Why would people support policies that are macroeconomically unsound, in that they are more likely to lead to such events as sovereign crises, balance of payments crises, and the like? This may arise if decisive voters are likely to bear a lower fraction of the costs of the crisis, while benefitting from the short-run gains associated with those policies, such as greater public expenditure or lower taxes.
I first discuss an illustrative model based on Saint-Paul et al. (2017), based on the assumption that in a crisis, not everybody can access his or her entitlement to publicly provided goods, a feature labelled "favoritism". If the decisive voter is relatively favored in this rationing process, then people are more likely to finance public expenditure by debt, the greater the degree of favoritism. Furthermore, favoritism and the likelihood of a crisis raises the level of public spending.
Next, I consider the choice between electing a "populist" who reneges on anonymity when allocating the public good, even in normal times, and a "technocrat" who sticks to anonymity, and does all it takes to balance the budget. I show that the support for the populist is greater, (i) the greater the likelihood of default, (ii) the more depressed the macroeconomic environment, (iii) the greater the inherited level of public debt and (iv) the lower the state's fiscal capacity.
I then argue that the model helps understanding some episodes in French pension reform. Some occupational groups supported unsustainable reductions in the retirement age because they expected that other workers would bear a higher proportion of the burden of future adjustment.
Finally, using a panel of countries, I provide evidence in favor of some of the predictions of the model. As predicted, favoritism raises public debt, budget deficits, and public spending. It also raises the likelihood of a fiscal crisis through its effect on public debt. Furthermore, "populists" are more likely to conquer power, the higher the degree of debt and budget deficits, and the higher the level of government spending – the latter finding being consistent with the model's prediction on the effect of fiscal capacity.


Maillard reaction products (MRPs) were prepared from mushroom hydrolysate (MH) by heating with d-xylose and l-cysteine at various temperatures (100 °C–140 °C) for 2 h at a pH of 7.4. The sensory characteristics of MH and MRPs were evaluated by panelists and volatile compounds were analyzed by GC/MS. Additionally, partial least squares regression (PLSR) was performed to analyze the correlation between quantitative sensory characteristics and GC/MS data. GC/MS results revealed that higher reaction temperature resulted in more nitrogen and sulfur containing compounds in MRPs while alcohols, ketones and aldehydes were the major flavor compounds obtained in MH. PLSR results showed that 3-phenylfuran and 2-octylfuran were the compounds responsible for the caramel-like flavor; 1-octen-3-ol, (E)-2-octen-1-ol and geranyl acetone were significantly and positively correlated to mushroom-like flavor, whereas, 2-thiophene-carboxaldehyde, 2,5-thiophenedicarboxaldehyde and 3-methylbutanal positively affected MRPs meat-like attribute. Overall, 125 °C was identified as the optimal temperature for preparing MRPs with abundant volatile compounds and favorable sensory characteristics; the concentration of free amino acids and 5′-GMP, which are associated with the umami taste, in MRPs derived under 125 °C were 3 to 4 times higher than those in MH.


Who is Karen Horney and hwy are her psychoanalytic ideas so important in today's world of once-per-week dynamic psychotherapy? Horney was one of the first analysts to challenge basic Freudian assertions such as the psychoanalytic account of female development. She had a revolutionary focus on present-oriented treatment, and a powerfully-optimistic attitude toward patient growth and change. This book: introduces, defines, and illustrates the major tenets of Horney's theory and technique; discusses Horney's means of fostering an optimistic attitude that strengthens therapy between therapist and the patient; demonstrates the special suitability and the effectiveness of Horney's ideas as they are applied to character disorder and to today's most frequent form of treatment - once-per-week session psychotherapy; and presents criticisms of Horney's ideas. Dr. Irving Solomon prepares practitioners to conduct Horneyan therapy and successfully treat character disorder, the most common dysfunction of our time. Dr. Solomon presents, in a concise and organized fashion, Karen Horney's ideas regarding character psychopathology, accompanied by many illustrative vignettes for practical application. Today's clinician will find that Horney's orientation provides a means of conducting brief treatment that is also meaningfully deep. This book will be of interest to mental health professionals, as well as to lay individuals who seek knowledge of the self, since it realistically, vividly, and authoritatively touches on a multitude of common, easily recognized character trends that destructively complicate our well-being.


Evolution has long shaped human behavior. Yet just recently have we learned that evolution based on natural selection is not the continuous process Darwin assumed. It is instead a two-part process of change and stability called punctuated equilibrium, with natural selection operating mainly on the frontiers of change. Taking account of biology's latest understanding of evolution, it becomes clear that culture evolves by a similar process. This is important because over the past 30,000 years most human evolution and the behavioral changes that go with it have occurred in our cultures-not in our genes. Knowing the process by which culture evolves clarifies the origin of many of our current problems, both within and between cultures. The author contends that new technology drives cultural evolution much as mutations change our DNA. The problem is that technology is now coming at us so fast that it is inducing"circuit overload" in cultures all over the world, leading to conflict. Techno-Cultural Evolution, which builds on the insights of such bestsellers as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, explains how this process works-and what it means for all of us.


In its Twombly decision the Supreme Court held that an antitrust complaint failed because its allegations did not include enough "factual matter" to justify proceeding to discovery. Two years later the Court extended this new pleading standard to federal complaints generally. Twombly's broad language has led to a broad rewriting of federal pleading doctrine.Naked market division conspiracies such as the one pled in Twombly must be kept secret because antitrust enforcers will prosecute them when they are detected. This inherent secrecy, which the Supreme Court did not discuss, has dire consequences for pleading if too much factual specificity is required. Indeed, it can close the door in cases where the conspiracy is reasonably suspected but supporting evidence has not already been uncovered.In the paradigm cartel case the defendants meet secretly in a hotel room and plot prices or output. But antitrust agreements can be proven by other evidence, including evidence of interdependence, parallel behavior, and actions contrary to independent self-interest. By indicating that the complaint failed because it did not state "which of their employees" may have conspired and that there was some "when" or "where" that the agreement took place, the Court was apparently requiring the plaintiff to plead something in its complaint that existing law would not require it to show in order to avoid summary judgment or a JML at trial. Or to say it differently, the Court was changing conspiracy doctrine at the same time that it was changing pleading doctrine6.The most salient fact about Twombly is that, although it was a proof-of-agreement case, the claim was of geographic market division rather than parallel pricing. For all of its lengthy discussion about the facts essential to a good complaint, the Supreme Court paid little attention to the difference between price fixing and market division. While parallel pricing typically is interdependent conduct, parallel failures to enter one another's markets typically are not. As a result, methods of indirect proof that might work in a case alleging unlawful price fixing are unlikely to work in one alleging unlawful market division. Twombly clearly reached the correct conclusion, but it could have done less damage to the values of notice pleading stated in the Federal Rules had it focused more narrowly on the mechanisms by which anticompetitive agreements are proven. Pleading reform requires, not an increase in "factual matter," but rather a closer correlation between the legal elements that must be proven and the allegations in a complaint.


When SSM material is subjected to a sudden transient the rate of buildup (aging) is negligible compared to the rate of breakdown (shear rejuvenation). While this is generally true, due to prolonged processing or the geometry the local shear rate in some regions may become equal or lower than the critical value, where aging becomes as important as shear rejuvenation. In this work we simulate in detail shear rejuvenation and aging in semisolid slurries. Using a standard thixotropic model used widely for modeling SSM suspensions but a novel computational method we reveal and confirm numerically for the first time shear banding. The phenomenon is found to be time dependent where the material first yields fully and then, after a certain time the yielded front retreats to form two distinct bands -one yielded and one unyielded. This phenomenon must be accounted for in the evaluation of the material constants since the time scale of the process is similar to the time scale of the phenomenon.


A laboratory study (27° C-30° C) on the suitability of tropical fruits for the larval development
shows that it is in the order of : Papaya> carambola > banana> mango = water-melon> jackfruit >
citrus> pineapple. In a suitable host i.e. papaya, the weight of the pupa was 11.6 g and life-cycle was
20.4 days. In the least suitable host i.e. pineapple, the weight of pupa was 4.9 g and life-cycle was 17.4 days.
With papaya as food, the life-cycle of D. dorsalis depended on the density of the larvae within the
food. A density of 10 larvae in 20 g of food had a life-cycle of21.7 days, whereas a density of50 larvae in
the same quantity of food had a life-cycle of 15.1 days. The percentage of adult emergence decreased with
increase in the larval density.


We hypothesized that expression of Toll‐like receptors (TLRs) 2 and 4 by tenocytes is involved in the catabolic processes of tendon degeneration. We investigated TLR2 and TLR4 expression by tenocytes in healthy and tendinotic Achilles tendons. We also investigated whether TLR2 and TLR4 could be upregulated in tendon explants using proinflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)‐1β and tumor necrosis factor alphpa (TNFα). Peroperatively harvested healthy (n = 5) and tendinotic (n = 13) Achilles tendon samples were examined by real‐time RT‐PCR and immunohistochemical staining for TLR2 and TLR4. In addition, the catabolic process in tendinopathy was analyzed by real‐time RT‐PCR for matrix metalloproteinases MMP1, MMP3, MMP9, and MMP13. Furthermore, healthy tendon explants were cultured in the presence of 20 ng/ml IL‐1β (n = 10) or 10 ng/mL TNFα (n = 8) for 4, 24, 48, and 72 h before analysis of TLR and MMP expression levels. Although mRNA levels for both TLR2 and TLR4 were detected in healthy and tendinotic Achilles tendons, we could not confirm expression of these receptors by immunohistochemical staining in either healthy or tendinotic tendon samples. Both receptors did not show significant transcriptional regulation in tendinopathy, although MMP3 was downregulated and MMP9 was upregulated in tendinopathy. In tendon explant cultures TLR2 mRNA was upregulated by TNFα (p < 0.05) and IL‐1β (not significant). TLR4 gene expression was not altered by addition of IL‐1β or TNFα. Tendon tissue can be stimulated to increase TLR2 gene expression by addition of catabolic factors TNFα or IL‐1β. However, the catabolic processes in Achilles tendinopathy cannot be attributed to regulation of TLR2 and TLR4 by tenocytes. © 2009 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 27: 1043–1047, 2009


This is the story of how paper, a simple Chinese invention, has wrapped itself around our world, with history's most momentous ideas etched upon its surface. The emergence of paper in the imperial court of Han China brought about a revolution in the transmission of knowledge and of ideas. For over two millennia, it has allowed ideas, religions, philosophies and propaganda to spread around the world with ever greater ease. Paper was the first writing surface sufficiently cheap, portable and printable for books, pamphlets, prints and journals to be mass-produced and to travel widely. It enabled an ongoing dialogue between communities of scholars who could now engage with each others' ideas across continents and years. The Paper Trail traces the westward voyage of this ground-breaking invention; beginning with the Buddhist translators responsible for the spread of paper across China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. It describes the theologians, scientists and artists who used paper to create the intellectual world of the Abbasid Caliphate, and journeys with the missionaries and merchants who carried it along the Silk Road. Paper finally reached Europe in 1276 and was indispensable to the scholars and translators who manufactured the Renaissance and Reformation from their desks. Paper created a world in which free thinking could flourish, and brought disciplines from science to music into a new age: the paper age. Paper still surrounds us in our everyday lives - on our desks, wrapping our food, in our wallets. It has become universal, and also supremely disposable. But is the age of paper coming to an end?


To reduce the model complexity for inductive interconnects, the vector potential equivalent circuit (VPEC) model was introduced recently and a localized VPEC model was developed based on geometry integration. In this paper, the authors show that the localized VPEC model is not accurate for interconnects with nontrivial sizes. They derive an accurate VPEC model by inverting the inductance matrix under the partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) model and prove that the effective resistance matrix under the resulting full VPEC model is passive and strictly diagonal dominant. This diagonal dominance enables truncating small-valued off-diagonal elements to obtain a sparsified VPEC model named truncated VPEC (tVPEC) model with guaranteed passivity. To avoid inverting the entire inductance matrix, the authors further present another sparsified VPEC model with preserved passivity, the windowed VPEC (wVPEC) model, based on inverting a number of inductance submatrices. Both full and sparsified VPEC models are SPICE compatible. Experiments show that the full VPEC model is as accurate as the full PEEC model but consumes less simulation time than the full PEEC model does. Moreover, the sparsified VPEC model is orders of magnitude (1000 ) faster and produces a waveform with small errors (3%) compared to the full PEEC model, and wVPEC uses less (up to 90 ) model building time yet is more accurate compared to the tVPEC model.


Amazonia is both a diverse ecological space and a complex social place in which the
conservation of its varied forest and aquatic environments cannot be divorced from the
fate of its human inhabitants. Rural society is comprised of a wide range of socioeconomic,
cultural, and historical groupings that includes several types of peasants or
peasantries. One of the most important segments of contemporary rural society in
Amazonia consists of traditional or historical peasantries, caboclo society or the so
called "indigenous rural population".
Events of recent decades in the Brazilian Amazon have shown that the region is
susceptible to rapid degradation from modem pressures of development and an
expanding population. Approaches to sustainable development need to reflect the
diversity and complexity of the regions' social and physical environments. Caboclos are
important for their historical place in Amazonian social ecology and for their potential
contribution to the search for viable solutions to sustainable development.
Sustainability will be achieved on the basis of incorporating sustainable livelihoods into
a development paradigm that maintains and improves the social use of resources and the
integrity of ecosystems. Rubber tappers in the state of Acre are a type of Amazonian
caboclo. Their livelihoods exhibit many of the attributes of resiliency and adaptability
that characterize peasantries. Resources are used, based on the demands and capabilities
of household economies and in recognition of their dependence on the forest and its
resources. The livelihoods that rubber tappers pursue are to a large degree, ecologically
sustainable; rubber tappers are practitioners of sustainability. The diversity and
flexibility of their livelihoods is geared towards low impact, long-term use of forest
resources and is highly adaptable to variable socio-political, economic and
environmental conditions.
Extraction of forest resources is a major component of rubber tapper livelihoods that
encompasses rubber tapping, Brazil nut collection, hunting, fishing and myriad uses of
other forest resources. Their livelihoods also include a farming system that is adapted to
both the social conditions of rubber tapper society -limited capital and technology,
dependence on household labour - and to the ecological constraints of Amazonian
environments - weak tropical soils, seasonal changes, and variability. The composition
of their livelihoods permits each sector of the household economy to function within
local environmental constraints and to escape the need to independently fulfill
household subsistence requirements. Extractive reserves provide a locally derived
model of socially acceptable, conservation oriented development.


This paper compares the outcomes of different studies on the L2 acquisition of English in different primary school settings within the framework of Processability Theory (PT). The results show that children from immersion (IM) programs tend to reach higher stages compared to pupils from traditional teaching programs. The intensity and the duration of L2 classroom contact show the strongest effect on the test results. Prior experience with the L2 before primary school also has a significant effect, while sex, age and home language use do not influence the level of attainment reached by the learners. In addition, the study investigates the suitability of linguistic profiling for highly advanced young learners of English, as well as the communicative tasks used for data elicitation. Recommendations for an adaptation of the tasks are derived from the observations.


The paper by Nah et al 1 that highlights late referrals for undescended testes is reflected in many similar epidemiological studies from around the world over recent years, including New Zealand, Canada, Austria and the UK. There continues to be a wide variation in age at diagnosis and age at operation of boys with an undescended testis (UDT). The reasons for this are undoubtedly multifactorial and include the variability of screening programmes, and the different diagnostic possibilities occurring at different ages of a boy's development.

An UDT may be congenital or acquired.

The incidence of a congenital undescended testicle is about 1–6% in term newborns. As stated in the paper, by the age of 1 year, only about 1–2% are undescended. Unilateral incomplete descent is 4× commoner than bilateral. The complications of a congenital UDT include an increased risk of torsion because of abnormal fixation, a 4–8× increased risk of malignancy if the testis is intra-abdominal at birth and reduced fertility if the testis remains undescended. Bringing the testis into the scrotum affects these in various ways depending on the age of orchidopexy, and undoubtedly the risks have to be weighed against the risk of the orchidopexy itself.

A further diagnostic entity is that of an acquired UDT which is defined as a testis that was once in the bottom half of the scrotum but has changed position and ascended out of the scrotum either because of inguinal surgery, for example herniotomy or spontaneous non-surgical ascent. A number …


This paper examines the extent to which attending major sporting events leads to subsequent changes in the sport participation behaviour of spectators. The research covered seven single-sport events of World or European level held in the UK in 2014 and was concerned with spectators (aged 16 and over) who attended one of these events. Baseline data was gathered from a sample of spectators at each event using a face-to-face survey. Follow-up data was captured using an online survey at least nine months post-event. Our analysis is based on 258 people for whom both baseline and follow-up data were available (matched pairs). Using the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), the evidence from this research points to a small (net) positive staged change in sport participation among the sample overall. Variations in the nature and scale of changes associated with events featuring different sports were observed. Progression between the TTM stages was evident for individuals who were previously in the pre-preparation, preparation and action stages. The likelihood of progression appears to be strongest where prior contemplation for behaviour change was prevalent. Event attendance emerged as an important contributor for moving individuals along the TTM continuum, alongside a range of other factors. The demonstration or trickle-down effect was the primary mechanism by which any sport participation legacy supported by these events occurred. The practical applications of the research and the wider health benefits of leveraging event-induced sport participation increases are discussed.


This paper examines the 2004-2006 surge in violent crime, specifically murder in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Interviews were conducted with local prominent criminal justice professionals. Interviewees were asked what they believe is wrong with the local criminal justice system, and how the system can be enhanced. Crime predictors were identified and suggestions for mitigating them were offered. The findings suggest that reduced funding, lack of collaboration amongst component agencies rank as leading causes for ineffectiveness. One person stated that due to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding streams for juvenile justice programs have been reduced, resulting in fewer programs designed to provide these youth with needed resources to steer them away from crime. It was suggested that restructuring these agencies will improve their operational goals, and create better accountability and improved relationships with the community. It is also recommended that the agencies working within the criminal justice system pool their resources and collaborate regularly to enhance their effectiveness. Comments Submitted to the Program of Organizational Dynamics in the Graduate Division of the School of Arts & Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Sciences in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. Advisor: Alan M. Barstow, Ph.D. This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/od_theses_msod/8 AN EXAMINATION OF PHILADELPHIA MURDER; A QUEST TO UNDERSTAND THE 2004-2006 SURGE IN VIOLENT CRIME


Abstract Background and purpose: The individual is exposed to ever more covert psychological violence or mobbing in workplace within companies. The aim of this study is to analyse the level and the types of psychological violence within a company in which the individual works in their daily lives. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using systematic method current mobbing literature reviews were analysed. Based on a review and analysis of the literature, we recognised increasing amounts of workplace bullying. Then we used and extended Dilts' model and created a model in which we portrayed the different levels and types of bullying in a company. The presented model is a tool for identifying workplace violence within the company. Results: At the company environment level, there is much bullying associated with social-demographic characteristics and working conditions. At the level of individual behaviour, the type of mobbing exists that is associated with the company's leadership styles. At the level of professional qualifications, a lack of confidence causes mobbing. At the level of values and beliefs, mobbing is present in attitudes and behavioural intentions. At the level of identity, we can observe mobbing according to sexual identity. At the level of organizational culture, we can recognize a type of mobbing called 'obsessive dedication' to working efficiency and organizational silence. Conclusion: Based on the analysis of selected literature we exposed a range of types and levels of mobbing in company. The expanded Model on levels of mobbing in companies provides a framework for collecting information. The user can identify workplace violence and each strategic organizational level in the work organization


The accuracy of near-infrared absorption coefficients for EL2 concentration determination by transmittance measurement in thin GaAs wafers is investigated. Using wafers having the same absorption coefficients but varying in thickness, we found that the error in absorption coefficient is larger than 30% in 0.4 mm-thick wafers when reported reflectance derived from refractive index is used in the calculation. We therefore propose to use an appropriate reflectance which is determined by measuring the transmittance of different thickness wafers. Adopting the appropriate reflectance, the error is reduced to less than 2%.


Mass tort bankruptcy trust funds generally have failed to attain fair treatment for future claimants - those individuals who have been exposed to a harmful product but have yet to manifest any injuries. This article examines the causes of unfair distributions to future claimants from mass tort trust funds in bankruptcy and other contexts. The article also offers several recommendations for achieving equitable treatment of future claimants in upcoming trust funds, such as the asbestos trust fund proposed by the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution ("FAIR") Act now debated in Congress. First, we argue that future claimants are inadequately represented in mass tort bankruptcy proceedings. We recommend that representatives for future claimants be compensated based on a percentage of the total funds placed in trust for these claimants. This approach motivates representatives to self-interestedly pursue a favorable allocation for future claimants, in contrast to the current system which compensates future claimants' representatives using other methods. We then discuss a hitherto overlooked aspect of inequitable allocations for future claimants - their overexposure to risk relative to present claimants. To guarantee that future claimants are treated fairly, we suggest that future claimants receive a greater average award than present claimants to compensate the future claimants for bearing additional risk. Finally, we examine the allocation of risk between tort claimants and other creditors. Previous mass tort bankruptcy trust funds (as well as the FAIR Act fund) allocated considerable risk to future claimants, who are poor risk bearers. To remedy this deficiency, we recommend that tort claimants be allocated as little risk as possible. In return, tort claimants should receive a lower average payment.


Bone loss in women commences before the onset of menopause and oestrogen deficiency. The increase of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) precedes oestrogen decline and may be a cause for bone loss before menopause. This review summarizes the current evidence on the relationship between FSH and bone derived from cellular, animal and human studies. Cellular studies found that FSH receptor (FSHR) was present on osteoclasts, osteoclast precursors and mesenchymal stem cells but not osteoblasts. FSH promoted osteoclast differentiation, activity and survival but exerted negligible effects on osteoblasts. Transgenic FSHR or FSH knockout rodents showed heterogenous skeletal phenotypes. Supplementation of FSH enhanced bone deterioration and blocking of FSH action protected bone of rodents. Human epidemiological studies revealed a negative relationship between FSH and bone health in perimenopausal women and elderly men but the association was attenuated in postmenopausal women. In conclusion, FSH may have a direct action on bone health independent of oestrogen by enhancing bone resorption. Its effects may be attenuated in the presence of overt sex hormone deficiency. More longitudinal studies pertaining to the effects of FSH on bone health, especially on fracture risk, should be conducted to validate this speculation.


Basareholmen is an island close to the city center of Karlskrona. The island has been used for ammunition manufacturing from the early 1800s until 1986. Since then there has not been any activity on the island until Karlskrona municipality focused its attention on it in 2018.
Basareholmen is together with two other islands in the archipelago, part of the Karlskrona Culture Archipelago concept. The islands have different themes, where Basareholmen will be characterized by art, innovation and sustainability.
During the spring of 2018, the municipality and an innovation company fulfilled workshops with local companies, entrepreneurs, students and public organizations. The purpose was in order to find sustainable and innovative solutions to different challenges of Basareholmen, like transportation, clean water, energy, waste management and handling of contaminated soil. The workshops resulted in several ideas of how to solve these challenges.
Some of these solutions were prioritized, one of them being the idea of using plants to measure and clean the contaminated soil. Plants have the availability to absorb pollutants; wish is a highly analogous solution in an increasingly technically oriented society,
The disposal of sewage was another prioritized solution. The suggested solution recommends extracting the sewage and transformed into biogas, which maybe can be used as fuel for transport. There is a vision that this process can be done on the island, thus making the island self-sufficient.
The design of transport system of the island is another challenge. Instead of buying an existing transport system, it was suggested that the transports could be designed for its purpose with the aim of in an open-minded way to find the optimal transport.


Maternal monitoring and play rules were examined as correlates of children's friendship quality, social behavior, and depression in 6th grade (N = 88). Maternal reports of rules were categorized into three types: supervision rules, peer rules, and restriction rules. Each type of rule was characterized by the number of rules mothers established. Results indicated that monitoring was not significantly correlated with the three types of play rules. Girls who experienced more monitoring had friendships with less conflict and higher positive qualities. Supervision rules were positively related to boys' prosocial behavior and depression. Peer rules were significantly correlated with peer-rated behavior but not with friendship quality. The importance of distinguishing among various aspects of maternal management is discussed.


More than 30 years of war in Afghanistan have resulted in immense policy challenges to address the resulting mental health issues. The purpose of this policy analysis is to examine the potential role of higher education in addressing the pressing mental health problems in Afghanistan's public universities and higher education institutions as a major policy challenge. We define and spell out the extent and nature of the mental health problems and policy issues involved, putting them in the context of students in a war environment. We discuss efforts by the leadership of the Ministry of Higher Education to respond to the physical damage of war and the resulting mental health crises in a setting of very scarce human and financial resources. We describe a system of higher education battered by years of war yet seeking to rebuild and raise quality even while the fighting continues. The conditions of the higher education system are described, as well as the scope, complexity and nature of mental health problems, and major challenges faced in trying to rebuild both the system and the lives of the higher education community. We spell out the immense challenges faced in rebuilding a system badly devastated by war while dealing with the tremendous human mental health toll experienced by its students, faculty, and staff. We conclude by setting out some possible directions, options and recommendations for responding to the mental health problems while recognizing the difficulties higher education faces in trying to respond to them.


Internet-enabled mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones have become an integral part of our lives. They are widely used for a variety of different purposes, and in many countries the majority of university students arrive to classes with devices and are familiar with how they operate. Although mobile technology is viewed to be a useful tool in language learning, there are a number of barriers to successful integration in classrooms. One of the critical factors when considering technology adoption is teacher attitudes and beliefs. However, despite the strong correlation of teacher attitudes and successful technology integration, the dominating interest of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) research is on its relative effectiveness, or analyzes its adoption from the perspective of students. There is a lack of empirical studies that investigate variables related to teacher beliefs that affect mobile integration in the EFL context. This study explored teacher attitudes towards the implementation of mobile-assisted language instruction in higher education in Japan. 100 in-service teachers were given a questionnaire based heavily on the study by MacCallum, Jeffrey, & Kinshuk (2014) that included extensions to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The survey was adapted to include cultural variables related to English instructors teaching in an EFL context. The findings provide crucial insights into the cultural implications of teachers' perceptions towards the successful adoption of MALL for instruction. Implications for classroom practice in other contexts and professional development are discussed.


Severe thermal injury induces a pathophysiological response that affects most of the organs within the body; liver, heart, lung, skeletal muscle among others, with inflammation and hyper-metabolism as a hallmark of the post-burn damage. Oxidative stress has been implicated as a key component in development of inflammatory and metabolic responses induced by burn. The goal of the current study was to evaluate several critical mitochondrial functions in a mouse model of severe burn injury. Mitochondrial bioenergetics, measured by Extracellular Flux Analyzer, showed a time dependent, post-burn decrease in basal respiration and ATP-turnover but enhanced maximal respiratory capacity in mitochondria isolated from the liver and lung of animals subjected to burn injury. Moreover, we detected a tissue-specific degree of DNA damage, particularly of the mitochondrial DNA, with the most profound effect detected in lungs and hearts of mice subjected to burn injury. Increased mitochondrial biogenesis in lung tissue in response to burn injury was also observed. Burn injury also induced time dependent increases in oxidative stress (measured by amount of malondialdehyde) and neutrophil infiltration (measured by myeloperoxidase activity), particularly in lung and heart. Tissue mononuclear cell infiltration was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The amount of poly(ADP-ribose) polymers decreased in the liver, but increased in the heart in later time points after burn. All of these biochemical changes were also associated with histological alterations in all three organs studied. Finally, we detected a significant increase in mitochondrial DNA fragments circulating in the blood immediately post-burn. There was no evidence of systemic bacteremia, or the presence of bacterial DNA fragments at any time after burn injury. The majority of the measured parameters demonstrated a sustained elevation even at 20–40 days post injury suggesting a long-lasting effect of thermal injury on organ function. The current data show that there are marked time-dependent and tissue-specific alterations in mitochondrial function induced by thermal injury, and suggest that mitochondria-specific damage is one of the earliest responses to burn injury. Mitochondria may be potential therapeutic targets in the future experimental therapy of burns.


The locus of pathology exists not in the autistic person, but in the interaction between a hostile environment and the subjugated autistic. It is essential for parents, practitioners, educators, and autistic people themselves to ask the crucial question—  Is the autistic a machine, or an organism? Are we active agents in our own embodied experience, or are we a locus of behavior? It is not with defiance, but autonomy, that I declare as an autistic person— I am not a manifestation of stimuli and response. I am agential. I am Autonomously Autistic.


This article explores the experiences of pre-service teachers who are involved in a program promoting leadership, community engagement and retreat training. It initially presents a review of the literature on the significant links between teacher commitment and quality teaching. It then describes how four significant dispositions: care, leadership, service and reflective practice, are embedded in a program entitled 'ASPIRE' at The University of Notre Dame Australia. The program is designed to assist pre-service teachers in recognising and developing their sense of teaching vocation. An outline of the research methodology is provided. Specifically, the research is based on qualitative data derived from focus group interviews, personal reflections and feedback sheets from pre-service teachers currently participating in three aspects of the program: the Education Society, the Community Service-Learning Program and the Retreat Leaders Training Program. Participant reflections are then considered from each of these programs. The article highlights participant responses in two categories: motivation for involvement and benefits gained. From this discussion, the article affirms the necessity for purposeful experiences in the development of a sense of teaching vocation.


Phylogenetic relationships amongst the southern African freshwater crab fauna are reinvestigated following the recent collection of morphologically distinct Potamonautes specimens from remote mountainous regions in Malawi and Mozambique. Specimens were subjected to DNA sequencing of three mtDNA loci, cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), 12S rRNA, and 16S rRNA and compared to the 14 described species from the region. Phylogenetic analysis using maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference revealed the presence of two novel evolutionary lineages. The phylogeny demonstrates that Potamonautes obesus (A. Milne-Edwards, 1868) is sister to a morphologically distinct novel species from Mount Namuli in Mozambique. Two sympatric and genetically distinct species from Mount Mulanje, in Malawi (forms A and B) were recognized. Form B is sister to the large-bodied South African riverine freshwater crabs and represents a novel lineage whereas the remaining species (form A) from Mulanje, in Malawi was sister to samples from Mounts Inago and Mabu, and in Mozambique was identified as Potamonautes choloensis (Chace, 1953). The two novel evolutionary lineages were genetically distinct and morphologically different from the described species in each of the respective regions. Two new freshwater crab species Potamonautes namuliensis sp. nov. and Potamonautes mulanjeensis sp. nov., are described in the present study. The samples from Mount Mulanje in Malawi, and Mounts Mabu and Inago in Mozambique represent new distribution records for Potamonautes choloensis.

© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, 164, 498–509.


Summary

Antioxidant potential and bioaccessibility of co-products from industrial pasteurised pomegranate nectar (PN) processing such as peel (PP), press cake (PC) and precipitate after clarification (PAC) in comparison with raw material (arils) and final products (CON and PN) were determined. Total phenolic (TPC), flavonoid (TFC), anthocyanin (TAC), tannin contents (TTC) and antioxidant activity (TAA) were determined besides identifying major phenolics and investigating in vitro bioaccessibility after gastrointestinal (GI) digestion. PP showed the highest values, except for TAC. Phenolics (12.7–43.0%) were found to be more stable than anthocyanins (0.6–2.1%) after in vitro GI digestion. PAC was found to be a better source for anthocyanins than CON and also showed higher phenolic bioaccessibility (28.8%) than PN (19.6%). PC and PAC possessed as much TPC, TFC, TTC and TAA levels as CON, with some exceptions. Therefore, these results indicated that not only PP but also PC and PAC should be valorised as a good source for phenolics and anthocyanins.


In low-temperature anti-ferromagnetic LaMnO3, strong and localized electronic interactions among Mn 3d electrons prevent a satisfactory description from standard local density and generalized gradient approximations in density functional theory calculations. Here we show that the strong on-site electronic interactions are described well only by using direct and exchange corrections to the intra-orbital Coulomb potential. Only DFT+U calculations with explicit exchange corrections produce a balanced picture of electronic, magnetic and structural observables in agreement with experiment. To understand the reason, a rewriting of the functional form of the +U corrections is presented that leads to a more physical and transparent understanding of the effect of these correction terms. The approach highlights the importance of Hund's coupling (intra-orbital exchange) in providing anisotropy across the occupation and energy eigenvalues of the Mn d states.
This intra-orbital exchange is the key to fully activating the Jahn-Teller distortion, reproducing the experimental band gap and stabilizing the correct magnetic ground state in LaMnO3. The best parameter values for LaMnO3 within the DFT(PBEsol)+U framework are determined to be U = 8 eV and J = 1.9 eV.


We are welcoming Charles Armstrong (Columbia University) as guest editor for this volume, "The End of War? The Korean Armistice after Sixty Years" that commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War armistice of 1953. We did not exactly plan for tension this spring between North Korea and the United States to promote this issue, but the fact that serious tensions developed once again points to the aftermath of the Korean War as an issue that will not go away and that needs to be rethought again and again. We also want to welcome Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park as our new film review editor. We are planning to include academic reviews of films that engage with what Korean movies can tell us about Korean culture, and how Koreans have and are engaging with the issues of the day. The Journal of Korean Studies has two thematic issues planned for the future: Jennifer Chun and Judy Han are guest editing an issue on "Gender and Politics in Contemporary Korea" for the fall of 2014, and Ted Hughes and Jina Kim are guest editing an issue on "Korea Culture, New Media, and Digital Humanities" for the fall of 2015. Enjoy.


Community mental health encompasses a diverse range of statutory, voluntary and informal care services. However, little has been written about how changes in policy, legislation and philosophies throughout time impact on the service user experience of mental health care today. The purpose of this paper was to review the literature using systematic approaches and address the question: 'How have historical factors influenced the development of community mental health care in the United Kingdom?' Following a comprehensive literature search, we included 70 texts. Owing to the difficulties of classifying historical texts numerically, two themes were identified: (1) changing perspectives towards mental illness and the mentally ill; and (2) the complexities of mental health care provision. We structured the review around these themes. A narrative approach was used to illustrate the diversity within the identified texts. In response to the review question, an exploration of the historical literature demonstrates that some form of community care has always been evident. It also suggests that over time different philosophical ideas have influenced mental health policy and service structure. These have in turn shaped the care a service user receives when they come into contact with mental health professionals.


This thesis provides an analysis of supervisory interactions between PhD supervisors and their students within social science disciplines, using the Competing Values Framework (CVF). Traditionally, such work has been conducted using a supervisor-centred perspective, and this thesis adds to the literature by adopting a student-centred view to look at supervisor's behaviours during the interaction, from a role performance perspective in light of the CVF.

Drawing primarily on semi-structured interpersonal process recall interview data, the thesis considers a number of interlinking analytical themes. These can be divided into three broad groups. The first focuses on investigating the CVF roles that are adopted by the supervisor during the interaction and recognized by the students as important component parts of the most helpful supervisory moments. In line with the previous literature, I note that the most effective supervisory behaviours reflect the performance of all the eight CVF roles with the producer and the director occupying the dominant position.

The second group is closely linked with the first and investigates CVF managerial roles represented by the least helpful supervision moments selected by the student. I note how PhD supervisors inadequate use, including both overuse and underuse of the CVF roles are related to the least effective supervisory moments. The director and the producer are again the most represented ones which are reported as being mostly underused. The third group analyses students advice on further improvements . In conclusion, I relate my analysis to existing literature and examined the contributions of the thesis to three main areas of research. This research finds that instances of positive and negative supervisee feedback reflect an increased influence of marketorientation and manageralism on research students and correspondingly inadequate use of managerial roles by supervisors.


Background: Epidemiological studies show that the consumption of raw milk early in life is protective against the development of allergies later in life. The effect was found to be limited to raw milk consumption and was not observed when this milk was boiled or when pasteurized and homogenized shop milk was consumed. So milk processing seems to abolish the allergy protective effects of raw milk. The components and mechanisms involved are however still unknown. In this study the sensitizing capacity of raw and processed cow's milk was compared in a murine sensitization model for food allergy. Method: C3H/HeOuJ mice were sensitized orally once a week for 5 consecutive weeks with raw milk, heated raw milk (10 min 80°C), shop milk (pasteurized and homogenized), an 80:20 mixture of casein/whey protein (equivalent to the amount in milk; sensitized control) or PBS (non-sensitized control) using cholera toxin as adjuvant. One week after the last sensitization mice were challenged both intradermally and orally with casein/whey. Clinical parameters, such as the acute allergic skin response, anaphylactic shock symptoms and changes in body temperature were assessed upon intradermal challenge and serum specific antibodies and mast cell degranulation were measured upon oral challenge. Activated Th2-, Th1- and regulatory T-cell populations were quantified in spleen using flow cytometry and ex vivo cytokine production was measured after restimulation with casein/whey. Results: Mice sensitized with raw milk did not show any clinical symptoms upon challenge and did hardly produce specific IgE antibodies. Sensitization with the processed milk types on the contrary increased the acute allergic skin response and anaphylactic shock symptoms and caused a drop in body temperature. IgE levels were also significantly increased in these mice. No differences were observed in mucosal mast cell degranulation between groups and also T-cell populations did not differ. The production of Th2 cytokines IL-5 and IL-13 was however significantly reduced in the raw milk group compared to the processed milk groups after ex vivo re-stimulation of splenocytes with casein/whey. Conclusion: In contrast to processed milk, raw milk is hardly able to induce sensitization. Allergic symptoms and IgE levels were reduced and this coincided with reduced Th2 cytokine responses. What it is in raw milk that prevents sensitization needs to be elucidated in future studies.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a consultation with experts in communication and HIV behavioral science to identify dimensions of new HIV prevention strategies, discuss implications of these dimensions for messaging, recommend messaging principles, and recommend future research to inform the development of the next generation of HIV prevention messages for men who have sex with men (MSM). Complexity and uncertainty were two recurrent themes that ran throughout the discussion and underlay many of the experts' recommendations. Several issues generated considerable discussion, and the experts agreed on their importance: (1) capitalize on the opportunity to refresh condom use messaging, (2) communicate transparently, (3) segment the population, (4) use message delivery strategies that are not typical for CDC campaigns, and (5) consider a range of outcomes when messaging about new HIV prevention approaches. In consideration of these factors, experts recommended tools that are interactive and flexible to inform and educate MSM about new and emerging risk reduction strategies for HIV prevention.


Recently in Brazil, public policies have begun to be implemented to reduce discrimination and promote the inclusion of excluded social groups based on a specific individual characteristic: race. However, there is little public consensus about such policies, especially among whites. In this work, I look at the racial attitudes towards affirmative action among white college students. I make use of new research methods for the empirical study of socially sensitive issues and ask whether these attitudes stem from prejudice, conflicts between social groups or individual political predispositions. Furthermore, I ask what is the relationship between political knowledge and such racial attitudes. I use the list experiment method because of its potential to offset the under-representation of opinions and attitudes. This approach allows respondents to be indirectly questioned, ensuring greater sincerity in their answers and, hence, providing more accurate portrayal of attitudes. This study shows that white respondents' answers on affirmative action policies are strongly affected by social desirability. Only 6% of white respondents agreed that it is important to have a quota policy for blacks at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). Individuals with greater political knowledge tend to express greater support for affirmative action and hold more coherent racial attitudes Results also reveal that negative racial attitudes and political predispositions are both determinants of the white student's attitudes towards affirmative action policies.


Cache augmented SQL, CASQL, systems enhance the performance of simple operations that read and write a small amount of data from big data. They do so by looking up the results of computations that query the database in a key-value store (KVS) instead of processing them using a relational database management system (RDBMS). These systems incur undesirable race conditions that cause the KVS to produce stale data. This paper presents the IQ framework that provides strong consistency with no modification to the RDBMS. It consists of two non-blocking leases, Inhibit (I) and Quarantine (Q). Ratings obtained from a social networking benchmark named BG show the proposed framework has minimal impact on system performance while providing strong consistency guarantees.


This chapter presents a case study of how photographs can offer different anglesof the dynamics involved in a complex observable event or series of events. Asshown in previous research, photographs can only be valid historical sources ifwe are able to interpret them, and that requires the observer's active participationand the use of additional sources, such as written or oral records. I analyzeeight United Nations (UN) official photographs as part of the founding narrativeof simultaneous interpreting (SI) history. After introducing the theoreticaland methodological background, I present the historical context of SI at theUN. The analysis of the photographs focuses on (1) the SI equipment, (2) theinterpreters, and (3) the users of their services.


We explore the perspectives of machine learning techniques in the context of quantum field theories. In particular, we discuss two-dimensional complex scalar field theory at nonzero temperature and chemical potential---a theory with a nontrivial phase diagram. A neural network is successfully trained to recognize the different phases of this system and to predict the values of various observables, based on the field configurations. We analyze a broad range of chemical potentials and find that the network is robust and able to recognize patterns far away from the point where it was trained. Aside from the regressive analysis, which belongs to supervised learning, an unsupervised generative network is proposed to produce new quantum field configurations that follow a specific distribution. An implicit local constraint fulfilled by the physical configurations was found to be automatically captured by our generative model. We elaborate on potential uses of such a generative approach for sampling outside the training region.


In this thesis we used numerical simulations to explore the role that chemistry plays in galaxy formation. Simulations of galaxies often assume chemical equilibrium, where the chemical reactions between ions and molecules have reached a steady state. However, this assumption may not be valid if the physical conditions of the gas are evolving rapidly. Therefore, we developed a chemical model to follow the non-equilibrium evolution of ions and molecules. We then incorporated this model into hydrodynamic simulations of galaxies. We ran simulations with different metallicities (i.e. different proportions of heavy elements) and UV radiation fields, first using our full non-equilibrium chemical model and then assuming chemical equilibrium. We found that the total star formation rate is higher at higher metallicity and for weaker radiation fields. In contrast, non-equilibrium chemistry does not strongly influence the total star formation rate or outflow properties of the galaxy. However, it does affect the abundances of individual chemical species, for example in molecular outflows. Finally, we explored the properties of molecular clouds in our simulations. At low metallicity, the molecular fraction of young clouds tends to be below equilibrium, as the molecules are still forming. This also affects the observable CO emission from young clouds.


Little attention has been paid to pneumococcal carriage and disease in Amerindians from Latin America. The Warao people, an indigenous population from Venezuela, live in the delta of the Orinoco River in geographically isolated communities with difficult access to medical care. To obtain insight into pneumococcal carriage and the theoretical coverage of pneumococcal vaccines in this population, we investigated pneumococcal colonization, serotype, and genotype distribution among Warao children in 9 distinct, geographically isolated communities in the Delta Amacuro area in the northeast of Venezuela. From April 2004 through January 2005, a total of 161 Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates were recovered from single nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained from 356 children aged 0-72 months. The overall pneumococcal carriage rate was 49%, ranging from 13% to 76%, depending on the community investigated and the age of the children (50% among children aged <2 years and 25% among children aged >2 years). The most frequent serotypes were 23F (19.5% of isolates), 6A (19.5%), 15B (10.4%), 6B (9.1%), and 19F (7.2%). The theoretical coverage of the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, including the cross-reactive nonvaccine serotype 6A, was 65%. A total of 26% of the isolates were resistant to first-line antibiotics, with 70% of these strains being covered by the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. Restriction fragment end labelling analysis revealed 65 different genotypes, with 125 (80%) of the isolates belonging to 27 different genetic clusters, suggesting a high degree of horizontal spread of pneumococcal strains in and between the villages. The high colonization rates and high (registered) acute respiratory tract infection morbidity and mortality in this part of Venezuela suggest that Warao children are at increased risk for pneumococcal disease and, therefore, benefit from vaccination.


Rotation samples are frequently used in continuing surveys in order to obtain estimates of changes in a characteristic over time as well as separate estimates of the characteristic at specific points in time. Rotation designs involve the retention of some sampling units and the replacement of others. It has been observed in some studies that there are systematic changes in the estimate of a characteristic, depending on the frequency of appearance of a rotation group in the sample. It is shown in this paper that these systematic changes must occur provided (1) the probability of a selected unit actually appearing in the sample is monotonically related to the characteristic under measurement, and (2) the probability of a selected unit actually appearing in the sample changes monotonically from one observation point to the next. Some numerical examples showing the form and magnitude of the potential biases are included. W. H. Williams is Professor of Statistics at the University of Michigan.


The use of process capability indices in the industry is traditionally based on the assumptions that a sample from a process are observations on independently, identically and normally distributed random variables, IIN. However, all three assumptions are open to discussion and in this thesis, the estimation of the indices is studied when the assumption of independence is not fulfilled.In five reports, the indices Cpk and Cpm are studied, and instead of random samples, samples are regarded as observations on a time series.In the first four reports, each index is studied for either an AR(1) or an MA(1) process and the fifth report, both indices are studied for a general ARMA(p,q) process.In all reports, alternatives to Cpk and Cpm are suggested as well as point and interval estimators for the suggested indices. The accuracy of interval estimators are evaluated through large Monte Carlo simulations and the difference between empirical coverage rates and nominal confidence limits are calculated.It was found in all reports that a dependency among observations has a great impact on the coverage rates. The coverage rate difference depends on both the size of the autocorrelation and the type of time series model and for the original Cpk and Cpm the difference can be large. With the suggested alternative indices, however, the differences are always reduced and unless the autocorrelations are close to ±1, the sizes of differences are of little consequence.


We present a framework that enables 6DoF camera localization in outdoor environments by providing visual feature descriptors with an Absolute Spatial Context (ASPAC). These descriptors combine visual information from the image patch around a feature with spatial information, based on a model of the environment and the readings of sensors attached to the camera, such as GPS, accelerometers, and a digital compass. The result is a more distinct description of features in the camera image, which correspond to 3D points in the environment. This is particularly helpful in urban environments containing large amounts of repetitive visual features. Additionally, we describe the first comprehensive test database for outdoor handheld camera localization comprising of over 45,000 real camera images of an urban environment, captured under natural camera motions and different illumination settings. For all these images, the dataset not only contains readings of the sensors attached to the camera, but also ground truth information on the full 6DoF camera pose, and the geometry and texture of the environment. Based on this dataset, which we have made available to the public, we show that using our proposed framework provides both faster matching and better localization results compared to state-of-the-art methods.


In order to assess the performance of water management approaches and irrigation systems used by the sugar industry in the Lowveld of Zimbabwe, a sugarcane yield and irrigation systems simulation model was developed. The model, named ZIMsched 2.0, was used to predict how field derived indices of irrigation systems performance, such as the coefficient of uniformity, CV, impacted on estimated recoverable crystal, ERC, yields and the water balance. This was done across a range of soil conditions, seasonal climates, irrigation system types and existing and refined irrigation scheduling strategies. Results of a verification study of the model showed an index of agreement, 'd', equal to 0.96 and a Pearson's correlation coefficient equal to 0.94, between observed and simulated yields of ERC, relative to a reference treatment. Application of the model showed the actual and also the potential performance of the different irrigation system hardware. Additional applications of the tools and information which were developed as a result of this research included an integrated economic assessment of peak irrigation system design specifications and associated deficit irrigation watering strategies. In an effort to translate theoretical water savings into practical realities a range of novel water management tools was also developed. Most of the drip irrigation systems in the Lowveld were performing below potential due to excessive infield variations in applied water. The performance of furrow irrigation systems was limited by the large variations in water applied to individual furrows, and water applications that were, on average, excessively high relative to soil water holding characteristics. Simulations showed that sub-surface drip irrigation systems have a slight edge on other irrigation systems in terms of potential efficiency. Average water savings for drip irrigation systems ranged from approximately 2.2 to 1.5 Ml/ha relative to floppy irrigation systems, and 3.5 to 2.3 Ml/ha relative to typical furrow irrigation systems, depending on how water applications were scheduled. A major finding was that there was potential for the Lowveld sugar industry to use up to 30% less water per hectare on an annual basis if ZIMsched, a specialist spreadsheet-based irrigation scheduling tool developed during the course of the project, was used to derive more appropriate and system specific water management guidelines. However, simulations showed that with the more precise irrigation scheduling there could be a slight crop yield penalty when the distribution uniformity of applied water was poor.


Data on distribution and movements were obtained from the literature, an Australia-wide questionnaire and regular censuses at fifteen locations in eastern Australia from May 1969 to December 1972. Fifty-four breeding swamps were recorded, most in south-eastern Australia, Northern Territory and south-western Western Australia. Populations using these breeding areas may be largely discrete. Differences in time and regularity of breeding are probably caused by rainfall. Seasonal movements occurred between breeding areas and eastern coastal refuges in each year, but later and in smaller numbers in years of good rainfall inland than in poor ones. North-eastern Queensland seems to be an important refuge for Ibis breeding in northern Australia and south-eastern Queensland for those from south-eastern Australia, with relatively few sightings in intervening central coastal Queensland. Juveniles appear to disperse earlier and more widely than adults. Local rainfall may stimulate Ibis to depart from refuges, most departures probably being pre-nuptial; rain also probably stimulates breeding. Though flooding is enough to do this at many swynps, at two in South Australia, not affected bv floods, increase in temperature is probably the proximate stimulus.


The motor-generator set is widely used in the industry for converting large amounts of power energy to a different form of energy although the topic for this project motor-generator is smaller than usually utilized by an industrial company. The primary purpose of this small version motor-generator is for learning tool used by students associated with Electrical Power Engineering or Industrial Computer System Engineering at Murdoch University. The equipment is located in 1.003 Pilot Plant Engineering & Energy Building and was used in previous years by students at Murdoch University.

The fundamental aim of the project is to get the apparatus operating correctly and establish accurate communication and control. Investigate the effects of Variable Speed Drive on the motor, the effects of rotor speed and loads on the generator. To design and implement a working communication and control program in the system using LabVIEW software, it should display the following outputs; Field Voltage, Armature Voltage, Current, Power, Synchronous Speed of Motor, Rotor Speed, Force, and Torque.

It will be discussed in this report the fundamentals of motor-generator, National Instrument Data Acquisition card, and the LabVIEW software that being used and also the different components used as communication for the motor-generator. The major equipment of the system that will investigate are the following; Variable Speed Drive (VSD), Induction Motor, DC Generator, and the NI DAQ card. With understanding these pieces of equipment, it would determine accurate data information in the outputs. Allen Bradley variable speed drive powered and control the induction motor's speed, while the National Instrument Data Acquisition card receives the systems information and addresses the controls. The four-kilowatt three-phase induction motor with 415 Voltage and 7.7 Amps which runs at 1455 revolution per minute. The DC generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and produces the measured DC voltage output with a variable load bank. The software control for this project is LabVIEW, which reads and writes to different components of the project through NI 6013, 50 pin DAQ card.

To ensure the implementation of the communication and control program, it was run with many trials that produced accurate results. The output results of Voltage, Current and Power are displayed in the waveform were expected, the Strain Gauge that measured force were also shown as well as the torque concerning the level arm of the generator. The rotor speed was calculated based on the synchronous speed and slip of the motor and not measured by a proximity sensor. The calculated values of rotor speed were compared to the tachometers measured value.


Abstract:The borders between North and South quickly erode when we study the history of anti-colonial revolutions. This is perhaps especially true of France, where the Palestinian revolution has been a rallying cry in the struggle for migrant rights for the past half century. This article investigates the reactivation of anti-colonialism in the postcolonial era, tracing the decades-long "postcolonial anti-colonial" movements born in migrant circles in France, from the 1970s to the present. What happens to the notion of anti-colonial revolution when it is brought back to the metropole? How does it change when it is brought to bear on the migrant question? First posed by the Palestine committees forged by migrant workers, foreign students, and Maoist militants in the wake of the September 1970 massacre of Palestinians in Jordan, these questions have shaped discourses around migrant rights in France for the past fifty years. In conclusion, this article revisits the archive of the migrant theater collective Al Assifa as it is remediated in Bouchra Khalili's 2017 film The Tempest Society, and speculates on the current place of migration in world historical discourses of decolonization.


Following the advent of the American Fuzzy Lop (AFL), fuzzing had a surge in popularity, and modern day fuzzers range from simple blackbox random input generators to complex whitebox concolic frameworks that are capable of deep program introspection. Web application fuzzers, however, did not benefit from the tremendous advancements in fuzzing for binary programs and remain largely blackbox in nature. In this experience paper, we show how techniques like state-aware crawling, type inference, coverage and taint analysis can be integrated with a black-box fuzzer to find more critical vulnerabilities, faster (speedups between 7.4 × and 25.9 × ). Comparing BackREST against three other web fuzzers on five large ( > 500 KLOC) Node.js applications shows how it consistently achieves comparable coverage while reporting more vulnerabilities than state-of-the-art. Finally, using BackREST , we uncovered eight 0-days, out of which six were not reported by any other fuzzer. All the 0-days have been disclosed and most are now public, including two in the highly popular Sequelize and Mongodb libraries. compare BackREST against three state-of-the-art fuzzers (Arachni, Zap, and w3af) open-source our test harness 1 the blackbox fuzzers


Coupled with rapid urbanization and urban expansion, the spatial relationship between transportation development and land use has gained growing interest among researchers and policy makers. In this paper, a complex network model and land use intensity assessment were integrated into a spatial econometric model to explore the spatial spillover effect of the road network on intensive land use patterns in China's Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration. First, population density, point of interest (POI) density, and aggregation index were selected to measure land use intensity from social, physical, and ecological aspects. Then, the indicator of average degree (i.e., connections between counties) was used to measure the characteristics of the road network. Under the hypothesis that the road network functions in shaping land use patterns, a spatial econometric model with the road network embedded spatial weight matrix was established. Our results revealed that, while the land use intensity in the BTH urban agglomeration increased from 2010 to 2015, the road network became increasingly complex with greater spatial heterogeneity. The spatial lag coefficients of land use intensity were positively significant in both years and showed a declining trend. The spatially lagged effects of sector structure, fixed asset investment, and consumption were also significant in most of our spatial econometric models, and their contributions to the total spillover effect increased from 2010 to 2015. This study contributes to the literature by providing an innovative quantitative method to analyze the spatial spillover effect of the road network on intensive land use. We suggest that the spatial spillover effect of the road network could be strengthened in the urban–rural interface areas by improving accessibility and promoting population, resource, and technology flows.


This thesis describes the investigation of an adaptive method of attenuation control for digital speech signals in an analogue-digital environment and its effects on the transmission performance of a national telecommunication network. The first part gives the design of a digital automatic gain control, able to operate upon a P.C.M. signal in its companded form and whose operation is based upon the counting of peaks of the digital speech signal above certain threshold levels. A study was ma.de of a digital automatic gain control (d.a.g.c.) in open-loop configuration and closed-loop configuration. The former was adopted as the means for carrying out the automatic control of attenuation. It was simulated and tested, both objectively and subjectively. The final part is the assessment of the effects on telephone connections of a d.a.g.c. that introduces gains of 6 dB or 12 dB. This work used a Telephone Connection Assessment Model developed at The University of Aston in Birmingham. The subjective tests showed that the d.a.g.c. gives advantage for listeners when the speech level is very low. The benefit is not great when speech is only a little quieter than preferred. The assessment showed that, when a standard British Telecom earphone is used, insertion of gain is desirable if speech voltage across the earphone terminals is below an upper limit of -38 dBV. People commented upon the presence of an adaptive-like effect during the tests. This could be the reason why they voted against the insertion of gain at level only little quieter than preferred, when they may otherwise have judged it to be desirable. A telephone connection with a d.a.g.c. in has a degree of difficulty less than half of that without it. The score Excellent plus Good is 10-30% greater.


This research integrates information from documents and testimonies about the effects of the Buenavista Earthquake, July 3rd 1983 (Ms = 6,1) in Costa Rica. From this documentation, it has been possible to reconstruct a local intensity map, and furthermore to understand the perception and social representations that the population draw as explanations about the earthquake source. Maximum intensities occurred northward of Rivas town (VIII-IX), showing an elongated pattern striking NNW. The integration of all primary and secondary information which has been taken and analyzed, suggests a seismic source striking E-W or NW-SE, located north of Buenavista town. The social interpretations to explain the Buenavista Earthquake were focused on ?divine punishment? (?the final judgement?), volcanic activity or collapsing caverns.


This paper looks into the overall energy pattern in rural China and the possible reasons behind based on an assessment of available data sources. Commercial energy consumption by rural residents is disproportionately lower than that by their urban counterparts. Moreover, biological matters are the dominant source of household fuels in rural areas. Variations in energy consumption are closely related to differences in income, access to energy sources, structures of local economy and geographic/climatic conditions. Information on non-commercial energy consumption is incomplete and additional sample survey is required to gather details of rural energy consumption for specification and verification.


BACKGROUND
Worldwide, Type 2 diabetes has become a growing health problem. While many research articles in the field of ethnopharmacology have focused on the antidiabetic properties of medicinal plant species, insufficient evidence remains regarding their therapeutic use. Studies using both in vitro and in vivo models are necessary to evaluate various medicinal plants species, used in folk medicine, by using scientific criteria.

METHODS
This review focuses on isolated compounds from medicinal plant species that have reported antidiabetic activity in diabetes models. Searches using MEDLINE/PUBMED and SCOPUS databases were conducted to find articles in English on compounds isolated from plant species that have been tested using in vivo and/or in vitro diabetes models and published between 01/01/2005 and 12/31/2015.

RESULTS
The majority of studies involved in vitro assays that used the analysis of enzymes and receptors to investigate the antidiabetic mechanisms of active compounds at the molecular level. Compounds that have been reported to have important anti-diabetic activity with defined mechanisms were identified, including quercetin, oleanolic acid, kaempferol, ursolic acid, rutin, β-sitosterol, and mangiferin.

CONCLUSION
This review contributes to the field of ethnopharmacology and should impact the design of new strategies in the search of novel compounds for the treatment of diabetic conditions.


Transparency in monetary policy has become a popular topic over the past decade. However, the majority of the economic research is theoretical, calling into question its value as a practical guide to monetary policy. This paper surveys the literature to assess what conclusions a central bank can draw from the academic study of transparency and how beneficial transparency may be.


Combining the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, Atlantic history, and the history of the French Revolution, Paul Cheney explores the political economy of globalization in eighteenth-century France. The discovery of the New World and the rise of Europe's Atlantic economy brought unprecedented wealth. It also reordered the political balance among European states and threatened age-old social hierarchies within them. In this charged context, the French developed a "science of commerce" that aimed to benefit from this new wealth while containing its revolutionary effects. Montesquieu became a towering authority among reformist economic and political thinkers by developing a politics of fusion intended to reconcile France's aristocratic society and monarchical state with the needs and risks of international commerce. The Seven Years' War proved the weakness of this model, and after this watershed reforms that could guarantee shared prosperity at home and in the colonies remained elusive. Once the Revolution broke out in 1789, the contradictions that attended the growth of France's Atlantic economy helped to bring down the constitutional monarchy. Drawing upon the writings of philosophes, diplomats, consuls of commerce, and merchants, Cheney rewrites the history of political economy in the Enlightenment era and provides a new interpretation of the relationship between capitalism and the French Revolution.


Vehicular hotspots for on-board Internet access using Long Term Evolution (LTE) as the backhaul network has recently gained popularity. Currently, Wi-Fi is the most common technology to provide in-vehicle access, where data has been relayed through on board LTE receiver. Despite its wide acceptance, coexistence and contention based data rate limitations with Wi-Fi necessitates alternatives for in-vehicle data access schemes. This paper investigates the performance of hybrid LTE and visible light communication (VLC) networks using LTE as the backhaul and VLC as the on-board access network.Under the consideration of vehicle interior unique channel characteristics and light emitting diode (LED) deployment flexibility, best transmitter configuration using repetition coding (RC) and spatial multiplexing (SM) multiple input multiple output (MIMO)modes is determined. Proposed configurations based on direct current biased optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing(DCO-OFDM) are compared with respect to their bit-error-rate (BER) performances. Furthermore, the performance of intravehicular VLC networks for single and multi-user scenarios is investigated.


One of the most difficult and longstanding engineering problems associated with coal mining is the catastrophic failure phenomenon known as coal mine bursts (known in the United States as bumps). For more than 70 years, researchers and practitioners have attempted to determine whether this destruction observed underground is caused by stress conditions within the coal pillar or from distant seismic sources in the mine roof and floor strata. The role of confinement and the extent of failure in solid pillars and panels have also proven difficult to define. These are important issues, since control solutions need to be based on a fundamental understanding of the problem. Obsenations by U.S. Bureau of Mines researchers over the last decade have helped to clarify certain aspects of these issues. Microseismic sensors and geomechanic field measurements have located areas of excess energy release, identified stress conditions in coalbeds close to failure, and recorded the response of mine structures prone to bursts. In the present study, data available for a range of U.S. bursts were considered in an effort to evaluate both common and distinctive features. Although the attempt revealed little commonality, encouraging results were produced by categorizing coal bursts by source mechanisms. When a coal burst is thus categorized, differences in environmental factors-such as geology, stress fields, and mining methods-are highlighted, and viable control strategies are readily recognized.


Planar tetracoordinate carbon and nitrogen (ptC and ptN) are the most important members in planar tetracoordinate chemistry. On the other hand, the isostructure of graphene, hexagonal monolayer boron–carbon–nitrogen (i.e., h-BC2N) has been viewed as one of the most potential materials in many fields. In this paper, we make the first attempt to design a structure with the coexistence of ptC and ptN moieties by using edge-decoration of armchair BC2N nanoribbons (aBC2NNR) using various atomic types. Among them, one new structure with alternate ptC and ptN moieties via Be-decorated aBC2NNR has been obtained, and its excellent thermal stability is confirmed by using the global minimization method and molecular dynamic simulations. The electronic conductivity of aBC2NNR undergoes a change from semiconductor to conductor before and after Be atom decoration. Especially, large spin-splitting behavior is induced in aBC2NNR via partially Be atom decoration. Our work will be helpful not only for enriching ptC and ptN chemistry, but also providing a promising candidate to act as a spintronic device.


Soil in the southeastern USA Coastal Plain exhibits marked variation, especially near shallow depressions called Carolina Bays. This variation causes correspondingly severe variation in yield, particularly for corn (Zea mays L.) during drought. Though important to precision farming, these features often are overlooked in 1:20 000 scale county soil surveys. They are visible in 1:1200 scale soil surveys, but the ability to explain yield variation using soil map units at this scale must be unequivocally demonstrated before committing resources to such a detailed survey. Our objectives were (i) to compare paired samples of four soil map units to determine if grain yield variation were sufficiently explained to be of practical value, and (ii) to extend this evaluation to include data with greater spatial coverage. Corn grain yields were measured at 209 sites in an 8-ha field, including two Carolina Bays near Florence, SC. Site-specific effects of soil variation on crop phenology, biomass, and yield components were measured at 11 sites during a drought. Variations in yield components were large and sometimes compensatory (e.g., kernel number and mass), with distinctly different routes to sometimes similar final grain yields. Multiple sites within map units were frequently different at a = 0.05. Analysis of variance for grain yield on soil map unit was statistically significant (P < 0.001) but of limited explanatory value (r 2 = 0.16). We conclude that to create soil management zones for precision farming, one must augment even detailed soil map units with additional spatial data, such as yield maps.


Abstract:  The Loess Plateau region in northwestern China has experienced severe water resource shortages due to the combined impacts of climate and land use changes and water resource exploitation during the past decades. This study was designed to examine the impacts of climatic variability on streamflow characteristics of a 12‐km2 watershed near Tianshui City, Gansu Province in northwestern China. Statistic analytical methods including Kendall's trend test and stepwise regression were used to detect trends in relationship between observed streamflow and climatic variables. Sensitivity analysis based on an evapotranspiration model was used to detect quantitative hydrologic sensitivity to climatic variability. We found that precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (PET) and streamflow (Q) were not statistically significantly different (p > 0.05) over the study period between 1982 and 2003. Stepwise regression and sensitivity analysis all indicated that P was more influential than PET in affecting annual streamflow, but the similar relationship existed at the monthly scale. The sensitivity of streamflow response to variations of P and PET increased slightly with the increase in watershed dryness (PET/P) as well as the increase in runoff ratio (Q/P). This study concluded that future changes in climate, precipitation in particular, will significantly impact water resources in the Loess Plateau region an area that is already experiencing a decreasing trend in water yield.


Caseins are milk protein subdivided into four main groups which are αS1, αS2, β-casein and kappa-casein (CSN3). Kappa-casein gene influences the manufacturing of milk properties. The aim of this study was to identify the kappa-casein gene polymorphism in Friesian Holstein (FH) cattle. Fifty nine (59) samples consisted of 32 (Malang), 10 (Sukahati Bogor) and 17 (Research Center for Biotechnology-Indonesian Institute of Sciences's collections) were applied in this study. DNA samples were extracted by high concentrated NaCl and quantified by spectrophotometer. The kappa-casein gene was amplified at 379 bp fragment by PCR method using a pair primer of kappa-casein at 56 o C annealing for 30 cycles. PCR-RFLP technique with Hind III was used for genotyping analysis. The result showed that there were three variants of genotypes (AA, AB and BB) in two populations from Malang and RC for Biotechnology-LIPI's collection while cattle from Sukahati had only AA and AB genotypes. The averages of genotype frequencies were 65.28%; 65.28%; and 3.00% for AA, AB and BB genotypes respectively while frequencies of 0.81 and 0.19 were for A and B alleles, respectively. FH cattle populations were in equilibrium genetics. This finding concludes that polymorphism was found in three of FH populations with A allele was more common in kappa-casein locus. B allele is known having association with milk production, milk component and cheese yield. Increasing of B allele would influence on milk performance of FH cattle. Explorations of quantitative, qualitative and molecular genetics are important to improve dairy cattle performance.


War played a central part in the history of Japan. Warring clans controlled much of the country. The wars were usually about land, the struggle for control of which eventually gave rise to perhaps the most formidable warriors of all time: the Samurai. Ancient Yayoi warriors developed weapons, armour and a code during the ensuing centuries that became the centrepiece for the Japanese Samurai. Anthony Bryant chronicles the history, arms and armour of these truly elite warriors, from the rise of the Yayoi through the Genpei War (1180 1185) between the Minamoto and Taira clans, to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century."


This paper describes a study motivated by a general concern to capture innovative and effective practice in higher education, supporting a move towards a 'pedagogy of possibility', 'understanding who we are and what we do', opening up 'new ways of being in the university' (Boughey, 2010). The research seeks to investigate the nature of epistemological access afforded by a first-year chemistry intervention programme, with an ultimate aim of contributing to the development of effective spaces for learning in higher education. The study is regarded as dynamic in terms of its emergence from, and its intended contribution to, practice. The outcome of this somewhat emergent process not only suggests relevant and useful insights into educational practice in higher education but also offers an appropriate and meaningful model for conducting research in higher education. This research contributes to the field both pedagogically as well as methodologically.


System-level modeling, simulation, and synthesis using the synchronous dataflow (SDF) model of computation is widespread in design automation for communication and digital signal processing (DSP) systems. SDF scheduling has a large impact on the performance and memory requirements of implementations. One of the major problems in scheduling SDF graphs is that the existence of cycles in the targeted systems prevents or greatly restricts application of many useful optimization techniques that are available for acyclic SDF graphs. The loose interdependence algorithms framework (LIAF) has been developed to decompose cycles in SDF graphs into hierarchies of acyclic subgraphs whenever possible. However, LIAF does not specify any specific algorithm to break cycles, but rather it specifies the constraints that such an algorithm must satisfy. In this report, we present a low-complexity (linear-time) cycle-breaking algorithm for decomposing and breaking cycles in SDF graphs so that subsequent acyclic scheduling techniques can be easily applied. We also present a technique for computing buffer bounds on edges that are removed during the cycle-breaking process so that buffer sizes can be computed for such edges. We have implemented our cycle-breaking algorithm and buffer size computation technique in the state-of-art simulation-oriented scheduler, and our results demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques.


We describe the short- and long-term patterns of labour market entry and integration among Non-Western, predominantly non-labour, immigrants to Sweden. Our main sample considers the 1990-2014 period. The patterns of time to first contact and labour market entry vary with business cycle conditions, country of origin and other background characteristics. But the main message is the remarkable stability of a relatively slow entry process and long-term outcomes below those of the average worker. The number of jobs before the "first real job" (entry) is limited and the first employer contact is for many a port to a more stable position. First jobs are comparatively often found in small, low-wage firms, which over time have become increasingly present in service industries. Our discussion of policy experiences suggests several margins and factors affecting the labour market outcomes of recent migrants, but also indicates that no single reform or measure is likely to in itself radically change the patterns.


The ultrastructural localization of growth hormone and prolactin in cow anterior pituitary was studied by double immunocytochemical labeling using specific antibodies and protein A-gold particles of different sizes. The two hormones were found in specific somatotrophs and mammotrophs as well as in somatomammotropic cells which were multinucleated and predominantly arranged in clusters in the central area of the lobules. In these mixed cells the two hormones were packaged (a) in different granules of the same cell, (b) in the same granules where they were segregated in different portions of the granule content, or (c) in the same granules but evenly intermixed. The relative proportion of these three types of granules varied in somatomammotrophs of different animals. A single large Golgi complex was generally present in somatomammotrophs. Small, immature granules containing either growth hormone or prolactin or both hormones were found randomly distributed along Golgi stacks. This suggests that in these cells the two hormones are processed in the same Golgi cisternae and that mechanism(s) exist(s) to sort out the two hormones from each other.


This thesis describes the implementation of a Controlled English Commenting (CEC) system that aids a VHDL modeler in entering controlled English comments. The CE system developed includes a graphical user interface (GUI). The interface permits modeler to submit comments for insertion at user selected points in a text file containing the model. A submitted comment is analyzed for vocabulary and syntax, and is then inserted if it is controlled English. If it is not, the CEC system extracts all possible controlled English comments that can be formed from the original comment and presents them to the user for selection and entry into the model. The interface then queries the user to complete any residual portions of the original comment until the user is satisfied. Until the user becomes familiar with the constraints of the controlled language, significant interaction is needed, particularly on complex comments. Preliminary experiments indicate that users rapidly learn the language's constraints and the need for interactive help declines.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the survival, pattern of failure, morbidity, and prognostic factors of concurrent chemoradiation for locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer. Materials and methods: A retrospective survey of patients who underwent chemotherapy and radiation for locally advanced oropharyngeal carcinoma at the Veteran Affairs North Texas Health Care System, Dallas, Tex. Results: Between December 1999 and September 2004, 48 patients with locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer underwent concurrent chemotherapy and radiation. At a median follow-up of 23 months, the 3- and 5-year survival for the whole group were, respectively, 52% and 41%. Seventeen patients (35%) developed recurrences. There were 12 (25%) locoregional failures (6 local failures alone and 6 local and regional failures). Distant metastases developed in 8 patients (5 alone, 3 associated with locoregional failures). Four patients (8%) developed second primaries. No difference was observed in survival between base of tongue and tonsillar carcinoma (P = .32). The 5-year survival for T1-T2 and T3-T4 tumors was, respectively, 84% and 27% (P = .01). No patient with T1-T2 tumors developed distant metastases (P = .04). Forty-five patients (94%) developed toxicity grade 3 to 4 (40 mucositis and 26 hematological). The median weight loss was 18 lb (range, 0–47 lb). Eight patients (16%) developed aspiration pneumonia during and after treatment. Five patients (10%) died of aspiration (2 during and 3 post treatment). Four patients (8%) developed esophageal strictures requiring repeated dilatations post treatment. Two patients had radionecrosis (1 soft tissue and 1 bone) requiring hyperbaric oxygen. Eighteen patients (37%) had prolonged tube feedings (N3 months) after treatments because of severe dysphagia or aspiration. Conclusion: Concurrent chemoradiation provided good locoregional control for locally advanced oropharyngeal carcinoma. Patients with small tumors (T1-T2) had excellent survival. The poor prognosis associated with large tumors may be due to the risk of developing distant metastases. Acute and late toxicities remained significant. Aspiration pneumonia and severe dysphagia were the most prevalent complications of the combined modality approach.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Reusable ureteroscopy requires many expensive components which pose financial obstacles to centers in developing countries and domestic community centers. Lowering costs while maintaining operative quality during flexible ureteroscopy is an important goal. The Neoflex (Neoscope, USA) single-use flexible digital ureteroscope can connect to a video processing unit (VPU), which can connect directly to the standard OR monitor. It can also connect to a portable laptop adaptor device (PLAD), which produces HD videos on any Mac/Windows-based laptop and reduce much of the equipment cost. We perform an in vitro comparison of optics and performance between these two devices. Comparisons were also done with a Flex-X2 (Karl Storz, Germany) reusable fiberoptic ureteroscope. METHODS: For resolution, ureteroscope tips were positioned 10 to 50 mm away from a 1951 USAF test target at 10 mm increments. Data were analyzed per protocol, with higher numbers indicating better resolution. For contrast, ureteroscopes were moved down a 15 step grayscale gradient, starting from the darkest square to the lightest, until the observer noted a change in contrast between two squares. Color representation was assessed using a Macbeth Color Chart and graded on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the greatest similarity). Video recording of ureteroscopic laser lithotripsy with the VPU and PLAD were also shown to different urologists (n=10) for evaluation of image quality by questionnaire. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in resolution between the VPU and PLAD at varying distances (p=0.15). Color representation was slightly better in the VPU but contrast evaluation was similar in both devices (Table 1). Observers deemed illumination (p<0.01) and overall performance (p=0.01) superior in the VPU, but comparable between both devices for glare, visualization, resolution and detail visibility (Table 2). When queried on their preferred device, 40% of respondents were indifferent to using either device. Both devices were superior to the fiberoptic ureteroscope in all 3 optical characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to the PLAD being able to produce high quality images on standard laptop setups, both devices have the added potential to provide image quality comparable to that of expensive reusable ureteroscopy equipment, at a fraction of the cost. Table. No title available. Table. No title available. Source of Funding: None