer dictate how and when adult learners will enroll in learning opportunities. Distance instruction is making it increasingly possible for adult learners throughout America to access the desired learning opportunities without having to leave their residence (Gibson, 1992). This phenomenon will most likely continue to grow as the American economy and lifestyles continue to evolve. This being the case, it is important for educators to investigate how the institutions delivering distance education are carrying out this important responsibility. This national study focused on this issue by examining the nature of distance learning from the viewpoint of administrators at the 67 land-grant colleges in the United States. These institutions are historically charged with the responsibility of implementing distance learning in the nation. For purposes of this study distance education was defined as courses or instructional programs that are taught outside the main institution either by the use of technology or faculty travel to instructional sites away from the main campus. Although this study did not specifically focus on adult learners, the researcher has attempted to delineate the possible ways in which adult learners could benefit from distance education offered through the land-grant colleges. Method Participants The population for this study was two administrators from each of the 67 land-grant institutions. These administrators were in charge of the general academic affairs (central administrators) and the university extension services. University extension administrators are usually responsible for the general administration of distance education at the land-grant colleges. …


The branded clothes worn through sporting and fitness activities confirm that any movement, practice or behaviour that seems transgressive of heteronormative masculinity and femininity is also implicated in neo/colonial incorporations and the casualized workforce that is a characteristic of sports clothing manufacture. In an environment washed by the marketing of opposition, resistance is both difficult to define and apply in cultural studies. This paper invokes 'the problem' of resistance while denying the seamless and simple determinations of positive and negative representations. The focus of study is Yogurt Activewear, a company attacking corporatized yoga wear by creating an anti-brand brand. They advertise their products as a combination of yoga and punk. The calm corporeality of asanas has now been clothed with threat and confrontation. Yet the cost of this resistance and defiance - the price of building an anti-brand ‑ is a loss in the complexity of yoga's pre/post/colonial origins.


Air pollution specifically referring to haze consists of numerous particles including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). These particles consist of various compound including phenanthrene (Phen) and chrysene (Chry). Both of these are among hazardous compounds which are found during the haze periods back in 1997 in Malaysia. This
situation had a great impact on health and also on the economic status of the country as well. In finding strategies and bringing about a remission of noxious haze effects in humans, acute and chronic exposure to Phen, Chry and their combination were studied in rats. The acute exposure studies were conducted to evaluate apoptosis in the lung of rats following with Phen, Chry and Phen+Chry. Rats not receiving any treatment served as control while those administered with Phen, Chry and Phen+Chry were instilled at the dose of 14.87ng (7.4mI), 7.07ng (3.5ml) and 21.94ng (10.9m1) respectively. Animals in control and treated group were euthanised at 1, 8 and 24 hours post instillation (p.i.). Apoptosis detection was made on H&E stained paraffin-embedded sections, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling analysis (TUNEL) and DNA laddering of lung samples. Selected proteases were also examined from lung lavage of all rats. Apoptosis were observed in pneumocytes and bronchial epithelium of rats euthanised at the specific time pj and the percentage of apoptotic cells increased with time, especially in 24 hours pj.which were highest for group especially the combination group (p<0.05). This was confirmed by TUNEL analysis and DNA laddering. As for proteases, there was also elevation in the content of total protein, number of neutrophil and level of elastase. This activity also showed increased with time as compared to normal. The chronic exposure study was conducted on changes in the lung of Phen, Chry and Phen+Chry. These rats were kept for three months to assess histopathologic findings,
immune response, level of marker enzyme, proteases and the effects of raw garlic as an anti-tumour factor. Rats from the control group, Phen, Chry and Phen+Chry were daily fed with commercial rat pellet while rats from garlic (G), Phen+G, Chry+G and Phen+Chry+G were fed with rat pellet mixed with garlic at the rate of 80 mg/kg body-weightlrat/day. From the observation rats from Phen, Chry and Phen+Chry group showed growth disturbances in pneumocytes and bronchial epitheliam including pulmonary mechanisms. Morphological changes including hyperplasia and metaplasia were among the finding in treatment groups. Necrosis was also detected in these groups. Rats induced with Phen and Chry particles showed a low level of IgG and IgA and alveolar macrophage activity in the lung. Furthermore, rats treated with these particles showed an elevation in glutathione-S-transferase and proteases activity. Rats treated with garlic had no significant lesions and marked elevation in pulmonary defense mechanism.
Lastly, acute and chronic exposure to environmental pollutants such as Phen and Chry incites injury to the lung. Garlic has shown to be a great potential in alleviating chronic injury induced by Phen and Chry in the treated rats.


Introduction: One of the ways that can improve scientifically the nursing care behaviors is Post-Registration Nursing Education and sttaf development process. To achieve this objective appropriate context Post-Registration Education must be provided for nurses. Currently, despite the legal requirement for continuing education for nurses, this goal has not been achieved as desired. To achieve this goal, the underlying cause should be investigated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore nurses' experiences of nursing continuing education context by a qualitative study. Methods: The study with a qualitative approach was conducted in 2011, 23 people from the Educational Supervisors, nurse managers and nurses with a purposeful sampling participated in the study. The data collected by unstructured interviews and field notes and were analyzed using conventional content analysis. Results: During the process of content analysis, participants explained three themes includeing: 1) insufficient attitude to the required training 2) inadequate support 3) Passive training monitoring and the main theme of the study was inadequate perception of their legal education. Conclusion: Currently, due to lack of motivation, support and effective supervision of Post-Registration Nursing Education nurses involved inactively in the learning process and continuing education is limited to the statutory approvals and business benefits of training for nurses and their organizations. So To improve this situation is required attention and good infrastructure Includeing adequate support and effective supervision.


Summary form only given. Until recently, data was gathered for well-defined objectives such as auditing, forensics, reporting and line-of-business operations; now, exploratory and predictive analysis is becoming ubiquitous, and the default increasingly is to capture and store any and all data, in anticipation of potential future strategic value. These differences in data heterogeneity, scale and usage are leading to a new generation of data management and analytic systems, where the emphasis is on supporting a wide range of very large datasets that are stored uniformly and analyzed seamlessly using whatever techniques are most appropriate, including traditional tools like SQL and BI and newer tools, e.g., for machine learning and stream analytics. These new systems are necessarily based on scale-out architectures for both storage and computation. Hadoop has become a key building block in the new generation of scale-out systems. On the storage side, HDFS has provided a cost-effective and scalable substrate for storing large heterogeneous datasets. However, as key customer and systems touch points are instrumented to log data, and Internet of Things applications become common, data in the enterprise is growing at a staggering pace, and the need to leverage different storage tiers (ranging from tape to main memory) is posing new challenges, leading to caching technologies, such as Spark. On the analytics side, the emergence of resource managers such as YARN has opened the door for analytics tools to bypass the MapReduce layer and directly exploit shared system resources while computing close to data copies. This trend is especially significant for iterative computations such as graph analytics and machine learning, for which MapReduce is widely recognized to be a poor fit. I will examine these trends, and ground the talk by discussing the Microsoft Big Data stack.


Wind fragility analysis provides a quantitative instrument for delineating the safety performance of civil structures under hazardous wind loading conditions such as cyclones and tornados. It has attracted and would be expected to continue to attract intensive research spotlight particularly in the nowadays worldwide context of adapting to the changing climate. One of the challenges encumbering efficacious assessment of the safety performance of existing civil structures is the possible incompleteness of the structural appraisal data. Addressing the issue of the data missingness, the study presented in this paper forms a first attempt to investigate the feasibility of using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and Bayesian techniques to predict the wind fragilities of existing civil structures. A numerical example of a multi-story shear frame is introduced with the wind loads derived from a widely used power spectral density function. Specifically, the application of the maximum a posteriori estimates of the distribution parameters for the story stiffness is examined.


Summary

In Europe and North America, there is growing concern that biodiversity declines associated with agricultural intensification will adversely impact the functioning and sustainability of agricultural ecosystems. Enhancing habitat heterogeneity in agricultural landscapes promotes biodiversity and, whilst erecting fences adjacent to watercourses is widely advocated as a means of mitigating diffuse pollution, associated biodiversity benefits have been largely overlooked.
A range of riparian margins and their adjacent grassland fields were investigated to determine the effects of riparian management on the diversity and functional structure of carabid assemblages. Carabid assemblages of fields and open margins (i.e. unfenced watercourses) were more diverse and species rich than those of fenced margins.
The functional structure of carabid assemblages in fenced margins differed from grassland fields and open margins. This disparity was greater in wide margins (i.e. fences erected over 5·4 m from watercourses) than narrow margins (i.e. fences erected within 2·6 m of watercourses). Wide margins had the highest relative proportions of carabids which had pushing body forms, were flightless, very small in size and Collembola specialists. During early summer, wide margins also had the highest proportion of carabids that overwinter as adults.
The taxonomic and functional structure of carabid assemblages was more sensitive for detecting impacts of agricultural management than measurements of diversity. It is likely that this also applies to other taxa, thus emphasising the need to consider a wide range of assemblage attributes when investigating agricultural impacts on biodiversity.
Synthesis and applications. Fenced riparian margins, particularly those over 5·4 m wide, harbour carabids with poor dispersal ability which are vulnerable to habitat fragmentation. While lack of management benefits sedentary species, a wider range of taxa (e.g. pollinators, foraging birds and flowering plants) are enhanced by management to obtain a more open vegetation structure (e.g. restricted grazing or mowing). It is important that management practices are implemented at a sufficiently fine spatial scale to allow recolonisation of species with restricted dispersal from adjacent undisturbed habitats. Wide riparian margins have the potential to enhance taxonomic and functional diversity at the landscape scale. Management actions must, however, be carefully balanced to ensure that they promote a wide range of taxa without unduly interfering with the margin's ability to mitigate diffuse pollution.


We construct a model of cell reprogramming (the conversion of fully differentiated cells to a state of pluripotency, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs) which builds on key elements of cell biology viz. cell cycles and cell lineages. Although reprogramming has been demonstrated experimentally, much of the underlying processes governing cell fate decisions remain unknown. This work aims to bridge this gap by modelling cell types as a set of hierarchically related dynamical attractors representing cell cycles. Stages of the cell cycle are characterised by the configuration of gene expression levels, and reprogramming corresponds to triggering transitions between such configurations. Two mechanisms were found for reprogramming in a two level hierarchy: cycle specific perturbations and a noise induced switching. The former corresponds to a directed perturbation that induces a transition into a cycle-state of a different cell type in the potency hierarchy (mainly a stem cell) whilst the latter is a priori undirected and could be induced, e.g. by a (stochastic) change in the cellular environment. These reprogramming protocols were found to be effective in large regimes of the parameter space and make specific predictions concerning reprogramming dynamics which are broadly in line with experimental findings.


In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, prison is commonly seen as the best means of dealing with offenders. There is little debate about alternatives to prison and little awareness of what kinds of individuals are actually incarcerated and for what offences; nor are their experiences of prison generally understood. The essays in this book range widely over these issues. The main focus is the British situation, but there is also discussion of alternatives – chain gangs, electronic tagging – experimented with elsewhere.

This book was produced in association with the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research at the Open University and with the support the Restorative Justice Programme of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.


This paper studies how the depreciation of sterling following the Brexit referendum affected consumer prices in the United Kingdom. Our identification strategy uses input-output linkages to account for heterogeneity in exposure to import costs across product groups. We show that, after there ferendum, inflation increased by more for product groups with higher import shares in consumer expenditure. This effect is driven by both direct consumption of imported goods and the use of imported inputs in domestic production. Our results are consistent with complete pass-through of import costs to consumer prices and imply an aggregate exchange rate pass-through of 0.29. We estimate the Brexit vote increased consumer prices by 2.9 percent, costing the average household £870 per year. The increase in the cost of living is evenly shared across the income distribution, but differs substantially across regions.


The emergence of microwave energy harvesting systems, commonly referred to as rectenna or Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems, has enabled numerous applications in many areas since their primary goal is to recycle the ambient microwave energy. In such systems, microstrip antennas are used as the main source for collecting the electromagnetic energy. In this work, a novel collector based on metamaterial particles, in what is known as a Split Ring Resonator (SRR), to harvest electromagnetic energy is presented. Such collectors are much smaller in size and more efficient than existing collectors (antennas). A feasibility study of SRRs to harvest electromagnetic energy is conducted using a full wave simulator (HFSS). To prove the concept, a 5.8 GHz SRR is designed and fabricated and then tested using a power source, an Infiniium oscilloscope and a commercially available patch antenna array. When excited by a plane wave with an H-field normal to the structure, a voltage build up of 611 mV is measured across a surface mount resistive load inserted in the gap of a single loop SRR. In addition, a new efficiency concept is introduced, taking into account the microwave-to-AC conversion efficiency which is missing from earlier work. Finally, a 9X9 SRR array is compared with a 2X2 patch antenna array, both placed in a fixed footprint. The simulation results show that the array of SRRs can harvest electromagnetic energy more efficiently and over a wider bandwidth range.


The history of Krupp is the history of modern Germany. No company symbolized the best and worst of that history more than the famous steel and arms maker. In this book, Harold James tells the story of the Krupp family and its industrial empire between the early nineteenth century and the present, and analyzes its transition from a family business to one owned by a nonprofit foundation. Krupp founded a small steel mill in 1811, which established the basis for one of the largest and most important companies in the world by the end of the century. Famously loyal to its highly paid workers, it rejected an exclusive focus on profit, but the company also played a central role in the armament of Nazi Germany and the firm's head was convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg. Yet after the war Krupp managed to rebuild itself and become a symbol of Germany once again--this time open, economically successful, and socially responsible. Books on Krupp tend to either denounce it as a diabolical enterprise or celebrate its technical ingenuity. In contrast, James presents a balanced account, showing that the owners felt ambivalent about the company's military connection even while becoming more and more entangled in Germany's aggressive politics during the imperial era and the Third Reich. By placing the story of Krupp and its owners in a wide context, James also provides new insights into the political, social, and economic history of modern Germany.


Changes in trade institutions, such as the abolishment of tariff barriers, have a potentially strong impact on economic development. The Zollverein, the 1834 customs union between German states, erased borders in much of central Europe. This paper investigates the Zollverein's economic impact through a study of urban population and its growth in the German state of Saxony. A model of the effect of market access on urban growth is combined with an extensive data set on town populations in Saxony and its neighbors as well as an improved distance measure based on GIS techniques, which take into account elevation patterns, roads, and rivers. The results show that Zollverein membership led to significantly higher growth for towns close to the border with fellow Zollverein member Thuringia. They also illustrate that natural resources affect town size but not the growth pattern after the Zollverein. The effects of changes in market access were reinforced through the impact on market access in other towns and they were stronger for larger towns as well. Migration was the predominant source of the differential growth pattern.


Background Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States. It is unclear how county-level primary care physician (PCP) availability and socioeconomic deprivation affect the spatial and temporal variation of breast cancer incidence and mortality. Methods We used the 1988–2008 public-use county-based data from nine Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) programs to analyze the temporal and spatial disparity of PCP availability and socioeconomic deprivation on early-stage incidence, advanced-stage incidence and breast cancer mortality. The spatio-temporal analysis was implemented by a novel structural additive modeling approach. Results Greater PCP availability was significantly associated with higher early-stage incidence, advanced-stage incidence and mortality during the entire study period while socioeconomic deprivation was significantly negatively associated with early-stage incidence, advanced-stage incidence, and mortality up to 1992. However, the observed influence of PCP availability and socioeconomic deprivation varied by county. Conclusions We showed important associations of PCP availability and socioeconomic deprivation with the three breast cancer indicators. However, the effect of these associations varied over time and across counties. The association of PCP availability and socioeconomic deprivation was stronger in selected counties.


Social classes' 'way we live' values remain a major influence on consumers' retail store choices, their brand choices for major durables, and their use of health services and pharmaceutical products. Social class, however, has been neglected in modern theories and research in consumer behavior, probably because of the difficulty of implementing a proper sociological measure of social class distinctions coupled with the realization that convenient sociodemographic measures of social class are not a valid substitute for the sociological measure. A new 34-item values-based measure of social class is presented in this article, called the Social Class Values Index (SCVI). The SCVI efficiently distinguishes the six traditional social-class strata that are based on attributed social prestige and contributes to the first known measure of the non–prestige-based, largely self-actualized 'X' class. The SCVI is interviewer-administered and is easily profile-scored from simple binary answers.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Current methods of monitoring and enforcement have made a substantial contribution to protecting the environment, but may not be so well suited to meeting future challenges. Those charged with environmental regulation are faced with an increase in the number of laws, which are applicable to a greater number of people. Given public sector finance constraints, we may have to devise new regulatory responses. There could be growing interest in whether satellite technologies could provide a cost effective legal tool in inspection and compliance regimes for next-generation environmental regulatory systems. Satellite monitoring of environmental laws is still more theoretical than applied, its use having largely been limited to detecting fraud in the agricultural sector. Understanding amongst European Governments of the potential of using satellites in regulatory strategies is insufficient at the current time, because the development of satellites has been almost exclusively technology led to date. There has been little communication between the space sector and those in the legal field as to the immense improvements that have been made in what satellites can see, and consequently development of applications for use in an enforcement context has been stifled. The lack of empirical evidence on operational experiences and costs available to regulatory bodies has meant that there has been a poor level of the use of satellite technologies in regulatory strategies, relative to its full potential. Australia has been using satellite data in a regulatory context for about ten years and there have been a significant number of cases where imagery has been used in the courts. Many lessons can be learnt from Australia which could be useful to regulatory bodies in Europe. This is particularly so because Australia has a federal legal system, so each State has a different experience of designing and implementing satellite monitoring programmes for vegetation clearance. The experiences of each of three States examined in this report throws further light on the operational effectiveness and cost of using satellite technologies in a regulatory context.


The article describes the social technology's role in the TCM attractiveness from the retailers' perspective. The exploratory research experience in Sweden during different periods between 2012 and 2016 includes contributions of the literature, direct interviews and analysis of the TCM's websites. The state-of-the-art of social commerce perception by managers and retailers is defined, and specific evidences are given through research. An interpretation of the concept of attractiveness of the TCM is presented to explain how social commerce could affect this property. Dissonance between opinions and statements of TCM stakeholders are discussed, and the will to use social commerce to increase opportunities for TCM is, in general, declared by retailers, but it is not realized in practice in management activities. A comparative empirical exploration between different countries could be conducted in future. This paper explores the actual situation in the use of website sustaining that the social commerce and the social networks are able to go beyond the supporting of commerce activity and they are able to support the TCM attractiveness and place attachment.


Tests of an unmanned airborne system (UAS) for surveys of marine mammals were conducted near Port Townsend, Washington. Sixteen surveys were conducted over a 10-d period to find 128 simulated whale targets (4 to 9 per survey). Various weather conditions were encountered, and searchwidths and altitudes were varied to establish optimal search parameters for future surveys. Logistic regression models were applied to estimate how detection rates were influenced by target color, degree of target inflation, shutter speed, searchwidth, and Beaufort wind force. Beaufort wind force was the strongest predictor of detection rates with color and degree of target inflation also included in the model that best fit these data. Overall detection rates of simulated large whale profiles using UASs were similar to published estimates of detection rates during manned aerial surveys for marine mammals, except the search area was much smaller (narrow strip width) when using the UAS. The best detection rates were obtained when Beaufort wind force was lowest (~ 2). The UAS tested showed promise for replacing manned aerial surveys for monitoring distribution and abundance of large marine mammals; however, improvements are required before the UAS would be an efficient tool for detection of all species. Side-by-side comparisons are needed between the UAS and manned aircraft to evaluate any differences in detection rates from the two platforms.


Food Connect (FC) is a food distribution company operating in Brisbane, Australia. Within the contemporary business paradigm it might be described as a company that is growing, to make a profit, receiving, packaging and distributing organic and eco-efficient food products to Brisbane's suburban homes. However, FC has brought together, through deliberate relationship, two significant and large systems; primary producer networks, and consumer networks. FC generates social and economic benefits into each system. The involved communities have identified a range of values, principles and concepts that inform the structures and decision making across many scales of practice. These enable a community owned and managed business structure to meet social, environmental , economic, education, health and wellbeing goals for individuals, households, farming systems, the environment and our localised economies. Quality of food, reliability of supply, value of supplied food and opportunity for enhanced social and community relationships are all benefits derived by consumer groups, while producer groups gain reliability and predictability of income, enjoy enhanced and direct feedback from discerning consumers and participate in local and extended communities. It is spiritual, practical, ethical and profitable. FC's existence can be understood as a set of political aims about the relationships between urban communities and primary producers; the treatment of animals and the environment; workplace relations; and the spiritual and ideological importance of clean, nutritious, quality food produce at accessible and equitable prices. However a threat to the achievement of these aims is patriarchy and associated positivist behavioural and social science ideologies, despite FC's development based on systems thinking. Defined gender role stereotyping, sexist assumptions and oppression of women in the workplace, prevail in all sectors of Australian culture and society. If reflective and purposeful processes to value and encourage the effective and safe participation of women is not fostered throughout FC's systems, FC is not likely to achieve its potential.
Eco-feminist goals suggest that it is imperative for local communities to harness and engage the responsiveness and energy of women to ensure social and ecological diversities survive. A merging of systems theory and non-assumptive, eco-feminist critique of the patterns and contexts, will reveal the prevalence of patriarchy which may be undermining FC's systems, and make suggestions as to how FC can use the knowledge generated from the evaluation. Feminist engagement in FC's continued evolution ought create future actions aligned with democratic, participatory and communitarian principles. This is a practical, real world example of systems and feminist theories grounding action in and for community wellbeing. Our experience has shown that a deliberate (eco)systems based process do not negate gendered structures and practices.


The software developer designing a security architecture for a distributed application is often faced with practical constraints that further complicate an already difficult task. These include limited resources and conflicting requirements. The goal will often be to simply provide as much effective security as possible, targeted at the end-user security needs. To achieve this goal, the developer must be able to systematically determine where security problems exist, understand the impact of security mechanisms as they are designed, determine which problems have and have not been addressed, explore alternative designs, and build on the architecture in the future.
Current approaches to secure system design do not meet these requirements. Although much is understood about many aspects of computer security, little attention has been given to the the issue of how to integrate this knowledge into a design process; of how to generate and maintain a security architecture in a systematic, predictable manner.
In this dissertation, this issue is examined in the context of a distributed information retrieval system. The security design problem is analyzed, defining and characterizing its underlying causes and the tools desirable to address it. This is followed by a classification and analysis of current security design approaches in relation to this problem, including a detailed case history of our efforts to employ risk management paradigms, demonstrating their strengths and limitations.
A new security design methodology is then presented, which provides the desired tools. All aspects of the application, supporting software, hardware, physical environments, and attack scenarios are modeled in a unified, object-oriented manner. An information flow analysis is applied to automatically discover security violations. Safeguards can then be modeled and added to the flow analysis to readily assess their effects and interrelationships. Although the developer must create the application-specific models, the remaining models such as those for the operating system, hardware, environments, and attack scenarios are application-independent, and can evolve over time to represent generic security knowledge bases. These can be utilized by any developer employing this design methodology, regardless of their security background.


A weight of evidence is a calibrated statistic whose values in [0, 1] indicate the degree of agreement between the data and either of two hypothesis, one being treated as the null (H0) and the other as the alternative (H1). A value of zero means perfect agreement with the null, whereas a value of one means perfect agreement with the alternative. The optimality we consider is minimal mean squared error (MSE) under the alternative while keeping the MSE under the null below a fixed bound. This paper studies such statistics from a conditional point of view, in particular for location and scale models.


Human activities, such as shipping, aquaculture, and the opening of the Suez Canal, have led to the introduction of nearly 1,000 alien species into the Mediterranean Sea. We investigated how human activities, by providing pathways for the introduction of alien species, may shape the biodiversity patterns in the Mediterranean Sea. Richness of Red Sea species introduced through the Suez Canal (Lessepsian species) is very high along the eastern Mediterranean coastline, reaching a maximum of 129 species per 100 km2, and declines towards the north and west. The distribution of species introduced by shipping is strikingly different, with several hotspot areas occurring throughout the Mediterranean basin. Two main hotspots for aquaculture-introduced species are observed (the Thau and Venice lagoons). Certain taxonomic groups were mostly introduced through specific pathways – fish through the Suez Canal, macrophytes by aquaculture, and invertebrates through the Suez Canal and by shipping. Hence, the local taxonomic identity of the alien species was greatly dependent on the dominant maritime activities/interventions and the related pathways of introduction. The composition of alien species differs among Mediterranean ecoregions; such differences are greater for Lessepsian and aquaculture-introduced species. The spatial pattern of native species biodiversity differs from that of alien species: the overall richness of native species declines from the north-western to the south-eastern regions, while the opposite trend is observed for alien species. The biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea is changing, and further research is needed to better understand how the new biodiversity patterns shaped by human activities will affect the Mediterranean food webs, ecosystem functioning, and the provision of ecosystem services.


Although occupational therapists emphasize a balance among the three occupational areas of self-care, productivity, and leisure in people's lives, leisure often is focused on less than the other areas in both the research literature and clinical practice. Very little research has been conducted on the benefits of leisure activities in adults with congenital disabilities. The information contained in this article is a secondary analysis of the interview protocols of nine adults (30-50 years of age) with either cerebral palsy or spina bifida. The primary purpose of the interview was to determine protective processes surrounding turning points in the lives of persons with disabilities. This secondary analysis allowed us to determine the benefits and meaning of leisure for this population. Consistent with literature that focused on either persons without disabilities or persons with acquired disabilities, the participants in the present study reported that involvement in leisure activity provides mental and physical health benefits, enjoyment, opportunity to develop a self-concept and increase self-esteem, and opportunities to build and enhance social relationships. All these benefits enable people to find meaning in life through doing, belonging, and understanding self in the context of their worlds.


The Fourth Asian Meeting on Ferroelectricity (AMF-4) was organized at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, INDIA during December 12–15, 2003. The organization of the conference was cosponsored by various agencies which included the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Defense R&D Organization (DRDO), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Materials Research Society of India (MRSI), Indian Institute of Science (IISC), IEEE UFFC (USA), Taylor and Francis Scientific Publishers, and the international journal FERROELECTRICS. AMF once again proved to be an international forum for the exchange of the latest scientific results. The conference was organized with 4 Plenary talks, 42 Invited lectures and about 350 contributed papers, as both oral and poster presentations, covering various topics on MEM devices, ferroelectric ceramics, crystals, thin films, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics, and some device applications. The conference started on December 12, 2003, with a formal inaugural function followed by the plenary talk by Prof. L.E. Cross who reviewed the trends in Relaxor ferroelectrics. On December 13, 14, and 15, there were other plenary talks delivered by Profs. R.E. Newnham (Piezocomposites), Yao Xi (Ferroelectrics glasses), and Dennis Pola (Piezoelectric MEMs for biomedical applications). On the last day (15 December) a special lecture was delivered by Prof. Amar Bhalla on microwave dielectrics. Each day there were technical oral presentations in 3 parallel sessions and one poster session exhibiting about 100 posters. The conference attracted significant attention on piezoelectrics, microwave dielectrics, and integrated ferroelectrics, while microwave tunability and FeRAM applications received relatively more attention. Overall, the conference attracted scientists involved in the research on ferroelectrics of various forms and prompted serious scientific exchanges. Finally I would like to thank all the members of the technical program and organizing committee, invited speakers from various countries, session chairs, delegates, reviewers of the technical papers, and various sponsors in particular, who made this conference possible and made AMF-4 most successful. I would like to thank all our students and senior researchers for their active participation in coordinating various activities of the conference and the editorial committee headed by my Co-Editors, Professor K.B.R. Varma and Professor H.L. Bhat, who spent sizable time and efforts in making it possible to publish these volumes of the Proceedings.


The city of Surium, mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Claudius Ptolemy among the ancient cities of Colchis, is localized in the village of Tsikhesoluri, where some archeological excavations have been carried out by the Ilia State University staff and students during the last two seasons. The excavations were resumed in 2014 and continued in 2015 as well. In 2014, a small area was excavated and the directions of the defensive buildings in the south of the city were established. At the same time, a looted tomb was discovered where some ceramic materials, including a Chersonesian amphora, were found. Several accidental discoveries were made by the villagers (including bronze bracelets dating from the 1st century BC, Roman plinths, etc.). A number of medieval pitchers were also unearthed.


Background: Overweight and obesity among preschool children has received worldwide attention, partly in response to concerns about the increasing prevalence of obesity globally and partly as a result of the association between childhood obesity and the long term increases in mortality and morbidity.

Aims & Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether obesity among preschool children in Bahrain was considered to be a real problem and to identify the risk factors contributing to overweight children.

Material and Methods: Data for 387 children on the prevalence of overweight and obesity were retrieved from local health centre's databases retrospectively. In this cross-sectional study, four different local health centers distributed across the country were randomly selected. The BMI-for-age references by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Z score references by World Health Organization (WHO)/ National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) were used to classify the weight status of the children.

Results: We examined 387 records of children from 3 to 60 months old, of which 15025 were registered within four health centers which were selected for this study. Based on the BMI percentile, 9.8% were at risk of being overweight, while 5.2% were considered obese. However, by using the BMI-for-age Z score; we found that 12.1% were at risk of being overweight and 2.6% were obese. Children's aged from 18 to 24 months reported the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity 6.1%, on the other hand children aged from 9 to 12 months were more at risk of being overweight 20.3%, p = 0.05.

Conclusion: The results in this study indicate that the prevalence of overweight and obesity among preschool children in the Kingdom of Bahrain is comparable to other countries such as Germany, China, and Kuwait.


We have carried out a systematic search for galaxy-scale strong lenses in multiband imaging from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. Our automated pipeline, based on realistic strong-lens simulations, deep neural network classification, and visual inspection, is aimed at efficiently selecting systems with wide image separations (Einstein radii θE ∼ 1.0–3.0″), intermediate redshift lenses (z ∼ 0.4–0.7), and bright arcs for galaxy evolution and cosmology. We classified gri images of all 62.5 million galaxies in HSC Wide with i-band Kron radius ≥0.8″ to avoid strict preselections and to prepare for the upcoming era of deep, wide-scale imaging surveys with Euclid and Rubin Observatory. We obtained 206 newly-discovered candidates classified as definite or probable lenses with either spatially-resolved multiple images or extended, distorted arcs. In addition, we found 88 high-quality candidates that were assigned lower confidence in previous HSC searches, and we recovered 173 known systems in the literature. These results demonstrate that, aided by limited human input, deep learning pipelines with false positive rates as low as ≃0.01% can be very powerful tools for identifying the rare strong lenses from large catalogs, and can also largely extend the samples found by traditional algorithms. We provide a ranked list of candidates for future spectroscopic confirmation.


he capital structure of co-operatives can differ from that of IOB (Investor-Owned Businesses) since the two organizations differ in their aims, governance structures and decision-making principles. This paper examines whether the determinants verified in IOB affect the leverage ratio of consumer co-operatives. Consumer co-operatives in South Korea have been rapidly growing during the last decade. There are two leading theories in finance that explain capital structure: the trade-off and pecking order theories. Focusing on consumer co-operatives in South Korea, the paper aims to analyze empirically what determinants have effect on the capital structure of consumer co-operatives and which of the two theories is more plausible. This study reveals that profitability and firm size have a significantly negative effect on leverage while tangibility and growth have a significantly positive effect on it. In conclusion, it seems that neither of the theories above perfectly accounts for the capital structure of consumer co-operatives because of the differences in governance characteristics between consumer co-operatives and IOB as well as in the costs of bankruptcy, agency, informational asymmetry and securities issuance.


Cell-mediated immunity (CMI) is central to the host response to intracellular pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). The function of CMI can be modulated by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 via its pleiotropic effects on the immune response, including modulation of macrophages, which are parasitized by both HIV-1 and Mtb. HIV-1 infection is associated with increased risk of tuberculosis (TB), and so in this thesis I sought to explore the host/pathogen interactions through which HIV-1 dysregulates CMI, and thus changes the natural history of TB. Using an in vitro model of human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), I characterise a phenotype wherein HIV-1 specifically attenuates production of the immunoregulatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-10 in response to Mtb and other innate immune stimuli. I show that this phenotype requires HIV-1 integration and gene expression, and may result from a function of the HIV-1 accessory proteins. I identify that the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway specifically regulates IL-10 production in human MDMs, and thus may be a target for HIV-1 to mediate IL-10 attenuation. I show that HIV-1 may attenuate IL-10 to maximise its own replication, and identify potential consequences of IL-10 attenuation for CMI. By using the tuberculin skin test (TST) as a human challenge model, I evaluate HIV-1 modulation of CMI in vivo in active TB patients, and demonstrate IL-10 attenuation in this context. I identify a role for type I inteferons (IFNs) in HIV-1 anergy, and observe exaggerated T helper 2 responses associated with the immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS). To fully explore CMI in vivo by transcriptional profiling, I utilize the transcriptional heterogeneity of stimulated macrophages to develop a modular analysis strategy for transcriptional profiles, and apply this in the TST model. My results delineate novel modulatory effects of HIV-1 on the function of CMI, and thus provide insights into immunopathogenesis in HIV-1/TB co-infection.


&NA; The Castle Rock Conglomerate contains distinctive clasts from the Colorado Front Range, and when combined with detrital zircon ages, the unit can be subdivided into two lithofacies. Precambrian quartzites and stretched‐pebble conglomerates from Coal Creek Canyon (to the northwest of the Castle Rock Conglomerate outcrop belt) and detrital zircons from Precambrian and Tertiary igneous rocks identify a northern provenance with detritus derived from tens of kilometers northwest of Denver, Colorado. A second source, composed of mainly granite from the Pikes Peak batholith, lies in the southern Front Range west of the Castle Rock Conglomerate outcrop belt. Both the north and west lithofacies can be mapped in the Castle Rock Conglomerate outcrop belt by using the presence (north) and absence (west) of Coal Creek Canyon quartzite clasts. This distinction is confirmed by detrital zircon ages. The north lithofacies dominates the present‐day, northernmost outcrops, but dilution and interbedding with west lithofacies increase as the southeast‐flowing basin axial paleodrainage meets piedmont tributaries that carried Pikes Peak batholith detritus from the west and southwest. The basin axial drainage transported coarse conglomerate southward about 120 km during Castle Rock Conglomerate deposition (36.7–34.0 Ma). The Precambrian quartzite exposed in Coal Creek Canyon is interpreted to be an important point source that can be useful in provenance studies of sediments shed from the Colorado Front Range. Additionally, detrital zircons from Laramide‐age igneous rocks show potential for improved stratigraphic resolution in Paleogene strata of the Denver Basin.


Proponents of the playa-lake model have proposed deposition of most of the Green River Formation microlaminated carbonates (including oil shales) in lakes that were not perennially stratified (meromictic). However, there is a variety of evidence favoring a meromictic depositional environment: (1) close similarity of much of the lamination to varves in modern meromictic lakes, (2) evidence that hydrologic events favoring development of meromixis (chemical stratification) occurred prior to deposition of major accumulations of oil shale, (3) mutually exclusive distribution of fossil nekton (especially fish) and normal lacustrine benthos (including mollusks), and (4) analogy with a Quaternary playa that became a meromictic lake following increased inflow.

The playa-lake model is untenable for the typical fish-bearing, kerogen-rich microlaminated sediments. These laminites were probably deposited in a large ectogenic meromictic lake—a chemically stratified lake that formed when increased fresh-water inflow "drowned" a saline playa complex.


In this paper, we consider the optical effects in conventional and inverted bulk heterojunction organic solar cells associated with various electrodes, and perform a systematic study on the anode and cathode buffer layers commonly used in high performance devices. In the devices produced here, we determine that parasitic absorption by low work function metals such as calcium reduces photocurrent by 25%, and that parasitic reflection at interfaces between the transparent conducting oxide and metal oxide buffer layers can reduce photocurrent by more than 10%. We also quantify the impact of an optical spacer, and determine that this accounts for only a fraction of the improvement that can be gained through alternative electrode optimization routes. It is therefore our intention that this study serves as a guideline for the optimization of the electrodes of organic thin film photovoltaic devices.


Neurosurgical and positron emission tomography (PET) human studies and animal electrophysiological studies show that part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is nociceptive. Since the contribution of the ACC to pain processing is poorly understood, this study employed PET and magnetic resonance (MR) image co‐registration in grouped and individual cases to locate regions of altered relative regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). Seven right‐handed, neurologically intact males were subjects; each received neuropsychological and pain threshold testing. Subjects were scanned during infusion of H2[15O]: four randomized scans during innocuous heat stimulation to the back of the left hand and four scans during noxious but bearable heat to the same place. The averaged rCBF values during innocuous stimuli were subtracted from those during noxious stimuli and statistical parametric maps (SPMs) for the group were computed to identify regions of altered relative rCBF. Finally, single‐subject PET images of elevated and reduced rCBF were co‐registered with MR images and projected onto reconstructions of the medial surface of the hemisphere. The SPM analysis of the group showed one site with elevated rCBF in the midcingulate cortex and one in the perigenual cortex predominantly contralateral to the side of stimulation. There were bilateral sites of reduced rCBF in the cingulofrontal transitional cortex and in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Co‐registered PET and MR images for individuals showed that only one case had a single, large region of elevated rCBF, while the others had a number of smaller regions. Six cases had at least one significant elevation of rCBF in the right hemisphere that primarily involved area 24b'; five of these cases also had an elevation in area 32′, while the seventh case had elevated rCBF in these areas in the left hemisphere. The rostral site of elevated rCBF in the group was at the border of areas 24/24'and areas 32/32′, although most cases had a site of elevation more rostral in the perigenual cingulate cortex. The ACC site of reduced rCBF was in areas 8 and 32 and that in the PCC included much of areas 29/30 in the callosal sulcus, areas 23b and 31 on the cingulate gyral surface and parietal area 7m. The localization of relative rCBF changes suggests different roles for the cingulate cortex in pain processing: (i) elevated rCBF in area 24'may be involved in response selection like nocifensive reflex inhibition; (ii) activation of the perigenual cortex may participate in affective responses to noxious stimuli like suffering associated with pain; and (iii) reduced rCBF in areas 8 and 32 may enhance pain perception in the perigenual cortex, while that in the PCC may disengage visually guided processes.


Mast cells are multifunctional, tissue-dwelling cells capable of secreting a wide variety of mediators. They develop from bone marrow-derived progenitor cells, primed with stem cell factor (SCF), which mediates its actions by interacting with the SCF receptor or c-kit on the cell surface. Mast cells continue their maturation and differentiation in peripheral tissue, developing into two well described subsets of cells, MCT and MCTC cells, varying in content of tryptase and chymase as well as in immunobiology. Mast cells are activated by numerous stimuli, including antigen (acting via the high affinity IgE receptor, Fc?RI), superoxides, complement proteins, neuropeptides and lipoproteins resulting in activation and degranulation. Following activation, these cells express mediators such as histamine, leukotrienes and prostanoids, as well as proteases, and many cytokines and chemokines, pivotal to the genesis of an inflammatory response. Recent data suggests that mast cells may play an active role in such diverse diseases as atherosclerosis, malignancy, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and arthritis. Mast cells directly interact with bacteria and appear to play a vital role in host defense against pathogens. Drugs, such as glucocorticoids, cyclosporine and cromolyn have been demonstrated to have inhibitory effects on mast cell degranulation or mediator release.


Abstract
Teacher Education has been transforming throughout the world to cater to the emerging needs of quality education. Significant developments have taken place nationally and internationally in political, economic, and cultural fields, influencing education in general and teacher education in particular. The quality of education depends to a great extent on the quality of teachers. And, the quality of teachers depends on the way they are educated and trained. Pakistan has a vast education sector and a huge teaching force but teacher education in the country has not been keeping pace with modernization and development globally. Teacher education curricula, dissemination, evaluation and implementation revolved around traditional models for decades. However, there has been a growing realization to reform the teacher education system lately. The education policy (2009) of Pakistan indicates such realization on the part of the stakeholders. This chapter reports on an important teacher education reform program, which is based on collaboration between the government of Pakistan and the USAID. The Teacher Education Project (TEP), assisted by USAID, is a reform initiative that aimed at restructuring and modernizing teacher education in Pakistan. This chapter aims to provide insights into the objectives, importance and achievements of the project in terms of shaping the future direction of teacher education in Pakistan. It reports on the substantial structural and policy changes that took place in teacher education under the project. This chapter also highlights the possible challenges in the way of useful implementation and sustainability of this and similar education reform initiatives in Pakistan.


The globalization of manufacturing industries leads to a thirst for rapid advancements in technological development and expertise in the fields of advanced design and manufacturing. Both industry and academia have an urgent need to equip themselves of the latest knowledge and trends relating to design and manufacture. Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge collects together papers from the 2008 International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacture (ICADAM). This conference solicits both cutting edge fundamental research and recent industrial application papers, with a goal towards bringing together from all over the world design and manufacture practitioners from academia, government organizations and industry. Recent advancements, emerging trends and new challenges in the fields of design and manufacturing are covered, with a particular focus on the understanding of the impact of distributed team-based design and manufacture on research and industrial practices for global companies.


In 2050, the life expectancy is anticipated to be 82 years in the United States. This increased in life expectancy has raised questions as to whether a longer period of old age guarantees a longer period of good health. As of now, the potential for a healthy late life is tempered by disability – the loss of independence with activities of daily living (ADL). Disability looms as a personal, family, and public health crisis. Older adults with disability have low autonomy, require assistance from loved ones, and often require costly health care services. Effective interventions to prevent disability are critical to support wellness in late life.

We identified gaps in existing non-pharmacological interventions for the prevention of disability, suggesting that 1) these interventions are associated with modest to moderate effect sizes and 2) the most robust interventions are complex and include multiple "active ingredients." However, the best combination of "active ingredients" remains unclear, and the combinations may vary based on clinical indicators. To better understand these variations, we examined selected indicators of change in brain health (depressive symptoms, cognitive complaints) and their associations with patterns of everyday activities in at-risk older adults (i.e., with a recent diagnosis of a chronic condition). We learned that changes in these indicators of brain health accelerated disablement in older adults with a newly-diagnosed Diabetes Mellitus. We also learned that indicators of brain health influenced patterns of everyday activities in older adults at-risk for disability (i.e., self-reported changes in daily routines); depressive symptoms were associated with engagement in fewer instrumental ADL, and cognitive complaints were associated with engagement in fewer leisure activities. This information gives insight to the risk architecture contributing to the onset of disability, as well as potential clinical indicators that could be explored in future clinical trials.

Age-related disability is "a situation without precedent." The information gleaned from this dissertation may inform 1) studies to examine the health consequences of everyday activities patterns; 2) the identification of factors that may elucidate the complex disablement; and 3) the structure, timing, and dosage of future interventions that aim to prevent disability in late life.


Despite having significant applications in the nuclear industry, there have been virtually no molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of radiation damage in graphite. The difficulties in developing an accurate yet computationally inexpensive description of carbon have limited the number of detailed investigations. Although previous work has reported point defect energies and estimates of threshold displacement energies, very little is known about the cascade behaviour and the evolution of damage at the atomic level. Gaining an understanding of the processes caused by irradiation in graphite is central to extending the life span of the current advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors in the UK. In addition, this will provide crucial information to aid next-generation nuclear technology such as the high-temperature graphitemoderated reactors, which were recently selected for development in the USA.

The Environment Dependent Interaction Potential (EDIP) has been employed along with the Zeigler-Biersack-Littmark potential to model radiation damage in graphite. Statistical sampling of 20 initial directions and over a range of energies has revealed that nuclear graphite behaves in a manner distinct from metals and oxides, with damage primarily in the form of isolated point defects as apposed to connected regions of transient damage. Simulations have given evidence of channelling occurring along the channel which has previously not been observed in graphite simulations. Graphite cascades have exhibited a fractal-like branching structure and binary-collision-type behaviour. Results produced agree with historical defect prediction models. Important quantities such as the range of the primary knock-on atom and the average energy loss per collision have been calculated. Results indicate that graphite cascades are not dependent on the initial cell temperature.

EDIP has been further employed to simulate the effects of radiation damage in
carbon allotropes. Results reveal how a material's structure affects the collision
cascade and have highlighted the unique radiation response of graphite.