This study is done on Somali migrants participating In the informal economy of Durban. The aim of the study is to explore their socio-economic participation, their experiences and the prospects available to them in the informal economy of the city. By using the ethnographic approach, the study attempts to explore the study group' s experiences as migrants in the informal economy. Findings of this research indicate that most Somalis in Durban engage in street-trade. Following these findings , the street-trade of Durban and Somali migrants ' participation in this sector of the informal economy, became the centre of attention in this dissertation. The study also attempts to explore the impact of the policy environment on the Somali migrants ' participation in the informal economy of the city. The findings of this research suggest that conditions of migration, legislative and policy environment, and the prospect for growth, drive Somali migrants in Durban to participate in the informal economy. Following the findings, this study also challenges the general perception that informal economy is a survivalist strategy, which undermines the pull-factors, such as prospects for growth and a means of avoiding the costs of formality. This study suggests that Somali migrants perceive their engagement in the street-trade as a means of accumulating capital in order to move up to bigger businesses. Social capital and networks are valuable elements often used by these migrant traders in advancing their business and sharing information about business matters. The study also explores the existence of symbiotic and conflictual relationships between the locals and Somali street-traders. This relationship is noted to be one of tension, yet with some degree of understanding which emanates from sharing a common experience as street-traders.


This paper presents and analyzes a novel low-complexity reduced-rank linear interference suppression technique for direct-sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems based on the set-membership joint iterative optimization of receive parameters. Set-membership filtering is applied to the design and adaptation of the dimensionality-reducing projection matrix and the reduced-rank interference suppression filter. The specification of error bounds on the projection matrix and reduced-rank filter lead to the formation of two constraint sets from which estimates of the adaptive structures are selected at each time instant. The result is a low-complexity sparsely updating reduced-rank technique that does not require eigendecomposition or subspace tracking procedures. We develop least squares and stochastic gradient-type algorithms and a low-complexity rank-selection algorithm and also devise a time-varying adaptive error bound implementation. We present a stability and mean-square-error convergence analysis of the proposed algorithms along with a study of their complexity. The proposed schemes are applied to interference suppression in the uplink of a multiuser spread-spectrum DS-CDMA system, and the results confirm the validity of the analysis and the effective operation of the schemes. Performance comparisons are given against existing reduced-rank and full-rank algorithms, which act to highlight the improvements obtained by the proposed technique and algorithms.


The rise of neo-nationalism in Europe over the last two decades has made many fear a turn to exclusionary societies that draw rigid boundaries between insiders and outsiders. Frequently read as a response to the effects of globalization, nationalism, according to Karner is but one among many diverse ideological reactions to the perceived crises of the contemporary era. Moreover, he posits that although many commentators are quick to associate national identity with an exclusionary nationalism , the two must not be conflated: national identities are flexible and complex, and represent ongoing processes of contention and negotiation. As such, they can also be in clusive and subject to counter-hegemonic critique. Based on some of the author's previously published works, this book explores the varied public discourses on key subjects of contention in contemporary Austria, including in particular, attitudes toward immigrants and asylum seekers, the European Union, and areas of national pride and cultural heritage such as language and the natural environment. While Karner recognizes the emergence of far right ideology, his primary focus is on the variety of counter-discourses that have emerged in the public sphere. Through a discourse analysis of Austrian media and other 'cultural texts' such as political manifestos, literature, and civil society initiatives, he highlights the contested and negotiated terrain of Austrian national identity over the course of the last decade. He demonstrates that civil society plays a crucial role in negotiating identities at the local, national, and European levels, and has contributed to the emergence of inclusive ideas about identity and belonging. Throughout the book, the author extrapolates from his Austrian case to the wider European context through brief comparisons to other countries.Drawing primarily on Anthony Smith (2008), Michael Billig (1995), and Pierre Bourdieu (1977), the first two chapters outline the author's main theoretical points. National identities and boundaries, he argues, should be viewed as social processes that are continually reproduced, reinterpreted, and evolving: "[e]ven within a given national context, national identities are not ideologically monolithic but are defined by heterogeneity, disagreement and discursive struggle" (p. 26). National identities are reproduced as 'cold nationalism' (Billig 1995) in small, seemingly insignificant ways in everyday life through the pervasiveness of symbols such as national flags. These identities represent a sort of habitus (Bourdieu 1977), or "the 'structuring structures' provided by shared categories, dispositions, practices, assumptions and tastes that enable and constrain ... social action and furnish a taken-for-granted, rarely reflected on and hence predominantly unconscious cultural common sense" (p. 56). In times of crisis, however, taken-for-granted, undisputed cultural 'truths' - doxa, in Bourdieu's terms - are questioned, resulting in ideological contestation among dominant and subordinated groups.In Austria, a number of political and corruption scandals since the mid-1980s, an influx of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, and various effects of globalization, have led to a widespread perception of crisis. As a result, Karner argues, previously taken-for-granted 'banal' objects of national pride, particularly language, sports, history, and the natural environment, have become arenas of discursive struggle. One prominent example is the 'jam jar crisis,' during which controversy erupted over the EU's proposal to designate all non-citrus jams as 'Konfiture.' In Austrian-German, all jam - citrus or not - is designated 'Marmelade,' whereas German-German distinguishes between citrus jam as 'Marmelade' and non-citrus jam as 'Konfiture.' Jam labels thus became important boundary markers between German and Austrian identities. Karner demonstrates that while national boundaries are sometimes reasserted through such struggles, even in mainstream media counter-discourses have emerged that challenge nationalist ideology. …


In 1820, a volume of beautiful aquatint Views of the Lake and of the Vale, of Keswick wan published, with an introduction by Southey. The artist, William Westall, had been Southey's friend for several years; he was also a favourite of the Wordsworth circle at Rydal for his illustrations of Lakeland scenery, which, along with the watercolours of Constable and Turner, and the aquatints of William Green, represented the region in new, Romantic, terms. Who was William Westall and how did he come to be the friend and trusted artist of Southey and Wordsworth? He was born in Hertford on October 12, 1781, the son of Benjamin Westall and his second wife. In 1794, Benjamin died and William's half-brother Richard, who was sixteen years older, became his de. facto father (see ODNB www.westallart.blogspot.co.uk). Richard Westall, who became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1792, and a Royal Academician in 1794, found fame in the fashionable art world. William showed early artistic promise and, recognising this talent, Richard taught him before he entered the Royal Academy as a probationer in 1799. The following year William was offered the position of landscape artist for a voyage to Australia on the recommendation of the President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West. The voyage, under the captaincy of Matthew Finders, completed the first known circumnavigation of Australia and William executed some eighty drawings of the country and its peoples. In 1803, on the way home, William associated with an employee of Sir Joseph Banks, David Lance, while visiting China and stayed a few months whilst busily sketching. Then with the help of the East India Company, William travelled on to India. He returned to Britain in 1805; in 1810 and 1812, his oil paintings based on his Australian sketches were displayed at the Royal Academy where they "attracted great attention" (Westall, Robert 104-5). William was then elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. In 1814, Flinders' account of the expedition, A Voyage to Terra Australis, was published, including nine engravings after William's drawings and twenty-eight of his coastal views in the accompanying atlas (Westall, Richard J. 449). William was now established as an up and coming topographical artist. According to his son Robert, it was in 1811, that William "paid his first visit to the Lake country ... and was so much charmed with the beauty of the Northern scenery that he resided at Keswick or the neighbourhood during part of every winter until 1820 and afterwards frequently visited it" (Westall, Robert 104-5). It may have been through Sir George and Lady Beaumont, keen amateur artists and patrons of art, who were great admirers of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, that Westall gained his introduction to the Lake poets. During the winters of 1813 and 1814, he visited the Beaumonts at their Coleorton estate in Leicestershire. In summer 1816, he was in the Lakes with the Beaumonts: Southey writing "[t]he Beaumonts are here, and Rogers is here,--and the Lord knows whose family are coming. Here is Glover in town; and the younger Westall" (Southey 1856, 3: 33). Henry Crabb Robinson noted the visit in his diary in September 1816: "We spent an agreeable evening with Southey, Mr Nash, Mr Westall Jun, several ladies, Miss Barker, Mrs Southey, Mrs Coleridge, and Mrs Lovell, were of the party" (Crabb Robinson 2: 21). In April, 1817, Joseph Farington reported that "Wm Westall told me that he passed the whole of last summer at the Lakes, & had now an apartment at Grassmere, and it was his intention to reside at Keswick" (Farington 14: 4999). Westall's northern summer was fruitful for his art. In 1818, twelve of his engravings after his own designs were published by John Murray as Views of the Caves Near Ingleton in Yorkshire (Westall, Richard J., 1986: 449). The book was well received in the Wordsworth household: Mary Wordsworth wrote to her sister Sara Hutchinson in December, 1818, about the "Yorkshire Caves by Westall" (Wordsworth, Mary 41). …


Shock compression and the following expansion into helium were used to generate the boiling of porous nickel. The brightness temperature and velocity of expansion were measured by a fast multichannel optical pyrometer. Gas dynamic peculiarities of expansion in the final pressure range below 0.4 GPa were studied. It has been proved that a shock rarefaction wave is formed under expansion when final states of the sample are inside the two-phase region. The fast heating of tungsten by multiple shocked helium in the process of acceleration of tungsten foil at dynamically formed isobaric conditions is proposed as a new way for generating near-critical-point states of liquid - vapour phase transition. Additionally, an estimation of the critical point data of tungsten is made.


Polarization state is an important characteristic of electromagnetic waves. The arbitrary control of the polarization state of such wave has attracted great interest in the scientific community because of the wide range of modern optical applications that such control can afford. Recent advances in metamaterials provide an alternative method of realizing arbitrary manipulation of polarization state of electromagnetic waves in nanoscale via ultrathin, miniaturized, and easily integrable designs. In this chapter, we give a review of recent developments on polarization state manipulation of electromagnetic waves in metamaterials and discuss their applications in nanophotonics, such as polarization con -verter, wavefront controller, information coding, and so on.


This paper analyses in details the balancing and rebalancing problem of assembly lines operated by self-managed work groups. It proposes an optimizing integer programming model that is treated computationally with success by means of the modeling language GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System) and solver ZOOM. We have not found other works that have presented a heuristic or exact mathematical model for such a problem. For estimating the future line efficiency, one of the parameters that the model requires, we propose the use of two methods used in other areas (learning curve and demand forecasting). Differences between balancing and rebalancing problems are shown and also a complementary bibliographical review about line balancing is accomplished. It complements the last review of exact methods dated on 1986 and the last review of heuristic methods dated on 1998.


Colombia is a small open and commodity exporter economy, sensitive to international commodity price fluctuations. During the surge in commodity prices, as income from the resource sector increases total credit expands, boosting demand for tradable and nontradable goods, appreciating the currency and shifting resources from the tradable sector to the nontradable. Although this adjustment is efficient, the presence of financial frictions in the economy exacerbates the resource allocation process through credit. In this phase, as total credit expands, the appreciation erodes the net worth of the tradable sector and boosts the nontradable one, and thus credit gets concentrated in that sector. A sudden reversal of commodity prices causes a rapid adjustment of resources in the opposite direction. However, the ability of the tradable sector to absorb the freed resources is limited by its financial capacity. In this scenario, macroprudential policies may help to restrain aggregate credit dynamics and thus prevent or act prudently in anticipation to the effects of large oil price shock reversals. In this work we write a model that accounts for these facts and quantify the role of three policy instruments: short term interest rate, FX intervention and financial regulation. We explore this issues in a DSGE model estimated for the Colombian economy and find that both FX intervention and regulation policies complement the short-term interest rates in smoothing the business cycle by restraining credit, raising market interest rates and smoothing economic activity. However, these additional instruments have undesirable sectoral implications. In particular, the use of these policies implies that credit to the tradable sector dries and becomes more expensive, weakening its financial position, which in turn implies a sharper fall of this sector during the price reversal and a longer recovery. These effects, nonetheless, appear to be quantitatively small according to the estimated model.


This study of the irrigation and drainage systems in Basrah province analyses the factors affecting these systems, such as the water resources, soil conditions, management and crops and then shows the effects of these systems on crop yields and soil salinity. In such a study it is necessary to discuss the physical characteristics of the province and the hydraulic aspects of Iraq which have direct and indirect influences on the irrigation and drainage systems in the province. In accordance with the variations in the irrigation and drainage systems, the province has been divided into four regions, namely : the Western, Southern Tigris, marshes and the Shat Al-Arab. One of the findings of this study has been the spatial differences between the levels of salinity in the irrigation water which ranges from moderate in the southern Tigris, marshes and the upper section of the Shat Al-Arab to excessive in the western region and the lower section of the Shat Al-Arab. The salinity of the irrigated soils has also been shown to vary from region to region, from a very low level in the marshes to a strongly high level in the southern Tigris. Throughout the province it was found that the farmers continued to rely on their traditional skills and inherited experiences in carrying out cultivation and irrigation operations which have resulted in over-irrigation and low efficiency of use of irrigation water. This, together with the inadequate drainage and high evaporation rates has led to exacerbation of the soil salinity problem and the consequent abandonment of large areas of cultivable lands in the western, southern Tigris and the Shat Al-Arab regions. Additionally, in the marshes and the Shat Al-Arab regions the presence of aquatic vegetation forms an important obstacle to irrigation and drainage operations. Moreover, it is likely that in the future the province will face a serious shortfall in irrigation water availability. The province, however, still remains an important agricultural area, providing the Iraqi markets with tomatoes during winters and contributing 11.8% of the country's total date production. Improvements in irrigation and drainage and in soil-water management are therefore vital.


BACKGROUND
Engaging nursing students in theoretical courses, such as research, can be challenging. Innovative instructional strategies are essential to engage nursing students in theoretical nursing courses.

METHOD
This article describes an educational innovation using technology as a tool in an undergraduate nursing research class. All students in the course received iPads for the semester. Lecture material was presented in class using Nearpod, an interactive presentation embedded with slides, multimedia components, and learning activities.

RESULT
Students reported that using the mobile technology helped them minimize off-task activities, interact more with each other and the instructor, solve problems in the class, and develop skills and confidence related to their career.

CONCLUSION
Allowing device use in the classroom, such as iPads and interactive mobile applications, can be a useful learning tool. Intentional use of technology and pedagogy can increase engagement and interaction with students. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(3):170-173.].


FRIEDMAN, HAROLD J. (25 Dec. 1905-7 Jan. 1993), allergist, developed Cleveland's monitoring of the pollen count. Having proved that both household dust and silk could also trigger allergic reactions, he spurred drug manufacturers to eliminate silk fibers from typhoid vaccine production. A winner of the Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy of Allergy (1972), Friedman published research and served as associate editor of the Journal of Allergy and Immunology. Born in Ashtabula, OH, to Goldie and Abraham Friedman, he was raised in Cleveland and graduated from East High School and Ohio State University, where he received both a B.S. and an M.D. (1932). Friedman interned and spent his residencies in City Hospital, New York City before returning to Cleveland in 1940. He served on the staffs of the MT. SINAI MEDICAL CENTER and the MERIDIA HURON HOSPITAL, where he headed the allergy department. Friedman married Judith Steiner on 24 Nov. 1943; they lived in SHAKER HEIGHTS with 3 daughters, Elizabeth, Nancy Zavelson, and Kathryn Kirchner.


The design field has broadened to include a wide range of design interventions following the promotion of concepts such as design thinking that are based on a generalist mind-set. Yet, some designers as specialist-generalists find it difficult to communicate their expertise. As Kripperndorf's (2009) quotation illustrates, 'designers who know a little bit of everything, none too deeply, are universal charlatans.' This paper focuses on the perceptions held by Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) regarding design expertise. It examines the issue through a series of interviews conducted with individuals representing SMEs and designers. It discusses the nature of design expertise, questions why there may be a lack of trust in design expertise. It investigates the confusion emerging from a generalist-specialist dichotomy and tries to uncover the difficulties in communicating design expertise. This paper aims to contribute to this unresolved dialogue that is taking place between businesses and designers working in partnership.


This paper explores representations of the book and other media in some works by Dickens, Zola and Dos Passos. The aim of the study is to compare the aesthetic function of book and media representations in Dickens' Little Dorrit, Bleak House and Great Expectations, Zola's Germinal, Therese Raquin and Nana (or another title in the Rougon-Macquart series) and Dos Passos' USA-trilogy. Because of the number of works involved, the paper is merely an inventory of occurrences and reflections on them. However, the parameters involved may be of use in constructing a model for further studies, and later comparisons will be made with Scandinavian "class literatures" in the 1930s, in a wider research project. Firstly, I will interpret the occurrences of reading and the book from a temporal historical perspective, i.e. a sort of chronotopian way of looking at occurrences of reading and of what is read. Secondly, I will examine the differences between the book as a symbol and reading as a motif, or as thematic function, in Dickens and Zola in terms of message and aim (which could possibly be referred to as the perfomative aspect). Thirdly, the significance and symbolic value of the book in Dickens and Zola have been transferred to newsreels and documentary films in Dos Passos' works. The paper concludes with a discussion of the shift in importance from the book to other media in fiction as exemplified in the three authorships.


Recent research has emphasised that permanent changes in the innovation variance (caused by structural shifts or an integrated volatility process) lead to size distortions in conventional unit root tests. Cavaliere and Taylor (2008) show how these size distortions may be resolved using the wild bootstrap. In this paper, we first derive the asymptotic power envelope for the unit root testing problem when the nonstationary volatility process is known. Next, we show that under suitable conditions, adaptation with respect to the volatility process is possible, in the sense that nonparametric estimation of the volatility process leads to the same asymptotic power envelope. Implementation of the resulting test involves cross-validation and the wild bootstrap. A Monte Carlo experiment shows that the asymptotic results are reflected in finite sample properties, and an empirical analysis of real exchange rates illustrates the applicability of the proposed procedures.


Microglia are resident brain cells that sense pathological tissue alterations. They can develop into brain macrophages and perform immunological functions. However, expression of immune proteins by microglia is not synonymous with inflammation, because these molecules can have central nervous system (CNS)–specific roles. Through their involvement in pain mechanisms, microglia also respond to external threats. Experimental studies support the idea that microglia have a role in the maintenance of synaptic integrity. Analogous to electricians, they are capable of removing defunct axon terminals, thereby helping neuronal connections to stay intact. Microglia in healthy CNS tissue do not qualify as macrophages, and their specific functions are beginning to be explored.


The following thesis presents an analysis of business-government relations
within a neo-Marxist framework. Specifically, the discussion encompasses how the
business interest group. the Business Council on National Issues, maintains consensus
and unity amongst its monopoly capital members. Furthermore. the study elaborates on
the process through which the group's interests are acknowledged and legitimized by
the state under the "public interest" f8fue.
Most of the literature pertaining to business-government relations within the
context of interactions between business interest groups and the state, and such
specific branches of the state as the government and/or the civil service. emphasize a
liberal-pluralist perspective. Essentially, these writings serve to reflect and legitimate
the current slatus quo. Marxist discourses on the subject, while attempting to
transcend the liberal-pluralist framework. nevertheless suffer from either economic
determinism .. ie., stressing the state's accumulation function but not its legitimation
function or historical specificity. A cogent and comprehensive neo-Marxist analysis of
business-government relations must discuss both the accumulation and legitimation
functions of the state. The process by which the concerns of a particular business
interest group become part of the state's policy agenda and subsequently are
formulated and implemented into policies which legitimate its dominance is also
studied. This inquiry is significant given the liberal-pluralist assumptions of a neutral
state and that all interest groups compete "on a level playing field".
The author's neo-Marxist paradigm rejects both of these assumptions. Building
on concepts from nea-Marxist instrumentalism. structuralism. state monopoly
capitalism, and forms and functions of the state perspectives. the author proposes that
policies which legitimize the interests of the monopoly capital fraction cannot. be
discerned only from the state's activities. per StJ. Clearly, if the liberal-pluralist
3
contention of multiple and conflicting interest groups, including those within the
capitalist class, is taken at face value, M interest group such as the Business Council on
National Issues (BCND, must somehow maintain. internal consensus Md unity amongst
its members. Internal consensus amongst its members ensures that the state can better
acknowledge and articulate its concerns into policies that maintain hegemonic
dominance of the monopoly capital fraction under the "public interest" fllf.JJdq. The
author contends that the BCNI focuses most of its interactions on the upper echelons of
the civil service since it is this branch of the state which is most responsible for policy
formulation and implementation.
The author's paradigm is applied within the context of extensively analyzing
newspaper coverage. BCN! publications, and other published sources, as well as a
personal interview with an executive administrative member of the BeNI. The
discussion focuses on how agreement and unity…


The study was carried out in two fishing grounds on the Mediterranean continental shelf: one in the Adriatic Sea and one in the Catalan Sea. Samplings on board otter trawlers were performed from November 2002 to December 2003 in the Catalan Sea and from February 2003 to January 2004 in the Adriatic Sea. The Adriatic fishing ground was affected by high fishing intensity from January to June, while the Catalan area was highly exploited from September to February. Fishing activity in the Adriatic area was closed for 45 days, and 62 days in the Catalan area; both periods were in summer. Totals of 92 and 88 species were collected in the Adriatic and Catalan fishing grounds respectively. The species composition of the retained and discarded fractions showed close agreement between the two areas. Mullus barbatus showed very low discard rates in both areas, as well as Loligo vulgaris in the Catalan Sea and Merluccius merluccius in the Adriatic Sea. In both fishing grounds Squilla mantis showed high catch rates with low discards, except in March in the Catalan area. In the Adriatic Sea Liocarcinus depurator was characterized by large discard fractions. In both fishing grounds the retained fraction was slightly higher in the high fishing intensity periods than in the low intensity ones (Adriatic Sea: 0.613 vs 0.524; Catalan Sea: 0.597 vs 0.539), even though the Kruskall Wallis test revealed significant differences (p<0.05) only for the Adriatic Sea.


The effect of silane treatment on processing characteristic and swelling behavior of recycled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBRr)/polypropylene (PP)/rice husk powder (RHP) composites has been studied. Polypropylene/recycled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber/rice husk powder (PP/NBRr/RHP) composite were prepared by melt mixing technique at 180º C for 9 minutes and 50rpm rotor speed using an internal mixer. Five different composites compositions (70/30/0, 7030/5, 70/30/10, 70/30/15 and 70/30/30), with silane treated RHP (treated) and without silane treatment RHP (untreated) was studied. The specimens were analyzed for swelling behavior with ASTM oil No.3 and processing torque of composites was obtained during composite preparation. The results showed that swelling percentage for both composites increased with NBRr content. However the treated composites exhibited lower swelling characteristics. Processing torque of both composites also showed higher torque reading with increasing NBRr content. However the treated composite with silane exhibited much higher torque value for similar composition composites. Better interaction between RHP filler and PP/NBRr matrixs was obtained with treated composites.


The Anthony Nolan Register provides donors for allogeneic stem cell transplantation for haematological disorders. A clinical database and sample bank were established for the ongoing analysis of transplants from Register donors. Clinical data and blood samples were collected from donors and patients transplanted in the UK from 1996 onwards. DNA was extracted from all samples received, and used for the detection of HLA mismatches at six loci (HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1, -DQB1, and -DPB1) by RSCA, and HA-1 by SSP. 138 donor/patient pairs were selected for a pilot study. HLA matching between patient and donor, along with the diagnosis of the patient, donor and patient age, CMV status and gender, and the T cell depletion status of the transplant were analysed for their effect on transplant outcome. The outcome variables studied included overall survival, disease free survival, transplant related mortality, relapse incidence, and the occurrence of acute and chronic GvHD. Patients with AML had decreased overall and disease free survival, and patients with CML had increased risk of relapse. Transplant from a same sex donor increased the risk of death or relapse, and male patients receiving stem cells from female donors showed reduced overall survival. Developing acute GvHD increased the risk of transplant related mortality. A mismatch at HLA class I and at class II was associated with unfavourable outcome for all survival variables. The inclusion of HLA-DPB1 matching did not alter the effects seen when other mismatches were present. Matching at the allele level for all loci gave an increased risk of relapse compared with patients mismatched with their donor for HLA-DPB1 only, indicating that a mismatch for HLA-DPB1 alone may protect from relapse. The data from this study was used to calculate the numbers required for a definitive study, for the optimisation of donor selection from the Register.


Creation of national parks often imposes immediate livelihood costs on local people, and tensions between park managers and local people are common. Park managers have tried different approaches to managing relationships with local people, but nearly all include efforts to promote environmental values and behaviors. These efforts have had uneven results, and there is a need to improve our understanding of how environmental values develop, change, and influence behavior. We investigated this question in a study of communities in and adjacent to national parks in Costa Rica and Honduras, using a mental and cultural model approach. We found local people to be fluent in global environmental values, but some common values had limited impact on behavior due to conflicts with livelihood needs. However, new environmental values that integrated conservation and livelihood needs had developed that had a more direct relationship to behavior. We propose a general model of how local environmental values develop in the context of global environmentalism that can be used to guide outreach programs with park neighbors.


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By combining idealized experiments with realistic quantum mechanical
simulations of the interface, we investigate electro-reduction
reactions of HF and water impurities on the single crystal (111)
facets of Au, Pt, Ir and Cu in an organic aprotic electrolyte, 1M
LiPF6 in
EC/EMC 3:7w (LP57), which are common reactions happening during the
formation of the SEI on graphite. In our previous work, we have
established that the LiF formation, accompanied with H2
evolution, is caused by a reduction of HF impurities and requires the
presence of Li at the interface, which catalyzes the HF dissociation.
In the present paper, we find that the measured potential of the
electrochemical response for these reduction reactions correlates
with the work function of the electrode surfaces and that the work
function determines the potential for Li+ adsorption. The
reaction path is investigated further by electrochemical simulations
suggesting that the overpotential of the reaction is related to
stabilizing the active structure of the interface having Li+
adsorbed. The Li+ is needed to facilitate the dissociation
of HF which is the source of proton. Further experiments on the other
proton sources, water and methanesulfonic acid, show that if the
hydrogen evolution involves negatively charged intermediates, F-
or HO-, a cation at the interface can stabilize them and
facilitate the reaction kinetics. When the proton source is already
significantly dissociated (in the case of a strong acid), there is no
negatively charged intermediate and thus the hydrogen evolution can
proceed at much lower overpotentials. This reveals a situation where
the overpotential for electrocatalysis is related to stabilizing the
active structure of the interface, facilitating the reaction rather
than providing the reaction energy. This has implications for the SEI
layer formation in Li-ion batteries and for reduction reactions in
alkaline environment as well as for design principles for better
electrodes.


Snapping is a widely used technique that helps users position graphical objects precisely, e.g., to align them with a grid or other graphical objects. Unfortunately, whenever users want to position a dragged object close to such an aligned location, they first need to deactivate snapping. We propose snap-and-go, a snapping technique that overcomes this limitation. By merely stopping dragged objects at aligned positions, rather than "warping" them there, snap-and-go helps users align objects, yet still allows placing dragged objects anywhere else. While this approach of inserting additional motor space renders snap-and-go slightly slower than traditional snapping, snap-and-go simplifies the user interface by eliminating the need for a deactivation option and thereby allows introducing snapping to application scenarios where traditional snapping is inapplicable. In our user studies, participants were able to align objects up to 138% (1D) and 231% (2D) faster with snap-and-go than without and snap-and-go proved robust against the presence of distracting snap targets.


A number of developed countries have implemented guest-worker programs in recent decades. Its basic feature is the temporary presence of the foreign guest-workers. The problem with such programs is that there is little to prevent these guest-workers from entering the illegal job market and overstay their legal welcome, which is the reason why these programs became unpopular over time. This paper argues that a well-designed guest-worker program could be acceptable to host countries and could be beneficial for all parties concerned. It presents a host country immigration policy that tries to achieve these objectives by raising the likelihood that guest-workers return to their home country when the permissible time period elapses, and that reduces the number of immigrants entering the country illegally. The policy has three components and is based on legal responsibility by the guest-workers, new insurance markets, and cooperation with the sending country or countries.


We numerically investigate the behavior of driven noncohesive granular media and find that two fixed large intruder particles, immersed in a sea of small particles, experience, in addition to a short-range depletion force, a long-range repulsive force. The observed long-range interaction is fluctuation-induced and we propose a mechanism similar to the Casimir effect that generates it: The hydrodynamic fluctuations are geometrically confined between the intruders, producing an unbalanced renormalized pressure. An estimation based on computing the possible Fourier modes explains the repulsive force and is in qualitative agreement with the simulations.


Recent policy changes by federal land management agencies such as the United States Forest Service have led to increased use of silvicultural systems other than clearcut- ting. Because soft mast is an integral part of wildlife habitat and the effects of these alternative silviculture systems on soft mast production are unknown, we evaluated effects of different stand-level silvicultural systems on soft mast production in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma. We evaluated differences in soft mast production and coverage among 4 replications of 5 treatments (clearcut, shelter- wood, group selection, single-tree selection, and late-rotation, unharvested forest stands) during the first (19941, third (1996), and fifth (1998) years after initial timber harvest. Coverage of all mast-producing plants combined did not differ among treat- ments over all years. Soft mast production did not differ among treatments the first year after timber harvest, but was greater in harvested stands than in unharvested stands in the third post-harvest year. Production in shelterwood cuts and clearcuts was greater than in single-tree selection, group selections, and unharvested stands the fifth post-harvest year. Unharvested stands, greenbelts (unharvested buffers surround- ing stream drainages), and the thinned matrix of group-selecti on stands produced Iit- tle mast in all years. A significant linear relationship between soft mast production and residual overstory basal area was present in years 3 and 5. We present equations to predict soft mast production 3 and 5 years after harvest when residual overstory basal areas are known. Without additional stand treatments (e.g., thinning or burn- ing), we expect production in even-aged stands (clearcuts and shelterwood cuts) to decline as canopy closure progresses; likewise, production in single-tree selection stands will likely decline due to midstory development.


In the beginning, there was always a plan. Monkeys and bananas, cannibals and missionaries, blocks world.., the planner just had to be smart enough, and look hard enough, and there was a plan to be found. Even in "real world" problems, there was always a plan: you can always find a way to get from Princeton to Brown, even if the airport is closed. If the planner couldn't find a plan, either the planner was broken or the domain description was broken. Building complex domain descriptions was still hard, because planners would say little about why they couldn't build a plan. But now the problem is much harder. Now, planners are going to control spacecraft and refineries and autonomous combat aircraft, and there may not always be a plan. Parts break, sensors fail, accidents happen, adversaries thwart intentions. The planner (or at least the overall agent control system) will have to make tradeoffs: if the goal to take high-resolution pictures cannot be satisfied, take low-resolution pictures; if the pump breaks and temperature skyrockets, reduce throughput; if the enemy may shoot you down, fly as carefully as you can. When there may not be a plan that accomplishes the goals perfectly, two new problems arise. The first obvious problem is "how do we get the planner to make the requisite tradeoffs?" The second problem, which is less obvious but probably at least as important for real-world applications, is "When the planner can't find a perfect plan, how do we know if the domain description is right or not?" One key to addressing both problems is planner feedback.


Abstract
 Two Asiatic Lejeunea species with ocelli in the leaf lobe, Lejeunea moniliata Mizut. and Lejeunea wallichiana (Lehm.) Lehm. ex Gottsche, Lindenb. et Nees, are transferred to Microlejeunea (Lejeuneaceae, Marchantiophyta). Two new combinations are proposed: Microlejeunea moniliata (Mizut.) R.L.Zhu et Y.M.Wei comb. nov. and Microlejeunea wallichiana (Lehm.) R.L.Zhu et Y.M.Wei comb. nov. Microlejeunea moniliata is only known from the type locality in northern Thailand, where it was rediscovered in 2011, and is suggested to be placed in the red list of Thai bryophytes. Hepaticae / Lejeunea moniliata / Lejeunea wallichiana / liverworts / red list / Thailand


Can the welfare state survive in an economically integrated world? Many have argued that globalization has undermined national policies to raise the living standards and enhance the economic opportunities of the poor. This book, by sixteen of the world's leading authorities in international economics and the welfare state, suggests a surprisingly different set of consequences: Globalization does not preclude social insurance and egalitarian redistribution--but it does change the mix of policies that can accomplish these ends. Globalization and Egalitarian Redistribution demonstrates that the free flow of goods, capital, and labor has increased the inequality or volatility of labor earnings in advanced industrial societies--while constraining governments' ability to tax the winners from globalization to compensate workers for their loss. This flow has meanwhile created opportunities for enhancing the welfare of the less well off in poor and middle-income countries. Comprising eleven essays framed by the editors' introduction and conclusion, this book represents the first systematic look at how globalization affects policies aimed at reducing inequalities. The contributors are Keith Banting, Pranab Bardhan, Carles Boix, Samuel Bowles, Minsik Choi, Richard Johnston, Covadonga Meseguer Yebra, Karl Ove Moene, Layna Mosley, Claus Offe, Ugo Pagano, Adam Przeworski, Kenneth Scheve, Matthew J. Slaughter, Stuart Soroka, and Michael Wallerstein.


The study of a multibeam reflector antenna system with hard horn feeds is extended to include the defocusing effects encountered in the actual cluster. This is done by using the ARECIBO code, a reflector program for analysis of multi-reflector antennas. There are many different analysis models for offset reflectors implemented in ARECIBO. The one used for the present study is aperture integration after Fourier series expansion of the aperture field. This is fast and accurate within main beam and first sidelobes, but it is of course slow compared to the BOR model.


We report a photoluminescence (PL) energy red-shift of single quantum dots (QDs) by applying an in-plane compressive uniaxial stress along the [110] direction at a liquid nitrogen temperature. Uniaxial stress has an effect not only on the confinement potential in the growth direction which results in the PL shift, but also on the cylindrical symmetry of QDs which can be reflected by the change of the full width at half maximum of PL peak. This implies that uniaxial stress has an important role in tuning PL energy and fine structure splitting of QDs.


We investigate a class of linear relay feedback systems with bang-bang control and
with the control input applied at discrete time instances. Using a third order system as a
representative example we show that stable oscillations with so-called sliding motion, with
sliding present in continuous time system, loose the sliding segment of evolution, but do not
loose their stability if the open loop system is stable. We then carry on our investigations
and consider a situation when stable self-sustained oscillations are generated with the unstable
open loop system. In the latter case a transition from a stable limit cycle to micro-chaotic
oscillations occurs. The presence of micro-chaotic oscillations is shown by considering a linearised
map that maps a small neighbourhood of initial conditions back to itself. Using this map the
presence of the positive Lyapunov exponent is shown. The largest Lyapunov exponent is then
calculated numerically for an open set of sampling times, and it is shown that it is positive. The
boundedness of the attractor is ensured for sufficiently small sampling times; with the sampling
time tending to zero these switchings become faster and they turn into sliding motion. It is
the presence of the underlying sliding evolution that ensures the boundedness of the chaotic
attractor. Our finding implies that what may be considered as noise in systems with digital
control should actually be termed as micro-chaotic behaviour. This information may be helpful
in designing digital control systems where any element contributing to what appears as noise
should be suppressed.


Companies increasingly outsource IT-related tasks using reverse auction mechanisms embedded into online marketplaces. However, a considerable proportion of auctions at these marketplaces do not result in a contract between buyer and supplier. Extant literature mostly refers to costly bidding and bid evaluation to explain this phenomenon. Another possible explanation is that because of the low entry barriers, buyers with a low commitment to exchange can use the marketplace solely for information gath-ering purposes such as price benchmarking and obtaining free consultations, having little or no intention to contract a supplier. We test this explanation by looking at how different types of costs incurred by the buyer during the sourcing process, are related to the outcome of reverse auctions in terms of contract award. We argue that higher levels of search, preparation and negotiation costs are associated with higher commitment to exchange and find that opportunistic behaviour does indeed play a part in the non-contracted projects, while committed buyers are more likely to enter into a contract with a supplier. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 2,574 reverse auctions at a leading online marketplace for IT services and further verified across projects of different value and different levels of buyer experience. On the practical side, we recommend setting up entry barriers for buyers with a low level of commitment.


The dissertation deals with clustering algorithms and transforming regression prob-lems into classification problems. The main contributions of the dissertation are twofold; first, to improve (speed up) the clustering algorithms and second, to develop a strict learn-ing environment for solving regression problems as classification tasks by using support vector machines (SVMs). An extension to the most popular unsupervised clustering method, k-means algorithm, is proposed, dubbed k-means 2 (k-means squared) algorithm, applicable to ultra large datasets. The main idea is based on using a small portion of the dataset in the first stage of the clustering. Thus, the centers of such a smaller dataset are computed much faster than if computing the centers based on the whole dataset. These final centers of the first stage are naturally much closer to the locations of the final centers rendering a great reduction in the total computational cost. For large datasets the speed up in computation exhibited a trend which is shown to be high and rising with the increase in the size of the dataset. The total transient time for the fast stage was found to depend largely on the portion of the dataset selected in the stage. For medium size datasets it has been shown that an 8-10% portion of data used in the fast stage is a reasonable choice. The centers of the 8-10% samples computed during the fast stage may oscillate towards the final centers' positions of the fast stage along the centers' movement path. The slow stage will start with the final centers of the fast phase and the paths of the centers in the second stage will be much shorter than the ones of a classic k-means algorithm. Additionally, the oscillations of the slow stage centers' trajectories along the path to the final centers' positions are also greatly minimized.
In the second part of the dissertation, a novel approach of posing a solution of regression problems as the multiclass classification tasks within the common framework of kernel machines is proposed. Based on such an approach both the nonlinear (NL) regression problems and NL multiclass classification tasks will be solved as multiclass classification problems by using SVMs. The accuracy of an approximating classification (hyper)Surface (averaged over several benchmarking data sets used in this study) to the data points over a given high-dimensional input space created by a nonlinear multiclass classifier is slightly superior to the solution obtained by regression (hyper)Surface. In terms of the CPU time needed for training (i.e. for tuning the hyperparameters of the models), the nonlinear SVM classifier also shows significant advantages. Here, the comparisons between the solutions obtained by an SVM solving given regression problem as a classic SVM regressor and as the SVM classifier have been performed. In order to transform a regression problem into a classification task, four possible discretizations of a continuous output (target) vector y are introduced and compared. A very strict double (nested) cross-validation technique has been used for measuring the performances of regression and multiclass classification SVMs. In order to carry out fair comparisons, SVMs are used for solving both tasks - regression and multiclass classification. The readily available and most popular benchmarking SVM tool, LibSVM, was used in all experiments. The results in solving twelve benchmarking regression tasks shown here will present SVM regression and classification algorithms as strongly competing models where each approach shows merits for a specific class of high-dimensional function approximation problems.


Circumstantial and physical evidence indicates that the 1997 Mw 4.9 earthquake in southern Alabama may have been related to hydrocarbon recovery. Epicenters of this earthquake and its aftershocks were located within a few kilometers of active oil and gas extraction wells and two pressurized injection wells. Main shock and aftershock focal depths (2–6 km) are within a few kilometers of the injection and withdrawal depths. Strain accumulation at geologic rates sufficient to cause rupture at these shallow focal depths is not likely. A paucity of prior seismicity is difficult to reconcile with the occurrence of an earthquake of Mw 4.9 and a magnitude-frequency relationship usually assumed for natural earthquakes. The normal-fault main-shock mechanism is consistent with reactivation of preexisting faults in the regional tectonic stress field. If the earthquake were purely tectonic, however, the question arises as to why it occurred on only the small fraction of a large, regional fault system coinciding with active hydrocarbon recovery. No obvious temporal correlation is apparent between the earthquakes and recovery activities. Although thus far little can be said quantitatively about the physical processes that may have caused the 1997 sequence, a plausible explanation involves the poroelastic response of the crust to extraction of hydrocarbons.


The Exhibitions of Impact (EOI) special issue of American Behavioral Scientist consists of six articles from authors in communication studies and rhetoric, public health, medicine and bioethics, memory studies, and art therapy. Each article profiles some exhibition or memorial related to a pressing social issue, including gun violence, racist terrorism, domestic violence, religious fundamentalism, corporations selling harmful products, and how society treats those regarded as cognitively and behaviorally different. First, examples from today's headlines show a global outcry over racist monuments and artifacts, and a global pandemic, which casts doubt on the future of exhibitions. Historical examples and explanatory concepts are introduced, with a focus on public exhibitions which issue suggestions or commands, brazenly or in more indirect ways. A look at medical and health exhibits makes explicit how exhibitions try to get us to do something while being informative. While summaries of each article show the topics are diverse, racism and health inequities emerge as underlying themes. After considering performative exhibits, there is a call for a bioethically informed exhibition studies, capable of navigating the wide variety of exhibits out there, and able to express allyship while troubleshooting urgent problems.


Abstract As charters and other autonomous schools grow to serve larger percentages of students both nationally and internationally, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how to best support and prepare leaders in this alternative setting. This study focuses on how charter school leaders perceived pre and in-service preparation and support. These perceptions matter because they may shape the early success, efficacy and commitment of leaders, which are critical issues given the higher than average principal turnover rates in charters. We analysed in-depth interviews with school leaders from independent (standalone) charter schools and those managed by a central management organisation and found that those leaders affiliated with Charter Management Organizations participated in a variety of formally designed pre-service and in-service learning experiences such as residency programs, mentoring, networking and ongoing coaching. By contrast, leaders in standalone charter schools largely directed their own learning – for example, joining informal networks with other nearby charter principals, or reading professional texts. For both kinds of leaders, the availability and quality of mentorship most significantly shaped the perceived quality of learning for all leaders.


Descriptions are made of recent developments in research on the S potential and the ERG, two major responses in the vertebrate retina which undoubtedly represent important processes that are intermediate between the initial photochemical process and nervous activity as encoded information to the brain. Both of these responses, together with the nervous activity, have played a superb role as tools to the understanding of many psychophysical phenomena in terms of what is actually taking place in the retina. In this paper, however, emphasis is placed on the effort of investigators during the last decade toward the attainment of more basic knowledge concerning these tools themselves. The progress may not have been completely satisfactory, but the question of how the individual cellular units contribute to these responses will doubtless continue to be of interest to investigators.


INTRODUCTION-    Medicines are the most common medical interventions, primarily used to relieve sufferings. But medicines themselves can prove fatal so it is rightly said that medicines are double edged weapons. Adverse reaction monitoring and reporting are very important in identifying the adverse reaction trends and ensuring drug safely.AIMS AND OBJECTIVES-To monitor and analyze the suspected adverse drug reactions reported at tertiary care teaching hospital, to characterize nature and predictability of ADRs and identify most common medicines causing ADRsMATERIAL AND METHODS- A retrospective observational study was conducted between January 2014 to June 2016. Suspected ADRs submitted to National pharmacovigilance center. Following  parameters were studied,Age group-paediatric,adult,geriatric,Gender,Groupwise,systemwise classification of ADRs,Most common medicines causing ADRs,Causalty assessment of ADRs by using WHO-UMC causality assessment scale, Assessement of preventability criteria by Schumock and Thornton scale.RESULTS-During the study period a total 1099 ADRs reported were analyzed. Male experienced a significantly higher percentage of ADRs (55.86 %).Highest percentage of ADRs was found in adult age group 31-40 yrs. All ADRs were probable. There was no any certain ADR we could find out.Maximum number of ADRs were in the age group 31-40 years i.e 377(34.30% ).Skin was the commonest organ showing highest no. of ADRs 41.87.Internal medicine was the commonest department 28.33% ADRs. Out of total antimicrobial agents causing ADRs, maximum number of ADRs were due to amoxicillin+clavulanic acid.Common symptoms due to ADRs of medicines were itching 174 (15.83%), skin rash 108 (9.82%).CONCLUSION- There is urgent need of promotion of spontaneous reporting of ADRs. More awareness needs to be created to address these issues.


The success of chilled ceilings and displacement ventilation systems as a means of sensible cooling in buildings has prompted a review of evaporative cooling technology as an effective means of generating the required cooling water. When such cooling water is generated at low approach conditions (2–5 K), at the higher temperatures required in these systems (14–18°C), very high levels of availability result. In many north western European locations the levels of availability are such that the prospect of supplanting rather than simply supplementing the refrigeration system, for sensible cooling purposes, arises. The viability of the technique, however, largely depends on achieving low approach conditions, at acceptable levels of energy performance. Hence the need to investigate the energy performance of the process. This paper presents the results of recent experimental research into: i) the achievement of low approach conditions in an evaporative cooling test rig; and ii) the energy performance of this test rig when generating cooling water, indirectly, at the temperatures required for chilled ceilings. Energy performance is presented for a range of specifi c conditions and typical annual effi ciencies of cooling water generation are determined. Results are compared with typical energy effi ciencies of conventional, vapour compression based, refrigeration systems. A signifi cant potential for improved annual energy performance, is shown.


Beetroot has many positive effects on human health but can also accumulate considerable amounts of harmful nitrate and oxalate. A two-year open field trial was carried out to evaluate the influence of nitrogen fertilization on the content of different N compounds and oxalate in beetroot. Three nitrogen rates were applied: 0, 75 and 150 kg of N ha-1. Dry matter, oxalate, nitrate N and reduced N were determined in storage root, leaf lamina and leaf petiole. Different parts of beetroot differed significantly in the content of analyzed substances. Leaf lamina had the highest reduced N and oxalate and the lowest nitrate. Storage root usually had the highest nitrate and the lowest oxalate while the reduced N was approximately half of that found in leaf laminas. Contents in leaf petiole were between the leaf lamina and storage root. It can be concluded that different parts of beetroot differ significantly in metabolic activity, with leaf lamina being the most active and storage root the least active part. Nitrogen fertilization had a significant influence on the content of nitrate N and reduced N in all beetroot parts whereas, the contents of dry matter and oxalic acid were, in most cases, not influenced by N rates.

 Key words: Fertilization, beetroot, storage root, leaf lamina, leaf petiole, nitrogen, oxalate.


Architectures in which multicore chips are augmented with graphics processing units (GPUs) have great potential in many domains in which computationally intensive real-time workloads must be supported. However, unlike standard CPUs, GPUs are treated as I/O devices and require the use of interrupts to facilitate communication with CPUs. Given their disruptive nature, interrupts must be dealt with carefully in real-time systems. With GPU-driven interrupts, such disruptiveness is further compounded by the closed-source nature of GPU drivers. In this paper, such problems are considered and a solution is presented in the form of an extension to LITMUS^RT called klmirqd. The design of klmirqd targets systems with multiple CPUs and GPUs. In such settings, interrupt-related issues arise that have not been previously addressed.


Abstract. The recent outbreak of geospatial information to a wider audience, represents an inexorable flow made possible by the technological and scientific advances that cannot be opposed. The democratization of Geomatics technologies requires training opportunities with different level of complexity specifically tailored on the target audience and on the final purpose of the digitization process. In this frame, education plays a role of paramount importance, to create in the final users the awareness of the potentials of Geomatics-based technologies and of the quality control over the entire process.This paper outlines the current educational offer concerning the Geomatics Academic discipline in the Italian higher education system, highlighting the lack of dedicated path entirely devoted to the creation of specifically trained figure in this field. The comparison with the International panorama further stresses out this necessity. The purpose of this work is to present different educational approaches by distinguishing between the starting knowledge level of the students/participants and the final aim of the training activities. Three main audiences have been identified: i) experts, who already know some basics of Geomatics to understand the theoretical concepts behind its technologies; ii) intermediate audience, who are interested in learning about Geomatics technologies and methodologies, without any previous or poor education concerning these topics; iii) non-experts, a mix of a wide group of people, with different educations and interests, or without any interest at all.For each group, the multi-year experience concerning educational and training activities for the geomatics-based knowledge transfer in all the multi-level approaches of the GECO Lab (University of Florence) is presented.


Two-station [2]rotaxanes in the shape of a degenerate naphthalene (NP) shuttle and a nondegenerate monopyrrolotetrathiafulvalene (MPTTF)/NP redox-controllable switch have been synthesized and characterized in solution. Their dumbbell-shaped components are composed of polyether chains interrupted along their lengths by (i) two pi-electron-rich stations-two NP moieties or a MPTTF unit and a NP moiety-with (ii) a rigid arylethynyl or butadiynyl spacer situated between the two stations and terminated by (iii) flexibly tethered hydrophobic stoppers at each end of the dumbbells. This modification was investigated as a means to simplify both molecular structure and switching function previously observed in related bistable [2]rotaxanes with flexible spacers between their stations and incorporating a cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene) (CBPQT4+) ring. The nondegenerate MPTTF-NP switch was isolated as near isomer-free bistable [2]rotaxane. Utilization of MPTTF removes the cis/trans isomerization that characterizes the tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) parent core structure. Furthermore, only one translational isomer is observed (> 95 < 5), surprisingly across a wide temperature range (198-323 K), meaning that the CBPQT4+ ring component resides, to all intents and purposes, predominantly on the MPTTF unit in the ground state. As a consequence of these two effects, the assignment of NMR and UV-vis data is more simplified as compared to previous donor-acceptor bistable [2]rotaxanes. This development has not only allowed for much better control over the position of the ring component in the ground state but also for control over the location of the CBPQT4+ ring during solution-state switching experiments, triggered either chemically (1H NMR) or electrochemically (cyclic voltammetry). In this instance, the use of the rigid spacer defines an unambiguous distance of 1.5 nm over which the ring moves between the MPTTF and NP units. The degenerate NP/NP [2]rotaxane was used to investigate the shuttling barrier by dynamic 1H NMR spectroscopy for the movement of the CBPQT4+ ring across the new rigid spacer. It is evident from these measurements that the rigid spacer poses a much lower barrier to the 1.0 nm movement of the CBPQT4+ ring from one station to another as compared with previous systems-a finding that is thought to be a result of the combination of fewer favorable interactions between the spacer and the CBPQT4+ ring and a relatively unimpeded path between the two NP stations. This example augers well for exploiting rigidity during the development of well-defined bistable [2]rotaxanes, which are unencumbered by the excesses of structural conformations that have characterized the first generations of molecular switches based on the donor-acceptor recognition motif.


Solar power and wind are the most promising distributed energy sources. The photovoltaic system has attracted significant attention in recent years. Although their benefits are numerous, they are known to create power quality issues, because of the power electronic converters they use. This paper investigates if there is a possibility to improve power quality only by connecting a solar photovoltaic system to the grid, and then gives results of on-site power quality measurements in the grid before and after the connection of the solar photovoltaic system.


The tropical rainforest of Borneo is heavily disturbed by logging, to date less than half of the original forest cover remains. To counteract such development logged forest is rehabilitated to regenerate its natural protective function. In this thesis we consider the carbon budget of logged forest and the ecology of the trees that are planted for rehabilitation. We show that the logged forest under study differs from unlogged forest due to the lack of the dominant trees and hence the organic carbon that is stored in their biomass. Besides this difference our results indicate that logged forest can maintain its protective function for carbon storage and is therefore worth preserving. The dominant trees, known as dipterocarps, belong to the Dipterocarpaceae family and are keystone species of the lowland forests of Borneo. On the basis of experimental work we study the carbon dynamics of selected dipterocarp species at the seedling stage. With plant physiological measurements of the carbohydrate stores we demonstrate how seedlings adapt to a changing light environment. Our results show that photosynthates are invested into growth or carbohydrate reserves, irrespective of the tree species under study. Further, experimental evidence suggests that the ectomycorrhizal association (plant-fungi-symbiosis) is crucial for the growth of seedlings and should therefore be considered for forest rehabilitation measures. In contrast we could not find evidence for a complex ectomycorrhiza-network between dipterocarp trees and seedlings in logged forest.


Coded interleaved differential M-ary phase-shift keying (M-DPSK) with iterative decoding, the so-called "Turbo DPSK," is known as a power-efficient transmission format. Due to the rotational invariance of DPSK, it particularly enables detection without channel state information (CSI). However, the soft-input soft-output (SISO) component decoder for DPSK is the computational bottleneck if performance close to the ideal case of perfect CSI is desired. In this paper, we take a fresh look at SISO decoding without CSI and apply sphere decoding (SD) to reduce complexity. In particular, we devise a maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) multiple-symbol differential sphere decoder (MSDSD) which efficiently solves the high-dimensional search problem inherent to detection without CSI. Together with a soft-output generation device the MAP-MSDSD algorithm forms a new SISO-MSDSD module for iterative decoding. We analyze the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) characteristic of the novel module, by means of which we are able to design powerful encoder and decoder structures. For, respectively, the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and the continuously time-varying Rayleigh-fading channel without CSI these designs operate within 1.7-1.9 and 2.3-2.5 dB of channel capacity assuming perfect CSI. These figures compare favorably with results available in the literature, especially for reasonably high data rates of 1-2 bit/channel use. Simulation studies of the average and the maximum complexity required by SISO-MSDSD demonstrate the advantageous performance versus complexity tradeoff of our approach.


Introduction : The immobility and prolonged bed rest, to which the critically ill patient admitted to the intensive care unit is subjected, are harmful and have potential adverse effects, especially on the musculoskeletal system and, con-sequently, on motor functionality. Objectives : To characterize the impact of early mobilization on the critical patient admitted to an intensive care unit. Method : Systematic review of the literature that used the PI[C]OD methodology to compile the research question, which led to the search in the EBSCOHost search engine, in the CINAHL Complete and MEDLINE Complete databases, for the identification of studies published between 2016 and 2019. Four systematic reviews of the literature and three randomized controlled trials were selected. This review consid-ered the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) re-. commendation. Levels of evidence were secured by the levels of evidence from The Joanna Briggs Institute and methodological quality was analyzed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program. Results : Most of the articles included in this review point to the benefits of early mobilization in intensive care units, mainly for the improvement of motor functionality and functional ca-pacity, and only one revision, due to the poor quality of the articles included, is inconclusive to the benefits of this intervention in this popu-lation. Conclusions : Early mobilization is a feasible, beneficial, and safe intervention for the critical patient admitted to an intensive care unit. How-ever, due to the lack of studies on the subject and the limitations of the studies analyzed, it is suggested that more quantitative studies, with more representative samples, be carried out.


We develop a theoretical model to study the effects of an ad valorem taxation regime differentiated according to product characteristics (quality) within an imperfectly competitive market. Then to test our theoretical prediction we use yearly data from the Irish automobile market during the period 2004-2008, and assess the implications of this type of regime on competition and consumer welfare. By emphasizing the role played by the own- versus the cross-price elasticity, we are able to capture an important dimension in which the strategic interactions among firms play out in response to a tax change. The welfare effects of a taxation system that is tailored to product attributes are not trivial. Using a counterfactual analysis based on a homogenous tax rate, we conclude that a differentiated taxation regime benefits consumers who value quality more, while it penalizes those more sensitive to price increments. Our results confirm the extended Ramsey rule predictions. Furthermore, a symmetric increase in taxation narrows the price gap induced by asymmetries in quality and productivity, if the tax regime is homogenous, and widens it, if the tax regime is differentiated.


In developing cities, many slum dwellers have settled down in valuable road and railway reserves due to the lack of affordable housing. In Nairobi, the railway line which passes at the edge of Kibera has been heavily encroached upon. Willing to expand the national railway network, Kenya Railway Corporation (KRC) faced the challenge of recovering the space occupied by slum dwellers. The expansion being funded by the World Bank1, KRC was not allowed to simply evict the population. However, with the support of Pamoja Trust, a Kenyan NGO working in informal settlements, KRC decided to develop and implement a Relocation Action Plan (RAP) to move the 9005 project affected persons (PAP) in Kibera and Mukuru, from the reserve to newly built houses few meters away. Nevertheless, implementing large relocation projects in informal settlements can be
particularly difficult. Indeed, slums are often characterized by complex and tense relations. Kibera is no exception, as the settlement has known various episodes of violence such as the post-election conflict in 2007-2008 or more recently the clashes around the National Youth Service program in 20152. The case of the Railway RAP in Soweto East, a segment of the railway line in Kibera, is interesting to study as it provides the example of a rather successful relocation project implemented in
a slum. In Soweto East and Laini Saba, 1680 residential units and 1740 business units as well as an underpass are
being constructed. This article wishes to contribute to the better understanding of informal structures in Kibera and their interaction within large urban projects. Based on 18 interviews of implementing staff, community members and KRC engineers as well as participative observation, this article will look at how the project reveals intertwined conflicts in Soweto East and to some extent in Kibera and how such conflicts were apprehended to minimize the risk of obstruction or violence.


INTRODUCTION
Information on acute myocardial infarction incidence and mortality is essential for determining the efficacy of the health system's cardiovascular disease prevention activities; however, in Cuba, sufficient data related to acute myocardial infarction are lacking, particularly at the local level.

OBJECTIVE
Describe acute myocardial infarction incidence, mortality and case fatality rates from January 2007 through December 2008 in persons aged 45-74 in the municipality of Santa Clara, Villa Clara Province, Cuba.

METHODS
A retrospective descriptive study was conducted. The World Health Organization MONItoring Trends and Determinants in CArdiovascular Disease Project (MONICA) methodology was used, but only in part, since out-of-hospital case fatalities were not investigated, resulting in insufficient data for such cases. Cases of acute myocardial infarction covered under MONICA definition 1 were included (non-fatal definite, fatal definite, fatal possible, and unclassifiable deaths). Hospitalized patients were followed for 28 days. Incidence, mortality and case fatality rates in the population were calculated by age group (45-54, 55-64 and 65-74 years) and sex. Age-standardized incidence and mortality rates were calculated using the direct method, with the world population as a reference.

RESULTS
A total of 482 cases of acute myocardial infarction were registered. The percentage of cases of non-fatal definite, fatal definite, fatal possible and fatal with insufficient data were 32%, 18.3%, 26.3% and 13.9% respectively. The cumulative age-standardized incidence per 100,000 population was 433 (95% CI 365-501) in men and 195 (95% CI 152-237) in women, while mortality per 100,000 population was 242 (95% CI 192-292) in men and 120 (95% CI 87-153) in women. Case fatality was 56.4% in men and 62.6% in women. Most fatal cases (65.6%) occurred out of hospital, a trend that was more marked in men (73.9%) than in women (51%).

CONCLUSIONS
Case fatality from acute myocardial infarction in Santa Clara residents was high, especially in women. Two thirds of fatalities occurred out of hospital, a higher proportion of these deaths in men. It is recommended that the AMI registry be completed by investigating out-of-hospital case fatalities with insufficient data; expanding it to include the 35-44 age group; and that the supply of cardiac marker enzyme immunoassay test kits in Santa Clara be stabilized.


In the eastern Indian Ocean, the anomalous Leeuwin Current has been reported to influence fisheries production, although the exact mechanisms remain unknown. The current, which flows southwards along the shelf-break, intensifies during the autumn and generates numerous meso-scale eddies which propagate offshore into the Indian Ocean. Cyclonic, cold-core eddies may be significant for the input of upwelled nutrients whilst anticyclonic, warm-core eddies provide a mechanism for the entrainment of coastal water, and may cause offshore transport of neritic plankton. The potential impact of meso-scale eddies on Western Australian coastal fisheries depends largely on the spawning season of the target species as well as the duration of the pelagic larval phase. Most coastal finfish species have pelagic larval durations of a few weeks and if, after a short period of entrainment in eddies, they are able to return to the shelf, they could benefit from concentrated food resources within the eddies. On the other hand, if these larvae cannot escape as the eddy propagates offshore, then eddies probably result in increased natural mortality for neritic fishes. In contrast, rock lobster have characteristic phyllosoma larvae with pelagic durations of 9-11 months and, if entrained in eddies, could experience improved feeding conditions, in addition to being retained in the ocean adjacent to the area of adult distribution. Data from the SRFME biophysical oceanography study along the Two Rocks transect (2002-2005) and two research cruises aboard the RV Southern Surveyor undertaken to study the biological oceanography of Leeuwin Current eddies (October 2003 and May 2006) will be drawn upon to illustrate the above hypotheses.


By now, the monolithic factory was supposed to have given way to the virtual factory: a community linked by an electronic network that would enable numerous partners to operate as one. But for most companies, that promise has been elusive. The traditional technologies--electronic data interchange, proprietary groupware, and wide-area networks--are proving inadequate. Traditional systems cannot meet the three basic requirements of a large scale virtual factory. First, an Internet work must be able to accommodate members whose IT sophistication varies enormously. Second, it must,while maintaining tight security, cope with partners in both transient and long-term relationships. Finally, it must provide a high level of functionality, including letting partners operate programs on one another's computers. The confluence of several trends, however, now makes it possible to build a more flexible and cost-effective manufacturing community. These are the emergence of widely accepted and open computing standards, ever cheaper computing power, increasingly abundant bandwidth, the development of essentially unbreakable computer security, and accumulated expertise. McDonnell Douglas Aerospace and a spin-off named AeroTech have created a real virtual factory. AeroTech acts as an information broker for the community. It signs up new partners, tracks network memberships, oversees security, and serves as a converter that permits partners with different formats to communicate. A flexible, low-cost network, it is a model for a new era in manufacturing. In this new era, those that choose to go it alone or that cling to closed, proprietary systems will find it tough to survive.


This article focuses on the relationship between two troubling features of the American criminal justice system over the last forty years: the steep rise in our incarceration rate and the sharp decline in the number of criminal trials. The article contends that the lack of a strong trial system for routine cases pushes the incarceration rate higher.To provide perspective on our problems, the article looks at the criminal trial systems in Canada and England and shows how the availability of a nonjury trial model for misdemeanors and most felonies encourages prosecutors to keep charges low by offering advantages to both prosecutors and defendants if they opt for the nonjury trial model. There is thus not the need for the extreme pressures one sees exerted on defendants in the United States to force them to plead guilty.This article argues that it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to insist that trials for misdemeanors and most felonies must be jury trials. The result is a worse world for defendants as plea bargaining has come to dominate so completely that trials no longer serve their function as a check on the quality and quantity of cases being filed. The article concludes that we will struggle to lower our incarceration rate significantly until we face up to the problems inherent in identifying fair trials with jury trials. It is a mistake other common law countries have not made and they are better for it.


Ortega-Cerd\`a -- Seip demonstrated that there are bounded multiplicative Hankel forms which do not arise from bounded symbols. On the other hand, when such a form is in the Hilbert-Schmidt class $\mathcal{S}_2$, Helson showed that it has a bounded symbol. The present work investigates forms belonging to the Schatten classes between these two cases. It is shown that for every $p>(1-\log{\pi}/\log{4})^{-1}$ there exist multiplicative Hankel forms in the Schatten class $\mathcal{S}_p$ which lack bounded symbols. The lower bound on $p$ is in a certain sense optimal when the symbol of the multiplicative Hankel form is a product of homogeneous linear polynomials.


Background Febrile malaria is the most common clinical manifestation of P. falciparum infection, and is often the primary endpoint in clinical trials and epidemiological studies. Subjective and objective fevers are both used to define the endpoint, but have not been carefully compared, and the relative incidence of clinical malaria by active and passive case detection is unknown. Methods We analyzed data from cohorts under active and passive surveillance, including 19,462 presentations with fever and 5,551 blood tests for asymptomatic parasitaemia. A logistic regression model was used to calculate Malaria Attributable Fractions (MAFs) for various case definitions. Incidences of febrile malaria by active and passive surveillance were compared in a subset of children matched for age and location. Results Active surveillance identified three times the incidence of clinical malaria as passive surveillance in a subset of children matched for age and location. Objective fever (temperature≥37.5°C) gave consistently higher MAFs than case definitions based on subjective fever. Conclusion The endpoints from active and passive surveillance have high specificity, but the incidence of endpoints is lower on passive surveillance. Subjective fever had low specificity and should not be used in primary endpoint. Passive surveillance will reduce the power of clinical trials but may cost-effectively deliver acceptable sensitivity in studies of large populations.


ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to test the hierarchical model of motivation of Vallerand, using and experimental approximation. Sixty eight adolescents with ages between 14 and 16 years participated in the study. Two classes were assigned to a control (no choice) group (n = 33) and other two to an experimental (choice) group (n = 35). The intervention program was a didactic unit of six meetings with pre-test and post-test. Measures of contextual and situational self-determined motivation were employed. Results show that the experimental group showed higher post-intervention values in perception of autonomy, situational and contextual self-determined motivation. The implications related to the possibility of choosing the tasks to increase the perception of autonomy and the self-determined motivation in the physical education classes were discussed in the manuscript. Key Words: Self-determined motivation, physical education, autonomy, motivational climate


Following the attempt by Alesina and Guiliano (2013) to measure global culture and to project these measurements onto real choropleth geographical world maps, we utilize the data from the World Values Survey (WVS) to arrive at robust measurement scales of global economic, political and social values and to assess Turkey's place on them. Our study, which is based on 92,289 representative individuals with complete data in 68 countries, representing 56.89% of the global population, looks at hard-core economic values in the countries. From our new nine dimensions for the determination of the geography of human values, based on a promax factor analysis of the available data, we use six factor analytical scores to calculate a new Global Value Development Index, which combines: avoiding economic permissiveness; avoiding racism; avoiding distrust of the army and the press; avoiding the authoritarian character; tolerance and respect; and avoiding the rejection of the market economy and democracy. Our results show that the five best ranked countries are all western democracies. Our global value development index ranks Morocco twelfth – just behind the USA. Turkey is ranked 25, ahead of several EU member countries. But there are still considerable deficits concerning the liberal values components, which are very important for effective democracy, and there are very large regional differences, confirming the dictum by Huntington (1996) about Turkey as a torn country. The deficits suggest that the Turkish state, Turkish civil society and European decision makers would be well advised to continue to support civil society and secular democracy in Turkey.


Studies of health in psychology have typically utilized an individualistic approach, focusing on individuals' adjustment to changes (e.g., due to migration or aging). This paper examines the intersection of aging and migration, exploring how individual behaviors, decisions, and meanings around health are produced within larger social structures that shape Filipina migrants' lives. Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) with attention to discourse was applied to in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Filipina migrants in Auckland, New Zealand. I argue that Filipina migrants construct good health in aging as being an outcome of a health-promoting culture and environment in New Zealand. Such a claim proposes that healthy aging is a norm in New Zealand, easily achievable by its (responsible) citizens. Achieving and displaying a healthy body can mean the fulfilling good citizenship and success as migrants in New Zealand, but also obscures socially produced challenges that make it difficult for migrants to achieve health.


This implementation aims towards the establishment of performance qualitative analysis on make span in VM task allocation and process according to their deadline, then implemented in CloudSim with Java language. Here major stress is given on the study of dead line based task scheduling algorithm with heterogeneous resources of the cloud, followed by comparative survey of other algorithms in cloud computing with respect to scalability, homogeneity or heterogeneity and process scheduling. A previous study also indicates change of MIPS will affect the response time and increase in MIPS versus VM decreases the response time. When image size of VM is implemented against the VM bandwidth then no significant effect is found on response time and it remains constant for which these parameters are investigated. But in case of Cloudlet long length versus Host bandwidth a pattern is observed in which response time increases in proportionate manner. Using the modified approach the reduction in the down time of the various processes are achieved as shown in results. Keywords— cloud computing, task scheduling, virtual machine.


Hydrogen embrittlement is an important technological problem underpinning failure of many structural elements. It has been extensively investigated in the literatures; however, several open issues remain that prevent a full understanding of this phenomenon. One important issue is the uncertain knowledge of how hydrogen atoms affect the dislocation core structure. Here, by exploring the hydrogen role on the dissociated edge dislocation, we reveal that there exists an additional attractive force between two partials due to the hydrogen atmosphere, which would reduce the equilibrium separation distance. This hydrogen-induced attractive force is quantitatively estimated by means of continuum mechanics. Furthermore, molecular statics simulations also capture the hydrogen-reduced separation distance under varying hydrogen background fractions, qualitatively verifying the theoretical prediction of attractive force. These findings at the atomistic scale will inform the hydrogen embrittlement modeling and experiments, especially on the hydrogen effect on the dislocation glide, climb, dynamics strain aging, and so on.


The 400 million word Corpus of Historical American English (1810–2009) provides researchers with an extremely robust set of data for Late Modern English. The corpus is composed of fiction, magazines, newspapers, and nonfiction books, and its genre balance stays roughly the same from decade to decade. Because of its size and its advanced architecture and interface, it allows researchers to look at an extremely wide range of changes – many of which would not be possible with a small 2–4 million word corpus. These include the frequency of any word or phrase by decade and mass comparison of all words in different periods (to examine lexical changes), morphological shifts (via wildcards and pattern matching), syntactic shifts (due to very accurate lemmatization and part of speech tagging), and semantic change (by comparing collocates over time, as well as searches that use data from the integrated thesaurus and customized word lists).


Our era is defined by the model. From Victoria's Secret and America's Next Top Model to the snapshots we post on Face-book and Twitter, our culture is fixated on the pose, the state of existing simultaneously as artifice and the real thing. In this bold view of contemporary culture, Wendy Steiner shows us the very meaning of the arts in the process of transformation. Her story begins at the turn of the last century, as the arts abandoned the representation of the world for a heady embrace of the abstract, the surreal, and the self-referential. Today though, this 'separate sphere of the aesthetic' is indistinguishable from normal life. Media and images overwhelm us: we gingerly negotiate a real-virtual divide that we suspect no longer exists, craving contact with what J. M. Coetzee has called 'the real real thing.' As the World Wide Web renders the lower-case world in ever-higher definition, the reality-based genres of memoir and documentary are displacing fiction, and novels and films are depicting the contemporary condition through model-protagonists who are half-human, half-image. Steiner shows the arts searching out a new ethical potential through this figure: by stressing the independent existence of the model, they welcome in the audience in all its unpredictability, redefining aesthetic experience as a real-world interaction with the promise of empathy, reciprocity, and egalitarian connection. A masterly performance by a penetrating, inquisitive mind, "The Real Real Thing" is that rarest of books, one whose provocations will inspire readers to take a new - and nuanced - look at the world around them.


Plants, being sessile constantly monitor environmental cues and respond appropriately to modulate their growth and development. Membrane transporters, act as gatekeepers of the cell regulating both the inflow of useful materials as well as exudation of harmful substances from the cell. Multidrug and Toxic Compound Extrusion (MATE) family of transporters are ubiquitously present in almost all forms of life including prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In bacteria, the MATE proteins were originally characterized as efflux transporters conferring drug resistance. There are 58 MATE transporters in Arabidopsis thaliana also known as DETOXIFICATION (DTX) proteins. In plants, these integral membrane proteins perform a diverse array of functions ranging from secondary metabolite transport, xenobiotic detoxification, and aluminium tolerance to disease resistance. MATE proteins also regulate overall plant development by controlling phytohormone transport, tip growth processes and senescence. While most of the functional characterization of the MATE proteins has been reported in Arabidopsis, recent reports suggest their diverse roles in numerous plant species. The wide array of functions exhibited by MATE proteins, highlight their multitasking ability. In this review, we have integrated information related to structure and functions of MATE transporters in plants. Since these transporters are central to mechanisms that allow plants to adapt to abiotic and biotic stresses, study of these transporters can potentially contribute to stress tolerance under changing climatic conditions.


This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Love and Sex with Robots 2016 in December 2016, in London, UK.
The 12 revised papers presented together with 1 keynote were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 38 submissions.
The papers of the Second International Conference have been accepted and reviewed in 2015 but could not be presented as there was no conference in 2015 but at the conference in 2016.
The topics of the conferences were as follows: robot emotions, humanoid robots, clone robots, entertainment robots, robot personalities, teledildonics, intelligent electronic sex hardware, gender approaches, affective approaches, psychological approaches, sociological approaches, roboethics, and philosophical approaches.


In this guest column, the author argues against Wittgenstein's aphorism that the human body is the best picture of the human soul. Such a picture, she shows, would have to include all that a person is, in some sense, inseparable from. Drawing from Plato's analogy between city and soul, and from Socrates's description of a luxurious city, this piece argues that what we are inseparable from are mostly things and persons that our body can go on without. To the extent that such things and persons, and the relationship in which we stand to them, are distinct from our bodies, what we are inseparable from is also a sign that we are not self-sufficient creatures. Thus, the piece concludes, inseparability is evidence of the species' gregariousness, and the body is only one among many tokens of a person's soul.


The purpose of this paper is to present a computer program for the hydraulic design of level-basin irrigation systems. The first of three design modes provides design based on the advance distance at cutoff. This is a common mode of level basin operation since it does not require precise measurement of flow rate or volume. The second design mode uses the design concept developed by the Soil Conservation Service. The third design mode provides maximum design limits based on the solutions of Clemmens and Dedrick. Design solutions are obtained quickly since they are simply interpolated between tabled values. The BASIN program is useful for quickly evaluating potential designs for a variety of soil infiltration and roughness conditions. The program currently includes the influence of advance and recession on uniformity and efficiency but not such factors as soil infiltration spatial variability and variations in soil surface elevations.


Phase-pure perovskite lead titanate with various morphologies has been synthesized by a hydrothermal method at 150 °C. Particle shapes include cubic, tabular, and aggregated platelike shapes. The feedstock concentration greatly influences particle morphology of the hydrothermally derived PbTiO_3. At a concentration of 0.05 M, the tabular particles form while cubic particles are produced at 0.1 M. Aggregated plateletlike particles are synthesized at 0.125 M. It was observed that both tabular and cubic particles directly precipitate from the coprecipitated precursor gel. In contrast, the plateletlike shaped intermediate phase appears during the initial stage of reaction at 0.125 M and in situ transforms into perovskite PbTiO_3 during further hydrothermal treatment. The intermediate phase preserves its particle shape during transformation and, acting as a template, gives rise to the final tabular PbTiO3 particles. It is demonstrated that only base reagents such KOH and NaOH, which provide a highly basic condition (i.e., pH > 14), promote transformation of the coprecipitated gel into the perovskite PbTiO_3. A Hancock and Sharp kinetic analysis in conjunction with microstructural evidence suggests that the formation mechanism is dissolution and recrystallization in which the degree of supersaturation plays an important role in dictating the crystallographic particle phase and morphology of the particles. An experimentally constructed solubility diagram indicates that an excess lead condition is necessary to compensate for loss of lead species and to increase supersaturation to expedite precipitation of PbTiO_3 at highly alkaline conditions.