During the last decade, a media-security nexus has emerged that has exacerbated pervasive feelings of the precariousness of citizenship among British Muslims. Legally, citizenship became reversible while political and media discourses and religious discrimination compounded by racism created deep unease about belonging, identity and the very possibility of multicultural citizenship. With diminishing prospects for effective participation in formal political processes, except through the domineering framework of counter-terrorism, young British Muslims sought alternative arenas and modes of political debate and engagement. They expressed their dissent from the suffocating politics of security in informal ways that were deemed efficacious in their own terms. While a sense of loss of status and respect, and deep disappointment at how fellow Muslims were being vilified, was present among older generations, young British Muslims responded in politically creative ways that can be described as 'dissenting citizenship'. This article reflects on findings from an ESRC-funded collaborative ethnography, Shifting Securities, conducted across 12 cities in Britain between 2004 and 2007 that investigated how a very diverse, multi-ethnic group of some 239 British people experienced citizenship and security in a time of relentless news of terrorism, conflict and natural disaster catastrophes and 'creeping securitisation' in day-to-day life in Britain. Our research suggests that dissenting rather than disaffected citizenship is a growing trend particularly among multi-ethnic youth who aspire to work critically within and revitalise mainstream politics to safeguard their citizenship status via local and translocal personalised forms of political action rather than engage in conventional forms of national party politics.


Microcystis aeruginosa and Cyclops exist together in their natural states. The formation of carbonaceous disinfection by-products (C-DBPs), including trihalomethanes, haloacetic acids, chloral hydrate (CH), and haloketones, as well as nitrogenous DBPs, including trichloronitromethane (TCNM), and haloacetonitriles, was investigated with respect to co-existing Microcystis aeruginosa and Cyclops metabolites under different conditions. The reaction conditions (monochloramine dosage and reaction time) and water quality conditions (pH, temperature, Cl/N, and Microcystis aeruginosa density) were evaluated. The formation of 1,1,1-trichloro-2-propanone (1,1,1-TCP) and TCNM followed an increasing and then decreasing pattern with increased monochloramine dosage and prolonged reaction time. The formation of C-DBPs (e.g., TCM, CH, DCAA, and TCAA) increased with increasing monochloramine dosage and reaction time. The formation of CH, dichloroacetonitrile, 1,1-DCP, and 1,1,1-TCP increased first and then decreased. The formation of TCM increased with increasing pH value and temperature. Additionally, the Cl/N mass ratio affected the formation of DBPs, and as a whole, a lower Cl/N ratio led to a decrease in the concentrations of the five most common DBPs. When the density of Microcystis aeruginosa was 10 9 count/L, the formation of the tested DBPs reached a minimum.


Urinary incontinence (UI), an inability to control urination, is common in patients of all ages. Conservative estimates suggest that at least one in 10 people suffer from UI at some time. Although rarely life-threatening, it may seriously influence the physical, psychological and social wellbeing of affected individuals. Symptoms of incontinence range from embarrassing leaks and dribbles during routine or strenuous activity to a constant, urgent need to run to the bathroom. It can severely affect the quality of life of a person. Many patients hesitate to seek medical advice due to embarrassment and they often attempt to manage the problem by using incontinence pads, restricting their fluid intake or adjusting their lifestyles. Many cases of UI can, however, be cured or significantly improved with appropriate treatment. Treatment for UI varies for each patient based on type, persistence and severity. The focus of this article is on UI in adults and will not cover nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting), which is common in children.


Every year, forest fire in Portugal causes large areas of land being destroyed and there are cases of death. In this research pattern discovery is being used to generate patterns of meteorological conditions in relation to area burnt of forest fire. The meteorological conditions that are being investigated are temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and rainfall. The combination of these four conditions forms the patterns that are of interest in
this research. The sliding window technique is being used to generate patterns for meteorological conditions that are significant to forest fire. The initial dataset is being transformed by changing the continuous values of the attributes into categorical values of the attributes. The patterns are then being generated through the sliding window methodology. Patterns that could not be validated are being regarded as invalid and thus are discarded while the patterns that could be validated are taken for further analysis. Patterns that are valid are then being grouped based on the burnt area associated with a pattern. The rules are then generated by transforming the categorical values into intervals and the merging of different records into the same rules. The rule generation stage produces eight distinct patterns of meteorological conditions that could predict the size of forest fire. In addition, this study showed that the sliding window technique could be used in non-temporal data.


AAzAMi, M. A. and E. JAlili, 2011. Study of genetic diversity in some iranian plum genotypes based on morphological criteria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 17: 424-428 Plums have a great diversity among temperate zone fruit trees. This experiment was conducted to assay the morphological diversity of 38 iranian plum genotypes for qualitative and quantitative criteria based on iBPGR descriptor. Analysis of variance showed that all the traits studied had significant differences indicating the great variability for every trait. Simple correlation analysis showed significant negative and positive correlations for some important traits. Factor analysis revealed that fruit and stone shape, flower size and color, fertility range and flower opening time were related to the main factor components. Effective high lighted criteria were categorized into five groups accounted for 76% of total variance. Eigen values of more than 6% were considered significant for each factor. Cluster analysis at 9 distances at, divided genotypes to four main groups. These groups mainly had differences in stone and fruit shape, self fertility range and stone clinging.


InDesign CS2 is more than just a powerful page layout tool: As part of Adobe's new Creative Suite 2 (which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, and Acrobat), it's a key component of an overall design workflow that lets users work seamlessly among all of their graphics applications to create spectacular layouts. This info-packed guide lets you get right down to work by focusing on just the InDesign CS2 features you're most likely to use and showcasing each in a stand-alone tip--complete with a relevant hint or two and a graphic example. In this fashion, you learn as you go, exploring the program in a way that makes sense to you. Before you know it, you'll be using the Bridge to manage your files, object styles to format your images, and snippets to save layout parts for reuse and much, much more!


Deferasirox,
ExJade, an FDA-approved treatment for iron overload disorders has been
shown to inhibit the growth of both gram-positive and -negative bacteria
through iron (Fe(III)) chelation. Modification of the ExJade framework led to the identification
of a new fluorescent platform ExPh and
ExBT. Functionalization of the
phenol moieties on ExBT with
phosphate units afforded a ratiometric fluorescent pro-chelator (ExPhos),
which was effective in the inhibition of two clinically relevant
antibiotic-resistant bacteria, (MRSA (ATCC 43300) and VRE (ATCC 51299)), and
allowed the fluorescent imaging of MRSA. Remarkably,
this pro-chelation strategy proved selective towards bacteria with no
cytotoxicity observed for ExPhos treated A549 cells (72 h incubation). This
work represents a new pro-chelator antibiotic strategy that can be modified
with a chosen reactive chemical trigger to provide a diagnostic signal in
conjunction with a therapeutic response with a potential of minimal
off-target toxicities.


This work details advances in thin-film lead zirconate titanate (PZT) devices with interdigitated electrodes (IDEs). They are interesting for energy harvesting applications, as they can provide small amounts of electrical energy to devices such as wireless sensors. A simple equation relating the electric field to the sample geometry of IDEs was derived in this work, and PV hysteresis loops of fabricated films were used to verify the validity of the numerical finding. A fabrication route was developed for partially covering samples with SiO2 and self-poling was observed in these samples by measuring the piezoelectric coefficient descriptive of IDEs, eIDE. The selfpoling observed was limited in magnitude and the origin is still not clear. Slanted PV loops were observed when measuring as-fabricated samples and the slanting was compared to the effect of an interface layer, modelled as described by A.K. Tagantsev and G. Gerra. The model gave inconsistent values for the thickness of the interface layer when comparing samples with varying electrode spacing, and the slanting is therefore thought to have other causes. The time evolution of PV loops has been observed and characterised, and possible causes are discussed. The time evolution of individual samples was found to fit well with the model by M. Grossmann et al. for charge injection across a passive layer at the electrode interface, but this model does not agree with the observed dependence on electrode spacing. Charge injection across passive regions at the grain boundaries is suggested as an alternative that would agree with the observed dependence on electrode spacing. The models by A.K. Tagantsev and M.Grossmann were made to describe devices with parallel plate electrodes, and some inconsistency with the experimental results is to be expected.


We study a social network consisting of agents organized as a hierarchical M-ary rooted tree, common in enterprise and military organizational structures. The goal is to aggregate information to solve a binary hypothesis testing problem. Each agent at a leaf of the tree, and only such an agent, makes a direct measurement of the underlying true hypothesis. The leaf agent then generates a binary message and sends it to its supervising agent, at the next level of the tree. Each supervising agent aggregates the messages from the M members of its group, produces a summary message, and sends it to its supervisor at the next level, and so on. Ultimately, the agent at the root of the tree makes an overall decision. We derive upper and lower bounds for the Type I and Type II error probabilities associated with this decision with respect to the number of leaf agents, which in turn characterize the converge rates of the Type I, Type II, and total error probabilities.


In this dissertation, the STBC-OFDM technique is therefore investigated in order to improve the bit error rate performance of such wireless communication systems speci¯cally those using multiple transmitter and receiver antennas.An investigation is undertaken of STBC with two transmit and one receive antennas as proposed by Alamouti together with quasi-orthogonal STBC with four transmit and one receive antennas. The simulated performance shows that both full diversity and full code rate is achieved only in the case of two transmit and one receive antenna, whereas the diversity is decreased in the case of four transmit and one receive antennas due to the presence of coupling term. This dissertation also presents a method of minimizing such coupling terms by exploiting a phase feedback method as proposed by Cenk Toker, which forces the coupling terms to zero. Both one phase feedback and two phase feedback methods are used. The simulated performance shows that the practical performance gain between three bit feedback and the two bit feedback is only 0.43dB, so to use two bit feedback appears appropriate. Only a ¯nite number of bits is allowed for the feedback, to satisfy the quasi-static assumption on the channel. Finally, closed loop space time block code-OFDM is also investigated, since OFDM is well known to be suited for high data rate applications in fading channels, due to its high spectral efficiency. Another advantage of an OFDM system lies in its ability to transfer a frequency-selective fading channel into multiple °at fading channels on different sub-carriers. The simulation results obtained clearly show that the performance gain between three bit feedback and the two bit feedback is 0.45 dB, therefore a practical two-bit feedback scheme is feasible.


I analyze cliff discounts when an incumbent monopolist faces competition from a competitor that can compete for a portion (but not all) of the market, and compare them with both simple pricing and pricing formulas in which the incumbent can cut prices just in the competitive portion of the market. The optimal cliff discount does not require exclusivity by the buyer. By leaving a portion of the market to the competitor, the incumbent gives it the choice between accepting its allocated share at a high price and offering deep discounts for any increase in market share. The optimal contract allows the competitor to earn higher profits by charging a high price for its allocated share, which in turn allows the incumbent to charge a high price. Average prices are higher with the cliff discount than with pricing that targets price cuts to the competitive segment. The model can apply to bundled discounts for multiple products as well as all-units discounts on a single product.


South Africa is poised at the brink of effecting significant and much needed change to its health system; a change based on the principles of social solidarity, equity and fairness. A National Health Insurance (NHI) is the vehicle which is intended to bring about this change and is expected to have a lasting and recurring impact on the health of all South Africans. The policy objective of NHI is to ensure that everyone has access to appropriate, efficient and quality health services. Intended to be phased in over a period of 14 years, such a system will require significant overhaul of existing service delivery structures, administrative and management systems.This chapter summarises the progress and future plans for introducing the NHI in South Africa. Since the NHI Green Paper was launched in August 2011 there has been considerable progress in preparing the final NHI policy and in preparing South Africa's health system for the introduction of NHI. This chapter summarises progress against the key features of the NHI's development as outlined in the Green Paper and includes input on key areas and initiatives that have been identified for the successful implementation of NHI. This includes, amongst others, management reforms, hospital reimbursement reforms, establishment of the Office for Health Standards Compliance, undertaking of the national health facility audit, quality improvement and certification, and strengthening of district health authorities.Many challenges and risks exist but plans to mitigate these are being put in place; in particular, to continue the process of consultation, improving on communications (including the timetable for changes to happen), strengthening oversight of the reform process in existing and future pilot districts and keeping a focus on equity to ensure that introducing the NHI will lead to a fairer healthcare system.


ABSTRACT This article highlights two key problems of practice the author faced as the instructor of an elementary literacy methods class for Teach for America corps members in a large, northeastern city during an era characterized by strict state and district control: the deficit perspectives the corps members held of their students and the lack of autonomy they experienced as educators. The author illustrates how each of these issues can be traced to the institutions that socialized the corps members into the profession and then draws on practitioner inquiry methodology to describe two possible pedagogical responses. The author concludes by discussing the implications of this work with particular attention to (1) how various institutions frame teaching and learning, (2) the role of methods courses in interrupting these frames, and (3) the pedagogical possibilities inherent in doing so for both students and teachers.


This study deals with the kinetics of absorbable hemostats used for supporting the hemostasis and wound closure during surgical intervention. There are several types of hemostats of different composition therefore with different mechanism of action. Here, terahertz (THz) time-domain spectroscopy is used for studying the absorption kinetics of the reactions between the hemostatic and the physiological saline solution (PSS). The reactions correspond with the changes of the THz radiation response measured in time. These time dependences are analyzed to find time constants for mathematical description of the hemostatic kinetics and the significant differences among all types of hemostats are found. The physiological saline solution is replaced by human blood in the additional measurement. Based on the results, we can compare the reaction rate of different types of hemostats that could be beneficial in the surgery practice.


At a time when health scares abound, new drugs and medical treatments are continually emerging and we are forced to be evermore cautious as to the foods we eat, people are increasingly looking for alternative ways of treating and restoring their health. The healing properties of plants has long been recognised, but knowing exactly what we should be giving our families and how this 'alternative' medicine can work safely alongside modern treatments can seem rather less straightforward. David Bellamy - Britain's favourite botanist - here draws on his many years of research and teaching to give us a practical, accessible and comprehensive guide to herbalism, showing how we can all use herbs to strengthen our immune system, boost energy levels and treat conditions ranging from the common cold to digestive disorders, arthritis and heart disease. Bellamy's Herbal is an easy to follow, detailed guide to everything you need to know about herbal remedies and supplements and how they can be used to treat you and your family safely and effectively.


I study how people understand and reason about trade and which factors shape their views on trade policy. I design and run large-scale surveys and experiments in the U.S. to elicit respondents' knowledge and understanding of trade. I also ask about their perceived economic gains and distributional impacts from trade and their views on trade restrictions and compensatory redistribution for those hurt by trade. People's understanding of the price, wage, and welfare effects of trade is mixed. In general, respondents are optimistic about the efficiency gains from trade, but also understand that there may be adverse distributional consequences from it. Respondents' own exposure to trade through their sector, occupation, skill, and local labor market shapes their perceptions of the impacts of trade on themselves, others, and on the broader U.S. economy. I also find patterns consistent with the idea of "diffuse gains and concentrated losses": respondents' perceived benefits as consumers are nonsalient and unclear to them, while those in at-risk jobs starkly perceive the threats from trade. Beyond material self-interest, people have broader social and economic concerns that strongly influence their views on trade policy. The belief that is most predictive of support for open trade is that trade generates efficiency gains. Furthermore, people who believe that those hurt by trade can be helped using other tools (compensatory redistribution) do not oppose free trade, even if they think that it will entail adverse distributional consequences. The results highlight the importance of compensatory redistribution as an indissociable part of trade policy in people's minds.


"A generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken", was how F. Scott Fitzgerald defined his age. Perhaps nowhere in American fiction is this statement better exemplified than in Fitzgerald's first two volumes of short fiction: Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age. Penguin's new Jazz Age Stories gathers all of these early pieces in one volume, which together capture the shine and seductive sound of early American jazz, the scandalous affronts to religious pieties, the nights of drunken revelry, and the impending doom of financial, moral, and intellectual dissolution. Spanning the early twentieth-century American landscape -- the Minnesota of his youth, the Princeton college years, the squalor and opulence of New York -- this collection contains unforgettable images of modern America, and eloquently expresses Fitzgerald's theme of the enchantment and disillusionment of materialism. Jazz Age Stories includes "The Ice Palace", "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", and "A Diamond as Big as The Ritz".


We present an accelerated depth peeling algorithm for order-independent transparency rendering on graphics hardware. Unlike traditional depth peeling which only peels one layer of transparent pixels per rendering pass, our algorithm peels multiple layers simultaneously per rendering pass. Our acceleration is achieved via our fragment program which sorts and writes multiple fragment colors and depths via MRT. A notable feature of our algorithm is that it is robust against the unreliable parallel read-after-write behavior in current graphics hardware, guaranteeing correct transparency ordering. For ordinary scenes rendered under RGBA8 color precision, we achieve up to 8x speed-up over conventional depth peeling with current generation graphics hardware. Our algorithm is simple to implement on current GPU without any hardware modification. In addition, it does not require applications to perform any pre-sorting of transparent geometry.


This piece is a snippet of an interview from a larger research project titled: "The Social Practice of Living and Travelling in Small Mobile Living Structures". Using a style popularised by Studs Terkel in his book 'Working' (1974), I have used the interviewee's own words but manipulated the order of the sections to make a cohesive narrative about living in a Tiny House. Erin and Chris talk about life in their tiny house under the framework of Social Practice Theory, informing the reader about the skills, materials and meanings that have contributed to their current living situation.


The strain-induced reorientation response of cyclically stretched cells has been well characterized in uniform strain fields. In the present study, we comprehensively analyse the behaviour of human fibroblasts subjected to a highly non-uniform strain field within a polymethylsiloxane microdevice. Our results indicate that the strain gradient amplitude and direction regulate cell reorientation through a coordinated gradient avoidance response. We provide critical evidence that strain gradient is a key physical cue that can guide cell organization. Specifically, our work suggests that cells are able to pinpoint the location under the cell of multiple physical cues and integrate this information (strain and strain gradient amplitudes and directions), resulting in a coordinated response. To gain insight into the underlying mechanosensing processes, we studied focal adhesion reorganization and the effect of modulating myosin-II contractility. The extracted focal adhesion orientation distributions are similar to those obtained for the cell bodies, and their density is increased by the presence of stretching forces. Moreover, it was found that the myosin-II activity promoter calyculin-A has little effect on the cellular response, while the inhibitor blebbistatin suppresses cell and focal adhesion alignment and reduces focal adhesion density. These results confirm that similar internal structures involved in sensing and responding to strain direction and amplitude are also key players in strain gradient mechanosensing and avoidance.


This specification defines a method for a protected resource to query
an OAuth 2.0 authorization server to determine the active state of an
OAuth 2.0 token and to determine meta-information about this token.
OAuth 2.0 deployments can use this method to convey information about
the authorization context of the token from the authorization server
to the protected resource.


BACKGROUND: Actinic keratoses (AKs) are dysplastic lesions of the epidermis that have the potential to progress to non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC). Traditional photodynamic therapy (PDT) requires a pre-illumination incubation time, which adds to overall in-office time and has been linked to pain. Our group has found a novel protocol to effectively treat AKs with PDT that eliminates the pre-illumination incubation period and uses 2 back-to-back cycles of 16 minute 40 seconds. METHODS: The patient was prepped with soapy water and isopropyl alcohol, and thick AKs were descaled with a curette. Next, 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) was applied to the treatment areas and the patient was immediately placed under the blue light for 33 minutes and 20 seconds (two cycles of 16m/40s). RESULTS: During therapy, the patient reported no pain. At one week, treated areas revealed a good reaction. The procedure was repeated at one month to treat residual AKs. At a 4-month follow-up, the patient's face and scalp showed near clearance of any AKs. CONCLUSION: During PDT, the photosensitizer aminolevulinic acid (ALA), or in Europe methyl aminolevulinate (MAL), is utilized as a synthetic precursor that preferentially accumulates in dysplastic cells. The precursor then converts to PpIX via the heme pathway and causes apoptosis of the cells when excited, most commonly by either blue-violet (400-430 nm) or red (630-635 nm) light. Shorter incubation times are associated with reduced pain because less PpIX will have accumulated in the treated tissue by the start of the exposure to the light. The doubling of the light exposure time allows comparable levels of the photosensitizing molecule to accumulate and be activated so as to produce an equivalent reaction. The associated reduction in pain along with a more convenient treatment schedule makes this PDT protocol more tolerable and convenient to some patients. J Drugs Dermatol. 2017;16(3):275-278..


Siân Melangell Dafydd and Anitha Thampi are two of the ten poets from India and Wales who took part in a project organized by Literature Across Frontiers and partners to mark the 70th anniversary of independent India. The poets collaborated to create new work and translate each other into their respective languages during a series of residencies in both countries, alternating between the hustle and bustle of Indian metropolises and the peace and quiet of Welsh towns and rural locations. The project addressed, in a myriad ways, the theme of "independence". In artistic practice, independence means freedom to think, act and create beyond the confines of convention and economic necessity. But successful independence - of communities and individuals alike - also involves co-dependence, collaboration and understanding across divides and differences. At a time of global change which sees increasing friction between identities, we hope this project has helped to open up a unique dialogue and formulate new narratives and ideas which both uncover and move beyond difficult histories.


—As road networks expand and collisions between vehicles and wildlife become more common, accurately quantifying mortality rates for the taxa that are most impacted will be critical. Snakes are especially vulnerable to collisions with vehicles because of their physiology and behavior. Reptile road mortality is typically quantified using driving or walking surveys; however, scavengers can rapidly remove carcasses from the road and cause underestimation of mortality. Our objective was to determine the effect that scavengers might have had on our ability to accurately detect reptile road mortality during over 150 h and 4,000 km of driving surveys through arid shrublands in southwest Wyoming, which resulted in only two observations of mortality. We developed unique simulated snake carcasses out of Burbot (Lota lota), a locally invasive fish species, and examined removal rates across three different road types at three study sites. Carcass size was not a significant predictor of time of removal, and carcass removal was comparable during the daytime and nighttime hours. However, removal of simulated carcasses was higher on paved roads than unpaved or two-track roads at all study sites, with an average of 75% of the carcasses missing within 60 h compared to 34% and 31%, respectively. Scavengers may therefore negatively impact the ability of researchers to accurately detect herpetofaunal road mortality, especially for paved roads where road mortality is likely the most prevalent.


Media diversity, or the heterogeneity of media content, is considered a central pillar of a democratic society, but it has seldom been studied in a systematic way. Concerns about the relationship between media concentration and the abuse of power through the over-representation of particular views have been a longstanding focus for debate within communication studies. Logically, highly concentrated media ownership patterns correlate with a more limited range of media sources, implying a less pluralistic system. Recent technological developments and digital innovations have added to the complexity of researching plurality. Meanwhile, media organizations have embarked on new forms of corporate expansion, leading to disagreement amongst commentators over the impact of these changes on the ownership patterns of media content providers. For some political economists, this has heralded a discontinuity and a departure from capitalism, but, for many, new media has deepened and extended the commodification of audiences. The existence of multiple owners, in any case, may not be sufficient to ensure plurality; studies of media diversity should also review the content of the outputs themselves. Despite the fact that many television companies and print publishers have transformed themselves into multi-platform suppliers of content, little is known about the impact of these strategies on the diversity of media content. This article is based on initial findings from a study of media content being undertaken as part of a three year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded project 'Multi-platform media and the digital challenge'. This project has sampled, coded and analyzed the composition of content bundles from a selection of key media organizations drawn from broadcasting, newspaper, and magazine publishing industries, including the BBC, STV, MTV, The Financial Times , The Telegraph, Elle UK, T3 and NME . To this end, the first two of three phases of content analysis have been employed. This work confirms volumes of content have increased across the sample, but also finds evidence for the recycling and re-purposing of content and for the concentration on particular programmes or stories. Finally, the article argues for the systematic examination of media content outputs and for the development of new ways to measure media content diversity across platform and sector.


During the last years the use of service level agree-ments (SLA) is rising uncontrollably to describe the rights and obligations of parties involved in service provisioning (typically the service consumer and the service provider); amongst other information, SLA could define guarantees associated with the idea of service level objectives (SLOs) that normally represent key performance indicators of either the consumer or the provider. In case the guarantee is under or over fulfilled SLAs could also define some compensations (i.e. penalties or rewards). In such a context, there have been important steps towards the automation of the analysis of SLAs. One of these steps is a characterization model of SLAs with compensations proposed by the authors in a previous work; and another step is the standardisation effort in the SLAs notation made by WS‑Agreement. However, real-world SLAs includes complex concepts that must be considered, namely: (i) SLA terms that specify compensations without an explicit SLO; and (ii) a limit for the compensations. In this paper we extend our prior characterization model considering these complex concepts. Specifically, (i) we provide up to five real-world scenarios whose SLAs incorporate aforementioned new concepts; (ii) we extend our model for compensable guarantees considering terms without an explicit SLO; and (iii) we provide a novel WS‑Agreement-based syntax to model SLAs with compensations considering these concepts. These contributions aim to establish a foundation to elaborate tools that could provide an automated support to model and analyse SLAs with compensations.


Global tropospheric ozone distributions, budgets, and radiative forcings from an ensemble of 26 state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry models have been intercompared and synthesized as part of a wider study into both the air quality and climate roles of ozone. Results from three 2030 emissions scenarios, broadly representing optimistic, likely, and pessimistic options, are compared to a base year 2000 simulation. This base case realistically represents the current global distribution of tropospheric ozone. A further set of simulations considers the influence of climate change over the same time period by forcing the central emissions scenario with a surface warming of around 0.7K. The use of a large multimodel ensemble allows us to identify key areas of uncertainty and improves the robustness of the results. Ensemble mean changes in tropospheric ozone burden between 2000 and 2030 for the 3 scenarios range from a 5% decrease, through a 6% increase, to a 15% increase. The intermodel uncertainty (±1 standard deviation) associated with these values is about ±25%. Model outliers have no significant influence on the ensemble mean results. Combining ozone and methane changes, the three scenarios produce radiative forcings of -50, 180, and 300 mW m-2, compared to a CO 2 forcing over the same time period of 800-1100 mW m-2. These values indicate the importance of air pollution emissions in short- to medium-term climate forcing and the potential for stringent/lax control measures to improve/worsen future climate forcing. The model sensitivity of ozone to imposed climate change varies between models but modulates zonal mean mixing ratios by ±5 ppbv via a variety of feedback mechanisms, in particular those involving water vapor and stratosphere-troposphere exchange. This level of climate change also reduces the methane lifetime by around 4%. The ensemble mean year 2000 tropospheric ozone budget indicates chemical production, chemical destruction, dry deposition and stratospheric input fluxes of 5100, 4650, 1000 and 550 Tg(O 3 ) yr-1, respectively. These values are significantly different to the mean budget documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR). The mean ozone burden (340 Tg(O 3 )) is 10% larger than the IPCC TAR estimate, while the mean ozone lifetime (22 days) is 10% shorter. Results from individual models show a correlation between ozone burden and lifetime, and each model's ozone burden and lifetime respond in similar ways across the emissions scenarios. The response to climate change is much less consistent. Models show more variability in the tropics compared to midlatitudes. Some of the most uncertain areas of the models include treatments of deep tropical convection, including lightning NO x production; isoprene emissions from vegetation and isoprene's degradation chemistry; stratosphere-troposphere exchange; biomass burning; and water vapor concentrations. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.


US policy-makers, war-fighters, and law-enforcers now operate in a real-time worldwide decision and implementation environment. The rapidly changing circumstances in which they operate take on lives of their own, which are difficult or impossible to anticipate or predict. The only way to meet the continuously unpredictable challenges ahead of us is to match them with continuously unpredictable changes of our own. We must transform the Intelligence Community into a community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes. Recent theoretical developments in the philosophy of science that matured in the 1990's, collectively known as Complexity Theory, suggest changes the community should make to meet this challenge. These changes include allowing our officers more autonomy in the context of improved tradecraft and information sharing. In addition, several new technologies will facilitate this transformation. Two examples are self-organizing knowledge websites, known as Wikis, and information sharing websites known as Blogs. Allowing Intelligence Officers and our non-intelligence National Security colleagues access to these technologies on SIPRNet, will provide a critical mass to begin the transformation.


This dissertation explores the collaborative process and use of language that went into the creating the United States Constitution in 1787. From a technical communication perspective, the collaborative process explored did not develop any new theories on collaboration, but instead, allows scholars to track the emergence of a well-documented America collaborative process from the early period of the developing American nation on a document that has remained in use for over 235 years. in addition to examining this collaborative process, the author also discusses the use of passive voice and negative language in the first article of the Constitution.


The Eratosthenes Seamount (Eastern Mediterranean) is interpreted as a crustal block in process of break up in response to subduction and incipient collision of the African and Eurasian Plates. Subsidence is considered to be the mechanism triggering the Messinian to Pleistocene water deepening above this unique structure. However, the 5 application of a recently developed transfer equation of depth range distribution of benthic foraminifera indicates that sea-level changes may also have played a role, although it was generally minor. In particular, we suggest that across the Miocene/Pliocene boundary and during the Pliocene-Pleistocene, the eustatic signal is frequently coupled with uplifts and subsidence. The uplift of Cyprus across the Pliocene-Pleistocene 10 transition is clearly recorded in the paleodepth curve. Micropaleontological studies and the use of this transfer equation based on the distribution of benthic foraminifera proves to be useful when studying the paleodepth history of complex sites, where tectonic and eustatic signals combine. We also show that marginal seas record global sea-level changes that can be identified even in tectonically active settings. 15


In this paper we describe our simulation models for evaluating end-to-end performance of HTTP transactions. We first analyze several gigabytes of collected traffic traces from a production Frame Relay network. Using these traces we extract web traffic and analyze the server web pages accessed by actual users. We analyze over 25000 web pages and develop a web client/server interaction model based upon our analysis of many server contents. We make specific contributions by analyzing the popularity of web servers and the number of bytes transferred from them during a busy hour. We also compute the distribution of the number of embedded items within a web document. We then use these models to drive a network simulation and show the interactions between the TCP/IP flow control and retransmission mechanism on source parameters. One of our important contributions has been to show that the Hurst parameter is robust with regard to TCP/IP flow and error control. Using the simulation studies we show that the distribution of end-to-end application message delay has a heavy-tail distribution and we discuss how these distributions arise in the network context.


ABSTRACT Social presence is a popular construct used to describe how people socially interact in online courses. Online educators continue to try different ways to establish and maintain social presence in online courses. However, research to date has not identified which strategies, or types of strategies, are best for establishing social presence. We investigated student perceptions of various strategies of establishing and maintaining social presence using a mixed methods case study approach in two different fully online courses. Results suggest that students are more interested in connecting with their instructor than their peers; different students like different social presence strategies; and students have different overall social presence needs. Various strategies and implications for practice are addressed throughout.


The White Mountain shear zone (WMSZ) is a zone of intense penetrative deformation that lies along the western front of the northern White-Inyo Range in eastern-most California and western-most Nevada. The northern half of the WMSZ is characterized by a NNE to NNW-striking steeply dipping foliation and associated shallowly plunging NNE to NW-trending stretching lineations. S-C fabrics observed in outcrop, microstructural shear sense indicators and kilometer-scale foliation geometry all indicate dextral movement. Localized discrete zones of coeval steeply plunging stretching lineations are present in the northern half of the WMSZ. Microstructural data from these domains indicate a high component of pure shear within a separate coeval kinematic framework and hence a transpressional history. The WMSZ appears to be tectonically related to both the Sierra Crest shear system to the west and the Santa Rita shear system to the south. Correlation between the WMSZ and the Santa Rita shear system indicates that Late Cretaceous dextral transpression may extend up to ~120 km along the western front of the White-Inyo Range. Cross-cutting relationships with Late Cretaceous plutons bracket the age of the WMSZ at between 72-92 Ma. A lack of annealing recrystallization in deformed quartz and the presence of high temperature crystallographic fabrics near the margins of the ca. 72 Ma Boundary Peak pluton indicate significant strain accumulation within the WMSZ subsequent to emplacement of the Boundary Peak pluton. These observations extend the duration of Late Cretaceous dextral transpression in eastern California to at least as recent as 72 Ma.


Metals Fabrication: Understanding the Basics describes the practices, processes, and procedures used throughout industry to produce metal products and goods. It begins with a review of primary mill processes and the basic steps for making iron, steel, aluminum, and titanium. It then covers nearly every subsequent fabrication process, starting with casting followed by forging, forming, machining, heat treating, finishing, and coating as well as powder-metal part production. The book provides a thorough review of each process, discussing typical implementations, material requirements, design considerations, and common imperfections and defects. It also explains how heat, force, and power generated by production equipment alter the metallurgical and mechanical properties of work in process, bringing practical perspective to many fundamental concepts including solidification, deformation, residual stress, fracture mechanics, wear, and phase transformations. For information on the print version, ISBN 978-1-62708-018-7, follow this link.


The aim of the work described in this thesis is the development of highly porous materials (PolyHIPEs) which could find wide applications in separation science and in solid phase synthesis. Two systems were developed and studied. In the first one, PolyHIPE materials from divinylbenzene were synthesised in the presence of porogens of different chemical structures. These materials possess two levels of porosity: large pores ( 1 - 20 µm) which guarantee the flow of fluids under the application of small pressures and a fine porosity (1 - 100 nm) present in the walls of the foams which confer to the materials high surface areas (up to 700 m(^2)g(^-1)). The chemical nature of the porogens employed has a significant influence on the morphologies of the foams affecting both the dimension of the cavities and the fine porous structure. It was shown that the mechanisms operating at the emulsion stage and thus determining the characteristics of the final foams are the co-adsorption at the oil/water interface of the porogens and/or monomers together with the primary surfactant, and diffusion of the dispersed aqueous phase through the continuous organic phase. The latter phenomenon can be minimized by the appropriate choice of the surfactant system. The second system consisted of styrene/4-vinylbenzylchloride/divinylbenzene foams. The presences of a chloromethyl group render these PolyHIPE foams amenable to functionalization. Also in this case, the morphologies of the resulting foams were studied. It was shown that emulsion composition is the relevant variable affecting via the interfacial tension and viscosity not only foam morphologies but also their mechanical properties


This paper will reflect on the content of traditional disability equality training and critique the western bias towards presenting 'social model' approaches as the 'right and proper' way of thinking about disability. It positions disabled people, NGOs, practitioners, policy makers, researchers and educators as equal negotiators in disability dialogues and asks for a more culturally sensitive ground up approach to promoting inclusive communities. It will suggest that one of the ways this can be done is by drawing on popular culture for 'critical moments' which can be unpacked and debated by participants. It maintains that the establishment of effective and sustainable partnerships can only happen when all sides have a stake in the debate.(Presented at Perspectives on Inclusive Development: Embracing Diversity and Creating Disability-sensitive Communities Conference, July, Kuching, Malaysia)


This paper attempts to distinguish between political consciousness and propaganda with reference to African literature .This is one of the issues in the writing and criticism of modern African literature, that is essentially post-colonial and therefore intertwined with politics of colonialism and its aftermath. Although all literature has a political context, post-colonial literature is ubiquitously so. South African literature is even much more so as a result of the extreme racism of apartheid system 1948–1994. But the question is; where do we draw the boundary, however diffuse, between politics-cum-political activism per se, propaganda, and political consciousness in literary art? On the African continent South Africa under the defunct apartheid system is the ideal space in which to investigate the distinction between the concepts. Nadine Gordimer (1923- 2014) a white South African who was both a fiction, non-fiction writer, and political activist provides idea exemplification for the study. She has personally engaged the debate and insisted on the need to maintain boundaries between politics and literary art. In this paper two of her novels in which the political theme is fore grounded are analyzed to validate her claims. What distinguishes literary art from other forms of writing is its literariness or its aesthetic nature. Therefore stylistic analysis provides the analytical tool for interrogating Gordimer's argument which is relevant to all African literature. Sometimes writers are misread as propagandists by non-literary critics who base their conclusions on mere content analysis, thereby mistaking the literary text for a social document. Critical examination of the two texts based on stylistics analysis reveals a clear boundary between political consciousness in literature and overt propaganda.


The electronic MEdical Records & GEnomics (eMERGE) network was established in 2007 by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in part to explore the utility of electronic medical records (EMRs) in genome science. The initial focus was on discovery primarily using the genome-wide association paradigm, but more recently, the network has begun evaluating mechanisms to implement new genomic information coupled to clinical decision support into EMRs. Herein, we describe this evolution including the development of the individual and merged eMERGE genomic datasets, the contribution the network has made toward genomic discovery and human health, and the steps taken toward the next generation genotype-phenotype association studies and clinical implementation.


Mixed reality games are those in which virtual graphical assets are overlaid on the physical world. We explore the use of procedural content generation to enhance the gameplay experience in a prototype mixed reality game. Procedural content generation is used to design levels that make use of the affordances in the player's physical environment. Levels are tailored to gameplay difficulty and to affect how the player moves their physical body in the real world.


Matrix metalloproteinases play a crucial role in the remodelling of the extracellular matrix through direct degradation of its structural proteins and control of extracellular signalling. The most common cause of ischemic brain damage is an atherothrombotic lesion in the supplying arteries. The progress of the atherosclerotic plaque development and the related thrombotic complications are mediated in part by matrix metalloproteinases. In addition to their role in the underlying disease, various members of this protease family are upregulated in the acute phase of ischemic brain damage as well as in the post-ischemic brain recovery following stroke. This review summarizes the current understanding of the matrix metalloproteinase-related molecular events at three stages of the ischemic cerebrovascular disease (in the atherosclerotic plaque, in the neurovascular unit of the brain and in the regenerating brain tissue).


In order to study the epidemiology of Salmonella Enteritidis outbreaks and determine the source of contamination so that a recurrence can be avoided, detailed characterization is necessary. Thus, the purpose of this study was to verify whether rep-PCR was able to discriminate among Salmonella Enteritidis isolates. Phage typing, detection of virulence genes and antimicrobial resistance testing were also associated to repPCR results. One hundred and two S. Enteritidis isolates from broiler carcasses, food, human, pigs, poultryrelated samples, and nine isolates from other countries were genotypically typed by REP-PCR, ERIC-PCR and BOX-PCR, collectively called rep-PCR. Phage typing, detection of virulence genes and antimicrobial resistance testing were also performed. Only three fingerprinting profiles were obtained with each rep-PCR method, with the majority of isolates belonging to the same profile. No relationship was observed between genotypic profile and year, place of isolation or source of infection. However, the less frequent rep-PCR profiles showed single antimicrobial resistance patterns. Although few strains isolated from swine were analyzed, different antimicrobial resistance patterns were observed. Furthermore, phage type 4 was not found in swine isolates. rep-PCR showed a lower discriminatory power as compared with antimicrobial resistance and phage typing, but the combination of genotypic and phenotypic methods was more discriminatory than any method alone, resulting in 48 different types.


Users show a growing interest in expanding the implementation of digital tools as a support of technical and management issues in healthcare. This medical care has focused on telemedicine but does not include the recognition of needs as an important part of patient-centred healthcare. Nurses interact with patients at critical times in their life journeys, including birth and death, which are historical events linked with religious beliefs. Furthermore, large migration flows have led to multicultural societies in which religion and spirituality are experienced in distinct ways by different people. Finally, most healthcare professionals lack the proper skills to handle the spiritual needs of their patients, especially for core and digital competences. This article shows the results of qualitative research applying as a research tool an open-ended questionnaire, which allows detecting the educational needs for nurses' interventions aimed at providing spiritual support to their patients using digital tools. The results obtained reveal that nurses need education and training on fundamental spiritual concepts and digital competencies to meet the multiple demands of their patients' spiritual needs. Finally, we present an open digital educational proposal for the development of competencies for nurses and other health professionals to provide spiritual care with the support of digital tools.


The immigration of unskilled workers poses a fundamental problem for liberals. While from the perspective of the economic welfare of natives, the optimal policy would be to admit these aliens as guest workers, this policy would violate liberal egalitarian ideals. These ideals would treat these resident workers as equals, entitled to access to citizenship and to the full set of public benefits provided to citizens. If the welfare of all incumbent residents determines admissions policies, however, and we anticipate the fiscal burden that the immigration of the poor would impose, then our welfare criterion would preclude the admission of unskilled workers in the first place. Thus, our commitment to treat these workers as equals once admitted would cut against their admission and make them worse off than they would be if we agreed never to treat them as equals. A liberal can avoid this anomaly by adopting a cosmopolitan perspective that extends equal concern to all individuals, including aliens, which suggests liberal immigration policies for unskilled workers. The problem with this escape from the "immigration paradox" is the failure of most citizens to adopt such a cosmopolitan perspective. As long as citizens are reluctant to bear the fiscal burdens that cosmopolitan liberalism would impose, constraints of political feasibility may imply that guest-worker programs are the best policies that cosmopolitan liberals can obtain with respect to many unskilled alien workers.


The dissemination of intervention and treatment outcomes as effect sizes bounded by conf idence intervals in order to think meta-analytically was promoted in a recent article in Educational Researcher. I raise concerns with unfettered reporting of effect sizes, point out the con in confidence interval, and caution against thinking meta-analytically. Instead, cataloging effect sizes is recommended for sample size estimation and power analysis to improve social and behavioral science research.


After global financial crisis 2008, the position of the US dollar began to be debated and led to the narrative of the internationalization of renminbi. This literature review discusses how the literatures has evolved regarding internationalization of renminbi. Based on the taxonomy method, this literature review finds three major themes: China's interest, implementation process, and external reactions. Based on those three themes, this literature review argues that internationalization of renminbi occurs because the character of international relations tends to be competitive due to power relations. This condition triggered the adjustment of Chinese interests according to Chinese characteristics using offshore renminbi centers. Besides using the supply-side approach as the dominant approach, this literature review identifies an increase in discussion after 2009 and also finds approach and empirical gap that use demand-side approach of international actors. This paper contributes to the study of international political economy related to state and market logic.


National Human Rights Institutions can play a key role in promoting and protecting human rights. They are able to do so by the unique position they occupy between government, civil society, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). However, this unique position which holds out opportunities for national human rights institutions also gives rise to problems for such institutions. National human rights institutions have to define and defend their role or space in relation to where they fit in with government and civil society. This can create difficulties for national human rights institutions with respect to their independence and accountability; two key concepts which are crucial for a national human rights institution's legitimacy, credibility, and ultimately its effectiveness. This article explores these challenges and opportunities using examples from different countries. It further draws out a more subtle understanding of independence and accountability by conceptually unearthing the different layers within the two concepts. In conclusion, a number of recommendations are made as to how national human rights institutions can maintain their independence, while engaging with and being accountable to both government and civil society. The article is supported in its conclusions by a series of semi-structured interviews with key institutional players in the national human rights institution world.


1. The concentration of lithium in bone was determined after various periods of lithium administration in rats of differing ages and also after discontinuation. Lithium content was determined in human bone of three lithium-treated and two control subjects. 2. There was an inverse relationship between age at commencement of treatment and the final bone lithium content. This suggests that lithium is incorporated into the mineral of rapidly growing bone. 3. The loss of lithium from bone after discontinuation of medication indicates that one fraction is lost rapidly, and a large fraction remains and is lost very slowly. 4. Analysis of human bone from three subjects after lithium discontinuation shows that concentrations exist similar to those of rat bone. Control human bone had a lithium concentration which was similar to that of control rat bone.


How organisms adapt to different climate habitats is a key question in evolutionary ecology and biological conservation. Species distributions are often determined by climate suitability. Consequently, the anthropogenic impact on earth's climate is of key concern to conservation efforts because of our relatively poor understanding of the ability of populations to track and evolve to climate change. Here, we investigate the ability of Arabidopsis thaliana to occupy climate space by quantifying the extent to which different climate regimes are accessible to different A. thaliana genotypes using publicly available data from a large-scale genotyping project and from a worldwide climate database. The genetic distance calculated from 149 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among 60 lineages of A. thaliana was compared to the corresponding climate distance among collection localities calculated from nine different climatic factors. A. thaliana was found to be highly labile when adapting to novel climate space, suggesting that populations may experience few constraints when adapting to changing climates. Our results also provide evidence of a parallel or convergent evolution on the molecular level supporting recent generalizations regarding the genetics of adaptation.


Both theoretical and practical considerations have led the revision of the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®) revised General Test, here called the rGRE, to adopt a multistage adaptive design that will be continuously or nearly continuously administered and that can provide immediate score reporting. These circumstances sharply constrain the available options for equating or linking together the thousands of unique test forms that will need to be administered each year. The only practical method is to pre-equate each form through item response theory (IRT) methods. Unfortunately, doing so means that item position and context effects are both vitally important and potentially difficult to control. This study examines item position effects in a GRE context and attempts to assess the extent to which they may affect the rGRE. It was found that position effects are in fact present in GRE data and that they can be particularly troublesome under multistage testing. Pretest strategies are able to mitigate effects to some degree, but complete control will require careful attention be paid to the time limits and associated test configuration details in the design of the rGRE.


The Earth's climate has alternated between glacial and interglacial stages, but we still do not understand how the changes in insolation have been amplified by the climate system to lead to such a large climatic response. Here we use a climate model of intermediate complexity to show that the orbitally induced shift from an interglacial to a pre‐glacial climate is highly sensitive to the high northern latitudes moisture budget. Using the insolation forcing alone, the model produces a first order response of sea surface temperatures and thermohaline circulation evolution which agrees with the available geological data. Under the same gradual insolation evolution, adding a small freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean induces a rapid climate switch from an interglacial to a pre‐glacial mode. These results suggest a simple connection between orbital forcing and the thermohaline circulation through a freshwater threshold within the ocean‐atmosphere‐sea‐ice system.


Hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed, steady, incompressible laminar flow in a concentric curved annular duct is investigated numerically under constant wall temperature boundary condition. The equations of discretized continuity, momentum, and energy have been solved numerically, and a computer code for the present mathematical model has been developed. The secondary flow streamlines, isotherms, and velocity profiles as well as the local and the average Nusselt numbers and friction factors are presented for various values of annulus dimension ratio and Dean number. The secondary flows resulting from centrifugal forces affect the distribution of the velocity and the temperature. As a consequence of this study, it was determined that viscous forces become more effective upon centrifugal forces while the annulus dimension ratio decreases.


Introduction: The nursing profession is one of the most stressful occupations today, due to the quantity and diversity of risk factors associated with the work environment. The common contributory factors include higher nurse workloads and characteristics of the work environment such as administrative support, nurse-physician relationships, and support services. Clinical supervision enables nurses to discuss patient care in a safe, supportive environment and may lead to lower levels of burnout for emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
Objective: The aim of the present study was to explore stress related work environment factors in practicing nurses in Latvia, and to find out nurses opinions about clinical supervision.
Method: Demographic questionnaire and survey about environmental factors in nurses, as well as nurses opinions about clinical supervision necessity for nurses, were the instruments used for data collection. The nurses were asked to choose 10 factors from 20 and rank them from 1 to 10, where the most significant was 10.
Results: The participants of the study were 241 nurses from several hospitals and outpatient care institutions in Latvia. All participants were women, age range - from 21 till 59 years. The most frequently marked factor in nurses' surveys was "risk of infection", 220 nurses in total chose this factor and 101 (41,9%) ranked it like the most important of all proposed. Frequently marked factors also were "Inadequate remuneration for work" (217 marked, 22,4% ranked with 10), "Emotionally intensive work with people" (179 marked, 7,9% ranked with 10). More than a half (59,8%) of participating nurses never heard about supervisions, 95,5% did not attend supervisions for nurses in past 5 years.
Conclusion: During a study the main stress-related factors were indentified. The most frequently marked factors in nurses' surveys were "risk of infection", "inadequate remuneration for work" and "emotionally intensive work with people". Most of nurses participating in this study considered that the practicing nurses need the supervisions.


Based on a conjoint survey experiment we explore the support among European citizens for a European Union (EU) budgetary assistance instrument to combat adverse temporary or permanent economic shocks hitting Member States. Suitably designed, there is quite substantial support for such an EU instrument generally and across the sample countries. Support is broader when budgetary support is conditional on debt reduction in normal times and spent in specific policy areas, in particular healthcare and education. Support also increases when there is a role for the European Commission in terms of monitoring and providing guidance. However, there is little support for policy packages that terminate a program and impose a fine in the case of non-compliance. Further, there is broad acceptance of long-run redistribution towards poorer countries. Financing the assistance through a progressive tax increase is more popular than through a flat tax increase. In general, there is substantial scope for constructing assistance packages that command a majority support in all sample countries. The survey was fielded in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, in which the prospect of a severe economic shock became realistic. However, the results of our survey are based on respondent views in a (partially) pre-political environment: respondents had the opportunity to reason and form their own opinion about the assistance package before concrete policy proposals were debated by political parties that seek the edges of polarization. Based on a conjoint survey experiment we explore the support among European citizens for a European Union (EU) budgetary assistance instrument to combat adverse temporary or permanent economic shocks hitting Member States. Suitably designed, there is quite substantial support for such an EU instrument generally and across the sample countries. Support is broader when budgetary support is conditional on debt reduction in normal times and spent in specific policy areas, in particular healthcare and education. Support also increases when there is a role for the European Commission in terms of monitoring and providing guidance. However, there is little support for policy packages that terminate a program and impose a fine in the case of non-compliance. Further, there is broad acceptance of long-run redistribution towards poorer countries. Financing the assistance through a progressive tax increase is more popular than through a flat tax increase. In general, there is substantial scope for constructing assistance packages that command a majority support in all sample countries. The survey was fielded in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, in which the prospect of a severe economic shock became realistic. However, the results of our survey are based on respondent views in a (partially) pre-political environment: respondents had the opportunity to reason and form their own opinion about the assistance package before concrete policy proposals were debated by political parties that seek the edges of polarization.


Hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) is a prevalent genetic disorder that results in the daily excess absorption of dietary iron. If untreated this disease leads to systemic organ failure and death. HH is caused by mutations to the gene coding for a protein called HFE, a type I transmembrane glycoprotein with a demonstrated role in regulating cellular iron homeostasis. HFE binds to the cell-surface receptor transferrin receptor (TfR), a dimeric type II transmembrane glycoprotein responsible for iron uptake into most mammalian cell types. TfR binds iron-loaded transferrin (Fe-Tf) from the blood and transports it to acidic recycling endosomes where iron is released from Fe-Tf in a TfR-facilitated process. Iron-free transferrin (apo-Tf) remains bound to TfR and is recycled to the cell surface, where apo-Tf rapidly dissociates from TfR upon exposure to the basic pH of blood. HFE and Fe-Tf can bind simultaneously to TfR to form a ternary complex, but HFE binding to TfR lowers the apparent affinity of the Fe-Tf/TfR interaction. This reduction could result from direct competition between HFE and Fe-Tf for receptor binding sites, from negative cooperativity, or both. We sought to understand the mechanism of HFE, Fe-Tf, and apo-Tf binding by TfR to help define HFE's role in iron homeostasis. We determined the binding constants for HFE, Fe-Tf, and apo-Tf to an extensive set of site-directed TfR mutants and discovered that HFE and Tf bind to an overlapping site on TfR, indicating the two proteins compete with each other for receptor binding. The mutagenesis results also identified differences in the contact points between TfR and the two forms of Tf, Fe-Tf and apo-Tf. By combining the mutations that are required for apo-Tf, but not Fe-Tf, binding we find that a highly conserved hydrophobic patch on the TfR surface is required for the receptor-mediated stimulation of iron release from Fe-Tf. From these data we propose a structure-based model for the mechanism of TfR-assisted iron release.

To explore the mechanism of the HFE-induced affinity reduction for Fe-Tf binding by TfR, we engineered a heterodimeric TfR (hdTfR) that contains mutations such that one TfR chain binds only HFE and the other binds only Fe-Tf. Competition binding experiments using hdTfR demonstrate that TfR does not exhibit cooperativity in heterotropic ligand binding, suggesting that some or all of HFE's effects on iron homeostasis result from competition with Fe-Tf for TfR binding. Using transfected cell lines we show that HFE is dependent on its interactions with TfR for transport to endosomal compartments and that competition with extracellular Fe-Tf can alter HFE trafficking patterns. These data suggest that HFE's role in iron homeostasis is as a sensor of body iron status.


The study investigated gender differences in satisfaction with physical appearance as a domain-specific aspect of self-esteem, and its association with global self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints. The data used was from the Stockholm School Survey, conducted among ninth grade students (15–16 years), with pooled information from six cross-sectional surveys in 2004–14 (n = 32,117). Girls reported lower satisfaction with their appearance than boys. Satisfaction with appearance was more strongly associated with global self-esteem among girls, while the association with psychosomatic complaints was similar for both genders. There was a tendency towards a decline in satisfaction with appearance at the end of the study period for both genders, albeit more strong for girls. We conclude that satisfaction with appearance may contribute to our understanding of poor mental well-being among adolescent girls.


ABSTRACT The literature on migrants' religious movements generally see them as backward and conservative movements that are resistant to change. On the contrary, this paper shows that transnational religious movements are shaped by interactions between origin and destination places' political, legal and social structures, and may take different pathways across time and place. Analysing the development of the Alevi diaspora movement in Germany and the recent efforts to establish the World Alevi Union, the article argues that both the (old and new) states and the (old and new) societies they live in, as well as broader paradigm changes and their agency have a direct influence on the ways migrants' daily life practices alter in time.


This paper presents results from a project on the assessment of the indoor air quality (IAQ) benefits that might accrue from the use of a balanced energy recovery ventilation system. The study compared the whole-building pressure, IAQ and ventilation performance of a balanced energy recovery ventilation (ERV) system with that of an exhaust-only ventilation system (continuous exhaust from master bathroom). This investigation compared experimentally the impacts of the two ventilation systems in a side-by-side testing configurations using the Canadian Centre for Housing Technology's (CCHT) twin houses to demonstrate and quantify the potential indoor air quality benefits of balanced ventilation system. The testing approach was a combination of building air leakage and HVAC characterization, envelope differential pressure, perfluorocarbon (PFT) tracer gas tests, sampling of aldehyde and volatile organic compound (VOCs). Two VOCs, toluene and α-pinene, were dosed at a constant rate to mimic indoor sources. The winter testing results have shown that a house operated with an ERV was under low positive pressure (1 to 3 Pa) and the house operated with an exhaust-only system was under negative pressure (-1 to -3 Pa). The effect of positive pressure on the IAQ has shown that relevant IAQ pollutants were significantly reduced in the house operated with a balanced ERV system. Average concentrations of formaldehyde in houses with balanced ventilation were reduced by 10-66% over houses operated with exhaust system. The average concentrations of two VOCs added (aPin and dTol) were respectively significantly reduced by 8-89% and 14-76% with partial mixing and with no mixing, respectively. The house with balanced ERV system had an average weekly space heating and ventilation total energy consumption reduced by 3.9-8.5%. The balanced (ERV) ventilation system was an energyefficient solution to improve IAQ by generating a positive indoor pressure (1-3 Pa).


As the U.S. economy recovered from the Great Recession, more households entered the banking system. Still, 9 million households were unbanked in 2015. Understanding the characteristics of these households is critical in designing effective policies for financial inclusion. Policymakers often consider low income to be the defining characteristic of the unbanked. However, this broad characterization may mask large differences in banking status within low-income groups. {{p}} Fumiko Hayashi and Sabrina Minhas examine which household characteristics beyond income are associated with households? probability of being unbanked. They find that even after accounting for income, multiple socioeconomic and technological factors contribute to households? probability of being unbanked. In particular, they find that low-income households without internet access have a much higher probability of being unbanked than those with internet access.


Abstract. Building models are conventionally reconstructed by building roof points via planar segmentation and then using a topology graph to group the planes together. Roof edges and vertices are then mathematically represented by intersecting segmented planes. Technically, such solution is based on sequential local fitting, i.e., the entire data of one building are not simultaneously participating in determining the building model. As a consequence, the solution is lack of topological integrity and geometric rigor. Fundamentally different from this traditional approach, we propose a holistic parametric reconstruction method which means taking into consideration the entire point clouds of one building simultaneously. In our work, building models are reconstructed from predefined parametric (roof) primitives. We first use a well-designed deep neural network to segment and identify primitives in the given building point clouds. A holistic optimization strategy is then introduced to simultaneously determine the parameters of a segmented primitive. In the last step, the optimal parameters are used to generate a watertight building model in CityGML format. The airborne LiDAR dataset RoofN3D with predefined roof types is used for our test. It is shown that PointNet++ applied to the entire dataset can achieve an accuracy of 83% for primitive classification. For a subset of 910 buildings in RoofN3D, the holistic approach is then used to determine the parameters of primitives and reconstruct the buildings. The achieved overall quality of reconstruction is 0.08 meters for point-surface-distance or 0.7 times RMSE of the input LiDAR points. This study demonstrates the efficiency and capability of the proposed approach and its potential to handle large scale urban point clouds.


This article presents four experiments that tested predictions of SOB (Serial Order in a Box), an interference-based theory of short-term memory. Central to SOB is the concept of novelty-sensitive encoding, which holds that items are encoded to the extent that they differ from already-encoded information. On the additional assumption that distractors are encoded into memory in the same manner as list items, the theory predicts differential effects of interfering activity based on the similarity structure of distractors. Consistent with predictions, three experiments showed that overt articulation of distractors in between recalls of list items did not affect forgetting when the same distractor was repeated multiple times, whereas forgetting was observed if several different distractors were articulated within the same time span. A fourth experiment showed that the absence of forgetting with repeated articulations of the same item was not due to compensatory attentional refreshing of memory traces. The data support the notion that forgetting from short-term memory arises from interference and are difficult to reconcile with temporal


This thesis introduces and studies a typed lambda calculus with higher-order primitive recursion over inductive datatypes which has the property that all definable number-theoretic functions are polynomial time computable. This is achieved by imposing type-theoretic restrictions on the way results of recursive calls can be used. The main technical result is the proof of the characteristic property of this system. It proceeds by exhibiting a category-theoretic model in which all morphisms are polynomial time computable by construction. The second more subtle goal of the thesis is to illustrate the usefulness of this semantic technique as a means for guiding the development of syntactic systems, in particular typed lambda calculi, and to study their meta-theoretic properties. Minor results are a type checking algorithm for the developed typed lambda calculus and the construction of combinatory algebras consisting of polynomial time algorithms in the style of the first Kleene algebra.


In modern society which, by definition is increasingly secular and culturally motivated, the Hajj is considered the culmination of each Muslim's religious duties and aspiration. Muslims travel to the city of Madinah, after performing the Hajj, as part of their religious beliefs and not as some may think, as an escape for leisure and entertainment. The people who go to Madinah feel unanimous in the view that nothing can quite prepare them for the sheer beauty of the experience and the overwhelming feeling of humbleness that affects them during the pilgrim of Madinah. This paper will begin with the Islamic approach to life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and explains the principles on which Islamic values for society are based according to the teachings of Allah (SWT) and the perfect examples of his PBUH. The paper will explore the personal experience of an individual participant visiting the city.


In a meritocratic society an individual's economic success is determined by their ability, not by their parents' socio-economic status. We assess whether meritocracy has increased in both the British education system and labour market. The richness of our longitudinal data enables us to look at the complex inter-relationship between social class, ability, education and labour market outcomes. In Britain the production of human capital (cognitive ability and education) has become less meritocratic and more influenced by social background. Whilst cognitive ability is an important determinant of labour market success, there is only mild support for an increase in its importance.


Fomites are inanimate objects capable of absorbing, harboring and transmitting infectious microorganisms. Dust and dirt that commonly accumulate on such objects contain infectious agents. Since paper currency is widely exchanged for goods and services world wide, money could play a role in spreading bacteria through contact. This study was performed to survey the microbial contamination of money in the form of paper or coins in and around Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh, India, and the possible potential spread of micro-organisms from person to person. In this study 530 notes (Rs.1000, Rs.500, Rs.100, Rs.50, Rs.10 and Rs.5 rupees) and 300 coins (Rs.5, Rs.2 and Rs.1 rupee) were collected from different groups of general community in Srikakulam and Visakhapatnanm and processed for the presence of pathogenic or potentially pathogenic micro-organisms and identified by swabbing and streaking on appropriate media using standard techniques.Contaminated bacterial isolates were as follows: Escherichia coli(8.8%-62.4%), Bacillus spp.( 4.2% -46.8%), Klebsiella spp.( 3.6% -32.4%), Staphylococcusaureus(2.2%-28.4%) ,Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CoNS)( 1.2%-22.6%) ,Proteus Sps.( 0%-21.2%) , and Pseudomonas spp.( 0%-12.2%). Aspergillus sps.(1.1% to 6%) and Candida sps.(1.1% to 3.4%) were isolated in the present study. Microbial contaminations on coins are less when compared to banknotes. Our results and information from other Studies do suggest that paper currency is commonly contaminated with bacteria and fungi and this may play a role in the transmission of potentially harmful disease producing organisms. According to our study, paper currency may be converted to polymer currency to reduce the possible contamination.


Morphological changes and hydraulic parameters are analyzed over a meander point bar along a sand-bedded river. Morphological changes caused by a flood are mapped using terrestrial and mobile laser scanners. The flow characteristics are simulated over the duration of the flood, which inundated the point bar completely. The spatial distribution of depth-averaged flow velocity, direction, and stream power at two different discharges is analyzed. In addition, the temporal variation of flow velocity, depth, and stream power on the point bar is resolved over the whole inundated period. The changes in discharge control the transverse shift of the high velocity core, which, in turn, has a major impact on the changes over the point bar. For example, a minor decrease in discharge may lead to a notable decrease in flow velocity on the point bar margin, enabling filling. Deposition occurs mainly during the recession of the flood, and thus, the duration of moderate discharges greatly influences accretion. The size of the supplied sediment also influences the filling over the bar head. Erosion mainly takes place during high discharges. A rapid decrease in discharge inhibits chute filling. The latest flood event seems to influence more the erosional compared to depositional processes.


Multiple-Instance (MI) learning is an important supervised learning technique which deals with collections of instances called bags. While existing research in MI learning mainly focused on classification, in this paper we propose a new approach for MI retrieval to enable effective similarity retrieval of bags of instances, where training data is presented in the form of similar and dissimilar bag pairs. An embedded scheme is devised as encoding each bag into a single bag feature vector by exploiting a similarity-based transformation. In this way, the original MI problem is converted into a single-instance version. Furthermore, we develop a principled approach for optimizing bag features specific to similarity retrieval through leveraging pairwise label information at the bag level. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in comparison with the alternatives for MI retrieval.


This paper summarizes a study on the application of FASB Statement 131, Reporting Disaggregated Information about a Business Enterprise, and the degree to which any consistencies exist in the banking industry. Samples of 8 top-50 banks' were surveyed to assess the interpretation and implementation of segment reporting. Specifically, this research evaluated the following: 1. Are there consistent segment definitions? 2. Are similar performance measurement methodologies used in addressing the profitability of each segment? 3. Are there consistent policies for restating segment financial information? 4. What resources are required to develop internal reporting and segment reporting? 5. Has segment reporting improved the disclosure of relevant information around the different business activities of the industry? BACKGROUND Operating segments are components of a company for which separate financial information is available and is evaluated regularly by the chief operating decision maker (CODM) in deciding how to allocate resources and in assessing performance. Prior to 1998, detailed information for segments was only required annually, and requirements were vague. To improve this, FASB Statement 131 requires that internal segment financial information should be the basis for external segment reporting. "Analysts wanted what management was looking at."2 A 1999 survey conducted by Investor Relations Magazine found that 86% of the Association for Investment Management and Research (AIMR) members rated enhanced segment reporting as the second most important disclosure issue behind the reporting of extraordinary events.3 The prior standard, SFAS 14 - Financial Reporting of Segments of a Business Enterprise - had significant shortcomings in the definitions of a segment. As a result, most financial institutions chose to report all of its operations in a single, broadly defined industry segment. The Board established FASB 131 with the following objectives: a. Better understand the enterprise's performance b. Better assess the enterprise's prospects of future net cash flows c. Make more informed judgments about the enterprise as a whole.4 The standard provided further definition of a segment and established quantitative guidelines on what should be reported separately. However, the sec recognized inconsistency among these definitions: "In some cases, financial statements of public companies have not conformed to these requirements. We have seen instances where: (1) the internal reporting package included operating information on more segments than were disclosed in the financial statements; (2) those additional segments were disclosed in management's discussion and analysis (MDA and (3) the company's executives also discussed the additional segments in press releases or business periodicals."5 SEGMENT DEFINITIONS FASB believed its new standard would have minimal organizational or reporting impact. Quite the contrary, some analysts have argued that companies may change their organizational structure to avoid segment reporting that may provide competitive insights. According to a 2000 American Accounting Association study, six of 160 companies had realigned their organizational structure following the 1998 FASB statement. It was believed that this realignment was taken in an effort to avoid providing insights into the true financial results of the company. In all but one of the six cases, a further review of the segment analysis results in conflicting data between the introductory annual report material, the MD&A, and the segment reports. The sec stated that "when reviewing segment information as part of its normal filing review and comment process, the staff is not reticent to ask registrants for a copy of internal reports or other materials supplied to the chief operating decisions maker of the company as well as analysts' reports and press releases. …


Malignant melanoma is one of the most rapidly increasing cancers globally and it is the most dangerous form of human skin cancer. Dermoscopy is one of the major imaging modalities used in the diagnosis of melanoma. Early detection of melanoma can be helpful and usually curable. Due to the difficulty for dermatologists in the interpretation of dermoscopy images, Computer Aided Diagnosis systems can be very helpful to facilitate the early detection. The automated detection of the lesion borders is one of the most important steps in dermoscopic image analysis. In this paper, we present a fully automated method for melanoma border detection using image processing techniques. The hair and several noises aredetected and removed by applying a bank of directional filters and Image Inpainting method respectively. A hybrid method is developed by combining Particle Swarm Optimization and Markov Random Field methods, in order to delineate the border of the lesion area in the images. The method was tested on a dataset of 200 dermoscopic images, and the experimental results show that our method is superior in terms of the accuracy of drawing the lesion borders compared to alternative methods.


Introduction Innovations in the field of information technology (IT) continue to increase at an ever spiraling rate; advances in operating systems, software, communication devices and methodologies are renovating the inventory of IT products on a near daily basis. Businesses are embracing many of these technologies and are anticipating that university graduates will have the skills to quickly adapt to their business environment and choices of technologies. The IT educator plays a significant role in preparing students in IT fields of study to enter the IT-permeated business environment. That role is, in part, influenced by the educator's attitudes and choices regarding adoption of innovations. Educators in every discipline help to prepare their graduates for the world beyond the classroom. Every discipline has those educators who are considered "techies" or innovators those who are first to adopt new technologies. It is expected that a higher percentage of IT educators would be early adopters of IT innovations. As new technology and changes to existing technologies make their way into the marketplace, those involved--private citizens, businesses, industry, and educational institutions--must determine the right time, if ever, to embrace these innovations and to integrate them into their lives and/or business processes or curricula. Not all consumers rush to buy a newly introduced product, and not all IT innovations are immediately embraced by IT professionals and educators. Ignoring the institutional and environmental influences that often hinder adoption (resource considerations), IT educators follow similar patterns of adoption as the population in general. Some tinker with virtually every new "toy" and adopt immediately those of interest or use; others wait for the innovators to sift out the chaff and then try only the "good stuff"; others wait until their friends, colleagues, or students are using and talking about a product and then decide they had better adopt just to fit in; others choose not to adopt and seem to wish they could go back to the "good 'ol days." Whereas few IT educators appear to fall into the "No, thank you!" category, by virtue of the nature of the field itself, the authors suggest that none should! There are numerous reasons. After a brief discussion of innovation adoption and diffusion theory as well as factors that influence an educator's adoption decision, ten reasons that support early adoption are presented. Innovation Adoption and Diffusion Theories Innovation adoption and diffusion theories as academic research endeavors have emerged over the last 40 or so years (McMaster & Wastell, 2005), yielding numerous models: Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985); Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1986); Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975); Concerns-Based Adoption Model (G. E. Hall, Wallace, & Dossett, 1973); Technology-Adoption Life Cycle (Iowa State University, 1957); Instructional Transformation model (Rieber & Welliver, 1989); Diffusion of Innovation (Rogers, 1962); Integrated Technology Adoption and Diffusion Model (Sherry, 1998); Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (Taylor & Todd, 1995). Each model has a unique set of acceptance determinants (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). Research into the psychology of judgment and choice (Billings & Scherer, 1988; Einhorn & Hogarth, 1981; Kottermann & Davis, 1991; Tversky, Sattath, & Slovic, 1988; Zakay, 1985), sensemaking (Louis, 1980; Pereira, 2002; Prasad, 1993; Seligman, 2006; Weick, 1995;), and herd behavior (Banerjee, 1992; Farrell & Saloner, 1985; Scharfstein & Stein, 1990, 2000; Vergari, 2005) has enhanced the field of study and added unique dimensions to the research. Nay-sayers also enrich the field of research, provoking thought and entreating further research. McMaster and Wastell (2005, pg. …


The optical properties of the Au/Al2O3/Ag plasmonic metawaveguide with two-dimensional periodic stub resonators were numerically investigated. The modes of this design can be characterized by the waveguide mode and stub resonance. The guided modes, which propagate inside the Al2O3 layer, can be modulated by interacting with the stub resonators. In this situation, the negative group velocity dispersion relations in the near-infrared region can be realized. Focusing characteristics of this design were investigated by changing the design of the unit cell and the dispersion characteristics were discussed. In addition, the simplified design of the stub resonators was proposed. It was suggested that the proposed structure has the property to function as a nanotransmission line structure, which shows negative refraction at near infrared.


Every year, roughly 2 million people participate in marathons and half marathons in the United States, and, no matter what level they are, every one of these runners has likely hit "The Wall," running out of muscle fuel in the final miles and slowing down precipitously. This setback and other common running disappointments are nutritional (or metabolic) in nature. In The New Rules, renowned fitness journalist and training coach Matt Fitzgerald cuts through the myths,distilling the most up-to-date science to help runners overcome the universally experienced nutritional barriers that prevent success in the marathon and half marathon. From basic tenets of training to nutrition guidelines, The New Rules is the first resource for runners to fully integrate nutrition with training for a complete and systematic preraceplan. Fitzgerald's powerful and easy-to-use tools will enable runners of all levels to attain their ideal racing weight, calculate their precise daily energy needs, and formulate a custom nutrition plan.


Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Computer-Based Information Systems (MSIS) at Strathmore University


2-Amino-4-hydroxy-6-formylpteridine, a known 'slow' substrate and inhibitor of xanthine oxidase, is unusual in that it gives rise under suitable conditions to all types of molybdenum(V) e.p.r. signals obtainable from the enzyme, namely Very Rapid, Rapid, Inhibited and Slow. The Very Rapid signal appears in a slightly modified form. The Inhibited signal, originally thought to be unique to reaction of methanol or of formaldehyde with xanthine oxidase, is now shown to be obtainable with several other aldehydes. These include, in addition to 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-formylpteridine, acetaldehyde and glycoaldehyde. Parameters of the signals, obtained with the help of computer simulations, are presented. The appearance of Very Rapid and of Inhibited signals with these additional substrates may be of importance in elucidating the structure of the enzyme active centre. In agreement with previous work, the Very Rapid signal is attributed to an obligatory intermediate in turnover. On the other hand, the Inhibited signal is attributed to a side reaction, presumably inhibitory in nature, occurring during the catalytic process.


Official documents and relevant published papers were reviewed to determine what information on spent fuel will be needed by the Department of Energy (DOE) in order for it to meet its obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and international agreements. Accountability information is needed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the DOE, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DOE needs information on the heat, radioactivity, physical design, and condition of the fuel assemblies and other items to design its spent fuel transportation, processing, and disposal systems. Most of the needed information is being recorded by the nuclear power plant operators and reported to the DOE. As others have noted, there may be some question as to the adequacy of the information on non-standard and failed fuel now reported to the DOE. The IAEA has requested assistance from the United States on developing verification approaches for all of the steps involved in consolidating, conditioning, and burying spent fuel.