The analysis of the water balance of Lake Victoria is constrained by limitations of data availability in terms of quantity and quality, both of which exhibit temporal and spatial variability around the basin. Lack of long term measurements on the lake surface complicates the estimation of lake rainfall and evaporation, the two largest variables. This thesis presents an approach to modelling the water balance of Lake Victoria that takes into account uncertainties in the most error-prone variables. A spatially detailed gridded rainfall dataset for the land part of the basin was derived using two interpolation methods. Studies were carried out of the temporal rainfall variability in the basin which showed that, during the twentieth century, annual rainfall trends were mainly positive, averaging an increase in basin rainfall of about 25%. Two satellite rainfall products were assessed on how well they reproduced the increased rainfall amounts on the lake surface compared to the land. Uncertainties in rainfall were based on accounting for errors in land rainfall interpolation and lake rainfall regression. A two step approach was used to estimate catchment inflow, namely (1) rainfall-runoff modelling for gauged basins and, (2) regionalisation to estimate flow from ungauged basins. Uncertainties in catchment inflow were estimated using Monte Carlo simulation within a GLUE framework. Uncertainties in lake evaporation were estimated within a framework of sensitivity analysis. Water balance modelling studies involved propagating the uncertainties in lake rainfall, catchment inflow and lake evaporation through a lake water balance model to assess their effects on variations in lake levels and net basin supplies. Both monthly and annual predictions of net basin supply closely matched the observations on average with many of the observations falling within the prediction ranges. It was shown that uncertainties in the different water balance components tend to result in larger uncertainties in net basin supply. A seasonal analysis showed that October-December seasonal rainfall had a stronger contribution to the annual variability in net basin supply compared to the more abundant March-May rainfall. The studies presented in this thesis provide a platform for carrying out assessments for utilisation of water resources in the Lake Victoria basin. Such studies could include lake regulation for optimum hydropower production, water resource utilisation studies and land-use or climate change studies. This thesis also recognises the importance of detailed measurements, especially for lake rainfall and evaporation, to resolve the water balance issues of Lake Victoria.


Research quantified contributions to total variation in water vapor permeance from sources such as cultivar and harvest date in 'Braeburn', 'Pacific Rose', 'Granny Smith', and 'Cripps Pink' apples ( Malus sylvestris (L.) Mill. var. domestica (Borkh.) Mansf.). In a study on 'Braeburn' fruit from eight orchards in Central Otago, New Zealand, >50% of the total variation in permeance was associated with harvest date. This variation was the result of a large increase in water vapor permeance from 16.6 to 30.2 (SE = 0.88, df = 192) nmol · s -1 ·m -2 ·Pa -1 over the 8 week experimental harvest period. Fruit to fruit differences accounted for 22% of total variation in permeance. Interaction between harvest date and orchard effects explained 7% of the total variation, indicating that fruit from the different orchards responded in differing ways to advancing harvest date. Tree effects accounted for only 1% of the total variation. Weight loss from respiration (at 20 °C and ≈60% relative humidity (RH)) comprised 3.04 ± 0.11% of total weight loss, averaged across all harvest dates. In a second study of fruit of four apple cultivars, almost 30% of the total variation in water vapor permeance was associated with cultivar differences. Mean water vapor permeance for 'Braeburn', 'Pacific Rose', 'Granny Smith', and 'Cripps Pink' fruit was 44, 35, 17, and 20 (SE = 4.3, df = 300) nmol·s -1 ·m -2 ·Pa -1 respectively. Over 20% of the total variation was associated with harvest date and arose from a large increase in water vapor permeance from 21 nmol·s -1 ·m -2 ·Pa -1 at first harvest to 46 nmol·s -1 ·m - 2 ·Pa -1 (SE = 5.3, df = 200) at final harvest, 10 weeks later, on average across all four cultivars. There was large fruit to fruit variation in water vapor permeance accounting for 25% of the total variation in permeance values. Tree effects only accounted for 4% of the total variation. Water vapor permeance in 'Pacific Rose'' and 'Braeburn' increased substantially with later harvest but values remained relatively constant for 'Granny Smith' and 'Cripps Pink'. A simple mathematical model was developed to predict weight loss from 'Braeburn' fruit. Based on these findings, it appears worthwhile to increase the stringency of measures to control weight loss in 'Braeburn' and 'Pacific Rose'' apples, particularly those harvested late in the season.


Domain adaptation in remote sensing aims at the automatic knowledge transfer between a set of multitemporal and multisource images. This process is often impaired by nonlinear effects in the data, e.g., varying illumination conditions, different viewing angles, and geometry-dependent reflection. In this paper, we introduce the Nonlinear Feature Normalization (NFN), a fast and robust way to align the spectral characteristics of multiple hyperspectral data sets. NFN employs labeled training spectra for the different classes in an image to describe the corresponding underlying low-dimensional manifold structure. A linear basis for data representation is defined by arbitrary class reference vectors, and the image is aligned to the new basis in the same space. This results in samples of the same class being pulled closer together and samples of different classes pushed apart. NFN transforms the data in its original domain, preserving physical interpretability. We use the continuous invertibility of NFN to derive the NFN Alignment (NFNalign) transformation, which can be used for domain adaptation, by transforming one data set to the domain of a chosen reference. The evaluation is performed on multiple hyperspectral data sets as well as our new benchmark for multitemporal hyperspectral data. In a first step, we show that the NFN transformation successfully mitigates nonlinear effects by comparing classification of the linear Spectral Angle Mapper on original and transformed data. Finally, we demonstrate successful domain adaptation with NFNalign by applying it to the task of hyperspectral data preprocessing. The evaluation shows that our approach for alignment of multitemporal data produces high-spectral similarity and successfully allows knowledge transfer, e.g., of classifier models and training data.


Abstract. Knowledge of the physical characteristics and chemical composition of marine organic aerosols is needed for the quantification of their effects on solar radiation transfer and cloud processes. This review examines research pertinent to the chemical composition, size distribution, mixing state, emission mechanism, photochemical oxidation and climatic impact of marine primary organic aerosol (POA) associated with sea-spray. Numerous measurements have shown that both the ambient mass concentration of marine POA and size-resolved organic mass fraction of sea-spray aerosol are related to surface ocean biological activity. Recent studies have also indicated that fine mode (smaller than 200 nm in diameter) marine POA can have a size distribution independent from sea-salt, while coarse mode aerosols (larger than 1000 nm in diameter) are more likely to be internally mixed with sea-salt. Modelling studies have estimated global submicron marine POA emission rates of ~10 ± 5 Tg yr −1 , with a considerable fraction of these emissions occurring over regions most susceptible to aerosol perturbations. Climate studies have found that marine POA can cause large local increases in the cloud condensation nuclei concentration and have a non-negligible influence on model assessments of the anthropogenic aerosol forcing of climate. Despite these signs of climate-relevance, the source strength, chemical composition, mixing state, hygroscopicity, cloud droplet activation potential, atmospheric aging and removal of marine POA remain poorly quantified. Additional laboratory, field, and modelling studies focused on the chemistry, size distribution and mixing state of marine POA are needed to better understand and quantify their importance.


[1] We present new observational data on small-angle light scattering properties of natural, random shaped particles, as contrasted with spherical particles. The interest in this ''shape effect'' on scattering arises from the need for a suitable kernel matrix for use in the laser diffraction method (LD) of particle sizing. LD is now used broadly for measuring size distribution of suspended marine particles. LD involves the measurement of small-angle forward scattering at multiple angles. This data is inverted using the kernel matrix to produce size distribution. In the absence of a suitable matrix for random shaped particles, past practice has been to use a model based on Mie theory, applicable strictly only to homogeneous spheres. The present work replaces Mie theory with empirical data. The work was motivated in part by anomalous field observations of size distribution and settling velocity distributions reported in literature. We show that a kernel matrix for random shaped particles results in improved interpretation of field multiangle scattering observations. In particular, a rising edge at the fine particle end of the size spectrum is shown to be associated with shape effects.


Ferromagnetic models of ships and submarines that predict or reproduce their magnetic signatures have found applications in the development of both offensive and defensive military systems from World War II to the present. The mathematical basis of generalized coordinate systems will be presented and demonstrated with example applications to analytic spherical and prolate spheroidal magnetic ship models. In addition, the advantages and pitfalls of using complex finite-element- and boundary-element numerical techniques to predict high-order near-field ship signatures will be discussed, followed by a short description of the design and testing of complementary physical scale models. Extrapolation of measured magnetic signatures from testing environments to threat areas using semi-empirical math models will be presented, along with an explanation of their inherent instabilities and methods for regularizing them. These magnetic ship signature modeling techniques are used today in designing optimized signature reduction systems that have a minimum impact on ships and their systems. The discussion will be closed with an important discussion of the verification and validation of magnetic models of surface ships and submarines.


Abstract An important aspect in the development of extracellular vesicle (EV) therapeutics is identifying and quantifying the key features defining their identity, purity, sterility, potency and stability to ensure batch‐to‐batch reproducibility of their therapeutic efficacy. Apart from EV‐inherent features, therapeutic efficacy depends on a variety of additional parameters, like dosing, frequency of application, and administration route, some of which can be addressed only in clinical trials. Before initiating clinical trials, EV‐inherent features should be tested in well‐standardized quantitative assays in vitro or in appropriate animal models in vivo. Ideally, such assays would predict if a particular EV preparation has the potential to achieve its intended therapeutic effects, and could be further developed into formal potency assays as published by the International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use guidelines. Furthermore, such assays should facilitate the comparison of EV preparations produced in different batches, on different manufacturing platforms or deriving from different cell sources. For now, a wide spectrum of in vitro and in vivo assays has been used to interrogate the therapeutic functions of EVs. However, many cannot accurately predict therapeutic potential. Indeed, several unique challenges make it difficult to set up reliable assays to assess the therapeutic potential of EVs, and to develop such assays into formal potency tests. Here, we discuss challenges and opportunities around in vitro and in vivo testing of EV therapeutic potential, including the need for harmonization, establishment of formal potency assays and novel developments for functional testing.


Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide, comprising almost 20% of all cancer deaths. The concept of screening for lung cancer using low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) dates back almost three decades. This paper reviews the randomized controlled trials and demonstration projects carried out world-wide on LDCT lung cancer screening. Most research has been carried out in North America, Europe and East Asia, regions where lung cancer mortality rates are generally the highest. There are currently no organized national or regional lung cancer screening programs with LDCT. A number of challenges exist to implementing such programs, including the fact that LDCT lung cancer screening generally targets only high risk ever-smokers, in contrast to screening programs for other cancers such as breast, cervical and colorectal, which target entire populations based only on age and sex. While tobacco control remains the most important tool in the long-term to decrease morbidity and mortality from lung cancer, LDCT screening, appropriately carried out, has the potential to modestly decrease lung cancer death rates for those countries whose overall resources and health care infrastructure are adequate for the task.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the role of Estrogens (Honvan) in the secondary hormonal manipulation of patients with hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRCP).

METHODS
Twelve patients diagnosed as hormone refractory prostate cancer received intravenous estrogens for six days (Fosfestrol, a synthetic phosphorylated estrogen derivative), followed by a maintenance oral dose of 120 mg thrice daily as second line hormonal treatment. During the treatment they were given deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis. Their stage at initial presentation, primary treatment, mode of androgen ablation, prostate specific antigen (PSA) level, duration of remission prior of HRPC status, PSA doubling time before and after estrogen treatment were recorded. The morbidity and mortality of the treatment was also recorded. A drop in PSA of > 50% was classified as major responder. The drop of < 50% was defined as minor responders. Treatment failure was defined as a rise in PSA > the level prior to the start of treatment.

RESULTS
The mean age at diagnosis of prostate cancer was 66.6 + 5.4 years (range 57-73). At the time of initial diagnosis only 3 patients (25%) had localized disease and 9 (75%) had metastatic prostate cancer. Six patients each opted for surgical or medical castration (LHRH analogs) as the mode of androgen ablation. The mean initial PSA at diagnosis was 340 + 728.1 ng/ml (range 4.1-2375, Median 94). After development of HRPC, six patients (50%) had major response, four (33%) had minor response to estrogen administration. Two patients (17%) did not respond to estrogens. The mean PSA before receiving Fosfestrol was 60.5 + 82 ng/ml (range 0.013-246). The PSA (nadir) after treatment was 24.3 +/- 33.2 ng/ml (range 0.9-81.3). One patient developed gynaecomastia and one had congestive cardiac failure. Two patients died of non cancer related deaths and one patient died of cancer related death.

CONCLUSION
Synthetic estrogens are well tolerated, in-expensive agents and could be considered for palliative use against hormone resistant prostate cancer.


Increased skeletal muscle breakdown and negative nitrogen balance are features of sepsis that may be mediated by cytokines. The effects of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) on protein metabolism were studied. When administered to anaesthetized dogs (0·57 × 105 units per kg body‐weight over 6h), TNF caused urinary nitrogen excretion to increase (mean(s.e.m.) 165(15) mg kg−1 for dogs that received TNF versus 113(8) mg kg−1 for control animals, P <0·01). Amino acid nitrogen release from the hindlimbs showed no change over the study period, indicating that the additional urinary nitrogen was not derived from peripheral protein stores. In a second study the same dose of TNF or saline was infused after the intestine had been removed. The mean(s.e.m.) urinary nitrogen excrtion in control dogs that had undergone enterectomy (101(7) mg kg1) was similar to that of intact animals, and addition of TNF did not significantly increase nitrogen excretion (86(18) mg kg−1). The results suggest that nitrogen excreted in the urine during administration of TNF is derived, at least initially, from the intestinal tract.


This paper aims at delineating the basic principles for a semiotic approach to monuments and memorials. Monuments are built forms erected to confer dominant meanings on space. They present an aesthetic value as well as a political function. Often, political elites erect monuments to promote selective historical narratives that focus on convenient events and individuals while obliterating what is discomforting. While representing selective historical narratives, monuments can inculcate specific conceptions of the present and encourage future possibilities. As such, monuments become essential for the articulation of the national politics of memory and identity through which political elites set political agendas and legitimate political power. However, once erected, monuments become social properties and users can reinterpret them in ways that are different or contrary to the intentions of the designers.
Previous research has explored monuments as either aesthetic objects presenting historical and artistic values or as political tools in the hand of those in power. Hence, this research has wittingly or unwittingly created a gap between the material-symbolic and the political dimensions of monuments. Moreover, it has variously given more emphasis either to the intentions of the designers or to the interpretations of the users.
The semiotic approach to monuments can address these issues providing a holistic approach that overcomes the rigid distinctions predominant in previous research on monuments. Although useful analytical categories, the distinction between material-symbolic and political dimensions cannot be extended to the ontological state of monuments. Semiotics can be useful in investigating the meanings of monuments as actively created by the interplay of the material, the symbolic and the political dimensions. It provides a methodological basis to consider designers and users as equally contributing to the meaning-making of monuments.


Statistical decision theory can be a valuable tool for policy-making decisions. In particular, environmental problems often benefit from the application of Bayesian and decision-theoretic techniques that address the uncertain nature of problems in the environmental and ecological sciences. This paper discusses aspects of implementing statistical decision-making tools in situations where uncertainty is present, looking at issues such as elicitation of prior distributions, covariate allocation, formulation of loss functions, and minimization of expected losses subject to cooperation constraints. These ideas are illustrated through two case studies in environmental remediation. See full-text article at JSTOR


Summary
1.
Twenty-six species of bacteria (41 strains) were tested with regard to their ability to cause excystation and growth of E. histolytica in vitro. A heterogeneous group of 14 species of bacteria were found capable of doing so when each was cultured with sterile cysts. The bacteria having the property of inducing excystation and multiplication were Leptotrichia buccalis, Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella schottmuelleri, Streptococcus hemolyticus, Str. faecalis, Str. viridans, Bacillus subtilis, B. mesentericus, Actinomyces muris, Aplanobacter stewartii, Bacterium coronofaciens, Serratia marcescens and Neisseria catarrhalis. Some of the intestinal bacteria such as Alcaligenes faecalis could not initiate growth of amoebae from cysts. Three species of yeasts also failed to induce excystation.
2.
The growth relationships of the amoebae to the bacteria were determined. During the most active period of multiplication of the amoebae the bacteria were sharply reduced in number and were ingested by the amoebae.
3.
The effect of a mixed bacterial flora was studied. Growth was greatly stimulated in some cases when a second or third species was added to an amoeba culture already growing with one species of bacterium.
4.
Encystation was produced when Cl. perfringens, a bacterium uniformly present in the human colon, was added to cultures containing one or two other species of bacteria. Cultures containing Cl. perfringens, Str. hemolyticus and Lepto. buccalis or Cl. perfringens and Str. hemolyticus were particularly good cyst producers. Such cultures were uniformly rich in trophozoites but the cysts varied from 5 to 40 per cent.
5.
It is felt that the bacteria play a significant role in the excystation, multiplication and encystation of E. histolytica and studies of the bacterial action may lead to a knowledge of the conditions necessary to cultivate E. histolytica without bacteria.


This thesis consists of three sections. Section 1 is a proof of principle in which the functional contributions and mechanisms of interhemispheric connectivity will be addressed. The first chapter of Part 1 (§2.1) will examine the relationship between interhemispheric connectivity and personality features as measured per NEO-PI-R. In §2.2, the influence of alcohol on interhemispheric connectivity will be examined. This is of particular importance as more than 50% of all violent crimes are associated with alcohol (93) and up to 86% of all murders (94). The last chapter of part 1 (§2.3) is a methodological intermezzo in which we will examine the functional mechanisms associated with ISP by relating it to a second TMS measure of interhemispheric connectivity, IHI. The second part is the core of this thesis and it consists of 3 chapters in which TMS, EEG and DTI will be used to evaluate the integrity of brain networks in psychopathic offenders. In §3.1 we will examine whether psychopaths suffer from interhemispheric connectivity deficits by measuring their ISP and comparing it to that of healthy controls. Also, cortical inhibition and facilitation will be measured in the left and right motor cortex. In §3.2, an essential component of brain networks, white matter, will be assessed in psychopaths through diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Using a tract based spatial statistics (TBSS) approach we explore white matter integrity throughout the brain in psychopathic offenders and compare them to healthy controls. Based on what was described in the previous pages an amygdalo-prefrontal network might be affected in addition to the mesolimbic reward pathway. §3.3 will test for the first time whether psychopathic offenders have inhibitory abnormalities in the DLPFC as compared to non-psychopathic individuals. To this end, we will use TMS in combination with EEG and assess LICI in the motor cortex and DLPFC. In addition, we will index working memory performance as it has been previously shown that psychopathic offenders may have impairments in this cognitive function. Part 3 endeavours into possible contributors to antisocial behavior. Here, in §4.1, we present the cerebellum as a key brain structure that is affected in many neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and autism. We will consider evidence for potential cerebellar involvement in disinhibited behavior. In §4.2, a rTMS manipulation of the cerebellum will be introduced to see whether alterations of cerebellar activity induce affective changes. To measure affective changes we use an affective pictorial Stroop task.


The Strecker reaction involves the formation of aminonitriles by the reaction of an aldehyde with an amine in the presence of cyanide ions. In this work kinetic, equilibrium and synthetic measurements have been made using benzaldehyde, or 4-nitrobenzaldehyde, as the aldehyde and benzylamine or allylamine as the amine. A side reaction involves the formation of a cyanohydrin from benzaldehyde and cyanide ion. The equilibria involved m the reaction and their pH dependence have been examined. For comparison values for the equilibrium constants for the reaction of benzaldehyde with sulfite are also reported. The syntheses and structural characterisations of N-benzylidene benzylamine, N-benzylidene allylamine and N-(4-nitro)-benzylidene benzylamine are reported. A major part of the thesis is concerned with the kinetics and equilibria involved in the reaction of N-benzylidene benzylamine and N-benzylidene allylamine with cyanide in aqueous solutions. The results are compatible with the rate-determining step involving reaction of the corresponding iminium ions with cyanide ions. The pH profile is bell-shaped with a plateau between pH = 6.5 and 8.5 defined by the pK(_a) values of the iminium ions and hydrogen cyanide. pK(_a) values of 6.14 ± 0.1 and 6.05 ± 0.1 have been calculated for N- benzylidene benzyliminium and N-benzylidene allyliminium ions respectively. Rate constants for reaction of cyanide ion with these cations are 6.70x10(^3) and 1.03x10(^4) dm(^3)mol(^-1)s(^-1) respectively. The hydrolysis reactions of imines to yield benzaldehyde have also been quantitatively investigated. The relatively low reactivity found for those iminium ions may be attributed to charge delocalisation in the aromatic ring. An important aspect of the Strecker reaction is the possibility of forming enantiomerically pure products. The asymmetric catalysis by Salen metal complexes of the reaction of the imines with trimethylsilyl cyanide in organic solvents has been investigated. Various methods for the determination of the enantiomeric excess were tested and the most reliable was found to be use of camphorsulfonic acid. The reaction carried out in the presence of a Salen V(V) complex was optimised to yield aminonitriles in a 80% e.e. at -30 C and 69% e.e. at room temperature. Trifluoroacetic anhydride (TFFA) has been reported in the literature as a reagent for reaction with aminonitriles to allow the separation of enantiomers. Here the reaction of imines with TFAA in acetonitrile and in benzene has been investigated In each solvent there are strong reactions yielding hifluoroacetylated derivatives which are thought to exist in both ionic and covalentiy-bound forms.


Social capital is one of the most polysemic concepts used in contemporary social science. The aim of this paper is to identify the different strategies for defining and measuring the concept with reference to the main theoretical approaches in sociology, namely micro-, macro- and meso-sociological theories. The paper will present the main characteristics of the lexical definitions and the operationalisation of concepts of individual social capital, collective social capital and network social capital. When the different study approaches are analysed, it becomes clear that there is common reference to the more general concept of social relation, although it is reduced to an attribute of individuals in individual social capital and an attribute of collectives in collective social capital. Meso theories are the only ones that manage to preserve the intrinsic relationality of the concept of social capital throughout its operationalisation. Finally, the paper claims that it is not feasible to create any form of fusion between different strategies for defining and carrying out empirical studies on the subject of social capital, as the analysis of social context in each strategy is based on different units.


This paper looks at sex differences in occupational trajectories of 20-30 year olds  in metropolitan areas in Brazil.. The analysis of trajectories is done using the Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego – a longitudinal Monthly Employment Survey (PME/IBGE) conducted in Brazil between  2002 and 2007. The Grade of Membership (GoM) method was used to produce a typology. In order to produce the trajectory profiles, we used more than twenty string variables.   The key variables among these that defined the groups are: occupational status, position in the family, level of education and per capita household income. The results show that there are five profiles that cover almost 100% of the sample. Analysing the individuals' characteristics in each profile, we can classify them as "person excluded from work", "precarious occupied workers", "vulnerable occupied workers", "hard workers" and "promising youth". Young women predominate in the worst status profile ("people excluded from work") and are in the same proportion in the best type ("promising youth"). Even analyzing the transitions, the female condition does not improve. In the exit towards occupation status, coming from unemployment and inactivity, there is a majority of men. Women, when moving, pass to inactive status. Only in "promising youth" profile, women transit more frequently into occupation than men. Ana F. MACHADO, Assistant Professor, CEDEPLAR, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. E-mail: email@example.com . Federico Barbosa de Melo, Assistant Professor, CEDEPLAR, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com . Mariângela RANGEL PENIDO, Assistant Researcher, CEDEPLAR, Federal University of Minas Gerais, E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


Self-pierce riveting as a relative new technology has been used by automotive industry for decades. Because of the several benefits of the SPR technique, it has been widely used for joining the similar or dissimilar materials to satisfy the light-weighting requirements of automobile. There were many researchers and automotive manufacturers that had been investigated the SPR by experiments and applied this technique to their products. The SPR was designed for joining the materials with sufficient ductility because the joining process was going to introduce the large plastic deformation on the joint button area. Die casting aluminum alloy products became more and more popular to be used for structural components. However, the casting aluminum components have relative low ductility than the wrought alloy product. The cracking problems were easy to occur during the riveting process.In terms of the cracking issues on die casting aluminum products, an analysis was conducted in this study to investigate the influence of composition on cracking problem. And the cracking mechanism was also analyzed and summarized. Corresponding to the influence of silicon content difference and silicon morphology, heat treatment was used to modify the eutectic silicon morphology of the casting aluminum alloys to improve the rivetability. Once the silicon network was broken by the heat treatment, the rivetability of die casting aluminum was drastically increased and the cracks on joint button were also suppressed. Under the effect of heat treatment, the joint performance was tightly related to the variation of the eutectic silicon phase and the cracks on the joint button. The joint strength was obtained by shear test to investigate the influence of heat treatment and die depth. A novel cracking statistics has been generated and used to calculate the cracks on the joint button. Eventually, a comprehensive joint performance was obtained by taking into consideration of joint strength, heat treatment and die depth.Finally, the simulation of the SPR process was conducted and analyzed by FORGE. The die depth as the variable was used to investigate the strain and fracture distribution incross-section view of the joint. In terms of the initial results of the simulation, the die cavity with various sidewall incline angles was simulated to find the optimal die cavity geometry in order to improve the rivetability of the bottom material sheet.


Respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP) measured with inspiratory mechanical stimulation have been demonstrated in humans and lambs. Previous studies have shown that the source of the RREP early P1 peak was generated by activation of neurons in the somatosensory (S1) cortex in humans. The RREP in rodents with mechanical loads induced by tracheal occlusions has never been studied before. Therefore, a rat intrinsic transient tracheal occlusion (ITTO) model was developed to test this hypothesis. The electrocorticogram (ECoG) was recorded in 8 chronically instrumented, awake and spontaneously breathing male Sprague-Dawley rats. On the day of recording, the animal was placed into a minimally restrictive restraint apparatus. The ECoG was recorded for 2.5 minutes as control prior to the occlusions. During the occlusion protocol of 10 to 18 minutes (collecting at least 70 occlusions), the occlusions lasted for 3 to 5 breaths and were presented approximately every 30 seconds. Occlusion-elicited evoked potentials were obtained by computer-signal averaging the ECoG activity triggered by the onset of inspiration. Two peaks (peak 1 and peak 2) were observed in the averaged occlusionelicited evoked potentials in all animals. Latencies and amplitudes were identified for each peak in every animal, and each peak was compared among day 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 using the one-way repeated measures of ANOVA. The short-latency peak 1 showed a trend of increased amplitude at day 3 compared to day 1 (0.52 ± 0.14 V, and 0.23 ± 0.03 V, respectively, p < 0.1), whereas the longer latency peak 2 showed an increase in amplitude at day 3 compared to day 1 (-0.31 ± 0.094 V, and -0.14 ± 0.16 V, respectively; p < 0.05). Besides, peak 2 showed a longer latency on day 10 compared to day 1 in 5 animals. The result demonstrated that the ITTO protocol was feasible to elicit an evoked potential in the S1 cortex in awake, spontaneously breathing rats. The change in peak amplitude and latency may suggest cortical neural changes in respiratory sensory information processing with a chronic load conditioning program. Future studies are in need to further confirm these findings and to investigate the interactions between psychological and physiological factors in respiratory sensation.


Pulsed beams (PB's) are time-dependent wave fields that are confined in beamlike fashion in transverse planes perpendicular to the propagation axis, whereas confinement along the axis is due to temporal windowing. Because they have these properties, pulsed beams are useful wave objects for generating and synthesizing highly focused transient fields. The PB problem is addressed here within the context of fundamental Green's-function propagators for the time-dependent field equations. In a departure from known results in the frequency domain, by which beam solutions can be generated from point-source solutions by displacing the source coordinate location into a complex coordinate space, the complex extension is applied here as well to the source initiation time. This procedure converts the conventional causal impulsive-source Green's-function propagator into a noncausal PB propagator, which must be defined as an analytic signal because, owing to causality, the analytic continuation into the complex domain cannot be performed by direct substitution. This being done, PB's can be manipulated as conventional Green's functions. Some previous results obtained by similar methods are viewed here from a sharper perspective, and new results, both analytical and numerical, are presented that grant basic insight into the PB behavior, including the ability to excite these fields by finite-causal-aperture-source distributions. Besides the basic (analytic Green's-function) PB, examples include PB's with frequency spectra of special interest. Particular attention is paid to the PB synthesis of focus-wave modes, which are source-free solutions of the time-dependent wave equation, and to the compact PB formulation of wave fields synthesized by focus-wave-mode spectral superposition.


Wave data analysis from a short-term deployment of a wave buoy and AWAC in the lee of a Hebridean island in the United Kingdom is discussed in this paper. Significant parameters are calculated and Rayleigh, Weibull and Kernel density probability distributions have been employed to fit the measured data. Results show that while the Atlantic facing side of the island is exposed to a predominant swell based wave regime, the area in the lee features bimodality for wave period and directionality. The Kernel density distribution is found to fit the measured bimodality well compared to Rayleigh and Weibull distributions. The analysis illustrates that interference between swell waves and associated wave periods from north with southerly wind driven seas creates a complex sea state. It is shown that the higher wind sea related frequency components are of more significance in the lee of the island than at the open ocean site. Findings of this study are relevant to the aquaculture sector or small scale wave energy developers (e.g. <100 kW), as an insight is provided into the interaction between ocean swell and localised wind seas in semi-sheltered areas.


In the article ''The Lamb of Comstock'. Dystopia and Religion in Video Games' I will introduce four high quality, commercially successful videogames: Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored and Brink . All these four games present a dystopian scenery as a background for an intelligent plot to criticizes distinct modern political, philosophical and economical theories and practices: respectively the 'hyper-capitalism' of the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand, the idea of religion based American Exceptionalism, idealized industrialization and rationalism, and an ecological Apocalypse. Within these four games, religion – primarily different branches of Christianity – plays an important but often implicit role in the game narrative, sometimes supporting the dystopian scenery of the game, sometimes opposing it. In this article I will give a definition of the difficult term 'dystopia', introduce the four dystopian video games and demonstrate the importance of religion within the four game narratives.


Cloud computing (CC) has created a paradigm shift in using technology. Prior literature focused on the adoption of this technology among business organization while studies that are related to educational institutions are few. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that affect the cloud based e-learning (CBEL) adoption among students. Based on the literature, it is proposed that relative advantage (RA), perceived ease of use (PEOU), social influence (SI), and user satisfaction affect the behavioural intention (BI). BI is expected to affect the adoption of CBEL. In addition, attitude is proposed to mediate the effect of RA, PEOU, SI and user satisfaction on BI. The population of this study is four universities in Lebanon. Stratified sampling technique was used to collect the data using a questionnaire. A total of 422 students participated in this study. Data was analysed using Smart Partial Least Square (PLS). The findings indicated that the user satisfaction is the most important predictors of BI followed by RA, SI, and PEOU. BI affected use behaviour significantly. Attitude mediated the effects of SI and user satisfaction on BI. Decision makers are recommended to focus on user satisfaction and increase the benefits of CBEL.


In a large scale screen for mutants that affect the early development of the zebrafish, 109 mutants were found that cause defects in the formation of the jaw and the more posterior pharyngeal arches. Here we present the phenotypic description and results of the complementation analysis of mutants belonging to two major classes: (1) mutants with defects in the mandibular and hyoid arches and (2) mutants with defects in cartilage differentiation and growth in all arches. Mutations in four of the genes identified during the screen show specific defects in the first two arches and leave the more posterior pharyngeal arches largely unaffected (schmerle, sucker, hoover and sturgeon). In these mutants ventral components of the mandibular and hyoid arches are reduced (Meckel's cartilage and ceratohyal cartilage) whereas dorsal structures (palatoquadrate and hyosymplectic cartilages) are of normal size or enlarged. Thus, mutations in single genes cause defects in the formation of first and second arch structures but also differentially affect development of the dorsal and ventral structures within one arch. In 27 mutants that define at least 8 genes, the differentiation of cartilage and growth is affected. In hammerhead mutants particularly the mesodermally derived cartilages are reduced, whereas jellyfish mutant larvae are characterized by a severe reduction of all cartilaginous elements, leaving only two pieces in the position of the ceratohyal cartilages. In all other mutant larvae all skeletal elements are present, but consist of smaller and disorganized chondrocytes. These mutants also exhibit shortened heads and reduced pectoral fins. In homozygous knorrig embryos, tumor-like outgrowths of chondrocytes occur along the edges of all cartilaginous elements. The mutants presented here may be valuable tools for elucidating the genetic mechanisms that underlie the development of the mandibular and the hyoid arches, as well as the process of cartilage differentiation.


Understanding the lunar physical properties has been attracting the interest of scientists for many years. This paper is devoted to a numerical study on the capability of retrieving the thickness of the first layer of regolith as well as the temperature profile behavior from satellite-based multifrequency radiometers at frequencies ranging from 1 to 24 GHz. To this purpose, a forward thermal-electromagnetic numerical model, able to simulate the response of the lunar material in terms of upward brightness temperature (TB), has been used. The input parameters of the forward model have been set after a detailed investigation of the scientific literature and available measurements. Different choices of input parameters are possible, and their selection is carefully discussed. By exploiting a Monte Carlo approach to generate a synthetic data set of forward-model simulations, a physically based inversion methodology has been developed using a neural network technique. The latter has been designed to perform, from multifrequency TB's, the temperature estimation at the lunar surface, the discrimination of the subsurface material type, and the estimate of the near-surface regolith thickness. Results indicate that, within the simplified scenarios obtained by interposing strata of rock, ice, and regolith, the probability of detection of the presence of discontinuities beneath the lunar crust is on the order of 84%. The estimation uncertainty of the near-surface regolith thickness estimation ranges from 11 to 81 cm, whereas for the surface temperature, its estimation uncertainty ranges from about 1.5 K to 3 K, conditioned to the choice of radiometric frequencies and noise levels.


Cochlear hemorrhage is a rare event that results in permanent sensorineural hearing loss. Most often, this injury is secondary to a traumatic event, though blood dyscrasias have also been implicated. We present a case of a 34 year-old otherwise healthy female who suffered what appears to be a spontaneous cochlear hemorrhage, resulting in significant hearing loss. No trauma preceded the event. She had no known underlying coagulopathies or hypercoagulation disorder. Laboratory studies since the event have been unrevealing. This case demonstrates the possibility of this unfortunate event occurring spontaneously.


People spend an unbelievable amount of their time at work. Work relationships are often very intimate and personal. Because of this, many hostilities and frustrations arise from the workplace and the personal relationships that are formed there. Most people leave their jobs because of their supervisor or team leader. "Basically, it's a lack of trust, of communication, of relevant and timely feedback, of appreciation, of fair treatment and of information." These tribulations often create matters that can be mediated successfully. "Personal feelings of worth and personal satisfaction seem to be essential to maintain a productive workforce." Unhappy workers are not as successful as those that are content with their working environment. A workplace sees much more achievement in their workers if there is a mediation practice created. The nature of the workplace makes the style of mediation much more beneficial the typical adversarial position taking found in traditional litigation. Mediation is a very useful tool that can be implemented in many disputes that arise from the workplace environment; this paper will focus on the use of mediation in the workplace.


The pain transmission system is inherently plastic in nature; plasticity of nociceptive
processing in the dorsal hom of the spinal cord is believed to contribute to clinical states of
post-injury pain hypersensitivity. Both enhancement and tachyphylaxis of nociceptive
processing have been reported previously following repeated carrageenan-induced
inflammation. The present study aimed to investigate central mechanisms involved in the
transformation of pain transmission from 'physiological' to 'pathophysiological' in adult
rats, using a model of mild intraplantar inflammation induced by intraplantar
administration of carrageenan at doses markedly lower than those standardly used in
research into central mechanisms of inflammatory pain transmission. Changes in plantar
inflammation, thermal and mechanical sensitivity were assessed following intraplantar
injection of repeated doses of carrageenan (0.5%, corresponding to a dose of 0.25 mg and
0.1 %, corresponding to a dose of 0.05 mg), administered at weekly (0.5% and 0.1 %) and
daily (0.1%) intervals. Expression of mRNA of key genes implicated in plasticity of
central spinal pain transmission in laminae I, II and V of the dorsal hom of the lumbar
spinal cord (laminae involved in central nociceptive transmission) was investigated using
in-situ hybridisation techniques. The genes investigated were calcium calmodulin kinase
IIa (CaMKIla), a key intracellular molecule instantaneously activated by neuronal
stimulation; alterations in CaMKIla expression can rapidly induce nociceptive plasticity
through modulation of many excitatory and inhibitory nociceptive mediators; the cyclooxygenase
enzymes COX-1 and COX-2, which catalyse prostaglandin synthesis and are
implicated in the modulation of the central nociceptive response to inflammatory injury;
the immediate early genes zif11268, junD and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which
have been implicated in the induction and maintenance of neuronal plasticity in higher
centres, and the precursors for the inhibitory neurotransmitter molecules y-amino butyric
acid (GABA), enkephalin and dynorphin. A method for organotypic culture of neonatal
spinal cord was developed and characterised with the aim of providing a useful technique
for more detailed study of the molecular basis of nociceptive plasticity.
Mild inflammatory injury induced by 0.5% and 0.1% carrageenan treatment induced
consistent hyperalgesic behaviour, which did not change following weekly repeated injection. Temporary attenuation of hyperalgesia developed following daily repetitive
administration of 0.1 % carrageenan, but hyperalgesia returned when this repetitive
inflammatory stimulation was maintained. Preliminary studies on the role of NMDA
receptors, opioid receptors and a 2A adrenoreceptors in the mediation of this tachyphylaxis
suggest that these receptor systems did not playa major role in the observed tachyphylaxis
In-situ hybridization studies did not identify changes in gene expression induced by
repetitive carrageenan treatment in lamina V. In laminae I1II, changes were observed in
expression of certain genes (notably CaMKIla, COX-2 and proenkephalin), but not of
immediate early genes, GAD 67 or prodynorphin. Hyperalgesia associated with weekly
carrageenan treatment correlated closely with significantly enhanced transcription of
CaMKIla mRNA in laminae IIII; moreover, tachyphylaxis of hyperalgesic behaviour
correlated with attenuation of CaMKIla upregulation. Since increased expression of
CaMKIla, leading to regulation of expression of a range of kinase-dependent receptors and
intracellular mediators, is a hallmark of neuronal plasticity in higher centers, this suggests
that central plasticity of nociceptive transmission in the dorsal hom could have contributed
to the development of hyperalgesia following carrageenan treatment. Weekly
administration of carrageenan also consistently induced significant upregulation of COX-2
and proenkephalin mRNA expression in laminae I1II, suggesting that ultimate modulation
of pain sensation following inflammatory injury is determined by the interaction of
excitatory and inhibitory transmitter pathways. COX-I, prodynorphin and GAD 67 mRNA
expression were not significantly changed in relation to the intensity of inflammatory
injury or in relation to changes in nociceptive responses. This would suggest that these
mediators did not play a key role in the modulation of spinal nociceptive transmission
associated with mild inflammatory injury. With the possible exception of CaMKIla,
changes in gene expression did not correlate closely with plasticity of nociceptive
behaviour induced by daily repeated carrageenan treatment.
200 !lm transverse slices of postnatal spinal cord were cultured successfully for up to 5
days using a simple interface culture system. Histochemical and immunocytochemical
assays indicated that the architecture of organotypically cultured spinal cord closely
resembled that observed in-vivo.
This study presents a new approach to the investigation of neuronal plasticity associated
with tissue injury and inflammation. Different mechanisms underlying plasticity of nociceptive responses may be induced by induced by high intensity as opposed to lowintensity
injury. The observation of tachyphylaxis of hyperalgesia following daily repeated
carrageenan treatment may represent engagement of endogenous 'anti-hyperalgesic'
mechanisms. Further investigation of the molecular basis of endogenous 'antihyperalgesia',
facilitated by organotypic slice culture techniques, may identify new targets
for the treatment and prevention of persistent pathological nociceptive transmission
following inflammatory injury.


"Piracy" is a concept that seems everywhere in the contemporary world. From the big screen with the dashing Jack Sparrow, to the dangers off the coast of Somalia; from the claims by the Motion Picture Association of America that piracy funds terrorism, to the political impact of pirate parties in countries like Sweden and Germany. While the spread of piracy provokes responses from the shipping and copyright industries, the reverse is also true: for every new development in capitalist technologies, some sort of "piracy" moment emerges.This is maybe most obvious in the current ideologisation of Internet piracy where the rapid spread of so called Pirate Parties is developing into a kind of global political movement. While the pirates of Somalia seem a long way removed from Internet pirates illegally downloading the latest music hit or, it is the assertion of this book that such developments indicate a complex interplay between capital flows and relations, late modernity, property rights and spaces of contestation. That is, piracy seems to emerge at specific nodes in capitalist relations that create both blockages and leaks between different social actors.These various aspects of piracy form the focus for this book, entitled Piracy: Leakages from Modernity. It is meant to be a collection of texts that takes a broad perspective on piracy and attempts to capture the multidimensional impacts of piracy on capitalist society today. The book is edited by James Arvanitakis at the University of Western Sydney and Martin Fredriksson at Linkoping University, Sweden.


Manure is a substantial source of ammonia volatilization into the atmosphere before and after soil application. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of temperature and alkalization treatments on the release of ammonia and ammonia recovery (AR) from cow manure and to characterize the chemical properties of the resultant effluents. In a closed glass reactor, 100 g of fresh cow manure was mixed with 100 mL of deionized water and the mixture was treated with various volume of KOH to increase the manure pH to 7, 9, and 12. Ammonia was distilled from the mixture at temperatures of 75, 85, 95, and 100 °C for a maximum of 5 h. Ammonia was received as diluted boric and sulfuric acids. Results indicated that the highest ammonia recovery was 86.3% and 90.2%, which were achieved at a pH of 12 and temperatures of 100 and 95 °C, respectively. The recovered ammonia in boric acid was higher than in sulfuric acid, except at a pH of 12 and temperatures of 95 and 100 °C. The effluents, after ammonia was removed, showed that the variation in pH ranged between 6.30 and 9.38. The electrical conductivity ranged between 4.5 and 9. (dS m−1) and total potassium ranged between 9.4 and 57.2 mg kg−1.


Model and analysis of a wall climbing robot based on the link and suction mechanism. Many wall climbing robots are designed and shaped for few decades, but still, the underlying problems for the wall climbing are faced by the designers. Wall-climbing robots consist of a two mechanism, one is link and other is suction mechanism. In link mechanism there are two joints I-joint and T-joint, Where I-joint can rotate about its axis, T-joint can rotate about 180, Both the joints give the ability to rotate in clockwise and anticlockwise direction, which helps the robot to have a good transient mechanism between the horizontal wall to vertical wall. Based on these link mechanisms static and dynamic analysis were carried out to find the stress and strain developed in the joint during the motion. To achieve the suction mechanism, suction cups are placed on the suction base in a triangle shape and three suction cups are employed. Based on the weight of the robot load distribution is calculated. Both the static and dynamic analysis is performed using the software Ansys R15 and Inventry15.


Abstract A quarter century after normalisation of relations, India and Israel have shown considerable maturity in handling bilateral relations and dexterity in managing their occasional differing worldviews. Relations have weathered political changes within India as well as periodic upheavals in West Asia and the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Military-security cooperation played a pivotal role in carrying forward relations even when political contacts were minimal, as was the case during the decade-long United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule. A crucial aspect of bilateral relations has been Israel's ability to utilise the federal system in India to its advantage by actively engaging with various state governments. As a result, cooperation in the fields of agriculture and water management, among others, has emerged as the principal tool in the promotion of Indo-Israeli relations. Besides boosting economic ties, this strategy is also aimed at providing and consolidating the support base in India beyond the urban elites.


Based on 40 life-story testimonies with young Cairene activists, this article argues that post-revolutionary Egypt was marked by Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS). CTS is a phenomenological term that accounts for the structurally traumatic nature of political repression. It emphasizes the continuing temporality of such pervasive traumatizaton and the structural political stressors that underpin it. CTS thus entails a specifically political conception of trauma, according to which traumatic stress is in fact constituted by a violent, corrupt, unaccountable political and judicial system. This article argues that the traumatic experiences of activists in pre-and post-revolutionary Egypt are best perceived through the lens of CTS. It also insists that such traumatic stress—particularly the lack of justice and formal recourse—provided a fertile breeding ground for revenge and social polarization, which was directly incited by counter-revolutionary actors (such as the military and Muslim Brotherhood leadership), thereby sadly further contributing to the (seemingly endless) continuous cycle of continued traumatic stress.


This study considers the impact of organisational learning as endogenous growth driver for technology-based new ventures. Over a period of up to 12 years, the growth path of 44 venture capital backed companies was analysed as critical event series, where the events were the adoption of 50 management control systems. The study shows that the adoption of eight bundles of these systems, which are used as proxies for the emergence of the dynamic capabilities strategic planning, financial planning, and evaluation, human resource planning, and evaluation, product development, marketing and sales, and partnering are positively associated to the growth of the venture. In addition, the growth path, i.e. the order of adoption, is associated with growth performance.


Abstract. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has become a promising technique in the field of snow hydrological research. It is commonly used to measure snow depth, density, and water equivalent over large distances or along gridded snow courses. Having built and tested a mobile light-weight setup, we demonstrate that GPR is capable of accurately measuring snow ablation rates in complex alpine terrain. Our setup was optimized for efficient measurements and consisted of a common-mid-point assembly with four pairs of antennas mounted to a plastic sled, which was small enough to permit safe and convenient operations. Repeated measurements were taken during the 2014/15 winter season along ten profiles within two valleys located in the eastern Swiss Alps. Resulting GPR-based data of snow depth and water equivalent as well as their respective change rates over time were in good agreement with concurrent manual measurements, in particular if accurate alignment between repeated overpasses could be achieved (root-mean-square error of 4.5 cm for snow depth, 25 mm for snow water equivalent, and 4.4 cm and 26 mm for the respective change rates). With its suitability for alpine terrain and the achieved accuracy, the presented setup could become a valuable tool to validate snowmelt models or to complement lidar-based snow surveys.


A flurry of best-selling works has recently urged us to rescue and protect boys. They have described how boys are failing at school, acting out, or shutting down emotionally. Lost in much of the ensuing public conversation are the boys themselves--the texture of their lives and the ways in which they resist stereotypical representations of them. Most of this work on boys is based primarily on middle class, white boys. Yet boys from poor and working class families as well as those from African American, Latino, and Asian American backgrounds need to be understood in their own terms and not just as a contrast to white or middle class boys. Adolescent Boys brings together the most up-to-date empirical research focused on understanding the development of boys from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The authors show how the contexts of boys' lives, such as the schools they attend shape their identities and relationships. The research in this book will help professionals and parents understand the diversity and richness of boys' experiences.


The environment has been descriptionbed as the house created on earth for living things, ecology as the science of planetary housekeeping, and, building on these definitions, environmental law as the law of planetary housekeeping - as such environmental law is concerned with protecting the earth and its inhabitants from activities that upset its life-sustaining capacities. It is in this context of planetary housekeeping that it is submitted that the right to environmental integrity is a basic human right deserving of legal protection at the highest possible level, and that is by constitutional entrenchment. This submission is postulated on the following premises, namely that there is an urgent need to halt and, if possible, reverse environmental degradation; and the law has a primary function to play in controlling environmental debasement, albeit a complementary role to the roles played by education, economics and administrative policy. The roles of the executive branch of government andof the courts in the protection of the environment are briefly reviewed in this article. It is submitted that there is a clear need for adoption of the constitutional option of entrenching a conservation ethic in a bill of rights, as opposed to mere declarations of policy as envisaged in the Draft Bill on Environment Conservation.


Sparse modelling has attracted great attention as an efficient way of
handling statistical problems in high dimensions. This thesis considers
sparse modelling and estimation in a selection of problems such
as breakpoint detection in nonstationary time series, nonparametric
regression using piecewise constant functions and variable selection in
high-dimensional linear regression.
We first propose a method for detecting breakpoints in the secondorder
structure of piecewise stationary time series, assuming that
those structural breakpoints are sufficiently scattered over time. Our
choice of time series model is the locally stationary wavelet process
(Nason et al., 2000), under which the entire second-order structure of a
time series is described by wavelet-based local periodogram sequences.
As the initial stage of breakpoint detection, we apply a binary segmentation
procedure to wavelet periodogram sequences at each scale
separately, which is followed by within-scale and across-scales postprocessing
steps. We show that the combined methodology achieves
consistent estimation of the breakpoints in terms of their total number
and locations, and investigate its practical performance using both
simulated and real data.
Next, we study the problem of nonparametric regression by means of
piecewise constant functions, which are known to be flexible in approximating
a wide range of function spaces. Among many approaches developed
for this purpose, we focus on comparing two well-performing
techniques, the taut string (Davies & Kovac, 2001) and the Unbalanced
Haar (Fryzlewicz, 2007) methods. While the multiscale nature
of the latter is easily observed, it is not so obvious that the former
can also be interpreted as multiscale. We provide a unified, multiscale
representation for both methods, which offers an insight into the relationship
between them as well as suggesting some lessons that both
methods can learn from each other.
Lastly, one of the most widely-studied applications of sparse modelling
and estimation is considered, variable selection in high-dimensional
linear regression. High dimensionality of the data brings in many
complications including (possibly spurious) non-negligible correlations
among the variables, which may result in marginal correlation being
unreliable as a measure of association between the variables and the
response. We propose a new way of measuring the contribution of
each variable to the response, which adaptively takes into account
high correlations among the variables. A key ingredient of the proposed
tilting procedure is hard-thresholding sample correlation of the
design matrix, which enables a data-driven switch between the use of
marginal correlation and tilted correlation for each variable. We study
the conditions under which this measure can discriminate between relevant
and irrelevant variables, and thus be used as a tool for variable
selection. In order to exploit these theoretical properties of tilted correlation,
we construct an iterative variable screening algorithm and
examine its practical performance in a comparative simulation study.


This paper looks at the fuel choice of urban households in major Ethiopian cities, using panel data collected in 2000 and 2004. It examines use of multiple fuels by households in some detail, a topic not much explored in the household fuel-choice literature in general, and in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. The results suggest that as households' total expenditures rise, they increase the number of fuels used, even in urban areas, and they also spend more on the fuels they consume (including charcoal but not wood). The results also show that even fuel types such as wood are not inferior goods. The results support more recent arguments in the literature (using Latin American and Asian data) that multiple fuel use (fuel stacking) better describes fuel-choice behavior of households in developing countries, as opposed to the idea that households switch (completely) to other (more expensive but cleaner) fuels as their incomes rise. This study shows the relevance of fuel stacking (multiple fuel use) in urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa. While income is an important variable, the results of this study suggest the need to consider other variables such as cooking and consumption habits, dependability of supply, cost, and household preferences and tastes to explain household fuel choice, as well as to recommend policies that address issues associated with household energy use.


Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate nutrition care and nursing professional knowledge received by adults on highly active antiretroviral therapy attending primary health care (PHC) facilities Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive study. Subjects and setting: The study was conducted on 263 adults and 75 nursing professionals, recruited from 19 facilities in the Mbombela sub-district, Mpumalanga. Outcome measures: Interviewer-administered questionnaires were completed for each patient. Nursing professionals completed a self-administered questionnaire. Assessment tools were completed for each facility. Results: Some 41% of patients were either overweight or obese, and most females (n = 87; 51.8%) had a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. Based on waist circumference, 52.7% (n = 88) of females and 8.4% (n = 8) of males showed increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Although nurses were aware of a nutrition supplementation programme, knowledge of national nutrition guidelines was inadequate. Clinical judgement, rather than eligibility criteria, was used to identify suitable patients, with 13.3% (n = 35) receiving supplementation whereas only 4.9% (n = 13) qualified. Facilities generally had sufficient equipment and fair storage conditions, but stock shortages of nutrition supplements were problematic. Conclusions: Whilst certain positive findings emerged, nutrition care could be improved, largely through adequate training and support to professional nurses. Training should focus on correct execution of assessment measurements and appropriate nutritional counselling, emphasising balanced eating, food security and prevention of over-nutrition. Nurses should be familiarised with national nutrition guidelines and have access to a constant nutrition supplementation supply. Improved monitoring and evaluation of nutrition care to adults on treatment at PHC facilities is needed.Keywords


Current research data suggests an increase in the number of caregivers providing care for family members over the last 10 years (NAC, 2009). As the need for family caregivers increase, many in the millennial generation will need to provide care for aging family members. With a small number of millennials involved in the process of direct care for aging family members, questions remain on how this demographic is prepared to work with an aging America. The purpose of this study was to identify the millennial generation's experiences of family caregiving and what they perceive their caregiving role will be as their family member's age. Specific research questions include: What are the experiences of caregiving for aging family of individuals born in the millennial generation? What are the perceptions of those born in the millennial generation on providing care to an aging family member? The experiences and perceptions of caring for aging family members for five millennial college-aged students were explored using Van Manen's phenomenological methodology. Data collection and analysis revealed that millennials have an understanding of caregiving activities and have witnessed or participated in caregiving activities. Furthermore, millennials perceive their future role as their responsibility or obligation to provide care, however they have not communicated a plan with their family members. 1 CHAPTER ONE THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION'S EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF CARING FOR AGING FAMILY


Abstract Investigations on the relationships and interactions between glaciers and permafrost in high-mountain regions have long been neglected. As a consequence, numerous fascinating questions remain open and offer possibilities for highly relevant, innovative and integrative research concerning materials, processes, landforms, environmental aspects and natural hazards. The historical background to this situation is first reviewed, examples are given of some key unanswered questions and two case studies are presented to illustrate the importance of considering the combined effects of glaciers and permafrost, particularly in the context of hazard assessments in high mountains.


Migrant smuggling is a dangerous, sometimes deadly, criminal activity which cannot be rationalized, justified, or excused. From both a supply and demand side, failing to respond effectively to migrant smuggling and deter it will risk emboldening those who engage in this illicit enterprise, which generates proceeds for organized crime and criminal networks, funds terrorism and facilitates clandestine terrorist travel; endangers the lives and safety of smuggled migrants, undermines border security, with consequences for the Canada/U.S. border, and undermines the integrity and fairness of Canada's mmigration system.Introduced in Parliament in June, 2011, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act (Bill C-4) includes amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that would: 1. Enhance the existing offence of migrant smuggling, in terms of the elements of the offence, the penalties available, and recognized aggravating factors; 2. Modify the general provisions of the IRPA to provide for detention of foreign nationals on arrival in Canada on grounds of serious criminality, criminality, or organized criminality; and 3. Create a separate legislative scheme for groups of smuggled migrants who arrive in Canada that relates to detention, release, and timing to apply for various forms of immigration status.This paper supports Bill C-4, but with two necessary amendments, namely: 1. Initial review of detention of designated foreign nationals should take place within 48 hours of detention, with further reviews every three or six months thereafter, in order to comply with binding Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence; and 2. An exemption for designated foreign nationals who are minors (persons under 18 years of age) from the detention provisions of Bill C-4, which would instead subject them to the general rules related to detention of foreign nationals who are minors.These changes would provide Bill C-4 with a more balanced response to migrant smuggling. Bill C-4 is just part of the overall action being taken by the Government of Canada to address migrant smuggling. A comprehensive approach to addressing migrant smuggling ultimately requires three primary strategies pursued together at the national and international levels: 1. National jurisdictions must take greater action to discourage illegal migration and disrupt migrant smuggling operations through legislation like Bill C-4 and through international cooperation; 2. National jurisdictions must establish more efficient refugee-determination processes and expedient procedures to remove failed claimants; and, 3. As part of the solution, the international community should continue to develop a proactive response to the global refugee situation.


Criticism of the EU's 'democratic deficit' has become increasingly prominent since the financial crisis. Firat Cengiz writes that democracy in the EU would benefit from methods allowing citizens to participate more directly in policymaking. She argues for a form of deliberative democracy to be implemented at the European level and provides some practical suggestions for how this could be achieved.


A multicriteria decision support system has been developed to evaluate alternatives for sustainable and integrated energy centres for rural development in the Mediterranean area. The search for the most suitable solution for a fixed site is a complex problem, due to the variety of the plausible alternatives, the changing points of view and the diversity of the different interest groups that are responsible for the choice. By using a participative approach, combining optimisation and multicriteria methods and structuring the decision process, the different positions are clearly expressed and their consequences on the proposed solutions are brought to the fore. The negotiation is made easier and can focus on the essential aspects of the problem that have been identified by the decision support system.


Objective: Obsessions have been categorized as autogenous obsessions and reactive obsessions on the original of the cognitive theory and this study aimed to evaluate whether differences are found between obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) subgroups in terms of biochemical markers. Methods: Thirty patients with obsessions defined as autogenous, 30 patients with obsessions defined as reactive group and 30 healthy volunteers were consisted the sample of the study. Sociodemographic Data Form, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were filled to the participants. The activity of paraoxanase, prolidase and Hs-CRP and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels were detected. Results: There was no any statistically significant difference between autogenous and reactive obsession groups in terms of total mean score of Y-BOCS, BDI and BAI. Paraoxanase activity did not statistically significant difference between all groups. Prolidase activity showed significantly higher in reactive group than autogenous obsession and control groups. Serum Hs-CRP levels were not statistically different among participants of autogenous group, reactive group and control groups. Serum BDNF levels were significantly lower in autogenous obsession group rather than reactive obsession and control groups. Conclusion: This finding indicates that neurobiological pro-cesses have important role in the pathophysiology of autogenous obsessions.


Taken the public concerns about current developments in the area of the European International Investment Policy, the European Parliament's INTA Committee launched a study on Investor-State Dispute Settlement and Possible Alternatives of Dispute Resolution in International Investment Law. In a nutshell, the study suggests that ISDS is a useful means of enforcing substantive investment protection standards contained in international investment agreements. The mechanism should therefore continue to form part of European international investment policy. However, the EU has to address four major challenges tied to this dispute settlement tool, i.e. (1) mitigating inconsistency, (2) securing the right balance between private and public interests, (3) establishing integrity of arbitral proceedings and (4) preventing misuse, allowing for error-correction and managing financial risk associated with ISDS. Among others, the study suggests (1) strengthening the role of the state parties to international investment agreements, (2) establishing an appeals facility, (3) giving well-functioning domestic court systems an adequate role in resolving investor-state disputes by introducing a novel elastic local remedies rule and (4) considering the implementation of tenured judges; at least on an appeals level. The study is part of a series of three. One study is devoted to the topic of investment protection agreements as instruments of international economic law. The other one deals with the interrelation of international investment protection agreements and EU law. These two studies are authored by Professor Kuijper of the University of Amsterdam and Professor Pernice of Humboldt-University Berlin, respectively.


Tourism development is often viewed as a means to counter the social and economic decline of communities in
regional areas of Australia. Such decline is prevalent, particularly in areas determined to be on the tourism
periphery. Peripheral regions present special problems in terms of tourism development owing to a lack of
product, market access and infrastructure. This report presents the findings of a case study focusing on the
southern Wheatbelt of Western Australia, in an area known as Dryandra Country. This is a region that is seeking
to develop tourism as a buffer against the varying fortunes of its grain and sheep based economy as well as a
means to counter the social decline of the towns. Seven local government areas (LGAs), in league with the state
conservation agency, Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) and various other interest
groups, embarked on a tourism development initiative centred on Dryandra Woodland and the wildlife tourism
product it potentially offered. The purpose was to develop Dryandra as an internationally significant naturebased
destination. This was attempted partly through constructing an iconic captive wildlife tourism facility,
Barna Mia, which housed some very rare fauna. Research during 2003 found that while Barna Mia provided a
highly satisfying experience for its visitors, there was no indication that it was progressing toward the
international tourism icon status as intended. The progress of the LGAs toward developing a coordinated
regional product also appeared to be slow. Various issues were identified that contributed to the observed
situation including: CALM's role as the sole manager of the regional icon; the character of the tourism system in
the region; a lack of adequate and accurate tourism data and poor communication. The report provides a detailed
description of the situation as it was found in 2003. Recommendations to enable further progress in tourism
development are made.


Abstract. Schemes used to parameterise ozone dry deposition velocity at the oceanic surface mainly differ in terms of how the dominant term of surface resistance is parameterised. We examine three such schemes and test them in a global climate–chemistry model that incorporates meteorological nudging and monthly-varying reactive-gas emissions. The default scheme invokes the commonly used assumption that the water surface resistance is constant. The other two schemes, named the one-layer and two-layer reactivity schemes, include the simultaneous influence on the water surface resistance of ozone solubility in water, waterside molecular diffusion and turbulent transfer, and a first-order chemical reaction of ozone with dissolved iodide. Unlike the one-layer scheme, the two-layer scheme can indirectly control the degree of interaction between chemical reaction and turbulent transfer through the specification of a surface reactive layer thickness. A comparison is made of the modelled deposition velocity dependencies on sea surface temperature (SST) and wind speed with recently reported cruise-based observations. The default scheme overestimates the observed deposition velocities by a factor of 2–4 when the chemical reaction is slow (e.g. under colder SSTs in the Southern Ocean). The default scheme has almost no temperature, wind speed, or latitudinal variations in contrast with the observations. The one-layer scheme provides noticeably better variations, but it overestimates deposition velocity by a factor of 2–3 due to an enhancement of the interaction between chemical reaction and turbulent transfer. The two-layer scheme with a surface reactive layer thickness specification of 2.5 µm, which is approximately equal to the reaction-diffusive length scale of the ozone–iodide reaction, is able to simulate the field measurements most closely with respect to absolute values as well as SST and wind-speed dependence. The annual global oceanic deposition of ozone determined using this scheme is approximately half of the original oceanic deposition obtained using the default scheme, and it corresponds to a 10 % decrease in the original estimate of the total global ozone deposition. The previously reported modelled estimate of oceanic deposition is roughly one-third of total deposition and with this new parameterisation it is reduced to 12 % of the modelled total global ozone deposition. Deposition parameterisation influences the predicted atmospheric ozone mixing ratios, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. For the latitudes 45–70° S, the two-layer scheme improves the prediction of ozone observed at an altitude of 1 km by 7 % and that within the altitude range 1–6 km by 5 % compared to the default scheme.


Background The present study retrospectively determined the outcomes and prognoses in stage I mucinous ovarian carcinoma according to histological type (ie, expansile or infiltrative). Methods A centralized pathologic review of tumors in patients treated from 1976 to 2016 for ovarian mucinous carcinoma was performed by 2 expert pathologists according to the 2014 World Health Organization classification. Only patients with stage I disease were analyzed. Tumors were typed as expansile or infiltrative and oncological issues analyzed. Results A total of 114 cases were reviewed. Fifty were excluded (stage > I in 30 cases and no accessibility to a pathological review for 20 cases). Thus, 64 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria: 29 had expansile-type and 35 infiltrative-type disease. The characteristics of both groups of patients were comparable, except the use of nodal staging surgery, which was more frequent in patients with infiltrative type. The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stages in expansile and infiltrative types were as follows: IA in 13 (45%) and 20 (57%), and IC in 16 (55%) and 15 (43%), respectively. Recurrence occurred in 3 patients with expansile type and 6 patients with infiltrative type. Two cases of expansile recurrence had pelvic recurrence and were salvaged after secondary surgery and chemotherapy, whereas 5 cases of infiltrative recurrence had extrapelvic spread and died from disease or were alive with progressive disease. Conclusions Recurrence occurred in both types of stage I mucinous ovarian cancer. However, lethal recurrences were observed mainly in infiltrative type.


In this article we analyze a subdomain residual error estimator for finite element approximations of elliptic problems. It is obtained by solving local problems on patches of elements in weighted spaces and provides an upper bound on the energy norm of the error when the local problems are solved in sufficiently enriched discrete spaces. A guaranteed lower bound on the error is also derived by a simple postprocess of the solutions to the local problems. Numerical tests show very good effectivity indices for both the upper and lower bounds and a strong reliability of this estimator even for coarse meshes. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 20: 165–192, 2004


A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's `four corners.' It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history, focusing on China's rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne. During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic expeditions brought China's `treasure ships' across the China Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's `El Dorado', and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook was credited with its discovery. With over 300 ships - some measuring as much as 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine masts and twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over 28,000 men - the emperor Zhu Di's fantastic fleet was a virtual floating city, a naval expression of his Forbidden City in Beijing. The largest wooden boats ever built, these extraordinary ships were the most technically superior vessels in the world with innovations such as balanced rudders and bulwarked compartments that predated European ships by centuries. For thirty years foreign goods, medicines, geographic knowledge, and cultural insights flowed into China at an extraordinary rate, and China extended its sphere of political power and influence throughout the Indian Ocean. Half the world was in China's grasp, and the rest could easily have been, had the emperor so wished. But instead, China turned inward, as suceeding emperors forbade overseas travel and stopped all building and repair of oceangoing junks. Disobedient merchants and seamen were killed, and within a hundred years the greatest navy the world had ever known willed itself into extinction. The period of China's greatest outward expansion was followed by the period of its greatest isolation. Drawing on eye-witness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China's most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in ghich this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of other cultures toward this little understood empire at the time. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming Dynasty - the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasions.


Today, the work life balance is a common issue at every workplace. The work life balance creates balance between the work and life includes career and the life style. It is the state of equilibrium where any person is able to get satisfies with personal and professional life. Balancing time with parents, spouse, children, friends, relatives, colleagues, supervisors and subordinates is the biggest challenge to be achieved. The empirical study gives the idea of work life balance performed in past. Work life balance has become a challenge throughout the world. The study will identify the assessment of employees about their organization from the work life balance prospective and how it is practiced at their workplace. This will also measure the level of job satisfaction of employees of the PIA in relation to their socio-economic factors. From previous studies conducted on this topic it is observed that it common how employees the challenges of how to balance their work life and personal life, despite the generally positive desire related to work life balance. Without balance in working life and personal life, it is very difficult to maintain working efficiency and control the outcomes of personal and professional life and thus in order to be satisfied, an individual must create a balance between the two. The research aims at understanding how work life balance positively impacts the personal and professional efficiency of the employees. The objective of this research is to identify the demographic profile of employees, who are working in Airline industry, determine the factors affects work-life balance on the employees of Airline industry. A research study is conducted on the employees of the largest organization of Pakistan, namely PIAC.


Akademii Nauk ice cap, in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago (High Russian Arctic), is one of the largest arctic ice caps. However, due in part to its inaccessibility, little is known on the local climate and glaciological history. In order to cast light on the ice cap dynamics, we present here the results from geochemical (gas content, d18O, dD) and crystallographical analysis of the basal 8 m of a 724m deep ice core drilled on the ice cap. The basal zone is characterized by an alternation of silt-rich and clean ice layers, in strong contrast with the upper hundreds meters of clean glacier ice. Co-isotopic data in the basal zone fairly align on the LMWL, indicating that no fractionation has occurred at the scale of sampling. This supports the reliability of the isotopic signal for palaeo-climatic reconstruction. Gas composition and volume, however, differ from the gas content of standard meteoric ice, in a way very similar to what was found at the base of GRIP deep drilling site. A significant CO2 and CH4 enrichment, associated with O2 and gas volume depletion, were indeed observed in the ice. These characteristics strongly suggest the occurrence of micro-scale phase changes and/or biogenic activity during basal ice evolution. Ice dynamics and related subglacial processes are inferred from these and previous results.


Abstract. Today, many processes at the Earth's surface are constantly monitored by multiple data streams. These observations have become central to advancing our understanding of vegetation dynamics in response to climate or land use change. Another set of important applications is monitoring effects of extreme climatic events, other disturbances such as fires, or abrupt land transitions. One important methodological question is how to reliably detect anomalies in an automated and generic way within multivariate data streams, which typically vary seasonally and are interconnected across variables. Although many algorithms have been proposed for detecting anomalies in multivariate data, only a few have been investigated in the context of Earth system science applications. In this study, we systematically combine and compare feature extraction and anomaly detection algorithms for detecting anomalous events. Our aim is to identify suitable workflows for automatically detecting anomalous patterns in multivariate Earth system data streams. We rely on artificial data that mimic typical properties and anomalies in multivariate spatiotemporal Earth observations like sudden changes in basic characteristics of time series such as the sample mean, the variance, changes in the cycle amplitude, and trends. This artificial experiment is needed as there is no gold standard for the identification of anomalies in real Earth observations. Our results show that a well-chosen feature extraction step (e.g., subtracting seasonal cycles, or dimensionality reduction) is more important than the choice of a particular anomaly detection algorithm. Nevertheless, we identify three detection algorithms (k-nearest neighbors mean distance, kernel density estimation, a recurrence approach) and their combinations (ensembles) that outperform other multivariate approaches as well as univariate extreme-event detection methods. Our results therefore provide an effective workflow to automatically detect anomalies in Earth system science data.


With a wide variety of physical features and climatic conditions, India Possesses the richest and perhaps most diversified flora of all other Countries of a similar size on the surface of the earth, It is estimated that out of 250,000 – 300,000 total plant species of the world, India harbors about 45,000 plant species. The diverse Vegetation and multiethnic groups make India one of the richest countries in term of culture and bio resources having all kind of food, Fiber, timber, species, gums, oils, Perfumes and medicinal plants. The country is also rich in population of poisonous plants but the official records are very less. Plants that causes undesirable or harmful effects on humans and animals are called poisonous plants, some plants shows their toxicological effect after ingestion whereas others only require contact to elicit response in human and livestock Knowledge of on poisonous plant is important as some of them are used in medicine. The Poisonous properties are due to toxic substances such as alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, tannin, resins, amines and bitter principles, etc.


Tensor network formats are an efficient tool for numerical computations in many dimensions, yet even this tool often becomes too time- and memory-consuming for a single compute node when applied to problems of scientific interest. Intending to overcome such limitations, we present and analyze a parallelization scheme for algorithms based on the hierarchical Tucker representation which distributes the network vertices and their associated computations over a set of distributed-memory processors. We then propose a modified version of the alternating least squares algorithm for solving linear systems amenable to parallelization according to the aforementioned scheme, and highlight technical considerations important for obtaining an efficient and stable implementation. Our numerical experiments support the theoretical assertion that the parallel scaling of this algorithm is constrained only by the dimensionality and the rank uniformity of the targeted problem.


Tidal conditions in ancient shallow-marine basins, as revealed by preserved sedimentary deposits, reflect the strong influence of the paleobathymetry. Use of a tidal-circulation model can test existing paleobathymetric reconstructions. Meso- and macrotidal conditions are believed to have existed throughout most of the Miocene Molasse (France and Switzerland) seaway. Tidal simulations using external tidal ranges of 2 and 4 m entering from the south (Mediterranean) fail to generate mesotidal conditions in the majority of the seaway, because of a narrow constriction in the present Alpes du Dauphine and Drome areas. Meso-tidal conditions are simulated in the Rhone-Alp part of the seaway only after the postulated paleobathymetry is widened in the Alpes du Dauphine area; this change allows tidal penetration from the Mediterranean. Despite this widening, the new simulations fail to generate mesotidal conditions in the Swiss part of the seaway. Mesotidal conditions are simulated in Switzerland with the addition of a second tidal input from eastern Switzerland, favoring an interpretation that the Swiss part of the seaway was connected with either the eastern Mediterranean or the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The revised paleobathymetry brackets uplift events that affected the basin margin.


ABSTRACT Oxygen radicals regulate many physiological processes, such as signaling, proliferation, and apoptosis, and thus play a pivotal role in pathophysiology and disease development. There are at least two thioredoxin reductase/thioredoxin/peroxiredoxin systems participating in the cellular defense against oxygen radicals. At present, relatively little is known about the contribution of individual enzymes to the redox metabolism in different cell types. To begin to address this question, we generated and characterized mice lacking functional mitochondrial thioredoxin reductase (TrxR2). Ubiquitous Cre-mediated inactivation of TrxR2 is associated with embryonic death at embryonic day 13. TrxR2 TrxR2−/− minus;/TrxR2−/− minus; embryos are smaller and severely anemic and show increased apoptosis in the liver. The size of hematopoietic colonies cultured ex vivo is dramatically reduced. TrxR2-deficient embryonic fibroblasts are highly sensitive to endogenous oxygen radicals when glutathione synthesis is inhibited. Besides the defect in hematopoiesis, the ventricular heart wall of TrxR2 TrxR2−/− minus;/TrxR2−/− minus; embryos is thinned and proliferation of cardiomyocytes is decreased. Cardiac tissue-restricted ablation of TrxR2 results in fatal dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition reminiscent of that in Keshan disease and Friedreich's ataxia. We conclude that TrxR2 plays a pivotal role in both hematopoiesis and heart function.


We argue here that the four ways of being we identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership can also be seen as the foundations not only for great leadership, but also for a high quality personal life and an extraordinary organization. One can see this as a "value free" approach to values because, 1) integrity as we define it (being whole and complete) is a purely positive phenomenon, 2) authenticity is also a purely positive phenomenon (being and acting consistent with who you hold yourself out to be for others and who you hold yourself to be for yourself), 3) being committed to something bigger than oneself is also a purely positive phenomenon (that says nothing about what that commitment should be other than it be bigger than oneself), and 4) being cause in the matter as a declaration of the stand you take for yourself regarding everything in your life is also a purely positive phenomenon. We apply these principles to the Goldman Sachs' experience with its Abacus Mortgage Backed Securities Scandal in which Goldman violated 7 of their 13 Goldman Business Principles. In addition, Goldman paid a $550 million fine to the SEC, a record at that time.Background: This address is based on our leadership research program (conducted with Steve Zaffron and Kari Granger over the last ten years). That research is designed to discover what it actually takes to create leaders – that is, to leave participants at the end of the course being leaders and effectively exercising leadership as their natural self expression. Access to the full 1045 pages of the slide-deck textbook and other material used in the Leadership Course at entrepreneurship@UBC, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, CA in June, 2013, is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835