This paper analyzes time-sensitive data on a humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. It aims to assess the impact of the steep influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan on the country's labor market since the onset of the conflict in Syria (March 2011). As of August 2014, nearly three million registered Syrians have sought refuge in neighboring countries (Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey), according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Jordan and Lebanon are hosting the majority of them. This paper utilizes data regarding unemployment rates, employment rates, labor force participation, the number of refugees, and economic activity at the level of governorates. The vector autoregressive methodology is used to examine time series data from the most affected governorates in Jordan. The empirical results of Granger causality tests and impulse response functions show that there is no relationship between the influx of Syrian refugees and the Jordanian labor market. Our results are verified through a set of robustness checks.


When a charity receives government funding does it undo the benefits of that funding by changing its behavior for the collection of revenues from other sources? Do donors change their behavior? In recent years, the classic question of understanding crowd out from the charity perspective has been studied by numerous authors. This paper explores the extent to which a government funded program for new charity initiatives crowds out revenue from other sources. We explore 11,000+ applications by more than 4,500 charities for funding over a 10-year period. We demonstrate that the revenues of the charity increase approximately 16% and that the effect of the grant extends several years. The results suggest a change in charity behavior that potentially may dampen the full effect and/or persistence of the government funding.


There has been a longstanding interest in building systems that can handle uncertain data. Traditional database systems inherently assume exact data and harbour fundamental limitations when it comes to handling uncertain data. In this dissertation, we present a probabilistic database model that can compactly represent uncertainty models in full generality. Our representation is associated with precise and intuitive semantics and we show that the answer to every user-submitted query can be obtained by performing probabilistic inference. To query large-scale probabilistic databases, we propose a number of techniques that help scale probabilistic inference. Foremost among these techniques is a novel lifted inference algorithm that determines and exploits symmetries in the uncertainty model to speed up query evaluation. For cases when the uncertainty model stored in the database does not contain symmetries, we propose a number of techniques that perform approximate lifted inference. Our techniques for approximate lifted inference have the added advantage of allowing the user to control the degree of approximation through a handful of tunable parameters. Besides scaling probabilistic inference, we also develop techniques that alter the structure of inference required to evaluate a query. More specifically, we show that for a restricted model of our probabilistic database, if each result tuple can be represented by a boolean formula with special characteristics, i.e., it is a read-once function, then the complexity of inference can be drastically reduced. We conclude the dissertation with a listing of directions for future work. To Mummy, Baba and Shiny, Dadu and Diddey, Amma and Dada, for always supporting me


Earlier epoches of mm VLBI observations relied on single baseline fit of delays and rates to find the fringes. This approach does not, however, make use of all available information and therefore is less sensitive than is necessary. Global fringe fitting makes use of all simultaneous data to find station related clock offsets and rates over a certain period of time. © Universal Academy Press, Inc.


In the tropical Pacific Ocean, the cold phase of both interannual and seasonal sea surface temperature variations is characterized by cold waters off the coast of South America and a pronounced equatorial tongue of cold surface waters in the eastern Pacific. The warm phase, in both cases, is marked by the weakening or complete absence of these features. Despite these striking similarities, very different physical processes are dominant on seasonal and interannual time scales. Interannually, a horizontal redistribution of warm surface waters, the dynamical response of the ocean to changes in the winds, is of primary importance. What matters most seasonally are two local processes: seasonal upwelling associated with a divergence of surface 0. currents, and the seasonal modulation of mixing processes, by heat fluxes, that control to what extent upwelling induced by the mean winds influences sea surface temperatures. These results shed light on the different requirements that coupled ocean-atmosphere models should meet if they are to reproduce both seasonal and interannual variability. The results also make a case for measurements, along a meridian in the eastern tropical Pacific, that focus on the relations between sea surface temperature changes, heat flux variations and mixing processes. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0870.1994.00011.x


Membrane technology for gas separation has attracted significant attention because of its low energy consumption. However, most polymeric membranes suffer from the trade-off between mass transport rates and separation efficiency. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising candidates to fabricate mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for gas separation due to their high surface area and porosity, adjustable pore sizes and controllable surface functionality. This review presents the recent opportunities and challenges faced in MOF-based MMM fabrication, emphasizing the MOFs/polymer interfacial morphology. The state-of-the-art solutions and strategies for improving the filler/matrix interface are reviewed and evaluated in detail. Finally, the characterisation and understanding of the MMM interface morphology and future research directions are outlined. This review will offer some insights for fabricating MMMs with optimal interface morphology and separation performance.


As passwords remain the main online authentication method, focus has shifted from naive entropy to how usability improvements can increase security. Chatterjee et al. recently introduced the first two typo-tolerant password checkers, their second being usable in practice while being able to correct up to 32% of typos, with no real security cost. We propose an alternative framework which corrects up to 57% of typos without affecting user experience, at no computational cost to the server.


Continuous-time bandpass (BP) sigma-delta modulators (SigmaDeltaMs) employing surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators as loop filters are presented. Compared with the loop filters realized with Gm-C and LC resonators, the SAW resonator has the advantage of high-Q factor, wide resonant frequency range and accurate resonant frequency without the need for automatic tuning. With the proposed anti-resonance cancellation and loop filter phase compensation techniques, a second- and a fourth-order BP SigmaDeltaMs are demonstrated in a 0.35-mum CMOS technology. Both modulators are tested with 47.3-MHz off-chip SAW resonators. The second-order modulator attains a dynamic range of 57 dB and peak signal-to-noise distortion ratio (SNDR) of 54 dB and the fourth-order one achieves a dynamic range of 69 dB and peak SNDR of 66 dB, both in a 200-kHz signal bandwidth. The fourth-order modulator is also measured in a 3.84-MHz signal bandwidth and achieves a dynamic range of 52.5 dB and peak SNDR of 50 dB, an effective 8-bit resolution


We used suspensions of 0.2, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 2, 3 and 6 µm fluorescent beads in combination with analytical flow cytometry to determine the efficiency of retention by small (165 µm trunk length), medium (347 µm) and large (689 and 734 µm) Oikopleura dioica, and by large (585 µm) Frit- illaria borealis. Large O. dioica and F. borealis were the most efficient at retaining the 2 µm beads, and small and medium O. dioica were most efficient for 1 µm beads. Large O. dioica and F. borealis showed efficiencies of ca. 15% for 0.2 µm, 33% for 0.5 µm, 58% for 0.75 µm beads, 66% for 1 µm beads and 88% for 2 µm beads. However, small O. dioica showed higher efficiencies, measuring ca. 10% for 0.2 µm, 43% for 0.5 µm, 72% for 0.75 µm beads, 87% for 1 µm beads and 93% for 2 µm beads. The combination of our measured appendicularian particle-retention efficiency spectra with typical particle size-distribution spectra in the ocean indicates that large and small appendicularians obtain 80% of their diet from particles smaller than 15 and 7 µm respectively, and that the smallest particles represent a significant part of their diet only when they strongly dominate the biomass size spectra. Comparison with data from the literature indicates that although the appendicularian:prey length ratio is extremely high, the appendicularian:prey body-carbon ratio (14 538:1) is within the reported range for mesozooplankton (1:1 to ca. 3 × 10 6 :1), and statistically undistinguishable from that of copepods (1603:1).


Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract This document provides an evaluation of Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) protocols and mechanisms against the requirements for Multi-Layer Networks (MLNs) and Multi-Region Networks (MRNs). In addition, this document identifies areas where additional protocol extensions or procedures are needed to satisfy these requirements, and provides guidelines for potential extensions.


Aims and Objectives: To foster a podium for assessing and evaluating knowledge, attitudes, and professional practices of Saudi community pharmacists in counseling patients regarding the safe usage of dietary supplements. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted between January 2017 and April 2017. Collection of data was carried out by using a set of 44 semi-structured self-administrated questionnaires. Study was conducted among community pharmacies in Al-Khobar Region, Saudi Arabia, with target sample of 250 pharmacists. Results: A total of 102 pharmacists contributed in this study. The mean average score of the participants in subjective assessment of knowledge was 62.45%. Half of the participants (51.96%) achieved good and excellent score in objective assessment regarding knowledge of vitamin, 66.67% of the respondents thought that pharmacists should be knowledgeable regarding vitamin supplements, and 81.37% declared that they inform the patients about possible adverse effects by the use of dietary supplements. Conclusion: The study revealed a positive attitude of community pharmacists in Al-Khobar Region on their role in patients' counseling about the safe usage of vitamins as dietary supplements. However, their level of knowledge about vitamin supplements needs to be improved to meet consumer's needs regarding usage of dietary supplements.


Describes a new on-line statistical tool for calculating power in simple experimental designs.

Power is an important concept in statistics, if only for the very practical reason that many grantgiving bodies now require a minimum power of 80 per cent to be built into the design of any study eligible for funding. At the same time, though the idea is essentially quite simple, standard textbooks often make the calculations appear mysterious. The provision of computer programs or tables to enable the necessary calculations, though functional, provides no insight into what is going on. The development of a visual aid or 'nomogram' by Douglas Altman was a major step forward, making the calculation – at least for a typical independent groups scenario – almost instantaneous. But Altman's version used only two alpha levels (both 2-tailed), and given the design, the use of even two levels made the diagram somewhat overcrowded. Moreover, it provided no insights into the underlying principles on which it operated.


Universities are the leading institutions that are the sources of educated human population who both produce information and ensure to develop new products and new services by using information effectively, and who are needed in every area. Therefore, universities are expected to be institutions where information and information management are used efficiently. In the present study, the topics such as infrastructure, operation, application, information, policy and human-based information security at universities were examined within the scope of the information security standards which are highly required and intended to be available at each university today, and then a comparative analysis was conducted specific to Turkey. Within the present study, the Microsoft Security Assessment Tool developed by Microsoft was used as the risk analysis tool. The analyses aim to enable the universities to compare their information systems with the information systems of other universities within the scope of the information security awareness, and to make suggestions in this regard.


This paper takes a view of digital literacy, which moves beyond a focus on technical methods and skills in an attempt to maintain a broader approach that encompasses a critical view of the learning subject. In doing this, we consider socio-materialism and its relation to aspects of literacy theory. We anchor the discussion in a consideration of the 'E-learning and Digital Cultures' Coursera MOOC, which provided a tangible setting for theorising some of the practices of digital literacy differently. The profusion of multimodal artefacts produced in response to this course constituted a complex series of socio-material entanglements, in which human beings and technologies each played a constituent part. Two specific digital artefacts are analysed according to these terms. We conclude that socio-material multimodality constitutes a different way of thinking about digital literacy: not as representational practices, but rather as multifaceted and relational enactments of knowledge, specific to particular contexts and moments. Keywords:  digital literacy; multimodal; socio-material; MOOC; enactment (Published: 31 January 2014) Citation : Research in Learning Technology 2014,  21 : 21422 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v21.21422


Abstract. The authors have analyzed their experience of the production of various Electronic Atlases (EA) and Atlas Information Systems (AtIS) of so-called "classical type". These EA/AtIS have been implemented in the past decade in the Web 1.0 architecture (e.g., National Atlas of Ukraine, Atlas of radioactive contamination of Ukraine, and others). One of the main distinguishing features of these atlases was their static nature - the end user could not change the content of EA/AtIS. Base maps are very important element of any EA/AtIS. In classical type EA/AtIS they were static datasets, which consisted of two parts: the topographic data of a fixed scale and data of the administrative-territorial division of Ukraine. It is important to note that the technique of topographic data production was based on the use of direct channels of topographic entity observation (such as aerial photography) for the selected scale. Changes in the information technology of the past half-decade are characterized by the advent of the "Web 2.0 epoch". Due to this, in cartography appeared such phenomena as, for example, "neo-cartography" and various mapping platforms like OpenStreetMap. These changes have forced developers of EA/AtIS to use new atlas basemaps. Our approach is described in the article. The phenomenon of neo-cartography and/or Web 2.0 cartography are analysed by authors using previously developed Conceptual framework of EA/AtIS. This framework logically explains the cartographic phenomena relations of three formations: Web 1.0, Web 1.0x1.0 and Web 2.0. Atlas basemaps of the Web 2.0 epoch are integrated information systems. We use several ways to integrate separate atlas basemaps into the information system – by building: weak integrated information system, structured system and meta-system. This integrated information system consists of several basemaps and falls under the definition of "big data". In real projects it is already used the basemaps of three strata: Conceptual, Application and Operational. It is possible to use several variants of the basemap for each stratum. Furthermore, the developed methods of integration allow logically coordinate the application of different types of basemaps into a specific EA/AtIS. For example, such variants of the Conceptual strata basemap as the National map of Ukraine of our production and external resources such as OpenStreetMap are used with the help of meta-system replacement procedures. The authors propose a Conceptual framework of the basemap, which consists of the Conceptual solutions framework of the basemap and few Application solutions frameworks of the basemap. Conceptual framework is intended to be reused in many projects and significantly reduce the resources. We differentiate Application frameworks for mobile and non-mobile environments. The results of the research are applied in few EA produced in 2014-2015 at the Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. One of them is the Atlas of emergency situations. It includes elements that work on mobile devices. At its core it is "ubiquitous" subset of the Atlas.


This study examines the outcome of decentralisation reforms in Indonesia, focusing on the association between demographic characteristics and differences in the financial condition of local governments units. It investigates cross-sectional data pertaining to demographic characteristics and financial statements audited by the Supreme Audit Body of 419 Indonesian local government units for the fiscal year 2007. It utilises demographic attributes including scope of entity, location, tenure (date of entry), gender, human development index (HDI) and size of local governments to explain differences in the financial condition of Indonesia's local government. Local government financial condition is proxied by quick ratio, debt ratio, services ratio, and ratio of local to total revenues. The results suggest that scope and location of local government units help explain all of the financial condition variables. The findings further infer that local government units domiciled in Java tend to report better financial conditions relative to those domiciled in other islands. Our results also show that local government units with greater female populations and higher HDI are more likely to have a local authority that (1) has better ability to finance their general services from their unrestricted net assets, and (2) has greater ability to earn more revenues from local sources. Finally, this study documents that the larger the population of a local government unit, the higher its liquidity position, the stronger its ability to funding general services, and the greater its possibility earning revenues from its local


Abstract. An approach to the calculation of the frame reinforced concrete structures taking into account the potential risk of financial losses in an emergency is proposed. The simplified conditions for the strength of structural components considering the potential relative risk of the financial losses for the structure during emergency failure of these components is formulated. The strain-stress state analysis using the finite element method based on bar models can be performed in dynamics. The reinforced concrete structural component in the form of a package of concrete and reinforcement layers that can be deformed according to actual diagrams approximated by piecewise linear functions. The calculations were considered by accounting geometric, structural and physical nonlinearity. As an example, illustrating the operability of the presented approach, were considered the frame of the building with several scenarios for emergency actions. This is a complete or partial exclusion of one column from the calculation model, accompanied by a horizontal impact. The exclusion of 0.75 and 0.5 parts of the cross section of the column as well as its complete exclusion, accompanied by a horizontal impact pulse were examined. A collision of a damaged structure with a rigid barrier and with a deformable base were simulated. The proposed approaches to modeling the stress-strain state and strength conditions of the bar reinforced concrete systems have prospects for using in algorithms of optimum parametric synthesis of structures based on metaheuristic approaches.


This article analyzes the impacts of studying for master and doctorate levels on the professional life of 305 graduates from FaE-UFMG Education Program,  from 1977 to 2006. Based on a questionnaire applied to the teachers, we obtained information concerning the professional activities of the graduates. The results were sorted out by decades and demonstrate that teaching in higher education is their main occupation. Most PhDs work in academic institutions, while masters teach in institutions of higher education, basic education and autonomous activities. We report on the impact on their classroom and we noticed that they realize and take consciouness  many aspects that constitute their practices, although shy specificities were found. Masters and Phds. evaluate positively the research training and their quick passage through the Faculty of Education. They assess a postgraduate course as an opportunity to do researches and achieve knowledge production. As for their search for teacher education, many questions remain open mainly those concerning the relation between teaching and research.


Active networks of interlinked protein filaments comprising the cytoskeleton largely control cellular mechanics and cell architecture. By forming cytoskeleton networks that combine motile, semiflexible actin with rigid, supportive microtubules, cells maintain structural integrity and shape while being able to flow and move. To elucidate the complex mechanical processes that arise between interacting networks of actin and microtubules within cells, we create a suite of randomly-oriented, well mixed networks of actin and microtubules by co-polymerizing varying ratios of both proteins in situ. We use optical tweezer microrheology in order to characterize the nonlinear mesoscale mechanics of in vitro co-entangled actin-microtubule composites. To perturb each composite far from equilibrium, we use optical tweezers to displace a microsphere a distance greater than the median contour lengths of the filaments at a speed much faster than their intrinsic relaxation timescales. During perturbation, we simultaneously measure the force the filaments exert to resist the strain and the subsequent force relaxation after strain. We find the presence of a large fraction of microtubules (T > 0.7) is needed to substantially increase the resistive force, which is accompanied by large heterogeneities in force response. Actin minimizes these heterogeneities by reducing the composites mesh size and supporting microtubules against buckling. Composites also undergo a sharp transition from stress-softening to stress-stiffening dynamics when the fraction of microtubules exceeds 0.7. The induced force following strain relaxes via two time-dependent power-law decays. The first decay phase arises from actin bending fluctuation, with scaling exponents that increase proportionally with the fraction of actin. Alternatively, the second phase is independent of composite composition, with a scaling exponent of ~0.4 indicative of actin filaments reptating out of deformed entanglement constraints.


Diabetes epidemic is claiming more lives than ever, with the number of people with diabetes rising from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. World Health Organization estimates that in 2015, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.6 million deaths and in 2012 high blood glucose was the cause of another 2.2 million deaths (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs312/en/). The obesity and diabetes are especially prevalent in GCC, and Qatar in particular where 70% of the population either overweight or obese (http://www.qatar-tribune.com/news-details/id/54297). The most common form of diabetes – Type II – is caused by a combination of lifestyle factors and genes, thus numerous campaigns are underway to encourage change in daily behaviors which may lead to obesity and diabetes. Recently, Facebook and other social media has become a platform for patient interaction, outreach and education.The scale and reach of Facebook and other social media provide a unique opportunity to track the awareness and interest in health-related topics of large slices of population. This is imperative, as the awareness of an issue is the first step to lifestyle behavior change. In this work, we use the Facebook Advertising platform to track the interests of millions of people across the MENA regions on health-related topics. In particular, before ordering an advertising campaign, the potential advertiser is free to query Facebook about the potential reach, or estimated audience, of a particular selection of location, gender, age, language, interests, and a variety of other attributes. For example, when we select Arabic-speaking women living in Qatar between the ages of 30 and 50 who are interested in dieting, Facebook gives an estimated audience of 4,300 users who would see our hypothetical ad. As such reach estimates do not divulge information on any particular user, this information provides a window into otherwise private behaviors of Facebook users, in aggregate. In the present study, we examine the interest Facebook users from the countries in the MENA region have concerning health-related topics such as Obesity and Diabetes awareness, as well as general Fitness and Wellness and Healthcare. These interests are then compared to baselines such as Luxury Goods and Shopping, as well as health-related ones like Fast Food. We designed a visual analytic interface to enable exploration of these health awareness data. Once the interests are selected (Fig. 1, top), demographic slices of the data are presented in tree maps (Fig. 1, left) and on a choropleth map (Fig. 1, right), with each segment colored with a Health Awareness Score. The user can select a particular demographic (such as male gender) or country, automatically updating all other demographic segments to correspond with the current selection.Fig. 1. Comparison of interest in Physical Activity vs Fast Food for young women who are local to each of the MENA countries. Tool is available online at http://sha.qcri.org/ Using Facebook Advertising, or any other social media, as a source for health awareness monitoring has several drawbacks, the most prominent of which is the biased sampling of the population. However, with the continued adaptation of these platforms across the world and segments of population, they become increasingly representative of the general population. This can be mediated by careful cross-correlation with authoritative data sources such as statistics provided by the World Health Organization. Another drawback comes from the black box nature of the platform, as we are not purview to the internal processing and definitions the platforms use to come up with the metrics they reveal. Our ongoing efforts are addressing this by comparing the metrics provided by Facebook to the known disease prevalence as collected. In particular, if we look at the rates of diabetes (as published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) (http://www.healthdata.org/), we can compare them to the estimates of interest Facebook provides. In Qatar, the Pearson correlation between diabetes rates and Facebook awareness of Diabetes Mellitus Type II across different age groups is r = 0.963 (p < 0.001), suggesting the awareness of disease rises as the incidence of the disease increases in the population. Interestingly, the trend reverses when we correlate interest in Diabetes Mellitus Type I (a much rarer form of disease, usually diagnosed in children) at r = –0.844 (p < 0.002), indicating the focus of the population remains with the Type II. In summary, this demographically rich data source has a great potential for improving awareness campaign tracking and dynamic opinion monitoring. Our study develops new methodologies and tools to collect, verify, visualize, and make this data available to the policy makers, campaign organizers, and many other potential actors interested in monitoring public opinion.


Background. Estimates for the annual progression rate from Barrett's esophagus (BE) to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) vary widely. In this explorative study, we quantified how this uncertainty affects the estimates of effectiveness and efficiency of screening and treatment for EAC. Design. We developed 3 versions of the University of Washington / Microsimulation Screening Analysis–EAC model. The models differed with respect to the annual progression rate from BE to EAC (0.12% or 0.42%) and the possibility of spontaneous regression of dysplasia (yes or no). All versions of the model were calibrated to the observed Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results esophageal cancer incidence rates from 1998 to 2009. To identify the impact of natural history, we estimated the incidence and deaths prevented as well as numbers needed to screen (NNS) and treat (NNT) of a one-time perfect screening at age 65 years that detected all prevalent BE cases, followed by a perfect treatment intervention. Results. Assuming a perfect screening and treatment intervention for all patients with BE, the maximum EAC mortality reduction (64%–66%) and the NNS per death prevented (470–510) were similar across the 3 model versions. However, 3 times more people needed to be treated to prevent 1 death (24 v. 8) in the 0.12% regression model compared with the 0.42% progression model. Restricting treatment to those with dysplasia or only high-grade dysplasia resulted in smaller differences in NNT (2–3 to prevent one EAC case) but wider variation in effectiveness (mortality reduction of 15%–24%). Conclusion. The uncertainty in the natural history of the BE to EAC sequence influenced the estimates of effectiveness and efficiency of BE screening and treatment considerably. This uncertainty could seriously hamper decision making about implementing BE screening and treatment interventions.


In 2020 Australia's political relations with China plumbed new depths. Trade and other economic ties were also hit with disruption. Contributing to this deterioration, and complicating an accurate assessment of the consequences, has been a raft of misunderstandings. This paper demystifies the bilateral trade tensions by exposing the deeper drivers of political friction, providing a critical assessment of the vulnerability of the Australian economy, and placing the current state of Australia's relations with China in a comparative regional perspective. These discussions set an important context for a detailed and critical analysis of the legal issues that Chinese trade measures have created under the rules of the World Trade Organization and the China – Australia Free Trade Agreement. We show that these legal issues have been over-simplified or even misunderstood in existing work. Overall, we believe that combined with political leadership, a clear understanding of these issues offers the best prospect for an improved relationship trajectory, serving both countries' interests.


The purpose of this project is to design a device to clean fish solids and plaque from plastic conveyor belts after they have been taken off fishing ships. This project involved a systematic design study along with an experimental investigation into the effectiveness of cleaning methods. While fishing factory ships are at sea, the plastic conveyor belts that are used to transport fish become tainted with a biological plaque that some bacteria create to protect themselves, and fish residue. A brief was evolved that required the development of a land based cleaning device to reduce the non-productive cleaning time at sea. A systematic design procedure was adopted for the design of the belt-cleaning device. Research showed that strongly alkaline solutions were the best method of cleaning proteinbased biofilms. This research led to the most promising cleaning mechanism concepts being tested to quantitatively evaluate their cleaning effectiveness. The development of the final concept considered the requirements of New Zealand legislation and a professional code of ethics, materials issues due to the aggressive environment, structural design using finite element methods, and a heat and mass transfer analysis. The final design solution consisted of two units. Firstly, a tank to receive the coiled belt, another insulated tank to store the sodium hydroxide cleaning solution, an overhead crane to load/unload the belt, and a transfer pump and control system to control the flow of fluids. The second unit was a separate rinser to perform the water blasting. This study resulted in the final manufacturing information for the belt washer. This includes detailed drawings and a costing for all parts and construction.


Bouguer gravity patterns revealed in horizontal gradient images are used to locate and examine the tectonic nature of Precambrian structural boundaries buried beneath the North American Central Plains. The southern boundary of the Superior province west of the midcontinent gravity high (MGH), interpreted as a collisional suture, is relocated as much as 200 km south of previous geophysically defined positions, close to a position defined recently by using drill-hole information; east of the high, this boundary is thought to trace a 900-km arc subparallel to the MGH. The western boundary of the Superior province is regarded as a suture containing significant components of transcurrent faulting. The eastern boundary of the Wyoming province, another suture, is traced northward into the Churchill province, near the northwestern margin of a 1900–1600 Ma magmatic belt. This boundary and Proterozoic terrane to the east are transected by previously unrecognized faults hundreds of kilometres long. Gravity patterns also suggest that the North American Central Plains conductivity anomaly may not be a continuous, suture-related conductor.


Krapp's "Last Tape" was first performed by Patrick Magee at the Royal Court Theatre in October 1958, and described as 'a solo, if that is the word, for one voice and two organs: one human, one mechanical. It fills few pages. It is perhaps the most original and important play of its length ever written.' - (Roy Walker). The present volume brings together Krapp's "Last Tape" and Beckett's other shorter works or 'dramaticules' written for the stage. It will be complemented by a forthcoming Faber edition of dramatic works written for radio and screen. Arranged in chronological order of composition, these shorter plays exhibit the laconic means and compassionate ends of Beckett's dramatic vision. KRAPP 'Here I end this reel. Box - [Pause.] - three, spool - [Pause.] - five. [Pause.] Perhaps my best years have gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back. [Staring motionless before him.]


A report evaluating the 'Teaching Divided Histories' project which was operated by the Nerve Centre and funded by the EU PEACE III programme in association with the British Council. The report examines the impact of the project on teachers and students in terms of understanding of controversial historical events and how political sensitivities are handled in the classroom. The digital resources used as part of the project are evaluated and an assessment is made of the future viability of the project internationally.


A volcanic ash plume that originated from the eruptions of Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano in May 2011 was observed over the Nordic countries using a combination of satellite observations and ground-based measurements. The dispersion of the plume was investigated using London VAAC ash forecasts and MODIS observations. Hourly PM10 concentrations at air quality monitoring stations in the southern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland exceeded 100 mu g/m(3) for several hours. The FLEXPART dispersion model has been used to confirm the Icelandic origin of the sampled air masses. Column-integrated quantities from a Sun photometer and vertical profiles from a Raman lidar were used to estimate the ash concentration within an elevated layer over Stockholm. A lofted layer with an optical thickness of 0.3 at 532 nm passed Stockholm in the morning hours of 25 May 2011. Considering a realistic range of coarse-mode fractions and specific ash extinctions from the literature, an estimated range of maximum ash mass concentration of 150-340 mu g/m(3) was derived from the lidar measurements at an altitude of 2.8 km. The lower estimate of the lidar-derived ash mass concentrations within the planetary boundary layer was found to be in good agreement with surface observations of PM10.


The Advanced Envelope Research effort will provide factory homebuilders with high performance, cost-effective alternative envelope designs. In the near term, these technologies will play a central role in meeting stringent energy code requirements. For manufactured homes, the thermal requirements, last updated by statute in 1994, will move up to the more rigorous IECC 2012 levels in 2013, the requirements of which are consistent with site built and modular housing. This places added urgency on identifying envelope technologies that the industry can implement in the short timeframe. The primary goal of this research is to develop wall designs that meet the thermal requirements based on 2012 IECC standards. Given the affordable nature of manufactured homes, impact on first cost is a major consideration in developing the new envelope technologies. This work is part of a four-phase, multi-year effort. Phase 1 identified seven envelope technologies and provided a preliminary assessment of three selected methods for building high performance wall systems. Phase 2 focused on the development of viable product designs, manufacturing strategies, addressing code and structural issues, and cost analysis of the three selected options. An industry advisory committee helped critique and select the most viable solution to move further in the more » research -- stud walls with continuous exterior insulation. Phase 3, the subject of the current report, focused on the design development of the selected wall concept and explored variations on the use of exterior foam insulation. The scope also included material selection, manufacturing and cost analysis, and prototyping and testing. « less


A key aspect of distributed applications in platform-as-a-service clouds revolves around the definition of requirements for quality of service and the most efficient use of the available resources to achieve them. Matching both the requirements and resources represents a unique challenge: While requirements are generally defined in relatively abstract form and defined as system-wide parameters, the resources are concrete, low-level entities that, by themselves, are only of marginal influence on the requirements. In order to establish a relationship between these two requires both the agglomeration of properties into more abstract ones as well as refining requirements in more detailed, concrete ones, both of which can often only be done to a certain degree. This paper presents a vision how both aspects can be brought to the same level and introduces an approach enhancing component-based cloud applications with non-functional properties in the context of an integrated programming model. This allows developers of such applications to formally declare properties that may influence the application during runtime and document the expectations regarding non-functional aspects of the overall system. This can be used to ensure the health of the application and, in case requirements are violated, actions like the deployment of additional resources can be performed in order to alleviate any degradation of its non-functional state, either by evaluating, choosing and performing pre-defined actions automatically or by manual administrative intervention.


Treatment of foods containing fatty acids, including meat and poultry, can lead to the formation of a class of chemicals called 2-alkylcyclobutanones that are unique to irradiated foods. The major 2-ACB formed in irradiated meat is 2-dodecylcyclobutanone (2-DCB), which is formed by radiolysis of palmitic acid. On average, approximately 6.0 μg of 2-DCB is present in an irradiated, and then cooked, 125 g ground beef patty. The U.S. FDA recommends that indirect food additives consumed in quantities greater than 1.5 μg per day be tested for safety. Because 2-DCB could be consumed at concentrations that exceed the allowable limit for indirect food additives, consumer groups opposed to food irradiation have requested that 2-DCB be tested in appropriate genotoxicity assays. This has taken on added importance since the availability, on a voluntary basis, of irradiated ground beef as part of the National School Lunch Program 2004. In order to address the question of 2-DCB mutagenicity the compound was tested in 4 mutagenicity tests including the Salmonella Mutagenicity Test, the Escherichia coli TRP Assay, a 5-flouro-uracil mutagenesis assay, and for the formation of 6-thioguanine resistant mutants in human TK-6 lymphoblasts. No 2-DCB induced mutagenesis was observed in any of the test systems, both with and without exogenous metabolic activation.


We studied vector frequency conversion in externally tuned microstructured fibers for applications as a novel, nonlinear fiber-optic sensor. We investigated both experimentally and numerically a possibility of shifting vector and scalar modulation instability gain bands by pressure-induced changes in the linear properties of a microstructured fiber. Our results show that polarization-dependent vector nonlinear processes sensitive to variation of fiber group velocity difference (group birefringence) exhibit a clear advantage for pressure-sensing applications compared with scalar nonlinear processes only sensitive to group velocity dispersion changes. Analytical predictions and numerical simulations confirm our measurement results.


Abstract. The low-lying Netherlands is at risk from multiple threats of sea level rise, storm surges and extreme river discharges. Should these occur simultaneously, a catastrophe will be at hand. Knowledge about the likelihood of simultaneous occurrence or the so-called "compound effect" of such threats is essential to provide guidance on legislation for dike heights, flood barrier design and water management in general. In this study, we explore the simultaneous threats of North Sea storm surges and extreme Rhine river discharge for the current and future climate in a large 17-member global climate model ensemble. We use a simple approach, taking proxies of north-northwesterly winds over the North Sea and multiple~day precipitation averaged over the Rhine basin for storm surge and discharge respectively, so that a sensitivity analysis is straightforward to apply. By investigating soft extremes, we circumvent the need to extrapolate the data and thereby permit the model's synoptic development of the extreme events to be inspected. Our principle finding based on the climate model data is that, for the current climate, the probability of extreme surge conditions following extreme 20-day precipitation sums is around 3 times higher than that estimated from treating extreme surge and discharge probabilities as independent, as previously assumed. For the future climate (2070–2100), the assumption of independence cannot be rejected, at least not for precipitation sums exceeding 7 days.


Recently, a provocative claim was published that number sense spontaneously emerges in a deep neural network trained merely for visual object recognition. This has, if true, far reaching significance to the fields of machine learning and cognitive science alike. In this paper, we prove the above claim to be unfortunately incorrect. The statistical analysis to support the claim is flawed in that the sample set used to identify number-aware neurons is too small, compared to the huge number of neurons in the object recognition network. By this flawed analysis one could mistakenly identify number-sensing neurons in any randomly initialized deep neural networks that are not trained at all. With the above critique we ask the question what if a deep convolutional neural network is carefully trained for numerosity? Our findings are mixed. Even after being trained with number-depicting images, the deep learning approach still has difficulties to acquire the abstract concept of numbers, a cognitive task that preschoolers perform with ease. But on the other hand, we do find some encouraging evidences suggesting that deep neural networks are more robust to distribution shift for small numbers than for large numbers.


While the governance of human existence is organised ever-increasingly around life and its potential to proliferate beyond all limits, much critical reflection on the phenomenon is underpinned by considerations about the very negation of life, death. The challenge is to construct an alternative understanding of human existence that is truer to the complexity of the present, biopolitical moment. Palladino responds to the challenge by drawing upon philosophical, historical and sociological modes of inquiry to examine key developments in the history of biomedical understanding of ageing and death. He combines this genealogy with close reflection upon its implications for a critical and effective reading of Foucault's and Deleuze's foundational work on the relationship between life, death and embodied existence. Biopolitics and the Philosophy of Death proposes that the central task of contemporary critical thought is to find ways of coordinating different ways of thinking about molecules, populations and the mortality of the human organism without transforming the notion of life itself into the new transcendent truth that would take the place once occupied by God and Man.


Sport, like other phenomena we find in social life, is subject to the inequalities of race, gender, economics, and politics. Each of the chapters in this book rejects the purity and neutrality of sport; as such they add to our understanding of sport and the organizations that deliver it. . . . If we use the ideas of critical theory and expand the geographic scope of our research, we will be able to improve an expanding and rapidly growing area of study. From the Foreword by Trevor Slack. The New Sport Management Reader provides students and scholars with a selection of the state-of-the-art research and new conceptual thinking in the field of sport management by a diverse and prominent group of researchers. It is the first anthology to situate sport management within the broader frameworks of sport sociology and cultural studies, a process already begun in general business studies.The chapters that comprise this collection are divided into three sections:  Part I challenges sport management students and scholars to engage with epistemologies and methodologies associated with critical theory to better contextualize their thinking and research.  Part II features critically informed research focused within three key topical areas of sport management: marketing and sponsorship, consumption, and governance and policy development. Thirteen case studies provide wide-ranging examples of research on the global sports industry through which students, professors, and professionals alike can form cross-cultural analyses. Part III presents work on emerging themes such as economic development, human rights, media culture, and sports tourism.
Conceived and developed as a clarion call for a more critical, reflexive approach to sport management education and practice, The New Sport Management Reader is designed to spark debate, discussion, and reflection and to better inform research questions and professional practice in the future. This book is essential reading for all students, scholars, and professionals interested in achieving a better understanding of the globalized nature of the sports industry and to improving future practice and research.


Abstract Direct measurement of seismic attenuation (1/Q) and velocity dispersion in the laboratory point to several independent loss mechanisms. A forced-deformation technique allows measurement at seismic frequencies and amplitudes. Fluid motion is the primary mechanism in porous, permeable clastics. In shales, bulk-fluid motion is inhibited, and clay-particle interaction with bound water might dominate. Another mechanism usually not considered is losses in the fluid phase alone. Heavy, viscous fluids show bulk losses independent of a rock matrix. All these loss mechanisms are frequency dependent, so observations of 1/Q made at seismic frequencies usually will not agree with ultrasonic data. Attenuation and velocity dispersion are coupled processes, and validity of the frequency-dependent 1/Q values can be checked by comparison with observed velocity dispersion over a broad frequency range.


In this paper, we focus on the design of optimized binary convolutional codes (CCs) and serially concatenated convolutional codes (SCCCs) in the presence of a-priori information (API) at the receiver. For large signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), we first propose a CC design criterion based on the minimization of a union bound on the bit error probability (BEP). In this case, relevant performance gains, with respect to previously proposed CCs, are obtained. These gains persist even in the presence of estimation errors on the API. Then, we apply the same union bound-based design criterion to SCCCs. Since the BEP of SCCCs is characterized by a typical waterfall shape, the proposed union bound-based design criterion is accurate only at large SNR, to estimate the BEP floor. In order to complement this analysis, we propose a density evolution-based approach to optimize the SCCC design in terms of minimization of the SNR of the "knee" of the BEP curve. The obtained simulation results show substantial gains with respect to previously proposed parallel concatenated convolutional coding (PCCCing) schemes optimized under the assumption of no API at the decoder. Moreover, in the presence of strong API the proposed SCCCs allow to approach the Shannon limit (SL) more than any previously proposed turbo coding scheme.


Estuarine and coastal ecosystems face both large scale physical environmental stresses from climate change and local scale community changes, including non-native species introductions. In northern California, USA, climate change projections indicate increasingly severe droughts in the future punctuated by more frequent, intense winter storms, significantly affecting freshwater outflow to estuaries like San Francisco Bay. Using long-term physical and biological data sets coupled with experiments, I found drastic changes in epifaunal communities in the Bay between years with extreme high and low freshwater outflow (Chapter 1). In dry years (low outflow), competition determines community composition, but in wet years (high outflow), low salinity stress shifts the community to being recruitment limited, with community membership determined by the availability of larvae to recruit. Shifts in outflow extremes drive changes in the dominant species, resulting in altered community performance (Chapter 2). I experimentally tested the effect of functional group diversity on community performance in different outflow regimes. Communities containing more functional groups generally occupied more space, but the strength of this effect varied from year to year. In the absence of normally dominant species during a wet year, resident community functional group diversity had no effect on subsequent invasion by non-resident species. These results suggest that outcomes of short-term, unreplicated studies of biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships may thus be contingent on prevailing conditions.


In this third paper examining long-term effects of prehistoric cultivation on some New Mexico Mollisols about 900 yr after abandonment, data on total P, inorganic P fractions, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, and pH are presented. Cultivation-induced soil changes, involving losses of total and moderately available P and total Cu but gains in total Mn, were inferred by comparing cultivated soils with nearby, similarly developed uncultivated soils (controls). Comparisons were also made between A horizons and sediment deposits accumulated upslope of recently fallen trees. These deposits are considered analogous to fresh agricultural terrace deposits just prior to cultivation. Total P losses in cultivated soils avg 15, 18, and 18% in the upper A, A, and BAt horizons, respectively, relative to control soils, and about 22% in the A horizon relative to recent sediment deposits. Below the BAt horizon, total P levels in cultivated and control soils converge. Moderately available P is not significantly lower (p <0.05) in cultivated upper A horizons but is about 40% lower in cultivated complete A horizons. Other inorganic P fractions have not changed much in cultivated soils. While total Fe and Zn levels are unchanged in cultivated soils, Cu is lower by about 20% and Mn is 20% higher in cultivated A horizons. Manganese increase is attributed to sedimentation under reducing conditions accompanying terracing in cultivated areas. There is a trend towards slightly higher pH in cultivated A horizons.


Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing bacteria are a group of emerging highly drug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli causing infections associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Once confined to outbreaks in the northeastern United States (US), they have spread throughout the US and most of the world. KPCs are an important mechanism of resistance for an increasingly wide range of Gram-negative bacteria and are no longer limited to K pneumoniae. KPC-producing bacteria are often misidentified by routine microbiological susceptibility testing and incorrectly reported as sensitive to carbapenems; however, resistance to the carbapenem antibiotic ertapenem is common and a better indicator of the presence of KPCs. Carbapenem antibiotics are generally not effective against KPC-producing organisms. The best therapeutic approach to KPC-producing organisms has yet to be defined; however, common treatments based on in vitro susceptibility testing are the polymyxins, tigecycline, and less frequently, aminoglycoside antibiotics. The purpose of this review is to identify the various challenges that KPC-producing bacteria present to clinicians. These include the need for special techniques for microbiological detection, the potential for nosocomial transmission, and therapeutic challenges related to limited, relatively unproven antimicrobial treatment options.


CERVANTES' ENGAGEMENT WITH THE motifs of the libros de caballerias is undeniably deep and complex. Critics may never agree on the degree to which Cervantes' romance borrowings are admiring or antagonistic, but it remains beyond doubt that the chivalric features of Don Quijote are so deeply enmeshed in the fabric of the text that it would be almost impossible to unravel and catalogue each one. Without the intervention of the romances of chivalry, particularly of the Amadis de Gaula, which the character Don Quijote upholds as the mirror of all virtuous action, the major moments of Cervantes' text would not even exist. Both Daniel Eisenberg and Judith Whitenack have demonstrated the depth of Cervantes' chivalric borrowings, and both critics would probably categorize Cervantes' gaze as admiring more often than not. (1) Don Quijote's chivalric episodes go beyond mere citation of motif; rather, they interpret and re-contextualize the values of the source works. One episode, the appearance of Princess Micomicona, showcases Cervantes' particular reading of romance motif. In order to coax Don Quijote out of Sierra Morena, the cura and Dorotea present the mad knight with the fictional Micomicona, an African princess who requires the knight's assistance in order to rid her kingdom of a troublesome giant. Sancho makes his own contribution to the story by planning to enslave Micomicona's people once Quijote has slain the giant and taken control of Micomicona's kingdom. Through his representation of the lost princess storyline, Cervantes brings to the fore the colonial plot latent in both Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo and Feliciano de Silva's Amadis romances. The Micomicona episode updates tropes from the parent texts in order to articulate an argument about conquest, slavery, and liberation in the context of the early seventeenth century. Although the conclusion of the episode retains some ambiguities, Don Quijote's refusal of the advantageous marriage with Micomicona makes a poignant, though indirect, critique of both colonialism and the slave trade. It may seem jarring to modern readers that the idea of slavery rears its head in a romance plot, but Sancho's immodest proposal underscores the concept of profit, which is in fact the foremost concern of the Micomicona episode. For David Quint, Micomicona and the financially advantageous marriage she offers representa story cluster that focuses on money, the acquisition of goods, and other practical concerns. Quint does not enter into a detailed analysis of the Micomicona fiction itself, but he does oppose the story of the chivalric princess and her kingdom to the fiction of Dulcinea. Where Dulcinea represents the ideal, Micomicona represents the practical. Quint reads the Micomicona tale as a modernizing impulse within Don Quijote: "With the 'Princess Micomicona' plot and the marriage-and-money stories clustered around it, Don Quijote seems to have entered fully upon the terrain and preoccupations of the modern novel, the measure of a historical shift from a stratified feudal society to the more open social world of a nascent capitalism" (76). I agree in principle with Quint's argument, but I would like to point out the irony of using the romance of chivalry, an archaic and archaizing genre, to code for this shift towards the modern. However, Cervantes certainly does capitalize on certain pre-existing features of the chivalric genre in order to articulate this currency-driven plot. In its oblique way, the Iberian romance of chivalry has always been concerned with the very practical matters of the acquisition of wealth and territory. Many knights do in fact seek out financially advantageous liaisons, and this episode from Don Quijote seems to allude to several chivalric marriages in the Iberian tradition. In the marriage plots of the Amadis series, Christian knights find pagan brides, convert them to Christianity, and assume leadership over their new wives' inherited territories. In these romances, marriage substitutes for warfare, and colonial relationships become predicated on marital ties. …


Dibutyl phthalate vapor nucleation induced by positive polyethylene glycol (PEG) ions with controlled sizes and charges was experimentally studied. The ions were produced by electrospray ionization, classified in a high-resolution differential mobility analyzer, and studied in a nano condensation nucleus counter of the mixing type. Ionic radii of PEG varied from 0.52 to 1.56 nm, including from singly to quadruply charged ions. Some of these ions are fully stretched chains, other are spherical, and others have intermediate forms, all of them having been previously characterized by mobility and mass spectrometry studies. Activation of PEG1080(+2) requires a supersaturation almost as high as that required for small singly charged ions and higher than for PEG1080(+). This anomaly is explained by the Coulombic stretching of the ion into a long chain, where the two charged centers appear to be relatively decoupled from each other. The critical supersaturation for singly charged spherical ions falls below Thomson's (capillary) theory and even below the already low values seen previously for tetraheptyl ammonium bromide clusters. Spherical PEG4120(+2) falls close to the Thomson curve. The trends observed for slightly nonspherical PEG4120(+3) and highly nonspherical (but not quite linear) PEG4120(+4) are intermediate between those of multiply charged spheres and small singly charged ions.


A fast-growing legal system and economy in medieval and early modern Rome saw a rapid increase in the need for written documents. Brokers of Public Trust examines the emergence of the modern notarial profession-free market scribes responsible for producing original legal documents and their copies. Notarial acts often go unnoticed, but they are essential to understanding the history of writing practices and attitudes toward official documentation. Based on new archival research, Brokers of Public Trust focuses on the government officials, notaries, and consumers who regulated, wrote, and purchased notarial documents in Rome between the 14th and 18th centuries. Historian Laurie Nussdorfer chronicles the training of professional notaries and the construction of public archives, explaining why notarial documents exist, who made them, and how they came to be regarded as authoritative evidence. In doing so, Nussdorfer describes a profession of crucial importance to the people and government of the time, as well as to scholars who turn to notarial documents as invaluable and irreplaceable historical sources. This magisterial new work brings fresh insight into the essential functions of early modern Roman society and the development of the modern state.


Summary Polymer flood applications in offshore fields face more challenges than that of onshore fields. These challenges include limited platform space, costs to transfer polymer chemical, short service life, large well spacing, reduced polymer viscosity when mixed with sea water, and lack of analogs of practical polymer flood projects implemented in offshore. The above challenges make it's hard to directly apply the onshore polymer flood technologies and experiences proved successful. Taking five offshore viscous oil polymer flood projects as examples, this paper summarizes their implementation, production performance, reservoir management and lessons learned during pilot or field-wide polymer flood process. These projects cover cases in both shallow and dep water, and polymer flood beginning at early, interim, and mature development stages with water-cut 60%, respectively. Targets of these projects are all high-quality sandstone reservoirs with oil viscosity at reservoir condition varying from 11 to 88 cP. These projects were implemented in phase from single well injectivity test, pilot, to field, achieving an incremental recovery from 4% to 7%. For the mature field cases, water-cut performance is characterized by typical funnel-shape, experiencing process of decreasing, stabilizing at low, then back to the high level. This corresponds to oil rate changes of the increasing, maintaining at a high, and then drop to low rate production. For the case of polymer flood starting at early development stage, the funnel-shape will never occur. Instead, water-cut rises sustainably, while its increasing trend is obviously arrested. Effective polymer flood process shows increased injection pressure and resistance factor, dropped water-intake index and improved injecting profile. Production responses to polymer injection is generally earlier than polymer breakthrough timing with average responding duration of 2.6 years comparing with that of average polymer breakthrough of 4.8 years in specific cases. Lessons learned are: (1) early polymer flood could be a strategy for offshore field, which recovers oil in short time, saves the cost of production fluid processing as well as achieves relatively higher recovery factor; (2) mechanic degradation at the near wellbore is the main source of polymer degradation due to permeability impairment caused by poor quality produced water injection. Rather than the most popular HPAM, the salinity and shearing resistance polymer such as hydrophobic associated polymer is a better solution; (3) effective reservoir management such as zonal polymer solution injection and gel plus polymer flood injection benefits for improving polymer flooding.


Two planetary mass objects in the far outer solar system—collectively referred to here as Planet X— have recently been hypothesized to explain the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper Belt Objects. Neither planet is thought to be exceptionally faint, but the sky locations of these putative planets are poorly constrained. Therefore, a wide area survey is needed to detect these possible planets. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will carry out an unbiased, large area (around 18000 deg2), deep (limiting magnitude of individual frames of 24.5) survey (the "wide-fast-deep (WFD)" survey) of the southern sky beginning in 2022, and it will therefore be an important tool in searching for these hypothesized planets. Here, we explore the effectiveness of LSST as a search platform for these possible planets. Assuming the current baseline cadence (which includes the WFD survey plus additional coverage), we estimate that LSST will confidently detect or rule out the existence of Planet X in 61% of the entire sky. At orbital distances up to ∼75 au, Planet X could simply be found in the normal nightly moving object processing; at larger distances, it will require custom data processing. We also discuss the implications of a nondetection of Planet X in LSST data.


Recently the existence of two different Na(+)-coupled oligopeptide transport systems has been described in mammalian cells. These transport systems are distinct from the previously known H(+)/peptide cotransporters PEPT1 and PEPT2, which transport only dipeptides and tripeptides. To date, the only peptide transport system known to exist in the intestine is PEPT1. Here we investigated the expression of the Na(+)-coupled oligopeptide transporters in intestinal cell lines, using the hydrolysis-resistant synthetic oligopeptides deltorphin II and [d-Ala(2),d-Leu(5)]enkephalin (DADLE) as model substrates. Caco-2 cells and CCD841 cells, both representing epithelial cells from human intestinal tract, were able to take up these oligopeptides. Uptake of deltorphin II was mostly Na(+) dependent, with more than 2 Na(+) involved in the uptake process. In contrast, DADLE uptake was only partially Na(+) dependent. The uptake of both peptides was also influenced by H(+) and Cl(-), although to a varying degree. The processes responsible for the uptake of deltorphin II and DADLE could be differentiated not only by their Na(+) dependence but also by their modulation by small peptides. Several dipeptides and tripeptides stimulated deltorphin II uptake but inhibited DADLE uptake. These modulating small peptides were, however, not transportable substrates for the transport systems that mediate deltorphin II or DADLE uptake. These two oligopeptide transport systems were also able to take up several nonopioid oligopeptides, consisting of 9-17 amino acids. This represents the first report on the existence of transport systems in intestinal cells that are distinct from PEPT1 and capable of transporting oligopeptides consisting of five or more amino acids.


Incorporation of wire mesh platinum electrodes into a standard infrared solution cell yielded an inexpensive and easy to maintain optically transparent thin layer electrochemical (OTTLE) cell, well suited for IR analysis of species with half-lives of seconds to minutes. As test bed, two reactions were investigated, which are discussed in the literature: (i) for [Ru3(CO)12] evidence was found for at least partial reversibility in the two-electron reduction process to [Ru3(CO)11]2- , and (ii) for fac-[Re(Cl)(CO)3(4bzpy),sub>2] (4bzpy = 4-benzoylpyridine) additional information concerning the two-step electron reduction of the two benzoylpyridine ligands (again partially reversible) could be obtained.
South African Journal of Chemistry Vol.54 2001: 230-241


Abstract The majority of people living with dementia reside in the community and are often reliant on the support of informal carers to do so. Family carers face many challenges in supporting the person with dementia to remain at home, and short‐term respite care is a valued service that offers a temporary break from the role. Respite cottages provide short‐term care in a residential home‐like setting with a limited number of clients and is a more flexible approach to accessing the service. Disproportionate use of cottage respite in Australia suggests this model is preferred over traditional respite within residential aged care facility (RACF) settings, yet limited research exists to compare these models. This study sought to understand the perceptions of carers who had used cottage respite in comparison to other models, and explore the contribution of cottage respite for supporting carers to continue in their role and maintain their care recipient (CR) living at home. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 126 family carers who had used one of two New South Wales‐based respite cottages within a 2‐year period; 67 of whom had also used RACF respite. Thematic analysis revealed four main themes around the benefits of cottage respite: (a) an effective essential service, (b) flexibility, (c) familiarity and (d) appropriateness, especially for early stage or younger onset dementia. Carers indicated that the more homely, familiar and intimate cottage model of respite care was preferential to that of the larger, institutional‐style RACF respite setting. Carers credited the cottage model of respite service with delaying their need for permanent residential placement by over 12 months. The cottage respite model provides an important avenue to supporting the individual needs of dementia dyads, with potential to delay permanent placement, and should be offered more broadly to provide people with more choice about their care.


This paper introduces a set of parallel algorithms to determine the hydrological flow direction and contributing area of each cell in a digital elevation model (DEM) using cluster computers in an MPI programming model. DEMs are partitioned across processes relevant to the physical layout of the terrain such that processes with adjacent ranks calculate flow direction and contributing areas for physically adjacent partitions of the DEM. The contributing area algorithm makes use of a queue to order the consideration of cells such that each cell is visited only once for calculation and cross-partition calculations are handled in an efficient and order-independent manner. This algorithm replaces a serial recursive algorithm included as part of the TauDEM hydrology analysis package.


Title of Thesis: DETERMINATION OF POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS FROM INCINERATION EMISSION SAMPLES Robert Cebula, Master of Science, 1988 Thesis directed by: Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Arthur Greenberg Stack emissions from five sources (one pulverized coal combustion operation, three sewage sludge incineration operations and one gray tin refractory operation) were sampled by use of U.S. EPA Modified Method 5 isokinetic sampling unit for vapor and particulate effluent. The sampling unit provided XAD-2 resin samples, polytetrafluoroethylene and glass fiber filters and impinger washings of dichloromethane. The resins were soxhlet extracted using dichloromethane (DCM) and the filters were soxhlet extracted using DCM followed by acetone. Fractionation of extracts was accomplished by thin layer chromatography. The resulting fractions were analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), nitro-PAH and quinone-PAH by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Extractable organic matter (EOM) was also determined with a electrobalance. XAD samples from a gray tin refractory, and three sewage sludge incinerators higher molecular weight PAH. The volatility of the low MW PAH was responsible for the high concentration found in the resins. The lower boiling point of the higher MW PAH and the stronger association of high MW PAH with fly ash are reasons for their presence in the filter samples. No nitro-PAH or quinone-PAH compounds were detected in the emission samples. Of the four XAD resins analyzed for B(a)P by fluorescence scanning three samples showed very similar results. Concentrations from the three sources resulted from two different operations. Comparison of the HPLC results for B(a)P and fluorescence scanning of selected XAD resins have not resulted in good agreement. Phthalates tend to interfere with the HPLC chromatogram in the area where B(a)P elutes. This most likely is the reason for the disagreement. Tetrachloro-p-dibenzodioxin was observed in the resin and washings of the Parsippany Troy Hills source (sewer sludge incinerator). Heptachloro-p-dibenzodioxin was observed in the filter samples of the PSE&G source (coal combustion). The higher chlorinated species seem to form a stronger association with the particulate and a weaker association with the lower chlorinated species. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Arthur Greenberg, professor of Chemistry at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, for his guidance on this project. I would also like to thank the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Office of Air Quality for providing the samples used in this study.


We present the results of a comprehensive study on the concentrations of first-row transition elements (FRTE: Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn), as well as Ga and Ge, in liquidus olivine from 2.7–3.5 Ga old Al-undepleted and Al-depleted komatiites from the Kaapvaal and Zimbabwe Cratons in southern Africa, the Yilgarn Craton in Australia, and the Superior Craton in Canada. The sample set includes komatiites that remained sulfur-undersaturated upon emplacement, as well as komatiites that reached sulfide saturation owing to assimilation of crustal sulfur.All olivine grains display concentrations of Mn, Zn, Ge, Co, Fe, Mg, and Ni similar to the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) values, with significant negative anomalies in Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Ga, and Cu. Olivine from the studied Al-depleted komatiites displays on average higher 100×Ga/Sc ratios (>5) than olivine from Al-undepleted komatiites (≤5). Because garnet preferentially incorporates Sc over Ga, the data suggest that elevated Ga/Sc ratios in komatiitic olivine are indicative of garnet retention in the source region of komatiites, highlighting the potential of olivine trace element chemistry as a proxy for the depth of komatiite melting and separation of the magma from the melting residue. Copper concentrations in the studied olivine grains are controlled by sulfur saturation of the host komatiite during olivine crystallization. Olivine from sulfur-undersaturated komatiite systems displays Cu concentrations mostly between 1 and 10 ppm, whereas olivine from sulfide-bearing komatiites has Cu contents of <0.5 ppm. Because komatiites contain some of the world's highest metal tenor magmatic Ni-Cu sulfide deposits, the Cu variability in olivine as a function of the sulfide-saturation state highlights a potential application of olivine chemistry in the exploration for sulfide ore deposits.Olivine from the Paleo-Archean (3.5–3.3 Ga) komatiites displays overall higher V/Sc ratios (V/Sc = 2.1 ± 0.96; 2 S.D.) than olivine from their Neo-Archean (2.7 Ga) counterparts (V/Sc = 1.0 ± 0.81, 2 S.D.). Vanadium and Sc behave similarly during partial melting of the mantle and are similarly compatible in majorite garnet. However, V is redox-sensitive and its compatibility in olivine increases as the system becomes less oxidized, whereas Sc is redox-insensitive. We argue that olivine from the studied Paleo-Archean komatiites crystallized from more reduced magmas than their Neo-Archean counterparts. Elevated Fe/Mn ratios in olivine from Paleo-Archean komatiites mimic the V/Sc signatures and are interpreted to reflect that Fe2+ is more compatible in olivine than Fe3+. These results imply that V/Sc and Fe/Mn in komatiitic olivine may potentially provide insight into the evolution of the oxidation state of the Archean mantle. Additional studies that integrate the chemistry of komatiitic olivine with those of relict interstitial glass and melt/fluid inclusions are encouraged to fully understand and quantify the potential of FRTE in olivine as a proxy for the oxidation state of the mantle sources of komatiite magmas.


The predrug (prodrug) term involves chemically modified inert compound which upon an administration releases the active parent drug to elicit its pharmacological response within the body. For many years, the predrug strategy has been extensively developed to solve many unwanted drug properties. This approach has several advantages over conventional drug administration and it has the potential to be quite effective method for the treatment of diseases in the future. In this mini-review we describe a number of antibacterial agents' predrugs, and the ways by which predrug strategy was exploited to overcome many pharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic problems that the parent active antibacterial drugs suffer from such as, low bioavailability by increasing or decreasing lipophilicity, site selectivity for higher absorption and less toxicity, short duration of action to increase patient compliance, rapid metabolism to increase oral bioavailability and masking bitter sensation which is crucial for geriatric and pediatric patient compliance.


The Scandinavian countries represent a progressive approach to gender equality and transitions of traditional gender roles but little attention has been paid to gender equality in old age and how normative constructions of gender intersect in the lives of family carers. The aim of this study was to understand how adult daughters experience their roles and strategies when supporting fathers caring for an ill mother. A sample of eight daughters shared their experiences through in-depth interviews. The findings show that the daughters provide substantial and crucial effort and are intimately involved in the caring for their father and the sole contributors towards the emotional support of their fathers. They tend to devote a lot of energy towards picturing their family as 'normal' in terms of the family members adopting traditional roles and activities inside as well as outside the family context. In conclusion, the lack of understanding about gender as a 'norm producer' is something that needs to be further elaborated upon in order for professionals to encounter norm-breaking behaviours. The daughters' position as family carers is often assumed and taken for granted since the intersecting structures that impact on the situations of the daughters are largely invisible.


This paper contributes to the dialogue regarding a perceived cultural gap in the learning experiences of South Pacific higher education students. The gap is suggested to be the conflict between students' home cultures at one pole, and a combination of globalisation, internalised colonisation, and the transition to tertiary education at the other pole. Culture is defined as a process of understanding, and the implication for interpersonal understanding between teachers and students is presented as a means for bridging the cultural gap in South Pacific higher education.


Bacillus velezensis JT3-1 is a probiotic strain isolated from feces of the domestic yak (Bos grunniens) in the Gansu province of China. It has strong antagonistic activity against Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhimurium, Mannheimia haemolytica, Staphylococcus hominis, Clostridium perfringens, and Mycoplasma bovis. These properties have made the JT3-1 strain the focus of commercial interest. In this study, we describe the complete genome sequence of JT3-1, with a genome size of 3,929,799 bp, 3761 encoded genes and an average GC content of 46.50%. Whole genome sequencing of Bacillus velezensis JT3-1 will lay a good foundation for elucidation of the mechanisms of its antimicrobial activity, and for its future application.


Research on electric power systems has considered the impact of foreseeable plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) penetration on its regulation, planning, and operation. Indeed, detailed treatment of PEV charging is necessary for efficient allocation of resources. It is envisaged that a coordinator of charging schedules, i.e., a PEV aggregator, could exercise some form of load control according to electricity market prices and network charges. In this context, it is important to consider the effects of uncertainty of key input parameters to optimization algorithms for PEV charging schedules. However, the modeling of the PEV aggregator's exposure to profit volatility has received less attention in detail. Hence, this paper develops a methodology to maximize PEV aggregator profits taking decisions in day-ahead and balancing markets while considering risk aversion. Under uncertain market prices and fleet mobility, the proposed two-stage linear stochastic program finds optimal PEV charging schedules at the vehicle level. A case study highlights the effects of including the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) term in the objective function and calculates two metrics referred to as the expected value of aggregation and flexibility.


IPTV has been widely deployed throughout the world, bringing significant advantages to users in terms of the channel offering, video on demand, and interactive applications. One aspect that has been often neglected is the ability of precise and unobtrusive telemetry. TV set-top boxes that are deployed in modern IPTV systems can be thought of as capable sensor nodes that collect vast amounts of data, representing both the user activity and the quality of service delivered by the system itself. In this paper we focus on the user-generated events and analyze how the data stream of channel change events received from the entire IPTV network can be mined to obtain insight about the content. We demonstrate that it is possible to predict the occurrence of TV ads with high probability and show that the approach could be extended to model the user behavior and classify the viewership in multiple dimensions.


The effects of ethephon (E), sucrose (S), and light (L) on phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity and on the concentration of anthocyanins and total phenolics in the berry skins of Vitis vinifera L. Cardinal berries were studied at temperatures of 14°, 22°, and 35°C over a period of 72 hours. Maximum PAL activity was obtained in the light/ethephon/sucrose-treated (LES) and light/sucrose-treated (LS) berries at 36 and 48 hours. In berries kept in the dark, PAL activity decreased over the experimental period. Anthocyanin concentration increased rapidly after a phase of slow accumulation of 24 to 60 hours, depending on the temperature, in the presence of light but not in the dark. Sucrose plus ethephon had a synergistic effect on synthesis of anthocyanins at 22°C. The period of slow anthocyanin accumulation was shortened as temperature increased. Cycloheximide (CHI) applied to LES-treated berries at 22°C caused a significant reduction in the concentration of anthocyanins in berry skins. Rapid phenolic accumulation in grape berry skins occurred after 48 hours at all temperatures. The pattern of changes in total phenolics in berry skins was similar for all temperature treatments with the maximum concentration reached after 60 hours. There were no consistent effects of sucrose and ethephon on total phenol accumulation in berry skins.


Bartonellosis and rickettsiosis are commonly reported in Peru. In order to detect Bartonella sp. and Rickettsia sp. in fleas, ticks and lice, specimens from five distinct locations in Peru (Marizagua, Cajaruro, Jamalca, Lonya Grande and El Milagro) were collected and screened for the presence of these bacteria using PCR and later confirmation by DNA sequencing. The specimens collected were distributed in 102 pools (76 Ctenocephalides felis, 2 Ctenocephalides canis, 16 Pulex irritans, 5 Pediculus humanus, 2 Rhiphicephalus sanguineus, and 1 Boophilus spp.), where Bartonella was detected in 17 pools (6 of C. felis, 9 of P. irritans, 1 of C. canis, and 1 P. humanus). Also, Rickettsia was detected in 76 pools (62 C. felis, 10 P. irritans, 2 P. humanus, and 2 C. canis). Bartonella clarridgeiae was detected in C. felis, C. canis and P. irritans pools at 5.3%, 50% and 12.5%, respectively. Bartonella rochalimae was detected in one C. felis and two P. irritans pools at 1.3% and 12.5%, respectively. Furthermore, B. henselae was detected in one C. felis pool and one P. humanus pool corresponding to 1.3% and 20%, respectively; and Bartonella spp. was also found in 5 pools of P. irritans at 31.3%. Additionally, R. felis was detected in C. felis, C. canis and P. irritans pools at 76.3%, 100% and 37.5%, respectively; and Rickettsia spp. was detected in C. felis, P. irritans and P. humanus pools at 5.3%, 25% and 40%, respectively. These results demonstrate the circulation of these bacteria in Peru.


The increase in population is becoming a comprehensive dilemma, causing much pressure on economic, social and natural assets. Oral contraceptive agents have improved the rate of infertility but their unusual side effects limit the use. Current antifertility therapy lacks satisfactory success due to this adverse effect; hence, patients are seeking complementary and alternative medicine for anti-fertility action. Ayurveda and other Indian literature mention the use of plants in various human ailments. India has about more than 45000 plant species and among them several thousand are claimed to possess medicinal properties. Researchers conducted in the last few decades on the plants mentioned in ancient literature or used traditionally for anti-fertility action. This review reveals that some plants and their part used having anti-fertility action, which are helpful for researcher to develop new herbal anti-fertility formulations. In the recent years, interest in drugs of plant origin has been progressively increased.


For many years, the importance of microorganisms attached to surfaces in littoral zones and wetlands has been disregarded when describing aquatic ecosystem dynamics. Supporting evidence is scarce but convincing that these microbial communities are not only very productive but can often serve as major regulators of nutrient and carbon dynamics in many freshwaters. In order to determine the quantitative importance of epiphytic bacteria for the overall carbon turnover, I compared the relative contribution of epiphytic bacteria on the submerged macrophyte Ranunculus circinatus, sediment and free-living bacteria to the total bacterial production. Sediment bacteria generally dominated total bacterial biomass in the littoral zone. Although the epiphytic biomass on R. circinatus was ten times lower than the biomass of sediment bacteria, it often contributed at least equally to the total bacterial production. Thus, the results presented in this thesis confirm that most bacterial biomass and production in shallow lakes is associated with surfaces, and that in littoral zones with dense macrophyte stands, epiphytic bacteria can contribute significantly to the overall carbon turnover. There is increasing evidence that not all cells in natural bacterial communities are metabolically active. In Lake Erken, there were large differences in the fraction of active bacteria between different habitats, while the within-habitat differences were small. The sediments had the largest bacterial fraction, followed by epiphytic bacteria, while in the water column only a few percent of the bacteria were active. In this thesis the fraction of active bacteria is connected to environmental fluctuations. I hypothesize that smaller fluctuations in chemical, biological or physical factors result in large active bacterial fractions. Thus, small environmental fluctuations within a habitat allow large active bacterial fractions, while the active fraction is constrained when the environmental fluctuations are large.


ABSTRACT Due to the constant and rapid evolution of technology, universities are caught in an on-going balancing act. Universities must provide students with current technology to enhance technical skills as well as keep up with computer hardware and software upgrades. Schools must also provide for instruction and instructional materials that further the knowledge and skills students possess (Holmes, 1999). The current research investigates the technology skills and Internet usage of students enrolled in a cross-section of business classes at selected European universities. Research results indicate that computer use does not vary significantly among the surveyed European business schools. However, there are significant differences in computer ownership by the students. There are also significant differences in access to the Internet by students from inside, as well as outside, their respective universities. INTRODUCTION The technologies underlying the Internet and telecommunications have increased information flow among countries, thus speeding globalization. At the same time, the spread of free markets has promoted greater competition worldwide, creating strong incentives for domestic producers to adopt new technologies. International change and competition have created a need for workers who are educated and highly skilled. According to Sabo (1999) technology rules how business is conducted. The Web enables the delivery of highly personalized, individual products in a timely manner. In addition to demanding increased skills, employers will also demand a more flexible workforce (Editor-1, 2000). The pervasiveness of microcomputers in the business world places increased importance on the implementation of technology in higher education. A primary objective of university business schools is to prepare students for the world of business by giving them theories and tangible skills that can be applied to their future careers (Levsen and Goettel, 1997). Students must become lifelong learners of information in regard to emerging technologies (Rath, 1999). Because the importance of technology skills is widely accepted, governments are advancing agendas to enable students to become computer literate (Eisenberg and Johnson, 1996). Literacy Defined Computer literacy can be defined as an understanding of basic hardware configurations and knowledge of applications software commonly used in the work environment. Information technology literacy includes the managerial, organizational, and social issues involved in the use of computers in information systems. Information technology literacy encompasses computer literacy (Levsen and Goettel, 1997). Bruce (1999) broadly defines information literacy as "the ability to recognize information needs and identify, evaluate and use information effectively". The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) defines information literacy as a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information"(ACRL, 2002). Society is faced with a challenge due to the uncertain quality and expanding quantity of information. An informed citizenry is not created by the sheer abundance of information. Citizens must be equipped with a complementary cluster of abilities that enable them to use information effectively (ACRL, 2002). Information literacy forms the basis of life-long learning and is common to all disciplines. Although a significant overlap exists with information technology, information literacy is a distinct and broader area of competence. Developing life-long learning skills is central to the mission of higher education institutions (ACRL, 2002). European Commission's Initiative The European Commission's (EC's) "Action Plan for eEurope" states "that by the end of 2002 it will create the foundation needed to bring Internet access to every European citizen, school and business" (DeBony, 2000). …


The British National Health Service has been the focus of sustained political rhetoric in favour of greater public and patient involvement in decision making. The creation of Primary Care Groups--organizations based on local groups of general practitioners--has thus been accompanied by a requirement that they involve users and the public. This article reports on a study of Primary Care Groups (n = 167) to address two questions. First, how have the groups responded to this requirement? Second, can user and public involvement activities be related to broader changes with regard to the roles and expectations of citizens? The study indicated significant activity around public and patient involvement but also a tendency among informants to rationalize these activities in terms of a professional commitment to quality and responsiveness (rather than in relation to the expressed preferences of local citizens). In terms of the second question the results provide some, contestable, evidence of realignments in the values, priorities and assertiveness of individuals and communities of interest with regard to the state. The impact of such phenomena is, though, highly dependent upon how managers and clinicians in Primary Care Groups choose to prioritize the views of local service users and residents in relation to professional judgement, operational requisites, planning constraints and limited resources.


1st Colleges and Universities Public Service Conference University of the Philippines Open University. UP Open University, Los Banos, Laguna. (2015, November 26-27).


The authors present a linear-programming based method for finding "gadgets", i.e., combinatorial structures reducing constraints of one optimization problem to constraints of another. A key step in this method is a simple observation which limits the search space to a finite one. Using this new method they present a number of new, computer-constructed gadgets for several different reductions. This method also answers the question of how to prove the optimality of gadgets-they show how LP duality gives such proofs. The new gadgets improve hardness results for MAX CUT and MAX DICUT, showing that approximating these problems to within factors of 60/61 and 44/45 respectively is NP-hard (improving upon the previous hardness of 71/72 for both problems). They also use the gadgets to obtain an improved approximation algorithm for MAX 3SAT which guarantees an approximation ratio of 0.801, This improves upon the previous best bound of 0.7704.


The Mediterranean fishery has experienced a decline in catches over the past 20 years due to an excessive increase in effort caused by both increased trawler engine power and rapid technological advances in fishing technology and fish location. This has led to overexploitation, in which immature individuals support an increasing portion of the catches. The present study was undertaken to test a sorting grid and square-mesh-panel as juvenile exclusion systems. Our experience was a pilot study of such a system in the western Mediterranean. The purpose of these exclusion systems was to help juvenile hake escape from the net. The results demonstrate that the use of sorting grids for small fish in trawl gears in the Mediterranean is an efficient and practical means of avoiding the capture and discarding of unwanted individuals, with escape rates of over 50% (ranging between 50 and 90%). The grids were efficient and useful for excluding hake ( Merluccius merluccius ) on bottoms located at depths between 50 and 300 m, where hake are found all year round. A bar spacing of 20 mm yielded escape rates of L 50 at 18.8 cm TL (L 25 = 16.8 cm and L 75 = 20.9 cm). Panels made of square meshes achieved poorer results than the grids. The grid system was effective for most of the species caught in the study area.


The territorial gardening limpet Scutellastra cochlear occurs along the south and southern west coasts of South Africa, whereas one of its primary food items, the encrusting coralline alga Spongites yendoi, extends much farther north along the West Coast. A combined analysis of geographic variation in limpet grazing frequency and a limpet-manipulation experiment was used to study the interaction between the limpet and its coralline food. The coralline comprised most (c. 85%) of the limpet's diet whereas fleshy algae from the limpet's garden comprised c. 7%. Grazing caused the thallus of the coralline to be thin and smooth; in the absence of herbivory, or under low grazing frequencies, the crust became thick and highly protuberant. Grazing weakened the coralline's interference (overgrowth) competitive ability and also reduced its fecundity. In spite of these two apparently negative impacts, the intimate herbivore–coralline association between S. cochlear and S. yendoi showed characteristics of a facultative mutualism. Grazing by S. cochlear reduces the coralline's thallus thickness and consequently increased its lateral margin extension rate. Thinner forms of the coralline grew five times faster than thicker forms. An increased lateral growth results in the thinner form of the coralline being very abundant on the south and southern west coasts, occupying as much as 79% of the substratum in the lower eulittoral zone. Thinner forms of S. yendoi were also less burrowed by boring organisms and more strongly attached than thicker forms of the coralline. Grazing by S. cochlear has thus conferred the advantages of faster lateral growth (i.e. success at exploitation competition) and stronger attachment. The coralline and fleshy algae from the limpet's garden were equally high in organic content on a volume basis. This suggests that the crude food value per bite in the coralline and fleshy algae is comparable. This study has shown that incompletely overlapping distributions between strongly interacting species along a broad geographical gradient is not just a significant feature of the ecology of terrestrial, but also of marine ecosystems.