The Eastern affinities which Byron developed while he was in Turkey and Greece, and which colored his Oriental Tales (Rishmawi 48-62), are still felt in his later poetry, particularly in his masterpiece. Yet it should be stated that although the East of the Tales is the same East of Don Juan, we notice important changes in Byron's attitude toward it. On the one hand, the East of the Tales offered Byron a perfect setting as well as a strong motive for his hero's involvement with eastern men and women, an involvement in which the Byronic hero indulges himself in violence and revenge, and suffers the subsequent feelings of guilt and remorse. On the other hand, the East of the Tales gave Byron an emotional by-pass which he so badly needed during his hectic years of fame and which prevented him from going mad. The East of Don Juan is of quite a different nature. Since Byron's memories of his Eastern experiences had almost faded by the time he wrote Don Juan, we notice that the material in it is not the result of first-hand experiences, but rather of Byron's readings and observations of Turkish history and manners. Thus, Byron's attitude toward the East in Don Juan is calculated, subtle, and satirical, a far cry from the passionate and obsessive attitude which we have seen in the Tales. Furthermore, Byron no longer needed to go to the East (in his imagination) in search of an emotional outlet, simply because in his later (and more mature) poetry Byron seems to have escaped from the feelings of guilt and remorse which, as Blackstone comments, "have dogged him from his pilgrimage years" (315). This shift in Byron's attitude toward the East coincides favorably with another shift in his poetical career, i.e., the shift from romances to satires in which, as Rutherford believes, Byron found his real voice as a poet (A Critical Study 142). Having established the direction of Byron's approach toward the Eastern material in Don Juan, we move into the consideration and analysis of the Eastern elements in his longest poem, which are concentrated in the fifth and sixth cantos and referred to in the seventh and the eighth. One can say that Byron's involvement with the East in Don Juan is focused on the seraglio, the symbol of Eastern power and corruption and the most powerful aspect of the Muslim East in the western imagination. Byron's interest in the seraglio is two-fold: social and political. At the social level, Byron exposes the inhabitants of the seraglio-the Sultan, his favorite wife (Sultana Gulbeyaz), his maids and eunuch-and reveals the perverse patterns which characterize the relationships which exist among them, as well as those which they have with the outside world. This perversity is strongly felt in the dramatic encounter between Gulbeyaz and Juan, in the Sultan's attitude toward his wives and many maids, and in the harem, the most secretive wing of the seraglio. At the political level, Byron criticizes the reckless, indifferent, and lustful master of the seraglio, and partially blames him for the catastrophic siege of Ismail which resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people. Moreover, the seraglio helps Byron launch his severest attack against tyranny and tyrants (in this case the Sultan and Gulbeyaz)1 who abuse the power invested in them by their people. Yet one has to remember that Byron's relentless fight against Turkish tyrants does not prevent him from appreciating the courage and heroism of Turkish soldiers who die in the defense of their homes, and from making Juan, his hero, risk his life for the sake of saving Leila, the orphan Turkish child. In fact, Byron achieves a high level of moral impartiality 2 in his objective attitude toward the siege and the subsequent destruction of the Turkish city of Ismail. It serves as his strongest reason for condemning aimless wars and vain generals. Before we discuss Byron's exposition of the intricate social life in the seraglio, and his realistic, serio-comic, and psychological analysis of the characters of its inhabitants, it is important to dwell upon the manner in which Juan, Byron's hero, actually enters the seraglio-a place reserved for people of royal background or connections, or to the Sultan's harem and eunchs. …


Objectives. The Sami are the Indigenous people of the northernmost parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway, and of the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The present review summarizes the main results from studies on cancer morbidity and mortality among the Sami and discusses these results in relation to exposure of known risk factors. Study Design. Literature review. Methods. A systematic search over the time period 1966–2008 for relevant articles was conducted on MEDLINE. Updates and recalculations of some of the results from the original data were also done. Results. Nine articles whose main focus is on cancer incidence or mortality among the Sami were identified. In all studies, the overall incidence of cancer or cancer mortality was lower among the Sami in comparison with the national populations. The differences were less striking in relation to regional reference populations, but the rates were still significantly lower for all populations of Sami, except for Swedish Sami women. Beyond the general trend of a lower cancer incidence among the Sami, there were some notable differences between the various Sami subpopulations. Conclusions. The risk of developing and dying from cancer is low among the Sami. A life-style that includes cancer-protective factors, such as certain dietary components and physical activity, is the most likely explanation for the lower incidence of cancer among the Sami.


This thesis is concerned with core assumptions and practices in dominant approaches to Occupational Health and Safety (hereafter, OHS). I critically evaluate these through an anthropological exploration of the everyday perceptions, experiences and practices related to OHS risks amongst the cooperative miners employed in the Cerro Rico of Potosi (Bolivian Highlands).
Drawing on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2009 and 2011, the thesis examines the lives and livelihoods of the miners during a time of socio-political and economic transformations and of industry upheaval due to rising mineral prices. I describe how men and women navigate the challenges and opportunities in their lives and livelihoods and how these affect their perceptions and ability to manage the OHS risks associated with cooperative mining.
The thesis hinges on the Andean idea of 'looking at risk with both eyes', which connotes various overlapping and changing ways of understanding, perceiving and managing OHS hazards. This approach makes visible numerous inter-connected issues, which include the miners' individual subjectivities and values, backgrounds and lives, their different motivations for mining and the consequent everyday relations in the mine and beyond. It also allows unveiling the complex net of actors, factors and relationships which, from the individual to the global spheres and vice-versa frame, in a diverse and dynamic manner, both the OHS choices and opportunities of the miners and the particular risks they encounter.
On the basis of this ethnographic evidence about miners' shifting and context-specific perceptions and behaviours in managing risks that are transformed as circumstances change, I question the value of a universalising OHS approach based on assumptions of static and manageable OHS risks that disregard the precarious, complex, uncertain, heterogenic and mutable context in which miners live and work.


Cluster based multiprocessor scheduling can be seen as a hybrid approach combining benefits of both partitioned and global scheduling. Virtual clustering further enhances it by providing dynamic cluster resource allocation and applying hierarchical scheduling techniques. Over the years, the study of virtual cluster scheduling has been limited to theoretical analysis. In this paper, we present our initial ideas on implementing virtual cluster scheduling in Linux. The purpose of this implementation is twofold: (i) we would like to demonstrate the feasibility of its implementation in an operating system, without modifying the kernel source code, (ii) we present practical insights on the overhead of implementing this framework.


Generation Z is the youngest and newest entrants into the workforce. However, confusion about their characteristics, work values, and reward preferences hinders effort to attract, recruit, and retain this generational cohort into public sector organizations. Accordingly, this study investigates effective reward strategies for recruiting and retaining Generation Z into public sector organizations. I used an evidence-based research approach and an aggregative systematic review as the study methodology. The evidence curated from 32 studies reveals how the background and life experiences of Generation Z influence the importance they assign their work values, reward preferences, and how they prioritize rewards in terms of their employment decisions. Additionally, gender also influenced the importance Gen Z assigned to specific rewards. Overall, Gen Z's strong attractiveness to specific extrinsic and intrinsic rewards makes public sector organizations a likely employer of choice and offers managers a viable strategy for attracting, recruiting, and retaining the youngest generational workforce.


Balancing the amount of N needed for optimum plant growth while minimizing the NO 3 that is transported to ground and surface waters remains a major challenge for everyone attempting to understand and improve agricultural nutrient use efficiency. Our objectives for this review are to examine how changes in agricultural management practices during the past century have affected N in midwestern soils and to identify the types of research and management practices needed to reduce the potential for nonpoint NO 3 leakage into water resources. Inherent soil characteristics and management practices contributing to nonpoint NO 3 loss from midwestern soils, the impact of NO 3 loading on surface water quality, improved N management strategies, and research needs are discussed. Artificial drainage systems can have a significant impact on water quality because they behave like shallow, direct conduits to surface waters. Nonpoint loss of NO 3 from fields to water resources, however, is not caused by any single factor. Rather, it is caused by a combination of factors, including tillage, drainage, crop selection, soil organic matter levels, hydrology, and temperature and precipitation patterns. Strategies for reducing NO 3 loss through drainage include improved timing of N application at appropriate rates, using soil tests and plant monitoring, diversifying crop rotations, using cover crops, reducing tillage, optimizing N application techniques, and using nitrification inhibitors. Nitrate can also be removed from water by establishing wetlands or biofilters. Research that is focused on understanding methods to minimize NO 3 contamination of water resources should also be used to educate the public about the complexity of the problem and the need for multiple management strategies to solve the problem across agricultural landscapes.


With the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in full swing, banks face a challenging environment. They will need to address disappointing results and adverse balance sheet restatements, the intensity of which depends on the evolution of the euro area economies. At the same time, vulnerable banks reinforce real economy deficiencies. The contribution of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment of the various policy responses to address a looming banking crisis. Such a crisis will fully materialize when non-performing assets drag down banks simultaneously, raising the specter of a full-blown systemic crisis. The policy responses available range from forbearance, recapitalization (with public or private resources), asset separation (bad banks, at national or EU level), to debt conversion schemes. We evaluate these responses according to a set of five criteria that define the efficacy of each. These responses are not mutually exclusive, in practice, as they have never been. They may also go hand in hand with other restructuring initiatives, including potential consolidation in the banking sector. Although we do not make a specific recommendation, we provide a framework for policymakers to guide them in their decision making.


In the efforts to terminate Female Genital Mutilation globally, in the recent years some religious authorities have openly opposed the continued practice of Female Genital Mutilation, at least the most radical operations. The paper aims at identifying some of the interventions by the government and non- governmental organizations undertaken to reduce the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kenya. It also seeks to examine the attitude of the West Pokot Community towards the measures taken by these organizations in stopping FGM. Focus was made in Sook Division of West Pokot County which was selected randomly out of the four locations in the District. A descriptive cross-sectional, qualitative research design was used due to the nature of the study as it inquired about people's attitudes and feelings on FGM practice and interventions against it. The study considered 63 participants for interviews, all above 18 years; 9 key informants and 54 members of 7 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with between 6-10 participants. Interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The study revealed divided opinions about Female Genital Mutilation among the Pokot. Most of the community members seem to be in favour of the practice, while others are against it. Government and the World Vision Organization are intervening against the practice in the region and most participants seem to have negative perception on the anti FGM measures laid down by the Government and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs). To help the community understand and change these cultural practices, there is need to involve other stake holders concerned with the FGM, these include the girls, parents, old women, men, traditional circumcisers with whom the government and Non- governmental organizations should work with. Keywords: Attitude, Community, Female Genital Mutilation, Government, Non-governmental Organization


Predatory lending - the practice of making exploitative high-cost loans to naive borrowers - has spurred policy-makers, activists, lenders and scholars to debate whether intervention is warranted and, if so, what type of intervention is appropriate. The solution requires understanding the incentives in the home mortgage market that have fueled predatory lending. Recent changes in the credit market have created new possibilities for lenders to profit by exploiting information asymmetries to the detriment of unsophisticated borrowers. As a result, a new, predatory lending market has emerged alongside the legitimate prime and subprime home mortgage markets. Neither market forces nor existing legal remedies are sufficient to correct predatory lending. Instead, government intervention is needed. The authors propose a new, narrowly tailored remedy - suitability - that would require predatory lenders to internalize the costs of the harm they cause.


The many discrepancies between the historical accounts in Deuteronomy 1-3 and the parallel accounts in Exodus and Numbers led classical scholarship to conclude that the author of Deuteronomy could not have intended his work to be read together with those alternative traditions. An ancient literary model for precisely such activity, however, was available to the author of Deuteronomy in the Hittite treaty prologue tradition. Reviewing successive treaties between the Hittite kingdom and the kings of Amurru, and between the Hittite kingdom and the kings of Ugarit, we see in each case history retold again and again and that the various retellings of the same event differ markedly one from another. Even as the Hittite kings redrafted their historical accounts in accord with the needs of the moment, both they and their vassals would read these accounts while retaining and recalling the earlier, conflicting versions of events. Studies of the El Amarna letters from the vantage point of international relations offer a social-science perspective to explain why the Hittite kings composed such conflicting histories and how, in turn, these were read and interpreted by their vassals. This literary practice has implications for our understanding of the historical accounts of Deuteronomy 1-3 in the context of the Pentateuch, where other, conflicting versions of those same stories are found.


Agent technologies are a promising approach to solving a number of prob-lems concerned with personalised learning due to the inherent autonomy and independence they provide for learners. The objective of this thesis is to find out whether a multiagent system could potentially replace a centralised infra-structure, and to explore the impact of agents taking different strategies. More specifically, our aim is to show how intelligent agent systems can not only form a good framework for distributed e-learning systems, but also how they can be applied in contexts where learners are autonomous and independent. The study also aims to investigate fairness issues and propose a simple framework of fair-ness definitions derived from the relevant literature. To this end, a university course selection scenario has been chosen, where the university has many courses available, but has only sufficient resources to run the most preferred ones. Instead of a centralised system, we consider a de-centralised approach where individuals can make a collective decision about which courses should run by using a multi-agent system based on voting. This voting process consists of multiple rounds, allowing a student agent to accurate-ly represent the student's preferences, and learn from previous rounds. The ef-fectiveness of this research is demonstrated in three experiments. The first ex-periment explores whether voting procedures and multiagent technology could potentially replace a centralised infrastructure. It also explores the impact of agents using different strategies on overall student satisfaction. The second ex-periment demonstrates the potential for using multiagent systems and voting in settings where students have more complex preferences. The last experiment investigates how intelligent agent-based e-learning systems can ensure fairness between individuals using different strategies. This work shows that agent technology could provide levels of decentrali-sation and personalisation that could be extended to various types of personal and informal learning. It also highlights the importance of the issue of fairness in intelligent and personalised e-learning systems. In this context, it may be said that there is only one potential view of fairness that is practical for these systems, which is the social welfare view that looks to the overall outcome.


A meta-synthesis was conducted to examine the impact of maternal mental health difficulties on the mother-daughter relationship. Nine studies were synthesised which resulted in the development of seven themes. The findings indicated the ways in which maternal mental health difficulties can disrupt the attachment relationship between mother and child. Contextual factors relating to shame, discrimination and marginalisation were also identified, but did not appear to hold the same prominence in the women's stories. As part of the discussion, the author considered how societal expectations about the roles of mothers and daughters might have affected the participants' experience of relating to their mother. The research project explored the voices of women who have received a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The voice centred relational method (VRM) was used to listen to the many different and co-existing voices the women used to describe their experiences of distress and the ways in which they made sense of it. The ten voices identified highlighted complex relational dynamics linking to power, blame and shame at an individual and systemic level. Suggestions were made for resistance at both a practice and political level, to challenge the abuse of power and the oppressive practices that continue to silence women by invalidating the multiple ways in which they understand their life experiences. Finally, the critical appraisal considered the role of power and reflexivity within the research project. The author reflected on the ways in which conducting this project and engaging in these issues had shaped her current clinical practice.


Optical microfibers and related structures which incorporate large evanescent field and minimal size offer new opportunities for biosensing applications. In this paper we report the development of an immunosensor based on a tapered microfiber coupler embedded in a low refractive index polymer. Biomolecules adsorbed on the microfiber coupler surface modify the surrounding refractive index. By immobilizing antigens on the surface of the sensing area, the microfiber coupler was able to operate as a label-free immunosensor to detect specific antibodies. We experimentally demonstrated for the first time the sensing ability of this sensor using a fibrinogen antigen-antibody pair. By monitoring the spectral shift in the wavelength domain, the sensor was shown to be capable of detecting the specific binding between fibrinogen and anti-fibrinogen. The detected signal was found to be proportional to the anti-fibrinogen present.


The fifth edition of this market-leading textbook retains its popular blend of theory, research and examples. Substantially revised and updated with extensive new material that reflects contemporary research and debate, the book offers an accessible and fascinating examination of human behaviour in today's workplace. Covering a broad range of core topics, the book is suitable for undergraduate students in business, management, and psychology as well as those studying for professional qualifications.


This paper empirically explores the role that mobile devices have come to play in everyday practice, and how this links to demand for network connectivity and online services. After a preliminary device-logging period, thirteen participants were interviewed about how they use their iPhones or iPads. Our findings build a picture of how, through use of such devices, a variety of daily practices have come to depend upon a working data connection, which sometimes surges, but is at least always a trickle. This aims to inform the sustainable design of applications, services and infrastructures for smartphones and tablets. By focusing our analysis in this way, we highlight a little-explored challenge for sustainable HCI and discuss ideas for (re)designing around the principle of 'light-weight' data 'needs'.


Summary: The training of competent and ethical plastic surgery residents has become more difficult, as surgeons face increasing clinical and research demands, concern for medicolegal liability, and pressure to increase efficiency to decrease health care expenditures. The resulting variation in operative experience among plastic surgery trainees exemplifies the need for educational reform to accommodate change. Although the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has mandated a transition to competency-based training, and state-of-the-art technologies in surgical simulation are being developed to improve operative skills, the construction of a system to teach and assess operative judgment is deficient and should be thoughtfully created and implemented. Established educational methods and curriculums can be used in this effort and include apprenticeship operative teaching, surgical simulation, morbidity and mortality conferences, and resident clinics. The first step in this effort is to require trainees to make decisions, communicating their judgments and recommendations using language that demonstrates clear thinking and thoughtful analysis. For faculty, this means carving out dedicated preoperative teaching time in addition to efficient use of intraoperative time and sharing of postoperative outcomes. For programs, this means developing metrics to evaluate progress and build procedure-specific simulations. The goal should be not just to settle for training safe and ethical surgeons but to produce masterful surgeons with mature judgment.


Palaeogene sedimentary strata from beneath the basaltic lavas ofEast Greenland have yielded a suite of palynofloras which determine the ageand environment of deposition of these rock units. These palynofloras include Apectodinium augustum, Deflandrea oebisfeldensis and a pollen assemblage containing common Caryapollenites veripites with Camerozonosporites heskemensis and Stereisporites in assemblages characteristic of the latest Paleocene to earliest Eocene Sequence T40. This allows a correlation to be established, complementing an already established framework based on lava geochemistry, which shows that lava eruption in East Greenland was initiated somewhat later than in the Faroe Islands. It also highlights the presence of a widespread major unconformity in the East Greenland succession, spanning the late Maastrichtian to the end of the Paleocene. The lack of sedimentation throughout the Early Paleocene, and majority of the Late Paleocene, highlights the possibility of Paleocene sedimentary systems bypassing the East Greenland shelf, with clastic deposition forced eastwards towards the area of the Faroe Islands and the Møre and Vøring basins.


Isaiah 23,15-18 has often been regarded as part of a Josianic redaction, aligning the temporal parameters of Isaiah's oracle against Tyre with Josiah's reign. Previous investigations into this passage, however, have relied on matters of strict chronology to establish this Josianic connection. The Josianic character of the passage is more readily evident through its invocation of an important cuneiform document from the reign of Esarhaddon, corresponding with other Josianic-era literary works strongly influenced by Assyrian rhetoric. Tyre's "70 Years" deploys language once reserved for the Mesopotamian deity Marduk, contributing to the way in which a Judean audience in the 7th century should conceive of their own deity YHWH.


Digital technologies have changed the public arena, but there is little scholarly consensus about how they have done so. This Element lays out a new framework for the digitally mediated public arena by identifying structural changes and continuities with the pre-digital era. It examines three country cases – the United States, Germany, and China. In these countries and elsewhere, the emergence of new infrastructures such as search engines and social media platforms increasingly mediate and govern the visibility and reach of information, and thus reconfigure the transmission belt between citizens and political elites. This shift requires a rethinking of the workings and dysfunctions of the contemporary public arena and ways to improve it.


Urban interfaces play a key role in enabling the different forms of social and economic exchange and the ways in which open space is contested and appropriated in informal settlements. Many upgrading practices involve a transformation of public/private interfaces. The transition between public and private territories is one of the critical issues in planning, urban design, and architecture that has the capacity to enable or constrain exchange and production. This paper develops a typology for analysing and mapping public/private interfaces in informal settlements. Drawing on the evidence from multiple case studies of informal settlements in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and South America, a typology of six interface types is introduced based on the criteria of proximity and connectivity. The study is informed by direct observation, visual recordings, and urban mapping to shed light on the ways in which urban interfaces work in informal settlements.


The West Siberian oil-gas province comprises the largest flat land area in the world (3.5 million km2, or 1.3 million mi2). Over most of the region, elevations rarely exceed 100 m (330 ft). The basin is bounded on the west by the Uralian and Novaya Zemlya uplifts, on the east by the Siberian craton and Taymyr uplift, on the south by the Kazakh and Altay-Sayan uplifts, and on the north by the North Siberian sill. Structurally, the basm is a broad, relatively gentle downwarp filled with 3-10 km (10,000-33,000 ft) of post-Paleozoic marine, nearshore marine, and continental clastic sedimentary rocks. The basement is composed of Precambrian and Paleozoic fold systems with large areas of partly metamorphosed Paleozoic carbonate and clastic rocks and numerous areas of Paleozoic or older granitic and mafic igneous bodies. In the central part of the basin, the basement is cut by an extensive, northerly oriented Triassic rift system.

Paleostructural and stratigraphic trapping are important aspects of West Siberian petroleum geology. Oil source rocks are mainly marine Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous bituminous shales. Gas source rocks are mainly Upper Cretaceous humic and coaly shales. Petroleum production in the basin occurs in four major areas: (1) Middle Ob: primarily oil from Lower Cretaceous deltaic-marine clastic reservoirs on broad regional uplifts; the Samotlor and other supergiant fields are located in this area; (2) Near-Ural: primarily oil in the south and gas in the north from Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous clastic reservoirs in paleo- structural-stratigraphic traps; (3) Southern Basin: oil and oil-gas from Jurassic clastic reservoirs, mainly on anticlines or arches inherited from basement highs; and (4) Northern Basin: gas primarily from Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) and gas-condensate from Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic clastic reservoirs on large anticlinal traps sealed by Cretaceous shales or permafrost. Urengoy, the world's largest gas field, and several other supeigiant gas fields are located in this latter area.

Large parts of the basin are relatively unexplored, particularly the northern offshore segments. The interrelated paleostructural and depo- sitional character of this enormous basin provides excellent prospects for stratigraphic trap accumulations. An estimated 70 billion bbl of oil and 1000 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of gas have been found in the basin. U.S. Geological Survey estimates (1987) of undiscovered, conventionally recoverable petroleum resources are 30 billion bbl of oil and 350 tcf of gas.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To assess the degree to which postsurgical adjustment in patients with breast cancer and their partners depends on the nature of the patient-partner dyad relationship.

DESIGN
Secondary data analysis from a randomized controlled trial.

SETTING
Three cancer centers and one suburban community hospital in New York.

SAMPLE
205 patient-partner dyads (112 intimate-partner, 58 family-member, and 35 nonfamily-member dyads).

METHODS
Mann-Whitney nonparametric comparisons and chi-square tests were used to assess dyad types on continuous and categorical variables, and a mixed model for repeated measures compared postsurgical adjustment among dyad types.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Type of patient-partner dyads and physical, emotional, and social adjustment.

FINDINGS
Patients in intimate-partner dyads were younger, had greater incomes, and discovered the lump by routine mammogram as compared to family- or nonfamily-member dyads. No significant differences were observed in patients' physical or emotional adjustment. Patients with intimate partners had greater difficulty in their social and domestic environments. Partners in intimate-partner dyads had lower scores on psychological well-being, more problems in social and domestic adjustment, and less social support to promote social adjustment.

CONCLUSIONS
Women with breast cancer experience successful physical and emotional adjustment whether they have intimate-partner, family-member, or nonfamily-member partners. Intimate partners are at greater risk for emotional and social adjustment issues.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
When designing interventions, consideration must be given to the type of patient-partner dyad involved.


Purpose: To compare recovery experienced during inpatient rehabilitation among individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) based on whether their acute care included the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol (CIWA) protocol. Design: Participants included 234 individuals with TBI who completed inpatient rehabilitation at a TBI Model Systems site. Of these, 67 patients were treated using the CIWA protocol (TBI + CIWA); 167 patients were treated for TBI alone (TBI only). Demographic, injury, and treatment variables between the 2 groups were compared. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) compared Disability Rating Scale (DRS) scores between the groups at admission and discharge from inpatient rehabilitation. Results: The 2 groups did not significantly differ on DRS scores at admission to inpatient rehabilitation: TBI + CIWA, M = 9.6 (SD = 3.5) vs. TBI only, M = 10.1 (SD = 4.2). There was a significant difference in DRS scores at discharge, with the TBI + CIWA group having lower scores: TBI + CIWA, M = 6.4 (SD = 1.9) vs. TBI only, M = 7.0 (SD = 2.2). A repeated-measures ANOVA of DRS scores from admission to discharge revealed a significant between-subjects effect based on patients' Mississippi categorization of posttraumatic amnesia (PTA) duration (p < .001) and age (p = .016) but not based on their CIWA status (p = .068). A post hoc comparison including age as a covariate revealed a significant difference based on CIWA status (p = .013) within the "moderate" injury group at discharge, with the TBI + CIWA group having lower discharge DRS scores. Conclusions: Given the significant symptom overlap between alcohol withdrawal and PTA, it is likely that these 2 delirium presentations are confounded during the initial recovery from TBI, leading to "overestimation" of injury severity—particularly among individuals with moderate TBI.


Recent estimates of the U.S. economic gains that would result from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are very small — only 0.13 percent of GDP by 2025. Taking into account the un-equalizing effect of trade on wages, this paper finds the median wage earner will probably lose as a result of any such agreement. In fact, most workers are likely to lose — the exceptions being some of the bottom quarter or so whose earnings are determined by the minimum wage; and those with the highest wages who are more protected from international competition. Rather, many top incomes will rise as a result of TPP expansion of the terms and enforcement of copyrights and patents. The long-term losses, going forward over the same period (to 2025), from the failure to restore full employment to the United States have been some 25 times greater than the potential gains of the TPP, and more than five times as large as the possible gains resulting from a much broader trade agenda.


Institutions of higher education are offering more and more on-line courses to students. Do students receive the same quality of instruction with an on-line class as an on-campus class? Specifically, is there a difference in students' outcomes between a face-to-face class and on-line class? This study addresses that question by collecting and assessing data between students enrolled in the same course as it is delivered to one section face-to-face and another section on-line. The results of this study reveal that there are no significant differences in the students' outcomes between the two sections. These results support that the quality of on-line instruction is equal to face-to-face instruction. However, more research is needed to address issues related to on-line instruction. ********** Technology has made a significant impact on how instruction is delivered in higher education (Teh, 1999). The majority of colleges and universities offer some form of web-based education (Palloff & Pratt, 2001). Each year, the number of courses being delivered over the internet is increasing. The teaching methodology of higher education faculty has changed as the result of teaching online (Greenwood, 2000). The important question to address in this movement of online course delivery is students' outcomes. Is the achievement level of students who take classes online equal to classes that are taught face-to-face? That is the question addressed in this study. Online instruction is housed under the auspice of distance education. Distance education began in the 19th century to provide students who could not attend traditional classes the chance to learn. The evolution of various instructional delivery methods of distance education has included such mediums as correspondence courses, radio, television, and videotapes (Fender, 1999). Then in the 1990s, many higher education distance education programs adopted internet-based delivery as the new mode to deliver courses (Khan, 1997; Moore & Kearsley, 1996; Porter, 1997). Today, the internet and its prevalence allow almost anyone to become a distance learner through online course offerings. This ease of use has been supplemented by the development of course management software with the purpose of making online courses easy to development and manage from the instructors' perspective and easy to undertake from the students' perspective. There are several Computer Management System (CMS) program being used for online classes with Blackboard being the most popular (Olsen, 2001; Young, 2002). These CMS such as Blackboard is a structured format that allows instructors to post announcements, assignments, course documents, faculty credentials, and lecture notes that can be easily accessed by students. Blackboard also is structured so small groups can be formed and group work can be an integral part of the how the course is taught. It allows the opportunity for direct communication between instructor and students and between students through e-mail, discussion boards, and the virtual chat room. So all the variables were in place (availability, convenience, ease of implementing, etc) to take distance learning to levels it has never experienced in its path. There has been an accelerate rate of course offerings through online delivery and it appears to be growing exponentially (Bennett, 2001; Boettcher, 1996; Hiltz; 1997; Lewis, Snow, Farris, Levin, & Greene, 1999; National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). Interestingly, with the increasing acceptance of online classes (Owston,1997; Rossman, 1992) few studies have examined the effectiveness of online courses and whether the achievement levels of meeting the courses competencies and objectives were met (Navarro & Shoemaker, 1999; Schulman & Sims, 1999; Sener & Stover, 2000; Smeaton & Keogh, 1999; Russell, 1999; Spooner, Jordan, Algozzine, and Spooner, 1999). …


Using a computational code developed for simulating the COREX melter-gasifier, the effects of operational parameters on the transport phenomena in the melter-gasifier were studied. The parameters studied were the bed height, C/O ratio, operating pressure and steam injection ratio. When the bed height was increased, the temperature near the combustion zone also increased due to there being sufficient heat exchange between the gas and solid phase. However, the freeboard zone temperature remained constant due to the increased residence time for heat exchange. Operational pressures affect the rate of tar in the coal. However, the extent of the change in the evolved tar as a function of pressure did not vary severely. The variation in the C/O ratio affected the heating rate of coal followed by a drastic change in the heat and mass transfer of solid and gas phases. The combustion zone and the freeboard zone temperature were changed largely by variations in the C/O ratio. The C/O ratio also changed the evolution rate of the coal by the changes in heating rate. From these considerations, the C/O ratio should be carefully controlled for the stable operation. The effects of steam injection into the melter-gasifier were also studied. Up to a steam injection rate of 30 %, the temperature of the combustion zone increased. Steam injection also affected the effluent composition of the gas phase. When the steam injection ratio was increased, the CO/CO 2 ratio was decreased while H 2 /H 2 O ratio was remained unchanged.


Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a very common medical problem worldwide. It includes obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia, and abnormal levels of triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. It is closely associated with insulin resistance and may lead to diabetes mellitus, liver diseases, or cardiovascular diseases. Corn silk (CS), a traditional Chinese medicine, has been reported to have multiple beneficial effects, including hypotensive, anti-diabetic, and hypolipidemic properties. This suggests that corn silk could be used to treat or prevent metabolic syndrome. In this review, we will discuss the potential role of corn silk in different components of metabolic syndrome.


A family of muscarinic ACh receptor genes are expressed in hippocampus, but little is known about the localization of the encoded proteins and their regulation by cholinergic innervation. Subtype-specific antibodies were used to localize m1-m4 proteins in the hippocampal formation by immunocytochemistry and to determine the alterations in the subtypes following deafferentation. Each of the receptors is differentially localized in Ammon's horn and dentate gyrus, with highly complementary distributions. m1 is widely expressed in somata and dendrites of pyramidal neurons and granule cells in dentate gyrus. m2 immunoreactivity is expressed mostly in nonpyramidal neurons, and in several discrete bands of fibers and puncta surrounding pyramidal neurons and other layers. m3 is enriched in pyramidal neurons, the neuropil in stratum lacunosum-moleculare and the outer third of the molecular layer of dentate gyrus. m4 is enriched in nonpyramidal neurons, in fiber pathways (alveus, fimbria, and hippocampal commissure), and in the inner third of the molecular layer. Fimbria- fornix lesions decreased ipsilateral m2- and m4-immunoreactive axons in the fimbria, with no apparent changes in the distribution of any of the receptors in hippocampus. 192-IgG immunotoxin lesions of the cholinergic septohippocampal projections, which spare noncholinergic projections, produced a small decrease in m2-immunoreactive fibers in the fimbria with no other major changes in the distribution of subtypes. Immunoprecipitation studies at 3–28 d following fimbria- fornix lesions revealed a 25% loss of m2 at 3 d in hippocampus, and upregulation of both m1 (20–29% at 7–14 d) and m4 (44% at 28 d). Thus, the vast majority of muscarinic receptor subtypes are intrinsic to the hippocampal formation and/or nonseptal hippocampal afferents. A subset of m2 and m4 are presynaptically localized, with m2 in cholinergic axons and m2 and m4 possibly in noncholinergic axons that comprise the septohippocampal pathway. The unique laminar and regional distributions of m1-m4 in the hippocampus reflect differential cellular and subcellular distributions of the subtypes and/or selective association of receptor subtypes with certain afferent and intrinsic connections. These results indicate that each subtype likely has a different role in cholinergic modulation of excitatory and inhibitory hippocampal circuits.


The central issue of this thesis is the problem of stress in social work
education, and its contribution to subsequent burnout in social work practitioners.
To investigate this problem, the study was structured according to five interrelated
key research questions, as outlined in Chapter One. The first research
question asks to what extent what Tobin and Carson (1994) have referred to as
"insidious pervasive stresses" emanate from the following sources: (i)
professional identity formation process (social work idealised image and role
value conflict); (ii) the reasons students chose social work; (iii) students'
performance expectations; and (iv) stresses from the course that are part of the
professional education process. The second research question examines the extent
to which the kind and level of course related stress experienced by social work
students explains the variation in their physical and psychological health. The
third research question aims to determine if there is a difference in the level of
physical and psychological health of Australian social work students and
Australian social work practitioners. The fourth research question examines
whether the physical and psychological health of social work practitioners is
negatively correlated with the magnitude of burnout experienced. The fifth
research question considers the extent to which social work practitioners' age, job
satisfaction, years of experience and average working hours, in addition to
burnout, explain the variation in their physical and psychological health.
In addition to these five key research questions, a series of clarifying,
supporting or elaborating questions are developed in the literature review
(Chapter Two). Where appropriate, they have been converted into substantive
operational hypotheses in Chapter Three, which details the study's methodology.
Chapter Four (Student Results) presents the results of the questionnaires
administered in relation to aspects of their social work course. Chapter Five
(Practitioners and Students: Comparative Results and Predictive Analysis)
compares the physical and psychological health of social work students with the
health of social work practitioners, and provides a predictive analysis of the
variations of the health of the two groups. Chapter Six discusses the results of the
study, in terms of some of the significant implications of its findings, particularly
in relation to social work course design and areas that warrant further
investigation.
Overall, the study concludes that a significant proportion of social work
students are psychologically distressed by their course experience, particularly in
terms of course design, role value conflict and the degree of idealisation of the
social work role. A very strong association with burnout was found among social
work practitioners when they experienced a similar level of psychological distress
as that experienced by students. Finally, suggestions are made for ways in which
social work course managers may constructively deal with these issues.


Work-integrated learning (WIL) is widely considered instrumental in equipping new graduates with the required employability skills to function effectively in the work environment. Evaluation of WIL programs in enhancing skill development remains predominantly outcomes-focused with little attention to the process of what, how and from whom students acquire essential skills during work placement. This paper investigates best practice in the classroom and placement activities which develop employability skills and identifies factors impeding skill performance during WIL, based on survey data from 131 undergraduates across different disciplines in an Australian university. What students actually experienced during placement, or what they felt was important to their learning, broadly aligns with best practice principles for WIL programs and problems experienced in performing certain skills during placement can be largely attributed to poor design. Implications for academic and professional practitioners are discussed.


Web-based aptitude tests, which are a special category of aptitude tests, can be used for rather standardized test methods and for a large amount of users. The characteristics of web-based aptitude tests can have an impact on the test results and the user acceptance. The aim of our research is to develop a method for the evaluation of the user acceptance for web-based aptitude tests. Therefore, we used the DART-approach with the dimension (Perceived) Usefulness, (Perceived) Ease of Use, (Perceived) Network Effects and (Perceived) Costs as the theoretical basis, identified important acceptance indicators, developed a questionnaire and conducted a survey. Afterwards, we proved the reliability and conducted a factor analysis. The results point out that some of the defined acceptance indicators should be revised. Additionally, the factor analysis shows that a combination of two dimensions (Perceived) Usefulness and (Perceived) Network Effects is useful especially with regard to web-based aptitude tests. Finally, we conducted a univariate analysis to evaluate the user acceptance of a web-based aptitude test. The visualised result on the basis of a DART-chart clearly shows that the interviewees evaluated the indicators very differently. There are fields, where the aptitude test fulfils the expectations, and fields, which can be improved.


Cover pagesText AnnexesThe purpose of this paper is to analyse budgetary policies carried out during and after severe recessions. Since the agreement on the "Stability and Growth Pact" by the European Council in Dublin in December 1996, interest in this issue has increased significantly. The Stability and Growth Pact, which sets the rules for budgetary behaviour in stage three of EMU, singles out severe recessions as specifically problematical periods during which a certain budgetary flexibility could be allowed. The rules laid out in the Stability and Growth Pact are used in this paper as a benchmark to evaluate past budgetary behaviour during recessions in the fifteen European Union Member States. More specifically, the paper provides elements to examine the following issues: what type of budgetary policies have been adopted during severe recessions in the past? Were the automatic stabilisers allowed to operate fully and did governments adopt an expansionary budgetary policy stance? Which factors influenced the policies undertaken and what was the composition of the measures adopted? Can the accumulation of debt, which took place in the past two decades in Europe, be explained by "tax smoothing" during periods of economic hardship?II/195/97-ENConcluding remarks The application of the provisions of the Excessive Deficit Procedure and the Stability and Growth Pact to the past is obviously a highly speculative exercise. Its results do not address the following questions: to what extent is past budgetary behaviour a reliable guide to assess the likely behaviour of national budgetary policies in EMU during recessions? More specifically, would Member States need larger or smaller changes in their budgetary positions to provide the degree of stabilisation which occurred in the past?A number of factors will play an important role:New policy regime under EMUDuring the third phase of EMU, the conduct of monetary policy will be centralised at the European level and will therefore no longer be available as a policy tool at the national level. Budgetary policy will thus be the main macroeconomic policy instrument still available for individual Member States to combat recessions, especially when shocks are asymmetric. The impossibility of lowering interest rates and resorting to currency devaluations might require larger deficit changes.On the other hand, according to the Mundell-Fleming framework, budgetary policy will in principle become more effective in dampening the amplitude of cyclical fluctuations in the new policy environment of EMU with centralised monetary policy and irrevocably fixed exchange rates between Member States.If, however, EMU enhances the process of economic integration, trade leakages of budgetary policies will gradually increase, thereby reducing the "domestic" effectiveness of budgetary policies. Unless national policies are co-ordinated, this factor raises the changes in the budget deficit required in order to attain the same degree of stabilisation achieved in the past."Pre-recession" deficit levelActual deficit changes observed during past recessions were applied in our retrospective exercise to "pre-recession" deficit levels chosen specifically for the exercise (0% and 2% of GDP). However, the actual deficit changes which took place during past severe recessions usually started from markedly higher pre-recession deficit levels. The impact on the economy of budgetary policy changes during recessions also varies depending on the deficit and debt levels. For instance, the markets' perception of an increase in the deficit from 0% to 2% of GDP during a severe recession will be different from that of a rise in the deficit from, say, 8% to 10% of GDP, the latter more likely being interpreted as shifting the deficit to an unsustainable path. This may lead to an increase in the risk premium on interest rates which reduces the effectiveness of the fiscal expansion.High budgetary imbalances may inhibit policy makers from using the budgetary instrument for stabilisation purposes. Indeed, the higher risk premiums which would raise the interest burden may represent a powerful disincentive to expanding fiscal policy in spite of the recession. As was pointed out in Section 4, budgetary reactions to economic downturns differ depending on the initial public finance conditions before the recession: countries with high deficit and debt levels tend to conduct tighter fiscal policies during recessions than those with lower deficit and debt levels. In the future, when medium-term targets have been achieved, Member States would have more room for manoeuvre to undertake accommodating policies.These factors point in different directions. As a consequence, the net effect on the requirement for budgetary stabilisation is ambiguous. If it proved necessary to reinforce the working of the automatic stabilisers during recessions in EMU, larger swings in budget deficits compared to the past would have to be allowed for. Under the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact, this would imply, however, that during the third phase of EMU, Member States, and especially those with large automatic stabilisers, would have to run budgetary surpluses when in medium-term equilibrium.The present paper far from exhausts the issue of what can be learnt from the past budgetary behaviour for the implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact and, more generally, how budgetary authorities actually behaved in different economic circumstances.The following areas were not or were only partially covered, and therefore, provide scope for further research:Budgetary policies over the full cycle: this paper has focused essentially on recession episodes. The exercise could therefore be extended to other cyclical phases besides the recession. Indeed, as already indicated in this paper, the problem in the past has not been so much that Member States let budget deficits get out of hand too much during recessions but that they did not seize the opportunity presented by post-recession economic recovery to immediately correct their budgetary position.Composition of budgetary policies: the paper addressed the issue of the composition of budgetary policy reactions to recessions via a preliminary analysis of the overall revenue and expenditure components. Two extensions can be envisaged: first, an analysis of the composition of retrenchment policies over the years following the recession to assess, for instance, whether the length of the adjustment depends on the composition of budgetary consolidation; second, a further disaggregation of the overall components into more detailed government revenue and expenditure categories is necessary. This detailed analysis would allow conclusions to be drawn on the mechanisms causing budgetary policies to become unsustainable, as well as on the possible effectiveness and durability of budgetary consolidation efforts.


Infinite primes is a purely TGD inspired notion. The notion of infinity is number theoretical and infinite primes have well defined divisibility properties. One can partially order them by the real norm. p-Adic norms of infinite primes are well defined and finite. The construction of infinite primes is a hierarchical procedure structurally equivalent to a repeated second quantization of a supersymmetric arithmetic quantum field theory. At the lowest level bosons and fermions are labelled by ordinary primes. At the next level one obtains free Fock states plus states having interpretation as bound many particle states. The many particle states of a given level become the single particle states of the next level and one can repeat the construction ad infinitum. The analogy with quantum theory is intriguing and I have proposed that the quantum states in TGD Universe correspond to octonionic generalizations of infinite primes. It is interesting to compare infinite primes (and integers) to the Cantorian view about infinite ordinals and cardinals. The basic problems of Cantor's approach which relate to the axiom of choice, continuum hypothesis, and Russell's antinomy: all these problems relate to the definition of ordinals as sets. In TGD framework infinite primes, integers, and rationals are defined purely algebraically so that these problems are avoided. It is not surprising that these approaches are not equivalent. For instance, sum and product for Cantorian ordinals are not commutative unlike for infinite integers defined in terms of infinite primes.

Set theory defines the foundations of modern mathematics. Set theory relies strongly on classical physics, and the obvious question is whether one should reconsider the foundations of mathematics in light of quantum physics. Is set theory really the correct approach to axiomatization?

Quantum view about consciousness and cognition leads to a proposal that p-adic physics serves as a correlate for cognition. Together with the notion of infinite primes this suggests that number theory should play a key role in the axiomatics. Algebraic geometry allows algebraization of the set theory and this kind of approach suggests itself strongly in physics inspired approach to the foundations of mathematics. This means powerful limitations on the notion of set. Finite measurement resolution and finite resolution of cognition could have implications also for the foundations of mathematics and relate directly to the fact that all numerical approaches reduce to an approximation using rationals with a cutoff on the number of binary digits. The TGD inspired vision about consciousness implies evolution by quantum jumps meaning that also evolution of mathematics so that no fixed system of axioms can ever catch all the mathematical truths for the simple reason that mathematicians themselves evolve with mathematics.
I will discuss possible impact of these observations on the foundations of physical mathematics assuming that one accepts the TGD inspired view about infinity, about the notion of number, and the restrictions on the notion of set suggested by classical TGD.


Language isn't the only way to cross modules, nor is it the only module with access to both input and output. Minds don't generally work across modules because this leads to combinatorial explosion in search and planning. Language is special in being a good vector for mimetics, so it becomes associated with useful cross-module concepts we acquire culturally. Further, language is indexical, so it facilitates computationally expensive operations.


Our hospital's policy and procedures for "Patients Without Surrogates" provides for gradated safeguards for managing patients' treatment and care when they lack decision–making capacity, have no advance directives, and no surrogate decision makers are available. The safeguards increase as clinical decisions become more significant and have greater consequences for the patient. The policy also directs social workers to engage in "rigorous efforts" to search for surrogates who can potentially provide substituted judgments for such patients. We describe and illustrate the policy, procedures, and kinds of expected rigorous efforts through our narration of an actual but disguised case for which we provided clinical ethics guidance and social work expertise. Our experience with and reflection on this case resulted in four recommendations we make for health care facilities and organizations that aim to provide quality care for their own patients without surrogates.


1. Saliva obtained from the parotid duct of normal and uraemic subjects had an average urea concentration of 86% of the plasma concentration whereas in mixed saliva obtained from the mouth the urea concentration was only 31% of the plasma concentration. Ammonia concentrations were low or unmeasurable in parotid saliva but varied between 0·6 and 26 mmol/kg in oral saliva, showing a positive correlation with the plasma urea concentration. 2. The urea in samples of mixed oral saliva incubated at 37°C disappeared by 290 min. Ammonia steadily increased during incubation; within the first 100 min, the increase could be largely accounted for by bacterial hydrolysis of urea, but later non-urea sources became relatively more important. 3. These findings suggest that the ammonia in mixed oral saliva is derived by bacterial hydrolysis of urea within the mouth. However, the concentration of ammonia plus urea nitrogen in oral saliva was only 76% of the urea nitrogen concentration of parotid saliva, which suggests that some ammonia is lost from the mouth by buccal absorption or by volatilization. 4. To assess the role of non-ionic diffusion of ammonia through the buccal mucosa, we studied the effect of pH on the disappearance of ammonia from buffered solutions retained in the mouth. Ammonia concentrations fell more rapidly at pH 9 than at pH 7, as also did those of hydrazine, a non-volatile analogue of ammonia which is known to be absorbed through other mucosae by non-ionic diffusion. These findings suggest that salivary ammonia is reabsorbed passively through the oral mucosa in the un-ionized phase.


Physical design environments are places that support people engaged in the spatial, physical, tangible act of creation. It is now possible to augment workspaces with an amazing array of technologies to assist users in their creative endeavors. However, the integration of computing technologies into physical environments involves a new set of tools, technologies, principles and practices. In this panel, researchers working on the challenges of physical design support present their work through a walkthrough of their prototype work environments. Each environment will then be "remodeled" by a fellow researcher using his or her own approach, tools, and design philosophy. The goal of this session will be to explore the large variety of potential applications, tools, technologies, interfaces, and processes used by those working to augment the creative physical world.


This volume, written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. Although there has been much discussion concerning the impacts of nuclear accidents, and Chernobyl in particular, never before has there been a comprehensive presentation of all the available information concerning the health and environmental effects of the low dose radioactive contaminants that were emitted from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The official discussions emanating from the IAEA and associated UN agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and as a consequence these reports have erred on the side of negative findings simply because much of what was known was not included in their assessments. This new book provides a complete and extensive summary of all known research, including that published in Russian and Ukrainian, and provides new insights to the likely long term health and environmental consequences of nuclear accidents. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas. ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.


Learning technologies play an increasingly important part in higher education instruction worldwide. Recent learner studies in the UK discovered an underworld of learning technology use which is integral to student lives. They showed that students make sophisticated use of an increasing range of educational media and are capable of customising and personalising learning technologies provided to them by their institutions to suit their needs. Evidence from research in the United States and Germany suggest that similar trends are common to other contexts internationally.

Today's learners actively construct their learning process, regulate and adapt both their behaviour and the study context to the demands of their studies. This is an agreement with the self-regulated learning tradition of research on learning, which assumes that learners can monitor, control and regulate their cognition, motivation or behaviour and their self-regulatory activities mediate the impact of personal and contextual characteristics on performance. Although attempts have been made to take account of the influence of learning technology on learner conceptions of learning, much of previous research on learner uses of technology was descriptive and failed to relate its findings to literature on approaches and conceptions of learning, including research on self-regulation.

The present research was part of a larger multi-method research project aimed to evaluate learner experience of e-learning at Oxford Brookes University and supported by the Higher Education Academy in the UK. The qualitative stage of the study was intended to evaluate student experience of the use of social software, e-portfolios, personal learning environments and virtual environments for reflective learning and personal development planning. The quantitative part of the project aimed to investigate patterns in online technology use in their relationship to self-regulation, learner perceptions of independence in learning and learning community and some of its results are presented here.

A 47-item self-report questionnaire comprising of a set of Likert-like statements was designed to address the key goals of the study. Some of the items were used in the JISC LXP student experience study and others were developed by the project team from an initial item pool that was partly based on the results of qualitative evaluation. To explore learner self-regulatory activities, help-seeking, time management and peer learning scales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) were used. To measure learner perceptions of choice in learning and learning community, learner choice and learning community scales of the CEQ were used.

Paper and online versions of the instrument were administered to the representative sample of students at Oxford Brookes University in the UK in the period of four weeks in October through November 2007. The results of analysing the data obtained from the online version of the questionnaire show that students varied in the degree to which they are engaged in various online activities: while multimedia and learning resource use have been reportedly quite high, the use of some of the more popular Web 2.0 services (such as social bookmarking) and virtual worlds appeared to be rather low. The results of factor analysis helped to identify five dimensions of online media use, but only two of them ("Web for authoring" and "Web for multimedia use") were correlated with scores on peer learning and help-seeking scales. Perceptions of learning community were positively related to student use of online resources and student views on choice in learning were not associated with scores on any of the five first-order factor based scales. The paper concludes with the discussion of the implications of the study for learning technology research and practice.


A highly dependable embedded fault-tolerant memory architecture for high performance massively parallel computing applications and its dependability assurance techniques are proposed and discussed in this paper. The proposed fault tolerant memory provides two distinctive repair mechanisms: the permanent laser redundancy reconfiguration during the wafer probe stage in the factory to enhance its manufacturing yield and the dynamic BIST/BISD/BISR (built-in-self-test-diagnosis-repair)-based reconfiguration of the redundant resources in field to maintain high field reliability. The system reliability which is mainly determined by hardware configuration demanded by software and field reconfiguration/repair utilizing unused processor and memory modules is referred to as HW/SW Co-reliability. Various system configuration options in terms of parallel processing unit size and processor/memory intensity are also introduced and their HW/SW Co-reliability characteristics are discussed. A modeling and assurance technique for HW/SW Co-reliability with emphasis on the dependability assurance techniques based on combinatorial modeling suitable for the proposed memory design is developed and validated by extensive parametric simulations. Thereby, design and Implementation of memory-reliability-optimized and highly reliable fault-tolerant field reconfigurable massively parallel computing systems can be achieved.


CONTEXT
Various studies report decreased muscle activation in the concavity of the curve in patients with scoliosis. Such decreased muscle-performance capacity could lead to sustained postural deficits.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether specific asymmetrical sports therapy exercises rather than symmetrical back strengthening can increase EMG amplitudes of paraspinal muscles in the concavity of the curve.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional.

SETTING
Laboratory.

PARTICIPANTS
16 patients with idiopathic scoliosis.

INTERVENTIONS
Patients performed 4 back-strengthening exercises (front press, lat pull-down, roman chair, bent-over barbell row) during 1 test session. Each exercise was performed in a symmetrical and asymmetrical variant and repeated 3 times.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
EMG amplitudes of the paraspinal muscles were recorded in the thoracic and lumbar apexes of the scoliotic curve during each exercise. Ratios of convex- to concave-side EMG activity were calculated.

RESULTS
Statistical analysis revealed that the asymmetrical variants of front press at the lumbar level (P=.002) and roman chair and bent-over barbell row at the thoracic level (P<.0001, .001 respectively) were superior in increasing EMG amplitudes in the concavity of the scoliotic curve.

CONCLUSIONS
Specific asymmetrical exercises increase EMG amplitudes of paraspinal muscles in the concavity. If confirmed in longitudinal studies measuring improvements of postural deficits, these exercises may advance care of patients with scoliosis.


Grazing exclusion (GE) is an effective method for protecting degraded grasslands, and it can profoundly affect ecosystem carbon (C) cycles. Ecosystem respiration (ER), which includes both autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration (HR), accounts for the largest land‐to‐atmosphere C fluxes. How ER responds to GE is still unclear, however, and to investigate this, a controlled GE experiment was conducted at a meadow grassland near Qinghai Lake, China. Animal exclusion enhanced ER and aboveground plant respiration (Ragb) by 10.5% and 40.1%, respectively, but it suppressed soil respiration by 12.4% and HR by 17.6%. Positive responses of ER and Ragb were linked to increased aboveground biomass, particularly graminoids biomass. Negative responses of soil respiration and HR were associated with GE‐induced changes in microbial biomass C and nitrogen. These results show that grassland responded in complex ways to GE and that ER and its components were regulated by both abiotic and biotic factors. Moreover, the divergent responses of respiration components have important implications for models of terrestrial C cycles and climate under enhanced human activities and changes in land use.


The sponge Stylissa carteri is known to produce a number of secondary metabolites displaying anti-fouling, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer activity. However, the anti-viral potential of metabolites produced by S. carteri has not been extensively explored. In this study, an S. carteri extract was HPLC fractionated and a cell based assay was used to evaluate the effects of HPLC fractions on parameters of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) infection and cell viability. Candidate HIV-1 inhibitory fractions were then analyzed for the presence of potential HIV-1 inhibitory compounds by mass spectrometry, leading to the identification of three previously characterized compounds, i.e., debromohymenialdisine (DBH), hymenialdisine (HD), and oroidin. Commercially available purified versions of these molecules were re-tested to assess their antiviral potential in greater detail. Specifically, DBH and HD exhibit a 30%–40% inhibition of HIV-1 at 3.1 μM and 13 μM, respectively; however, both exhibited cytotoxicity. Conversely, oroidin displayed a 50% inhibition of viral replication at 50 μM with no associated toxicity. Additional experimentation using a biochemical assay revealed that oroidin inhibited the activity of the HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase up to 90% at 25 μM. Taken together, the chemical search space was narrowed and previously isolated compounds with an unexplored anti-viral potential were found. Our results support exploration of marine natural products for anti-viral drug discovery.


A system has been developed for calibrating and precisely pointing a germanium dual-wedge scanner for a CO2 Doppler lidar from an airborne platform. This paper describes equations implemented in pointing the scanner as well as those in the iterative calibration program, which combines available data with estimated parameters of the scanner orientation relative to the axes of the aircraft's inertial navigation system to arrive at corrected scanner parameters. In addition, this paper investigates the effect of specific error conditions on program performance and the results of the program when used on 1981 flight test data.


This paper examines breakup fees and stock lockups as devices for prospective target firms to encourage bidder participation in takeover contest. We show that, unless bidding costs for the first bidder are too high, breakup fees provide for the socially desirable degree of competition and ensure the ecient allocation of the target to the highest valued buyer in a takeover auction. In contrast, stock lockups permit the target firm to subsidize entry of a new bidder at the expense of an incumbent bidder. Stock lockups induce too much competition when oered to a second bidder and too little competition when oered to a first bidder. Despite their socially wasteful properties, target management would favor stock lockups as they induce takeover competition at least cost to the target.


Recent advances in numerical optimization software now allow problems arising in the evaluation of complex centrifugal compressor train performance to be solved readily by machinery users. Analyses of compressor operations often require consideration of multiple nonlinear constraints involving pressure, temperature, flow rate, composition, and power. Based on these constraints, the operational boundaries of the machinery must be evaluated. Frequently operating points of greatest interest exist where one of the operational variables, such as flow rate, is maximized subject to operational constraints. A methodology is proposed that can be used to apply commercially available optimization software to problems of this type. A review of gas equation of state relationships needed to determine thermodynamic properties is provided, as well as methods for calculating compressor discharge pressure based on polytropic head and efficiency. Recycle control is considered and a model is proposed.


Studies have identified variables that influence ngo objectives, organizational structures and activities, often related to the broader socio-economic context. Among the most important are the availability of funding and the density of networks. Both factors affect ngo s by driving them either to adjust priorities and widen or limit their operations and/or to become more or less extrovert. This article aims to assess whether, how and to what extent the recent refugee crisis has impacted the Greek ngo ecosystem in terms of scope of activities, professionalization, organizational structures and transnational networking. Available funding, mostly from European institutions, has suddenly and spectacularly increased while International ngo s (ingo s) established operations to Greece – some cooperating with local partners. Likewise, several Greek ngo s (gngo s) embarked on a process of significant operational expansion, mostly 'in the field' and as part of an 'emergency response'. Also, a series of grassroots organizations have been created – mainly at the local level. Based on a series of interviews with executives of the most recognizable gngo s, funders and policymakers and a survey based on questionnaires, the authors argue that the impact was both positive and negative and varied extensively depending on the size and type of organization under focus.


The volume extinction coefficients at 1.03 microm, 3.70 microm, and 10.38 microm, normalized to that at 0.50-microm wavelength, are calculated as a function of the shape parameters of the modified gamma size distribution using parameter ranges appropriate for haze and fog droplet polydispersions. Based on the sensitivity of the normalized volume extinction coefficients on the shape parameters, different procedures are proposed for utilizing the extinction features in giving form to the size distribution corresponding to the various evolutionary stages of the water droplet population. Such a methodology presents applicability in the field of fog forecast.


In the multi-armed bandit problem, a gambler must decide which arm of K non-identical slot machines to play in a sequence of trials so as to maximize his reward. This classical problem has received much attention because of the simple model it provides of the trade-off between exploration (trying out each arm to find the best one) and exploitation (playing the arm believed to give the best payoff). Past solutions for the bandit problem have almost always relied on assumptions about the statistics of the slot machines. In this work, we make no statistical assumptions whatsoever about the nature of the process generating the payoffs of the slot machines. We give a solution to the bandit problem in which an adversary, rather than a well-behaved stochastic process, has complete control over the payoffs. In a sequence of T plays, we prove that the expected per-round payoff of our algorithm approaches that of the best arm at the rate O(T/sup -1/3/), and we give an improved rate of convergence when the best arm has fairly low payoff. We also consider a setting in which the player has a team of "experts" advising him on which arm to play; here, we give a strategy that will guarantee expected payoff close to that of the best expert. Finally, we apply our result to the problem of learning to play an unknown repeated matrix game against an all-powerful adversary.


Despite a widely accepted view of the importance of understanding experience from the point of view of the individual using services in modern western society, there are relatively few studies that have explored day-to-day living in a care home from the older person's perspective. This study aimed to present the voice of the untold stories of care home residents through an interpretative study that was informed by a biographical approach and narrative method. Eight older people who lived in four different care homes in England participated in a sequence of up to eight narrative interviews over a six month period. Through the process of listening to, retelling and interpreting the residents' stories the resident world was explored. There were three stages to the interpretative process that focused on:- developing a naive or surface understanding to acquire a sense of the whole sequence of a participant's interviews; a structural analysis that examined the interviews to investigate what the text said and how it was said; and a critical in-depth examination of the interpretation within the wider social context. The interpretation revealed the unique way that each participant lived in a care home. These older people worked hard to reconstruct their life following the move to a care home and as they lived there. Though the residents were limited by physical, functional and cognitive problems, they developed strategies with the aim of influencing the life that they lived within a care home. Where they were able to implement those strategies they reconstructed their life in ways whereby they 'lived with care.' In this sense they were active biographical agents shaping this phase of their life. This is an alternative biography, to that of older people 'existing in care' as an outcome of care received. This thesis provides new insights into the residents' world. The overriding conclusion that can be drawn from these stories is that these older people were trying to live as active biographical agents who were instrumental in shaping their own life. They were able to do this to a greater or lesser extent and the conceptual model of biographical living that has been developed from the resident stories provides a framework to depict the complex interactions that shape an individual's experience in this environment. An inherent feature of this model is recognition that residents can be active agents throughout their lives in care homes. In summary, residents' desire to 'live with care' and this is not only possible, it is achievable.


Legionella pneumophila is an opportunistic pathogen that replicates within alveolar macrophages resulting in the onset of severe atypical pneumonia. Previously we have identified Lpg1905, a eukaryotic-type ecto-NTPDase (nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase) from L. pneumophila that was required for optimal intracellular replication and virulence in a mouse lung infection model. In the present study, we characterized the activity of a second eukaryotic-type NTPDase, Lpg0971, from L. pneumophila. We observed that recombinant Lpg0971 hydrolysed only ATP and exhibited divalent cation preference for manganese (II) ions. Similar to lpg1905, an lpg0971 mutant carrying the plasmid pMIP was attenuated in a mouse lung infection model and impaired for replication in human macrophages and amoebae. Increased trafficking of the LCV (Legionella-containing vacuole) to a LAMP-1 (lysosome-associated membrane protein-1)-positive compartment was observed for both the lpg1905 and lpg0971 mutants carrying pMIP. Complementation with either lpg1905 or lpg0971 restored intracellular replication, suggesting that a minimum level of ATPase activity was required for this function. A double lpg1905/0971 mutant was not more impaired for intracellular replication than the single mutants and complementation of the double mutant with lpg0971, but not lpg1905, restored intracellular replication. This suggested that although the NTPDases have overlapping activities they have distinct functions. Unlike many eukaryotic-type proteins from L. pneumophila, neither Lpg1905 nor Lpg0971 were translocated into the host cell by the Dot/Icm (defective in organelle trafficking/intracellular multiplication) type IV secretion system. Overall our data suggest that the ability of L. pneumophila to replicate in eukaryotic cells relies in part on the ability of the pathogen to hydrolyse ATP within an intracellular compartment.


Global economic environment is changing rapidly during the last two decades. This change is reflected in widening and intensifying international linkages in trade and FDI. Various countries are now favouring economic reforms for attaining rapid and sustained growth. The scope for transnational production has expended due to reduction of the barriers to international trade and the various regional integration agreements between the different countries. This paper examines the causal relationships between FDI and trade (i.e Exports and Imports) in India and China. Granger causality test has been employed to examine the causal relation between FDI and trade by using the data over the period of 1976-2011.The results for China show unidirectional causality running from FDI to imports and FDI to exports, however, there exist bidirectional causality between imports and exports. India gives the results which are not similar to China where bidirectional causality between FDI and imports; FDI and exports; and exports and imports have been found.


Abstract Previous studies of phylogenetic congruence between aphids and their symbiotic bacteria (Buchnera) supported long-term vertical transmission of symbionts. However, those studies were based on distantly related aphids and would not have revealed horizontal transfer of symbionts among closely related hosts. Aphid species of the genus Uroleucon are closely related phylogenetically and overlap in geographic ranges, habitats, and parasitoids. To examine support for congruence of phylogenies of Buchnera and Uroleucon, sequences from four mitochondrial, one nuclear, and one endosymbiont gene (trpB) were obtained. Congruence of phylogenies based on pooled aphid genes with phylogenies based on trpB was highly significant: Most nodes resolved by trpB corresponded to nodes resolved by the pooled aphid genes. Furthermore, no nodes were both inconsistent between the trees and strongly supported in both trees. Two kinds of analyses testing the null hypothesis of perfect congruence between pairwise combinations of datasets and tree topologies were performed: the Kishino-Hasegawa test and the likelihood-ratio test. Both tests indicated significant disagreement among most pairwise combinations of mitochondrial, nuclear, and symbiont datasets. Because rampant recombination among mitochondrial genomes of different aphid species is unlikely, inaccurate assumptions in the evolutionary models underlying these tests appear to be causing the hypothesis of a shared history to be incorrectly rejected. Moreover, trpB was more consistent with the aphid genes as a set than any single aphid gene was with the others, suggesting that the symbionts show the same phylogeny as the aphids. Overall, analyses support the interpretation that symbionts and aphids have undergone strict cospeciation, with no horizontal transmission of symbionts even among closely related, ecologically similar aphid hosts. Corresponding Editor: E. Martins


In these notes I hope to touch on a variety of issues relating to public debt and social insurance and to suggest ways in which they might be approached. It is to be viewed as a research proposal, or an outline of open problems rather than as a statement of results. The notes are divided into two sections. In the first, problems of intertemporal reallocation of resources through the public debt and social security are treated in the context of complete certainty about future events. Both positive and normative aspects of the problem are investigated, but principle emphasis is given to the latter. In the second section, the set of issues related to uncertainty and the role of intergenerational social insurance in its mitigation are explored.


With discussion of the boardroom culture appearing almost daily within the media coverage of corporations it is important to look at the status of culture research and how it has been utilized within the board structure. This paper completes a review of historical culture research and how it can be applied to boards, identifying gaps within existing research and board culture analysis. Using existing scholarly work the author highlights some of the learning's from past research and research concerns that need to be addressed moving forward. The author puts forward that more qualitative research aimed specifically at boards is necessary to move board effectiveness to the next level.


Storytelling serves many purposes. People often tell stories as a coping mechanism, as a way of self-representation, and as a means for self-reflection. Through stories, narrators construct identities and gain perspective on events in their lives. This thesis is a discourse analysis of a single narrative told by a young man staying at a children's home in Cape Town. The study explores how life events are presented and evaluated in narrative and analyses the construction of identities. The objectives of the study are threefold. Firstly it aims to explore how the narrator draws on different social discourses in the telling of his narrative. Secondly, it analyses how, through the telling of these events, identities are constructed. Finally, the study assesses how the participant builds evaluation into his narrative. The study's overall purpose is to gain an understanding of narrative identities. The analysis reveals that Lucas develops three Master Narratives relating to the themes of family, education and drugs. His attitudes towards all three are ambivalent and he weaves competing discourses into his narrative in relation to each. He seeks, through his story, to construct himself as a wise young man who – having experimented with drugs and dropped out of school – makes the decision to redeem himself by going back to school, rejecting drugs, and mending his ties with his family. In this sense, his narrative is like an archetypal Bildungsroman. The study takes a qualitative approach and is situated within the fields of Discourse Analysis, more specifically, narrative analysis. The main theoretical influences in the study include Tannen (1989/2007; 2008) and Labov (1972). The analysis of this study focuses on identifying the Master Narratives that shape Lucas's story as well as the discourses and competing ideologies which support these Master Narratives.


Vitamin D deficiency based on low circulating 25(OH)D concentration is now a world wide phenomenon. Non-classical actions of this hormone is now the main focus of interest for researchers. This prospective cohort study was conducted among pregnant women visiting antenatal OPD of Gauhati Medical College & Hospital, to see whether the Vitamin D status of pregnant women has any effect on the development of preeclampsia and other adverse pregnancy outcomes.25(OH)D estimation was done on VitrosECiQ Immunodiagnostic System . Statistical analysis was done using GraphPadInstat Version 3 and Med Calc statistical software. Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency was found in a higher percentage of pregnant women in this study. 44.81% of pregnant women with deficient vitamin D level presented with adverse pregnancy outcome in comparison to 32.93% with normal level. Significant difference in the vitamin D level was found between women who did not present with any adverse outcome and those who presented with preeclampsia. (23.16ng/ml ± 8.3ng/ml vs 21.46 ng/ml ± 7.2 ng/ml, p=.0235). Difference in the rates of Low Birth Weight(LBW), Intrauterine Death(IUD), and Primary Caeserian Section by vitamin D concentration was also observed. It can thus be concluded that vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy has an adverse effect on the outcome of pregnancy.


The interface geometry at the subduction boundary plays one of the most important roles on evaluation of both seismic and tsunami impacts as the mega-thrust earthquakes occur between two plates. Although the general feature of the subducted slab at the mantle depth is clearly delineated from the seismicity in the Wadati-Benioff zone, the exact interface geometry at the crustal depth is hardly obtained from abundant earthquakes scattering in and around the interface between the two plates. Examination of seismic data recorded at the dense seismic array in the Tatun volcano group of northern Taiwan shows two unambiguous P-waves generated by shallow earthquakes offshore the Hualien area in eastern Taiwan. The detailed analyses of travel-times of both P-waves show that the 1st P-wave was the direct wave propagating within the upper crust while the 2nd P-waves were reflected from the subducted slab dipping northward ~23 degrees. This observation reveals the general interface geometry between the subducted Philippine Sea and the overlaid Eurasian plates at the crustal depth, where is often considered as the locked zone and accumulated a lot of seismic energy for release. Thus, the interface geometry obtained here provides important parameters for estimating the possible rupture plane along the mega-thrust fault between two plates in the westernmost Ryukyu subduction system in the future. Article history: Received 2 August 2017 Revised 21 January 2018 Accepted 22 January 2018


In this paper we present a family of multi-objective hypergraph partitioning algorithms based on the multilevel paradigm, which are capable of producing solutions in which both the cut and the maximum subdomain degree are simultaneously minimized. This type of partitionings are critical for existing and emerging applications in VLSI CAD as they allow to both minimize and evenly distribute the interconnects across the physical devices. Our experimental evaluation on the ISPD98 benchmark show that our algorithms produce solutions that when compared against those produced by hMETiS have a maximum subdomain degree that is reduced by up to 35% while achieving comparable quality in terms of cut.


The patient in this case is a 6-year-old boy who was born with Down syndrome and esophageal atresia. In this video article, Dr. Alvear performs a colonic interposition to replace the absent esophagus with part of the patient's colon. This was performed during a global surgical mission in Honduras with the World Surgical Foundation.


Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense Lour.), a highly invasive nonnative plant, is prevalent in the Southern United States. Chinese privet infestations can hinder regeneration of desirable species, reduce stand productivity, and have other undesirable consequences. A combined mechanical (mulching) and chemical (triclopyr) treatment was applied to Chinese privet in forest stands in Georgia on an experimental basis. The cost of removing Chinese privet was estimated to be $737 per acre when a tracked 110-horsepower mulching machine and a two-person herbicide application crew are employed.


Efficiency and security are two basic requirements for sensor network design. However, these requirements could be sharply contrary to each other in some scenarios. For example, in- network data aggregation can significantly reduce communication overhead and thus has been adopted widely as a means to improve network efficiency; however, the adoption of in-network data aggregation may prevent data from being encrypted since it is a prerequisite for aggregation that data be accessible during forwarding. In this paper, we address this dilemma by proposing a family of secret perturbation-based schemes that can protect sensor data confidentiality without disrupting additive data aggregation. Extensive simulations are also conducted to evaluate the proposed schemes. The results show that our schemes provide confidentiality protection for both raw and aggregated data items with an overhead lower than that of existing related schemes.


This paper presents a large scale study of online MLIS students (n=910), who completed at least one online course and were enrolled in 36 of the 58 ALA-accredited MLIS programs in Canada and the United States. The results indicate that the typical student is female, White, lives in an urban setting, and is in her mid-30s. Online students were found to be quite diverse, with statistically significant differences in their preferences and satisfaction across five demographic variables: age (generational cohort), employment status, urban status, commute distance, and program modality. Three motivations emerged: accommodation, predisposition, and selectivity, which influenced the respondents to choose online learning. The prevalent issues online MLIS students experienced were a sense of isolation from peers and instructors, and a lack of professional development and networking opportunities with peers. The findings have implications for enhancing MLIS online education including marketing, course offerings, and student support services.


A retrospective study was performed to describe the demographic and clinicopathological characteristics of cases of vascular anomalies in a Brazilian population. The data of cases diagnosed as vascular anomalies over a period of 46 years, were retrieved from the archives of the Pathological Anatomy Service of the Department of Dentistry of Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Information about sex, age, race, diagnosis, location, and clinical characteristics was extracted. A database was created for analysis in the SPSS system and description of the results. The sample consisted of 597 cases categorized as follows: pyogenic granuloma (n = 454), infantile hemangioma (n = 57), vascular malformation (n = 37), lymphangioma (n = 20), hemangiolymph angioma (n = 10), vascular thrombus (n = 7), hemangio endothelioma (n = 5), angiofibroma (n = 1), hemangioendothelio sarcoma (n = 1), and Kaposi sarcoma (n = 5). Overall, there was a predominance of females (64.2 %), white race (54.2 %), and patients in the 3rd and 4th decades of life. Most cases affected the gingiva/ ridge (44.75 %), had a red/reddish color (60.07 %), sessile implantation (52.4 %), soft consistency (52.7 %) and nodular appearance (53, 9 %), and were non-hemorrhagic (51.3 %) and asymptomatic (76.6 %). The demographic and clinicopathological findings obtained for most of the vascular lesions analyzed are similar to those reported in published studies involving other populations. Knowledge of the particularities of these disorders is important for appropriate diagnosis and treatment decision.