Recent developments in modeling language and vision have been successfully applied to image question answering. It is both crucial and natural to extend this research direction to the video domain for video question answering (VideoQA). Compared to the image domain where large scale and fully annotated benchmark datasets exists, VideoQA datasets are limited to small scale and are automatically generated, etc. These limitations restrict their applicability in practice. Here we introduce ActivityNet-QA, a fully annotated and large scale VideoQA dataset. The dataset consists of 58,000 QA pairs on 5,800 complex web videos derived from the popular ActivityNet dataset. We present a statistical analysis of our ActivityNet-QA dataset and conduct extensive experiments on it by comparing existing VideoQA baselines. Moreover, we explore various video representation strategies to improve VideoQA performance, especially for long videos.


This pioneering volume addresses the key issue of the relationship between politics and economics, with special reference to Egypt in the 1990s. Drawing on the expertise of both political scientists and economists, it assembles an impressive array of data, including detailed opinion surveys, to demonstrate conclusively that political and economic reform need to proceed in tandem. In an insightful analysis of the Egyptian legislature, the authors draw attention to a fundamental aspect of institutional reform, namely the informational and knowledge base of legislation as well as the organizational infrastructure of policy formulation. As regards Egypt's economic performance since the early 1990s, they focus in particular on impediments to improved export performance and offer solid recommendations as to how such obstacles might be overcome. This stimulating study makes a timely contribution to political economic analysis, which may at the same time prove helpful in the formulation of new policies.


In today's tell-all world, where anyone with internet access can become a "media outlet," growing numbers of people are finding themselves the victims of former intimate partners who mass disseminate private, highly embarrassing information, including photos and videotapes, about or involving them.In theory, tort law provides the perfect (and exclusive) remedy when one gives widespread publicity to embarrassing, non-newsworthy private facts about a person in a manner that reasonable persons would consider highly offensive. In practice, however, this claim — known as the tort of "public disclosure of private facts" — offers virtually no chance of recovery by plaintiffs. The tort sustained severe, possibly mortal wounds in a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases culminating in Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989). In its current formulation, it is quite possible that the public disclosure tort is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.The demise of the public disclosure tort has left a large gap in privacy protection for victims of offensive disclosures of private information. This Article proposes a theory to partially fill that gap in some public disclosure situations arising from intimate relationships. Specifically, expanding on an argument advanced by Professor Eugene Volokh that the only constitutionally permissible means for enforcing personal information privacy is contract law, the article argues that an implied contract of confidentiality arises in intimate relationships that the parties will not disseminate through an instrument of mass communication private, embarrassing information about the other acquired during the relationship.


There are two general methods in radiometric calibration of detectors, one is based on radiation sources and the other based on detectors. Because the two methods need to establish a primary standard of high precision and a transfer chain, precision of the standard will be reduced by extension of the chain. A new calibration method of detectors can be realized by using correlated photons generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) effect of nonlinear crystal, without needing transfer chain. Using 351.1-nm output of a tunable laser to pump 'beta'-barium borate (BBO) crystal, an absolute calibration experimental system of single photon detectors based on correlated photons is performed. The quantum efficiency of photomultiplier (PMT) at 702.2 nm is measured by the setup. Advantages of this method over traditional methods are also pointed out by comparison.


This paper reports research on the implementation of a web-based videoconferencing tool (Interwise) for synchronous learning sessions on an industrial technology course offered through a university in northern Taiwan. The participants included undergraduate students from the same course offered in two different semesters. We investigated students' perceptions of interactions with the instructor and fellow students, their confidence in utilizing the Internet (Internet self-efficacy), and the satisfaction level that students perceived throughout the learning process with Interwise. We also examined the effect of interactions and Internet self-efficacy on student satisfaction. Data collected through paper-based and online surveys were analyzed using correlation and multiple regression. The results revealed that overall, learners perceived Interwise as a tool that was moderately easy to use for synchronous learning. Learners seemed to prefer using the Interwise features, such as emotion icons, talk, or raise hand, to interact with their instructor. Learners had high confidence in gathering data or getting support through the Internet, but low confidence in resolving Internet related problems. Both learner-learner and learner-instructor interactions were significant predictors of student satisfaction, while Internet self-efficacy did not significantly contribute to satisfaction. Learner-instructor interaction was found to be the strongest predictor of student satisfaction.


We study a flexible algorithm for minimizing a sum of component functions, each of which depends on a large number of decision variables. The algorithm combines aspects of incremental gradient method with that of coordinate descent. In contrast to earlier algorithms of this kind, our algorithm is lock-free and does not require synchronization of access to the shared memory. We prove convergence of the algorithm under asynchronous operation and provide explicit bounds on how the solution times depend on the degree of asynchrony. Numerical experiments confirm our theoretical results.


This paper uses a provocation model to explain why the initial Muslim coalitions against southern Christians broke up in Sudan and Chad. The need to cooperate was made obvious in Sudan when oil flew in a Chinese-built pipeline running through the Christian rebels' homeland. Jihad was called off and political Islam was discarded when the rebels showed their ability to disrupt the oil flow by blowing up the pipeline. The government of Sudan had switched from African socialism to Political Islam a couple of decades before. It then imposed the Sharia Law even on the Christians as a provocation to trigger a rebellion after years of peace and to launch an ethnic cleansing campaign in the oil-rich areas. In Chad also, the initial Muslim coalition against the Christians broke up for sharing the oil money with the latter, but with a different timing.


Abstract The FLWR is a boiling water reactor type with a core consisting of hexagonal-shaped fuel assemblies with a triangular-lattice fuel rod configuration, which has been proposed in order to ensure a sustainable energy supply in the future based on well-established light water reactor technologies. This paper proposes a new concept of fuel assembly design named FLWR/MIX. The first stage of FLWR is designed to conserve plutonium effectively with a fissile plutonium conversion ratio of around 1.0, keeping negative void reactivity characteristics. Enriched UO2 fuel rods are arranged in the peripheral region of the assembly, surrounding the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rods in the central region. Performance evaluation shows that the FLWR/MIX concept is effective for controlling the void reactivity characteristics in the tight-lattice fuel rod configuration and is promising under the framework of the UO2 and MOX fuel technologies and related infrastructures that have been established for the current LWR-MOX utilization.


The contemporary agenda for global mental health has met with sustained criticism from some commentators. This article evaluates one important strand of such appraisal: that in which the dissemination of Western mental health expertise is disparaged as a form of cultural imperialism. Derek Summerfield has vigorously criticised the contemporary global mental health agenda—a manifesto exemplified by WHO's 2008 document mhGAP , an 'action programme developed for countries especially with low and lower middle incomes for scaling up services for mental, neurological, and substance use disorders'.1 The programme proposes interventions designed to close various 'treatment gaps' between high income countries and low or middle income countries (LMICs). mhGAP cites, for example, a survey showing that around 80% of people with serious mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders in so-called 'less-developed countries' had received no treatment in the previous 12 months, set against a proportion of '35–50%' for the same group in 'developed countries' (p. 7).1 Summerfield stringently criticises this kind of manifesto, arguing that such 'psychiatric universalism risks being imperialistic'.2 Scaling up psychiatric services to close the presumed gap in mental health provision extinguishes local ways of expressing and dealing with distress, replacing them with particularly Western ways: 'in globalising Western mental health, we are globalising a contemporary Western way of being a person' (p. 5).2

In a similar vein, Ethan Watters objects to the spread of Western psychiatric models: Americans have been industriously exporting their ideas about mental illness. … they've failed to foresee the full impact of these efforts. It turns out that how a people in a culture think about mental illnesses—how they categorize and prioritize the symptoms, attempt to heal them, and set expectations for their course and outcome—influences the diseases themselves. In teaching the rest of the world to think, they have been, …


Can we classify species of very similar looking organisms quickly and accurately using only out of the box feature transfer? What if we only have small number of images? This experimental paper is part of on-going project on species recognition research and evaluates transfer learning and fine-tuning approaches on two highly specialized fine-grained datasets. The two fine-grained datasets were specifically assembled for the purpose of this research. These datasets consist of images of New Zealand native species of moths and "cryptic" plants of Genus Corposma found also in New Zealand. We compare results from finetuning experiments with performance of transfer learning without fine-tuning. The latter results are based on features extracted from various levels of depth in the InceptionV3 network, including fully connected layers. The extracted features serve as inputs to a number of classification algorithms. We observe contrasting results for the two datasets. For the dataset of moths, the method based on features extracted from deep levels of the InceptionV3 network outperforms fine-tuning in accuracy (90.09% versus 87.18%). This is not the case for the dataset of cryptic plants (60.46% versus 74.37%). Despite both datasets being fine-grained in nature, these experimental differences could be attributed to intrinsically different morphology of organisms and warrant further investigation.


It has been postulated that phenotypic variation in the relative expression of two chemically distinct types of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a serotype-specific LPS (B-band) and a common antigen LPS (A-band) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important mechanism enabling this opportunistic pathogen to alter its surface characteristics to mediate adhesion and to survive under extreme conditions. To further investigate this, the relative expression levels of the two distinct types of LPS in P. aeruginosa PAO1 were investigated with cells grown in a chemostat at different dissolved oxygen tensions (pO(2)). The A-band LPS was constitutively expressed as pO(2) was increased from nearly zero to 350 % of air saturation. In contrast, the B-band LPS showed a remarkable increase with increased pO(2). Almost no B-band LPS was found in cells grown at a pO(2) of less than 3 % of air saturation. Electron microscopic examination of cells revealed increased formation of membrane vesicles (MVs) on the surface of P. aeruginosa PAO1 under oxygen stress conditions. The toxicity of the supernatant of P. aeruginosa cultures to the growth of a hybridoma cell line significantly increased in samples taken from oxygen-stressed steady-state cultures. Furthermore, studies of adhesion in a continuous-flow biofilm culture revealed an increased adhesiveness for hydrophilic surfaces in P. aeruginosa PAO1 grown at a higher pO(2). The oxygen-dependent alterations of cell-surface components and properties observed in this work provide a possible explanation for the emergence of P. aeruginosa lacking the B-band LPS in chronically infected cystic fibrosis patients. The results are also useful for understanding the processes involved in the formation of MVs in P. aeruginosa.


Performance of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) ultrawideband (UWB) signal generation using a frequency-quadrupling technique and transmission over fiber is investigated by simulation and experiment, and the error vector magnitude (EVM) is used to evaluate the transmission quality. Frequency hopping within the first three bands of IEEE 802.15.3a has been used in experiments to obtain an MB-OFDM UWB signal. The frequency quadrupling can be achieved by using only one Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and two cascaded MZMs. It is found that using one MZM is better than using two cascaded MZMs in the performance of mm-wave generation. For using one MZM, it is found that transmission through 20 km of fiber degrades the EVM by less than 0.5 dB compared with back-to-back. Also, the EVM is degraded by less than 1 and 0.25 dB for a bias drift of less than 20% and an extinction ratio of more than 10 dB, respectively. Moreover, the EVM of the system using one MZM is improved by more than 2.5 dB compared with the two cascaded MZMs. In addition, it is found that the minimum EVM required of -17 dB can be achieved by using a local oscillator modulation index of ~63% and 70% at least for using the one MZM and two cascaded MZMs, respectively.


In the actual economic context, the agro-food economy is focused on the consumer demands regarding quality, safety and security of food and foodstuffs. Traceability of wine can be defined as a method through which anybody in the wine supply chain can be able to verify the origin and composition of each batch of wines, its conditions of storage, and all the products that were in contact with the wine after the production. Traceability in the wine industry has an important role in a quality assurance management system. It ensures the registration on specific documents of all manipulations of raw materials, ingredients and final products. They are created especially to allow a rapid identification of the product history. The wine supply chain requires traceability from grape production to processing and wine distribution. Authenticity of wine has been extensively investigated because wine is an easily adulterated product due to its chemical composition and its availability throughout the world. Responsible and continuous controls are required to maintain the quality of wine. Usually volatile compounds are used to characterize varieties, whereas minerals are used for geographical differentiation. Amino acids as well as phenolic compounds evaluation are used for both. The development of advanced techniques for wines authentication is a challenge, which currently is given a special attention. In this literature review, latest scientific papers on this subject will be assessed in order to establish the state of the art in the proposed field and to establish further research needed.


The population of Flesh-footed Shearwaters, Puffinus carneipes, on Lord Howe Island, Australia, has decreased over recent decades. Known threats include long-line fishing and loss of nesting habitat. The recent occurrence of plastic debris in breeding colonies has raised concerns that plastic ingestion also may be contributing to the decline of this species. In this paper we investigate the extent of plastic ingestion by Flesh-footed and Wedge-tailed shearwaters, Puffinus pacificus, on Lord Howe Island. The remains offailed Flesh-footed Shearwater fledglings contained substantial quantities of plastics: up to 37 cm3, equivalent to at least 31% of proventricular capacity. Road-killed adults (n=21) had no plastic in their proventriculus. Proventricular contents of near-fledged birds, obtained by non-lethal means, showed that 79% of Flesh-footed Shearwaters and 43% of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters contained plastics, in volumes of up to 18.0 cm3 and 2.8 cm3, respectively.
Plastic loads were significantly less in Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, the difference possibly due to different densities of plastic within
the foraging locations of each species. The impact of plastic ingestion on the survival of Flesh-footed Shearwater chicks and fledglings, and the consequent impacts on the demography of the population are unknown and warrant further investigation.


The target article contains a number of distinct but interrelated claims about the cognitive nature of folk biology based in part on cross-cultural work with urbanized Americans and forest-dwelling Maya Indians. Folk biology consists universally of a ranked taxonomy centered on essence-based generic species. This taxonomy is domain-specific, perhaps an innately determined evolutionary adaptation. Folk biology also plays a special role in cultural evolution in general, and in the development of Western biological science in particular. Even in our culture, however, it retains an autonomy from other domains of thought and from science. These claims are questioned and clarified.


Based on our research concerning enterprise architecture (EA) in the Finnish public sector, we discuss how EA concept and tool need to be developed to support government business ecosystem and organization design. Our research context indicates, beyond a federal government or a state one, that even a single municipality, like a city concern, can be perceived as an ecosystem of its sectoral domains, subsidiaries and such. We outline a vision of an overall ontology-based, shared EA repository for the-whole-of-government current state descriptions and specify the central design principles and functional requirements for such a system, illustrating some potential use cases of it. Based on interview data from four smart city cases in Finland, we suggest a management model for the government ecosystem architecture target state design, specifically a design process for co-creating new services in the ecosystem. Further, we outline some principles for government ecosystem architecture management.


This article explores literary interrogations of the bioethical implications of cloning. It does so by outlining the basic science of cloning before going on to question the dominance of the Freudian notion of the 'uncanny' in the critical theoretical responses to cloning by figures such as Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek. The second half of the article turns to two recent novels exploring the theme of cloning: Eva Hoffman's The Secret, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It is argued that the former rehearses familiar themes of revulsion connected to the figure of the clone, yet resolves the struggle for identity in a 'human' conclusion; whereas the latter maintains the uncanny in-human difference of the clone even as it highlights the dangers of the biopolitical instrumentalization of life itself. The article therefore argues that fictional treatments of cloning can provide an important alternative to simplified debates on the subject in the mass media.


Abstract Before transmission, malaria parasites reside in the salivary glands of their female mosquito hosts. Saliva proteins assist in blood feeding and also may influence the ability of mosquitoes to transmit malaria. We attempted to identify and isolate cDNAs encoding proteins expressed at a high level in the salivary glands of a malaria vector, Anopheles dirus B Peyton & Harrison (=An. cracens) (Diptera: Culicidae). A major protein with an estimated molecular mass of 35 kDa and an isoelectric point (pI) of ≈4 was detected on a two-dimensional (2D) gel. Internal peptide sequences of the protein spot showed high similarity to sequences present in the conserved C-terminal domain of glycine- and glutamate (GE)-rich proteins. A full-length cDNA encoding this protein was isolated from a salivary gland cDNA library of female An. dirus B. The cDNA encoded a 256-residue protein with a calculated molecular mass of 25.4 kDa and a pI of 3.9. BLAST analysis confirmed that it is a member of the GE-rich family. Compositional and sequence analysis of this and other family members revealed a highly acidic N-terminal region of variable length and low sequence conservation and a well conserved C-terminal domain containing 10 identical residues across the 13 known members of the gene family in mosquitoes. The An. dirus B GE-rich transcript was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) only in the female salivary glands, indicating that this protein is female saliva-specific. The GE-rich proteins may function as a salivary lubricant to facilitate blood feeding.


BIOBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS OF EMOTION AND HIV DISEASE: EXPLORING POTENTIAL MEDIATORS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN TRAIT POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AFFECT AND HIV HEALTH STATUS By: Karen Elaine Stewart Master of Science Mississippi State University 2002 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. Major Director: Kirk Warren Brown, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Considerable research supports an association between negative psychosocial functioning and adverse health outcomes. The biobehavioral model is well supported and posits that these effects occur via alterations in physiological response and health damaging behaviors. Evidence is accumulating about potential benefits of positive psychosocial functioning; however, less is known about the mechanisms of these effects. The broaden-and-build model of positive emotions holds that positive emotions can undo the physiological and behavioral restrictions associated with negative emotions and promote resource development. The present correlational study sought to explore whether cortisol, medication adherence, and health behaviors (smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, and nutrition) mediated relations between trait positive affect and negative affect and health status in persons living with HIV infection. A moderating role of trait positive affect on the relation between negative affect and mediating variables was also hypothesized, yet an unexpectedly high correlation between trait positive and negative affect precluded the evaluation of this hypothesis. HIV-infected participants (N = 53) collected salivary cortisol five times over the course of one day at home and completed interview the following day. Clinical staff provided HIV symptom ratings, and virologic and immunologic indicators were collected by chart review. Results showed that high trait positive affect was associated with lower total cortisol concentration, and total cortisol mediated the relation between trait positive affect and CD4+ percent. High trait negative affect was associated with poorer medication adherence, and percent adherence mediated the relation between trait negative affect and CD4+ percent and viral load. Mediation hypotheses for health behaviors were not confirmed. Trait positive affect was, however, associated with decreased alcohol intake, increased physical activity, and better nutrition habits. Because this study used crosssectional design, causation cannot be determined. However, findings provide preliminary evidence on mechanisms by which trait positive affect could be related to HIV disease markers, and findings support existing evidence on mechanisms of trait negative affect in HIV disease. Results also support use of the biobehavioral model and the broaden-and-build model of positive emotions as theoretical frameworks in studying the relation between psychosocial functioning and health outcomes in persons with HIV.


Most treatments of the Great Depression have focused on its onset and its aftermath. In contrast, we take a unified view of the interwar period. We look at the slide into and the emergence from the 1920-21 recession and the roaring 1920s boom, as well as the slide into the Great Depression after 1929, and attempt to explain these phenomena in a unified framework. The model framework combines monopolistic product market competition with search frictions and bargaining in the labor market, allowing for both individual and collective (unionized) wage bargaining. We attribute the extraordinary macroeconomic and financial volatility of this period to two factors: Shifts in the wage bargaining regime and in the degree of monopoly power in the economy. The pro-union provisions of the Clayton Act of 1914 contributed to the slide in asset prices and the depression of 1920-21, while a series of tough anti-union Supreme Court decisions in late 1921 and 1922 coupled with the lax anti-trust enforcement of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations enabled a major rise in corporate profits and stock market valuations throughout the 1920s. Landmark court decisions in favor of trade unions in the late 1920s, as well as political pressure on firms to adopt the welfare capitalism model of high wages, made the economy increasingly susceptible to collapsing profit expectations. We model the onset of the great depression as an equilibrium switch from individual wage bargaining to (actual or mimicked) collective wage bargaining. The general equilibrium effects of this regime change are consistent with large decreases in output, employment, and stock prices.


A new technique for measuring the temporal transfer function of optical fibers is described. The method consists of placing the fiber under test in one arm of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer excited by a broadband source. The temporal impulse response is obtained from a holographic reconstruction. The method requires only short lengths of single-mode or multimode fibers (less than 1 m). We have measured a dispersion of 0.3 nsec/km.nm at 0.59 microm with a single-mode fiber, in good agreement with theory. The arrival times of the various modes of multimode fibers are resolved.


Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short presents an insightful behind-the-scenes tour of the entire production process for 3D artists, animators, and independent filmmakers who are interested in creating their own CGI shorts as well as for those who are simply fans and enthusiasts of CGI films in general. This book presents detailed examples of every step of the production process; from initial concept through character design, set design, modeling, texturing, lighting, camera animation, character animation, lip sync, rendering, post-production, compositing, and all the way to film festival submissions and online web distribution. It truly has something for everyone interested in CGI films. Using readily available off-the-shelf hardware and software such as modo, LightWave 3D, FPrime, HD Instance, Peak, Shake, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and more, Creating a 3D Animated CGI Short shows how to produce a complete 3D animated CGI Short, including how to fund the production by taking on paid freelance projects along the way. Where other filmmaking books typically describe industry standard methodologies that are most effective for larger productions, this book shows how to drastically simplify and condense those processes and focus only on the essential elements that will enable a single artist or filmmaker to complete a CGI short on their own.


claimed for the national missile defense scheme currently proposed by the United States is it would provide unreliable protection against an improbable form of threat. However well the proposed system might perform in controlled tests, it always would have to be assumed a strategic opponent capable of developing a long range ballistic missile would also be able to equip it with penetration devices likely to be effective under operational conditions. Of course, a istate of concerni (the new name given to states formerly known as iroguei) would presumably bypass the envisaged system with more readily concealed means of attack. The entire project promises to stimulate threats it cannot handle. Therein lies the reason it is considered to be so provocative. No one is prepared to believe the United Stateso or more precisely, its decision makersois now or would forever remain that stupid. Potential strategic opponents are compelled to assume the nonsensically limited system is but a stalking horse for a more serious effort, and the principal U.S. advocates of ballistic missile defense loudly encourage that assumption. The initiative is interpreted, moreover, in the context of very assertive plans for further elaboration of the already imposing offensive capabilities of U.S. forces. Against an initiating opponent who can choose the timing and operational details of an attack, the proposed U.S. system is basically worthless. Against an opponent who had first been subjected to a U.S. attack, an expanded version of the proposed system could be a very serious matter indeedothe final element needed to establish decisive, intimidating superiority. The real issue in question is the balance of offensive capability and more generally the fundamental terms of international security.


Foreign aid provides a windfall of resources to recipient countries and may result in the same rent seeking behavior as documented in the "curse of natural resources" literature. In this paper we discuss this effect and document its magnitude. Using panel data for 108 recipient countries in the period 1960–1999, we find that foreign aid has a negative impact on institutions. In particular, if the foreign aid over GDP that a country receives over a period of 5 years reaches the 75th percentile in the sample, then a 10-point index of democracy is reduced between 0.5 and almost one point, a large effect. For comparison, we also measure the effect of oil rents on political institutions. We find that aid is a bigger curse than oil.


This paper reports on the findings from a quantitative research study into the use of a software tool that was built to support a part-complete solution method (PCSM) for the learning of computer programming. The use of part-complete solutions to programming problems is one of the methods that can be used to reduce the cognitive load that students experience during their learning. The tool that was built is a code restructuring tool known as CORT. An inquiry into its effect on student learning outcomes took place over a period of 14 weeks at an Australian university. Two student groups participated in an introductory programming unit, one of which utilized the CORT system whilst the other acted as a control group. No significant difference were found in the relative achievement of students in the CORT and non-CORT groups in tests of programming achievement. However the results showed significant advantages for the CORT students in terms of time saving and levels of tutor help required. Differences also emerged in levels of achievement between certain sub-groups, these being age, computer literacy and previous programming experience.


Commercial Wi-Fi hotspot operators often categorize their customers depending on price, time and traffic limits. This paper presents the first comparison of user and traffic characteristics of three different categories of commercial Wi-Fi hotspot users. We examine a five month long trace of user activity and traffic collected by a wireless hotspot service provider operating hotspots in public and private locations all over Australia. We categorize users based on the duration of their purchased account time limit and compare traffic generated, user behavior, session activity and account usage. Key user and traffic statistics for each category are presented for reference.


The vegetation of Tasmania is complex and much of it is in a state of disclimax. At the time of European settlement, the proportion of non-forest open vegetation was 370/0, about 5% of this at high altitudes. In the present interglacial climate, in regions ofhigh rainfall, where rainforest dominance might be expected, approximately 45% carries sedgeland, grassland, shrub communities and wet sclerophyll forest.
Similarly, drier areas carry extensive grassland, sedgeland and heath, instead of dry eucalypt forest. This complexity of distribution and disclimax can be attributed to fire disturbance. Fire not only produces a successional mosaic but, through Ecological Drift, causes extinction of communities. This level of displacement appears to demand a timespan of human-induced fire sufficiently long to affect soil fertility. A palaeontological record of the last five glacial cycles has been analysed from the Darwin Crater in western Tasmania and
compared with that from the Chatham Rise, New Zealand. These show parallel behaviour in the proportions of forest and non-forest
communities in the earlier cycles. However, the Tasmanian record shows a marked divergence during the Last Glacial cycle, with a twofold
increase in open vegetation relative to closed forest. Eucalypt forest increases relative to rainforest, and charcoal increases relative to
woody vegetation. These changes occur through a variety of climates, including full glacial and optimum interglacial, but are not apparent
in the New Zealand core, making it difficult to attribute them to a climatic cause. In the Tasmanian vegetation, they can be explained
by an increase in fire frequency, due to human activity. Since their onset occurs in isotopic oxygen stage 4 and continues in the differing
climates thereafter, it may be inferred that the 14C dates of the earliest evidence of occupation by the Aborigines are gross underestimates.
A date of about 70 000 yrs BP is more likely. It appears that, when using 14C methodology, such underestimation for dates beyond30 000
yrs BP is to be expected in palaeosamples from western Tasmania.


The mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) has been found to exhibit both physiological roles in epithelial cells, and pathological roles in non epithelial kidney cells such as macrophages, podocytes and fibroblasts. Recent evidence has shown that activation of MR in these cells promotes inflammation, apoptosis and fibrosis – key pathological processes that contribute to declining renal function, albuminuria and progression of kidney disease. Antagonists of MR have been available for clinical use for decades; however their utility in renal patients has been impeded by hyperkalaemia due to tubular MR blockade. Therefore, an understanding of what cells mediate pathological effects of MR during kidney disease may allow targeted MR blockade, thus avoiding complications of salt disturbance. In order to assess the cell specific effects of MR signalling in kidney disease, we examined renal cells that express MR, such as renal fibroblasts, macrophages and podocytes. Initially, the role of MR activation on renal fibroblast proliferation was examined in vitro (Chapter 2). Rat renal fibroblasts, as well as primary mouse renal fibroblasts harvested from a kidney undergoing fibrosis, were exposed to aldosterone in serum free conditions. Increased proliferation and cell counts were observed in both cell types in a dose-dependent manner. Mechanistic experiments revealed MR activation leading to transactivation of growth factor receptors and subsequent activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases, to increase fibroblast proliferation. These results suggest that aldosterone-induced fibroblast proliferation may be another mechanism by which MR contributes to renal fibrosis. Secondly, we investigated the role of macrophages MR signalling in models of acute glomerulonephritis and diabetic nephropathy. In the glomerulonephritis model (Chapter 3), mice with selective MR deletions in macrophages had reduced overall renal injury as determined by kidney inflammatory infiltrates, glomerular and interstitial fibrosis and preservation of renal function. The degree of renal protection from targeted macrophage MR inhibition was similar to, and often superior to that of systemic MR antagonism. Thus, our findings demonstrate an important role of macrophage MR in the pathogenesis of acute glomerulonephritis, and may be a potential target for targeted MR blockade. Mice were then subjected to streptozotocin induced type 1 diabetes in a model of diabetic nephropathy (Chapter 4). Selective macrophage MR deletion markedly attenuated evidence of glomerular hyperfiltration, with reductions in glomerulomegaly and hypercellularity during diabetic nephropathy. Furthermore, glomerular macrophage infiltration and tubulointerstitial apoptosis were also attenuated in the knock-out mice. Despite these changes, renal function and albuminuria were not affected by macrophage MR deletion, suggesting a limited role for myeloid MR during early diabetic nephropathy. Lastly, we examined the relative importance of podocyte MR signalling in a model of glomerulonephritis (Chapter 3). Mice with selective MR deletions in podocytes developed severe renal injury comparable to wild-type mice, with no protection seen in albuminuria, renal dysfunction or renal fibrosis. These results suggest that podocyte MR signalling plays a limited role in renal injury during acute glomerulonephritis; contrasting to that of myeloid MR signalling. In conclusion, this series of experiments have increased our knowledge of the pathological role of MR activation in non-epithelial renal cells. Our results are unique, in that for the first time, we were able to delineate the effects of MR activation in selective cells, during kidney disease. An understanding of cell specific MR signalling may lead to cell selective MR inhibition, or its downstream signalling pathways, and avoid unwanted adverse effects such as hyperkalaemia. Not only will this improve treatment of patients with kidney disease, it may also have implications for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.


We report on the observation of a deficit in the cosmic ray flux from the directions of the Moon and Sun with five years of data taken by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Between 2010 May and 2011 May the IceCube detector operated with 79 strings deployed in the glacial ice at the South Pole, and with 86 strings between 2011 May and 2015 May. A binned analysis is used to measure the relative deficit and significance of the cosmic ray shadows. Both the cosmic ray Moon and Sun shadows are detected with high statistical significance (>10σ) for each year. The results for the Moon shadow are consistent with previous analyses and verify the stability of the IceCube detector over time. This work represents the first observation of the Sun shadow with the IceCube detector. We show that the cosmic ray shadow of the Sun varies with time. These results make it possible to study cosmic ray transport near the Sun with future data from IceCube.


This paper proposes a reduced-complexity downlink multi-channel assignment scheme when feedback links are capacity-limited. The system model treats the case when multiple access points are allocated to serve scheduled users in over-loaded (i.e. dense) pico/femtocell networks. It assumes that the deployed access points can be shared simultaneously and employ isotropic antenna arrays of arbitrary sizes. Moreover, they transmit their data on a common physical channel and can not coordinate their transmissions. On the other hand, each scheduled user can be served by single transmit channel from each active access point at a time, and it lacks coordination with concurrent active users. The scheme operates according to the occupancy of available transmit channels, wherein extensively occupied access points are avoided adaptively, while reducing the load of processing. The operation is linked to a target performance via controlling the observed aggregate interference from the projected set of serving points. Through the analysis, results for the scheduled user outage performance, and the average number of active access points are presented. Numerical and simulations studies clarify the gains of the proposed scheme for different operating conditions.


We give here an elementary proof of a recent result of Girard [4] comparing the rates of growth of the two principal (and extreme) examples of a spectrum of "majorization hierarchies"—i.e. hierarchies of increasing number-theoretic functions, indexed by (systems of notations for) initial segments I of the countable ordinals so that if α < β ∈ I then the βth function dominates the αth one at all but finitely-many positive integers x. Hardy [5] was perhaps the first to make use of a majorization hierarchy—the Hα's below—in "exhibiting" a set of reals with cardinality ℵ1. More recently such hierarchies have played important roles in mathematical logic because they provide natural classifications of recursive functions according to their computational complexity. (All the functions considered here are "honest" in the sense that the size of their values gives a measure of the number of steps needed to compute them.) The hierarchies we are concerned with fall into three main classes depending on their mode of generation at successor stages, the other crucial parameter being the initial choice of a particular (standard) fundamental sequence λ0 < λ1 < λ2 < … to each limit ordinal λ under consideration which, by a suitable diagonalization, will then determine the generation at stage λ. Our later comparisons will require the use of a "large" initial segment I of proof-theoretic ordinals, extending as far as the "Howard ordinal". However we will postpone a precise description of these ordinals and their associated fundamental sequences until later.


Platelet gelsolin (G), a 90,000-mol-wt protein, binds tightly to actin (A) and calcium at low ionic strength to form a 1:2:2 complex, GA2Ca2 (Bryan, J., and M. Kurth, 1984, J. Biol. Chem. 259:7480-7487). Chromatography of actin and gelsolin mixtures in EGTA-containing solutions isolates a stable binary complex, GA1Ca1 (Kurth, M., and J. Bryan, 1984, J. Biol. Chem. 259:7473-7479). The effects of platelet gelsolin and the binary gelsolin-actin complex on the depolymerization kinetics of rabbit skeletal muscle actin were studied by diluting pyrenyl F-actin into gelsolin or complex-containing buffers; a decrease in fluorescence represents disassembly of filaments. Dilution of F- actin to below the critical concentration required for filament assembly gave a biphasic depolymerization curve with both fast and slow components. Dilution into buffers containing gelsolin, as GCa2, increased the rate of depolymerization and gave a first order decay. The rate of decrease in fluorescence was found to be gelsolin concentration dependent. Electron microscopy of samples taken shortly after dilution into GCa2 showed a marked reduction in filament length consistent with filament severing and an increase in the number of ends. Conversely, occupancy of the EGTA-stable actin-binding site by an actin monomer eliminated the severing activity. Dilution of F-actin into the gelsolin-actin complex, either as GA1Ca1 or GA1Ca2, resulted in a decrease in the rate of depolymerization that was consistent with filament end capping. This result indicates that the EGTA-stable binding site is required and must be unoccupied for filament severing to occur. The effectiveness of gelsolin, GCa2, in causing filament depolymerization was dependent upon the ionic conditions: in KCI, actin filaments appeared to be more stable and less susceptible to gelsolin, whereas in Mg2+, actin filaments were more easily fragmented. Finally, a comparison of the number of kinetically active ends generated when filaments were diluted into gelsolin versus the number formed when gelsolin can function as a nucleation site suggests that gelsolin may sever more than once. The data are consistent with a mechanism where gelsolin, with both actin-binding sites unoccupied, can sever but not cap F-actin. Occupancy of the EGTA-stable binding site yields a gelsolin-actin complex that can no longer sever filaments, but can cap filament ends.


Pilots and doctors operate in complex environments where teams interact with technology. In both domains, risk varies from low to high with threats coming from a variety of sources in the environment. Safety is paramount for both professions, but cost issues can influence the commitment of resources for safety efforts. Aircraft accidents are infrequent, highly visible, and often involve massive loss of life, resulting in exhaustive investigation into causal factors, public reports, and remedial action. Research by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration into aviation accidents has found that 70% involve human error.1

In contrast, medical adverse events happen to individual patients and seldom receive national publicity. More importantly, there is no standardised method of investigation, documentation, and dissemination. The US Institute of Medicine estimates that each year between 44 000 and 98 000 people die as a result of medical errors. When error is suspected, litigation and new regulations are threats in both medicine and aviation.

#### Summary points

In aviation, accidents are usually highly visible, and as a result aviation has developed standardised methods of investigating, documenting, and disseminating errors and their lessons

Although operating theatres are not cockpits, medicine could learn from aviation

Observation of flights in operation has identified failures of compliance, communication, procedures, proficiency, and decision making in contributing to errors

Surveys in operating theatres have confirmed that pilots and doctors have common interpersonal problem areas and similarities in professional culture

Accepting the inevitability of error and the importance of reliable data on error and its management will allow systematic efforts to reduce the frequency and severity of adverse events

Error results from physiological and psychological limitations of humans.2 Causes of error include fatigue, workload, and fear as well as cognitive overload, poor interpersonal communications, imperfect information processing, and flawed decision making.3 In both aviation …


Abstract:  From thinly laminated marlstones of the Hesseltal Formation, representing the Late Cenomanian Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE) 2, at Lengerich in the Teutoburger Wald (Westfalen, north‐west Germany), 17 sediment‐compacted baculitid ammonites with carbonised and partially phosphatised soft parts are recorded. Some preserve remains of the buccal mass, including jaws (occasionally articulated) and radulae, as well as of the cephalic cartilage, such as eye capsules. Such have not yet been recorded previously for the order Ammonoidea. In addition, originally unmineralised parts found preserved in these specimens include extensive portions of the digestive tract, the siphonal tube, false colour patterns (megastriae), as well as traces of what would appear to be the oviduct. At the same levels, patches with numerous isolated horny upper and rarer lower jaws as well as radulae occur; these may represent regurgitates or faeces of larger predators. The cephalopod remains described were deposited in an epicontinental setting, possibly at palaeodepths between 200 and 600 m. In this particular Late Cretaceous fossil Lagerstätte, upper jaws and anaptychi of ammonites rank among the commonest fossils.


In this work, the quality of information in the Internet and intranet will be dealt with. What characterises information of quality cannot be decided ones and for all, as it always will be in relation to the user's needs. The factors, however, that can be thought of when evaluating information can be outlined. These factors will be discussed and compared to the methods that are used by web editors to secure quality of the information in the intranet. The methods used to investigate the paper's thesis, are the study of literature and three interviews are conducted. The study of literature is meant to reveal the aspects that can be considered when evaluating information published via the Internet and intranet. The interviews are conducted to see how web editors secure that the information in the intranet is of high quality. The study has revealed that the following aspects can be considered when evaluating information in the Internet and intranet. These aspects are the purpose of the information; the information's authority; the accuracy, maintenance, and currency of the information and last, the accessibility and presentation of the information.


The main purpose of this study was to develop a coach education system proposal for the Arab, Islamic country of Oman. As an emerging 'sport-interested' country, the lack of any coach education system of training or accreditation is one of the major obstacles confronting sport in Oman (Zayed, 2004). The current research into coach education was underpinned by globalization theory and was undertaken in two parts. First, an empirical investigation across Oman was conducted through which the realities, problems, needs and strategic ideas from those currently working in a sports coach capacity were identified. Second, in order to learn from other notable coach education systems in the world, the national systems of six countries and systems of some international sports organizations were analyzed. Three in-depth field case studies were also undertaken in Bahrain, Qatar and the UK. Four data gathering instruments were selected as methods of data collection: questionnaire (n = 109), interview (n = 80), documents analysis and research journal. Knowledge and understanding gained in these studies were used to underpin a proposal for a coach education system for Oman that included: an accreditation structure; curriculum outline; and management system. The proposal is in keeping with current sport structures, international developments in the field and cultural context of Oman.


Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is used for determining Fe in leaves of transgenic (variety M 7211RR) and non-transgenic (variety MSOY 8200) soybean, grown for 21 days in a growth chamber at controlled temperature (27 ± 0.1 °C) and photoperiod (12 h). The same technique, but in the imaging mode, is also employed for acquiring the spatial distribution of Fe in leaves of both the varieties. For attaining both proposals, different parameters, such as RF power, carrier and auxiliary gas flow rates, dynamic reaction cell flow rate, RPq, laser intensity, spot diameter, frequency and scan speed, are optimized. The accuracy of the laser ablation method is assessed by comparing the results (from ratios between 56Fe and 13C, used as an internal standard) obtained from pellet samples (200 mg of the certified reference materials–NIST SRM 1515 and 1573a at a pressure of 7 psi), or prepared pellets from transgenic and non-transgenic soybean leaves, with those from digested samples. No differences at 95% confidence levels are found. Although Fe concentrations are similar in transgenic and non-transgenic leaves, their spatial distribution is significantly different. Fe is homogenously distributed in the whole transgenic soybean leaf, while this element is greatly concentrated in the main vein and nerves of the non-transgenic leaf. Taking into account all the variables that are controlled during the experiment, this result indicates that genetic modification might be responsible for altering the Fe distribution in the soybean leaves.


Cosmologists have spotted traces of gravitational waves—undulations in the fabric of space and time—rippling through the infant universe. If it holds up, the discovery fulfills a key prediction of a theory called inflation. According to this theory, in its first sliver of a second, the cosmos expanded like a gargantuan balloon at greater than light speed. It also shows for the first time that gravity must follow the same rules of quantum mechanics that other forces such as electromagnetism do.


The greater Himalayan Mountains host the largest snow covered area outside the polar regions and serves as the source for some of the major fluvial systems of the world. The region acts as the lifeline for approximately 10% of the world's population. The terrain is geologically active, highly susceptible to climate change processes and plays a significant role in global hydro-meteorological cycles and biodiversity. With the increasing impacts of climate change to the glaciers and ice caps during the past few decades, people living in the Himalayas have become vulnerable to a higher risk of floods, avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). This study reviewed the work carried out by earlier researchers to understand the history and science of GLOFs and their potential risk to the communities in the Himalayan belt, particularly in Pakistan.


This article examines the increasingly common phenomenon of "scholars' briefs" in which collections of law professors appear as amici curiae in litigation before a court. Arguing that many professors compromise their integrity by joining such briefs too promiscuously, the article proposes standards that professors should insist upon before signing amicus briefs that they do not write. The article's methodology involves comparisons among various roles that law professors sometimes play and the distinctive moral and ethical standards appropriate to each. Besides a thorough discussion of scholars' briefs, the article includes broader analysis of law professors' role-based ethical obligations.


In Selvi v State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court of India declared that three prominent police interrogation techniques narco-analysis, the lie-detector test, and brain-mapping - violated an accused person's right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3), and her right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. In this essay, I shall argue that Selvi was a transformative judgment because of the way in which it understood and articulated the relationship between the individual and the State in the context in which the imbalance of power between the two is at its highest: when the individual is an accused criminal, and the State is the interrogator. I shall begin by describing two competing philosophies that underlie criminal legal regimes: the crime-control model, which views the accurate solving of crime to be the highest goal of the law, and the due process model, which holds that even for the detection of crime, there are lines that the State cannot cross – lines grounded in the belief that certain individual rights are inviolable (I); I shall then demonstrate how the Supreme Court's early judgments on Article 20(3) were delivered within the framework of the crime-control model (II), and how Selvi departed from this understanding in its interpretation of the words "voluntary" and "compelled" (III). I shall conclude by contending that Selvi's embrace of the due process model is correct in light of our pre-constitutional experience of an authoritarian State and the decision of the framers to elevate the guarantee of self-incrimination from a procedural safeguard to a constitutional right (IV). Furthermore, it has important implications for our understanding of the limits that the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure impose upon the police and upon the criminal investigation process (V).


Japan's policy of basing its nuclear power program on reprocessed plutonium has aroused widespread suspicion that Japan is secretly planning to develop nuclear weapons. This book presents the views of a leading Japanese proponent of the reprocessing policy, Atsuyuki Suzuki, professor of nuclear engineering at Tokyo University; a leading critic, Jinzaburo Takagi, director of the Citizens Nuclear Information Center; and Taewoo Kim, a South Korean specialist who warns that the Japanese nuclear program could lead Seoul to pursue a reprocessing capability of its own. The introduction by Selig S. Harrison analyzes the history of the domestic debate in Japan over the acquisition of nuclear weapons and assesses the possibility of a Japanese nuclear weapons program.


Based on resource dependency theory, this study investigates how the two dimensions of dependence – dependence asymmetry and mutual dependence – affect the adoption of internet-enabled supply chain management systems (eSCM). Drawing from the relational view of the firm, we argue that there are two types of relational value that can be provided by eSCM: relationship extendedness and relational depth. Dependence structure will influence firms' incentive to obtain relationship extendedness and relational depth, which will in turn affect eSCM adoption. We collected data from mainland China using an online questionnaire and 212 valid samples were received. The emergent results show positive influence of dependence structure on relationship extendedness and relational depth. Positive effects of dependence structure and relationship relational depth on eSCM adoption are also found. However, the finding suggests a significant negative effect of relationship extendedness on eSCM, which is contradictory to the hypothesis. Future research is needed to interpret the counterintuitive finding.


Does living a stress-filled life lead to elevated blood pressure? And if so, do strategies to better manage stress effectively lower blood pressure? In this authoritative and comprehensive book, Kevin T. Larkin examines more than a half-century of empirical evidence obtained to test the common assumption that stress is associated with the onset and maintenance of essential hypertension (high blood pressure). While the research confirms that stress does play a role in the exacerbation of essential hypertension, numerous other factors must also be considered, among them obesity, exercise, and smoking, as well as demographic, constitutional, and psychological concerns. The author discusses the effectiveness of strategies developed to manage stress and thereby lower blood pressure and concludes with suggestions and directions for further study.


Abstract Within highway rights-of-way, native perennial grasses provide desirable services to support natural and human constructed ecosystems. However, native perennial grass establishment in annual grass dominated roadsides of semiarid and Mediterranean climates of the western United States requires specific cultural and chemical management treatments to control weeds. In 2004, field studies were conducted in Sacramento Valley, California to determine the effect of herbicide, disc cultivation, and species selection on native perennial grass establishment and annual weed persistence. Perennial grass species mixes common to drier and wetter upland areas in northern California were drill seeded at two sites (I-5 North and I-5 South) that had been burned in 2003 and received weed control (i.e., herbicide, cultivation, mowing) in spring 2004. Herbicides were the most important treatments for native perennial grass establishment and weed reduction. Native perennial grass species persistence was largely unaffected by cultivation or native plant accessions at these sites. Native perennial grass density increased at I-5 North in the second year of growth (2006) resulting in a plant density totaled across all herbicide regimes of 3.9 plants m−1 compared to 2.5 plants m−1 at I-5 South. Vigorous native perennial grass growth in the more fertile and less droughty soils of I-5 North helped to limit annual weeds through competition, which is anticipated to reduce the need for chemical and mechanical control in years following early establishment. Nomenclature: Chlorsulfuron; clopyralid; glyphosate; triclopyr


Recently the first methods of automatic diagnostics of machine translation have emerged; since this area of research is relatively young, the efforts are not coordinated. We present a collection of translation error-annotated corpora, consisting of automatically produced translations and their detailed manual translation error analysis. Using the collected corpora we evaluate the available state-of-the-art methods of MT diagnostics and assess, how well the methods perform, how they compare to each other and whether they can be useful in practice.


The appearance of Dorothy Richardson Jones's King of Critics signals renewed interest in the career of George Saintsbury, the Victorian critic whose domination of the literary world extended into the first quarter of the twentieth century.(1) While replete with revealing anecdotes of literary politics and intimate glimpses of Saintsbury's busy career, Jones's book is strictly a biography and does not address the question of the lasting value of his achievement. The successful journalist made an unorthodox transition to academia with his 1895 appointment to the Regius Chair of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. Whatever disadvantages he faced as an English, non-academic darkhorse in an illustrious field of Scottish applicants were overcome by the reputation he had made in nearly two decades of writing for the Manchester Guardian, the Daily News, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the St. James Gazette. In addition to this large body of work, he had spent twelve years (1883-1895) as Assistant Editor of the Saturday Review, charting an independent course for the newspaper that often led to conflict with the Gladstone government. At the same time he continued to produce a steady stream of articles and reviews that if collected would fill many volumes.(2) Admittedly, Saintsbury's highly subjective, impressionistic technique is not likely to find much sympathy with readers in the late twentieth-century. Nonetheless, during his twenty-year tenure in the Regius Chair, he published several influential critical studies, literary histories, and editions that signal a shift in emphasis from the Romantic and Victorian periods to the Renaissance and Restoration.(3) His most ambitious project, A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day (1900-1904), was intended as the first "survey of critical theory and practice from ancient Greek to modern times" and in the third volume Saintsbury examines the legacy of nineteenth-century criticism (Smith 776). Despite the impressive bulk and range of his output, the importance of Saintsbury's critical judgments is not generally appreciated at the present time, even though his reconfiguring of the canon anticipates, in broad strokes, the revolution in taste popularly associated with T. S. Eliot in the decade following World War I.(4) The following discussion is intended to fill one lacuna in this rich field of inquiry: to examine Saintsbury's reappraisal of Goethe, the German polymath whom Matthew Arnold considered "the greatest critic, perhaps, that has ever lived" (9: 5). Saintsbury begins his critique by attacking what is arguably the most remarkable concentration of literary activity during the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century; he insists that the achievements of the Goethezeit are vitiated by didacticism: "The whole of German literature from 1750-1830 is a sort of Seminar - a kind of enormous and multifarious Higher Education movement, with much more than half-consciousness, by persons often of great talent and sometimes of great genius" (3: 352). Goethe, the dominant poet, novelist, and critic of the period, becomes symbolic of its perceived pedagogical zeal, and Saintsbury takes issue with Carlyle, Arnold, Lewes, and George Eliot, who strongly identify with Goethe's emphasis on personality, conduct, and character. But the intended rebuke to Victorian critics is delivered indirectly, since the focus of Saintsbury's critique is on Goethe and his status as a cultural icon in Victorian Britain.(5) The verdict offered on Goethe's reputation - that "he has too much the character of a superstition, now rather stale" - signals not simply the cyclical pattern of assimilation and rejection that characterizes Anglo-German literary relations from the French Revolution to World War II (3: 352). Rather, situated on the threshold of Modernism, Saintsbury's critique of Goethe anticipates a radical transition in critical norms; in distancing himself from the "didactic" concerns of German critics and their British admirers, he rejects "the gradual ascendency obtained by Anthropology [his term for an absorption with character] over . …


In the Federal Organic Farming Scheme Project "Organic production of ornamental plants and nursery trees - structure of the industry, development, problems and required policy initiatives"a quantitative and qualitative survey of certified organic and conventional / integrated nurseries was carried out. The aim was to assess the current status of production and marketing of organic ornamentals in Germany and to provide an overview of the general framework of this industry.
• Currently approximately 1 % of the nurseries producing ornamentals in Germany are organic. Considering the small scale of many of the organic units, the share of total sales (2.4 billion Euro or 7.6 % of agricultural production in 2001) is likely to be lower.
• Field and greenhouse production of organic annuals and perennials constitutes an estimated 56 ha and 12 ha, respectively. Organic field and container production of trees and shrubs constitutes an estimated 370 ha and 7 ha, respectively.
• 90% of the organic nurseries surveyed would choose organic production again, if faced with the question of conversion a second time.
• Fewer problems than anticipated were encountered in production - even in pest and disease management. However, problems persist in weed control and continuity of nutrient supply from the growing media. Other challenges were the sourcing of organically acceptable inputs (such as seedlings or growing media) in the production of annuals and perennials. In tree nurseries especially the decline in plant vigour caused by the common practice of successive planting of rosaceae raised difficulties.
• Marketing was quoted to be the biggest problem for nurseries which engage in direct marketing. Wholesalers anticipated the biggest problems with the continuity and consistency of the supply of quality product.
• The majority of organic operations surveyed encountered financial difficulties during the conversion period and afterwards.
• 32 % of growers from integrated operations have already considered organic production, but have - for economic reasons - not pursued this idea further.
• The operations surveyed noted that organic standards need expansion and revisions to cover their industry; and that organic inspectors were lacking sufficient technical knowledge. State subsidies for organic ornamental nurseries were found to be inconsistent between the member states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• A high need for an organic advisory service for these types of operations was indicated, but has not been sufficiently met to date. Further, there was almost no research about the organic production of ornamentals.
Conclusion
Organic production of ornamentals, trees and shrubs is technically feasible - but for further development this sector requires improvement of the basic conditions such as market structure, advisory services, subsidies and research activities.


This Thesis is dedicated to a
comparison of the two means of studying the electromagnetic
properties of the QCD vacuum -- holography and resummed field
theory. In the UV range the non-pertubative QCD effects play an
insignificant role and the dynamics of the theory is exactly
predicted by the perturbation theory. On the contrary, the IR
physics (e.g. light meson spectra and decays) is very sensitive to
the non-perturbative features of the theory. Archetypal examples
of a non-perturbative parameter in QCD are gluon condensate and
quark condensate. Condensates enter into many low-energy
observables and thus are directly experiment-related. On the other
hand, the power of modern experimental laser-physics facilities
being planned (e.g. the ELI project) is already almost reaching
the boundary of quark scales (though not hadron scales yet).

Thus the dynamics of the condensates is of special importance. Yet
little is known about the generation mechanism of either of the
condensates and various hypotheses are on the market. Therefore, a
model-building approach might be useful here. In this Thesis I
compare two classes of distinct models for the dynamics of the
condensates. The first class consists of the so-called holographic
models of QCD. Based upon the Maldacena conjecture, it tries to
establish the properties of QCD correlation functions from the
behavior of classical solutions of field equations in a
higher-dimensional theory. The advantage of the holographic models
is that they render a strongly-coupled four-dimensional gauge
theory as a dual of some weakly-coupled string/supergravity. This
is actually the reason of the immense popularity of holographic
models nowadays. The problem of these models is their relevance to
actual QCD. None of the models currently on the market is supposed
to be ``exactly'' dual to real-life QCD. The possible shortcomings
of duality are the presence of extra particles in the spectrum,
remaining supersymmetries, wrong reproduction of the meson and
baryon spectra etc. Yet in many aspects the holographic approach
has been found to be in an excellent agreement with data. These
successes are the prediction of the very small
viscosity-to-entropy ratio and the predictions of meson spectra up
to 5\% accuracy in several models.

On the other hand, the resummation methods in field theory have
not been discarded so far. There exists a whole industry of
resummation for the correlators in QCD, by means of integral
equations, Dyson--Schwinger equations first of all. Non-local
observables, such as Wilson loops, are also subjects to
resummations, as proposed by Erickson and Zarembo. The success of
resummation methods was marked by the agreement of lattice
calculations of Green functions with Dyson--Schwinger results.

Both classes of methods have access to condensates. Thus a
comprehensive study of condensates becomes possible, in which I
compare my calculations in holography and resummed field theory
with each other, as well as with lattice results, field theory and
experiment. I prove that the low-energy theorems of QCD keep their
validity in holographic models with a gluon condensate in a
non-trivial way. I also show that the so-called decoupling
relation holds in holography models with chiral and gluon
condensates, whereas this relation fails in the Dyson--Schwinger
approach. On the contrary, my results on the chiral magnetic
effect in holography disagree with the weak-field prediction; the
chiral magnetic effect (that is, the electric current generation
in a magnetic field) is three times less than the current in the
weakly-coupled QCD. The chiral condensate behavior is found to be
quadratic in external field both in the Dyson--Schwinger approach
and in holography, yet we know that in the exact limit the
condensate must be linear, thus both classes of models are
concluded to be deficient for establishing the correct condensate
behaviour in the chiral limit. The magnetization of the QCD vacuum
does not agree with the lattice data on chiral condensate
magnetization; it is found to have a peculiar non-monotonous
dependence on the magnetic field, with a peak at some point, which
cannot be explained so far. I speculate here that the peak might
be related to the recently proposed electromagnetic
superconductivity in QCD vacuum. Finally, I compare the
quark-quark potential obtained from the holographic models and the
potential obtained from the lattice to the potential I calculate
via a combination of Dyson--Schwinger and
Ericson--Semenoff--Szabo--Zarembo resummations. Apart from the
perturbative Coulomb potential, I find confinement in the resummed
theory; yet it is limited by a very short range and does not
really allow us to go deeply in the infrared. This is interpreted
as a signal of a very limited applicability of resummations to the
deep infrared; on the contrary, holography yields robust and
realistic results. When resummed non-local condensates are
compared to known phenomenological values of non-locality, the
estimate for non-locality of light quarks is wrong by several
orders of magnitude, which again signalizes an inability of
Dyson--Schwinger equations to describe correct physics in the
infrared.

Summing up these features of condensates, I must conclude that
holography must be considered as a method to be used for IR
physics {\it par excellence}, rather than Dyson--Schwinger
equations. One could hope that in a few years at least the
quark-scale electric fields will be feasible and some of the
predictions of this work could be actually tested.


Stable isotopes are widely used to identify trophic interactions and to determine trophic positions of organisms in food webs. Comparative studies have provided general insights into the variation in isotopic composition between consumers and their diet (discrimination factors) in predator–prey and herbivore–plant relationships while other major components of food webs such as host–parasite interactions have been largely overlooked. In this study, we conducted a literature‐based comparative analysis using phylogenetically‐controlled mixed effects models, accounting for both parasite and host phylogenies, to investigate patterns and potential drivers in Δ13C and Δ15N discrimination factors in metazoan parasitic trophic interactions. Our analysis of 101 parasite–host pairs revealed a large range in Δ13C (–8.2 to 6.5) and Δ15N (–6.7 to 9.0) among parasite species, with no significant overall depletion or enrichment of 13C and 15N in parasites. As previously found in other trophic interactions, we identified a scaling relationship between the host isotopic value and both discrimination factors with Δ13C and Δ15N decreasing with increasing host δ13C and δ15N, respectively. Furthermore, parasite phylogenetic history explained a large fraction (>60%) of the observed variation in the Δ15N discrimination factor. Our findings suggest that the traditional isotope ecology framework (using an average Δ15N of 3.4‰) applies poorly to parasitic trophic interactions. They further indicate the need for a scaled rather than a fixed trophic discrimination factor framework along gradients of host δ15N. We also identified several conceptual and methodological issues which should to be considered in future research to help integrate parasitic interactions into a holistic isotope ecology framework across diverse trophic interactions.


Strong electron correlation lies at the root of many quantum collective phenomena observed in solids, including high Tc superconductivity. Theoretically, the problem of many interacting electrons is difficult to treat, however, and a microscopic understanding of strongly correlated systems remains one of the foremost challenges in modern physics. A particularly clean realisation of this general problem is found in magnetic systems, where theory and experiment are both well developed and complementary. The role of the chemist in this endeavour is to provide model experimental systems to both inspire new developments in theory and to confirm existing predictions. This thesis aims to demonstrate aspects of both synthesis and physical characterisation of such model systems, with particular emphasis on materials which exhibit unusual quantum ground states due to a combination of reduced dimensionality, low spin, and geometric frustration. Four materials are considered: The first among these is a new material, KTi(SO4)2·(H2O), which was prepared using a hydrothermal route, and characterised by magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and high field magnetisation measurements. Fitting exact diagonalisation and series expansion results to these data imply that KTi(SO4)2·(H2O)is a long-sought experimental realization of the S = 1/2 Heisenberg frustrated (J1 − J2) chain model in the dimerised regime of the phase diagram. The anhydrous analogue of KTi(SO4)2·(H2O), KTi(SO4)2, was also investigated, and found by magnetic neutron scattering to exemplify the S = 1/2 Heisenberg anisotropic triangular lattice model in the 1D chain limit. The final two materials discussed are the naturally occurring minerals volborthite and herbertsmithite, both thought to realise the S = 1/2 Heisenberg kagome antiferromagnet model. Diffuse and inelastic magnetic neutron scattering experiments, however, indicate that the kagome physics are partially destroyed by defects in the former and lattice distortion in the latter.


The main objective of the study is to critically analyse various reforms of Khadi. Case-based approach is employed and information is collected both from primary and secondary sources. Empirical evidence suggests that though KVIC had noble cause behind its inception, i.e., self-reliant still due to its long organisational structure, lack of market-based approach and too much dependency on the commission it could not achieve its objectives. This study would be helpful for the decision makers in the public sector as they would get insights about the anomalies in the industry and find suitable market and customer focused approach to which will enable them to strengthen their positioning strategies in the future. Academician would find it beneficial as the case study applies some of the notable theories of services marketing to improve the positioning of KVIC outlets. There are very few studies investigating the status of some of the old but potential industries of India and KVIC being one among them.


This article discusses the process of annotating a small corpus of Early Modern English
writing that we have constructed in order to investigate the diachronic development of
speech, writing and thought presentation. The work we have done so far is a pilot
investigation for a planned larger project. We have constructed a corpus of approximately
40,000 words of Early Modern English (EModE) fiction and news journalism and
annotated it for categories of discourse presentation (DP) drawn from a model originally
proposed by Leech and Short (1981). This has allowed us to quantify the types of
discourse presentation within the corpus and to compare our findings against those from a
similarly annotated corpus of Present Day English (PDE) writing (reported in Semino and
Short 2004). Our results so far appear to indicate developing stylistic tendencies in fiction
and news texts in the Early Modern period, and suggest that it would be profitable to
extend the project through the construction of a larger corpus incorporating a greater
number of text-types in order to test our hypotheses more rigorously. In this article we
concentrate specifically on describing the annotation phase of the project. We discuss the
criteria by which we defined the various discourse presentation categories in order to
make clear our analytical methodology, as well as the issues we were confronted with in
2
trying to annotate in a systematic and retrievable way. We conclude with some
preliminary results to illustrate the value of this kind of annotation and suggest some
hypotheses resulting from this pilot investigation.


Preachers rightly fret about getting from text to sermon, but their commission is to go preach the gospel. While homiletical theology generally is focused on seeing preaching as a theological task focused on the "gospel in context," confessional homiletical theology, as a particular type, considers preaching to be a theological enterprise centered on the gospel and brought into critical dialogue with texts, contexts, and situations. Consistent with the position of André Resner, who argues preachers start this dialogue from a "working gospel," this article explores how this confessional, working gospel as theological habitus then dialogues critically with texts, contexts and situations reflectively and critically so the gospel might be heard for the life of the church and for the sake of the world that God so loves.


Learning primary science includes the acquisition of science process skills.
Studies have shown that integrated science process skills should be taught
through some form of specific training. This study adopts the use of Web-based
learning environment in learning science process skills. The purpose of this
study was to unravel the learning processes that occurred in the learning of
science, particularly the skill of controlling variables, in a Web-based learning
environment.
The study employed an exploratory qualitative case study which involved
nineteen Grade Five children. The participants were selected using the purposive
sampling technique. During the study, children explored the specially designed
Web-based instructional material known as 'Science Process Skills in Scientific
Exploration', in short SPicE. The primary data collection techniques used in this study were interviews,
children's conversations, observations, children's diary entries and entries from
the on-line discussions. Data from interviews, conversations and observations
were transcribed while relevant entries from children's diaries and on-line
discussions were extracted. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative
method of analysis.
The findings of the study suggest that there were three dimensions of learning,
the cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions. These learning
dimensions were intertwined among each other and were influenced by the
design features of SPicE. Besides the acquisition of the intended skills, the
findings also indicate that the children acquired other science process skills,
manipulative skills as well as computer skills. There were four main factors that
influence the acquisition of these skills; the programme, physical setting, the
teacher and children's readiness.
Three major conclusions were drawn from this study. First, Web-based learning
facilitates science learning. Second, besides the intended learning outcome,
learners acquired other related skills such as manipulative skills and computer
skills, in the Web-based learning environment. Lastly, skill acquisition in the
Web-based learning environment is influenced by various external and internal
factors.


This contribution examines metatextual comment in 17th-century periodicalnews publications. Periodical news publication was a new genre and thoseinvolved in its production had to determine the language they should use inthe writing up of such news. In the article I analyze the terminology 17thcenturynews writers themselves adopt in relation to their own publications andthe news they are presenting. The analysis focuses both on the frequency andcontent of editorial metadiscourse between 1620 (the start of periodical news)and 1695 (the lapse of the Licensing Act). The diachronic analysis of frame andendophoric metatextual markers provides insight into editorial aspirations,anxieties, commercial concerns and general attitudes to news discourse.


A perfect model Monte Carlo experiment was conducted to explore the characteristics of analysis error in a quasigeostrophic model. An ensemble of cycled analyses was created, with each member of the ensemble receiving different observations and starting from different forecast states. Observations were created by adding random error (consistent with observational error statistics) to vertical profiles extracted from truth run data. Assimilation of new observations was performed every 12 h using a three-dimensional variational analysis scheme. Three observation densities were examined, a low-density network (one observation ; every 202 grid points), a moderate-density network (one observation ; every 102 grid points), and a high-density network (; every 52 grid points). Error characteristics were diagnosed primarily from a subset of 16 analysis times taken every 10 days from a long time series, with the first sample taken after a 50-day spinup. The goal of this paper is to understand the spatial, temporal, and some dynamical characteristics of analysis errors. Results suggest a nonlinear relationship between observational data density and analysis error; there was a much greater reduction in error from the low- to moderate-density networks than from moderate to high density. Errors in the analysis reflected both structured errors created by the chaotic dynamics as well as random observational errors. The correction of the background toward the observations reduced the error but also randomized the prior dynamical structure of the errors, though there was a dependence of error structure on observational data density. Generally, the more observations, the more homogeneous the errors were in time and space and the less the analysis errors projected onto the leading backward Lyapunov vectors. Analyses provided more information at higher wavenumbers as data density increased. Errors were largest in the upper troposphere and smallest in the mid- to lower troposphere. Relatively small ensembles were effective in capturing a large percentage of the analysis-error variance, though more members were needed to capture a specified fraction of the variance as observation density increased.


Optical imaging studies have played an important role in mapping the orientation selectivity and ocular dominance of neurons across an extended area of primary visual cortex (V1). Such studies have produced images with a more or less smooth and regular spatial distribution of relevant neuronal response properties. This is in spite of the fact that results from electrophysiological recordings, though limited in their number and spatial distribution, show significant scatter/variability in the relevant response properties of nearby neurons. In this paper we present a simulation of the optical imaging experiments of ocular dominance and orientation selectivity using a computational model of the primary visual cortex. The simulations assume that the optical imaging signal is proportional to the averaged response of neighboring neurons. The model faithfully reproduces ocular dominance columns and orientation pinwheels in the presence of realistic scatter of single cell preferred responses. In addition,we find the simulated optical imaging of orientation pinwheels to be remarkably robust, with the pinwheel structure maintained up to an addition of degrees of random scatter in the orientation preference of single cells. Our results suggest that an optical imaging result does not necessarily, by itself, provide any obvious upperbound for the scatter of the underlying neuronal response properties on local scales. Keywords— visual cortex, orientation hypercolumn, orientation pinwheel, optical imaging, ocular dominance column


Self-Definition through Poetry in the Work of Gloria Fuertes and Pilar Paz Pasamar in the Period 1950-1970 Based on a comparative method of enquiry, this thesis analyses the process of self-definition expressed in the work of Gloria Fuertes (Madrid, 1917-1998) and Pilar Paz Pasamar (Jerez de la Frontera, 1933) as individual alternatives to the collective ethos and literary practices promoted within the patriarchal society of Franco's Spain. Recognizing the poets' cultural and socio-political context as determining factors in their experiences as women and poets, and therefore in their outlook and poetics, this context and how it is reflected in their poetry provides the starting point (Chapter 1). Both poets acknowledge that writing poetry can provide them with a metaphorical space of freedom that enables them to develop their identity and explore their preoccupations. Therefore, their thoughts about poetry provide an important theme that occurs in the poetry of both (Chapter 2). Closely related to this is the link they establish between poetic inspiration and the divine, which in the case of Pilar Paz Pasamar leads to the attempt to use the special qualities of poetic language to refer to a universal truth that she is aware of and which transcends the capabilities of language, while Gloria Fuertes regards poetry as a divine gift that can provide solace and is ultimately able to improve the world (Chapter 3). The fourth chapter focuses on specific elements of the two poets' work that reveal the distinctive mechanisms of self-construction they develop. The section on Fuertes considers humour as a survival strategy that enables the poet to reach out to her readership and emphasize her focus on the here and now, while the discussion on Paz's work looks at how the use of sea imagery allows her to convey abstract experiences based on introspection. Thus, it is argued that their poetry reflects the different strategies the two women develop – based on integration in the case of Fuertes and a more separate position in the case of Paz – to define themselves in relation to their world.


This chapter explores the posited paradigm shift from traditional microbiology to bioinformatics in the search for exploitable biology. It also refers to the extraordinary rate of biological data acquisition and deposition in the world's databases. These databases are classified by type (e.g., genomes, gene expression, proteins, RNA sequences, pathology), but the distinction between categories is often arbitrary and individual databases may provide more than one type of information. Integration of the molecular biology databases, although by no means perfect, has attracted serious attention and may be able to deliver useful information on issues such as a protein's structure, function, phylogenetic occurrence, expression, and protein-protein interactions. Similarly, the various bioinformatics research groups and commercial organizations are developing multidatabase query systems that enable interoperability of heterogeneous, formerly incompatible resources. Within the medical sector, bioinformatics objectives have included (i) the detection and identification of pathogens, (ii) the identity of drug targets, and (iii) the search for new drugs and vaccines. The final stratagem to be considered for producing novel exploitable biology is directed evolution, which, as genome sequencing projects continue to grow, promises to become a principal route for search and discovery. Evolution via natural and artificial (sensu traditional animal and plant breeding) selection is dependent on genetic variation, inheritance, and differential reproduction.


This paper considers the gap between knowing and mobilised action and investigates local urban examples where action is mobilised. The purpose of this is to consider what such examples can tell us about the conditions required to mobilise action and hence how to foster those conditions. Making cities sustainable is now a major aim and claim of most cities in the world. A myriad of definitions of sustainable development have been proposed but it has not been easy to find one that simultaneously satisfies economists, ecologists, sociologists, philosophers and policy makers. The problem in part relates to uncertainty about the object of sustainability, rather than the idea itself. What is it that ought to be sustained? It is increasingly internationally recognised that many effective solutions for environmental sustainability have their roots in local action and co-ordination. For that reason capacity within local government and the mobilisation of participation at the local level is a pivotal enabler for change. In the context of the discussion raised by the Cities, Nature Justice Conference and project, this paper focuses on discussion of urban local contexts and discusses the importance of local participation and engagement as critical enablers for mobilised action. Of particular interest in these local contexts, is the movement from a state of awareness of social and environmental issues of sustainability, to an active, constructive awareness that informs changes in behaviour and action that lead to sustainable practices of living.


In this paper, the electrochemical behavior of [H5PMo10V2O40] modified electrode glassy carbon electrode ([H5PMo10V2O40]/GCE) and its interaction with calf thymus DNA (ctDNA) were investigated using voltammetry. Modified electrode showed two pair of peaks at A1 (0.00) and A2 (0.179) during the anodic peaks sweep, while the counterpart to the two cathodic peaks are C1 (-0.014) and C2 (0.142) respectively in cyclic voltammetry. The redox property of this modified electrode at various solution pH values and various scan rates were studied using cyclic voltammetry. The linear plot of peak potential EP versus pH was obtained with corresponding slopes 52 m V/ pH. The apparent charge transfer rate constant, ks, and transfer coefficient, α, for electron transfer between [H5PMo10V2O40] and GCE were calculated as 25.203 ± 3.586 and 0.514 (in pH=3), respectively. Binding constant (K = 4.65 X 10 4 M -1) and binding site size (s =0.5) of modified electrode by ctDNA were obtained by nonlinear fit analysis of voltammetric data based on an electrochemical equation, which was derived to examine the interaction of DNA and reversibly electroactive compounds.


Knowledge about the spatiotemporal tree growth variability and its associations with climate provides key insights into forest dynamics under future scenarios of climate change. We synthesized 17 tree-ring width chronologies from four tree species at the high-elevation sites in the southeast Tibetan Plateau (SETP) to study the regional tree growth variability and climate-growth relationships. Despite of diverse habitats and different physiological characteristics of these species, these tree-ring chronologies shared a significant common variance in SETP. An unprecedented increase in the shared variance is found along the latter half of the 20th century, coinciding with the enhancement of the frequency of extreme rings among chronologies. It is found that minimum winter temperature tends to be the dominant climate for trees in this region. The site-specific responses in cold (1965–1980) and warm (1990–2005) intervals by means of Fuzzy Cmeans (FCM) clustering reveal that the remarkable enhancement of growth synchrony among trees mainly occur in warm conditions. This is different from previous findings indicating that increased consistence among temperature sensitive tree rings in cold periods. This may be related to the reduced temperature sensitivity of regional tree growth as winter minimum temperature is lower than a certain threshold, which is in agreement with the "principle of ecological amplitude". In addition, it is worth noting that precipitation in June have started to restrain the tree growth since the beginning of the 1980s, which is possibly an important contributor for synchronized growth among trees in SETP.


An AIDS patient with the recalcitrant erythematous desquamating (RED) disorder, a presumed variant of the Staphylococcus aureus toxic shock syndrome that is characterized by relapses, skin involvement, and variable multiple-organ involvement, is described. A strain of S. aureus producing toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 was isolated from the patient, but no antibodies to this exotoxin were detectable before and during the most severe episode of the RED disorder. Levels of cytokines were measured during episodes and at other times. Tumor necrosis factor and interleukin 6 were detectable only during the most severe exacerbation of the disorder; this finding suggests a pathogenetic role for these cytokines.


For real-time image/video transmission in implant body area networks, we have developed an in-body transceiver at around 30 MHz. The transceiver employs impulse radio (IR) technology with multi-pulse position modulation (MPPM) scheme. The transmit antenna was realized in a dimension of 1 × 2 cm by forming the radiation elements on a flexible magnetic sheet. Experimental results in a biological-equivalent liquid phantom have demonstrated a bit error rate smaller than 10-3 in a depth of 26 cm with a data rate at least 1.25 Mbps.


Handsheets produced from corn stalks and wheat straw soda AQ pulps were recycled in the lab. Pulping of corn stalks resulted in a low pulp yield, low bonding strength, and low recyclability. Conversely, wheat straw fiber had a better yield, very good tensile properties, and showed a considerably better response to recycling. The tensile index of wheat straw fibers retained 67% of its original value after four cycles. It could be shown that recycling caused only small changes in chemical compo-sition, but that the crystallinity index increased considerably. To be able to understand the behavior of wheat straw fiber as part of a commercial papermaking furnish, a paper containing 20% wheat straw fiber was produced on a 24 inch pilot paper machine and was recycled using a handsheet mold with white water return. Chemical analysis of the control (no wheat fiber) and the wheat-containing paper demonstrated slightly higher xylan content for the wheat-containing material. Recyclability increased slightly with addition of wheat fibers to a commercial furnish.