The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how place discourses emerge in places characterised by high levels of population migration, and to stimulate future research concerned with these phenomena. Within human geography literature (see Riddett 1995; Sheller 2004; Roberts and Young 2008) there is a growing assumption that population migration influences the way places are produced and maintained. Commenting on these phenomena in the Northern Territory of Australia for example, Roberts and Young (2008, p.53) suggested that high levels of population migration "inevitably impacts upon Darwin"s sense of place". If such an assumption is true, there will be implications for the management of places that are characterised by high levels of migration. My research explored this growing assumption that population migration influences the way places are produced and maintained. To conduct my exploration I first developed a case study (i.e. Mindil Beach in Darwin, Australia) and a theoretical framework influenced by social constructionism and symbolic interactionism. Next, I produced two data sets - NT migration phases and Mindil Beach discourses (using a descriptive analysis and Ethnographic Content Analysis [ECA] methodology respectively) – which formed the basis of my investigation. Through a comparative analysis of these data sets, I explored the possibility that the NT"s migration patterns influenced the emergence of Mindil Beach discourses. My comparative analysis of NT migration phases and Mindil Beach discourses yielded valuable theoretical, methodological and practical results. In respect to theory, my results conveyed alternative theoretical perspectives regarding the influence of population migration on the production of place. Through an in-depth discussion of these perspectives I established a new agenda for future research. In respect to methodology, my results exhibited an unconventional execution of Ethnographic Content Analysis and therefore broadened the means by which place research can be undertaken. In respect to practice, my research proposed useful techniques to manage places characterised by extreme population migration.


Fire plays a fundamental role in the structure of vegetation communities in the Caldenal. However, this effect has decreased considerably since the introduction of domestic cattle, which reduces the amount of fine combustible material. Objectives of this study were (1) to analyze the diversity and composition of a typical vegetation community in the south of the Caldenal after exposure to different fire frequencies, and (2) to show the convenience of using controlled fire for reversing the processes of scrub formation to states with more diverse and productive grassland communities. Forty-five herbaceous and woody species were recorded. Treatment C (control) showed the greatest richness and diversity in December 2006 and 2007. After the last controlled fire, the composition of the vegetation community differed significantly between treatment C and treatments T1 and T2 (with burns every 3-4 and 7-8 years, respectively). This change was mainly due to the proliferation of palatable perennial grasses. Vegetation composition was similar for C and T2 (ANOSIM, R=0.01, p=0.32 and R=0.06, p=0.01, respectively) in 2006 and 2007. However, treatment T1 showed significant changes (ANOSIM, R=0.42, p=0.01). Nasella clarazii, which is a characteristic palatable grass in the region, was the perennial forage grass with greatest cover in treatment T2, whereas it was scarce in treatments C and T1. Unpalatable grasses and bushes grew at sites without fire, e.g. treatment C in this study. Our results show that use of controlled fire of intermediate frequencies would favor the aerial cover of palatable perennial grasses in states that are most useful for sustainable cattle production.


The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of music and music-video on core affect during and immediately after stationary cycling at the lactate threshold. A randomized, fully counterbalanced, crossover design with three conditions (music, music-video, and a no-music-video control) was adopted. Twenty-four participants exercised at lactate threshold while exposed to music, music-video, and control conditions. Affective valence and perceived activation were assessed every 2 min during a 20-min exercise bout and every 5 min post exercise over a 20-min period. Results indicated that there was a significant condition x time interaction for affective valence. The music-video condition elicited the highest levels of affective valence followed by the music condition and control. There was a main effect of condition for affective valence, wherein the experimental conditions facilitated significantly higher affective valence than control. Significant main effects of time emerged for both affective valence and perceived activation. Regardless of condition, affective valence decreased during the exercise bout and increased immediately post exercise. Conversely, perceived activation increased during exercise and decreased immediately post exercise. The present findings indicate that music and music-video can enhance core affect during exercise at the lactate threshold and the implications for exercise adherence are expounded.


Three hundred years ago people made most of what they used, or got it in trade from their neighbours. Now, no one seems to make anything, and we buy what we need from shops. "Gifts and Commodities" describes the cultural and historical process of these changes and looks at the rise of consumer society in Britain and the United States. It investigates the ways that people think about and relate to objects in 20th century culture, at how those relationships have developed, and the social meanings they have for relations with others. Using aspects of anthropology and sociology to describe the importance of shopping and gift-giving in our lives and in western economies, this work traces the development of shopping and retailing practices, and the emergence of modern notions of objects and the self. It brings together a wealth of information on the history of the retail trade and examines the reality of the distinctions we draw between the impersonal economic sphere and personal social sphere and is an interdisciplinary study of the links we forge between ourselves, our social groups and the commodities we buy and give.


According to preliminary data released by Rosstat, in 2018 life expectancy for Russian population increased by 0.2 year and came to 72.84 years. One of the acute demographic problems in Russia is high differentiation of life expectancy by gender which is due to low life expectancy for males. In 2018, the difference between male and female life expectancy constituted 10.21 years, which is one of the highest indicators among European countries.


Urchin-flowerlike hierarchical LaNiO3 spheres were synthesized by a modified coprecipitation method from vesicle solutions. The LaNiO3 spheres' structure and catalytic activity were elaborately studied by varying the mole ratio of La and Ni. Both samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and XPS, the results revealed a variety of urchin-flowerlike hierarchical LaNiO3 spheres with different La/Ni molar ratios (n(La): n (Ni)=1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1) were prepared by self-assembly method, and all the catalysts provided typical diffraction patterns for the LaNiO3 rhombohedral structure characteristics. Urchin-flowerlike hierarchical LaNiO3-3 spheres (~20 µm to 30 µm diameter) shows a typical urchin-flowerlike hierarchical sphere structure, which was composed of ~100-nm-thickultrathin sheets. The LaNiO3-3 has a better morphology, crystal configuration, photocatalytic activity (95.63%) for RB under ultraviolet light.


The health disparity surrounding infant mortality has been a challenge for public health professionals for the past two decades. Today African American babies continue to die at a rate two times higher than the nation's average rate. The purpose of this study was to explore African American mothers' perspectives on their pregnancy experience and their babies' birth outcomes, as a way to provide suggestions for current efforts and interventions being used to lower the rate of infant mortality in the African American population. This study examined fifteen peer reviewed articles that shared the perspectives of African American women who were either pregnant, had children or were of childbearing age. The articles were analyzed and placed into groups to come up with common themes that were present throughout the fifteen articles. The themes that were developed from the selected articles included: a) support & empowerment, b) knowledge & resources, and c) access to quality care. There is overlap between all three themes which suggested that all three themes work together in providing an ideal pregnancy. Even with all three themes working together it was recognized that the impact of each theme could vary depending on the mothers' background. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge different value systems when developing interventions to address the issue of infant mortality rather than applying one intervention to all.


The objective of this study was to see whether there were any
differences in chemical constituents between the faeces of the stick
insects, Hepteropteryx dilata, and the leaves of the plants Psidium
guajava L. which the insects used for their food.
Various extraction techniques, namely, Soxhlet, supercritical fluid
extraction and purge and trap technique were used for the initial
extraction of the chemical constituents. After initial extraction, the
sample solutions underwent further purification by solid phase extraction
(SPE) using magnesium silicate as the packing material. The treated
samples were then injected onto either a high resolution capillary column
(PTE-5™ or SPB-5) gas chromatograph (GC) with a flame ionisation
detector or the high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) using a
reversed phase C-18 column and detection by photodiode array detector.
The compounds were identified with the help of gas chromatography
coupled with a mass spectrometer. [Continues.]


The focus of this thesis is on the study of reproduction strategy in the context of evolutionary and social-evolutionary theory. Much of the hierarchical structure that is evident in the natural world is due to major evolutionary transitions where individual subunits that once reproduced individually now reproduce only as part of a larger unit. Modelling and understanding the processes behind the evolution of this hierarchy can have applications in both biology and computer science. I argue that to explain the major transitions it is necessary to understand why an individual would reduce its reproductive success to invest instead in a higher reproductive process (i.e., reproduce collectively with other individuals).

To address this problem, a method for studying reproduction strategy was developed and is presented in this thesis. The method takes an abstract physiological approach to reproduction. It considers an individual as a quantity of resources and set of genes which define its reproduction strategy. I then investigate the advantages of different reproduction strategies and identify which strategies may dominate others. The strategies considered in my investigations include: an individual reproducing on its own; an individual gambling its total resources against those of multiple other individuals; or an individual sharing its reproductive effort with a partner or several other partners.

Starting with individual reproduction, I simply study why an individual might reduce its reproductive rate when, on the face of it, it seems that maximum fecundity should be the best option. The model is also motivated in light of current literature on life history and microbial ecology in particular. The results show how it can be advantageous for an individual to hedge its bets and delay reproduction; waiting instead until it has accumulated more resources and is less vulnerable to harsh periods. The results make predictions that are experimentally verifiable.

Given the model of individual reproduction, I reapply the growth equations to question whether there is any advantage to sharing reproductive effort through collective reproduction. This model also shows that it can pay to hedge one's bets and invest in the less vulnerable, but slower, collective reproductive strategy. The results show that there is a mathematical relationship between the number of parents and the up-front cost of reproduction spent on creating a new offspring – depending on the extra cost per parent, two parents may be the best strategy or perhaps many parents.

Looking in more detail at the transition from unicellular organisms to multicellular organisms, I model the macrocyst stage in the slime mould Dictyostelium. I consider how the macrocyst stage may be an early example of collective reproduction in protozoa. Here individuals aggregate to be ingested by a central cell which produces homogeneous offspring. I assume that each individual is gambling on being the central cell and the model presented reveals under what conditions this is likely to be a good strategy when compared to individual reproduction. Again, the results show that there is an advantage to hedging one's bets and investing in the macrocyst rather than going it alone.

Finally I consider the origin of sexual reproduction in more detail. The traditional approach argues that the slower growth rate of sexually reproducing organisms means that there is a paradox concerning the origins and maintenance of sexual reproduction, especially when one considers males which do not contribute to their offspring. Extending the previous model of collective reproduction, I consider how many resources selfish individuals may contribute to their offspring. The results show that there is a lower bound to the resources individuals may contribute and that when there is a high amplitude of resource fluctuation, the sexual strategy can dominate an asexual strategy.

As well as the main body of work on the topic of individual reproduction, some further background work is also presented. The models use both mathematical and computer simulation models. These two approaches are compared and contrasted with reference to their value in generating good scientific explanations of the sorts of phenomena found in the types of systems I am studying.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
More than 2000 adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantations (LDLT) have been performed in the United States, yet the potential benefit to liver transplant candidates of undergoing LDLT compared with waiting for deceased donor liver transplantation (DDLT) is unknown. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a survival benefit of adult LDLT.

METHODS
Adults with chronic liver disease who had a potential living donor evaluated from January 1998 to February 2003 at 9 university-based hospitals were analyzed. Starting at the time of a potential donor's evaluation, we compared mortality after LDLT to mortality among those who remained on the waiting list or received DDLT. Median follow-up was 4.4 years. Comparisons were made by hazard ratios (HR) adjusted for LDLT candidate characteristics at the time of donor evaluation.

RESULTS
Among 807 potential living donor recipients, 389 underwent LDLT, 249 underwent DDLT, 99 died without transplantation, and 70 were awaiting transplantation at last follow-up. Receipt of LDLT was associated with an adjusted mortality HR of 0.56 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.42-0.74; P < .001) relative to candidates who did not undergo LDLT. As centers gained greater experience (>20 LDLT), LDLT benefit was magnified, with a mortality HR of 0.35 (95% CI: 0.23-0.53; P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS
Adult LDLT was associated with lower mortality than the alternative of waiting for DDLT. This reduction in mortality was magnified as centers gained experience with LDLT. This reduction in transplant candidate mortality must be balanced against the risks undertaken by the living donors themselves.


The revolution in IT has changed our lifestyles. Now it is possible to access our personal, financial, business and other assets at anytime from anywhere using hand held devices. There has been a dramatic increase in the use of mobile hand held computers, such as PDA, Pocket PCs, Smart Phones and Laptops. The widespread popularity of mobile computing devices led the researchers to develop newer framework to run applications that were previously considered feasible only on high-end Personal Computers and Workstations.

Improvement in embedded microprocessors and emerging standards in wireless communications enable mobile devices to inter-communicate and ubiquitously access information more efficiently over the network. The situation is becoming more interesting with the involvement of a combination of mobile Ad hoc and fixed Infrastructure networks having heterogeneous computational nodes with different capabilities. These devices can work in collaboration to process and deliver Multimedia contents and perform high level tasks efficiently.

With the ownership of multiple devices by single owners, there is an increasing demand of collaborative frameworks seamlessly sharing the computational burden and information contents available on all these devices whenever and wherever required. The interface or console used for retrieval of that information may change depending on the availability of suitable gadget with the owner. This potential presents excellent opportunities for the researchers to enhance all layers of network and computing for processing and distribution of Multimedia contents. This thesis proposes techniques to address these opportunities

The problem of special interest in this heterogeneous computing and networking environment is Multimedia content distribution and processing. This area poses a multifaceted problem constituting following functional aspects at different layers:

1. Transmission (on Physical Layer)

2. Routing (on Network Layer)

3. Multimedia Processing (implemented as Middle Ware)

4. Multimedia Task Scheduling (also implemented as Middle Ware)

Multimedia transmission over heterogeneous computation and networking environment involves nodes with diverse performance levels as well as wireless and wired networks of different bandwidths, latencies and reliability characteristics. The first aspect that is targeted in this research is the transmission mechanism among the communicating nodes. This is particularly important to mobile nodes that are communicating over wireless with static nodes that are connected to the wired Infrastructure network. Antennas must be placed at suitable locations so that all the mobile nodes remain connected to the static Infrastructure nodes at all times. Moreover range of wireless network must be sufficient to provide reliable coverage to the moving nodes. This thesis proposes an effective algorithm for antenna placement for optimal coverage of mobile nodes in an Ad hoc setting. Furthermore, novel techniques were developed during this research work by modification of key transmission parameter of CSMA/CD to increase the range of mobile communicating devices in adhoc scenario.

For proper delivery of data and control packets between the communicating nodes, certain rules must be defined that orchestrate the flow of packets over the networks via intermediary gateway nodes. The requirement of newer, more efficient routing protocols is increasing with the introduction of newer mobile computing applications. Furthermore the requirement for uniform load balancing and task distribution over different nodes is a key factor in today's computing environment. This thesis proposes routing algorithms; that leads to efficient routing for Multimedia delivery in a Hybrid network configuration.

Depending on the scenario of deployment, either reactive or proactive routing algorithms are utilized. Reactive routing protocols have the benefit of lesser resource requirements as well as low traffic overhead in the network since they find routes on demand. Proactive routing protocols maintain routing tables to forward packets. Thus communicating devices using proactive protocols must have sufficient RAM to maintain routing tables. Initial delay caused by route discovery mechanisms in the existing reactive protocols render them unsuitable for Multimedia transmission. A Hybrid solution between proactive and reactive routing schemes is worth investigating. The thesis proposes an extension to AODV; A Reactive routing protocol to make it suitable for Multimedia communication and further proposes the use of a modified version of OLSR protocol for the same

Multimedia services over heterogeneous Hybrid networks pose several challenges for the currently available hand held devices. The computational requirements for real-time processing of Multimedia and its timely delivery on the basis of a scheduling algorithm over the network are the two most critical challenges faced by researchers. The processing power needed to execute complex encoding and decoding algorithms is much higher than that available in current hand held devices. Schemes such as remote execution, load balancing, task migration and computation-offloading have promising results. In a collaborative setting breaking up of larger tasks into smaller sub tasks and distributing them over many low performance devices or migrating some of the tasks to a high performance power plugged computing platform is an effective way of processing computationally intensive Multimedia algorithms for hand held devices. This requires proper sequencing of execution of tasks and finding suitable nodes that are capable of processing and scheduling Multimedia information using a suitable scheduler is essential. The thesis proposes Middleware software that combines the performance of small hand held devices by splitting the original task into smaller chunks and later on gathers their results for presentation and delivery to solve the complete problem.

As mobile devices have limited computational capabilities and battery life, therefore the thesis focuses on various parameters that are important in successful processing and delivery of Multimedia content in real time or under bounded time constraints. To fulfill these constraints, the network characteristics such as delays, jitter, bandwidth fluctuations, connection availability and reliability etc. along with available resources on each participating node e.g. CPU performance capacity, Memory availability, Overall response time, Battery Life (in case of mobile nodes) and their average availability in the network are considered.

To summarize, this research deals with the complex task of transmission, routing, processing and scheduling of Multimedia contents by focusing on each layer


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Fire scars have been widely used as proxies for the reconstruction of fire history; however, little is known about the impact of fire injury on wood anatomy. This study investigates changes in tracheid and ray traits in fire scars of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), western larch (Larix occidentalis) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), and discusses their ecophysiological implications for tree recovery from fire.

METHODS
Transverse and tangential microsections were prepared for light microscopy and image analysis. Measurements of tracheids and rays were made in the three spatial dimensions: axially (at different section heights), radially (in different rings) and tangentially (with increasing distance from the wound margin).

KEY RESULTS
Changes were strongest in the first year after fire injury, with a decrease in tracheid size (by 25-30 %) and an increase in tracheid density (by 21-53 %) for the three species. In addition, an increase in ray size (by 5-27 %) and an increase in ray density (by 19-36 %) were found in P. menziesii and L. occidentalis. Changes were comparable along the fire-injured stem and were often most marked close to the fire scar.

CONCLUSIONS
The differentiation after fire injury of narrower and more numerous tracheids expresses a trade-off between hydraulic safety and hydraulic efficiency, while that of larger and more numerous rays serves compartmentalization and wound closure, mechanical strength and defence responses. Pinus ponderosa does not generally produce more ray tissue after fire injury and thus appears to be more adapted to fire.


This article searches for solutions to the most perplexing problems in global health - problems so important that they affect the fate of millions of people, with economic, political, and security ramifications for the world's population. There are a variety of solutions scholars propose to improve global health and close the yawning health gap between rich and poor: global health is in the national interests of the major State powers; States owe an ethical duty to act; or international legal norms require effective action. However, arguments based on national interest, ethics, or international law have logical weaknesses. The coincidence of national and global interests is much narrower than scholars claim. Ethical arguments unravel when searching questions are asked about who exactly has the duty to act and at what level of commitment. And international law has serious structural problems of application, definition, and enforcement. What is truly needed, and which richer countries instinctively do for their own citizens, is to meet what I call "basic survival needs." By focusing on the major determinants of health, the international community could dramatically improve prospects for good health. Basic survival needs include sanitation and sewage, pest control, clean air and water, tobacco reduction, diet and nutrition, essential medicines and vaccines, and functioning health systems. Meeting everyday survival needs may lack the glamour of high-technology medicine or dramatic rescue, but what they lack in excitement they gain in their potential impact on health, precisely because they deal with the major causes of common disease and disabilities across the globe. If meeting basic survival needs can truly make a difference for the world's population then how can international law play a constructive role? What is required is an innovative way of structuring international obligations. A vehicle such as a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) could powerfully improve global health governance. Such a Framework Convention would commit States to a set of targets, both economic and logistic, and dismantle barriers to constructive engagement by the private and charitable sectors. It would stimulate creative public/private partnerships and actively engage civil society stakeholders. A FCGH could set achievable goals for global health spending as a proportion of GNP; define areas of cost effective investment to meet basic survival needs; build sustainable health systems; and create incentives for scientific innovation for affordable vaccines and essential medicines. This article first examines the compelling issue of global health equity, and inquires whether it is fair that people in poor countries suffer such a disproportionate burden of disease and premature death. Second, the article explains a basic problem in global health: why health hazards seem to change form and migrate everywhere on the earth. Third, the article inquires why governments should care about serious health threats outside their borders, and explores the alternative rationales: direct health benefits, economic benefits, and improved national security. Fourth, the article describes how the international community focuses on a few high profile, heart-rending, issues while largely ignoring deeper, systemic problems in global health. By focusing on basic survival needs, the international community could dramatically improve prospects for the world's population. Finally, the article explores the value of international law itself, and proposes an innovative mechanism for global health reform - a Framework Convention on Global Health.


The purpose of the paper is to analyse informal collaboration in the public transport sector. Two Swedish case studies Living lab Uddevalla and Guidelines for Regional BRT are analysed and compared concerning what kind of learning occurred and what lessons regarding informal collaboration to draw from the two cases. For both cases the analysis indicates that individual, single loop learning is the most striking type of learning among the participants. The voluntary approach of the two cases has advantages and drawbacks. Advantages include that participants were truly interested in the issues of collaboration, which created energy and contributed to building trust. The main drawback identified was that in both cases the voluntary enthusiasm of the participants collided with the formal requirements of planning and decision making. This has stifled the possibility of the informal collaboration processes to induce change in prevailing practices.


In the 1640s--a decade of epidemic and warfare across colonial North America--eight Jesuit missionaries met their deaths at the hands of native antagonists. With their collective canonization in 1930, these men, known to the devout as the North American martyrs, would become the continent's first official Catholic saints. In "The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs," Emma Anderson untangles the complexities of these seminal acts of violence and their ever-changing legacy across the centuries. While exploring how Jesuit missionaries perceived their terrifying final hours, the work also seeks to comprehend the motivations of the those who confronted them from the other side of the axe, musket, or caldron of boiling water, and to illuminate the experiences of those native Catholics who, though they died alongside their missionary mentors, have yet to receive comparable recognition as martyrs by the Catholic Church. In tracing the creation and evolution of the cult of the martyrs across the centuries, Anderson reveals the ways in which both believers and detractors have honored and preserved the memory of the martyrs in this "afterlife," and how their powerful story has been continually reinterpreted in the collective imagination over the centuries. As rival shrines rose to honor the martyrs on either side of the U.S.-Canadian border, these figures would both unite and deeply divide natives and non-natives, francophones and anglophones, Protestants and Catholics, Canadians and Americans, forging a legacy as controversial as it has been enduring.


Falling asleep while driving accounts for a considerable proportion of vehicle accidents under monotonous driving conditions. Many of these accidents are related to work--for example, drivers of lorries, goods vehicles, and company cars. Time of day (circadian) effects are profound, with sleepiness being particularly evident during night shift work, and driving home afterwards. Circadian factors are as important in determining driver sleepiness as is the duration of the drive, but only duration of the drive is built into legislation protecting professional drivers. Older drivers are also vulnerable to sleepiness in the mid-afternoon. Possible pathological causes of driver sleepiness are discussed, but there is little evidence that this factor contributes greatly to the accident statistics. Sleep does not occur spontaneously without warning. Drivers falling asleep are unlikely to recollect having done so, but will be aware of the precursory state of increasing sleepiness; probably reaching a state of fighting off sleep before an accident. Self awareness of sleepiness is a better method for alerting the driver than automatic sleepiness detectors in the vehicle. None of these have been proved to be reliable and most have shortcomings. Putative counter measures to sleepiness, adopted during continued driving (cold air, use of car radio) are only effective for a short time. The only safe counter measure to driver sleepiness, particularly when the driver reaches the stage of fighting sleep, is to stop driving, and--for example, take a 30 minute break encompassing a short (< 15 minute) nap or coffee (about 150 mg caffeine), which are very effective particularly if taken together. Exercise is of little use. CONCLUSIONS: More education of employers and employees is needed about planning journeys, the dangers of driving while sleepy, and driving at vulnerable times of the day.


Machine
learning (ML) has brought significant technological innovations in many fields,
but it has not been widely embraced by most researchers of natural sciences to
date. Traditional understanding and
promotion of chemical analysis cannot meet the definition and requirement of
big data for running of ML. Over the years, we focused on building a more
versatile and low-cost approach to the acquisition of copious amounts of data
containing in a chemical reaction. The generated data meet exclusively the
thirst of ML when swimming in the vast space of chemical effect. As
proof in this study, we carried out a case for acute toxicity test throughout
the whole routine, from model building, chip preparation, data collection, and
ML training. Such a strategy will probably play an important role in connecting
ML with much research in natural science in the future.


This paper evaluates the implications of Eastern EU enlargement with the use of a computable general equilibrium model. The focus is on accession to the Single Market, with explicit modelling of the removal of border costs and costs of producing to different national standards. The results indicate significant welfare gains for the CEECs (volume of GDP increases by 1.4-2.4%) and modest gains for the EU. The steady state scenarios, which allow for the capital stock adjustment in response to higher return to capital, more than double the static welfare gains.


The locality of Ahl at Oughlam, situated at the southeastern limit of the city of Casablanca (Morocco) at about 34 degrees north, is dated by the biochronology of its rich mammalian fauna to about 2.5 Ma. At the present time it is 6.5 km from the Atlantic Ocean but it was on the seashore when the fossil material was deposited. Among the seabirds are Phoebastria anglica, Phoebastria sp. cf. P. albatrus, Phoebastria sp. cf. P. nigripes, Pelagornis mauretanicus, Calonectris sp. cf. C. diomedea, Morus peninsularis, Morus sp. cf. M. bassanus, Catharacta sp. cf. C. skua, Alca ausonia. Among the landbirds are Struthio asiaticus, Geronticus olsoni n.sp., several anseriforms, Plioperdix africana n.sp., several otidids, Agapornis atlanticus n.sp., Tyto balearica, T. alba, Surnia robusta, and a few Passeriformes. The Recent species of albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus and P. nigripes live in the North Pacific but were also present in the North Atlantic until the Middle Pleistocene. The marine avifauna shows many similarities with that of the Yorktown Formation, in North Carolina. Unlike the mammals, which include many genera in common with the African faunas, the landbirds have more affinities with the Palaearctic region than with the Ethiopian region. They include several extinct genera or species that have been described, or identified, in the Pliocene of the Palaearctic region. The terrestrial avifauna is very different from all those that have been described from the upper Miocene and Pliocene of Africa


The controlling of mobile robots has been and still is in the focus of researchers. Fuzzy rule-based controllers are extensively used to control robots. Path planners were created using different search methods finding the shortest trajectory between two points and thereby avoiding recorded obstacles. The low degree of automation in hospitals promises huge potential for increasing logistical effects by the use of mobile robots. Especially the automated transport of a hospital bed, which manually requires two persons, would release time from transportation activities. The usage of a mobile robot joined to a hospital bed makes controlling considerably harder. This document describes a project accomplished by me in cooperation with RobCab AB. During the project, a path planner was created and controlling strategies to move a mobile robot joined to a hospital bed between two locations was implemented. The controlling strategies are not only based on sensor readings from a laser mounted on the mobile robot and a list of way points provided by a path planner but incorporates also the position of the bed in the environment. The robot adapts its behavior to ensure a safe movement considering the position of the bed which is not only determined by the kinematics of the robot-bed model but also by an external force in the form of a person following the transport (human intelligence). Development was done on the Stage simulator and is intended to be finally transferred to a real robot platform. Tests done in the simulator showed that the implemented methods are applicable to bring the bed to the desired goal taking into account the reaction of the person following the transport.


This paper carries out the task of evaluating inflation forecasts from the Livingston Survey and the Survey of Professional Forecasters, using the Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists as a source of real-time data. We examine the magnitude and patterns of revisions to the inflation rate based on the output price index. We then run tests on the forecasts from the surveys to see how good they are. We find that there are several episodes in which forecasters made persistent forecast errors, but the episodes are so short that by the time they can be identified, they have nearly disappeared. Thus, improving on the survey forecasts seems to be very difficult in real time, and the attempt to do so leads to increased forecast errors.


Phosphorus in Environmental Technology: Principles and Applications, provides a definitive and detailed presentation of state-of-the-art knowledge on the environmental behaviour of phosphorus and its applications to the treatment of waters and soils. Special attention is given to phosphorus removal for recovery technologies, a concept that has emerged over the past 5-6 years. The book features an all-encompassing approach: the fundamental science of phosphorus (chemistry, geochemistry, mineralogy, biology), key aspects of its environmental behaviour and mobility, industrial applications (treatment, removal, recovery) and the principles behind such applications, novel biotechnologies and, importantly, it also addresses socio-economic issues which often influence implementation and the ultimate success of any new technology. A detailed subject index helps the reader to find their way through the different scientific and technological aspects covered, making it an invaluable reference work for students, professionals and consultants dealing with phosphorus-related environmental technologies. State-of-the-art knowledge on the behaviour of phosphorus and its applications to environmental science and technology. Covers all aspects of phosphorus in the environment, engineered and biological systems; an interdisciplinary text.


Background: Referral from the Criminal Justice System (CJS) is a key, common route into drug misuse treatment. It is important to know whether, and how, it impinges on treatment outcome, particularly in relation to motivational states that may influence behaviour change.Aim: To assess the association between motivational state and level of treatment coercion, and the effects of these on treatment engagement and outcome, among a sample of drug misuse treatment seekers in England.Setting: Patients were sampled from 342 community and residential drug misuse treatment services within 94 (of 149) commissioning areas in England during 2006-07. All patients seeking drug misuse treatment at these services were eligible for inclusion.Methods: The Circumstances, Motivation, and Readiness scale provided measures of propensity for treatment including specific sub-scores for circumstances, motivation and readiness for treatment. The degree of referral coercion was categorised according to the level of CJS involvement: CJS referral with a condition of attendance; voluntary CJS (no attendance condition); non-CJS. Predictors of propensity were examined using linear regression, with particular emphasis on level of coercion. The predictive nature of coercion and propensity in relation to treatment uptake and threshold points for duration of treatment retention was examined using logistic regression models. Cox proportional hazard models examined associations with linear measures of treatment duration. Analysis of treatment outcome focussed on changes in: the value of drugs used; severity of dependence score; and level of offending. Relationships between these measures and coercion and propensity were examined using quantile, linear and logistic regression models. These were further supported by longitudinal models, incorporating instrumental variables for continuous outcomes to account for potential time related confounding. Results: No negative association was observed between level of coercive referral and levels of motivation or readiness for treatment and conditional referral was positively associated with motivation at the point of treatment entry. Both readiness for treatment and coercion predicted treatment retention for three months, although previous treatment experience treatment and use of heroin were the most consistent predictors of retention. Increasing pre-treatment motivation predicted greater reduction in the value of drugs used but not changes in the level of offending. Neither propensity sub-scores nor coercive referral predicted change in dependence severity. However, coercion was associated with cessation of offending among opiate /crack users. Conclusions: Propensity and coercion have mutually exclusive effects on different aspects of behaviour change. Coercion can positively affect treatment retention but changes in drug taking behaviour are more strongly associated with level of intrinsic motivation. Assessment of propensity, including its motivational components, at treatment entry could inform treatment delivery but its importance should not overshadow that of other factors, which may exert more important effects. Coercive CJS referral is not detrimental to treatment success and may have particular benefits for specific populations, but the cost effectiveness of diversionary schemes should be considered.Institution: University of ManchesterCandidate name: Andrew JonesDegree Title: PhD MedicineThesis title: The Impact of and Interaction Between Motivation and Coercion for Drug Misuse Treatment Seekers in EnglandDate: 14/12/2012


The ultra-large-scale systems of the future require the transformation of software engineering into a computational discipline capable of fast and dependable software development. This paper discusses an emerging next-generation software engineering research area: function extraction (FX) technology for automated computation to the maximum extent possible of the behavior, correctness, and quality attributes of software components and their compositions into systems. An introduction to the mathematical foundations for computation of software behavior is provided, followed by an overview description of a rigorously designed experiment to quantify the potential for FX technology, and a discussion of a CERT STAR *Lab first application of FX technology to compute the behavior of code expressed in the Intel assembly language instruction set


Casting shadows in dynamic scenes under complex illumination is a challenging problem, since no precomputation can be applied. The illumination is provided in form of a light probe, which potentially changes every frame. We propose a method for generating area lights from the light probe, built upon a median cut algorithm for light probe sampling. The shadows from the area lights are efficiently computed by moment soft shadow mapping, which has a lower memory footprint than other techniques. In this process very large area lights are utilized, pushing the limits of moment soft shadow mapping. We demonstrate the use of 6 instead of 4 moments in moment soft shadow mapping, which drastically increases the quality of the shadows for large area lights. We also present some other modifications, in order to improve the resulting shadows. We implemented the algorithm for generating area lights in compute shaders and demonstrate the sampling of animated light probes on the GPU and lighting of a dynamic scene in real time.


Medio-lateral narrowing (convergence) and anterior-posterior elongation (extension) are two of the most important cell movements of the gastrulation period leading to the formation of embryonic body axis. In vertebrates, convergence and extension (CE) cell movements are regulated by the non-canonical Wnt/Planar cell polarity (PCP) signalling pathway which requires the activation of its downstream effectors, Rho GTPases. DEF6 and SWAP70 are guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) catalysing the activation of Rho GTPases to regulate the re-arrangement of actin cytoskeleton, cell polarity and cell movements. Although it has been shown that the zebrafish orthologous, Def6a and Swap70b, act downstream of Wnt5b or Wnt11 signalling pathway, respectively, regulating the CE cell movements during gastrulation, little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms and direct downstream targets of Def6a and Swap70b. To further elucidate the function of def6a and swap70b within the non-canonical Wnt/PCP signalling pathway, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs)-induced mutagenesis was employed to establish knock-out mutant lines lacking either def6a (qmc811), swap70b (qmc809) or both (qmc813). Phenotypic and whole-mount in situ hybridisation analyses have revealed that the anterior movement and the convergence of the lateral mesendodermal and ectodermal cells were severely impaired in def6a and/or swap70b-deficient zebrafish embryos, indicating that def6a and swap70b are required for normal CE cell movements during gastrulation. Ectopic expression of Cdc42 GTPase robustly rescued the CE cell movement defects in both def6aqmc811/qmc811 and swap70bqmc809/qmc809 homozygous mutant lines whereas ectopic expression of RacI robustly rescued CE cell movement defects only in swap70bqmc809/qmc809 homozygous mutant line, suggesting that Def6a and Swap70b acts upstream of Cdc42 and Cdc42/RacI respectively. Elevated expression of wnt5b and wnt11 detected in the mutant lines indicated that abrogation of def6a and swap70b functions interfered with Cdc42/RacI-mediated Jnk activation that negatively regulates expression of wnt11 and perhaps wnt5b. In adult def6a and/or swap70b-deficient fish, a decreased number of myeloid population was observed, suggesting that both proteins are required for balanced cell differentiation during haematopoiesis. Generation of the double homozygous mutant line revealed that def6a and swap70b act in a partially redundant manner during zebrafish embryogenesis and in a non-redundant manner during haematopoiesis. DEF6 is highly expressed in T cells and plays an immunoregulatory role in cell polarity-induced immunological synapse (IS) formation, T cell receptor (TCR) signalling, T cell activation, differentiation and inflammatory responses. Recently, it has been shown that DEF6 may also be involved in the mRNA surveillance and translation. However, the molecular mechanisms that it may be involved in and its interactors in T cells are still unknown. Hence, a novel method, BioID, which enables the promiscuous biotinylation of proximal and interacting proteins of a target protein in mammalian cells, was adapted to identify DEF6 interactome in Jurkat T cells. Notably, in vivo BioID-DEF6 fusions yielded 127 clusters of interacting and vicinal proteins, including 2 known binding partners, Rac2 and PKC and 1 known close proximity partner, PABP. GO-term classification of the identified proteins showed that the proteins are enriched not only in actin cytoskeleton organisation and mRNA translation, but also in transcription, mRNA splicing/processing, protein folding/modification and metabolic processes. Co-localisation of DEF6 with Coronin1A (CORO1A), an actin cytoskeleton regulator during IS formation, in resting and activated cells provided proof of principle for the interactome analysis suggesting that DEF6 is a multifunctional protein involved in the regulation of cytoskeletal organisation, transcription, mRNA splicing, protein folding/processing and metabolic processes.


Physicists think they have discovered the top quark. Biologists believe in evolution. But what precisely constitutes evidence for such claims, and why? Scientists often disagree with one another over whether or to what extent some evidence counts in favor of a theory because they are operating with different concepts of scientific evidence. These concepts need to be critically explored. Peter Achinstein has gathered some prominent philosophers and historians of science for critical and lively discussions of both general questions about the meaning of evidence and specific ones about evidence for particular scientific theories. Contributors: Peter Achinstein, The Johns Hopkins University; Steven Gimbel, Gettysburg College; Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania; Frederick M. Kronz, University of Texas-Austin; Helen Longino, University of Minnesota; Deborah G. Mayo, Virginia Tech; Amy L. McLaughlin, Florida Atlantic University; John Norton, University of Pittsburgh; Lawrence M. Principe, The Johns Hopkins University; Richard Richards, University of Alabama; Alex Rosenberg, Duke University; Sherrilyn Roush, Rice University; Laura J. Snyder, St. Johns University; Kent Staley, St. Louis University.


The woolshed at Mistake Creek has an east-west alignment ...There is tricky magnetic country near Mount Behn ...The Wyndham airstrip is sticky when wet ...Neil Quiller, a bush-pilot from the Western Australian outback, feels most at home in the air, relying on his logbooks to understand the landscape beneath. But in 1941 he becomes a photo-reconnaissance pilot in Malaya, flying over unknown territory. Betrayed by a spy and shot down over the jungle, Quiller witnesses the fall of Singapore just one frail step ahead of the advancing Japanese forces. In the ensuing devastation, Quiller unexpectedly finds love and friendship. But he also finds his cousin, Cameron Dunn, who extracts a promise from him that will challenge the limits of trust and loyalty. Meanwhile Cameron's wife, Jeannie Verco, waits alone on the Kimberley cattle station where Cameron was born and Neil grew up, for news that never comes. Then one day a crippled Dutch plane passes overhead, and four days later Anneliese appears ...A powerful story of love and adventure, Past the Headlands is about loyalty, treachery and the search for a true home in a world tha


A classifier which is capable of distinguishing a syntactically well formed sentence from a syntactically ill formed one has the potential to be useful in an L2 language-learning context. In this article, we describe a classifier which classifies English sentences as either well formed or ill formed using information gleaned from three different natural language processing techniques. We describe the issues involved in acquiring data to train such a classifier and present experimental results for this classifier on a variety of ill formed sentences. We demonstrate that (a) the combination of information from a variety of linguistic sources is helpful, (b) the trade-off between accuracy on well formed sentences and accuracy on ill formed sentences can be fine tuned by training multiple classifiers in a voting scheme, and (c) the performance of the classifier is varied, with better performance on transcribed spoken sentences produced by less advanced language learners.


The high affinity folate receptor is a membrane-associated glycoprotein that is preferentially expressed in cancers of epithelial origin and rarely expressed in normal cells. We examined its expression pattern in breast cancer, utilizing a tissue microarray containing samples from 63 invasive breast cancers from women with divergent clinical outcomes. Thirty-three women comprised the poor outcome group with a median time to recurrence of 1.9 years. Thirty women, the good outcome group, were free of recurrence for a minimum of 7 years after diagnosis. The intensity of folate receptor staining was strongly correlated with outcome. There were two summary categories of staining intensity: weak (n 5 42) or strong (n 5 21). In the strong staining group, 17 of 21 women (81%) have recurred and their median survival is 2.4 years. In the weak staining group, 16 of 42 women (38%) have recurred. Their median survival is not estimable. After adjustment for tumor size, nodal status, ER status, adjuvant therapy, histology and tumor grade, strong staining for the folate receptor remained significantly associated with poor outcome, p < 0.001. Our work requires validation in a larger cohort, but supports the possibility of using folate receptor-targeted approaches in the management of breast cancer. ' 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


Input changes are often handled by reactive and incremental constructs that are tedious to use or inexpressive, while changes to program code are typically not handled at all during execution, complicating support for "live programming." We propose that change in code and input should be managed automatically, similar to how garbage collection eliminates memory management as an explicit programmer concern. Our programming model, Glitch, realizes such managed time by progressively re-executing nodes of program execution when they become inconsistent due input/code state changes. Unlike many reactive models, Glitch supports expressive shared-state procedural programming, but with one caveat: operations on shared state must be undoable and commutative to ensure re-execution efficiency and eventual consistency. Still, complex programs like compilers can be written in Glitch using mundane programming styles.


Phylogenetic analysis based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences was used to test the validity of morphospecies of catfishes of the family Astroblepidae inhabiting the southern-most limit of their Andean distribution in the upper Ucayali and upper Madre de Dios river basins. Population samples of morphospecies designated a priori on the basis of morphological features were further diagnosed by the presence of unique and unreversed molecular synapomorphies, thereby confirming species validity for seven of nine cases. Although each are distinguished by unique combinations of morphological features, two morphospecies (designated F and H) cannot be diagnosed on the basis of apomorphic changes in molecular sequence that did not also occur in other astroblepid morphospecies or outgroup taxa. Further, one morphospecies (species G) was recovered as nested within the assemblage of populations sampled from morphospecies F, whose morphological diagnosis does not involve unique or apomorphic characters. In contrast, the absence of corroborating molecular apomorphies for species H, otherwise recognized by distinctive and uniquely derived morphological characters, suggests a history of rapid divergence and insufficient time for fixation of genetic differences. Species sharing syntopic distributions were not recovered as sister groups, and in some cases species distributed in adjacent river drainage basins were not more closely related to one another than to species distributed in more distant drainages. Three independent instances were observed of sister-group relationships involving species distributed in both the Apurimac and Urubamba rivers (Ucayali drainage). These observations combine to suggest that the current distribution of astroblepid species in the southern region may have arisen via a complex history involving both divergence between and dispersal amongst drainage basins that is probably repeated numerous times throughout the Andean distribution of the group.


The case describes how a 120-year-old, domestic bank in Peru, focusing on A, B and C socio-economic segments and corporate banking, as well as boasting the country's largest channel customer service network and leading the industry in the number of monetary transactions, spotted a business opportunity in a segment that strays from its core business -the low-income sector (D). To seize it, the bank developed in 2005 Agente BCP, a new channel to cater to this segment with banking agents. After launching Agente BCP, it recorded unexpected growth rates, and did the largest number of transactions as compared to other BCP channels, taking the brand name to remote locations, and receiving numerous awards. However, some executives still wondered whether this channel should continue to be part of the bank's operations or whether the time had come to spin it off. Universidad del PacIfico' case collection


Beliefs help individuals make predictions about the world. When those predictions are incorrect, it may be useful to update beliefs. However, motivated cognition and biases (notably, hindsight bias and confirmation bias) can instead lead individuals to reshape interpretations of new evidence to seem more consistent with prior beliefs. Pre-committing to a prediction or evaluation of new evidence before knowing its results may be one way to reduce the impact of these biases and facilitate belief updating. I first examined this possibility by having participants report predictions about their performance on a challenging anagrams task before or after completing the task. Relative to those who reported predictions after the task, participants who pre-committed to predictions reported predictions that were more discrepant from actual performance and updated their beliefs about their verbal ability more (Studies 1a and 1b). The effect on belief updating was strongest among participants who directly tested their predictions (Study 2) and belief updating was related to their evaluations of the validity of the task (Study 3). Furthermore, increased belief updating seemed to not be due to faulty or shifting memory of initial ratings of verbal ability (Study 4), but rather reflected an increase in the discrepancy between predictions and observed outcomes (Study 5). In a final study (Study 6), I examined pre-commitment as an intervention to reduce confirmation bias, finding that pre-committing to evaluations of new scientific studies eliminated the relation between initial beliefs and evaluations of evidence while also increasing belief updating. Together, these studies suggest that pre-commitment can reduce biases and increase belief updating in light of new evidence.


Gender equity in recovery settings is the first topic we will tackle. Women represent just over 57% of the undergraduate college population in 2015 and are projected to climb to  58.8% of the total college population by 2024. While not as underrepresented as people of color in collegiate recovery programs (CRPs), women do make up a smaller share of CRP participants at 42.8%. While women are just as likely as men to become develop SUDs, they have lower rates of substance use and SUDs overall, and experience unique obstacles to treatment. Women of color may face additional obstacles and are at greater risk of being subjected to violence. We invite men, women, and transfolk alike to join our feminist recovery panel as we delve into issues of equity and inclusion. While some have deemed feminism, "the other "F" word, we will talk about how feminism benefits everyone. We bring an intersectional lens - realizing that no one shows up or experiences life through one aspect of identity. Our panelists will share from research, personal experience, and program data in order to describe how current societal structures inhibit the opportunities for women to get sober and work a program of recovery and the negative impact on men, collegiate recovery programs, higher education, and society as a whole. Considering an individual, group, and institutional framework for feminism, we hope to inspire attendees to challenge themselves to bring a feminist lens to their work to better create equity and access within collegiate recovery.


In his interesting article in Language and Law (vol. 1, 2012) Bill Bowring, a Professor of Law from Birkbeck College at the University of London and one of the leading experts on Ukrainian language legislation, presented several theses, particularly with regard to the Ukrainian "Law of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on Languages in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" from 1989. Although this law has recently been replaced with the "Law On Principles of the State Language Policy", Professor Bowring's article requires some comments. On the one hand, some of his statements are very strong, and their implications extend far beyond the language law from 1989. On the other hand, his claims, most of which have in fact been put forward before, do not seem to be quite correct. Cite as: Moser , JLL 2 (2013), 19–22, DOI: 10.14762/jll.2013.019


Data from two internationally co-ordinated survey programmes are used in an attempt to display the events in the early life that took place during the 'recovery period' of the North Sea herring Stock, 1979–1986.

During the period, an increasing importance of the spawning grounds off Buchan and off Yorkshire is evident from distributions of newly hatched herring larvae. The dramatic changes in relative importance of spawning grounds are traced in the data on both late larvae (6 months old) and juveniles (18 months old). The onset of extended spawning off Buchan and off Yorkshire was followed by increase in distinct groups of late larvae of large mean length, and by enlargement of a group of medium-sized juveniles. It is hypothesized that the identified groups are interconnected. Thus, larvae spawned off Buchan and off Yorkshire are found to have growth rates superior to those attained by larvae from west of Scotland and around the Orkney/Shetland Isles, whereas the relationship is reversed in the juveniles. In the investigated period, larval drift routes exhibited the same trends from year to year, the drift of the northerly spawned larvae being the most variable.

Thus, changes in the relative contributions from spawning grounds apparently influence the overall spatial distribution as well as size composition of larval and juvenile North Sea herring. The findings indicate that groups of larvae retain, to a large extent, separate distributions until metamorphosis, and point to larval drift pattern as a determinant of spawning group distinctness.


Bridging the abstraction gap between artifacts and concepts is the essence of software engineering (SE) research problems. SE researchers regularly use machine learning to bridge this gap, but there are three fundamental issues with traditional applications of machine learning in SE research. Traditional applications are too reliant on labeled data. They are too reliant on human intuition, and they are not capable of learning expressive yet efficient internal representations. Ultimately, SE research needs approaches that can automatically learn representations of massive, heterogeneous, datasets in situ, apply the learned features to a particular task and possibly transfer knowledge from task to task. Improvements in both computational power and the amount of memory in modern computer architectures have enabled new approaches to canonical machine learning tasks. Specifically, these architectural advances have enabled machines that are capable of learning deep, compositional representations of massive data depots. The rise of deep learning has ushered in tremendous advances in several fields. Given the complexity of software repositories, we presume deep learning has the potential to usher in new analytical frameworks and methodologies for SE research and the practical applications it reaches. This dissertation examines and enables deep learning algorithms in different SE contexts. We demonstrate that deep learners significantly outperform state-of-the-practice software language models at code suggestion on a Java corpus. Further, these deep learners for code suggestion automatically learn how to represent lexical elements. We use these representations to transmute source code into structures for detecting similar code fragments at different levels of granularity—without declaring features for how the source code is to be represented. Then we use our learning-based framework for encoding fragments to intelligently select and adapt statements in a codebase for automated program repair. In our work on code suggestion, code clone detection, and automated program repair, everything for representing lexical elements and code fragments is mined from the source code repository. Indeed, our work aims to move SE research from the art of feature engineering to the science of automated discovery.


Abstract Although the current range of the endangered San Joaquin kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica) borders large areas of farmland, the ecology of this species rarely has been studied within an agricultural setting. In central California, we examined habitat use, prey availability, and diet of radio-collared kit foxes inhabiting an aqueduct right-of-way (ROW) bordered by farmland. During both years of study (1998–1999), nocturnal locations of foxes occurred more often than expected (based on habitat availability) in the ROW and less often than expected within annual crops. Orchards were used disproportionately more than their availability during 1998 and were used in proportion to availability during 1999. Kit foxes traveled up to 1.1 km into annual crops and up to 1.5 km into orchards. Among diurnal locations (den sites) of foxes, 98% were within the ROW. Live-trapping revealed higher densities and greater diversity of rodents along the ROW than within farmland. Remains of murid rodents were found in 79% of kit fox scats. Our findings indicated that kit foxes ranged into orchards and annual croplands at night, but almost never occupied these areas during the day. The lack of den sites and low prey availability within farmland probably limited the ability of kit foxes to exploit and occupy these areas. Providing artificial den sites within croplands (especially within orchards) and along canals may increase use of farmland by kit foxes and facilitate their movement between isolated patches of natural lands.


The well-known and powerful proof principle by well-founded induction says that for verifying \(\forall x : P (x)\) for some property \(P\) it suffices to show \(\forall x : [[\forall y < x :P (y)] \Rightarrow P (x)] \) , provided \(<\) is a well-founded partial ordering on the domainof interest. Here we investigate a more general formulation of this proof principlewhich allows for a kind of parameterized partial orderings \(<_x\) which naturallyarises in some cases. More precisely, we develop conditions under which theparameterized proof principle \(\forall x : [[\forall y <_x x : P (y)] \Rightarrow P (x)]\) is sound in thesense that \(\forall x : [[\forall y <_x x : P (y)] \Rightarrow P (x)] \Rightarrow \forall x : P (x)\) holds, and givecounterexamples demonstrating that these conditions are indeed essential.


Abstract. Black carbon (BC) is a dominant absorber in the visible spectrum and a potent factor in climatic effects. Vertical profiles of BC were measured using a micro-aethalometer attached to a tethered balloon during the Vertical Observations of trace Gases and Aerosols (VOGA) field campaign, in summer 2014 at a semirural site in the North China Plain (NCP). The diurnal cycle of BC vertical distributions following the evolution of the mixing layer (ML) was investigated for the first time in the NCP region. Statistical parameters including identified mixing height (Hm) and average BC mass concentrations within the ML (Cm) and in the free troposphere (Cf) were obtained for a selected dataset of 67 vertical profiles. Hm was usually lower than 0.2 km in the early morning and rapidly rose thereafter due to strengthened turbulence. The maximum height of the ML was reached in the late afternoon. The top of a full developed ML exceeded 1 km on sunny days in summer, while it stayed much lower on cloudy  days. The sunset triggered the collapse of the ML, and a stable nocturnal boundary layer (NBL) gradually formed. Accordingly, the highest level Cm was found in the early morning and the lowest was found in the afternoon. In the daytime, BC was almost uniformly distributed within the ML and significantly decreased above the ML. During the field campaign, Cm averaged about 5.16 ± 2.49 µg m−3, with a range of 1.12 to 14.49 µg m−3, comparable with observational results in many polluted urban areas such as Milan in Italy and Shanghai in China. As evening approached, BC gradually built up near the surface and exponentially declined with height. In contrast to the large variability found both in Hm and Cm, Cf stayed relatively unaffected through the day. Cf was less than 10 % of the ground level under clean conditions, while it amounted to half of the ground level in some polluted cases. In situ measurements of BC vertical profiles would hopefully have an important implication for accurately estimating direct radiative forcing by BC and improving the retrieval of aerosol optical properties by remote sensing in this region.


Forty-two undergraduate and graduate students completed VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style, the non-verbal Torrance Test Thinking Creatively with Pictures, and the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI). VIEW assesses individuals' orientation to change, manner of processing and ways of deciding while the Torrance test measures several productivity measures, notably ideational fluency. The non-verbal form also yields one "process" score: resistance to closure. Finally, the Problem Solving Inventory measures individuals' confidence in and affective control of their problem solving process, plus an indication whether an "approach" or "avoidant" style is characteristic. Consistent with VIEW theory, there was no relationship between actual creative thinking production and problem solving style. However, VIEW scores of orientation to change (OC) and ways of deciding (WD) were correlated significantly with the Torrance measure of resistance to closure. On VIEW, Explorers (OC) and Person-oriented deciders (WD) were more resistant to closure. For several years now, researchers have been able to study both the affective as well as the cognitive aspects of human problem solving (Sternberg, 1997; Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1997). The construct of creative problem solving style has been identified and distinguished from measures of creative thinking ability and achievement (Treffinger, Selby, Isaksen & Crumel, 2007). Style is defined as a relatively stable preference an individual expresses when approaching problems, considering information, and making decisions. Style is an individual difference variable of human behavior similar to other cognitive or information processing styles, of which there are many that have been defined, measured, and studied in the literature of educational psychology (Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993). Style theory is based on the proposition that the way a problem solver prefers to approach or work on a problem can greatly affect his or her success. This has been referred to as the "level-style" distinction (Isaksen & Dorval, 1993). In simpler style researchers have been interested in the "how" an solves problems, instead of "how much" problem solving skill individual possesses. How individuals approach and work problems is important because there are many different types problems and problem contexts. Individuals with qualitatively sharply different preferences may be more or less able to adapt the conditions, limitations, and/or possibilities for inherent in different problem types and environments. problem solving work requires group activities, individuals differing styles may experience difficulties working together as If the style of a learner or worker is known, then instruction can planned that complements mat style rather than conflicts, facilitating performance rather than hindering it (Cronbach Snow, 1977). The purpose of the present study was to add to construct validity of VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving (Selby, Tref finger, & Isaksen, 2002). VIEW is a relatively new into the creative problem solving style literature, but it distinguished by a substantial theoretical underpinning in style and personality research. VIEW assesses three aspects of or preferences that individuals may have in their perceptions and approach to problems, in generating ideas, and evaluating choosing among possibilities. On VIEW, there is a person's Orientation to (OC). Individuals may feel more comfortable working within structure, perhaps bending rules to "make a better box", so speak. On the other hand, some individuals may respond to by creating entirely new rules, preferring instead to boxes". Another style difference is one's Manner of (MP). Individuals may prefer to search their own Internal resources while considering ideas, or individuals may seek out External inputs from other individuals. VIEW's third dimension is Ways Deciding (WD) among possible solutions. Some individuals are Task-oriented, and select alternatives that "get the job done" as efficiently as possible. …


We re-investigate the old problem of the survival of the five globular clusters (GCs) orbiting the Fornax dwarf galaxy in both standard and modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). For the first time in the history of the topic, we use accurate mass models for the Fornax dwarf, obtained through Jeans modelling of the recently published line-of-sight (LOS) velocity dispersion data, and we are also not resigned to circular orbits for the GCs. Previously conceived problems stem from fixing the starting distances of the globulars to be less than half the tidal radius. We relax this constraint since there is absolutely no evidence for it and show that the dark matter (DM) paradigm, with either cusped or cored DM profiles, has no trouble sustaining the orbits of the two least massive GCs for a Hubble time almost regardless of their initial distance from Fornax. The three most massive globulars can remain in orbit as long as their starting distances are marginally outside the tidal radius. The outlook for MOND is also not nearly as bleak as previously reported. Although dynamical friction (DF) inside the tidal radius is far stronger in MOND, outside DF is negligible due to the absence of stars. This allows highly radial orbits to survive, but more importantly circular orbits at distances more than 85 per cent of Fornax's tidal radius to survive indefinitely. The probability of the GCs being on circular orbits at this distance compared with their current projected distances is discussed and shown to be plausible. Finally, if we ignore the presence of the most massive globular (giving it a large LOS distance), we demonstrate that the remaining four globulars can survive within the tidal radius for the Hubble time with perfectly sensible orbits.


Recently organic–inorganic hybrid perovskites have attracted attention as light harvesting materials in mesoscopic cells. While a considerable number of deposition and formation methods have been reported for the perovskite crystalline material, most involve an annealing step. As such, the thermal behavior of this material and its individual components is of crucial interest. Here, we examine the thermal properties of the CH3NH3PbX3 (X = I or Cl) perovskite using thermogravimetric analysis. The role of the precursors is exposed, and the effect of the formation of excess organic species is investigated. The sublimation behavior of the organic component is intensively scrutinized. Furthermore, differential scanning calorimetry is employed to probe the crystal phase structure, revealing subtle differences depending on the deposition method.


Problem The Bible reveals that evangelistic preaching must be Christ-centered and cross-centered (1 Cor 2:2). However, in recent years the evangelistic series in the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Canelas have been mainly of a doctrinal nature. As a consequence, my pastoral observation indicates that attendance, baptisms, and decisions for future baptisms at the end of the meetings are few. One of the factors that contributes to this condition is the lack of evangelistic preaching that focuses on the love of God revealed in the cross of Christ. Method A cross-centered evangelistic preaching strategy was developed in order to present the Seventh-day Adventist Bible beliefs in a Christ-centered and cross-centered way. After a five-month preparatory period, a two-month series was held. A total of 24 meetings occurred on weekend nights in the church's main auditorium. The efficacy of the project was evaluated by the attendance, numbers of baptisms, decisions for future baptism, and inscriptions for Bible studies. Results The implementation of the cross-centered evangelistic preaching resulted in a higher number of baptisms, and of decisions to study the Bible, when compared to previous evangelistic series. It especially resulted in a higher number of decisions for future baptism, and an increase in attendance. Through the broadcasting of the series in the internet, positive feedback also arrived from other places in Portugal and from other countries in the world. The testimonies of the attendees indicate that the Seventh-day Church of Canelas has been revived. The other churches that belong to the same pastoral district have shown interest in these meetings and experienced similar results. Conclusions Based on the results of the implementation of this strategy, a cross-centered approach to evangelism in the church of Canelas does seem to be effective in order to growth the attendance in the meetings, the number of baptisms, the decisions for future baptism, and the requests for Bible studies. This strategy also appears to have had a very positive impact on the spiritual climate of the church, and of other churches. Thus, centering evangelistic messages on the cross of Christ in the future of this church is recommended. Studying the possibility of implementing this strategy in other churches in Portugal and abroad is also merited.


Very large data sets often have a flat but regular structure and span multiple disks and machines. Examples include telephone call records, network logs, and web document repositories. These large data sets are not amenable to study using traditional database techniques, if only because they can be too large to fit in a single relational database. On the other hand, many of the analyses done on them can be expressed using simple, easily distributed computations: filtering, aggregation, extraction of statistics, and so on.

We present a system for automating such analyses. A filtering phase, in which a query is expressed using a new procedural programming language, emits data to an aggregation phase. Both phases are distributed over hundreds or even thousands of computers. The results are then collated and saved to a file. The design -- including the separation into two phases, the form of the programming language, and the properties of the aggregators -- exploits the parallelism inherent in having data and computation distributed across many machines.


Pregnancy termination for fetal abnormality (TFA) represents 2% of all terminations in England and Wales. In recent years, the number of TFAs has risen (3,099 in 2014 compared to 2,085 in 2009) due to technological developments in prenatal diagnosis and increased maternal age, which have led to a growing number of fetal abnormalities being identified, and this earlier in pregnancy. Research suggests that TFA can have negative, long-lasting psychological consequences for women. These include depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and complicated grief. However, at the inception of the research programme, no research had been conducted on women's coping processes when dealing with TFA despite clear evidence of a relationship between coping processes and psychological adjustment in other areas of health research. Similarly, although research indicates that some individuals experience positive growth as a result of trauma, no empirical work had been undertaken on potential positive psychological outcomes following TFA. Finally, a dearth of research on health professionals' understanding of women's coping with TFA was also identified, despite the likely impact this understanding would have upon women's experience of care and the
way they cope with TFA.

This thesis aims to address these knowledge gaps in order to further our understanding of women's experience of TFA. Specifically, the research had three main
objectives: 1) to gain an understanding of women's coping strategies when dealing with TFA; 2) to examine the relationship between coping and psychological outcomes, as defined by perinatal grief and posttraumatic growth; and 3) to investigate health professionals' perceptions of women's coping to identify potential disparities between health professionals' and women's accounts. To answer these objectives, a mixed methodology was utilised and five studies were
conducted: a systematic review of the qualitative evidence pertaining to women's experiences of TFA; two qualitative studies: the first one exploring women's coping strategies when dealing with TFA, and the second one investigating health professionals' perceptions of women's coping; and, finally, two quantitative studies: the first one examining the relationship between coping strategies and perinatal grief, and the second one assessing the relationship between coping, perinatal grief and posttraumatic growth. The empirical work relating to the women was carried out online, with participants recruited from a specialist support organisation. The empirical work concerning the health professionals was conducted face-to-face, with participants recruited from three hospitals in England. Ethical approval was obtained for all studies prior to fieldwork commencing.

The research generated several important findings, which both build upon existing evidence and further our insights into women's experience of TFA. Firstly, the research clearly indicates that women regard TFA as a traumatic event, which is akin to an existential crisis and which can have negative psychological consequences. Women view TFA as a unique form of bereavement, which can be misunderstood and stigma-bearing. The research also indicates that TFA is an individual as well as a social phenomenon with women's experiences both shaping and reflecting the political and sociocultural environment within which TFA occurs.

Secondly, the research shows that coping with TFA involves four main strategies: 'support,' 'acceptance,' 'avoidance,' and 'meaning attribution' which are relevant to both the termination procedure and its aftermath. The findings also reveal that, despite mainly using coping strategies considered to be adaptive, women's levels of grief are high, and that, for some individuals, distress persists long after the termination. The research also provides evidence of a relationship between coping and psychological adjustment to TFA, with strong associations observed between several coping strategies and psychological adjustment. In particular, the research shows that coping strategies such as 'acceptance' and 'positive reframing' are closely associated with lower levels of grief, whilst 'self-blame' and 'behavioural disengagement' relate to higher grief levels.

Thirdly, the research offers new insights into the potential for personal growth following TFA. This is particularly manifest in the qualitative investigations and, although it is less evident in the quantitative study, moderate levels of growth were observed for several growth dimensions: 'relating to others,' 'personal strengths' and 'appreciation of others.' The findings also indicate that a relationship exists between coping and posttraumatic growth, with 'positive reframing' being a significant predictor of growth.

Lastly, the findings reveal that health professionals have a valid understanding of women's short-term coping strategies when dealing with TFA, but have limited insights into their long-term coping processes. This points to a deficit in aftercare, an issue which was raised by the women in this research.

Collectively, these findings have important implications in terms of theory, practice and future research in the area of TFA, which are considered in this thesis. Among the most significant ones are the need to identify women at risk of poor psychological adjustment, the need for a truly women-centred care that continues well beyond the termination, as well as the importance of 'acceptance' and 'positive reframing' as potential protective factors against distress and of 'positive reframing' as a potential foundation for growth. A corollary of the research is the development and implementation of a psychological intervention to support women following TFA. This proposed intervention is underpinned by the reported high levels of grief, the deficit in aftercare, and the potential for growth following TFA, and represents the next step of the research programme.


This paper focuses on the impact of the 2007/2008 financial and economic crisis on the public sector and its labour relations in Spain, the UK, Sweden and Germany. The analysis of the contextual background - general and societal economic developments as well as industrial relations - in which such transformations happened embeds the comparison of the four country case studies. Our findings show that the crisis and austerity policies furthered some short-term divergent developments of the public sectors in the countries considered but long-term convergence can be also expected. Some theoretical conclusions from these mixed developments in the aftermath of the crisis are drawn.


Background:
 Leptin, an adipocyte-derived hormone, elicits a variety of physiological functions by acting on leptin receptor (LepR). LepR is expressed in bone marrow hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (BMSPCs) as well as in mesenchymal stromal cells, which play an important role in the maintenance and retention of BMSPCs. Cytokines such as G-CSF induce mobilization of BMSPCs, in part, via acting on MSCs.

 Aim:
 In this study the role of leptin in the physiological, and G-CSF-induced mobilization of BMSPCs was evaluated.

 Methods:
 The study was carried out in control and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mice (C57Bl/6j), and in mice with genetic ablation of leptin receptor (LepR+/- and LepR-/- (db/db) mice). Circulating white blood cells (WBCs), lineage- cells (Lin-), and Lin-Sca-1+cKit+ (LSK), cells were enumerated by flow cytometry in different treatment groups. Mobilization of different cell populations was induced by G-CSF (125μg/Kg, s.c., twice a day, 4 days). Effects of leptin (600μg/Kg, i.p., 5 days) or LepR antagonist, PESLAN-1 (5mg/Kg, s.c., once-in-two-days, 14 days, were evaluated on basal as wells as G-CSF-mobilized levels of different cell populations.

 Results:
 Leptin treatment increased basal levels of WBCs (P<0.005), and decreased Lin- (P<0.05) or LSK (P<0.05) cells compared to the control (n=5). Leptin treatment also decreased Lin- (P<0.005) and LSK (P<0.005) cells but WBCs mobilized by G-CSF. PESLAN-1 exacerbated G-CSF-induced mobilization of LSK cells (P<0.05 vs PESLAN-1-untreated). G-CSF-mobilized WBCs, Lin- and LSK cells were higher in LepR+/- or LepR-/- (P<0.05 to 0.001, n=6) mice compared to wild-type (WT) control (LepR+/+) mice. Since db/db mice are diabetic, we verified the effect of diabetes in WT/LepR+/+ mice. In STZ-induced diabetic mice (n=7), G-CSF- induced mobilization was reduced (WBCs (P<0.05), Lin- (P<0.005), and LSK (P<0.001) compared to nondiabetic, n=7) in contrast to the observations in diabetic LepR-/- mice.

 Conclusions:
 These results suggest that in physiological conditions, leptin-LepR signaling tends to retain BMSPCs, and oppose G-CSF-induced mobilization. Furthermore, these results imply that LepR blockade could overcome diabetes-induced dysfunction of BMSPC mobilization.


During the past two decades we have witnessed a rather impressive growth of theoretical innovations and conceptual revisions of epistemological and methodological approaches within constructivist‐qualitative quarters of the social sciences. Methodological discussions have commonly addressed a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing empirical material, yet the critical grounds upon which these were reformulated have rarely been extended to embrace sampling concepts and procedures. The latter have been overlooked, qualifying only as a 'technical' research stage. This article attends to snowball sampling via constructivist and feminist hermeneutics, suggesting that when viewed critically, this popular sampling method can generate a unique type of social knowledge—knowledge which is emergent, political and interactional. The article reflects upon researches about backpacker tourists and marginalized men, where snowball sampling was successfully employed in investigating these groups' organic social networks and social dynamics. In both studies, interesting interrelations were found between sampling and interviewing facets, leading to a reconceptualization of the method of snowball sampling in terms of power relations, social networks and social capital.


As pressures on water resources increase, the demand for innovative institutional arrangements, which address the overuse of water, and underprovision of ecosystem health, is rising. One new and emerging approach is the use of legal personality to protect water systems in law through the granting of legal rights to rivers. This constitutes a significant development in the fields of environmental law and water resources management, yet little analysis is available of how the approach has been used and applied. We critically examine the new legal rights for rivers using three case studies from Australia, New Zealand, and India. We analyze how legal rights have been created in each case, and the complexity of enforcing these legal rights to protect the rivers. We conclude that legal personality could be a useful alternative approach for river management, provided that the new legal rights are given sufficient force and effect.


Professor Leon (Lev) Petrazycki contributed significantly to the methodology of law and economics and made Russian legal science famous in Germany with the publication Die Lehre von Eienkommen in 1893 and 1895. The book developed the idea that the influence of legal norms should be evaluated not only from the private view but from the point of national economy. Professor Petrazycki and his students Pitirim Sorokin and George Guins may be ranked among the founders of the economic analysis of law established in 20th century, which was shown earlier in the monograph Pravo i ekonomika (metodologiya) by the author of the paper. The idea of externalism is based on the principle that social and economic factors, i.e. extra scientific make a decisive influence on the development of science. Hence, in studying the history of science, the major task is reconstructing social and cultural conditions (social service) promoting to the development of ideas and theories. The opposite, internalist, approach promotes the idea that science develops only due to inner scientific factors - on the basis of objective logic and of arising and solving economic problems, thanks to the evolution of scholar traditions, create new concepts, solve problems etc. Law has developed two types of argumentation externalist and internalist. Legal positivism calls for the strict adherence to the norms of positive law and excludes other arguments - sociological, economic, moral, historical ones in resolving legal disputes. This is the internalist approach showing the separation of legal space from others (economic, moral etc.). In this regard, the politics of law is something external in terms of law, and the area is intended for politicians. The external type of argumentation allows avoiding extremes and formalism for legal concept. This area of legal science is characterized with open ways of argumentation - sociological and statistical facts, economic rationale, moral arguments. A high idealistic dream of external jurisprudence is in the following: it is necessary to achieve three criteria for legal decisions: legality, efficiency, fairness.


This study investigated the cross-sectional associations between exposure to nine Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and U.S. children's and adolescent's oral health outcomes. Data from 41,294 participants of the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) were analyzed. Past year exposure to ACE, oral health outcomes (decayed teeth, bleeding gums, and condition of the teeth), and child and caregiver sociodemographic factors were self-reported. Using SAS v. 9.4, propensity score weighted, multilevel survey-logistic regression estimated adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) of the proposed associations. The overall mean (SE) age was 8.9 (0.1) years with 51% being male. Fifty-four percent (54%) identified as non-Hispanic white, and 12% as non-Hispanic black. The prevalence of the nine ACE measures ranged from 3% for caregiver death to 25% for financial hardship and parental divorce. Children who experienced caregiver mental illness, when compared to those who did not, were more likely to report decayed teeth (AOR: 1.73 (95% CI: 1.24, 2.42)) and the condition of their teeth as fair/poor (AOR: 1.60, 95% CI: 0.61, 4.19). Children in households with financial hardship were about twice as likely to report dental caries (AOR: 1.85, 95% CI: 1.50, 2.29) and have fair/poor teeth (AOR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.40, 2.51) and bleeding gums (AOR: 2.39, 95% CI: 1.48, 3.86). ACEs appear to be associated with worse oral health outcomes among children and adolescents. Nevertheless, the cross-sectional nature of this study precludes a causal interpretation of these findings and necessitates more research to elucidate the oral health impacts of exposure to ACEs in longitudinal follow-up studies.


This document specifies the use of the Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP), the Session Description Protocol (SDP), and the Real-time
Transport Protocol (RTP) for delivering real-time media and metadata
from a Communication Session (CS) to a recording device. The Session
Recording Protocol specifies the use of SIP, SDP, and RTP to establish
a Recording Session (RS) between the Session Recording Client (SRC),
which is on the path of the CS, and a Session Recording Server (SRS)
at the recording device. This document considers only active
recording, where the SRC purposefully streams media to an SRS and all
participating user agents (UAs) are notified of the recording. Passive
recording, where a recording device detects media directly from the
network (e.g., using port-mirroring techniques), is outside the scope
of this document. In addition, lawful intercept is outside the scope
of this document.


In the era of big data, the availability of massive amounts of information makes privacy protection more necessary than ever. Among a variety of anonymization mechanisms, microaggregation is a common approach to satisfy the popular requirement of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-anonymity in statistical databases. In essence, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-anonymous microaggregation aggregates quasi-identifiers to hide the identity of each data subject within a group of other <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k-1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subjects. As any perturbative mechanism, however, anonymization comes at the cost of some information loss that may hinder the ulterior purpose of the released data, which very often is building machine-learning models for macrotrends analysis. To assess the impact of microaggregation on the utility of the anonymized data, it is necessary to evaluate the resulting accuracy of said models. In this paper, we address the problem of measuring the effect of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-anonymous microaggregation on the empirical utility of microdata. We quantify utility accordingly as the accuracy of classification models learned from microaggregated data, and evaluated over original test data. Our experiments indicate, with some consistency, that the impact of the de facto microaggregation standard (maximum distance to average vector) on the performance of machine-learning algorithms is often minor to negligible for a wide range of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for a variety of classification algorithms and data sets. Furthermore, experimental evidences suggest that the traditional measure of distortion in the community of microdata anonymization may be inappropriate for evaluating the utility of microaggregated data.