At the urging of intelligent systems consumers, including industry groups and the US military, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is taking the first steps toward creating standard measures for intelligent systems (IS). The need for intelligent systems in the public and private sectors is complicated by many unanswered questions. Among those questions are how to precisely define intelligent systems and how to measure and compare the capabilities that particular systems claim to provide. NIST's initial approach to establishing performance metrics is twofold and attempts to address both pragmatic and theoretical concerns. At the end of July, NIST unveiled its test course for mobile robots at AAAI in Austin. Two weeks later, it held its first performance metrics workshop, where the idea of such a testbed was just one among several controversial issues. Both the workshop and the test-course competition inspired debate over the value of focusing on what's practical versus what's possible when it comes to system intelligence.


ABSTRACT The tasks teachers select impact students' opportunities to learn mathematics and teachers' beliefs influence their choice of tasks. Through the qualitative analysis of surveys, interviews and classroom artefacts from three secondary mathematics teachers, this study examined teachers' selection of mathematics tasks for English language learners (ELLs). In particular, this study explored teachers' beliefs about ELLs and the ways in which those beliefs manifested in their selection of tasks. In order to accommodate ELLs, the teachers selected tasks that were repetitive, procedure-focused and devoid of context. The teachers' choice of tasks stemmed from their beliefs about ELLs' mathematical and linguistic abilities. Furthermore, the teachers often referred to ELLs as a homogenous group and this generalization, coupled with beliefs about ELLs' mathematical and linguistic abilities, was evident in their task selections. The findings suggest a need to critically examine the potential impact of seemingly benign teaching practices and the beliefs underlying them.


Md. Abdul Hoque. 2009. Only a Single Programme in Radio Can Give a Feeling of Being a Member of the World. j. innov.dev.strategy 2(3): 18-29 'Sal Gittal' is one of the programme broadcast from Bangladesh Betar, Dhaka for the Garo people. Within last thirty years they have had enormous benefit like lyricists, singers, artists come from them, they could present their language and culture in the national radio, which gives them inspiration to protect and flourish their culture and heritage. On the other hand Rakhaing has no radio programme of their own. So their language and culture has no significant development, even diminishing day by day. Some of the Rakhaing people are now trying to retrieve their language, culture and heritage. Study findings showed that the Rakhaing feel them excluded from the world; and only a single programme in radio can give them a feeling of being a member of the world. Sustainable livelihood means to live with the close harmony without losing ecosystem both in economical, social, environmental and cultural elements. Or other ways we can say live without the degradation of economical, social, environmental and cultural elements of an indigenous group is sustainable livelihood. Radio has the strong role in the sustainable livelihood of indigenous people. Mother language is the most powerful instrument of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. Promoting the recognition and practice of mother language media, especially radio, has its unique role. Radio is the cheapest, easiest, strongest and personal medium that can be useful every moment of a person's life, though he/she is at works. So the radio has an impact on the indigenous people's sustainable livelihood.


Transplanted islets are exposed to a distinctively hostile immunological environment. Grafted islets typically encounter a combination of innate, allogeneic and anti-islet immune responses—the relative contributions of which are not fully understood. The relatively low success rate of islet transplantation compared with other organs suggests that current immunomodulatory protocols are inadequate to provide long-term islet graft protection. As the negative consequences of long-term immunosuppression can arguably outweigh the benefits of islet transplantation, there is intense focus on the development of strategies to induce immune tolerance toward grafts, thereby avoiding the requirement of chronic immunosuppression. In this issue of Diabetes , Vergani et al. (1) provide evidence that targeting purinergic receptor signaling is a viable strategy for islet allograft protection.

Extracellular ATP modulates many aspects of the immune system. For example, ATP signaling is able to promote the differentiation of proinflammatory Th17 cells (2), which may play a role in islet rejection and recurrent autoimmunity. ATP signaling can also suppress the differentiation and function of regulatory T cells (Tregs) (3), which are immunosuppressive T cells that play a role in immune tolerance (4). Thus, ATP signaling acts to shift the immune response toward a more inflammatory, less tolerant state (Fig. 1).

FIG. 1.
Schematic summary of the proposed mechanism of action of ATP during islet allograft rejection. A : Extracellular ATP activates P2X receptors and promotes T-cell …


In this paper, we evaluate the suitability of different SRAM-based FPGAs for harsh radiation environments (e.g., space). In particular, we compare the space-grade and radiation-hardened by design Virtex-5QV (XQR5VFX130) with the commercial off-the-shelf Kintex-7 (KC7K325T) from Xilinx. The advantages of the latter device are: 2.5 times the resources of the space-grade FPGA, faster switching times, less power consumption, and the support of modern design tools. We focus on resource consumption as well as reliability in dependence of single event upset rates for a geostationary earth orbit satellite application, the Heinrich Hertz satellite mission. For this mission, we compare different modular redundancy schemes with different voter structures for the qualification of a digital communication receiver. A major drawback of the Kintex-7 are current-step single event latchups, which are a risk for space missions. If the use of an external voter is not possible, we suggest triple modular redundancy with one single voter at the end, whereby the Virtex-5QV in this configuration is about as reliable as the Kintex-7 in an N-modular redundancy configuration with an external high-reliable voter.


Abstract. Multi-view stereo has been shown to be a viable tool for the creation of realistic 3D city models. Nevertheless, it still states significant challenges since it results in dense, but noisy and incomplete point clouds when applied to aerial images. 3D city modelling usually requires a different representation of the 3D scene than these point clouds. This paper applies a fully-automatic pipeline to generate a simplified mesh from a given dense point cloud. The mesh provides a certain level of abstraction as it only consists of relatively large planar and textured surfaces. Thus, it is possible to remove noise, outlier, as well as clutter, while maintaining a high level of accuracy.


Like fellow artists Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long, Chris Drury creates art inspired by the wild landscapes of the world. His work falls into two categories: firstly, that made en route in remote and beautiful locations, frequently cairns or shelters; secondly, objects such as meticulously worked baskets, exquisitely formed 'bundles' of bone, wood, leaf, grass, feather and stone, created later from materials found along the way. This magnificently illustrated book is a remarkable record of a highly inventive artist. Kay Syrad's introduction analyses Chris Drury's sculpture against the background of late-20th-century environmental art, drawing parallels with Zen Buddhism and giving valuable insights into the movivations of the artist. Drury is passionate in his appreciation of the natural world as one in which people have their place and have made their mark.


Recent evidence has shown that cardiomyocytes (CMs) can proliferate at a low level after myocardial infarction (MI), but it is insufficient to reestablish heart function. Several miRNAs have been proven to sufficiently induce rodent CM proliferation. However, whether miRNAs identified in rodents can promote human CM proliferation is unknown due to the poorly conserved functions of miRNAs among species. In this study, we demonstrate that i) expression of microRNA-302d (miR-302d) decreased significantly during CM differentiation from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) from day 4 to day 18; ii) miR-302d efficiently promoted proliferation of hPSC-derived CMs; iii) miR-302d promoted CM proliferation by targeting LATS2 in the Hippo pathway; and iv) RNA-seq analysis revealed that overexpression of miR-302d induced changes in gene expression, which mainly converged on the cell cycle. Our study provides further evidence for the therapeutic potential of miR-302d.


The mechanical and damping properties were measured for unidirectional, 0/90 and twill 2/2 flax fibre (FF) composites containing 40 vol% of fibres in an epoxy matrix. All composites were processed by resin transfer moulding. The influence of the impregnation quality, the fibre/matrix adhesion, the quality of the fibres, the twist angle of the FF yarns and the crimp in the FF fabrics on these properties were quantified. Twisted yarns in an unidirectional FF fabric impacted negatively on the stiffness while increasing the damping of about 57% through enhancement of the intra-yarn friction. In twill 2/2 fabrics, twisted yarns decreased Young's modulus owing to the induced crimp but increased the damping through enhanced inter-yarn friction. With improved fibre/matrix adhesion, a damping increase up to 109% was obtained through better activation of the intrinsic damping mechanisms of an elementary FF. The best compromise between damping and stiffness was obtained with FF having less dislocations.


Abstract Balancing the critiques of scientism in communications, this response notes how belletrism has marginalized rhetorical studies on the other side of the modern opposition of the arts and sciences. Such institutional divisions need to be assessed against broader changes in literacy if our disciplinary histories are to be a resource for assessing how rhetoricians in composition and communications can work together. The marginal positions of composition and speech courses may undermine the prestige of rhetoric as an academic discipline, but the margins can be a place of power if approached pragmatically. Looking beyond the pragmatic professionalism of disciplinary insiders such as Stanley Fish, we need to develop alliances with practitioners of the arts of rhetoric outside as well as within the academy if pragmatism is to contribute to the institutional work of making universities into institutions of public learning.


Excerpt] This provocative book by the leading historian of the National Labor Relations Board offers a reexamination of the NLRB and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by applying internationally accepted human rights principles as standards for judgment. These new standards challenge every orthodoxy in U.S. labor law and labor relations. James A. Gross argues that the NLRA was and remains at its core a workers' rights statute. Gross shows how value clashes and choices between those who interpret the NLRA as a workers' rights statute and those who contend that the NLRA seeks only a "balance" between the economic interests of labor and management have been major influences in the evolution of the board and the law. Gross contends, contrary to many who would write its obituary, that the NLRA is not dead. Instead he concludes with a call for visionary thinking, which would include, for example, considering the U.S. Constitution as a source of workers' rights. Rights, Not Interests will appeal to labor activists and those who are trying to reform our labor laws as well as scholars and students of management, human resources, and industrial relations


Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides - the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonisingly widespread. A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of 'natural' as well as 'human' archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s - longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers - disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the world died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism. Parker's demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?


To choose suitable resources for personal competence development in the vast amount of open educational resources is a challenging task for a learner. Starting with a needs analysis of lifelong learners and learning designers we introduce two wayfinding services that are currently researched and developed in the framework of the Integrated Project TENCompetence. Then we discuss the role of these services to support learners in finding and selecting open educational resources and finally we give an outlook on future research.


Abstract This thesis has two parts, in the first, the Caldeira-Leggett model is introduced; its derivation and general consequences are explored following a paper by Caldeira and Leggett[1]. An operator-formalism shortcut through some of the more mathematically cumbersome parts of the derivation of the model is also developed. The correlation of the force resulting from reservoir-interaction is examined in the high- and low-temperature limits, and the Langevin equation is shown to emerge in the classical limit.Abstract The second part introduces decoherence through a thought experiment that demonstrates the destructive effect of random phase shifts on interference terms, and then follows another paper by Caldeira and Leggett[2] in applying their model further to study the phenomenon of dissipative decoherence. The time-evolution of the interference terms in a superposition of Gaussian wave packets in a harmonic oscillator potential is studied when interacting with a heat bath, and they are shown to vanish at a rate much faster than the relaxation of the system.


The merger of the Malaysian domestic banks was enforced by the government in the year 1999 after years of persuasion with little success. This study endeavors to measure the impact of the involuntary merger on the efficiency gains. Merger and acquisition of domestic banks improved the banks' performance, profitability and value creation as indicated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 1999. The central bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) reassures banks to merge with other banking institution in order to bring about the economies of scale and to provide a higher level of efficiency. Subsequent to the mergers, there were only nine commercial banks left to form a completely new corporation. The secondary data was derived from the nine domestic banks from the year 2005 to 2009 were accumulated and analyzed using the DEA method. Mergers had unique advantages in terms of industry efficiency.


Ever since the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in R. v. Corbett, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 670, the question of whether an accused's prior criminal convictions can be raised against him in cross-examination has depended heavily upon whether those convictions constitute crimes of dishonesty, and whether defence counsel has attacked the credibility of a Crown witness. The conventional wisdom is that crimes of dishonesty are the most probative prior convictions and extremely useful in measuring a person's credibility on the witness stand. Consequently, they are almost always admissible. In the same vein, contesting the credibility of a Crown witness is also viewed as a touchstone of admissibility. Both propositions have been repeated often enough to have achieved untouchable status. In this article, the author challenges this position, suggesting that a second look at both conclusions is warranted. While some crimes falling under the designation undoubtedly deserve to be regarded as probative, the dishonesty factor often acts as little more than a stamp of convenience for the judiciary, and incorrectly permits the admission of prior convictions in situations where exclusion is warranted. Although better grounded in principle, the "credibility contest" designation suffers from similar shortcomings, as it is overutilized and often misunderstood, leading to the risk of real prejudice to the accused.


The relevance of immune-endocrine interactions to the regulation of testicular steroidogenesis in teleosts is virtually unexplored. The objectives of the present study were: 1) to investigate the effects of murine cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta), and trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) macrophage conditioned media (MCM) on testosterone (T) production by goldfish (Carassius auratus) testis pieces in vitro; and 2) to identify the site(s) of the inhibitory action of TNFalpha on hCG-stimulated T formation. TNFalpha (0-100 ng/ml) affected basal T production differentially depending on the gonadosomatic index (GSI) value of the fish. TNFalpha stimulated basal T of fish with a relatively low GSI (average 1.99), but inhibited T production by testis of fish with a higher GSI (average 5.14). The remaining studies used fish with only high GSI values. IL-1beta (0-10 ng/ml) inhibited basal T production, while MCM (0-25% v/v) had no effect. The cytokines significantly inhibited hCG-stimulated T production at all doses tested, whereas MCM was inhibitory only at the lower doses of 2.5-5% v/v. TNFalpha did not affect basal or hCG-stimulated cAMP levels, but did inhibit forskolin (0.5 microM; adenylate cyclase activator) and 8-bromo-cAMP (0.15 mM; cAMP analog) stimulated T levels. The inhibitory actions of TNFalpha on T production were greatly reduced by treatment of testis with 25-hydroxycholesterol (1 and 10 microg/ml), pregnenolone (50 and 100 ng/ml), and 17 alpha-hydroxypregesterone (50 ng/ml). TNFalpha caused a moderate decrease in pregnenolone (100 ng/ml)-stimulated T production. Together, these data demonstrate that regulatory actions of TNFalpha may occur at multiple sites within the steroid biosynthetic pathway, but the major effect appears to be related to cholesterol availability in the mitochondria. In conclusion, the results of this study implicate macrophage-derived factors in the regulation of teleost testicular androgen biosynthesis.


Background and Objectives: The purpose of this study was to study the histogenesis and neuroanatomy of the human fetal ileum and ileocecal junction at various gestational ages (15, 18, 20, 28, and 32 weeks) using neuron-specific enolase (NSE) as a neuronal marker and S-100 as a glial marker for the enteric nervous system. Materials and Methods: For this study, five aborted normal fetuses were obtained from the fetal repository of Department of Anatomy. The ileocecal part of the small intestine of these fetuses was dissected, processed, and sectioned and stained with hematoxylin and eosin and cresyl violet. Immunohistochemistry was performed using antibodies to NSE and S-100 and observed under a BX61 Olympus microscope using a DP71 camera. Results: The myenteric and submucosal plexuses of terminal ileum and ileocecal junction show immunoreactivity for both NSE and S-100 by 20 weeks. The development of myenteric plexus is more advanced than submucosal plexus. The immature neurons at 15 weeks progressively mature with distinct cell processes at 32 weeks. The mature ileocecal junction is composed of two outer circular muscle layers and a single inner longitudinal muscle layer. At 32 weeks, ileocecal valve was visualized. Interpretation and Conclusions: Our study provides the morphological evidence of the immunoreactivity in the ganglion plexus and the development of ileum and ileocecal junction at different developmental stages. It also substantiates the concept of ileocecal junction being an intussusception of ileum into the cecum.


Combined with identity-based signature technology and non-interactive proof, a dynamic group signature scheme was built based on the standard group scheme model. This scheme overcame the shortcoming of static property of standard scheme and was of strong Non-frameability. New members could dynamically join in group without updating the group public key and group manager could not forge any member's signature. By the performance and safety analysis of the scheme, it could prove that, this scheme was higher performance than other similar group signature schemes, and the correctness, anti-CPA attack complete anonymity and full traceability of this scheme had satisfied the secure request of standard scheme. Therefore the scheme is of preferable applicability.


In this video, we introduce the PlaceLab, a live-in laboratory for the study of ubiquitous computing technologies in the home. The PlaceLab is a real home where the routine activities and interactions of everyday home life can be observed, recorded for later analysis, and experimentally manipulated. Volunteer research participants individually live in the PlaceLab for days or weeks at a time, treating it as a temporary home. Meanwhile, sensing devices integrated into the fabric of the architecture record a detailed description of their activities. The facility generates sensor and observational datasets on typical domestic activity that can be used for research in pervasive computing, preventive healthcare, user interface design, and other fields where domestic contexts impact behavior.


Software development is a succession of descriptions in different languages in which every description is based on a previous one. Since the requirements specification is one of the first descriptions, it is important to begin software development with requirements that are as correct and as complete as possible. Although some literature holds the belief that correctness and completeness are two attributes that requirements specifications must satisfy, we know that these attributes are very difficult to meet. However, we have to find ways to diminish the level of incompleteness and deal with the possible conflicts that do arise in the requirements context. Defining the domain language before specifying the requirements is a way of coping with these problems. Nowadays, software systems involve many stakeholders and it is hard to engage all of them to produce a domain language specification. We rely on collaboration to foster the involvement and cooperation of the stakeholders, thus they are able to explore the differences constructively and provide a common understanding of the domain language beyond their own limited views. In this paper, we propose a strategy to capture the domain language in a collaborative way using the Language Extended Lexicon and we show a validation of the proposed strategy.


Objectives: To evaluate the effect of tamsulosin oral controlled absorption system 0.4 mg and alfuzosin 10 mg on clearance of stone fragments after ESWL in renal and upper ureteric calculi. Patients and Methods: A total of 200 patients with single pelvic renal or upper ureteric calculi 20 mm or less were enrolled in this study, underwent ESWL, those patient were divided into 3 groups, group (A) formed of 65 patients received non steroidal anti inflammatory in the form of diclofinac Na 50 mg three times /day on demand with tamsulosin oral controlled absorption system 0.4 mg once daily. Group (B) formed of 66 patients receiving diclofinac Na 50 mg three times /daily on demand with alfuzosin 10 mg at night on bed time. Group (C) formed of 69 patients received diclofinac Na 50 mg three times /daily on demand as controlled group. All groups received 75 mg of diclofinac Na ampule intramuscular on demand. All patients were followed by KUB 2 weeks after each session of ESWL for clearance of stone fragments; all groups are comparable as regard of age, sex mean stone size and stone location. Results: In our study the success rate after the end of study for stone size 10 mm or less was 28/28 patients 100% in group (A), 31/31 patients 100% in group (B) and 28/30 patients 93.3% in group (C). For stone size more than 10 mm, the success rate after 1st session of ESWL was higher in group (A) 26/37 patients 70.27% tamsulosin oral controlled absorption system and group (B) 25/35 patients 71.4% extended release alfuzosin10 mg than group (C) 17/39 patients 35.89% controlled group. The overall success rate at end of study was higher in group (A) 36/37 patients 97.29% and group (B) 33/35 patients 94.28% than group (C) 31/39 patients 79.48%. No sever complication was observed in three groups A,B and C, retrograde ejaculation was 7.69% (5 patients) in group A, orthostatic hypotension did not require suspension of the therapy was 3% (2 patients) in group A and 6% (4 patients) in group B. Conclusion: Medical expulsive therapy (tamsulosin oral controlled absorption system 0.4 mg) and alfuzosin 10 mg after ESWL for renal and ureteral calculi >10 mm increase stone expulsion rate, decrease the time for stone expulsion , amount of analgesia and number of colics episodes ,in contrast, they failed to demonstrate a significant treatment effect after ESWL for stone less than 10 mm. [Yasser A. Badran, Tamer A. Ali, Mohamed A. Abd Elaal, Mahmud ali, Adil Jamal and Ahmed Farouk Abdulall Role of Tamsulosin Oral Control Absorption System and Alfuzosin in Shock wave Lithotripsy for Renal and Upper Ureteric Calculi. J Am Sci 2013;9(6):387-393]. (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience.org 46


My first thoughts about writing this booklet were shaped by previous publications of my colleagues, particularly Exploring the Black Experience
series and the Idea Exchange on "Native Americans." I want to thank my co-workers at CABLE Head Start State Training Office for their advice and assistance on this publication, especially Kitty Eagle, administrative secretary, for her diligence in the typing of this manuscript and Jamice Ryan, editor, for her perseverance in the rush. For the methods used in researching this project I want to thank Dr. Bhabagrahi Misra, anthropologist and educator, who helped me learn how to understand and interpret a culture from within utilizing a humanistic perspective. Also I want to thank the friends and neighbors of my parents, Gene and Mattie Bailey, of Patrick County, Virginia, who have acquainted me with edge-of-the-mountains families. Especially I want to thank the Head Start staff people in western North Carolina who have provided me with information and resources. Their assistance has been invaluable. They work long and hard for little pay. They show insight and caring for the families with whom they work. They know that the children have the potential and the right to live a good life and preserve the rich and beautiful parts of their mountain heritage.


We can extrapolate a large amount of information about what a person thinks or believes, purely by observing their behaviour. There are separate systems in the brain that decode what action is being performed and why that action is performed. Independently, these systems are reasonably well understood but the way in which they interact is still an open question. In this thesis I investigate how we come to understand others actions, particularly if they are unusual or irrational. Irrational actions provide a special test case for examining this question because full comprehension requires an understanding of what an agent is trying to achieve as well as an understanding of why they are performing the action in an unusual way. I examine this question in a series of experiments with typically developing and autistic participants. First, I demonstrate that dissociable brain networks are engaged during irrational action observation using fMRI. I then use eye tracking to examine the cognitive processes that these neural networks reflect in both typical and autistic adults. I report typical cognitive processing of irrational actions in individuals with autism, despite previous reports of atypical neural activity during the same task. Finally, I aimed to examine the social response to irrational actions in typical and autistic children using an overimitation paradigm. I demonstrate that overimitation in typically developing children is socially driven and dependent upon rationality comprehension. However, my data also indicate that children with autism are immune to this drive. I conclude this thesis with a new model of rationality comprehension which links brain, cognition and behaviour. I also propose that individuals with ASC have the cognitive ability to understand irrational actions but may have difficulty with social modulation of their behaviour.


Abstract. One of the main problems of rescue workers in confrontation of fired complex buildings is the lack of sufficient information about the building indoor environment and their emergency exit ways. Building information modeling (BIM) is a database for building a 3D model of building information to create a 3D building geometry network model. This paper has implemented some GIS and BIM integration analyses to determine the shortest and safest paths to people under fire risk and simulate their movement in the building. Plasco building was a multi-story shop in Tehran which has been fired in 2017 and destroyed. This paper attempts to simulate the firefighting and rescue operations in Plasco Building using an integration of BIM and GIS. There is no detailed information about the building and the fire incident, therefore the developed BIM and corresponding geometric network might differ slightly. The shortest and safest paths to the exit door or windows where the fire ladders are located are computed and analyzed. As a result of 15 scenarios developed in this paper, it was found that at 87% of the cases, the safest paths for the emergency exit of the people at risk were longer than the shortest paths. This study has evaluated different scenarios for the shortest and safest paths using Dijkstra algorithm considering different origins and destination points in the 3D indoor environment to assist the rescue operations.


1. Ecosystems have a critical role in regulating climate, and soil, water and air quality, but
management to change an ecosystem process in support of one regulating ecosystem service
can either provide co-benefits to other services or can result in trade-offs.
2. We examine the role of ecosystems in delivering these regulating ecosystem services, using
the UK as our case study region. We identify some of the main co-benefits and trade-offs of
ecosystem management within, and across, the regulating services of climate regulation, and
soil, water and air quality regulation, and where relevant, we also describe interactions with
other ecosystem services. Our analysis clearly identifies the many important linkages between
these different ecosystem services.
3. However, soil, water and air quality regulation are often governed by different legislation
or are under the jurisdiction of different regulators, which can make optimal management difficult
to identify and to implement. Policies and legislation addressing air, water and soil are
sometimes disconnected, with no integrated overview of how these policies interact. This can
lead to conflicting messages regarding the use and management of soil, water and air. Similarly,
climate change legislation is separate from that aiming to protect and enhance soil,
water and air quality, leading to further potential for policy conflict.
4. All regulating services, even if they are synergistic, may trade off against other ecosystem
services. At a policy level, this may well be the biggest conflict. The fact that even individual
regulating services comprise multiple and contrasting indicators (e.g. the various components
of water quality such as nutrient levels, acidity, pathogens and sediments), adds to the complexity
of the challenge.
5. Synthesis and applications. We conclude that although there are some good examples of
integrated ecosystem management, some aspects of ecosystem management could be better
coordinated to deliver multiple ecosystem services, and that an ecosystem services framework
to assess co-benefits and trade-offs would help regulators, policy-makers and ecosystem managers
to deliver more coherent ecosystem management strategies. In this way, an ecosystem
services framework may improve the regulation of climate, and soil, water and air quality,
even in the absence of economic valuation of the individual services.


Connected vehicles can make roads traffic safer and more efficient, but require the mobile networks to handle time-critical applications. Using the MONROE mobile broadband measurement testbed we conduct a multi-access measurement study on buses. The objective is to understand what network performance connected vehicles can expect in today's mobile networks, in terms of transaction times and availability. The goal is also to understand to what extent access to several operators in parallel can improve communication performance. In our measurement experiments we repeatedly transfer warning messages from moving buses to a stationary server. We triplicate the messages and always perform three transactions in parallel over three different cellular operators. This creates a dataset with which we can compare the operators in an objective way and with which we can study the potential for multi-access. In this paper we use the triple-access dataset to evaluate single-access selection strategies, where one operator is chosen for each transaction. We show that if we have access to three operators and for each transaction choose the operator with best access technology and best signal quality then we can significantly improve availability and transaction times compared to the individual operators. The median transaction time improves with 6% compared to the best single operator and with 61% compared to the worst single operator. The 90-percentile transaction time improves with 23% compared to the best single operator and with 65% compared to the worst single operator.


ABSTRACT : One of the most fundamental questions concerning the relationships between Hegel and Fichte consists in the notion of I or consciousness. Hegel, from the beginning of his philosophical thinking, turned his attention to Fichte's conception of I and expressed his appreciation of the original scheme of Fichte's Grundsatz (and for the consequent deduction/opposition I/non-I). Hegel shared with Fichte the principle that consciousness grounds science and its essential system. However, the radical difference is that, for Hegel, consciousness is intrinsically only science's necessary 'appearance'. On the contrary, for Fichte, consciousness not only grounds science, but also determines its structural content and possibility. For Hegel, consciousness in itself can only be the subject of Wissen (figurative-empirical theory in the phenomenological realm) and a historical form of spirit ( Erinnerung in contingent happening). In order to elaborate these two perspectives of the spirit's 'conceived history,' the Entauserung in the form of the pure concept belonging to the science is necessary; that is the indispensable element missing in Fichte's doctrine, not only in order to explain the effective truth of consciousness but also that of science itself.


Cloud service providers have aligned on availability zones as an important unit of failure and replication for storage systems. An availability zone (AZ) has independent power, networking, and cooling systems and consists of one or more data centers. Multiple AZs in close geographic proximity form a region that can support replicated low latency storage services that can survive the failure of one or more AZs. Recent reductions in inter-AZ latency have made synchronous replication protocols increasingly viable, instead of traditional quorum-based replication protocols. We introduce HopsFS-CL, a distributed hierarchical file system with support for high-availability (HA) across AZs, backed by AZ-aware synchronously replicated metadata and AZ-aware block replication. HopsFS-CL is a redesign of HopsFS, a version of HDFS with distributed metadata, and its design involved making replication protocols and block placement protocols AZ-aware at all layers of its stack: the metadata serving, the metadata storage, and block storage layers. In experiments on a real-world workload from Spotify, we show that HopsFS-CL, deployed in HA mode over 3 AZs, reaches 1.66 million ops/s, and has similar performance to HopsFS when deployed in a single AZ, while preserving the same semantics.


Transactions ensure simple and correct handling of concurrency and failures but are often considered too expensive for use in file systems. This paper argues that performance is not a barrier to running transactions. It presents a simple mechanism that substantially lowers the cost of read-only transactions (which constitute the bulk of operations in a file system). The approach is inexpensive: it requires modest additional storage, but storage is cheap. It causes read-only transactions to run slightly in the past, but guarantees that they nevertheless see a consistent state.


Ring species are widely recognized as one of the best natural illustrations of species formation. A ring species is a circular arrangement of populations with one boundary characterized by reproductive isolation, but intergradation among populations elsewhere. They form when populations disperse around a central barrier and form a secondary contact characterized by reproductive isolation. Ring species are often presented as a taxonomic conundrum, because the presence of a single boundary exhibiting reproductive isolation leaves the ring of populations uncomfortably situated between one and two species. Here we review the ring species concept, with a focus on the salamander Ensatina eschscholtzii and the Greenish Warbler, Phylloscopus trochiloides. We argue that ring species demonstrate the gradual nature of species formation, and thereby illustrate the model of species formation originally put forth by Darwin. We also argue that ring species have become overly idealized, with a focus on strict criteria to the detriment of evolutionary lessons. Like all models of evolutionary change, the ring species concept is an oversimplification, and an ideal ring species has never been found. Finally, we review ring species in light of the general lineage concept of species, and argue that ring species status, while nicely accommodated by recognizing a single species, is independent of taxonomy. The essential features of a ring species are a biogeographic history resulting in a ring-like distribution, and the presence of a single species border characterized by reproductive isolation. Under the general lineage concept, reproductive isolation is a contingent, but not necessary, property of evolutionary lineages. Whether one considers a ring species complex to be one species or many does not change the evolutionary message, and the problems (and lessons) presented by ring species do not go away with taxonomic changes.


ABSTRACT The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) uses Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) to strengthen grassroots women's movements to advocate for an alternative development model – the 'Feminist Fossil Fuel Free Future' (5Fs) – to ensure new, gender-just, economic, political, and social relationships in a world free from climate injustices. Grassroots women of the global South face the extreme impacts of climate change resulting in reinforced and exacerbated inequalities driven by a patriarchal capitalist economy. APWLD's Climate Justice-FPAR 2017–2019 (CJ-FPAR) supported young women researchers across Asia to lead grassroots research to expose the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women to demand climate justice. The programme evaluation found that CJ-FPAR proved highly successful as a feminist political tool in enhancing grassroots women's activism through capacity building, producing new knowledge, tools and resources, undertaking impactful advocacy, and strengthening the movements' architecture. We argue that FPAR is a useful methodology for grassroots feminist climate justice activists to collectively document lived experiences of climate change and strengthen women's movements to engage in strategic activism and advocacy for rights-based policy change.


The paper considers some of the discussions about the correspondence between the order of things, granted by God, and the order of ideas that helps the man's mind to arrange his own knowledge about the external world. The examination of the reflections on the causes and the order of the nature, as well as on the perceptions that mind has of natural phenomena, shows that this correspondence tends to grow weak. Through the scrutiny of texts by Descartes, Locke, Newton, Leibniz, Condillac, Condorcet, this paper points out the reflections on different notions (nominal and real essences, chain of being, analysis and synthesis, evidence and intuition, certainty and probability), then showing the weakening of the geometric in favour of an empirical pattern of knowledge, more useful to the matters of fact, which closes in the end of the eighteenth century. Particular attention is reserved to the apologetic side of the discussion on the certainty of the matters of fact and on the possibility of wonders and miracles.


Energy sampling-based interference detection and identification (IDI) methods collide with the limitations of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IoT hardware. Moreover, long sensing times, complexity, and inability to track concurrent interference strongly inhibit their applicability in most IoT deployments. Motivated by the increasing need for on-device IDI for wireless coexistence, we develop a lightweight and efficient method targeting interference identification already at the level of single interference bursts. Our method exploits real-time extraction of envelope and model-aided spectral features, specifically designed considering the physical properties of the signals captured with COTS hardware. We adopt manifold supervised-learning (SL) classifiers ensuring suitable performance and complexity tradeoff for the IoT platforms with different computational capabilities. The proposed IDI method is capable of real-time identification of IEEE 802.11b/g/n, 802.15.4, 802.15.1, and Bluetooth Low Energy wireless standards, enabling isolation and extraction of standard-specific traffic statistics even in the case of heavy concurrent interference. We perform an experimental study in real environments with heterogeneous interference scenarios, showing 90%–97% burst identification accuracy. Meanwhile, the lightweight SL methods, running online on wireless sensor networks-COTS hardware, ensure sub-ms identification time and limited performance gap from machine-learning approaches.


Virtual learning environments (VLEs) would appear to be particular effective in computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) for active learning. Most research studies looking at computer-supported collaborative design have focused on either synchronous or asynchronous modes of communication, but near-synchronous working has received relatively little attention. Yet it could be argued that near-synchronous communication encourages creative, rhetorical and critical exchanges of ideas, building on each other's contributions. Furthermore, although many researchers have carried out studies on collaborative design protocol, argumentation and constructive interaction, little is known about the interaction between drawing and dialogue in near-synchronous collaborative design.

The paper reports the first stage of an investigation into the requirements for the design and development of interactive systems to support the learning of collaborative design activities. The aim of the study is to understand the collaborative design processes while sketching in a shared white board and audio conferencing media. Empirical data on design processes have been obtained from observation of seven sessions with groups of design students solving an interior space-planning problem of a lounge-diner in a virtual learning environment, Lyceum, an in-house software developed by the Open University to support its students in collaborative learning.


In this paper, we introduce How2, a multimodal collection of instructional videos with English subtitles and crowdsourced Portuguese translations. We also present integrated sequence-to-sequence baselines for machine translation, automatic speech recognition, spoken language translation, and multimodal summarization. By making available data and code for several multimodal natural language tasks, we hope to stimulate more research on these and similar challenges, to obtain a deeper understanding of multimodality in language processing.


'Her bravest work of performance art to date . . . Rawly intimate' Observer This memoir spans Marina Abramovic's five decade career, and tells a life story that is almost as exhilarating and extraordinary as her groundbreaking performance art. Taking us from her early life in communist ex-Yugoslavia, to her time as a young art student in Belgrade in the 1970s, where she first made her mark with a series of pieces that used the body as a canvas, the book also describes her relationship with the West German performance artist named Ulay who was her lover and sole collaborator for 12 years. Abramovic has collaborated with stars from Lady Gaga to Jay-Z, James Franco and Willem Dafoe. Best known for her recent pieces 'The Artist is Present' and '512 Hours', this book is a fascinating insight into the life of one of the most important artists working today, and the woman who has been described as 'the grandmother of performance art'.


The construction of megaprojects – large, landscape transforming infrastructure projects – is booming. Megaprojects are becoming more immense and more environmentally damaging. Requiring vast, often transnational investment, megaprojects have escaped the boundaries of the nation state, and are often enacted in transnational contexts. Research has shown that megaprojects almost always rely on a combination of overstated benefits and underestimated environmental impacts in order to be approved, attract investment, and be built. Megaprojects therefore typically rely on highly targeted strategic communications and attempts to steer public discourse, in order to emphasize their advantages and downplay risks. This leads to accusations that they are insufficiently transparent, even deceptive. However, in a hyper-connected world, megaprojects and their risks are now more visible than ever, and are increasingly contested in local, national and global public arenas. Megaprojects are constructed in discourse both by project developers and their supporters, and by protest groups, as well as through their representation in the media. During the protracted communicational sparring that often accompanies them, megaprojects can become conferred with symbolic meaning.
This case study reveals the mediatized construction of a Chilean energy megaproject over eleven years from the project's inception, to its final dissolution. The proposed HidroAysen hydroelectric scheme for Patagonia was at first a largely invisible project, unknown outside the potentially affected region, until protest made the project visible. Presented by the developing company and by authorities as a nation building project to bring Chile energy independence, over time it garnered such vehement opposition that it sparked the largest protests that Chile had seen since its return to democracy. By analysing discourse in influential print and social media during the debate, using interviews with key actors, and strategic communications material from both sides, this study traces the discourse over the megaproject through several key stages. It shows what the symbolic communication of HidroAysen led the megaproject to represent, arguing that when a megaproject becomes layered with multiple symbolic meanings over time, it can become emblematic: a situation which is hard to shift. Though this study focuses on the case of one megaproject in Chile – and indeed shows how the nation was changed by the HidroAysen debate – it also draws wider lessons from the emblematic case of HidroAysen, enabling a better understanding of the communicational unfolding of transnational megaprojects, and the frequently transnational protests that oppose them.


Microvesicles secreted from our cells referred to as exosomes contain vital information on our health status and are believed to revolutionize early diagnosis. Therefore, separation of such particles is a growing field within point-of-care diagnostics, however, there are yet many limitations that need to be addressed in able to successfully separate exosomes from blood samples. The motivation for this study is to investigate how surface acoustic waves (SAW) based acoustophoresis may be used for separation of submicron particles from a bidispers particle suspension (micron and submicron sized particles) in a microfluidic device. For a microfluidic channel aligned between two SAW generating interdigital transducers (IDTs) standing surface acoustic waves (SSAW) will form in the SAW propagating medium, generating pressure nodes and anti-nodes inside the fluid. As a result, acoustic radiation forces will affect particles submerged in the fluid, depending on the particle size and the SAW frequency. IDT designs with different pitch, resonance frequency and reflector structures were fabricated; their frequency response were measured, and they were implemented together with a microfluidic channel to form an acoustophoresis device. Specifically, the effect of acoustophoresis and various IDT designs were investigated for the separation of bidisperse polystyrene particle sample. Frequency response measurements of the various IDT designs favors the 100 μm pitch IDT with reflectors. 3.0 μm polystyrene particles were successfully separated from 0.5 μm particles using the 100 μm pitch IDT design, while 1.0 μm and 0.2 μm polystyrene particles were only partially separated. The 50 μm pitch IDT device did successfully sort out the 1.0 μm particles, however, the 0.2 μm particles were not centered in the channel and the separation was only partially successful. Misalignments between the microfluidic channel and the IDTs during fabrication proved to be the main challenge for reproducible results, altering the locations of the pressure nodes and anti-nodes in the channel. The results for the devices are promising as a potential on-chip separation technique, however, to continue with further studies on submicron particle separation by SSAW the alignment accuracy has to be improved.


Abstract. Size-resolved vertical aerosol number fluxes of particles in the diameter range 0.25–2.5 μm were measured with the eddy covariance method from a 53 m high tower over the Amazon rain forest, 60 km NNW of Manaus, Brazil. This study focuses on data measured during the relatively clean wet season, but a shorter measurement period from the more polluted dry season is used as a comparison. Size-resolved net particle fluxes of the five lowest size bins, representing 0.25–0.45 μm in diameter, were in general dominated by deposition in more or less all wind sectors in the wet season. This is an indication that the source of primary biogenic aerosol particles may be small in this particle size range. Transfer velocities within this particle size range were observed to increase linearly with increasing friction velocity and increasing particle diameter. In the diameter range 0.5–2.5 μm, vertical particle fluxes were highly dependent on wind direction. In wind sectors where anthropogenic influence was low, net upward fluxes were observed. However, in wind sectors associated with higher anthropogenic influence, deposition fluxes dominated. The net upward fluxes were interpreted as a result of primary biogenic aerosol emission, but deposition of anthropogenic particles seems to have masked this emission in wind sectors with higher anthropogenic influence. The net emission fluxes were at maximum in the afternoon when the mixed layer is well developed, and were best correlated with horizontal wind speed according to the equation log10 F=0.48 · U+2.21 where F is the net emission number flux of 0.5–2.5 μm particles [m−2 s−1] and U is the horizontal wind speed [ms−1] at the top of the tower.


Delay of gratification–a form of self-control–is the ability to forsake immediately available rewards in order to obtain larger-valued outcomes in future, which develops throughout the pre-school years. The majority of previous research in this area has been conducted with Western populations, therefore knowledge of Eastern children's performance is scarcer. Here, utilising on a recently published dataset of British children (n = 61), we further tested delay of gratification in 3 to 5-year-old Chinese children (n = 75) using Bramlett et al.'s (2012) delay choice paradigm. The paradigm was previously used in non-human primates and it featured a mechanized rotating tray that sequentially moves rewards within reach. Additionally, we administered 3 inhibitory control tasks and 1 standardised delay choice task to Chinese pre-schoolers (British children were not tested). We aimed to investigate the influence of culture, reward type and reward visibility on pre-schoolers' ability to delay gratification. We found significant age-related improvements in delay of gratification ability in both countries and children performed better when presented with rewards varying in quality than quantity. Consistent with previous cross-cultural literature, Chinese children showed better overall performance than their British peers when reward visibility was manipulated (though reward visibility itself had no significant effect on performance). There were significant correlations in Chinese children's performance in Bramlett et al.'s (2012) delay choice paradigm and performance in some (though not all tested) inhibitory control tasks. We discuss these results in relation to task demands and the broader social orientation of self-control. We concluded that the intuitive comparative assessment of self-control task taps into children's delay of gratification ability. Our results emphasize the importance of testing for socio-cultural influences on children's cognitive development.


In Part II of this paper, we demonstrate on a modified 24-bus IEEE Reliability Test System (RTS) that it is indeed possible to manage large-scale intermittent resources in coordination with price-responsive demand. The algorithms introduced in Part I of this paper are simulated assuming 20% and 50% wind capacity. We show that the look-ahead dispatch of the proposed method is physically implementable and, when used with elastic demand, can accommodate the integration of close to 50% wind capacity. This is contrasted with the observation that, without elastic demand, 50% wind integration is not physically implementable. From the perspective of total market surplus, the predictive dispatch of the proposed method is 3.8% suboptimal when compared to the centralized most efficient predictive economic dispatch. Further simulations are needed to test the feasibility of coordinating wind power and price-responsive demand on realistic large-scale power systems.


Neal Stephenson follows his highly-praised historical novels, Quicksilver and The Confusion, with the extraordinary third and final volume of the Baroque Cycle. The year is 1714. Daniel Waterhouse has returned to England, where he joins forces with his friend Isaac Newton to hunt down a shadowy group attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with 'Infernal Devices' - time bombs. As Daniel and Newton conspire, an increasingly vicious struggle is waged for England's Crown: who will take control when the ailing queen dies? Tories and Whigs clash as one faction jockeys to replace Queen Anne with 'The Pretender' James Stuart, and the other promotes the Hanoverian dynasty of Princess Caroline. Meanwhile, a long-simmering dispute between Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz comes to a head, with potentially cataclysmic consequences. Wildly inventive, brilliantly conceived, The System of the World is the final volume in Neal Stephenson's hugely ambitious and compelling saga. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters in a time of genius, discovery and change, the Baroque Cycle is a magnificent and unique achievement.


T helper 17 (Th17) cells are a recently identified subset of effector T cells that produce IL-17, a cytokine implicated in various autoimmune disorders as well as (more beneficially) in the defense against extracellular bacteria. Laurence et al. found that when naïve CD4+ T cells were stimulated with antibodies and cultured under conditions designed to promote differentiation into Th17 cells [medium containing interleukin-6 (IL-6), transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, and blocking antibodies directed against IL-4 and interferon-γ], addition of IL-2 led to a dose-dependent decrease in the proportion of cells producing IL-17. In contrast, antibodies to IL-2 (which is produced by activated T cells) increased the proportion of IL-17-producing cells. T cells from mice lacking the gene encoding IL-2 (Il2−/− mice) generated a greater percentage of IL-17-producing cells than did T cells from wild-type mice, and Il2−/− mice had increased serum concentrations of IL-17 and a greater proportion of IL-17-positive cells in peripheral lymph nodes. Decreased abundance of STAT3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, which is activated by IL-6) was associated with a decrease in the proportion of Th17 cells and of the expression of RORγT messenger RNA, which encodes a nuclear receptor required for Th17 differentiation. Deletion of STAT5 (which is activated by IL-2), however, promoted Th17 differentiation. Moreover, STAT5 bound to the Il-17 promoter, suggesting that it might inhibit Il-17 transcription directly. Thus, in contrast to its well-established roles of stimulating T cell proliferation and differentiation, IL-2--once known as T cell growth factor--appears to attenuate Th17 differentiation. Stockinger provides thoughtful commentary. A. Laurence, C. M. Tato, T. S. Davidson, Y. Kanno, Z. Chen, Z. Yao, R. B. Blank, F. Meylan, R. Siegel, L. Hennighausen, E. M. Shevach, J. J. O'Shea, Interleukin-2 signaling via STAT5 constrains T helper 17 cell generation. Immunity 26, 371-381 (2007). [PubMed] B. Stockinger, Good for goose, but not for gander: IL-2 interferes with Th17 differentiation. Immunity 26, 278-279 (2007). [PubMed]


Culture is considered as the basis of human behaviors. A remarkable part of economical behaviors are also based on culture. In addition, every society is administered and directed on the basis of its culture and civilization. Hence, culture enjoys a special position in development and not paying sufficient attention to it results in failure of all development programs. As the result, the relationship between culture and development should be known completely and sufficient consideration should be given to it. Purpose of the current study is to investigate the cultural obstacles which are effective in Iran economical development – from the viewpoint of Tehran college students. In other words, it attempts to answer this question that what cultural factors have hindered economical development in Iran from the viewpoint of college students as the educated people and the society future managers. This research project investigates the effect of variables like fanaticism, Ethnocentrism in its traditional form, religion plurality, fatalism, some traditional beliefs, and some religious beliefs on nondevelopment of Iran economy from the viewpoint of Tehran college students through survey and theories of Isynschtad, Myrdal, Piers, Shaw, and Lypzyt. Statistic population of the project consists of total college students of Tehran including all the students from State, Azad, Payam-e Noor, Scientific-Applied, Non-Profit, etc. universities who are 453424 students. Sample size is 384 students which is obtained through Cochran method and measured by multiple-stage clustered sample-taking method. The research instrument is questionnaire and its reliability and validity have been measured through Cronbach's Alpha and face validity. Finally, the data a analyzed through SPSS. Obtained result confirmed the effect of the four variables of fanaticism, Ethnocentrism in its traditional form, religion plurality, fatalism, some traditional beliefs, and some religious beliefs on nondevelopment of Iran economy. In addition, the results of linear regression of independent variables with nondevelopment of Iran economy indicate that fatalism and religion multiplicity are the strongest and weakest variables in economy non-development, with β coefficients of 0.342 and 0.92, respectively.


Considering the cultural background of users is known to improve recommender systems for multimedia items. In this work, we focus on music and analyze user demographics and music listening events in a large corpus (120,000 users, 109 events) from Last.fm to investigate whether similarity between countries in terms of cultural and socio-economic factors is reflected in music taste. To this end, we propose a tag-based model to describe the music taste of a country and correlate the resulting music profiles to Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the Quality of Government data. Spearman's rank-order correlation and Quadratic Assignment Procedure indeed indicate statistically significant weak to medium correlations of music taste and several cultural and socio-economic factors. The results will help elaborating culture-aware models of music listeners and in turn likely yield improved music recommender systems.


Many local governments offer rich tax deals to firms to get these firms to come to their cities. In this brief essay, I review the economics of location-based tax incentives. I first address the positive economics of these incentives and present five theories of why these tax incentives occur. I then consider the normative aspects of these incentives and discuss the conditions under which these theories lead to optimal locations of firms and to optimal bundles of public goods. In general, I argue that tax incentives will generally lead to more efficient locational decisions. There may be undesirable redistributional consequences of these incentives, but these are best handled by national redistribution policy.


Biological clogging of unsaturated soils is an important process that can lead to the development of a biomat and failure of biofilters used to treat various wastewater streams. Several conceptual models have been developed to simulate clogging in saturated soils; however, efforts to develop similar models for unsaturated soils have been limited. Recently, Mostafa and Van Geel proposed three conceptual models to simulate bioclogging in unsaturated systems. These models included the impact of biomass growth on the relative permeability term for unsaturated flow. The models were incorporated into a one‐dimensional unsaturated flow and transport numerical model that simulates biological clogging in which microbial growth was simulated using Monod kinetics. The conceptual models have not been validated with experimental data. In this study, column experiments were conducted to study the clogging process in three different sand soils; filter media sand, concrete sand, and septic bed sand. Monod kinetic parameters were also evaluated in a separate experiment for the same feed solution used in the column study. The aim of this study was to validate the conceptual models proposed by Mostafa and Van Geel. Significant improvements to the flow and transport numerical model were required to accommodate the laboratory conditions. Improvements included implementing a minimum relative permeability of the biomat layer and a more detailed description of the biomass structure, which includes active biomass, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and an inert fraction. Comparisons between experimental data and numerical simulations indicated that the improved conceptual model for relative permeability appears to be appropriate for modeling bioclogging in the experiments considered in this study.


The adaptive significance of female selection of copulation partners remains unresolved, particularly in polygamous species where males do not provide paternal care. In these species the possibility that direct benefits other than paternal care may play an important role in the evolution of female choice has received little attention. I tested whether direct benefits are associated with female choice in the polygamous feral fowl, Gallus g. domesticus, where females prefer socially dominant copulation partners and males do not care for the young but do provide females with three commodities: food, vigilance, and sperm. I used a combination of empirical and experimental data to show that male propensity to offer food and vigilance, but not sperm, was positively associated with male social status, suggesting that the provision of these resources may be costly and condition dependent in males. Copulation success was correlated with male status but not with the number of feedings a female received from a male, indicating that a female preferred dominant partners that in general provided any female with more food, rather than partners that provided only her with more food, consistent with the idea that females may use male resource provisioning as a proximate mechanism to assess male condition. Together, these results indicate that male resources provisioning is (1) tightly linked to male social status, (2) a potential indicator of male condition and possibly genetic quality, and (3) a potential criterion for females to select dominant partners, thus playing an important role in the evolution of partner choice even in polygamous species lacking paternal care. Copyright 2003.


Problem For the past three decades, pastors and lay leaders of the Maranatha Seventh-day Adventist Church, situated in the city of Miami Gardens, Florida, USA, have fostered the longing for a comprehensive discipleship strategy that is geared toward new member retention. Although church leaders have attempted to address the problem of attrition, due to the lack of effective discipleship, by hiring full time Bible workers, forming new member classes, and creating ministry opportunities, a sustainable, competency-driven, and user-friendly curriculum did not emerge. Due to a combined growth rate of 29. 4% in membership, between the years 2002-2012, a comprehensive discipleship curriculum was considered to be of missional urgency. Method A discipleship curriculum, with emphasis on new member care and retention, was developed and implemented between 2012 and 2014. Its purpose was to educate, equip, and engage church leaders in a series of training seminars that would link theory to practice. This discipleship curriculum emphasized the learning components of mentoring connections, spiritual formation, and membership accountability. It was instructional in the competencies of spiritual disciplines, transformational relationships, personal stewardship, biblical discipleship, spiritual giftedness, and sensitivity to missing members. While the curriculum was based on the above-mentioned competencies, its effectiveness was measured in terms of participation level, overall commitment, changes in practice of church leaders toward their new converts, and the level of increase in membership enlightenment. Results Once a discipleship curriculum for training church leaders and members was developed, based on the six main competencies that emerged from the new member's surveys, a series of training seminars was conducted. Although the training was first designed and promoted for church leaders, church leadership requested the participation of all church members. Consequently, 60% of active church members attended and completed the requirements of the program. This included 100% of pastoral staff, 80% of church officers, 30% of church youth and pathfinder leaders, and 65 regular church members. A further 180 new members responded to the new member surveys. Generally, seminar participants commenced with much curiosity and an eagerness to learn. However, over 90% of participants reported that they were enlightened and better equipped to engage in the discipleship process of the church. There were two curriculum weaknesses: namely, a shortage of new members to be placed in mentoring relationships with seasoned members and insufficient time for implementing the curriculum. Conclusions Three important learnings emerged from this study. First, church leaders are eager to become more efficient in member discipleship. Second, a well-developed, competency-based, and easy to-follow discipleship curriculum is crucial to membership retention in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Third, it will require more transformational relationships than curriculum theory to retain members in the church. This research revealed that a curriculum of this sort is of missional urgency. It is crucial in the struggle to retain and disciple the people that God brings (Acts 2:27, 28) to the church.


In this article a concept of structural transformation is worked out and applied on the history of modernity. It involves a distinction between abstract modernity and epochs of realized modernities. The general theory of a structural transformation of modernity is applied on a special case; the transformation of the modern conduct of life in the West, The Weberian concept 'conduct of life' is today almost forgotten, but the author argues that it is a very useful conceptual tool for grasping crucial aspects of everyday life. These theoretical points of departure are then related to some classical American sociological investigations, but also to recent investigations. The result is a division of the history of conduct of life in Western modernity in three different epochs: the age of asceticism, the age of organization and the age of authenticity.


SUMMARY In this study the average consumption and cash incomes of households living in villages adjoining the Lobeke National Park in Southeast of Cameroon were analysed with particular focus on the extent to which households in the region were dependent on forest products and services. Possible reasons for the dependency of households on forests were identified and tested using logistic regression. A total of eight income portfolios were found to be contributing to the household annual incomes in the studied villages. The contribution of forest products to household income and consumption ranged between 0.10 to 0.82 (mean = 0.49 and sd = 0.18). Forest income contributed 44.44% to the total income of all the households surveyed. The annual average forest income per household was US$ 239.3. A major recommendation was that conservation policies need to be overhauled to take into consideration the importance of forest products in the livelihoods of forest-dependent people.


In this assured debut about loneliness and passion in Africa, Sue Eckstein enthrals with a deliciously intricate plot, compelling characters and razor-sharp dialogue.

West Africa in the early 1990s. Isabel Redmond is tiring of her iconoclastic husband's penchant for pendulous black breasts; the High Commissioner and his wife Fenella are both enjoying illicit affairs; an old English judge is wandering through the scrub following a tribe of Fulani herdsmen; Bob Newpin is about to make a killing in timeshares; and just what Father Seamus is up to is anyone's guess.

Enter new diplomat Daniel Maddison on his first posting abroad. Rebelling against the endless rounds of cocktail parties, golf and gossip, he finds himself drawn to people and places that lie way beyond the experience of his High Commission colleagues – and specifically to the dusty warehouse in the heart of the city where a thin white woman is silently measuring out lengths of brightly coloured cloth.


The fundamental processes on nanoscale that may influence the design of nanoelectronic chips, sensors, and systems is presented. The focus is on the breakdown of Ohm's law in nanoscale devices extensively being used to assess the performance of a "system-on-a-chip," may it be for bio, chemical, physical or engineering applications. Novel insights on theories of three sources of transformation of Ohm's Law are enumerated: quantum confinement in low-dimensional nanostructures, ballistic transport when conducting channel length is smaller than the mean free path, and high-field initiated carrier asymmetric distribution. The saturation velocity arising from the high-field initiated mobility degradation is shown to be the intrinsic velocity that depends on the nanostructure dimensionality, its carrier concentration, and the ambient temperature, in direct contrast to single number that is quoted in the literature. The ballistic intrinsic velocity is the ultimate saturation velocity that can be lowered by the onset of a quantum emission that may be an optical phonon or photon quantum emitted from an excited quantized level to the ground state. The results presented will have profound impact in the interpretation of data on a variety of nanoelectronic devices and systems that may exist with varying low dimensionality, i. e., classical (analogue energy spectrum) in one or more of the three cartesian directions while other directions go quantum (digitized energy spectrum).


Current consensus on global climate change predicts warming trends with more pronounced temperature changes in winter than summer in the Northern Hemisphere at high latitudes. Moderate increases in soil temperature are generally related to faster rates of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition in Northern ecosystems, but there is evidence that SOC stocks have remained remarkably stable or even increased on the Tibetan Plateau under these conditions. This intriguing observation points to altered soil microbial mediation of carbon‐cycling feedbacks in this region that might be related to seasonal warming. This study investigated the unexplained SOC stabilization observed on the Tibetan Plateau by quantifying microbial responses to experimental seasonal warming in a typical alpine meadow. Ecosystem respiration was reduced by 17%–38% under winter warming compared with year‐round warming or no warming and coincided with decreased abundances of fungi and functional genes that control labile and stable organic carbon decomposition. Compared with year‐round warming, winter warming slowed macroaggregate turnover rates by 1.6 times, increased fine intra‐aggregate particulate organic matter content by 75%, and increased carbon stabilized in microaggregates within stable macroaggregates by 56%. Larger bacterial "necromass" (amino sugars) concentrations in soil under winter warming coincided with a 12% increase in carboxyl‐C. These results indicate the enhanced physical preservation of SOC under winter warming and emphasize the role of soil microorganisms in aggregate life cycles. In summary, the divergent responses of SOC persistence in soils exposed to winter warming compared to year‐round warming are explained by the slowing of microbial decomposition but increasing physical protection of microbially derived organic compounds. Consequently, the soil microbial response to winter warming on the Tibetan Plateau may cause negative feedbacks to global climate change and should be considered in Earth system models.


Chemically, ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a close cousin of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). RNA is, however, involved in a wide range of cellular activities (e.g. translating genetic information, serving as a structural scaffold, catalysing biological reactions) that often require the molecule to fold into a specific structure in order to perform its targeted function. Structurally and functionally it is therefore more closely related to proteins than to DNA. An RNA structural motif is defined as a collection of residues that fold into a stable three-dimensional (3D) structure and which can be found in naturally occurring RNAs in unexpected abundance. Owing to the fact that stable 3D structures are associated with RNA structural motifs, these motifs often served as nucleation sites for RNA folding.

Key Concepts:

RNA motifs can help stabilise a global RNA structure, as well as guide the RNA folding process.

Hairpins are essential in constituting RNA tertiary architecture and in forming binding sites for other molecules.

Owing to variation of the lengths of loops and stems, as well as the types of interactions between them, pseudoknots represent a structurally diverse group.

Triloops and tetraloops with specific sequences are stable and frequently observed hairpin loops.

Self-folding RNA structures, including the adenosine platform, ribose zipper, bulge–helix–bulge motif and G-bulge motif, can provide the nucleation sites for RNA folding.

Keywords:

helix and loop;
hairpin;
junction;
kissing loop;
pseudoknot;
RNA folding;
RNA self-folding structure


This paper presents
and illustrates the application of an elastic-plastic Generalised Beam Theory
(GBT) formulation, based on J2-flow plasticity theory, that makes
it possible to perform physically and geometrically non-linear (post-buckling) analyses of prismatic thin-walled members (i) with arbitrary cross-section shapes,
(ii) exhibiting any type of
deformation pattern (global, local, distortional, warping, shear), (iii) made
from non-linear materials with isotropic strain-hardening and (iv) containing
initial imperfections, namely residual stresses and/or geometric imperfections, having generic distributions. After
providing a brief overview of the main GBT assumptions, kinematical relations and
equilibrium equations, the development of a novel non-linear beam finite
element (FE) is addressed in some
detail. Moreover, its application is illustrated through the presentation and
discussion of numerical results concerning the post-buckling behaviour of
a fixed-ended I-section steel column exhibiting local initial geometrical imperfections, namely (i) non-linear
equilibrium paths, (ii) displacement profiles, (iii) stress diagrams/distributions and (iv) deformed configurations.
For validation purposes, the GBT results are also compared with values
yielded by Abaqus rigorous shell FE
analyses.


A Large number of insects are influenced easily by a number of pollutants; such as cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb). Cadmium has an increasing international concern because its toxicity is generally considered to be much higher than those of other heavy metals. In this research, we tried to evaluate the effects of both cadmium and lead on the larval and pupal durations together with adult longevity. From the obtained results, we found that cadmium (Cd) treatment disturbed larval development, metamorphosis and decreased the survival of both larvae and pupae. The mean total percentage survival of the larvae fed castor bean leaves treated with cadmium was significantly lower than that of the control and the lead treatments. It was observed that, percentage pupation was successful under lead treatment (93% percentage pupation) and the percentage larval survival recorded the highest value (94%) compared with those of the control and cadmium treatments. Our research assumed that lead does not affect the growth parameters of the insect.


Many people think of sunburn and skin cancer when they hear about the ozone hole. But more ultraviolet (UV) radiation isn't the only problem. The ozone hole has also led to dramatic changes in Southern Hemisphere weather patterns. These in turn are altering natural ecosystems and food production. These climate changes are likely having a similar if not greater impact than more UV radiation. Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Robinson, S. (2014). The ozone hole leaves a lasting impression on southern climate. The Conversation, 18 November 1-3. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/smhpapers/2330 Sharon Robinson 18 November 2014, 6.16am AEDT AUT HO R Professor at University of Wollongong Many people think of sunburn and skin cancer when they hear about the ozone hole. But more ultraviolet (UV) radiation isn't the only problem. The ozone hole has also led to dramatic changes in Southern Hemisphere weather patterns. These in turn are altering natural ecosystems and food production. These climate changes are likely having a similar if not greater impact than more UV radiation. We discuss some of these changes in a paper published today in Global Change Biology. This week the parties to the Montreal Protocol will meet in Paris, to consider the latest report from the United Nations Environment Programme Environmental Effects Assessment Panel. This report summarises the impact of both ozone loss and the associated increase in ultraviolet radiation on the environment and human health. The Montreal Protocol continues to be effective at phasing out ozone depleting chemicals and has decreased levels of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But while the Montreal Protocol is a success story, the Southern Hemisphere still faces the threat of climate change from rising greenhouse gases. There is still much to do. Changing the weather In recent years, climate scientists have shown that the ozone hole has had a profound impact on weather systems throughout the Southern Hemisphere, especially during summer. The ozone hole has pulled the polar jet stream further south, increasing its strength. These winds isolate Antarctica and help to keep most of it cold as the rest of the world warms. This Antarctica has actually been protected from sea ice melt by the ozone hole. Vassil Tzvetanov, CC BY The ozone hole leaves a lasting impression on southern climate http://theconversation.com/the-ozone-hole-leaves-a-lasting-impression... 1 of 3 18/11/2014 8:37 AM has prevented sea ice melt and rising sea-levels. By changing atmospheric circulation, the ozone hole modifies wind, rain and snowfall patterns across the Southern Hemisphere. The changing pattern and strength of winds has caused shifts in the regions that get plenty of rain or snowfall, and those that stay dry. For example, the tip of South America is getting dryer but further north there is more rain. Since water is vital for all living things, these changes could have profound effects on agricultural and natural ecosystems across the Southern Hemisphere. The ozone hole has been linked to better growth of trees and crops in areas where there is more rain, such as in south east South America and the New Zealand alps, whereas there is less growth in areas that have less rain or snow including trees in Patagonia and mosses in Antarctica. In East Antarctica lake biodiversity has changed as lakes become saltier, due to less freshwater entering the lakes. Stronger winds also change how the oceans mix — and this affects ocean productivity, and the ability of the Southern Oceans to take up CO2. The winds carry dust and can bring about blooms of phytoplankton (microscopic ocean algae) if more nutrients are transported into the ocean. Dust blowing into Antarctica could also bring spores of new species, to compete with the existing vegetation. The effect of the ozone hole on weather patterns is most pronounced in summer and may also be responsible for more extreme events including floods, drought and wildfires throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Given that these extreme weather events affect water supplies, there may be many as yet unreported side effects of ozone depletion on ecosystems, ecosystem services and agriculture. The ozone hole has changed the Southern Hemisphere's atmospheric circulation, pulling the polar (westerly) jet stream further south. Robinson SA, Erickson III DJ (2014) Not just about sunburn – the ozone hole's profound effect on climate has significant implications for Southern Hemisphere ecosystems. Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/gcb.12739. Image by Andrew Netherwood Click to enlarge The ozone hole leaves a lasting impression on southern climate http://theconversation.com/the-ozone-hole-leaves-a-lasting-impression... 2 of 3 18/11/2014 8:37 AM A world avoided The Montreal Protocol (1987) is a major success story. As a result of this international agreement, the ozone hole is likely to recover by the middle of this century. Ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation damage to all living organisms, including humans, has been minimised since the region where major ozone depletion occurred is over the sparselypopulated Antarctic. Even there the impacts on terrestrial life are thought to be small, probably less than a 6% loss in productivity in plants. By controlling the release of ozone depleting chemicals the Montreal Protocol has made a large contribution to reducing greenhouse gases. The world is cooler now than it would have been without the Montreal Protocol's controls on emissions of ozone depleting chemicals. This is because many of the chemicals that break down ozone are also potent greenhouse gases (such as chlorofluorocarbons — CFCs). Climate change in the Southern Hemisphere can be attributed to ozone depletion, as well as increasing greenhouse gases. Decades after the ozone hole was identified and action was taken, we are still discovering how profound its implications are both in terms of the "world avoided", and unanticipated climate change. Prompt action was taken in 1987 but the lag time for recovery is still long (see also here). The Montreal protocol is an important lesson to us, both of the efficacy of international action and also the importance of timely responses to recognised climate change. Sharon Robinson and Dr. David Erickson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA present this work in the scientific journal Global Change Biology. They are both members of the UNEP-EEAP. The ozone hole has changed the Southern Hemisphere's atmospheric circulation, wind patterns, precipitation and oceanic currents with ecological consequences. Robinson SA, Erickson III DJ (2014) Not just about sunburn – the ozone hole's profound effect on climate has significant implications for Southern Hemisphere ecosystems. Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/gcb.12739. Image by Andrew Netherwood Click to enlarge The ozone hole leaves a lasting impression on southern climate http://theconversation.com/the-ozone-hole-leaves-a-lasting-impression... 3 of 3 18/11/2014 8:37 AM


Assumptions about groundwater flow based on observations from single-well test sites and a multi-well test site were evaluated by statistical methods on a regional data set of borehole flow rates and ground checked, remotely sensed lineaments. The analysis shows that the influence area of lineaments is characterised by a three-partite flow zonation which mirrors that of the hydromechanical fault zone architecture. This flow rate zonation indicates important guide-lines for the siting of water wells in lineaments. But borehole flow rates in the most permeable zone, i.e. the damage zone of the lineaments, cannot be distinguished statistically from borehole flow rates in the less fractured background area. Contrary to the field site results, critically stressed lineaments in the current stress field are statistically equivalent to other lineament directions with respect to groundwater flow. This may relate to topographic perturbations of the regional WNW-ESE stress field, which reorient the maximum compressive stress σ H into parallelism with fjordand valley sides in this region. The statistical analyses, which show that topography is the most important explanatory variable for the observed variations in borehole flow rates, support this view.


This work analyses the eye-tracking technology and, as an outcome, it presents an idea of implementing it, along with other kinds of technology, in vehicles. The main advantage of such an implementation would be to augment safety while driving. The setup and the methodology used for detecting human activity and interaction using the means of the eye-tracking technology are investigated. Research in that area is growing rapidly and its results are used in a variety of cases. The main reasons for that growth are the constant lowering of prices of the special equipment that is necessary, the portability that is available in some cases as well as the easiness of use that make the usage of that technology more user-friendly than it was a few years ago.
The whole idea of eye-tracking is to track the movements of the eyes in an effort to determine the direction of the gaze, using sophisticated software and purpose built hardware. This manuscript, makes a brief introduction in the history of eye monitoring presenting the very early scientific approaches used in an effort to better understand the movements of the human while tracking an object or during an activity. Following, there is an overview of the theory and the methodology used to track a specific object. As a result there exists a short presentation of the image processing and the machine learning procedures that are used to accomplish such tasks. Thereafter, we further analyze the specific eye-tracking technologies and techniques that are used nowadays and the characteristics that affect the exact choice of eye-tracking equipment. For the appropriate choice we have to take into account the area of research-interest in which the equipment will be used. In addition, the main categories of eye-tracking applications are presented and we shortlist the latest state of the art eye-tracking commercial systems. Following, we present our first approach, trying to describe an eye-tracking device that could be used in vehicles offering much better safety standards, controlling various parameters, continuously checking the readiness of the driver and alerting him for potential imminent collision incidents. Finally, we describe the existing way of connecting a device, in our case an eye-tracker, can be connected to an automobile's system.


Although a variety of information security risk management (ISRM) approaches have been proposed, well-founded methods that provide an answer to the following question are still missing: How can the risk level of a business process be determined by taking the risk levels of the involved resources into account? This paper presents our research results regarding resource-based risk analysis methods in order to assign realistic figures concerning the business process risk level. With regard to business processes the research results allow the (semiautomatic) reasoning of the current security status of an organization. In this way we can support decision makers in selecting appropriate controls to reduce risks to an acceptable level; and also in making a reasonable trade-off between investments into security and the need for protection.


The rich earlier Mid Upper Palaeolithic (Pavlovian) sites of Dolní
 Vĕstonice I and II and Pavlov I (∼32,000–∼30,000 cal
 BP) in southern Moravia (Czech Republic) have yielded a series of human burials,
 isolated pairs of extremities and isolated bones and teeth. The burials occurred
 within and adjacent to the remains of structures ('huts'), among
 domestic debris. Two of them were adjacent to mammoth bone dumps, but none of
 them was directly associated with areas of apparent discard (or garbage). The
 isolated pairs and bones/teeth were haphazardly scattered through the occupation
 areas, many of them mixed with the small to medium-sized faunal remains, from
 which many were identified post-excavation. It is therefore difficult to
 establish a pattern of disposal of the human remains with respect to the
 abundant evidence for site structure at these Upper Palaeolithic sites. At the
 same time, each form of human preservation raises questions about the
 differential mortuary behaviours, and hence social dynamics, of these foraging
 populations and how we interpret them through an archaeological lens.


In this article we provide a brief account of the uses of humor, in particular satire and ridicule, to counter extremist narratives and heroes.  We frame the appeals of humor as "rhetorical charms," or stylistic seductions based on surprising uses of language and/or images designed to provoke laughter, disrupt ordinary arguments, and counter taken-for-granted truths, that contribute to new sources of influence to the globally wired world of terrorism.  We offer two recent examples of how the Internet in particular changed the narrative landscape in ways that offer potent evidence of uses of humor to remake extremist heroes into objects of derision.  We also caution those who would make use of humor as a strategic communication device to take into account the negative side effects and unexpected consequences that can accompany such uses.


This paper shows evidence of positive effects in the economic development of sending communities in Mexico due to migration. The principal hypothesis of this study is that remittances, knowledge and experience acquired by migrants during their migratory cycle, can be translated into larger economic growth in the out migration municipalities. This result presupposes that Government could create complementary incentives to take advantage of profitable activities. Economic and migration data for each municipality is used which allows to associate characteristics of communities, migratory flows and the effects in profitable activities. There are three sections. A first section describes the sending municipalities according to migratory intensity and their urban /rural nature. The second section analyzes the relation between remittances and socioeconomic conditions of the communities. In a third section the effect over time is estimated, relating per capita income growth and migratory flows intensity. The most relevant results are the existence of income convergence over time between high and low migration municipalities in the North and South of Mexico. As well, we find a positive and significant relation between per capita income growth and the percentage of households that receive remittances across communities, both at the country level and for the northern and southern regions separately.


The construction of the European cities structure in the colonial cities of the early period of the 20th century made the regions of indigenous settlements segmented and marginalized. While the Chinese community thriving because it has a key role in the economic system. The arrival of migrants from southern China (Fujian, Canton, Hainan, Hakka, etc.) to Southeast Asia since the 19th century to early 20th-century strengthen the development of urban architecture, one of that city is Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia. Surakarta has urban typologies and urban architectural typically. The river plays a major role as a transportation network for trade and the establishment of settlements and the structure of space in the city. Settlement among traders has always been at the river mouth. One of the communities that establish the urban structure of Surakarta is a settlement of Chinese community ( Pecinan ), which has existed since the era of the kingdom of Mataram. This study aims to trace the development of the Chinese community ( Pecinan) in the city of Surakarta in the structure of urban space and its determining indicators using the synchronic-diachronic reading as a method. Factors will be studied are the ecological factor, economic, political, and socio-cultural through 3 indicator: Kelenteng , shop houses, and settlement by grand gang . It is known that the existence of Chinese communities (Chinatowns/ Pecinan) in Surakarta going on since civilization of Bengawan Solo river in Mataram Kartasura period through trading activities. The biggest change occurred in the interval 1857-1900 with the coming of tram transportation system. The tram was originally only carry the European communities, then become a means of public transportation and changing trade flows initially rely on the river -which also began to experience the silting- total switch to ground. Revocation the rules of occupancy according to ethnic grouping (wijkenstelsel) from the Dutch that set Chinese community of Surakarta to stay in one complex in Balong and enforcement of permit revocation (passenstelsel) became one of the background of the Chinatown/Pecinan development in Surakarta. Thus, the first Chinatown centered in Balong began to flourish in the city center close to the tram lines, and eventually form a new Chinatown in Tambak Segaran, Coyudan, and Nonongan with Kelenteng, shophouses, and settlement.