There is broad concern that humans are transforming our environment. This transformation has potential to impact humanity as we depend on the environment ecosystem services. According to the Millennium Assessment (2005), degradation and unsustainable exploitation presently threaten over 60% of ecosystem services with real implications for health and standards of living. Furthermore, both the exploitation of ecosystem services and the growth rate of that exploitation have been far higher in recent decades than ever before due to population growth and rising standards of living, i.e. consumption. Increasing pressure on ecosystem services has driven thinking on mitigation strategies. Payment for ecosystem services (PES) has emerged as a strategy to encourage provision of services or, often, to discourage activities that reduce provision. In economic terms, the inability of agents to capture the full rents of service provision results in divergent private and social values. By creating markets for these services, PES arrangements can correct this disincentive and bring provision closer to the socially optimal level. While private sector PES schemes have been envisioned and in some cases implemented, most large-scale PES programs to date have been implemented by governments. We consider optimal design of policy aimed at increasing the provision of services from private land. In particular, we examine on a theoretical level the possibility of optimal decision-making hierarchies among government agencies targeting ecosystem service provision. Should we have multiple agencies focusing on separate services or one agency coordinating efforts across services? Should policy be implemented nationally, regionally, or locally? Under what conditions and assumptions does one organizational structure stand out as optimal? To answer these questions, we adapt the model of hierarchy design developed by Hart and Moore (JPE, 2005). We develop a two period model of decision-making with n agencies and m assets. The assets are parcels available for targeting under PES schemes. Each agency is tasked with thinking about how to use a subset of the m assets to enhance service provision, according to its mission. Also associated with each agency is some probability of success in its task - i.e., the probability of thinking of a productive use for the assigned subset of assets - and a value generated for society if the task is completed. There is some rivality among assets; the use of an asset by one agency may preclude its use by another. Determination of seniority and assignment of tasks occur in period 0. In period 1, agencies with access to all assets they require carry out the tasks and generate value for society. Assets are unavailable if put to a conflicting use by a senior agency. Altering the hierarchy structure alters the set of completed tasks and thus the total value. We optimize across hierarchies by assigning tasks and seniority in period 0 to maximize total expected value in period 1. Following the development of the model, we explore implications and results. To demonstrate the driving intuition, we provide results in the two-agency, three-agency, and general case. Our results shed light on the optimal design of hierarchies, including the optimal relationship between coordinators (those considering how to use many assets simultaneously) and specialists (those considering a narrower subset of assets). The model relies on a number of assumptions - some of which are more restrictive than others - and we examine the implications for our results of relaxing assumptions. Two preliminary results stand out as generally applicable. First, in an optimal hierarchy an agency's seniority should be inversely related to its probability of success. So agencies with a low probability of having an idea about how to use the assets assigned to them should have high seniority. This seems counter-intuitive as the value of an idea is not considered, but it becomes clearer considering that tasks and seniority are assigned in period 0 to maximize period 1 total expected value. With this endogenized task selection, no agency would be assigned a task with low value and a low probability of success. Second, crisscross hierarchies are never optimal. This result, which states that agency a should never be senior to agency b on one asset and junior on another, is more intuitive. The central contribution of this paper is the adaptation of a theoretical model of hierarchy design to the context of programs targeting ecosystem services. The nature of interaction between various government entities involved in encouraging service provision necessitated an alternative representation of rivality between agencies. Assumptions were evaluated and revised based on their applicability to behavior in this context. Future research may involve further modification of the model to account for issues like threshold effects, joint production, and uncertainty.


Video games, unlike traditional, non-digital games, are based on a combination of fixed rules which cannot be broken from the player position, and implied rules which are not enforced by the computer program. It is relatively common, however, for players to impose additional or alternative rules on video games, in order to refine or expand game play and to create new gaming experiences. This paper considers the implications of this phenomenon, dubbed 'expansive gameplay', in context of video game studies and design. How does the existence of expansive gameplay help us to situate video games in relation to traditional games? To what extent is this phenomenon indicative of the ways in which players engage with video games? By theorizing expansive game play as a demonstrative example of the active, experimental, and exploratory nature of game play more generally, this paper endeavours to open further discussion about the relationships between players and the rule-based systems which constitute video games.


Froggy's mother knows that everyone's nervous on the first day of school. "Not me!" says Froggy, and together they leapfrog to the bus stop -- flop flop flop. Froggy's exuberant antics, complete with sound effects, will delight his many fans and reassure them that school can be fun. "This is a great read-aloud with sounds and words that encourage active participation....A charming story to calm those pre-school jitters." -- "School Library Journal Jonathan London is the author of many books for children, including "I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me, Like Butter on Pancakes" and four other books about Froggy.


This paper describes the ways in which human factors methods can help to enhance the work of established clinical engineering teams by placing a new emphasis on error reduction and patient safety. This approach in many ways represents a natural evolution for departments that are looking to enhance their usefulness and relevance to healthcare. Several examples are given of points at which the introduction of human factors methods can reveal issues related to the safe use of medical devices that are not easily accessible by other means. Adoption and implementation of these methods offers the potential for clinical engineering departments to enhance their role of helping to ensure optimal patient safety.


Load transfer across transverse joints has always been a factor contributing to the useful life of concrete pavements. For many years, round steel dowels have been the conventional load transfer mechanism. Many problems have been associated with the round steel dowels. The most detrimental effect of the steel dowel is corrosion. Repeated loading over time also damages joints. When a dowel is repeatedly loaded over a long period of time, the high bearing stresses found at the top and bottom edge of a bar erode the surrounding concrete. This oblonging creates multiple problems in the joint. Over the past decade, Iowa State University has performed extensive research on new dowel shapes and materials to mitigate the effects of oblonging and corrosion. This report evaluates the bearing stress performance of six different dowel bar types subjected to two different shear load laboratory test methods. The first load test is the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) T253 method. The second procedure is an experimental cantilevered dowel test. The major objective was to investigate and improve the current AASHTO T253 test method for determining the modulus of dowel support, k sub 0. The modified AASHTO test procedure was examined alongside an experimental cantilever dowel test. The modified AASHTO specimens were also subjected to a small-scale fatigue test in order to simulate long-term dowel behavior with respect to concrete joint damage. Loss on ignition tests were also performed on the glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) dowel specimens to determine the resin content percentage. The study concluded that all of the tested dowel bar shapes and materials were adequate with respect to performance under shear loading. The modified AASHTO method yielded more desirable results than the ones obtained from the cantilever test. The investigators determined that the experimental cantilever test was not a satisfactory test method to replace or verify the AASHTO T253 method.


Multicultural science education has long been of interest to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). In 1991, NSTA adopted a position statement on multicultural science education, which was revised in 2000. In 1993, Mary M. Atwater's article in The Science Teacher clearly presented three premises for multicultural science education: 1) All children can learn science, 2) Every student is worthwhile to have in the science classroom, and 3) Cultural diversity is appreciated in science classrooms because it enhances rather than detracts from the richness and effectiveness of science teaching (Atwater 1993). For the past decade, The Science Teacher has devoted one issue each publishing year to multicultural science education.
This article examines the issue of multicultural science education as reflected in the published articles of The Science Teacher over the past decade. The goal of this review is to help teachers—especially new or preservice teachers and those who implement multicultural science education because of district mandates or changing classroom demographics—understand the importance of multicultural science education and to provide teachers with a list of resources they can refer to for additional information and activity ideas.


The maximization of a positive (semi)definite complex quadratic form over a finite alphabet is NP-hard and achieved through exhaustive search when the form has full rank. However, if the form is rank-deficient, the optimal solution can be computed with only polynomial complexity in the length N of the maximizing vector. In this work, we consider the general case of a rank-D positive (semi)definite complex quadratic form and develop a method that maximizes the form with respect to a M-phase vector with polynomial complexity. The proposed method efficiently reduces the size of the feasible set from exponential to polynomial. We also develop an algorithm that constructs the polynomial-size candidate set in polynomial time and observe that it is fully parallelizable and rank-scalable.


Tauopathies are characterized by accumulation of filamentous tau aggregates. These aggregates can be recapitulated in transfectant M1C overproducing wild-type human brain tau 4R0N via the tetracycline off (TetOff) inducible expression mechanism. To determine the contribution of proteasomes to tau degradation and aggregation, we exposed M1C cells to epoxomicin (Epx; 2-50 nM) or MG132 (0.5 microM) on the 3(rd) or 4(th) day of a 5-day TetOff induction and demonstrated a reduction of proteasomal activity. Cultures treated with 2 nM Exp showed accumulation of full-length tau without affecting ubiquitin and beta-catenin immunoblotting profiles. In contrast, cells treated with 10, 50 nM Epx or MG132 displayed changes in ubiquitin or beta-catenin immunoblotting profiles and extensive tau degradation/truncation. The increase of tau degradation/truncation was accompanied with accumulation of oligomers and sarkosyl-insoluble aggregates of tau, augmented thioflavin-binding and activation of caspases and calpains. Truncated, oligomeric and sarkosyl-insoluble tau derivatives appeared with caspase-specific cleavage and their production was diminished when pretreated with a pan-caspase inhibitor. The results demonstrate (i) a dose-dependent, opposite effect of proteasome inhibition on tau processing, (ii) the participation of proteasome-dependent, ubiquitination-independent mechanisms in tau degradation and aggregation, and (iii) the promotion of tau aggregation by caspase-mediated tau degradation/truncation.


For thousands of years, nature provided us remedies to treat diseases and its biologically active molecules inspired chemists for the development of new drugs. In 1993, three research groups independently reported the isolation, from sponges, of spongistatin 1. This 42-membered macrolactone, comprises 24 stereogenic centres, a chloro triene side chain, two spiroketals (AB and CD) and two tetrahydropyranyl units (E and F rings). This molecule was found to be among the most potent cancer cells' growth inhibitors tested to date by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. This compound inhibits the microtubule polymerisation with nanomolar to picomolar activities but further biological investigations were precluded by the extremely low quantities that were obtained from the marine organism. This scarce abundance, together with the remarkable structural complexity, prompted many research groups to address this challenge and seven of them reported a total synthesis. Vogel's methodology for the synthesis of 15 carbons polyolic chains was extended to the preparation of highly advanced intermediates of the AB and CD-spiroketals of spongistatin 1. This non-iterative synthesis started with the meso-1,1'-methylenedi[(1R,1'S,5S,5'R)-3-oxo-8-oxabicyclo[3.2.1]oct-6-ene-1-yl] derivative. The diene, obtained after an endo-reduction and the opening of the oxa-bridges, was resolved by mean of Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation. After an oxidative cleavage of the first cycle and a 1,3-anti reduction, ozonolysis was used to open the second cycloheptene. Acid catalysed spirocyclisation furnished the rigid core needed for the diastereoselective methylation and the inversion of an hydroxyl group. Finally, the axial/axial configuration of the AB-spiroketal was confirmed by two dimensional NMR analyses. Similar methodology was applied to the synthesis of the CD-fragment. An exo-reduction of the same starting diketone followed by Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation and a sequential cleavage of the cycloheptene rings furnished the equatorial/axial spiroketal with all the functionalities of the CD-fragment of spongistatin 1.


Getting access to the state of turbulent flow from limited sensor measurements in engineering systems is a major challenge. Development of technologies to accurately estimate the state of the flow is now possible with the use of machine learning. We present a supervised machine learning technique to reconstruct turbulent vortical structures in a pump sump from sparse surface pressure measurements. For the current flow reconstruction technique, a combination of multi-layer perceptron and three-dimensional convolutional neural network is utilized. This technique provides accurate flow estimation from only a few sensor measurements, identifying the presence of adverse vortices. The dependence of the model performance on the amount of training data, the number of input sensors, and the noise levels are investigated. The present machine learning-based flow estimator supports safe operations of pumps and can be extended to a broad range of applications for industrial fluid-based systems.


Patient-specifi�c Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies of cerebral blood flow have
the potential to help plan neurosurgery, but developing realistic simulation methods that
deliver results quickly enough presents a major challenge. The majority of CFD studies
assume that the arterial walls are rigid. Since the lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) is
computationally efficient on multicore machines, some methods for carrying out lattice-Boltzmann simulations of time-dependent fluid flow in elastic vessels are developed. They involve integrating the equations of motion for a number of points on the wall. The
calculations at every lattice site and point on the wall depend only on information from
neighbouring lattice sites or wall points, so they are suitable for efficient computation on multicore machines.
The �first method is suitable for three-dimensional axisymmetric vessels. The steady-state
solutions for the wall displacement and
flow �fields in a cylinder at realistic parameters for
cerebral blood
ow agree closely with the analytical solutions. Compared to simulations
with rigid walls, simulations with elastic walls require 13% more computational e�ffort at
the parameters chosen in this study.
A scheme is then developed for a more complex geometry in two dimensions, which applies
the full theory of linear elasticity. The steady-state wall pro�files obtained from simulations
of a Starling resistor agree closely with those from existing computational studies. I �find
that it is essential to change the lattice sites from solid to fluid and vice versa if the wall
crosses any of them during the simulation. Simple tests of the dynamics show that when
the mass of the wall is much greater than that of the
fluid, the period of oscillation of the
wall agrees within 7% of the expected period. This method could be extended to three
dimensions for use in cerebral blood
ow simulations.


In the new version of his Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich) once again proposed to modify the definition of residence for domestic corporations to treat companies "whose management and control occur primarily in the United States as U.S. domestic corporations for income tax purposes." Adopting this proposal would further deter inversions, and would make it difficult for U.S.-based hedge funds and nonprofits to use "blockers" to avoid effectively connected income and UBTI without actually operating the blockers offshore. These are significant improvements over the current system. But the biggest impact will be on Subpart F. The debate between opponents and proponents of deferral and territoriality seems unlikely to produce real reform anytime soon. But if we adopted "managed and controlled", it would become much more difficult for U.S. multinationals to avoid Subpart F merely by creating shell companies overseas and using one of the myriad loopholes in the existing rules.


In this essay, developed for the 2004 LatCrit conference on "Countering Kulturkampf Politics," I challenge the presumption that the term culture wars captures controversies over the social or moral order distinct from the economic order. I argue that free-market economic ideology is a key hidden player on the right-wing team in the culture wars. In turn, the culture wars debate serves free-market economic fundamentalism by deploying morality both to mask and to legitimate rising economic inequality and the upward redistribution of resources. By turning class into culture, and culture into class, as journalist Thomas Frank suggests in his book "What's the Matter with Kansas?," conservatives can enlist the non-wealthy in the cause of promoting economic inequality. Using examples from both recent Supreme Court rulings and popular media attention to work-and-family conflicts, I analyze the way in which the very division between economic and cultural politics works to undermine progressive and egalitarian visions of law. I compare Justice Scalia's criticism of the Court's involvement in the culture wars (in Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans) to the reasoning in Plessy v. Ferguson that divides social equality from questions of economic and political rights. In both, the invocation of culture makes the inequality at issue appear too contingent, but at the same time too fixed and universal to be amenable to constitutional redress. Turning to popular culture, I analyze how the opposition between economic inequality and gender equality similarly works to undermine both in a 2004 Atlantic Monthly cover story by Caitlin Flanagan, "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement: Dispatches from the Nanny Wars." Flanagan criticizes feminist advocacy of increased public support for child care as elitist, by presenting gender equality in the workplace as inevitably opposed to economic and racial equality. I show how Flanagan's purported effort to turn feminist attention to economic class, and particularly to the interests of low-waged immigrant domestic workers, actually serves to reinforce and naturalize not just gender inequality but also the economic and racial inequality that she claims to challenge. Flanagan uses the opposition between gender equality and economic equality to make poverty a personal moral matter, obscuring the legal decisions and political structures that promote gender, race and economic inequality.


Ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs) are a group of proteins with a high degree of sequence homology. At least 20 type of putative ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR)-like channels have been identified in Arabidopsis thaliana . To uncover the role of iGluR- like channels in plant root growth, we used a comprehensive set of compounds known to alter iGluR channels in the neurons. We found that Arabidopsis root system is highly sen- sitive to these compounds. iGluR competitive antagonists 6-Cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX) or 6,7-dinitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione acted (DNQX) acts as a negative regulator of primary root and lateral root density. Continuous growth on antagonist also leads to impairment of root meristem size, which suggests that iGluR-like chan- nels may play a role in meristem maintenance. However, application of iGluR agonists L-glutamate recovered Arabidopsis root growth. Taken together, these results suggest a correlation between the putative iGluR-like channel function and the alteration of root growth and development in the Arabidopsis roots.


CNC machining is the leading subtractive manufacturing technology. Although it is in use since decades, it is far from fully solved and still a rich source for challenging problems in geometric computing. We demonstrate this at hand of 5-axis machining of freeform surfaces, where the degrees of freedom in selecting and moving the cutting tool allow one to adapt the tool motion optimally to the surface to be produced. We aim at a high-quality surface finish, thereby reducing the need for hard-to-control post-machining processes such as grinding and polishing. Our work is based on a careful geometric analysis of curvature-adapted machining via so-called second order line contact between tool and target surface. On the geometric side, this leads to a new continuous transition between "dual" classical results in surface theory concerning osculating circles of surface curves and osculating cones of tangentially circumscribed developable surfaces. Practically, it serves as an effective basis for tool motion planning. Unlike previous approaches to curvature-adapted machining, we solve locally optimal tool positioning and motion planning within a single optimization framework and achieve curvature adaptation even for convex surfaces. This is possible with a toroidal cutter that contains a negatively curved cutting area. The effectiveness of our approach is verified at hand of digital models, simulations and machined parts, including a comparison to results generated with commercial software.


How can a single tree species affect human projects on the scale of empires and nations? Rubber and the Making of Vietnam explores this question for the rubber tree in Vietnamese history. Dating back to the nineteenth-century transplantation of a latex-producing tree from the Amazon to Southeast Asia, rubber production has wrought monumental changes worldwide. During a turbulent Vietnamese past, rubber has transcended capitalism and socialism, colonization and decolonization, becoming a key commodity around which life and history have flowed. Synthesizing archival material in English, French, and Vietnamese, this book narrates how rubber trees came to dominate the material and symbolic landscape of French Indochina and postcolonial Vietnam, structuring the region's environments of agriculture, health, and violence. Once established, private and state-run plantations became landscapes of oppression, resistance, and modernity. Agronomists, medical doctors, laborers, and leaders of independence movements form part of this narrative as they struggled over various visions of labor in nature and the nature of labor. Mosquitoes and plasmodia also play a part in this narrative as they helped spread malaria among Vietnamese who planted and tended rubber trees. Rather than a human-centered past, this book adopts an ecological perspective as it tells twentieth-century Vietnamese history starting with the view from a rubber tree and branching outwards in multiple directions. In other words, this book taps the rubber tree to examine the entanglements of nature, culture, and politics and demonstrates how the demand for rubber has impacted nearly a century of war and peace in Vietnamese society.


This second edition of The Concise Dictionary of Business Management has been completely revised and updated to reflect the changing world of work and new technology. It has been expanded to include many new terms and buzzwords such as: contracting out, telecommuting, occupational choice, glass ceiling, superwoman, electronic brainstorming, the internet and the virtual corporation. It is the ideal quick reference guide for students and professionals wanting to cut through the jargon of business and management.


Introduction: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant primary brain tumor. Despite technological achievements its prognosis remains dismal. Genetic analysis has recently emerged as a powerful research tool and has allowed the discovery of many genetic alterations found in this type of cancer. As a result, gene therapy has been proposed as a promising strategy for the treatment of GBM.
Aim: We describe the differentiation of astrocytes from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) expressing the doxicicline inducible MDA-7/IL-24 transgene and document its anti-tumor effects in vitro and in vivo.
Materials and Methods: Differentiation of astrocytes was obtained from MDA-7/IL-24 transgenic mESC and documented by morphological analysis and immonofluorescence techniques. Astrocytes were further studied to assess their ability to conditionally express the MDA-7/IL-24 transgene, to migrate towards tumor cells and to cause apoptosis in U87 human high grade glioma (HGG) cells. In vivo anti-GBM properties of transgenic astrocytes were studied in a murine orthotopic xenograft model.
Results: Complete differentiation of astrocytes conditionally expressing the MDA-7/IL-24 transgene was obtained. They retained migration abilities and were able to induce apoptosis in U87 cells. A significant reduction of implanted tumor volumes was observed in vivo after treatment with astrocytes.
Conclusions: ESC-derived astrocytes conditionally expressing MDA-7/IL-24 transgene show promising pro-apoptotic activity against U87 HGG cells both in vitro and in vivo. Due to the preliminary nature of our results further research is warranted to allow translation of the reported results into the clinic.


Mangrove forests are declining across the globe, mainly because of human intervention, and therefore require an evaluation of their past and present status (e.g. areal extent, species-level distribution, etc.) to implement better conservation and management strategies. In this paper, mangrove cover dynamics at Gaoqiao (P. R. China) were assessed through time using 1967, 2000 and 2009 satellite imagery (sensors Corona KH-4B, Landsat ETM+, GeoEye-1 respectively). Firstly, multi-temporal analysis of satellite data was undertaken, and secondly biotic and abiotic differences were analysed between the different mangrove stands, assessed through a supervised classification of a high-resolution satellite image. A major decline in mangrove cover (−36%) was observed between 1967 and 2009 due to rice cultivation and aquaculture practices. Moreover, dike construction has prevented mangroves from expanding landward. Although a small increase of mangrove area was observed between 2000 and 2009 (+24%), the ratio mangrove / aquaculture kept decreasing due to increased aquaculture at the expense of rice cultivation in the vicinity. From the land-use/cover map based on ground-truth data (5 × 5 m plot-based tree measurements) (August–September, 2009) as well as spectral reflectance values (obtained from pansharpened GeoEye-1), both Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and small Aegiceras corniculatum are distinguishable at 73–100% accuracy, whereas tall A. corniculatum was correctly classified at only 53% due to its mixed vegetation stands with B. gymnorrhiza (overall classification accuracy: 85%). In the case of sediments, sand proportion was significantly different between the three mangrove classes. Overall, the advantage of very high resolution satellite images like GeoEye-1 (0.5 m) for mangrove spatial heterogeneity assessment and/or species-level discrimination was well demonstrated, along with the complexity to provide a precise classification for non-dominant species (e.g. Kandelia obovata ) at Gaoqiao. Despite limitations such as geometric distortion and single panchromatic band, the 42 yr old Corona declassified images are invaluable for land-use/cover change detections when compared to recent satellite data sets.


The development of special education network in historical perspective and the nature and quality of services being offered to special children in Pakistan has been studied and evaluated in this research work. The measures for improvement have also been recommended. To achieve this the various instruments were designed. The interviews of the special educators, support professionals, parents of special children and special persons were conducted. The records of the schools were consulted. The samples were taken from rural as well as urban areas of Pakistan and all the provinces.

The research work includes the analysis of historical pattern of development of special schools for all major categories of special children in Pakistan and the provinces. The separate graphs and charts showing trends and of development and distribution in each region )Pakistan as a whole, Punab, Sindh, Balochistan, North West Frontier Provinces and Federal Capital Area) and for each sector (Federal Government, Provincial Government and Non-government Sectors) and for each category (Hearing impaired, visually impaired, Mentally retarded and physically handicapped) are drawn. The analysis of population of special people and schools-age special children and the special children studying in schools has also been carried out.

The areas focused for investigating the weaknesses and strengths of the infrastructure include early intervention programmes, educational assessment and placement procedure, availability of special teachers and support professioanals, Special educational needs, system of examination and evaluation, teachers training programmes, mainreaming, provisions in government plicies and legislation.

The special schools system evolved in Pakistan as early as first decade of twentieth century however the schools are not in sufficient numbers to cater all the special children. The early intervention programmes in Pakistan are not very well organized The assessment procedures at schools have been discussed and tere is a great room for improvement. The assessment tools need to be standardized for which government support is required. The special needs including equipment and books are not available in sufficient quantity.

Most of the schools follow curriculum designed by committees comprising of teachers of special schools under the guidance of National Institute of Special Education. The instructional approaches and strategies are diversified which is common in all countries. The minimum qualification forany professional related to special education is not defined. The average students teacher ratio ranges from 6 to 1 in some categories of special children to 11 to 1 in the other which indicates the shortage of teachers. The parent involvement in the education of special children is the least. The vast majority of parents of special children of all categries and special persons are not fully satisfied with the education being given to their children.

The associations of the special people, specially visually impaired and hearing impaired and physically handicapped have played a pivotal role in changing the lives of the special people in Pakistan. The role of non-government organizations (NGO) is very significant in the development of special education in Pakistan.

The facilities to support higher education for special people in colleges and universities are not available. The mainstream schools do not have teachers and equipment to accommodate special children. The long term planning is required to mainstream special children. There will be financial implications also to implement any such scheme.

The teacher training programmes offered by universities and other institutions are quite satisfactory. The universities offer Diploma, Masters degree and Ph.D. programmes in special education. Many other non-government and government organizations offer in-service teacher training programmes. The policy for the Education and Rehabilitation of special children has not yet been finalized.

The vocational training being provided in most of the school is of pre-vocational nature. The trades are limited. The parents and special persons are not fully satisfied with the provisions of vocational training facilities. The attention of government is required to vamp this area.In the light of the above conclusions some recommendations are made as under:


Aging poses unique challenges for transgender older adults. They came of age during decades when transgender people were heavily stigmatized and pathologized. Some came out and made gender transitions during these years, while many others kept their identities hidden for decades and are now coming out and transitioning later in life. Many challenges facing transgender elders are common to the broader older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population, but some are different. With a growing older transgender population, there is an urgent need to understand the challenges that can threaten financial security, health and overall well-being.


Digital twins (DTs) have demonstrated their abilities to integrate sensor data, current state information, and the information about the environment in virtual models. While previous approaches have focused on creating DTs for mainly machines and workstations, a small number of studies have considered human performance when designing the DT system, which leads to a deficiency in overall system performance. The absence of the human integrated-DT framework may decelerate human integration in industrial DT, and thus, disregards the crucial role of the human in the industry of the future. This paper presents a framework for digital human representation in an industrial DT to continuously monitor and to analyse the human operational state and behaviour. Thereby, the DT enables decision-makers to allocate tasks on the shop floor taking into account the human physical and mental status. A sample case showed how a human muscle activity monitoring system could be integrated with the DT based on the developed framework to account for the operator's muscular fatigue or physical exhaustion for decision-making. This included the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to interpret the human activity related data using wearable sensors, such as electromyography (EMG). Future research is proposed to harness human data from a richer variety of sensors as control parameters for production operation and improved decision-making.


... the monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence [is] the power to impose the arbitrary instruments of knowledge and expressions of social reality ... (cited in Bourdieu, 1991: 168). THE LEGITIMIZATION OF VIOLENCE, BOTH MATERIAL AND SYMBOLIC, VIA THE manufacturing and perpetuation of fear, appears to be rampant and examples are abundant. Beware of SARS. (1) Cancel travel plans to the Far East or Toronto. In fact, think twice about eating at your favorite Chinese restaurant since we are told to be afraid that Asian immigrants, who might be infected, could be eating next to you. While you address those fears, be sure to protect yourself and your family from street gangs. The media, politicians, and corporate interests--"in the everlasting battle for the minds of men" (cited in Chomsky, 1996: 17)--constantly tell us that youth crime is widespread, even in the suburbs. Of course, there is the greatest fear of all: terrorism. We are warned that sleeper cells among us can strike anywhere, anytime. Every day, attempting to infiltrate our collective minds are images of dark-skinned terrorists with strange names who stand ready to poison our drinking water, bring lethal weapons to our seaports, blow up our nuclear power plants, and detonate radiological devices. Since "old Europe" is clearly not willing to help, we Americans better pay attention to our government's new "orange alert": "Don't panic, but don't trust, beware of unusual (or foreign-looking, dark-skinned) people doing unusual things; don't worry, but don't relax either." Leaving the lobby of the theatre where we viewed Michael Moore's film, Bowling for Columbine, it seems that the poignant images of collective fear and the paranoia of armed self-protection explored in the movie, despite its recent release, are already outdated. New waves of fear and social alienation are penetrating the collective psyche, happily exacerbated by the corporate media. Moore's film explores issues of violence and fear in U.S. society, particularly surrounding the Columbine tragedy of the morning of April 20, 1999, when 12 high school students and one teacher were killed, and dozens of others were wounded, by two fellow classmates. However, Bowling for Columbine does not stop there as it analyzes with irony and poignancy the corporate, media, and government involvement in creating a climate of pervasive paranoia, exacerbating threats, while glorifying, justifying, or trivializing violence here and abroad. Exploring Domestic and International Violence In Bowling, Michael Moore seeks to understand how the violence at Columbine may be what interviewee Evan McCallum (the spokesperson for Lockheed Martin, the largest weapons-builder in the nation) describes as the "microcosm of what happens throughout the world." Although the movie provides only a partial account of intervention abroad, it offers a painful reminder of the violent record of the United States around the world: the overthrow of Iran's Mossadegh government and the imposition of the Shah (1953), our involvement and war in Vietnam (1963 to 1975), the overthrow and assassination of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende (1973), our funding, training, and support of death-squad governments in El Salvador (1977 to 1991), the Contra war in Nicaragua (1981 to 1990), our involvement and funding of both sides of the Iraq-Iran war (1980 to 1988), the bloody invasion of Panama (1989), our involvement in the invasion of Kuwait and its aftermath, the Gulf War against Iraq (1990 to 1991), the Yugoslavia-Kosovo war (1999), and, finally, our initial support for and later destruction of the Taliban government in Afghanistan (2001 to 2002). The disturbing actual footage of the violence and death caused by U.S. foreign policy are portrayed as acts of international violence. (2) Since its release, the film has won international acclaim, receiving awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards, among others. …


There are today no more compelling sets of crime and security threats facing nations, communities, organizations, groups, families and individuals than those encompassed by cybercrime. For over fifty years crime enabled by computing and telecommunications technologies have increasingly threatened societies as they have become reliant on information systems for sustaining modernized living. Cybercrime is not a new phenomenon, rather an evolving one with respect to adoption of information technology (IT) for abusive and criminal purposes. Further, by virtue of the myriad ways in which IT is abused, it represents a technological shift in the nature of crime rather than a new form of criminal behavior. In other words, the nature of crime and its impacts on society are changing to the extent computers and other forms of IT are used for illicit purposes. Understanding the subject, then, is imperative to combatting it and to addressing it at various levels. This work is the first comprehensive encyclopedia to address cybercrime. Topical articles address all key areas of concern and specifically those having to with: terminology, definitions and social constructs of crime; national infrastructure security vulnerabilities and capabilities; types of attacks to computers and information systems; computer abusers and cybercriminals; criminological, sociological, psychological and technological theoretical underpinnings of cybercrime; social and economic impacts of crime enabled with information technology (IT) inclusive of harms experienced by victims of cybercrimes and computer abuse; emerging and controversial issues such as online pornography, the computer hacking subculture and potential negative effects of electronic gaming and so-called "computer addiction"; bodies and specific examples of U.S. federal laws and regulations that help to prevent cybercrimes; examples and perspectives of law enforcement, regulatory and professional member associations concerned about cybercrime and its impacts; and computer forensics as well as general investigation/prosecution of high tech crimes and attendant challenges within the United States and internationally.


Places wars in their historical context. The first reference work of its kind, "Encyclopedia of Wars" describes not only the military aspect of wars - the causes of conflict, an enumeration of battles, and a summary of the outcome(s) - but also the social and political context in which the wars occurred. This provides readers and researchers with the important facts as well as the historical background for each war. From the Crusades to the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf War, this three-volume encyclopedia covers every major war, rebellion, and revolution from 3,500 BCE to the present. Its valuable content is in an accessible format. In three comprehensive volumes and approximately 2,000 A-to-Z entries, this definitive resource provides more thorough, complete coverage than any other encyclopedia. Each entry provides an at-a-glance look at the war in question and a narrative discussion of the war, examining its social context, major battles and events, and broader significance in cultural and historical terms. Suggestions for further reading follow each entry, and a general bibliography of major texts on war is included in the final volume. Numerous cross-references, 60 maps, and a chronology make this attractive and informative encyclopedia highly accessible.


Researchers utilizing quantitative methods have established that sexual violence against Native American women is a severe and persistent problem in Native American communities. Currently, Native American women suffer some of the highest and most violent rates of sexual victimization in the United States; experts estimate that between one-third and one-fourth of Native American women will be sexually victimized in their lifetimes. Researchers conducting qualitative research on sexual violence against Native American women have explained that, not only are Native American women outraged and highly critical of this issue, but that Native American women desire for their perspectives, knowledge, and experiences to be legitimized and validated. Additionally, scholars from a variety of disciplines have also demonstrated that sexual violence against Native American women must be contextualized within the historical and intersecting legacies of colonialism, sexism, racism, and genocide. However, qualitative, interview-based research in the field of sexual violence against Native American women has not been widely pursued and has thus afforded the women whom this issue most affects extremely limited opportunities to speak out about sexual violence in their communities. This research, then, based on feminist methodology and practices, was an effort to fill this gap and prioritize the voices of Native American women. I conducted semi-structured interviews with three Native American women from a tribe in the greater Tacoma area about their perspectives and experiences regarding sexual violence against Native American women in their community. As a result of this research, the overarching argument I make is twofold. I contend that, as researchers, we must make a conscious effort to acknowledge, validate, and legitimize the knowledge Native American women have of colonialism and how it intersects with sexual violence and violent victimizations against Native American women and other community members. In doing so, we can support the activism that is already present in Native American communities and encourage the empowerment of Native American women and community members to continuously deconstruct intersecting oppressions and decolonize their communities.


In the past two decades, since around 1995, mobile phone (MP) technologies have been widely adopted in developing countries – with the highest penetration rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, to levels of about 89% for adults. Previous research has shown MP use to enhance market access through information exchange and market price integration – availing timely updates on prices of inputs and outputs. Various applications of MP technologies, for instance mobile money (MM) services, where money is transferred electronically between the sender and the receiver using mobile phones, have also cropped up and are widely predicted to have life-enhancing effects for rural households. More specifically, the available literature has shown that MM services can contribute to welfare gains in smallholder farm households via several pathways. One important pathway for MM-related welfare gains are higher remittances received by MM users from relatives and friends.
However, the impact of MP use and many of its key applications, like MM services, on several smallholder welfare aspects has barely been investigated. In particular, we are not aware of any studies that have analyzed the effects of MP use on gender equality and nutrition – two welfare dimensions that are of particular importance in the context of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that aim at ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, as well as attaining gender equality and women empowerment. Furthermore, there is yet no study examining the role of MM services and its several impact pathways on household welfare. These are significant gaps in the literature given that mobile phone technologies are so widely adopted among rural and urban households in the developing world. The impacts of MP technologies are predicted to be higher in developing countries than in the developed world, given that the infrastructure for other communication technologies and related services is much less developed in the developing world.
We address these research gaps by using panel data from smallholder farm households in Uganda. Specifically, we examine the impact of MP use on household incomes, gender equality, and nutrition. Furthermore, the impact of MM services on household welfare and impact pathways are examined, especially focusing on agricultural marketing and off-farm economic activities.
Using panel regression models, we find that MP use has positive influence on household income, gender equality, and dietary diversity. Gender-disaggregated data analysis shows that female MP use bears stronger influences on household incomes, gender equality, and nutrition than male MP use. Using simultaneous equations, we establish that female MP use's positive nutrition effects are channeled through increased incomes and gender equality. These effects are due to lower transaction costs and better access to information through MP use.
Furthermore, regression models show that the adoption of MM technology has contributed to higher household incomes and consumption levels. Off-farm income gains are also identified to be an important pathway through which MM services enhance household income, even when excluding remittances from the calculation of off-farm income. Other off-farm income sources include small businesses in trade (like retail shops, sale of forest products), transport (like motor cycle riding services for transportation of goods or humans), and handicrafts (like brick laying, mats making, clothes sewing, and carpentry services). These economic activities benefit from novel savings and money transfer opportunities through MM services. In terms of agricultural marketing, MM users sell a larger proportion of their coffee as shelled beans (a high value form of coffee, sold after processing) to buyers in high-value markets, instead of selling to local traders immediately after harvest. MM services also help to reduce cash constraints and facilitate quick and reliable transactions with buyers from outside local regions.
We conclude that the use of MP technologies contributes to a broader inclusive and comprehensive rural development and poverty reduction, encompassing improved household income, food security, and gender equality. We also conclude that MM services can contribute to rural development through various important pathways – especially enhancing volumes of off-farm incomes earned by rural households. The observed adoption patterns suggest that MM services are socially inclusive. In terms of policy recommendations, we conclude that gender-sensitive dissemination policies for mobile phones and related technologies could broaden household income and nutrition welfare effects.


Abstract The medical image registration problem can be formulated as a nonlinear programming problem. To identify appropriate algorithms to solve it, it is critical to analyze the properties of the problem. In this paper, we consider the image registration problem based on maximization of mutual information when the partial volume (PV) interpolation is used to update the joint histogram. We identify pathological cases which may happen in practice, and which may lead to discontinuous instances of the objective function. We show that the objective function is not differentiable and that the set of nondifferentiability is of null measure. Then, we propose a derivative-free algorithm specially designed for this application. Derivative-free optimization involves all the methods used to minimize an objective function when its derivatives are not available and when the function is expensive. We present here, a trust-region algorithm based on radial basis functions instead of the classical second-order polynomials. Actually, our surrogate of the objective function is a mixed radial and polynomial model. On the instances of the medical image registration problem, our method surpasses all the tested state-of-the-art derivative-free algorithms.


The performance history of the Johannesenske Balletselskab spans a long period. In different shapes, sizes and names the ensemble was on the road for 30 years. This article analyses the activities of the Johannesenske enterprise through the lenses of itinerant performance traditions. Two features are discussed in this article: the reliance on family members as performers and the ensemble's diverse repertory. The ensemble featured a repertory popular in its own time, consisting chiefly of national and character dances as well as pantomimes. Arguably, an investigation of the ensemble's performance history offers information on little explored perspectives of nineteenth century Nordic ballet. In particular, the Johannesenske Balletselskab offers insights into family structures and the repertoire typical of itinerant ensembles. This information is also useful on a more general level, given that there were several ensembles similar to the Johannesenske travelling in the Nordic countries that functioned similarly to La famille dansant . Through analysing the use of the repertoire, it can be shown that the Johannesenske enterprise was, in their programming, up to date as a "ballet ensemble". The family kept up itinerant traditions through their use of children as performers and reliance on pantomimes. The Johannesenske ensemble is, therefore, especially valuable for revealing insights into dance practices and dance styles, which have, so far, been little researched.


In a larger area with less number of deployed nodes, to localize the event such as the location of the fire in a forest, the transmission range (TR) of different nodes plays a crucial role. Here, this study demonstrates a method to increase the transmission range (TR) using the benefits of randomness. With the mathematical expression, we have shown how randomness can benefit us. The increment in σ causes an average increase in the transmission range. This increment in transmission range causes a high probability of connection C(r) between two remote nodes. According to the event, some of the nodes can be placed in an area for the detection of the exact location of the fire. It can be possible that either some of the nodes positioned at the precise location or can be some meters away. We are assuming the case of nodes placed at a distance from the location of the fire. The reflected signal which will be received by the transmitting node from the destination will of lower strength and hence it won't be possible for us to detect the exact location. For increasing the exactness of the location, we can introduce disturbance between the two distinct nodes which in turn creates more randomness due to the multiple reflections.


A zeolite membrane consists of a homogenous layer of intergrown zeolite crystals synthesized on the surface of a ceramic support. DDR zeolites consist of three types of window connected silica oxide cages that build up the rhombohedra1 DDR structure and have pore apertures of 0.36 x 0.44nm. Membranes (formed by a hydrothermal synthesis process) are gaining an important place in chemical technology as they are able to selectively control the permeation rate of chemical species that pass through it. The DDR membrane has been shown to separate COz (g) from C& (g). The objective of this research was to acquire a better understanding of the properties of DDR zeolites in combination with ceramic membranes. Therefore investigations were initially carried out on the manufacture of ceramic membranes using Alcoa powder in conjunction with research on the DDR-type zeolite crystals, as the hydrothermal synthesis period of the DDR crystals is a lengthy 25 days. The aim of this investigation was to acquire a better understanding of DDR zeolites through optimization of the experimental procedure. This thesis investigated the coating of the DDR-type zeolite on to a ceramic membrane which has been accomplished only once before. The manufacture of ceramic membranes was investigated using a cheaper source of aalumina powder (Alcoa powder). The first treatment of pH flotation was optimized at a loading mass of 200g Alcoa powder suspended in a pH2 solution of FINO3 with APMA as the dispersing agent. As a result of this acid treatment, SEM analysis showed that the fine particles remained in suspension and the heavier particles settled. Secondly, a novel fractionation process using the heavy particles that had settled in the pH flotation showed optimum separation results at linear velocities of 5mVmin and 15mVmin using a 75g loading mass of Alcoa powder. Thereafter, centrifugal casting of the fractions was carried out to produce asymmetrical tubular green casts. Finally, a programme of sintering allowed for strengthening and transformation of the green cast into a ceramic support. To synthesize a DDR membrane, the crystals firstly had to be made and used as seeds to accelerate the growth of a DDR membrane. It was found that when the water concentration was decreased from 11240 moles to 7838 moles of water, homogenous crystals (1.4pm) of well defined morphology were obtained. During the hydrothermal synthesis of a DDR membrane various factors were investigated. Results showed that a support refluxed in HN03 (aq) had improved zeolite attachment when compared to the pre-treatment of sonification. A seeding mass of 0.008g and a ten fold increase to 0.08g did not show a difference in the amount of coverage of the support with DDR crystals. When the seeding techniques of immersion and centrifbgation were used, the same homogenous, but inadequate seed coverage was seen. Irrespective of the synthesis parameters investigated, a gel was consecutively produced on the support after hydrothermal synthesis. Only when the hydrothermal synthesis period was increased from 48 hours to 96 hours, some crystallization occurred. This investigation on the manufacture of ceramic support was partly successful in that a cheaper Alcoa ceramic membrane was reached, although repeatability was poor. SEM and XRD analysis confirmed the size and purity of DDR crystals after using an optimized synthetic procedure. Information from this thesis lays the foundation for the successful synthesis of a DDR membrane, as it has provided valuable information to direct the future research on this topic.


We study the generalization error of randomized learning algorithms -- focusing on stochastic gradient descent (SGD) -- using a novel combination of PAC-Bayes and algorithmic stability. Importantly, our generalization bounds hold for all posterior distributions on an algorithm's random hyperparameters, including distributions that depend on the training data. This inspires an adaptive sampling algorithm for SGD that optimizes the posterior at runtime. We analyze this algorithm in the context of our generalization bounds and evaluate it on a benchmark dataset. Our experiments demonstrate that adaptive sampling can reduce empirical risk faster than uniform sampling while also improving out-of-sample accuracy.


The nucleation and bulk growth of polycrystalline SiC in a 2 inch PVT setup using isostatic and pyrolytic graphite as substrates was studied. Textured nucleation occurs under near-thermal equilibrium conditions at the initial growth stage with hexagonal platelet shaped crystallites of 4H, 6H and 15R polytypes. It is found that pyrolytic graphite results in enhanced texturing of the nucleating gas species. Reducing the pressure leads to growth of the crystallites until a closed polycrystalline SiC layer containing voids with a rough surface is developed. Bulk growth was conducted at 35 mbar Ar pressure at 2250°C in diffusion limited mass transport regime generating a convex shaped growth form of the solid-gas interface leading to lateral expansion of virtually [001] oriented crystallites. Growth at 2350°C led to the stabilization of 6H polytypic grains. The micropipe density in the bulk strongly depends on the substrate used.


This article investigates how news professionals in a nondemocratic regime rationalize their institutional roles and daily reporting practices, negotiate boundaries of their work, and make sense of their professional activities. This study used qualitative interviewing to explore personal experiences, perceived practices, and opinions of Belarusian journalists and media experts. When addressing the gap between their understanding of normative roles and describing their actual practices, journalists provided such rationalizations as personal beliefs and motivations, risks, internal conflict, and professional deformation, as well as attempts to find middle ground. News practitioners in autocratic regimes often expand boundaries of press freedom with civic courage by reporting critically of government policies and taking risks when public interests are at stake. In addition, the study highlights that certain restrictions lead to a more disciplined professional culture of journalists as thorough fact-checking is necessary to avoid penalties enforced by government offices.


The emphasis on scientific inquiry has increased the importance in developing the fundamental abilities to conduct scientific investigations and urged a need for valid assessments of students' inquiry abilities. We took advantage of the advanced technology to develop a simulation-based assessment of inquiry abilities (SAIA) that allowed students to generate scientific explanations and demonstrate their experimental abilities. This paper describes the validation of the assessment. Data were collected from 48 12th-grade students at a local high school who were categorized into three groups based on their program majors. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were utilized to validate SAIA. The quantitative results showed that SAIA was aligned with a validated reasoning-skill test (criterion-related validity), discriminated variance among different groups (construct validity), and was highly suitable for examining inquiry abilities (content validity). Additionally, we utilized the think-aloud technique in order to identify the performances exhibited by students while they accomplished the SAIA tasks. The protocol analysis indicated that in general, students demonstrated the expected abilities in SAIA and that their SAIA scores accurately reflected their performance levels of inquiry abilities. The results suggested that SAIA was a valid assessment for evaluating the inquiry abilities of high school students. This study also provided systemic strategies for validating simulation-based assessments.


Several countries have recently abolished or significantly reduced their taxes on bequests. Bequest taxes, on the other hand, were among the first to be introduced when modern systems of taxation were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. We propose an explanation for these facts which is based on a dynamic political economy model where redistribution is determined not only by wealth inequality but also by sectoral reallocation from agriculture to manufacturing. The model shows that the dynamics of capital accumulation induce a reduction of wealth inequality, which is further accelerated by the redistributive impact of the bequest tax. Through a standard politico-economic mechanism, wealth equalization pushes toward a reduced role of the bequest tax. At the same time, however, a second mechanism is at work, with structural reallocation from agriculture to manufacturing shifting the tax base from hard-to-avoid taxes on land toward easy-to-avoid taxes on capital. The differential treatment of land and capital introduces a source of asymmetry in the tax system which interferes with the determination of the dynamic political equilibrium of the model. Its effect is to compress bequest taxation but also to delay its gradual reduction due to declining wealth inequality. A number of extensions to the basic model allow to match our theory with the long-term evolution of bequest taxation in modern democracies and with the drastic discrepancies currently observed between tax systems in developed and underdeveloped countries.


ABSTRACT Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 is the most widely studied model cyanobacterium, with a well-developed omics level knowledgebase. Like the lifestyles of other cyanobacteria, that of Synechocystis PCC 6803 is tuned to diurnal changes in light intensity. In this study, we analyzed the expression patterns of all of the genes of this cyanobacterium over two consecutive diurnal periods. Using stringent criteria, we determined that the transcript levels of nearly 40% of the genes in Synechocystis PCC 6803 show robust diurnal oscillating behavior, with a majority of the transcripts being upregulated during the early light period. Such transcripts corresponded to a wide array of cellular processes, such as light harvesting, photosynthetic light and dark reactions, and central carbon metabolism. In contrast, transcripts of membrane transporters for transition metals involved in the photosynthetic electron transport chain (e.g., iron, manganese, and copper) were significantly upregulated during the late dark period. Thus, the pattern of global gene expression led to the development of two distinct transcriptional networks of coregulated oscillatory genes. These networks help describe how Synechocystis PCC 6803 regulates its metabolism toward the end of the dark period in anticipation of efficient photosynthesis during the early light period. Furthermore, in silico flux prediction of important cellular processes and experimental measurements of cellular ATP, NADP(H), and glycogen levels showed how this diurnal behavior influences its metabolic characteristics. In particular, NADPH/NADP+ showed a strong correlation with the majority of the genes whose expression peaks in the light. We conclude that this ratio is a key endogenous determinant of the diurnal behavior of this cyanobacterium. IMPORTANCE Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microbes that use energy from sunlight and CO2 as feedstock. Certain cyanobacterial strains are amenable to facile genetic manipulation, thus enabling synthetic biology and metabolic engineering applications. Such strains are being developed as a chassis for the sustainable production of food, feed, and fuel. To this end, a holistic knowledge of cyanobacterial physiology and its correlation with gene expression patterns under the diurnal cycle is warranted. In this report, a genomewide transcriptional analysis of Synechocystis PCC 6803, the most widely studied model cyanobacterium, sheds light on the global coordination of cellular processes during diurnal periods. Furthermore, we found that, in addition to light, the redox level of NADP(H) is an important endogenous regulator of diurnal entrainment of Synechocystis PCC 6803. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microbes that use energy from sunlight and CO2 as feedstock. Certain cyanobacterial strains are amenable to facile genetic manipulation, thus enabling synthetic biology and metabolic engineering applications. Such strains are being developed as a chassis for the sustainable production of food, feed, and fuel. To this end, a holistic knowledge of cyanobacterial physiology and its correlation with gene expression patterns under the diurnal cycle is warranted. In this report, a genomewide transcriptional analysis of Synechocystis PCC 6803, the most widely studied model cyanobacterium, sheds light on the global coordination of cellular processes during diurnal periods. Furthermore, we found that, in addition to light, the redox level of NADP(H) is an important endogenous regulator of diurnal entrainment of Synechocystis PCC 6803.


The vast majority of crop and revenue insurance policies sold in the United States are single-crop policies that insure against low yields or low revenues for each crop grown on a particular farm. This practice of insuring one crop at a time runs counter to the traditional risk management practice of diversifying across several enterprises to avoid putting all of ones eggs in a single basket. This paper examines the construction of whole-farm crop revenue insurance programs to include livestock. The whole-farm insurance product covers crop revenues from corn and soybeans and livestock revenues from hog production. The results show that at coverage levels of 95 percent or lower, the fair insurance premiums for this product on a well-diversified Iowa hog farm are far lower than the fair premiums for the corn crop alone on the same farm. The calculation of premium rates for the whole-farm insurance product is derived from a method for imposing correlations first proposed by Iman and Conover in 1982.


Music affects us physically and emotionally. Determining when changes in these reactions tend to manifest themselves can help us understand how and why. Activity Analysis quantifies alignment of response events across listeners and listenings through continuous responses to musical works. Its coordination tests allow us to determine if there is enough inter-response coherence to merit linking their summary time series to the musical event structure and to identify moments of exceptional alignment in response events. In this paper, we apply Activity Analysis to continuous ratings from several music experiments, using this wealth of data to compare its performance with that of statistics used in previous studies. We compare the Coordination Scores and nonparametric measures of local activity coordination to other coherence measures, including those derived from correlations and Cronbach's α. Activity Analysis reveals the variation in coordination of participants' responses for different musical works, picks out moments of coordination in response to different interpretations of the same music, and demonstrates that responses along the two dimensions in continuous 2D rating tasks can be independent.


Chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, are more prevalent in low-income and minority communities. One promising method to understand and address these chronic conditions is through Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). CBPR engages and empowers community members to identify risk factors and work toward solutions as equal partners with researchers. One positive and lasting outcome may be an increase in the community capacity which includes individual and community leadership development, policy making, creating connections and utilizing existing community resources. Evaluating community capacity created as a result of a CBPR project is one way to measure its effectiveness. This paper is a retrospective analysis of the capacity built during a CBPR study of diabetes and obesity in East and South Los Angeles which are two low-income and minority neighborhoods. Four people, who were heavily involved in the project, completed a retrospective analysis of the capacity built utilizing a validated instrument. There was consensus about the capacity built, which included: excellent participation by community members, inclusion of members' ideas to leverage additional funding, and pride of community members in their participation in the project. One area that could have been strengthened was increased access for leadership and research experience among community members, especially since the project ended prematurely. There were differences among the two community groups with East Los Angeles members focusing more on tangible interventions and grant writing, while South Los Angeles members had a greater policy focus. Communities and researchers who are embarking on a CBPR project can learn from those who have implemented the strategy. Measuring capacity built during and after the project, can be one way to understanding the contributions of a project in a community. CBPR is an empowering research methodology which, done correctly, can build community capacity and have long-term impacts on individuals and communities.


Supposing that, in a system operated by two users in different positions, it is easier for one of them to perform some operations, we developed a 3D User Interface (3DUI) that allows two users to interact together with an object, using the three modification operations (scale, rotate and translate) to reach a goal. The operations can be performed using two augmented reality cubes, which can obtain up to 6 degrees of freedom, and every user can select any operation by using a button on the keyboard to cycle through them. To the cubes are assigned two different points of view: an exocentric view, where the user will stand at a given distance from the object, with a point of view similar to the one of a human being; and an egocentric view, where the user will stand much closer to the object, having the point of view from the object's perspective. These points of view are locked to each user, which means that one user cannot use both views, just the one assigned to his ID. The cameras have a small margin of movement, allowing just a tilt to the sides, according to the Oculus's movements. With these features, this 3DUI aims to test which point of view is better for each operation, and how the degrees of freedom should be separated between the users.


Dormant axillary buds allow plants to repair minor damage to their canopies. In woody plants, these buds subsequently develop into epicormic structures that may allow vegetative recovery after major disturbances. They are an essential but little‐studied part of the persistence niche. We wondered what bud reserves were present in the leaf axils of northern Australian myrtaceous species, what levels of protection they have, and how this relates to the ecology of these species. Axillary buds of 21 species from 10 genera of northern Australian Myrtaceae were examined anatomically. All species possessed axillary buds in all axils examined, and accessory buds were recorded in 86% of species. The species exhibited an extremely wide range of variation—from axillary buds that consisted of only an apical dome with no leaf primordia (Calytrix exstipulata) to axils with a complex array of accessory buds and meristems located beneath the axil surface (Corymbia and Eucalyptus). The axils of the Eucalyptus and Corymbia species had a greater number of and better protected axillary buds and meristems than the other species studied, including some of their closest relatives, Arillastrum, Allosyncarpia, and Stockwellia. All investigated species had an excellent meristem reserve for recovery of photosynthetic capacity after minor canopy damage and for developing epicormic structures for sprouting after more severe damage. The complex and well‐protected axillary bud or meristem structures of Corymbia and Eucalyptus may be an important component of the success of these genera in Australia.


Geophysical Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) is a promising measurement technique for non-intrusive monitoring of Engineered Barrier System (EBS) during the operational phase of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Electrical resistivity is sensitive to water content and temperature, which are the key variables characterising the response of the EBS. In order to assess the technology readiness level of the ERT technique for EBS operational monitoring, a field demonstrator has been developed at the URL in Tournemire (France) within the project 'Modern 2020'. Preliminary ERT surveys were carried out in January and November 2017 to establish the background resistivity of the experimental area and assess the quality of electrode installation and survey protocols. Results of the surveys confirmed that the resistivity of the host rock in the demonstrator area is quite homogeneous and lower than 100Ωm in accordance with independent measurements carried out in previous campaigns. In addition, the lesson learned from the blank tests allowed identifying key requirements for effective ERT measurements. These include the need for a 3D electrode configuration, bespoke measurement protocols designed on the basis of sensitivity analysis of geometric factors, and collection of reciprocal data for enhanced data quality control.


The Dutch Disease, which means that beneficial developments for an economy begins to give harmful results over time, can be seen especially in the countries having rich natural resources. Will the Central Asian Turkic Republics, which have achieved high income thanks to their resources such as oil and natural gas, come to such a problem in the future? If there is such a risk, what would be the solutions and the measures to be taken? In this paper, the answers of these questions are sought. In this study, a panel data analysis applied for 1998-2015 periods. Determining cross-sectional dependence, stationarity of the series was examined by PANKPSS test with multiple structural breaks and it is found that the series are stationary at level. In regression analysis, a clear result could not be obtained about the existence of Dutch Disease. Causality relations among the series were investigated by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) method and results implying the existence of Dutch Disease in these countries were obtained. In the study, risks of economic models based on natural resources export and required precautions are explained with good application examples around the world. It is expected that the attention of policymakers of related countries will be drawn on this issue in order them to impose required precautions to have a sustainable and high economic growth.


Abstract The association between primary hypothyroidism and precocious puberty secondary to ovarian hyperstimulation has been recognized for over a century. Here, we report the case of a 9-year-old girl with severe primary hypothyroidism, who presented with premature menarche, enlarged pituitary gland, enlarged ovaries with multiple cysts, and elevated prolactin and α-feto protein levels. Pituitary and ovarian radiology findings, and α-feto protein levels normalized a few weeks after hypothyroidism treatment was started. Reviewing the literature we found several reports of increased levels of tumor markers in girls with this association. Thyroid function tests should be always part of the evaluation of patients with precocious puberty especially if the bone age is delayed. Tumor markers and liver function tests may be abnormal in patients with severe hypothyroidism and improve soon after thyroid hormone replacement is started.


The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston faced the threat of large tort judgments as a result of acts of sexual abuse committed by its priests. Because the Archdiocese is a public charity, it has been suggested that the Archdiocese could invoke the Massachusetts charitable immunity statute, which in certain circumstances places a $20,000 cap on the tort liability of a charitable organization. This Article explores the role of charitable organizations in our culture, and the distinctive type of state oversight to which they are subject. It then discusses various rationales for the doctrine of charitable immunity. The Article determines that charitable immunity is best understood as a limitation on vicarious liability. Finally, the Article examines these competing policy objectives as applied to the particular facts of the Archdiocese sexual abuse scandal. Although many of the cases involved have recently been settled, the legal and moral propriety of invoking the charitable immunity statute in such a situation is still an open question.


The method used to stratify weight status when evaluating fat-free mass (FFM) characteristics has primarily been based upon body mass index (BMI) and not body fat percent (BF%). As a result, it is unknown whether deviations in FFM characteristics are similar when stratifying weight status based upon BMI or BF%. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate FFM characteristics at different adiposity levels when stratifying weight status via BMI and BF%. Methods: 150 adults (50% males) participated in this study. 3-compartment (3C) model body composition was based upon body density (Db) via air displacement plethysmography (ADP) and total body water via bioimpedance analysis. FFM density (DFFM), residual (RFFM), and hydration (HFFM) were evaluated in all subjects. The Db obtained from a standalone assessment of ADP (2C-Db) and 3C model (3C-Db) were also compared between groups. Subjects were stratified based upon weight status (BMI and BF%). First, subjects were divided into a normal weight (NW-BMI), overweight (OW-BMI) or obese (OB-BMI) group, which were based upon BMI values of 18.524.99 kg/m2 (n=50), 25.0-29.99 kg/m2 (n=50), and  30.0 kg/m2 (n=50), respectively. Next, subjects were divided into groups based upon BF% where normal weight BF% values (NW-BF%) for males and females were  25 and 35% (n=81), respectively, and obese BF% values (OB-BF%) were 25 and 35% (n=69), respectively. Results: The DFFM ranged from 1.096 – 1.097 g/cm3 for all groups in both weight status stratification methods (all p > 0.05). HFFM and RFFM were similar for all comparisons and ranged from 73.99 – 74.33% and 25.67 – 26.01%, respectively, for BMI groups and 74.02 – 74.26% and 25.74 – 25.98%, respectively, for BF% groups (all p > 0.05). In contrast, the 3C-Db (1.050, 1.036, and 1.013 g/cm3) and 2C-Db (1.051, 1.036, and 1.014 g/cm3) were statistically significant for all comparisons between NW-BMI, OWBMI, and OB-BMI respectively (all p < 0.05). Furthermore, 3C-Db (1.051 and 1.011 g/cm3) and 2C-Db (1.052 and 1.012 g/cm3) were significantly different when comparing NW-BF% and OB-BF% (both p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Previous research has reported the FFM characteristics when stratifying weight status via BMI classification. As a result, it was unknown whether deviations in FFM characteristics existed when stratifying by BF%. Uniquely, the current study findings revealed that FFM characteristics are similar between groups regardless of the weight status stratification method (BMI or BF%).


Background: Acute gastroenteritis, a very common disease in humans affecting both children and adults, remains a major public health concern worldwide. Several groups of viruses have been reported as the causative agents of acute gastroenteritis. An outbreak of acute gastroenteritis with a high fatality rate was reported in Ondo State, Southwest, Nigeria, in September 2020. Methods: To provide a descriptive epidemiology of the outbreak, a field investigation was carried out in affected communities in September 2020. Results: Four Local Government Areas (LGA) were affected, with Odigbo LGA having the highest attack rate of 14.9 per 100,000 population. The epidemic curve was propagated in nature. 50 cases were reported with 21 deaths (42%). The outbreak primarily affected 15-year-olds (94%, n=47) and more males (58%, n=29). Conclusion: Poor sanitation, food, and water hygiene conditions in communities of the LGA visited were observed. The spread of the outbreak was probably facilitated by water sellers.


As the number of people surviving cancer continues to increase, the need to know about the issues they face and how to support them becomes more urgent. Cancer is a life-changing diagnosis, with many survivors experiencing a range of both positive and negative outcomes attributed to cancer. While most survivors adjust well over time and experience relatively high quality of life, issues persist for some. Many survivors experience ongoing physical effects such as fatigue, pain and sexual problems. Some experience elevated levels of anxiety, depression or mood impairment and ongoing disruptions to daily living and social activities. New issues that emerge can include employment problems, insurance difficulties and worries about health, including cancer recurrence. Positive effects include changed values and goals, enhanced appreciation of life, improved close relationship with others, altruism and lifestyle changes. This article provides a brief overview of the psychological, physical, social and existential impact of cancer, with an emphasis on the issues faced by survivors after the completion of primary treatment.


What has caused the early 21st-century emissions explosion in China? Driving a global explosion, it appears to stand in some relation to processes of globalization, but these links have mostly remained unexplored. This article revisits some established frameworks for understanding the connection between globalization and environmental degradation and argues that they are insufficient for explaining the Chinese explosion. A new hypothesis is outlined, called "the fossil capital hypothesis." It proposes that globally mobile capital will tend to relocate production to countries with cheap and disciplined labor, but only through the accelerated consumption of fossil energy. Via three specified "effects," the inflow of global capital will therefore set off massive increases in CO2 emissions. The hypothesis is applied in a brief analysis of developments in China between 2001 and 2008, and in other Asian countries after the Chinese strike wave in 2010.


Author(s): Kukuyeva, Irina A. | Advisor(s): de Leeuw, Jan | Abstract: There are three ways to learn about an object: from samples taken directly from the site, from simulation studies based on its known scientific properties, or from remote sensing images [64]. All three are carried out to study Earth and Mars. Our goal, however, is to learn about the second largest storm on Jupiter, called the White Oval, whose characteristics are unknown to this day [55]. As Jupiter is a gas giant and hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth [13], we can only make inferences about about the planet from retrieval algorithms and remotely sensed images. Our focus is to find latent variables from the remotely sensed data that best explain its underlying atmospheric structure. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is currently the most commonly employed technique to do so. For a data set with more than two modes, this approach fails to account for all of the variable interactions, especially if the distribution of the variables is not multivariate normal; an assumption that is rarely true of multispectral images. The thesis presents an overview of PCA along with the most commonly employed decompositions in other fields: Independent Component Analysis, Tucker-3 and CANDECOMP/PARAFAC and discusses their limitations in finding unobserved, independent structures in a data cube. We motivate the need for a novel dimension reduction technique that generalizes existing decompositions to find latent, statistically independent variables for one side of a multimodal (number of modes greater than two) data set while accounting for the variable interactions with its other modes. Our method is called Array Independent Component Analysis (AICA). As the main question of any decomposition is how to select a small number of latent variables that best capture the structure in the data, we extend the heuristic developed by Ceulemans and Kiers in [10] to aid in model selection for the AICA framework.The effectiveness of each dimension reduction technique is determined by the degree of interpretability of the uncovered hidden variables. AICA discovered two temperature gradients of the White Oval that matched the ones above the visible clouds of the Great Red Spot (in the North-South and West-East directions) [26], isolated the small storm to the South-East of the White Oval and identified the Raleigh scatter of gas molecules [52]. The other techniques, including PCA, did not isolate these or any other interpretable components.


The "dual-track approach" for transition would have to be facilitated by an endogenous movement of workers away from the state into private jobs. Yet, using the Chinese Household Income Project Series (CHIPs) data for the year 2002, we document preferences and premiums for state jobs in urban China over private jobs. The state sector attracted the best workers in more favorable industries and regions and offered higher earning premiums. In addition, family party membership is found to be instrumental in allocating workers into state jobs which explains a good deal of the earnings differentials in terms of an endogenous state premium.


Due to the high communication cost in distributed and federated learning, methods relying on compressed communication are becoming increasingly popular. Besides, the best theoretically and practically performing gradient-type methods invariably rely on some form of acceleration/momentum to reduce the number of communications (faster convergence), e.g., Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent (Nesterov, 1983, 2004) and Adam (Kingma and Ba, 2014). In order to combine the benefits of communication compression and convergence acceleration, we propose a \emph{compressed and accelerated} gradient method based on ANITA (Li, 2021) for distributed optimization, which we call CANITA. Our CANITA achieves the \emph{first accelerated rate} $O\bigg(\sqrt{\Big(1+\sqrt{\frac{\omega^3}{n}}\Big)\frac{L}{\epsilon}} + \omega\big(\frac{1}{\epsilon}\big)^{\frac{1}{3}}\bigg)$, which improves upon the state-of-the-art non-accelerated rate $O\left((1+\frac{\omega}{n})\frac{L}{\epsilon} + \frac{\omega^2+\omega}{\omega+n}\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$ of DIANA (Khaled et al., 2020) for distributed general convex problems, where $\epsilon$ is the target error, $L$ is the smooth parameter of the objective, $n$ is the number of machines/devices, and $\omega$ is the compression parameter (larger $\omega$ means more compression can be applied, and no compression implies $\omega=0$). Our results show that as long as the number of devices $n$ is large (often true in distributed/federated learning), or the compression $\omega$ is not very high, CANITA achieves the faster convergence rate $O\Big(\sqrt{\frac{L}{\epsilon}}\Big)$, i.e., the number of communication rounds is $O\Big(\sqrt{\frac{L}{\epsilon}}\Big)$ (vs. $O\big(\frac{L}{\epsilon}\big)$ achieved by previous works). As a result, CANITA enjoys the advantages of both compression (compressed communication in each round) and acceleration (much fewer communication rounds).


The Kern Canyon fault is a major north-trending fault that is continuous for a distance of 140 km in the southern Sierra Nevada, California. Previous geologic mapping and geochronological work along the northern third of the fault indicate that dextral offset occurred sometime after 80 Ma and before 3.5 Ma; this offset was interpreted to be the result of Cenozoic basin-and-range extension. Our new results from the central third of the fault (Kernville-Lake Isabella region) indicate an earlier right-lateral movement history, contemporaneous with emplacement of the largest plutons in the Sierra Nevada. The older structure is termed the proto-Kern Canyon fault zone. The Cenozoic fault trace is a narrow zone of brittle deformation, whereas the Cretaceous fault zone is a broad zone of ductile deformation. U-Pb zircon geochronology on plutonic and metavolcanic rocks involved in the ductile deformation, as well as a pluton that postdates ductile deformation, demonstrate that the proto-Kern Canyon fault zone was active at 85 Ma, and may have begun to move as early as 105 Ma. Longitudinal strike-slip faults are common in modern magmatic arcs where convergence is oblique. The proto-Kern Canyon fault zone may have originated in response to a moderate northward component in subduction of the Farallon plate or perhaps a strong northward component for the Kula plate.


Dispersive optical bistability with a threshold cw input power of approximately 10 mW has been observed in a single-mode fiber-optic ring resonator. Light is coupled in and out of the resonator by a single-mode-fiber variable directional coupler. A fiber-optic Faraday isolator is incorporated into the ring, thus increasing the threshold for stimulated Brillouin oscillation by a factor of 100 and permitting other weaker nonlinear effects such as bistability to be observed. Phase-sensitive amplification and deamplification (squeezing) of classical time-stationary noise is demonstrated and shown to be in agreement with the theory of squeezed-state generation in such a nonlinear fiber ring resonator. Light scattering by elastic eigenmodes of the fiber (guided-acoustic-wave Brillouin scattering, GAWBS) adds noise to light circulating in the resonator and obscures the observation of squeezed quantum fluctuations. The properties of this GAWBS scattering are investigated and compared with theory.


The Law of Property provides an incisive and clear summary of the doctrine and theory animating the law of private property. The book is organized around three main themes: acquiring property, dividing property, and limiting rights in property. Specific topics include, the law of capture, creation, adverse possession, estates and future interests, concurrent ownership, marital property, leaseholds, land transfers, recordation, easements, covenants, land use controls, and the Takings Clause, among others. The book synthesizes these diverse topics by highlighting the overarching themes that join them together. It is essential reading for any property student, and can be used in conjunction with any leading property casebook. The Second Edition features new cutting-edge property topics including a recent Supreme Court case interpreting the Takings Clause, and disputes around hydrofracking and short-term rentals (like Airbnb). It has been edited to account for changes to martial property following new constitutional law on same-sex marriage. It now includes references to the Sprankling Coletta casebook, as well as updated citations to the most recent editions of the leading casebooks.


: - Diseases can be prevented by proper immunization procedures, however, with most parents working in this generation and not most clinics pay much attention on the individual planning and notifications of their patients, this research will show a solution to such crucial issue. The research depicts an architectural structure using mobile computing which will plot a chart of vaccination planner synchronous with the parent's personal planner so as to set a schedule amenable to both the parties and a notification through will be generated. This will be a tool for parents and assistance to clinics and hospitals catering vaccinations shots for children.


BACKGROUND
In gerontological practice, special observation is a known nursing activity across different settings. The group that possibly are most effected by this intervention are older persons with dementia and/or delirium. The research literature about special observations in the mental health field is small, more disappointingly there appears to be little published literature about special observations in regard to older persons with dementia and/or delirium.

AIMS
The aims of this study are to (i) establish the state of current published research on special observations in regard to older persons with dementia and/or delirium and (ii) make recommendations for research and practice.

DESIGN AND METHOD
A literature review.

RESULTS
Most literature pertains to adult mental health practice and services. Themes were generated and discussed in relation to gerontological practice.

CONCLUSION
This review has established there is variance in the usage of the terms 'special observation' and 'constant observation'. It concludes that there is no published research on special or constant observations in relation to older people with dementia/delirium or the purpose of this activity. There is therefore a clear need to establish a research base in the topic.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
Given the limited evidence, practitioners and managers need to be cautious when writing and implementing policies about special observation. However, until gerontological research is improved, research from mental health nursing will need to be drawn on with caution and the purpose of special observation determined locally. To be of therapeutic value and to be cost effective, special observation should be seen as a skilled nursing intervention and not a passive 'watching' or 'sitter' activity.


The prevalence and prognostic value of a concomitant diagnosis of symptomatic or asymptomatic multiple myeloma (MM), as defined by the current International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) criteria, in patients with immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis (AL), are unknown. We studied 46 consecutive patients with AL who underwent quantification of serum M‐protein and clonal bone marrow plasma cells, as well as a comprehensive evaluation for end organ damage by MM. Using standard morphology and CD138 immunohistochemical staining, 57% and 80% of patients were found to have concomitant MM, respectively. Nine patients exhibited end organ damage consistent with a diagnosis of symptomatic MM. While overall survival was similar between AL patients with or without concurrent myeloma (1‐year overall survival 68% vs. 87%; P = 0·27), a diagnosis of symptomatic myeloma was associated with inferior outcome (1‐year overall survival 39% vs. 81%; P = 0·005). Quantification of bone marrow plasma cells by both standard morphology and CD138 immunohistochemistry identified a much higher prevalence of concurrent MM in patients with AL than previously reported. Evaluation of bone marrow plasma cell infiltration and presence of myeloma associated end organ damage could be clinically useful for prognostication of patients with AL.